this life.
Early the next day he flew back to Ystad. That afternoon he returned the faulty hedge clippers to the store he had bought them from, and explained how useless they were. Because he made a fuss, and because one of the managers knew who he was, he was given a better pair at no extra charge.
When he got back home he saw that Ytterberg had called. Wallander dialled his number.
‘You made me think,’ Ytterberg said. ‘I had to take another look at those shoes. As I said, they were almost brand new.’
‘You didn’t need to do that for my sake.’
‘It’s not really the shoes I’m calling about,’ said Ytterberg. ‘While I was at it I took another look at her handbag, and I discovered a sort of inner lining. You could even call it a secret pocket. There was something very interesting in it.’
Wallander held his breath.
‘Papers,’ said Ytterberg. ‘Documents. In Russian. And also some microfilm. I don’t know what it is, but it’s remarkable enough for me to phone our Sapo colleagues.’
Wallander found it difficult to grasp what he had just heard.
‘You’re saying she was carrying secret material around in her handbag?’
‘We don’t know that. But microfilm is microfilm, and secret pockets are secret pockets. And Russian is Russian. I thought you should know. It might be best to keep this to ourselves for now. Until we know what it actually means. I’ll call again when I have more to tell you.’
After the call Wallander went out and sat in the garden. It was warm again. It would be a pleasant summer evening.
But he had begun to feel very cold.
PART 3
The Sleeping Beauty’s Slumber
21
Wallander had no intention of keeping his promise. He decided immediately that he would talk to Linda and Hans. When it came to a choice between respecting his family and respecting the Swedish security services, he didn’t hesitate. He would tell them, word for word, what he had heard. It was his duty to them.
Wallander sat thinking for a long time after his conversation with Ytterberg. His first reaction was that something didn’t make sense. Louise von Enke a Russian agent? Even if the police had discovered classified documents in her handbag, even in a hidden compartment, he couldn’t believe it.
But why would Ytterberg tell him things that weren’t true? After having met him briefly on a couple of occasions, Wallander had every confidence in him. He would never have called if he hadn’t been sure about what he was going to say.
Wallander knew what he had to do. Trying to protect Linda by withholding facts wouldn’t help her. He must take seriously what Ytterberg had said. Whatever eventually emerged as the truth, it would not show that Ytterberg’s account of the facts was wrong; rather there would - or must - be different conclusions to draw.
He got into his car and drove to Linda and Hans’s house. Klara’s pushchair was standing in the shade of a tree; her parents were sitting side by side in the garden hammock, cups of coffee in their hands.
Wallander sat down on one of the garden chairs and told them what he had heard. Both Hans and Linda reacted with furrowed brows and incredulous expressions. While Wallander was speaking, he thought of Stig Wennerstrom - the colonel who had sold Sweden’s defence secrets to the Russians nearly fifty years previously. But it was impossible for him to link Louise von Enke with this man who had been active as a spy for so many years, displaying so much greed and cunning.
‘I don’t doubt that I was told the facts,’ he concluded. ‘But nor do I have any doubt that there is a plausible explanation for those papers in her bag.’
Linda shook her head, turned to her partner, then looked her father in the eye.
‘Is this really true?’
‘I wouldn’t give you anything other than an exact account of what I’ve just heard myself.’
‘Don’t get annoyed. We have to be able to ask you questions.’
‘I’m not annoyed. But don’t start asking me unnecessary questions.’
Both Wallander and Linda realised that a quarrel was about to break out, and they managed to smooth things over. Hans didn’t appear to notice anything amiss.
Wallander turned to him and could see the dejection in his face.
‘Do you have any thoughts?’ he asked cautiously. ‘After all, you knew her better than any of us.’
‘Absolutely none. I recently discovered that I have a sister I knew nothing about. And now this. It feels as if my parents are becoming more and more like strangers. The telescope is turned round. They are disappearing from my view.’
‘No distant memories? Words that were said, people who came to visit?’
‘Nothing. All I feel is a stomach ache.’
Linda took Hans’s hand. Wallander stood up and walked over to the pushchair under the apple tree. A bumblebee was buzzing around the mosquito net. He carefully wafted it away and observed the sleeping bundle. Remembered Linda in her pushchair, Mona’s constant anxiety and his own joy at having a child.
He returned to his chair.
‘She’s asleep.’
‘Mona says I used to cry at night.’
‘You did. I was usually the one who got up to comfort you.’
‘That’s not how Mona remembers it.’
‘She has never been too concerned about the truth.’
‘Klara hardly ever wakes us up.’
‘Then you are truly blessed. You used to give us some absolutely awful nights with all your screaming and yelling.’
‘And you were the one who used to carry me around and hush me?’
‘Sometimes with cotton-wool balls in my ears. But yes, I was the one who used to carry you around. Any other suggestion is untrue, no matter what Mona says.’
Hans slammed his cup onto the table so hard that coffee sloshed over onto the cloth. He didn’t seem to have been listening.
‘Where has Mum been all this time? And where is Hakan?’
‘What do you think? What’s the first thought that comes into your mind? Now, when everything is changing?’
It was Linda who asked the questions. Wallander looked at her in surprise. He had been formulating the same words, but she got them out first.
‘I can’t answer that. But something tells me my father is alive. Strangely enough, at the same time I was told my mother is dead, I had a strong feeling that he’s alive.’
Wallander took over and asked more questions.
‘Why? Something must make you think that.’
‘I don’t know.’
Wallander hadn’t really expected Hans to have much to say this soon after hearing the shattering news. He had come to see that the distance between individual members of the von Enke family was vast.
Wallander paused, since it struck him that this in itself was something to think more closely about. What had
