Edler nodded towards the house.
‘Come in and take a look.’
The stench of burned rubber that hit Wallander when he entered the building was strong, almost choking. Edler led him into the kitchen. The firemen had opened a window to let the fumes out. On one of the stove’s burners was a frying pan, and next to it a charred rubber place mat. Edler sniffed at the frying pan, from which smoke was still rising.
‘Fried egg? Sausage?’
‘Egg.’
‘You went out for a walk without turning off the stove. Not only that, but you left a place mat on a burner. How careless can a detective get?’
Edler shook his head. They went outside again. The firemen were already in the trucks, waiting for their leader.
‘It’s never happened to me before,’ said Wallander.
‘It had better not happen again.’
Edler looked around, admiring the view.
‘So you moved out to the country in the end. To be honest, I never thought you’d get round to it. You have a lovely view.’
‘You haven’t moved yourself?’
‘We’re still in the same house in the middle of town. Gunnel wants to move out to the country, but I don’t. Not as long as I’m still working.’
‘How long to go?’
Edler shuddered and looked miserable. He smacked the shiny helmet he was holding in his hand against his thigh, as if it were a gun.
‘As long as I can, or am allowed to. I might be able to keep going for a few more years, but then I’ll be on the scrapheap as well. What I’ll do then, I have no idea. I can’t just sit at home doing crossword puzzles.’
‘You could try writing them,’ said Wallander, thinking of Hermann Eber.
Edler looked at him in surprise, but didn’t ask what he meant. It almost seemed as if he hoped Wallander’s future would turn out to be as grim as his own.
‘Maybe we could form a team? Start a little company and travel around telling people how to protect themselves from burglary and fire?’
‘Is it possible to protect yourself from burglary?’
‘Hardly. But you can teach people some simple methods of making thieves think twice before targeting your house or apartment.’
Edler eyed him doubtfully.
‘Do you really believe what you’re saying?’
‘I’m trying to. But thieves are like children. They learn quickly.’
Edler shook his head at Wallander’s highly dubious comparison, and climbed into his fire engine.
‘Remember to turn off your burners,’ he said by way of farewell. ‘But it was smart of you to have a first-rate fire alarm installed that’s linked directly to us. Your house could have burned down. Then you’d have had to cope with the nightmare of a smouldering ruin in the middle of summer.’
Wallander didn’t respond. It was Linda who had insisted on the fire alarm. She had paid for it, given it to him as a Christmas present and made sure it was installed.
He fed Jussi and was just about to start his lawnmower when Linda drove up. She didn’t have Klara with her. He could see right away that she was upset. He assumed she had passed the fire engines on the way here.
‘What were fire engines doing on your road?’ she asked.
‘They’d taken a wrong turn,’ he lied. ‘There was a short circuit in a neighbour’s barn.’
‘Which barn?’
‘The Hanssons’.’
‘Who are they?
‘What does it matter? You don’t know where their house is anyway.’
She suddenly threw her bag at him as hard as she could. He managed to duck and was hit only on the shoulder. He picked it up, furious.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Why the hell do I have to stand here while you tell me bold-faced lies!’
‘I’m not telling you lies.’
‘The fire brigade was here! I stopped and spoke to your neighbour. He said you were standing next to two fire engines.’
‘I forgot to switch off one of the burners.’
‘Did you fall asleep?’
Wallander pointed out into the fields, from where only a few minutes ago he had come racing back; he could still feel the pain in his leg muscles.
‘I was out with Jussi.’
Without a word, Linda grabbed her bag out of his hand and went into the house. Wallander considered getting into his car and driving off. Linda would go on and on about his lie, and then about his incredible carelessness. She would continue to be upset, and that in turn would make him angry. Indeed, he was already well on the way there. He didn’t know what she had in her handbag, but it had been heavy, and his shoulder hurt. He felt even more agitated when he thought about the fact that this was the first time she had ever used physical violence towards him.
Linda came out again.
‘Do you remember what we talked about a few weeks ago? That day when it was pouring rain, and I was here with Klara?’
‘How can I be expected to remember everything we say to each other?’
‘We talked about how she could come here and stay with you when she was a bit older.’
‘Let’s stay calm and talk things through,’ Wallander said. ‘You arranged the installation of a fire alarm. Now we know it works. The house didn’t burn down. I forgot to turn off a burner. Has that never happened to you?’
She answered without hesitation.
‘Not since Klara was born, no.’
‘I don’t think it ever happened to me either when you were little.’
The argument died away. They were both good fencers, but neither had the strength to deliver a fatal blow. Linda sat down on one of the garden chairs. Wallander remained standing, afraid her fury might boil over again. She looked at him, clearly worried.
‘Are you starting to become forgetful?’
‘I’ve always been forgetful, to a certain extent. Maybe it would be better to say that I’m absent- minded.’
He sat down, tired of hiding the truth.
‘Sometimes whole chunks of time just disappear. Like ice melting away.’
‘What do you mean?’
Wallander told her about his trip to Hoor. But he left out the part about the hitchhiker.
‘I suddenly had no idea why I was there. It was like being in a brightly lit room when somebody turns off the light, without warning. I don’t know how long I was in pitch darkness. It was as if I didn’t even know who I was any more.’
‘Has that ever happened before?’
‘Not as badly. But I’ve gone to a doctor, a specialist in Malmo, and she says I’m just overworked. That I think I’m a dashing young thirty-year-old who can still do everything I used to be able to do.’
‘I don’t like what I’m hearing. Go and see another doctor.’
He nodded but didn’t say anything. She stood up and disappeared into the house, emerging eventually with two glasses of water. Wallander suddenly asked if the police had found the woman from Malmo who killed her parents.
‘I heard she was arrested in Vaxjo. Someone had given her a lift and become suspicious. He treated her to a
