priorities were all wrong. The day that police chiefs decreed ‘minor crimes’ must be tolerated, the rug had been pulled out from under the remains of a trusting relationship between the police and the general public. The man in the street was not prepared to shrug his shoulders and merely accept that somebody had broken into his car or his garage or his summer cottage. He wanted these crimes to be solved, or at least investigated.
But that wasn’t something Wallander felt like discussing with Lennart Mattson right now. There would be plenty of opportunities for that during the autumn.
Mattson slid the report to one side and looked at his visitor with a troubled expression on his face. Wallander could see that he had sweat on his brow.
‘How are you feeling? You look pale. Why haven’t you been getting some sun?’
‘What sun?’
‘The summer hasn’t been all that bad. I made a trip to Crete, so we’d be sure to have some decent weather. Have you ever visited the palace at Knossos? There are fantastic dolphins on the walls there.’
Wallander stood up.
‘I feel fine,’ he said. ‘But since it’s sunny today, I’ll take your advice and make the most of it.’
‘No forgotten guns anywhere, I hope?’
Wallander stared at Lennart Mattson. He came very close to punching him in the nose.
*
Wallander returned to his office, sat down on his chair, put his feet on his desk and closed his eyes. He thought about Baiba. And Mona shivering away in her rehabilitation clinic. While his boss gloated over a statistic that was no doubt economical with the truth.
He took down his feet. I’ll make another attempt, he thought. Another attempt to understand why I’m always doubtful about the conclusions I reach. I wish I had more insight into political goings-on; then I would probably be less confused than I am now.
He suddenly recalled something he’d never thought about as an adult. It must have been 1962 or 1963, sometime in the autumn. Wallander had a Saturday job as an errand boy for a flower shop in central Malmo. He had been instructed to deliver a bouquet of flowers as quickly as possible to the People’s Park. The prime minister, Tage Erlander, was giving a lecture, and when he had finished a little girl was supposed to hand him the flowers. The problem was that somebody in the local Social Democratic Party office had forgotten to order the flowers. So now there was an emergency. Wallander pedalled away for all he was worth. The flower shop had warned the People’s Park officials that he was on his way, and he was allowed in without delay. The little girl designated to present the flowers received them in time and Wallander received a tip of no less than five kronor. He was offered a glass of soda, and stood with a straw in his mouth, listening to the tall man at the lectern speaking in his strange nasal voice. He used a lot of big words - or at least words that Wallander was unfamiliar with. He spoke about detente, the rights of small countries, the neutrality of Sweden, with its freedom from all kinds of pacts and treaties. Wallander thought he’d understood that, at least, from what the great man had said.
When Wallander came home that evening he went to the room his father used as a studio. He could still remember even now that his father was busy painting in the forest background he used in all his pictures. When he was a teenager Wallander had a good relationship with his father - that might have been the best time in their shared existence. It would be another three, perhaps four years before Wallander came home and announced that he was going to become a police officer. His father had gone through the roof and come close to throwing him out - in any case, he refused to talk to him for quite some time.
Wallander had sat on a stool next to his father and told him about his visit to the People’s Park. His father often muttered that he wasn’t interested in politics, but Wallander eventually realised that this wasn’t the case. His father always voted faithfully for the Social Democrats, was angrily sceptical about the Communists, and always criticised the non-socialist parties for favouring citizens who were already leading a comfortable life.
The conversation with his father that day came back to him now, almost word for word. Earlier, his father had always spoken positively about Erlander, maintaining that he was an honest man you could trust, unlike many other politicians.
‘He said that Russia is our enemy,’ Wallander said.
‘That’s not completely true. It wouldn’t do any harm if our politicians devoted a thought or two to the role America plays nowadays.’
Wallander was surprised by what he said. Surely America represented the good guys? After all, they were the ones who had defeated Hitler and the Nazis’ Thousand-Year Reich. America produced movies, music, clothes. As far as Wallander was concerned, Elvis Presley was the King, and there was nothing to beat ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. He had stopped collecting everything he could find about Hollywood stars, but still there was nobody to beat Alan Ladd. Now his father was implying that you had to be on your guard where America was concerned. Was there something Wallander didn’t know?
Wallander repeated the prime minister’s words: the neutrality of
Wallander pressed his father on what he meant, but he didn’t get an answer, only some inaudible mumbling and then a request to be left in peace.
‘You ask too many questions.’
‘But you’ve always said that I shouldn’t be afraid to ask you if there was something I wondered about.’
‘There has to be a limit.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Right here. I’m making mistakes when I paint.’
‘How is that possible? You’ve been painting the same picture every day since long before I was born.’
‘Go away! Leave me in peace!’
And then, as he stood in the doorway, Wallander said: ‘I got a five-krona tip for getting the flowers to Elander in time.’
‘
And at that precise moment, as if the memory had opened a door for him, Wallander saw that he was totally on the wrong track. He’d been deceived, and he’d allowed himself to be deceived. He’d been following the path dictated by his assumptions instead of reality. He sat motionless at his desk, his hands clenched, and allowed his thoughts to lead him to a new and unexpected explanation of what had happened. It was so mind-boggling that at first he couldn’t believe he could be right. The only thing that kept him focused was that his instincts had warned him. He really had overlooked something. He had mixed up the truth and the lies and assumed that the cause was the effect and vice versa.
He went to the bathroom and took off his shirt, which was soaked in sweat. When he had given himself a good wash, he went down to his locker in the basement and put on a clean shirt. He recalled in passing having received it from Linda for his birthday a few years earlier.
When he returned to his office he searched through his papers until he found the photograph he had been given by Asta Hagberg, the one of Colonel Stig Wennerstrom in Washington talking to a young Hakan von Enke. He studied the faces of the two men. Wennerstrom was smiling coolly, Martini glass in hand, facing Hakan von Enke, who looked serious listening to what Wennerstrom had to say.
He lined up his Lego pieces in his mind’s eye once more. They were all there: Louise and Hakan von Enke, Hans, Signe in her bed, Sten Nordlander, Hermann Eber, Steven Atkins in America, George Talboth in Berlin. He added Fanny Klarstrom, and then another piece - but he didn’t yet know whom it represented. Then he slowly removed piece after piece until there were only two left. Louise and Hakan. It was Louise who fell over. That’s how her life came to an end; she was knocked over somewhere on Varmdo. But Hakan, her husband, was still standing.
Wallander recorded his thoughts. Then he put the photograph from Washington in his jacket pocket and left the police station. This time he left through the main entrance, greeted the girl in reception, spoke to a few traffic officers who had just come in, then walked down the hill into town. Anybody watching him might have wondered why he was walking so erratically - now fast, now slow. Occasionally he held out one hand, as if he were talking to somebody and needed to emphasise what he was saying with various gestures.
He stopped at the sausage stand opposite the hospital and stood there for ages wondering what to order;
