The Pyramid (40 page)

His father painted. Wallander sat quietly. Now and again they exchanged a few words. Then more silence. Wallander noticed that he was more relaxed. His head felt lighter. After about half an hour he stood up to leave.

'I'll come by for New Year,' he said.

'Bring a bottle of cognac,' his father replied.

Wallander returned to the police station, which still gave the impression of being almost completely deserted. He knew that everyone was now lying low in preparation for New Year's Eve, when there would be a flurry of activity, as usual.

Wallander sat down in his office and reviewed the Eberhardsson sisters' trips during the past year. He tried to discern a pattern, without being sure of what he was really looking for. I know nothing about
Holm, he thought. Or these pilots. I have nothing that I can apply like a grid to these trips to Spain. There are no fixed points, other than this single trip that Holm made at the same time as Anna Eberhardsson.

He put all the papers back into the envelope and put that into the folder where he kept all the documents having to do with the murder investigations. Then he wrote himself a reminder to buy a bottle of cognac.

It was already past noon. He felt hungry. In order to break his habit of downing a couple of hot dogs at a stand, he walked down to the hospital and had a sandwich at the cafe. Then he leafed through a ripped magazine that had been left on the table next to him. A pop star had almost died of cancer. An actor had fainted during a performance. Photographs from the parties of the rich. He tossed the magazine aside and started walking back to the station. He felt like an elephant lumbering around in a ring bounded by the city of Ystad.
Something has to happen soon, he thought. Who has executed these three people, and why?

Rydberg was sitting in the reception area, waiting for him. Wallander sat down on a sofa next to him. As usual Rydberg got right to the point.

'Heroin is flowing into Malmö,' he said. 'In Lund, Eslöv, Landskrona,
Helsingborg. I talked to a colleague in Malmö. He said that there were clear signs that the market had received a boost in supply. It could, in other words, coincide with a drug drop from the plane. In this case, there is only one important question.'

Wallander understood.

'Who was there to receive it?'

'In this, we can play with several different scenarios,' Rydberg went on. 'No one counted on the fact that the plane would crash. A wreck of a plane from Asia that should have been junked a long time ago.
Something must then have happened on land. Either the wrong person picked up the package that was dropped in the night. Or else there was more than one predator stalking this prey.'

Wallander nodded. He had also thought this far.

'Something went wrong,' Rydberg said. 'And this led to the execution-style slayings of the Eberhardsson sisters and subsequently Holm. With the same weapon and by the same hand, or hands.'

'But I still resist this thought,' Wallander said. 'We know by now that
Anna and Emilia were not nice old ladies. And yet from there, the step of saying they were involved in illegal narcotics transactions feels too great.'

'I actually think so too,' Rydberg said. 'But nothing surprises me any longer. Greed knows no bounds when it sinks its claws into people.
Perhaps the sewing shop was doing worse and worse? If we analyse their tax returns we'll get a clearer picture. It should also be possible to tell from the numbers when something happens. At which point they no longer have to care about the profitability of the sewing shop.
Perhaps they dreamed of a life in a sunny paradise. They could never have achieved this by selling snaps and silk thread. Suddenly something happens. And they are caught in the web.'

'You can also look at it from the reverse perspective,' Wallander said.
'A better cover than two older women in a sewing shop can hardly be imagined. They were the personification of innocence.'

Rydberg nodded.

'Who was there that night to receive the package?' he repeated. 'And one more question: who was behind all this? More precisely: who is behind it?'

'We're still searching for a midpoint,' Wallander said. 'The apex of the pyramid.'

Rydberg yawned and got up from the sofa with some effort.

'We'll figure it out sooner or later,' he said.

'Has Nyberg returned yet?' Wallander asked.

'According to Martinsson he's still in Tingsryd.'

Wallander returned to his office. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Nyberg called at four o'clock and said that his car had finally been fixed. They had a meeting at five. No one really had anything new to bring to the table.

That night Wallander slept heavily, without dreaming. The next day it was sunny and five degrees above zero Celsius. He left the car at home and walked to the station. But when he was halfway there, he changed his mind. He thought of what Martinsson had told him, about the two people who lived in the house where Holm had a room. It was only a quarter past seven. He would have time to drive up there and see if they were in before his meeting at the station.

He turned into the front yard at a quarter to eight. The dog was in its fenced run, barking. Wallander looked around. The house appeared as abandoned as the day before. He walked up to the door and knocked.
No answer. He felt the handle. It was locked. Someone must have been there. He stepped away in order to walk around the house. Then he heard the front door open behind him. He jumped involuntarily. A man wearing an undershirt and sagging jeans was standing there staring at him. Wallander walked over and introduced himself.

'Are you Rolf Nyman?' he asked.

'Yes, that's me.'

'I need to speak to you.'

The man looked hesitant.

'The house is a mess,' he said. 'And the girl who lives here is sleeping.'

'My place is also messy,' Wallander said. 'And we don't need to sit next to her bed.'

Nyman stepped aside and led Wallander to the cluttered kitchen.
They sat down. The man made no gesture to offer Wallander anything.
But he appeared friendly. Wallander assumed he was embarrassed at the mess.

'The girl has big problems with drugs,' Nyman said. 'Right now she's trying to detox. I'm helping her as much as I can. But it's hard.'

'And you?'

'I never touch anything.'

'But isn't it strange then to live in the same place as Holm? If you want her to get over a drug addiction.'

Nyman's reply was swift and convincing.

'I had no idea he was involved with drugs. We lived here cheaply.
He was nice. I had no idea what he did. To me he said he was studying astronomy. We used to stand outside in the garden in the evenings. He knew the name of every single star.'

'What do you do?'

'I can't hold down a permanent job until she gets better. I work at a disco from time to time.'

'Disco?'

'I play records.'

'You're a DJ?'

'Yes.'

Wallander thought he made a sympathetic impression. He did not appear anxious about anything other than disturbing the girl who was sleeping somewhere.

'Holm,' Wallander said. 'How did you meet him? And when was that?'

'In a disco in Landskrona. We started talking. He told me about this house. A couple of weeks later we moved in. The worst thing is that I don't have the energy to clean. I did earlier. Holm did too. But now all my time goes to taking care of her.'

'You never suspected what Holm was up to?'

'No.'

'Did he ever have visitors?'

'Never. He was usually gone during the day. But he always said when he was coming back. It was only the last time, when he didn't come back, that he said where he was going.'

'Had he appeared nervous that day? Was there anything different about him?'

Rolf Nyman thought back.

'No, he was like normal.'

'And how was that?'

'Happy. But reserved sometimes.'

Wallander thought about how best to proceed.

'Did he have a lot of money?'

'He certainly didn't live in luxury. I can show you his room.'

'That won't be necessary. Are you sure he never had any visitors?'

'Never.'

'But there must have been telephone calls.'

Nyman nodded.

'It was as if he always knew when someone was going to call. Sat down next to the phone and it rang. If he wasn't at home or nearby, it never rang. That was the strangest thing about him.'

Wallander had reached the end of his questions and stood up.

'What will you do now?' he asked.

'I don't know. Holm rented the house from someone in Örebro. I guess we'll have to move.'

Rolf Nyman followed him out onto the front steps.

'Did you ever hear Holm mention the Eberhardsson sisters?'

'The ones who were killed? No, never.'

Wallander realised he had one final question.

'Holm must have had a car,' he said. 'Where is it?'

Rolf Nyman shook his head.

'I don't know.'

'What kind was it?'

'A black VW Golf.'

Wallander held out his hand and said goodbye. The dog was silent as Wallander walked to the car.

Holm must have concealed his business well, he thought on the way back to Ystad. Just as he concealed his true self well when I questioned him.

He parked the car outside the station at a quarter to nine. Ebba was at her desk and said that Martinsson and the others were waiting for him in the conference room. He hurried over. Nyberg had also arrived.

'What's going on?' Wallander said before he had even sat down.

'Big news,' Martinsson said. 'Our Malmö colleagues have made a routine search of a well-known drug dealer. In his house they found a .38 calibre pistol.'

Martinsson turned to Nyberg.

'The technicians have worked quickly,' he said. 'Both the
Eberhardsson sisters and Holm were shot with a weapon of that calibre.'

Wallander caught his breath.

'What's the name of the dealer?'

'Nilsmark. But he's known as Hilton.'

'Is it the same pistol?'

'We can't answer that question yet. But the possibility exists.'

Wallander nodded.

'Good,' he said. 'This may be our breakthrough. And then we have a shot at wrapping this up before the new year.'

They worked intensively for three days, until New Year's Eve. Wallander and Nyberg drove into Malmö on the morning of the twenty-eighth.
Nyberg went in order to talk to the Malmö police technicians, Wallander in order to take part, and in part to take over, the questioning of the drug dealer known as Hilton. He turned out to be a man in his fifties, overweight yet able to move with a surprising agility. He was dressed in a suit and tie and appeared bored. Before the start of his questioning,
Wallander had been briefed on the man's history by a detective inspector named Hyttner, whom Wallander had met before.

Hilton had done some time at the beginning of the 1980s for dealing drugs. But Hyttner was convinced that the police and prosecutors had only been able to skim the surface that time and put him away for just a small portion of his criminal activities. He had clearly been able to retain control of his business from the prison in Norrköping where he had served his time. During his absence, the Malmö police had not been able to detect a power struggle among those who controlled the drug supply into the southern parts of Sweden.

When Hilton had got out of prison he had immediately celebrated the event by getting divorced and marrying a young Bolivian beauty.
Thereafter he had moved to a large estate just north of Trelleborg. What they also knew was that he had started to extend his hunting grounds as far as Ystad and Simrishamn and was on his way to establishing himself in Kristianstad. On the twenty-eighth of December, the police felt they had enough evidence against him to get the public prosecutor to issue a search warrant for his estate. That was when they found the gun. Hilton had immediately confessed that he had no licence for the weapon. He explained that he had bought it in order to defend himself since his home was so remotely located. But he had firmly denied any involvement in the murders of the Eberhardsson sisters and Yngve Leonard Holm.

Wallander sat in on the drawn-out questioning of Hilton. Towards the end he posed some of his own questions, among them what exactly
Hilton had been doing on the two dates in question. In the case of the
Eberhardssons, the timetable was very precise. It was less certain when
Holm had been shot. Hilton claimed to have been in Copenhagen when the Eberhardssons were killed. Since he had travelled alone, it would take time to confirm this claim. During the time that had elapsed between Holm going missing and when he had been found murdered,
Hilton had done many different things.

Wallander wished Rydberg was there. Wallander could usually tell fairly quickly if the person before him was telling the truth or not. But it was hard with Hilton. If Rydberg had been there they could have compared their impressions. After the session, Wallander had coffee with Hyttner.

'We've never been able to link him to any violent incidents before,'
Hyttner said. 'He has always used other boys when needed. And they haven't always been the same ones. From what we can tell, he's brought in people from the Continent when he's had to break someone's leg who hasn't performed up to snuff.'

'All of them will have to be tracked down,' Wallander said, 'if it turns out that the weapon matches.'

'I have a hard time believing that it's him,' Hyttner said. 'He's not the type. He has no qualms about selling heroin to schoolkids. But he's also the kind who faints when he has to give a blood sample.'

Wallander returned to Ystad at the start of the afternoon. Nyberg remained in Malmö. Wallander noticed that he was hoping more than he believed that they were nearer to solving the case.

At the same time another thought had started to gnaw at him.
Something he had overlooked. A conclusion he should have drawn, or an assumption he should have made. He searched his mind without finding an answer.

On his way back to Ystad he turned off by Stjärnsund and stopped for a while at Sten Widén's horse ranch. He found Widén out in the stables with an older woman who apparently owned one of the horses being trained. She was on her way out when Wallander arrived.
Together, he and Widén watched the BMW drive away.

'She's nice,' Sten Widén said. 'But the horses that she is swindled into buying don't make anybody happy. I always tell her to ask me for advice before she buys. But she thinks she knows best. Now she has one called Jupiter who is guaranteed never to win a race.'

Widén threw his arms out.

'But she keeps me alive,' he said.

'La Trottiata,' Wallander said. 'I'd like to see her.'

They walked back through the stables where the horses were stomping in various boxes. Sten Widén stopped next to one of the horses and stroked its muzzle.

'La Trottiata,' he said. 'Not particularly wanton, I have to say. She's mostly just afraid of the stallions.'

'Is she any good?'

'Could be. But she has frail hind legs. We'll have to see.'

They walked outside again. Wallander had picked up a faint trace of alcohol on Widén's breath when they were in the stables. Widén wanted to invite him in for a cup of coffee but Wallander said no.

'I have a triple homicide to solve,' he said. 'I assume you've read about it in the papers.'

'I only read the sport pages,' Sten Widén answered.

Wallander left Stjärnsund. He wondered if he and Sten would ever find their way back to the ease of understanding that had once existed between them.

When Wallander came back to the station he bumped into Björk in the reception area.

'I hear you've solved those murders,' he said.

'No,' Wallander said firmly. 'Nothing has been solved.'

'Then we'll have to continue to hope,' Björk said.

Björk left through the front doors. It is as if our confrontation had never taken place, Wallander thought. Or else he's more afraid of conflict than I am. Or nurses a grudge longer.

Wallander gathered the squad together and reviewed the developments in Malmö.

'Do you think it's him?' Rydberg asked when Wallander was finished.

'I don't know,' Wallander answered.

'That means, in other words, that you don't think it's him?'

Wallander did not answer. He only shrugged somewhat despondently.

As they ended the meeting, Martinsson asked if Wallander would consider switching New Year's Eve duty with him. Martinsson was on duty and would rather get out of it if he could. Wallander thought it over. Perhaps it would be best to work and keep his hands busy instead of thinking of Mona the whole time, but he had promised his father he would spend the evening in Löderup. That carried the most weight.

'I've promised to be with my father,' he said. 'You'll have to try someone else.'

Wallander stayed behind in the conference room after Martinsson had left. He searched for the thought that had started nagging at him on the way back from Malmö. He went over to the window and stared absent-mindedly out across the car park to the water tower. Slowly he reviewed all of the events in his mind. Tried to catch something he had missed. But it was in vain.

The rest of the day, nothing significant occurred. Everyone was waiting. Nyberg returned from Malmö. The forensic ballistics specialists were working at full speed on the weapon. Martinsson managed to switch his New Year's Eve with Näslund, who was on bad terms with his wife and wanted to avoid being home. Wallander walked to and fro in the corridor. He kept searching for the thought that was just out of reach. It continued to gnaw on his subconscious. He knew enough to realise it was only a detail that had flashed by. Perhaps a single word that he should have caught and examined more closely.

It was six o'clock. Rydberg left without saying anything. Together,
Wallander and Martinsson reviewed everything they knew about Yngve
Leonard Holm. He was born in Brösarp and, as far as they could tell, had never held down a real job in his life. Small-time stealing in his youth had led to increasingly serious crimes. But no violence. In this he reminded them of Nilsmark. Martinsson excused himself and left.
Hansson was absorbed in his racing tables, which he quickly stuffed into a drawer if anyone came into his office. In the break room
Wallander talked with a couple of officers who were going to run a drunk-driving campaign over New Year. They were going to focus on the smaller roads, the 'alcohol routes' that were used by drivers with good local knowledge who were over the legal limit and still planned to drive themselves home. At seven o'clock Wallander called Malmö and spoke to Hyttner. Nothing had happened there either. But the heroin was now flowing as far north as Varberg. There, the drug trade controlled from Gothenburg took over.

Wallander went home. The washing machine had still not been repaired. And the dirty laundry was still in his car. He angrily returned to the station and stuffed the washer full. Then he sat doodling in his notebook. Thought about Radwan and the mighty pyramids. By the time his laundry was dry it was past nine o'clock. He went home, opened a can of hash and ate in front of the TV while he watched an old Swedish film. He vaguely remembered it from his youth. He had seen it with a girl who had not allowed him to place a hand on her thigh.

Before he went to bed he called Linda. This time it was Mona who answered. He could immediately tell from her voice that he had called at the wrong time. Linda was out. Wallander simply asked Mona to give
Linda his greetings. The conversation was over before it had even begun.

He had just crawled into bed when Emma Lundin called. Wallander pretended to have been woken up. She apologised for disturbing him.
Then she asked him about New Year's Eve. Wallander told her he was planning to spend it with his father. They arranged to get together on
New Year's Day. Wallander regretted this even before he replaced the receiver.

The following day, the twenty-ninth of December, nothing happened other than that Björk was in a minor traffic accident. It was a smirking
Martinsson who delivered the news. Björk had seen a car too late as he was making a left turn. It had been slick and the cars had skidded into each other and received some superficial damage.

Nyberg was still waiting for the forensic ballistics report. Wallander spent the day trying to work through his piles of paper. In the afternoon
Per Åkeson came into his office and asked for an update on the latest developments. Wallander told him the truth, that they were just hoping they were on the right track. But there was still a great deal of groundwork to be done.

It was Åkeson's last day of work before his leave of absence.

'My replacement is a woman,' he said. 'But I've already told you that, haven't I? Her name is Anette Brolin and she's coming down from
Stockholm. You should be happy. She's much more attractive than I am.'

'We'll see,' Wallander said. 'But I expect we'll miss you.'

'Not Hansson,' Per Åkeson said. 'He's never liked me. Why, I don't know. The same goes for Svedberg.'

'I'll try to find out why that is while you're gone.'

They wished each other a happy new year and promised to stay in touch.

That evening Wallander talked to Linda for a long time on the phone.
She was planning to celebrate New Year's Eve with friends in Lund.
Wallander was disappointed. He had thought, or at least hoped, that she would join them in Löderup.

'Two old men,' she said kindly. 'I can think of a more exciting way to spend the evening.'

After the call, Wallander realised that he had forgotten to buy the bottle of cognac his father had asked for. He should also buy a bottle of champagne. He wrote two notes. He put one on the kitchen table and one in his shoe. That night he sat up for a long time listening to an old recording of
Turandot
with Maria Callas. For some strange reason his thoughts wandered to the horses in Sten Widén's stables.
Only when the time was close to three did he fall asleep.

On the morning of the thirtieth there was a heavy snowfall over
Ystad. It could be a chaotic New Year's Eve if the weather did not improve. But already at ten o'clock the skies cleared and the snow started to melt away. Wallander wondered why the ballistics team was taking such an inordinate amount of time to decide whether it was the same weapon. Nyberg grew angry and said that forensic technicians did not earn their measly wages by performing substandard work.
Wallander immediately crawled on his knees. They made up and then spent some time talking about the low wages of the police. Not even
Björk had a particularly good salary.

In the afternoon, the investigative squad assembled for what turned out to be a slow-moving meeting since there were so few new items.
The police in Marbella had sent an impressively detailed report of their search of the Eberhardsson sisters' villa. They had even included a photograph. The picture was now passed around the table. The house really was palatial. But nonetheless the report did not yield anything new to the investigation. There was no breakthrough, only this waiting.

Their hopes were dashed on the morning of the thirty-first. The forensic ballistic specialists were able to determine that the weapon that had been found in Nilsmark's home had not been the one used to kill either the
Eberhardsson sisters or Holm. For a moment, the investigative squad was deflated. Only Rydberg and Wallander had suspected that the message would most likely be in the negative. The Malmö police had also been able to confirm Nilsmark's trip to Copenhagen. He could not have been in Ystad when the sisters were slain. Hyttner also believed that Nilsmark would be able to produce an alibi for the time period of Holm's death.

'That puts us back at square one,' Wallander said. 'In the new year we are going to have to start again at full speed. Review the material again and work deeper.'

No one made any more comments. During the new year's holiday, the investigation would be put on hold. Since they had no immediate leads Wallander felt that what they needed most was to rest. Then they wished one another a happy new year. Finally, only Rydberg and
Wallander were left.

'We knew this,' Rydberg said. 'Both you and I. That it would have been too easy with that Nilsmark. Why the hell would he have kept the weapon? It was wrong from the start.'