The Pyramid

by Henning Mankell

  They parted ways. Wallander returned to his room. Since the news of the murder had now spread, Ebba was able to give him the message that several reporters had called and asked when they would be able to get information. Without consulting anyone, Wallander announced that he would be available to answer questions at three o'clock.

  Afterwards he devoted an hour to writing a summary of the case for himself. He had just finished when Nyberg called to say that Wallander could now start investigating the back room. Nyberg had still not made any noteworthy discoveries. Nor could the medical examiner state anything other than that Lamberg had been killed by a violent blow to the back of the head. Wallander asked if they could say something about the kind of weapon that had been used at this stage. But it was too early for an answer. Wallander ended the conversation and his thoughts returned to Rydberg. His teacher and mentor, the most skilled detective he had ever met. He had taught Wallander how impor t ant it was to turn and twist one's arguments and approach a problem from an unexpected angle.

  I could have used him right now, Wallander thought. Maybe I should call him at home tonight.

  He walked to the break room and drank yet another cup of coffee. Carefully munched on a rusk. The pain in his tooth did not return.

  Since he felt tired from his interrupted sleep the night before, he took a walk down to St Gertrude's Square. The drizzling rain continued. He wondered when spring was coming. Our collective Swedish impatience in April is very high, he thought. Spring never seems to come at the right time. Winter always comes too early and spring too late.

  Several people were gathered outside Lamberg's shop. Wallander knew some of them or at least had seen their faces before. He nodded and said hello. But he did not answer any questions. He stepped over the police tape and walked into the shop. Nyberg was standing with a Thermos mug in his hand, arguing with one of his technicians. He did not stop when Wallander walked in. Only when he had finished saying his piece did he turn to Wallander. He pointed towards the studio. The body had been removed. There was only the large bloodstain on the white background paper. An artificial trail of plastic had been laid out.

  'Walk there,' Nyberg instructed. 'We found a lot of footprints in the studio.'

  Wallander pulled plastic booties over his shoes, slipped some rubber gloves into his pocket, and carefully walked into the room that had served as a combination office and developing room.

  Wallander remembered how he, when he was very young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, had nourished a passionate dream of becoming a photographer. But he did not aspire to have his own studio; he was going to be a press photographer. At all great events he would be there on the front lines and he would take his pictures while others took pictures of him.

  As he stepped into the inner room he wondered where that dream had gone. It had suddenly just left him. Today he owned a simple Instamatic that he rarely used. Several years later he wanted to become an opera singer. Nothing had come of that either.

  He removed his coat and looked around the room. From the studio he could hear that Nyberg had started arguing again. Wallander heard vaguely that it was about a sloppy measurement of the distance between two footprints. He walked over to the radio and turned it on. Classical music. Lamberg walked down to the studio sometimes in the evenings, Hilda Waldén had said. To work and to listen to music. Classical music. So far so good. He sat down at the desk. Everything was carefully arranged. He lifted the green writing pad. Nothing. Then he stood up and walked out to see Nyberg and ask if they had found any keys. They had. Wallander put on his rubber gloves and walked back. He searched for the right key to open the desk cabinet. In the top drawer there were various tax documents and other correspondence with Lamberg's accountant. Wallander gingerly leafed through the papers. He was not looking for anything in particular. Therefore anything could turn out to be important.

  He went drawer by drawer methodically. Nothing caught his eye. So far Simon Lamberg's life was a well-organised one, without secrets, without surprises. But he was still only scraping the surface. He bent down and and pulled out the lowest drawer. There was just a photo album inside. The cover and binding were made of a luxurious leather. Wallander put it on the desk in front of him and turned to the front page. He studied the single snapshot with a furrowed brow. It was no larger than a passport photograph. Wallander had noticed a magnifying glass in one of the other drawers he had searched. Now he located it again, turned on one of the two desk lamps, and studied the image more closely.

  It was a picture of the American president, Ronald Reagan. But it was deformed, the face had been distorted. It was still Ronald Reagan. And yet not. The wrinkled old man had been turned into a horrifying monster. Right next to the picture there was a date written in ink: 10 August 1984.

  Wallander turned the page hesitantly. The same thing. A single snapshot glued onto the middle of the page. This time it featured one of Sweden's former prime ministers. The same deformed, misshapen face. A date written in ink.

  Without studying each picture in detail, Wallander slowly made his way through the album. On every page a single shot. Misshapen, deformed. Men – they were exclusively men – remade into revolting monsters. Swedish as well as foreign. Mainly politicians but also some businessmen, an author and a few others that Wallander did not recognise.

  He tried to understand what the images communicated. Why did Simon Lamberg have this uncommon photo album? Why had he distorted the pictures? Was it in order to work on this album that he had spent his evenings at the studio alone? Wallander had increased his concentration. Behind Simon Lamberg's well-ordered facade there was obviously something else. At least a man who deliberately destroyed the faces of well-known people.

  He turned another page. Winced. An acute discomfort radiated through his body.

  He had difficulty believing it was true.

  At that moment Svedberg came into the room.

  'Look at this,' Wallander said slowly.

  Then he pointed at the picture. Svedberg bent over his shoulder.

  'That's you,' he said with amazement.

  'Yes,' Wallander answered. 'It's me. Or at least maybe.'

  He looked at it again. It was a photograph from a newspaper. It was him, and yet it wasn't. He looked like an unusually abominable individual.

  Wallander could not think of a time when he had been so shaken. The distorted and grotesque depiction of his face nauseated him. He had certainly been the object of verbal assaults from criminals he had arrested, but the thought that someone had spent hours producing this hate-picture of him was frightening. Svedberg registered his reaction and went to get Nyberg. Together they went through the album. The last picture was from the day before, when the Swedish prime minister had had his face destroyed. The date was written in next to it.

  'The person who did this has to be sick,' Nyberg said.

  'There's no doubt that it is Simon Lamberg who has spent his evenings on these photographs,' Wallander said. 'What I am naturally wondering is why I've been included in this macabre collection. The only person from Ystad, no less. Among men of state and presidents. I won't deny that I find it very disturbing.'

  'And what is the purpose?' Svedberg asked.

  No one had any reasonable answer to offer.

  Wallander felt he had to leave the studio. He asked Svedberg to take over an examination of the room. For his part, he would soon have to give the press the information they were waiting for. By the time he was back out on the street, his nausea was clearing up. He stepped over the police tape and went straight to the police station. It was still drizzling. Even though the nausea had passed, he felt ill at ease.

  Simon Lamberg spends his evenings in his studio, listening to music. At the same time he distorts the faces of various prominent heads of state. And a detective inspector from Ystad. Wallander tried furiously to find an explanation, without success. That a man could lead a double life, concealing insanity under a surface appearance of complete norm
ality, was nothing unique. You could find many examples of this in the annals of criminal history. But why was Wallander himself in the album? What did he have in common with the other individuals represented there? Why was he the exception?

  He walked straight into his office and closed the door. When he sat down in his chair, he realised that he was concerned. Simon Lamberg was dead. Someone had crushed the back of his head with violent force. They did not know why. And in his desk they had found a secret photo album with grotesque contents.

  He was wrenched out of his thoughts by a knock on the door. It was Hansson.

  'Lamberg is dead,' he said, as if delivering a piece of news. 'He took pictures of me when I was confirmed, many years ago.'

  'You've been confirmed?' Wallander asked, surprised. 'I thought you would be the person least likely to care about the higher powers.'

  'And I don't,' he answered happily, while carefully picking at his ear. 'But I very much wanted to get a watch and my first real suit.'

  He pointed over his shoulder back out into the corridor.

  'Reporters,' he said. 'I thought I'd better tag along and listen and learn what's happened.'

  'I can tell you that now,' Wallander said. 'Someone bashed in the back of Lamberg's head last night, between eight and midnight. It doesn't seem to be a case of burglary. That's about all we know.'

  'Not much,' Hansson said.

  'No,' Wallander answered, and stood up. 'It could hardly be any less.'

  The meeting with the press was largely improvised, and short. Wallander gave a sketch of what was known and brief answers to individual questions. The whole thing was over in half an hour. The time had become half past three. Wallander noticed that he was hungry. But the picture in Simon Lamberg's album remained on his mind the whole time, worrying him. The question gnawed at him: why had he been chosen to have his face shrunken and deformed? He sensed that this was the work of an insane person. But still, why him?

  At a quarter to four he decided that it was time to go to Lavendelvägen, where the Lambergs lived. When he left the station, the rain had stopped. The wind, however, had picked up. He wondered if he should try to get hold of Svedberg and bring him along. But he let this stay as a thought. What he most of all wanted was to meet with Elisabeth Lamberg alone. There was a great deal that he wanted to talk to her about. But one of the questions was more important than the others.

  He found his way up to Lavendelvägen and got out of the car. The house lay within a garden that he could see was well tended, despite the empty flower beds. He rang the doorbell. It was opened almost immediately by a woman in her fifties. Wallander stretched out his hand and said hello. The woman seemed guarded.

  'I'm not Elisabeth Lamberg,' she said. 'I'm a friend. My name is Karin Fahlman.'

  She let him into the hall.

  'Elisabeth is resting in the bedroom,' she said. 'I take it this conversation can't wait?'

  'No, unfortunately. When it comes to apprehending whoever committed this crime, it's important not to lose any time.'

  Karin Fahlman nodded and showed him into the living room. Then she left without a sound.

  Wallander looked around the room. The first thing that struck him was how quiet it was. No clocks. No sounds from the street penetrated inside. Through a window he saw some children playing, but he could not hear them even though it was obvious they were shouting and screaming. He walked over and inspected the window. It was doubleglazed and appeared to be a particular model that was extremely soundproof.

  He walked around the room. It was tastefully furnished, neither tacky nor overdone. A mixture of old and new. Copies of old woodcuts.

  A whole wall covered with books.

  He did not hear her enter the room. But suddenly she was there, right behind him. He gave an involuntary start. She was very pale, almost as if her face bore a thin layer of white make-up. She had dark and straight short hair. Wallander thought she had probably been very beautiful at one time.

  'I'm sorry to have to disturb you,' he said and stretched out his hand.

  'I know who you are,' she said. 'And I do understand that you have to come here.'

  'I can start by expressing my condolences.'

  'Thank you.'

  Wallander could see that she was doing her utmost to remain collected. He wondered how long she would be able to do this before she lost control.

  They sat down. Wallander caught sight of Karin Fahlman in a nearby room. He assumed she was sitting there in order to listen to their conversation. For a moment he thought about how to begin. But he was interrupted in his thinking by Elisabeth Lamberg posing the first question.

  'Do you know anything about who killed my husband?'

  'We have no direct leads to follow. But there isn't much to support it being a burglary. This means either your husband must have let the person in or the person had keys.'

  She shook her head energetically, as if she violently opposed what Wallander had just said.

  'Simon was always very careful. He would not have let in an unknown person, least of all at night.'

  'But for someone he knew?'

  'Who would that have been?'

  'I don't know. Everyone has friends.'

  'Simon went to Lund once a month. There was an association for amateur astronomers there. He was on the board. That was the only social outlet he had, as far as I know.'

  Wallander realised that Svedberg had missed a very important question.

  'Do you have any children?'

  'A daughter. Matilda.'

  Something in the way she answered put Wallander on his guard. The faint change in tone had not escaped him. As if the question bothered her. He went on hesitantly.

  'How old is she?'

  'Twenty-four.'

  'She no longer lives at home?'

  Elisabeth Lamberg looked him straight in the eye as she answered.

  'When Matilda was born she was seriously handicapped. We had her home for four years. Then it didn't work any more. Now she lives in an institution. She needs help with absolutely everything.'

  Wallander was taken aback. Exactly what he had been expecting, he couldn't say, but it was hardly the answer he had received.

  She continued to look him right in the eye.

  'It was not my decision. It was Simon who wanted it. Not me. He made the decision.'

  For one moment Wallander felt as if he were staring straight down into a bottomless pit. Her pain was that strong.

  Wallander sat quietly for a long time before he went on.

  'Can you think of anyone who would have had any reason to kill your husband?'

  Her answers continued to astonish him.

  'After that happened, I didn't know him any more.'

  'Even though it was twenty years ago?'

  'Some things never heal.'

  'But you were still married?'

  'We lived under the same roof. That was all.'

  Wallander thought about it before continuing.

  'So you have no idea who the murderer could be?'

  'No.'

  'Nor can you think of a motive?'

  'No.'

  Wallander now tackled the most important question head-on.

  'When I arrived you said you knew me. Can you remember if your husband ever talked about me?'

  She raised her eyebrows.