The Pyramid

by Henning Mankell

  At around two o'clock, Wallander felt they had to move on. Not least for his own sake. When he saw what had happened to Rydberg he had thought about what could happen to himself. How long would his own heart put up with the strain? All the unhealthy food, the frequently recurring bouts of broken and lost sleep? And, above all, his grief after the divorce.

  'Rydberg would not approve of this,' he said. 'That we're wasting time talking about our situation. We'll have to do that later. Right now we have a double murderer to catch. As soon as we possibly can.'

  They ended the meeting. Wallander went to his office and called the hospital. He was told that Rydberg was sleeping. It was still premature to expect an explanation for what had happened.

  Wallander hung up the phone, and Martinsson walked in.

  'What happened?' he asked. 'I've been in Sjöbo. Ebba was all shaken up out there.'

  Wallander told him. Martinsson sat down heavily in the visitor's chair.

  'We work ourselves to death,' he said. 'And who appreciates it?'

  Wallander became impatient. He didn't want to think about Rydberg any more, at least not right now.

  'Sjöbo,' he said. 'What do you have for me?'

  'I've been out in a variety of muddy fields,' Martinsson replied. 'We've been able to pinpoint the location of those lights quite well. But there were no traces anywhere of either spotlights or marks from a plane landing or taking off. On the other hand, some information has turned up that probably explains why this aeroplane couldn't be identified.'

  'And what is it?'

  'It simply doesn't exist.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Martinsson took a while to search through the papers he had taken out of his briefcase.

  'According to the records of the Piper factory, this plane crashed in Vientiane in 1986. The owner back then was a Laotian consortium that used it to transport its managers to various agricultural centres around the country. The official cause of the crash was listed as a lack of fuel. No one was injured or killed. But the plane was wrecked and removed from all active registers and from the insurance company, which apparently was a kind of daughter company to Lloyd's. This is what we know after looking up the engine registration number.'

  'But that turned out not to be correct?'

  'The Piper factory is naturally very interested in what has happened. It's not good for their reputation if a plane that no longer exists suddenly starts to fly again. This could be a case of insurance fraud and other things that we have no idea about.'

  'And the men in the plane?'

  'We're still waiting for them to be identified. I have a couple of good contacts in Interpol. They've promised to expedite the matter.'

  'The plane must have come from somewhere,' Wallander said.

  Martinsson nodded.

  'That gives us yet another problem. If you refurbish a plane with extra fuel tanks, it's able to fly long distances. Nyberg thinks he may have identified the remains of something that could have been a spare fuel tank. But we don't know yet. If this is the case, the plane could have come from virtually anywhere. At least Britain and Continental Europe.'

  'But it must have been observed by someone,' Wallander insisted. 'You can't cross borders with complete impunity.'

  'I agree,' Martinsson said. 'Therefore Germany would be an educated guess, because you fly over open water until you reach the Swedish border.'

  'What do the German aviation authorities say?'

  'It takes time,' Martinsson said. 'But I'm working on it.'

  Wallander reflected for a moment.

  'We actually need you on this double homicide,' he said. 'Can you delegate this work to someone else? At least while we wait on a positive identification of the pilots, and whether the plane came from Germany?'

  'I was about to suggest the same thing,' Martinsson said.

  Wallander checked the time.

  'Ask Hansson or Svedberg to get you up to speed on the case,' he said.

  Martinsson got out of the chair.

  'Have you heard from your father?'

  'He doesn't call without a good reason.'

  'My father died when he was fifty-five,' Martinsson said abruptly. 'He had his own business. A car-repairs shop. He had to work constantly in order to make ends meet. Right when things were starting to look up, he died. He wouldn't have been more than sixtyseven now.'

  Martinsson left. Wallander did his best to avoid thinking about Rydberg. Instead he again reviewed everything they knew about the Eberhardsson sisters. They had a likely motive – money – but no trace of the killer. Wallander jotted a few words on his notepad.

  The double life of the Eberhardsson sisters?

  Then he pushed the pad away. When Rydberg was out, they lacked their best instrument. If an investigative team is like an orchestra, Wallander thought, we've lost our first violinist. And then the orchestra doesn't sound as good.

  At that moment he made up his mind to have his own talk with the neighbour who had provided the information about Anna Eberhardsson. Svedberg was often too impatient when he talked to people about what they might have seen or heard. It's also a matter of finding out what people think, Wallander said to himself. He found the name of the neighbour, Linnea Gunnér. Only women in this case, he thought. He dialled her phone number and heard her pick up. Linnea Gunnér was at home and happy to receive him. She gave him the code to the front door of her building and he made a note of it.

  He left the station shortly after three o'clock and kicked the damaged hinge again. The dent was getting worse. When he reached the scene of the fire, he saw that the ruins of the building were already in the process of being razed. There were still many curious onlookers gathered around the site.

  Linnea Gunnér lived on Möllegatan. Wallander entered the door code and took the stairs to the first floor. The house dated back to the turn of the century and had beautiful designs on the walls of its stairwell. On the door to Gunnér's apartment was posted a large sign about residents not wishing to receive any advertisements. Wallander rang the bell. The woman who opened the door was the opposite of Tyra Olofsson in almost every way. She was tall, with a sharp gaze and a firm voice. She invited him into her apartment, which was filled with objects from all over the world. In the living room there was even a ship's figurehead. Wallander looked at it for a long time.

  'This belonged to the barque Felicia, which sank in the Irish Sea,' Linnea Gunnér said. 'I bought it once for an insignificant sum in Middlesbrough.'

  'Then you've been at sea?' he asked.

  'My whole life. First as a chef, then as a steward.'

  She did not speak with a Skåne dialect. Wallander thought she sounded more as if she came from Småland or Östergötland.

  'Where are you from?' he asked.

  'Skänninge in Östergötland. About as far from the sea as one can get.'

  'And now you live in Ystad?'

  'I inherited this apartment from an aunt. And I have a view of the sea.'

  She had put out coffee. Wallander thought it was probably the last thing his stomach needed. But he still said yes. He had immediately felt he could trust Linnea Gunnér. He had read in Svedberg's notes that she was sixty-six years old. But she appeared younger.

  'My colleague Svedberg was here,' Wallander started.

  She burst into laughter.

  'I have never seen someone scratch his forehead as often as that man.'

  Wallander nodded.

  'We all have our ways. For example, I always think there are more questions to be asked than one may initially think.'

  'I only told him about my impressions of Anna.'

  'And Emilia?'

  'They were different. Anna spoke in quick, choppy bursts. Emilia was quieter. But they were equally disagreeable. Equally introverted.'

  'How well did you know them?'

  'I didn't. Sometimes we bumped into each other on the street. Then we would exchange a few words. But never more than was necessary. Since I like
to embroider, I often went to their shop. I always got what I needed. If something had to be ordered, it arrived quickly. But they were not pleasant.'

  'Sometimes one needs time,' Wallander said. 'Time to allow one's memory to catch things one thought one had forgotten.'

  'What would that be?'

  'I don't know. You know. An unexpected event. Something that went against their habits.'

  She thought about it. Wallander studied an impressive brass-inlaid compass on a bureau.

  'My memory has never been good,' she said finally. 'But now that you mention it, I do remember something that happened last year. In the spring, I think it was. But I can't say if it's important.'

  'Anything could be important,' Wallander said.

  'It was one afternoon. I needed some thread. Blue thread, as I recall. I walked down to the shop. Both Emilia and Anna were behind the counter. Just as I was about to pay for the thread, a man entered the shop. I remember that he started, as if he hadn't been expecting anyone else to be in the shop. And Anna became angry. She gave Emilia a look that could kill. Then the man left. He had a bag in his hand. I paid for my thread and then I left.'

  'Could you describe him?'

  'He was not what one would call Swedish-looking. Swarthy, on the short side. A black moustache.'

  'How was he dressed?'

  'A suit. I think it was of good quality.'

  'And the bag?'

  'An ordinary black briefcase.'

  'Nothing else?'

  She thought back.

  'Nothing that I can recall.'

  'You only saw him that one time?'

  'Yes.'

  Wallander knew that what he had just heard was important. He could not yet determine what it meant. But it strengthened his impression that the sisters had led a double existence. He was slowly penetrating below the surface.

  Wallander thanked her for the coffee.

  'What was it that happened?' she asked when they were standing in the hall. 'I woke up with my room on fire. The light from the flames was so bright that I thought my own apartment was burning.'

  'Anna and Emilia were murdered,' Wallander answered. 'They were dead when the fire started.'

  'Who would have wanted to do something like that?'

  'I would hardly be here if I knew the answer,' Wallander said and took his leave.

  When he came back out onto the street he stopped for a while next to the scene of the fire and watched absently as a backhoe filled a truck with rubble. He tried to visualise the case clearly. Do what Rydberg had taught him. To enter a room where death had wreaked havoc and try to write the drama backwards. But here there is not even a room, Wallander thought. There is nothing.

  He started walking back in the direction of Hamngatan. In the building next to Linnea Gunnér's there was a travel agency. He stopped when he noticed a poster in the window that depicted the pyramids. His father would be home again in four days. Wallander felt he had been unfair. Why couldn't he be happy that his father was realising one of his oldest dreams? Wallander looked at the other posters in the window. Majorca, Crete, Spain.

  Suddenly something occurred to him. He opened the door and walked in. Both of the sales agents were busy. Wallander sat down to wait. When the first of them, a young woman hardly older than twenty, became free he got up and sat down at her desk. He had to wait a couple of minutes longer as she answered the phone. He saw from a nameplate on the desk that her name was Anette Bengtsson. She put down the receiver and smiled.

  'Do you want to get away?' she asked. 'There are still spaces left around Christmas and New Year.'

  'My errand is of a different nature,' Wallander said and held up his ID card. 'You have of course heard that two old ladies burned to death across the street from here.'

  'Yes, it's terrible.'

  'Did you know them?'

  He received the answer he had been hoping for.

  'They booked their trips through us. It's so awful that they're gone. Emilia was planning to travel in January. And Anna in April.'

  Wallander nodded slowly.

  'Where were they going?' he asked.

  'To the same place as always. Spain.'

  'More precisely?'

  'To Marbella. They had a house there.'

  What she said next surprised Wallander even more.

  'I've seen it,' she said. 'I went to Marbella last year. We have ongoing professional training. There's stiff competition between travel agencies these days. One day when I had time, I drove out and looked at their house. I knew the address.'

  'Was it large?'

  'It was palatial. With a huge garden. High walls all around, and guards.'

  'I would appreciate it if you could write down the address for me,' Wallander said, unable to conceal his eagerness.

  She looked through her folders and then wrote it down.

  'You said that Emilia was planning to travel in January?'

  She entered something into her computer.

  'The seventh of January,' she said. 'From Kastrup at 9.05 a.m., via Madrid.'

  Wallander helped himself to a pencil from her desk and made a note.

  'So she didn't take charter trips?'

  'Neither of them did. They travelled first class.'

  That's right, Wallander thought. These ladies were loaded.

  She told him which airline Emilia had booked her flight with. Iberia, Wallander wrote.

  'I don't know what happens now,' she said. 'The ticket has been paid for.'

  'I'm sure it will sort itself out,' Wallander said. 'How did they pay for their travel, by the way?'

  'Always in cash. In thousand-kronor notes.'

  Wallander slipped his notes into his pocket and got up.

  'You've been a great help,' he said. 'The next time I travel anywhere I'll come and book my trip here. But for me that will mean charter.'

  It was close to four o'clock. Wallander walked past the bank, where he was due to pick up his loan documents and money for the car tomorrow. He braced himself against the wind as he crossed the square. He made it back to the station by twenty past four. Again he directed a ritual kick at the hinge. Ebba told him that Hansson and Svedberg were out. But, more important, she had called the hospital and been able to speak to Rydberg. He had said that he was feeling fine. But he was being kept in overnight.

  'I'll go look in on him.'

  'That was the last thing he said,' Ebba replied. 'That under no circumstances did he want to have any visitors or phone calls. And absolutely no flowers.'

  'Well, that doesn't surprise me,' Wallander said. 'If you think about how he is.'

  'You all work too hard, eat too much junk and don't get enough exercise.'