The Pyramid

by Henning Mankell

  Radwan came back. He gave Wallander a sign to follow him. They walked down an endless succession of winding corridors, up and down stairs, and at last stopped outside a door where a policeman was standing guard. Radwan nodded and the door opened. Then he signalled for Wallander to step inside.

  'I'll be back in half an hour,' he said and left.

  Wallander stepped inside. Inside the room, which was illuminated by the ubiquitous neon tubes, were a table and two chairs. His father was sitting on one of them, dressed in a shirt and trousers but barefoot. His hair was sticking up. Wallander suddenly felt pity for him.

  'Hello, old man,' he said. 'How are you?'

  His father looked at him without the slightest trace of surprise.

  'I intend to protest,' he said.

  'Protest what?'

  'That they prevent people from climbing the pyramids.'

  'I think we should wait on that protest,' Wallander said. 'The most important thing right now is for me to get you out of here.'

  'I am not paying any fines,' his father replied angrily. 'I want to wait out my punishment instead. Two years, they said. That will go by quickly.'

  Wallander quickly considered getting angry, but that could simply egg his father on.

  'Egyptian prisons are probably not particularly comfortable,' he said carefully. 'No prisons are. I also doubt they would allow you to paint in your cell.'

  His father stared back at him in silence. Apparently he had not considered this possibility.

  He nodded and stood up.

  'Let's go then,' he said. 'Do you have the money to pay the fine?'

  'Sit down,' Wallander said. 'I don't think it's quite that simple. That you can just stand up and leave.'

  'Why not? I haven't done anything wrong.'

  'According to what I understand, you tried to climb the Cheops pyramid.'

  'That was why I came here. Ordinary tourists can stand among the camels and look. I wanted to stand on the top.'

  'That's not allowed. It's also very dangerous. And what would happen if everyone started to climb all over the pyramids?'

  'I'm not talking about everyone else, I'm talking about me.'

  Wallander realised it was futile to try to reason with his father. At the same time he couldn't help but be impressed with his intractability.

  'I'm here now,' Wallander said. 'I'll try to get you out tomorrow. Or later today. I'll pay the fine and then it's over. We'll leave this place, go to the hotel and get your suitcase. Then we'll fly home.'

  'I've paid for my room until the twenty-first.'

  Wallander nodded patiently.

  'Fine. I'm going home. You stay. But if you climb the pyramids one more time you're on your own.'

  'I never got that far,' his father said. 'It was difficult. And steep.'

  'Why did you want to get to the top?'

  His father hesitated before answering.

  'It's a dream I've had all these years. That's all. I think that one should be faithful to one's dreams.'

  The conversation died away. Several minutes later Radwan returned. He offered Wallander's father a cigarette and lit it for him.

  'Have you started smoking now?'

  'Only when I'm in jail. Never anywhere else.'

  Wallander turned to Radwan.

  'I assume there's no possibility that I can take my father with me now?'

  'He must appear before the court today at ten o'clock. The judge will most likely accept the fine.'

  'Most likely?'

  'Nothing is certain,' Radwan said. 'But we have to hope for the best.'

  Wallander said goodbye to his father. Radwan followed him out to a patrol car that was waiting to take him back to the hotel. It was now six o'clock.

  'I will send a car to pick you up a little after nine,' Radwan said as they parted. 'One should always help a foreign colleague.'

  Wallander thanked him and got into the car. Again he was thrown back against the seat as it sped off, sirens blaring.

  At half past six Wallander ordered a wake-up call and collapsed naked on the bed. I have to get him out, he thought. If he ends up in prison he'll die.

  Wallander sank into a restless slumber but was awakened by the sun rising over the horizon. He had a shower and dressed. He was already down to his last clean shirt.

  He walked out. It was cooler now, in the morning. Suddenly he stopped. Now he saw the pyramids. He stood absolutely still. The feeling of their enormity was overwhelming. He walked away from the hotel and up the hill that led to the entrance to the Giza plateau. Along the way he was offered rides on both donkeys and camels. But he walked. Deep down he understood his father. One should stay faithful to one's dreams. How faithful had he been to his own? He stopped close to the entrance and looked at the pyramids. Imagined his father climbing up the steeply inclined walls.

  He ended up standing there for a long time before he returned to the hotel and had breakfast. At nine o'clock he was outside the hotel entrance, waiting. The patrol car arrived after several minutes. Traffic was heavy and the sirens were on as usual. Wallander crossed the Nile for the fourth time. He saw now that he was in a huge metropolis, incalculable, clamorous.

  The court was on a street by the name of Al Azhar. Radwan was standing on the steps, smoking, as the car pulled up.

  'I hope you had a few hours of sleep,' he said. 'It is not good for a person to go without sleep.'

  They walked into the building.

  'Your father is already here.'

  'Does he have a defence lawyer?' Wallander asked.

  'He has a court-assigned assistant. This is a court for minor offences.'

  'But he could still receive two years in prison?'

  'There is a big difference between a death sentence and two years,' Radwan said thoughtfully.

  They walked into the courtroom. Some cleaners were walking around, dusting.

  'Your father's case is the first of the day,' Radwan said.

  Then his father was led in. Wallander stared horrified at him. His father was in handcuffs. Tears welled up in Wallander's eyes. Radwan glanced at him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  A lone judge walked in and sat down. A prosecutor seemed to appear out of thin air and rattled off a long tirade that Wallander assumed to be the charges. Radwan leaned over.

  'It looks good,' he whispered. 'He claims that your father is old and confused.'

  As long as no one translates that, Wallander thought. Then he really will go crazy.

  The prosecutor sat down. The court assistant made a very brief statement.

  'He is making the case for a fine,' Radwan whispered. 'I have informed the court that you are here, that you are his son and that you are a policeman.'

  The assistant sat down. Wallander saw that his father wanted to say something. But the court assistant shook his head.

  The judge struck the table with his gavel and uttered a few words.

  Then he banged the gavel again, got up and left.

  'A fine,' Radwan said and patted Wallander on the shoulder. 'It can be paid here in the courtroom. Then your father is free to go.'

  Wallander took out the bag inside his shirt.

  Radwan led him to a table where a man calculated the sum from British pounds into Egyptian pounds. Almost all of Wallander's money disappeared. He received an illegible receipt for the amount. Radwan made sure his father's handcuffs were removed.

  'I hope that the rest of your journey is pleasant,' Radwan said and shook both their hands. 'But it is not advisable for your father to attempt to climb the pyramids again.'

  Radwan had a patrol car take them back to the hotel. Wallander made a note of Radwan's address. He realised that this would not have been so easy without Radwan's help. In some way he wanted to thank him. Perhaps it would be most appropriate to send him a painting with a wood grouse?

  His father was in high spirits and commented on everything that they drove past. Wallander was simply tired.

  'Now I will s
how you the pyramids,' his father said happily when they reached the hotel.

  'Not right now,' Wallander said. 'I need to sleep for a few hours. You too. Then we'll look at the pyramids. When I've booked my return flight.'

  His father looked intently at him.

  'I must say that you surprise me. That you spared no expense in flying out here and getting me out. I would not have thought that of you.'

  Wallander did not answer.

  'Go to bed,' he said. 'I'll meet you here at two o'clock.'

  Wallander did not manage to fall asleep. After writhing on his bed for an hour he went to the reception desk and asked them for help in booking his return flight. He was directed to a travel agency located in another part of the hotel. There he was assisted by an unbelievably beautiful woman who spoke perfect English. She managed to get him a seat on the plane that was leaving Cairo the following day, the eighteenth of December, at nine o'clock. Since the plane only stopped in Frankfurt, he would already be in Kastrup at two o'clock that afternoon. After he had confirmed his seat, it was only one o'clock. He sat down in a cafe next to the lobby and drank some water and a cup of very hot coffee that was much too sweet. At exactly two o'clock his father appeared. He was wearing his pith helmet.

  Together they explored the Giza plateau in the intense heat. Wallander thought several times that he was going to faint. But his father seemed unaffected by the heat. Down by the Sphinx Wallander at last found some shade. His father narrated and Wallander realised that he knew a great deal about the Egypt of old where the pyramids and the remarkable Sphinx had once been built.

  It was close to six o'clock when they finally returned to the hotel. Since he was travelling very early the next morning they decided to eat dinner in the hotel, where there were several restaurants to choose from. At his father's suggestion they booked a table at an Indian restaurant and Wallander thought afterwards that he had rarely had such a good meal. His father had been pleasant the entire time and Wallander understood that he had now dismissed all thoughts of climbing the pyramids.

  They parted at eleven. Wallander would be leaving the hotel at six.

  'Of course I'll get up and see you off,' his father said.

  'I'd rather you didn't,' Wallander said. 'Neither of us likes goodbyes.'

  'Thank you for coming here,' his father said. 'You're probably right about it being hard to spend two years in prison without being able to paint.'

  'Come home on the twenty-first and everything will be forgotten,' Wallander answered.

  'The next time we'll go to Italy,' his father said and walked away towards his room.

  That night Wallander slept heavily. At six o'clock he sat in the taxi and crossed the Nile for the sixth and hopefully final time. The plane left at the assigned time and he landed in Kastrup on time. He took a taxi to the ferries and was in Malmö at a quarter to four. He ran to the station and just made a train to Ystad. He walked home to Mariagatan, changed his clothes and walked in through the front doors of the station at half past six. The damaged hinge had been replaced. Björk knows where to set his priorities, he thought grimly. Martinsson's and Svedberg's offices were empty, but Hansson was in. Wallander told him about his trip in broad strokes. But first he asked how Rydberg was doing.

  'He's supposed to be coming in tomorrow,' Hansson said. 'That was what Martinsson said.'

  Wallander immediately felt relieved. Apparently it had not been as serious as they had feared.

  'And here?' he asked. 'The investigation?'

  'There has been another important development,' Hansson said. 'But that has to do with the plane that crashed.'

  'What is it?'

  'Yngve Leonard Holm has been found murdered. In the woods outside Sjöbo.'

  Wallander sat down.

  'But that isn't all,' Hansson said. 'He hasn't only been murdered. He was shot in the back of the head, just like the Eberhardsson sisters.'

  Wallander held his breath.

  He had not expected this. That a connection would suddenly appear between the crashed plane and the two murdered women who had been found in the remains of a devastating fire.

  He looked at Hansson.

  What does it mean, he thought. What is the significance of what Hansson is telling me?

  All at once the trip to Cairo felt very distant.

  CHAPTER 9

  At ten o'clock in the morning on the nineteenth of December, Wallander called the bank and asked if he could increase his loan by another twenty thousand kronor. He lied and said he had misheard the price of the car he intended to buy. The bank loan officer replied that it shouldn't present any difficulties. Wallander could come by and sign the loan documents and collect the money the same day. After Wallander hung up the phone, he called Arne, who was selling him the car, and arranged for him to deliver the new Peugeot to Mariagatan at one o'clock. Arne would also either try to bring the old one to life or tow it back to his garage.

  Wallander made these two calls right after the morning meeting. They had met for two hours, starting at a quarter to eight. But Wallander had been at the station since seven o'clock. The night before, when he had learned that Yngve Leonard Holm had been murdered and that there was a possible connection between him and the Eberhardsson sisters, or at least with their killer, he had perked up and sat with Hansson for close to an hour, learning all the available facts. But then he had suddenly felt exhausted. He had gone home and stretched out on the bed in order to rest before undressing but had fallen asleep and slept through the night. When he woke up at half past five he felt restored. He stayed in bed for a while and thought about his trip to Cairo, which was already a distant memory.

  When he reached the station, Rydberg was already there. They went to the break room, where they found several bleary-eyed officers who had just finished the night shift. Rydberg had tea and rusks. Wallander sat down across from him.

  'I heard you went to Egypt,' Rydberg said. 'How were the pyramids?'

  'High,' Wallander said. 'Very strange.'

  'And your father?'

  'He could have gone to prison. But I got him out by paying almost ten thousand kronor in fines.'

  Rydberg laughed.

  'My dad was a horse-trader,' he said. 'Have I told you that?'

  'You've never said anything about your parents.'

  'He sold horses. Travelled around to markets, checking the teeth, and was apparently a devil at inflating the price. That old stereotype about the horse-trader's wallet is actually true. My dad had one of those filled with thousand-kronor notes. But I wonder if he even knew that the pyramids were in Egypt. It's even less likely that he knew the capital was Cairo. He was completely uneducated. There was only one thing he knew and that was horses. And possibly women. All his dalliances drove my mother crazy.'

  'One has the parents one has,' Wallander said. 'How are you feeling?'

  'Something is wrong,' Rydberg said firmly. 'One doesn't collapse like that from rheumatism. Something is wrong. But I don't know what it is. And right now I'm more interested in this Holm who got a bullet in the back of his head.'