One Step Behind

"By the friend's supposed homosexuality?"

"By homosexuality in general. It was very unpleasant. I had always considered him a tolerant person."

"What happened after that?"

"Nothing. We never spoke of it again."

Wallander thought for a moment. "How do you think we could go about finding this Louise?"

"I have no idea."

"Since he never left Ystad, she must live here or in the near vicinity."

"I suppose so."

She looked at her watch.

"When do you have to be at work?" Wallander asked.

"In half an hour. I don't like to be late."

"Just like Karl Evert. He was always very punctual."

"Yes, he was. What's that saying? Someone you could set your watch by."

"What kind of a person was he, really?"

"You've already asked me that."

"Well, I'm asking you again."

"He was nice."

"How do you mean?"

"Nice. A nice person. I don't know how else to put it. He was a nice person who could sometimes fly into a rage, although that didn't happen very often. He was a little shy. Dutiful. Some people probably thought him boring. He might have seemed a bit aloof and slow, but he was intelligent."

Wallander thought her description of Svedberg was accurate and close to something he might have said if their roles had been reversed.

"Who was his best friend?"

Her answer shocked him.

"I thought you were."

"Me?"

"He always said so. 'Kurt Wallander is the best friend I have.'"

Wallander was dumbstruck. For him Svedberg had always been a colleague. They never saw each other outside of work. He hadn't become a friend in the way that Rydberg had been, and that Höglund was slowly becoming.

"That comes as quite a surprise," he said finally. "I didn't think of him in that way."

"But he may have considered you his best friend, regardless of what you thought."

"Of course."

Wallander suddenly realised how lonely Svedberg must have been. His definition of friendship had been grounded on the lowest common denominator, an absence of animosity. He stared into the tape recorder, then forced himself to continue.

"Did he have any other friends or people he spent a lot of time with?"

"He was in contact with a society for the study of Native American culture. I think it was called 'Indian Science'. But their activities were mainly conducted by correspondence."

"Anything else?"

"Sometimes he mentioned a retired bank director who lives in town. They shared an interest in astronomy."

"What was his name?"

She thought for a moment. "Sundelius. Bror Sundelius. I never met him myself."

Wallander made a note of the name.

"Anyone else you can think of?"

"Just me and my husband."

Wallander changed the subject.

"Do you recall anything unusual during his last weeks? Was he anxious, or did he seem distracted?"

"He didn't say anything except that he felt overworked."

"But he didn't say why?"

"No."

Wallander realised he had forgotten to ask her something. "Did it surprise you that he said he was overworked?"

"No, not at all."

"So he usually mentioned how he was feeling?"

"I should have thought of this before," she said. "There's one more thing I would add to my description of him – that he was a hypochondriac. The smallest little ache would worry him enormously. And he was terrified of germs."

Wallander could see him, the way he was always ru

"Did he own any weapons?"

"Not that I know of."

"Is there anything else you would like to tell me, anything that seems important?"

"I'm going to miss him. Maybe he wasn't such an extraordinary person, but he was the most honourable person I knew. I'm going to miss him."

Wallander turned off the tape recorder and followed her out. For a moment she seemed helpless.

"What am I going to do about the funeral?" she asked. "Sture thinks the dead should be scattered to the wind without priests and rites. But I don't know what his own thoughts were."

"He didn't leave a will?"

"Not that I know of. I'm sure he would have told me."

"Did he have a safe-deposit box at the bank?"

"No."

"Would you have known about it?"

"Yes."

"The police will attend the funeral, of course," Wallander said. "I'll ask Lisa Holgersson to be in touch."

Ylva Brink went out through the front glass doors. Wallander returned to his office. Yet another name had cropped up: Bror Sundelius. As Wallander looked him up in the phone book, he thought about the conversation with Ylva Brink. What had she really told him that he hadn't already known? That Louise was a well-kept secret. A well-guarded secret, Wallander thought.

He made some notes to himself. Why would you keep a woman secret for so long? Ylva Brink had told him about Svedberg's strong aversion to homosexuality, and about his hypochondria. She had also said he met with a retired bank director from time to time to study the night sky. Wallander laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair. For the most part, his picture of Svedberg remained the same. The only revelation was this woman, Louise. And nothing seemed to point to an explanation of his death. He felt that he suddenly saw the whole drama clearly in front of him. Svedberg had failed to show up for work because he was already dead. He had caught a burglar by surprise who shot him on the spot, then fled with the telescope in his arms. The crime was unpremeditated, banal and horrifying. There was no other possible explanation.

It was 8.10 p.m. Wallander called Lisa Holgersson at home. She wanted to talk about the funeral and he told her to contact Ylva Brink. Then he told her what they had learned over the course of the afternoon. He also told her that he was starting to lean towards the violent-and-heavily-drugged-burglar theory.

"The national chief of police has called me," she said. "He wanted to express his condolences and his concern."

"In that order?"

"Yes, thank God."

Wallander told her he had arranged a meeting the next morning at 9 a.m., and promised to keep her abreast of any developments. After he'd hung up, Wallander dialled the number for Sundelius, but there was no answer or even an answerphone.

Once he put the phone down again he felt somewhat at a loss. Where should he go from here? He felt a growing impatience, but knew he had to wait for the autopsy report and the forensic evidence to come in.

He started to replay the conversation with Ylva Brink and thought about the last thing she had said, that Svedberg was honourable. There was a knock at the door and Martinsson entered.

"There's a bunch of impatient reporters at the door," he said. Wallander made a face.

"We don't have anything new to tell them."

"I think they'll make do with something old, just as long as they get something."

"Can't you send them away for now? Promise them a press conference as soon as we feel we have something to report."

"Have you forgotten the orders that came from on high instructing us to get along smoothly with the press?" Martinsson said, his voice heavy with irony.

Wallander hadn't forgotten. The national chief of police had recently issued directives to improve relations between the various police districts and local media. Reporters were now to be welcomed and treated with kid gloves.

Wallander got up heavily. "I'll talk to them," he said.

It took him 20 minutes to convince the reporters that he had no new information to give them. He almost lost his temper towards the end, when they continued to regard his claim with suspicion. But he managed to control himself and the reporters finally left. He got a cup of coffee from the canteen and went back to his office. He called Sundelius once more without success.