The Pyramid

Rydberg was single. He did not have much of a social life and did not appear to want one. Wallander was still, after all these years, not sure if Rydberg actually had any interests apart from his work.

On the occasional warm evening in early summer, they would sometimes get together and sit on Rydberg's balcony and drink whisky. Often in a pleasant silence that was broken from time to time with some comment about work.

'Martinsson is trying to establish some clarity with regard to the time of the events,' Wallander said. 'Then it seems to me that we have to find out why the control tower at Sturup didn't raise the alarm.'

'You mean, why the pilot didn't raise the alarm,' Rydberg corrected him.

'Maybe he didn't have time?'

'It doesn't take many seconds to send an SOS,' Rydberg said. 'But you must be right. The plane would have been flying in an assigned air lane. If it wasn't flying illegally, of course.'

'Illegally?'

Rydberg shrugged.

'You know the rumours,' he said. 'People hear aeroplane noise at night. Low-flying, darkened planes slipping covertly into these areas close to the border. At least that's how it was during the Cold War. Perhaps it's not completely over yet. Sometimes we get reports about suspected espionage. And then you can always question if all drugs actually come in by way of the sound. We will never know for sure about this plane. It may simply be our imagination. But if you fly low enough you escape the defence department's radar. And the control tower.'

'I'll drive in and talk to Sturup,' Wallander said.

'Wrong,' Rydberg said. 'I'll do that. I leave this mud to you, by the rights of my old age.'

Rydberg left. It was starting to get light. One of the technicians was photographing the wreck from various angles. Peter Edler had delegated his responsibilities to someone else and returned to Ystad in one of the fire engines.

Wallander saw Hansson talking to several reporters down on the dirt road. He was happy not to have to do it himself. Then he spotted Martinsson tramping back through the mud. Wallander walked over to meet him.

'You were right,' Martinsson said. 'There's an old man in there who lives by himself. Robert Haverberg. Seventies, alone with nine dogs. To be honest, it smelled like hell in there.'

'What did he say?'

'He heard the roar of a plane. Then it got quiet. And then the sound returned. But at that point it sounded more like a whine. And then he heard the crash.'

Wallander often felt that Martinsson was bad at formulating simple and clear explanations.

'Let's go over this again,' Wallander said. 'Robert Haverberg heard the engine noise?'

'Yes.'

'When was this?'

'He had just woken up. Sometime around five o'clock.'

Wallander frowned.

'But the plane crashed half an hour later?'

'That's what I said. But he was very firm on this point. First he heard the sound of a passing plane, at a low altitude. Then it grew quiet. He made some coffee. And then the sound returned, and then the explosion.'

Wallander reflected on this. What Martinsson had told him was clearly significant.

'How much time elapsed between the first time he heard the sound and the subsequent crash?'

'We worked out that it must have taken around twenty minutes.'

Wallander looked at Martinsson.

'How do you account for that?'

'I don't know.'

'Did the old man seem sharp?'

'Yes. He also has good hearing.'

'Do you have a map in your car?' Wallander asked.

Martinsson nodded. They walked up to the dirt road where Hansson was still talking with the media. One of them saw Wallander and started approaching him. Wallander waved dismissively.

'I have nothing to say,' he called out.

They got into Martinsson's car and unfolded the map. Wallander studied it in silence. He thought about what Rydberg had said, about aeroplanes on illegal missions, beyond authorised air lanes and control towers.

'One could imagine the following,' Wallander said. 'A plane comes in low over the coast, passes by and continues out of earshot. Returns shortly thereafter. And then it goes straight down.'

'You mean it dropped something off somewhere? And then turned back?' Martinsson asked.

'Something like that.'

Wallander folded the map back up.

'We know too little. Rydberg is on his way to Sturup. Then we have to try to identify the bodies, as well as the plane itself. We can't do any more at the moment.'

'I've always been a nervous flyer,' Martinsson said. 'It doesn't exactly help to see things like this. But it's even worse when Teres talks about becoming a pilot.'

Teres was Martinsson's daughter. He also had a son. Martinsson was a real family man. He was always worried that something might have happened and called home several times a day. Often he went home for lunch. Sometimes Wallander was a little envious of his colleague's seemingly problem-free marriage.

'Tell Nyberg we're going now,' he said to Martinsson.

Wallander waited in the car. The landscape around him was grey and desolate. He shivered. Life goes on, he thought. I've just turned forty-two. Will I end up like Rydberg? A lonely old man with rheumatism?

Wallander shook off these thoughts.

Martinsson returned and they drove back to Ystad.

At eleven o'clock Wallander stood up to go to the room where a suspected drug dealer by the name of Yngve Leonard Holm was waiting for him. At that moment Rydberg came in. He never bothered to knock. He sat down in the visitor's chair and got straight to the point.

'I've talked to an air traffic controller by the name of Lycke,' he said. 'He claimed to know you.'

'I've spoken to him before, I don't remember the context.'

'He was very firm, in any case,' Rydberg continued. 'No single-engine plane was cleared to pass over Mossby at five o'clock this morning. They have also not received any emergency broadcast from any pilot. The radar screens have been empty. There were no strange signals that may have indicated the presence of an unidentified plane. According to Lycke, the plane that crashed did not exist. They have already reported this both to the defence department and to God knows how many other authorities. Customs, probably.'

'So you were right,' Wallander said. 'Someone was out on an illegal mission.'

'We don't know that,' Rydberg objected. 'Someone was flying illegally. But if it was also an illegal mission, we don't know.'

'Who would be out flying around in the dark without a particular reason?'

'There are so many idiots,' Rydberg said. 'You should know that.'

Wallander looked closer at him.

'You don't believe that for a minute, do you?'

'Of course not,' Rydberg said. 'But until we know who they were or identify the plane, we can't do anything. This has to go to Interpol. I'm willing to wager a pretty pe

Rydberg left.

Wallander mulled over what he had said.

Then he stood up, took his papers and walked to the room where Yngve Leonard Holm was waiting with his lawyer.

It was exactly a quarter past eleven when Wallander started the tape recorder and began his interrogation.