The Pyramid

CHAPTER 4

Wallander rang in this St Lucia's Day, 1989, with lights other than those of a children's Lucia procession. He stayed at the scene of the blaze until dawn. By then he had sent home both Svedberg and Hansson. When Rydberg turned up, Wallander also told him to go home. The night cold and the heat of the flames would do nothing good for his rheumatism. Rydberg listened to a short report about the two sisters' likely death, and then he left. Peter Edler gave Wallander a cup of coffee. Wallander sat in the driver's cab in one of the fire engines and wondered why he didn't simply go home and sleep instead of staying here, waiting for the fire to be put out. He didn't manage to come up with a good answer. He thought back to the evening before, with discomfort. The erotic dimension between him and Emma Lundin was completely devoid of passion. Hardly more than an extension of their earlier inane conversations.

I can't go on like this, he thought suddenly. Something has to happen in my life. Soon, very soon. The two months that had gone by since Mona had left him felt like two years.

The fire was out at dawn. The building had burned to the ground. Nyberg arrived. They waited for Peter Edler to give the go-ahead erg to enter the smouldering remains with the fire brigade's own forensic technicians.

Then Björk turned up, impeccably dressed as usual, accompanied by a scent of aftershave that managed to overpower even the smoke.

'Fires are tragic,' he said. 'I hear the owners have died.'

'We don't know that yet,' Wallander said. 'But there are no indications to the contrary, unfortunately.'

Björk looked at his watch.

'I have to push on,' he said. 'I have a breakfast meeting with Rotary.' He left.

'He's going to lecture himself to death,' Wallander said.

Nyberg followed him with his eyes.

'I wonder what he says about the police and our work,' Nyberg said. 'Have you ever heard him speak?'

'Never. But I suspect he doesn't tell them about his accomplishments at the desk.'

They stood quietly, waiting. Wallander felt cold and tired. The whole block was still closed to traffic, but a reporter from Arbetet had managed to duck his way past the blockades. Wallander recognised him. He was one of the reporters who usually wrote what Wallander actually said, so he was given the little information they had. They still could not confirm that anyone had died. The reporter let himself be satisfied with this.

Another hour went by before Peter Edler could give them the green light. When Wallander had left home the night before, he had been smart enough to put on rubber boots, and now he stepped carefully into the scorched rubble where beams and the remains of walls lay jumbled in a mess of water. Nyberg and some of the firefighters carefully made their way through the ruins. After less than five minutes, they stopped. Nyberg nodded for Wallander to come.

The bodies of two people lay a few metres away from each other. They were charred beyond the point of recognition. It occurred to Wallander that he had now experienced this sight for the second time in forty-eight hours. He shook his head.

'The Eberhardsson sisters,' he said. 'What were their first names?'

'A

'Who else would it be?' Wallander said. 'They lived alone in this house.'

'We'll find out,' Nyberg said. 'But it will take a couple of days.'

Wallander turned and went back out onto the street. Peter Edler was smoking.

'You smoke?' Wallander said. 'I didn't know that.'

'Not very often,' Edler replied. 'Only when I'm very tired.'

'There must be a thorough examination of this fire,' Wallander said.

'I shouldn't jump to any conclusions, of course, but this looks like nothing less than deliberate arson. Though one may wonder why anyone wanted to take the lives of two old spinsters.'

Wallander nodded. He knew that Peter Edler was an extremely competent fire chief.

'Two old ladies,' Wallander remarked. 'Who sold buttons and zips.'

There was no longer any reason for Wallander to stay. He left the scene, got in his car and went home. He ate breakfast and conferred with the thermometer about which sweater to wear. He decided on the same one as yesterday. At twenty minutes past nine he parked in front of the station. Martinsson arrived at the same time. This is unusually late for him, Wallander thought. Martinsson offered up the explanation without being asked.

'My niece, who is fifteen, came home drunk last night,' he said sombrely. 'That hasn't happened before.'

'Some time has to be the first,' Wallander said.

He did not miss his days as a patrol officer, when St Lucia's Day was always a raucous affair, and he recalled that Mona had called several years ago and complained that Linda had come home and thrown up after late-night Lucia festivities. Mona had been very upset. That time, to his surprise, Wallander was the one who had been more relaxed about the whole incident. He tried to explain this to Martinsson as they walked up towards the station. But his colleague was resistant. Wallander gave up and stopped talking.

They halted in the reception area and Ebba came over to them.

'Is it true what I hear?' she asked. 'That poor A

'That's what it looks like,' Wallander said.

Ebba shook her head.

'I've bought buttons and thread from them since 1951,' she said. 'They were always so friendly. If you needed anything extra, they always took care of it with no additional charge. Who on earth would want to take the lives of two old ladies in a sewing shop?'

Ebba is the second person to ask that, Wallander thought. First Peter Edler, now Ebba.

'Is it a pyromaniac?' Martinsson asked. 'In that case he's chosen a particularly apt evening to get started.'

'We'll have to wait and see,' Wallander replied. 'Has anything more come in about the crashed plane?'

'Not as far as I know. But Sjöbo was going to have another talk with the man who was looking for his calf.'

'Call the other districts just to be sure,' Wallander reminded him. 'It could turn out that they received calls about an engine noise too. There can hardly be that many aeroplanes flying around at night.'

Martinsson left. Ebba gave Wallander a piece of paper.

'The travel insurance for your father,' she said. 'Lucky man, he gets to leave this weather and see the pyramids.'

Wallander took the paper and went to his office. When he had hung up his coat, he called Löderup. There was no answer, even though he let the phone ring fifteen times. His father must be out in the studio. Wallander put down the phone. I wonder if he remembers that he's supposed to travel tomorrow, he thought. And that I'm picking him up at seven o'clock.

But Wallander was looking forward to spending a couple of hours with Linda. That always put him in a good mood.

He pulled over a pile of papers, this one about the burglary on Pilgrimsgatan. But he ended up lost in thought about other things. What if they had a pyromaniac on their hands? They had been spared that for the past couple of years.

He forced himself to return to the burglary, but Nyberg called at ten thirty.

'I think you should come down here,' he said. 'To the scene of the fire.'

Wallander knew Nyberg would not have called unless it was important. It would be a waste of time to start asking questions over the phone.

'I'm on my way,' he said and hung up.

He took his coat and left the station. It took him only a couple of minutes by car to get downtown. The cordoned-off area was smaller, but some traffic was still being redirected around Hamngatan.

Nyberg was waiting next to the ruins of the house, which were still smoking. He got straight to the point.