The Pyramid

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 A

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.

Li

'This belonged to the barque Felicia, which sank in the Irish Sea,' Li

'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.

'Skä

'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 Li

'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 A

'And Emilia?'

'They were different. A

'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 A

'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.'

'A

'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 Li

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 pla

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.'