Henning Mankell - The Pyramid

'I knew you'd come back,' he said. 'That's why it's just as well she died.'

'Put the gun down,' Wallander said.

Stenholm shook his head. Wallander could feel himself stiffening with fear.

Then everything happened very fast. Suddenly Stenholm pointed the gun at his own head and pulled the trigger. The shot echoed through the room. The man was thrown halfway through the door. Blood had spurted all over the walls. Wallander felt as if he were about to faint. Then he staggered out of the door and down the stairs. He called the police station. Ebba answered.

'Hansson or Rydberg,' he said. 'As fast as possible.'

It was Rydberg who came to the phone.

'It's all over,' said Wallander. 'I want an emergency team sent to the house in Svarte. I've got two dead bodies here.'

'Did you kill them? What's happened?' Rydberg asked. 'Are you hurt? Why the hell did you go there on your own?'

'I don't know,' Wallander said. 'Get a move on. I'm not hurt.'

Wallander went outside to wait. The beach was covered in fog. He thought about what the old doctor had said. About crimes becoming more frequent and more serious. Wallander had often thought that as well. He sometimes thought he was a police officer from another age. Even though he was only forty. Maybe a new kind of police officer was needed nowadays.

He waited in the fog for them to arrive from Ystad. He was deeply upset. Yet again, against his will, he had found himself involved in a tragedy. He wondered how long he would be able to keep going.

When the emergency services arrived and Rydberg got out of his car, it seemed to him that Wallander was a black shadow in the white fog.

'What happened?' Rydberg asked.

'We've solved the case of the man who died in the back seat of Stenberg's taxi,' Wallander said.

He could see that Rydberg was waiting for something more, but there would be nothing more.

'That's all,' he said. 'That's all we've done, in fact.'

Then Wallander turned on his heel and walked down to the beach. Soon he had disappeared into the fog.

Every year, in early spring, he had a recurring dream. That he could fly. The dream always unfolded in the same way. He was walking up a dimly lit staircase. Suddenly the ceiling opened and he discovered that the stairs led him to a treetop. The landscape spread out under his feet. He lifted up his arms and let himself fall. He ruled the world.

At that moment he always woke up. The dream always left him right there. Although he had had the same dream for many years, he had not yet experienced actually floating away from the top of the tree.

The dream kept coming back. And it always cheated him.

He was thinking of this as he walked through central Ystad. The dream had come to him one night a week ago. And as always, it left him right as he was going to fly away. Now it would probably not return for a long time.

It was an evening in the middle of April, 1988. The warmth of spring had not yet manifested itself with any seriousness. As he walked through the town he regretted not having put on a warmer sweater. He also still had a lingering cold. It was shortly after eight o'clock. The streets were empty of people. Somewhere in the distance he heard a car drive off with a screech. Then the engine noise died away. He always followed the same route. From Lavendelvägen, where he lived, he followed Tennisgatan. At Margareta Park he turned left and then followed Skottegatan down to the centre. Then he took another left, crossed Kristianstad Road, and soon arrived at St Gertrude's Square, where he had his photography studio. If he had been a young photographer who was just in the process of establishing himself in Ystad, it would not have been the optimal location. But he had run his studio for more than twenty-five years. He had a stable list of clients. They knew where to find him. They came to him to be photographed for their weddings. Then they liked to return with the first child. Or for different occasions that they knew they would want to remember. The first time he had taken the wedding pictures for a client's child, he realised he was getting old. He had not thought so much about it before but suddenly he had turned fifty. And that was now six years ago.

He stopped at a shop window and studied his face in the reflection. Life was what it was. He couldn't really complain. If he were allowed his health for ten or fifteen years more, then…

He abandoned his thoughts about the passage of time and walked on. There was a gusty wind and he pulled his coat more tightly around him. He was walking neither quickly nor slowly. There was no urgency. Two evenings a week he went down to his studio after dinner. These were the holy moments of his life. Two evenings when he could be completely alone with his own pictures in the room at the back of the studio.

He reached his destination. Before unlocking the door to the shop he studied the display window with a mixture of disapproval and irritation. He should have changed the display a long time ago. Even if he didn't attract new clients, he should be able to follow the rule he made more than twenty years ago. Once a month he changed the photographs on display. Now almost two months had gone by. When he had employed an assistant, he had had more time to devote to the shop window. But he had let the last one go almost four years ago. It had become too expensive. And it wasn't more work than he could manage on his own.

He unlocked the door and walked in. The shop lay in darkness. He had a cleaning woman who came in three days a week. She had her own key and usually came in at around five in the morning. Since it had rained earlier that morning, the floor was dirty. He didn't like dirt. Therefore he did not turn on the light and instead walked straight through his studio and into the innermost room, where he developed his pictures. He closed the door and turned on the light. Hung up his coat. Turned on the radio that he kept on a little shelf. He always kept it tuned to a station he could expect to play classical music. Then he filled the coffee-maker and washed out a cup. A feeling of well-being started to spread through his body. The innermost room behind his studio was his cathedral. His holy room. He didn't let anyone other than his cleaning woman in here. Here he found himself in the centre of the world. Here he was alone. An absolute ruler.

While he waited for the coffee to brew, he thought about what awaited him. He always decided in advance what work he would do on a given evening. He was a methodical man who never left anything to chance.

This evening, it was the Swedish prime minister's turn. Actually it had surprised him that he had not spent an evening on him yet. But at least he had been able to prepare. For more than a week he had scoured the daily papers for the picture he was going to use. He had found it in one of the evening papers and known at once that it was the right one. It filled all of his requirements. He had photographed a copy of it a few days ago. Now it was locked in one of his desk drawers. He poured out the coffee and hummed along with the music. A piano sonata by Beethoven was playing. He preferred Bach to Beethoven. And Mozart best of all. But the piano sonata was beautiful. He could not deny it.

He sat down at the desk, adjusted the lamp and unlocked the drawers on the left. The photograph of the prime minister was inside. He had enlarged the image, as he usually did, to a size somewhat larger than a standard sheet of paper. He laid it out on the table, sipped his coffee and studied the face. Where should he start, where should he begin the distortion? The man in the picture was smiling and looking to the left. There was a touch of anxiety or uncertainty in his gaze. He decided to begin with the eyes. They could be made to look cross-eyed. And smaller. If he angled the enlarger, the face would also become thinner. He could try to place the paper in an arc in the enlarger and see what effect that had. Then he could cut and paste and excise the mouth. Or perhaps sew it up. Politicians talked too much.