Henning Mankell - The Pyramid

At a quarter past six, Wallander left the apartment and drove up to the station. Since everyone on the squad had a lot to do, they had decided to meet at the end of the day. The systematic mapping of Simon Lamberg, his habits, finances, social circle and past required time. Wallander had decided to investigate whether there was any basis to the rumours that Gunnar Larsson had talked about. That Simon Lamberg had been a man who had moved in the illegal world of gambling. He decided to draw on an old contact. He was planning to drive to Malmö and look up a man he hadn't seen for four years. But he knew where he was most likely to be found. He walked out to reception, went through the telephone messages, and decided there was nothing important. Then he went to Martinsson, who was an early riser. He was sitting in front of the computer, engaged in a search.

'How's it going?' Wallander asked.

Martinsson shook his head.

'Simon Lamberg must have been the closest to an umblemished citizen that you can get,' he said. 'Not a speck, not even a parking ticket. Nothing.'

'There were rumours that he gambled,' Wallander said. 'Illegally, no less, and that he had accumulated unregulated debt. I was planning to spend the morning looking into it. I'm driving up to Malmö.'

'What weather we have,' Martinsson said, without looking up from the screen.

'Yes,' Wallander said. 'I think it gives us grounds for hope.'

Wallander drove to Malmö. The temperature had risen by a few degrees. He enjoyed the thought of the transformation the landscape would now undergo. But not many minutes went by before his thoughts returned to the murder case that was his responsibility. They still lacked direction. They had no apparent motive. Simon Lamberg's death was incomprehensible. A photographer who had lived a quiet life. Who had undergone the tragedy of having a severely handicapped daughter. Who also to all intents and purposes lived separated from his wife. Nothing in all of this indicated, however, that anyone would have felt the need to crush his head with a furious blow.

To top it off, something had occurred on a bus trip to Austria seven years ago. Something that had significantly altered Lamberg.

Wallander surveyed the landscape as he drove. He wondered what it was in this picture of Lamberg that he had not seen through. There was something blurry about his whole figure. His life, his character, were strangely ephemeral.

Wallander arrived in Malmö shortly before eight o'clock. He drove straight to the parking garage behind the Savoy Hotel, then used the back entrance to the hotel. He headed for the dining room.

The man he was looking for was sitting by himself at a table at the very back of the room. He was absorbed in the morning paper. Wallander walked up to the table. The man started and looked up.

'Kurt Wallander,' he said. 'Are you so hungry that you have to come all the way to Malmö to eat breakfast?'

'Your logic is off as usual,' Wallander answered, and sat down.

He poured himself a cup of coffee as he thought about the first time he had met Peter Linder, the man on the other side of the table. It had been more than ten years ago, in the mid-1970s. Wallander had just started working in Ystad. They had made a raid on an illegal gambling club that had sprung up on a remotely located farm outside Hedeskoga. It had been clear to everyone that Peter Linder had been the man behind this business. The large profits had gone to him. But at the subsequent trial Linder had been acquitted. A band of lawyers had been able to put a hole in the prosecutor's case, and Linder had left the court a free man. No one had been able to get at the money he had made, since no one had been able to figure out where it was. A few days after the verdict, he had unexpectedly turned up at the police station and asked to speak to Wallander. He had complained of the treatment he had received at the hands of the Swedish legal system. Wallander had been furious.

'Everyone knows that you were behind it,' he had said.

'Of course it was me,' Peter Linder replied. 'But the prosecutor didn't manage to prove it well enough to determine my guilt. This does not mean, however, that I have to abandon my right to complain of mistreatment.'

Peter Linder's impudence had rendered Wallander speechless. For the next couple of years he was absent from Wallander's life. But one day an anonymous letter arrived to Wallander with a tip about another gambling club in Ystad. This time they managed to arrest and sentence several of the men involved. Wallander had known the whole time that it was Peter Linder who had written the anonymous letter. Since for some reason he had mentioned to Wallander at that first meeting that he 'always ate dinner at the Savoy', Wallander had looked him up there. With a smile, he had denied having written the letter. But both of them had known better.

'I'm reading in the paper that photographers live dangerously in Ystad,' Peter Linder said.

'No more dangerously than in other places.'

'And gambling clubs?'

'I think we're free of those for the moment.'

Peter Linder smiled. His eyes were very blue.

'Perhaps I should consider re-establishing myself in the Ystad region. What do you think?'

'You know what I think,' Wallander said. 'And if you come back, we'll put you away.'

Peter Linder shook his head. He smiled. This irritated Wallander, but he didn't show it.

'I actually came here to talk to you about the photographer who was killed.'

'I only ever go to a royal photographer who is here in Malmö. He took pictures of Sofiero Castle during the old king's time. An excellent photographer.'

'You only need to answer my questions,' Wallander broke in.

'Is this an interrogation?'

'No. But I'm dumb enough to think you might be able to help me. And even dumber to think that you'd be prepared to do it.'

Peter Linder spread his arms out in a gesture of invitation.

'Simon Lamberg,' Wallander went on, 'the photographer. There were rumours about him, that he was a gambler who bet large. Moreover, in an illegal setting. Both here and in Copenhagen. Also, unregulated loans. A man deeply entrenched in debt. All according to the rumours.'

'In order for a rumour to be interesting, at least fifty per cent of it must be true,' Peter Linder said philosophically. 'Is it?'

'I was hoping you would be able to answer that. Have you heard of him?'

Peter Linder considered the question.

'No,' he said after a moment. 'And even if only half of those rumours were true, I would have known who he was.'

'Is it possible that you might have missed him for some reason?'

'No,' Peter Linder said. 'That's inconceivable.'

'You are all-knowing, in other words.'

'When it comes to the illegal gambling world in southern Sweden, I know everything. I also know something about classical philosophy and Moorish architecture. Beyond this, I know almost nothing.'

Wallander did not protest. He knew that Peter Linder had achieved an astonishingly rapid rise in the academic world. Then one day, without warning, he had wandered out of the academy and in a short time established himself as a gambling-club owner.

Wallander finished his coffee.

'If you hear anything, I would be grateful for one of your anonymous letters,' he said.

'I'll put out some feelers in Copenhagen,' Peter Linder replied, 'but I doubt I'll find anything to offer you.'

Wallander nodded. He quickly rose to his feet. He could not bring himself to go so far as to shake Peter Linder's hand.

Wallander was back at the station by ten o'clock. A couple of officers were outside, drinking coffee in the spring warmth. Wallander checked Svedberg's office. He was not there. Same with Hansson. Only Martinsson was still diligently working in front of his computer screen.