Henning Mankell - The Pyramid

'No.'

Wallander stood up.

'Don't you want to meet Matilda?' she asked.

'I don't think I have the time,' Wallander said evasively. 'But most likely I'll be back here again. And I want you to notify the Ystad police if that woman returns. When was she here last?'

'A few months ago.'

She followed him outside. A nurse's assistant walked by pushing a wheelchair. Wallander caught sight of a shrunken boy under a blanket.

'Everyone feels better in the spring,' Margareta Johansson said. 'We can see it even in our patients, who are often completely sealed in their own worlds.'

Wallander said goodbye and walked over to his car. He had just started the engine when the telephone rang in Margareta Johansson's office. She called out that it was Svedberg. Wallander walked back in and took the receiver.

'I've tracked down the driver,' Svedberg said. 'It was easier than I had dared hope. His name is Anton Eklund.'

'Good,' Wallander said.

'It gets better. Guess what he told me? That he has the habit of keeping the passenger lists of all his trips. And that he has pictures from this particular one.'

'Taken by Simon Lamberg?'

'How did you know?'

'I did what you told me. I guessed.'

'To top it off, he lives in Trelleborg. He's retired these days. But we have a standing invitation to look him up.'

'We should absolutely take him up on that. As soon as possible.'

But first Wallander had another visit to think about. One that couldn't be put off.

From Rynge he was planning to drive straight to Elisabeth Lamberg's house.

He had a question he wanted an immediate answer to.

She was out in the garden when he pulled up. She was bent over the flower beds. Her grief over her recent loss was apparently neither deep nor long-lasting; as he listened over the fence, he thought he could hear her humming. As Wallander opened the gate, she heard him and straightened up. She held a little shovel in her hand and squinted in the sunlight.

'I'm sorry I had to come back and bother you again so soon,' Wallander said. 'But I have an urgent question.'

She put the shovel down in a basket next to her.

'Should we go in?'

'It's not necessary.'

She pointed to some deckchairs that were nearby. They sat down.

'I've talked to the director of the nursing home where Matilda is,' Wallander began. 'I went there.'

'Did you see Matilda?'

'Unfortunately, I had very little time.'

He didn't want to tell her the truth. That it was almost impossible for him to confront the seriously handicapped.

'We talked about the unknown woman who comes to visit her.'

Elisabeth Lamberg had put on a pair of dark glasses. He could not see her eyes.

'When we spoke about Matilda last time, you never mentioned anything about this woman. That surprises me. It makes me curious. Above all, it strikes me as strange.'

'I didn't think it was important.'

Wallander hesitated over how hard or direct to be. After all, her husband was brutally murdered a couple of days ago.

'It's not the case, then, that you know who the woman is? And that you for some reason don't want to talk about her?'

She took off her sunglasses and looked at him.

'I have no idea who she is. I've tried to find out, but I haven't been successful.'

'What have you done in order to find out about her?'

'The only thing I could do, which is to ask the staff to call me as soon as she appears. Which they have. But I've never made it out there in time.'

'You could of course have asked the staff not to let her in? Or given orders that she was not allowed to visit Matilda without providing a name?'

Elisabeth Lamberg looked confused.

'She did give her name, the first time she was there. Didn't the director tell you that?'

'No.'

'She introduced herself as Siv Stigberg, and she said she lived in Lund, but I haven't been able to find anyone by that name there. I've looked into it. I've looked through telephone directories for the entire country. There is a Siv Stigberg in Kramfors, and another in Motala. I've even been in touch with both of them. Neither one understood what I was talking about.'

'She gave a false name? That must have been why Margareta Johansson didn't say anything.'

'Yes. That's the only reason I can imagine.'

Wallander reflected on this. He now believed that she was telling the truth.

'The whole thing is remarkable. I still don't understand why you didn't tell me this from the start.'

'I realise now that I should have.'

'You must have really wondered who she was, why she was paying these visits.'

'Of course. That was why I instructed the director to let her keep visiting Matilda. I was hoping to make it in time one day.'

'What does she do when she's there?'

'She only stays a short while. Looks at Matilda, but never says anything. Even though Matilda can hear when someone talks to her.'

'Did you ever ask your husband about her?'

Her voice was filled with bitterness when she answered.

'Why should I have done that? He wasn't interested in Matilda. She didn't exist.'

Wallander got up out of the deckchair.

'Nonetheless, I have an answer to my question,' he said.

He went straight to the station. The feeling of urgency was suddenly very strong. It was already late afternoon. Svedberg was in his office.

'Now we go to Trelleborg,' Wallander said from the doorway. 'Do you have the driver's address?'

'Anton Eklund lives in an apartment in the middle of town.'

'It's probably best if you call and ask if he's home.'

Svedberg looked up the number. Eklund picked up almost immediately.

'We can come any time,' Svedberg said when he had finished the brief conversation.

They took his car, which was better than Wallander's. Svedberg drove quickly and confidently. Wallander travelled west along Strandvägen for the second time that day. He told Svedberg about his visits to the nursing home and Elisabeth Lamberg.

'I can't escape the feeling that this woman is important,' he said. 'And that she definitely has something to do with Simon Lamberg.'

They continued on in silence. Wallander enjoyed the view, somewhat distractedly. He also dozed off for a moment. His cheek no longer hurt, although it was still discoloured. His tongue had also started to get used to the temporary crown.

Svedberg only needed to ask for directions once in order to find Eklund's address in Trelleborg. It was a red-brick apartment building in the centre of town. Eklund was on the ground floor. He had spotted them and was waiting with an open door. He was a large man with abundant grey hair. When he shook Wallander's hand, he squeezed so hard it almost hurt. He invited them into the small apartment. Coffee had been set out. Wallander immediately assumed that Eklund lived on his own. The apartment was tidy but nonetheless projected the impression of a single man living alone. He had this idea confirmed as soon as he sat down.

'I've been on my own for the past three years,' he said. 'My wife died. That was when I moved here. We only had one year together in retirement. One morning she lay dead in the bed.'

Neither of the detectives said anything. There was nothing to say. Eklund picked up the plate of pastries. Wallander chose a piece of Bundt cake.

'You were the driver on a charter bus trip to Austria in 1981,' he started. 'Markresor were the organisers. You left from Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, with Austria as your final destination.'

'We were going to Salzburg and Vienna. Thirty-two passengers, one travel director and me. The bus was a Scania, completely new.'

'I thought that bus trips to the Continent went out of vogue after the 1960s,' Svedberg said.

'They did,' Eklund said. 'But they came back. Markresor – Ground Travel – may seem like a silly name for a travel agency, but they were on the right track. There turned out to be a lot of people who absolutely did not want to go up in the air and be tossed to some distant holiday destination. There were people who really wanted to experience travelling.