Henning Mankell - The Pyramid

'Lights and engine noise. That could confirm our hypothesis about a scheduled drop.'

Martinsson spread out a map on Wallander's desk. He pointed. Wallander saw that it was in the area that Blomell had circled.

'Good work,' Wallander said. 'We'll have to see if it leads us anywhere.'

Martinsson folded up the map.

'It's terrible if it's true,' he said. 'If this really is the case then we're unprotected. If any old plane can come in across the border and drop off drugs without being sighted.'

'We have to get used to it,' Wallander said. 'But of course I agree with you.'

Martinsson left. Wallander left the station a little later. When he got home he cooked a real dinner for once. At half past seven he sat down with a cup of coffee to watch the news. The phone rang as the top stories were being announced. It was Emma. She was just leaving the hospital. Wallander didn't really know what he wanted. Another evening alone. Or a visit from Emma. Without being sure that he really wanted to see her, he asked if she wanted to stop by. She said yes. Wallander knew this meant that she would stay until a little after midnight. Then she would get dressed and go home. In order to steel himself for the visit he had two glasses of whisky. He had already showered before while he was waiting for the potatoes to boil. Quickly, he changed the sheets on the bed and threw the old bed-linen into the wardrobe, which was already overflowing with dirty laundry.

Emma arrived shortly before eight. Wallander cursed himself when he heard her on the stairs. Why couldn't he put an end to it, since it had no future?

She arrived, she smiled and Wallander asked her in. She had brown hair and beautiful eyes, and was short. He put on the kind of music he knew she liked. They drank wine and shortly before eleven they went to bed. Wallander thought of Mona.

Afterwards they both fell asleep. Neither one of them had said anything. Just before he fell asleep, Wallander noticed a headache coming on. He woke up again when she was getting dressed, but he pretended to be asleep. When the front door had shut, he got out of bed and drank some water. Then he returned to bed, thought about Mona for a bit longer, and fell back asleep.

The telephone started to ring deep inside his dreams. He woke immediately. Listened. The rings continued. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. A quarter past two. That meant that something had happened. He lifted the receiver as he sat up in bed.

It was one of the officers who worked the night shift, Näslund.

'There's a fire on Möllegatan,' Näslund said. 'Right on the corner of Lilla Strandgatan.'

Wallander tried to visualise that block.

'What's burning?'

'The Eberhardsson sisters' sewing shop.'

'That sounds like a case for the fire brigade and a patrol unit.'

Näslund hesitated before answering.

'They're already there. It sounds like the house may have exploded. And the sisters live above the shop.'

'Did you get them out?'

'It doesn't look like it.'

Wallander didn't need to think any further. He knew there was only one thing to do.

'I'm coming,' he said. 'Who else have you called?'

'Rydberg.'

'You could have let him sleep. Get Svedberg and Hansson.'

Wallander hung up. Checked the time again. Seventeen minutes past two. While he put his clothes on he thought about what Näslund had said. A sewing shop had been blown up. That sounded implausible. And it was serious if the two owners had not managed to escape.

Wallander walked out onto the street and realised he had left his car keys. He cursed, then ran back up the stairs, noticing how out of breath he became. I should start playing badminton with Svedberg again, he thought. I can't manage four flights without losing my breath.

Wallander pulled up on Hamngatan at half past two. The whole area had been blocked off. The smell of fire was perceptible before he even opened the door. Flames and smoke were rising into the sky. The fire brigade had all their engines on the scene. Wallander ran into Peter Edler for the second time that day.

'It looks bad,' Peter Edler shouted, raising his voice to be heard above the din.

The whole house was in flames. The firefighters were spraying the surrounding buildings to restrict the damage.

'The sisters?' Wallander shouted.

Edler shook his head.

'No one has come out,' he replied. 'If they were home, they're still in there. We have a witness who says the building just blew up. It started to burn everywhere at once.'

Edler left to continue directing the operation. Hansson appeared at Wallander's side.

'Who the hell sets fire to a sewing shop?' he asked.

Wallander shook his head.

He had no answer.

He thought about the two sisters who had worked in their sewing shop for as long as he had lived in Ystad. Once, he and Mona had bought a zip there for one of his suits.

Now the sisters were gone.

And if Peter Edler was not completely mistaken, this fire had been started in order to kill them.

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.