Henning Mankell - The Pyramid

The bodies of two people lay a few metres away from each other. They were charred beyond the point of recognition. It occurred to Wallander that he had now experienced this sight for the second time in forty-eight hours. He shook his head.

'The Eberhardsson sisters,' he said. 'What were their first names?'

'Anna and Emilia,' Nyberg answered. 'But we don't yet know if it is actually them.'

'Who else would it be?' Wallander said. 'They lived alone in this house.'

'We'll find out,' Nyberg said. 'But it will take a couple of days.'

Wallander turned and went back out onto the street. Peter Edler was smoking.

'You smoke?' Wallander said. 'I didn't know that.'

'Not very often,' Edler replied. 'Only when I'm very tired.'

'There must be a thorough examination of this fire,' Wallander said.

'I shouldn't jump to any conclusions, of course, but this looks like nothing less than deliberate arson. Though one may wonder why anyone wanted to take the lives of two old spinsters.'

Wallander nodded. He knew that Peter Edler was an extremely competent fire chief.

'Two old ladies,' Wallander remarked. 'Who sold buttons and zips.'

There was no longer any reason for Wallander to stay. He left the scene, got in his car and went home. He ate breakfast and conferred with the thermometer about which sweater to wear. He decided on the same one as yesterday. At twenty minutes past nine he parked in front of the station. Martinsson arrived at the same time. This is unusually late for him, Wallander thought. Martinsson offered up the explanation without being asked.

'My niece, who is fifteen, came home drunk last night,' he said sombrely. 'That hasn't happened before.'

'Some time has to be the first,' Wallander said.

He did not miss his days as a patrol officer, when St Lucia's Day was always a raucous affair, and he recalled that Mona had called several years ago and complained that Linda had come home and thrown up after late-night Lucia festivities. Mona had been very upset. That time, to his surprise, Wallander was the one who had been more relaxed about the whole incident. He tried to explain this to Martinsson as they walked up towards the station. But his colleague was resistant. Wallander gave up and stopped talking.

They halted in the reception area and Ebba came over to them.

'Is it true what I hear?' she asked. 'That poor Anna and Emilia have burned to death?'

'That's what it looks like,' Wallander said.

Ebba shook her head.

'I've bought buttons and thread from them since 1951,' she said. 'They were always so friendly. If you needed anything extra, they always took care of it with no additional charge. Who on earth would want to take the lives of two old ladies in a sewing shop?'

Ebba is the second person to ask that, Wallander thought. First Peter Edler, now Ebba.

'Is it a pyromaniac?' Martinsson asked. 'In that case he's chosen a particularly apt evening to get started.'

'We'll have to wait and see,' Wallander replied. 'Has anything more come in about the crashed plane?'

'Not as far as I know. But Sjöbo was going to have another talk with the man who was looking for his calf.'

'Call the other districts just to be sure,' Wallander reminded him. 'It could turn out that they received calls about an engine noise too. There can hardly be that many aeroplanes flying around at night.'

Martinsson left. Ebba gave Wallander a piece of paper.

'The travel insurance for your father,' she said. 'Lucky man, he gets to leave this weather and see the pyramids.'

Wallander took the paper and went to his office. When he had hung up his coat, he called Löderup. There was no answer, even though he let the phone ring fifteen times. His father must be out in the studio. Wallander put down the phone. I wonder if he remembers that he's supposed to travel tomorrow, he thought. And that I'm picking him up at seven o'clock.

But Wallander was looking forward to spending a couple of hours with Linda. That always put him in a good mood.

He pulled over a pile of papers, this one about the burglary on Pilgrimsgatan. But he ended up lost in thought about other things. What if they had a pyromaniac on their hands? They had been spared that for the past couple of years.

He forced himself to return to the burglary, but Nyberg called at ten thirty.

'I think you should come down here,' he said. 'To the scene of the fire.'

Wallander knew Nyberg would not have called unless it was important. It would be a waste of time to start asking questions over the phone.

'I'm on my way,' he said and hung up.

He took his coat and left the station. It took him only a couple of minutes by car to get downtown. The cordoned-off area was smaller, but some traffic was still being redirected around Hamngatan.

Nyberg was waiting next to the ruins of the house, which were still smoking. He got straight to the point.

'This was not only arson,' he said. 'It was murder.'

'Murder?'

Nyberg gestured for him to follow. The two bodies in the ruin had now been dug out. They crouched down next to one and Nyberg pointed to the cranium with a pen.

'A bullet hole,' he said. 'She's been shot, assuming it is one of the sisters. But I suppose we are assuming that.'

They stood up and walked over to the second body.

'Same thing here,' he said and pointed. 'Just above the neck.'

Wallander shook his head in disbelief.

'Someone shot them?'

'Looks like it. What's worse is that it was execution-style. Two shots to the back of the head.'

Wallander had trouble taking in what Nyberg had just said. It was too preposterous, too brutal. But he also knew that Nyberg never said anything he wasn't absolutely sure about.

They walked back out to the street. Nyberg held up a small plastic bag in front of Wallander.

'We found one of the bullets,' he said. 'It was still stuck in the cranium. The other one exited through the forehead and has melted in the heat. But the medical examiner will of course do a thorough examination.'

Wallander looked at Nyberg while he tried to think.

'So we have a double murder that someone tried to cover up with a fire?'

Nyberg shook his head.

'That doesn't make sense. A person who executes people by shooting them in the back of the head most likely knows that fires normally leave skeletons intact. After all, it's not a crematorium.'

Wallander realised that Nyberg had said something important.

'What's the alternative?'

'The murderer may have wanted to conceal something else.'

'What can you conceal in a sewing shop?'

'That's your job to figure out,' Nyberg replied.

'I'll go and get a team together,' Wallander said. 'We'll start at one.' He checked his watch. It was eleven. 'Can you make it?'

'I won't be done here, of course,' Nyberg said. 'But I'll come by.'

Wallander returned to his car. He was filled with a feeling of unreality. Who could have a motive for executing two old ladies who sold needles and thread and one or two zips? This was beyond anything he had been involved in before.

When he reached the station he walked straight to Rydberg's office. It was empty. Wallander found him in the break room, where he was eating a rusk and drinking tea. Wallander sat down and told him what Nyberg had discovered.

'That's not good,' Rydberg said when Wallander was finished. 'Not good at all.'

Wallander stood up. 'I'll see you at one,' he said. 'For now, let Martinsson focus on the plane. But Hansson and Svedberg should be there. And try to get Åkeson. Have we ever had anything like this?'

Rydberg considered. 'Not that I can remember. There was a lunatic who planted an axe in a waiter's head about twenty years ago. The motive was an unpaid debt of thirty kronor. But I can't think of anything else.'