Henning Mankell - The Pyramid

They accompanied him into the terminal. Wallander paid for his ferry ticket. Once he had climbed aboard, they stood out in the darkness and watched the vessel chug out through the harbour.

'I hope I'll be like him when I'm old,' Linda said.

Wallander did not reply. To become like his father was something he feared more than anything.

They had breakfast together at the Central Station restaurant. As usual, Wallander had very little appetite so early in the morning. But in order to stave off a lecture from Linda about how he wasn't taking proper care of himself, he filled his plate with various sandwich toppings and several pieces of toast.

He watched his daughter, who talked almost continuously. She was not really beautiful in the traditional and banal sense of the word. But there was something confident and independent about her manner. She did not belong among the scores of young women who did their utmost to please all the men they met. From whom she had inherited her loquaciousness he could not say. Both he and Mona were rather quiet. But he liked listening to her. It always raised his spirits. She continued to talk about going into the business of restoring furniture. Informed him of the possibilities in the field, what the challenges were, cursed the fact that the apprenticeship system had almost died out, and astonished him at the end by imagining a future where she set up her own shop in Ystad.

'It's too bad that neither you nor Mum have any money,' she said. 'Then I could have gone to France to learn.'

Wallander realised she was not in fact chastising him for not being wealthy. Nonetheless, he took it this way.

'I could take out a loan,' he said. 'I think a simple policeman can manage that.'

'Loans have to be paid back,' she said. 'And anyway, you are actually a criminal inspector.'

Then they talked about Mona. Wallander listened, not without some satisfaction, to her complaints about Mona, who controlled her daughter in everything she did.

'And to top it off I don't like Johan,' she finished.

Wallander looked searchingly at her.

'Who's that?'

'Her new guy.'

'I thought she was seeing someone called Sören?'

'They broke up. Now his name is Johan and he owns two diggers.'

'And you don't like him?'

She shrugged.

'He's so loud. And I don't think he's ever read a book in his life. On Saturdays he comes over and he's bought some comic book. A grown man. Can you imagine?'

Wallander felt a momentary relief at the fact that he had never bought a comic book. He knew that Svedberg sometimes picked up an issue of Super-Man. Once or twice he had flipped through it to try to recapture the feeling from childhood, but it was never there.

'That doesn't sound so good,' he said. 'I mean, that you and Johan don't get along.'

'It's not so much a question of us,' she said. 'It's more that I don't understand what Mum sees in him.'

'Come and live with me,' Wallander said impulsively. 'Your room is still there, you know that.'

'I've actually thought about it,' she said. 'But I don't think that would be a good idea.'

'Why not?'

'Ystad is too small. It would drive me crazy to live there. Maybe later, when I'm older. There are towns where you simply can't live when you're young.'

Wallander knew what she was talking about. Even for divorced men in their forties, a town like Ystad could start to feel cramped.

'What about you?' she asked.

'What do you mean?'

'What do you think? Women, of course.'

Wallander made a face. He didn't want to bring up Emma Lundin.

'You could put an ad in the paper,' she suggested. '"A man in his best years looking for a woman." You would get a lot of responses.'

'Sure,' Wallander said, 'and then it would take five minutes before we'd simply end up sitting there staring vacantly at each other, realising we have nothing to say.'

She surprised him again.

'You need to have someone to sleep with,' she said. 'It's not good for you to walk around with so much pent-up longing.'

Wallander winced. She had never said anything like that to him before.

'I have all I need,' he said evasively.

'Can't you tell me more?'

'There's not much to say. A nurse. A decent person. The problem is just that she likes me more than I like her.'

Linda did not ask any more questions. Wallander immediately started to wonder about her sex life. But the very thought filled him with so many ambivalent feelings that he didn't want to get into it.

They stayed in the restaurant until it was past ten o'clock. Then he offered to drive her home, but she had errands to run. They parted in the car park. Wallander gave her three hundred kronor.

'You don't need to do this,' she said.

'I know. But take it anyway.'

Then he watched her walk off into the city. Thought that this was his family. A daughter who was finding her way. And a father who was right now sitting on a plane taking him to scorching-hot Egypt. He had a complicated relationship with both of them. It was not only his father who could be difficult, but also Linda.

He was back in Ystad at half past ten. During the trip back he had an easier time thinking about what now awaited him. The meeting with Linda had given him new energy. The broadest possible approach, he said to himself. That's the way we have to proceed. He stopped on the outskirts of Ystad and ate a hamburger, promising himself it would be the last one of the year. When he walked into the reception area, Ebba called out to him. She looked a little tense.

'Björk wants to talk to you,' she said.

Wallander hung his coat up in his office, then walked to Björk's room. He was let in at once. Björk stood up behind his desk.

'I have to express my great dismay,' he said.

'With what?'

'That you go to Malmö on personal business when we are in the midst of a difficult murder case, one that you moreover are in charge of.'

Wallander could not believe his ears. Björk was actually reprimanding him. That had never happened before, even if Björk had often had ample reason to do so on previous occasions. Wallander thought about all the times that he had acted too independently during an investigation, without informing the others.

'This is extremely unfortunate,' Björk concluded. 'There will be no formal reprimand. But it was, as I said, a show of poor judgement.'

Wallander stared at Björk. Then he made an about-face and left without saying a word. But when he was halfway back to his office, he turned and walked back, pulling open the door to Björk's office and saying, through clenched teeth:

'I'm not going to take any shit from you. Just so you know. Give me a formal reprimand if you want. But don't stand there talking nonsense. I won't take it.'

Then he left. He noticed that he was sweating. But he didn't regret it. The outburst had been necessary. And he was not at all worried about the consequences. His position at the station was strong.

He got a cup of coffee in the break room and then sat down at his desk. He knew that Björk had gone to Stockholm to take a leadership course of some kind. He had probably learned he should scold his colleagues from time to time in order to improve the climate of the workplace, Wallander thought. But if so, he had chosen the wrong person to start with.

Then he wondered who had passed on the fact that Wallander had spent the morning driving his father to Malmö.

There were several possibilities. Wallander could not recall to whom he had mentioned his father's impending trip to Egypt.

The only thing he was sure of was that it was not Rydberg. The latter regarded Björk as a necessary administrative evil. Hardly anything more. And he was always loyal to those he worked with. His loyalty would never be corrupted, though of course he would not spare his colleagues if they acted irresponsibly. Then Rydberg would be the first to react.