Henning Mankell - The Pyramid

'I must say that you surprise me. That you spared no expense in flying out here and getting me out. I would not have thought that of you.'

Wallander did not answer.

'Go to bed,' he said. 'I'll meet you here at two o'clock.'

Wallander did not manage to fall asleep. After writhing on his bed for an hour he went to the reception desk and asked them for help in booking his return flight. He was directed to a travel agency located in another part of the hotel. There he was assisted by an unbelievably beautiful woman who spoke perfect English. She managed to get him a seat on the plane that was leaving Cairo the following day, the eighteenth of December, at nine o'clock. Since the plane only stopped in Frankfurt, he would already be in Kastrup at two o'clock that afternoon. After he had confirmed his seat, it was only one o'clock. He sat down in a cafe next to the lobby and drank some water and a cup of very hot coffee that was much too sweet. At exactly two o'clock his father appeared. He was wearing his pith helmet.

Together they explored the Giza plateau in the intense heat. Wallander thought several times that he was going to faint. But his father seemed unaffected by the heat. Down by the Sphinx Wallander at last found some shade. His father narrated and Wallander realised that he knew a great deal about the Egypt of old where the pyramids and the remarkable Sphinx had once been built.

It was close to six o'clock when they finally returned to the hotel. Since he was travelling very early the next morning they decided to eat dinner in the hotel, where there were several restaurants to choose from. At his father's suggestion they booked a table at an Indian restaurant and Wallander thought afterwards that he had rarely had such a good meal. His father had been pleasant the entire time and Wallander understood that he had now dismissed all thoughts of climbing the pyramids.

They parted at eleven. Wallander would be leaving the hotel at six.

'Of course I'll get up and see you off,' his father said.

'I'd rather you didn't,' Wallander said. 'Neither of us likes goodbyes.'

'Thank you for coming here,' his father said. 'You're probably right about it being hard to spend two years in prison without being able to paint.'

'Come home on the twenty-first and everything will be forgotten,' Wallander answered.

'The next time we'll go to Italy,' his father said and walked away towards his room.

That night Wallander slept heavily. At six o'clock he sat in the taxi and crossed the Nile for the sixth and hopefully final time. The plane left at the assigned time and he landed in Kastrup on time. He took a taxi to the ferries and was in Malmö at a quarter to four. He ran to the station and just made a train to Ystad. He walked home to Mariagatan, changed his clothes and walked in through the front doors of the station at half past six. The damaged hinge had been replaced. Björk knows where to set his priorities, he thought grimly. Martinsson's and Svedberg's offices were empty, but Hansson was in. Wallander told him about his trip in broad strokes. But first he asked how Rydberg was doing.

'He's supposed to be coming in tomorrow,' Hansson said. 'That was what Martinsson said.'

Wallander immediately felt relieved. Apparently it had not been as serious as they had feared.

'And here?' he asked. 'The investigation?'

'There has been another important development,' Hansson said. 'But that has to do with the plane that crashed.'

'What is it?'

'Yngve Leonard Holm has been found murdered. In the woods outside Sjöbo.'

Wallander sat down.

'But that isn't all,' Hansson said. 'He hasn't only been murdered. He was shot in the back of the head, just like the Eberhardsson sisters.'

Wallander held his breath.

He had not expected this. That a connection would suddenly appear between the crashed plane and the two murdered women who had been found in the remains of a devastating fire.

He looked at Hansson.

What does it mean, he thought. What is the significance of what Hansson is telling me?

All at once the trip to Cairo felt very distant.

At ten o'clock in the morning on the nineteenth of December, Wallander called the bank and asked if he could increase his loan by another twenty thousand kronor. He lied and said he had misheard the price of the car he intended to buy. The bank loan officer replied that it shouldn't present any difficulties. Wallander could come by and sign the loan documents and collect the money the same day. After Wallander hung up the phone, he called Arne, who was selling him the car, and arranged for him to deliver the new Peugeot to Mariagatan at one o'clock. Arne would also either try to bring the old one to life or tow it back to his garage.

Wallander made these two calls right after the morning meeting. They had met for two hours, starting at a quarter to eight. But Wallander had been at the station since seven o'clock. The night before, when he had learned that Yngve Leonard Holm had been murdered and that there was a possible connection between him and the Eberhardsson sisters, or at least with their killer, he had perked up and sat with Hansson for close to an hour, learning all the available facts. But then he had suddenly felt exhausted. He had gone home and stretched out on the bed in order to rest before undressing but had fallen asleep and slept through the night. When he woke up at half past five he felt restored. He stayed in bed for a while and thought about his trip to Cairo, which was already a distant memory.

When he reached the station, Rydberg was already there. They went to the break room, where they found several bleary-eyed officers who had just finished the night shift. Rydberg had tea and rusks. Wallander sat down across from him.

'I heard you went to Egypt,' Rydberg said. 'How were the pyramids?'

'High,' Wallander said. 'Very strange.'

'And your father?'

'He could have gone to prison. But I got him out by paying almost ten thousand kronor in fines.'

Rydberg laughed.

'My dad was a horse-trader,' he said. 'Have I told you that?'

'You've never said anything about your parents.'

'He sold horses. Travelled around to markets, checking the teeth, and was apparently a devil at inflating the price. That old stereotype about the horse-trader's wallet is actually true. My dad had one of those filled with thousand-kronor notes. But I wonder if he even knew that the pyramids were in Egypt. It's even less likely that he knew the capital was Cairo. He was completely uneducated. There was only one thing he knew and that was horses. And possibly women. All his dalliances drove my mother crazy.'

'One has the parents one has,' Wallander said. 'How are you feeling?'

'Something is wrong,' Rydberg said firmly. 'One doesn't collapse like that from rheumatism. Something is wrong. But I don't know what it is. And right now I'm more interested in this Holm who got a bullet in the back of his head.'

'I heard about it from Hansson yesterday.'

Rydberg pushed his teacup away.

'It is of course an incredibly compelling thought that the Eberhardsson sisters might turn out to have been involved in drug trafficking. Something like that would strike at the very foundations of the Swedish sewing supplies industry. Out with the embroidery, in with the heroin.'

'The thought has crossed my mind,' Wallander said. 'I'll see you in a while.'

As he walked to his office he thought that Rydberg would never have been as open about his health if he wasn't convinced that something was wrong. Wallander felt himself starting to worry.

Until a quarter to eight he went through some reports that had piled up on his desk during his absence. He had spoken to Linda the day before – just after he had got home and put his bag down. She had promised to go to Kastrup and meet her grandfather and make sure he made it home to Löderup. Wallander had not dared to hope that he would really be approved for a new loan and therefore be able to get a new car and pick up his father in Malmö.