Henning Mankell - The Pyramid

Wallander drove on. The second disco was located in the inner city. It was open. The volume hit Wallander's head like a club as he walked in the door. The disco was owned by two men, one of whom was present. Wallander convinced him to walk out onto the street. He also had a negative answer to give. Rolf Nyman had never borrowed any lights. Nor had any equipment gone missing.

Wallander got back in his car and blew his nose into some toilet paper. This is meaningless, he thought. What I am doing right now is just throwing away my efforts. The only result will be that I'll end up staying ill longer.

Then he drove to Lund. The sneezing attacks came and went in waves. He noticed that he was sweating. He was probably running a temperature again. The disco in Lund was called Lagårn – the Barn – and was in the eastern corner of the city. Wallander made several wrong turns before he found it. The sign was not illuminated and the doors were locked. Lagårn was located in a building that had earlier been a dairy, Wallander was able to read from the facade. He wondered why the disco had not been given that name instead, the Dairy. Wallander looked around. There was some small industry on either side of the disco. A little further away there was a house with a garden. Wallander walked over, opened the gate and rang the doorbell. A man around his own age opened it. Wallander heard opera music in the background.

Wallander showed him his police ID. The man let Wallander into the hall.

'If I'm not mistaken, it's Puccini,' Wallander said.

The man looked more closely at him.

'That's right,' he said. 'Tosca.'

'I'm actually here to talk about a different kind of music,' Wallander said. 'I'll keep this brief. I need to know who owns the disco next to you.'

'How on earth would I know that? I'm a genetic researcher. Not a disc jockey.'

'But you are neighbours, after all,' Wallander said.

'Why not ask your colleagues?' the man suggested. 'There are often fights outside. They would know.'

He's right, Wallander said.

The man pointed to a telephone on a table in the hall. Wallander had the number of the Lund police memorised. After being transferred several times he got the information that the disco was owned by a woman with the last name Boman. Wallander made a note of her address and telephone number.

'It's easy to find,' the officer he spoke to said. 'She lives in the building downtown that's across from the station.'

Wallander hung up.

'That is a very beautiful opera,' Wallander said. 'The music, I mean. I have unfortunately never seen it performed.'

'I never go to the opera,' the man said. 'The music is enough for me.'

Wallander thanked him and left. Then he drove around for a long time until he managed to find the station in Lund. The pedestrian streets and dead ends seemed innumerable. He parked in a no-parking zone. Then he tore off a number of sheets of toilet paper, put them in his pocket and walked across the street. He pressed the button with the name Boman. The door lock buzzed open and Wallander walked in. The apartment was on the second floor. Wallander looked around for a lift, but there was none. Even though he walked slowly, he got out of breath. A woman who was very young, hardly twenty-five, was standing in the doorway waiting for him. She had very short hair and several rings in her ears. Wallander introduced himself and showed her his ID. She didn't even glance at it but asked him to come in. Wallander looked around with astonishment. There was almost no furniture in the apartment. The walls were bare. And yet it was cosy somehow. There was nothing in the way. It only contained what was absolutely necessary.

'Why do the police in Ystad want to speak with me?' she asked. 'I have enough trouble with the cops in Lund.'

He could tell that she was not overly fond of the police. She had sat down in a chair and was wearing a very short skirt. Wallander searched around for a spot next to her face where he could direct his gaze.

'I'll get right to the point,' Wallander said. 'Rolf Nyman.'

'What about him?'

'Nothing. But does he work for you?'

'I have him as a reserve. In case one of my regular DJs gets ill.'

'My question may strike you as strange,' Wallander said. 'But I have to ask it.'

'Why aren't you looking me in the eye?' she asked abruptly.

'That is probably because your skirt is so very short,' Wallander replied, surprised at his own directness.

She burst into laughter, reached for a blanket and laid it across her legs. Wallander looked at the blanket and then her face.

'Rolf Nyman,' he repeated. 'Has he ever borrowed any lighting equipment from your establishment?'

'Never.'

Wallander caught an almost imperceptible cloud of uncertainty that crossed her face. His attention sharpened at once.

'Never?'

She bit her lip.

'The question is odd,' she said. 'But the fact is that a number of lights disappeared from the disco about a year ago. We reported it to the police as a burglary. But they never found any leads.'

'When was that? Was it after Nyman started to work for you?'

She thought back.

'Exactly one year ago. In January. After Nyman had started.'

'You never suspected that it could be an inside job?'

'No, actually.'

She got up and quickly left the room. Wallander looked at her legs. After a moment's absence she returned with a pocket calendar in her hand.

'The lights disappeared sometime between the ninth and twelfth of January. And now that I look I can see that it was actually Rolf who was working then.'

'What kind of lights?' Wallander asked.

'Six spotlights. Not really useful for a disco. They're more for theatre work. Very strong, around two thousand watts. There were also a number of cables that went missing.'

Wallander nodded slowly.

'Why are you asking about this?'

'I can't tell you that right now,' Wallander said. 'But I have to ask you one thing, and I want you to regard it as an order. That you don't mention this to Rolf Nyman.'

'Request granted as long as you have a word with your Lund colleagues and ask them to leave me alone.'

'I'll see what I can do.'

She followed him out into the hall.

'I don't think I ever asked you for your first name,' he said.

'Linda.'

'That's my daughter's name. Therefore it's a very beautiful name.'

Wallander was overcome by a sneeze. She drew back a few steps.

'I won't shake your hand,' he said. 'But you gave me the answer I had been hoping for.'

'You realise, of course, that I'm curious?'

'You'll get your answer,' he said, 'in time.'

She was just about to close the door when Wallander realised he had yet another question.

'Do you know anything about Rolf Nyman's private life?'

'No, nothing.'

'So, you don't know about his girlfriend who has a drug addiction?'

Linda Boman looked at him for a long time before she answered.

'I don't know if he has a girlfriend who takes drugs,' she said finally. 'But I do know that Rolf has serious problems with heroin. How long he'll manage to control it, I have no idea.'

Wallander went back down onto the street. The time was already ten o'clock and the night was cold.

We are through, he thought.

Rolf Nyman. Surely he's the one.

Wallander was almost back in Ystad when he decided not to go straight home. At the second roundabout on the edge of town he turned north instead. It was ten minutes to eleven. His nose continued to run, but his curiosity drove him on. He thought that what he was doing again – how many times now, he had no idea – was at odds with the most fundamental rules governing police work. Above all, the rule that forbade placing yourself in dangerous situations alone.