Henning Mankell - The Fifth Woman

A phone rang in the silence. Only on the second ring did he realise that it was ringing in his jacket pocket. He took it out. It was Per Akeson.

“Am I interrupting anything?” he asked. “Where are you?”

Wallander didn’t want to tell him where he was.

“I’m sitting in my car,” he said. “But I’m parked.”

“I assume you haven’t heard the news,” Akeson said. “There’s not going to be a trial.”

Wallander didn’t understand. The thought had never occurred to him, although it should have. He should have been prepared.

“Yvonne Ander committed suicide,” Akeson said. “Sometime last night. She was found dead early this morning.”

Wallander held his breath. There was still something resisting, threatening to burst.

“She seems to have had access to pills. She shouldn’t have had them. At least not so many that she could take her own life. Spiteful people are going to ask whether you were the one who gave them to her.”

Wallander could hear that this was not a veiled question, but he answered it anyway.

“I didn’t help her.”

“The whole thing had a feeling of serenity about it. Everything was in perfect order. She seems to have made up her mind and carried it out. She died in her sleep. It’s easy to understand, of course.”

“Is it?” Wallander asked.

“She left a letter. With your name on it. I have it here on the desk in front of me.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” he said.

He stood where he was, with the silent phone in his hand, and tried to gauge what he was really feeling. Emptiness, maybe a vague hint of injustice.

He checked that the window was closed properly and then left the house through the front door.

It was a clear December day. Winter was lurking somewhere nearby.

Wallander went into Per Akeson’s office. The letter was lying in the middle of the desk.

He took it with him and went down to the harbour. He walked out to the sea rescue service’s red shed and sat down on the bench. The letter was short.

Somewhere in Africa there is a man who killed my mother. Who is looking for him?

That was all.

Who is looking for him?

She had signed the letter with her full name. In the upper right-hand corner she had written the date and time.

5 December, 1994, 2.44 a.m.

The next-to-last entry in her timetable, he thought. She wouldn’t write the last one herself, the doctor would do that, when he put down the time of her death. Then there would be nothing more. The timetable would be closed, her life concluded.

Her departure was formulated as a question or accusation. Or maybe both.

Who is looking for him?

He tore the letter into strips and tossed them into the water. He remembered that once, several years ago, he had torn up a letter that he had decided against sending to Baiba. He had tossed that one into the water too. There was a great difference. He would see Baiba again, and very soon.

He watched the pieces of paper float away over the water. Then he left the harbour and went to the hospital to visit Ann-Britt.

Something was over at last. The autumn in Skane was moving towards winter.