Henning Mankell - The White Lioness

But they could not find the right house here, either. They caught a glimpse of a farmhouse through the trees, but they kept going as it didn’t seem anything like the description they had. Wallander stopped after four kilometers.

“Do you have Mrs. Wallin’s number?” he inquired. “I have the distinct impression she has a very poor sense of direction.”

Robert Akerblom nodded and took a little telephone book from his inside pocket. Wallander noticed there was a bookmark shaped like an angel between the pages.

“Call her,” said Wallander. “Explain that you’re lost. Ask her to give you the directions again.”

The phone rang for some time before the widow answered.

It turned out that Mrs. Wallin was by no means sure how many kilometers it was to the turnoff.

“Ask her for some other landmark,” said Wallander. “There must be something we can use to get our bearings. If not, we’ll have to send a car and bring her here.”

Wallander let Robert Akerblom talk to Mrs Wallin without switching the phone over to the loudspeaker.

“An oak tree struck by lightning,” said Robert Akerblom. “We turn off just before we get to the tree.”

They drove on, and after two more kilometers saw the oak. There was also a turnoff to the right. Wallander called the other car, and explained how to find it. Then he investigated for the third time, looking for tire tracks. To his surprise he found nothing at all to suggest any vehicle had used this road for some time. That wasn’t necessarily significant. The tracks could have been washed away by rain. Nevertheless, he felt something approaching disappointment.

The house was situated where it ought to have been, by the roadside just one kilometer in. They stopped and got out of the car. It had started raining, and the wind was blowing in gusts.

Suddenly Robert Akerblom set off running towards the house, yelling out his wife’s name in a shrill voice. Wallander stayed by the car. It all happened so quickly, he was taken completely by surprise. When Robert Akerblom disappeared behind the house, he ran after him.

No car, he thought as he went. No car, and no Louise Akerblom.

He caught up with Robert Akerblom just as he was about to throw a broken brick through a window at the back of the house. Wallander grabbed his arm.

“It’s no good,” said Wallander.

“She may be in there,” yelled Robert Akerblom.

“You said she didn’t have any keys to the house,” Wallander pointed out. “Drop that brick so that we can look for a door that’s been forced. But I can tell you now she’s not there.”

Robert Akerblom suddenly collapsed in a heap.

“Where is she?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

Wallander felt a lump in his throat. He had no idea what to say.

Then he took Robert Akerblom by the arm and helped him to his feet.

“No point in sitting here and making yourself ill,” he said. “Let’s look around.”

There was no door that had been forced. They peeked in through undraped windows and saw only empty rooms. They had just concluded there was nothing else to see when Martinson and Svedberg turned into the drive.

“Nothing,” said Wallander. At the same time, he put his finger to his lips, discreetly, so that Robert Akerblom couldn’t see.

He didn’t want Svedberg and Martinson to start asking questions.

He didn’t want to have to say Louise Akerblom probably never got as far as the house.

“We have nothing to report either,” said Martinson. “No car, nothing.”

Wallander looked at his watch. Ten past six. He turned to Robert Akerblom and tried to smile.

“I think the most useful thing you can do now is to go back home to the girls,” he said. “Svedberg here will drive you home. We’ll make a systematic search. Try not to worry. We’ll find her all right.”

“She’s dead,” said Robert Akerblom in a low voice. “She’s dead, and she’ll never come back.”

The three policemen stood in silence.

“No,” said Wallander eventually. “There’s no reason to think it’s as bad as that. Svedberg will drive you home now. I promise to get in touch later on.”

Svedberg drove off.

“Now we can start searching for real,” said Wallander resolutely. He could feel the unease growing inside him all the time.

They sat in his car. Wallander called Bjork and asked for all available personnel with cars to be sent to the split oak. At the same time Martinson started planning how best to go through all the roads in a circle around the house with a fine-tooth comb, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Wallander asked Bjork to make sure they got suitable maps.

“We’ll keep looking until it gets dark,” said Wallander. “We start again at dawn tomorrow, if we don’t find anything tonight. You can get in touch with the army as well. Then we’ll have to consider a line search.”

“Dogs,” said Martinson. “We need dogs tonight, right now.”

Bjork promised to come along in person and take over responsibility.

Martinson and Wallander looked at each other.

“Summary,” said Wallander. “What do you think?”

“She never came here,” said Martinson. “She could have been close by, or a long way away. I don’t know what can have happened. But we have to find the car. We’re doing the right thing, starting the search here. Somebody must have seen it, surely. We’ll have to start knocking on doors. Bjork will have to hold a press conference tomorrow. We have to let it be known we regard the disappearance as serious.”

“What can have happened?” wondered Wallander.

“Something we’d rather not think about,” said Martinson.

The rain started drumming against the car windows and roof.

“Hell,” said Wallander.

“Yes,” said Martinson. “Exactly.”

Shortly before midnight the policemen, tired and drenched, reassembled on the gravel in front of the house Louise Akerblom had probably never seen. They’d found no trace of the dark blue car, still less of Louise Akerblom. The most remarkable thing they found was two elk carcasses. And a police car almost crashed with a Mercedes racing along one of the dirt roads at high speed as they were on their way to the meeting.

Bjork thanked everybody for their efforts. He had already agreed with Wallander that the weary cops could be sent home and told the search would begin again at six the next morning.

Wallander was the last to leave and head for Ystad. He had called Robert Akerblom on his car telephone, and told him they regretted they had nothing new to report. Although it was late, Robert Akerblom expressed the wish that Wallander should come and see him at their house, where he was alone with the daughters.

Before Wallander started the engine he called his sister in Stockholm. He knew she stayed up late at night. He told her their father was planning to marry his home aide. To Wallander’s astonishment, she burst out laughing. But to his relief, she promised to come down to Skane at the beginning of May.

Wallander replaced the telephone in its holder and set off for Ystad. Rain squalls hammered against the windshield.

He found his way to Robert Akerblom’s home. It was a row house like a thousand other houses. The light was still on downstairs.

Before getting out of the car he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

She never got that far, he thought.

What happened on the way?

There’s something about this disappearance that doesn’t add up. I don’t get it.

The clock beside Kurt Wallander’s bed rang at a quarter to five. He groaned, and put the pillow over his face.

He groaned, and put the pillow over his face.

I get far too little sleep, he thought dejectedly. Why can’t I be one of those cops who put everything to do with work aside as soon as they get home?