Henning Mankell: An Event in Autumn: A Kurt Wallander Mystery

He wished the house had not been a troll that had suddenly been transformed when exposed to sunlight.

He couldn’t remember when he had last felt as listless as he did now. What was it due to? Was it the disappointment that he couldn’t manage to shake off? Or was it something else?

Many years ago Wallander had learned that one of the manifold virtues a police officer must possess is the ability to be patient with himself. There would always be days when nothing happened, when an investigation had become bogged down and refused to move either forward or backward. All one could do then was to be patient, and wait until a way of solving the problem emerged. It was easy for police officers to become impatient. They could work fast and with great enthusiasm, but they must never become impatient on days when nothing happened.

Two days passed when nothing happened — not on the surface, at least. Wallander and his colleagues dug deeper and deeper into various archives, searching in basements like animals digging underground passages through the darkness. Occasionally they met over coffee to report on how far they had got, then returned to their own little hideaway.

Outside the police station the weather seemed unable to make up its mind if it was going to be winter or not. One day it was cold, with snowflakes fluttering to the ground; the next day it was plus temperatures again and relentless rain drifted in from the Baltic.

It was a few minutes past nine in the morning on December 6 when the telephone on Wallander’s overloaded desk rang. He gave a start, and picked up the receiver. At first he didn’t recognize the voice. It belonged to a woman who spoke with a very marked Scanian accent.

Then he realized that the person he was speaking to was somebody he had met recently. It was Katja Blomberg.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Thinking and thinking, ever since I spoke to you. And then I read about the missing persons. That was when something struck me. The chest in the attic.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you.”

“I’ve kept everything I inherited from my grandparents in an old chest. It’s been standing in the attic ever since they died. I thought I recognized the name Ludvig Hansson: it was his house they burgled. Then I looked again in the old chest. I haven’t done that for many years. There were quite a lot of diaries in a box in there. Or perhaps I ought to call them almanacs. They belonged to Ludvig Hansson. I thought they might be something you ought to take a look at.”

“Almanacs?”

“He noted down when he sowed and when he harvested. He recorded the price he had to pay for things. But he also wrote about a few other things as well.”

“What things?”

“About his family and friends, and people who came to visit him.”

Wallander started to become interested.

“So he kept these almanacs during the war years, did he?”

“Yes.”

“I’d certainly like to look at them. Preferably without delay.”

“I could call in right away if you’d like me to.”

An hour later Katja Blomberg was sitting at his desk again, smoking. On the desk in front of her was an old wooden box.

The box contained almanacs with black leather covers. The year was printed in gold on the front cover of each. Ludvig Hansson had written his name on the title pages. There were four almanacs, dated 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1944. The box also contained some old bills. Wallander put on his glasses and started leafing through the almanacs. He started with the one for 1941 and worked through the rest. Sure enough, there was information about sowing and harvesting, a broken plow and a horse that “died mysteriously on September 12.” There were records about cows and volumes of milk, the slaughter of pigs and the selling of eggs. Occasionally Ludvig Hansson made notes about extreme temperatures. A week in December 1943 had been “hellish cold,” while July 1942 was so dry that Hansson “despaired about the harvest.”

Wallander read. He noted that various people’s birthdays were celebrated, and occasionally there were funerals that were either “painful” or “too long.” All the time Katja sat there, chain-smoking.

Wallander moved on to the last of the almanacs, the one for 1944, without feeling that he had become better acquainted with Ludvig Hansson; neither had he found any details that could throw light on the discovery of the skeletons.

But suddenly he paused at the entry for May 12, 1944. Hansson had noted down that “the Estonians have arrived. Three of them: father, mother and son. Kaarin, Elmo and Ivar Pihlak. An advance has been paid.” Wallander frowned. Who were these Estonians? What had been paid in advance, and why? He continued reading slowly. Another note on August 14 said: “payments on time again. The Estonians pleasant and cause no trouble. Good business.” What exactly had been good business? He continued reading.

It was not until November 20 that there was another note — and it was the last one. “They have left. Accommodation a mess.”

Wallander looked through the loose papers in the box without finding anything of note.

“I need to keep these almanacs,” he said. “You can have the box back, of course.”

“Was there anything of interest?” Katja Blomberg asked.

“Perhaps. In 1944 an Estonian family appears to have been living there. Between May 12 and the end of November.”

Wallander thanked her, and left the almanacs lying on the desk. Could this be the solution? he wondered. An Estonian family living at the farm in 1944. But they leave, they don’t die. Ludvig Hansson can hardly have killed them.

Martinson was about to go and eat when Wallander came to his office. Wallander asked him to delay his lunch. Stefan Lindman was too busy ferreting away in some of the endless registers and archives. They sat down in Martinson’s office. Wallander did the talking while Martinson leafed through the almanacs.

Wallander finished his account of what he had discovered. Martinson seemed doubtful.

“It doesn’t seem all that credible.”

“It’s the first bit of new concrete information we have.”

“Three people. A whole family. We’ve found two skeletons. Nyberg is sure that there aren’t any more.”

“There could be another body buried somewhere else.”

“If we assume that they were staying in Sweden illegally, or in secret, it won’t be so easy to track them down.”

“Even so, we’ve got some names. Three names. Kaarin, Elmo and Ivar Pihlak. I’m going to look into them anyway, and see if we can come up with anything.”

Martinson stood up and prepared to leave for his delayed lunch.

“If I were you I’d start with the annual census,” he said. “Even if it’s not all that likely they’ll be in it.”

“I can’t think of any better place to start,” said Wallander. “Then we’ll see.”

Wallander left the police station. He thought he ought to eat. There was a lot he ought to do.

For a brief moment he felt listless again as he sat in the driving seat of his car with the key in his hand. Then he got a grip of himself, switched on the engine and set off to trace the Estonian family.

The woman behind the counter at the local tax office listened sympathetically to what he had to say, but she was not exactly encouraging once she had heard the whole story.

“It will probably be difficult,” she said. “We’ve had people here before looking for traces of people from the Baltic States who had been in Skåne during the war years. You’re the first police officer, but there have been others — mainly relatives. We very rarely find them.”