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

“But you stayed here in Sweden, is that right?”

“I didn’t want to go back. I stayed on here. I’ve never regretted it. I was able to train to become an engineer.”

“Do you have any family?”

“It never happened, I’m afraid. That’s something I regret, now that I’m an old man.”

“Did your parents come to visit you here?”

“It was usually a case of me going to Estonia. Things were very difficult there after the war, as you know.”

“When did your parents die?”

“My mother died as early as 1965, my father in the eighties.”

“What happened to their home?”

“An uncle on my father’s side took care of everything. I was there for their funerals. I brought some of their belongings back here to Sweden with me. But I got rid of everything when I moved in here. There’s not a lot of room for stuff here as you can see.”

Wallander felt he had no more questions to ask. The whole situation was pointless. The man with the blue eyes looked directly at him all the time, and spoke in a calm, soft voice.

“I won’t disturb you anymore,” said Wallander. “Good-bye, and many thanks.”

Wallander walked back through the garden. The men were still playing boules. Wallander paused and watched them. Something had begun to worry him. At first he couldn’t pin it down, apart from being aware that it had to do with the conversation he had had with the old man a few minutes earlier.

Then the penny dropped. It was as if the man’s responses had been rehearsed. No matter what he had asked, he received an answer — a little too fast, a little too precisely.

I’m imagining things, Wallander thought. I’m seeing ghosts where there aren’t any ghosts.

He drove back to the police station. Linda was sitting in the canteen, drinking coffee. He sat down at her table. There were a few ginger biscuits on a plate, and he ate them all.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“It’s not going at all,” he said. “We’re standing still.”

“Will you be at home for dinner this evening?”

“I think so.”

She stood up and returned to her duties. Wallander finished his coffee and then went to his office.

The afternoon slid slowly past.

Just as he was about to go home, the telephone rang.

He recognized her voice, even before she had a chance to give her name. It was the girl called Pia on the telephone.

“I didn’t know where I should ring to reach you,” she said.

“What’s happened?”

“Ivar has disappeared.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“He’s disappeared. He’s run away.”

Wallander sat down at his desk. He noticed that his heart was beating faster.

“Calm down,” he said. “Tell me bit by bit. What’s happened?”

“He didn’t come down for dinner an hour ago. So I went up to his room. It was empty. His jacket was missing. We looked for him in the building and in the garden and down on the beach. He wasn’t anywhere to be found. Then Miriam came and said that her car was missing.”

“Who’s Miriam?”

“She works here, her job is identical to mine. She thought Ivar might have taken her car.”

“Why should Ivar have taken it?”

“She doesn’t usually lock her car. And Ivar often talked about how much he used to like driving.”

“What make of car does she have?”

“A dark blue Fiat.”

Wallander noted that down. Then he thought for a moment.

“Are you certain that Ivar isn’t in the house or the garden?”

“We’ve looked everywhere.”

“Why do you think he’s run away?”

“I thought you would be able to explain that.”

“I know where he might be. I’m not sure, but I might be right. If I find him I’ll be in touch within an hour or so. If I don’t find him I’ll have to make it an official police matter. Then we shall have to work out the best way of starting some kind of organized search.”

Wallander hung up. He sat motionless on his chair. Was he right? Had that uneasiness he had felt earlier been founded on fact?

He stood up. It was 5:35. It was dark outside. The wind came and went in gusts.

Even from a distance Wallander could see that there was a faint light in one of the windows. There was no longer any doubt. His suspicion had been correct. Ivar Pihlak had come to the house where he had once lived with his parents.

Wallander drove onto the shoulder and switched off the engine. Apart from that faint light in the window, everything around him was dark. He picked up the flashlight that he always kept under the driver’s seat, and started walking. The wind was lashing at his face. When he reached the house he saw that two lamps in the living room were lit. A kitchen window was broken, and the hasps unfastened. Pihlak had placed a garden chair so that he could climb in. Wallander looked in through the window but could see no sign of him. He decided to enter the house the same way as Pihlak, through the broken kitchen window. He didn’t think he needed to be worried. The man inside the house was old — an old man whose fate had caught up with him.

Wallander climbed in. He stood motionless on the kitchen floor and listened. He regretted that he had driven out to the farm alone. He felt in his jacket pocket for his cell phone, then remembered that he had put it down on the car seat when he had been feeling for the flashlight. He tried to make a decision. Should he stay where he was, or climb out through the window again and ring for Martinson? He opted for the latter, squeezed out through the window and started walking toward the car.

Whether it was an instinctive reaction or if he had heard a noise behind him was something he could never work out afterward, but something hit him on the back of his head before he had time to turn around. Everything went black before he hit the ground.

When he came around he was sitting on a chair. His trousers and shoes were covered in mud. A dull pain was nagging away inside his head.

Standing in front of him was Ivar Pihlak. He had a gun in his hand. An old German army — issue pistol, Wallander could see. Pihlak’s eyes were still blue, but the smile had disappeared. He simply looked tired. Tired, and very old.

Wallander started thinking. Pihlak had been out there in the darkness and had knocked him out. Then the old man had dragged him into the house. Wallander glanced at his watch: half past six. So he hadn’t been unconscious for very long.

He tried to assess the situation. The gun aimed at him was dangerous, despite the fact that the man holding it was eighty-six years old. Wallander must not underestimate Ivar Pihlak. He had knocked him out, and earlier in the day he had stolen a car and driven out to Löderup.

Wallander felt scared. Speak calmly, he told himself quietly. Speak perfectly calmly, listen, don’t complain; simply speak and listen very calmly.

“Why did you come?” asked Pihlak.

His voice sounded sorrowful again, as Wallander had thought it sounded at Ekudden. But he was also tense.

“Why did I come here, or why did I go to where you live?”

“Why did you come? I’m an old man and I shall soon be dead. I don’t want to feel anxious. I’ve been anxious all my life.”

“All I want is to understand what happened,” said Wallander slowly. “A few weeks ago I came out here to look at this house. Possibly to buy it. And then, purely by chance, I stumbled upon a piece of a skeleton, a hand, in the garden.”

“It’s not true,” said Pihlak.

He suddenly sounded irascible and impatient; his voice had become falsetto. Wallander held his breath.

“You lot have always been after me,” said Pihlak. “You’ve been chasing after me for sixty years. Why can’t I be left in peace? I mean, all that’s left is the epilogue: the fact that I shall die.”