The Pyramid (36 page)

'But I don't think she really liked animals,' Tyra said unexpectedly.
'I think she did it so she would be thought of as a good person.'

'That doesn't sound like such a nice description.'

The woman on the other side of the table looked cheekily at him.

'I thought policemen wanted to know the truth,' she said. 'Or am I wrong?'

Wallander changed the subject and asked about money.

'She donated a thousand kronor a month. For us that was a lot.'

'Did she give the impression of being rich?'

'She never dressed expensively. But I'm sure she had money.'

'You must have asked yourself where it came from. A sewing shop is hardly something one associates with a fortune.'

'Not one thousand kronor a month either,' she answered. 'I'm not particularly curious. Perhaps it's because I see so badly. But where the money came from or how well their shop did, I know nothing about.'

Wallander hesitated for a moment, and then he told her the truth.

'It has been reported in the papers that the sisters burned to death,' he said, 'but it has not been reported that they were shot. They were already dead when the fire started.'

She sat up.

'Who could have wanted to shoot two old ladies? That's as likely as someone wanting to kill me.'

'That is exactly what we are trying to understand,' Wallander said.
'That's why I'm here. Did Emilia ever say anything about having enemies? Did she appear frightened?'

Tyra Olofsson did not have to reflect.

'She was always very sure of herself,' she said. 'She never said a word about her and her sister's life. And when they were away she never sent a postcard. Not once, even with all the wonderful postcards with animal motifs that you can get these days.'

Wallander raised his eyebrows.

'You mean they travelled a lot?'

'Two months out of every year. November and March. Sometimes in the summer.'

'Where did they go?'

'I heard it was Spain.'

'Who took care of their shop?'

'They always took turns. Perhaps they needed time apart.'

'Spain? What else do the rumours say? And where do these rumours come from?'

'I can't remember. I don't listen to rumours. Perhaps they went to
Marbella. But I'm not sure.'

Wallander wondered if Tyra Olofsson was really as uninterested in rumours and gossip as she seemed. He had only one remaining question.

'Who do you think knew Emilia best?'

'I would think it was her sister.'

Wallander thanked her and walked back to the station. The wind was even stronger. He thought about what Tyra Olofsson had said. There had been no meanness in her voice. She had been very matter-of-fact.
But her description of Emilia Eberhardsson had not been flattering.

When Wallander reached the station, Ebba told him that Rydberg had been looking for him. Wallander went straight to his office.

'The picture is becoming clearer,' Rydberg said. 'I think we should get the others and have a short meeting. I know they're around.'

'What's happened?'

Rydberg waved a bunch of papers.

'VPC,' he said. 'And there's a great deal of interest in these papers.'

It took Wallander a moment to remember that VPC stood for the
Swedish securities register centre, which, among other things, recorded stock ownership.

'For my part I've managed to establish that at least one of the sisters was a genuinely unpleasant person,' Wallander said.

'Doesn't surprise me in the least,' Rydberg chuckled. 'The rich often are.'

'Rich?' Wallander asked.

But Rydberg did not answer until they were all assembled in the conference room. Then he explained himself in detail.

'According to the Swedish securities register centre, the Eberhardsson sisters had stocks and bonds totalling close to ten million kronor. How they managed to keep this from being subject to the wealth tax is a mystery. Nor do they appear to have paid income tax on their dividends.
But I've alerted the tax authorities. It actually appears that Anna
Eberhardsson was registered as a resident of Spain. But I'm not clear on the details of this yet. In any case, they had a large portfolio of investments both in Sweden and abroad. The Swedish securities register centre's ability to check international investments is of course minimal; this is not their job. But the sisters invested heavily in the British weapons and aviation industries. And in this they appear to have shown great skill and daring.'

Rydberg put down the documents.

'We can thus not exclude the possibility that what we see here is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Five million in a safe and ten million in stocks and bonds. This is what we have uncovered in the space of a few hours. What happens after we've been working for a week? Perhaps the amount will increase to one hundred million?'

Wallander reported on his meeting with Tyra Olofsson.

'The description of Anna isn't flattering either,' Svedberg said when
Wallander had finished. 'I talked to the man who sold the sisters the house five years ago. That was when the market was getting soft. Until then they had always rented. Apparently it was Anna who negotiated.
Emilia was never present. And the estate agent said Anna was the most difficult customer he ever had. Apparently she had managed to find out that his company happened to be in crisis at that time, with regard to both solidity and liquidity. He said that she had been completely ice-cold and more or less blackmailed him.'

Svedberg shook his head.

'This isn't exactly how I would have imagined two old ladies who sold buttons,' he said and the room fell silent.

Wallander was the one who broke the silence.

'In a way this has been our breakthrough,' he started. 'We still have no leads on who killed them. But we have a plausible motive. And it is the most common of all motives: money. In addition, we know that the women committed tax fraud and concealed great sums of money from the authorities. We know that they were rich. It won't surprise me if we turn up a house in Spain. And perhaps other assets, in other parts of the world.'

Wallander poured himself a glass of mineral water before continuing.

'Everything we know now can be summed up in two points. Two questions. Where did they get the money? And who knew that they were rich?'

Wallander was about to lift the glass to his lips when he saw Rydberg flinch, as if he had been given a shock.

Then his upper body slumped over the table.

As if he was dead.

Later, Wallander would remember that for a few seconds he had been entirely convinced that Rydberg had died. Everyone who was in the room when Rydberg collapsed thought the same thing: that Rydberg's heart had suddenly stopped. It was Svedberg who reacted first. He had been sitting next to Rydberg and could tell that his colleague was still alive. He grabbed the telephone and called for an ambulance. Wallander and Hansson lowered Rydberg onto the floor and unbuttoned his shirt.
Wallander listened to his heart and heard it beating very quickly. Then the ambulance arrived and Wallander accompanied it on its short drive to the hospital. Rydberg received immediate treatment, and after less than half an hour Wallander had been informed that it was not likely to have been a heart attack. Rather, Rydberg had collapsed for some as yet unknown reason. He was conscious at this point but shook his head when Wallander wanted to talk to him. He was judged to be in stable condition and admitted to the hospital for observation. There was no longer any reason for Wallander to stay. A patrol car was waiting outside to drive him back to the station. His colleagues had remained in the conference room. Even Björk was present. Wallander could inform them that the situation was under control.

'We work too hard,' he said and looked at Björk. 'We have more and more to do. But our numbers have not increased. Sooner or later what happened to Rydberg can happen to all of us.'

'It is a troubling situation,' Björk admitted. 'But we have limited resources.'

For the next half an hour the investigation was set aside. Everyone was shaken and talked about the working conditions. After Björk left the room, the words became sharper. About impossible planning, strange priorities and a continual lack of information.

At around two o'clock, Wallander felt they had to move on. Not least for his own sake. When he saw what had happened to Rydberg he had thought about what could happen to himself. How long would his own heart put up with the strain? All the unhealthy food, the frequently recurring bouts of broken and lost sleep? And, above all, his grief after the divorce.

'Rydberg would not approve of this,' he said. 'That we're wasting time talking about our situation. We'll have to do that later. Right now we have a double murderer to catch. As soon as we possibly can.'

They ended the meeting. Wallander went to his office and called the hospital. He was told that Rydberg was sleeping. It was still premature to expect an explanation for what had happened.

Wallander hung up the phone, and Martinsson walked in.

'What happened?' he asked. 'I've been in Sjöbo. Ebba was all shaken up out there.'

Wallander told him. Martinsson sat down heavily in the visitor's chair.

'We work ourselves to death,' he said. 'And who appreciates it?'

Wallander became impatient. He didn't want to think about Rydberg any more, at least not right now.

'Sjöbo,' he said. 'What do you have for me?'

'I've been out in a variety of muddy fields,' Martinsson replied. 'We've been able to pinpoint the location of those lights quite well. But there were no traces anywhere of either spotlights or marks from a plane landing or taking off. On the other hand, some information has turned up that probably explains why this aeroplane couldn't be identified.'

'And what is it?'

'It simply doesn't exist.'

'What do you mean?'

Martinsson took a while to search through the papers he had taken out of his briefcase.

'According to the records of the Piper factory, this plane crashed in
Vientiane in 1986. The owner back then was a Laotian consortium that used it to transport its managers to various agricultural centres around the country. The official cause of the crash was listed as a lack of fuel.
No one was injured or killed. But the plane was wrecked and removed from all active registers and from the insurance company, which apparently was a kind of daughter company to Lloyd's. This is what we know after looking up the engine registration number.'

'But that turned out not to be correct?'

'The Piper factory is naturally very interested in what has happened.
It's not good for their reputation if a plane that no longer exists suddenly starts to fly again. This could be a case of insurance fraud and other things that we have no idea about.'

'And the men in the plane?'

'We're still waiting for them to be identified. I have a couple of good contacts in Interpol. They've promised to expedite the matter.'

'The plane must have come from somewhere,' Wallander said.

Martinsson nodded.

'That gives us yet another problem. If you refurbish a plane with extra fuel tanks, it's able to fly long distances. Nyberg thinks he may have identified the remains of something that could have been a spare fuel tank. But we don't know yet. If this is the case, the plane could have come from virtually anywhere. At least Britain and Continental
Europe.'

'But it must have been observed by someone,' Wallander insisted.
'You can't cross borders with complete impunity.'

'I agree,' Martinsson said. 'Therefore Germany would be an educated guess, because you fly over open water until you reach the Swedish border.'

'What do the German aviation authorities say?'

'It takes time,' Martinsson said. 'But I'm working on it.'

Wallander reflected for a moment.

'We actually need you on this double homicide,' he said. 'Can you delegate this work to someone else? At least while we wait on a positive identification of the pilots, and whether the plane came from
Germany?'

'I was about to suggest the same thing,' Martinsson said.

Wallander checked the time.

'Ask Hansson or Svedberg to get you up to speed on the case,' he said.

Martinsson got out of the chair.

'Have you heard from your father?'

'He doesn't call without a good reason.'

'My father died when he was fifty-five,' Martinsson said abruptly.
'He had his own business. A car-repairs shop. He had to work constantly in order to make ends meet. Right when things were starting to look up, he died. He wouldn't have been more than sixtyseven now.'

Martinsson left. Wallander did his best to avoid thinking about
Rydberg. Instead he again reviewed everything they knew about the
Eberhardsson sisters. They had a likely motive – money – but no trace of the killer. Wallander jotted a few words on his notepad.

The double life of the Eberhardsson sisters?

Then he pushed the pad away. When Rydberg was out, they lacked their best instrument. If an investigative team is like an orchestra,
Wallander thought, we've lost our first violinist. And then the orchestra doesn't sound as good.

At that moment he made up his mind to have his own talk with the neighbour who had provided the information about Anna
Eberhardsson. Svedberg was often too impatient when he talked to people about what they might have seen or heard. It's also a matter of finding out what people think, Wallander said to himself. He found the name of the neighbour, Linnea Gunnér. Only women in this case, he thought. He dialled her phone number and heard her pick up. Linnea Gunnér was at home and happy to receive him. She gave him the code to the front door of her building and he made a note of it.

He left the station shortly after three o'clock and kicked the damaged hinge again. The dent was getting worse. When he reached the scene of the fire, he saw that the ruins of the building were already in the process of being razed. There were still many curious onlookers gathered around the site.

Linnea Gunnér lived on Möllegatan. Wallander entered the door code and took the stairs to the first floor. The house dated back to the turn of the century and had beautiful designs on the walls of its stairwell.
On the door to Gunnér's apartment was posted a large sign about residents not wishing to receive any advertisements. Wallander rang the bell. The woman who opened the door was the opposite of Tyra
Olofsson in almost every way. She was tall, with a sharp gaze and a firm voice. She invited him into her apartment, which was filled with objects from all over the world. In the living room there was even a ship's figurehead. Wallander looked at it for a long time.

'This belonged to the barque
Felicia
, which sank in the Irish Sea,'
Linnea Gunnér said. 'I bought it once for an insignificant sum in
Middlesbrough.'

'Then you've been at sea?' he asked.

'My whole life. First as a chef, then as a steward.'

She did not speak with a Skåne dialect. Wallander thought she sounded more as if she came from Småland or Östergötland.

'Where are you from?' he asked.

'Skänninge in Östergötland. About as far from the sea as one can get.'

'And now you live in Ystad?'

'I inherited this apartment from an aunt. And I have a view of the sea.'

She had put out coffee. Wallander thought it was probably the last thing his stomach needed. But he still said yes. He had immediately felt he could trust Linnea Gunnér. He had read in Svedberg's notes that she was sixty-six years old. But she appeared younger.

'My colleague Svedberg was here,' Wallander started.

She burst into laughter.

'I have never seen someone scratch his forehead as often as that man.'

Wallander nodded.

'We all have our ways. For example, I always think there are more questions to be asked than one may initially think.'

'I only told him about my impressions of Anna.'

'And Emilia?'

'They were different. Anna spoke in quick, choppy bursts. Emilia was quieter. But they were equally disagreeable. Equally introverted.'

'How well did you know them?'

'I didn't. Sometimes we bumped into each other on the street. Then we would exchange a few words. But never more than was necessary.
Since I like to embroider, I often went to their shop. I always got what
I needed. If something had to be ordered, it arrived quickly. But they were not pleasant.'

'Sometimes one needs time,' Wallander said. 'Time to allow one's memory to catch things one thought one had forgotten.'

'What would that be?'

'I don't know. You know. An unexpected event. Something that went against their habits.'

She thought about it. Wallander studied an impressive brass-inlaid compass on a bureau.

'My memory has never been good,' she said finally. 'But now that you mention it, I do remember something that happened last year. In the spring, I think it was. But I can't say if it's important.'

'Anything could be important,' Wallander said.

'It was one afternoon. I needed some thread. Blue thread, as I recall.
I walked down to the shop. Both Emilia and Anna were behind the counter. Just as I was about to pay for the thread, a man entered the shop. I remember that he started, as if he hadn't been expecting anyone else to be in the shop. And Anna became angry. She gave Emilia a look that could kill. Then the man left. He had a bag in his hand. I paid for my thread and then I left.'

'Could you describe him?'

'He was not what one would call Swedish-looking. Swarthy, on the short side. A black moustache.'

'How was he dressed?'

'A suit. I think it was of good quality.'

'And the bag?'

'An ordinary black briefcase.'

'Nothing else?'

She thought back.

'Nothing that I can recall.'

'You only saw him that one time?'

'Yes.'

Wallander knew that what he had just heard was important. He could not yet determine what it meant. But it strengthened his impression that the sisters had led a double existence. He was slowly penetrating below the surface.

Wallander thanked her for the coffee.

'What was it that happened?' she asked when they were standing in the hall. 'I woke up with my room on fire. The light from the flames was so bright that I thought my own apartment was burning.'

'Anna and Emilia were murdered,' Wallander answered. 'They were dead when the fire started.'

'Who would have wanted to do something like that?'

'I would hardly be here if I knew the answer,' Wallander said and took his leave.

When he came back out onto the street he stopped for a while next to the scene of the fire and watched absently as a backhoe filled a truck with rubble. He tried to visualise the case clearly. Do what Rydberg had taught him. To enter a room where death had wreaked havoc and try to write the drama backwards. But here there is not even a room,
Wallander thought. There is nothing.

He started walking back in the direction of Hamngatan. In the building next to Linnea Gunnér's there was a travel agency. He stopped when he noticed a poster in the window that depicted the pyramids.
His father would be home again in four days. Wallander felt he had been unfair. Why couldn't he be happy that his father was realising one of his oldest dreams? Wallander looked at the other posters in the window. Majorca, Crete, Spain.

Suddenly something occurred to him. He opened the door and walked in. Both of the sales agents were busy. Wallander sat down to wait. When the first of them, a young woman hardly older than twenty, became free he got up and sat down at her desk. He had to wait a couple of minutes longer as she answered the phone. He saw from a nameplate on the desk that her name was Anette Bengtsson. She put down the receiver and smiled.

'Do you want to get away?' she asked. 'There are still spaces left around Christmas and New Year.'

'My errand is of a different nature,' Wallander said and held up his
ID card. 'You have of course heard that two old ladies burned to death across the street from here.'

'Yes, it's terrible.'

'Did you know them?'

He received the answer he had been hoping for.

'They booked their trips through us. It's so awful that they're gone.
Emilia was planning to travel in January. And Anna in April.'

Wallander nodded slowly.

'Where were they going?' he asked.

'To the same place as always. Spain.'

'More precisely?'

'To Marbella. They had a house there.'