“His ex-wife’s meeting us there with the keys,” Martinsson said. “So you want to walk or take the car?”
“The car,” Wallander said. “I have a hole in my shoe.”
Martinsson gave him an amused look.
“What would the National Chief of Police say about that?”
“We’ve already instituted his ideas about community policing,” Wallander answered. “Why not expand the idea to include barefoot policing?”
They left the station in Martinsson’s car.
“How are things with you?” Martinsson asked.
“I’m pissed off,” Wallander said. “You’d think you get used to all this but you don’t. During my years in the force I’ve been accused of almost everything, with the possible exception of being lazy. You’d think you develop a defensive shield, but you don’t. At least not in the way you’d hope.”
“Did you mean what you said yesterday?”
“What did I say?”
“That you’d leave if they found you guilty.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I have the energy to think about it right now.”
Wallander didn’t want to talk more about it and Martinsson knew to leave him alone. They pulled up outside 10 Apelbergsgatan, where a woman was waiting for them.
“That must be Marianne Falk,” Martinsson said. “I guess she kept her name after the divorce.”
Martinsson was about to open the car door when Wallander stopped him.
“Does she know what’s happened? About the body being missing?”
“Someone notified her.”
They stepped out of the car. The woman standing there in the wind was very well dressed. She was tall and slender and reminded Wallander vaguely of Mona. They said hello. Wallander had the feeling she was worried. He immediately became more alert.
“Have they found the body yet? How can things like this happen?”
Wallander let Martinsson answer.
“It’s very unfortunate, of course.”
“‘Unfortunate’? It’s unacceptable. What do we have a police force for, anyway?”
“There’s a question,” Wallander said. “But I think we should deal with that another time.”
They went into the building and walked up the stairs. Wallander felt uncomfortable. Had he left anything behind the night before?
Marianne Falk walked ahead of them. When she came to the top landing, she stopped and pointed to the door. Martinsson was right behind her. Wallander pushed him aside. Then he saw. The door to the apartment was wide open. The locks he had taken so much trouble with the night before, trying not to leave any traces of his visit, had been broken with something like a crowbar. Wallander listened for sounds. Martinsson was right beside him. Neither one of them was carrying a weapon. Wallander hesitated. He signaled them to go down to the apartment below.
“There could be someone in there,” he whispered. “We had better get some backup.”
Martinsson picked up his phone.
“I want you to wait in your car,” Wallander said to Marianne Falk.
“What’s happened?”
“Just do as I say. Wait in your car.”
She disappeared down the stairs. Martinsson was talking to someone at the station.
“They’re on their way.”
They waited motionless on the stairs. There were no sounds coming from the apartment.
“I told them not to turn on the sirens,” Martinsson whispered. Wallander nodded.
After eight minutes Hansson came up the stairs with three other officers. Hansson had a gun. Wallander took a gun from one of the other policemen.
“Let’s go in,” he said.
The hand that was holding the gun shook slightly. Wallander was afraid. He was always afraid when he was about to enter a situation where anything was possible. He established eye contact with Hansson, then pushed the door open and called out into the apartment. There was no answer. He shouted again. When the door behind them opened, he jumped. An older woman looked out. Martinsson forced her back inside. Wallander called out a third time without getting an answer.
Then they went in.
The apartment was empty. But it was not the apartment he had left the night before with an impression of meticulous order. Now all the drawers were pulled out and emptied on the floor. Paintings on the wall hung askew and the record collection lay jumbled on the floor.
“There’s no one here,” he said. “Let’s get Nyberg and his people here as soon as possible. I don’t want us disturbing the area more than we have to.”
Hansson and the others left. Martinsson went to talk to the neighbors. Wallander stood in the doorway to the living room and looked around. How many times had he stood like this in an apartment where a crime had been committed? He couldn’t say. Without being able to put his finger on it, he knew something was missing. He let his gaze slowly travel through the room. When he was looking at the desk for the second time he realized what it was. He took off his shoes and approached the table.
The photograph was gone, the one of the group of men against the white stone wall. He bent over and looked under the desk. He slowly lifted the pieces of paper that had fallen to the ground. But it was gone.
At the same moment he realized something else was gone too. The diary.
He took a step back and held his breath. Someone knew I was here, he thought. Someone saw me come and go.
Was it an instinctive sense of this that had made him walk up to the windows twice and look out at the street? There had been someone out there he hadn’t been able to see. Someone hidden deep within the shadows.
He was interrupted in his thoughts by Martinsson.
“The woman next door is a widow by the name of Hakansson. She hasn’t seen or heard anything unusual.”
Wallander thought about the time he was drunk and had ended up spending the night in the apartment below.
“Talk to everyone who lives here. Find out if anyone has seen anything.”
“Can’t we get someone else to do it? I have a lot to do as it is.”
“It’s important that it’s done right,” Wallander said. “Not that many people live here, anyway.”
Martinsson disappeared again and Wallander waited. A crime technician turned up after twenty minutes.
“Nyberg is on his way,” he said. “But he was in the process of doing something out at the substation that seemed to be important.”
Wallander nodded.
“Take a look at the answering machine,” he said. “I want you to get everything that you can out of it.”
The officer wrote it down.
“The whole apartment should be videotaped,” Wallander continued. “I want this apartment examined down to every last detail.”
“Are the people who live here away?” the officer asked.
“The person who lived here was the man who was found dead by the cash machine,” Wallander said. “It’s very important that the forensic investigation is thorough.”
He left the apartment and walked out onto the street. There were no clouds in the sky. Marianne Falk was smoking in her car. When she saw Wallander she got out.
“What’s happened?”
“There’s been a break-in.”
“I wouldn’t have believed someone could have such utter disrespect for the dead.”
“I know you were divorced, but were you familiar with his apartment?”
“We had a good relationship. I visited him here many times.”
“I’m going to ask you to return later today,” Wallander said. “When the forensic team is done I want to you to walk through the apartment with me. You might be able to spot something that’s gone missing.”