He was exhausted when he finally returned to Mariagatan. But before going to bed, he couldn’t resist getting out the magnifying glass and studying the postcard again. But it didn’t tell him anything more.
He went to bed shortly before two o’clock.
He fell asleep at once.
On Monday morning, Wallander made only a short stop at the station. He handed the apartment keys over to Martinsson and asked him about the car that had been seen the night before. Martinsson already had the report on his desk. Wallander didn’t say anything about the postcard. Not that he wanted to keep it to himself, but because he was in a hurry. He didn’t want to get bogged down in a long discussion. Before leaving the station he made two calls. One was to Siv Eriksson. He asked her about the number 20 and the letter C. She couldn’t think of anything offhand but told him she would be in touch if anything came to her. He told her about the postcard he had found in Falk’s office. Her exclamation of surprise was so strong that he didn’t doubt it was genuine.
Wallander told her what the postcard depicted. But she couldn’t shed light on where it came from.
“Maybe he had even more addresses,” she said.
Wallander sensed a note of disappointment in her voice, as if Falk had betrayed her.
“We’ll look into it,” he said. “You could be right about him having more houses.”
When the conversation was over, Wallander realized that the sound of her voice had cheered him up. He didn’t let himself dwell on it. He picked up the phone and made the next call, which was to Marianne Falk. He told her he was coming over in half an hour.
For the next few hours, Wallander sat in Marianne Falk’s living room and talked to her about the man she had been married to. He started at the beginning. When had they met? How had he been back then? Marianne Falk turned out to have an excellent memory. She rarely faltered or had to gather her thoughts. Wallander had brought his notebook, but he didn’t make any notes. He wasn’t planning to research what she told him; he was simply trying to get a better understanding of the man Falk had been.
According to Marianne, Falk had grown up on a farm outside Linköping. He was an only child. After graduating from high school he had done his military service and started studying in Uppsala. He hadn’t been able to decide on anything and had taken courses in everything from law to literature. But after a year he had moved to Stockholm and started studying at the business school.
That was when they had met. It had been 1972. She had been training to be a nurse during those years and had gone to a big party held by a student organization.
“Tynnes didn’t dance,” she said. “But he was there. Somehow or other we were introduced. I remember thinking that he seemed boring. It certainly wasn’t love at first sight, at least not from my side. He called a few days after that. I don’t know how he got my number. He wanted to see me again, but not for the usual walk or movie. What he suggested surprised me.”
“And what was that?”
“He wanted us to go out to Bromma and watch the airplanes taking off.”
“Did he say why?”
“He liked airplanes. We went out there, and he could tell me everything about the planes that were parked there. I thought he was a little strange. He certainly wasn’t how I had imagined the man in my life.”
Tynnes had been very persistent, according to Marianne, although she had had her doubts.
“He wasn’t pushy physically,” she said. “I think it probably took him about three months even to think of kissing me. If he hadn’t done so by that point, I would probably have tired of the whole thing. He probably sensed that and that’s why he finally kissed me. He was very shy. Or at least he pretended to be.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Tynnes was very self-confident when it came down to it. He had a reserved manner, but I think he actually looked down on most of the rest of humanity, even if he often claimed the opposite.”
A turning point in the relationship had come on a day in April or May about six months after they had met. They’d had no plans to meet that day, because Tynnes had said he had an important lecture at school to attend and she was running some errands for her mother. On her way to the train station, she was forced to stop on the side of the road because a mass of demonstrators were walking by. It was a demonstration to raise awareness of Third World issues. The signs and banners had various messages about the World Bank and Portuguese colonial oppression. Marianne had come from a stable home with solid Social Democratic values. She had not been caught up by the swelling wave of left-wing radicals, nor had she ever detected such an interest in Tynnes, even though he always seemed to have the answer whenever they discussed political issues and he clearly liked showing off his political knowledge and sophisticated understanding of political theory. When she caught sight of him among the demonstrators that day, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She had unconsciously taken a few steps back as he passed her on the street and he never saw her there.
Afterward she had asked him about it. When he realized that she had seen him in the demonstration, he became furious. It was the first time she witnessed his temper. But then he had calmed down. She never understood why it had affected him so strongly, but from that day she had known that there was a lot more to Tynnes than met the eye.
“I broke up with him that June,” she said. “Not because I had met anyone else. I just didn’t believe we were going anywhere. And his angry reaction about the demonstration had played a part in that.”
“How did he take it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“We met at an outdoor café in Kungsträdgården. I told him straight out that I wanted to end the relationship and that I didn’t think we had a future. He listened to what I had to say and then he just got up and left.”
“And that was the end?”
“He didn’t say a single word. I remember that his face was a complete blank. When I had finished talking, he left. Though he left some money on the table for our coffees.”
“What happened after that?”
“I didn’t see him again for several years.”
“How long exactly?”
“Four years, I think.”
“What did he do during that time?”
“I don’t know for sure.”
Wallander looked at her with curiosity.
“Do you mean to say that he was gone without a trace during those four years?”
“I know it seems hard to believe, but about a week after our date in Kungsträdgården I decided I needed to talk to him again. That’s when I discovered that he had moved out of his student room without leaving a forwarding address. After a few weeks I managed to get in touch with his parents in Linköping, but they had no idea where he had gone, either. For four years he was gone, and I had no idea where he was. He had withdrawn from the business school. No one knew anything. And then he turned up again.”
“When was that?”
“That I remember exactly. It was the 2nd of August, 1977. had just accepted my first nursing position at Sabbatsberg Hospital. And there he was, waiting outside the hospital for me, carrying a big bouquet of flowers. He was smiling. I had gone through a failed relationship during those four years. When I saw him waiting there, it cheered me up. I think I was feeling pretty lost and lonely. My mother had just died.”
“You started seeing each other again?”
“He thought we should get married. He asked me just a few days later.”
“But he must have told you what he had been doing the past few years?”
“Actually, he didn’t say a word about that. He said he wouldn’t ask me about my life if I wouldn’t ask him about his. He wanted us to pretend the past four years had never happened.”