“So the house is empty?” Höglund asked.
“There’s no one there.”
“When was it that the taxi came?”
“Last Wednesday. In the afternoon.”
Höglund imagined Yngve sitting in his kitchen with a big logbook of his neighbors’ activities in front of him. I guess it’s not unlike watching trains come and go, she thought.
“Do you remember what taxi company it was?” she asked.
“No.”
You’re lying, she thought. You know exactly what company it was; you may even remember the make of the car and the license-plate number. But you’re not going to tell me because you don’t want me to know what I’ve already figured out. That you spy on your neighbors.
She only had one more question.
“I’d be grateful if you would tell us when he turns up again.”
“What’s he done?”
“Absolutely nothing. We just need to ask him a few questions.”
“What about?”
Clearly his curiosity knew no bounds. She shook her head and he didn’t ask again, but she could see he was irritated. It was as if she had broken some unspoken rule of etiquette.
Höglund returned to the station and was lucky enough to locate the taxicab company and driver who had picked up Jonas Landahl on Snappehanegatan. The taxi driver stopped by the police station and she asked him a few questions. His name was Östensson and he was in his thirties.
She asked him about his passenger and he turned out to have a good memory.
“I picked him up shortly before two o’clock. I think his name was Jonas.”
“Did he give a last name?”
“I think I thought it was a last name. Nowadays people have such strange names.”
“And there was only one passenger?”
“Yes. A young man. He was friendly.”
“Did he have a lot of luggage?”
“Just a little bag on wheels. That was all.”
“Where did he want to go?”
“To the ferry terminal.”
“Was he going to Poland?”
“Are there any other destinations?”
“What was your general impression of him?”
“I didn’t really have one. But he was nice enough.”
“Did he seem anxious?”
“No.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He sat in the back seat and looked out the window, as far as I remember. But he gave me a tip. I remember that.”
Östensson didn’t have anything else to add. Höglund thanked him for his trouble. She decided to get a warrant to search the house on Snappehanegatan. She spoke to someone at the district attorney’s office, who sent over the paperwork she needed.
She was just on her way over to the house when the day-care center called to say that her youngest child was sick and throwing up. She drove over and took her child home, then spent the next few hours there. But then the child seemed better and her godsend of a neighbor, who often jumped in and helped her in times of need, was available to look after the little one. By the time she returned to the station, Wallander had also come back.
“Do we have keys?” he asked.
“I thought we would bring a locksmith along.”
“No need. Were the locks complicated in any way?”
“No, not really.”
“Then I’ll take care of them myself.”
“Just remember that a man in a dressing gown and green boots will be watching us from his kitchen window.”
“You’ll have to go over and keep him busy, maybe sweet-talk him. Tell him his observations have helped us and that we would be grateful if he would take a special interest in the comings and goings on his street for the next few days. And of course keep everything he finds out to himself. If there’s one curious neighbor, there could be more.”
Höglund laughed.
“He’s just the type to fall for it,” she said.
They drove to Snappehanegatan in her car. As usual he thought she drove too fast and made unnecessarily jerky movements. He was going to tell her about the photo album but couldn’t focus on anything but his hopes of not running into another car.
Wallander headed for the front door while Höglund went over to the neighbor’s house. Just as she had described, he was also struck by a feeling of desolation as he regarded the house. He was about to get the doors open when she returned.
“The dressing-gown man is now part of our undercover team,” she said.
“I take it you didn’t say we wanted the boy in connection with Sonja Hökberg?”
“Who do you take me for?”
“A talented policewoman, of course.”
Wallander opened the doors and they walked in, closing the doors behind them.
“Is anyone here?” Wallander shouted.
The words seemed to be swallowed up by the silence. There was no answer.
They proceeded slowly but deliberately through the house. It was a model of cleanliness and order. Everything stood in its place, nothing to point toward a sudden departure. There was something almost impersonal about the rooms, as if the furniture had been bought at the same time and brought in to give the rooms a lived-in look. There was a photograph of a young couple with a newborn baby on the mantelpiece. There were no other personal items. An answering machine with a blinking button stood on a table. Wallander pressed it and the messages came on. A computer company said his new modem was in. Then there was a wrong number. The person didn’t leave a name.
Then there came the message Wallander had been hoping for.
It was Sonja Hökberg’s voice.
Wallander recognized her voice immediately, although it took Höglund a few seconds to make the connection.
I’ll call you again. It’s important. I’ll call you.
Then she hung up.
Wallander found the button that saved the message. They played it again.
“So now we know,” he said. “Sonja was in contact with the boy who lived here. She didn’t even say her name.”
“Is this the call we’ve been looking for? When she escaped?”
“Probably.”
Wallander went out into the kitchen, through the laundry room and opened the door to the garage. There was a car. A dark-blue Volkswagen Golf.
“Call Nyberg,” Wallander said. “I want that car thoroughly searched.”
“Do you think it’s the one that delivered her to her death?”
“Could be. We can’t rule that out, at any rate.”
Höglund got out her phone and started the process of tracking down Nyberg. Wallander used the time to take a look around the second floor. There were four bedrooms, but only two of them looked like they had been used. One for the parents, one for the son. Wallander opened the closet in the parents’ room and looked at the clothes that hung in neat rows. He heard Höglund come up the stairs.
“Nyberg is on his way.”
Then she too looked at the clothes.
“They have good taste,” she said. “And plenty of money by the looks of it.”
Wallander found a dog collar and a little leather whip stuffed into the back of the closet.
“Perhaps their tastes run a little to the alternative side,” he said thoughtfully.
“It’s the in thing nowadays,” Höglund said knowingly. “People think you screw better if you pull a plastic bag over your head and flirt with death.”
Her choice of words startled and embarrassed Wallander, but he said nothing.
They continued into the boy’s room. It was unexpectedly bare. There was nothing on the walls or the bed. There was a computer on a large desk.