The parish offices were in Smedstorp. After he passed Lunnarp he turned left. He knew that the office kept irregular hours, but there were cars parked outside the whitewashed building. A man was mowing the lawn. Wallander tried the door. It was locked. He rang the bell, noting from the brass plate that the office wouldn’t be open until Wednesday. He waited. Then he rang again and knocked on the door. The lawnmower hummed in the background. Wallander was just about to leave when a window on the floor above opened. A woman stuck out her head.
“We’re open on Wednesdays and Fridays,” she shouted.
“I know,” Wallander replied. “But this is urgent. I’m from the Ystad police.”
Her head disappeared. Then the door opened. A blonde woman dressed in black stood before him, heavily made up and wearing high heels. What surprised Wallander was the white clerical collar set against all that black. He introduced himself.
“Gunnel Nilsson,” she replied. “I’m the vicar of this parish.”
Wallander followed her inside. If I were walking into a nightclub I could better understand it, he thought. The clergy don’t look the way I’d imagine these days.
She opened the door to an office and asked him to have a seat. Gunnel Nilsson was a very attractive woman, although Wallander couldn’t decide whether the fact that she was a vicar made her seem more so.
He saw a letter lying on her desk. He recognised the parish letterhead.
“The police received a letter on your letterhead. That’s why I’m here.”
He told her about the girl. The vicar seemed upset. When he asked her why, she explained that she had been sick for a few days and hadn’t read the papers. Wallander showed her the letter.
“Do you have any idea who wrote it? Or who has access to your letterhead?”
She shook her head.
“Only women work here.”
“It’s not clear whether a man or a woman wrote the letter,” Wallander pointed out.
“I don’t know who it could be,” she said.
“Does anyone in the office live in Helsingborg? Or drive there often?”
She shook her head again. Wallander could see that she was trying to be helpful.
“How many people work here?” he asked.
“There are four of us. And there’s Andersson, who takes care of the garden. We also have a full-time watchman, Sture Rosell. But he mainly stays out at our churches. Any of them could have taken some letterhead from here, of course. Plus anyone who visited the vicar’s office on business.”
“You don’t recognise the handwriting?”
“No.”
“It’s not illegal to pick up hitchhikers,” said Wallander. “So why would someone write an anonymous letter? Because they wanted to hide the fact that they’d had been in Helsingborg? It’s puzzling.”
“I could ask whether anyone here was in Helsingborg that day,” she said. “And try to match the handwriting.”
“I’d appreciate your help,” said Wallander, standing up. “You can reach me at the Ystad police station.”
He wrote his phone number down for her. She followed him out.
“I’ve never met a female vicar before,” he said.
“Many people are still surprised,” she replied.
“In Ystad we have our first woman chief of police,” he said. “Everything changes.”
“For the better, I hope,” she said and smiled.
Wallander looked at her, deciding she was quite beautiful. He didn’t see a ring on her finger. He couldn’t help thinking forbidden thoughts. She really was terribly attractive.
The man cutting the grass was now sitting on a bench smoking. Without really knowing why, Wallander sat down on the bench and started talking to him. He was about 60, and dressed in a blue work shirt, dirty corduroy trousers and a pair of ancient tennis shoes. Wallander noted that he was smoking unfiltered Chesterfields, the brand that his father had smoked when he was a child.
“She doesn’t open the door when the office is closed,” the man said thoughtfully. “This is the first time it’s ever happened.”
“The vicar is quite good-looking,” said Wallander.
“She’s nice too,” said the man. “And she gives a good sermon. I don’t know whether we’ve ever had such a good vicar. But many people would still rather have a man.”
“They would?” said Wallander absentmindedly.
“Quite a few people would never think of having a woman. People in Skane are conservative. For the most part.”
The conversation died. It was as if both men had run out of steam. Wallander listened to the birds. He could smell the freshly mown grass. He remembered that he should contact Hans Vikander at the Ostermalm police, and find out how the interview with Gustaf Wetterstedt’s mother had gone. He had a lot to do. He certainly didn’t have time to sit on a bench outside the parish offices in Smedstorp.
“Were you here to get a change of address certificate?” the man asked suddenly.
“I had a few questions to ask,” he said, getting up.
The man squinted at him.
“I recognise you,” he said. “Are you from Tomelilla?”
“No,” said Wallander. “I’m originally from Malmo. But I’ve lived in Ystad for many years.”
He was about to say goodbye when he noticed the white T-shirt showing under the man’s unbuttoned work shirt. It advertised the ferry line between Helsingborg and Helsingor, in Denmark. He knew it could be a coincidence, but decided that it wasn’t. He sat back down on the bench. The man stubbed out his cigarette in the grass, about to get up.
“Just a moment,” said Wallander. “There’s something I’d like to ask you about.”
The man heard the change in Wallander’s voice. He gave him a wary look.
“I’m a police officer,” said Wallander. “I didn’t come here to talk to the vicar. I came to talk to you. Why didn’t you sign the letter you sent? About the girl you gave a lift from Helsingborg.”
It was a reckless move, he knew, in defiance of everything he had been taught. It was a punch below the belt — the police didn’t have the right to lie to extract information, especially when no crime had been committed.
But it worked. The man jumped, caught off guard. Wallander could see him wondering how he could know about the letter.
“It’s not against the law to write anonymous letters,” he said. “Or to pick up hitchhikers. I just want to know why you did. And what time you picked her up and where you took her. The exact time. And whether she said anything during the journey.”
“Now I recognise you,” muttered the man. “You’re the policeman who shot a man in the fog a few years ago. On the shooting range outside Ystad.”
“You’re right,” said Wallander. “That was me. My name is Kurt Wallander.”
“She was standing at the slip road of the southbound motorway,” said the man suddenly. “It was 7 p.m. I had driven over to Helsingborg to buy a pair of shoes. My cousin has a shoe shop there. He gives me a discount. I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers. But she looked so forlorn.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. What do you mean?”
“When you stopped the car. What language did she speak?”
“I have no idea what language it was, but it certainly wasn’t Swedish. And I don’t speak English. I said I was going to Tomelilla. She nodded. She nodded to everything I said.”
“Did she have any luggage?”
“Not a thing.”
“Not even a handbag?”
“Nothing.”
“And then you drove off?”
“She sat in the back seat. She didn’t speak. I thought there was something odd about the whole thing. I was sorry I’d picked her up.”
“Why’s that?”
“Maybe she wasn’t going to Tomelilla at all. Who the hell goes to Tomelilla?”
“So she didn’t say a word?”
“Not a word.”
“What did she do?”