“You like to say that police work is most often a question of patience.”
“And it is. But patience has its limits. Someone else could get killed. We can never escape the fact that our investigation is not just a matter of solving crimes that have already been committed. Right now it feels as though our job is to prevent more murders.”
“We can’t do any more than we’re doing already.”
“How do we know that?” asked Wallander. “How do we know we’re using our resources to their best effect?”
She had no answer.
He sat there for a while longer. At 4.30 p.m. he turned down an invitation to stay and have dinner with them.
“Thanks for coming,” she said as she followed him to the gate. “Are you going to watch the game?”
“No. I have to meet my daughter. But I think we’re going to win, 3–1.”
She gave him a quizzical look.
“That’s what I bet, too.”
“Then we’ll both win or we’ll both lose,” said Wallander.
“Thanks for coming,” she said again.
“Thanks for what?” he asked in surprise. “For disturbing your Sunday?”
“For thinking I might have something worthwhile to say.”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I think you’re a talented policewoman. You believe in the ability of computers not only to make our work easier, but to improve it. I don’t, and maybe you can change my mind.”
Wallander drove towards town. He stopped at a shop that was open on Sundays and bought groceries. Then he lay back in the deckchair on his balcony. His need for sleep was enormous, and he dozed off. But just before 7 p.m. he was standing on the square at Osterport. Linda came to get him and took him to the empty shop nearby. They had rigged up some lights and put out a chair for him. At once he felt self-conscious. He might not understand or might laugh in the wrong place. The girls vanished into an adjoining room. Wallander waited. More than 15 minutes passed. When they finally returned they had changed clothes and now looked exactly alike. After arranging the lights and the simple set, they got started. The hour-long performance was about a pair of twins. Wallander was nervous at being the only audience. Most of all he was fearful that Linda might not be very good. But it wasn’t long before he realised that the two girls had written a witty script that presented a critical view of Sweden with dark humour. Sometimes they lost the thread, sometimes he thought that their acting wasn’t convincing. But they believed in what they were doing, and that gave him pleasure. When it was over and they asked him what he thought, he told them that he was surprised, that it was funny, that it was thought-provoking. He could see that Linda was watching to see whether he was telling the truth. When she realised he was, she was very happy. She escorted him out.
“I didn’t know you could do this sort of thing,” he said. “I thought you wanted to be a furniture upholsterer.”
“It’s never too late,” she said. “Let me give it a try.”
“Of course you have to,” he said. “When you’re young you have plenty of time. Not like when you’re an old policeman like me.”
They were going to rehearse for a few more hours. He would wait for her at home. The summer evening was beautiful. He was walking slowly towards Mariagatan, thinking about the performance, when it dawned on him that cars were driving by, horns honking, people cheering. Sweden must have won. He asked a man he met on the footpath what the score was. 3–1 to Sweden. He burst out laughing. Then his thoughts returned to his daughter, and how little he really knew about her. He still hadn’t asked her if she had a boyfriend.
He had just closed the door to his flat when the phone rang. At once he felt a twinge of fear. When he heard Gertrud’s voice, he was instantly relieved. But Gertrud was upset. At first he couldn’t understand what she was saying. He asked her to slow down.
“You must come over,” she said. “Right away.”
“What happened?”
“Your father has started burning his paintings. He’s burning everything in his studio. And he’s locked the door. You’ve got to come now.”
Wallander wrote a quick note to Linda, put it under the doormat, and moments later was on his way to Loderup.
CHAPTER 28
Gertrud met him in the courtyard of the farmhouse. He could see that she’d been crying, but she answered his questions calmly. His father’s breakdown, if that was what it was, had come on unexpectedly. They had had their dinner as normal. They hadn’t had anything to drink. After the meal his father had gone out to the barn to continue painting, as usual. Suddenly she’d heard a great racket. When she went out on the front steps she’d seen the old man tossing empty paint cans into the yard. At first she thought he was cleaning out his chaotic studio. But when he started throwing out new frames she went and asked what he was doing. He didn’t reply. He gave the impression of not being there at all, not hearing her. When she took hold of his arm he pulled himself free and locked himself inside the barn. Through the window, she watched him start a fire in the stove, and when he started tearing up his canvases and stuffing them into the flames she called Wallander.
They crossed the courtyard as she talked. Wallander saw smoke billowing from the chimney. He went up to the window and peered inside. His father looked wild and demented. His hair was on end, he was without his glasses, and the studio was a wreck. He was squishing around barefoot amongst spilled pots of paint, and trampled canvases were strewn everywhere. He was ripping up a canvas and stuffing the pieces into the fire. Wallander thought he saw a shoe burning in the stove. He knocked on the window, but there was no response. He tried the door. Locked. He banged on it and yelled that he had come to visit. There was no answer, but the racket inside continued. Wallander looked around for something to break down the door. But his father kept all his tools in the studio.
Wallander studied the door, which he had helped build. He took off his jacket and handed it to Gertrud. Then he slammed his shoulder against it as hard as he could. The whole doorjamb came away, and Wallander tumbled into the room, banging his head on a wheelbarrow. His father glanced at him vacantly and went on tearing up canvases.
Gertrud wanted to come in, but Wallander warned her away. He had seen his father like this once before, a strange combination of detachment and manic confusion. On that occasion he had found him walking in his pyjamas through a muddy field with a suitcase in his hand. Now he went up to him, took him by the shoulders, and began talking soothingly to him. He asked if there was something wrong. He said the paintings were fine, they were the best he’d ever done, the grouse were beautifully painted. Everything was all right. Anyone could have a bad day once in a while. But he had to stop burning things for no reason. Why should they have a fire in the middle of summer, anyway? They could get cleaned up and talk about the trip to Italy. Wallander kept talking, with a strong grip on his father’s shoulders, as the old man squinted myopically at him. While Wallander kept up his reassuring chatter he discovered his glasses trampled to bits on the floor. He asked Gertrud, who was hovering by the door, whether there was a spare pair. She ran to the house to get them and handed them to Wallander, who wiped them on his sleeve and then set them on his father’s nose. He continued to speak in a soothing voice, repeating his words as if he were reading the verses of a prayer. His father looked at him in bewilderment at first, then astonishment, and finally it seemed as though he had come to his senses again. Wallander released his grip. His father looked cautiously about him at the destruction.
“What happened here?” he asked. Wallander could see that he had forgotten everything. Gertrud began to weep. Wallander told her firmly to go and make some coffee. They’d be there in a minute. At last the old man seemed to grasp that he had been involved in the havoc.