“No,” said Wallander. “But we’re working on it. I have some questions I need to ask you on the telephone.”
“I hope this won’t take long,” said the lawyer. “I’m very busy.”
“If you can’t take the questions by telephone, the police in Varnamo will have to take you down to the station,” said Wallander, ignoring the fact that he sounded brusque.
There was a pause before the lawyer responded.
“OK, fire away. I’m listening.”
“We’re still waiting for a fax with the names and addresses of the joint heirs to the estate.”
“I’ll make sure that’s sent.”
“Then I wonder who is directly responsible for the property.”
“I am. I’m not sure what you mean by the question.”
“A house needs attention occasionally. Roof tiles need replacing, mice keeping under control. Do you do that as well?”
“One of the beneficiaries of the estate lives in Vollsjo. He usually looks after the house. His name is Alfred Hanson.”
Wallander noted his address and telephone number.
“So the house has been empty for a year?”
“For more than a year. There’s been some disagreement as to whether it should be sold or not.”
“In other words, nobody’s been living in the house?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at. The house has been boarded up. Alfred Hanson has been calling me at regular intervals to report that all is in order.”
“When did he call last?”
“How on earth am I supposed to remember that?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like an answer to my question.”
“Some time around New Year’s, I believe. But I can’t swear to it. Why is that important?”
“Everything is important for the moment. But thank you for the information.”
Wallander hung up, opened his telephone directory, and checked Alfred Hanson’s address. Then he got up, grabbed his jacket and left the office.
“I’m off to Vollsjo,” he said as he passed the door to Martinson’s office. “There’s something odd about the house that blew up.”
“I think there’s something odd about everything,” said Martinson. “I was just talking to Nyberg before you came, by the way. He maintains that radio transmitter could well have been made in Russia.”
“Russia?”
“That’s what he said. Don’t ask me.”
“Another country,” said Wallander. “Sweden, South Africa, Russia. Where’s it all going to end?”
Just over half an hour later, he drove up to the house where Alfred Hanson supposedly lived. It was a relatively modern house, very much different from the original building. Some German shepherds started barking frenziedly as Wallander got out of his car. It was half past four by now, and he was feeling hungry.
A man in his forties opened the door and came out onto the steps in his stocking feet. His hair was in a mess, and as Wallander approached he could smell strong liquor.
“Alfred Hanson?” he enquired.
The man nodded.
“I’m from the police in Ystad,” said Wallander.
“Oh, hell!” said the man even before Wallander had given his name.
“Excuse me?”
“Who’s squealed? Is it that shit Bengtson?”
Wallander thought rapidly before saying anything.
“I can’t comment on that,” he said. “The police protect all their informers.”
“It’s gotta be Bengtson,” said the man. “Am I under arrest?”
“We can talk about that,” said Wallander.
The man let Wallander into the kitchen. He immediately detected the faint but unmistakable smell of fusel oil. Something clicked. Alfred Hanson was running an illegal still, and thought Wallander had come to arrest him.
The man had flopped down on a kitchen chair and was scratching his head.
“Just my luck,” he sighed.
“We’ll talk about the moonshine later,” said Wallander. “There’s something else I want to talk about.”
“What?”
“The property that burned down.”
“I know nothing about that,” said the man.
Wallander noticed immediately that he was worried.
“You know nothing about what?”
The man lit a crumpled cigarette with trembling fingers.
“I’m really a paint sprayer,” said the man. “But I can’t face starting work at seven o’clock every morning. So I thought I might as well rent out that little shack, if anybody was interested. I mean, I want to sell the thing. But the family’s making such a damned fuss.”
“Who was interested?”
“Some guy from Stockholm. He’d been driving around the area, looking for something suitable. Then he found this house, and liked the location. I’m still wondering how he managed to trace it to me.”
“What was his name?”
“He said he was called Nordstrom. I took that with a pinch of salt, though.”
“Why?”
“He spoke good Swedish, but he had a foreign accent. You show me a goddamned foreigner called Nordstrom!”
“But he wanted to rent the house?”
“Yeah. And he paid well. I was gonna get ten thousand kronor a month. You don’t turn your nose up at a deal like that. It wasn’t doing anybody any harm, I thought. I get a bit of a reward in return for looking after the house. No need for the heirs or Holmgren in Varnamo to know anything about it.”
“How long was he going to rent the house?”
“He came at the beginning of April. Said he wanted it till the end of May.”
“Did he say what he was going to use it for?”
“For people who wanted to be left in peace to do some painting.”
“Painting?”
Wallander thought of his father.
“Artists, that is. And he offered cash up front. Damn right I was going to take it.”
“When did you meet him next?”
“Never.”
“Never?”
“It was a sort of unspoken condition. That I should keep my nose out of it. And I did. He got the keys, and that was that.”
“Have you got the keys back?”
“No. He was going to mail them to me.”
“And you have no address?”
“No.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He was extremely fat.”
“Anything else?”
“How the hell do you describe a fat guy? He was balding, red-faced and fat. And when I say fat, do I mean fat! He was like a barrel.”
Wallander nodded.
“Have you any of the money left?” he asked, thinking of possible fingerprints.
“Not an ore. That’s why I started distilling again.”
“If you stop that as of today, I won’t take you in to Ystad,” said Wallander.
Alfred Hanson could hardly believe his ears.
“I mean what I say,” said Wallander. “But I’ll check up that you really have stopped. And you must pour away everything you’ve made already.”
The man was sitting open-mouthed at the kitchen table when Wallander left.
Dereliction of duty, he thought. But I haven’t time to bother with moonshiners just now.
He drove back to Ystad. Without really knowing why, he turned into the parking lot by Krageholm Lake. He got out of the car and walked down to the water’s edge.
There was something about this investigation, about the death of Louise Akerblom, that scared him. As if the whole thing had barely started yet.
I’m scared, he thought. It’s like that black finger were pointing straight at me. I’m in the middle of something I can’t understand.
He sat down on a rock, even though it was damp. Suddenly his weariness and depression threatened to overwhelm him.
He gazed out over the lake, thinking there was a fundamental similarity between this case he was up to his neck in and the feelings he had inside. He seemed to have as little control over himself as he had chance of solving the case. With a sigh even he thought was pathetic, he decided he was as much at sea with his own life as he was with the search for Louise Akerblom’s murderer.
“Where do I go from here?” he said aloud to himself. “I don’t want anything to do with ruthless killers with no respect for life. I don’t want to get involved in a kind of violence that will be incomprehensible to me as long as I live. Maybe the next generation of cops in this country will have a different kind of experience and have a different view of their work. But it’s too late for me. I’ll never be any different than what I am. A pretty good cop in a medium-sized Swedish police district.”