He rose from the bench and kept going. Left Kungsparken and came out on Regementsgatan. He still wasn’t feeling hungry. Even so, he stopped at a hot-dog stand on Gustav Adolf’s Square and bought a grilled hot dog on a bun. Then he returned to the station.
It was half past one. Hemberg was unavailable. What he should do with himself, he didn’t know. He should really talk to Lohman about what he was expected to do during the afternoon. But he didn’t. Instead he pulled out the lists that Helena had given him. Again he browsed through the names. Tried to see the faces, imagine their lives. Sailors and engineers. Their birth information was noted in the margins. Wallander put the lists down again. From the corridor he heard something that sounded like a taunting laugh.
Wallander tried to think about Halen. His neighbour. Who had turned in betting sheets, put in an extra lock and thereafter shot himself. Everything pointed to Hemberg’s theory holding water. For some reason Halen had killed Alexandra Batista and then taken his own life.
That’s where it came to a stop for Wallander. Hemberg’s theory was logical and straightforward. Nonetheless Wallander thought it was hollow. The outside coordinates matched up. But the content? It was still very murky. Not least, this idea did not fit very well with the impression Wallander had had of his neighbour. Wallander had never found anything passionate or violent in him.
Of course even the most retiring person was capable of exploding in anger and violence under certain circumstances. But did it actually make sense to think that Halen had taken the life of the woman he most likely had a relationship with?
Something is missing, Wallander thought. Inside this shell there is nothing.
He tried to think more deeply but didn’t get anywhere. Absently he gazed at the lists on the table. Without being able to say where the thought came from, he suddenly started to look through all of the birth information in the margins. How old had Halen been? He recalled that he was born in 1898. But which date? Wallander called reception and asked to be put through to Stefansson. He picked up at once.
‘This is Wallander. I’m wondering if you have Halen’s birthdate available?’
‘Are you planning to wish him a happy birthday?’
He doesn’t like me, Wallander thought. But in time I’ll show him that I am a much better investigator than he is.
‘Hemberg asked me to look into something,’ Wallander lied.
Stefansson put down the receiver. Wallander could hear him riffling through papers.
‘It’s 17 September 1898,’ Stefansson said. ‘Anything else?’
‘That’s all,’ Wallander said and hung up.
Then he pulled over the lists again.
On the third page he found what he had not been consciously aware of looking for. An engineer who was born on 17 September 1898. Anders Hansson. Same initials as Artur Halen, Wallander thought.
He went through the rest of the entries to assure himself that there were no others who were born on the same day. He found a sailor who was born on 19 September 1901. That was the closest thing. Wallander took out the phone book and looked up the number of his local pastor’s office. Since Wallander and Halen had lived in the same building, they must also be registered in the same parish. He dialled the number and waited. A woman answered. Wallander thought he might as well continue to introduce himself as a detective.
‘My name is Wallander and I’m with the Malmo police,’ he started. ‘This is in regard to a violent death that occurred a few days ago. I’m from the homicide unit.’
He gave Halen’s name, address and birthdate.
‘What is it you want to know?’ the woman asked.
‘If there is any information about Halen possibly having a different name earlier in his life.’
‘You mean such as changing his last name?’
Damn it, Wallander thought. People don’t change their first names. Only their last names.
‘Let me check,’ the woman said.
This was wrong, Wallander realised. I react before I’ve thought my ideas through enough.
He wondered if he should just hang up. But the woman would wonder about that, think the call had been cut off, and might call for him at the station. He waited. It took a long time before she returned.
‘His death was just in the process of being recorded,’ she said. ‘That’s why it took a while. But you were right.’
Wallander sat up.
‘His name was Hansson before. He changed his name in 1962.’
Right, Wallander thought. But wrong anyway.
‘The first name,’ he said. ‘What was it?’
‘Anders.’
‘It should have been Artur.’
The answer came as a surprise.
‘It was. He must have had parents who loved names, or who couldn’t agree. His name was Anders Erik Artur Hansson.’
Wallander held his breath.
‘Thank you so much for your help.’
When the call was over, Wallander felt a strong urge to contact Hemberg. But he stayed where he was. The question was how much his discovery was worth. I’ll follow up on this myself, he decided. If it doesn’t lead anywhere, no one has to know about it.
Wallander pulled over his notepad and started to make a summary. What did he really know? Artur Halen had changed his name seven years ago. Linnea Almquist had said at some point that Halen had moved in at the start of the 1960s. That could fit.
Wallander ended up sitting with the pen in his hand. Then he called back the pastor’s office. The same woman answered.
‘I forgot to ask you something,’ Wallander excused himself. ‘I need to know when Halen moved to Rosengard.’
‘You mean Hansson,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll go see.’
This time she was much faster.
‘He is registered as newly moved on 1 January 1962.’
‘Where did he live before?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I thought that information was available?’
‘He was registered as being out of the country. There is no information about where.’
Wallander nodded into the receiver.
‘Then I think that is all. I promise not to disturb you again.’
He returned to his notes. Hansson moves to Malmo from some unknown foreign location in 1962 and changes his name at the same time. A few years later he starts a relationship with a woman in Arlov. If they had known each other earlier, I don’t know. After several more years she is murdered and Halen commits suicide. It’s not clear in what order this occurs. But Halen kills himself. After first filling out a betting form and putting an extra lock on his door. And after swallowing a number of precious stones.
Wallander made a face. He still wasn’t finding a direction from which to proceed. Why does a person change his name? he thought. To make himself invisible? To make himself impossible to find? So that no one will know who he is or who he has been?
Who you are or who you have been?
Wallander thought about this. No one had known Halen. He had been a loner. There could, however, be people who had known a man by the name of Anders Hansson. The question was how he could find them.
At that moment he was reminded of something that had happened the preceding year that might help him find a solution. A fight had broken out between some drunks down by the ferry terminal. Wallander was one of the officers who responded to the dispatch and helped to break up the fight. One of the parties involved was a Danish sailor by the name of Holger Jespersen. Wallander had had the impression that he had unwillingly been dragged into the fight and said as much to his superiors. He had also insisted that Jespersen had not done anything and the man had been allowed to go free while the others were brought in. Later on Wallander had forgotten all about it.