Wallander was amazed. Jespersen saw right into him, right into the centre of pain that was Mona.
‘You may be right,’ he said. ‘But that’s not something I want to talk about.’
Jespersen held up his hands.
‘You’re here. That means you have something to tell me,’ Wallander repeated.
‘Have I ever told you what respect I have for your president, Mr Palme?’
‘He’s not a president, he’s not even prime minister yet. But you hardly came all the way here to tell me that.’
‘Nonetheless, it should be said,’ Jespersen insisted. ‘But you are right that other reasons have brought me here. If you live in Copenhagen, only an errand will bring you to Malmo. If you know what I mean.’
Wallander nodded impatiently. Jespersen could be very long-winded. Except when he was telling his tales from his life at sea. Then he was a master.
‘I talked a little with some friends in Copenhagen,’ Jespersen said. ‘That gave me nothing. Then I went over to Malmo and things went better. I spoke with an old electrician who sailed the seven seas for a thousand years. Ljungstrom is his name. Lives in a retirement home nowadays. Except I’ve forgotten the name of the place. He could hardly stand on his two legs. But his memory is clear.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing. But he suggested that I chat a little with a man out in Frihamnen. And when I found him and asked him about Hansson and Halen he said, “Those two are in constant demand.”’
‘What did he mean by that?’
‘What do you think? You’re a policeman and should be able to understand what regular folks don’t.’
‘What did he say again, exactly?’
‘That “those two are in constant demand”.’
Wallander understood.
‘There must have been someone else who had been asking about them, or him, to be precise.’
‘Yes.’
‘Who?’
‘He didn’t know the name. But he claimed it was a man who seemed a little unstable. How can I put this? Unshaven and badly dressed. And drunk.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘About a month ago.’
About the same time that Halen had the extra lock put in, Wallander thought.
‘He didn’t know the man’s name? Can I speak with this fellow in Frihamnen myself? He must have had a name?’
‘He didn’t want to talk to a cop.’
‘Why not?’
Jespersen shrugged.
‘You know how things can be at the docks. Crates of alcohol that break open, some bags of coffee that go missing.’
Wallander had heard about such things.
‘But I kept asking around,’ Jespersen said. ‘And if I’m not mistaken I think there are some slightly scruffy individuals who have a habit of meeting up to share a bottle or two in that park in the middle of town that I’ve forgotten the name of. Something that starts with P?’
‘Pildamms Park?’
‘That’s the one. And the man who asked about Halen, or maybe it was Hansson, had a sagging eyelid.’
‘Which eye?’
‘I don’t think it’ll be hard to see if you find him.’
‘And he asked about Halen or Hansson about a month ago? And he hangs out in Pildamms Park?’
‘I thought maybe we could look him up before I head back,’ Jespersen said. ‘And maybe we’ll find a cafe on the way?’
Wallander checked his watch. It was half past seven.
‘I can’t do it tonight. I’m busy.’
‘Then I’m going back to Copenhagen. I’m going to have a word with Anne-Birte about her mussels.’
‘It could have been something else,’ Wallander said.
‘Just what I’ll say to Anne-Birte.’
They had walked out into the hall.
‘Thanks for coming,’ Wallander said. ‘And thanks for your help.’
‘Thank you,’ Jespersen said. ‘If you hadn’t been there I would have got nothing but trouble and fines that time the guys started to fight.’
‘I’ll see you around,’ Wallander said. ‘But no more mussels next time.’
‘No more mussels,’ Jespersen said and left.
Wallander went back into the kitchen and wrote down everything he had just heard. Someone had been asking about Halen or Hansson. This had taken place about a month ago. At around the same time that Halen had an extra lock put in. The man looking for Halen had a sagging eyelid. Seemed in one way or another to be drifting along. And was possibly hanging out in Pildamms Park.
Wallander put the pen down. I’m going to talk to Hemberg about this too, he thought. Right now this is actually a real lead.
Then Wallander thought that he should of course have asked Jespersen to find out if there was anyone in his circle who had heard of a woman named Alexandra Batista.
He was irritated at his sloppiness. I didn’t think it all the way through, he said to himself. I make unnecessary errors.
It was already a quarter to eight. Wallander walked to and fro in the apartment. He was nervous, but his stomach was fine now. He thought about calling his father at the new telephone number in Loderup, but chances were they would start quarrelling. It was enough to deal with Mona. In order to get the time to pass he took a walk around the block. Summer had arrived. The evening was warm. He wondered what would happen with their planned trip to Skagen.
At half past eight he walked back into his apartment. Sat down at the kitchen table with his watch laid out in front of him. I’m acting like a child, he thought. But right now I don’t know what to do in order to act any different.
He called at nine o’clock. Mona picked up almost immediately.
‘Before you hang up, I would like to explain myself,’ Wallander started.
‘Who said I was going to hang up?’
This threw him off guard. He had prepared himself carefully, knew what he was going to say. Instead she was the one who talked.
‘I actually do believe that you have an explanation,’ she said. ‘But right now that doesn’t interest me. I think we should meet and talk in person.’
‘Now?’
‘Not tonight. But tomorrow. Can you do that?’
‘Yes, I can do that.’
‘Then I’ll come to your place. But not until nine o’clock. It’s my mother’s birthday. I promised to stop by.’
‘I can cook dinner.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
Wallander started over again from the beginning with his prepared explanations. But she interrupted him.
‘Let’s talk tomorrow. Not now, not on the phone.’
The conversation was over in less than a minute. Nothing had turned out the way Wallander had expected. It had been a conversation that he had hardly dared to dream about. Even if there had also been something that he could interpret as ominous.
The thought of staying in for the rest of the evening made him restless. It was only a quarter past nine. Nothing prevents me from taking a walk through Pildamms Park, he thought. Maybe I’ll even bump into a man with a sagging eyelid.
Wallander took out a hundred kronor in small notes which he kept tucked between the pages of a book in his bookcase. He put the notes in his pocket, picked up his coat and walked out. There was no wind and it was still warm. While he walked to the bus stop he hummed a melody from an opera. Rigoletto. He saw the bus come and started to run.
When he reached Pildamms Park he began to wonder if it had been such a good idea. It was a large park. In addition, he was actually looking for a suspected murderer. The regulations against officers acting on their own rang in his ears. But I can take a walk, he thought. I have no uniform, no one knows that I’m a policeman. I’m just a single man who’s out walking his invisible dog.
Wallander started to walk down one of the park paths. A group of young people were sitting under one of the trees. Someone was playing guitar. Wallander saw a few bottles of wine. He wondered how many laws they were breaking at this moment. Lohman would surely have moved in quickly. But Wallander simply walked on by. A few years ago he could have been one of the people sitting under the tree. But now he was a policeman and should instead arrest a person drinking wine in a public place. He shook his head at the thought. He could hardly wait until he got to work in criminal investigations. It wasn’t for this that he had joined the police. To seize young people who were playing guitar and drinking wine on one of the first warm evenings of the summer. It was to get the really big criminals. The ones who committed violent crimes or large-scale theft, or smuggled drugs.