The Pyramid (3 page)

Wallander decided to leave the apartment. It was time to freshen up and change his clothes before leaving to meet Mona. But something kept him there. He walked over to the chest and started pulling open the drawers. He immediately found the two sea logs. Artur Hålén had been a handsome man in his youth. Blond hair, a big wide smile.
Wallander had trouble connecting this image with the same man who had lived out his days in Rosengård in peace and quiet. Least of all he felt that these were pictures of someone who would one day come to take his own life. But he knew how wrong his thinking was. People who ended up committing suicide could never be characterised from a given model.

He found the colourful beetle and took it over to the window. On the bottom of the jar he thought he could make out the stamped word
'Brazil'. A souvenir that Hålén had bought on some trip. Wallander continued to go through the drawers. Keys, coins from various countries, nothing that caught his attention. Halfway under the worn and torn drawer liner he found a brown envelope. Inside was an old photograph, a wedding picture. On the back was the name of the studio and a date: 15 May 1894. The studio was located in Härnösand. There was also the note:
Manda and I the day we got married
. His parents,
Wallander thought. Four years later their son was born.

When he was done with the chest of drawers he walked over to the bookcase. To his surprise he found several books in German. They were well thumbed. There were also some books by Vilhelm Moberg, a Spanish cookbook and a few issues of a magazine for people interested in model aeroplanes. Wallander shook his head in bewilderment.
Hålén was considerably more complex than he could have imagined.
He walked away from the bookcase and checked under the bed.
Nothing. He then went on to the cupboard. The clothes were neatly hung; three pairs of shoes, well polished. It is only the unmade bed,
Wallander thought again. It doesn't fit.

He was about to shut the cupboard door when the doorbell rang.
Wallander flinched. Waited. There was another ring. Wallander had the feeling that he was trespassing on forbidden territory. He kept waiting, but when it rang the third time he went over and opened the door.

Outside there was a man in a grey coat. He looked enquiringly at
Wallander.

'Am I mistaken?' he asked. 'I am looking for Mr Hålén.'

Wallander tried to adopt a formal tone that would sound appropriate.

'May I ask who you are?' he said with unnecessary brusqueness.

The man frowned.

'And if I could ask the same of you?' he asked.

'I am from the police,' Wallander said. 'Detective Sergeant Kurt
Wallander. Would you now be so kind as to answer my question: who are you and what do you want?'

'I sell encyclopedias,' the man said meekly. 'I was here last week and made a presentation of my books. Artur Hålén asked me to come back today. He has already sent in the contract and the first payment. I was to deliver the first volume and then the gift book that all new clients receive as a welcome bonus.'

He took two books out of his briefcase as if to assure Wallander that he was telling the truth.

Wallander had been listening with increasing amazement. The feeling that something didn't add up was strengthened. He stepped aside and nodded for the salesman to come in.

'Has anything happened?' the man asked.

Wallander ushered him into the kitchen without answering and indicated that he should sit down at the table.

Then Wallander realised that he was now going to deliver the news of a death. Something he had always dreaded. But he reminded himself that he was not talking to a relative, only to an encyclopedia salesman.

'Artur Hålén is dead,' he said.

The man on the other side of the table did not seem to understand this.

'But I spoke to him earlier today.'

'I thought you said you had spoken to him last week?'

'I called him this morning and asked if it would be all right for me to come by this evening.'

'What did he say?'

'That it would be fine. Why else would I have come? I am not an intrusive person. People have such bizarre preconceptions about doorto- door salesmen.'

It was likely that the man was lying.

'Let's take the whole thing from the top,' Wallander said.

'What is it that's happened?' the man interrupted.

'Artur Hålén is dead,' Wallander answered. 'And that is as much as
I can say at this point.'

'But if the police are involved then something must have happened.
Was he hit by a car?'

'For now that is as much as I can say,' Wallander repeated and wondered why he had to overdramatise the situation.

Then he asked the man to tell him the whole story.

'I am Emil Holmberg,' the man began. 'I am actually a school biology teacher. But I'm trying to sell encyclopedias to save up for a trip to
Borneo.'

'Borneo?'

'I'm interested in tropical plants.'

Wallander nodded for him to continue.

'I walked around the neighbourhood here last week and knocked on people's doors. Artur Hålén showed some interest and asked me to come in. We sat here in the kitchen. I told him about the encyclopedia, what it cost, and showed him a copy of one of the volumes. After about half an hour he signed the contract. Then I called him today and he said that it would be all right for me to come by this evening.'

'Which day were you here last week?'

'Tuesday. Between around four and half past five.'

Wallander recalled that he had been on duty at that time. But he saw no reason to tell the man that he lived in the building. Especially since he had claimed to be a detective.

'Hålén was the only one who showed any interest,' Holmberg continued. 'A lady on one of the upper floors started to tell me off for disturbing people. These things happen, but not too often. Next door to here there was no one home, I remember.'

'You said that Hålén made his first payment?'

The man opened his briefcase where he kept the books and showed
Wallander a receipt. It was dated the Friday from the week before.

Wallander thought it over.

'How long was he supposed to make payments for this encyclopedia?'

'For two years. Until all twenty instalments were paid for.'

This makes no sense, Wallander thought, no sense at all. A man who was planning to commit suicide doesn't agree to sign a two-year contract.

'What was your impression of Hålén?' Wallander asked.

'I don't think I know what you mean.'

'How was he? Calm? Happy? Did he appear worried?'

'He didn't say very much. But he was genuinely interested in the encyclopedia. I am sure of that much.'

Wallander did not have anything else to ask. There was a pencil on the kitchen windowsill. He searched for a piece of paper in his pocket.
The only thing he found was his grocery list. He turned it over and asked Holmberg to write down his number.

'We will most likely not be in touch again,' he said. 'But I'd like to have your telephone number as a precaution.'

'Hålén seemed perfectly healthy,' Holmberg said. 'What is it really that has happened? And what will now happen with the contract?'

'Unless he has relatives that can take it over, I don't think you'll get paid. I can assure you that he is dead.'

'But you can't tell me what has happened?'

'I'm afraid not.'

'It sounds sinister to me.'

Wallander stood up to indicate that their talk was over. Holmberg stood rooted to the spot with his briefcase.

'Would I be able to interest you, Detective Inspector, in an encyclopedia?'

'Detective Sergeant,' Wallander said, 'and I don't need an encyclopedia right now. At least not at the moment.'

Wallander showed Holmberg out to the street. Only when the man had turned the corner on his bike did Wallander go back in and return to Hålén's apartment. Then he sat down at the kitchen table and in his mind walked back over everything that Holmberg had said. The only reasonable explanation he could come up with was that Hålén had arrived at his decision to kill himself very suddenly. If you could rule out the idea of him being so crazy that he wanted to play a mean trick on an innocent salesman.

Somewhere in the distance a telephone rang. Far too late he realised it was his own. He ran into the apartment. It was Mona.

'I thought you were going to meet me,' she said angrily.

Wallander looked at his watch and swore quietly. He should have been down by the boat at least a quarter of an hour ago.

'I got caught up in a criminal investigation,' he said apologetically.

'I thought you were off today?'

'Unfortunately they needed me.'

'Are there really no other policemen except you? Is this how it's going to be?'

'It was an exception.'

'Did you go grocery shopping?'

'No, I ran out of time.'

He heard how disappointed she was.

'I'll come get you now,' he said, 'I'll try to hail a cab. Then we can go to a restaurant somewhere.'

'How can I be sure? Maybe you'll get called away again.'

'I'll be down there as soon as I can, I promise.'

'I'll be on a bench outside. But I'm only waiting for twenty minutes.
Then I'm going home.'

Wallander hung up and called the cab company. It was busy. It took almost ten minutes for him to get a cab. Between tries, he managed to lock up Hålén's apartment and change his shirt.

He arrived at the ferry terminal after thirty-three minutes. Mona had already left. She lived on Södra Förstadsgatan. Wallander walked up to Gustav Adolf 's Square and called from a payphone. There was no answer. Five minutes later he called again. By then she was home.

'If I say twenty minutes, I mean twenty minutes,' she said.

'I couldn't get a hold of a cab. The line to the damn cab company was busy.'

'I'm tired anyway,' she said. 'Let's get together another night.'

Wallander tried to change her mind, but she was firm. The conversation turned into an argument. Then she hung up. Wallander slammed the receiver into the cradle. A couple of passing patrol officers gave him disapproving looks. They did not appear to recognise him.

Wallander walked over to a hot-dog stand by the square. Then he sat down on a bench to eat and distractedly watched some seagulls fighting over a scrap of bread.

He and Mona did not fight very often but each time it happened it worried him. Inside, he knew it would blow over the next day. Then she would be back to normal. But his reason had no influence on his anxiety. It was there anyway.

When Wallander arrived home he sat down at the kitchen table and tried to concentrate on writing down a systematic account of everything that had happened in the apartment next door. But he didn't feel he was getting anywhere. On top of this he felt unsure of himself. How do you go about conducting an investigation and an analysis of a crime scene? He realised he lacked too many fundamental skills, despite his time at the police academy. After half an hour he angrily threw the pen down. It was all in his imagination. Hålén had shot himself. The betting form and the salesman didn't change anything. He would be better off bemoaning the fact that he had not got to know Hålén. Perhaps it was the man's loneliness that at last became unbearable?

Wallander walked to and fro in the apartment, restless, anxious.
Mona had disappointed him. And it had been his fault.

From the street he heard a car drive by. Music was streaming from the open car window. 'The House of the Rising Sun'. The song had been extremely popular a few years earlier. But what was the name of the group? The Kinks? Wallander could not remember. Then it occurred to him that at this time he normally heard the faint sound of Hålén's
TV through the wall. Now everything was quiet.

Wallander sat down on the sofa and put his feet on the coffee table.
Thought about his father. The winter coat and hat, the shoes worn without socks. If it hadn't been so late he might have driven out to play cards with him. But he was starting to get tired, even though it was not yet eleven. He turned on the television. As usual there was a public television talk show. It took a while before he understood that the participants were discussing the pros and cons of the approaching era. The age of computers. He turned it off. Stayed put for a while before he undressed and went to bed, yawning the whole time.

Soon he had fallen asleep.

Later he could never figure out what had woken him up. But all of a sudden he was wide awake, listening intently to the dim summer night. Something had awakened him, he was sure of it. Perhaps it was a car with a broken tailpipe driving by? The curtain moved gently in the open window. He closed his eyes again.

Then he heard it, right next to his head.

Someone was in Hålén's apartment. He held his breath and continued to listen. There was a clang, as if someone had moved an object. Shortly thereafter he heard the sound of something dragging on the floor.
Someone moving a piece of furniture. Wallander looked at the clock on his bedside table. A quarter to three. He pressed his ear against the wall. He had started to think it was his imagination when he heard another sound. There was no doubt that someone was in there.

He sat up in bed and wondered what he should do. Call his colleagues?
If Hålén didn't have any relatives then surely no one had any reason to be in the apartment. But they weren't sure of his family situation. And he may have given a spare key to someone they did not know about.

Wallander got out of bed and pulled on his trousers and shirt. Then he walked barefoot out onto the landing. The door to Hålén's apartment was closed. He had the keys in his hand. Suddenly he wasn't sure what he should do. The most reasonable thing was to ring the doorbell.
After all, Hemberg had given him the keys and thus conferred a certain responsibility on him. He pressed the buzzer. Waited. Now it was completely quiet in the apartment. He buzzed again. Still no reaction.
At that moment he realised that a person inside the apartment could very easily escape through a window. It was barely two metres to the ground. He swore and ran out onto the street. Hålén had a corner apartment, and Wallander hurried round to the other side. The street was empty. But one of Hålén's windows was wide open.