her nightmare. It was Cinderella.
She heard the first car pull into the courtyard. She was ready, she was somebody else. She folded her uniform, smoothed out the bedspread, and left the room. Athough no-one would go in there, she locked the door and then tested the handle.
They gathered just before 6 p.m., but one of the women was missing. She had been taken to the hospital the night before with contractions. It was two weeks early, but the baby might already have been born.
She decided at once to visit her at the hospital the next day. She wanted to see her. She wanted to see her face after all she had gone through. Then she listened to their stories. Now and then she pretended to write something in her notebook, but she wrote only numbers. She was making timetables. Figures, times, distances. It was an obsessive game, a game that had increasingly become an incantation. She didn’t need to write anything down to remember it. All the words spoken in those frightened voices, all the pain that they dared express, remained etched in her consciousness. She could see the way something loosened in each of them, if only for a moment. But what was life except a series of moments?
The timetable again. Times that coincide, one taking over from the other. Life is like a pendulum. It swings back and forth between pain and relief, endless, ceaseless.
She was sitting so that she could see the big oven behind the women. The light was turned down and muted. The room was bathed in a gentle light, which she imagined as being feminine. The oven was a boulder, immovable, mute, in the middle of an empty sea.
They talked for a couple of hours, and then drank tea in her kitchen. They all knew when they would meet next. No-one questioned the times she gave them.
It was 8.30 p.m. when she showed them out. She shook their hands, accepted their gratitude. When the last car was gone she went back inside the house, changed her clothes and took off the wig and glasses. She took her uniform and left the room. She washed the teacups, then turned out all the lights and picked up her handbag.
For a moment she stood still in the dark beside the oven. Everything was very quiet.
Then she left the house. It was drizzling. She got into her car and drove towards Ystad. She was in her bed asleep before midnight.
CHAPTER 5
When Wallander woke on Thursday morning he felt better. He got up just after 6 a.m. and checked the thermometer outside the kitchen window. It was 5°C. Heavy clouds covered the sky, and the streets were wet, but the rain had stopped.
He arrived at the police station just after 7 a.m. As he walked down the hall to his office he wondered whether they had found Holger Eriksson. He hung up his jacket and sat down. There were a few telephone messages on his desk. Ebba reminded him that he had an appointment at the optician later in the day. He needed reading glasses. If he sat for too long leaning over his paperwork, he got a headache. He was going to be 47 soon. His age was catching up with him.
One message was from Per Åkeson. Wallander phoned him at the prosecutor’s office, but was told that Åkeson would be in Malmö all day. He went to get a cup of coffee, then he leaned back in his chair and tried to devise a new strategy for the car-smuggling investigation. In almost all organised crime there was some weak point, a link that could be broken if leaned on hard enough.
His thoughts were interrupted by the telephone. It was Lisa Holgersson, their new chief, welcoming him home.
“How was the holiday?” she asked.
“Very successful.”
“You rediscover your parents by doing these things,” she said.
“And they might acquire a different view of their children,” Wallander said.
She excused herself abruptly. Wallander heard someone come into her office and say something. Björk would never have asked him about his holiday. She came back on the line.
“I’ve been in Stockholm for a few days,” she said. “It wasn’t
She heard the first car pull into the courtyard. She was ready, she was somebody else. She folded her uniform, smoothed out the bedspread, and left the room. Athough no-one would go in there, she locked the door and then tested the handle.
They gathered just before 6 p.m., but one of the women was missing. She had been taken to the hospital the night before with contractions. It was two weeks early, but the baby might already have been born.
She decided at once to visit her at the hospital the next day. She wanted to see her. She wanted to see her face after all she had gone through. Then she listened to their stories. Now and then she pretended to write something in her notebook, but she wrote only numbers. She was making timetables. Figures, times, distances. It was an obsessive game, a game that had increasingly become an incantation. She didn’t need to write anything down to remember it. All the words spoken in those frightened voices, all the pain that they dared express, remained etched in her consciousness. She could see the way something loosened in each of them, if only for a moment. But what was life except a series of moments?
The timetable again. Times that coincide, one taking over from the other. Life is like a pendulum. It swings back and forth between pain and relief, endless, ceaseless.
She was sitting so that she could see the big oven behind the women. The light was turned down and muted. The room was bathed in a gentle light, which she imagined as being feminine. The oven was a boulder, immovable, mute, in the middle of an empty sea.
They talked for a couple of hours, and then drank tea in her kitchen. They all knew when they would meet next. No-one questioned the times she gave them.
It was 8.30 p.m. when she showed them out. She shook their hands, accepted their gratitude. When the last car was gone she went back inside the house, changed her clothes and took off the wig and glasses. She took her uniform and left the room. She washed the teacups, then turned out all the lights and picked up her handbag.
For a moment she stood still in the dark beside the oven. Everything was very quiet.
Then she left the house. It was drizzling. She got into her car and drove towards Ystad. She was in her bed asleep before midnight.
CHAPTER 5
When Wallander woke on Thursday morning he felt better. He got up just after 6 a.m. and checked the thermometer outside the kitchen window. It was 5°C. Heavy clouds covered the sky, and the streets were wet, but the rain had stopped.
He arrived at the police station just after 7 a.m. As he walked down the hall to his office he wondered whether they had found Holger Eriksson. He hung up his jacket and sat down. There were a few telephone messages on his desk. Ebba reminded him that he had an appointment at the optician later in the day. He needed reading glasses. If he sat for too long leaning over his paperwork, he got a headache. He was going to be 47 soon. His age was catching up with him.
One message was from Per Åkeson. Wallander phoned him at the prosecutor’s office, but was told that Åkeson would be in Malmö all day. He went to get a cup of coffee, then he leaned back in his chair and tried to devise a new strategy for the car-smuggling investigation. In almost all organised crime there was some weak point, a link that could be broken if leaned on hard enough.
His thoughts were interrupted by the telephone. It was Lisa Holgersson, their new chief, welcoming him home.
“How was the holiday?” she asked.
“Very successful.”
“You rediscover your parents by doing these things,” she said.
“And they might acquire a different view of their children,” Wallander said.
She excused herself abruptly. Wallander heard someone come into her office and say something. Björk would never have asked him about his holiday. She came back on the line.
“I’ve been in Stockholm for a few days,” she said. “It wasn’t
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