An Event in Autumn: A Kurt Wallander Mystery (11 page)

“Perhaps. In 1944 an Estonian family appears to have been living there. Between May 12 and the end of November.”

Wallander thanked her, and left the almanacs lying on the desk. Could this be the solution? he wondered. An Estonian family living at the farm in 1944. But they leave, they don’t die. Ludvig Hansson can hardly have killed them.

Martinson was about to go and eat when Wallander came to his office. Wallander asked him to delay his lunch. Stefan Lindman was too busy ferreting away in some of the endless registers and archives. They sat down in Martinson’s office. Wallander did the talking while Martinson leafed through the almanacs.

Wallander finished his account of what he had discovered. Martinson seemed doubtful.

“It doesn’t seem all that credible.”

“It’s the first bit of new concrete information we have.”

“Three people. A whole family. We’ve found two skeletons. Nyberg is sure that there aren’t any more.”

“There could be another body buried somewhere else.”

“If we assume that they were staying in Sweden illegally, or in secret, it won’t be so easy to track them down.”

“Even so, we’ve got some names. Three names. Kaarin, Elmo and Ivar Pihlak. I’m going to look into them anyway, and see if we can come up with anything.”

Martinson stood up and prepared to leave for his delayed lunch.

“If I were you I’d start with the annual census,” he said. “Even if it’s not all that likely they’ll be in it.”

“I can’t think of any better place to start,” said Wallander. “Then we’ll see.”

Wallander left the police station. He thought he ought to eat. There was a lot he ought to do.

For a brief moment he felt listless again as he sat in the driving seat of his car with the key in his hand. Then he got a grip of himself, switched on the engine and set off to trace the Estonian family.

The woman behind the counter at the local tax office listened sympathetically to what he had to say, but she was not exactly encouraging once she had heard the whole story.

“It will probably be difficult,” she said. “We’ve had people here before looking for traces of people from the Baltic States who had been in Skåne during the war years. You’re the first police officer, but there have been others—mainly relatives. We very rarely find them.”

“Why’s that?”

“Some probably gave false names. Many of them didn’t have any identity documents at all when they arrived. But of course the most important reason is that so much
has happened in the Baltic States, both during and after the war.”

“Have you any idea of how many of these refugees never actually registered?”

“Somebody in Lund wrote a dissertation on that a few years ago. According to the data he uncovered, about seventy-five percent of them actually registered.”

She stood up and left the room. Wallander sat down and looked out through the window. He was already wondering how they were going to get any further with this lead. He concluded that they were going to get nowhere.

He was tempted to leave. Get into his car, leave Skåne and never come back. But it was too late for such a drastic move, he knew that. At best, he might one day find the house he was looking for and buy a dog. And perhaps also find a woman who could become the companion he so badly needed. Linda was right. He really was on the way to becoming a lifeless, bitter old codger.

He dismissed all such thought in annoyance, then leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

He was woken up by somebody saying his name. When he opened his eyes, the woman was standing there with a sheet of paper in her hand.

“Sometimes it turns out that I’m too pessimistic,” she said. “I think I might have found what you’re looking for.”

Wallander jumped up from his chair.

“Is that really possible?”

“It seems so.”

The woman sat down at her desk, and Wallander sat opposite her. She read out from the paper she had in her hand. Wallander noticed that she was farsighted, but she did not use reading glasses.

“Kaarin, Elmo and Ivar Pihlak came to Sweden from Denmark in February 1944,” she said. “They lived in Malmö at first. Then they had an apartment in Ludvig Hansson’s house, and they were listed as living there in the official national register. In November that same year they requested permission to leave Sweden and return to Denmark. And they duly left Sweden. It’s all recorded here.”

“How can you be so certain of that?”

“Various special notes were made during the war with regard to refugees. It’s their son who notified the authorities of their departure.”

Wallander was confused.

“I’m not completely with you. What son?”

“Ivar. He reported that his parents had left Sweden in November 1944.”

“What did he do then?”

“He stayed on in Sweden and was granted a residence permit. Later on he became a Swedish citizen. In 1954, to be precise.”

Wallander held his breath. He tried to think clearly. Three Estonians come to Sweden in 1944. Father, mother
and son. In November that same year the parents go back to Denmark, but the son stays on here. And he’s the one who reports that his parents have left Sweden.

“I take it it’s not possible to say if the son is still alive. Or if he is, where he might be living.”

“I can tell you that, no problem. He’s been registered in Ystad for many years. His current address is recorded as Ekudden. That’s an old people’s home not far from the old prison.”

Wallander knew where it was.

“So he’s still alive, is he?”

“Yes. He’s eighty-six years old, but he’s still alive.”

Just for a moment Wallander stared out into space. Then he left the room.

On the outskirts of Ystad Wallander stopped at a filling station and had a hot dog. He was still not sure what the information he had received from the tax authorities actually indicated. If, in fact, it indicated anything at all.

He drank some coffee served in a plastic mug before continuing on his way.

Ekudden was just off the main road to Trelleborg—a large, old building in extensive grounds, with views of the sea and the entrance to Ystad harbor. Wallander parked his car and went through the gate. A few elderly men were playing boules on one of the gravel paths. Wallander entered the building, gave a friendly nod to two old ladies who sat knitting, and knocked on a door
with a sign saying “Office.” A woman in her thirties opened the door.

“My name’s Wallander and I’m a police officer here in Ystad.”

“I know your daughter, Linda,” said the woman with a smile. “We went to the same school a long time ago. I was in your flat in Mariagatan once when you came in through the door: I remember being scared to death!”

“Of me?”

“Of you, yes! You were so enormously big.”

“I don’t think I’m all that big, am I? Do you know that Linda has come back to Ystad?”

“Yes, I bumped into her in the street. I know she’s become a police officer.”

“Do you think she seems frightening now?”

The girl laughed. She had a name tag pinned to her blouse: she was evidently called Pia.

“I have a question,” said Wallander. “I’ve been told that a man called Ivar Pihlak lives here.”

“Yes, Ivar lives here. He has a room on the first floor, right at the end of the corridor.”

“Is he at home?”

Pia looked at him in surprise.

“It’s very seldom that the old folks who live here are not at home.”

“Do you know if he has any relatives?”

“He’s never had any visitors. I don’t think he has a family. His parents live in Estonia. Or lived, rather. I seem
to recall that he once said they were dead, and that he doesn’t have any relatives left.”

“How is he?”

“He’s eighty-six years old. He can think clearly, but he’s a bit limited physically. Why do you want to meet him?”

“It’s just a routine matter.”

Wallander suspected Pia didn’t believe him. Not a hundred percent, at least. She ushered him to the staircase and accompanied him up to the first floor.

The door to Ivar Pihlak’s room was ajar. She knocked.

Sitting at a little table in front of a window was an elderly man with white hair, playing patience. He looked up and smiled.

“You have a visitor,” said Pia.

“What a nice surprise!” said the man.

Wallander could hear no trace of a foreign accent in his voice.

“I’ll leave you to it,” said Pia.

She went back along the corridor. The old man had stood up. They shook hands. He smiled: his eyes were blue and his grip was firm.

It seemed to Wallander that everything was wrong. The man standing in front of him would never be able to supply him with a solution to the riddle of the two skeletons.

“I didn’t catch your name,” said Ivar Pihlak.

“My name’s Kurt Wallander and I’m a police officer. For a while during the war, many years ago, you and
your parents lived on a farm just outside Löderup that belonged to a man called Ludvig Hansson. You lived there for just over six months, and then your parents went back to Denmark but you stayed on here in Sweden. Is that right?”

“How amazing that you should come here and talk about that now! After so many years.”

Ivar Pihlak looked at him with his blue eyes. It was as if Wallander’s words had both surprised him and awoken melancholic memories.

“So it’s true, is it?”

“My parents went back to Denmark in the beginning of December 1944. The war was coming to an end. They had a lot of friends—there were lots of other Estonians in Denmark. I suppose they didn’t really feel at home in Sweden.”

“Can you tell me exactly what happened?”

“Might I ask why you’re so interested?”

Wallander thought it over and decided not to mention the skeletons.

“It’s just a routine matter. Nothing special. What happened?”

“My parents returned to Estonia in June 1945. To their home in Tallinn. It was partially ruined, but they began to rebuild it.”

“But you stayed here in Sweden, is that right?”

“I didn’t want to go back. I stayed on here. I’ve never regretted it. I was able to train to become an engineer.”

“Do you have any family?”

“It never happened, I’m afraid. That’s something I regret, now that I’m an old man.”

“Did your parents come to visit you here?”

“It was usually a case of me going to Estonia. Things were very difficult there after the war, as you know.”

“When did your parents die?”

“My mother died as early as 1965, my father in the eighties.”

“What happened to their home?”

“An uncle on my father’s side took care of everything. I was there for their funerals. I brought some of their belongings back here to Sweden with me. But I got rid of everything when I moved in here. There’s not a lot of room for stuff here as you can see.”

Wallander felt he had no more questions to ask. The whole situation was pointless. The man with the blue eyes looked directly at him all the time, and spoke in a calm, soft voice.

“I won’t disturb you anymore,” said Wallander. “Good-bye, and many thanks.”

Wallander walked back through the garden. The men were still playing boules. Wallander paused and watched them. Something had begun to worry him. At first he couldn’t pin it down, apart from being aware that it had to do with the conversation he had had with the old man a few minutes earlier.

Then the penny dropped. It was as if the man’s
responses had been rehearsed. No matter what he had asked, he received an answer—a little too fast, a little too precisely.

I’m imagining things, Wallander thought. I’m seeing ghosts where there aren’t any ghosts.

He drove back to the police station. Linda was sitting in the canteen, drinking coffee. He sat down at her table. There were a few ginger biscuits on a plate, and he ate them all.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“It’s not going at all,” he said. “We’re standing still.”

“Will you be at home for dinner this evening?”

“I think so.”

She stood up and returned to her duties. Wallander finished his coffee and then went to his office.

The afternoon slid slowly past.

Just as he was about to go home, the telephone rang.

He recognized her voice, even before she had a chance to give her name. It was the girl called Pia on the telephone.

“I didn’t know where I should ring to reach you,” she said.

“What’s happened?”

“Ivar has disappeared.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“He’s disappeared. He’s run away.”

Wallander sat down at his desk. He noticed that his heart was beating faster.

“Calm down,” he said. “Tell me bit by bit. What’s happened?”

“He didn’t come down for dinner an hour ago. So I went up to his room. It was empty. His jacket was missing. We looked for him in the building and in the garden and down on the beach. He wasn’t anywhere to be found. Then Miriam came and said that her car was missing.”

“Who’s Miriam?”

“She works here, her job is identical to mine. She thought Ivar might have taken her car.”

“Why should Ivar have taken it?”

“She doesn’t usually lock her car. And Ivar often talked about how much he used to like driving.”

“What make of car does she have?”

“A dark blue Fiat.”

Wallander noted that down. Then he thought for a moment.

“Are you certain that Ivar isn’t in the house or the garden?”

“We’ve looked everywhere.”

“Why do you think he’s run away?”

“I thought you would be able to explain that.”

“I know where he might be. I’m not sure, but I might be right. If I find him I’ll be in touch within an hour or so. If I don’t find him I’ll have to make it an official police matter. Then we shall have to work out the best way of starting some kind of organized search.”

Wallander hung up. He sat motionless on his chair. Was he right? Had that uneasiness he had felt earlier been founded on fact?

He stood up. It was 5:35. It was dark outside. The wind came and went in gusts.