Wallander slowly lowered the photograph. Somewhere a clock struck 3 a.m.

CHAPTER NINE

By 6 a.m. on Saturday, 10 August, Wallander couldn't stand it any longer. He had spent most of the remaining night pacing back and forth in his flat, too anxious to sleep. The two pictures he had found at Svedberg's place lay on the kitchen table. They had been burning a hole in his pocket ever since he'd made his way home through the deserted town. It wasn't until he took off his coat that he realised it must have been raining slightly outside.

The photographs in Svedberg's secret compartment were a crucial find. What convinced him of this he couldn't say, but the free-floating anxiety he had felt since the beginning of this case had now escalated into full-blown fear. A case that hadn't even been a case, three young people who were travelling around Europe somewhere, now appeared in the middle of one of the most serious murder investigations the Ystad police had ever undertaken – the killing of one of their own. During the hours after Wallander's discovery, his thoughts were muddled and contradictory. But he knew that this was a crucial breakthrough.

What was it the photographs told him? The picture of Louise was in black-and-white, the snapshot in colour. There was no date printed on the back of either. Did that mean they weren't developed in commercial laboratories? Or were there local businesses that didn't use automatic dating systems? The sizes of the photographs were standard. He tried to decide if the pictures were taken by an amateur or not, since he knew that pictures developed in private darkrooms often did not dry to a uniform finish. But he lacked the expertise to answer his questions.

Next he asked himself what feelings the two photographs evoked. What did they say about the photographer? He was not yet willing to assume that they were taken by the same person. Had Svedberg taken the picture of Louise? Her gaze was impenetrable. The picture of the young people was also hard to pin down. He did not see a conscious sense of composition. The dominating principle appeared to be the inclusion of everyone in the frame. Someone had picked up a camera, told everyone to look over, and pushed the button. Maybe there was a whole series of pictures from this festive occasion. But where were they?

The sheer implausibility of the connection worried him. They already knew that Svedberg had started investigating the disappearance of the young people only a few days before he had gone on holiday.

Why would he have done that? And why would he have done it in secret? Where did the photograph of the young revellers come from? Where was it taken? And then this picture of the woman. It couldn't be anyone but Louise. Wallander studied it for a long time as he sat at the kitchen table. The woman was in her 40s, perhaps a couple of years younger than Svedberg. If they had met 10 years earlier, she might have been 30 and he 35. That seemed pretty reasonable. The woman had straight, dark hair in a style Wallander knew was called a page boy cut. Because it was a black-and-white photograph, he couldn't tell what colour her eyes were. She had a thin nose and face, and her lips were pressed together in the hint of a smile. It was a Mona Lisa smile, but the woman had no glimmer of a smile in her eyes. Wallander thought the picture had been retouched, or else she was heavily made up. There was something veiled about the photograph, something he couldn't place. The woman's face was evasive. It had been captured by the camera but was still not there somehow.

These photographs have been kept in a vacuum, Wallander thought. They lack fingerprints, like two unread books.

He managed to hold out until 6 a.m. and then he called Martinsson, who was an early riser. He answered almost at once.

"I hope I didn't wake you."

"If you call me at 10 p.m. you'd be in danger of doing that. But not at 6 a.m. I was about to go out and work in the garden."

Wallander came right to the point. He told him about the photographs. Martinsson listened without asking any questions.

"I want to meet with everyone as soon as possible," Wallander said when he finished. "Not at 9 a.m. At 7 a.m."

"Have you talked to anyone else?"

"No, you're the first."

"Who do you want?"

"Everyone, including Nyberg."

"Then you'll have to call him yourself – he's so moody in the mornings. I can't deal with angry people until after I've had my morning coffee."

Martinsson volunteered to call Hansson and Höglund, leaving the others to Wallander. He started with Nyberg, who was as sleepy and ill-tempered as expected.

"We're meeting at 7 a.m., not 9 a.m.," Wallander said.

"Has anything happened, or are you just doing this for the hell of it?"

"If you ever find you've been called to an investigative meeting just for the hell of it, you should contact your union representative."

He regretted that last comment to Nyberg. He went out to the kitchen and put on some water for a cup of coffee. Then he called Lisa Holgersson, who promised to be there. Wallander took the coffee with him out onto the balcony, where the thermometer indicated that it would be another warm day. There was the sudden clatter from something being pushed through the post slot in the front door.

It was his car keys. And after a night like that, he thought. Sten is amazing. He was weighed down with fatigue. With self-disgust, he suddenly imagined little white icebergs of sugar floating around in his veins.

He left the flat just after 6.30 a.m., and bumped into the person who delivered the newspapers, an older man named Stefansson who had bicycle clips around his trouser legs.

"Sorry I'm late today," he apologised. "There was something wrong with the presses this morning."

"Do you deliver papers at Lilla Norregatan as well?" Wallander asked.

Stefansson understood him at once. "You mean to the policeman who was killed?"

"Yes."

"A lady by the name of Selma works there. She's the oldest delivery person around. I think she started in 1947. What's that, nearly 50 years?"

"What's her last name?"

"Nylander."

Stefansson handed Wallander the paper.

"There's something about you in there," he said.

"Put it in my slot," Wallander said. "I won't have time to read it."

Wallander knew he could make it on time if he walked, but he took the car anyway. The start of his new life would have to be pushed back another day.

He ran into Höglund in the car park. "The person who delivers papers to Svedberg's building is called Selma Nylander," he told her. "Have you talked to her?"

"No, it turns out she doesn't have a phone."

Wallander thought about Sture Björklund's decision to throw out his telephone. Was it becoming a general trend? They went into the conference room. Wallander made himself a cup of coffee, and stood out in the corridor for a while trying to think how to organise the meeting. He was normally very well prepared, but this time couldn't think of anything except putting the photographs on the table and seeing what people had to say.

He closed the door behind him and sat in his usual spot. Svedberg's chair was still empty. Wallander took the pictures out of his coat pocket and told them briefly how he had found them. He omitted the fact that the thought had come to him while he lay in a drunken stupor in the back of a taxi. Since being stopped for driving under the influence by some of his colleagues six years ago, he never mentioned drinking alcohol.

The photographs lay in front of him. Hansson set up the projector.

"I'd like to point out that the girl to the far right in this picture is Astrid Hillström, one of the young people who has been missing since Midsummer."

He put both pictures into the projector. There was silence around the table. Wallander took the opportunity to study the pictures more closely himself as he waited, but couldn't pick out any additional details. He had used the magnifying glass carefully during those early hours.