Irritated by the thought, he turned into the Malmö road and stopped at one of the supermarkets. He had just locked his car door when his mobile phone rang from inside. At first he thought he would ignore it. Whatever it was, somebody else could look after it. He had enough problems of his own just now. But he changed his mind, opened the door and reached for the phone.

'Is that Wallander?' It was his colleague Hansson.

'Yes.'

'Where are you?'

'I was just going to buy some groceries.'

'Leave that for now. Come here instead. I'm at the hospital. I'll meet you at the entrance.'

'What's happened?'

'It's hard to explain over the phone. It'll be better if you come here.'

End of call. Wallander knew that Hansson wouldn't have phoned if it hadn't been serious. It only took him a few minutes to drive to the hospital. Hansson came to meet him outside the main entrance. He was obviously feeling the cold. Wallander tried to work out from his expression what had happened.

'What's going on?' Wallander asked.

'There's a taxi driver by the name of Stenberg in there,' said Hansson. 'He's drinking coffee. He's very upset.'

Wallander followed Hansson through the glass doors, still wondering what had happened.

The hospital cafeteria was to the right. They walked past an old man in a wheelchair who was slowly chewing on an apple. Wallander recognised Stenberg, who was alone at a table. He had met the man before, but couldn't put his finger on when or where. Stenberg was in his fifties, on the portly side and almost completely bald. His nose was bent, suggesting he had been a boxer in his younger days.

'Maybe you recognise Inspector Wallander?' Hansson said.

Stenberg nodded and started to get up to shake hands.

'No, don't stand up,' said Wallander. 'Tell me what's happened instead.'

Stenberg's eyes were constantly on the move. Wallander could see that the man was very upset, or even scared. He couldn't yet tell which.

'I got a call to take some guy from Svarte back to Ystad,' Stenberg said. 'The fare was supposed to wait by the main road. Alexandersson, his name was. Sure enough, there he was when I drove up. He got into the back seat and asked me to take him back to town. As far as the square. I could see in the rear-view mirror that he had his eyes closed. I thought he was having a snooze. We came to Ystad and I drove to the square and told him we were there. He didn't react at all. I got out of the car, opened the back door and tapped him on the shoulder. No reaction. I thought he must be ill, so I drove him to the emergency room. They said he was dead.'

Wallander frowned.

'Dead?'

'They tried to revive him,' Hansson said. 'But it was too late. He was dead.'

Wallander thought.

'It takes about fifteen minutes to drive from Svarte to Ystad,' he said to Stenberg. 'Did he look ill when you picked him up?'

'If he'd been ill I'd have noticed,' said Stenberg. 'Besides, he'd have asked to be taken to the hospital, surely?'

'You didn't notice any injury?'

'Not a thing. He was wearing a suit and a light blue overcoat.'

'Was he carrying anything? A suitcase or something?'

'No, nothing. I thought I'd better call the police. Although I expect the hospital will have to do that in any case.'

Stenberg's answers were immediate, without hesitation. Wallander turned to Hansson.

'Do we know who he is?'

Hansson took out his notebook.

'Göran Alexandersson,' Hansson said. 'Forty-nine years of age. Runs his own business, electronics. Lives in Stockholm. He had quite a lot of money in his wallet. And several credit cards.'

'Odd,' Wallander said. 'I assume it must have been a heart attack. What do the doctors say?'

'That only an autopsy will give the definite cause of death.'

Wallander nodded and stood up.

'You can contact whoever's in charge of his estate and claim your fare,' he said to Stenberg. 'We'll be in touch if we have any more questions.'

'It was a nasty experience,' said Stenberg firmly. 'But I certainly wouldn't ask his next of kin to pay me for driving a corpse to the hospital.'

Stenberg left.

'I'd like to take a look at him,' said Wallander. 'You don't need to come if you don't want to.'

'I'd rather not,' said Hansson. 'I'll try to get in touch with his next of kin.'

'What was he doing in Ystad?' wondered Wallander. 'That's something we should find out.'

Wallander only stayed with the body for a short time, in a room in the emergency unit. The dead man's expression gave nothing away. Wallander searched his clothes. Like his shoes, they were of high quality. If it transpired that a crime had been committed, the forensic team would need to take a closer look at the clothes. He found nothing in the man's wallet that Hansson hadn't already mentioned. Then he went to talk to one of the doctors.

'It appears to be death from natural causes,' said the doctor. 'No sign of any violence, no injuries.'

'Who on earth could have killed him while he was in the back seat of a taxicab?' asked Wallander. 'But let me have the post-mortem results as soon as you can, please.'

'We'll transfer him to the medico-legal unit in Lund now,' the doctor said. 'Unless the police have anything against that?'

'No,' said Wallander. 'Why should we?'

He drove back to the police station and went to see Hansson, who was just winding up a telephone call. As he waited for him to finish, Wallander miserably felt his stomach, which was hanging out over his belt.

'I've just spoken to Alexandersson's office in Stockholm,' Hansson said as he put down the phone. 'To his secretary and his number two.

They were shocked, of course. But they were able to tell us that Alexandersson had been divorced for the last ten years.'

'Did he have any children?'

'One son.'

'We'd better find him, then.'

'That won't be possible,' Hansson said.

'Why not?'

'Because he's dead.'

Wallander could sometimes get very annoyed by Hansson's roundabout way of coming to the point. This was one of those occasions.

'Dead? What do you mean, dead? Do I have to drag every detail out of you?'

Hansson checked his notes.

'His only child, a son, died nearly seven years ago. Apparently it was some sort of accident. I couldn't quite grasp what they meant.'

'Did the son have a name?'

'Bengt.'

'Did you ask what Göran Alexandersson was doing in Ystad? Or Svarte?'

'He'd told them he was going on holiday for a week. He'd be staying at the King Charles Hotel. He arrived four days ago.'

'Right, let's go there,' Wallander said.

They spent over an hour going through Alexandersson's room but found nothing of interest. Only an empty suitcase, some clothes neatly hung in the cupboard and a spare pair of shoes.

'Not a single sheet of paper,' said Wallander thoughtfully. 'No book, nothing.'

Then he called the front desk and asked if Alexandersson had received or made any telephone calls or had had any visitors. The receptionist's reply was crystal clear: nobody had called room 211, nobody had been to visit.

'He's staying here in Ystad,' Wallander said, 'but he calls a taxi from Svarte. Question: How did he get there in the first place?'

'I'll call the taxi companies,' said Hansson.

They drove back to the police station. Wallander stood at his office window, absent-mindedly contemplating the water tower on the other side of the street. He found himself thinking about Mona and Linda. They were probably in some restaurant or other, having dinner. But what were they talking about? No doubt what Linda was going to do next. He tried to imagine their conversation, but all he could hear was the humming from the radiators. He sat down to write a preliminary report while Hansson was calling the Ystad taxi companies. Before starting, he went to the break room and helped himself to some biscuits that somebody had abandoned. It was nearly eight by the time Hansson knocked on his door and came in.