He was sweating and still enraged. Anette Fredman's shrill plea to be left alone echoed in his head. The photographer stared at the destroyed film. The group of boys were still playing football.
Fru Fredman had asked him to join them for coffee after the service when she called. He had not been able to say no.
"There won't be any pictures in the paper," Wallander said.
"Why can't they leave us alone?"
Wallander had nothing to say. He looked over at Agneta Malmström, but she had nothing to say either.
The flat in the shabby rental building was just as Wallander remembered. Dr Malmström came with them. They sat in silence while they were waiting for the coffee to percolate. Wallander thought he heard a clink of glass from the kitchen.
Jens was on the floor playing quietly with a car. Wallander could see that Dr Malmström found it all as depressing as he did, but there was nothing to say.
They sat there with their coffee cups. Anette Fredman sat across from them with shiny eyes. Dr Malmström tried to discover how she was managing, now that she was unemployed. Fru Fredman answered in vague perfunctory phrases.
"We manage. Things will work out somehow. A day at a time."
The conversation died away. Wallander looked down at his watch. He got up and shook Anette Fredman's hand. She burst into tears. Wallander was taken aback. He didn't know what to do.
"You go," Dr Malmström said. "I'll stay with her a little while."
"I'll call to see how things are going," Wallander said. Then, awkwardly, he patted the boy's head and left.
He sat in the car for a while before starting the engine. He thought about the photographer who was so sure the pictures of a serial killer's funeral would sell.
I can't deny that this is how things are now, he thought. But that doesn't mean that I can understand a single bit of it.
He drove through the autumn landscape to Ystad. It had been a depressing morning.
An easterly wind had picked up. As he walked into the police station, he saw that a belt of cloud was moving in over the coast.
CHAPTER THREE
By the time Wallander reached his office, he had a headache. He looked in his desk drawers for some tablets. He heard Hansson walk past his door whistling. Finally, he found a crumpled packet of acetaminophen. He went to the canteen to get himself a glass of water and a cup of coffee. A group of young officers, who had been taken on during the last couple of years, was sitting at one table talking loudly. Wallander nodded in their direction and said hello. He heard them talking about their time at Police Training College. He walked back to his office and watched the two tablets dissolve in the glass of water.
He thought about Fru Fredman. He tried to imagine what the future might hold for the little boy in the impoverished suburb of Rosengård who had played so quietly on the living-room floor. He had seemed to be hiding from the world, carrying within him his memories of a dead father and two siblings, now both dead too.
Wallander drained the glass and immediately felt the headache lifting. He looked at a folder that Martinsson had put on his desk, Urgent as all hell on a red Post-it on the front. Wallander already knew the facts of the case. They had discussed it last week on the telephone while Wallander was at a national police conference on new directions for policing the violence associated with the growing motorcycle gang movement. Wallander had asked to be excused, but Chief Holgersson had insisted. She specifically wanted him on this. One of the gangs had just bought a farm outside Ystad and they had to be prepared to deal with them in the future.
Wallander opened the folder with a sigh. Martinsson had written a concise report of the events. Wallander leaned back in his chair and thought about what he had just read.
Two girls, one 19, the other not more than 14, had ordered a taxi from a restaurant at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday. They had asked to be driven to Rydsgård. One was in the passenger seat. As they reached the outskirts of Ystad she asked the driver to stop, saying she wanted to move to the back seat. When the taxi pulled over to the side of the road, the girl in the back hit the driver on the head with a hammer. The girl in