by for another reason. Something I need your help on."
Wallander waited for her to continue.
"I said I'd give a talk to a women's club in Ystad. The meeting is on Thursday evening, but I don't feel up to it any more. There's too much going on in my life, and I can't seem to focus."
Wallander knew that she was in the throes of agonising divorce proceedings. Her husband was constantly away due to his work as an engineer. He was sent all over the world, and that meant that the process was dragging on. It was more than a year since she had first told Wallander about the marriage ending.
"Why don't you see if Martinsson would do it?" Wallander said. "You know I'm hopeless at lectures."
"You only have to tell them what it's like to be a police officer," she said. "And you'd only need to speak for half an hour to an audience of 30 or so women. Probably there will be questions too. They'll love you."
Wallander shook his head firmly. "Martinsson will be more than happy to do it," he said. "And he has experience in politics so he's used to this kind of thing."
"I already asked him. He can't."
"Holgersson?"
"The same. There's only you."
"What about Hansson?"
"He'd start talking about horse racing after a few minutes. He's hopeless."
Wallander saw that he would have to give in. He couldn't leave her in the lurch. "What kind of women's club?"
"It started as a book club, I think, which has grown into a society for intellectual and literary activity. They've been active for about ten years."
"Well, I don't want to do it but, since you're stuck, I will."
She was clearly relieved and gave him a piece of paper. "Here's the name and number of the contact person." The address was in the middle of town, not far from where he lived. Höglund got to her feet.
"They won't pay you anything," she said. "But you'll get plenty of coffee and cake."
"I don't eat cake."
"If it's any help, this kind of public service is exactly what the chief constable wants us to be doing. You know how we're always getting those memoranda about finding new ways of reaching out to the community."
Wallander thought of asking her how she was getting on in her personal life, but he let it pass. If she had a problem she wanted to discuss with him, she would be the one to bring it up.
"Weren't you going to go to Stefan Fredman's funeral?"
"I was just there, and it was exactly as depressing as you might imagine."
"How is the mother taking it? I can't remember her name."
"Anette. She's certainly been dealt a bum hand in life. But I think she's taking good care of the one child she has left. Or is trying to, at any rate."
"We'll have to wait and see."
"What do you mean by that?"
"What's the boy's name?"
"Jens."
"We'll have to wait and see if the name Jens Fredman starts popping up in our police reports in about ten years' time."
Wallander nodded. There was certainly that possibility.
Höglund left and Wallander went to fetch a fresh cup of coffee. The young officers were gone. Wallander walked to Martinsson's office. The door was wide open, but the room was empty. Wallander returned to his office. His headache was gone. He looked out of the window. Some blackbirds were screeching over by the water tower. He tried to count them, but there were too many.
The phone rang and he answered without sitting down at his desk. It was someone calling from the bookshop to let him know that the book he had ordered had come in. Wallander couldn't recall ordering a book, but said that he'd call in to pick it up the following day.
He remembered what the book was as soon as he put the receiver down. It was a present for Linda. A French book on restoring antique furniture. Wallander had read about it in a magazine at the doctor's surgery. He was still hoping that Linda would return to her idea of restoring furniture for a living, despite her subsequent experimentation with other careers. He had ordered the book and promptly forgotten about it. He pushed his coffee cup aside and decided to call her later that evening. It had been several weeks since they had talked.
Martinsson walked in. He was always in a hurry and seldom knocked. Over the years, Wallander had become steadily more convinced of Martinsson's abilities as a police officer. His chief weakness was that