The Fifth Woman Read Online Free PDF Page A

stolen?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Not even any flowers?”
    “Not that I could see.”
    “Do you really know exactly how many flowers you have in the shop at any one time?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    Her reply was immediate and firm. Wallander nodded.
    “Do you have any explanation for this break-in?”
    “No.”
    “You don’t own the shop, is that right?”
    “The owner is Gösta Runfeldt. I work for him.”
    “If I understand correctly, he’s away. Have you been in contact with him?”
    “That’s not possible.”
    Wallander looked at her attentively.
    “Why not?”
    “He’s on an orchid safari in Kenya.”
    Wallander considered what she had said.
    “Can you tell me something more? An orchid safari?”
    “Gösta is a passionate orchid lover,” the woman answered. “He knows everything about them. He travels all over the world looking at all the types that exist. He’s been writing a book on the history of orchids. Right now he’s in Kenya. I don’t know where, exactly. All I know is he’ll be back next Wednesday.”
    Wallander nodded.
    “We’ll have to talk with him when he gets back,” said Wallander. “Maybe you could ask him to call us at the police station?”
    Vanja Andersson promised to pass on the message. A customer came into the shop. Höglund and Wallander went out into the rain and got into the car. Wallander waited to start the engine.
    “Of course, it could be a burglar who made a mistake,” he said. “A thief who smashed the wrong window. There’s a computer shop right next door.”
    “But what about the pool of blood?”
    Wallander shrugged.
    “Maybe the thief didn’t notice he cut himself. He stood there with his arm hanging down and looked around. The blood dripped from his arm. Blood dripping in the same spot will eventually form a puddle.”
    She nodded. Wallander turned the ignition.
    “This will be an insurance case,” he said. “Nothing more.”
    They drove back to the police station in the rain.
    It was 11 a.m. on Monday 26 September 1994.
    In Wallander’s mind the week in Rome was slipping away like a slowly dissolving mirage.

CHAPTER 3
    On Tuesday, 27 September, rain was still falling in Skåne. The meteorologists had predicted that the hot summer would be followed by a wet autumn. Nothing had yet occurred to contradict their forecast.
    Wallander had come home from his first day at work after his trip to Italy, put together a hasty meal and eaten it without pleasure. He made several attempts to reach his daughter, who lived in Stockholm. He propped open the door to the balcony when there was a brief lull in the rain, feeling annoyed that Linda hadn’t called to ask him how the holiday had been. He tried, without much success, to convince himself that she was too busy to make contact. This autumn she was combining studies at a private theatre school with work as a waitress at a restaurant on Kungsholmen.
    Late that evening he had called Baiba in Riga. He had thought about her a great deal while he’d been in Rome. They’d spent some time together in Denmark, just a few months earlier, when Wallander was worn out and depressed after the terrible manhunt. On one of their last days together, he had asked Baiba to marry him. She gave him an evasive answer, not a definite no, but she made no attempt to conceal the reasons for her reluctance. They were walking along the vast beach at Skagen, where the two seas meet. Wallander had walked the same stretch many years before with his wife Mona, and once alone at a time when he had seriously considered leaving the police force.
    The evenings in Denmark had been almost tropically hot. The World Cup had people glued to their TV sets, and the beaches were deserted. They had strolled along, picking up pebbles and shells, and Baiba told him she didn’t think she could ever live with a policeman again. Her first husband, the Latvian police major Karlis, had been murdered in 1992. That was when Wallander had met her, during that confused