The Pyramid Read Online Free PDF Page A

decision to kill himself very suddenly. If you could rule out the idea of him being so crazy that he wanted to play a mean trick on an innocent salesman.
    Somewhere in the distance a telephone rang. Far too late he realised it was his own. He ran into the apartment. It was Mona.
    'I thought you were going to meet me,' she said angrily.
    Wallander looked at his watch and swore quietly. He should have been down by the boat at least a quarter of an hour ago.
    'I got caught up in a criminal investigation,' he said apologetically.
    'I thought you were off today?'
    'Unfortunately they needed me.'
    'Are there really no other policemen except you? Is this how it's going to be?'
    'It was an exception.'
    'Did you go grocery shopping?'
    'No, I ran out of time.'
    He heard how disappointed she was.
    'I'll come get you now,' he said, 'I'll try to hail a cab. Then we can go to a restaurant somewhere.'
    'How can I be sure? Maybe you'll get called away again.'
    'I'll be down there as soon as I can, I promise.'
    'I'll be on a bench outside. But I'm only waiting for twenty minutes.
Then I'm going home.'
    Wallander hung up and called the cab company. It was busy. It took almost ten minutes for him to get a cab. Between tries, he managed to lock up Hålén's apartment and change his shirt.
    He arrived at the ferry terminal after thirty-three minutes. Mona had already left. She lived on Södra Förstadsgatan. Wallander walked up to Gustav Adolf 's Square and called from a payphone. There was no answer. Five minutes later he called again. By then she was home.
    'If I say twenty minutes, I mean twenty minutes,' she said.
    'I couldn't get a hold of a cab. The line to the damn cab company was busy.'
    'I'm tired anyway,' she said. 'Let's get together another night.'
    Wallander tried to change her mind, but she was firm. The conversation turned into an argument. Then she hung up. Wallander slammed the receiver into the cradle. A couple of passing patrol officers gave him disapproving looks. They did not appear to recognise him.
    Wallander walked over to a hot-dog stand by the square. Then he sat down on a bench to eat and distractedly watched some seagulls fighting over a scrap of bread.
    He and Mona did not fight very often but each time it happened it worried him. Inside, he knew it would blow over the next day. Then she would be back to normal. But his reason had no influence on his anxiety. It was there anyway.
    When Wallander arrived home he sat down at the kitchen table and tried to concentrate on writing down a systematic account of everything that had happened in the apartment next door. But he didn't feel he was getting anywhere. On top of this he felt unsure of himself. How do you go about conducting an investigation and an analysis of a crime scene? He realised he lacked too many fundamental skills, despite his time at the police academy. After half an hour he angrily threw the pen down. It was all in his imagination. Hålén had shot himself. The betting form and the salesman didn't change anything. He would be better off bemoaning the fact that he had not got to know Hålén. Perhaps it was the man's loneliness that at last became unbearable?
    Wallander walked to and fro in the apartment, restless, anxious.
Mona had disappointed him. And it had been his fault.
    From the street he heard a car drive by. Music was streaming from the open car window. 'The House of the Rising Sun'. The song had been extremely popular a few years earlier. But what was the name of the group? The Kinks? Wallander could not remember. Then it occurred to him that at this time he normally heard the faint sound of Hålén's
TV through the wall. Now everything was quiet.
    Wallander sat down on the sofa and put his feet on the coffee table.
Thought about his father. The winter coat and hat, the shoes worn without socks. If it hadn't been so late he might have driven out to play cards with him. But he was starting to get tired, even though it was not yet eleven. He turned