Before the Frost by Henning Mankell Page A

before?” she asked her father when they stepped out of the car and he was fumbling with the keys. He glanced at the brick facade.
    â€œLooks like the place you had in Sollentuna, before you moved to the dorms at the police academy.”
    â€œGood memory. So what do I do now?”
    â€œCome with me. You can treat this as a warm-up exercise for real police work.”
    â€œAren’t you breaking some rules by doing this? No one should be present at an interrogation without relevant cause—something like that?”
    â€œThis isn’t an interrogation session, it’s a conversation. Let’s hope it will simply serve to put someone’s fears to rest.”
    â€œBut still.”
    â€œNo buts. I’ve been breaking rules since I first started working. According to Martinsson’s calculations I should have been locked up for a minimum of four years for all the things I’ve done. But who cares, if you’re doing a good job? That’s one of the few points Nyberg and I can agree on.”
    â€œNyberg? The head of forensics?”
    â€œThe one and only. He’s retiring soon, and in one sense no one will be sorry to see him go. On the other hand, despite his terrible temper, maybe all of us will.”

    They crossed the street. A bike missing its back wheel was propped up against the wall. The frame was bent as if it had been the victim of a violent assault. They walked into the entry and read the names of the people who lived there.
    â€œBirgitta Medberg. Her daughter’s name is Vanya. From the phone call I would say she has a tendency to hysteria. She also has a very shrill voice.”
    â€œI am not hysterical!” a woman yelled from above. She was leaning over the railing of the staircase, watching them.
    â€œRemind me to keep my voice down in stairwells,” Wallander muttered.
    They walked up to her landing.
    â€œJust as I thought,” Wallander said in a friendly voice to the hostile woman waiting for them. “The boys at the station are too young. They still can’t tell the difference between hysteria and a normal level of concern.”
    The woman, Vanya, was in her forties, heavy, with yellow stains around the collar and cuffs of her blouse. Linda thought it was probably a long time since she had washed her hair. They walked into the apartment and Linda immediately recognized the strong scent that hung in the air. Mom’s perfume, she thought. The one she wears when she’s upset or angry . She had another she preferred when she was happy.
    They were shown into the living room. Vanya dropped into an armchair and pointed her finger at Linda.
    â€œWho is she?”
    â€œAn assistant,” Wallander said in a firm voice. “Please tell us what happened, starting at the beginning.”
    Vanya told them in a nervous, jerky style. She seemed to have trouble finding the right words even though it was clear that she was not the kind of person who spoke in long sentences. Linda immediately understood her concern was genuine, and compared it to the way she felt about Anna.
    Vanya told them that her mother was a cultural geographer whose principal work was tracing and mapping old roads and walkways in southern Sweden. She had been widowed for a year and had four grandchildren, of which two were Vanya’s. On this particular
day, Vanya and her daughters were supposed to have visited her at noon. Birgitta had planned to be out on one of her short excursions before then. But when Vanya arrived, Birgitta had not yet returned. Vanya waited for two hours, then called the police. Her mother would never have disappointed her grandchildren like this, she reasoned. Something must have happened.
    When she finished her story, Linda tried to guess what question her father would ask first. Perhaps something along the lines of: “Where was she going?”
    â€œDo you know where she was going this morning?” he asked.
    â€œNo,” Vanya