Before the Frost

“How did you get here?” she asked and closed her eyes. “Tell me.”

“If what I’ve heard so far from my Danish colleagues and one of the emergency-room physicians here at the Rikshospital is correct, you were extremely lucky. A patrol car was driving by and saw a man knock you down. It only took a few minutes for the ambulance to arrive. The officers found your driver’s license as well as your ID card from the police academy. They contacted me in half an hour. I drove over as soon as I heard about it. Lindman is also here.”

Linda opened her eyes and looked at her dad. She thought in a fuzzy way that she was maybe a little in love with Stefan Lindman even though she had hardly spent any time with him. Am I delirious? I return to consciousness after some lunatic has knocked me out and the first thing I think about is that I’ve fallen in love, and much too quickly at that.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Where’s Lindman now?”

“He went to get a bite to eat. I told him to go home, but he wanted to come with me.”

“I’m thirsty.”

Wallander gave her some water. Linda’s head was clearer now; images from the moments before the assault were coming back.

“What happened to the creep who assaulted me?”

“They arrested him.”

Linda sat up so quickly that her father couldn’t stop her.

“Lie down!”

“He knows where Anna is. Or perhaps he doesn’t know that — but he does know something.”

“Calm down.”

She reluctantly stretched out on the bed again.

“I don’t know his name, it could be Torgeir Langaas, but I can’t know for sure. But he knows something about Anna.”

Her father sat down on a chair beside the bed. She looked at his watch. It was a quarter past three.

“Is it day or night?”

“It’s night. You’ve been sleeping like a baby.”

“He grabbed my hair and then he threatened me.”

“What I don’t understand is what you were doing here in the first place. Why Copenhagen?”

“It’ll take too long to explain. But the bastard who attacked me may know where Anna is. Maybe he assaulted her too. Or he may have something to do with Birgitta Medberg.”

Wallander shook his head.

“You’re tired. The doctor said your memory would come back in bits and pieces, and things may be jumbled for a while.”

“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

“I do. As soon as the doctor checks you again we can go home. Stefan can drive your car home.”

The truth was starting to dawn on her.

“You don’t believe a word I’ve told you, do you? That he threatened me?”

“No, I know he threatened you. He’s admitted to that.”

“Admitted to what, exactly?”

“That he threatened you because he wanted to get the drugs that he assumed you had bought while you were in the apartment building.”

Linda stared at her father while her mind was trying to absorb this new information.

“He threatened me and told me to stop asking about Torgeir Langaas. He never said a word about drugs.”

“We should be grateful the matter has been cleared up, and that the police were nearby at the time. He’s going to be charged with assault and attempted robbery.”

“There was no robbery. It’s all about the man who owns the house behind the church in Lestarp.”

Wallander frowned.

“What house is that?”

“I haven’t had time to tell you about this before. I went to Anna’s house in Lund and found a lead that pointed to Lestarp and a house behind the church. After I was there asking about Anna, everyone disappeared. The only thing I managed to find out was that the house is owned by a Norwegian by the name of Torgeir Langaas, and his address is in Copenhagen.”

Her father looked at her for a long time, then took out his notebook and started reading from one of the pages.

“The man they arrested is one Ulrik Larsen. If my Danish colleague is to be believed, Larsen is hardly the kind of man who owns very many country houses in Sweden.”

“Dad, you’re not listening to me!”

“I am listening, but what you don’t seem to understand is that there’s a man who has confessed to trying to steal drugs from you.”

Linda shook her head desperately. Her left temple throbbed. Why didn’t he understand what she was trying to tell him?

“My mind is completely clear. I know I was knocked out but I’m telling you what actually happened.”

“You think you are. What I still don’t understand is what you were doing in Copenhagen — after barging in on Mona and upsetting her like that.”

Linda went cold.

“How do you know about that?”

“She called me. She was in a terrible state. She was crying so hard she couldn’t speak clearly, so at first I thought she was drunk.”

“She was drunk, damn it. What did she say?”

“That you had accused her of all manner of things and complained about both her and me. She’s crushed. And that banker husband was apparently not there to comfort her.”

“I caught Mom naked in the kitchen with a bottle of vodka in her hand.”