Cheerful, thought Wallander. She sounds happy and keen. Not threatened, not scared.

“One more time,” said Wallander. “But first I want to hear what you yourself say on the tape. If you still have that?”

Robert Akerblom nodded, rewound the cassette, and pressed a button.

Welcome to Akerblom’s Real Estate. Right now we’re out on business. But we’ll be open again as usual on Monday morning, eight o’clock. If you would like to leave a message or send a fax, please do so after the beep. Thank you for calling, and we look forward to hearing from you again.

Wallander could hear that Robert Akerblom was not comfortable when confronted with the answering machine’s microphone. His voice sounded slightly strained.

Then he turned his attention to Louise Akerblom again, and asked her husband to wind the tape back time after time.

Wallander tried to listen for some message that might have been concealed behind the words. He had no idea what it might be. But he tried even so.

When he had heard the tape some ten times, he nodded to Robert Akerblom, indicating that was enough.

“I’ll have to take the cassette with me,” he said. “We can amplify the sound at the station.”

Robert Akerblom took out the little cassette and handed it to Wallander.

“I’d like you to do something for me while I’m going through the drawers in her desk,” said Wallander. “Write down everything she did or was going to do last Friday. Who she was due to meet, and where. Write down what route you think she would have taken as well. Note the times. And I want an exact description of where that house is, the one she was going to look at near Krageholm.”

“I can’t tell you that,” said Robert Akerblom.

Wallander looked at him in surprise.

“It was Louise who took the call from the lady who wanted to sell the house,” explained Robert Akerblom. “She drew a map for herself, and took it with her. She wouldn’t be putting all the details into a file until today. If we’d taken on the house either she or I would have gone back there to take a photograph.”