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muttered a greeting and continued dabbing with his brush. Wallander poured a cup of coffee from a dirty pot that stood on a smoking spirit stove.
    He looked at his father, who was almost 80, short and stooped, but still radiating energy and strength of will. Am I going to look like him when I'm old? he thought. As a boy I took after my mother. Now I look like my grandfather. Maybe I'll be like my father when I get old.
    "Have a cup of coffee," said his father. "I'll be ready in a minute."
"I've got one," said Wallander.
"Then have another," said his father.
    He's in a bad mood, thought Wallander. He's a tyrant with his changeable moods. What does he want with me, anyway?
    "I've got a lot to do," said Wallander. "Actually I have to work all night. I thought there was something you wanted."
"Why do you have to work all night?"
"I have to sit at the hospital."
"How come? Who's sick?"
    Wallander sighed. Even though he had carried out hundreds of interrogations himself, he would never be able to match his father's persistence in questioning him. And his father didn't even give a damn about his career. Wallander knew that his father had been deeply disappointed when he had decided, at 18, to become a policeman. But he was never able to find out what aspirations his father had actually had for him. He had tried to talk to him about it, but without success.
    On the few occasions that he had spent time with his sister Kristina, who lived in Stockholm and owned a beauty salon, he had tried to ask her, since he knew that she and his father were close. But even she had no idea. He drank the lukewarm coffee, wondering whether his father had wanted him to take up the brush and continue to paint the same motif for another generation.
    His father put down his brush and wiped his hands on a dirty rag. When he came over to him and poured a cup of coffee, Wallander could smell the stink of dirty clothes and his father's unwashed body.
    How do you tell your father that he smells bad? he thought. Maybe he can't take care of himself any longer. And then what do I do? I can't have him at my place, that would never work. We'd murder each other. He watched his father rub his nose with one hand as he slurped his coffee.
    "You haven't come out to see me in a long time," his father said reproachfully.
"I was here the day before yesterday, wasn't I?"
"For half an hour!"
"Well, I was here, anyway."
"Why don't you want to visit me?"
"I do! It's just that I have a lot to do sometimes."
    His father sat down on a rickety, ancient toboggan that creaked under his weight.
    "I just wanted to tell you that your daughter came to visit me yesterday."
Wallander was astounded.
"Linda was here?"
"Aren't you listening to what I'm telling you?" "Why did she come?" "She wanted a painting." "A painting?"
"Unlike you, she actually appreciates what I do."
    Wallander had a hard time believing what he was hearing. Linda had never shown any interest in her grandfather, except when she was very small.
"What did she want?"
"A painting, I told you! You're not listening!"
    "I am listening! Where did she come from? Where was she going? How the hell did she get out here? Do I have to drag everything out of you?"
    "She came in a car," said his father. "A young man with a black face drove her."
"What do you mean by black?"
"Haven't you heard of Negroes? He was very polite and
    spoke excellent Swedish. I gave her the painting and then they left. I thought you'd like to know, since you have so litde contact with each other."
"Where did they go?"
"How should I know?"
    Wallander realised that neither of them knew where Linda actually lived. Occasionally she slept at her mother's house. But then she would quickly disappear again, off on her own mysterious paths. I've got to talk to Mona, he thought. Separated or not, we have to talk to each other. I can't stand this any more.
"Do you want a drink?" his father asked.
    The last thing Wallander wanted was a drink. But he knew it was useless to