Carl-Einar Lundberg and the taxi driver Lundberg’s father–son relationship

Carl-Einar Lundberg and the taxi driver Lundberg’s father–son relationship enters the investigation through a theory of retaliatory violence: detectives consider whether Sonja Hökberg killed Carl-Einar’s father because of an assault she said she had suffered at Carl-Einar’s hands. The family connection gives a possible personal motive to the taxi driver’s murder, but the evidence develops in stages. It supports a strong identification of Carl-Einar as the man in Hökberg’s drawing; it does not, in the scenes presented, turn every part of the revenge theory into a proven account.

Identity and Investigative Context

Lundberg is identified by his occupation as a taxi driver and by his position as Carl-Einar’s father. The distinction matters to the case: the investigation is not only seeking the person responsible for the older Lundberg’s death, but also asking whether that death was connected to what his son may have done. At a meeting, Kurt Wallander assigns himself the task of checking on Lundberg’s son while other inquiries continue. He also reorganizes the investigation around leads involving Hökberg and Eva Persson, the whereabouts of possible witnesses, and the disappearance of a body from the morgue. The father–son connection therefore becomes one strand in a wider inquiry, not an explanation accepted at the outset. The available account does not provide a broader history of the two men’s family life or describe their personal relationship beyond establishing that Carl-Einar is the taxi driver’s son. Its importance is instead procedural and causal: Carl-Einar’s past gives the detectives a possible reason why Hökberg might have targeted his father, and the identity of the older man gives that theory a specific victim.

The Possible Link to Hökberg

Ann-Britt Höglund reports what she learned from a former boyfriend of Hökberg. He said that he had fallen in love with her, but that their relationship ended after he understood that she did not want a sexual relationship. He also said that Hökberg had told him she had been assaulted some years earlier and remained affected by the experience. Höglund checked the police files and found no record of a case involving Hökberg. Her account thus provides an attributed disclosure, not a prior official report or an independently documented finding. Höglund connects that disclosure to Carl-Einar because he had previously stood trial in a separate assault case and been acquitted, although the case contained indications that he might have been responsible. She reasons that the acquittal would not rule out an earlier offence and proposes that the murder of his father could have been revenge. The two links remain distinct: Hökberg’s former boyfriend reports what she told him, while the earlier case concerns a separate allegation against Carl-Einar. The investigation has a possible motive, but no direct proof at this point that Carl-Einar assaulted Hökberg or that she killed his father for that reason.

Identification and the Theory’s Development

The detectives also consider how Hökberg could have known that the taxi driver was Carl-Einar’s father. They question how the women would have known who would be driving the taxi and how Hökberg would have recognized the driver’s connection to Carl-Einar. Wallander observes that Ystad is a small town, but this is offered as a possible explanation, not as a demonstrated answer. He also considers the possibility that Hökberg was driven by a desire for revenge, while acknowledging that the circumstances of her response to the earlier assault are unknown. A later exchange supplies a more concrete connection to Carl-Einar himself. When Wallander asks about a tattoo mentioned in the case material, a woman immediately recalls a snake design on Carl-Einar’s right wrist. Wallander then shows her a drawing that he obtained after learning of Emil’s sister’s talent for drawing. She identifies the man in it as Carl-Einar. The recognition gives the investigators a firmer basis for identifying the figure depicted in Hökberg’s drawing and strengthens Höglund’s theory; Wallander says it is no longer merely a working hypothesis. This identification supports the link between Hökberg and Carl-Einar, but it does not by itself prove why the taxi driver was killed.

Limits and Significance of the Relationship

Even after the drawing is identified, Wallander distinguishes between a persuasive theory and a charge that could be sustained. He says the detectives can proceed on the assumption that Hökberg killed the father in revenge and question Carl-Einar, while recognizing that other factors may still be unknown. He also allows that Persson’s account—that Hökberg carried out both the stabbing and the hitting—may be truthful, without treating Persson’s role as settled. The father–son relationship helps organize these competing pieces of evidence, but it does not resolve them. The relationship’s narrative function is therefore precise and limited. Carl-Einar’s alleged past supplies a possible motive for an attack on his father; the drawing and the remembered wrist tattoo strengthen the identification of Carl-Einar as a person connected to Hökberg. Yet the case retains uncertainty over what happened between them, what Hökberg knew about the taxi driver, and whether revenge explains the father’s death. The investigation turns a family link into a consequential lead, while continuing to mark the difference between a plausible account and an established conclusion.