Sten Widén

Sten Widén is one of Kurt Wallander’s few close friends and the owner of a horse stud outside Ystad. For years he talked about leaving the unprofitable farm and beginning again somewhere else; when he finally acts, his departure becomes both a real break from his old life and a measure of the distance Wallander feels from his own. Their friendship, once close and later renewed on the assumption that it could resume as before, proves unable to withstand the change.

Identity and Background

Widén inherited the stud from his father, but it had stopped making money years before the events of the novel. Its decline makes the farm less a secure home than an obligation he must eventually relinquish. He expects the sale to bring little, though enough, if he lives cheaply, to let him survive on the interest. The decision is practical, but it also gives substance to a departure he has discussed many times without choosing a destination.

He is one of Wallander’s oldest friends and among the few people the detective considers close. Yet Widén’s drinking is a persistent feature of their friendship. Wallander describes him as drinking heavily and worries that he may drink himself to death; he also knows that Widén is often drunk when talking about his plans. That history helps explain why Wallander has not taken those plans seriously. When Widén announces that he is leaving, however, he sounds sober, energetic, and resolved, and the familiar talk has become a decision.

The Decision to Leave

Widén first tells Wallander by telephone that he wants to say goodbye because he is selling the stud and going away. He has not decided where to go. Wallander, then ill at home and occupied with the search for the escaped Sonja Hökberg, promises to visit as soon as he can. The call unsettles him: he initially fears that Widén is ill, then discovers that his friend is preparing to change his life. His alarm gives way to envy. Widén’s long-discussed dreams, unlike Wallander’s, have acquired momentum.

When Wallander visits the farm, Widén confirms that the stud is for sale. He still cannot say where he will go, insisting that the sale must come first. The empty stalls and the girl hanging up a saddle make the prospect tangible: the farm’s working life is already reduced, even before its owner has left. Wallander asks what Widén will do without the horses. Widén has no settled answer, and even treats the possibility of giving up drinking as uncertain: leaving might worsen his drinking, or perhaps enable him to stop.

Restlessness and the Friendship

Widén’s possible futures are vivid but unresolved. In the untidy living room that also serves as his office, he imagines becoming a stage technician at La Scala in Milan, drawn to the thought of being backstage and hearing the singing. He also considers heading north and burying himself in a snowdrift. Neither idea is a plan. What he knows is that the stud will be sold and that he will have to go somewhere. His readiness to leave contrasts with Wallander’s inability to imagine abandoning police work.

The conversation turns to Wallander’s cases. Widén teases him about chasing smugglers, and Wallander responds defensively that he pursues murderers, including the people who killed a taxi driver with a hammer and a knife. Widén says he does not understand how Wallander can keep doing the work, while also telling him that he has always considered him an excellent policeman. His real question is whether Wallander will make time for anything else in life. Wallander has no answer that closes the gap between them. The exchange makes plain that their different lives are not just a matter of occupation: Widén is preparing to leave, while Wallander remains bound to work he finds difficult to continue and difficult to quit.

Wallander also tells Widén that one of the girls who killed the taxi driver had a stepfather known to the investigation as Erik Hökberg, and that the girl appears to have been murdered. The case intrudes on the visit and helps explain why Wallander says he cannot take time away, even if he wanted to. He leaves the farm early, asking Widén to call a taxi rather than accepting a ride from a man who has been drinking. Widén’s disappointment mirrors Wallander’s, but neither can repair the separation by naming it. As the taxi arrives, they briefly consider what they had expected when young. Wallander says he has forgotten; the present and the future already occupy him.

Departure and Significance

During the visit, Wallander recognizes that he and Widén had once been very close, then grown up and gone their separate ways. When they met again years later, they assumed they could build on the old friendship without understanding that its continuation would have to be something different. Wallander concludes that their friendship has ended—or, more painfully, that it had ended long before either of them noticed. The visit does not create the distance so much as make it visible.

Later, after another friendship has broken down, Wallander drives to the ranch. The For Sale sign now bears a Sold sign, the house is empty, and the horses are gone. A lone cat sits in a pile of hay. Widén has already left and has not even said goodbye. Wallander finds this upsetting and drives away quickly. The scene completes the departure first announced over the telephone: the farm that had anchored Widén’s life has been cleared, while Wallander arrives too late for a farewell. Widén’s choice to leave does not resolve the detective’s own restlessness; instead, it sharpens his sense of how difficult it is for him to escape his work, loneliness, and accumulated losses.