Sidetracked

CHAPTER 16

When Wallander awoke just before 5 a.m., on Monday 27 June, a cloud bank had drifted in from the west and reached Ystad, but there was still no rain. Wallander lay in bed and tried in vain to go back to sleep. At 6 a.m. he got up, showered and made coffee. The fatigue was like a dull pain. Ten or 15 years ago he’d almost never felt tired in the morning, no matter how little sleep he’d got, he thought with regret. But those days were gone forever.

Just before 7 a.m. he walked into the station. Ebba had already arrived, and she smiled at him as she handed him some phone messages.

“I thought you were on holiday,” said Wallander in surprise.

“Hansson asked me to stay a few extra days,” said Ebba. “Now that there’s so much happening.”

“How’s your hand?”

“Like I said. It’s no fun getting old. Everything just starts to fall apart.”

Wallander couldn’t recall ever having heard Ebba make such a dramatic statement. He wondered whether to tell her about his father and his illness, but decided against it. He got some coffee and sat down at his desk. After looking through the phone messages and stacking them on top of the pile from the night before, he called Riga, feeling a pang of guilt at making a personal call. He was still old-fashioned enough not to want to burden his employer. He remembered how a few years ago Hansson had been consumed by a passion for betting on the horses. He had spent half his working day calling racetracks all over the country for tips. Everyone had known about it, but no-one had complained. Wallander had been surprised that only he had thought someone should talk to Hansson. But then one day all the form guides and half-completed betting slips vanished from Hansson’s desk. Through the grapevine Wallander heard that Hansson had decided to stop before he wound up in debt.

Baiba picked up the phone after the third ring. Wallander was nervous. Each time he called he was afraid that she’d tell him they shouldn’t see each other again. He was as unsure of her feelings as he was sure of his own. But she sounded happy, and her happiness was infectious. Her decision to go to Tallinn had been made quite hastily, she explained. One of her friends was going and asked Baiba to go with her. She had no classes at the university that week, and the translation job she was working on didn’t have a pressing deadline. She told him about the trip and then asked how he was. Wallander decided not to mention that their trip to Skagen might be jeopardised. He said that everything was fine. They agreed that he would call her that evening. Afterwards, Wallander sat worrying about how she’d react if he had to postpone their holiday.

Worry was a bad habit, which seemed to grow worse the older he got. He worried about everything. He worried when Baiba went to Tallinn, he worried that he was going to get sick, he worried that he might oversleep or that his car might break down. He wrapped himself in clouds of anxiety. With a grimace he wondered whether Mats Ekholm might be able to do a psychological profile of him and suggest how he could free himself from all the problems he created.

Svedberg knocked on his half-open door and walked in. He hadn’t been careful in the sun the day before. The top of his head was completely sunburnt, as were his forehead and nose.

“I’ll never learn,” Svedberg complained. “It hurts like hell.”

Wallander thought about the burning sensation he’d felt after being slapped the day before. But he didn’t mention it.

“I spent yesterday talking to the people who live near Wetterstedt,” Svedberg said. “He went for walks quite often. He was always polite and said hello to the people he met. But he didn’t socialise with anyone in the neighbourhood.”

“Did he also make a habit of taking walks at night?”

Svedberg checked his notes. “He used to go down to the beach.”

“So this was a routine?”

“As far as I can tell, yes.”

Wallander nodded. “Just as I thought,” he said.

“Something else came up that might be of interest,” Svedberg continued. “A retired civil servant named Lantz told me that a reporter had rung his doorbell on Monday 20 June, and asked for directions to Wetterstedt’s house. Lantz understood that the reporter and a photographer were going there to do a story. That means someone was at his house on the last day of his life.”

“And that there are photographs,” said Wallander. “Which newspaper was it?”

“Lantz didn’t know.”

“You’ll have to get someone to make some calls,” said Wallander. “This could be important.”

Svedberg nodded and left the room.

“And you ought to put some cream on that sunburn,” Wallander called after him. “It doesn’t look good.”

Wallander called Nyberg. A few minutes later he came in.

“I don’t think your man came on a bicycle,” said Nyberg. “We found some tracks behind the hut from a moped or a motorcycle. And every worker on the road team drives a car.”

An image flashed through Wallander’s mind, but he couldn’t hold on to it. He wrote down what Nyberg had said.

“What do you expect me to do with this?” asked Nyberg, holding up the bag with the pages from The Phantom.

“Check for fingerprints,” said Wallander. “Which may match other prints.”

“I thought only children read The Phantom,” said Nyberg.

“No,” replied Wallander. “There you’re wrong.”

When Nyberg had gone, Wallander hesitated. Rydberg had taught him that a policeman must always tackle what was most important at a given moment. But what was now? No one thing could yet be assumed to be more important than another. Wallander knew that what mattered now was to trust his patience.

He went out into the hall, knocked on the door of the office that had been assigned to Ekholm and opened the door. Ekholm was sitting with his feet on the desk, reading through some papers. He nodded towards the visitor’s chair and tossed the papers on the desk.

“How’s it going?” asked Wallander.

“Not so good,” said Ekholm evenly. “It’s hard to pin down this person. It’s a shame we don’t have a little more material to go on.”

“He needs to have committed more murders?”

“To put it bluntly, that would make the case easier,” said Ekholm. “In many investigations into serial murders conducted by the F.B.I., a breakthrough comes only after the third or fourth crime. Then it’s possible to sift out the things that are particular to each killing, and start to see an overall pattern. And a pattern is what we’re looking for, one that enables us to see the mind behind the crimes.”

“What can you say about adults who read comic books?” asked Wallander.

Ekholm raised his eyebrows.

“Does this have something to do with the case?”

“Maybe.”

Wallander told him about his discovery. Ekholm listened intently.

“Emotional immaturity or abnormality is almost always present in individuals who commit serial murders,” said Ekholm. “They don’t value other human beings. That’s why they don’t comprehend the suffering they cause.”

“But all adults who read The Phantom aren’t murderers,” said Wallander.

“Just as there have been examples of serial killers who were experts on Dostoevsky,” replied Ekholm. “You have to take a piece of the puzzle and see whether it fits anywhere.”

Wallander was starting to get impatient. He didn’t have time to get into a theoretical discussion with Ekholm.

“Now that you’ve read through our material,” he said, “what sort of conclusions have you made?”

“Just one, actually,” said Ekholm. “That he will strike again.”

Wallander waited for something more, an explanation, but it didn’t come.

“Why?”

“Something about the total picture tells me so. And I can’t say why except that it’s based on experience. From other cases with trophy hunters.”

“What kind of image do you see?” asked Wallander. “Tell me what you’re thinking right now. Anything at all. And I promise I won’t hold you to it later.”

“An adult,” replied Ekholm. “Considering the age of the victims and his possible connection to them, I’d say he’s at least 30, but maybe older. The possible identification with a myth, perhaps of an American Indian, makes me think that he’s in very good physical condition. He’s both cautious and cunning. Which means that he’s the calculating type. I think he lives a regular, orderly life. He hides his inner life beneath a surface of normality.”

“And he’s going to strike again?”

Ekholm threw out his hands.

“Let’s hope I’m wrong. But you asked me to tell you what I think.”

“Wetterstedt and Carlman died three days apart,” said Wallander. “If he keeps to that pattern, he’ll kill someone today.”

“That’s not inevitable,” said Ekholm. “Since he’s cunning, the time factor won’t be crucial. He strikes when he’s sure of success. Something might happen today. But it could also take several weeks. Or years.”

Wallander had no more questions. He asked Ekholm to attend the team meeting an hour later. He went back to his room feeling increasingly anxious. The man they were looking for, of whom they knew nothing, would strike again.

He took out the notebook in which he had written Nyberg’s words, and tried to recapture the fleeting image that had passed through his mind. He was sure that this was important, and that it had something to do with the road workers’ hut. But he couldn’t pin it down. He got up and went to the conference room. He missed Rydberg more than ever now.

Wallander sat in his usual seat at one end of the table. He looked around. Everyone was there. He sensed that the group hoped they were going to make a breakthrough. Wallander knew they’d be disappointed. But none of them would show it. The detectives gathered in this room were professionals.

“Let’s start with a review of what’s happened in the scalping case in the past 24 hours,” he began.

He hadn’t planned to say the scalping case. But from that moment on the investigation wasn’t called anything else.

Wallander usually waited until last to give his report, since he was expected to sum up and provide further directions. It was natural for Hoglund to speak first. She passed around the fax that had come from Skoglund’s Hardware. What Anita Carlman had confirmed had also been checked in the national prison register. Hoglund had just begun the most difficult task — to find evidence or even copies of the letters that Carlman was said to have written to Wetterstedt.

“It all happened so long ago,” she concluded. “Although archives are generally well organised in this country, it takes a long time to find documents from more than 25 years ago. We’re dealing with a time before computers were in use.”

“We must keep looking, though,” said Wallander. “The connection between Wetterstedt and Carlman is crucial.”

“The man who rang,” said Svedberg, rubbing his burnt nose. “Why wouldn’t he say who he was? Who would break into a shop just to send a fax?”

“I’ve thought about that,” said Hoglund. “There could be a lot of reasons why he wants to protect his identity, perhaps because he’s scared. And he obviously wanted to point us in a particular direction.”

The room fell silent. Wallander could see that Hoglund was on the right track. He nodded to her to continue.

“Naturally we’re guessing. But if he feels threatened by the man who killed Wetterstedt and Carlman, he would be extremely eager for us to capture him. Without revealing his own identity.”

“In that case he should have told us more,” said Martinsson.

“Maybe he couldn’t,” Hoglund objected. “If I’m right, that he contacted us because he’s frightened, then he probably told us everything he knows.”

Wallander lifted his hand.

“Let’s take this even further,” he said. “The man gave us information relating to Carlman. Not Wetterstedt. That’s crucial. He claims that Carlman wrote to Wetterstedt and that they met after Carlman was released from prison. Who would know this?”

“Another inmate,” said Hoglund.

“That was exactly my thought,” said Wallander. “But your theory is that he’s contacting us out of fear. Would that fit if he was only Carlman’s fellow prisoner?”

“There’s more to it,” said Hoglund. “He knows that Carlman and Wetterstedt met after Carlman got out. So contact continued outside of prison.”

“He could have witnessed something,” said Hansson, who had been silent until now. “For some reason this has led to two murders 25 years later.”

Wallander turned to Ekholm, who was sitting by himself at the end of the table.

“25 years is a long time,” he said.

“The desire for revenge can go on indefinitely,” said Ekholm. “There are no prescribed time limits. It’s one of the oldest truths in criminology that an avenger can wait forever. If these are revenge killings, that is.”

“What else could they be?” asked Wallander. “We can rule out crimes against property, probably with Wetterstedt, and with complete certainty in Carlman’s case.”

“A motive can have many components,” said Ekholm. “A serial killer may choose his victims for reasons that seem inexplicable. Take the scalps, for instance: we might ask whether he’s after a special kind of hair. Wetterstedt and Carlman had the same full head of grey hair. We can’t exclude anything. But as a layman, I agree that right now the point of contact ought to be the most important thing to focus on.”

“Is it possible that we’re thinking along the wrong lines altogether?” asked Martinsson suddenly. “Maybe for the killer there’s a symbolic link between Wetterstedt and Carlman. While we search for facts, maybe he sees a connection that’s invisible to us. Something that’s completely inconceivable to our rational minds.”

Wallander knew that Martinsson had the ability to turn an investigation around on its axis and get it back on the right track.

“You’re thinking of something,” he said. “Keep going.”

Martinsson shrugged his shoulders and seemed about to change his mind.

“Wetterstedt and Carlman were wealthy men,” he said. “They both belonged to a certain social class. They were representatives of political and economic power.”

“Are you suggesting a political motive?” Wallander asked, surprised.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” said Martinsson. “I’m listening to you and trying to see the case clearly myself. I’m as afraid as everyone else in this room that he’s going to strike again.”

Wallander looked around the table. Pale, serious faces. Except for Svedberg with his sunburn. Only now did he see that they were all as frightened as he was. He wasn’t the only one who dreaded the next ring of the telephone.

The meeting broke up before 10 a.m., but Wallander asked Martinsson to stay behind.

“What is happening with the girl?” he asked. “Dolores Maria Santana?”

“I’m still waiting to hear from Interpol.”

“Give them a nudge,” said Wallander.

Martinsson gave him a puzzled look.

“Do we really have time for her now?”

“No. But we can’t just let it drop either.”

Martinsson promised to send off another request. Wallander went in his office and called Lars Magnusson. He answered after a long time. Wallander could hear that he was drunk.

“I need to continue our conversation,” he said.

“I don’t conduct conversations at this time of day,” said Magnusson.

“Make some coffee,” said Wallander. “And put away the bottles. I’m coming over in half an hour.” He hung up on Magnusson’s protests.

Someone had placed two preliminary autopsy reports on his desk. Wallander had gradually learned to decipher the language used by pathologists and forensic doctors. Many years ago he had taken a course in Uppsala arranged by the national police board. Wallander remembered how unpleasant it was to visit an autopsy room.

There was nothing unexpected in the reports. He put them aside and looked out the window, trying to visualise the killer. What did he look like? What was he doing right now? But Wallander saw nothing but darkness before him. Depressed, he got up and left.