Sidetracked

CHAPTER 23

It was hot. Wallander was sweating as he walked down the hill from the station towards the hospital.

He hadn’t even gone to the front desk to see whether he had any messages. He had stood motionless by the car, as if he’d lost his bearings, and then slowly, almost drawling, he told Hoglund that she would have to report on their interview while he went to the hospital where Carlman’s daughter lay dying. He hadn’t waited for an answer, but simply turned and left. It was then, on the hill, that he realised that the summer might indeed be long, hot and dry.

He didn’t notice when Svedberg drove past and waved. As always when he was preoccupied, he walked looking down at the footpath. He was trying to follow a train of thought. The starting point was quite simple. In less than ten days, a girl had burned herself to death, another had tried to commit suicide after her father was murdered, and a third, whose father had also been murdered, had perhaps disappeared or was being hidden. They were of different ages; Carlman’s daughter was the oldest, but all of them were young. Two of the girls had been affected by the same killer, while the third had killed herself. On the face of it, the third had no connection to the other two. But Wallander felt as if he had once again assumed personal responsibility for all three on behalf of his own generation, and especially as the bad father he felt he had been himself. Wallander had a tendency to self-criticise, growing gloomy, filled with melancholy. Often this led to a string of sleepless nights. But since he was now forced to carry on working in spite of everything, as a policeman in a tiny corner of the world, and as the head of a team, he did his best to shake off his unease and clear his head by taking a walk.

What kind of a world was he living in? A world in which young people burned themselves to death or tried to kill themselves by some other means. They were living in what could be called the Age of Failure. Something the Swedish people had believed in and built had turned out to be less solid than expected. All they had done was raise a monument to a forgotten ideal. Now society seemed to collapse around him, as if the political system was about to tip over, and no-one knew which architects were waiting to put a new one in place, or what that system would be. It was terrifying, even in the beautiful summertime. Young people took their own lives. People lived to forget, not remember. Houses were hiding places rather than cosy homes. And the police stood by helpless, waiting for the time when their jails would be guarded by men in other uniforms, men from private security companies.

This was enough, thought Wallander, wiping the sweat from his brow. He couldn’t take any more. A mental picture of the boy with the wary eyes sitting next to his mother became muddled with an image of Linda.

He reached the hospital. Svedberg was standing on the steps waiting for him. Wallander staggered, as if about to fall, suddenly dizzy. Svedberg took a step towards him, reaching out his hand. But Wallander waved him away and continued up the hospital steps. To protect himself from the sun, Svedberg was wearing a ridiculous cap that was much too big for him. Wallander muttered something unintelligible, and dragged him into the cafeteria to the right of the entrance. Pale people in wheelchairs, some connected to intravenous drips sat with friends and relatives, who probably wanted nothing more than to be out in the sunshine, and forget hospitals, death and misery. Wallander bought coffee and a sandwich, while Svedberg settled for a glass of water.

“Carlman’s widow phoned,” said Svedberg. “She was hysterical.”

“What did the girl do?” asked Wallander.

“She took pills. She was discovered quite by chance, in a deep coma. Her heart stopped just as they got to the hospital. She’s in very bad shape. You won’t be able to talk to her.”

Wallander nodded. This walk to the hospital had been more for his own state of mind than for any investigative reason.

“What did her mother say?” he asked. “Was there a letter? Any explanation?”

“No. Apparently it was quite unexpected.”

Wallander recalled how the girl had slapped him.

“She seemed unbalanced when I met her,” he said. “She really didn’t leave a note?”

“If she did, the mother didn’t mention it.”

Wallander thought for a moment.

“Do me a favour,” he said. “Drive there and find out if there was a note or not. If there is something, you’ll have to check it carefully.”

They left the cafeteria. Wallander went back to the station with Svedberg. He might as well get hold of a doctor by phone to hear how the girl was.

“I put a few reports on your desk,” said Svedberg. “I did a phone interview with the reporter and photographer who visited Wetterstedt the day he died.”

“Anything new?”

“Only a confirmation of what we already know. That Wetterstedt was his usual self. There didn’t seem to be anything threatening him. Nothing he was aware of, anyway.”

“So I don’t need to read the report?”

Svedberg shrugged.

“It’s always better to have four eyes look at something than two.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Wallander distractedly.

“Ekholm is busy putting the finishing touches to his psychological profile,” said Svedberg.

Wallander muttered something in reply. Svedberg dropped him off outside the station and drove on to talk to Carlman’s widow. Wallander picked up his messages at the front desk. A new girl was there again. He asked about Ebba and was told that she was at the hospital having the cast taken off her wrist. I could have stopped in and said hello to her, thought Wallander. Since I was over there anyway. If it was possible to say hello to someone who was just having a cast removed.

He went to his office and opened the window wide. Without sitting down he riffled through the reports Svedberg had mentioned. Then he remembered that he had also asked to see the photographs taken by the magazine. Where were they? Unable to control his impatience, he found Svedberg’s mobile number and called him.

“The photos,” he asked. “Where are they?”

“Aren’t they on your desk?” Svedberg replied, surprised.

“There’s nothing here.”

“Then they’re in my office. I must have forgotten them. They were in today’s post.”

They were in a brown envelope on Svedberg’s tidy desk. Wallander spread them out and sat in Svedberg’s chair. Wetterstedt posing in his home, in the garden, and on the beach. In one of the pictures the overturned rowing boat could be seen in the background. Wetterstedt was smiling at the camera. The grey hair which would soon be torn from his head was ruffled by the wind. The photos showed a man who seemed at peace with his old age. Nothing in the pictures hinted at what was to happen. Wetterstedt had less than 15 hours left to live when the pictures were taken. The photos lying before him showed how he’d looked on the last day of his life. Wallander studied the pictures for a few minutes more before stuffing them back in the envelope. He started towards his office but changed his mind and stopped outside Hoglund’s door, which was always open.

She was bent over some papers.

“Am I interrupting you?” he asked.

“Not at all.”

He went in and sat down. They exchanged a few words about Carlman’s daughter.

“Svedberg is out at the farmhouse hunting for a suicide note,” said Wallander. “If there is one.”

“She must have been very close to her father,” said Hoglund.

Wallander didn’t reply. He changed the subject.

“Did you notice anything strange when we were visiting the Fredman family?”

“Strange?”

“A chill that settled over the room?”

He immediately regretted his description. Hoglund wrinkled her brow as if he had said something out of line.

“I mean that they seemed evasive when I asked questions about Louise,” he explained.

“No, I didn’t,” she replied. “But I did notice that you acted differently.”

He told her of the feeling he’d had. She thought before she answered.

“You might be right,” she said. “Now that you mention it, they did seem to be on their guard. That chill you were talking about.”

“The question is whether they both were, or only one of them,” said Wallander.

“Was that the case?”

“I’m not sure. It’s just a feeling I had.”

“Didn’t the boy start answering the questions you were actually asking his mother?”

Wallander nodded.

“That’s it,” he said. “And I wonder why.”

“Still, you have to ask yourself whether it’s really important,” she said.

“Of course,” he admitted. “Sometimes I have a tendency to get hung up on unimportant details. But I still want to have a talk with that girl.”

This time she was the one who changed the subject.

“It frightens me to think about what Anette Fredman said. That she felt relief that her husband would never walk through their door again. I can’t imagine what it means to live like that.”

“He was abusing her,” said Wallander. “Maybe he beat the children too. But none of them filed a complaint.”

“The boy seemed quite normal,” she said. “And well brought up, too.”

“Children learn to survive,” said Wallander, reflecting for a moment on his own childhood and Linda’s. He stood up.

“I’m going to try and get hold of Louise Fredman. Tomorrow if I can. I’ve got a hunch that she hasn’t gone away at all.”

He got a cup of coffee and headed towards his room. He almost collided with Noren and remembered the photos he had asked to have taken of the crowd standing outside the cordon watching the police work.

“I gave the film to Nyberg,” said Noren. “But I don’t think I’m much of a photographer.”

“Who the hell is?” said Wallander, in a kindly tone. He went into his room and closed the door. He sat staring at his telephone, collecting his thoughts before he called the M.O.T. garage and asked for a new appointment for his car. The slot they offered him was during the time he had intended to spend at Skagen with Baiba. When he angrily informed them of the atrocities he was trying to solve, a time that had been reserved inexplicably became free. He wondered who that slot had been assigned to. After he hung up he decided to do his laundry that evening.

The phone rang. It was Nyberg.

“You were right,” he said. “The fingerprints on that piece of paper you found behind the road workers’ hut match the ones we found on the pages from the comic book. So there’s no doubt that the same person is involved. In a couple of hours we’ll also know whether we can tie him to the van at Sturup. We’re also going to try and get some prints from Fredman’s face.”

“Is that possible?”

“To pour acid into Fredman’s eyes the killer must have used one hand to hold his eyelids open,” said Nyberg. “It’s unpleasant, but if we’re lucky we’ll find prints on the lids themselves.”

“It’s a good thing people can’t hear the way we talk to each other,” said Wallander. “How about that bulb? The light at Wetterstedt’s garden gate.”

“I was just getting to that,” said Nyberg. “You were right about that too. We found fingerprints.”

Wallander sat up straight in his chair. His bad mood was gone. He could feel his excitement rising. The investigation was showing signs of breaking wide open.

“Have we got the prints in the archives?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not,” said Nyberg. “But I’ve asked central records to double check.”

“Let’s assume for a moment that we don’t. That means we’re dealing with someone without a record.”

“Could be,” Nyberg replied.

“Run the prints through Interpol too,” said Wallander. “And Europol. Ask for highest priority. Tell them it concerns a serial killer.”

Wallander hung up and asked the girl at the switchboard to find Ekholm. In a few minutes she called back and said he’d gone out for lunch.

“Where?” asked Wallander.

“I think he said the Continental.”

“Get hold of him there,” said Wallander. “Tell him to get over here right away.”

A while later Ekholm knocked on the door. Wallander was talking to Per Akeson. He pointed to a chair. Wallander was busy trying to convince a sceptical Akeson that the investigation wouldn’t be aided by a larger team, at least in the short term. Akeson finally gave in, and they postponed the decision for a few more days.

Wallander leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He told Ekholm about the fingerprints.

“The prints we’re going to find on Bjorn Fredman’s body will be the same ones too,” he said. “We know for certain that we’re dealing with the same killer. The only question is: who is he?”

“I’ve been thinking about the eyes,” said Ekholm. “All available information tells us that aside from the genitals, the eyes are the part of the body most often subjected to a final revenge.”

“What does that mean?”

“That killers seldom begin by putting out someone’s eyes. They save that for last.”

Wallander nodded for him to continue.

“We can approach it from two directions,” said Ekholm. “We might ask why Fredman was the one to have his eyes put out. We could also turn the whole thing around and ask why the eyes of the other two men weren’t violated.”

“What’s your conclusion?”

“I don’t have one,” Ekholm said. “When we’re talking about someone’s psyche, especially that of a disturbed or sick person, we’re getting into territory in which there are no absolute answers.”

Ekholm looked as if he was waiting for a comment. But Wallander just shook his head.

“I see a pattern,” Ekholm went on. “The person who did this selected his victims in advance. He has some kind of relationship with these men. It’s not necessary for him to have known the first two personally. It might be a symbolic relationship. But I’m fairly certain that the mutilation of Fredman’s eyes reveals that the killer knew his victim. And knew him well.”

Wallander leaned forward and gave Ekholm a penetrating look.

“How well?” he asked.

“They might have been friends. Colleagues. Rivals.”

“And something happened?”

“Something happened, yes. In reality or in the killer’s imagination.”

Wallander tried to see the implications of Ekholm’s words. At the same time he asked himself whether he accepted his theory.

“So we ought to concentrate on Bjorn Fredman,” he said after he had thought carefully.

“That’s one possibility.”

Wallander was irritated by Ekholm’s tendency to avoid taking a decisive view. It bothered him, even though he knew that it was right to keep their options open.

“Let’s say you were in my place,” said Wallander. “I promise not to quote you. Or blame you if you’re wrong. But what would you do?”

“I would concentrate on retracing Fredman’s life,” he said. “But I’d keep my eyes open.”

Wallander nodded. He understood.

“What kind of person are we looking for?” he asked.

Ekholm batted at a bee that had flown in through the window.

“The basic conclusions you can draw yourself,” he said. “That it’s a man. That he’s strong. That he’s practical, meticulous and not squeamish.”

“And his prints aren’t in the criminal records,” Wallander added. “He’s a first-timer.”

“This reinforces my belief that he leads a quite normal life,” said Ekholm. “The psychotic side to his nature, the mental collapse, is well hidden. He could sit down at the dinner table with the scalps in his pocket and eat his meal with a healthy appetite.”

“In other words, there are two ways we can set about catching him,” Wallander said. “Either in the act, or by gathering a body of evidence that spells out his name in big neon letters.”

“That’s right. It’s not an easy task that we have ahead of us.”

Just as Ekholm was about to leave, Wallander asked one more question.

“Will he strike again?”

“It might be over,” said Ekholm. “Bjorn Fredman as the grand finale.”

“Is that what you think?”

“No. He’ll strike again. What we’ve seen so far is the beginning of a long series of murders.”

When Wallander was alone he shooed the bee out of the window with his jacket. He sat quite still with his eyes closed, thinking through everything Ekholm had said. At 4 p.m. he went to get some more coffee. Then he went to the conference room, where the rest of the team were waiting for him.

He began by asking Ekholm to repeat his theory. When Ekholm had finished the room was quiet for a long time. Wallander waited out the silence, knowing that each of them was trying to grasp the significance of what they had just heard. They’re each absorbing this information, he thought. Then we’ll work on determining the collective opinion of the team.

They agreed with Ekholm. They would make Bjorn Fredman’s life the prime focus. Having settled the next steps in the investigation, they ended the meeting at around 6 p.m. Martinsson was the only one who left the station, to go and collect his children. The rest of them went back to work.

Wallander stood by his window looking out at the summer evening. The thought that they were still on the wrong track gnawed at him. What was he missing? He turned and looked around the room, as if an invisible visitor had come in.

So that’s how things are, he thought. I’m chasing a ghost when I ought to be searching for a living human being. He sat there pondering the case until midnight. Only when he left the station did he remember the dirty laundry still heaped on the floor.