Sidetracked

CHAPTER 36

They were just on the point of giving up when they finally picked up the trail to Hans Logard and his address. Some scattered showers had started over Bjuv by that time. But the main thunderstorm passed by to the west.

The address they had been looking for was “Hordestigen”. It had a Bjuv postal code, but they couldn’t find it. Wallander went into the post office himself to check it. Logard didn’t have a post office box either, at least not in Bjuv. Finally there was nothing to do but think Logard’s address was false. At that point, Wallander walked into the bakery and struck up a conversation with the two ladies behind the counter while he bought a bag of cinnamon rolls. One of them knew the answer. Hordestigen wasn’t a road. It was the name of a farm north of the village, a place that was hard to find if you didn’t know the way.

“There’s a man living there named Hans Logard,” Wallander told them. “Do you know him?”

The two women looked at each other as if searching a shared memory, then shook their heads in unison.

“I had a distant cousin who lived at Hordestigen when I was a girl,” said one of the women. “When he died it was sold to a stranger. But Hordestigen is the name of the farm, I know that. It must have a different postal address, though.”

Wallander asked her to draw him a map. She tore up a bread bag and drew the route on it for him. It was almost 6 p.m. They drove out of town, following the road to Hoganas. Wallander navigated with the bread bag. They reached an area where the farms thinned out. That’s where they took the first wrong turn. They ended up in an enchantingly beautiful beech forest, but they were in the wrong place.

Wallander told Sjosten to turn around, and when they got back to the main road they started again. They took the next side road to the left, then to the right, and then left. The road ended in a field. Wallander swore to himself, got out of the car, and looked around for a church spire the ladies had told him about. Out there in the field he felt like someone floating out to sea, searching for a light-house to navigate by. He found the church spire and then understood, after a conference with the bread bag, why they had got lost. Sjosten was directed back; they started again, and this time they found it.

Hordestigen was an old farm, not unlike Arne Carlman’s, and it was in an isolated spot with no neighbours, surrounded by beech woods on two sides and gently sloping fields on the others. The road ended at the farmhouse. There was no letter box. His post must go elsewhere.

“What can we expect?” asked Wallander.

“You mean is he dangerous?”

“He might be the one who killed Liljegren. Or all of them. We don’t know a thing about him.”

Sjosten’s reply surprised Wallander.

“There’s a shotgun in the boot. And ammunition. You take that. I’ve got my service revolver.”

Sjosten reached under the seat.

“Against regulations,” he said, smiling. “But if you had to follow all the regulations that exist, police work would have been forbidden long ago by the health and safety watchdogs.”

“Forget the shotgun,” Wallander said. “Have you got a licence for the revolver?”

“Of course I have a licence,” Sjosten said. “What do you think?”

They got out of the car. Sjosten stuffed his revolver in his jacket pocket. They stood and listened. There was thunder in the distance. Around them it was quiet and extremely humid. No sign of a car or a living soul. The farm seemed abandoned. They walked up to the house, shaped like an L.

“The third wing must have burned down,” Sjosten said. “Or else it was torn down. But it’s a nice house. Well preserved. Just like the boat.”

Wallander went and knocked on the door. No answer. Then he banged on it hard. Nothing. He peered in through a window. Sjosten stood in the background with one hand in his jacket pocket. Wallander didn’t like being so close to a gun. They walked around the house. Still no sign of life. Wallander stopped, lost in thought.

“There are stickers all over saying that the windows and doors are alarmed,” Sjosten said. “But it would take a hell of a long time for anyone to get here if it was set off. We’ll have time to go inside and get out of here before then.”

“Something doesn’t fit here,” said Wallander, as if he hadn’t heard Sjosten.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know.”

They went over towards the wing that served as a tool shed. The door was locked with a big padlock. Through the windows they could see all kinds of equipment and rubbish inside.

“There’s nobody here,” said Sjosten flatly. “We’ll have to put the farm under surveillance.”

Wallander looked around. Something was wrong, he was sure of it. He walked round the house again and looked in at several of the windows, listening. Sjosten followed. When they had gone round the house for a second time, Wallander stopped by some black rubbish bags next to the house. They were sloppily tied with string. Flies buzzed around them. He opened one of the sacks. Food remains, paper plates. He picked up a plastic bag from the Scan Deli between his thumb and forefinger. Sjosten stood next to him, watching. He looked at the various expiry dates. He could smell the meat. They hadn’t been here many hours. Not in this heat. He opened the other sack. It too was filled with frozen food containers. It was a lot of food to eat in a few days.

Sjosten stood next to Wallander looking at the sacks.

“He must have had a party.”

Wallander tried to think. The muggy heat was making the pressure build in his head. Soon he would have a headache, he could feel it.

“We’re going in,” he said. “I want to look around inside the house. Isn’t there any way to get around the alarm?”

“Maybe down the chimney.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to take our chances.”

“I’ve got a crowbar in the car,” Sjosten said.

Wallander examined the front door of the house. He thought about the door he had broken down at his father’s studio in Loderup. He went to the back of the house with Sjosten carrying the crowbar. The door there seemed less solid. Wallander decided to prise it open. He jammed the crowbar between the hinges. He looked at Sjosten, who glanced at his watch.

“Go,” he said.

Wallander braced himself and pushed on the crowbar with all his strength. The hinges broke off, along with some chunks of wall plaster and tile. He jumped to one side so the door wouldn’t fall on him.

The house looked even more like Carlman’s on the inside, if that were possible. Walls had been torn down, the space opened up. Modern furniture, newly laid hardwood floor. They listened again. Everything was quiet. Too quiet, Wallander thought. As if the house were holding its breath. Sjosten pointed to a telephone and fax machine on a table. The light on the answer machine was blinking. Wallander nodded. Sjosten pushed the play button. It crackled and clicked. Then there was a voice. Wallander saw Sjosten jump. A man’s voice asked Hans to call him as soon as possible. Then it was silent again. The tape stopped.

“That was Liljegren,” Sjosten said, obviously shaken. “God damn.”

“Then we know that message has been here for quite a while,” Wallander said.

“So Logard hasn’t been here since then.”

“Not necessarily,” Wallander said. “He might have listened to the message but not erased it. If the power goes off later, the light will start blinking again. They may have had a thunderstorm here. We don’t know.”

They went through the house. A narrow hall led to the part of the house at the angle of the L. The door there was closed. Wallander suddenly raised his hand. Sjosten stopped short behind him. Wallander heard a sound. At first he couldn’t tell what it was. It sounded like a growling animal, then like a muttering. He looked at Sjosten, who’d heard it too. Then he tried the door. It was locked. The muttering had stopped.

“What the hell is going on?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” said Wallander. “I can’t break this door open with the crowbar.”

“We’re going to have the security company here in about 15 minutes.”

Wallander thought hard. He didn’t know what was on the other side, except that it was at least one person, maybe more. He was feeling sick. He knew that he had to get the door open.

“Give me your revolver,” he said.

Sjosten took it out of his pocket.

“Get back from the door,” Wallander shouted as loud as he could. “I’m going to shoot it open.”

He looked at the lock, took a step back, cocked the gun, and fired. The blast was deafening. He shot again, then once more. The ricochets hit the far wall in the hall. He handed the revolver back to Sjosten and kicked open the door, his ears ringing.

The room was large. It had no windows. There were a number of beds and a partition enclosing a toilet. A refrigerator, glasses, cups, some thermoses. Huddled together in a corner of the room, obviously terrified, were four young girls clutching one another. Two of them reminded Wallander of the girl he had seen from 20 metres away in Salomonsson’s rape field. For a brief moment, with his ears ringing, Wallander thought he could see it all before him, one event after another, how it all fitted together and how everything suddenly made sense. But in reality he saw nothing at all. There was just a feeling rushing straight through him, like a train going through a tunnel at high speed, leaving behind only a light shaking of the ground.

“What the hell is going on?” Sjosten asked.

“We have to get some back-up from Helsingborg,” Wallander said. “As fast as we can.”

He knelt down, and Sjosten did the same. Wallander tried to talk to the frightened girls in English. But they didn’t seem to understand the language, or at least not the way he spoke it. Some of them couldn’t be much older than Dolores Maria Santana.

“Do you know any Spanish?” he asked Sjosten. “I don’t know a word.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Do you know Spanish or not?”

“I can’t speak Spanish! Shit! I know a few words. What do you want me to say?”

“Anything! Just tell them to be calm.”

“Should I say I’m a policeman?”

“No! Whatever you do, don’t say that!”

“Buenas dias,” Sjosten said hesitantly.

“Smile,” Wallander said. “Can’t you see how scared they are?”

“I’m doing the best I can,” complained Sjosten.

“Say it again,” said Wallander. “Friendly this time.”

“Buenas dias,” Sjosten repeated.

One of the girls answered. Her voice was unsteady. Wallander felt as if he was now getting the answer he’d been looking for, ever since that day when the girl stood in the field and stared at him with her terrified eyes.

At the same moment they heard a sound behind them in the house, perhaps a door opening. The girls heard it too, and huddled together again.

“It must be the security guards,” Sjosten said. “We’d better go and meet them. Otherwise they’ll wonder what’s going on here and start making a fuss.”

Wallander gestured to the girls to stay put. Then the two of them went back down the narrow hall, this time with Sjosten in the lead.

It almost cost him his life. When they stepped into the open room, several shots rang out. They came in such rapid succession that they must have been fired from a semi-automatic weapon. The first bullet slammed into Sjosten’s left shoulder, smashing his collarbone. He was thrown backwards by the impact and rammed into Wallander. The second, third and maybe fourth shots landed somewhere above their heads.

“Don’t shoot! Police!” Wallander shouted.

Whoever was shooting fired off another burst. Sjosten was hit again, this time in the right ear. Wallander threw himself behind one of the walls. He pulled Sjosten with him, who screamed and passed out. Wallander found Sjosten’s revolver and fired it into the room. He knew there must only be two or three shots left.

There was no answer. He waited with his heart pounding, revolver raised and ready to shoot. Then he heard the sound of a car starting. He let Sjosten go and crouching low, ran over to a window. He saw the back end of a black Mercedes disappearing down the farm road, vanishing into the beech woods. He went back to Sjosten, who was bleeding and unconscious. He found a pulse. It was fast. This was good. Better than too slow. Still holding the revolver in his hand, he picked up the phone and dialled 90-000.

“Officer down,” he shouted when they answered. Then he managed to calm down, tell them who he was, what had happened, and where they were. He went back to Sjosten, who had regained consciousness.

“It’ll be all right,” Wallander said, over and over again. “Help is on the way.”

“What happened?” Sjosten asked.

“Don’t talk,” Wallander said. “Everything will be fine.”

He searched feverishly for wounds. He’d thought Sjosten had been hit by at least three bullets, finally realised that it was only two. He made two simple pressure bandages, wondering what had happened to the security company and why it was taking so long for help to arrive. He also thought about the Mercedes and knew he wouldn’t rest until he caught the man who had shot Sjosten.

Eventually he heard the sirens. He got up and went outside to meet the cars from Helsingborg. First came the ambulance, then Birgersson and two other squad cars and last the fire department. All of them were shocked when they saw Wallander. He hadn’t noticed how covered in blood he was. And he still had Sjosten’s revolver in his hand.

“How is he?” Birgersson asked.

“He’s inside. I think he’ll be OK.”

“What the hell happened?”

“There are four girls locked up here,” said Wallander. “They’re probably some of the ones being taken through Helsingborg to brothels in southern Europe.”

“Who shot at you?”

“I never saw him. But I assume it was Logard. This house belongs to him.”

“A Mercedes crashed into a car from the security company down by the main road,” Birgersson said. “No injuries, but the driver of the Mercedes stole the security guards’ car.”

“Then they saw him,” said Wallander. “It must be him. The guards were on their way here. The alarm went off when we broke in.”

“You broke in?”

“Never mind that now. Put out the word on that security company car. And get the technicians out here right away. I want them to check for prints. They’ll have to be compared to the ones we found at the other murder scenes. Wetterstedt, Carlman, all of them.”

Birgersson turned pale. The connection seemed to dawn on him for the first time.

“You mean it was him?”

“It could have been, but we don’t know that. Now get going. And don’t forget the girls. Take them all in. Treat them nicely. And find some Spanish interpreters.”

“It’s amazing how much you know already,” Birgersson said.

Wallander stared at him. “I don’t know a thing,” he said. “Now get moving.”

Sjosten was carried out. Wallander went into town with him in the ambulance. One of the ambulance drivers gave him a towel. He wiped himself clean with it as best he could. Then he checked in with Ystad. It was just after 7 p.m. He got hold of Svedberg and explained what had happened.

“Who is this Logard?” Svedberg asked.

“That’s what we have to find out. Is Louise Fredman still missing?”

“Yes.”

Wallander felt the need to think. What had seemed so clear in his mind a while before was no longer making sense.

“I’ll be in touch later,” he said. “But you’ll have to pass all of this on to the investigative team.”

“Ludwigsson and Hamren have found an interesting witness at Sturup,” Svedberg said. “A night watchman. He saw a man on a moped. The timetable fits.”

“A moped?”

“Yep.”

“You don’t think our killer is riding around on a moped, do you? Those are for children, for God’s sake.”

Wallander felt himself starting to lose his cool. He didn’t want to, least of all at Svedberg. He said goodbye quickly and hung up.

Sjosten looked up at him from the stretcher.

Wallander smiled. “It’s going to be fine,” he said.

“It was like getting kicked by a horse,” moaned Sjosten. “Twice.”

“Don’t talk,” said Wallander. “We’ll be at the hospital soon.”

The night of 7 July was one of the most chaotic Wallander had ever experienced. There was an air of unreality about everything that happened.

He would never forget it. Sjosten was admitted to hospital, and the doctors confirmed that his life was not in danger. Wallander was driven to the station in a squad car.

Sergeant Birgersson had proven to be a good organiser, and he’d understood everything Wallander had said at the farmhouse. He had the presence of mind to establish an area past which all the reporters who had started gathering weren’t permitted. Inside, where the actual police were working, no reporters were allowed.

It was 10 p.m. when Wallander arrived from the hospital. Someone had lent him a clean shirt and pair of trousers. They were so tight around the waist that he couldn’t zip them up. Birgersson, noticing the problem, called the owners of Helsingborg’s most elegant tailor and put Wallander on the line. It was a strange experience to stand in the middle of the chaos and try to remember his waist size, but in an astonishingly swift time, several pairs of trousers were delivered to the station, and one of them fitted.

Hoglund, Svedberg, Ludwigsson and Hamren had already arrived and been briefed on the work that was under way. There was no sighting of the security company’s car yet. Interviews were being conducted in different rooms. The Spanish-speaking girls had each been supplied with an interpreter. Hoglund was talking to one of them, while three female officers from Helsingborg took care of the others. The guards whose car had collided with the Mercedes had also been interviewed, while forensic technicians were busy cross-checking fingerprints. Finally, several officers were leaning over a number of computers, entering all the information that they had on Hans Logard. The activity was intense. Birgersson concentrated on keeping order so that their work stayed on track.

When Wallander had been briefed, he took his colleagues from Ystad into a room and closed the door. He had obtained Birgersson’s approval to do so. Birgersson was an exceptional policeman who performed his job impeccably, and didn’t seem to suffer from the jealousy and rivalry that so often degraded the quality of police work. He was interested only in catching the man who had shot Sjosten, working out exactly what had happened and who the killer was.

Wallander told his version of events, but what he wanted to resolve was the reason for his unease. Too many things didn’t add up. The man who had shot Sjosten, was he really the same man who had assumed the role of a lone warrior? It was difficult to believe. He would have to do his thinking out loud, with all of them together and just one thin door separating them from the frenzied investigative work. Wallander wanted his colleagues to step aside — and Sjosten would have been there too if he wasn’t in hospital — so that they could serve as a kind of counterweight to the work being done. Wallander looked around and wondered why Ekholm wasn’t there.

“He left for Stockholm this morning,” Svedberg said.

“Just when we need him most,” Wallander said, dismayed.

“He’s supposed to be back tomorrow morning,” Hoglund said. “I think one of his children was hit by a car. Nothing serious. But even so. .”

Wallander nodded. The phone rang. It was Hansson for Wallander.

“Baiba Liepa has called several times from Riga,” he said. “She wants you to call her right away.”

“I can’t right now,” said Wallander. “Explain to her if she calls again.”

“If I understood her correctly, you’re supposed to meet her at Kastrup on Saturday. To go on a holiday together. How were you planning to pull that off?”

“Not now,” Wallander said. “I’ll call you later.”

No-one except Hoglund seemed to notice that the conversation with Hansson was over a personal matter. Wallander caught her eye. She smiled, but didn’t say a word.

“Let’s continue,” he said. “We’re searching for a man who shot at both Sjosten and me. We find some girls locked up inside a farmhouse in the countryside near Bjuv. We can assume that Dolores Maria Santana once came from such a group, passing through Sweden on the way to brothels and the devil knows what else in other parts of Europe. Girls lured here by people associated with Liljegren. In particular, a man named Hans Logard, if that’s his real name. We think he was the one who shot at us, but we aren’t sure. We don’t have a picture of him. Maybe the guards can give us a usable description, but they’re pretty shaken up. They may have seen nothing but his gun. Now we’re hunting for him. But are we actually tracking our killer? The one who killed Wetterstedt, Carlman, Fredman and Liljegren? I’m doubtful. We must catch this man as soon as possible. In the meantime, I think we have to keep working as if this were simply one event on the periphery of the major investigation. I’m just as interested in what has happened to Louise Fredman. And what was discovered at Sturup. But first, of course, I’d like to hear if you have any reactions to my view of the case.”

The room was silent, then Hamren spoke up. “Looking from outside, and not needing to be afraid of causing offence, the whole thing seems like a problem in approach. The police have a tendency to focus on one thing at a time, while the offenders they’re hunting are thinking about ten.”

Wallander listened approvingly, though he wasn’t sure Hamren meant what he was saying.

“Louise Fredman disappeared without a trace,” said Hoglund. “She had a visitor. She followed the visitor out. The name written in the visitors’ book was illegible. Because there were only summer temps working, the normal system had almost fallen apart.”

“Someone must have seen the person who came to get her,” Wallander said.

“Someone did,” Hoglund said. “An assistant nurse named Sara Pettersson.”

“Did anyone talk to her?”

“She’s left on holiday.”

“Where to?”

“She’s bought an Interrail card. She could be anywhere.”

“Damn!”

“We can trace her through Interpol,” Ludwigsson said. “That’ll probably work.”

“Yes,” said Wallander. “I think we should do that. And this time we won’t wait. I want someone to contact Akeson about it tonight.”

“This is Malmo’s jurisdiction,” Svedberg pointed out.

“I don’t give a shit whose jurisdiction we’re in,” Wallander said. “Do it. It’ll have to be Akeson’s headache.”

Hoglund said she would get hold of him. Wallander turned to Ludwigsson and Hamren.

“I heard rumours about a moped,” he said. “A witness who saw something at the airport.”

“That’s right,” Ludwigsson said. “The timing fits. A moped drove off towards the E65 on the night in question.”

“Why is that of interest?”

“Because the night watchman is sure that the moped was driven off just about the same time Bjorn Fredman’s van arrived.”

Wallander recognised the significance of this.

“We’re talking about a time of night when the airport is closed,” Ludwigsson went on. “Nothing’s happening. No taxis, no traffic. Everything is quiet. A van comes up and stops in the car park. Then a moped drives off.”

The room grew still. If there were magic moments in a complex criminal investigation, this was definitely one of them.

“A man on a moped,” Svedberg said. “Can this be right?”

“Is there a description?” Hoglund asked.

“According to the watchman, the man was wearing a helmet that covered his whole head. He’s worked at Sturup for many years. That was the first time a moped left there at night.”

“How can he be sure that he headed towards Malmo?”

“He wasn’t. And I didn’t say that either.”

Wallander held his breath. The voices of the others were far away, like the distant, unintelligible noise of the universe. He knew that now they were very, very close.