The Fifth Woman

CHAPTER 36

At just after 5 a.m. they were gathered at Hansgarden in a hard, gusting gale. They were all freezing. They had surrounded the house in a shadow-like manoeuvre. It had been decided that Wallander and Hoglund should go in. The others had taken up positions where they each had close contact with at least one colleague.

They had left the cars out of sight of the farmhouse and approached the last stretch on foot. Wallander spotted the red Golf parked in front of the house. On the ride up to Vollsjo he had worried that she might have already left. But her car was there. She was still home. The house was dark and quiet. Wallander couldn’t see a dog.

It all went very fast. They took up their positions. Wallander asked Hoglund to announce over their radios that they would wait a few more minutes before going in.

Wait for what? She didn’t understand why. Wallander couldn’t explain it either. Maybe it was because he had to prepare himself. Or did he need to create a space for himself for a few minutes so that he could think through everything that had happened? He stood there bitterly cold, everything seeming totally unreal. They had been pursuing a strange, elusive shadow for a month. Now they were close to their goal, at the point where the pounce would conclude the hunt. It was as if he had to free himself from the feeling of unreality that surrounded everything that had happened, especially in relation to the woman in the house, whom they had to arrest. For all this he needed breathing space. That’s why he said they would wait.

He stood with Hoglund in a windbreak next to a dilapidated barn. The front door was about 25 metres away. Time passed. Soon it would be dawn. They couldn’t wait any longer.

Wallander had approved the use of guns, but he wanted everything to proceed slowly, especially since Katarina Taxell and her baby were inside. Nothing must go wrong. The most important thing was for them to stay calm.

“Now we go,” he said finally. “Pass it on.”

Hoglund spoke softly into the radio and received a series of acknowledgments from the others. She took out her revolver. Wallander shook his head.

“Keep it in your pocket,” he said. “But remember which one.”

The house was still quiet. No movement. They approached, Wallander in the lead, Hoglund behind him to the right. The wind was blowing hard. Wallander took another quick look at his watch. It was 5.19 a.m. Yvonne Ander should be up by now if she was going to make it to work. They stopped outside the door. Wallander took a deep breath, knocked on the door and took a step backwards. He had his hand on the revolver in his pocket. Nothing happened. He took a step forwards and knocked again. He tried the latch. The door was locked. He knocked again. Suddenly he felt uneasy. He pounded on the door. Still no reaction. Something was wrong.

“We’ll have to break in,” he said. “Tell the others. Who has the crowbar? Why didn’t we bring it along?”

Hoglund spoke with a firm voice into the radio. She turned her back to the wind. Wallander kept an eye on the windows next to the door. Svedberg came running with the crowbar. Wallander asked him to return to his position at once. Then he stuck in the crowbar and started prying, putting all his strength into it. The door sprang open at the lock. There was a light on in the hall. He drew his revolver, and Hoglund quickly followed his lead. Wallander crouched and went in. She stood to one side behind him and covered him with her revolver. Everything was quiet.

“Police!” Wallander yelled. “We’re looking for Yvonne Ander.”

Nothing happened. He yelled again. Cautiously he moved towards the room straight ahead of him. Hoglund followed at his flank. The sense of unreality returned. He stepped quickly into a large, open room, sweeping over it with his revolver. It was completely empty. He let his arm drop. Hoglund was on the other side of the door. A huge baking oven stood against one wall.

Suddenly a door opened across the room. Wallander gave a start and raised his revolver again, and Hoglund went down on one knee. Katarina Taxell came through the door dressed in a nightgown. She looked terrified.

Wallander lowered his revolver, and Hoglund did too. At that moment Wallander knew that Yvonne Ander wasn’t in the house.

“What’s happening?” Taxell asked.

Wallander went quickly up to her.

“Where’s Yvonne Ander?”

“She’s not here.”

“Where is she?”

“I assume she’s on her way to work.”

Wallander was now in a big hurry.

“Who came and picked her up?”

“She always drives herself.”

“But her car is still parked outside the house.”

“She has two cars.”

So simple, thought Wallander. Not just the red Golf.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked. “And your baby?”

“Why shouldn’t I feel all right?”

Wallander took a quick look around the room. Then he asked Hoglund to call in the others. They didn’t have much time.

“Get Nyberg here,” he said. “The house has to be gone over from the rafters to the cellar.”

The freezing police officers gathered in the big white room.

“She’s gone,” Wallander said. “She’s on her way to Hassleholm. At least there’s no reason to believe otherwise. She’s supposed to start her shift there. A passenger named Tore Grunden will be getting on too. He’s the next one on her hit list.”

“Is she really going to kill him on the train?” Martinsson asked, incredulous.

“We don’t know. But we don’t want any more murders. We have to catch her.”

“We’ll have to warn our colleagues in Hassleholm,” Hansson said.

“We’ll do that on the way,” Wallander said. “I think Hansson and Martinsson should come with me. The rest of you start on the house. And talk to Katarina Taxell.”

He nodded at her. She was standing next to the wall. The light was grey. She almost blended in with the wall, dissolved, faded. Could a person become so pale that she was no longer visible?

They took off. Hansson drove. Martinsson was just about to call Hassleholm when Wallander told him to wait.

“I think it’s best we do this ourselves,” he said. “If there’s chaos, we don’t know what will happen. She could be dangerous. I understand that now. Dangerous for us too.”

“Of course she is,” Hansson said in surprise. “She’s killed three people. Impaled them on stakes, strangled them, drowned them. If a person like that isn’t dangerous then I don’t know who is.”

“We don’t even know what Grunden looks like,” Martinsson said. “Are we going to page him at the station? And she’ll probably be in uniform.”

“Maybe,” Wallander said. “We’ll see when we get there. Put on the lights. We’ve got no time to lose.”

Hansson drove fast. Time was tight. With about 20 minutes to go, Wallander realised that they wouldn’t make it. One of their tyres blew. Hansson swore and braked. When they saw that the left rear tyre had to be changed, Martinsson wanted to call Hassleholm. If nothing else, they could send a car for them. But Wallander said no. He had made up his mind. They would make it.

They changed the tyre at lightning speed while the wind tore at their clothes. Then they were on the road again. Hansson drove very fast. Time was running out and Wallander tried to decide what they should do. He couldn’t believe that Yvonne Ander would kill Tore Grunden in plain sight of the passengers. It didn’t fit with her previous modus operandi. For the time being they’d have to forget about Grunden. They would look for her, a woman in uniform, and they would grab her as discreetly as possible.

They reached Hassleholm and Hansson started to head in the wrong direction, even though he claimed to know the way. Now Wallander was agitated too, and by the time they reached the station they were almost yelling at each other. They jumped out of the car, its lights flashing and ran towards the platform. We look as though we’re about to rob the ticket office, Wallander thought. They had exactly three minutes left. The train was announced, but Wallander couldn’t hear if it was just arriving or was already there.

He told Martinsson and Hansson that now they had to calm down. They should walk out onto the platform a little apart from each other. When they found her they should grab her from both sides. They couldn’t be sure how she would react. They should be prepared, not with revolvers, but with their hands. Yvonne Ander didn’t use weapons. They should be prepared, but they had to take her without firing a shot.

The wind was still blowing hard. The train hadn’t arrived. The passengers were huddled in whatever shelter from the wind they could find. The station was crowded. They went out onto the platform, Wallander first, Hansson right behind him, and Martinsson out by the track. Wallander spotted a male conductor standing smoking a cigarette. He felt the tension making him sweat. He couldn’t see Yvonne Ander. No women in uniform. Quickly he scanned the crowd for a man who might be Tore Grunden, but it was hopeless. The man had no face. He was just a name in a macabre notebook.

He exchanged glances with Hansson and Martinsson. He looked back towards the entrance to see if she was coming from that direction. At the same time the train came into the station. He knew that something was going very wrong. He couldn’t believe that she intended to kill Grunden on the platform. But he couldn’t be entirely sure. He’d seen the most calculating individuals suddenly lose control and act impulsively when they felt threatened. The passengers started picking up their belongings. Wallander no longer had any choice. He had to talk to the conductor and ask whether Yvonne Ander was already on the train.

The train came to a halt, its brakes shrieking. Wallander had to push his way through the passengers who were hurrying to board the train and get out of the wind. Suddenly he noticed a lone man standing further down the platform. He was just picking up his bag. Next to him stood a woman, wearing a long overcoat that was being whipped by the wind. A train was coming in from the other direction. Wallander was never sure whether he consciously understood the situation, but he reacted as though everything was perfectly clear. He shoved aside the passengers in his way. Hansson and Martinsson came behind him, without knowing exactly where they were going. Wallander saw the woman grab the man from behind. She almost lifted him off the ground. Wallander sensed more than understood that she intended to throw him in front of the train coming in on the other track. Since he couldn’t reach them in time, he screamed at her. Despite the roar of the engines she heard him. One instant of hesitation was enough. She looked at Wallander. Martinsson and Hansson appeared at his side. They sprinted towards the woman, who had let go of the man. The long coat had blown up, and Wallander caught a glimpse of her uniform underneath. Suddenly she raised her hand and did something that made both Hansson and Martinsson stop in their tracks. She ripped off her hair. It was caught at once by the wind and flew down the platform. Under the wig her hair was short. They started running again.

Grunden didn’t seem to understand what had happened to him.

“Yvonne Ander!” Wallander shouted. “Police!”

Martinsson was now almost upon her. Wallander saw him stretch out his arms to grab her. She jabbed with her right fist, hard and accurate. The blow struck Martinsson on the left cheek. He dropped to the platform without a sound. Behind Wallander someone was shouting. A passenger had seen what was going on. Hansson went to draw his revolver, but it was already too late. She grabbed his jacket and kneed him hard in the groin. For a moment she leaned over him as he buckled forwards. Then she started running down the platform. She tore off the overcoat. It fluttered and then blew away on a gust of wind. Wallander stopped beside Martinsson and Hansson. Martinsson was out cold. Hansson was moaning and white in the face. When Wallander looked up she was gone. He took off down the platform running as fast as he could, and caught sight of her just before she vanished across the tracks. He knew the chances of catching up with her were small. And he didn’t know how badly Martinsson was hurt. He turned back and saw that Tore Grunden was gone. Several railway workers came running up. No-one realised in the confusion what had happened.

Afterwards Wallander would recall the next few hours as an eternal chaos. He had to try to handle a lot of things at once. On the platform, no-one understood what he was talking about. Passengers were swarming around him. Slowly Hansson began to recover, but Martinsson was still unconscious. Wallander raged at the ambulance that took so long to arrive, and not until some bewildered Hassleholm police appeared on the platform did he start to make some sense of the situation.

Martinsson’s breathing was steady. By the time the ambulance attendants carried him off, Hansson had managed to get to his feet again, and he went with them to the hospital. Wallander explained to the police officers that they had been trying to arrest a female conductor, but that she had escaped.

By that time the train had left. Wallander wondered whether Grunden had boarded it. Did he have any idea how close to death he had come? Wallander realised that no-one understood what he was talking about. Only his identification made them accept that he was a policeman and not a lunatic.

Now he had to find where Yvonne Ander had gone. He called Hoglund and told her what had happened. She would see to it that they were prepared if she came back to Vollsjo. The flat in Ystad was already under surveillance, but Wallander didn’t think that she would go there. They were hot on her heels, and they wouldn’t give up until they caught her. Where could she go? He couldn’t ignore the possibility that she would simply take flight, but it didn’t seem likely. She planned everything. Wallander told Hoglund to ask Katarina Taxell one question. Did Yvonne Ander have another hideout?

“I think she always has an escape route,” Wallander said. “She may have mentioned an address, a location.”

“What about Taxell’s flat in Lund?”

Wallander saw that she might be right.

“Call up Birch. Ask him to check.”

“She has keys to it,” Hoglund said. “Katarina told me so.”

Wallander was escorted to the hospital by a police car. Hansson lay on a stretcher. His scrotum was swollen and he would be kept in for observation. Martinsson was still unconscious. A doctor diagnosed a severe concussion.

“The man who hit him must have been extremely strong,” the doctor said.

“You’re right,” said Wallander, “except that the man was a woman.”

He left the hospital. Where had she gone? Something was nagging at Wallander’s subconscious. Something that could give him the answer to where she was or at least where she might be headed. Then he remembered what it was. He stood quite still outside the hospital. Nyberg had been absolutely clear on something. The fingerprints in the tower must have been put there later. Yvonne Ander might be similar to him. In tense situations she sought out solitude. A place where she could take stock, come to a decision. All her actions gave the impression of detailed planning and precise timetables. Now her ordered life had come crashing down around her. He decided it was worth a try. The site was sealed off, of course, but Hansson had told him that the work wouldn’t be resumed until they got the extra help they needed. Wallander knew that she could reach the spot by the same route she had used before.

Wallander said goodbye to the police who had helped him and promised to give them a full report on the investigation later that day. No real damage had been done. The officers who had been admitted to the hospital would soon be on their feet again.

Wallander got into his car and called Hoglund again. He didn’t tell her what it was about, just that he wanted her to meet him at the turn-off to Eriksson’s farm.

It was after 10 a.m. when Wallander arrived in Lodinge. Hoglund was standing by her car waiting for him. They drove the last stretch up to the farmhouse in Wallander’s car. He stopped 100 metres from the house.

“I might be wrong,” he said. “But there’s a chance she might come back here to the bird tower. She’s been here before.” He reminded her of what Nyberg said about the fingerprints.

“What would she be doing here?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but she’s on the run. She needs to make some kind of decision. And we know that she’s been here before.”

They got out of the car. The wind was biting.

“We found the hospital uniform,” she said. “And a plastic bag with underpants in it. We can assume that Runfeldt was held captive at Vollsjo.”

They were approaching the house.

“What do we do if she’s up in the tower?”

“We take her. I’ll go around the other side of the hill. If she comes here, that’s where she’ll park her car. You walk down the path. This time we’ll have our guns drawn.”

“I don’t think she’ll come,” Hoglund said.

Wallander didn’t reply. He knew there was a good chance she was right.

They found some shelter in the courtyard. The crime-scene tape around the ditch where they had been digging for Krista Haberman’s remains had been torn away in the wind. The tower was empty. It stood out sharply in the autumn light.

“Let’s wait a while anyway,” Wallander said. “If she comes it’ll be soon.”

“There’s an APB out for her,” she said. “If we don’t find her, she’ll be hunted all over the country.” They stood silent for a moment. The wind tore at their clothes.

“What is it that drives her?” she asked.

“She’s probably the only one who can answer that question. But shouldn’t we assume that she was abused too?”

Hoglund didn’t reply.

“I believe she’s a lonely person,” Wallander said. “And she thinks the purpose of her life is a calling to kill on behalf of others.”

“Once I thought we were out after a mercenary,” she said. “And now we’re waiting for a female conductor to appear in a tower built for watching birds.”

“That mercenary angle might not have been so far-fetched,” Wallander said thoughtfully. “She’s a woman, and she doesn’t get paid for killing as far as we know. But there’s something that reminds me of what we initially believed that we were dealing with.”

“Katarina Taxell said that she got to know her through a group of women who met at Vollsjo. But their first encounter was on a train. You were right about that. Apparently she asked about a bruise Taxell had on her temple. It was Eugen Blomberg who had abused her. I never found out exactly how it all happened, but she confirmed that Yvonne Ander had previously worked in a hospital and also as an ambulance medic. She saw plenty of abused women. Later she got in contact with them and invited them to Vollsjo. You might call it an extremely informal support group. She found out the names of the men who had abused the women. Katarina acknowledged that it was Yvonne Ander who visited her at the hospital. On the second visit she gave Ander the father’s name. Eugen Blomberg.”

“That signed his death warrant,” Wallander said. “I also think she’s been preparing this for a long time. Something happened that triggered it all. And neither you nor I can know what that was.”

“Does she know it herself?”

“We have to suppose that she does. If she isn’t completely insane.”

They waited. The wind came and went in strong gusts. A police car drove up to the entrance of the courtyard. Wallander asked them not to come back until further notice. He gave no explanation, but he was unequivocal. They kept on waiting. Neither of them had anything to say.

At 10.45 a.m. Wallander cautiously put a hand on her shoulder.

“There she is,” he whispered.

Hoglund looked. A person had appeared up by the hill. It had to be Yvonne Ander. She stood there and looked around. Then she began to climb the stairs to the tower.

“It’ll take me 20 minutes to go around to the back of the tower,” Wallander said. “Then you start to walk down the path. I’ll be behind her if she tries to escape.”

“What happens if she attacks me? Then I’ll have to shoot.”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. I’ll be there.”

He ran to the car and drove as fast as he could to the tractor path that led up the back of the hill. He didn’t dare drive all the way, so he go out and ran. It took longer than he had calculated. A car was parked at the top of the tractor path. Also a Golf, but a black one. The phone rang in Wallander’s jacket pocket. He stopped. It might be Hoglund. He answered and kept walking along the tractor path.

It was Svedberg.

“Where are you? What the hell is going on?”

“We’re at Eriksson’s farm. I can’t go into it right now. It would be good if you could come out here with someone. Hamren, perhaps. I can’t talk right now.”

“I called because I have a message,” Svedberg said. “Hansson called from Hassleholm. Both he and Martinsson are feeling better. Martinsson is conscious again, anyway. But Hansson wondered if you had picked up his revolver.”

Wallander froze.

“His revolver?”

“He said it was lost.”

“I don’t have it.”

“It couldn’t still be lying on the platform, could it?”

At that instant Wallander could see the events played out clearly before him. Ander grabs hold of Hansson’s jacket and knees him hard in the groin. Then she quickly bends over him, and that’s when she takes the revolver.

“Shit!” Wallander yelled.

Before Svedberg could answer he had hung up and stuffed the phone back in his pocket. He had put Hoglund in mortal danger. The woman in the tower was armed.

Wallander ran. His heart pounded like a hammer in his chest. He saw by his watch that she must already be on her way down the path. He stopped and dialled her phone number. No connection. He started running again. His only chance was to get there first. Hoglund didn’t know that Ander was armed. His terror made him run faster. He had reached the back of the hill. She must be almost to the ditch now. Walk slowly, he tried to tell her in his mind. Trip and fall, slip, anything. Don’t hurry. Walk slowly. He had pulled out his gun and was stumbling up the slope behind the bird tower. When he reached the top he saw Hoglund at the ditch. She had her revolver in her hand. The woman in the tower hadn’t seen her. He shouted.

“Ann-Britt, she’s got a gun! Get out of there!”

He aimed his revolver at the woman standing with her back to him up there in the tower. In the same instant a shot rang out. He saw Hoglund jerk and fall backwards into the mud. Wallander felt as if someone had thrust a sword right through him. He stared at the motionless body in the mud and sensed that the woman in the tower had turned around. Then he dived to the side and fired towards the top of the tower. The third shot hit home. Ander lurched and dropped Hansson’s gun.

Wallander rushed down into the mud. He stumbled into the ditch and scrambled up the other side. When he saw Hoglund on her back in the mud he thought she was dead. She had been killed by Hansson’s revolver and it was all his fault.

For a split second he saw no way out but to shoot himself. Right where he stood, a few metres from her. Then he saw her moving feebly. He fell to his knees by her side. The whole front of her jacket was bloody. She was deathly pale and stared at him with fear in her eyes.

“It’ll be all right,” he said. “It will be all right.”

“She was armed,” she mumbled. “Why didn’t we know that?”

Wallander could feel the tears running down his face. He called for an ambulance. Later he would remember that while he waited, he had steadily murmured a confused prayer to a god he didn’t really believe in. In a haze he was aware that Svedberg and Hamren had arrived. Ann-Britt was carried away on a stretcher. Wallander was sitting in the mud. They couldn’t get him to stand up. A photographer who had raced after the ambulance when it drove off from Ystad took a picture of Wallander as he sat there. Dirty, forlorn, hopeless. The photographer managed to take that one picture before Svedberg, in a rage, chased him off. Under pressure from Chief Holgersson the photograph was never published.

Meanwhile, Svedberg and Hamren brought Ander down from the tower. Wallander had hit her high on the thigh. She was bleeding profusely, but her life was not in danger. She too was taken away in an ambulance. Svedberg and Hamren finally managed to get Wallander up from the mud and helped him up to the farmhouse. The first report came in from the Ystad hospital. Ann-Britt Hoglund had been shot in the abdomen. The wound was severe, and her condition was critical.

Wallander rode with Svedberg to get his car. Svedberg was unsure about letting Wallander drive alone to Ystad, but Wallander assured him that he would be OK. He drove straight to the hospital and then sat in the hall waiting for news of Ann-Britt’s condition. He still hadn’t had time to get cleaned up. He didn’t leave the hospital until many hours later, when the doctors assured him that her condition had stabilised.

All of a sudden he was gone. No-one had noticed him leave. Svedberg began to worry, but he thought he knew Wallander well enough: he just wanted to be alone.

Wallander left the hospital right before midnight. The wind was still blowing hard, and it would freeze overnight. He got into his car and drove to the cemetery where his father lay buried. He found his way to the grave and stood there, completely empty inside, still caked with mud.

Around 1 a.m. he got home and called Baiba. They talked for a long time. Then he finally undressed and took a hot bath. Afterwards he dressed and returned to the hospital. Just after 3 a.m. he went into the room where Yvonne Ander lay, under guard. She was asleep when he entered the room cautiously. He stood for a long time looking at her face. Then he left without saying a word.

After an hour he was back. At dawn Lisa Holgersson came to the hospital and said they had reached Hoglund’s husband, in Dubai. He would arrive at Kastrup Airport later that day.

No-one knew if Wallander was listening to anything anyone said to him. He sat motionless on a chair, or stood at a window staring into the gale. When a nurse wanted to give him a cup of coffee he burst into tears and locked himself in the bathroom. But most of the time he sat unmoving on his chair and looked at his hands.

At about the same time Hoglund’s husband landed at Kastrup, a doctor gave them the news they had all been waiting for. She was going to make it, and probably wouldn’t have any permanent injury. She was lucky. All the same, her recovery would take time and the convalescence would be long. Wallander stood as he listened to the doctor, as if he were receiving a sentence in court. Afterwards he walked out of the hospital and disappeared somewhere in the wind.

On Monday, 24 October, Yvonne Ander was indicted for murder. She was still in hospital. So far she hadn’t spoken a single word, not even to the lawyer appointed to act for her. Wallander had tried to question her that afternoon. She just stared at him. As he was about to leave, he turned in the door and told her that Ann-Britt Hoglund was going to recover. He thought he saw a reaction from her; that she looked relieved, maybe glad.

Martinsson was still off work with his concussion. Hansson went back on duty, even though he had a hard time walking and sitting for several weeks.

Their primary focus during this period was to complete the laborious task of establishing exactly what had happened. One thing they hadn’t managed to find conclusive evidence for was whether it was the remains of Krista Haberman that they had dug up in Eriksson’s field. There was nothing to disprove it, but no hard evidence either. And yet they were certain. A crack in the skull told them how Eriksson had killed her more than 25 years earlier. Everything else began to be cleared up, although slowly. There was another question mark. Had Runfeldt killed his wife? The only one who might give them the answer was Ander, and she still wasn’t talking. They explored Ander’s life in detail and uncovered a story that only partially told them who she was and why she might have acted as she did.

One afternoon, as they were sitting in a long meeting, Wallander abruptly concluded it by saying something he had been thinking for a long time.

“Yvonne Ander is the first person I’ve ever met who is both intelligent and insane.”

He didn’t explain any further. No-one doubted that he believed it.

Every day during this period Wallander went to visit Ann-Britt at the hospital. He couldn’t get over what he was convinced was his responsibility. Nothing anyone said made any difference. He regarded the blame for what had happened as his alone. It was something he would have to live with.

Yvonne Ander kept silent. One evening Wallander sat in his office late, reading through the extensive collection of letters she had exchanged with her mother. The next day he visited her in jail. That day, she finally started to talk.

It was 3 November 1994, and frost lay over the countryside around Ystad.

Skane

4–5 December 1994