Sidetracked

CHAPTER 28

Gertrud met him in the courtyard of the farmhouse. He could see that she’d been crying, but she answered his questions calmly. His father’s breakdown, if that was what it was, had come on unexpectedly. They had had their dinner as normal. They hadn’t had anything to drink. After the meal his father had gone out to the barn to continue painting, as usual. Suddenly she’d heard a great racket. When she went out on the front steps she’d seen the old man tossing empty paint cans into the yard. At first she thought he was cleaning out his chaotic studio. But when he started throwing out new frames she went and asked what he was doing. He didn’t reply. He gave the impression of not being there at all, not hearing her. When she took hold of his arm he pulled himself free and locked himself inside the barn. Through the window, she watched him start a fire in the stove, and when he started tearing up his canvases and stuffing them into the flames she called Wallander.

They crossed the courtyard as she talked. Wallander saw smoke billowing from the chimney. He went up to the window and peered inside. His father looked wild and demented. His hair was on end, he was without his glasses, and the studio was a wreck. He was squishing around barefoot amongst spilled pots of paint, and trampled canvases were strewn everywhere. He was ripping up a canvas and stuffing the pieces into the fire. Wallander thought he saw a shoe burning in the stove. He knocked on the window, but there was no response. He tried the door. Locked. He banged on it and yelled that he had come to visit. There was no answer, but the racket inside continued. Wallander looked around for something to break down the door. But his father kept all his tools in the studio.

Wallander studied the door, which he had helped build. He took off his jacket and handed it to Gertrud. Then he slammed his shoulder against it as hard as he could. The whole doorjamb came away, and Wallander tumbled into the room, banging his head on a wheelbarrow. His father glanced at him vacantly and went on tearing up canvases.

Gertrud wanted to come in, but Wallander warned her away. He had seen his father like this once before, a strange combination of detachment and manic confusion. On that occasion he had found him walking in his pyjamas through a muddy field with a suitcase in his hand. Now he went up to him, took him by the shoulders, and began talking soothingly to him. He asked if there was something wrong. He said the paintings were fine, they were the best he’d ever done, the grouse were beautifully painted. Everything was all right. Anyone could have a bad day once in a while. But he had to stop burning things for no reason. Why should they have a fire in the middle of summer, anyway? They could get cleaned up and talk about the trip to Italy. Wallander kept talking, with a strong grip on his father’s shoulders, as the old man squinted myopically at him. While Wallander kept up his reassuring chatter he discovered his glasses trampled to bits on the floor. He asked Gertrud, who was hovering by the door, whether there was a spare pair. She ran to the house to get them and handed them to Wallander, who wiped them on his sleeve and then set them on his father’s nose. He continued to speak in a soothing voice, repeating his words as if he were reading the verses of a prayer. His father looked at him in bewilderment at first, then astonishment, and finally it seemed as though he had come to his senses again. Wallander released his grip. His father looked cautiously about him at the destruction.

“What happened here?” he asked. Wallander could see that he had forgotten everything. Gertrud began to weep. Wallander told her firmly to go and make some coffee. They’d be there in a minute. At last the old man seemed to grasp that he had been involved in the havoc.

“Did I do all this?” he asked, looking at Wallander with restless eyes, as if he feared the answer.

“Who doesn’t get sick and tired of things?” Wallander said. “But it’s all over now. We’ll soon get this mess cleaned up.”

His father looked at the smashed door.

“Who needs doors in the middle of summer?” said Wallander. “There aren’t any closed doors in Rome in the summer. You’ll have to get used to that.”

His father walked slowly through the debris from the frenzy that neither he nor anyone else could explain. Wallander felt a lump in his throat. There was something helpless about his father, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. He lifted the broken door and leaned it against the wall. He began tidying up the room, discovering that many of the canvases had survived. His father sat on a stool at his workbench and watched. Gertrud came in and told them that coffee was ready. Wallander gestured to her to take his father inside. Then he cleaned up the worst of the mess.

Before he went into the kitchen he called home. Linda was there. She wanted to know what had happened; she could barely decipher his quickly scribbled note. Wallander didn’t want to worry her, so he said that her grandfather had just been feeling bad, but was fine now. To be on the safe side he’d decided to stay overnight in Loderup. He went in the kitchen. His father was feeling tired and had gone to lie down. Wallander stayed with Gertrud for a couple of hours, sitting at the kitchen table. There was no way to explain what had happened except that it was a symptom of the illness. But when Gertrud said this attack ruled out the trip to Italy in the autumn, Wallander protested. He wasn’t afraid of taking responsibility. He would manage. It was going to happen, so long as his father wanted to go and was able to stand on his own two feet.

That night he slept on a fold-out bed in the living-room. He lay staring out into the light summer night for a long time before he fell asleep.

In the morning, over coffee, his father seemed to have forgotten the whole episode. He couldn’t understand what had happened to the studio door. Wallander told him the truth, that he was the one who had broken it down. The studio needed a new door, and anyway, he would make it himself.

“When are you going to be able to do that?” asked his father. “You don’t even have time to call ahead of time and tell me you’re coming to visit.”

Wallander knew then that everything was back to normal. He left Loderup just after 7 a.m. It wasn’t the last time something like this might happen, he knew, and with a shiver imagined what might have occurred if Gertrud hadn’t been there.

Wallander went straight to the station. Everyone was talking about the match. He was surrounded by people in summer clothes. Only the ones who had to wear uniforms looked remotely like police officers. Wallander thought that in his white clothes he could have stepped out of one of the Danish productions of Italian opera he’d been to. As he passed the reception desk Ebba waved to him that he had a call. It was Forsfalt. They had found Fredman’s passport, well hidden in his flat, along with large sums of foreign currencies. Wallander asked about the stamps in the passport.

“I have to disappoint you,” Forsfalt told him. “He had the passport for four years, and it has stamps from Turkey, Morocco and Brazil. That’s all.”

Wallander was indeed disappointed, although he wasn’t sure what he had expected. Forsfalt promised to fax over the details on the passport. Then he said he had something else to tell him that had no direct bearing on the investigation.

“We found some keys to the attic when we were looking for the passport. Among all the junk up there we found a box containing some antique icons. We were able to determine pretty quickly that they were stolen. Guess where from.”

Wallander thought for a moment but couldn’t come up with anything. “I give up.”

“About a year ago there was a burglary at a house near Ystad. The house was under the administration of an executor, because it was part of the estate of a deceased lawyer named Gustaf Torstensson.”

Wallander remembered him. One of two lawyers murdered the year before. Wallander had seen the collection of icons in the basement that belonged to the older of the two lawyers. He even had one of them hanging on the wall of his bedroom, a present he’d received from the dead lawyer’s secretary. Now he also recalled the break-in; it was Svedberg’s case.

“So now we know,” said Wallander.

“You’ll be getting the follow-up report,” Forsfalt told him.

“Not me,” said Wallander. “Svedberg.”

Forsfalt asked how it was going with Louise Fredman.

“With a little luck we’ll know something later today,” said Wallander, and told him about his last conversation with Akeson.

“Keep me informed.”

After they hung up he checked his list of unanswered questions. He could cross out some of them, while others he would have to bring up at the team meeting. But first he had to see the two trainees who were keeping track of the tip-offs coming in from the public. Had anything come in that might indicate exactly where Fredman was murdered? Wallander knew this could be highly significant for the investigation.

One of the trainees had close-cropped hair and was named Tyren. He had intelligent eyes and was thought of as competent. Wallander quickly explained what he was looking for.

“Someone who heard screams?” asked Tyren. “And saw a Ford van? On the night of Tuesday, 28 June?”

“That’s right.”

Tyren shook his head.

“I would have remembered that,” he said. “A woman screamed in a flat in Rydsgard. But that was on Wednesday. And she was drunk.”

“Let me know immediately if anything comes in,” said Wallander.

He left Tyren and went down to the meeting room. Hansson was talking to a reporter in reception. Wallander remembered seeing him before. He was a stringer for one or other of the big national evening papers. They waited a few minutes until Hansson got rid of the reporter, and then closed the door. Hansson sat down and gave Wallander the floor at once. Just as he was about to start, Akeson came in and sat at the far end of the table, next to Ekholm. Wallander raised his eyebrows and gave him an inquiring look. Akeson nodded. Wallander knew that meant there was news about Louise Fredman. With difficulty, he contained his curiosity, and called on Hoglund. She reported the news from the hospital. Carlman’s daughter was in a stable condition. It would be possible to talk to her within 24 hours. No-one could see an objection to Hoglund and Wallander visiting the hospital.

Wallander went quickly down the list of unanswered questions. Nyberg was well prepared, as usual, able to fill in many of the gaps with laboratory results. But nothing was significant enough to provoke long discussion. Mostly they had confirmation of conclusions they had already drawn. The only new information was that there were faint traces of kelp on Fredman’s clothes. This could be an indication that Fredman had been near the sea on the last day of his life. Wallander thought for a moment.

“Where are the traces of kelp?” he asked.

Nyberg checked his notes.

“On the back of his jacket.”

“He could have been killed near the sea,” said Wallander. “As far as I can recall, there was a slight breeze that night. If the surf was loud enough, it might explain why no-one heard screams.”

“If it happened on the beach we would have found traces of sand,” said Nyberg.

“Maybe it was on a boat,” Svedberg suggested.

“Or a dock,” said Hoglund.

The question hung in the air. It would be impossible to check the thousands of pleasure boats and docks. Wallander noted that they should watch out for tip-offs from people who lived near the sea. Then he gave the floor to Akeson.

“I succeeded in gathering some information about Louise Fredman,” he said. “I remind you that this is highly confidential and cannot be mentioned to anyone outside the investigative team.”

“We understand this,” Wallander said.

“Louise Fredman is at St Lars Hospital in Lund,” Akeson continued. “She has been there for more than three years. The diagnosis is severe psychosis. She has stopped talking, sometimes has to be force-fed, and there is no sign of improvement. She’s 17 years old. Judging from a photograph I saw she’s quite pretty.”

The group was silent.

“Psychosis is usually caused by something,” said Ekholm.

“She was admitted on 9 January 1991,” said Akeson, after looking through his papers. “Her illness seems to have struck like a bolt from the blue. She had been missing from home for a week. She was having serious problems at school and was often truant. There were signs of drug abuse. Not heavy narcotics, mostly amphetamines and possibly cocaine. She was found in Pildamm Park, completely irrational.”

“Were there signs of external injuries?” asked Wallander, who was listening intently.

“Not according to the material I’ve received.”

Wallander thought about this.

“Well, we can’t talk to her,” he said finally. “But I want to know whether she had any injuries. And I want to talk to the person who found her.”

“It was three years ago,” said Akeson. “But the people involved could probably be traced.”

“I’ll talk to Forsfalt in Malmo,” said Wallander. “Uniformed officers most probably found her. There will be a report on it.”

“Why do you wonder if she had any injuries?” Hansson asked.

“I just want to fill in the picture as completely as possible,” Wallander replied.

They left Louise Fredman and went on to other topics. Since Ekholm was still waiting for the F.B.I. programme to finish cross-referencing all the investigative material, Wallander turned the discussion to the question of reinforcements. Hansson had already received a positive response from the county chief of police as to the possibility of a sergeant from Malmo. He would be in Ystad by lunchtime.

“Who is it?” asked Martinsson, who had so far been silent.

“His name is Sture Holmstrom,” said Hansson.

“Do we know anything about him?” Martinsson asked.

No-one knew him. Wallander promised to call Forsfalt to check on him.

Then Wallander turned to Akeson.

“The question now is whether we should ask for additional reinforcements,” Wallander began. “What’s the general view? I want everyone’s opinion. I also undertake to bow to the will of the majority. Even though I’m not convinced that extra personnel will improve the quality of our work. I’m afraid we might lose the pace of our investigation. At least in the short run. But I want to hear your views.”

Martinsson and Svedberg were in favour of requesting extra personnel. Hoglund sided with Wallander, and Hansson and Ekholm didn’t offer an opinion. Wallander saw that another burdensome mantle of responsibility had been draped around his shoulders. Akeson proposed that they postpone the decision for a few more days.

“If there’s another murder, it’ll be unavoidable,” he said. “But for the time being let’s keep going the way we have been.”

The meeting finished just before 10 a.m. Wallander went to his room. It had been a good meeting, much better than the last, even though they hadn’t made any progress. They had shown one another that their energy and will were still strong.

Wallander was about to call Forsfalt when Martinsson appeared in his doorway.

“There’s one more thing that’s occurred to me,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. “Louise Fredman was found wandering around on a path in the park. There’s a similarity to the girl running in the rape field.”

Martinsson was right. There was a similarity, albeit a remote one.

“I agree,” he said. “It’s a shame that there’s no connection.”

“Still, it’s weird,” said Martinsson.

He remained in the doorway.

“You bet right this time.”

Wallander nodded.

“I know,” he said. “So did Ann-Britt.”

“You’ll have to split a thousand.”

“When’s the next match?”

“I’ll let you know,” said Martinsson and left.

Wallander called Malmo. While he waited, he looked out of the open window. Another beautiful day. Then Forsfalt came on the line, and he pushed all thoughts of summer aside.

He took a long time selecting the right axe from the ones lying polished on the black silk cloth. Finally he chose the smallest one, the one he hadn’t used yet. He stuck it in his wide leather belt and pulled the helmet over his head.

As before, he was barefoot when he locked the door behind him. The evening was warm. He rode along side roads that he had selected on the map. It would take him almost two hours. He would get there a little before 11 p.m.

He’d had to change his plans. The man who had gone abroad suddenly had returned. He decided not to risk his taking off again. He had listened to Geronimo’s heart. The rhythmic thumping of the drums inside his chest had delivered their message to him. He must not wait. He would seize the opportunity.

The summer landscape seen from inside his helmet took on a bluish tinge. He could see the sea to his left, the blinking lights of ships, and the coast of Denmark. He felt elated and happy. It wouldn’t be long now before he could bring his sister the last sacrifice that would liberate her from the fog that surrounded her. She would return to life in the loveliest part of the summer.

He got to the city just after 11 p.m., and 15 minutes later stopped on a street next to the large villa, hidden away in a garden full of tall, sheltering trees. He chained his moped to a lamppost and locked it. On the opposite footpath an old couple were walking their dog. He waited until they disappeared before he pulled off his helmet and stuffed it into his backpack. In the shadows he ran to the back of the property, which looked out over a football pitch. He hid his backpack in the long grass and crept through the hedge, at a point where he had long ago prepared an opening. The hedge scratched his bare arms and feet. But he steeled himself against all pain. Geronimo would not stand for weakness. He had a sacred mission, as written in the book he had received from his sister. The mission required all his strength, which he was prepared to sacrifice with devotion.

He was inside the garden now, closer to the beast than he had ever been. The entire ground floor was in darkness, but there was a light on upstairs. He remembered with anger how his sister had been here before him. She had described the house, and one day he would burn it to the ground. But not yet. Cautiously he ran up to the wall of the house and prised open the basement window from which he had earlier removed the latch. It was easy to crawl inside. He knew that he was in an apple cellar, surrounded by the faint aroma of sour apples. He listened. All quiet. He crept up the cellar stairs, into the big kitchen. Still quiet. The only thing he heard was the faint sound of water pipes. He turned on the oven and opened the door. Then he made his way upstairs. He had taken the axe out of his belt. He was completely calm.

The door to the bathroom was ajar. In the darkness of the hall he caught a glimpse of the man he was going to kill. He was standing in front of the bathroom mirror rubbing cream onto his face. Hoover slipped in behind the bathroom door, waiting. When the man turned off the light in the bathroom he raised the axe. He struck only once. The man fell to the floor without a sound. With the axe he sliced off a piece of the man’s hair from the top of his head. He stuffed the scalp into his pocket. Then he dragged the man down the stairs. He was in pyjamas. The bottoms slipped off the body and were dragged along by one foot. He avoided looking at him.

He pulled the man into the kitchen and leaned the body against the oven door. Then he shoved the man’s head inside. Almost at once he smelled the face cream starting to melt. He left the house the way he had come in.

He buried the scalp beneath his sister’s window in the dawn light. Now all that was left was the extra sacrifice he would offer her. He would bury one last scalp. Then it would be over.

He thought about the man he had watched sleeping. The man who had sat across from him on the sofa, understanding nothing of the sacred mission he had to perform. He still hadn’t decided whether he should also take the girl sleeping in the next room. He would make his final decision the next day, but now he had to rest.

Skane

5–8 July 1994