Sidetracked

CHAPTER 29

Waldemar Sjosten was a criminal detective in Helsingborg who devoted all his free time during the summer to a 1930s mahogany boat he had found by accident. And this was just what he planned to do on Tuesday morning, 5 July, when he let the shade on his bedroom window roll up with a snap just before 6 a.m. He lived in a newly renovated block of flats at the centre of town. One street, the railway line and the docks were all that separated him from the Sound. The weather was as beautiful as the weather reports had promised. His holiday didn’t start until the end of July, but whenever he could he spent a few early mornings on his boat, docked at the marina a short bike ride away. Sjosten was going to celebrate his 50th birthday this autumn. He had been married three times, had six children and was planning his fourth marriage. The woman shared his love of the boat, Sea King II. He had taken the name from the beautiful boat that he’d spent his childhood summers on board with his parents, Sea King I. His father had sold it to a man from Norway when he was ten, and he had never forgotten it. He often wondered whether the boat still existed, or whether it had sunk or rotted away.

He had finished a cup of coffee and was getting ready to leave when the telephone rang. He was surprised to hear it at such an early hour. He picked up the receiver.

“Waldemar?” It was Detective Sergeant Birgersson.

“Yes.”

“I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“I was just on my way out.”

“Lucky I caught you then. You’d better get down here right away.”

Birgersson wouldn’t have called unless it was something serious.

“I’ll be right there,” he said. “What is it?”

“There was smoke coming out of one of those old villas up in Tagaborg. When the fire brigade got there they found a man in the kitchen.”

“Dead?”

“Murdered. You’ll understand why I called you when you see him.”

Sjosten could see his morning disappearing, but he was a dutiful policeman, so he had no trouble changing his plans. Instead of the key to his bicycle lock he grabbed his car keys and left at once. It took him only a few minutes to drive to the station. Birgersson was on the steps waiting. He got in the car and gave him directions.

“Who’s dead?” Sjosten asked.

“Ake Liljegren.”

Sjosten whistled. Ake Liljegren was well known, not just in the city but all over Sweden. He called himself “the Auditor” and had gained his notoriety as the eminence grise behind some extensive shell company dealing done during the 1980s. Apart from one six-month suspended sentence, the police had had no success in prosecuting the illegal operation he ran. Liljegren had become a by-word for the worst type of financial scams, and the fact that he got off scot-free demonstrated how ill-equipped the justice system was to handle criminals like him. He was from Bastad, but in recent years had lived in Helsingborg when he was in Sweden. Sjosten recalled a newspaper article that had set out to uncover how many houses Liljegren owned across the world.

“Can you give me a time frame?” asked Sjosten.

“A jogger out early this morning saw smoke coming out of the house. He raised the alarm. The fire department got there at 5.15 a.m.”

“Where was the fire?”

“There was no fire.”

Sjosten gave Birgersson a puzzled look.

“Liljegren was leaning into the oven,” Birgersson explained. “His head was in the oven, which was on full blast. He was literally being roasted.”

Sjosten grimaced. He was beginning to get an idea what he was going to have to look at.

“Did he commit suicide?”

“No. Someone stuck an axe in his head.”

Sjosten stomped involuntarily on the brake. He looked at Birgersson, who nodded.

“His face and hair were almost completely burnt off. But the doctor thought he could tell that someone had sliced off part of his scalp.”

Sjosten said nothing. He was thinking about what had happened in Ystad. That was this summer’s big news. A serial killer who axed people to death and then took their scalps.

They arrived at Liljegren’s villa on Aschebergsgatan. A fire engine was parked outside the gates along with a few police cars and an ambulance. The huge property was cordoned off. Sjosten got out of the car and waved off a reporter. He and Birgersson ducked under the cordon and walked up to the villa. When they entered the house Sjosten noticed a sickly smell, and realised that it was Liljegren’s burnt corpse. He borrowed a handkerchief from Birgersson and held it to his nose and mouth. Birgersson nodded towards the kitchen. A very pale uniformed officer stood guard at the door. Sjosten peered inside. The sight that greeted him was grotesque. The half-naked man was on his knees. His body was bent over the oven door. His head and neck were out of sight inside the oven. With disgust Sjosten recalled the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel and the witch. A doctor was kneeling down beside the body, shining a torch into the oven. Sjosten tried to breathe through his mouth. The doctor nodded at him. Sjosten leaned forward and looked into the oven. He was reminded of a charred steak.

“Jesus,” he said.

“He took a blow to the back of the head,” said the doctor.

“Here in the kitchen?”

“No, upstairs,” said Birgersson, standing behind him.

Sjosten straightened up.

“Take him out of the oven,” he said. “Has the photographer finished?”

Birgersson nodded. Sjosten followed him upstairs, avoiding the traces of blood. Birgersson stopped outside the bathroom door.

“As you saw, he was wearing pyjamas,” said Birgersson. “Here’s how it probably happened: Liljegren was in the bathroom. The killer was waiting for him. He struck Liljegren with an axe in the back of the head and then dragged the body to the kitchen. That could explain why the pyjama bottoms were hanging from one leg. Then he put the body in front of the oven, turned it on, and left. We don’t know yet how he got into the house and out again. I thought you might be able to take care of that.”

Sjosten said nothing. He was thinking. He went back down to the kitchen. The body was on a plastic sheet on the floor.

“Is it him?” asked Sjosten.

“It’s Liljegren,” said the doctor. “Even though he doesn’t have much face left.”

“That’s not what I meant. Is it the man who takes scalps?”

The doctor pulled back the plastic sheet covering the blackened face.

“I’m convinced that he cut or tore off the hair at the front of his head,” said the doctor.

Sjosten nodded. Then he turned to Birgersson.

“I want you to call the Ystad police. Get hold of Kurt Wallander. I want to talk to him. Now.”

For once Wallander had fixed a proper breakfast. He had fried some eggs and was just sitting down at the table with his newspaper when the telephone rang. The caller introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Sture Birgersson of the Helsingborg police. What he had feared had finally happened. The killer had struck again. He swore under his breath, an oath that contained equal parts rage and horror. Waldemar Sjosten came to the phone. In the early 1980s they had collaborated on the investigation of a drugs ring extending all over Skane. Although they were very different people, they had had an easy time working together and had formed the beginnings of a friendship.

“Kurt?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“So what’s happened? Is what I hear true?”

“Unfortunately it is. Your killer has turned up here in Helsingborg.”

“Is it confirmed?”

“There’s nothing to indicate otherwise. An axe blow to the head. Then he cut off the victim’s scalp.”

“Who was it?”

“Ake Liljegren. Does that name ring a bell?”

Wallander thought for a moment. “The one they call ‘the Auditor’?”

“Precisely. A former minister of justice, an art dealer and now a white-collar criminal.”

“And a fence too,” said Wallander. “Don’t forget him.”

“You should come up here. Our superiors can sort out the red tape so that we can cross into each other’s jurisdictions.”

“I’ll come right away,” said Wallander. “It might be a good idea if I bring Sven Nyberg, our head forensic technician.”

“Bring whoever you want. I won’t stand in your way. I just don’t like it that the killer has shown up here.”

“I’ll be in Helsingborg in two hours,” said Wallander. “If you can tell me whether there’s some connection between Liljegren and the others who were killed, we’ll be ahead of the game. Did the killer leave any clues?”

“Not directly, although we can see how it happened. This time he didn’t pour acid into his victim’s eyes. He roasted him. His head and half his neck, at least.”

“Roasted?”

“In an oven. Be glad you won’t have to look at it.”

“What else?”

“I just got here, so nothing really.”

After Wallander hung up he looked at his watch. It was very early. He called Nyberg, who answered at once. Wallander told him what had happened, and Nyberg promised to be outside Wallander’s building in 15 minutes. Then Wallander dialled Hansson’s number, but changed his mind and called Martinsson instead. As always, Martinsson’s wife answered. It took a couple of minutes before her husband came to the phone.

“He’s killed again,” said Wallander. “This time in Helsingborg. A crook named Ake Liljegren. They call him ‘the Auditor’.”

“The corporate raider?” asked Martinsson.

“That’s him.”

“The murderer has taste.”

“Bullshit,” Wallander said. “I’m driving up there with Nyberg. They’ve asked us to come. I want you to tell Hansson. I’ll give you a call as soon as I know more.”

“This means that the National Criminal Bureau will be called in,” Martinsson said. “Maybe it’s the best thing.”

“The best thing would be if we caught this killer,” Wallander replied. “I’ll call you later.”

He was outside when Nyberg drove up in his old Amazon. It was a beautiful morning. Nyberg drove fast. At Sturup they turned off towards Lund and reached the motorway to Helsingborg. Wallander told him what he knew. After they had passed Lund, Hansson called. He was out of breath. He’s been even more afraid of this than I have, Wallander thought.

“It’s terrible,” said Hansson. “This changes everything.”

“For the time being it doesn’t change a thing,” Wallander replied. “It depends entirely on what actually happened.”

“It’s time for the National Criminal Bureau to take over,” said Hansson. Wallander could tell from Hansson’s voice that to be relieved of his responsibility was what he wanted most of all. Wallander was annoyed. He couldn’t ignore the hint of disparagement of the work of the investigative team.

“That’s your responsibility — yours and Akeson’s,” Wallander said tersely. “What occurred in Helsingborg is their problem. But they’ve asked me to go up there. We’ll talk about what we’re going to do later.”

Wallander hung up. Nyberg didn’t say a word. But Wallander knew he had been listening carefully.

They were met by a squad car at the exit to Helsingborg. Wallander realised that it must have been somewhere nearby that Sven Andersson had stopped to give Dolores Maria Santana a lift on her last journey. They followed the car up to Tagaborg and stopped outside Liljegren’s villa. Wallander and Nyberg passed through the police cordon and were met by Sjosten at the bottom of the steps to the villa, which Wallander guessed had been built around the turn of the century. They said hello and exchanged a few words. Sjosten introduced Nyberg to the forensic technician from Helsingborg. The two of them went inside.

Sjosten put out his cigarette and buried the butt in the gravel with his heel.

“It’s your man who did this,” he said.

“What do you know about the victim?”

“Ake Liljegren was famous.”

“Infamous, you mean.”

Sjosten nodded. “There are probably plenty of people who have dreamt of killing him,” he said. “With a criminal justice system that worked better, with fewer loopholes in the laws on financial fraud, he would have been locked up.”

Sjosten took Wallander into the house. The air was thick with the stench of burnt flesh. Sjosten gave Wallander a mask, which he put on reluctantly. They went into the kitchen where the body still lay under the plastic sheet. Wallander nodded to Sjosten to let him see, thinking that he might as well get it over with. He didn’t know what he had expected, but he flinched involuntarily. Liljegren’s face was gone. The skin was burnt away and large sections of the skull were clearly visible. There were just two holes where the eyes had been. The hair and ears were also burnt off. Wallander nodded to Sjosten to put back the sheet. Sjosten quickly described how Liljegren had been found leaning into the oven. Wallander got some Polaroids from the photographer. It was almost worse to see the pictures. Wallander shook his head with a grimace and handed them back. Sjosten took him upstairs, pointing out the blood, and describing the apparent sequence of events. Wallander occasionally asked a question about a detail, but Sjosten’s scenario seemed convincing.

“Were there any witnesses?” asked Wallander. “Clues left by the murderer? How did he get into the house?”

“Through a basement window.”

They returned to the kitchen and went down to the basement that extended under the whole house. A little window stood ajar in a room where Wallander smelt the faint aroma of apples stored for the winter.

“We think he got in this way,” said Sjosten. “And left that way too. Even though he could have walked straight out the front door. Liljegren lived alone.”

“Did he leave anything behind?” Wallander wondered. “So far he has been careful to leave no clues. On the other hand, he hasn’t been excessively meticulous. We have a whole set of fingerprints. According to Nyberg, we’re missing only the left little finger.”

“Fingerprints he knows the police don’t have on file,” said Sjosten.

Wallander nodded. Sjosten was right.

“We found a footprint in the kitchen next to the stove,” said Sjosten.

“So he was barefoot again,” said Wallander.

“Barefoot?”

Wallander told him about the footprint they had found in the blood in Fredman’s van. He would have to provide Sjosten and his colleagues with all the material they had on the first three murders.

Wallander inspected the basement window. He thought he could see faint scrape marks near one of the latches, which had been broken off. When he bent down he found it, although it was hard to see against the dark floor. He didn’t touch it.

“It looks as though it might have been loosened in advance,” he said.

“You think he prepared for his visit?”

“It’s conceivable. It fits with his pattern. He puts his victims under surveillance. He stakes them out. Why, and for how long, we have no idea. Our psychologist from Stockholm, Mats Ekholm, claims this is characteristic of serial killers.”

They went into the next room. The windows were the same. The latches were intact.

“We should probably search for footprints in the grass outside that window,” Wallander said. He regretted his words immediately. He had no right to tell an experienced investigator like Sjosten what to do. They returned to the kitchen. Liljegren’s body was being removed.

“What I’ve been looking for the whole time is the connection,” said Wallander. “First I looked for one between Gustaf Wetterstedt and Arne Carlman. I finally found it. Then I looked for one between Bjorn Fredman and the two others. We haven’t been able to find a link yet, but I’m convinced there is one. Perhaps this is one of the first things we should do here. Is it possible to find some connection between Ake Liljegren and the other three? Preferably to all of them, but at least to any one of them.”

“In a way we already have a very clear connection,” said Sjosten quietly.

Wallander gave him a questioning glance.

“What I mean is, the killer is an identifiable link,” Sjosten went on. “Even if we don’t know who he is.”

Sjosten nodded towards the door to the garden. Wallander realised that Sjosten wanted to speak privately. Outside in the garden, they both squinted in the bright light. It was going to be another hot day. Sjosten lit a cigarette and led Wallander over to a table and chairs a little way from the house. They moved the chairs into the shade.

“There are plenty of rumours about Ake Liljegren,” Sjosten began. “His shell companies are only a part of his operations. Here in Helsingborg we’ve heard about a lot of other things. Low-flying Cessnas making drops of cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Pretty hard to prove, and I have difficulty associating this type of activity with Liljegren. It may just be my limited imagination, of course. I go on thinking that it’s possible to sort crimes into categories. Criminals are supposed to stay within those boundaries and not encroach on other people’s territory, which messes up our classifications.”

“I’ve sometimes thought along those same lines,” Wallander admitted. “But those days are gone. The world we live in is becoming more comprehensible and more chaotic at the same time.”

Sjosten waved his cigarette at the huge villa.

“There have been other rumours too,” he said. “These ones more concrete. About wild parties in this house. Women, prostitution.”

“Wild?” asked Wallander. “Have you ever had to get involved?”

“Never,” said Sjosten. “Actually I don’t know why I called the parties wild. But people used to come here a lot. And disappear just as quickly as they came.”

Wallander didn’t answer. A dizzying image flitted through his mind. He saw Dolores Maria Santana standing at the southern motorway entrance from Helsingborg. Could there be a connection? Prostitution? But he pushed the thought away. There was no evidence for this, he was confusing two different investigations.

“We’re going to have to work together,” Sjosten said. “You and your colleagues have several weeks on us. Now that we add Liljegren to the picture, how does it look? What’s changed? What seems clearer?”

“The National Criminal Bureau will certainly get involved now,” Wallander answered. “That’s good, of course. But I’m afraid that we’ll have problems working together, that information won’t get to the right person.”

“I have the same concern,” Sjosten agreed. “That’s why I want to suggest something. That you and I become an informal team, so we can step aside for discussion when we need to.”

“That’s fine by me,” Wallander said.

“We both remember the days of the old national homicide commission,” Sjosten said. “Something that worked very efficiently was dismantled. And things have never really been the same since.”

“Times were different. Violence had a different face, and there were fewer murders. Criminals operated in patterns that were recognisable in a way that they aren’t today. I’m not sure that the commission would have been as effective now.”

Sjosten stood up. “But we’re in agreement?”

“Of course,” Wallander replied. “Whenever we think it’s necessary, we’ll talk.”

“You can stay with me,” Sjosten said, “if you have to be here overnight. It’s no pleasure to have to stay at a hotel.”

“I’d like that,” Wallander thanked him. But he didn’t mind staying at a hotel when he was away. He needed to have at least a few hours to himself every day.

They walked back to the house. To the left was a large garage with two doors. While Sjosten went inside, Wallander decided to take a look in the garage. With difficulty he lifted one of the doors. Inside was a black Mercedes. The windows were tinted. He stood there thinking.

Then he went into the house, called Ystad, and asked to speak with Hoglund. He told her briefly what had happened.

“I want you to contact Sara Bjorklund,” he said. “Do you remember her?”

“Wetterstedt’s housekeeper?”

“Right. I want you to bring her here to Helsingborg. As soon as you can.”

“Why?”

“I want her to take a look at a car. And I’ll be standing next to her hoping that she recognises it.”

Hoglund asked no more questions.