Sidetracked

CHAPTER 34

When the doorbell rang he knew at once that it had to be Baiba. Oddly, he wasn’t nervous at all, even though it wasn’t going to be much fun explaining to her why he hadn’t told her that their holiday had to be postponed. Then he started and sat up in bed. Of course she wasn’t there. It was only the alarm clock ringing, the hands positioned like a gaping mouth at 5.03 a.m. The confusion passed, he put his hand over the alarm button and then sat motionless. Reality slowly dawned. The town was quiet. Few sounds other than birdsong penetrated his room. He couldn’t remember whether he’d dreamed about Baiba or not. The flight from the child’s room in Sjosten’s flat now seemed wildly irrational. Not like him at all.

With a yawn he got up and went into the kitchen. On the table he found a note from Linda. I communicate with my daughter through a series of notes, he thought. When she makes one of her occasional stops in Ystad. He read over what she had written and realised that the dream about Baiba, waking up and believing that she was standing outside his door, had contained a warning. Linda’s note said that Baiba had called and would he call right away. Baiba’s irritation was recognisable from the note.

He couldn’t call her, not now. He’d call her tonight, or maybe tomorrow. Or should he have Martinsson do it? He could give her the unfortunate news that the man she was intending to go to Skagen with, the man she assumed would be standing at Kastrup Airport to meet her, was up to his neck in a hunt for a maniac who smashed axes into the heads of his fellow human beings and then cut off their scalps. What he might tell Martinsson to say was true, and yet not true. It could never explain or excuse the fact that he was too weak to do the decent thing and call Baiba himself.

He picked up the phone, not to call Baiba, but Sjosten in Helsingborg, to explain why he had left during the night. What could he possibly say? The truth was one option: sudden concern for his daughter, a concern all parents feel without being able to explain. But when Sjosten answered he said something quite different, that he’d forgotten about a meeting he had arranged with his father for early that morning. It was something that couldn’t be revealed by accident, since Sjosten and his father would never cross paths. They agreed to talk later, after Wallander had been to Malmo.

Then everything seemed much easier. It wasn’t the first time in his life he had started his day with a bunch of white lies, evasions and self-deceptions. He took a shower, had some coffee, wrote a new note to Linda, and left the flat just after 6.30 a.m. Everything was quiet at the station. It was this early, lonely hour, when the weary graveyard shift was on its way home and it was still too early for the daytime staff, that Wallander took pleasure in. Life took on a special meaning in this solitude. He never understood why this was so, but he could remember the feeling from deep in his past, maybe as far back as 20 years.

Rydberg, his old friend and mentor, had been the same way. Everyone has small but extremely personal sacred moments, Rydberg had told him on one of the few occasions when they had sat in either his or Wallander’s office and split a small bottle of whisky behind a locked door. No alcohol was permitted in the station. But sometimes they had something to celebrate. Or to grieve over, for that matter. Wallander sorely missed those brief and strangely philosophical times. They had been moments of friendship, of irreplaceable intimacy.

Wallander read quickly through a stack of messages. In a memo he saw that Dolores Maria Santana’s body had been released for burial and now rested in a grave in the same cemetery as Rydberg. This brought him back to the investigation; he rolled up his sleeves as though going out into the world to do battle, and skimmed as fast as he could through the copies of investigative material his colleagues had prepared. There were papers from Nyberg, laboratory reports on which Nyberg had scrawled question marks and comments, and charts of the tip-offs that had come in from the public. Tyren must be an extraordinarily zealous young man, Wallander thought, without being able to decide whether that meant he would be a good policeman in the field in the future, or whether he was already showing signs that he belonged somewhere in the hunting grounds of the bureaucracy. Wallander read quickly, but nothing of value escaped him. The most important thing seemed to be that they had established that Fredman had indeed been murdered on the dock below the side road to Charlottenlund.

He pushed the stacks of papers aside and leaned back pensively in his chair. What do these men have in common? Fredman doesn’t fit the picture, but he belongs just the same. A former minister of justice, an art dealer, a criminal fraudster and a petty thief. They’re all murdered by the same killer, who takes their scalps. Wetterstedt, the first, is barely hidden, just shoved out of sight. Carlman, the second, is killed in the middle of a summer party in his own arbour. Fredman is kidnapped, taken to an out-of-the-way dock and then dumped in the middle of Ystad, as if being put on display. He lies in a pit with a tarpaulin over his head, like a statue waiting to be unveiled. Finally, the killer moves to Helsingborg and murders Liljegren. Almost immediately we pin down a connection between Wetterstedt and Liljegren. Now we need the links between the others. After we know what connected them, we have to discover who might have had reason to kill them. And why the scalps? Who is the lone warrior?

Wallander sat for a long time thinking about Fredman and Liljegren. There was a similarity there. The kidnapping and the acid in the eyes on the one hand, and the head in the oven on the other. It hadn’t been enough to kill these two. Why? He took another step. The water got deeper around him. The bottom was slippery. Easy to lose his footing. There was a difference between Fredman and Liljegren, a very clear one. Fredman had hydrochloric acid poured into his eyes while he was alive. Liljegren was dead before he was stuck in the oven. Wallander tried to conjure up the killer again. Thin, in good condition, barefoot, insane. If he hunts evil men, Fredman must have been the worst. Then Liljegren. Carlman and Wetterstedt in about the same category.

Wallander got up and went to the window. There was something about the sequence that bothered him. Fredman was the third. Why not the first? Or the last — at least so far? The root of evil, the first or the last to be punished, by a killer who was insane but canny and well-organised. The dock must have been chosen because it was handy. How many docks did he look at before he chose that one? Is this a man who is always near the sea? A well-behaved man; a fisherman, or someone in the coast guard? Or why not a member of the sea rescue service, which has the best bench for meditating on in Ystad? Someone who also managed to drive Fredman away, in his own van. Why did he go to all that trouble? Because it was his only way to get to him? They met somewhere. They knew each other. Peter Hjelm had been quite clear. Fredman travelled a lot and always had plenty of money afterwards. It was rumoured that he was an enforcer. But Wallander only knew of parts of Fredman’s life. They must try to bring the unknown past to light.

Wallander sat down again. The sequence didn’t make sense. What could the explanation be? He went to get some coffee. Svedberg and Hoglund had arrived. Svedberg had a new cap on. His cheeks were a blotchy red. Hoglund was more tanned, and Wallander was paler. Hansson arrived with Mats Ekholm in tow. Even Ekholm had managed to get a tan. Hansson’s eyes were bloodshot with fatigue. He looked at Wallander with astonishment, and at the same time he seemed to be searching for some misunderstanding. Hadn’t Wallander said he’d be in Helsingborg? It wasn’t even 7.30 a.m. yet. Had something happened? Wallander shook his head almost imperceptibly. No-one had misunderstood anything. They hadn’t planned to have a meeting of the investigative team. Ludwigsson and Hamren had already driven out to Sturup, Hoglund was going to join them, while Svedberg and Hansson were busy with follow-up work on Wetterstedt and Carlman. Someone stuck in his head and said that Wallander had a phone call from Helsingborg. Wallander took the call on the phone next to the coffee machine. It was Sjosten, who told him that Elisabeth Carlen was still sleeping. No-one had visited her, and no-one except some curiosity-seekers had been seen near Liljegren’s villa.

“Did Liljegren have no family?” Martinsson asked angrily, as if he’d behaved inappropriately by not marrying.

“He left behind only a few grieving, plundered companies,” Svedberg said.

“They’re working on Liljegren in Helsingborg,” Wallander said. “We’ll get the information in time.”

Wallander knew that Hansson had been meticulous about passing on the latest developments. They agreed that it was likely that Liljegren had been supplying women to Wetterstedt on a regular basis.

“He’s living up to the old rumour about him,” said Svedberg.

“We have to find a similar link to Carlman,” Wallander went on. “It’s there, I know it is. Forget about Wetterstedt for the time being. Let’s concentrate on Carlman.”

Everyone was in a hurry. The link that had been established was like a shot in the arm for the team. Wallander took Ekholm to his office. He told him what he had been thinking earlier that morning. Ekholm was an attentive listener, as always.

“The acid and the oven,” Wallander said. “I’m trying to interpret the killer’s language. He talks to himself and he talks to his victims. What is he actually saying?”

“Your idea about the sequence is interesting,” said Ekholm. “Psychopathic killers often have an element of pedantry in their bloody handiwork. Something may have happened to upset his plans.”

“Like what?”

“He’s the only one who can answer that.”

“Still, we have to try.”

Ekholm didn’t answer. Wallander got the feeling that he didn’t have a lot to say at the moment.

“Let’s number them,” Wallander said. “Wetterstedt is number one. What do we see if we rearrange them?”

“Fredman first or last,” Ekholm said. “Liljegren just before or after, depending on which variant is correct. Wetterstedt and Carlman in positions which tie them to the others.”

“Can we assume that he’s finished?” asked Wallander.

“I have no idea,” Ekholm answered.

“What does your programme say? What combinations has it managed to come up with?”

“Not a thing, actually.” Ekholm seemed surprised by his own answer.

“How do you interpret that?” Wallander said.

“We’re dealing with a serial killer who differs from his predecessors in crucial ways.”

“And what does that tell us?”

“That he’ll provide us with totally new data. If we catch him.”

“We must,” said Wallander, knowing how feeble he sounded.

He got up and they both left the room.

“Criminal psychologists at both the F.B.I. and Scotland Yard have been in touch,” said Ekholm. “They’re following our work with great interest.”

“Have they got any suggestions? We need all the help we can get.”

“I’m supposed to let them know if anything comes in.”

They parted at the reception desk. Wallander took a moment to exchange a few words with Ebba. Then he drove straight to Sturup. He found Ludwigsson and Hamren in the office of the airport police. Wallander was disconcerted to meet a young policeman who had fainted the year before when they were arresting a man trying to flee the country. But he shook his hand and tried to pretend that he was sorry about what had happened.

Wallander realised he had met Ludwigsson before, during a visit to Stockholm. He was a large, powerful man with high colour from blood pressure, not the sun. Hamren was his diametrical opposite: small and wiry, with thick glasses. Wallander greeted them a little offhandedly and asked how it was going.

“There seems to be a lot of rivalry between the different taxi companies out here,” Ludwigsson began. “Just like at Arlanda. So far we haven’t managed to pin down all the ways he could have left the airport during the hours in question. And nobody noticed a motorcycle. But we’ve only just begun.”

Wallander had a cup of coffee and answered a number of questions the two men had. Then he left them and drove on to Malmo. He parked outside the building in Rosengard. It was very hot. He took the lift up to the fifth floor and rang the doorbell. This time it wasn’t the son but Bjorn Fredman’s widow who opened the door. She smelled of wine. At her feet cowering close by was a little boy. He seemed extremely shy. Or afraid, rather. When Wallander bent down to greet him he seemed terrified. A fleeting memory entered Wallander’s mind. He couldn’t catch it, but filed the thought away. It was something that had happened before, or something someone had said, that had been imprinted on his subconscious.

She asked him to come in. The boy clung to her legs. Her hair wasn’t combed and she wore no make-up. The blanket on the sofa told him she had spent the night there. They sat down, Wallander in the same chair for the third time. Stefan, the older son, came in. His eyes were as wary as the last time Wallander had visited. He came forward and shook hands, again with adult manners. He sat down next to his mother on the sofa. Everything was as before. The only difference was the presence of the younger brother, curled up on his mother’s lap. Something didn’t seem quite right about him. His eyes never left Wallander.

“I came about Louise,” Wallander said. “I know it’s hard to talk about a family member who’s in a psychiatric hospital. But it’s necessary.”

“Why can’t she be left in peace?” the woman said. Her voice sounded tormented and unsure, as if she doubted her ability to defend her daughter.

Wallander would have liked to avoid this conversation more than anything. He was unsure of how to handle it.

“Of course she’ll be left in peace,” he said. “But unfortunately it’s part of the duty of the police to gather all the information we can to help solve a brutal crime.”

“She hadn’t seen her father in many years,” the woman said. “She can’t tell you anything important.”

“Does Louise know that her father is dead?”

“Why should she?”

“It’s not unreasonable, is it?”

Wallander saw that she was about to break down. His distaste at what he was doing increased with each question and answer. Without wanting to, he had put her under a pressure she could hardly endure. Stefan said nothing.

“First of all, you have to understand that Louise no longer has any relationship to reality,” the woman said in a voice that was so faint that Wallander had to lean forward to hear her. “She has left everything behind. She’s living in her own world. She doesn’t speak, she doesn’t listen. She’s pretending that she doesn’t exist.”

Wallander thought carefully before he continued.

“Even so, it could be important for the police to know why she became ill. I actually came here to ask for your permission to meet her. Speak to her. I realise now that it may not be appropriate. But then you’ll have to answer my questions instead.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “She got sick. It came out of nowhere.”

“She was found in Pildamm Park,” Wallander prompted her.

Both the son and the mother stiffened. Even the little boy on her lap seemed to react, affected by the others.

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“There’s a report on how and when she was taken to the hospital,” said Wallander. “But that’s all I know. Everything to do with her illness is confidential. I understand that she was having some difficulty in school before she got sick.”

“She never had any trouble, but she was always very sensitive.”

“I’m sure she was. Still, usually specific events trigger acute cases of mental illness.”

“How do you know that? Are you a doctor?”

“No, I’m a police officer. But I know what I’m talking about.”

“Nothing happened.”

“But you must have wondered about it. Night and day.”

“I’ve hardly thought about anything else.”

Wallander felt the atmosphere becoming so intolerable that he wished he could break off the conversation and leave. The answers he was getting were leading him nowhere, though he believed they were mostly truthful, or at least partly so.

“Do you have a photograph of her I could look at?”

“Is it necessary?”

“Please.”

The boy sitting next to her began to speak, but checked himself instantly. Wallander wondered why. Didn’t the boy want him to see his sister? Why not?

The mother got up with the little boy hanging on to her. She opened a drawer and handed him some photographs. Louise was blonde, smiling, and resembled Stefan, but there was nothing of that wariness he sensed now in the room, or that he’d seen in the family photograph in Fredman’s flat. She smiled openly and trustingly at the camera. She was pretty.

“A nice-looking girl,” he said. “Let’s hope she gets better some day.”

“I’ve stopped hoping,” the mother said. “Why should I hope any more?”

“Doctors can work wonders these days,” Wallander said.

“One day Louise is going to leave that hospital,” the boy said suddenly. He smiled at Wallander.

“And it’s vital that when she does she has a family to support her,” Wallander replied, annoyed that he expressed himself so stiffly.

“We support her in every way,” the boy went on. “The police have to search for the person who killed our Dad. Not go bothering her.”

“If I visit her at the hospital it’s not to bother her,” Wallander said. “It’s as part of the investigation.”

“We’d prefer it if you left her in peace.”

Wallander nodded. The boy was quite determined.

“If the prosecutor, the leader of the preliminary investigation, makes the decision, then I’ll have to visit her,” said Wallander. “And I presume that will happen. Very soon. Either today or tomorrow. But I give you my word that I won’t tell her that her father is dead.”

“Then why are you going there at all?”

“To see her,” said Wallander. “A photograph is still just a photograph. Although I’ll have to take this with me.”

“Why?” The response was immediate. Wallander was surprised by the animosity in the boy’s voice.

“I have to show it to some people,” he said. “To see whether they recognise her. That’s all.”

“You’re going to give it to the newspapers,” said the boy. “Her face will be plastered all over the country.”

“Why would I do that?” asked Wallander.

The boy jumped up from the sofa, leaned over the table, and grabbed the photographs. It happened so fast that Wallander didn’t have time to react. He regained his composure, but he was angry.

“I’m going to be forced to come back here with a warrant to make you hand over those pictures,” he said, although this wasn’t true. “There’s a risk that some reporters will hear about it and follow me here. I can’t stop them. If I can borrow a picture now, this won’t have to happen.”

The boy stared at Wallander. His previous wariness had now evolved into something else. Without a word he handed back one of the photos.

“I have only one more question,” said Wallander. “Do you know if Louise ever met a man named Gustaf Wetterstedt?”

The mother looked perplexed. The boy got up and stood looking out of the open balcony door with his back to them.

“No,” she said.

“Does the name Arne Carlman mean anything to you?”

She shook her head.

“Ake Liljegren?”

“No.”

She doesn’t read the papers, Wallander thought. Under that blanket there’s probably a bottle of wine. And in that bottle is her life. He got up from his chair. The boy by the balcony door turned round.

“Are you going to visit Louise?” he asked again.

“It’s a possibility.”

Wallander said goodbye and left. When he got to the street he felt relieved. The boy was standing in the fifth-floor window looking down at him. As he got into his car, he decided he would put off visiting Louise Fredman for the time being, but he’d check straight away whether Elisabeth Carlen recognised her. He rolled down his window and called Sjosten. The boy was gone from the window. As the phone rang, he searched for an explanation for the uneasiness he had felt at the sight of the frightened little boy. But he couldn’t identify it. Wallander told Sjosten he was on his way to Helsingborg with something that he wanted Elisabeth Carlen to see.

“According to the latest report she’s lying on her balcony sun-bathing,” Sjosten said.

“How’s it going with Liljegren’s employees?”

“We’re working on locating the one who was supposed to be his right-hand man. Name is Hans Logard.”

“Did Liljegren have any family?”

“Apparently not. We spoke with his lawyer. Strangely enough, he left no will, and there’s no indication of direct heirs. Liljegren seems to have lived in his own universe.”

“That’s good,” Wallander said. “I’ll be in Helsingborg within the hour.”

“Should I bring Elisabeth Carlen in?”

“Do that, but be nice to her. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be needing her for a while. She might stop cooperating if it doesn’t suit her any more.”

“I’ll pick her up myself,” said Sjosten. “How’s your father?”

“My father?”

“You were going to meet him this morning.”

“Oh, he’s fine,” Wallander said. “But it was very important that I saw him.”

He hung up. He glanced up at the window on the fifth floor. No-one was there.

Hoover went into the basement just after 1 p.m. The coolness from the stone floor permeated his whole body. The sunlight shone weakly through some cracks in the paint he had put on the window. He sat down and looked at his face in the mirrors.

He couldn’t allow the policeman to visit his sister. They were so close to their goal now, the sacred moment, when the evil spirits in her head would be driven out for good. He couldn’t let anyone get near her.

The policeman’s visit had been a sign that now was the time to act. He thought about the girl it had been so easy for him to meet. She had reminded him of his sister somehow. That was a good sign, too. Louise would need all the strength he could give her.

He took off his jacket and looked around the room. Everything he needed was there. The axes and knives gleamed, laid out on the black silk cloth. Then he took one of the wide brushes and drew a single line across his forehead.

Time was running out.