The Fifth Woman

CHAPTER 18

She waited until 2.30 a.m. From experience she knew that was when the fatigue would creep up on her. She thought back on all the nights when she had been at work. That’s how it always was. The greatest danger of dozing off was between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.

She had been waiting in the linen-supply room since 9 p.m. Just as on her first visit, she had walked right in through the main entrance of the hospital. No-one had noticed her. A nurse in a hurry. No-one had noticed her because there was nothing unusual about her. She had considered disguising herself, maybe changing her hair. But that would have been an unnecessary caution. She’d had plenty of time to think as she’d sat in the linen room, the scent of newly washed and ironed sheets reminding her of childhood. She sat there in the dark until after midnight, and then she took out her torch, the one she always used at work, and read the last letter her mother had written to her. It was unfinished. But it was in this letter that her mother had begun to write about herself. About the events that lay behind her attempt to take her life. She could see that her mother had never got over her bitterness. I wander around the world like a ship without a captain, she wrote, forced to atone for someone else’s guilt. I thought that age would create enough distance, that the memories would grow dim, fade, and maybe finally vanish altogether. But now I see that won’t happen. Only with death can I put an end to it. And since I don’t want to die, not yet, I choose to remember.

The letter was dated the day before her mother had moved in with the French nuns, the day before shadows had detached themselves from the darkness and murdered her.

After she had read the letter she had turned off the torch. Everything had grown quiet. Someone had walked past in the hall only twice. The linen room was located in a wing that was only partly in use.

She had had plenty of time to think. There were now three free days entered in her timetable. She had some time and she was going to use it. Until now everything had gone the way it was supposed to. Women only made mistakes when they tried to think like men. She had known that for a long time, and in her view she had already proved it.

But there was something that bothered her, something that had thrown her timetable out of kilter. She had followed everything that had been written in the newspapers closely. She listened to the news on the radio and watched it on various TV channels. It was clear that the police didn’t understand a thing. And that had been her intention, not to leave any traces, to lead the dogs away from the trails they should be following. But now she was impatient with all this incompetence. The police were never going to solve the crimes. She was adding riddles to the story. In their minds the police would be looking for a male killer. She didn’t want it to be that way any longer.

She sat in the dark closet and devised a plan. She would make some minor changes. Nothing that would reveal her timetable, of course. But she would give the riddle a face.

At 2.30 a.m. she left the linen closet. The hall was deserted. She straightened her white uniform and headed for the stairs up to the maternity ward. She knew that there were usually only four people on duty. She had been there in the daytime, asking about a woman that she knew had already gone home with her baby. Over the nurse’s shoulder she could see in the log that all the rooms were occupied. She couldn’t imagine why women had babies at this time of year, when autumn was turning to winter. But then she knew that few women chose when to have their children, even now.

When she reached the glass doors of the maternity ward, she stopped and took a careful look at the nurses’ station. She held the door slightly ajar and heard no voices. That meant the midwives and nurses were busy. It would take her less than 15 seconds to reach the room of the woman she intended to visit. She probably wouldn’t run into anybody, but she had to be careful. She pulled the glove out of her pocket. She had sewn it herself and filled the fingers with lead, shaped to follow the contours of her knuckles. She put it on her right hand, opened the door, and quickly entered the ward. The nurses’ station was empty; there was a radio playing somewhere. She walked rapidly and soundlessly to the room, slipped inside and closed the door behind her.

Taking off her glove, she approached the woman lying in the bed; she was awake. She stuffed the glove in her pocket, the same pocket where she had put the letter from her mother. She sat down on the edge of the bed. The woman was very pale, and her belly pushed up the sheet. She took the woman’s hand.

“Have you decided?” she asked her.

The woman nodded. It didn’t surprise her, and yet she felt a sort of triumph. Even the women who were most cowed could be turned towards life again.

“Eugen Blomberg,” the woman said. “He lives in Lund. He’s a researcher at the university. I don’t know any better way to describe what he does.”

She patted the woman’s hand.

“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“I hate that man,” she said.

“Yes,” said the woman sitting on the edge of the bed. “You hate him and you have every right to.”

“I would have killed him if I could.”

“I know. But you can’t. Think of your baby instead.”

She leaned forward and stroked the woman’s cheek. Then she got up and put on her glove. She had been in the room no more than two minutes. Carefully she pushed open the door. No-one was around. She walked back towards the exit.

Just as she was passing the station a woman came out. It was bad luck. The woman stared at her. It was an older woman, presumably one of the midwives.

She kept walking towards the exit doors. The woman yelled and started running after her. She walked faster. But the woman grabbed her left arm and asked who she was and what she was doing there. It was a shame that this woman had to interfere, she thought. She spun around and hit her with the glove. She didn’t want to hurt her badly, and so she took care not to hit her on the temple, which could be fatal. She struck her hard on one cheek — hard enough to knock her out. The woman groaned and fell to the floor.

She turned around to leave, but felt two hands gripping her leg. When she looked back she realised she hadn’t struck hard enough. At the same time she heard a door open somewhere in the distance. She was about to lose control of the situation. She yanked her leg away and bent down to deliver another blow. The woman scratched her in the face. Now she struck without worrying if it was too hard or not, right in the temple. The woman sank to the floor.

She fled through the glass doors, her cheek stinging where the midwife’s nails had torn her skin. No-one called after her. She wiped her face, and her white sleeve showed streaks of blood. She stuffed the glove in her pocket and took off her clogs so she could run faster. She wondered whether the hospital had an internal alarm system. But she got out without being caught. When she reached her car and looked at her face in the rear-view mirror, she saw that she had only a few scratches.

Things hadn’t gone the way she had planned. But you couldn’t always expect them to. What was important was that she had succeeded in persuading the woman to reveal the name of the man who had caused her so much grief.

Eugen Blomberg.

She still had 48 hours to begin her investigation and draw up a plan and a timetable. She was in no hurry. It would take as long as necessary. She didn’t think she’d need more than a week.

The oven was empty. It was waiting.

Just after 8 a.m. on Thursday morning the investigative team was assembled in the conference room. Wallander had asked Akeson to attend. As he was about to begin, he noticed someone was missing.

“Where’s Svedberg? Didn’t he come in today?”

“He’s been in, but he left again,” Martinsson said. “Evidently there was an assault up at the hospital last night. He said he’d probably be back soon.”

A vague memory flitted through Wallander’s head, but he couldn’t pin it down. Something to do with Svedberg and the hospital.

“This brings the need for additional personnel to a head,” Akeson said. “We can’t avoid the issue any longer, I’m afraid.”

Wallander knew what he meant. On several earlier occasions he and Akeson had clashed over whether they should request extra manpower or not.

“We’ll take up that question at the end of the meeting,” Wallander said. “Let’s start with where we actually stand in this mess.”

“Stockholm has called a few times,” Chief Holgersson said, “and I don’t think I need to tell you who it was. These violent events are clouding the image of the friendly local police force.”

A mixture of resignation and mirth swept through the room. But no-one commented on what Lisa Holgersson had said. Martinsson yawned audibly. Wallander seized on that as a starting point.

“We’re all tired. A policeman’s curse is lack of sleep. At least in crises like this.”

He was interrupted by the door opening. Nyberg came in. Wallander knew that he had been talking on the phone to the forensic laboratory in Linkoping. He hobbled up to the table using his crutch.

“How’s your foot?” Wallander asked him.

“It’s better than being impaled on bamboo from Thailand,” he replied.

Wallander gave him an inquiring look.

“Do we know that for sure? That it’s from Thailand?”

“We do. It’s imported for making fishing rods and furniture by a company in Bremen. We talked to their Swedish agent. They import more than 100,000 bamboo poles each year. It’s impossible to say where they were purchased, but I just talked to Linkoping. They can determine how long the bamboo has been in Sweden.”

Wallander nodded.

“Anything else?” he asked, still facing Nyberg.

“With regard to Eriksson or Runfeldt?”

“Either one.”

Nyberg opened his notebook.

“The planks for Eriksson’s bridge came from the Building Warehouse in Ystad. The murder scene is clean of any objects that might have helped us. On the side of the hill where he had his birdwatching tower there’s a tractor path that we can assume the killer used, if he came by car, which I’m assuming he did. We’ve taken impressions of all the tyre tracks we found. But the whole scene is extraordinarily devoid of clues.”

“And the house?”

“The problem is, we don’t know what we’re looking for. Everything seems to be in good order. The break-in he reported a few years ago is a riddle too. The only thing that might be worth noting is that Eriksson had a couple of extra locks installed recently, on the doors leading directly into the living-quarters.”

“That might mean he was afraid of something,” Wallander said.

“I thought so too. On the other hand, everybody’s putting on extra locks these days, aren’t they?”

Wallander glanced around the table.

“Neighbours,” he said. “Who was Holger Eriksson? Who might have had a reason to kill him? What about Harald Berggren? It’s about time we did a complete summary. No matter how long it takes.”

Later, Wallander would think back on that Thursday morning as an endless uphill climb. All of them presented the results of their work, and the only conclusion was that there was no sign of a breakthrough. The slope just grew steeper. Eriksson’s life seemed impregnable. No-one had seen a thing, no-one even seemed to have known this man who sold cars, watched birds, and wrote poems. Finally Wallander began to wonder whether he was mistaken, whether Eriksson’s killer might have selected him at random. But deep inside he knew that this couldn’t be true. The killer had spoken a specific language — there was a logic and consistency to his method of killing. Wallander knew he wasn’t mistaken. But that was as far as he got.

They were completely bogged down by the time Svedberg returned from the hospital. He appeared like a saviour, because when he sat down at the table and sorted through his notes, the investigation finally seemed to begin to move forward.

Svedberg began by apologising for his absence. Wallander asked what had happened at the hospital.

“The whole thing is pretty weird,” Svedberg said. “Just before 3 a.m. a nurse appeared in the maternity ward. One of the midwives, Ylva Brink, who happens to be my cousin, was working there last night. She didn’t recognise the nurse and asked her what she was doing there. She was struck to the ground and knocked out. When she came to, the woman was gone. They asked all the patients, but none of them had seen her. I talked to the personnel on duty last night. They were all very upset.”

“How’s your cousin?” Wallander asked.

“She has concussion.”

Wallander was just about to return to Eriksson when Svedberg spoke up again. He seemed embarrassed and scratched his head nervously.

“What’s even stranger is that this woman had been there before, about a week ago. Ylva happened to be working that night too. She’s positive that the woman wasn’t really a nurse, that she was in disguise.”

Wallander frowned, and remembered the note that had been lying on his desk all week.

“You talked to Ylva Brink that time too. And took some notes.”

“I threw out that piece of paper,” Svedberg said. “Since nothing happened the first time I didn’t think it was anything to worry about. We had more important things to do.”

“I think it’s creepy,” said Hoglund. “A fake nurse who enters the maternity ward at night. And has no qualms about using violence. It has to mean something.”

“My cousin didn’t recognise her, but she gave me a very good description. The woman was stocky and obviously very strong.”

Wallander said nothing about having Svedberg’s note on his desk.

“That sounds odd,” was all he said. “What kind of precautions have the hospital taken?”

“For the time being they’re hiring a security company. They’ll see if the woman shows up again.”

They left the night’s events behind. Wallander looked at Svedberg, thinking despondently that he was about to reinforce the feeling that the investigation was going nowhere. But Svedberg had some news.

“Last week I talked to one of Eriksson’s employees, Ture Karlhammar, who is 73 years old, and lives in Svarte. I wrote up a report about it that you may have read. He worked as a car salesman for Eriksson for more than 30 years. At first he just said how sorry he was about what had happened, and that no-one had anything but good things to say about Eriksson. Karlhammar’s wife was making coffee. The door to the kitchen was open. Suddenly she came in, slammed the coffee tray on the table so the cream sloshed over, and said Holger Eriksson was a crook. Then she walked out.”

“And then?”

“It was a little embarrassing, of course. But Karlhammar stuck to his story. I went to talk to his wife, but by then she was gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“She had taken the car and driven off. Later I called several times, but nobody answered. But this morning I got a letter. I read it before I drove over to the hospital. It’s from Karlhammar’s wife. And if what she says is correct, then it makes very interesting reading.”

“Sum it up for us,” Wallander said. “Then you can make copies.”

“She claims that Eriksson showed signs of sadism many times in his life. He treated his employees badly. He would harass anyone who quit. She repeats over and over that she could provide as many examples as we need to prove this is true.”

Svedberg scanned the letter.

“She says that he had little respect for other people. Towards the end of the letter she indicates that he made trips to Poland quite often. Apparently to visit some women there. According to Mrs Karlhammar, they would be able to tell us stories too. It might all be gossip. How would she know about what he did in Poland?”

“She doesn’t say anything about him being homosexual?” asked Wallander.

“No. And this part about the trips to Poland certainly doesn’t give that impression.”

“And Karlhammar had never heard of anyone named Harald Berggren, I suppose?”

“No.”

Wallander felt a need to get up and stretch his legs. What Svedberg had said about the contents of the letter was important, without a doubt. He realised that this was the second time in 24 hours that he’d heard a man described as brutal.

He suggested a break so they could get some air. Akeson stayed behind.

“It’s all set now. With the Sudan, I mean.”

Wallander felt a pang of jealousy. Akeson had made a decision and dared to resign. Why didn’t he do the same thing himself? Why did he settle for looking for a new house? Now that his father was gone, he had nothing to keep him here. Linda could take care of herself.

“They don’t need any policemen to keep order among the refugees, do they? I’ve had some experience in that field here in Ystad.”

Akeson laughed.

“I can ask. Swedish policemen usually go into the UN special forces. There’s nothing to stop you from putting in an application.”

“Right now I’ve got a murder investigation to take care of. Maybe later. When are you leaving?”

“Between Christmas and New Year. It’ll be great to get away. Sometimes I think I might never come back. I’ll never get to sail to the West Indies in a boat I built myself, but I am going to the Sudan. And I have no idea what’ll happen after that.”

“Everybody dreams about escape,” Wallander said. “People in Sweden are always looking for the next paradise. Sometimes I think I don’t even recognise my own country any more.”

“Maybe I’m escaping too. But the Sudan is no paradise, believe me.”

“At least you’re doing the right thing by trying. I hope you write once in a while. I’ll miss you.”

“That’s actually something I’m looking forward to. Writing personal letters, not just official ones. Maybe that way I’ll figure out how many friends I actually have: the ones who answer the letters I hope to write.”

The short break was over. They all sat down again.

“Let’s switch over to Gosta Runfeldt,” Wallander said.

Hoglund described their discovery of the room on Harpegatan and the fact that Runfeldt was a private detective. After the photographs that Nyberg had developed had made their way around the table, Wallander told them about his conversation with Runfeldt’s son. He noticed that the investigative team were now concentrating in a way that they hadn’t been when the long meeting had begun.

“I can’t shake the feeling that we’re close to something crucial,” Wallander concluded. “We’re still seeking a point of contact. What could be the significance of both Eriksson and Runfeldt having been described as brutal? And why has this never come out before?”

He broke off to allow for comments and questions. No-one said a word.

“It’s time we started digging deeper,” he went on. “All the material has to be run back and forth between these two men. It’s Martinsson’s job to see that this gets done. There are a number of items that seem particularly important. I’m thinking about Runfeldt’s wife’s death. I’ve got the feeling that this might be crucial. And there’s the money that Eriksson donated to the church in Svenstavik. I’ll take care of that myself. Which means it might be necessary to take a few trips.”

“Where’s Svenstavik?” Hansson asked.

“In southern Jamtland. About 50 kilometres from the border of Harjadal.”

“What did Eriksson have to do with that place? He was from Skane, wasn’t he?”

“That’s precisely what we have to find out,” said Wallander. “Why did he choose that particular church to leave money to? There must have been some definite reason.”

They had been in the meeting for several hours when Wallander brought up the question of more manpower.

“I have nothing against getting reinforcements. We have plenty to investigate, and it’s going to take a lot of time.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Chief Holgersson said.

Akeson nodded without saying anything. In all the years Wallander had worked with him, he had never known Akeson to speak unnecessarily. Wallander supposed that this would be an advantage in the Sudan.

“On the other hand, I doubt we need a psychologist,” Wallander continued. “I’m the first to agree that Mats Ekholm, who was here in the summer, was helpful. But the situation is different with this case. My suggestion is that we send summaries of the investigative material to him and ask for his comments. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

They adjourned the meeting at just past 1 p.m. Wallander left the station hastily. The long meeting had left him feeling heavy-headed. He drove to one of the restaurants in the town centre. As he ate, he tried to decide what had actually developed during the meeting. Since he kept coming back to the question of what had happened at the lake outside Almhult ten years ago, he decided to follow his intuition. When he finished eating he called the Hotel Sekelgarden. Bo Runfeldt was in his room. Wallander asked the receptionist to tell him he was coming over shortly. Then he drove back to the police station. He found Martinsson and Hansson and took them to his office. He asked Hansson to call Svenstavik.

“What am I supposed to ask?”

“Get straight to the point. Why did Eriksson make this bequest to them? Was he looking for forgiveness of his sins? If so, what sins? And if they mention confidentiality, tell them we need the information so we can try to prevent more murders.”

“You really want me to ask if he was looking for forgiveness for his sins?”

Wallander burst out laughing. “Yes, if necessary. Find out whatever you can. I think I’ll take Bo Runfeldt with me to Almhult. Ask Ebba to book us a couple of hotel rooms there.”

Martinsson seemed doubtful. “What do you think you’re going to discover by looking at a lake?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Wallander replied. “But the trip will at least give me time to talk to Runfeldt. I’ve got a hunch there’s some hidden information that’s important for us, and that we can get it if we’re persistent enough. We have to scrape hard enough to break through the surface. And there might be someone who was there at the time of the accident. I want you to do some background work. Call up our colleagues in Almhult. It happened about ten years ago. You can find out the exact date from the daughter. A drowning accident. I’ll give you a call when I get there.”

The wind was still gusting when Wallander walked out to his car. He drove down to the Sekelgarden and went into reception. Bo Runfeldt was waiting for him.

“Get your overcoat,” Wallander said. “We’re going on a field trip.”

“Where to?”

“Once you’re in the car I’ll tell you all about it.”

Not until they had passed the turn off to Hoor did Wallander tell him where they were going.