The Fifth Woman

CHAPTER 3

On Tuesday, 27 September, rain was still falling in Skane. The meteorologists had predicted that the hot summer would be followed by a wet autumn. Nothing had yet occurred to contradict their forecast.

Wallander had come home from his first day at work after his trip to Italy, put together a hasty meal and eaten it without pleasure. He made several attempts to reach his daughter, who lived in Stockholm. He propped open the door to the balcony when there was a brief lull in the rain, feeling annoyed that Linda hadn’t called to ask him how the holiday had been. He tried, without much success, to convince himself that she was too busy to make contact. This autumn she was combining studies at a private theatre school with work as a waitress at a restaurant on Kungsholmen.

Late that evening he had called Baiba in Riga. He had thought about her a great deal while he’d been in Rome. They’d spent some time together in Denmark, just a few months earlier, when Wallander was worn out and depressed after the terrible manhunt. On one of their last days together, he had asked Baiba to marry him. She gave him an evasive answer, not a definite no, but she made no attempt to conceal the reasons for her reluctance. They were walking along the vast beach at Skagen, where the two seas meet. Wallander had walked the same stretch many years before with his wife Mona, and once alone at a time when he had seriously considered leaving the police force.

The evenings in Denmark had been almost tropically hot. The World Cup had people glued to their TV sets, and the beaches were deserted. They had strolled along, picking up pebbles and shells, and Baiba told him she didn’t think she could ever live with a policeman again. Her first husband, the Latvian police major Karlis, had been murdered in 1992. That was when Wallander had met her, during that confused and unreal time in Riga.

In Rome, Wallander had asked himself whether deep down he really wanted to get married again. Was it even necessary to be married? To be tied by complicated, formal bonds which hardly had any meaning in this day and age?

He had been married to Linda’s mother for a long time. Then one day, five years earlier, she had confronted him out of the blue and told him that she wanted a divorce. He had been dumbfounded. It was only now that he felt able to understand and begin to accept the reasons she had wanted to begin a new life without him. He could see now why things had turned out the way they had. He could even admit that he bore most of the blame, because of his frequent absences and his increasing lack of interest in what was important in Mona’s life.

In Rome he had come to the conclusion that he did want to marry Baiba. He wanted her to leave Latvia and come to live in Ystad. And he had also decided to move, to sell his flat on Mariagatan and buy a house. Somewhere just outside town, with a flourishing garden. An inexpensive house, but in good enough shape that he could handle the necessary repairs himself. He had also thought about getting the dog he had been dreaming about for so long.

Now he talked about all of this with Baiba as the rain fell over Ystad. It was a continuation of the conversation he had been having in his head in Rome. On a few occasions he had started talking out loud to himself. His father, of course, hadn’t let this go unnoticed, trudging along at his side in the heat. He’d asked which of them was the one getting old and senile.

Baiba sounded happy. Wallander told her about the trip and then repeated his question from the summer. For a moment the silence bounced back and forth between Riga and Ystad. Then she said that she had been thinking too. She still had doubts; they hadn’t lessened, but they weren’t growing.

“Why don’t you come over here?” Wallander said. “We can’t talk about this on the phone.”

“You’re right,” she answered. “I’ll come.”

They didn’t decide on a time. They would talk about that later. She had her job at the University of Riga, and her time away had to be planned far in advance. But when Wallander hung up he felt that he was now on his way to a new phase of his life. She would come. He would get married again.

That night it took a long time for him to fall asleep. Twice he got up and stood by the kitchen window, staring out at the rain. He would miss the streetlight swinging on its wire out there, lonesome in the wind.

Even though he didn’t get much sleep, he was up early on Tuesday. A little after 7 a.m. he parked his car outside the police station and hurried through the rain and wind. He’d decided to start working through the pile of paperwork on the car thefts immediately. The longer he put it off, the more his lack of enthusiasm would weigh him down. He hung his jacket over the visitor’s chair to dry. Then he lifted all the files, piled almost half a metre high, down from the shelf. He was just starting to organise the papers when there was a knock at the door. Wallander knew it would be Martinsson. He called to him to come in.

“When you’re away I’m always the first one here in the morning,” Martinsson said. “Now I have to settle for second place again.”

“I’ve missed my cars,” Wallander said, pointing at the files all over his desk.

Martinsson had a piece of paper in his hand.

“I forgot to give this to you yesterday,” he said. “Chief Holgersson wanted you to have a look at it.”

“What is it?”

“Read it for yourself. You know that people expect us policemen to make statements about all kinds of topics.”

“Something political?”

“That sort of thing.”

Wallander gave him an inquiring look. Martinsson didn’t usually beat around the bush. Several years before, he had been active in the Liberal party and had probably dreamt of a political career. As far as Wallander knew, this hope had gradually faded as the party’s popularity had dwindled. He decided not to mention their showing in the election the week before.

Martinsson left. Wallander sat down and read the paper. After reading it twice he was furious. He went out to the hall and strode into Svedberg’s office.

“Have you seen this?” he asked, waving Martinsson’s sheet of paper.

Svedberg shook his head.

“What is it?”

“It’s from a new organisation that wants to know whether the police would have any objections to its name.”

“Which is?”

“They were thinking of calling themselves ‘Friends of the Axe’.”

Svedberg gave Wallander a baffled look.

“Friends of the Axe?”

“That’s right. And now they’re wondering — in light of what happened here this summer — if the name might possibly be misconstrued. This organisation has no intention of going out and scalping people.”

“What are they going to do?”

“If I understand correctly, it’s some sort of home crafts association that wants to establish a museum for old-fashioned hand tools.”

“That sounds all right, doesn’t it? Why are you so worked up?”

“Because they think the police have time to make pronouncements about such things,” Wallander said. “Personally, I think Friends of the Axe is a pretty strange name for a home crafts association. But I can’t waste time on stuff like this.”

“So tell the chief.”

“I’m going to.”

“Though she probably won’t agree with you, since we’re all supposed to become local police officers again.”

Wallander knew that Svedberg was right. During the years he had been a policeman, the force had undergone endless and sweeping changes because of the complex relationship between the police and that vague and threatening entity known as “the public”. This public, which hung like a nightmare over the national police board as well as over the individual officers, was characterised by one thing: fickleness. The latest attempt to satisfy the public was to change the entire Swedish police force to “local police”. Just how this was supposed to be done, no-one knew. The national commissioner had proclaimed how important it was for the police to be seen. But since nobody had ever thought the police were invisible, they couldn’t see how this strategy was to be implemented. They already had policemen walking the beat, officers were also riding bicycles around in small, swift mini-squads. The national commissioner seemed to be talking about some other kind of visibility, something less tangible. “Local police” sounded cosy, like a soft pillow under your head. But how it was actually going to be combined with the fact that crime in Sweden was growing more brutal and violent all the time, no-one could see. In all probability, this new regime would require them to spend time making decisions as to whether it was proper for a home crafts organisation to call itself “Friends of the Axe”.

Wallander went back to his office with a cup of coffee, closing his door behind him. He tried again to make some headway with the huge amount of material. At first he found it hard to concentrate. His conversation with Baiba kept intruding. But he forced himself to act like a policeman again, and after a few hours he had reviewed the investigation and reached the point where he had left off before he went to Italy. He telephoned a detective in Goteborg with whom he was collaborating, and they discussed some of the issues. By the time he hung up it was midday, and Wallander was hungry. It was still raining. He went out to his car, drove to the centre of town, and ate lunch. He was back at the station within the hour. Just as he sat down, the telephone rang. It was Ebba in reception.

“You have a visitor,” she said.

“Who is it?”

“A man named Tyren. He wants to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Somebody who might be missing.”

“Isn’t there someone else who can handle it?”

“He says he absolutely has to speak with you.”

Wallander took a look at the open folders on his desk. Nothing in them was so urgent that he couldn’t take a report on a missing person.

“Send him in,” he said and hung up.

He opened the door and began moving the folders off his desk. When he looked up, a man was standing at his door. Wallander had never seen him before. He was dressed in overalls bearing the logo of the O.K. oil company. As he entered, Wallander could smell oil and petrol.

He shook his hand and asked the man to take a seat. He was in his 50s, unshaven and with thin grey hair. He introduced himself as Sven Tyren.

“You wanted to talk to me?” Wallander said.

“I’ve heard you’re a good policeman,” said Tyren. His accent sounded like western Skane, where Wallander himself had grown up.

“Most of us are good,” Wallander answered.

Tyren’s reply surprised him.

“You know that’s not true. I’ve been locked up for a thing or two in my day. And I’ve met a lot of policemen who were real arseholes, to put it mildly.”

Wallander was startled by the force of his words.

“I doubt you came here to tell me that,” he said, changing the subject. “There was something about a missing person?”

Tyren fidgeted with his O.K. cap.

“It’s strange, actually,” he said.

Wallander had taken out a notebook from a drawer and turned to a blank page.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” he said. “Who might have disappeared? And what’s strange about it?”

“Holger Eriksson.”

“Who’s that?”

“One of my customers.”

“I’m guessing that you own a petrol station.”

Tyren shook his head.

“I deliver heating oil,” he said. “I take care of the district north of Ystad. Eriksson lives between Hogestad and Lodinge. He called the office and said his tank was almost empty. We agreed on a delivery for Thursday morning. But, when I got there, nobody was home.”

Wallander jotted this down.

“You’re talking about last Thursday.”

“Yes.”

“And when did he call?”

“Last Monday.”

Wallander thought for a moment.

“Could there have been some misunderstanding about the time?”

“I’ve delivered to Eriksson for more than ten years. There’s never been a misunderstanding before.”

“So what did you do when you discovered that he wasn’t there.”

“His oil tank is locked, so I left a message in his letter box.”

“Then what?”

“I left.”

Wallander put down his pen.

“When you deliver oil,” Tyren went on, “you tend to notice people’s routines. I couldn’t stop thinking about Holger Eriksson. It didn’t make sense for him to be away. So I went out there again yesterday afternoon after work. My note was still in the letter box, underneath all the other post that had come since last Thursday. I rang the bell. Nobody was home. His car was still in the garage.

“Does he live alone?”

“He’s not married. He made a lot of money selling cars. And he writes poems, too. He gave me a book once.”

Wallander remembered seeing Eriksson’s name on books on a shelf of literature by local writers at the Ystad Bookshop when he’d been looking for something to give Svedberg for his 40th birthday.

“There was something else that doesn’t make sense,” Tyren said. “The door was unlocked. I thought maybe he was sick. He’s almost 80. So I went inside. The house was empty, but the coffee maker in the kitchen was on. It smelled bad. The coffee had boiled dry and burned on the bottom. That’s when I decided to come and see you.”

Wallander could see that Tyren’s concern was genuine. From experience, however, he knew that most disappearances usually solved themselves. It was very seldom that anything serious happened.

“Doesn’t he have any neighbours?” asked Wallander.

“The farmhouse is pretty isolated.”

“What do you think might have happened?”

Tyren’s reply came at once, quite firmly.

“I think he’s dead. I think somebody killed him.”

Wallander said nothing. He was waiting for Tyren to continue. But he didn’t.

“Why do you think that?”

“He had ordered heating oil. He was always home when I came. He wouldn’t have left the coffee machine on. He wouldn’t have gone out without locking the door. Even if he was just taking a little walk around his property.”

“Did you get the impression the house had been broken into?”

“No, everything seemed the same as usual. Except for that coffee machine.”

“So you’ve been in his house before?”

“Every time I delivered oil. Usually he offered me some coffee and read me some of his poems. He was probably a pretty lonely man, and I think he looked forward to my visits.”

Wallander paused to think about it.

“You said you think he’s dead, but you also said you think someone killed him. Why would anyone do that? Did he have any enemies?”

“Not that I know of.”

“But he was wealthy.”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

“Everybody knows that.”

Wallander let the question pass.

“We’ll look into it,” he said. “There’s probably an ordinary explanation. There usually is.”

Wallander wrote down the address. The name of the farm was “Seclusion”.

Wallander walked out to reception with Tyren.

“I’m sure something has happened,” Tyren said as he was leaving. “He’d never go out when I was coming with oil.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Wallander said.

Just then Hansson came into reception.

“Who the hell is blocking the driveway with an oil truck?” he fumed.

“Me,” Tyren said calmly. “I’m leaving now.”

“What was he doing here?” asked Hansson after Tyren had gone.

“He wanted to report a missing person,” said Wallander. “Have you ever heard of a writer named Holger Eriksson?”

“A writer?”

“Or a car dealer.”

“Which?”

“He seems to have been both. And according to this truck driver, he’s disappeared.”

They went to get coffee.

“Seriously?” said Hansson.

“The man seems worried.”

“I thought I recognised him,” Hansson said.

Wallander had great respect for Hansson’s memory. Whenever he forgot a name, it was to Hansson that he went for help.

“His name is Sven Tyren,” Wallander said. “He said he’d done time for a thing or two.”

Hansson searched his memory.

“He might have been mixed up in some assault cases,” he said after a while. “Quite a few years ago.”

Wallander listened thoughtfully.

“I think I’ll drive out to Eriksson’s place,” he said after a while. “I’ll log him in as reported missing.”

Wallander went into his office, grabbed his jacket, and stuffed the address of “Seclusion” in his pocket. He should have begun by filling out a missing-person form, but he skipped it for the time being. It was 2.30 p.m. when he left the police station. The heavy rain had eased to a steady drizzle. He shivered as he walked to his car.

Wallander drove north and had no problem finding the farmhouse. As the name implied, it lay quite isolated, high up on a hill. Brown fields sloped down towards the sea, but he couldn’t see the water. A flock of rooks cawed in a tree. He raised the lid of the letter box. It was empty. Tyren must have taken in the post. Wallander walked into the courtyard. Everything was well kept. He stood there and listened to the silence. The farmhouse consisted of three wings, and he could see that it had once formed a complete square. He admired the thatched roof. Tyren was right. Anyone who could afford to maintain a roof like that was a wealthy man.

Wallander walked up to the door and rang the bell. Then he knocked. He opened the door and stepped inside, listening. The letters lay on a stool next to an umbrella stand. There were several binocular cases hanging on the wall. One was open and empty. Wallander moved slowly through the house. It still smelled of burnt coffee. The large living room was split-level with an exposed-beam ceiling. He stopped at the wooden desk and looked at a sheet of paper lying on it. Since the light was poor, he picked it up carefully and went over to a window.

It was a poem about a bird. At the bottom a date and time was written. 21 September 1994. 10.12 p.m. On that evening Wallander and his father had eaten dinner at a restaurant near the Piazza del Popolo. As he stood in the silent house, Rome felt like a remote, surreal dream.

He put the paper back on the desk. On Wednesday night Eriksson had written a poem, even noting down the time. The next day Tyren was supposed to deliver oil. By then he was gone, leaving the door unlocked. Wallander went outside and found the oil tank. The meter showed that it was almost empty. He went back inside the house. He sat down in an old Windsor chair and looked around. Instinct told him that Sven Tyren was right. Holger Eriksson had truly disappeared. He wasn’t just away from home.

After a while Wallander stood up and searched through several cupboards until he found a set of spare keys. He locked the house and left. The rain had picked up again. He was back in Ystad just before 5 p.m. He filled out the form on Holger Eriksson. Early the next morning they would start looking for him in earnest.

Wallander drove home. On the way he stopped and bought a pizza. He ate it while he watched TV. Linda still hadn’t called. Just after 11 p.m. he went to bed and fell asleep almost at once.

At 4 a.m. Wallander sat up abruptly in bed feeling ill. He was going to throw up. He didn’t make it to the bathroom. At the same time he realised he had diarrhoea. He didn’t know whether it was the pizza or a stomach bug he had brought home from Italy. By 7 a.m. he was so exhausted that he called the police station to report in sick. He got hold of Martinsson.

“You heard what happened, I guess,” Martinsson said.

“All I know is I’m puking and shitting,” Wallander replied.

“A ferry boat sank last night,” Martinsson went on. “Somewhere off the coast of Tallinn. Hundreds of people died, they think. And most of them were Swedes. There seem to have been quite a few police officers on board.”

Wallander was about to throw up again. But he stayed on the line.

“Police from Ystad?” he asked.

“No. But it’s terrible, what happened.”

Wallander could hardly believe what Martinsson was saying. Several hundred people dead in a ferry accident? That just didn’t happen. At least not around Sweden.

“I don’t think I can talk,” he said. “I’m going to be sick again. But there’s a note on my desk about a man named Holger Eriksson. He’s missing. One of you will have to look into it.”

He put down the receiver and made it to the bathroom just in time. As he was on his way back to bed, the phone rang again. This time it was Mona, his ex-wife. He felt on edge at once. She never called unless something was wrong with Linda.

“I talked to Linda,” she said. “She wasn’t on the ferry.”

It took a moment before Wallander grasped what she meant.

“You mean the ferry that sank?”

“What did you think I meant? When hundreds of people die in an accident, at least I call my daughter to see if she’s all right.”

“You’re right, of course,” Wallander said. “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little slow today, but I’m sick. I’m throwing up. I’ve got a stomach bug. Maybe we can talk another time.”

“I just didn’t want you to worry,” she said.

Wallander said goodbye and went back to bed. He was worried about Holger Eriksson, and about the ferry disaster that had occurred during the night, but he was feverish, and soon he was asleep.