The Fifth Woman

by Henning Mankell

  She sat motionless. The wind tore at the car. She had turned off the engine and the headlights. She would have to return to Vollsjö. Now she knew why she had come here – to see if the men who were following her had got into her flat. But she was still way ahead of them. They would never catch up with her. She would keep unfolding her slips of paper as long as there was a single name left in the ledger.

  She started the car, and decided to drive past her building one more time. The car was still parked there. She stopped 20 metres behind it without shutting off the engine. Even though it was some distance and the angle was difficult, she could see that the curtains in her house were drawn. Whoever was inside had turned on the light. They were searching but they wouldn’t find anything.

  She forced herself to drive off slowly, without gunning the engine as she usually did. When she got back to Vollsjö, Katarina and her baby were asleep. Nothing would change. Everything would continue according to plan.

  Wallander had returned to the bundle of letters when he heard quick steps on the stairs. He got up from his chair. It was Martinsson with Höglund right behind.

  “I think you’d better take a look at this,” Martinsson said. He was pale, his voice shaky.

  He placed a worn notebook with a black cover on the desk. It was open. Wallander leaned over and put on his glasses. There was a column of names. Each had a number in the margin. He frowned.

  “Go forward a few pages,” Martinsson said.

  Wallander did as he said. The column of names was repeated. There were arrows, deletions, and changes, and it looked as if it was a draft of something.

  “A couple more pages,” Martinsson said.

  Wallander could hear he was shaken.

  The column of names appeared again. This time there were fewer changes and deletions. Then he saw it.

  He recognised the first name. Gösta Runfeldt. Then he found the others, Holger Eriksson and Eugen Blomberg. At the end of the rows there were dates written in. The dates of their deaths. Wallander looked up at Martinsson and Höglund. Both of them were pale. There was no longer any doubt. They had come to the right place.

  “There are more than 40 names here,” Wallander said. “You think she intends to kill them all?”

  “At least we know who might be next,” Höglund said. She pointed to a name.

  Tore Grundén. Next to his name was a red exclamation mark. But there was no date in the margin.

  “In the back there’s a loose sheet of paper,” Höglund said.

  Wallander carefully took it out. There were meticulously written notes on it. The handwriting reminded him of Mona’s. The letters were rounded, the lines even and regular, without deletions and changes. But what was written there was hard to interpret. There were numbers, the word Hässleholm, and something that could be from a timetable: 07.50, Saturday, 22 October. Tomorrow’s date.

  “What the hell does this mean?” Wallander asked. “Is Tore Grundén getting off the train in Hässleholm at 07.50?”

  “Maybe he’s getting on a train,” Höglund said.

  Wallander understood. He didn’t hesitate.

  “Call Birch in Lund. He’s got the phone number of a man named Karl-Henrik Bergstrand in Malmö. Get the answer to this question. Is Yvonne Ander working on the train that stops in or leaves from Hässleholm at 7.50 a.m. tomorrow?”

  Martinsson pulled out his phone. Wallander stared at the open notebook.

  “Where is she?” Höglund asked. “Right now? We know where she’ll probably be tomorrow morning.”

  Wallander looked at her. In the background he saw the paintings and photographs. Suddenly he knew. He should have realised it at once. He went over to the wall and unhooked the framed picture of the farm. Turned it over. Hansgården in Vollsjö, 1965, someone had written in ink.

  “That’s where she lives. And that’s where she probably is right now.”

  “What should we do?” she asked.

  “We’ll go out there and bring her in.”

  Martinsson had got hold of Birch. They waited. The conversation was brief.

  “He’ll chase down Bergstrand for us,” Martinsson said.

  Wallander stood with the notebook in his hand.

  “Let’s go, then. We’ll pick up the others on the way.”

  “Do we know where Hansgården is?” she asked.

  “We can find it in the database,” Martinsson said. “It won’t take me ten minutes.”

  Now they were in a real hurry. They were back at the station just after 2 a.m. They gathered their weary colleagues. It took longer than Martinsson thought to find Hansgården. He didn’t find it until almost 3 a.m. It was on the outskirts of Malmö.

  “Should we be armed?” Svedberg asked.

  “Yes,” Wallander said. “But don’t forget that Katarina Taxell and her baby are there too.”

  Nyberg came into the conference room. His hair was standing on end and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “We found what we were looking for on one of the cups,” he said. “The fingerprint matches the ones on the suitcase and the cigarette butt. Because it’s not a thumbprint, I can’t say whether it’s the same one we found on the tower. That print seems to have been made later as if she had been there a second time. But it’s probably a match. Who is she?”

  “Yvonne Ander,” Wallander said. “And now we’re going to bring her in. If only Bergstrand had called.”

  “Do we really have to wait for him?” Martinsson said.

  “Half an hour, at the most.” Wallander said.

  They waited. Martinsson left the room to check that the flat on Liregatan was still under surveillance. Bergstrand called after 20 minutes.

  “Yvonne Ander is working on the northbound train from Malmö tomorrow morning,” he said.

  “So, we know that much,” Wallander said simply.

  It was 3.45 a.m. when they left Ystad. The storm had reached its peak.

  The final thing Wallander did was make two calls. First to Lisa Holgersson, then to Per Åkeson. They agreed that they would arrest her as soon as humanly possible.

  CHAPTER 36

  At just after 5 a.m. they were gathered at Hansgården in a hard, gusting gale. They were all freezing. They had surrounded the house in a shadow-like manoeuvre. It had been decided that Wallander and Höglund should go in. The others had taken up positions where they each had close contact with at least one colleague.

  They had left the cars out of sight of the farmhouse and approached the last stretch on foot. Wallander spotted the red Golf parked in front of the house. On the ride up to Vollsjö he had worried that she might have already left. But her car was there. She was still home. The house was dark and quiet. Wallander couldn’t see a dog.

  It all went very fast. They took up their positions. Wallander asked Höglund to announce over their radios that they would wait a few more minutes before going in.

  Wait for what? She didn’t understand why. Wallander couldn’t explain it either. Maybe it was because he had to prepare himself. Or did he need to create a space for himself for a few minutes so that he could think through everything that had happened? He stood there bitterly cold, everything seeming totally unreal. They had been pursuing a strange, elusive shadow for a month. Now they were close to their goal, at the point where the pounce would conclude the hunt. It was as if he had to free himself from the feeling of unreality that surrounded everything that had happened, especially in relation to the woman in the house, whom they had to arrest. For all this he needed breathing space. That’s why he said they would wait.

  He stood with Höglund in a windbreak next to a dilapidated barn. The front door was about 25 metres away. Time passed. Soon it would be dawn. They couldn’t wait any longer.

  Wallander had approved the use of guns, but he wanted everything to proceed slowly, especially since Katarina Taxell and her baby were inside. Nothing must go wrong. The most important thing was for them to stay calm.

  “Now we go,” he said finally.
“Pass it on.”

  Höglund spoke softly into the radio and received a series of acknowledgments from the others. She took out her revolver. Wallander shook his head.

  “Keep it in your pocket,” he said. “But remember which one.”

  The house was still quiet. No movement. They approached, Wallander in the lead, Höglund behind him to the right. The wind was blowing hard. Wallander took another quick look at his watch. It was 5.19 a.m. Yvonne Ander should be up by now if she was going to make it to work. They stopped outside the door. Wallander took a deep breath, knocked on the door and took a step backwards. He had his hand on the revolver in his pocket. Nothing happened. He took a step forwards and knocked again. He tried the latch. The door was locked. He knocked again. Suddenly he felt uneasy. He pounded on the door. Still no reaction. Something was wrong.

  “We’ll have to break in,” he said. “Tell the others. Who has the crowbar? Why didn’t we bring it along?”

  Höglund spoke with a firm voice into the radio. She turned her back to the wind. Wallander kept an eye on the windows next to the door. Svedberg came running with the crowbar. Wallander asked him to return to his position at once. Then he stuck in the crowbar and started prying, putting all his strength into it. The door sprang open at the lock. There was a light on in the hall. He drew his revolver, and Höglund quickly followed his lead. Wallander crouched and went in. She stood to one side behind him and covered him with her revolver. Everything was quiet.

  “Police!” Wallander yelled. “We’re looking for Yvonne Ander.”

  Nothing happened. He yelled again. Cautiously he moved towards the room straight ahead of him. Höglund followed at his flank. The sense of unreality returned. He stepped quickly into a large, open room, sweeping over it with his revolver. It was completely empty. He let his arm drop. Höglund was on the other side of the door. A huge baking oven stood against one wall.

  Suddenly a door opened across the room. Wallander gave a start and raised his revolver again, and Höglund went down on one knee. Katarina Taxell came through the door dressed in a nightgown. She looked terrified.

  Wallander lowered his revolver, and Höglund did too. At that moment Wallander knew that Yvonne Ander wasn’t in the house.

  “What’s happening?” Taxell asked.

  Wallander went quickly up to her.

  “Where’s Yvonne Ander?”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I assume she’s on her way to work.”

  Wallander was now in a big hurry.

  “Who came and picked her up?”

  “She always drives herself.”

  “But her car is still parked outside the house.”

  “She has two cars.”

  So simple, thought Wallander. Not just the red Golf.

  “Are you feeling all right?” he asked. “And your baby?”

  “Why shouldn’t I feel all right?”

  Wallander took a quick look around the room. Then he asked Höglund to call in the others. They didn’t have much time.

  “Get Nyberg here,” he said. “The house has to be gone over from the rafters to the cellar.”

  The freezing police officers gathered in the big white room.

  “She’s gone,” Wallander said. “She’s on her way to Hässleholm. At least there’s no reason to believe otherwise. She’s supposed to start her shift there. A passenger named Tore Grundén will be getting on too. He’s the next one on her hit list.”

  “Is she really going to kill him on the train?” Martinsson asked, incredulous.

  “We don’t know. But we don’t want any more murders. We have to catch her.”

  “We’ll have to warn our colleagues in Hässleholm,” Hansson said.

  “We’ll do that on the way,” Wallander said. “I think Hansson and Martinsson should come with me. The rest of you start on the house. And talk to Katarina Taxell.”

  He nodded at her. She was standing next to the wall. The light was grey. She almost blended in with the wall, dissolved, faded. Could a person become so pale that she was no longer visible?

  They took off. Hansson drove. Martinsson was just about to call Hässleholm when Wallander told him to wait.

  “I think it’s best we do this ourselves,” he said. “If there’s chaos, we don’t know what will happen. She could be dangerous. I understand that now. Dangerous for us too.”

  “Of course she is,” Hansson said in surprise. “She’s killed three people. Impaled them on stakes, strangled them, drowned them. If a person like that isn’t dangerous then I don’t know who is.”

  “We don’t even know what Grundén looks like,” Martinsson said. “Are we going to page him at the station? And she’ll probably be in uniform.”

  “Maybe,” Wallander said. “We’ll see when we get there. Put on the lights. We’ve got no time to lose.”

  Hansson drove fast. Time was tight. With about 20 minutes to go, Wallander realised that they wouldn’t make it. One of their tyres blew. Hansson swore and braked. When they saw that the left rear tyre had to be changed, Martinsson wanted to call Hässleholm. If nothing else, they could send a car for them. But Wallander said no. He had made up his mind. They would make it.

  They changed the tyre at lightning speed while the wind tore at their clothes. Then they were on the road again. Hansson drove very fast. Time was running out and Wallander tried to decide what they should do. He couldn’t believe that Yvonne Ander would kill Tore Grundén in plain sight of the passengers. It didn’t fit with her previous modus operandi. For the time being they’d have to forget about Grundén. They would look for her, a woman in uniform, and they would grab her as discreetly as possible.

  They reached Hässleholm and Hansson started to head in the wrong direction, even though he claimed to know the way. Now Wallander was agitated too, and by the time they reached the station they were almost yelling at each other. They jumped out of the car, its lights flashing and ran towards the platform. We look as though we’re about to rob the ticket office, Wallander thought. They had exactly three minutes left. The train was announced, but Wallander couldn’t hear if it was just arriving or was already there.

  He told Martinsson and Hansson that now they had to calm down. They should walk out onto the platform a little apart from each other. When they found her they should grab her from both sides. They couldn’t be sure how she would react. They should be prepared, not with revolvers, but with their hands. Yvonne Ander didn’t use weapons. They should be prepared, but they had to take her without firing a shot.

  The wind was still blowing hard. The train hadn’t arrived. The passengers were huddled in whatever shelter from the wind they could find. The station was crowded. They went out onto the platform, Wallander first, Hansson right behind him, and Martinsson out by the track. Wallander spotted a male conductor standing smoking a cigarette. He felt the tension making him sweat. He couldn’t see Yvonne Ander. No women in uniform. Quickly he scanned the crowd for a man who might be Tore Grundén, but it was hopeless. The man had no face. He was just a name in a macabre notebook.

  He exchanged glances with Hansson and Martinsson. He looked back towards the entrance to see if she was coming from that direction. At the same time the train came into the station. He knew that something was going very wrong. He couldn’t believe that she intended to kill Grundén on the platform. But he couldn’t be entirely sure. He’d seen the most calculating individuals suddenly lose control and act impulsively when they felt threatened. The passengers started picking up their belongings. Wallander no longer had any choice. He had to talk to the conductor and ask whether Yvonne Ander was already on the train.

  The train came to a halt, its brakes shrieking. Wallander had to push his way through the passengers who were hurrying to board the train and get out of the wind. Suddenly he noticed a lone man standing further down the platform. He was just picking up his bag. Next to him stood a woman, wearing a long overcoat that was being whipped by the
wind. A train was coming in from the other direction. Wallander was never sure whether he consciously understood the situation, but he reacted as though everything was perfectly clear. He shoved aside the passengers in his way. Hansson and Martinsson came behind him, without knowing exactly where they were going. Wallander saw the woman grab the man from behind. She almost lifted him off the ground. Wallander sensed more than understood that she intended to throw him in front of the train coming in on the other track. Since he couldn’t reach them in time, he screamed at her. Despite the roar of the engines she heard him. One instant of hesitation was enough. She looked at Wallander. Martinsson and Hansson appeared at his side. They sprinted towards the woman, who had let go of the man. The long coat had blown up, and Wallander caught a glimpse of her uniform underneath. Suddenly she raised her hand and did something that made both Hansson and Martinsson stop in their tracks. She ripped off her hair. It was caught at once by the wind and flew down the platform. Under the wig her hair was short. They started running again.

  Grundén didn’t seem to understand what had happened to him.

  “Yvonne Ander!” Wallander shouted. “Police!”

  Martinsson was now almost upon her. Wallander saw him stretch out his arms to grab her. She jabbed with her right fist, hard and accurate. The blow struck Martinsson on the left cheek. He dropped to the platform without a sound. Behind Wallander someone was shouting. A passenger had seen what was going on. Hansson went to draw his revolver, but it was already too late. She grabbed his jacket and kneed him hard in the groin. For a moment she leaned over him as he buckled forwards. Then she started running down the platform. She tore off the overcoat. It fluttered and then blew away on a gust of wind. Wallander stopped beside Martinsson and Hansson. Martinsson was out cold. Hansson was moaning and white in the face. When Wallander looked up she was gone. He took off down the platform running as fast as he could, and caught sight of her just before she vanished across the tracks. He knew the chances of catching up with her were small. And he didn’t know how badly Martinsson was hurt. He turned back and saw that Tore Grundén was gone. Several railway workers came running up. No-one realised in the confusion what had happened.