Sidetracked

by Henning Mankell

  Wallander sat down again. The sequence didn’t make sense. What could the explanation be? He went to get some coffee. Svedberg and Höglund had arrived. Svedberg had a new cap on. His cheeks were a blotchy red. Höglund 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 Hamrén had already driven out to Sturup, Höglund 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 Sjösten, who told him that Elisabeth Carlén 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 Hamrén 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. Hamrén 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 Malmö. He parked outside the building in Rosengård. 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 Björn 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.

  “Åke 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 Carlén recognised her. He rolled down his window and called Sjösten. 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 Sjösten he was on his way to Helsingborg with something that he wanted Elisabeth Carlén to see.

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

  “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 Carlén 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 Sjösten. “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.

  CHAPTER 35

  Wallander put the photograph of Louise Fredman face down on the desk in front of him. Elisabeth Carlén followed his movements with her eyes. She was dressed in a white summer dress, which Wallander guessed was very expensive. They were in Sjösten’s office, Sjösten in the background, leaning against the
doorframe, Elisabeth Carlén in the visitor’s chair. The summer heat swept in through the open window. Wallander felt himself sweating.

  “I’m going to show you a photograph,” he said. “And I simply want you to tell me whether you recognise the person in it.”

  “Why do policemen have to be so dramatic?” she asked.

  Her haughty, imperturbable manner irritated Wallander, but he controlled himself.

  “We’re trying to catch a man who has killed four people,” he said. “And he scalps them too. Pours acid into their eyes. And stuffs their heads into ovens.”

  “Well obviously you can’t let a maniac like that run around loose, can you?” she replied calmly. “Shall we look at that photograph?”

  Wallander slid it over and watched Elisabeth Carlén’s face. She picked it up and seemed to be thinking. Almost half a minute passed, then she shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “I’ve never seen her before. At least not that I can remember.”

  “It’s very important,” said Wallander.

  “I have a good memory for faces,” she said. “I’m sure I’ve never met her. Who is she?”

  “That doesn’t matter for the time being,” Wallander said. “Think carefully.”

  “Where do you want me to have seen her? At Åke Liljegren’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “She may have been there sometime when I wasn’t.”

  “Did that happen a lot?”