“What happened?” he asked.
She did not answer.
He could not see any blood. Nor was there any sign of a car in the ditch. Then he lifted her up and led her to his car. She could barely stand.
“What happened?” he asked one more time.
But he received no reply.
Sten Widen and Svedberg left the apartment in Ystad at a quarter to two. It was raining as they got into Svedberg’s car. Three kilometers outside town Svedberg thought he had a flat in one of the back tires. He pulled into the side, worrying that the spare might be no good as well. But it was OK when they fitted it. The flat had thrown out their schedule. Svedberg had assumed Wallander would approach the house before it got too light. That meant they would have to set off early to avoid bumping into him. Now, it was nearly three by the time they parked the car behind a clump of bushes more than a mile away from the quarry and the house. They were in a hurry, and moved quickly through the fog. They passed a field on the north side of the quarry. Svedberg had suggested they should take up position as near the house as they dared. But as they did not know what direction Wallander would come from, and they would have to be able to see to both sides if they were to avoid being discovered. They had tried to guess which direction Wallander would choose. They agreed he would probably take the western approach. It was slightly hilly on that side. There were high, dense clumps of bushes growing right up to the edge of the property. On that basis they decided to approach from the east. Svedberg had noticed a haystack on a narrow strip of ground between two fields. If necessary they could burrow into the stack itself. They were in position by half past three. Both of them had their guns ready and loaded.
The house shimmered before them in the fog. Everything was still. Without really knowing why, Svedberg had the impression that everything was not quite right. He took out his binoculars, wiped the lenses, and then examined the house wall bit by bit. There was a light in one window, probably the kitchen. He could not see anything unusual. He found it hard to imagine Konovalenko was asleep. He would be there, waiting in silence. He might even be outside the house.
They waited on tenterhooks, each of them lost in a world of his own.
It was Sten Widen who first saw Wallander. The time was five o’clock. As they had thought, he appeared on the western side of the house. Widen had good eyesight, and thought at first it was a hare or a deer moving among the bushes. But then he began to wonder, nudged Svedberg’s arm gently, and pointed. Svedberg took out his binoculars again. He could just make out Wallander’s face among the bushes.
Neither of them knew what would happen. Was Wallander acting according to the instructions he had received from Konovalenko? Or had he decided to try and take him by surprise? And where was Konovalenko? And Wallander’s daughter?
They waited. All was quiet around the house. Sten Widen and Svedberg took turns observing Wallander’s expressionless face. Again Svedberg got the feeling something was wrong. He looked at his watch. Wallander would soon have been lying in the bushes for an hour. There was still no sign of movement in the house.
Suddenly Sten Widen handed the binoculars to Svedberg. Wallander had started moving. He wriggled his way rapidly to the house, then stood there pressed against the wall. He had his pistol in one hand. So, he’s decided to take Konovalenko on, thought Svedberg, and he could feel a lump in his stomach. There was nothing they could do but keep watching. Sten Widen had taken aim with his rifle, pointing it at the front door. Wallander ducked down as he passed the windows and ran as far as the front door. Svedberg could see he was listening. Then he cautiously tried the handle. The door was unlocked. Without hesitation he flung it open and rushed in. At the same time Sten Widen and Svedberg crawled out of the haystack.
They had not agreed what to do next; they just knew they had to follow Wallander. They ran up to the corner of the house and took cover. It was still deathly silent in the house. Svedberg suddenly realized why he had been uneasy.
The house was deserted. There was nobody there.
“They’ve moved out,” he said to Sten Widen. “There’s nobody there.”
Sten Widen stared at him in disbelief.
“How do you know?”
“I just know,” answered Svedberg, stepping out of the shadow of the wall.
He shouted Wallander’s name.
Wallander came out onto the steps. He did not seem surprised to see them.
“She’s gone,” he said.
They could see he was very tired. It was possible he had already passed the limit of being so exhausted, he might collapse at any moment.
They entered the house and tried to interpret the clues. Sten Widen kept in the background while Svedberg and Wallander searched the house. Wallander did not refer to their having followed him to the house. Svedberg suspected he knew deep down they would not abandon him. Perhaps he was even grateful, in fact?
It was Svedberg who found Tania. He opened the door to one of the bedrooms, and looked at the unmade bed. Without knowing why, he bent down and peered under it. There she was. For one brief, horrible moment he thought it was Wallander’s daughter. Then he saw it was the other woman. Before telling the others what he had found, he quickly checked under the other beds. He looked in the refrigerator and all the closets. Only when he was certain Wallander’s daughter was not lying hidden somewhere did he attract their attention. They moved the bed to one side. Wallander was standing in the background. When he saw her head he turned on his heel, rushed out of the house and threw up.
She had no face left. Just a bloody mass where it was impossible to pick out any features. Svedberg got a towel and laid it over her face. Then he examined the body. There were five bullet wounds. They formed a pattern, and that made him feel even worse than he did already. She had been shot in both feet, then in her hands, and finally through the heart.
They left her, and continued going through the house in silence. Neither of them said a word. They opened the cellar, and went down. Svedberg managed to hide the chain which he assumed had been used to tie up Wallander’s daughter. But Wallander knew she had been kept down there in the darkness. Svedberg could see him biting his lips. He wondered how much longer Wallander could keep going. They went back to the kitchen. Svedberg discovered a big cauldron full of blood-colored water. When he stuck his finger in, he could feel traces of lingering heat. It was slowly dawning on him what had happened. He went through the house one more time, slowly, trying to follow up the various clues, make them reveal what had happened.
In the end, he proposed they should all sit down. Wallander was almost apathetic by this stage. Svedberg thought long and deep. Did he dare? The responsibility was enormous. But in the end he resolved to go ahead.
“I don’t know where your daughter is,” he said. “But she’s still alive. I’m sure of that.”
Wallander looked at him without saying anything.
“I think this is what happened,” Svedberg went on. “I can’t be sure, of course. But I’m trying to interpret the clues, piece them together, and see what kind of a story they tell. I think the dead woman tried to help your daughter to escape. I don’t know whether or not she managed it. Maybe she got away, maybe Konovalenko stopped her? There are signs suggesting both possibilities. He killed Tania in such a sadistic fury, we might think your daughter must have escaped. But it could also be a reaction to the fact that she even tried to help Linda. Tania let him down, and that was enough to trigger off his evil tendencies, which seem to be limitless. He scalded her face with boiling water. Then he shot her in the feet, that was for the escape, and then in the hands and finally through the heart. I would prefer not to try and imagine what her last hour in this life was like. Afterward, he left. That is another indication that your daughter has escaped. If she managed to get away, Konovalenko could no longer regard the house as safe. But it could also be that Konovalenko was afraid somebody might have heard the shooting. That’s what I think happened. But of course, it could a
ll have been quite different.”
It was seven o’clock by now. Nobody said a word.
Svedberg stood up and went to the telephone. He called Martinson, and had to wait as he was in the bathroom.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Drive to the railroad station in Tomelilla and meet me there in an hour. And don’t tell anybody where you’re going.”
“Are you going crazy as well?” asked Martinson.
“On the contrary,” said Svedberg. “This is important.”
He hung up and looked at Wallander.
“Right now there’s nothing you can do apart from getting some sleep. Go home with Sten. Or else we could take you to your father’s.”
“How could I possibly sleep?” asked Wallander as if in a dream.
“By lying down,” said Svedberg. “You’d better do as I say now. If you’re going to be in a position to help your daughter, you must get some sleep. In the state you’re in now you’d only be a nuisance.”
Wallander nodded.
“I think I’d better go to my dad’s place,” he said.
“Where did you leave the car?” asked Sten Widen.
“Let me go and get it,” said Wallander. “I need some air.”
He went out. Svedberg and Sten Widen stared at each other, too weary and upset to talk.
“I sure am glad I’m not a cop,” said Sten Widen as the Duett trundled into the courtyard. He nodded towards the room where Tania was.
“Thanks for your help,” said Svedberg.
He watched them drive away.
He wondered when the nightmare would end.
Sten Widen stopped the car to drop off Wallander. They had not exchanged a single word during the journey.
“I’ll be in touch before the day’s over,” said Sten Widen.
He watched Wallander making his way slowly towards the house.
Poor devil, he thought. How much longer can he keep going?
His father was sitting at the kitchen table. He was unshaven, and Wallander could smell that he needed a bath. He sat down opposite him.
Neither of them said anything for a long time.
“She’s asleep,” his father said eventually.
Wallander hardly heard what he said.
“She’s sleeping calmly,” repeated his father.
The words slowly penetrated Wallander’s befuddled head.
“Who is?” he asked wearily.
“I’m talking about my granddaughter,” said his father.
Wallander stared at him. For ages. Then he slowly got to his feet and went to the bedroom. Slowly, he opened the door.
Linda was in bed, asleep. Her hair was cropped on one side of her head. But it was her all right. Wallander stood motionless in the doorway. Then he walked over to the bed and squatted down. He did nothing, just looked. He did not want to know what had happened, he did not know what had taken place or how she had got home. He just wanted to look at her. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that Konovalenko was still out there. But just for the moment, he didn’t care about Konovalenko. Right now she was the only person who existed.
He lay down on the floor beside her bed. He curled up and went to sleep. His father put a blanket over him and closed the door. Then he went out to his studio and carried on painting. But now he had returned to his usual motif. He was putting the finishing touches on a wood grouse.
Martinson arrived at the railroad station in Tomelilla soon after eight. He got out of his car and greeted Svedberg.
“What’s so important, then?” he asked, not bothering to conceal the fact that he was annoyed.
“You’ll see,” said Svedberg. “But I must warn you it’s not a pretty sight.”
Martinson frowned.
“What’s happened?”
“Konovalenko,” said Svedberg. “He’s struck again. We have another body to deal with. A woman.”
“Good Lord!”
“Follow me,” said Svedberg. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“Is Wallander mixed up in all this?” asked Martinson.
Svedberg did not hear. He was already on the way to his car.
Martinson did not discover what had happened until afterwards.
Chapter Thirty
Late on Wednesday afternoon she cut her hair.
That was how she hoped to erase her unpleasant memories.
Then she started talking about what had happened. Wallander had tried in vain to persuade her to see a doctor. But she refused.
“My hair will grow again in its own good time,” she said. “No doctor can make it grow any faster than it wants to.”
Wallander was afraid of what was coming next. What scared him was that his daughter might blame him for what had happened to her. He would find it hard to defend himself. It was his fault. He was responsible for dragging her into all this. It was not even an accident. But she had made up her mind not to see a doctor for the moment, and he did not try to convince her.
Only once during the course of the day did she start crying. It happened unexpectedly, just as they were going to sit down to eat. She looked at him and asked what had happened to Tania. He told her the truth, that she was dead. But he avoided saying she had been tortured by Konovalenko. Wallander hoped the newspapers would leave out the details. He also told her Konovalenko was still at large.
“But he’s on the run,” he said. “He’s a hunted man; he can’t attack whenever he likes any more.”
Wallander suspected what he said was not completely true. Konovalenko was probably just as dangerous now as before. He also knew that he himself, once again, would be setting out to find him. But not yet, not this Wednesday, when his daughter had come back to him from the darkness, silence and fear.
At one point on Wednesday evening he spoke with Svedberg on the telephone. Wallander asked for the night in order to catch up on sleep and do some thinking. He would come out into the open on Thursday. Svedberg told him about the search going on at full scale. There was no trace of Konovalenko.
“But he’s not alone,” said Svedberg. “There was somebody else in that house. Rykoff is dead. Tania too. The man called Victor Mabasha died some days ago. Konovalenko ought to be on his own. But he isn’t. There was somebody else in that house. The question is: who?”
“I don’t know,” said Wallander. “A new, unknown henchman?”
Shortly after Svedberg had hung up, there was a call from Sten Widen. Wallander assumed he and Svedberg were in touch with each other. Sten Widen asked about Wallander’s daughter, and Wallander replied she would no doubt be OK.
“I’m thinking about that woman,” said Sten Widen. “I’m trying to understand how anybody could do something like that to a fellow human being.”
“There are such people,” said Wallander. “Unfortunately there are more of them than we care to think.”
When Linda had fallen asleep, Wallander went out to the studio where his father was painting. Although he suspected it was just a temporary change of mind, he felt they had both found it easier to talk with each other during the goings-on of the last couple of days. He also wondered how much of what had happened his father had really understood.
“Are you still determined to get married?” asked Wallander, sitting on a stool out in the studio.
“You shouldn’t joke about serious matters,” replied his father. “We’re getting married in June.”
“My daughter has been invited,” said Wallander. “But I haven’t.”
“You will be,” said his father.
“Where are you going to get married?”
“Here.”
“Here? In the studio?”
“Why not? I’m going to paint a big backcloth.”
“What do you think Gertrud will have to say about that?”
“It’s her idea.”
His father turned around and smiled at him. Wallander burst out laughing. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a good laugh.
“Gertrud is an unusu
al woman,” said his father.
“She must be,” said Wallander.
On Thursday morning Wallander woke up feeling refreshed. His joy at the fact his daughter had emerged unscathed filled him with renewed energy. At the back of his mind, Konovalenko was a constant presence. He began to feel once again that he was ready to go after him.
Wallander called Bjork just before eight. He had prepared his excuses meticulously.
“Kurt,” said Bjork. “For God’s sake! Where are you? What’s happened?”
“I guess I had a bit of a breakdown,” said Wallander, trying to sound convincing by speaking softly and slowly. “But I’m better now. I just need a few more days of peace and quiet.”
“You must take sick leave, of course,” said Bjork firmly. “I don’t know if you realized we’ve had an official search on for you. All very unpleasant. But it was necessary. I’ll call off the search for you right away. I’ll issue a press statement. The missing detective chief inspector has returned after a short illness. Where are you, by the way?”
“In Copenhagen,” Wallander lied.
“What the hell are you doing there?”
“I’m staying at a little hotel and getting some rest.”
“And no doubt you’re not going to tell me what that hotel is called? Or where it is?”
“I’d rather not.”
“We need you as quickly as possible. But in good health. Some horrible things are happening here. Martinson and Svedberg and the rest of us feel helpless without you. We’ll be asking for assistance from Stockholm.”
The White Lioness kw-3 Page 44