Sidetracked

by Unknown

  He realised that he had difficulty remembering what Rydberg looked like. He’s dying away inside me, he thought. Soon even my memories of him will be gone.

  He stood up, suddenly distressed. He kept seeing the burning girl. He drove straight to the station, went into his office, and closed the door, forcing himself to prepare a summary of the car theft investigation that he had to turn over to Svedberg. He moved folders onto the floor so that his desk would be completely clear.

  He lifted up his desk blotter to see whether there were any items there that he’d forgotten about. He found a scratch-off lottery ticket he had bought several months before. He rubbed it with a ruler until the numbers appeared, and saw that he had won 25 kronor. From the hall he could hear Martinsson’s voice, then Ann-Britt Höglund’s. He leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk, and closed his eyes. When he woke up he had a cramp in one of his calf muscles, but he’d slept for no more than ten minutes. The telephone rang. It was Per Åkeson from the prosecutors’ office. They exchanged greetings, and some words about the weather. They had worked together for many years, and had slowly developed a rapport that had become like a friendship. They often disagreed about whether an arrest was justified or whether remanding an offender in custody was reasonable. But there was also a trust that went deep, although they almost never spent time together off duty.

  “I read in the paper about the girl who burned to death in a field by Marsvinsholm,” said Åkeson. “Is that something for me?”

  “It was suicide,” replied Wallander. “Other than a farmer named Salomonsson, I was the only witness.”

  “What in heaven’s name were you doing there?”

  “Salomonsson called. Normally a squad car would have dealt with it. But they were busy.”

  “The girl can’t have been a pretty sight.”

  “It was worse than you could imagine. We have to find out who she was. The switchboard has already started taking calls from people worried about missing relatives.”

  “So you don’t suspect foul play?”

  Without understanding why, Wallander hesitated before answering.

  “No,” he said then. “I can’t think of a more blatant way to take your own life.”

  “You don’t sound entirely convinced.”

  “I had a bad night. It was as you say – a pretty horrible experience.”

  They fell silent. Wallander could tell that Åkeson had something else he wanted to talk about.

  “There’s another reason why I’m calling,” he said finally. “But keep it between us.”

  “I usually know how to keep my mouth shut.”

  “Do you remember I told you a few years ago that I was thinking of doing something else? Before it’s too late, before I get too old.”

  “I remember you talked about refugees and the UN. Was it the Sudan?”

  “Uganda. And I’ve actually got an offer. Which I’ve decided to accept. In September I’m going to take a year’s sabbatical.”

  “What does your wife think about this?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. For moral support. I haven’t discussed it with her yet.”

  “Is she supposed to go with you?”

  “No.”

  “Then I suspect she’ll be a little surprised.”

  “Have you any idea how I should break it to her?”

  “Unfortunately not. But I think you’re doing the right thing. There has to be more to life than putting people in jail.”

  “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  They were just about to hang up when Wallander remembered that he had a question.

  “Does this mean that Anette Brolin is coming back as your replacement?”

  “She’s changed sides; she’s working as a criminal barrister in Stockholm now,” said Åkeson. “Weren’t you a little in love with her?”

  “No,” Wallander said. “I was just curious.”

  He hung up. He felt a pang of jealousy. He would have liked to travel to Uganda himself, to have a complete change. Nothing could undo the horror of seeing a young person set herself alight. He envied Per Åkeson, who wasn’t going to let his desire to escape stop at mere dreams.

  The joy he had felt yesterday was gone. He stood at the window and gazed out at the street. The grass by the old water tower was still green. Wallander thought about the year before, when he had been on sick leave for a long time after he had killed a man. Now he wondered whether he had ever really recovered from that depression. I ought to do something like Åkeson, he thought. There must be a Uganda for me somewhere. For Baiba and me.

  He stood by the window for a long time, then went back to his desk and tried to reach his sister. Several times he got a busy signal. He spent the next half hour writing up a report of the events of the night before. Then he called the pathology department in Malmö but couldn’t find a doctor who could tell him anything about the burned corpse.

  Just before 9 a.m. he got a cup of coffee and went into one of the conference rooms. Höglund was on the phone, and Martinsson was leafing through a catalogue of garden equipment. Svedberg was in his usual spot, scratching the back of his neck with a pencil. One of the windows was open. Wallander stopped just inside the door with a strong feeling of déjà vu. Martinsson looked up from his catalogue and nodded, Svedberg muttered something unintelligible, while Höglund patiently explained something to one of her children. Hansson came into the room. He had a coffee cup in one hand and a plastic bag with the necklace that had been found in the field in the other.

  “Don’t you ever sleep?” asked Hansson.

  Wallander felt himself bristle at the question.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Have you taken a look in the mirror lately?”

  “I didn’t get home until early this morning. I sleep as much as I need to.”

  “It’s those football matches,” said Hansson. “They’re on in the middle of the night.”

  “I don’t watch them,” said Wallander.

  “I thought everyone stayed up to watch.”

  “I’m not that interested,” Wallander admitted. “I know it’s unusual, but as far as I know, the chief of the national police hasn’t sent out any instruction that it’s a dereliction of duty not to watch the games.”

  “This might be the last time we’ll have a chance to see it,” Hansson said sombrely.

  “See what?”

  “Sweden playing in the World Cup. I just hope our defence doesn’t go pear-shaped.”

  “I see,” Wallander said politely. Höglund was still talking on the phone.

  “Ravelli,” Hansson went on, referring to Sweden’s goalkeeper.

  Wallander waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.

  “What about him?”

  “I’m worried about him.”

  “Why? Is he sick?”

  “I think he’s erratic. He didn’t play well against Cameroon. Kicking the ball out at strange times, odd behaviour in the goal area.”

  “Policemen can also be erratic,” said Wallander.

  “You can’t really compare them,” said Hansson. “At least we don’t have to make lightning-fast decisions about whether to rush out or stay back on the goal line.”

  “Hell, who knows?” said Wallander. “Maybe there’s a similarity between the policeman who rushes to the scene of a crime and the goalie who rushes out on the field.”

  Hansson gave him a baffled look. The conversation died. They sat around the table and waited for Höglund to finish her call. Svedberg, who had a hard time accepting female police officers, drummed his pencil on the table in annoyance to let her know they were waiting for her. Soon Wallander would have to tell Svedberg to put a stop to these tiresome protests. Höglund was a good policewoman, in many ways much more talented than Svedberg.

  A fly buzzed around his coffee cup. They waited.

  Finally Höglund hung up and sat down at the table.

  “A bike chain,” she said. “Children have a ha
rd time understanding that their mothers might have something more important to do than come straight home and fix it.”

  “Go ahead,” said Wallander on impulse. “We can do this run-through without you.”

  She shook her head. “They’d come to expect it”, she said.

  Hansson put the necklace in its plastic bag on the table in front of him.

  “A woman commits suicide,” he said. “No crime has been committed. All we have to do is work out who she was.”

  Hansson was starting to act like Björk, thought Wallander, just managing not to burst out laughing. He caught Ann-Britt’s eye. She seemed to be thinking the same thing.

  “Calls have started coming in,” said Martinsson. “I’ve put a man on it.”

  “I’ll give him my description of her,” said Wallander. “Otherwise we have to concentrate on people who’ve been reported missing. She might be one of them. If she’s not on that list, someone is going to miss her soon.”

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

  “The necklace,” said Hansson, opening the plastic bag. “A Madonna and the letters D.M.S. I think it’s solid gold.”

  “There’s a database of abbreviations and acronyms,” said Martinsson, who knew the most about computers. “We can put in the letters and see if we get anything.”

  Wallander reached for the necklace. It was still soot-marked.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said. “But people in Sweden mostly wear a cross, don’t they? Madonnas are more common in Catholic countries.”

  “It sounds as though you’re talking about a refugee or immigrant,” said Hansson.

  “I’m talking about what the medallion represents,” replied Wallander. “In any case, it has to be included in the description of the girl, and the person taking the calls has to know what it looks like.”

  “Shall we release a description?” Hansson asked.

  Wallander shook his head.

  “Not yet.”

  He was thinking about the night before. He knew he wouldn’t give up until he knew what it was that had made the girl burn herself to death alone in the rape field. I’m living in a world where young people take their own lives because they can’t stand it any more, he thought. I have to understand why, if I’m going to keep on being a policeman.

  He gave a start. Hansson had spoken.

  “Do we have anything more to discuss right now?” Hansson asked again.

  “I’ll take care of the pathologist in Malmö,” Wallander said. “Has anyone been in touch with Sven Nyberg? If not, I’ll drive over and talk to both of them.”

  The meeting was over. Wallander went to his office and got his jacket. He hesitated a moment, wondering whether he ought to make another attempt to get hold of his sister. Or Baiba in Riga. But he decided against doing either.

  He drove first to Salomonsson’s farm. Policemen were taking down the floodlights and rolling up the cables. The house was locked up, and he remembered that he must check and see how Salomonsson was doing. Maybe he had remembered something that would be of help.

  He walked out into the field. The fire-blackened ground stood out sharply against the surrounding yellow crops. Nyberg was kneeling in the mud. In the distance he saw two other technicians who seemed to be searching along the edges of the burned area. Nyberg nodded curtly to Wallander. The sweat was running down his face.

  “How’s it going?” asked Wallander. “Have you found anything?”

  “She must have had a lot of petrol with her,” said Nyberg, getting up. “We found five half-melted containers. They were apparently empty when the fire broke out. If you draw a line through the spots where we found them, you can see that she had surrounded herself.”

  “What do you mean?” Wallander asked.

  Nyberg threw out one arm in a sweeping gesture.

  “I mean that she built a fortress around herself. She poured petrol in a wide circle. It was a moat, and there was no way into her fortress. She was standing right in the middle, with the last container, which she had saved for herself. Maybe she was hysterical and depressed. Maybe she was mad or seriously ill. I don’t know. But that’s what she did. She knew full well what she was going to do.”

  “Can you tell me anything about how she got here?”

  “I’ve sent for a dog unit,” said Nyberg. “But they probably won’t be able to pick up her trail. The smell of petrol has permeated the ground. The dogs will just be confused. We haven’t found a bicycle. The tractor paths that lead down towards the E65 didn’t have anything either. She could have landed in this field by parachute.”

  Nyberg took a roll of toilet paper out of one of his bags of equipment and wiped the sweat from his face.

  “What do the doctors say?” he asked.

  “Nothing yet,” said Wallander. “I think they’ve got a difficult job ahead of them.”

  “Why would anyone do something like this?” Nyberg asked. “Could someone really have such strong reasons for dying that she’d end her life by torturing herself as much as she possibly could?”

  “I’ve asked myself the same question,” said Wallander.

  Nyberg shook his head.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  Wallander had no answer.

  He went back to the car and called the station. Ebba answered. To avoid her concern, he pretended to be in a hurry.

  “I’m going to see the farmer,” he said. “I’ll be in this afternoon.”

  He drove back to Ystad. In the cafeteria at the hospital he had some coffee and a sandwich. Then he looked for the ward where Salomonsson was. He stopped a nurse, introduced himself, and stated his business. She gave him a quizzical look.

  “Edvin Salomonsson?”

  “I don’t remember whether his name was Edvin,” Wallander said. “Did he come in last night after the fire outside Marsvinsholm?”

  The nurse nodded.

  “I’d like to speak with him,” said Wallander. “If he’s not too sick, that is.”

  “He’s not sick,” replied the nurse. “He’s dead.”

  Wallander gave her an astonished look.

  “Dead?”

  “He died this morning in his sleep. Apparently it was a heart attack. It would probably be best if you spoke to one of the doctors.”

  “I just came by to see how he was doing,” said Wallander. “Now I have my answer.”

  He left the hospital and walked out into the bright sunshine. He had no idea what to do next.

  CHAPTER 5

  Wallander drove home knowing that he must sleep if he were ever going to be able to think clearly again. No-one could be blamed for the old farmer’s death. The person who might have been held responsible, the one who had set fire to his rape field, was already dead herself. It was the events themselves, the fact that any of this had happened, that made him feel sick at heart. He unplugged the phone and lay down on the sofa in the living-room with a flannel over his eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come. After half an hour he gave up. He plugged in the telephone, lifted the receiver, and dialled Linda’s number in Stockholm. On a sheet of paper by the phone he had a long list of numbers, each crossed out. Linda moved often, and her number was forever changing. He let it ring a long time. Then he dialled his sister’s number. She answered almost at once. They didn’t speak very often, and hardly ever about anything but their father. Sometimes Wallander thought that their contact would cease altogether when their father died.

  They exchanged the usual pleasantries, without really being interested in the answers.

  “You called,” Wallander said.

  “I’m worried about Dad,” she said.

  “Has something happened? Is he sick?”

  “I don’t know. When did you visit him last?”

  Wallander tried to remember.

  “About a week ago,” he said, feeling guilty.

  “Can you really not manage to see him more often?”

  “I’m working almost round the clock. The departm
ent is hopelessly understaffed. I visit him as often as I can.”

  “I talked to Gertrud yesterday,” she went on, without commenting on what Wallander had said. “I thought she gave an evasive answer when I asked how Dad was doing.”

  “Why would she?” said Wallander, surprised.

  “I have no idea. That’s why I’m calling.”

  “He was the same as always,” Wallander said. “Cross that I was in a hurry and couldn’t stay very long. But the whole time I was there he sat painting his picture and made out as though he didn’t have time to talk to me. Gertrud was happy, as usual. I have to admit I don’t understand how she puts up with him.”

  “Gertrud likes him,” she said. “It’s a question of love. Then you can put up with a lot.”

  Wallander wanted to end the conversation as quickly as possible. As she got older, his sister reminded him more and more of their mother. Wallander had never had a very happy relationship with his mother. When he was growing up it was as though the family had been divided into two camps – his sister and his mother against him and his father. Wallander had been very close to his father until his late teens, when he decided to become a policeman. Then a rift had developed. His father had never accepted Wallander’s decision, but he couldn’t explain to his son why he was so opposed to this career, or what he wanted him to do instead. After Wallander finished his training and started on the beat in Malmö, the rift had widened to a chasm. Some years later his mother was stricken with cancer. She was diagnosed at New Year and died in May. His sister Kristina left the house the same summer and moved to Stockholm, where she got a job in a company then known as L. M. Ericsson. She married, divorced, and married again. Wallander had met her first husband once, but he had no idea what her present husband even looked like. He knew that Linda had visited their home in Kärrtorp a few times, but he got the impression that the visits were never very successful. Wallander knew that the rift from their childhood and teenage years was still there, and that the day their father died it would widen for good.