They continued walking. Behind them the floodlights cast an eerie glow.
“Can we say anything else?” she asked.
“Tell them it’s a murder,” Wallander replied. “That’s one thing we can say with certainty. But we have no motive and no leads to a suspect.”
“Have you formed any opinion on that yet?”
Wallander could feel how tired he was. Every thought, every word he had to say, seemed to take huge effort.
“I didn’t see any more than you did, but it was very well planned. Eriksson walked into a trap that slammed shut. That means there are at least three conclusions we can easily draw.”
They stopped again.
“First, we can assume that whoever did it knew Eriksson and at least some of his habits,” Wallander began. “Second, the killer intended him to die.”
Wallander turned and was about to start walking again.
“You said three things.”
He looked at her pale face in the light from the torch. He wondered vaguely how he looked himself. Had the rain washed away his Italian tan?
“The killer didn’t just want to take Eriksson’s life,” he said. “He wanted him to suffer. Eriksson may have hung on those stakes for a long time before he died. No-one heard him but the crows. Maybe the doctors can tell us how long he stayed alive.”
Chief Holgersson grimaced.
“Who would do something like this?”
“I don’t know,” said Wallander.
When they reached the edge of the field, two reporters and a photographer were waiting for them. Wallander knew them all from previous cases. He glanced at Chief Holgersson, who shook her head. Wallander told them as briefly as he could what had happened. They wanted to ask questions, but he held up his hand in dismissal, and the reporters left.
“You’re a detective with a good reputation,” said the chief. “Last summer you demonstrated how talented you are. There isn’t a police district in Sweden that wouldn’t be glad to have you.”
They had stopped by her car. Wallander could tell that she meant everything she said, but he was too tired to take it in.
“Set up this investigation as you see fit. Tell me what you need and I’ll see that you get it.”
Wallander nodded.
“We’ll know more in a few hours. Right now we both need to get some sleep.”
It was almost 2 a.m. when Wallander arrived home. He made a couple of sandwiches and ate them at the kitchen table. Then he set his alarm clock for just after 5 a.m. and lay down on top of his bed.
They gathered once more in the grey dawn. The rain had stopped, but the wind was blowing again, and it had turned colder. Nyberg and the officers who stayed at the scene overnight had been forced to rig up temporary fixtures to keep the plastic sheeting in place. Nyberg and the other forensic technicians were now working down in the ditch, exposed to the biting wind.
On his way there, Wallander had been turning over in his mind how best to run the investigation. They knew nothing about Eriksson. The fact that he was wealthy could be a motive, but this seemed unlikely. The stakes in the ditch spoke another language. He couldn’t interpret it and didn’t know in which direction it led.
As usual when he felt unsure, he thought of Rydberg, the old detective who had been his mentor and without whose wisdom, he suspected, he would have been a mediocre criminal investigator. Rydberg had died of cancer almost four years ago. Wallander shuddered when he thought how quickly time had passed. He asked himself what Rydberg would have done.
Patience, he thought. Rydberg would have told me that now the rule about being patient was more important than ever.
They set up temporary headquarters in Eriksson’s house. Wallander listed the most important tasks and assigned them as efficiently as possible. Next he attempted the impossible task of summarising the situation, but found that he actually had only one thing to say: that they had nothing to go on.
“We know very little,” he began. “An oil-truck driver named Sven Tyren reported what he suspected was a disappearance on Tuesday. Based on what Tyren has said, and taking into account the date on the poem, we can assume that the murder took place sometime after 10 p.m. last Wednesday night. Exactly when, we can’t say. But it didn’t happen any earlier. We’ll have to wait to see what the pathologist can tell us.”
Wallander paused. No-one had any questions. Svedberg sniffled. His eyes were glassy and feverish and he should be home in bed, but they both knew that right now they needed all available manpower.
“We don’t know much about Holger Eriksson,” Wallander went on. “A former car dealer. Wealthy, unmarried, no children. He was a poet and also clearly interested in birds.”
“We do know a little more than that,” Hansson interrupted. “Eriksson was quite well known in this area, particularly a decade or two ago. You might say he had a reputation for being a horse trader with cars. A tough negotiator. Didn’t tolerate the unions. Made money hand over fist. He was mixed up in tax disputes and suspected of certain illegalities, but was never caught, if I remember correctly.”
“So he may have had enemies,” Wallander said.
“It’s probably safe to assume so, but that doesn’t mean they’d be prepared to commit murder. Especially not the way this one was done.”
Wallander decided to wait to discuss the sharpened bamboo stakes and the bridge. He wanted to take things in order, to keep everything straight in his own mind. This was something else Rydberg had often reminded him of. A criminal investigation is like a construction site. Everything has to be done in the proper order or the building won’t hold up.
“Mapping out Eriksson’s life is the first thing we have to do,” Wallander said. “But before we start I want to try and give you my impression of the chronology of the crime.”
They were sitting at the big kitchen table. In the distance they could see the crime-scene tape and the white plastic canopy flapping in the wind. Nyberg stood like a yellow-clad scarecrow in the mud. Wallander could imagine his weary, irritated voice. But he knew that Nyberg was talented and meticulous. If he waved his arms about he had a reason for it.
Wallander felt his attention begin to sharpen. He had done this many times before, and he could sense that at this moment the investigative team was starting to track the murderer.
“I think it happened like this,” Wallander began, speaking slowly. “Sometime after ten o’clock on Wednesday night, or maybe early Thursday morning, Holger Eriksson leaves his house. He doesn’t lock the door because he intends to return soon. He takes a pair of night-vision binoculars with him. He walks down the path towards the ditch, over which he has laid a bridge. He’s probably on his way to the tower. He’s interested in birds. In September and October, the migratory birds head south. I don’t know much about it, but I’ve heard that most of them take off and navigate at night. This would explain the late hour. He steps onto the bridge, which breaks in two because the planks have been sawed almost all the way through. He falls into the ditch and is impaled on the stakes. That’s where he dies. If he called for help, there was no-one to hear him. The farm isn’t named ‘Seclusion’ for nothing.”
He poured some coffee from a thermos before he continued.
“That’s how I think it happened,” he said. “We end up with considerably more questions than answers. But it’s where we have to start. We’re dealing with a well-planned murder. Cruel and grisly. We have no obvious or even conceivable motive and no leads.”
They were all silent. Wallander let his gaze travel around the table. Finally Hoglund broke the silence.
“One more thing is important. Whoever did this had no intention of concealing his actions.”
Wallander had planned to come to that very point.
“I think there’s a chance it’s even more than that,” he said. “If we look at this ghastly trap we can interpret it as a kind of statement.”
“Do you think we’re searching for a madman?” Svedberg asked.
“We can’t rule out that possibility,” Wallander said. “In fact, we can’t rule out anything at all.”
“It’s like a bear trap,” Hansson said. “Or something you’d see in an old war movie set in Asia. A peculiar combination: a bear trap and a bird-watcher.”
“Or a car dealer,” Martinsson added.
“Or a poet,” Hoglund said. “We have plenty of choices.”
Wallander ended the meeting. They would use Eriksson’s kitchen whenever they had to meet. Svedberg drove off to talk to Sven Tyren and the girl at the oil company who’d taken Eriksson’s order. Hoglund would see to it that all the neighbours in the area were contacted and interviewed. Wallander remembered the letters and asked her to talk to the rural postman too. Hansson would go over the house with some of Nyberg’s forensic technicians, while Chief Holgersson and Martinsson would work together to organise the other tasks.
The investigative wheel had started to turn.
Wallander put on his jacket and walked down to the ditch. Ragged clouds chased across the sky. He bent into the wind. Suddenly he heard the distinctive sound of geese. He stopped and looked up at the sky. It took a moment before he saw the birds, a small group high up, just below the clouds, heading southwest. He guessed that, like all other migratory birds crossing Skane, they would leave Sweden over Falsterbo Point.
Wallander stood there, watching the geese, thinking of the poem lying on the desk. Then he walked on, his unease increasing steadily.
There was something in this brutal killing that shook him to the core. It could be an act of blind hatred or insanity, but cold calculation lay behind the murder. He couldn’t decide which scared him more.
Nyberg and his forensic technicians had begun lifting the bloody stakes from the clay. Each pole was wrapped in plastic and carried to a waiting car. Nyberg had spots of clay on his face and worked with abrupt, angry movements. Wallander felt as though he was looking down into a grave.
“How’s it going?” he asked, trying to sound encouraging.
Nyberg muttered something unintelligible. Wallander decided to save his questions. Nyberg was irascible and moody and thought nothing of starting a quarrel with anyone. The general opinion at the station was that Nyberg wouldn’t hesitate to yell at the national police commissioner at the slightest provocation.
The police had built a makeshift bridge across the ditch. Wallander walked up the hill on the other side, gusts of wind tearing at his jacket. He studied the tower, which stood about three metres high. It was built of the same wood that Eriksson had used for his bridge. A stepladder was leaning against the tower, and Wallander climbed up. The platform was no bigger than one square metre. The wind whipped at his face. From only three metres up, the appearance of the landscape was quite changed. He could see Nyberg in the ditch. In the distance he saw Eriksson’s farmhouse. He squatted down and began studying the platform. Suddenly he regretted setting foot in the tower before Nyberg had finished his examinations. He climbed down again and tried to find a place out of the wind in the lee of the tower. He felt very tired, but something else was troubling him even more. He tried to pin down the feeling. Depression? His happiness had been so shortlived — the holiday, the decision to buy a house, and even get a dog. And Baiba’s visit to look forward to.
But then an old man was discovered impaled in a ditch, and once again his world had started crumbling away beneath his feet. He wondered how long he could keep this up.
He forced himself to fend off these thoughts. They had to find whoever had set this macabre death trap for Eriksson as soon as possible. Wallander trudged back down the hill. In the distance he could see Martinsson coming along the path, in a hurry as usual. Wallander went to meet him. He still felt tentative and uncertain. How was he going to approach the investigation? He was searching for a way in.
Then he saw from Martinsson’s face that something had happened.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’re to call someone named Vanja Andersson.”
Wallander had to search his memory before he remembered. The florist’s shop on Vastra Vallgatan.
“Damn it, we don’t have time for that now.”
“I’m not so sure,” Martinsson said.
“Why?”
“It seems that the owner, Gosta Runfeldt, never left for Nairobi.”
Wallander didn’t understand what Martinsson was saying.
“His assistant called the travel agency to find out the exact arrival time of his flight. That’s when she found out.”
“Found out what?”
“That Runfeldt never flew to Africa, even though he had picked up his ticket.”
Wallander stared him.
“So another person seems to have disappeared,” said Martinsson.
Wallander didn’t answer.
CHAPTER 7
On the way in to Ystad, after he had decided to visit Vanja Andersson himself, Wallander remembered something someone had said earlier, that there was another similarity between the two cases. Eriksson had reported a break-in a year before, and nothing had been stolen. There had been a break-in at Gosta Runfeldt’s shop in which nothing seemed to have been taken. Wallander drove with a growing sense of dread.
Eriksson’s murder was enough for them to deal with. They didn’t need another disappearance, especially not one that might have a connection to Eriksson’s. They didn’t need any more ditches with sharpened stakes in them. Wallander was driving much too fast, as if trying to leave behind him the realisation that once again he was plunging into a nightmare. Now and then he stamped hard on the brake, as if to give the car and not himself an order to take it easy and start thinking rationally. What evidence was there that Runfeldt was missing? There might be some reasonable explanation. What had happened to Eriksson was extraordinary, after all, and it certainly wouldn’t happen twice. At least not in Skane and definitely not in Ystad. There had to be an explanation, and Vanja Andersson would provide it.
Wallander never succeeded in convincing himself. Before he drove to Vastra Vallgatan he stopped at the police station. He found Hoglund in the hall and pulled her into the canteen, where some traffic officers were sitting half-asleep over their lunches. They got some coffee and sat down. Wallander told her Martinsson’s news, and her reaction matched his own. It had to be coincidence. But Wallander asked Hoglund to find a copy of the burglary report Eriksson had filed the year before. He also wanted her to check if there was any connection between Eriksson and Runfeldt. He knew she had plenty to do, but it was important that this be taken care of immediately. It was a matter of cleaning up before the guests arrived, he said, instantly regretting having used such a clumsy metaphor.
“We must hurry,” he went on. “The less energy we have to spend on searching for a connection, the better.”
He was about to get up from the table, but she stopped him with a question.
“Who could have done it?” she asked.
Wallander sank back into his chair. He could picture the bloody stakes, an unbearable sight.
“I can’t imagine,” he said. “It’s so sadistic and macabre that I can’t accept a normal motive — if there is such a thing for taking someone’s life.”
“There is,” she replied firmly. “Both you and I have felt enough rage to imagine someone dead. For some people, the usual barriers don’t exist, so they kill.”
“What scares me is that it was so well planned. Whoever did this took his time. He also knew Eriksson’s habits in detail. He probably stalked him.”
“Maybe that gives us an opening right there,” she said. “Eriksson didn’t seem to have any close friends, but the person who killed him must have had some proximity to him. He sawed through the planks. In any case, he must have come there and he must have left. Somebody might have seen him, or maybe a car that didn’t belong out there. People keep an eye on wh
at happens around them. People in villages are like deer in the forest. They watch us, but we don’t notice them.”
Wallander nodded distractedly. He wasn’t listening with as much concentration as usual.
“We’ll have to talk more about this later,” he said. “I’m going to the florist’s shop now.”
As Wallander left the station, Ebba called out to him that his father had rung.
“Later,” Wallander said, “not now.”
“It’s terrible what happened,” Ebba said. Wallander thought she sounded as if she felt personally sorry for some sorrow he had suffered.
“I bought a car from him once,” she said. “A second-hand Volvo.”
It took Wallander a moment before he realised that she was talking about Holger Eriksson.
“Do you drive?” he asked, surprised. “I didn’t even know you had a licence.”
“I’ve had a flawless record for 39 years,” Ebba replied. “And I still have that Volvo.”
Wallander recalled occasionally seeing a well-kept black Volvo in the police car park over the years, without ever wondering whose it was.
“I hope you got a good deal,” he said.
“Eriksson got a good deal,” she replied firmly. “I paid far too much for that car, but I’ve taken care of it for all this time, and I’m the one who’s come out ahead. It’s a collector’s item now.”
“I’ve got to go,” Wallander said. “But sometime you’ll have to take me for a ride in it.”
“Don’t forget to call your father.”
Wallander stopped in his tracks and thought a moment. Then he decided.
“You call him, would you? Do me a favour. Call him and explain what I’m involved with. Tell him I’ll call as soon as I can. I presume it wasn’t anything urgent, right?”
“He wanted to talk about Italy,” she said.
“We’ll talk about Italy, but right now I can’t. Tell him that.”
The Fifth Woman kw-6 Page 7