The Fifth Woman kw-6

by Henning Mankell

  Wallander regarded the diary lying in front of him pensively. He slipped the photograph into his jacket pocket, picked up the book, and went in to Nyberg, who was busy with a technical examination of the bathroom.

  “I’m taking this diary. I’ll leave the pocket calendars.”

  “You think there’s something there?” asked Nyberg.

  “I think so,” said Wallander. “If anyone wants me I’ll be at home.”

  When he came out into the courtyard he could see that some officers were busy taking down the crime-scene tape by the ditch. The rain canopy was already gone.

  An hour later he was sitting at his kitchen table. He opened the diary.

  The first entry was made on 20 November 1960.

  CHAPTER 10

  It took Wallander almost six hours to read Harald Berggren’s diary from cover to cover. With interruptions, of course. The telephone rang again and again. Wallander tried to keep the interruptions brief.

  The diary was one of the most fascinating yet frightening things he had ever encountered. It was a record of several years in the man’s life. For Wallander it was like stepping into an alien world. Although Harald Berggren, whoever he was, couldn’t be described as a master of language — he often expressed himself sentimentally or with an uncertainty that gave way to helplessness — the descriptions of his experiences had a force that shone through the prose. Wallander sensed that they must decipher the diary in order to understand what had happened to Eriksson. And yet he could hear a voice inside warning him that this could lead them in completely the wrong direction. Wallander knew that most truths were both expected and unexpected at the same time. It was simply a matter of knowing how to interpret the connection. Besides, no criminal investigation ever resembled another, not deep down, not once they went past the superficial similarities.

  The diary was a war journal. As Wallander read it, he learned the names of the other two men in the photograph. But when he had read to the end, he still couldn’t tell which man was which. The photograph was of Harald Berggren flanked by an Irishman, Terry O’Banion, and a Frenchman, Simon Marchand. It was taken by a man named Raul. They had been mercenaries in a war in Africa for more than a year. Early on, Berggren described how in Stockholm he had heard about a cafe in Brussels where contacts could be made with the secret world of mercenaries. He’d first heard of it around New Year, 1958. He didn’t explain what drove him to go there a few years later. Berggren stepped into his own diary out of nowhere: no parents, no background. The only sure things were that he was 23 years old and desperate at Hitler’s defeat in the war that had ended 15 years earlier.

  Wallander stopped at this point. That was Berggren’s exact word: desperate. Wallander read the passage again: the desperate defeat that Hitler was subjected to by his treacherous generals. The word desperate said something crucial about Berggren. Was he expressing a political conviction? Or were these the writings of a madman? Wallander found no clues to indicate whether either of these things were correct. Nor did Berggren mention Hitler again.

  In June 1960 he had left Sweden by train and stayed a day in Copenhagen so he could go to Tivoli. There he danced in the warm summer night with a girl named Irene. He wrote that she was sweet but much too tall. The next day he was in Hamburg. The day after that — 12 June 1960 — he arrived in Brussels. After about a month he achieved his goal: a contract as a mercenary. He noted proudly that now he was drawing a salary and would be going off to war. He wrote all this down much later, under the date 20 November 1960. By now he was in Africa. In this first entry in the diary, which was also the longest, he summarised the events that had led him to the place where he now found himself. Wallander dug out his old school atlas and looked up the place Berggren described, Omerutu. It wasn’t on the map, but he left it open on the kitchen table as he continued reading the diary.

  Together with Terry O’Banion and Simon Marchand, Berggren joined a fighting company that consisted solely of mercenaries. Their leader, about whom Berggren was quite reticent, was a Canadian only referred to as Sam. Berggren didn’t seem to concern himself with what the war was over. Wallander was extremely hazy himself about the conflict in what was then the Belgian Congo. Berggren didn’t try to justify his presence as a hired soldier. He merely noted that they were fighting for freedom. Whose was never made clear. In more than one entry he wrote that he would not hesitate to use his gun if he found himself in a combat situation with Swedish UN soldiers.

  Berggren also made a careful note of each time he received his pay. He did a simple accounting on the last day of each month: how much he was paid, how much he spent, and how much he saved. He also listed every item of booty that he took. In a particularly unpleasant passage, he described how the mercenaries arrived at an abandoned, burnt-out plantation, and found the rotting corpses of the Belgian plantation owner and his wife, swarming with flies. They lay in their beds with their arms and legs hacked off. The stench was unbelievable, but the mercenaries had still searched the house and found diamonds and gold jewellery, which a Lebanese jeweller later valued at more than 20,000 Swedish kronor.

  Berggren wrote that the war was justified because the profits were good. In a more personal reflection not repeated elsewhere in the diary, he’d asked himself whether he could have achieved the same wealth if he had stayed in Sweden working as a car mechanic. His conclusion was that he couldn’t. Living that sort of life, he never would have advanced his prospects. With great zeal he continued to participate in his war.

  Apart from his obsession with keeping accounts, Berggren was also meticulous in his other entries. He killed people. He wrote down the dates and the body count. He noted whether they were men or women or children, and if he’d managed to examine their bodies, he coolly recorded where the shots he’d fired had struck. Wallander read these passages with growing distaste and anger. Berggren had nothing to do with this war. He was paid to kill, by whom was unclear. The people he killed were seldom in uniform. The mercenaries raided villages that were thought to oppose the freedom they were fighting to preserve. They murdered and plundered and then withdrew. They were a death squad, all Europeans, and they didn’t regard the people they killed as equals. Berggren didn’t hide his contempt for the blacks. He wrote that they ran like bewildered goats when we approached. But bullets fly faster than people can jump or run.

  Wallander almost threw the book across the room at those lines. But he forced himself to read on, after taking a break and washing his tired eyes. More than ever he regretted having missed his appointment with the optician.

  Berggren killed roughly ten people a month, assuming he wasn’t exaggerating. After seven months of war he fell ill and was transported by plane to a hospital in Leopoldville. He had contracted amoebic dysentery and was sick for several weeks. The diary entries stopped during this period. By then he had killed more than 50 people in this war he was fighting instead of becoming a mechanic in Sweden.

  When Berggren recovered, he returned to his company. A month later they were back in Omerutu. They posed in front of a big boulder, which was not a rock but a termite mound, and the unknown Raul took a picture of Berggren, O’Banion and Marchand. Wallander went over to the kitchen window with the photograph. He had never seen a termite mound before, but he could tell that the diary described that very picture.

  Three weeks later they got caught in an ambush and O’Banion was killed. They were forced to retreat, and it turned into a panicked rout. Wallander tried to sense the fear in Berggren. He was convinced it was there, but Berggren concealed it. He wrote only that they had buried their dead in the bush and marked their graves with wooden crosses. The war went on. On one occasion they used a group of apes for target practice. Another time they gathered crocodile eggs on the bank of a river. Berggren’s savings were now close to 30,000 kronor.

  But then, in the summer of 1961, everything was over. The diary ended suddenly. Wallander thought it must have been as abrupt for Harald Berggren. He must have imagine
d that this peculiar jungle war would go on forever. In his last entries he described how they fled the country at night, in a cargo plane with no lights. One of its engines started shuddering as they lifted off from the runway they had made by clearing the jungle. The diary ended there, as though Berggren had grown tired of it, or else no longer had anything to say. Wallander didn’t even discover where the plane was headed. Berggren was flying through the African night, the engine noise died away, and he no longer existed.

  Wallander stretched and went out onto the balcony. It was now 5 p.m. A cloud front was on its way in from the sea. Why was the diary kept in Eriksson’s safe along with a shrunken head? If Berggren was still alive, he would be at least 50. Wallander felt cold standing out on the balcony. He went inside and sat down on the sofa. His eyes hurt. Who was Berggren writing the diary for? Himself or someone else?

  A young man keeps a diary of a war in Africa. Often what he describes is rich in detail, but it is also constrained in some way. Something was missing, something that Wallander couldn’t read even between the lines.

  Not until Hoglund rang the bell did it dawn on him what it was. He saw her in the door and suddenly he knew. The diary described a world dominated by men. The women Berggren wrote about were either dead or fleeing in panic. Except for Irene, who’d been sweet but too tall. Otherwise he didn’t mention women. He wrote about furloughs in various cities in the Congo, about how he got drunk and got into fights. But there were no women. Wallander couldn’t help thinking that this was significant. Berggren was a young man when he went off to Africa. The war was an adventure. In a young man’s world, women are an important part of the adventure. He was starting to wonder. But for the time being he kept his thoughts to himself.

  Hoglund had come to tell him that she had gone through Runfeldt’s flat with one of Nyberg’s forensic technicians. The result was negative. They had found nothing that would explain why he had bought bugging equipment.

  “Gosta Runfeldt’s world consists of orchids,” she said. “I get the impression of a kindly and intense widower.”

  “His wife seems to have drowned,” Wallander said.

  “She was quite beautiful,” Hoglund said. “I saw their wedding picture.”

  “Maybe we ought to find out what happened to her,” Wallander said. “Sooner or later.”

  “Martinsson and Svedberg are getting in touch with his children.”

  Wallander had already talked to Martinsson on the phone. He had been in touch with Runfeldt’s daughter. She was utterly astonished at the idea that her father might have deliberately disappeared. She was extremely worried. She knew he was supposed to fly to Nairobi and had assumed that’s where he was.

  “There’s too much that doesn’t add up,” he said. “Svedberg was supposed to call when he’d spoken to the son. He was out at a farm somewhere in Halsingland where there wasn’t a phone.”

  They decided to hold a meeting of the investigative team early on Sunday afternoon. Hoglund would make the arrangements. Then Wallander recounted to her the contents of the diary. He took his time and tried to be thorough. Telling her about it was like reviewing it in his own mind.

  “Berggren,” she said when he was through. “Could he be the one?”

  “I don’t know, but at any rate as a young man he committed atrocities on a regular basis and for money,” Wallander said. “The diary makes horrifying reading. Maybe these days he’s living his life in fear that the contents might be divulged.”

  “We’ll have to find him,” Hoglund said. “The question is where to start looking.”

  “The diary was in Eriksson’s safe,” Wallander said. “For the moment that’s the clearest lead we have. But we must continue to work with an open mind.”

  “You know that’s impossible,” she said, surprised. “When we find a clue it shapes the search.”

  “I’m just reminding you,” he replied evasively, “that we can be wrong in spite of everything.”

  She was about to leave when the telephone rang. It was Svedberg, who had reached Runfeldt’s son.

  “He was pretty upset,” Svedberg said. “He wanted to jump on a plane and come here right away.”

  “When was the last time he heard from his father?”

  “A few days before he was due to leave for Nairobi. Everything was normal. According to the son, his father always looked forward to his trips.”

  Wallander handed the phone to Hoglund, who set a time for the meeting of the investigative team. Wallander didn’t remember until she hung up that he had a note that was written by Svedberg. A report of a woman acting strangely in the Ystad hospital maternity ward.

  Hoglund went home to her children. When Wallander was alone he called his father. They decided that he would go out on Sunday morning. The pictures that his father had taken with his ancient camera had been developed.

  Wallander devoted the rest of Saturday evening to writing up a summary of Eriksson’s murder. As he worked he mulled over Runfeldt’s disappearance. He was uneasy and restless and found it difficult to concentrate. The feeling that they were skirting something very big was growing stronger. The feeling of anxiety wouldn’t let up. By 9 p.m. he was so tired that he couldn’t think any longer. He shoved his notebook aside and called his daughter Linda. The phone rang into a void. She wasn’t home. He put on a heavy jacket and walked to a Chinese restaurant on the square. The place was unusually packed, even for a Saturday night. He indulged in a carafe of wine. After he’d eaten, he walked home in the rain, his head aching.

  That night he dreamed that he was in a huge dark place, it was very hot, and somewhere in the dense night Berggren was pointing a gun at him.

  He woke early. It was clear again. He got into his car at 7.15 a.m. and drove out to Loderup to see his father. In the morning light, the curves of the countryside were sharp and clear. Wallander thought he would try to tempt his father and Gertrud to come with him down to the beach. Soon it would be too cold to go.

  He thought with displeasure about the dream he’d had. As he drove he also decided that at the investigative team’s meeting that afternoon they would have to make a schedule of the order in which various questions were to be answered. Locating Berggren was important. Especially if it turned out that that trail led to a dead end.

  His father was standing on the steps waiting for him. They went into the kitchen, where Gertrud had set out some breakfast. They looked through the photographs. Some of them were blurred, and in some the subject was only partly inside the frame, but since his father was obviously pleased and proud of them, Wallander nodded appreciatively.

  One picture stood out from the rest. It was taken by a waiter on their last night in Rome. They had just finished their dinner. Wallander and his father were squeezed close together. A bottle of red wine stood on the white tablecloth. Both of them were smiling straight at the camera.

  For an instant the faded photograph from Eriksson’s diary flashed into Wallander’s mind, but he pushed it away. Right now he wanted to look at himself and his father. He realised that the picture confirmed once and for all what he had discovered on the trip. They were a lot alike. They even looked alike.

  “I’d like to have a copy of this picture,” Wallander said.

  “I’ve already taken care of it,” his father replied contentedly, handing him an envelope.

  After breakfast they went to his father’s studio. He had nearly finished a landscape with a grouse in it. The bird was always the last thing he painted.

  “How many pictures have you painted in your life?” Wallander asked.

  “You ask me that every time you come here,” his father said. “How am I supposed to keep track? What would be the point? The main thing is that they’re all the same.”

  Long ago Wallander had realised that there was only one explanation for his father painting the same subject over and over. It was his way of keeping at bay all the things that were changing around him. In his paintings he even controlled the path of the s
un. It was motionless, locked in time, always at the same height above the forested ridges.

  “It was a great holiday,” Wallander said as he looked at his father, who was busy mixing colours.

  “I told you it would be,” said his father. “If it wasn’t for me you would have gone to your grave without ever seeing the Sistine Chapel.”

  Wallander wondered briefly whether to ask about the solitary walk he’d taken on that night in Rome, but decided not to. It was nobody’s business but his father’s.

  Wallander suggested that they drive down to the sea. To his surprise his father agreed at once. Gertrud preferred to stay home. They got into Wallander’s car and drove down to Sandhammaren. There was almost no breeze. They headed for the beach. His father took him by the arm when they passed the last cliff. The sea spread itself out before them. The beach was almost deserted. In the distance they could see some people playing with a dog. That was all.

  “It’s beautiful,” his father said.

  Wallander sneaked a look at him. Rome seemed to have made a fundamental change in his mood. Maybe it would also have a positive effect on the insidious disease the doctors had diagnosed. But he would never fully understand what the holiday had meant to his father. It had been the journey of a lifetime, and Wallander had been given the honour of accompanying him.

  Rome was his father’s Mecca.

  They took a long walk on the beach. Wallander wondered whether to bring up the old days. But there was no hurry, they had time. Suddenly his father stopped short.

  “What is it?” Wallander asked.

  “I’ve been feeling bad for a few days,” he said. “But it’ll pass.”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  “I said it’ll pass.”

  They were on the beach more than two hours before his father thought they had walked enough. Wallander, who had forgotten the time, knew that he’d have to hurry so he wouldn’t be late for the meeting at the police station.