“Within the past few months there have been a large number of brutal murders. The police succeeded in solving the crimes from this summer, but now it seems to have started again. People want to live their lives. The Swedish police have capitulated to the criminal elements that are creeping out of their holes today. That’s why the citizen militia is the only way to solve the problem of security.”
“It doesn’t solve anything for people to take the law into their own hands,” Wallander replied. “There can only be one response to this from the Ystad police. And it is clear and unequivocal. No-one can misunderstand it. We will regard all private initiatives to establish a citizen militia as illegal, and participants will be prosecuted.”
“Should I interpret that to mean you are against it?” the man asked.
Now Wallander could see his pale, emaciated face. He decided to memorise it.
“Yes,” he said. “You can interpret it this way: we are opposed to any attempt to organise a citizen militia.”
“Don’t you wonder what the people in Lodinge are going to say about that?”
“I may wonder, but I’m not afraid of the answer,” he said quickly, and adjourned the press conference.
“Do you think he was serious?” Chief Holgersson asked when they were alone in the room.
“Maybe. We should keep an eye on what’s happening in Lodinge. If it’s true that people are starting to demand a citizen militia publicly, then there’s been a change in the situation. And we might have problems.”
It was 7 p.m. Wallander said goodbye to Holgersson and went back to his office. He sat down in his chair. He needed to think. He couldn’t remember the last time he had had so little time for reflection and summarising during a criminal investigation.
The phone rang. He picked it up at once. It was Svedberg.
“How did the press conference go?”
“A little worse than usual. How’s it going with you two?”
“I think you ought to come over here. We found a camera with a roll of film in it. Nyberg’s here. We thought we should develop it.”
“Can we establish that he worked as a private detective?”
“We think so. But there’s something else too.”
Wallander waited tensely for the rest.
“We think the film contains pictures from his last case.”
Last, thought Wallander. Not latest.
“I’m coming,” he said.
Clouds raced across the sky. As he walked towards his car, he wondered if the migrating birds flew in wind this strong. On the way to Harpegatan he stopped and filled his car with petrol. He felt drained. He wondered when he would have time to look for a house. And think about his father. He wondered when Baiba would come to visit. He looked at his watch. Was it time or his life that was passing? He was too tired to decide which. He started the engine. His watch said 7.40 p.m.
A few minutes later he parked on Harpegatan and went down to the basement.
CHAPTER 17
They watched tensely as the picture began to emerge in the developing bath. Wallander wasn’t sure what he was expecting, or hoping for, as he stood with his colleagues in the darkroom. The red light made him feel as though they were waiting for something indecent to happen. Nyberg was developing the film. He was hobbling around with a crutch, and Hoglund had warned that he was in an especially grumpy mood.
They had made progress while Wallander had been busy with the reporters. There was no doubt that Runfeldt had been working as a private detective. In the various client records they had discovered, they could see that he’d been doing it for at least ten years.
“His activities were limited,” Hoglund said. “He had not more than seven or eight cases a year. It seems as though this was something he did in his spare time.”
Svedberg had made a swift survey of the types of assignments Runfeldt had taken on.
“About half the cases have to do with suspected infidelity,” he said. “Strangely enough, his clients were mostly men who suspected their wives.”
“Why is that strange?” Wallander asked.
“I just didn’t think it would be that way around,” was all Svedberg said. “But what do I know?”
Wallander motioned for him to continue.
“There are about two cases per year in which an employer suspects an employee of embezzling,” Svedberg said. “We’ve also come across a number of surveillance assignments that are rather vague in nature. In general, quite a tedious picture. His notes aren’t particularly extensive. But he was well paid.”
“So now we know how he could take those expensive holidays,” Wallander said. “It cost him 30,000 kronor for the trip to Nairobi.”
“He was working on a case when he died,” Hoglund said.
She opened a diary on the desk. Wallander thought about those reading glasses. He didn’t bother to look at it.
“It seems to have been his usual sort of assignment. Someone referred to only as ‘Mrs Svensson’ suspects her husband of being unfaithful.”
“Here in Ystad?” Wallander asked. “Did he work in other areas too?”
“In 1987 he had a case in Markaryd,” Svedberg said. “There’s nothing further north than that. Since then only cases in Skane. In 1991 he went to Denmark twice and once to Kiel. I haven’t had time to look into the details, but it had something to do with an engineer on a ferry who was having an affair with a waitress who worked on the ferry too. His wife, in Skanor, had suspected him correctly.”
“But otherwise he only took cases in the Ystad area?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Svedberg replied. “Southern and eastern Skane is probably closer to the truth.”
“Holger Eriksson?” Wallander asked. “Have you come across his name?”
Hoglund looked at Svedberg, who shook his head.
“Harald Berggren?”
“Not him either.”
“Have you found anything that might indicate a connection between Eriksson and Runfeldt?”
Again the answer was negative. It has to be there, thought Wallander. It doesn’t make sense that there would be two different killers. Just as it doesn’t make sense that there would be two random victims. The connection is there. We just haven’t found it yet.
“I can’t work him out,” Hoglund said. “He had a passion for flowers, but he spent his spare time working as a private detective.”
“People are seldom what you think they are,” Wallander replied, wondering suddenly whether this could be said of him.
“He seems to have made a bundle from this work,” Svedberg said. “But if I’m not mistaken, he didn’t report any of the income when he filed his tax returns. Could the explanation be that simple? He kept it secret so the tax authorities wouldn’t find out what he was up to?”
“Hardly,” Wallander said. “In the eyes of most people, being a private detective is a rather shady occupation.”
“Or childish,” Hoglund said. “A game for men who have never grown up.”
Wallander felt a vague urge to protest. But since he didn’t know what to say, he let it drop.
Images of a man in his 50s, with thin, closely cropped hair appeared in the developing tray. The photographs had been taken out of doors. None of them could identify the background. Nyberg guessed that the pictures had been taken from a great distance, since some of the negatives were blurry, suggesting that Runfeldt had used a telephoto lens sensitive to the slightest movement.
“Mrs Svensson contacted him for the first time on 9 September,” Hoglund said. “Runfeldt noted that he had ‘worked on the case’ on 14 and 17 September.”
“That’s only a few days before he was due to leave for Nairobi,” Wallander said.
They had come out of the darkroom. Nyberg was sitting at the desk, going through a number of files with photographs in them.
“Who is his client?” Wallander asked. “Mrs Svensson?”
“His client records and notes are vague,” Svedberg said. “He seems
to have been a detective of few words. There isn’t even an address for Mrs Svensson.”
“How does a private detective find clients?” Hoglund asked. “He must advertise his services somehow.”
“I’ve seen ads in the papers,” Wallander said. “Maybe not in Ystad’s Allehanda, but in national newspapers. It must be possible to track down this Mrs Svensson somehow.”
“I talked to the porter,” Svedberg said. “He thought Runfeldt just had a storeroom here. He didn’t see anyone come to visit.”
“So he must have met his clients somewhere else,” Wallander said. “This was the secret room in his life.”
They mulled this over. Wallander tried to decide what was most important right now, but the press conference was troubling him. The man from the Anmarkaren had upset him. Could it really be true that a national citizen militia was being formed? If it was, then Wallander knew it wouldn’t be long before these people began seeking vengeance. He felt a need to tell Hoglund and Svedberg what had happened, but he stopped himself. It was probably better if they discussed it together at the next team meeting. And Chief Holgersson was really the one who should tell them.
“How can we find Mrs Svensson?” Svedberg asked.
“We’ll put a tap on the phone and go through all the papers thoroughly,” Wallander said. “We’ll find her somewhere. I’m sure of that. I might leave it to you two, while I go and have a talk with Runfeldt’s son.”
The town seemed deserted. He parked near the post office, and stepped out into the wind again. He saw himself as a pathetic figure, a police officer in a thin jumper, battling the wind in a desolate Swedish town in the autumn. The Swedish criminal justice system, he thought. Or what’s left of it. This is how it looks. Freezing officers in flimsy jumpers.
He turned left at the Savings Bank and walked to the Hotel Sekelgarden. He checked the son’s name — Bo Runfeldt. Wallander nodded to the young man at the reception desk, and realised that he was the oldest son of Bjork their former police chief.
“It’s been a long time,” Wallander said. “How’s your father?”
“He’s unhappy in Malmo.”
He’s not unhappy in Malmo, Wallander thought. He’s unhappy with his new job.
“What are you reading?” asked Wallander.
“About fractals.”
“Fractals?”
“It’s a mathematical term. I’m at Lund University. This is just a part-time job.”
“That sounds good,” Wallander said. “I’m here to talk to one of your guests, Bo Runfeldt.”
“He just came in.”
“Is there somewhere that we can sit and talk in private?”
“We don’t have many guests,” the boy said. “You can sit in the breakfast room.”
He pointed towards the hall.
“I’ll wait there,” said Wallander. “Please call his room and tell him that I’m here to see him.”
“I read the paper,” the boy said. “Why is it that everything is getting so much worse?”
Wallander looked at him with interest.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Worse. More brutal.”
“I don’t know,” Wallander replied. “I honestly don’t know why things have got so bad. At the same time, I don’t really believe what I just said. I think I do know. I think everybody knows why things are this way.”
Bjork’s son wanted to continue the discussion, but Wallander raised his hand to cut him off and pointed to the phone. Then he went into the breakfast room and sat down. He thought about the unfinished conversation. He knew quite well what the explanation was. The Sweden that was his, the country he had grown up in, that was built after the war, was not as solid as they had thought. Under the surface was quagmire. Even back then the high-rise buildings that had been erected were described as “inhuman”. How could people who lived there be expected to keep their “humanity”? Society had grown cruel. People who felt they were unwanted or unwelcome in their own country, reacted with aggression. There was no such thing as meaningless violence. Every violent act had a meaning for the person who committed it. Only when you dared accept this truth could you hope to turn society in another direction.
He also asked himself how it would be possible to be a police officer as things got worse. Many of his colleagues were seriously considering finding other occupations. Martinsson had talked about it, Hansson had mentioned it once. And a few years ago Wallander had cut out an ad for security personnel at a large company in Trelleborg from the paper. He wondered what Ann-Britt thought. She was still young. She could be a police officer for 30 years or more. He would ask her. He needed to know in order to see how he was going to stand it himself.
At the same time he knew that the picture he was drawing was incomplete. Among young people the interest in police jobs had risen sharply in the past few years, and the increase seemed to be steady.
Back in the early 1990s he had often sat on Rydberg’s balcony on warm, summer evenings and talked of the future. They continued their discussions even during Rydberg’s illness and his last days. They never reached any conclusions, but one thing they did agree on was that police work ultimately had to do with being able to decipher the signs of the times. To understand change and interpret trends in society. And for this reason perhaps the younger generation of police officers were better equipped to deal with modern society.
Now Wallander knew that he had been mistaken about one essential fact. It was no harder being a police officer today than it was in the past. It was harder for him, but that was not the same thing.
Wallander’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard steps in the hall. He stood up and greeted Bo Runfeldt. He was a tall, well-built man of about 27 or 28. He had a strong handshake. Wallander invited him to sit down, realising that as usual he had forgotten to bring his notebook. It was doubtful whether he even had a pen. He considered going out to the front desk to borrow some from Bjork’s son, but decided against it. He would have to rely on his memory. His carelessness was inexcusable, and it annoyed him.
“Let me start by offering my condolences,” Wallander began.
Bo Runfeldt nodded. He didn’t say anything. His eyes were an intense blue, his gaze rather squinting. Wallander wondered if he was short-sighted.
“I know you’ve had a long conversation with my colleague, Inspector Hansson,” Wallander continued. “But I need to ask you a few questions myself.”
Runfeldt remained silent behind his piercing gaze.
“You live in Arvika,” said Wallander. “And you’re an accountant.”
“I work for Price Waterhouse,” said Runfeldt. His voice indicated a person who was used to expressing himself.
“That doesn’t sound Swedish.”
“It’s not. Price Waterhouse is one of the world’s largest accounting firms. It’s easier to list the countries where we don’t do business than where we do.”
“But you work in Sweden?”
“Not all the time. I often have assignments in Africa and Asia.”
“Do they need accountants from Sweden?”
“Not just from Sweden, but from Price Waterhouse. We audit many relief projects. To ensure the money has ended up where it’s supposed to.”
“And does it?”
“Not always. Is this really relevant to what happened to my father?”
Wallander could see that Bo Runfeldt was finding it difficult to hide his feeling that talking to a policeman was beneath his dignity. Under normal circumstances Wallander would have reacted angrily, but something made him hold back. He wondered fleetingly whether it was because he had inherited the submissiveness that his father had so often exhibited in his life, especially towards the men who had come in their shiny American cars to buy his paintings. Maybe that was his inheritance: a feeling of inferiority.
He regarded the man with the blue eyes.
“Your father was murdered,” he said. “Right now I’m the one who decides which questions
are relevant.”
Bo Runfeldt shrugged. “I have to admit that I don’t know much about police work.”
“I spoke to your sister earlier,” Wallander continued. “One question I asked her may have great significance, and I’m going to ask you too. Did you know that your father, besides being a florist, worked as a private detective?”
Runfeldt burst out laughing.
“That’s got to be the most idiotic thing I’ve heard in a long time,” he said.
“Idiotic or not, it’s true.”
“A private detective?”
“Private investigator, if you prefer. He had an office. He took on various assignments. He’d been doing it for at least ten years.”
Runfeldt saw that Wallander was serious. His surprise was genuine.
“He must have started his business about the same time that your mother died.”
Wallander noticed an almost imperceptible shift in his features, as though he had encroached on an area that he really should have kept out of. It was the same reaction that the daughter had had.
“You knew that your father was due to go to Nairobi,” he continued. “When one of my colleagues spoke to you, you seemed incredulous that he hadn’t turned up at Kastrup Airport.”
“I talked to him the day before.”
“How did he seem?”
“The same as usual. He talked about his trip.”
“He didn’t seem apprehensive?”
“No.”
“You must have been worried about his disappearance. Can you come up with any explanation for why he would miss his trip? Or mislead you?”
“There’s no reasonable explanation for it.”
“It looks as if he packed his suitcase and left the flat. That’s where the trail ends.”
“Someone must have picked him up.”
Wallander paused before asking the next question.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did your father have any enemies?”
“None that I know of. Not any more.”
“What do you mean by that? Not any more?”
“Exactly what I said. I don’t think he’s had any enemies for a long time.”
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