The Fifth Woman kw-6

by Henning Mankell

  “The same as here. Only bigger.”

  “I don’t know where they plan to put you,” Wallander said.

  “In with Hansson. It’s already been arranged.”

  “We’re going to meet in about half an hour.”

  “I’ve got a lot of reading to do before then.”

  Hamren left the room. Wallander absentmindedly put his hand on the phone, meaning to call his father. He gave a start. Grief hit him. He no longer had a father he could call. Not today, not tomorrow. Never.

  He sat motionless in his chair. Then he leaned forward again and dialled the number. Gertrud answered almost at once. She sounded tired and burst into tears when he asked her how she was. He had a lump in his throat too.

  “I’m taking one day at a time,” she said, after she had calmed down.

  “I’ll try to come out for a while this afternoon,” Wallander said. “I won’t be able to stay long, but I’ll try to come.”

  “There’s so much I’ve been thinking about,” she said. “About you and your father. I know so little.”

  “That goes for me too, but let’s see if we can help each other fill in the gaps.”

  He hung up, knowing that it was unlikely he would make it out to Loderup that day. Why had he said that he would try? Now she would be sitting there waiting.

  I spend my life disappointing people, he thought hopelessly. Angrily he broke the pen he was holding and tossed the pieces into the waste-paper basket. One piece missed and he kicked it away with his foot. He suddenly had the urge to escape. When had he last talked to Baiba? She hadn’t called him either. Was their relationship dying a natural death? When would he have time to look for a house? Or find a dog? There were moments when he detested his job and this was one of them.

  He stood at the window. Wind and autumn clouds, birds on their way south. He thought about Per Akeson, who had finally decided that there was more to life.

  Once, towards the end of summer, as he and Baiba walked along the beach at Skagen, she had said that it seemed as though all the people of the West shared a dream of an enormous yacht that could take the whole continent to the Caribbean. The collapse of the Eastern bloc had opened her eyes. In the impoverished Latvia there were islands of wealth, simple joys. She had discovered great poverty even in the rich countries that she could now visit. There was a sea of dissatisfaction and emptiness everywhere. And that was why people dreamed of escape.

  He made a note to call Baiba that evening. He saw that it was 8.15 a.m., and went to the conference room. In addition to Hamren, there were also two detectives from Malmo, Augustsson and Hartman whom Wallander hadn’t met before. They shook hands. Lisa Holgersson arrived and sat down. She welcomed the new arrivals. There wasn’t time for anything else. She looked at Wallander and nodded.

  He began as he’d decided to do earlier, with the conversation he’d had with Hoglund. He noticed at once that the reaction of the others in the room was marked by doubt. That’s what he had expected. He shared their doubts.

  “I’m not presenting this as anything but one of several possibilities. Since we know nothing, we can ignore nothing.”

  He nodded to Hoglund.

  “I’ve asked for a summary of the investigation from a female perspective,” he said. “We’ve never done anything like this before. But in this case we have to try everything.”

  The discussion that followed was intense. Wallander had expected that too. Hansson, who seemed to be feeling better this morning, started things off. About halfway through the meeting Nyberg came in. He was walking without the crutch. Wallander met his glance. He had a feeling that Nyberg had something he wanted to say. He gave him an inquiring look, but Nyberg shook his head.

  Wallander listened to the discussion without taking an active part in it. Hansson expressed himself clearly and presented good arguments.

  Around 9 a.m. they took a short break. Svedberg showed Wallander a picture in the paper of members of the newly created Protective Militia in Lodinge. Several other towns in Skane were apparently following suit. Chief Holgersson had seen a report about it on the evening news.

  “We’re going to end up with vigilante groups all over the country,” she said. “Imagine a situation where pseudopolicemen outnumber us.”

  “It might be unavoidable,” Hamren said. “Maybe it’s always been true that crime pays. The difference is that today we can prove it. If we brought in ten per cent of all the money that disappears today in financial crimes, we could comfortably afford 3,000 new officers.”

  This number seemed absurd to Wallander, but Hamren stood his ground.

  “The question is whether we want that kind of society,” he continued. “House doctors are one thing. But house police? Police everywhere? A society that’s divided up into various alarm zones? Keys and codes even to visit your elderly parents?”

  “We probably don’t need that many new officers,” Wallander said. “We just need a different kind of policeman.”

  “Maybe what we need is a different kind of society,” said Martinsson. “With a greater sense of community.”

  Martinsson’s words had taken on the sound of a political campaign speech, but Wallander understood him. He knew that Martinsson worried constantly about his children. That they’d be exposed to drugs. That something would happen to them.

  Wallander sat down next to Nyberg, who hadn’t left the table.

  “It looked like you wanted to say something.”

  “It’s just a small detail,” he said. “Do you remember that I found a false nail out in the woods at Marsvinsholm?”

  Wallander remembered.

  “The one you thought had been there a long time?”

  “I didn’t think anything of it then, but now I think we can say for certain that it hadn’t been there very long.”

  Wallander nodded. He motioned Hoglund over.

  “Do you use false nails?” he asked.

  “Not often,” she replied. “But I have tried them.”

  “Do they stick on pretty well?”

  “They break off easily.”

  Wallander nodded.

  “I thought you should know,” Nyberg said.

  Svedberg came into the room.

  “Thanks for returning the note,” he said. “But you could have thrown it out.”

  “Rydberg used to say that it was an inexcusable sin to throw out a colleague’s notes.”

  “Rydberg said a lot of things.”

  “They often proved to be right.”

  Wallander knew that Svedberg hadn’t got on with his older colleague. What surprised him was that he still felt that way, even now that Rydberg had been dead for several years.

  They reassigned various tasks so that Hamren and the two detectives from Malmo could get involved in the investigation straight away. At 10.45 a.m., Wallander decided that it was time to adjourn. A phone rang. Martinsson, sitting closest, picked it up. Wallander was thinking that maybe he’d have time to go out to Loderup and see Gertrud later that afternoon after all. Martinsson raised his hand. Everyone stopped talking. Martinsson glanced at Wallander. Not again, he thought. We can’t handle this.

  Martinsson hung up.

  “A body has been found in Krageholm Lake,” Martinsson said.

  Wallander’s first thought was that this didn’t have to mean a third murder. Drowning accidents were common enough.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “There’s a small camping ground on the eastern shore. The body was just off the end of a jetty.”

  Wallander could tell that his feeling of relief was premature.

  “The body of a man. Inside a sack,” he said.

  It has happened again, Wallander thought. The knot in his stomach tightened.

  “Who was that on the phone?” Svedberg asked.

  “A camper. He was calling on his mobile phone. He was upset. It sounded like he was throwing up in my ear.”

  “Nobody would be camping now, would they?” Svedberg asked.r />
  “There are trailers for rent there all year round,” Hansson said. “I know where it is.”

  Wallander felt suddenly incapable of dealing with the situation. Maybe Hoglund felt the same way. She helped him out by getting to her feet.

  “I guess we’d better go,” she said.

  “Yes,” Wallander said. “We’d probably better leave right now.”

  Since Hansson knew where they were going, Wallander got into his car. The others followed. Hansson drove recklessly and fast. Wallander braked with his feet. The car phone rang. It was Per Akeson wanting to talk to Wallander.

  “What’s this I hear?” he asked. “Is this another one?”

  “It’s too early to tell. But it may be so. If it was just a body in the water, it might have been a drowning accident or a suicide, but a body in a sack is a murder.”

  “God damn it to hell,” Akeson said.

  “You might say that.”

  “Keep me posted. Where are you?”

  “On our way to Krageholm Lake. We should be there in about 20 minutes.”

  Wallander hung up. It occurred to him that they were headed towards the place where they had found the suitcase. Hansson seemed to be thinking the same thing.

  “The lake is halfway between Lodinge and Marsvinsholm,” he said. “It’s no great distance.”

  Wallander grabbed the phone and dialled Martinsson’s number. His car was right behind them.

  “What else did the man who called say? What’s his name?”

  “I don’t think I got his name, but he had a Skane accent.”

  “A body in a sack. How did he know there was a body in the sack? Did he open it?”

  “There was a foot with a man’s shoe sticking out.”

  Even though it was a bad connection, Wallander could hear Martinsson’s distress. He hung up.

  They reached Sovestad and turned left. Wallander thought about Gosta Runfeldt’s client. Everywhere there were connections to the events. If there was a geographical centre, then Sovestad was it.

  The lake was visible through the trees. Wallander tried to prepare himself for what awaited them. As they drove down towards the camping ground, a man came running towards them. Wallander climbed out of the car before Hansson had even stopped.

  “Down there,” the man stammered.

  Wallander walked slowly down the slope that led to the water. Even at this distance he could make out something in the water, to one side of the jetty. Martinsson came up beside him but stopped at the shore. The others waited in the background. Wallander walked cautiously out onto the jetty. It wobbled under his weight. The water was brown and looked cold. He shivered.

  The sack was only partially visible above the water’s surface. A foot was indeed sticking out. The shoe was brown and had laces. White skin could be seen through a hole in the trouser leg.

  Wallander looked back and motioned to Nyberg to join him. Hansson was talking to the man. Martinsson was waiting further up, and Hoglund stood off to one side. It looked like a photograph, Wallander thought. Reality frozen, suspended. Nothing more would ever happen.

  The mood was broken by Nyberg stepping onto the jetty. Reality returned. Wallander squatted down and Nyberg did the same.

  “A sack made of jute,” Nyberg said. “They’re usually strong. But this one has a hole in it. It must be old.”

  Wallander wished Nyberg were right, but he knew he wasn’t. The hole in the sack was new. It looked as though the man had kicked his way through it. The fibres had been pushed out and then ripped apart. Wallander knew what this meant. The man had been alive when he was put in the sack and thrown into the lake. Wallander took a deep breath. He felt sick and dizzy.

  Nyberg gave him an inquiring look, but didn’t say anything. He waited. Wallander kept on taking deep breaths, one after another.

  “He kicked a hole in the sack,” Wallander said when he felt able to speak. “He was alive when he was thrown into the lake.”

  “An execution?” Nyberg asked. “A war between two crime gangs?”

  “We could hope for that,” Wallander said. “But I don’t think so.”

  “The same killer?”

  “It looks like it.”

  Wallander got to his feet with difficulty. His knees were stiff. He walked back to the shore. Nyberg remained out on the jetty. The forensic technicians had just arrived. Wallander went over to Hoglund. She was standing with Chief Holgersson. The others followed. Finally they were all assembled. The man who had discovered the sack was sitting nearby.

  “It could be the same killer,” Wallander said. “If that’s the case, then this time he’s drowned a man in a sack.”

  Disgust passed like a ripple through the team.

  “We have to stop this madman,” Lisa Holgersson said. “What’s become of this country?”

  “A pungee pit,” Wallander said. “A man tied to a tree and strangled. And now a man tied up in a sack and drowned.”

  “Do you still think a woman could have done something like this?” Hansson asked aggressively.

  Wallander asked himself the same question. What did he really think? In a matter of a few seconds all the events passed through his mind.

  “I don’t want to believe it, but yes a woman could have done this, or at least be involved.”

  He looked at Hansson.

  “You’re asking the wrong question,” he said. “It’s not about what I think.”

  Wallander went back to the shore of the lake. A solitary swan was on its way towards the jetty. It glided soundlessly across the surface of the dark water. Wallander watched it for a long time. Then he zipped up his jacket and went to Nyberg, who was already starting his work out on the jetty.

  Skane

  17 October — 3 November 1994

  CHAPTER 25

  Nyberg slowly slit open the sack. Wallander went onto the jetty to look at the dead man’s face. The doctor, who had just arrived, went with him.

  He didn’t recognise the dead man, and of course he hadn’t expected to. Wallander guessed that he must have been between 40 and 50 years old.

  He looked at the body as it was pulled clear of the sack. He looked for less than a minute; he simply couldn’t stand more. He felt dizzy the whole time.

  Nyberg was going through the man’s pockets.

  “He’s wearing an expensive suit,” Nyberg said. “His shoes aren’t cheap either.”

  They didn’t find anything in his pockets. Someone had taken the trouble to remove his identity card, and yet the killer must have assumed that the body would very soon be discovered in Krageholm Lake.

  The body had now been pulled free and was on a plastic sheet. Nyberg signalled to Wallander, who had stepped aside.

  “This was carefully calculated,” he said. “You’d almost think the murderer knew about weight distribution and water resistance.”

  “What do you mean?” Wallander asked.

  Nyberg pointed to several thick seams running along the inside of the sack.

  “The sack has weights sewn into it that ensured two things. One, the weights were light enough so that with the man’s body in it the sack wouldn’t sink to the bottom. Two, the sack would lie with only a narrow air pocket above the water’s surface. Since it was all so carefully calculated, the person who prepared the sack must have known the man’s weight. At least approximately. With a margin of error of maybe four to five kilos.”

  Wallander forced himself to think this over, even though all thoughts of how the man had died made him feel sick.

  “So the narrow air pocket guaranteed that the man would actually drown?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” Nyberg said. “But it’s probable that this man was still alive when the sack was put into the water. So he was murdered.”

  The doctor, who was kneeling down to examine the body, had been listening to their conversation. He stood up and came over to them. The jetty swayed under their weight.

  “It’s too early to be certain,” he said
. “But we have to presume that he drowned.”

  “Not just that he drowned,” Wallander said. “But that somebody drowned him.”

  “The police are the ones who will have to determine whether it was an accident or a murder,” the doctor said. “I can only speak about what happened to his body.”

  “No external marks? No contusions? Or wounds?”

  “We’ll need to get his clothes off to be able to answer that question. But I can’t see anything on the parts of his body that are visible. The autopsy may turn up other results.”

  Wallander nodded. “I’d like to know as soon as possible if you find any signs of violence.”

  The doctor went back to his work. Even though Wallander had met him several times before, he still couldn’t remember his name. Wallander went and gathered his colleagues on the shore. Hansson had just finished talking to the man who had discovered the sack.

  “We didn’t find any identification,” Wallander began. “We have to find out who he is. That’s the most important thing right now. Until then we can’t do anything. We’ll start by going through the missing-persons files.”

  “There’s a good chance that he hasn’t been missed yet,” Hansson said. “Nils Goransson, the man who found him, claims he was here as late as yesterday afternoon. He does shift work at a machine shop in Svedala and usually takes a walk out here because he has trouble sleeping. He was here yesterday. He always walks out on the jetty. And there wasn’t any sack. So it must have been thrown into the water during the night.”

  “Or this morning,” Wallander said. “When did Goransson get here?”

  Hansson checked his notes.

  “At 8.15. He finished his shift at around 7 a.m. and drove here, stopping on the way for breakfast.”

  “So not much time has passed,” Wallander said. “That may give us certain advantages. The difficulty is going to be to find out who he is.”

  “The sack could have been put into the lake somewhere else,” Nyberg said.

  Wallander shook his head.

  “He hasn’t been in the water long. And there’s no current here to speak of.”

  Martinsson kicked at the sand restlessly, as if he were cold.