He switched to Runfeldt’s wife.
“I made a trip to a lake outside Almhult without knowing for sure what I would find. I don’t have any proof, but I can imagine that Runfeldt actually killed his wife. We’ll never know what happened out there on the ice. The main players are dead. There were no witnesses, but I still have a hunch that someone outside the family knew about it. For lack of anything better, we have to consider the possibility that the death of his wife had something to do with Runfeldt’s fate.”
Wallander paused for a moment and then continued.
“So, he’s taking a trip to Africa. He doesn’t go. Something prevents him. How he disappears, we don’t know. On the other hand, we can pinpoint the date. But we have no explanation for the break-in at his shop. We don’t know where he was held prisoner. The suitcase may, of course, provide a clue. For some reason it was repacked by a woman. If so, by the same woman who smoked a handrolled cigarette on the jetty where Blomberg was thrown into the water.”
“There could be two people,” Hoglund objected. “One who smoked the cigarette and left a fingerprint on the suitcase. Someone else could have repacked it.”
“You’re right,” Wallander said. “Let’s say that at least one person was present.” He glanced at Nyberg.
“We’re looking,” Nyberg said. “We’re going through Holger Eriksson’s place. We’ve found lots of fingerprints. But so far none that match.”
“The name tag,” Wallander said. “The one we found in Runfeldt’s suitcase. Did it have any fingerprints on it?”
Nyberg shook his head.
“It should have had,” said Wallander in surprise. “You use your fingers to put it on or take it off, don’t you?”
No-one had an explanation for this.
“So far we’ve talked about a number of women, one of whom keeps appearing,” he continued. “We also have spousal abuse and possibly an undetected murder. The question we have to ask ourselves is: who would have known about these things? Who would have had a reason to seek revenge? If the motive is revenge, that is.”
“There might be another thing,” Svedberg said, scratching the back of his neck. “We have two old police investigations that were both archived, unsolved. One in Ostersund and one in Almhult.”
Wallander nodded.
“That leaves Eriksson,” he went on. “Another brutal man. After a lot of effort, or rather a lot of luck, we find a woman in his background too. A Polish woman who’s been missing for 30 years or so.”
He looked around the table before he concluded.
“In other words, there’s a pattern,” he said. “Brutal men and abused, missing, and maybe murdered women. And one step behind, a shadow that follows in the tracks of these events. A shadow that might be a woman. A woman who smokes.”
Hansson dropped his pencil on the table and shook his head.
“It doesn’t seem possible,” he said. “Let’s imagine that there’s a woman involved, who seems to have enormous physical strength and a macabre imagination when it comes to methods of murder. Why would she have an interest in what happened to these women? Is she a friend of theirs? How did all these people cross paths?”
“That’s not just an important question,” Wallander said. “It could be crucial. How did these people come into contact with each other? Where should we start looking? Among men or among women? A car dealer, regional poet and bird-watcher; an orchid lover, private detective, and florist; and an allergy researcher. Blomberg, at any rate, doesn’t seem to have had any special interests. Or should we start with the women? A mother who lies about the father of her newborn child? A woman who drowned in Stang Lake outside Almhult ten years ago? A woman from Poland who lived in Jamtland and was interested in birds, missing for 30 years? And finally, this woman who sneaks around in the Ystad maternity ward at night and knocks down midwives? Where are the points of connection?”
The silence lasted a long time. Everyone tried to find an answer. Wallander waited. This was a key moment. He was hoping that someone would come up with an unexpected conclusion. Rydberg had told him many times that the most important task of the leader of an investigation was to stimulate his colleagues to think the unexpected. Had he been successful?
It was Hoglund who at last broke the silence.
“There are some occupations that are dominated by women,” she said. “Nursing is one of them.”
“Patients come from all different places,” Martinsson continued. “If we assume that the woman we’re looking for works in an emergency room, she would have seen lots of abused women pass through. None of them knew each other. But she knew them. Their names, their patient records.”
Hoglund and Martinsson had come up with something that might fit.
“We don’t know whether she really is a nurse,” Wallander said. “All we know is that she doesn’t work in the maternity ward in Ystad.”
“She could work somewhere else in the hospital,” Svedberg suggested.
Wallander nodded slowly. Could it really be so simple? A nurse at Ystad General Hospital?
“It should be relatively easy to find out,” Hansson said. “Even though patient records are confidential, it should be possible to find out if Gosta Runfeldt’s wife was treated there. And why not Krista Haberman, for that matter?”
Wallander took a new tack.
“Have Runfeldt and Eriksson ever been charged with assault? That’s easily checked.”
“There are also other possibilities,” Hoglund said, as though she felt the need to question her own previous suggestions. “There are other occcupations in which women dominate. There are crisis groups for women. Even the female officers in Skane have their own network.”
“We have to investigate all these,” Wallander said. “It will take a long time and I think we have to accept that this investigation is heading in many directions at once. Especially in terms of time.”
They spent the last two hours before midnight planning various strategies to be explored simultaneously, until at last they ran out of steam.
Hansson put the final question into words, the one they had all been waiting for the whole evening.
“Is it going to happen again?”
“I don’t know,” Wallander said. “I have a sense of incompleteness about what’s happened so far. Don’t ask me why. That’s all I can say. Something as unprofessional as a feeling. Intuition, maybe.”
“I have the same feeling,” Svedberg said. He said this with such force that everyone was surprised. “Isn’t it possible that we can expect a series of murders that go on indefinitely? If it’s someone pointing a vengeful finger at men who have mistreated women, then it’s never going to stop.”
Wallander knew it was likely that Svedberg was right. He’d been trying to avoid the thought himself all along.
“There is that risk,” he said. “Which in turn means that we have to catch the killer fast.”
“Reinforcements,” said Nyberg, who had barely uttered a word the past two hours. “Otherwise it won’t work.”
“Yes,” Wallander said. “I agree that we’re going to need them. Especially after what we’ve talked about tonight. We can’t manage without extra help to do much more than we already are.”
Hamren raised his hand to signal that he wanted to say something. He was sitting next to the two detectives from Malmo near the far end of the long table.
“I’d like to underline that last comment,” he said. “I’ve rarely if ever taken part in such efficient police work with so few personnel. Since I was here in the summer too, I can say with certainty that it’s the rule, not the exception. If you request reinforcements, no reasonable person is going to refuse you.”
The detectives from Malmo nodded in agreement.
“I’ll take it up with Chief Holgersson tomorrow,” Wallander said. “I’m also thinking of trying to get a few more female officers. If nothing else, it might boost morale.”
The weary mood lifted for a moment. Wallander s
eized the opportunity and stood up. It was important to know when to end a meeting. Now was the time. They wouldn’t make any more progress. They needed sleep.
Wallander went to his office. He leafed through the steadily growing stack of phone messages. Instead of putting on his jacket, he sat down in his chair. Footsteps disappeared down the hall. Soon it was quiet. He twisted the lamp down to shine on the desk. The rest of the room was dark.
It was 12.30. Without thinking he grabbed the phone and dialled Baiba in Riga. She had irregular sleeping habits, just as he did. Sometimes she went to bed early, but just as often she stayed up half the night. She answered almost at once. She was awake. As always he tried to hear from her tone of voice whether she was glad he had called. He never felt sure ahead of time. This time he sensed that she was wary. He was instantly insecure. He wanted reassurance that everything was the way it should be. He asked her how she was, told her about the exhausting investigation. She asked a few questions. Then he didn’t know how to continue. Silence began wandering back and forth between Ystad and Riga.
“When are you coming over?” he asked at last.
Her response surprised him, even though it shouldn’t have.
“Do you really want me to come?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You never call. And when you do call, you say you really don’t have time to talk to me. So how are you going to have any time to spend with me if I come to Ystad?”
“That’s not how it is.”
“Then how is it?”
Where his reaction came from, he had no idea. Not then or later. He tried to stop his own impulse, but he couldn’t. He slammed the receiver down hard and stared at the phone. Then he got up and left the station. Even before he got to reception, he regretted it. But he knew Baiba well enough to know that she wouldn’t answer if he called her back.
He stepped out into the night air. A police car rolled past and vanished in the direction of the water tower. There was no wind. The night air was chilly, the sky clear.
He didn’t understand his own reaction. What would have happened if she had been there, right next to him?
He thought about the murdered men. It was as if he suddenly saw something he hadn’t seen before. Part of himself was hidden in all the brutality that surrounded him. He was a part of it. Only the degree was different. Nothing else.
He shook his head. He knew he ought to call Baiba early in the morning. It didn’t have to be so terrible. She understood. Fatigue could make her irritable too.
It was 1 a.m. He should go home to bed, ask an officer to drive him home. But instead he started walking. Somewhere a car skidded, tyres screeching. Then silence. He walked down the hill towards the hospital.
The investigative team had sat in the meeting for seven hours. Nothing had really happened, and yet the evening had been eventful. Clarity arises in the spaces in between, Rydberg had said once when he was quite drunk. Wallander, who was at least as drunk, had understood. He’d never forgotten it, either. They were sitting on Rydberg’s balcony. Five, maybe six years ago. Rydberg was not yet ill. It was an evening in June, right before Midsummer. They were celebrating something, Wallander had forgotten what it was.
Clarity arises in the spaces in between.
He had reached the hospital. He stopped. He hesitated, but only briefly. Then he walked round the side of the hospital and rang the night bell. When a voice answered he said who he was and asked whether the midwife Ylva Brink was on duty. She was.
She met him outside the glass doors of her ward. He could see by her face that she was nervous. He smiled, but her unease didn’t diminish. Maybe his smile didn’t look genuine. Or the light was bad. They went inside. She asked if he’d like some coffee. He shook his head.
“I’ll only stay for a moment,” he said. “You must be busy.”
“Yes,” she replied. “But I can spare a few minutes. If it can’t wait until tomorrow?”
“It probably could,” Wallander replied. “But I was passing on my way home.”
They went into the office. A nurse on her way in stopped when she saw Wallander.
“It can wait,” she said and left.
Wallander leaned against the desk. Ylva Brink sat down.
“You must have wondered,” he began, “about the woman who knocked you down. Who she was. Why she was here. Why she did what she did. You must have thought long and hard about it. You’ve given us a good description of her face. Maybe there’s some detail you thought of afterwards.”
“You’re right, I’ve been thinking about it. But I’ve told you everything I can remember about her face.”
He believed her.
“It doesn’t have to be her face. She might have had a certain way of moving. Or a scar on her hand. A human being is a combination of so many different details. We think we can trust our memory, and that all of the details are there, just like that. Actually it’s just the opposite. Imagine an object that can almost float, that sinks through water extremely slowly. That’s the way memory works.”
She shook her head.
“It happened so fast. I don’t remember anything except what I’ve already told you. And I’ve really tried.”
Wallander nodded. He hadn’t really expected anything else.
“What has she done?” Ylva asked.
“She knocked you down. We’re looking for her. We think she might have some important information for us. That’s all I can tell you.”
A clock on the wall read 1.27 a.m. He put out his hand to say goodbye, and they left the office.
Suddenly she stopped him.
“There might be something else,” she said hesitantly.
“What is it?”
“I didn’t think about it then, when I went towards her and she knocked me down. It wasn’t until afterwards.”
“What?”
“She was wearing a perfume that was special.”
“In what way?”
She gave him almost an imploring look.
“I don’t know. How does one describe a scent?”
“That’s one of the hardest things to do. But give it a try.”
He could see that she was making a real effort.
“No,” she said. “I can’t find the words. I just know that it was special. Maybe you could say that it was harsh.”
“More like after-shave lotion?”
She looked at him in surprise.
“Yes,” she said. “How did you know that?”
“It was just a thought.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Since I can’t express myself clearly.”
“Oh no,” he replied. “This could turn out to be valuable. We never know ahead of time.”
They parted at the glass doors. Wallander took the lift down and left the hospital. He walked fast. Now he had to get some sleep. He thought about what she had said. If there were any traces of perfume left on the name tag holder, she would be asked to smell it early the next morning. He already knew that it would be the same. They were looking for a woman. Her perfume was special. But would they ever find her?
CHAPTER 30
At 7.35 a.m. her shift ended. She was in a hurry, driven by a sudden restlessness. It was a cold, wet morning in Malmo. She hurried towards the car park. Normally she would have driven straight home and gone to bed. Now she knew that she had to go to Lund. She tossed the bag in the back and got in. When she took the steering wheel she could feel that her hands were sweating.
She never had been able to trust Katarina Taxell. The woman was too weak. There had always been the risk that she would cave in. Taxell was the sort of person who bruised easily. So far, she had judged her control over Taxell to be sufficient. Now she was less sure.
I have to get her out of there, she had thought all night long. At least until she begins to put some distance between herself and what happened. It shouldn’t be difficult to persuade her to leave her flat for the time being. There was nothing unusual in a woman d
eveloping psychological problems in connection with the birth of a child.
It was raining when she arrived in Lund. Her uneasiness persisted. She parked in a side street and started walking towards the square where Katarina Taxell’s building was. Suddenly she stopped. She took a few wary steps back, as if a predator had abruptly appeared in front of her. She stood next to the wall of a building and observed the front door of Taxell’s block of flats.
There was a car parked outside with a man, or maybe two, sitting in it. She was instantly sure they were policemen. Katarina Taxell was being watched.
The panic came out of nowhere. She couldn’t see it, but she knew that her face was flaming red. She was having palpitations. The thoughts swirled in her head like confused nocturnal animals in a room when a light is turned on. What had Katarina said? Why were they sitting outside her front door?
Or was it only her imagination? She stood motionless and tried to think calmly. She could be certain that Katarina hadn’t told them anything. Otherwise they wouldn’t be watching her. They would have taken her down to the station. So it wasn’t too late after all. But she probably didn’t have much time. Not that she needed much. She knew what she had to do.
She lit a cigarette that she had rolled during the night. According to her timetable, it was at least an hour too early. Now she broke with routine. This day was going to be special. There was no getting around it.
She stood there for several minutes more and watched the car by the front door. Then she put out the cigarette and walked quickly away.
When Wallander woke up just after 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning, he was still tired. His sleep deprivation was huge. The powerlessness was like a lead weight deep in his consciousness. He lay in bed with his eyes open. A human being is an animal who lives to endure, he thought. But right now, it seems I can’t handle it any more.
He sat up on the edge of his bed. The floor was cold beneath his feet. He looked at his toenails. They needed cutting. His whole body needed an overhaul. A month earlier he had been in Rome, storing up new energy. It was all used up. He forced himself to stand up. He went into the bathroom. The cold water was like a slap in the face. Someday he’d have to quit doing this — using cold water to get himself going. He dried off, put on his dressing gown, and went to the kitchen. Always the same routine. The coffee, then the window, the thermometer. It was raining and it was 4 °C. Autumn, and the cold already had a firm grip. Someone at the police station had predicted a long winter. That was what he feared.
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