Sidetracked kw-5

by Henning Mankell

  He had been there the day before. He had left his moped among some trees and made his way to the top of a hill where he could watch undisturbed. Arne Carlman’s house was isolated, just like Wetterstedt’s. There were no close neighbours. An avenue of trimmed willows led up to the old whitewashed Scanian farmhouse.

  Preparations for the Midsummer festivities had already begun. He’d seen people unloading folding tables and stack-able chairs from a van. In one corner of the garden they were putting up a serving tent.

  Carlman was there too. Through his binoculars he could see the man he would visit the next day, directing the work. He was wearing a tracksuit and a beret.

  He thought of his sister with this man, and nausea over-whelmed him. He hadn’t needed to see any more after that, he’d known what his plan would be.

  When he had finished painting his forehead and the shadows around his eyes, he drew two heavy white lines down each side of his nose. He could already feel Geronimo’s heart pounding in his chest. He bent down and started the player on the basement floor. The drums were very loud. The spirits started talking inside him.

  He didn’t finish until late afternoon. He selected the weapons he would take with him. Then he released the four rats into a large box. In vain they tried to scramble up the sides. He aimed the axe he wanted to try at the biggest. It was so fast that the rat didn’t even have time to squeak. The blow split it in two. The other rats scratched at the sides. He went to his leather jacket, and reached into the inside pocket for the spray can. But it was gone. He searched the other pockets. It wasn’t there. For a moment he stood frozen. Had someone been here after all? That was impossible.

  To collect his thoughts, he sat down in front of the mirrors again. The spray can must have fallen out of his jacket pocket. Slowly and methodically he went over the days since he had visited Gustaf Wetterstedt. He realised he must have dropped the can when he was watching the police from outside the cordon. He had taken off his jacket at one point so he could put on a sweater. That’s how it had happened. He decided that it presented no danger. Anyone could have dropped a spray can. Even if his fingerprints were on it, the police didn’t have them on file. Not even F.B.I. chief Hoover would have been able to trace that spray can.

  He got up from his place in front of the mirrors and returned to the rats in the box. When they caught sight of him they began rushing back and forth. With three blows of his axe he killed them all. Then he tipped the bleeding bodies into a plastic bag, tied it carefully, and put it inside another. He wiped off the edge of the axe and then felt it with his fingertips.

  By just after 6 p.m. he was ready. He had stuffed the weapons and the bag of rats into his backpack. He put on socks and running shoes with the pattern on the soles filed off. He turned off the light and left the basement. Before he went out on the street he pulled his helmet over his head.

  Just past the turn off to Sturup he drove into a car park and stuffed the plastic bag containing the rats into a rubbish bin. Then he continued on towards Bjaresjo. The wind had died down. There had been a sudden change in the weather. The evening would be warm.

  Midsummer Eve was one of art dealer Arne Carlman’s biggest occasions of the year. For more than 15 years he had invited his friends to a party at the Scanian farm where he lived during the summer. In a certain circle of artists and gallery owners it was important to be invited to Carlman’s party. He had a strong influence on everyone who bought and sold art in Sweden. He could create fame and fortune for any artist he decided to promote, and he could topple any who didn’t follow his advice or do as he required. More than 30 years earlier he had travelled all over the country in an old car, peddling art. Those were lean years but they had taught him what kind of pictures he could sell to whom. He had learned the business, and divested himself of the notion that art was something above the control of market forces. He had saved enough to open a combined frame shop and gallery on Osterlanggatan in Stockholm. With a ruthless mixture of flattery, alcohol and crisp banknotes he bought paintings from young artists and then built up their reputations. He bribed, threatened and lied his way to the top. Within ten years he owned 30 galleries all over Sweden, and had started selling art by mail order. By the mid-70s he was a wealthy man. He bought the farm in Skane and began holding his summer parties a few years later. They had become famous for their extravagance. Each guest could expect a present that cost no less than 5,000 kronor. This year he had commissioned a limited edition fountain pen from an Italian designer.

  When Arne Carlman woke up beside his wife early on Midsummer Eve morning, he went to the window and gazed over a landscape weighed down by rain and wind. He quickly quelled a wave of irritation and disappointment. He had learned to accept that he had no power over the weather. Five years before he had had a special collection of rainwear designed for his guests. Those who wanted to be in the garden could be, and those who preferred to be inside could be in the old barn, converted into a huge open space.

  When the guests began arriving around 8 p.m., what had promised to be a wet, nasty Midsummer Eve had become a beautiful summer evening. Carlman appeared in a dinner jacket, one of his sons following him holding an umbrella. As always, he had invited 100 people, of whom half were first-time guests. Just after 10 p.m. he clinked a knife on his glass, and gave his traditional summer speech. He did so in the knowledge that many of his guests hated or despised him. But at the age of 66, he had stopped worrying about what people thought. His empire could speak for itself. Two of his sons were prepared to take over the business when he could no longer run it, although he wasn’t ready to retire. This is what he said in his speech, which was devoted entirely to himself. They couldn’t count him out yet. They could look forward to many more Midsummer parties — at which the weather, he hoped, would be better than this year. His words were met with half-hearted applause. Then an orchestra started playing in the barn. Most of the guests made their way inside. Carlman led off the dancing with his wife.

  “What did you think of my little speech?” he asked her.

  “You’ve never been more spiteful,” she replied.

  “Let them hate me,” he said. “What do I care? What do we care? I still have a lot to do.”

  Just before midnight, Carlman strolled to an arbour at the edge of the huge garden with a young woman artist from Goteborg. One of his talent scouts had advised him to invite her to his summer party. He had seen a number of transparencies of her paintings and recognised at once that she had something. It was a new type of idyllic painting. Cold suburbs, stone deserts, lonely people, surrounded by Elysian fields of flowers. He already knew that he was going to promote the woman as the leading exponent of a new school of painting, which could be called New Illusionism. She was very young, he thought, as they walked towards the arbour. But she was neither beautiful nor mysterious. Carlman had learned that just as important as the painting was the image presented by the artist. He wondered what he was going to do with this skinny, pale young woman.

  It was a magnificent evening. The dance was still in full swing. But many of the guests had started gathering around the TV sets. Sweden’s football match against Russia would be starting shortly. He wanted to finish his conversation with her so that he could watch it too.

  Carlman had a contract in his pocket. It would provide her with a large cash sum in exchange for his acquiring the exclusive right to sell her work for three years. On the surface it seemed a very advantageous contract. But the fine print, difficult to read in the pale light of the summer night, granted him certain rights to future paintings. He wiped off two chairs with a handkerchief and invited her to sit. It took him less than half an hour to persuade her to agree to the arrangement. Then he handed her one of the designer pens and she signed the contract.

  She left the arbour and went back to the barn. Later she would claim with absolute certainty that it had been three minutes to midnight. For some reason she had looked at the time as she walked along the gravel path up towards
the house. With equal conviction she told the police that Arne Carlman had given no impression that he was uneasy. Nor that he was waiting for anyone. He had said that he was going to sit there for a few minutes and enjoy the fresh air after the rain. She hadn’t looked back. But she was certain that there was no-one else in that part of the garden.

  Hoover had been hiding on top of the hill all evening. The damp ground made him cold. Now and then he got up to shake some life into his limbs. Just after 11 p.m. he had seen through his binoculars that the moment was approaching. There were fewer and fewer people in the garden. He took out his weapons and stuck them in his belt. He also took off his shoes and socks and put them in his backpack. Then, bent almost double, he slipped down the hill and ran along a tractor path in the cover of a rape field. When he reached the edge of the property, he sank onto the wet ground. Through the hedge he had a view of the garden.

  It was not long before his wait was over. Carlman was walking straight towards him, accompanied by a young woman. They sat down in the arbour. Hoover couldn’t hear what they were talking about. After about half an hour the woman got up, but Carlman remained seated. The garden was deserted. The music in the barn had stopped; instead he could hear the blare of TV sets. Hoover got up, drew his axe, and squeezed through the hedge right behind the arbour. Swiftly, he checked again that no-one was in the garden. Then all doubt vanished, and his sister’s revelations exhorted him to carry out his task. He rushed into the arbour and buried the axe in Arne Carlman’s face. The powerful blow split the skull all the way to the upper jaw. He was still sitting on the bench, with the two halves of his head pointing in opposite directions. Hoover pulled out his knife and cut off the hair on the part of Carlman’s head that was closest. Then he left as quickly as he had come. He climbed up the hill, picked up his backpack, and ran down the other side to the little gravel road where he had left his moped leaning against one of the road workers’ huts.

  Two hours later he buried the scalp next to the other one, beneath his sister’s window.

  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the wind had died completely. Midsummer Day would be both fair and warm. Summer had arrived. More quickly than anyone could have imagined.

  Skane

  25–28 June 1994

  CHAPTER 11

  The emergency call came in to the Ystad station just after 2 a.m.

  Thomas Brolin had just scored for Sweden in the match against Russia. He rammed in a penalty kick. A cheer rose in the Swedish summer night. It had been an unusually calm Midsummer Eve. The officer who received the call did so standing, since he had leapt to his feet shouting. But he realised at once that the call was serious. The woman shrieking in his ear seemed sober. Her hysteria was real. The officer sent for Hansson, who had felt his temporary appointment as police chief to be such a responsibility that he hadn’t risked leaving the station on Midsummer Eve. He’d been busy weighing how his limited resources could best be employed on each case. At 11 p.m. fights had broken out at two different parties. One was caused by jealousy. In the other the Swedish goalkeeper, Ravelli, was the cause of the tumult. In a report later drafted by Svedberg, he stated that it was Ravelli’s action in the game against Cameroon, when Cameroon scored their second goal, that triggered a violent argument that left three people in hospital.

  Hansson went out to the operations centre and spoke with the officer who had taken the call.

  “Did she really say that a man had his head split in half?”

  The officer nodded. Hansson pondered this.

  “We’ll have to ask Svedberg to drive out there,” he said.

  “But isn’t he busy with that domestic violence case in Svarte?”

  “Right, I forgot,” said Hansson. “Call Wallander.”

  For the first time in over a week Wallander had managed to get to sleep before midnight. In a moment of weakness he considered joining the rest of the country watching the match against Russia. But he fell asleep while he was waiting for the players to take the field. When the telephone rang, he didn’t know where he was for a moment. He fumbled on the table next to the bed.

  “Did I wake you up?” asked Hansson.

  “Yes,” replied Wallander. “What is it?”

  Wallander was surprised at himself. He usually claimed that he was awake when someone called, no matter what time it was.

  Hansson told him about the call. Later Wallander would brood over why he hadn’t immediately made the connection between what had happened in Bjaresjo and Wetterstedt’s murder. Was it because he didn’t want to believe that they had a serial killer on their hands? Or was he simply incapable of imagining that a murder like Wetterstedt’s could be anything but an isolated event? The only thing he did now was to ask Hansson to dispatch a squad car to the scene ahead of him.

  Just before 3 a.m. he pulled up outside the farm in Bjaresjo. On the car radio he heard Martin Dahlin score his second goal against Russia. He realised that Sweden was going to win and that he had lost another 100 kronor.

  He saw Noren running over to him, and knew at once that it was serious. But it wasn’t until he went into the garden and passed a number of people who were either hysterical or dumbstruck that he grasped the full extent of the horror. The man who had been sitting on the bench in the arbour had actually had his head split in half. On the left half of his head, someone had also sliced off a large piece of skin and hair.

  Wallander stood there completely motionless for more than a minute. Noren said something, but it didn’t register. He stared at the dead man and knew without doubt that it was the same killer who had axed Wetterstedt to death. Then for a brief moment he felt an indescribable sorrow.

  Later, talking to Baiba, he tried to explain the unexpected and very un-policeman-like feeling that had struck him. It was as though a dam inside him had burst, and he knew that there were no longer invisible lines dividing Sweden. The violence of the large cities had reached his own police district once and for all. The world had shrunk and expanded at the same time.

  Then sorrow gave way to horror. He turned to Noren, who was very pale.

  “It looks like the same offender,” said Noren.

  Wallander nodded.

  “Who’s the victim?” he asked.

  “His name is Arne Carlman. He’s the one who owns this farm. There was a Midsummer party going on.”

  “No-one must leave yet. Find out if anyone saw anything.”

  Wallander took out his phone, punched in the number of the station, and asked for Hansson.

  “It looks bad,” he said when Hansson came on.

  “How bad?”

  “I’m having a hard time thinking of anything worse. There’s no doubt it’s the same person who killed Wetterstedt. This one was scalped too.”

  Wallander could hear Hansson’s breathing.

  “You’ll have to mobilise everything we’ve got,” Wallander went on “And I want Akeson to come out here.”

  Wallander hung up before Hansson could ask questions. What will I do now? he thought. Who am I looking for? A psychopath? An offender who acts in a precise and calculated way?

  Deep inside he knew the answer. There must be a connection between Gustaf Wetterstedt and Arne Carlman. That was the first thing he had to discover.

  After 20 minutes the emergency vehicles started arriving. When Wallander caught sight of Nyberg, he ushered him straight to the arbour.

  “Not a pretty sight,” was Nyberg’s first comment.

  “This has got to be the same man,” said Wallander. “He has struck again.”

  “It doesn’t look as though we’ll have trouble identifying the scene of the crime this time,” said Nyberg, pointing at the blood sprayed over the hedge and the table. He summoned his crew and set to work.

  Noren had assembled all the guests in the barn. The garden was strangely deserted. He came over to Wallander and pointed up towards the farmhouse.

  “He’s got a wife and three children in there. They’re in shock.”
/>   “Maybe we ought to call a doctor.”

  “She called one herself.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” said Wallander. “When Martinsson and Ann-Britt and the others get here, tell them to talk to anyone who might have seen something. The rest can go home. But write down every name. And don’t forget to ask for identification. Were there any witnesses?”

  “Nobody has come forward.”

  “Have you got a time frame?”

  Noren took a notebook out of his pocket.

  “At 11.3 °Carlman was seen alive. At 2 a.m. he was found dead. So the murder took place sometime in between.”

  “It must be possible to shorten the time span,” said Wallander. “Try and find out who was the last one to see him alive. And of course who found him.”

  Wallander went inside. The old Scanian farmhouse had been lovingly restored. Wallander stepped into a large room that served as living-room, kitchen, and dining area. Oil paintings covered the walls. In one corner of the room, the dead man’s family sat on a sofa upholstered in black leather. A woman in her 50s stood up and came over to him.

  “Mrs Carlman?”

  “Yes.”

  She had been crying. Wallander looked for signs that she might break down. But she seemed surprisingly calm.

  “I’m sorry,” said Wallander.

  “It’s just terrible.”

  Wallander noted something a little rehearsed in her answer.

  “Do you have any idea who might have done such a thing?”

  “No.”

  The answer came too quickly. She had been prepared for that question. That means there are plenty of people who might have considered killing him, he told himself.