Sidetracked kw-5

by Henning Mankell

  “He’s a murderer,” said Wallander. “He selected two people. He made plans. He must have visited the beach outside Wetterstedt’s house several times. He even took the time to unscrew a bulb to obscure the area between the garden gate and the sea.”

  “Do we know whether Wetterstedt was in the habit of taking an evening walk on the beach?” Ekholm interjected.

  “No,” said Wallander. “But of course we ought to find out.”

  “Keep going,” said Ekholm.

  “On the surface the pattern looks completely different when it comes to Carlman,” said Wallander. “Surrounded by people at a Midsummer party. But maybe the killer didn’t see it that way. Maybe he thought he could make use of the fact that no-one sees anything at all at a party. Nothing is as difficult as obtaining a detailed impression of events from a large group of people.”

  “To answer that question we have to examine what alternatives he may have had,” said Ekholm. “Carlman was a businessman who moved around a lot. Always surrounded by people. Maybe the party was the right choice after all.”

  “The similarity or the difference,” said Wallander. “Which one is crucial?”

  Ekholm threw out his hands.

  “It’s too early to say, of course. What we can be sure of is that he plans his crimes carefully and that he’s extremely cold-blooded.”

  “He takes scalps,” said Wallander. “He collects trophies. What does that mean?”

  “He’s exercising power,” said Ekholm. “The trophies are the proof of his actions. For him it’s no more peculiar than a hunter putting up a pair of horns on his wall.”

  “But the decision to scalp,” Wallander went on. “Where does that come from?”

  “It’s not that strange,” said Ekholm. “I don’t want to seem cynical. But what part of a human being is more suitable to be taken as a trophy? A human body rots. A piece of skin with hair on it is easy to preserve.”

  “I guess I still can’t stop thinking of American Indians,” said Wallander.

  “Naturally it can’t be excluded that your killer has a fixation on an American Indian warrior,” said Ekholm. “People who find themselves in a psychic borderland often choose to hide behind another person’s identity. Or transform themselves into a mythological figure.”

  “Borderland?” said Wallander. “What does that involve?”

  “Your killer has already committed two murders. We can’t rule out that he intends to commit more, since we don’t know his motive. This indicates he has probably passed a psychological boundary, that he has freed himself from our normal inhibitions. A person can commit murder or manslaughter without premeditation. A killer who repeats his actions is following completely different psychological laws. He finds himself in a twilight zone where all the boundaries that exist for him are of his own making. On the surface he can live a completely normal life. He can go to a job every morning. He can have a family and devote his evenings to playing golf or tending his garden. He can sit on his sofa with his children around him and watch the news reports on the murders he himself has committed. He can deplore the crimes, and wonder why such people are on the loose. He has two different identities that he controls utterly. He pulls his own strings. He is both marionette and puppet master.”

  Wallander thought about what Ekholm had said.

  “Who is he?” he finally asked. “What does he look like? How old is he? I can’t hunt someone who looks entirely normal on the surface. I must search for a specific person.”

  “I can’t answer that yet,” said Ekholm. “I need time to get into the material before I can create a profile of the killer.”

  “I hope you’re not considering today a day of rest,” said Wallander wearily. “We’ll need that profile as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll try to get something together by tomorrow,” said Ekholm. “But you and your colleagues have to realise that the difficulties and the margins of error are daunting.”

  “I realise that,” said Wallander. “We still need all the help you can give us.”

  When the meeting was over Wallander drove down to the harbour and walked out onto the pier, where he had sat a few days earlier trying to write his speech for Bjork. He sat and watched a fishing boat on its way out to sea. He unbuttoned his shirt and closed his eyes, facing the sun. Somewhere close by he heard children laughing. He tried to empty his mind and enjoy the heat. But after a few minutes he stood up and left.

  Your killer has already committed two murders. We can’t rule out that he intends to commit more, since we don’t know his motive.

  Ekholm’s words might have been his own. He would not relax until they had caught Wetterstedt and Carlman’s killer. Wallander knew his strength was his determination. And sometimes he had moments of insight. But his weakness was also clear. He couldn’t keep his job from becoming a personal matter. Your killer, Ekholm had said. There was no better description of his weakness. The man who killed Wetterstedt and Carlman was actually his own responsibility. Whether he liked it or not.

  He went back to his car, deciding to follow the plan he had made that morning. He drove out to Wetterstedt’s villa. The cordons on the beach were gone. Lindgren and an older man, who he assumed was Lindgren’s father, were busy sanding the boat. He didn’t feel like saying hello.

  He still had Wetterstedt’s keys, and he unlocked the front door. The silence was deafening. He sat down in one of the leather chairs in the living-room. He could just hear sounds from the beach. He looked around the room. What did it tell him? Had the killer ever been inside the house? He was having a hard time gathering his thoughts. He got up and went over to the big window facing the garden, the beach and the sea. Wetterstedt had stood here many times. He could see that the parquet floor was worn at this spot. He looked out of the window. Someone had shut off the water to the fountain in the garden. He let his gaze wander as he went over the thoughts he’d had earlier.

  On the hill outside Carlman’s house my killer stood and observed the party. He may have been there many times. From there he could see without being seen. Where is the hill from which you would have the same view of Wetterstedt? From what point could you see him without being seen?

  He walked around the house, stopping at each window. From the kitchen he looked for a long time at a pair of trees growing just out-side Wetterstedt’s property. But they were young birches that wouldn’t have held a person’s weight.

  Not until he came to the study and looked out of the window did he realise that he had found the answer. From the projecting garage roof it was possible to see straight into the room. He left the house and went around the garage. A younger, fit man could jump up, grab hold of the eaves and pull himself up. Wallander went and got a ladder he had seen on the other side of the house. He leaned it against the garage roof and climbed up. The roof was the old-fashioned tar-paper type. Since he wasn’t sure how much weight it would hold, he crawled on all fours over to a spot where he could look straight into Wetterstedt’s study. He searched until he found the point farthest away from the window that still had a good view inside. On his hands and knees he inspected the tar-paper. Almost at once he discovered some cuts in it criss-crossing each other. He ran his fingertips across the tar-paper. Someone had slashed it with a knife. He looked around. It was impossible to be seen either from the beach or from the road above Wetterstedt’s house.

  Wallander climbed down and put the ladder back. Carefully he inspected the ground next to the garage, but all he found were some tattered pages from a magazine that had blown onto the property. He went back into the house. The silence was oppressive. He went upstairs. Through the window in Wetterstedt’s bedroom he could see Lindgren and his father turning their boat right side up. He could see that it took two people to turn it over.

  And yet he now knew that the killer had been alone, both here and when he killed Carlman. Though there were few clues, his intuition told him that it had been one person sitting on Wetterstedt’s roof and on the hill
above Carlman’s.

  I’m dealing with a lone killer, he thought. A lone man who leaves his borderland and hacks people to death so he can then take their scalps as trophies.

  He left Wetterstedt’s house, emerging into the sunshine again with relief. He drove over to a cafe and ate lunch at the counter. A young woman at a table nearby nodded to him and said hello. He replied, unable to remember who she was. Not until he left did he recall that she was Britta-Lena Boden, the bank teller whose excellent memory had been so important during an investigation.

  By midday he was back at the station. Ann-Britt Hoglund met him in the foyer.

  “I saw you from my window,” she said.

  Wallander knew at once that something had happened. He waited, tense, for her to continue.

  “There is a point of contact,” she said. “In the late 1960s Carlman did some time in prison. At Langholmen. Wetterstedt was minister of justice at the time.”

  “That isn’t enough,” said Wallander.

  “I’m not finished. Carlman wrote a letter to Wetterstedt. And when he got out of prison they met.”

  Wallander stood motionless.

  “How do you know this?”

  “Come to my office and I’ll tell you.”

  Wallander knew what this meant. If there was a connection, they had broken through the hard, outermost shell of the investigation.

  CHAPTER 15

  It had started with a telephone call.

  Ann-Britt Hoglund had been on her way down the hall to talk to Martinsson when she was paged. She returned to her office and took the call. It was a man who spoke so softly that at first she thought he was sick or injured. But she understood that he wanted to talk to Wallander. No-one else would do, least of all a woman. She explained that Wallander had gone out and no-one could say when he was coming back. But the man was extremely persistent, although she didn’t understand how a man who spoke so softly could seem so strong-willed. She considered transferring the call to Martinsson and having him pretend to be Wallander. But something told her that he might know Wallander’s voice.

  He said that he had important information. She asked him whether it had to do with Wetterstedt’s death. Maybe, he replied. Then she asked whether it was about Carlman. Maybe, he said once again. She knew that somehow she had to keep him talking. He had refused to give his name or phone number.

  He finally resolved the impasse. He had been silent for so long that Hoglund thought he had hung up, but then he asked for the station fax number. Give the fax to Wallander, the man had said. Not to anyone else.

  An hour later the fax had arrived. She handed it to Wallander. To his astonishment he saw that it was sent from Skoglund’s Hardware in Stockholm.

  “I looked up the number and called them,” she said. “I also thought it was strange that a hardware shop would be open on Sunday. From a message on their answer machine I got hold of the owner via his mobile phone. He had no idea either how someone could have sent a fax from his office. He was on his way to play golf but promised to look into the matter. Half an hour later he called and reported that someone had broken into his office.”

  “How strange,” said Wallander.

  He read the fax. It was hand-written and hard to read. He must get reading glasses soon. He couldn’t pretend any longer he was just tired or stressed. The fax seemed to have been written in great haste. Wallander read it silently. Then he read it aloud to make sure he hadn’t misunderstood anything.

  “‘Arne Carlman was in Langholmen during the spring of 1969 for fraud and fencing stolen goods. At that time Gustaf Wetterstedt was minister of justice. Carlman wrote letters to him. He bragged about it. When he got out he met with Wetterstedt. What did they talk about? What did they do? We don’t know. But things went well for Carlman. He never went to prison again. And now they’re dead. Both of them.’ Have I read this correctly?”

  “I came up with the same thing,” she said.

  “No signature,” said Wallander. “And what is he really getting at? Who is he? How does he know this stuff? Is any of it true?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I had a feeling that this man knew what he was talking about. Anyway, it’s not hard to check whether Carlman was really at Langholmen in the spring of 1969. We know that Wetterstedt was minister of justice then.”

  “Wasn’t Langholmen closed by then?” Wallander asked.

  “That was a few years later, in 1975, I think. I can check on exactly when.”

  Wallander waved it off.

  “Why did he only want to talk to me?” he asked. “Did he give any explanation?”

  “I got a feeling he’d heard about you.”

  “So he wasn’t claiming that he knew me?”

  “No.”

  Wallander thought for a moment.

  “Let’s hope what he wrote is true,” he said. “Then we’ve established the connection.”

  “It shouldn’t be too hard to verify,” said Hoglund. “Even if it is Sunday.”

  “I’ll go out and talk to Carlman’s widow right now. She must know whether her husband was ever in prison,” said Wallander.

  “Do you want me to come along?”

  “No.”

  Half an hour later Wallander parked his car outside the cordon in Bjaresjo. A bored-looking officer sat in a squad car reading the paper. He straightened up when he saw Wallander approaching.

  “Is Nyberg still working here?” asked Wallander in surprise. “Isn’t the forensic investigation finished?”

  “I haven’t seen any technicians around,” said the officer.

  “Call Ystad and ask them why the cordons haven’t been removed,” said Wallander. “Is the family home?”

  “The widow is probably there,” said the officer. “And the daughter. But the sons left in a car a few hours ago.”

  Wallander entered the grounds of the farm. The bench and the table in the arbour were gone. In the beautiful summer weather the events of the last few days seemed unbelievable. He knocked on the door. Carlman’s widow opened it almost at once.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” said Wallander. “But I have a few questions that I need answered as soon as possible.”

  She was very pale. As he stepped inside he smelled a faint whiff of alcohol. Somewhere inside, Carlman’s daughter shouted, asking who was at the door. Wallander tried to remember the name of the woman leading the way. Had he ever heard it? Yes — it was Anita. He’d heard Svedberg use it during the long investigative meeting. He sat down on the sofa facing her. She lit a cigarette. She was wearing a flimsy summer dress. Wallander felt vaguely disapproving. Even if she didn’t love her husband, he had been murdered. Didn’t people believe in showing respect for the dead any more? Couldn’t she have chosen more sombre attire? He had such conservative views sometimes that he surprised himself. Sorrow and respect didn’t follow a colour scheme.

  “Would the inspector like something to drink?” she asked.

  “No thank you,” said Wallander. “I’ll be as brief as I can.”

  She shot a glance past his face. He turned around. Her daughter, Erika, had entered the room silently and was sitting in the background. She was smoking and seemed nervous.

  “Do you mind if I listen?” she asked in a belligerent voice.

  “Not at all,” he said. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  “I’m fine here,” she said.

  Her mother shook her head almost imperceptibly. She seemed resigned about her daughter’s behaviour.

  “Actually I came here because it’s Sunday,” Wallander began. “Which means that it’s difficult to get information from archives. And since we need to have an answer as soon as possible, I came to you.”

  “You don’t have to excuse yourself,” said the woman. “What is it you want to know?”

  “Was your husband in prison in the spring of 1969?”

  Her reply was swift and resolute.

  “He was in Langholmen between the 9th of February and the 19
th of June. I drove him there and I picked him up. He was convicted of fraud and fencing stolen goods.”

  Her frankness made Wallander lose his train of thought. But what had he expected? That she would deny it?

  “Was this the first time he was sentenced to a prison term?”

  “The first and the last.”

  “Can you tell me any more about the convictions?”

  “He denied having either received stolen paintings or forged any cheques. Other people did it in his name.”

  “So you think he was innocent?”

  “It’s not a matter of what I think. He was innocent.”

  Wallander decided to change tack.

  “It has come to light that your husband knew Gustaf Wetterstedt, despite the fact that both you and your children claimed earlier that this was not the case.”

  “If he knew Gustaf Wetterstedt then I would have known about it.”

  “Could he have had contact with him without your knowledge?”

  She thought for a moment before she replied.

  “I would find that very difficult to believe,” she said.

  Wallander knew at once that she was lying. But he couldn’t see why. Since he had no more questions he stood up.

  “Perhaps you can find your own way out,” said the woman on the sofa. She seemed very tired suddenly.

  Wallander walked to the door. As he approached the daughter, who had been watching him intently, she stood up and blocked his way, holding her cigarette in her left hand.

  Out of nowhere came a slap that struck Wallander hard on his left cheek. He was so surprised that he took a step back, tripped, and fell to the floor.

  “Why did you let it happen?” she shrieked.