Sidetracked kw-5

by Henning Mankell

  CHAPTER 21

  They arrived at Sturup Airport. The air felt stagnant in the oppressive heat of the late morning. In a very short period of time they determined that the murder had very likely taken place in the van. They also thought they knew who the dead man was.

  The van was a late-1960s Ford, with sliding side doors, and painted black sloppily, the original grey showing through in patches. The body was dented in many places. Parked in an isolated spot, it resembled an old prizefighter who had just been counted out, hanging on the ropes in his corner.

  Wallander knew some of the officers at Sturup. He also knew that he wasn’t particularly popular after an incident that had occurred the year before. The side doors of the Ford were standing open. Some forensic technicians were already inspecting it. An officer named Waldemarsson came to meet them. Even though they had driven like madmen from Ystad, Wallander tried to appear totally nonchalant.

  “It’s not a pretty sight,” said Waldemarsson as they shook hands.

  Wallander and Svedberg went over to the Ford and looked in. Waldemarsson shone a torch inside. The floor of the van was covered with blood.

  “We heard on the morning news that he had struck again,” said Waldemarsson. “I called and talked to a woman detective whose name I can’t remember.”

  “Ann-Britt Hoglund,” said Svedberg.

  “Whatever her name is, she said you were looking for a crime scene,” Waldemarsson went on. “And a vehicle.”

  Wallander nodded.

  “When did you find the van?” he asked.

  “We check the car park every day. We’ve had a number of car thefts here. But you know all about that.”

  Wallander nodded again. During the investigation into the export of stolen cars to Poland he had been in contact with the airport police several times.

  “The van wasn’t here yesterday afternoon,” said Waldemarsson. “It couldn’t have been here more than 18 hours.”

  “Who’s the owner?” asked Wallander.

  Waldemarsson took a notebook out of his pocket.

  “Bjorn Fredman,” he said. “He lives in Malmo. We called his number but didn’t get an answer.”

  “Could he be the one we found in the pit?”

  “We know something about Fredman,” said Waldemarsson. “Malmo has given us information. He was known as a fence, and has done time on several occasions.”

  “A fence,” said Wallander, feeling a flash of excitement. “For works of art?”

  “They didn’t say. You’ll have to talk with our colleagues.”

  “Who should I ask for?” Wallander demanded, taking his mobile phone out of his pocket.

  “An Inspector Sten Forsfalt.”

  Wallander got hold of Forsfalt. He explained who he was. For a few seconds the conversation was drowned out by the noise of a plane. Wallander thought of the trip to Italy he planned to take with his father.

  “First of all, we have to identify the man,” said Wallander when the plane had climbed away in the direction of Stockholm.

  “What did he look like?” asked Forsfalt. “I met Fredman several times.”

  Wallander gave as accurate a description as he could.

  “It might be him,” said Forsfalt. “He was big, at any rate.”

  Wallander thought for a moment.

  “Can you drive to the hospital?” he asked. “We need a positive identification as quickly as possible.”

  “Sure, I can do that,” said Forsfalt.

  “Prepare yourself, because it’s a hideous sight,” said Wallander. “He had his eyes poked out. Or burnt away.”

  Forsfalt didn’t reply.

  “We’re coming to Malmo,” said Wallander. “We need some help getting into his flat. Did he have any family?”

  “He was divorced,” said Forsfalt. “Last time he was in, it was for battery.”

  “I thought it was for fencing stolen property.”

  “That too. Fredman kept busy. But not doing anything legal. He was consistent on that score.”

  Wallander said goodbye and called Hansson to give him a brief run-down.

  “Good,” said Hansson. “Let me know as soon as you have more information. By the way, do you know who called?”

  “The national commissioner again?”

  “Almost. Lisa Holgersson. Bjork’s successor. She wished us luck. Said she just wanted to check on the situation.”

  “It’s great that people are wishing us luck,” said Wallander, who couldn’t understand why Hansson was telling him about the call in such an ironic tone.

  Wallander borrowed Waldemarsson’s torch and shone it inside the van. He saw a footprint in the blood. He leaned forward.

  “That’s not a shoe print. It’s a left foot.”

  “A bare foot?” said Svedberg. “So he wades around barefoot in the blood of the people he kills?”

  “We don’t know that it’s a he,” said Wallander dubiously.

  They said goodbye to Waldemarsson and his colleagues. Wallander waited in the car while Svedberg ran to the airport cafe and bought some sandwiches.

  “The prices are outrageous,” he complained when he returned. Wallander didn’t bother answering.

  “Just drive,” was all he said.

  It was past midday when they stopped outside the police station in Malmo. As he stepped out of the car Wallander saw Bjork heading towards him. Bjork stopped and stared, as if he had caught Wallander doing something he shouldn’t.

  “You, here?” he said.

  “We need you back,” said Wallander in an attempt at a joke. Then he explained what had happened.

  “It’s appalling what’s going on,” said Bjork, and Wallander could hear that his anxious tone was genuine. It hadn’t occurred to him before that Bjork might miss the people he worked with for so many years in Ystad.

  “Nothing is quite the same,” said Wallander.

  “How’s Hansson doing?”

  “I don’t think he’s enjoying his role.”

  “He can call if he needs any help.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  Bjork left and they went into the station. Forsfalt still wasn’t back from the hospital. They drank coffee in the canteen while they waited.

  “I wonder what it would be like to work here,” said Svedberg, looking around at all the policemen eating lunch.

  “One day we may all wind up here,” said Wallander. “If they close down the district. One police station per county.”

  “That would never work.”

  “No, but it could happen. The national police board and those bureaucrats have one thing in common. They always try to do the impossible.”

  Forsfalt appeared. They stood up, shook hands, and followed him to his office. Wallander had a favourable impression of him. He reminded him of Rydberg. Forsfalt was at least 60, with a friendly face. He had a slight limp. Wallander sat down and looked at some pictures of laughing children tacked up on the wall. He guessed that they were Forsfalt’s grandchildren.

  “Bjorn Fredman,” said Forsfalt. “It’s him, all right. He looked appalling. Who would do such a thing?”

  “If we only knew,” said Wallander. “Who was Fredman?”

  “A man of about 45 who never had an honest job in his life,” Forsfalt began. “I don’t have all of the details. But I’ve asked the computer people for his records. He was a fence and he did time for battery. Quite violent attacks, as I recall.”

  “Was he involved in fencing stolen art?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “That’s a pity,” said Wallander. “That would have linked him to Wetterstedt and Carlman.”

  “I have a hard time imagining that Fredman and Wetterstedt could have had much use for each other,” said Forsfalt.

  “Why not?”

  “Let me put it bluntly,” said Forsfalt. “Bjorn Fredman was what used to be called a rough customer. He drank a lot and got into fights. His education was nearly non-existent, although he could read
, write, and do arithmetic tolerably well. His interests could hardly be called sophisticated. And he was a brutal man. I interrogated him myself a number of times. His vocabulary consisted almost exclusively of swear words.”

  Wallander listened. When Forsfalt stopped he looked at Svedberg.

  “We’re back to square one again,” Wallander said slowly. “If there’s no connection between Fredman and the other two.”

  “There could be things I don’t know about,” said Forsfalt.

  “I’m just thinking out loud,” said Wallander.

  “What about his family?” said Svedberg. “Do they live here in Malmo?”

  “He’s been divorced for a number of years,” said Forsfalt. “I’m sure of that.”

  He picked up the phone and made a call. After a few minutes a secretary came in with a file on Fredman and handed it to Forsfalt. He took a quick look and then put it down on the table.

  “He got divorced in 1991. His wife stayed in their flat with the children. It’s in Rosengard. There are three children. The youngest was just a baby when they split up. Fredman moved back to a flat on Stenbrottsgatan that he’d kept for many years. He used it mostly as an office and storeroom. I don’t think his wife knew about it. That’s where he also took his other women.”

  “We’ll start with his flat,” said Wallander. “The family can wait. You’ll see that they’re notified of his death?”

  Forsfalt nodded. Svedberg had gone out to the hall to call Ystad. Wallander stood by the window, trying to decide what was most important. There seemed to be no link between the first two victims and Fredman. For the first time he had a premonition that they were following a false lead. Was there a completely different explanation for the murders? He decided he would go over all the investigative material that evening with an open mind. Svedberg came back and stood next to him.

  “Hansson was relieved,” he said.

  Wallander nodded. But he didn’t say a word.

  “According to Martinsson an important message came from Interpol about the girl,” Svedberg went on.

  Wallander hadn’t been paying attention. He had to ask Svedberg to repeat himself. The girl seemed to be part of something that had happened a long time ago. And yet he knew that sooner or later he’d have to take up her case again. They stood in silence.

  “I don’t like it in Malmo,” said Svedberg suddenly. “I only feel happy when I’m home in Ystad.”

  Svedberg hated to leave the town of his birth. At the station it had become a running joke. Wallander wondered when he himself ever really felt happy. But then he remembered the last time. When Linda appeared at his door so early on Sunday morning.

  Forsfalt came to get them. They took the lift down to the car park and then drove out towards an industrial area north of the city. The wind had started to blow. The sky was still cloudless. Wallander sat next to Forsfalt in the front seat.

  “Did you know Rydberg?” he asked.

  “Did I know Rydberg?” he replied slowly. “I certainly did. Quite well. He used to come to Malmo sometimes.”

  Wallander was surprised at his answer. He’d always thought that Rydberg had discarded everything to do with the job, including his friends.

  “He was the one who taught me everything I know,” said Wallander.

  “It was tragic that he left us so soon,” said Forsfalt. “He should have lived longer. He’d always dreamed of going to Iceland.”

  “Iceland?”

  Forsfalt nodded.

  “That was his big dream. To go to Iceland. But it didn’t happen.”

  Wallander was struck by the realisation that Rydberg had kept something from him. He wouldn’t have guessed that Rydberg dreamt of a pilgrimage to Iceland. He hadn’t imagined that Rydberg had any dreams at all, or indeed any secrets.

  Forsfalt pulled up outside a three-storey block of flats. He pointed to a row of windows on the ground floor with the curtains drawn. The building was old and poorly maintained. The glass on the main door was boarded up with a piece of wood. Wallander had a feeling that he was walking into a building that should no longer exist. Isn’t this building’s existence in defiance of the constitution? he thought sarcastically. There was a stench of urine in the stairwell.

  Forsfalt unlocked the door. Wallander wondered where he’d got the keys. They walked into the hall and turned on the light. Some junk mail lay on the floor. Wallander let Forsfalt lead the way. They walked through the flat. It consisted of three rooms and a tiny, cramped kitchen that looked out on a warehouse. Apart from the bed, which appeared new, the flat seemed neglected. The furniture was strewn haphazardly around the rooms. Some dusty, cheap porcelain figures stood on a 1950s-style bookshelf in the living-room. In one corner was a stack of magazines and some dumbbells. To his great surprise Wallander noticed a CD of Turkish folk music on the sofa. The curtains were drawn.

  Forsfalt went around turning on all the lights. Wallander followed him, while Svedberg took a seat on a chair in the kitchen and called Hansson. Wallander pushed open the door to the pantry with his foot. Inside were several unopened boxes of Grant’s whisky. They had been shipped from the Scottish distillery to a wine merchant in Belgium. He wondered how they had ended up in Fredman’s flat.

  Forsfalt came into the kitchen with a couple of photographs of the owner. Wallander nodded. There was no doubt that it was him they’d found. He went back to the living-room and tried to decide what he really hoped to discover. Fredman’s flat was the exact opposite of Wetterstedt’s and Carlman’s houses. This is what Sweden is like, he thought. The differences between people are just as great now as they were when some lived in manor houses and others in hovels.

  He noticed a desk piled with magazines about antiques. They must be related to Fredman’s activities as a fence. There was only one drawer in the desk. Inside was a stack of receipts, broken pens, a cigarette case, and a framed photograph. It was of Fredman and his family. He was smiling broadly at the camera. Next to him sat his wife, holding a newborn baby in her arms. Behind the mother stood a girl in her early teens. She was staring into the camera, a look of terror in her eyes. Next to her, directly behind the mother, stood a boy a few years younger. His face was pinched, as if he was resisting something. Wallander took the photo over to the window and pulled back the curtain. He stared at it for a long time. An unhappy family? A family that hadn’t yet encountered unhappiness? A newborn child who had no idea what awaited him? There was something in the picture that disturbed him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He took it into the bedroom, where Forsfalt was looking under the bed.

  “You said that he did time for battery,” said Wallander.

  Forsfalt got up and looked at the photo.

  “He beat his wife senseless,” he said. “He beat her up when she was pregnant. He beat her when the child was a baby. But strangely enough, he never went to prison for it. Once he broke a cab driver’s nose. He beat a former partner half to death when he suspected him of cheating.”

  They continued searching the flat. Svedberg had finished talking to Hansson. He shook his head when Wallander asked him if anything had happened. It took them two hours to search the place. Wallander’s flat was idyllic compared to Fredman’s. They found nothing but a travel bag with antique candlesticks in it. Wallander understood why Fredman’s language was peppered with swear words. The flat was just as empty and inarticulate as his vocabulary.

  Finally they left the flat. The wind had picked up. Forsfalt called the station and got word that Fredman’s family had been informed of his death.

  “I’d like to talk to them,” said Wallander when they got into the car. “But it’s probably better to wait until tomorrow.”

  He knew he wasn’t being honest. He hated disturbing a family whose relative had suffered a violent death. Above all, he couldn’t bear talking to children who had just lost a parent. Waiting until the next day would make no difference to them. But it gave Wallander breathing space.

  They said goodb
ye outside the station. Forsfalt would get hold of Hansson to clear up formalities between the two police districts. He made an appointment to meet with Wallander the next morning.

  Wallander and Svedberg drove back towards Ystad. Wallander’s mind was swarming with ideas. They remained silent.

  CHAPTER 22

  Copenhagen’s skyline was just visible across the Sound in the hazy sunlight.

  Wallander wondered whether he’d get to meet Baiba there or whether the killer they sought — about whom they seemed to know less, if that were possible — would force him to postpone his holiday.

  He stood waiting outside the hovercraft terminal in Malmo. It was the morning of the last day of June. Wallander had decided the night before to take Hoglund rather than Svedberg when he returned to Malmo to talk to Fredman’s family. She’d asked whether they could leave early enough for her to do an errand on the way. Svedberg hadn’t complained in the least at being left behind. His relief at not having to leave Ystad two days in a row was unmistakable. While Hoglund took care of her errand in the terminal — Wallander hadn’t asked what it was — he’d walked along the pier. A hydrofoil, the Runner, he thought it said, was on its way out of the harbour. It was hot. He took off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder, yawning.

  After they’d returned from Malmo the night before, he’d called a meeting with the investigative team, since they were all still there. He and Hansson had also held an impromptu press conference. Ekholm had attended the meeting. He was still working on a psychological profile of the killer. But they had agreed that Wallander should inform the press that they were looking for someone who wasn’t considered dangerous to the public, but who was certainly extremely dangerous to his victims.

  There had been differing opinions on whether it would be wise to take this action. But Wallander had insisted that they couldn’t ignore the possibility that someone might come forward out of sheer self-preservation. The press were delighted with this information, but Wallander felt uncomfortable, knowing that they were giving the public the best possible news, since the nation was about to close down for the summer holiday. Afterwards, when both the meeting and the press conference were over, he was exhausted.