“I’ve seen you,” he said. “On the telly. And in the papers. I never actually read the papers, so I must have seen you on the front page. The policeman they were looking for. The one who shoots people without asking permission. What did you say your name was? Wahlgren?”
“Wallander. Are you Peter Hjelm?”
“Yeah.”
“I want to talk to you.”
The naked man made a suggestive gesture inside the flat. Wallander assumed this meant he had female company.
“It can’t be helped,” said Wallander. “It probably won’t take very long anyway.”
Hjelm reluctantly let him into the hall.
“Put some clothes on,” Wallander said firmly.
Hjelm shrugged, pulled an overcoat from a hanger, and put it on. As if at Wallander’s request, he also jammed an old hat down over his ears. Wallander followed him down a long hall. Hjelm lived in an old-fashioned, spacious flat. Wallander sometimes dreamed of finding one like it in Ystad. Once he inquired about the flats above the bookshop in the red building on the square, but was shocked at how high the rent was.
When they reached the living-room, Wallander was astonished to discover another man wrapping a sheet around himself. Wallander wasn’t prepared for this. A naked man who gestured suggestively had a woman with him, not a man. To conceal his embarrassment, Wallander assumed a formal tone. He sat down in a chair and waved Hjelm to a seat facing him.
“Who are you?” he asked the other man, who was much younger than Hjelm.
“Geert doesn’t understand Swedish,” said Hjelm. “He’s from Amsterdam. He’s just visiting.”
“Tell him I want to see some identification,” said Wallander. “Now.”
Hjelm spoke very poor English, worse than Wallander’s. The man in the sheet disappeared and came back with a Dutch driver’s licence. As usual, Wallander had nothing to write with. He memorised the man’s last name, Van Loenen, and handed back the driver’s licence. Then he asked a few brief questions in English. Van Loenen said that he was a waiter in a cafe in Amsterdam and that he had met Hjelm there. This was the third time he’d been to Malmo. He was going back to Amsterdam on the train in a couple of days. When he’d finished, Wallander asked him to leave the room. Hjelm was sitting on the floor, dressed in his overcoat with the hat pulled low over his forehead. Wallander felt himself getting angry.
“Take off that damned hat!” he shouted. “And sit in a chair. Otherwise I’ll call a squad car and have you taken in.”
Hjelm did as he was told. He tossed the hat in a wide arc so that it landed between two flowerpots on one of the windowsills. Wallander’s anger made him start to sweat.
“Bjorn Fredman is dead,” he said brutally. “But I suppose you already know that.”
Hjelm’s smile disappeared. He didn’t know, Wallander realised.
“He was murdered,” Wallander continued. “Someone poured acid in his eyes. And cut off part of his scalp. This happened three days ago. Now we’re looking for the person who did it. The killer has already murdered two other people. A former politician by the name of Gustaf Wetterstedt and an art dealer named Arne Carlman. But maybe you knew this.”
Hjelm nodded slowly. Wallander tried without success to interpret his reactions.
“Now I understand why Bjorn didn’t answer his phone,” he said after a while. “I tried to call him all day yesterday. And this morning I tried again.”
“What did you want from him?”
“I was thinking of inviting him over for dinner.”
Wallander saw at once that this was a lie. Since he was still furious at Hjelm’s arrogant attitude, it was easy for him to tighten his grip. In all his years as a police officer Wallander had only lost control twice and struck individuals he was interrogating. He could usually control his rage.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said. “The only way you’re going to see me walk out that door is if you give me clear, truthful answers to my questions. If you don’t, all hell will break loose. We’re dealing with a serial killer. Which means the police have special powers.”
The last part wasn’t true, of course. But it made an impression on Hjelm.
“I was calling him about a gig we had together.”
“What sort of gig?”
“A little import and export. He owed me money.”
“How much?”
“A little. A hundred thousand, maybe. No more than that.”
This “little” sum of money was equivalent to many months’ wages for Wallander. This made him even angrier.
“We can get back to your business with Fredman later,” he said. “That’s something the Malmo police will deal with. What I want to know is whether you can tell me who killed him.”
“Not me, that’s for sure.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you did. Anyone else?”
Wallander saw that Hjelm was trying to concentrate.
“I don’t know,” he said finally.
“You seem hesitant.”
“Bjorn was into a lot of things I didn’t know about.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know.”
“Give me a straight answer!”
“Well, shit! I just don’t know. We did some deals. What Fredman did with the rest of his time I can’t tell you. In this business you’re not supposed to know too much. You can’t know too little either. But that’s something else again.”
“What do you think Fredman might have been into?”
“I think he was doing collections quite a bit.”
“He was an enforcer, you mean?”
“Something like that.”
“Who was his boss?”
“Dunno.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. I just don’t know.”
Wallander almost believed him.
“What else?”
“He was a pretty secretive type. He travelled a lot. And when he came back he was always sunburnt. And he brought back souvenirs.”
“Where from?”
“He never said. But after his trips he usually had plenty of money.”
Bjorn Fredman’s passport, Wallander thought. We haven’t found it.
“Who else knew Fredman besides you?”
“Lots of people.”
“Who knew him as well as you do?”
“Nobody.”
“Did he have a woman?”
“What a question! Of course he had women!”
“Was there anyone special?”
“He switched around a lot.”
“Why did he switch?”
“Why does anyone switch? Why do I switch? Because I meet somebody from Amsterdam one day and somebody from Bjarred the next.”
“Bjarred?”
“It’s just an example, damn it! Halmstad, if that’s any better!”
Wallander stopped asking questions. He frowned at Hjelm. He felt an instinctive animosity towards him. Towards a thief who regarded a hundred thousand kronor as “a little money”.
“Gustaf Wetterstedt,” he said finally. “And Arne Carlman. You knew they had been killed.”
“I watch TV.”
“Did Fredman ever mention their names?”
“No.”
“Do you think you may have forgotten? Is it possible he did know them?”
Hjelm sat in silence for more than a minute. Wallander waited.
“I’m positive,” he said finally. “But he might not have told me about it.”
“This man who’s on the loose is dangerous,” said Wallander. “He’s ice-cold and calculating. And crazy. He poured acid in Fredman’s eyes. It must have been incredibly painful. Do you get my point?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I want you to do some work for me. Spread it around that the police are looking for a connection between these three men. I assume you agree that we have to get this lunatic off the streets. A man who pours acid in somebody’s eyes.”
Hjelm grimac
ed.
“OK.”
Wallander got up.
“Call Detective Forsfalt,” he said. “Or give me a call. In Ystad. Anything you can come up with might be important.”
“Bjorn had a girlfriend named Marianne,” said Hjelm. “She lives over by the Triangle.”
“What’s her last name?”
“Eriksson, I think.”
“What kind of work does she do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you got her phone number?”
“I can look it up.”
“Do it.”
Wallander waited while Hjelm left the room. He could hear whispering voices, at least one of which sounded annoyed. Hjelm came back and handed Wallander a piece of paper. Then he followed him out to the hall.
Hjelm had sobered up, but he still seemed completely unfazed by what had happened to his friend. Wallander felt a great uneasiness at the coldness Hjelm exhibited. It was incomprehensible to him.
“That crazy man. .” Hjelm began, without finishing his sentence. Wallander understood his unasked question.
“He’s after specific individuals. If you can’t see yourself in any connection with Wetterstedt, Carlman, and Fredman, you have nothing to worry about.”
“Why haven’t you caught him?”
Wallander stared at Hjelm, his anger returning.
“One reason is that people like you find it so hard to answer simple questions,” he said.
When he got down to the street he stood there facing the sun and closed his eyes. He thought over the conversation with Hjelm, and the anxiety that the investigation was on the wrong track returned. He opened his eyes and walked over to the side of the building, into the shade. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was steering the whole investigation into a blind alley. He remembered the half-formed idea that he’d had, that something he’d heard was significant. There’s something missing, he thought. There’s a link between Wetterstedt and Carlman and Fredman that I’m tripping over. The man they were searching for could strike again, and Wallander knew one thing about the case for certain. They had no idea who he was. And they didn’t even know where to look. He left the shadow of the wall and hailed a cab.
It was past midday when he got out in front of the Malmo station. When he reached Forsfalt’s office he got a message to call Ystad. Again he had the terrible feeling that something serious had happened. Ebba answered. She reassured him and then switched him over to Nyberg. They had found a fingerprint on Fredman’s left eyelid. It was smudged, but it was still good enough for them to confirm a match with the prints they had found. There was no longer any doubt they were after a single killer. The forensic examination confirmed that Fredman was murdered less than twelve hours before the body was discovered, and that acid had been poured into his eyes while he was alive.
Next Ebba put him through to Martinsson, who had received a positive confirmation from Interpol that Dolores Maria Santana’s father recognised the medallion. It had belonged to her. Martinsson also mentioned that the Swedish embassy in the Dominican Republic was extremely unwilling to pay to transport the girl’s remains back to Santiago.
Wallander was listening with half an ear. When Martinsson finished complaining about the embassy, Wallander asked him what Svedberg and Hoglund were working on. Martinsson said that neither of them had come up with much. Wallander told him he’d be back in Ystad that afternoon and hung up. Forsfalt stood out in the hall sneezing.
“Allergies,” he said, blowing his nose. “Summer is the worst.”
They walked in the dazzling sunshine to a restaurant where Forsfalt liked to eat spaghetti. After Wallander told him about his meeting with Hjelm, Forsfalt started talking about his summer house, up near Almhult. Wallander guessed that he didn’t want to spoil their lunch by talking about the investigation. Normally this would have made Wallander impatient, but he listened with growing fascination as the old detective described how he was restoring an old smithy. Only when they were having coffee did they return to the investigation. Forsfalt would try to interview Marianne Eriksson that same day. But most important was the revelation that Louise Fredman had been a patient in a psychiatric hospital for the past three years.
“I’m not sure,” said Forsfalt. “But I’d guess that she’s in Lund. At St Lars Hospital. That’s where the more serious cases finish up, I think.”
“It’s hard to bypass all the obstacles when you want to get patient records,” said Wallander. “And that’s a good thing, of course. But I think we must know everything about Louise Fredman. Especially since the family haven’t told the truth.”
“Mental illness isn’t something people want to talk about,” Forsfalt reminded him. “I had an aunt who was in and out of institutions her whole life. We almost never talked about her to strangers. It was a disgrace.”
“I’ll ask one of the prosecutors in Ystad to get in touch with Malmo,” said Wallander.
“What reason are you going to give?” asked Forsfalt.
Wallander thought for a moment.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I have a suspicion that Fredman may have abused her.”
“That’s not good enough,” said Forsfalt firmly.
“I know,” said Wallander. “Somehow I have to show that it’s crucial to the whole murder investigation to obtain information on Louise Fredman. About her and from her.”
“What do you think she could help you with?”
Wallander threw out his hands.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe nothing will be cleared up by finding out what it is that’s keeping her locked up. Maybe she’s incapable of holding a conversation with anyone.”
Forsfalt nodded, deep in thought. Wallander knew that Forsfalt’s objections were well-founded, but he couldn’t ignore his hunch that Louise Fredman was important. Wallander paid for lunch. When they got back to the station Forsfalt went to the reception desk and got a black plastic bag.
“Here are a few kilos of papers on Bjorn Fredman’s troubled life,” he said, smiling. But then he turned serious, as if his smile had been inappropriate.
“That poor devil,” he said. “The pain must have been incredible. What could he possibly have done to deserve it?”
“That’s just it,” said Wallander. “What did he do? What did Wetterstedt do? Or Carlman? And to whom?”
“Scalping and acid in the eyes. Where the hell are we headed?”
“According to the national police board, towards a society where a police district like Ystad doesn’t need to be manned at all on weekends,” said Wallander.
Forsfalt stood silent for a moment before he replied. “I hardly think that’s the answer,” he said.
“Tell the national commissioner.”
“What can he do?” Forsfalt asked. “He’s got a board of directors on his back. And above them are the politicians.”
“He could always refuse,” said Wallander. “Or he could resign if things get too far out of hand.”
“Perhaps,” said Forsfalt absently.
“Thanks for all your help,” said Wallander. “And especially for the story about the smithy.”
“You’ll have to come up and visit sometime,” said Forsfalt. “I don’t know whether Sweden is as fantastic as all the magazines say it is. But it’s a great country all the same. Beautiful. And surprisingly unspoiled. If you take the trouble to look.”
“You won’t forget Marianne Eriksson?”
“I’m going to see if I can find her right now,” replied Forsfalt. “I’ll call you later.”
Wallander unlocked his car and tossed in the plastic bag. Then he drove out of town and onto the E65. He rolled down the window and let the summer wind blow across his face. When he arrived in Ystad he stopped at the supermarket and bought groceries. He was already at the checkout when he discovered he had to go back for washing powder. He drove home and carried the bags up to his flat, but found that he had lost his keys.
He went back downs
tairs and searched the car without finding them. He called Forsfalt and was told that he had gone out. One of his colleagues went into his office and looked to see whether they were on his desk. They weren’t there. He called Peter Hjelm, who picked up the phone almost at once. He came back minutes later and said he couldn’t find them.
Wallander fished out the piece of paper with the Fredmans’ number in Rosengard. The son answered. Wallander waited while he looked for the keys, but he couldn’t find them. Wallander wondered whether to tell him that he now knew his sister Louise had been in a hospital for several years, but decided not to.
He thought for a while. He might have dropped his keys at the place where he ate lunch with Forsfalt, or in the shop where he had bought the new shirt. Annoyed, he went back to his car and drove to the station. Ebba kept a spare set of keys for him. He told her the name of the clothing shop and the restaurant in Malmo. She said she would check whether they had found them. Wallander left the station and went home without talking to any of his colleagues. He needed to think over all that had happened that day. In particular, he wanted to plan his conversation with Akeson. He carried in the groceries and put them away. He had missed the laundry time he had signed up for. He took the box of washing powder and gathered up the huge pile of laundry. When he got downstairs, the room was still empty. He sorted the pile, guessing which types of clothes required the same water temperature. With some fumbling he managed to get two machines started. Satisfied, he went back up to his flat.
He had just closed the door when the phone rang. It was Forsfalt, who told him that Marianne Eriksson was in Spain. He was going to keep trying to reach her at the hotel where the travel agent said she was staying. Wallander unpacked the contents of the black plastic bag. The files covered his whole kitchen table. He took a beer out of the refrigerator and sat down in the living-room. He listened to Jussi Bjorling on the stereo. After a while he stretched out on the sofa with the can of beer beside him on the floor. Soon he was asleep.
He woke with a start when the music ended. Lying on the sofa, he finished the can of beer. The phone rang. It was Linda. Could she stay at his place for a few days? Her friend’s parents were coming home. Wallander suddenly felt energetic. He gathered up all the papers spread out on the kitchen table and carried them to his bedroom. Then he made up the bed in the room where Linda slept. He opened all the windows and let the warm evening breeze blow through the flat. He went downstairs and got his laundry out of the machines. To his surprise none of the colours had run. He hung the laundry in the drying room. Linda had told him that she wouldn’t want any food, so he boiled some potatoes and grilled a piece of meat for his supper. As he ate he wondered whether he should call Baiba. He also thought about his lost keys. About Louise Fredman. About Peter Hjelm. And about the stack of papers waiting for him in his bedroom. And he thought about the man who was out there somewhere in the summer night. The man they would have to catch soon. When he’d finished, he stood by the open window until he saw Linda coming down the street.
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