Sidetracked kw-5

by Henning Mankell

  He walked back to the house. For the first time he’d caught a glimpse of the man he sought. The excitement of the discovery was immediate. His alertness sharpened. For the time being, however, he would keep his idea to himself.

  A window on the top floor opened. Sjosten leaned out.

  “Come up here,” he shouted.

  Wallander went in, wondering what they had found. Sjosten and Hoglund were standing in front of a bookcase in a room that must have been Liljegren’s office. Sjosten had a plastic bag in his hand.

  “I’m guessing cocaine,” he said. “Could be heroin.”

  “Where was it?” Wallander asked.

  Sjosten pointed to an open drawer.

  “There may be more,” Wallander said.

  “I’ll see about getting a dog in here,” said Sjosten.

  “I wonder whether you shouldn’t send out a few people to talk to the neighbours,” said Wallander. “Ask if they noticed a man on a motorcycle. Not just last night, but earlier too. Over the last few weeks.”

  “Did he come on a motorcycle?”

  “I think so. It seems to be his means of getting around. You’ll find it in the investigative material.”

  Sjosten left the room.

  “There’s nothing about a motorcycle in the investigative material,” said Hoglund, surprised.

  “There should be,” said Wallander, sounding distracted. “Didn’t we confirm that it was a motorcycle that stood behind the road workers’ hut?”

  Wallander looked out the window. Ekholm and Hansson were on their way up the path, with another man whom Wallander assumed was the Helsingborg chief of police. Birgersson met them halfway.

  “We’d better go down,” he said. “Did you find anything?”

  “The house reminds me of Wetterstedt’s,” she replied. “The same gloomy bourgeois respectability. But at least here there are some family photos. Whether they make it more cheerful I don’t know. Liljegren seems to have had cavalry officers in his family, Scanian Dragoons if you can believe it.”

  “I haven’t looked at them,” Wallander apologised. “But I believe you. His scams undoubtedly had much in common with primitive warfare.”

  “There’s a photo of an old couple outside a cottage,” she said. “If I understood what was written on the back, the picture was of his maternal grandparents on the island of Oland.”

  They went down. Parts of the stairs were cordoned off to protect the blood traces.

  “Old bachelors,” said Wallander. “Their houses resemble each other’s because they were alike. How old was Ake Liljegren, anyway? Was he over 70?”

  Hoglund didn’t know.

  A conference room was set up in the dining room. Ekholm, who didn’t have to attend, was assigned an officer to fill him in. When they had all introduced themselves and sat down, Hansson surprised Wallander by being quite clear-cut about what should happen. During the trip up from Ystad he had spoken with both Akeson and the National Criminal Bureau in Stockholm.

  “It would be a mistake to state that our situation has changed significantly because of this murder,” Hansson began. “The situation has been dramatic enough ever since we realised that we were dealing with a serial killer. Now we might say that we have crossed a sort of boundary. There’s nothing to indicate that we will actually crack these murders. But we have to hope. As far as the Bureau is concerned, they are prepared to give us whatever help we request. The formalities involved shouldn’t present any serious difficulties either. I assume no-one has anything against Kurt being assigned leader of the new cross-boundary investigative team?”

  No-one had any objections. Sjosten nodded approval from his side of the table.

  “Kurt has a certain notoriety,” Hansson said, without a trace of irony. “The chief of the National Criminal Bureau regarded it as obvious that he should continue to lead the investigation.”

  “I agree,” said the chief of the Helsingborg police. That was the only thing he said during the meeting.

  “Guidelines have been drawn on how a collaboration such as this can be implemented as quickly as possible,” Hansson continued. “The prosecutors have their own procedures to follow. The key thing is to agree what type of assistance from Stockholm we actually require.”

  Wallander had been listening to what Hansson was saying with a mixture of pride and anxiety. At the same time he was self-assured enough to realise that no-one else was more suitable to lead the investigation.

  “Has anything resembling this series of murders ever occurred in Sweden?” asked Sjosten.

  “Not according to Ekholm,” said Wallander.

  “It’s just that it would be good to have some colleagues who have experience with this type of crime,” said Sjosten.

  “We’d have to get them from the continent, or the United States,” said Wallander. “And I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Not yet, at any rate. What we need, obviously, is experienced homicide investigators, who can add to our overall expertise.”

  It took them less than 20 minutes to make the necessary decisions. When they’d finished, Wallander hastily left the room in search of Ekholm. He found him upstairs and took him into a guest room that smelt musty. Wallander opened the window to air the stuffy room. He sat on the edge of the bed and told Ekholm what had occurred to him that morning.

  “You could be right,” Ekholm said. “A person with serious psychosis who has taken on the role of a lone warrior. There are many examples of that, though not in Sweden. Such a person generally metamorphoses into another before they go out to exact a revenge. The disguise frees them from guilt. The actor doesn’t feel the pangs of conscience for actions performed by his character. But don’t forget that there’s a type of psychopath who kills with no motive other than for his own intense enjoyment.”

  “That’s doesn’t seem to fit this case,” said Wallander.

  “The difficulty lies in the fact that the role the killer has adopted doesn’t tell us anything about the motive for the murder. If we assume that you’re right — a barefoot warrior who has chosen his disguise for reasons unknown to us — then he could just as easily have chosen to turn himself into a Japanese samurai or a tonton macoute from Haiti. There’s only one person who knows the reasons for the choice. The killer himself.”

  Wallander recalled one of the earliest conversations he had had with Ekholm.

  “That would mean that the scalps are a red herring,” he said. “That he’s taking them as a ritual act in the performance of the role he’s selected for himself. Not that he’s collecting trophies to reach some objective that serves as the basis for all the murders he has committed.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “Which means that we’re back to square one.”

  “The combinations have to be tested over and over,” said Ekholm. “We never return to the starting point once we have left it. We have to move the same way the killer does. He doesn’t stand still. What happened last night confirms what I’m saying.”

  “Have you formed any opinion?”

  “The oven is interesting.”

  Wallander flinched at Ekholm’s choice of words.

  “In what way?”

  “The difference between the acid and the oven is striking. In one case he uses a chemical agent to torture a man who’s still alive. It’s an element of the killing itself. In the second case it serves more as a greeting to us.”

  Wallander looked at Ekholm intently. He tried to interpret what he’d just heard.

  “A greeting to the police?”

  “It doesn’t really surprise me. The murderer is not unaffected by his actions. His self-image is growing. It may reach a point where he has to start looking for contact. He’s terribly pleased with himself. He has to seek confirmation of how clever he is from the outside world. The victim can’t applaud him. Sometimes he turns to the very ones who are hunting him. This can take various forms. Anonymous telephone calls or letters. Or why not a dead man arranged in a grotesqu
e position?”

  “He’s taunting us?”

  “I don’t think he sees it that way. He sees himself as invulnerable. If it’s true that he selected the role of a barefoot warrior, the invulnerability might be one of the reasons. Warrior peoples traditionally smear themselves with salves to make themselves immune from swords and arrows. In our day and age the police might symbolise those swords.”

  Wallander sat silently for a while.

  “What’s our next move?” he asked. “He’s challenging us by stuffing Liljegren’s head in the oven. What about next time? If there is one.”

  “There are many possibilities. Psychopathic killers sometimes seek contact with individuals within the police force.”

  “Why is that?”

  Ekholm hesitated. “Policemen have been killed, you know.”

  “You mean this madman has his eye on us?”

  “It’s possible. Without our knowing it, he might be amusing himself by getting very close to us. And then vanishing again. One day this may not be enough of a thrill.”

  Wallander remembered the sensation that he’d had outside the cordon at Carlman’s farm, when he thought he’d recognised one of the faces among the onlookers. Someone who had also been on the beach beyond the cordon when they’d turned over the boat and revealed Wetterstedt.

  Ekholm looked at him gravely.

  “You most of all should be aware of this,” he said. “I was thinking of talking to you about it anyway.”

  “Why me?”

  “You’re the most visible one of us. The search for the man who committed these four murders involves a lot of people. But the name and face that are most regularly seen are yours.”

  Wallander grimaced. “You can’t expect me to take this seriously?”

  “That’s for you to decide.”

  When Ekholm had left, Wallander stayed behind, trying to gauge his true reaction to Ekholm’s warning. It was like a cold wind blowing through the room, he thought. But nothing more.

  That afternoon Wallander drove back to Ystad with the others. It was decided that the investigation would continue to be directed from Ystad. Wallander sat in silence for the whole trip, giving only terse replies when Hansson asked him something. When they arrived they held a short briefing with Svedberg, Martinsson and Akeson. Svedberg told them that it was now possible to speak with Carlman’s daughter. They decided that Wallander and Hoglund would pay a visit to the hospital the next morning. When the meeting was over, Wallander called his father. Gertrud answered. All was back to normal. His father had no recollection of what had happened.

  Wallander also called home. No answer. Linda wasn’t there. On his way out of the station he asked Ebba whether there was any word on his keys. Nothing. He drove down to the harbour and walked along the pier, then sat down in the harbour cafe and had a beer. He sat and watched the people passing by. Depressed, he got up and went back out on the pier, and sat on a bench next to the sea rescue hut.

  It was a warm, windless evening. Someone was playing a concertina on a boat. One of the ferries from Poland was coming in. Without actually being conscious of it, he started to make a connection in his mind. He sat perfectly still and let his thoughts work. He was beginning to discern the contours of the drama. There were a lot of gaps still, but he could see where they should concentrate their investigation.

  He didn’t think that the way they had been working so far was to blame. The problem was with the conclusions he had made. He drove home and wrote down a summary at his kitchen table. Linda arrived back just before midnight. She had seen the papers.

  “Who is doing this? What is someone like this made of?” she asked.

  Wallander thought for a while before he replied.

  “He’s like you and me,” he said at last. “By and large, just like you and me.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Wallander woke with a start.

  His eyes flew open and he lay completely still. The light of the summer night was grey. Someone was moving around in the flat. He glanced quickly at the clock on the bedside table. It was 2.15 a.m. His terror was instantaneous. He knew it wasn’t Linda. Once she fell asleep, she didn’t get up again until morning. He held his breath and listened. The sound was very faint.

  The person moving around was barefoot.

  Wallander got out of bed noiselessly. He looked for something to defend himself with. He had locked his service revolver in his desk at the station. The only thing in the bedroom he could use was the broken arm of a chair. He picked it up and listened again. The sound seemed to be coming from the kitchen. He came out of the bedroom and looked towards the living-room. He passed the door to Linda’s room. It was closed. She was asleep. Now he was very scared. The sounds were coming from the kitchen. He stood in the doorway of the living-room and listened. Ekholm was right after all. He prepared himself to meet someone who was very strong. The chair arm wouldn’t be much help. He remembered that he had a replica of a pair of old-fashioned brass knuckles in one of the drawers in the bookshelf. They had been the prize in a police lottery. He decided that his fists were better protection than the chair arm. He could still hear sounds in the kitchen. He moved cautiously across the parquet floor and opened the drawer. The brass knuckles were underneath a copy of his tax return. He put them on his right hand. At the same instant he realised that the sounds in the kitchen had stopped. He spun round and raised his arms.

  Linda was in the doorway looking at him with a mixture of amazement and fear. He stared back at her.

  “What are you doing?” she said. “What’s that on your hand?”

  “I thought it was somebody breaking in,” he said, taking off the brass knuckles.

  She could see that he was shaken.

  “It was me. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “The door to your room was closed.”

  “I must have shut it behind me. I needed a drink of water.”

  “But you never wake up in the night.”

  “Those days are long gone. Sometimes I don’t sleep well. When I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  Wallander knew he ought to feel foolish. But his relief was too great. His reaction had confirmed something. He had taken Ekholm much more seriously than he thought. He sat down. Linda was still standing there staring at him.

  “I’ve often wondered how you can sleep as well as you do,” she said. “When I think of the things you have to look at, the things you’re forced to do.”

  “You get used to it,” said Wallander, knowing that wasn’t true at all.

  She sat down next to him.

  “I was looking through an evening paper while Kajsa was buying cigarettes,” she went on. “There was quite a bit about what happened in Helsingborg. I don’t know how you stand it.”

  “The papers exaggerate.”

  “How do you exaggerate somebody getting their head stuffed into an oven?”

  Wallander tried to avoid her questions. He didn’t know whether it was for his sake or for hers.

  “That’s a matter for the doctor,” he said. “I examine the scene and try to work out what happened.”

  She shook her head, resigned.

  “You never could lie to me. To Mama, maybe, but never to me.”

  “I never lied to Mona, did I?”

  “You never told her how much you loved her. What you don’t say can be a false affirmation.”

  He looked at her in surprise. Her choice of words astonished him.

  “When I was little I used to sneak looks at all the papers you brought home at night. I invited my friends too, sometimes, when you were working on something we thought was exciting. We would sit in my room and read transcripts of witness testimonies.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “You weren’t supposed to. So who did you think was in the flat?”

  He decided to tell her at least part of the truth. He explained that sometimes, but very rarely, policemen in his position who had their pictures in the paper a lot or were on TV, might c
atch the attention of criminals who then became fixated on them. Perhaps “fascinated” was a better term. Normally there was nothing to worry about. But it was a good idea to acknowledge the phenomenon and to stay alert.

  She didn’t believe him for a second.

  “That wasn’t somebody standing there with brass knuckles on, showing how aware he was,” she said at last. “What I saw was my Dad who’s a policeman. And he was scared.”

  “Maybe I had a nightmare,” he said unconvincingly. “Tell me why you can’t sleep.”

  “I’m worried about what to do with my life,” she said.

  “You and Kajsa were very good in the revue.”

  “Not as good as we ought to be.”

  “You’ve got time to feel your way.”

  “But what if I want to do something else entirely?”

  “Like what?”

  “That’s what I think about when I wake up in the middle of the night. I open my eyes and think that I still don’t know.”

  “You can always wake me up,” he said. “As a policeman at least I’ve learned how to listen, even if you can get better answers from someone else.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “You’re a good listener. A lot better than Mama. But I have to find the answers for myself.”

  They talked for a long time. Not until it was light outside did they go back to bed. Something Linda said made Wallander feel good: he listened better than Mona did. In some future life he wouldn’t mind doing everything better than Mona. But not now, when there was Baiba.

  Wallander got up a little before 7 a.m. Linda was still asleep. He had a quick cup of coffee and left. The weather was beautiful, but the wind had started to blow. When he got to the station he ran into an agitated Martinsson, who told him that the whole holiday schedule had been thrown into chaos. Most holidays had been postponed indefinitely.

  “Now I probably won’t be able to get time off until September,” he said angrily. “Who the hell wants a holiday at that time of year?”