Sidetracked kw-5

by Henning Mankell

  “But he was at the parties?”

  “Yes.”

  “As guest or host?”

  “As the host. And as a guest.”

  “Do you know how I can get hold of him?”

  “No.”

  Wallander still believed she was telling the truth. Probably they wouldn’t be able to track down Logard through her.

  “How did they get along?”

  “Logard always had plenty of money. Whatever he did for Liljegren, he was well paid.”

  She stubbed out her cigarette. Wallander felt as if he had been granted a private audience with her.

  “I’m going,” she said, getting to her feet.

  “Let me see you out,” said Wallander.

  Sjosten came sauntering down the hall. She looked straight through him as they passed. Wallander waited on the steps until he saw someone follow her, then went back up to the office.

  “Why were you needling her?” he asked.

  “She stands for something I despise,” Sjosten said.

  “We need her. We can despise her later.”

  They got coffee and sat down to go over what they knew. Sjosten brought in Birgersson to help out.

  “The problem is Fredman,” said Wallander. “He doesn’t fit. Otherwise we now have a number of links that seem to hang together, fragile points of contact.”

  “Or maybe it just looks that way,” Sjosten said thoughtfully.

  Wallander could tell that Sjosten was worried about something. He waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  Sjosten kept staring out of the window.

  “Why couldn’t this be possible?” he said. “That he was killed by the same man, but for a completely different reason.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Birgersson.

  “Nothing makes sense in this case.”

  “So you mean that we should be looking for two different motives,” said Wallander.

  “That’s about it. But I could be wrong. It was just an idea, that’s all.”

  Wallander nodded. “We shouldn’t disregard that possibility”

  “It’s a sidetrack,” said Birgersson. “A blind alley, a dead end. It doesn’t seem likely at all.”

  “We can’t rule it out,” Wallander said. “We can’t rule out anything. But right now we have to find Logard. That’s the priority.”

  “Liljegren’s villa is a very strange place,” said Sjosten. “There wasn’t one piece of paper there. No address book. Nothing. And no-one has had the opportunity to go in and clean up.”

  “Which means we haven’t searched hard enough,” Wallander replied. “Without Logard we’re not going to get anywhere.”

  Sjosten and Wallander had a quick lunch at a restaurant next to the station, and drove to Liljegren’s villa. The cordons were still up. An officer opened the gates and let them in. Sunlight filtered through the trees. Suddenly the case seemed surreal. Monsters belonged in the cold and dark. Not in a summer like this one. He recalled Rydberg’s joke. It’s best to be hunting insane killers in the autumn. In the summer give me a good old-fashioned bomber. He laughed at the thought. Sjosten gave him a funny look, but he didn’t explain.

  Inside the huge villa the forensic technicians had finished their work. Wallander took a look in the kitchen. The oven door was closed. He thought of Sjosten’s idea about Bjorn Fredman. A killer with two motives? Did such birds exist? He called Ystad, and Ebba got hold of Ekholm for him. It was almost five minutes before he came to the phone. Wallander watched Sjosten wandering through the rooms on the ground floor, drawing back the curtains from the windows. The sunlight was very bright.

  Wallander asked Ekholm his question. It was actually intended for Ekholm’s programme. Had there been serial killers who combined very different motives? Did criminal psychology have a collective view on this? As always, Ekholm found Wallander’s question interesting. Wallander wondered whether Ekholm really was so charmed by everything he told him. It was beginning to remind him of the satirical songs about the absurd incompetence of the Swedish security police. Recently they relied more and more on various specialists. And no-one could really explain why.

  Wallander didn’t want to be unfair to Ekholm. During his time in Ystad he had proved to be a good listener. In that sense he had learned something basic about police work. The police had to be able to listen, as well as question. They had to listen for hidden meanings and motives, for the invisible impressions left by offenders. Just like in this house. Something is always left behind after a crime is committed. An experienced detective should be able to listen his way to what it was. Wallander hung up and went to join Sjosten, who was sitting at a desk. Wallander didn’t say a thing. Neither did Sjosten. The villa invited silence. Liljegren’s spirit, if he had one, hovered restlessly around them.

  Wallander went upstairs and wandered through room after room. There were no papers anywhere. Liljegren had lived in a house in which emptiness was the most noticeable characteristic. Wallander thought back to what Liljegren had been famous or infamous for. The shell company scams, the looting of company finances. He had made his way in the world by hiding his money. Did he do the same thing in his private life? He had houses all over the world. The villa was one of his many hide-outs. Wallander stopped by a door up to the attic. When he was a child he had built a hide-out for himself in the attic. He opened the door. The stairs were narrow and steep. He turned the light switch. The main room with its exposed beams was almost empty. There were just some skis and a few pieces of furniture. Wallander smelled the same odour as in the rest of the house. The forensic technicians had been here too. He looked around. No secret doors. It was hot underneath the roof.

  He went back down and started a more systematic search. He pulled back the clothes in Liljegren’s large wardrobes. Nothing. Wallander sat on the edge of the bed and tried to think. Liljegren couldn’t have kept everything in his head. There had to be an address book somewhere. Something else was missing too. At first he couldn’t figure out what it was. Who was Ake Liljegren, “the Auditor”? Liljegren was a travelling man, but there were no suitcases in the house. Not even a briefcase. Wallander went downstairs to see Sjosten.

  “Liljegren must have had another house,” he said. “Or at least an office.”

  “He has houses all over the world,” Sjosten said distractedly.

  “I mean here in Helsingborg. This place is too empty”

  “We would have known about it.”

  Wallander nodded without saying any more. He was still sure his hunch was right. He continued his search. But now he was more persistent. He went down to the basement. In one room there was an exercise machine and some barbells. There was a wardrobe down there, too, which contained some exercise clothes and rain gear. Wallander thoughtfully regarded the clothes. Then he went back upstairs to Sjosten.

  “Did Liljegren have a boat?”

  “I’m sure he did. But not here. I would have known about it.”

  Wallander nodded mutely. He was just about to leave Sjosten when an idea struck him.

  “Maybe it was registered under another name. Why not in Hans Logard’s name?”

  “Why do you think Liljegren had a boat?”

  “There are clothes in the basement that look like they’re for sailing.”

  Sjosten followed Wallander to the basement. They stood in front of the open wardrobe.

  “You may be right.” Sjosten said.

  “It’s worth looking into,” said Wallander. “This house is too empty to be normal.”

  They left the basement. Wallander opened the balcony doors and stepped into the sunshine. He thought of Baiba again and felt a knot in his stomach. Why didn’t he call her? Did he still think it would be possible for him to meet her? He wasn’t happy about asking Martinsson to lie for him, but now it was his only way out. He went back inside, into the shadows, with a feeling of utter self-loathing. Sjosten was on the phone. Walland
er wondered when the killer would strike next. Sjosten hung up and dialled another number. Wallander went into the kitchen and drank some water, trying to avoid looking at the stove. As he came back, Sjosten slammed the phone down.

  “You were right,” he said. “There’s a boat in Logard’s name down at the yacht club. The same one I belong to.”

  “Let’s go,” said Wallander, feeling the tension rise.

  A dock watchman showed them where Logard’s boat was berthed. Wallander could see that it was a beautiful, well-maintained boat. The hull was fibreglass, but it had a teak deck.

  “A Komfortina,” said Sjosten. “Very nice. They handle well, too.”

  He hopped on board like a sailor. The entrance to the cabin was locked.

  “Do you know Hans Logard?” Wallander asked the watchman. He had a weatherbeaten face and wore a T-shirt advertising canned Norwegian fish-balls.

  “He’s not talkative, but we say hello to each other when he comes down here.”

  “When was he here last?”

  “Last week, I think. But it’s high summer, you know, our busiest time, so I might be mistaken.”

  Sjosten had managed to pick the cabin lock. From inside he opened the two half-doors. Wallander clambered clumsily aboard, as though walking on newly polished ice. He crept down into the cockpit and then into the cabin. Sjosten had had the foresight to bring along a torch. They searched the cabin without finding anything.

  “I don’t get it,” Wallander said when they were back on the dock. “Liljegren must have been running his affairs from somewhere.”

  “We’re checking his mobile phones,” said Sjosten. “Maybe that will produce something.”

  They headed back. The man with the T-shirt followed them.

  “I expect that you’ll want to take a look at his other boat too,” he said as they stepped off the long dock. Wallander and Sjosten reacted as one.

  “Logard has another boat?” Wallander asked.

  The man pointed towards the furthest pier.

  “The white one, all the way at the end. A Storo class. It’s called the Rosmarin.”

  “Of course we want to look at it,” Wallander said.

  They ended up in front of a long, powerful, sleek launch.

  “These cost money,” said Sjosten. “Lots and lots of money.”

  They went aboard. The cabin door was locked. The man on the dock was watching them.

  “He knows I’m a policeman,” Sjosten said.

  “We don’t have time to wait,” said Wallander. “Break the lock. But do it the cheapest way.”

  Sjosten managed it without breaking off more than a piece of the doorframe. They entered the cabin. Wallander saw at once that they had hit the jackpot. Along one wall was a whole shelf of folders and plastic binders.

  “Find an address for Hans Logard,” said Wallander. “We can go through the rest later.”

  In a few minutes they had found a membership card to a golf club outside Angelholm with Logard’s name and address on it.

  “Bjuv,” Sjosten said. “That’s not far from here.”

  As they were leaving the boat, Wallander opened a cupboard. To his surprise there was women’s clothing inside.

  “Maybe they had parties on board, too,” Sjosten said.

  “I’m not so sure.” Wallander said pensively.

  They left the boat and went back to the dock.

  “I want you to call me if Logard shows up,” Sjosten told the dock watchman.

  He gave him a card with his phone number on it.

  “But I shouldn’t let on that you’re looking for him, right?” the man asked, excitedly.

  Sjosten smiled.

  “Right in one,” he replied. “Pretend that everything’s normal. And then call me. No matter what time.”

  “There’s nobody here at night,” said the man.

  “Then we’ll have to hope he comes in the day.”

  “May I ask what he did?”

  “You can,” said Sjosten, “but you won’t get an answer.”

  “Should we take more men along?” Sjosten asked.

  “Not yet,” Wallander replied. “First we have to find his house and see if he’s home.”

  They drove towards Bjuv. They were in a part of Skane that Wallander didn’t know. The weather had turned muggy. There would be a thunderstorm that evening.

  “When’s the last time it rained?” he asked.

  “Around Midsummer,” Sjosten said, after thinking for a bit. “And it didn’t rain much.”

  They had just reached the turn-off to Bjuv when Sjosten’s mobile phone rang. He slowed down and answered it.

  “It’s for you,” he said, handing it to Wallander.

  It was Ann-Britt Hoglund. She got straight to the point. “Louise Fredman has escaped from the hospital.”

  It took a moment before Wallander grasped what she said.

  “Could you repeat that?”

  “Louise Fredman has escaped from the hospital.”

  “When?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “The hospital contacted Akeson. He called me.”

  Wallander thought for a moment.

  “How did it happen?”

  “Someone came and got her.”

  “Who?”

  “No-one saw it happen. Suddenly she was gone.”

  “God damn it to hell!”

  Sjosten hit the brakes.

  “I’ll call you back in a while,” Wallander said. “In the meantime, find out absolutely everything you can. Above all, who it was that picked her up.”

  “Louise Fredman has escaped from hospital,” he told Sjosten.

  “How?”

  Wallander gave it some thought before he replied.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But this has something to do with our killer. I’m sure of it.”

  “Should I go back?”

  “No. Let’s keep going. Now it’s more important than ever to get hold of Logard.”

  They drove into the village and stopped. Sjosten rolled down the window and asked the way to the street. They asked three people and got the same answer. Not one of them knew the address they were looking for.

  CHAPTER 36

  They were just on the point of giving up when they finally picked up the trail to Hans Logard and his address. Some scattered showers had started over Bjuv by that time. But the main thunderstorm passed by to the west.

  The address they had been looking for was “Hordestigen”. It had a Bjuv postal code, but they couldn’t find it. Wallander went into the post office himself to check it. Logard didn’t have a post office box either, at least not in Bjuv. Finally there was nothing to do but think Logard’s address was false. At that point, Wallander walked into the bakery and struck up a conversation with the two ladies behind the counter while he bought a bag of cinnamon rolls. One of them knew the answer. Hordestigen wasn’t a road. It was the name of a farm north of the village, a place that was hard to find if you didn’t know the way.

  “There’s a man living there named Hans Logard,” Wallander told them. “Do you know him?”

  The two women looked at each other as if searching a shared memory, then shook their heads in unison.

  “I had a distant cousin who lived at Hordestigen when I was a girl,” said one of the women. “When he died it was sold to a stranger. But Hordestigen is the name of the farm, I know that. It must have a different postal address, though.”

  Wallander asked her to draw him a map. She tore up a bread bag and drew the route on it for him. It was almost 6 p.m. They drove out of town, following the road to Hoganas. Wallander navigated with the bread bag. They reached an area where the farms thinned out. That’s where they took the first wrong turn. They ended up in an enchantingly beautiful beech forest, but they were in the wrong place.

  Wallander told Sjosten to turn around, and when they got back to the main road they started again. They took the next side r
oad to the left, then to the right, and then left. The road ended in a field. Wallander swore to himself, got out of the car, and looked around for a church spire the ladies had told him about. Out there in the field he felt like someone floating out to sea, searching for a light-house to navigate by. He found the church spire and then understood, after a conference with the bread bag, why they had got lost. Sjosten was directed back; they started again, and this time they found it.

  Hordestigen was an old farm, not unlike Arne Carlman’s, and it was in an isolated spot with no neighbours, surrounded by beech woods on two sides and gently sloping fields on the others. The road ended at the farmhouse. There was no letter box. His post must go elsewhere.

  “What can we expect?” asked Wallander.

  “You mean is he dangerous?”

  “He might be the one who killed Liljegren. Or all of them. We don’t know a thing about him.”

  Sjosten’s reply surprised Wallander.

  “There’s a shotgun in the boot. And ammunition. You take that. I’ve got my service revolver.”

  Sjosten reached under the seat.

  “Against regulations,” he said, smiling. “But if you had to follow all the regulations that exist, police work would have been forbidden long ago by the health and safety watchdogs.”

  “Forget the shotgun,” Wallander said. “Have you got a licence for the revolver?”

  “Of course I have a licence,” Sjosten said. “What do you think?”

  They got out of the car. Sjosten stuffed his revolver in his jacket pocket. They stood and listened. There was thunder in the distance. Around them it was quiet and extremely humid. No sign of a car or a living soul. The farm seemed abandoned. They walked up to the house, shaped like an L.

  “The third wing must have burned down,” Sjosten said. “Or else it was torn down. But it’s a nice house. Well preserved. Just like the boat.”

  Wallander went and knocked on the door. No answer. Then he banged on it hard. Nothing. He peered in through a window. Sjosten stood in the background with one hand in his jacket pocket. Wallander didn’t like being so close to a gun. They walked around the house. Still no sign of life. Wallander stopped, lost in thought.

  “There are stickers all over saying that the windows and doors are alarmed,” Sjosten said. “But it would take a hell of a long time for anyone to get here if it was set off. We’ll have time to go inside and get out of here before then.”