Sidetracked kw-5

by Henning Mankell

  “How the hell do you think they can do that?”

  “I have no idea,” Wallander said. “But it could be important. They can cross out all the other names on the page. I just want to see that one signature.”

  “Which was illegible?”

  “Precisely. I want to see the illegible signature.”

  Wallander stressed his final words. Akeson understood that he was after something that might be important.

  “Give me the fax number,” Akeson said. “I’ll try.”

  Wallander gave him the number and hung up. The clock on the wall said 2.05 a.m. He was sweating in his new shirt. He wondered vaguely whether the state had paid for the shirt and trousers. Hoglund returned and said that Agneta Malmstrom was on a sailing holiday with her family somewhere between Landsort and Oxelosund.

  “What’s the name of the boat?”

  “It’s supposed to be some kind of Maxi class. The name is Sanborombon. It also has a number.”

  “Call Stockholm Radio,” Wallander said. “They must have a two-way radio on board. Ask them to call the boat. Tell them it’s a police emergency. Talk to Birgersson. I want to get in touch with her right away.”

  Wallander had his second wind. Hoglund left to go and find Birgersson. Svedberg almost collided with her in the doorway as he came in with the security guards’ account of the theft of their car.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Basically all they saw was the gun. And it all happened very fast. But he had blond hair, blue eyes and was dressed in some kind of jogging suit. Normal height, spoke with a Stockholm accent. Gave the impression of being high on something.”

  “What did they mean by that?”

  “His eyes.”

  “I assume the description is on its way out?”

  “I’ll check.”

  As Svedberg left, excited voices came from the hall. Wallander guessed that a reporter had tried to cross the boundary that Birgersson had drawn. He found a notebook and quickly wrote a few notes in the sequence he remembered them. He was sweating profusely now, checking the wall clock, and in his mind Baiba was sitting by the phone in her spartan flat in Riga waiting for the call he should have made long ago.

  It was close to 3 a.m. The security company’s car was still missing. Hans Logard was hiding. The Dominican girl who had been taken to the yacht club couldn’t make a positive identification of the boat. Maybe it was the same one, maybe not. A man who had always kept in the shadows had been at the wheel. She couldn’t remember any crew. Wallander told Birgersson that the girls had to get some sleep now. Hotel rooms were arranged. One of the girls smiled shyly at Wallander when they met in the hall. Her smile made him feel good, for a brief moment almost exhilarated. At regular intervals Birgersson would find Wallander and provide information on Logard. At 3.15 a.m. Wallander learned that Logard had been married twice and had two children under 18. One of them, a girl, lived with her mother in Hagfors, the other in Stockholm, a boy of nine. Next Birgersson came back and reported that Logard might have had one other child, but that they hadn’t managed to confirm it.

  At 3.30 a.m. an exhausted officer came into the room where Wallander was sitting with a coffee cup in his hand and his feet on the desk and told him that Stockholm Radio had contacted the Malmstroms’ Maxi. Wallander jumped up and followed him to the command centre, where Birgersson stood yelling into a receiver. He handed it to Wallander.

  “They’re somewhere between two lightships named the Havringe and the Gustaf Dalen,” he said. “I’ve got Karl Malmstrom on the line.”

  Wallander quickly handed the phone back to Birgersson.

  “I’ve got to talk to his wife. Only the wife.”

  “I hope you realise that there are hundreds of pleasure boats out there listening to the conversation going out over the coastal radio.”

  In his haste, Wallander had forgotten that.

  “A mobile phone is better,” he said. “Ask if they have one on board.”

  “I’ve already done that,” Birgersson said. “These are people who think you should leave mobile phones at home when you’re on holiday.”

  “Then they’ll have to put into shore,” Wallander said. “And call me from there.”

  “How long do you think that will take?” said Birgersson. “Do you have any idea where the Havringe is? Plus, it’s the middle of the night. Are they supposed to set sail now?”

  “I don’t give a shit where the Havringe is,” Wallander said. “Besides, they might be sailing at night and not lying at anchor. Maybe there’s some other boat nearby with a mobile phone. Just tell them that I have to get in touch with her within an hour. With her. Not him.”

  Birgersson shook his head. Then he started yelling into the phone again. Half an hour later Agneta Malmstrom called from a mobile phone borrowed from a boat they’d met out in the channel. Wallander got straight to the point.

  “Do you remember the girl who burned herself to death?” he asked. “In a rape field a few weeks ago?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “Do you also recall a phone conversation we had at that time? I asked you how a young person could do such a thing to herself. I don’t remember my exact words.”

  “I have a vague memory of it,” she replied.

  “You answered by giving an example of something you had recently experienced. You told me about a boy, a little boy, who was so afraid of his father that he tried to put out his own eyes.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I remember that. But it wasn’t something I had experienced myself. One of my colleagues told me about it.”

  “Who was that?”

  “My husband. He’s a doctor too.”

  “Then I’ll have to talk to him. Please get him for me.”

  “It’ll take a while. I’ll have to row over and get him in the dinghy. We put down a drift anchor some way from here.”

  Wallander apologised for bothering her.

  “Unfortunately, it’s necessary,” he said.

  “It’ll take a while,” she said.

  “Where the hell is the Havringe?” asked Wallander.

  “Out in the Baltic,” she said. “It’s lovely where we are. But just now we’re making a night sail to the south. Even though the wind is poor.”

  It took 20 minutes before the phone rang again. Karl Malmstrom was on the line. In the meantime Wallander had learnt that he was a paediatrician in Malmo. Wallander reverted to the conversation he had had with his wife.

  “I remember the case,” he said.

  “Can you remember the name of the boy off the top of your head?”

  “Yes, I can. But I can’t stand here yelling it into a mobile phone.”

  Wallander understood his point. He thought feverishly.

  “Let’s do this, then,” he said. “I’ll ask you a question. You can answer yes or no. Without naming any names.”

  “We can try,” said Malmstrom.

  “Does it have anything to do with Bellman?” asked Wallander.

  Malmstrom instantly understood the reference to Fredman’s Epistles by the famous Swedish poet.

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Then I thank you for your help,” said Wallander. “I hope I won’t have to bother you again. Have a good summer.”

  Karl Malmstrom didn’t seem annoyed. “It’s nice to know we have policemen who work hard at all hours,” was all he said.

  Wallander handed the phone to Birgersson.

  “Let’s have a meeting in a while,” he said. “I need a few minutes to think.”

  “Take my office,” Birgersson said.

  Wallander suddenly felt very tired. His sense of revulsion was like a dull ache in his body. He still didn’t want to believe that what he was thinking could be true. He had fought against this conclusion for a long time. But he couldn’t do that any longer. The truth that confronted him was unbearable. The little boy’s terror of his father. A big brother nearby. Who pours hydrochloric acid into his father’s eyes as revenge. Who acts
out an insane retribution for his sister, who had been abused in some way. It was all very clear. The whole thing made sense and the result was appalling. He also thought that his subconscious had seen it long ago, but he had pushed the realisation aside. Instead he had allowed himself to be sidetracked, distracted from his goal.

  A police officer knocked on his door.

  “We just got a fax from Lund,” he said. “From a hospital.”

  Wallander took it. Akeson had acted fast. It was a copy of a page from the visitors’ book for the psychiatric ward. All the names but one were crossed out. The signature really was illegible. He took out a magnifying glass from Birgersson’s desk drawer and tried to make it out. Illegible. He put the paper on the table. The officer was still standing in the doorway.

  “Get Birgersson over here,” Wallander said. “And my colleagues from Ystad. How’s Sjosten, by the way?”

  “He’s sleeping. They’ve removed the bullet from his shoulder.”

  A few minutes later they were gathered in the room. It was almost 4.30 a.m. Everyone was exhausted. Still no sign of Logard. Still no trace of the security guards’ car. Wallander nodded to them to sit down.

  The moment of truth, he thought. This is it.

  “We’re searching for Hans Logard,” he began. “We have to keep doing so of course. He shot Sjosten in the shoulder and he’s mixed up in the traffic of young girls. But he isn’t the one who committed four murders and scalped his victims. That was somebody else entirely.”

  He paused.

  “Stefan Fredman is the person who did this,” he said. “We’re looking for a 14-year-old boy who killed his father, along with the others.”

  There was silence in the room. No-one moved. They were all staring at him. When Wallander had finished his explanation, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind. The team decided to return to Ystad. The greatest secrecy would have to attach to what they had just discussed. Wallander couldn’t tell which feeling was stronger among his colleagues, shock or relief.

  Wallander called Akeson and gave him a brisk precis of his conclusions. As he did so, Svedberg stood next to him, staring at the fax that had come from Lund.

  “Strange,” he said.

  Wallander turned to him.

  “What’s strange?”

  “This signature. It looks as if he’s signed himself Geronimo.”

  Wallander grabbed the fax out of Svedberg’s hand. He was right.

  CHAPTER 38

  They said goodbye in the dawn outside the station in Helsingborg. Everyone looked haggard, but more than anything they were shaken by what they now realised was the truth about the killer they had been hunting for so long. They agreed to meet at 8 a.m. at the Ystad police station. That meant they would have time to get home and shower, but not much else. They had to keep working. Wallander had been blunt in outlining his conclusions. He believed that the murders had happened because of the sick sister. But they couldn’t be sure. It was possible that she herself was in danger. There was only one approach to take: to fear the worst.

  Svedberg went in Wallander’s car. It was going to be another beautiful day. They spoke very little during the trip. Svedberg discovered that he must have left his keys somewhere. It reminded Wallander that his own keys had never shown up. He told Svedberg to come home with him. They reached Mariagatan just before 7 a.m. Linda was asleep. After they had each taken a shower and Wallander had given Svedberg a clean shirt, they sat in the living-room and had coffee.

  Neither of them noticed that the door to the cupboard next to Linda’s room, which had been closed when they arrived, was ajar.

  Hoover had arrived at the flat at 6.50 a.m. He was on his way into the policeman’s bedroom with the axe in his hand when he heard a key turn in the lock. He hid in the cupboard. He heard two voices. When he could tell that they were in the living-room, he opened the door a crack. Hoover assumed that the other man was a policeman too. He gripped the axe the whole time, listening to them talking softly. At first Hoover didn’t understand what they were talking about. The name Hans Logard was mentioned repeatedly. The policeman whom he had come to kill was clearly trying to explain something to the other man. He listened carefully and finally understood that it was holy providence, the power of Geronimo, that had started working again. Hans Logard had been Ake Liljegren’s right-hand man. He had smuggled girls in from the Dominican Republic, and maybe from other parts of the Caribbean too. He was also the one who probably brought girls to Wetterstedt and maybe even Carlman. He also heard the policeman predict that Logard was on the death list that must exist in Stefan Fredman’s mind.

  Then the conversation stopped. A few moments later Wallander and Svedberg left the flat. Hoover emerged from the cupboard and stood utterly still. Then he left, as soundlessly as he had come. He had gone to the empty shop where Linda and Kajsa had held their rehearsals. He knew they wouldn’t be using it again, so he had left Louise there while he went to the flat on Mariagatan to kill Perkins and his daughter. But as he’d stood in the cupboard, the axe ready in his hand, and heard the conversation he started to have doubts. There was one more person he had to kill. A man he had overlooked. Hans Logard. When the policeman described him, Hoover understood that he must have been the one who had brutally raped and abused his sister. That was before she had been drugged and taken to both Gustaf Wetterstedt and Arne Carlman — events that had forced her into the darkness. All of it was written down in the book he had taken from her. The book that contained the words that controlled him. He had assumed that Hans Logard was someone who didn’t live in Sweden. A foreign visitor, an evil man. Now he knew that he had made a mistake.

  It was easy to get into the empty shop. Earlier he had seen Kajsa hide the key. Since he was moving around in broad daylight, he hadn’t painted his face. He didn’t want to frighten Louise, either. When he came back she was sitting on a chair, staring blankly into space. He had already decided to move her. And he knew where. Before he went to Mariagatan he went on the moped to see that the situation was as he’d thought. The house he’d selected was empty. But they weren’t going to move there until evening. He sat down on the floor at her side and tried to work out how to find Logard before the police did. He turned inward and asked Geronimo for advice. But his heart was strangely still this morning. The drums were so faint that he couldn’t hear their message.

  At 8 a.m. they gathered in the conference room. Akeson was here, as was a sergeant from Malmo. Birgersson was hooked up via speaker phone from Helsingborg. Wallander looked around the table and said they’d start by bringing everyone up to date. The sergeant from Malmo was looking for a hiding place they assumed Stefan Fredman had access to. They still hadn’t found it. But one of the neighbours in the building told them that he had seen Stefan Fredman on a moped several times. The building where the family lived was under surveillance. Birgersson told them that Sjosten was doing well, although his ear would be permanently damaged.

  “Plastic surgeons can work wonders,” Wallander shouted encouragingly. “Say hello to him from all of us.”

  Birgersson went on to say that they weren’t Logard’s fingerprints on the comic book, the paper bag, Liljegren’s stove or Fredman’s left eyelid. This confirmation was crucial. The Malmo police were getting Stefan Fredman’s prints from objects taken from his room in the Rosengard flat. Nobody doubted that they would match, now that Logard’s didn’t.

  They talked about Logard. The hunt had to continue. They had to assume he was dangerous, since he had shot at Wallander and Sjosten.

  “Stefan Fredman is only 14, but he is dangerous,” Wallander said. “He may be crazy, but he’s not stupid. He’s very strong and he reacts fast. We have to be careful.”

  “This is all so damned disgusting!” Hansson exploded. “I still can’t believe it’s true.”

  “Nor can any of us,” Akeson said. “But what Kurt says is absolutely right. And we need to act accordingly.”

  “Fredman got his sister Louise out of the ho
spital,” Wallander went on. “We’re looking for the nurse who will be able to identify him. Let’s assume it’ll be a positive identification. We still don’t know whether he intends to hurt Louise. It’s crucial that we find them. He has a moped and must ride with her on the back. They can’t get very far. Besides, the girl is sick.”

  “A nutcase on a moped with a mentally ill girl on the back,” Svedberg said. “It’s so macabre.”

  “He can also drive a car,” Ludwigsson pointed out. “He used his father’s van. So he may have stolen one by now.”

  Wallander turned to the detective from Malmo.

  “Stolen cars,” he said. “Within the past few days. Above all in Rosengard. And near the hospital.”

  The detective went to a phone.

  “Stefan Fredman carries out his actions after careful planning,” continued Wallander. “Naturally we have no way of knowing whether the abduction of his sister was also planned. Now we have to try and get into his mind to guess what he plans to do next. Where are they headed? It’s a shame Ekholm isn’t here when we need him most.”

  “He’ll be here in about an hour,” Hansson said, glancing at the clock. “Someone’s picking him up at the airport.”

  “How is his daughter?” asked Hoglund.

  Wallander was ashamed that he’d forgotten the reason for Ekholm’s absence.

  “She’s OK,” said Svedberg. “A broken foot, that’s all. She was very lucky.”

  “This autumn we’re going to have a big traffic safety campaign in schools,” said Hansson. “Too many children are being killed.”

  The detective returned to the table.

  “I presume you’ve also looked for Stefan in his father’s flat,” Wallander said.

  “We’ve already searched there and everywhere else his father usually hung out. And we’ve picked up Peter Hjelm and asked him to try and think of other hideouts Fredman may have had access to that his son might know about. Forsfalt is taking care of it.”