One Step Behind (1997) kw-7

by Henning Mankell

  Wallander had heard Istvan's story a long time ago. Wallander ate there from time to time, and if there weren't many customers around, Istvan would happily sit down and talk. It was 6.30 p.m. when Wallander walked in, with half an hour to spare before meeting Ylva Brink. There were no other customers, just as Wallander had expected. From the kitchen came the sound of a radio and of someone banging a meat cleaver. Istvan was just finishing a phone call by the bar, and waved to Wallander as he sat down at a table in the corner. He came over with a serious expression.

  "Is it true what I've heard? That a policeman is dead?"

  "Unfortunately yes," Wallander answered. "Karl Evert Svedberg. Did you meet him?"

  "I don't think he ever came in," Istvan said. "Do you want a beer? It's on the house." Wallander shook his head.

  "I'd like to have something that's quick," he said. "And appropriate for someone with high blood-sugar levels."

  Istvan looked at him with concern.

  "Have you become diabetic?"

  "No. But my sugar level is too high."

  "Then you are a diabetic."

  "Well, perhaps temporarily. I'm in a bit of a hurry right now."

  "How about a small steak, sauteed in a little oil, and a green salad?"

  "That sounds good."

  Istvan left and Wallander wondered why he reacted as if diabetes was something to be ashamed of. Maybe it wasn't so strange. He hated the fact that he was overweight. He wanted to pretend the problem wasn't there.

  As usual he ate much too fast. He drank a cup of coffee while Istvan was tending to a group of Polish tourists. Wallander was happy to avoid having to answer questions about Svedberg's murder. He paid his bill and left.

  He got to the police station just after 7 p.m. Ylva Brink had not yet arrived. He went straight to Martinsson's office. Hansson was also there.

  "How is it going?" he asked.

  "There are almost no leads from the public, which is a little unusual."

  "Anything from Lund?"

  "Not yet," Hansson said. "We'll have to wait until Monday."

  "We need to establish the time of death," Wallander said. "As soon as we get that, we'll have a starting point."

  "I've checked the files," Martinsson said. "Neither the murder nor the burglary matches any previous case."

  "We don't know it was a burglary," Wallander said.

  "What else could it have been?"

  "I don't know. I have to go and see Ylva Brink now. I'll see you two tomorrow at 9 a.m."

  He went to his office and found a note on his desk from Lisa Holgersson, who wanted to speak to him as soon as possible. Wallander tried to call her but she had left. Wallander decided to call her at home later that evening.

  A few minutes later Ylva Brink arrived. Wallander asked her if she wanted some coffee but she said no. He decided to use a tape recorder for this interview. Normally he found it distracting, as if a third party were eavesdropping on the person he was interviewing, but he wanted to have access to this conversation word for word. He asked Ylva Brink if she had any objections, but she didn't.

  "It's not like it's an interrogation," he said. "It's just that I want to remember what we talk about. This machine is better at that than I am."

  He pushed the record button and the tape started turning. It was 7.19 p.m.

  "Friday, 9 August, 1996," Wallander stated. "Interview with Ylva Brink in connection with Inspector Karl Evert Svedberg's death by manslaughter or homicide."

  "Well, what other possibilities are there?" she asked.

  "Police language is full of these redundant expressions," Wallander said. He too had thought that it sounded stilted.

  "It's been a few hours," he began. "You've had some time to think. You've probably been asking yourself why it happened. A murder often seems senseless to everyone except the murderer."

  "I still can't quite believe it's true. I talked to my husband several hours ago - it's possible to place satellite calls to the boat. He thought I was crazy. But when I heard the words come out of my mouth, the reality hit me."

  "I would have liked to be able to wait before pressing you to talk about it. But we can't wait. We have to catch the killer as soon as possible. He has a head start and it's getting bigger all the time."

  She seemed to be steeling herself for his first real question.

  "This woman Louise," Wallander said. "Apparently Karl Evert had been meeting her for years. Did you ever see her?"

  "No."

  "Did you ever hear him talk about her?"

  "No."

  "What was your first reaction when I told you about her?"

  "I didn't think it was true."

  "What do you think now?"

  "That it's true, but still completely incomprehensible."

  "You and Karl Evert must have talked at some point about why he had never married. What did he say?"

  "That he was a confirmed bachelor and happy that way."

  "Was there anything unusual about the way he said this?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "Did he seem nervous? Could you tell if he was lying?"

  "He was completely convincing."

  Wallander detected a note of hesitation in her voice.

  "I have the feeling you might just have thought of something."

  She didn't answer immediately. The tape recorder was whirring in the background.

  "Occasionally I wondered if he was different . . ."

  "You mean, if he was gay?"

  "Yes."

  "Why did that occur to you?"

  "Isn't it a natural reaction?"

  Wallander recalled that he himself had sometimes been conscious of this possibility.

  "Yes, of course it is."

  "It came up in conversation once. He was invited over for Christmas dinner, quite a few years ago. We were discussing whether or not a person that we both knew was homosexual. I remember very clearly how vehemently disgusted he was."

  "By the friend's supposed homosexuality?"

  "By homosexuality in general. It was very unpleasant. I had always considered him a tolerant person."

  "What happened after that?"

  "Nothing. We never spoke of it again."

  Wallander thought for a moment. "How do you think we could go about finding this Louise?"

  "I have no idea."

  "Since he never left Ystad, she must live here or in the near vicinity."

  "I suppose so."

  She looked at her watch.

  "When do you have to be at work?" Wallander asked.

  "In half an hour. I don't like to be late."

  "Just like Karl Evert. He was always very punctual."

  "Yes, he was. What's that saying? Someone you could set your watch by."

  "What kind of a person was he, really?"

  "You've already asked me that."

  "Well, I'm asking you again."

  "He was nice."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Nice. A nice person. I don't know how else to put it. He was a nice person who could sometimes fly into a rage, although that didn't happen very often. He was a little shy. Dutiful. Some people probably thought him boring. He might have seemed a bit aloof and slow, but he was intelligent."

  Wallander thought her description of Svedberg was accurate and close to something he might have said if their roles had been reversed.

  "Who was his best friend?"

  Her answer shocked him.

  "I thought you were."

  "Me?"

  "He always said so. 'Kurt Wallander is the best friend I have.'"

  Wallander was dumbstruck. For him Svedberg had always been a colleague. They never saw each other outside of work. He hadn't become a friend in the way that Rydberg had been, and that Hoglund was slowly becoming.

  "That comes as quite a surprise," he said finally. "I didn't think of him in that way."

  "But he may have considered you his best friend, regardless of what you thought."

 
; "Of course."

  Wallander suddenly realised how lonely Svedberg must have been. His definition of friendship had been grounded on the lowest common denominator, an absence of animosity. He stared into the tape recorder, then forced himself to continue.

  "Did he have any other friends or people he spent a lot of time with?"

  "He was in contact with a society for the study of Native American culture. I think it was called 'Indian Science'. But their activities were mainly conducted by correspondence."

  "Anything else?"

  "Sometimes he mentioned a retired bank director who lives in town. They shared an interest in astronomy."

  "What was his name?"

  She thought for a moment. "Sundelius. Bror Sundelius. I never met him myself."

  Wallander made a note of the name.

  "Anyone else you can think of ?"

  "Just me and my husband."

  Wallander changed the subject.

  "Do you recall anything unusual during his last weeks? Was he anxious, or did he seem distracted?"

  "He didn't say anything except that he felt overworked."

  "But he didn't say why?"

  "No."

  Wallander realised he had forgotten to ask her something. "Did it surprise you that he said he was overworked?"

  "No, not at all."

  "So he usually mentioned how he was feeling?"

  "I should have thought of this before," she said. "There's one more thing I would add to my description of him - that he was a hypochondriac. The smallest little ache would worry him enormously. And he was terrified of germs."

  Wallander could see him, the way he was always running to the bathroom to wash his hands. He always avoided people with colds. She looked at the clock again. Time was running out.

  "Did he own any weapons?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Is there anything else you would like to tell me, anything that seems important?"

  "I'm going to miss him. Maybe he wasn't such an extraordinary person, but he was the most honourable person I knew. I'm going to miss him."

  Wallander turned off the tape recorder and followed her out. For a moment she seemed helpless.

  "What am I going to do about the funeral?" she asked. "Sture thinks the dead should be scattered to the wind without priests and rites. But I don't know what his own thoughts were."

  "He didn't leave a will?"

  "Not that I know of. I'm sure he would have told me."

  "Did he have a safe-deposit box at the bank?"

  "No."

  "Would you have known about it?"

  "Yes."

  "The police will attend the funeral, of course," Wallander said. "I'll ask Lisa Holgersson to be in touch."

  Ylva Brink went out through the front glass doors. Wallander returned to his office. Yet another name had cropped up: Bror Sundelius. As Wallander looked him up in the phone book, he thought about the conversation with Ylva Brink. What had she really told him that he hadn't already known? That Louise was a well-kept secret. A well-guarded secret, Wallander thought.

  He made some notes to himself. Why would you keep a woman secret for so long? Ylva Brink had told him about Svedberg's strong aversion to homosexuality, and about his hypochondria. She had also said he met with a retired bank director from time to time to study the night sky. Wallander laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair. For the most part, his picture of Svedberg remained the same. The only revelation was this woman, Louise. And nothing seemed to point to an explanation of his death. He felt that he suddenly saw the whole drama clearly in front of him. Svedberg had failed to show up for work because he was already dead. He had caught a burglar by surprise who shot him on the spot, then fled with the telescope in his arms. The crime was unpremeditated, banal and horrifying. There was no other possible explanation.

  It was 8.10 p.m. Wallander called Lisa Holgersson at home. She wanted to talk about the funeral and he told her to contact Ylva Brink. Then he told her what they had learned over the course of the afternoon. He also told her that he was starting to lean towards the violent-and-heavily-drugged-burglar theory.

  "The national chief of police has called me," she said. "He wanted to express his condolences and his concern."

  "In that order?"

  "Yes, thank God."

  Wallander told her he had arranged a meeting the next morning at 9 a.m., and promised to keep her abreast of any developments. After he'd hung up, Wallander dialled the number for Sundelius, but there was no answer or even an answerphone.

  Once he put the phone down again he felt somewhat at a loss. Where should he go from here? He felt a growing impatience, but knew he had to wait for the autopsy report and the forensic evidence to come in.

  He started to replay the conversation with Ylva Brink and thought about the last thing she had said, that Svedberg was honourable. There was a knock at the door and Martinsson entered.

  "There's a bunch of impatient reporters at the door," he said. Wallander made a face.

  "We don't have anything new to tell them."

  "I think they'll make do with something old, just as long as they get something."

  "Can't you send them away for now? Promise them a press conference as soon as we feel we have something to report."

  "Have you forgotten the orders that came from on high instructing us to get along smoothly with the press?" Martinsson said, his voice heavy with irony.

  Wallander hadn't forgotten. The national chief of police had recently issued directives to improve relations between the various police districts and local media. Reporters were now to be welcomed and treated with kid gloves.

  Wallander got up heavily. "I'll talk to them," he said.

  It took him 20 minutes to convince the reporters that he had no new information to give them. He almost lost his temper towards the end, when they continued to regard his claim with suspicion. But he managed to control himself and the reporters finally left. He got a cup of coffee from the canteen and went back to his office. He called Sundelius once more without success.

  The phone rang. More reporters, Wallander thought despondently. But it was Sten Widen.

  "Where are you?" Widen asked. "I realise you have a lot going on and you have my condolences, but I've been waiting here for a while now."

  Wallander swore under his breath. He had completely forgotten his promise to visit Sten Widen at his horse ranch near the castle ruins at Stjarnsund. They had been friends since childhood and shared a passion for opera. As adults, they had started to grow apart. Wallander became a police officer and Sten Widen took over the ranch from his father, where he raised racehorses. A couple of years ago they had started seeing each other again, and they had made plans for this evening. It had totally slipped his mind.

  "I should have called you," Wallander said. "I completely forgot."

  "They announced it over the radio. Was your colleague murdered or was it manslaughter?"

  "We don't know, it's too early to tell. But the last 24 hours have been horrific."

  "We can get together some other time."

  Wallander made up his mind. "Give me half an hour."

  "Don't feel pressured."

  "I don't; I need to get away for a while."

  Wallander left the station, went to the flat and picked up his mobile phone, then took the E65 out of town. He saw the castle ruins and slowed down to turn into Widen's ranch. Apart from the neighing of a horse, all was quiet.

  Widen came out to greet him. Wallander was used to seeing him in dirty work clothes, but now he was wearing a white shirt and his hair was combed back. As they shook hands Wallander smelt alcohol on his breath. He knew that Widen drank too much, but he had never said anything to him. Somehow it never came up.

  "What a beautiful evening," Widen said. "Summer finally arrived in August. Or is it the other way around? August finally arrived with summer. Who really arrives with whom?"

  Wallander felt a twinge of jealousy. This was what he had
dreamed of, living out in the countryside with a dog and maybe even Baiba. But nothing had come of it.

  "How's business?" he asked.

  "Not so good. The eighties were the golden decade. Everyone seemed to have plenty of money then. Now they don't. People spend most of their time praying they won't lose their jobs."

  "Isn't it just the wealthy who buy racehorses? I didn't think they had to worry about unemployment."

  "They're still around," Widen agreed. "But there don't seem to be as many of them as before."

  They walked down towards the stables. A girl wearing riding gear appeared around the corner with a horse.

  "That's Sofia. She's the only one left. I had to get rid of everyone else," Widen said.

  Wallander remembered hearing something a couple of years ago about Widen sleeping with one of the girls working on the ranch. What had her name been? Jenny?

  Widen exchanged some words with the girl and Wallander caught the name of the horse, Black Triangle. The outlandish names still surprised him.

  They went into the stables.

  "This is Dreamgirl Express," Widen said, showing him another horse. "Right now she supports me almost all by herself. Owners complain about the upkeep being expensive, and my accountant keeps calling earlier and earlier in the morning. I really don't know how much longer I can get by."

  Wallander stroked the horse's muzzle carefully.

  "You've always managed before," he said.

  Widen shook his head.

  "Right now it doesn't look good," he said. "But I can probably get a good price for the place and then I'll take off."

  "Where will you go?"

  "I'm just going to pack my bags, get a good night's sleep, and decide in the morning."

  They left the stables and walked up to the main house. Wallander remembered it being a huge mess, but surprisingly everything was very neatly arranged this time.

  "A couple of months ago I realised that cleaning could be therapeutic," Widen said in answer to Wallander's obvious surprise.

  "That doesn't work for me. God knows I've tried."

  Widen gestured for him to sit at the table, where he had set out glasses and a couple of bottles. Wallander hesitated, then nodded and sat down. His doctor wouldn't like it but right now he didn't have the energy to abstain.

  "Do you remember that time we went to Germany to hear Wagner?" Widen said, much later in the evening. "It's 25 years ago now. I found some photos the other day. Do you want to see them?"