One Step Behind (1997) kw-7

by Henning Mankell

  Wallander introduced himself. "I heard that you had called. I'm Isa's father."

  He sounded as though he regretted this last fact, which enraged Wallander.

  "I expect you're in the middle of making your arrangements to come home and take care of Isa," he said.

  "Actually, no. It doesn't sound as if there's any immediate danger."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I spoke to the hospital."

  "Did you say that your name was Lundberg when you made this call?"

  "Why would I have done that?"

  "It was just a question."

  "Do you really have nothing better to do with your time than ask idiotic questions?"

  "Oh, I do,"Wallander said and stopped trying to conceal his anger. "For example, I may very well contact the Spanish police to enlist their aid in getting you on the next flight home."

  It wasn't true, of course, but Wallander had had enough of the Edengrens' indifference towards their daughter in spite of their son's suicide. He wondered how people could have such a total absence of affection for their children.

  "I find your tone insulting."

  "Three of Isa's friends have been murdered," Wallander said. "Isa was supposed to have been with them when it happened. I'm talking about murder here, and you're going to cooperate with me or I'm going to go to the Spanish authorities. Am I making myself clear?"

  The man seemed to hesitate. "What is it that's happened?"

  "As far as I know, they sell Swedish papers in Spain. Can you read?"

  "What the hell do you mean by that?"

  "Exactly what I just said. You have a summer house on Barnso Island. Does Isa have the keys to it, or do you lock her out of that house, too?"

  "She has the keys."

  "Is there a phone on the island?"

  "We use our mobile phones."

  "Does Isa have one?"

  "Doesn't everybody?"

  "What's her number?"

  "I don't know. I'm really not sure whether she has one."

  "So which is it? Does she have a phone or not?"

  "She has never asked me for money to buy one, and she couldn't afford one. She doesn't work, she doesn't do anything to try to get a grip on her life."

  "Do you think it's possible that Isa has gone to Barnso? Does she often go there?"

  "I thought she was still in the hospital."

  "She's run away."

  "Why?"

  "We don't know. Is it possible that she would have gone to Barnso?"

  "It's possible."

  "How do you get there?"

  "You take a boat from Fyrudden."

  "Does she have access to a boat?"

  "The one we have is currently being serviced in Stockholm."

  "Are there any neighbours on the island I could get in touch with?"

  "No, we're the only house on the island."

  Wallander had been taking notes as they talked. For the moment he couldn't think of anything else to ask.

  "You'll have to stay close to the phone so I can get hold of you," he said. "Is there any other place you can think of where Isa may have gone?"

  "No."

  "If you think of anything, you know where to reach me."

  Wallander gave him the phone numbers to the station and his mobile phone, then hung up. His hands were damp with sweat. It was already past lunchtime, and Wallander ached from hunger and a headache. He ordered a pizza that arrived after 30 minutes, and ate it at his desk. Nyberg hadn't called back, and he wondered briefly if he should drive out to the nature reserve, but then decided against it. He wouldn't be able to speed anything up. Nyberg knew what he was doing. He wiped his mouth, threw out the pizza box, and went out to the men's room to wash his hands. Then he left the station, crossed the road, and started walking up towards the water tower. There he sat down in the shade and concentrated on a thought that kept returning to him.

  His worst fear, that Svedberg was the one who killed the three young people, had started to fade. Svedberg was on the side of the pursuers in this case, still a little ahead of Wallander. It would be a while until they caught him up.

  Svedberg could not be the murderer because he had been killed, too. Wallander's worst fear was starting to leave him, only to be replaced by another. Someone was observing their investigation, someone who kept himself very well informed. Wallander knew that he was right about this, even though he couldn't yet see how it all hung together.

  The person who had killed Svedberg and killed the three young people had some means of access to the information he required. The Midsummer's Eve party was planned in complete secrecy and yet someone else knew about it, someone who realised that Svedberg was closing in on him.

  Svedberg must simply have got too close, Wallander thought, without realising that he had wandered into forbidden territory. That was why he was murdered. There is no other reasonable explanation.

  He could make sense of events up to this point, but beyond it the questions piled up one on top of the other. Why was the telescope at Bjorklund's house? Why had someone sent postcards from all over Europe?

  I have to find Isa, he thought. I have to get her to tell me what she doesn't even know she knows. And I have to follow in Svedberg's footsteps. What had he discovered that we still haven't seen? Or did he have access to some information from the very beginning that we don't have?

  Wallander thought briefly about Louise, the woman in Svedberg's life, whom he had kept secret. There was still something about her picture that disturbed him, although he couldn't put his finger on it. The feeling was strong enough that he knew he mustn't give up on it, that he must bide his time. It occurred to him that there was a similarity between the young people in the reserve and Svedberg. They had all had secrets. Was this also significant?

  Wallander got up and walked back to the police station. His body still ached from the hours he had spent sleeping curled up on the back seat of his car. His biggest anxiety still lay at the back of his mind - the fear that the killer would strike again.

  When he got to the station he realised what he had to do. He had to drive up to Barnso and see if Isa Edengren was there. He had to choose between all the important tasks that lay before him. The most important was to find her.

  Time was running out. He returned to his office and managed to get in touch with Martinsson, who had finally left the Norman family's home.

  "Has anything happened?" Martinsson asked.

  "Not nearly enough. Why haven't we heard anything from the pathologist? We're helpless until we have a time of death. Why aren't we getting any good leads? Where are the missing cars? We have to talk. Get here as soon as you can."

  While they were waiting for Hoglund, Wallander and Martinsson called the young people in Svedberg's photograph. It turned out that they had all visited Isa on Barnso at one time or another. Martinsson spoke to the pathologist in Lund and was told that no results were available yet, either for the Svedberg case or the three young people. Wallander worked through a list of the leads that had come in from the general public. Nothing looked significant. The strangest thing was that no one had called to say they recognised the woman they were calling Louise. It was the first thing Wallander brought up with his colleagues in one of the smaller conference rooms. He put the photograph of her on the projector again.

  "Someone must recognise her," he said. "Or at least think they do. But no one has called in."

  "The picture has only been out there a few hours," Martinsson said.

  Wallander dismissed this explanation. "It's one thing to ask people to recall an event," he said. "That can take time. But this is a face."

  "Perhaps she's foreign?" Hoglund suggested. "Even if she only lives in Denmark. Who bothers to read the Skane papers over there? The photo won't be published in the national papers until tomorrow."

  "You might be right," Wallander said, thinking of Sture Bjorklund, who commuted between Hedeskoga and Copenhagen. "We'll get in touch with the Danish poli
ce."

  They looked at the picture of Louise for a long time.

  "I can't escape the feeling that there's something unusual about her," Wallander said. "I just don't know what it is."

  No one could say what it was. Wallander turned off the projector.

  "I'm going up to Ostergotland tomorrow," he said. "It's possible that Isa might have gone there. We have to find her and we have to get her to talk."

  "What exactly do you think she can tell us? She wasn't there when it happened."

  Wallander knew that Martinsson's objection was reasonable. He wasn't sure that he could give him a good answer. There were so many gaps, so many thoughts that were closer to vague assumption than firm opinion.

  "She is a witness, in a way," he said. "We're convinced that this is not a crime of opportunity. Svedberg's murder may still turn out to be just that, although I doubt it, but the deaths of these young people were well planned. The crucial thing here is that they made their own arrangements in secret, but someone else seems to have had access to that information - what they were thinking, where they were going to meet, perhaps even the exact time. Someone was spying on them. Someone managed to find out what they were up to. If it turns out that the bodies were buried fairly close to the place where they were killed, then we'll know this for sure. Holes don't dig themselves. Isa was part of these elaborate preparations. But she fell ill at the moment when everything was to begin. If she had been able to go, she would have. Her illness saved her life. And she is the one who can help us find out what happened that night. Somewhere along the way, without their realising it, she and the others crossed paths with the person who decided to take their lives."

  "Is that what you think Svedberg believed?" Martinsson asked.

  "Yes. But he knew something else as well. Or at least suspected it. We don't know how this suspicion arose in the first place, or why he conducted his whole investigation in secret. But it must have been important. He dedicated his entire holiday to it. He insisted on taking all of his holiday time. He had never done that before."

  "Something's still missing," Hoglund said. "And that's a motive. Revenge, hatred, jealousy. It doesn't add up. Who would've wanted to murder three young people? Or four, for that matter. Who could've hated them? Who had reason to be jealous? There's a brutality to this crime that goes beyond anything I've ever seen. It's worse than the case involving the poor boy who dressed up as an Indian."

  "He may have chosen this party deliberately," Wallander said. "Although it's almost too terrible to imagine, he could have chosen his moment precisely because their joy was at its peak. Think how alone people can feel over Midsummer."

  "In that case we're dealing with a madman," Martinsson said, visibly upset.

  "A methodical and deliberate madman, yes," Wallander said. "But the important thing is to try to find the invisible common denominator in these crimes. The murderer got his information from some source. He must have had access to their lives. That's the key we're after. We have to look thoroughly into their lives. We'll find this point of intersection. We may already have come across it and not seen it."

  "So you think Isa Edengren should be our focus," Hoglund said. "In a way you think she's leading this investigation, and we're carefully following in her footsteps."

  "Something like that. We can't overlook the fact that she tried to kill herself. We have to find out why. We also don't know how the killer feels about the fact that she survived."

  "You're thinking about the person who called the hospital and pretended to be Lundberg," Martinsson said.

  Wallander nodded. "I want one of you to talk to whoever took that call. Find out what the caller sounded like. Was he old or young? What dialect did he speak? Anything could turn out to be important."

  Martinsson promised to take on this task. For the next hour they went over what else had to be covered. At one point Holgersson came in to talk about the arrangements for Svedberg's funeral.

  "Does anyone know what kind of music he liked?" she asked.

  "Strangely enough, Ylva Brink says she has no idea."

  Wallander realised to his surprise that he had no idea either. Holgersson left again, after he had given her an update on the investigation.

  "I wish we could know what exactly happened and why when we attend his funeral," Martinsson said.

  "I doubt we will," Wallander said. "But that's what we'd all like."

  It was 5 p.m. They were about to leave when the phone rang. It was Ebba.

  "Please, no reporters," Wallander said.

  "It's Nyberg. It sounds important."

  Wallander felt a twinge of excitement. There was a hiss of static, then Nyberg's voice came on.

  "I think we were right."

  "Have you found the spot?"

  "That's what we think. We're taking pictures now, and we're trying to see if we can get a footprint."

  "Were we right about the location?"

  "This is about 80 metres from where they were found. It's a very well selected spot. It's surrounded by thick shrubbery and no one would choose to walk through it."

  "When are you going to start digging?"

  "I was going to see if you wanted to come and take a look at it first."

  "I'm on my way."

  Wallander hung up. "They think they've found the place where the bodies were buried," he said.

  They quickly decided that Wallander would go out there alone. The others had a number of tasks to take care of as soon as possible.

  When he got to the nature reserve, he drove his car past the roadblocks all the way up to the crime scene. A forensic technician was waiting for him, and escorted him to a spot where Nyberg had cordoned off an area of about 30 square metres. Wallander saw at once that the spot was well chosen, just as he had said. He crouched down beside Nyberg, who started to point things out to him.

  "The ground over here has been dug up," he said. "Clumps of grass have been taken out and replanted. If you look over there under the leaves you'll see dirt that's been swept aside. If you dig a hole and fill it with something else, there'll be earth left over."

  Wallander brushed his hand along the ground. "It's been carefully done."

  Nyberg nodded. "It's very precise," he said. "He didn't take any shortcuts. We would never have noticed this place without having set out to look for it."

  Wallander got up. "Let's dig it up," he said. "We've got no time to lose."

  The work went slowly. Nyberg directed the others. It was beginning to get dark by the time the first layer of earth had been removed. Spotlights were set up around the site. The earth underneath the sod was porous and came out easily. As they removed it, a rectangular hole became visible. By this time it was after 9 p.m. Holgersson had come out with Hoglund and they watched in silence. By the time Nyberg was satisfied, Wallander knew what he was looking at. The rectangular hole in front of him was a grave.

  They gathered in a semicircle around the edge.

  "It's big enough," Nyberg said.

  "Yes," Wallander said. "It's big enough. Even for four bodies."

  He shivered. For the first time they were following closely in the killer's tracks. They had been right. Nyberg kneeled next to the hole.

  "There's nothing here," he said. "It's possible that the bodies were sealed in airtight body bags. If there was also a tarpaulin tucked in around them under the sod, I doubt that even Edmundsson's dog would pick up anything. But of course we'll go over it, down to the last tiny speck of dirt."

  Wallander walked back up to the main path with Holgersson and Hoglund.

  "What is this killer doing?" Holgersson asked, distaste and fear in her voice.

  "I don't know," Wallander said. "But at least we have a survivor."

  "Isa Edengren?"

  Wallander didn't answer. He didn't need to. They all knew what he meant. The grave had been intended for her as well.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  At 5 a.m. on Tuesday, 13 August, Wallander left Ystad, deciding
to drive along the coast, through Kalmar. He was already at Solvesborg when he realised he had forgotten his promise to visit Dr Goransson at the clinic that morning. He pulled over by the side of the road and called Martinsson. It was just past 7 a.m. Wallander told him about the doctor's appointment and asked Martinsson to call and give an excuse.

  "Tell him an urgent matter called me out of town," Wallander said.

  "Are you sick?" Martinsson asked.

  "It's a routine check-up," Wallander told him. "That's all."

  Afterwards, when he had pulled back out onto the road, it occurred to him that Martinsson must have wondered why he didn't call Dr Goransson himself. Wallander asked himself the same question. Why couldn't he tell people that he had in all likelihood developed diabetes? He was having trouble making sense of his own actions.

  He was thirsty, and his body ached. When he passed a roadside cafe he stopped and had breakfast. On the way out he bought two bottles of mineral water. He made it to Kalmar by 9 a.m. The phone rang. It was Hoglund, who was going to help him with directions once he reached Ostergotland.

  "I talked to a colleague in Valdemarsvik," she said. "I thought it would be best to make it sound like a personal favour."

  "Good idea," Wallander said. "Police officers don't tend to like it when you trespass on their territory."

  "Especially not you," she said with a laugh. She was right. He didn't like having police officers from other districts in Ystad.

  "How do I get out to the island?" he asked.

  "That depends on where you are right now. Are you far away?

  "I've just passed Kalmar. Vastervik is 100 kilometres away, and then it's about another hundred after that."

  "Then it'll be tight."

  "What do you mean?"

  "My contact in Valdemarsvik suggested that you take the post boat, but it leaves Fyrudden between 11 a.m. and 11.30."

  "Is there no other way?"

  "Oh, I'm sure there is. But you'll have to organise that once you get to the dock."