Sidetracked

by Henning Mankell

  “I’ve met him.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “He’s in the phone book under ‘Handyman’. He lives on Kungsgatan.”

  “How did they know each other?”

  “They used to drink together. I know that. What else they did, I can’t say.”

  Wallander looked around the room. “Did your Dad have any of his things here in the flat?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Wallander stuffed the paper into his trouser pocket. He had no more questions.

  “What’s it like to be a policeman?” the boy asked.

  Wallander could tell that he was really interested. His eyes gleamed.

  “It’s a little of this, a little of that,” said Wallander, unsure of what he thought about his profession at that moment.

  “What’s it like to catch a murderer?”

  “Cold and grey and miserable,” he replied, thinking with distaste of all the TV shows the boy must have seen.

  “What are you going to do when you catch the person who killed my Dad?”

  “I don’t know,” said Wallander. “That depends.”

  “He must be dangerous. Since he’s already killed several other people.”

  Wallander found the boy’s curiosity annoying.

  “We’ll catch him,” he said firmly, to put an end to the conversation. “Sooner or later we’ll catch him.”

  He got up from the chair and asked where the bathroom was. The boy pointed to a door in the hall leading to the bedroom. Wallander closed the door behind him. He looked at his face in the mirror. What he needed most was some sunshine. After he’d had a pee he opened the medicine cabinet. There were a few bottles of pills in it. One of them had Louise Fredman’s name on it. He saw that she was born on November 9th. He memorised the name of the medicine and the doctor who had prescribed it. Saroten. He had never heard of this drug before. He would have to look it up when he got back to Ystad.

  In the living-room the boy was sitting in the same position. Wallander wondered whether he was normal after all. His precociousness and self-control made a strange impression. But then Stefan turned towards him and smiled, and for a moment the wariness in his eyes seemed to vanish. Wallander pushed away the thought, and picked up his jacket.

  “I’ll be calling you again,” he said. “Don’t forget to tell your mother that I was here. It would be good if you told her what we talked about.”

  “Can I come and visit you some time?” asked the boy.

  Wallander was surprised by the question. It was like having a ball tossed at you and not being able to catch it.

  “You mean you want to come to the station in Ystad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course,” said Wallander. “But call ahead of time. I’m often out. And sometimes it’s not convenient.”

  Wallander went out to the landing and pressed the lift button. They nodded to each other. The boy closed the door. Wallander rode down and walked out into the sunshine.

  It had turned into the hottest day yet. He stood for a moment, enjoying the heat, deciding what to do next, then drove down to the Malmö police station. Forsfält was in. Wallander told him about his talk with the boy. He gave Forsfält the name of the doctor, Gunnar Bergdahl, and asked him to get hold of him as soon as possible. Then he told him about his suspicions that Fredman might have abused his daughter and possibly the two boys as well. Forsfält couldn’t recall that allegations of that nature had ever been directed at Fredman, but he promised to look into the matter.

  Wallander moved on to Peter Hjelm. Forsfält told him that he was a man who resembled Björn Fredman in many ways. He’d been in and out of prison. Once he was arrested with Fredman for taking part in a joint fencing operation. Forsfält was of the opinion that Hjelm was the one who supplied the stolen goods, and Fredman then resold them. Wallander wondered whether Forsfält would mind if he talked to Hjelm alone.

  “I’m happy to get out of it,” said Forsfält.

  Wallander looked up Hjelm’s address in Forsfält’s phone book. He also gave Forsfält his mobile number. They decided to have lunch together. Forsfält hoped that by then he would have copied all the material the Malmö police had on Björn Fredman.

  Wallander left his car outside the station and walked towards Kungsgatan. He went into a clothing shop and bought a shirt, which he put on. Reluctantly he threw away the ruined one Baiba had given him. He went back out into the sunshine. For a few minutes he sat on a bench. Then he walked over to the building where Hjelm lived. The door had an entry code, but Wallander was lucky. After a few minutes an elderly man came out with his dog. Wallander gave him a friendly nod and stepped in the main door. He saw that Hjelm lived on the fourth floor. Just as he was about to open the lift door, his phone rang. It was Forsfält.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m standing outside the lift in Hjelm’s building.”

  “I was hoping you hadn’t got there yet.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “I got hold of the doctor. We know each other. I’d totally forgotten about it.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Something he probably shouldn’t have. I promised I wouldn’t mention his name. So you can’t either.”

  “I promise.”

  “He thought that the person we’re talking about – I won’t mention the name since we’re on mobile phones – was admitted to a psychiatric clinic.”

  Wallander held his breath.

  “That explains why she left,” he said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” said Forsfält. “She’s been there for three years.”

  Wallander stood there in silence. Someone pressed the button for the lift and it rumbled upwards.

  “We’ll talk later,” Forsfält said. “Good luck with Hjelm.”

  He hung up. Wallander thought for a long time about what he had just heard. Then he started up the stairs to the fourth floor.

  CHAPTER 25

  Wallander knew that he’d heard the music coming from Hjelm’s flat before. He listened with one ear pressed against the door, and remembered that Linda had played it, and that the band was called the Grateful Dead. He rang the doorbell and took a step back. The music was very loud. He rang again, and then banged hard on the door. Finally the music was turned down. He heard footsteps and then the door was opened wide, and Wallander took a step back so as not to be hit in the face. The man who opened it was completely naked. Wallander also saw that he was under the influence of something. His large body was swaying imperceptibly. Wallander introduced himself and showed his badge. The man didn’t bother looking at it. He kept staring at Wallander.

  “I’ve seen you,” he said. “On the telly. And in the papers. I never actually read the papers, so I must have seen you on the front page. The policeman they were looking for. The one who shoots people without asking permission. What did you say your name was? Wahlgren?”

  “Wallander. Are you Peter Hjelm?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  The naked man made a suggestive gesture inside the flat. Wallander assumed this meant he had female company.

  “It can’t be helped,” said Wallander. “It probably won’t take very long anyway.”

  Hjelm reluctantly let him into the hall.

  “Put some clothes on,” Wallander said firmly.

  Hjelm shrugged, pulled an overcoat from a hanger, and put it on. As if at Wallander’s request, he also jammed an old hat down over his ears. Wallander followed him down a long hall. Hjelm lived in an old-fashioned, spacious flat. Wallander sometimes dreamed of finding one like it in Ystad. Once he inquired about the flats above the bookshop in the red building on the square, but was shocked at how high the rent was.

  When they reached the living-room, Wallander was astonished to discover another man wrapping a sheet around himself. Wallander wasn’t prepared for this. A nak
ed man who gestured suggestively had a woman with him, not a man. To conceal his embarrassment, Wallander assumed a formal tone. He sat down in a chair and waved Hjelm to a seat facing him.

  “Who are you?” he asked the other man, who was much younger than Hjelm.

  “Geert doesn’t understand Swedish,” said Hjelm. “He’s from Amsterdam. He’s just visiting.”

  “Tell him I want to see some identification,” said Wallander. “Now.”

  Hjelm spoke very poor English, worse than Wallander’s. The man in the sheet disappeared and came back with a Dutch driver’s licence. As usual, Wallander had nothing to write with. He memorised the man’s last name, Van Loenen, and handed back the driver’s licence. Then he asked a few brief questions in English. Van Loenen said that he was a waiter in a café in Amsterdam and that he had met Hjelm there. This was the third time he’d been to Malmö. He was going back to Amsterdam on the train in a couple of days. When he’d finished, Wallander asked him to leave the room. Hjelm was sitting on the floor, dressed in his overcoat with the hat pulled low over his forehead. Wallander felt himself getting angry.

  “Take off that damned hat!” he shouted. “And sit in a chair. Otherwise I’ll call a squad car and have you taken in.”

  Hjelm did as he was told. He tossed the hat in a wide arc so that it landed between two flowerpots on one of the windowsills. Wallander’s anger made him start to sweat.

  “Björn Fredman is dead,” he said brutally. “But I suppose you already know that.”

  Hjelm’s smile disappeared. He didn’t know, Wallander realised.

  “He was murdered,” Wallander continued. “Someone poured acid in his eyes. And cut off part of his scalp. This happened three days ago. Now we’re looking for the person who did it. The killer has already murdered two other people. A former politician by the name of Gustaf Wetterstedt and an art dealer named Arne Carlman. But maybe you knew this.”

  Hjelm nodded slowly. Wallander tried without success to interpret his reactions.

  “Now I understand why Björn didn’t answer his phone,” he said after a while. “I tried to call him all day yesterday. And this morning I tried again.”

  “What did you want from him?”

  “I was thinking of inviting him over for dinner.”

  Wallander saw at once that this was a lie. Since he was still furious at Hjelm’s arrogant attitude, it was easy for him to tighten his grip. In all his years as a police officer Wallander had only lost control twice and struck individuals he was interrogating. He could usually control his rage.

  “Don’t lie to me,” he said. “The only way you’re going to see me walk out that door is if you give me clear, truthful answers to my questions. If you don’t, all hell will break loose. We’re dealing with a serial killer. Which means the police have special powers.”

  The last part wasn’t true, of course. But it made an impression on Hjelm.

  “I was calling him about a gig we had together.”

  “What sort of gig?”

  “A little import and export. He owed me money.”

  “How much?”

  “A little. A hundred thousand, maybe. No more than that.”

  This “little” sum of money was equivalent to many months’ wages for Wallander. This made him even angrier.

  “We can get back to your business with Fredman later,” he said. “That’s something the Malmö police will deal with. What I want to know is whether you can tell me who killed him.”

  “Not me, that’s for sure.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting you did. Anyone else?”

  Wallander saw that Hjelm was trying to concentrate.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally.

  “You seem hesitant.”

  “Björn was into a lot of things I didn’t know about.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Give me a straight answer!”

  “Well, shit! I just don’t know. We did some deals. What Fredman did with the rest of his time I can’t tell you. In this business you’re not supposed to know too much. You can’t know too little either. But that’s something else again.”

  “What do you think Fredman might have been into?”

  “I think he was doing collections quite a bit.”

  “He was an enforcer, you mean?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Who was his boss?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying. I just don’t know.”

  Wallander almost believed him.

  “What else?”

  “He was a pretty secretive type. He travelled a lot. And when he came back he was always sunburnt. And he brought back souvenirs.”

  “Where from?”

  “He never said. But after his trips he usually had plenty of money.”

  Björn Fredman’s passport, Wallander thought. We haven’t found it.

  “Who else knew Fredman besides you?”

  “Lots of people.”

  “Who knew him as well as you do?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Did he have a woman?”

  “What a question! Of course he had women!”

  “Was there anyone special?”

  “He switched around a lot.”

  “Why did he switch?”

  “Why does anyone switch? Why do I switch? Because I meet somebody from Amsterdam one day and somebody from Bjärred the next.”

  “Bjärred?”

  “It’s just an example, damn it! Halmstad, if that’s any better!”

  Wallander stopped asking questions. He frowned at Hjelm. He felt an instinctive animosity towards him. Towards a thief who regarded a hundred thousand kronor as “a little money”.

  “Gustaf Wetterstedt,” he said finally. “And Arne Carlman. You knew they had been killed.”

  “I watch TV.”

  “Did Fredman ever mention their names?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think you may have forgotten? Is it possible he did know them?”

  Hjelm sat in silence for more than a minute. Wallander waited.

  “I’m positive,” he said finally. “But he might not have told me about it.”

  “This man who’s on the loose is dangerous,” said Wallander. “He’s ice-cold and calculating. And crazy. He poured acid in Fredman’s eyes. It must have been incredibly painful. Do you get my point?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I want you to do some work for me. Spread it around that the police are looking for a connection between these three men. I assume you agree that we have to get this lunatic off the streets. A man who pours acid in somebody’s eyes.”

  Hjelm grimaced.

  “OK.”

  Wallander got up.

  “Call Detective Forsfält,” he said. “Or give me a call. In Ystad. Anything you can come up with might be important.”

  “Björn had a girlfriend named Marianne,” said Hjelm. “She lives over by the Triangle.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Eriksson, I think.”

  “What kind of work does she do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you got her phone number?”

  “I can look it up.”

  “Do it.”

  Wallander waited while Hjelm left the room. He could hear whispering voices, at least one of which sounded annoyed. Hjelm came back and handed Wallander a piece of paper. Then he followed him out to the hall.

  Hjelm had sobered up, but he still seemed completely unfazed by what had happened to his friend. Wallander felt a great uneasiness at the coldness Hjelm exhibited. It was incomprehensible to him.

  “That crazy man . . .” Hjelm began, without finishing his sentence. Wallander understood his unasked question.

  “He’s after specific individuals. If you can’t see yourself in any connection with Wetterstedt, Carlman, and Fredman, you have nothing to worry about.”

/>   “Why haven’t you caught him?”

  Wallander stared at Hjelm, his anger returning.

  “One reason is that people like you find it so hard to answer simple questions,” he said.

  When he got down to the street he stood there facing the sun and closed his eyes. He thought over the conversation with Hjelm, and the anxiety that the investigation was on the wrong track returned. He opened his eyes and walked over to the side of the building, into the shade. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was steering the whole investigation into a blind alley. He remembered the half-formed idea that he’d had, that something he’d heard was significant. There’s something missing, he thought. There’s a link between Wetterstedt and Carlman and Fredman that I’m tripping over. The man they were searching for could strike again, and Wallander knew one thing about the case for certain. They had no idea who he was. And they didn’t even know where to look. He left the shadow of the wall and hailed a cab.

  It was past midday when he got out in front of the Malmö station. When he reached Forsfält’s office he got a message to call Ystad. Again he had the terrible feeling that something serious had happened. Ebba answered. She reassured him and then switched him over to Nyberg. They had found a fingerprint on Fredman’s left eyelid. It was smudged, but it was still good enough for them to confirm a match with the prints they had found. There was no longer any doubt they were after a single killer. The forensic examination confirmed that Fredman was murdered less than twelve hours before the body was discovered, and that acid had been poured into his eyes while he was alive.

  Next Ebba put him through to Martinsson, who had received a positive confirmation from Interpol that Dolores María Santana’s father recognised the medallion. It had belonged to her. Martinsson also mentioned that the Swedish embassy in the Dominican Republic was extremely unwilling to pay to transport the girl’s remains back to Santiago.

  Wallander was listening with half an ear. When Martinsson finished complaining about the embassy, Wallander asked him what Svedberg and Höglund were working on. Martinsson said that neither of them had come up with much. Wallander told him he’d be back in Ystad that afternoon and hung up. Forsfält stood out in the hall sneezing.

  “Allergies,” he said, blowing his nose. “Summer is the worst.”