Sidetracked

by Unknown

  “In a difficult situation.”

  “Very difficult. And unpleasant. If I request more manpower against the wishes of the police, my argument has to be that the present investigative team isn’t up to the task. I’d have to declare your team incompetent, even though I’d phrase it in more kindly terms. And I don’t want to do that.”

  “I assume you’ll do it if you have to,” said Wallander. “And that’s when I’ll resign from the force.”

  “God damn it, Kurt!”

  “You were the one who started this discussion, not me.”

  “You’ve got your regulations. I’ve got mine. So I regard it as a dereliction of my duty if I don’t request that you have more personnel put at your disposal.”

  “And dogs,” said Wallander sarcastically. “I want police dogs. And helicopters.”

  The discussion was at an end. Wallander regretted flying off the handle. He wasn’t sure why he was so opposed to getting reinforcements. He knew that problems in cooperation could damage and delay an investigation. But he couldn’t argue with Åkeson’s point that more things could be investigated simultaneously with more people.

  “Talk to Hansson,” Wallander said. “He’s the one who makes the decision.”

  “Hansson doesn’t do anything without asking you. And then he does whatever you say.”

  “I’ll refuse to give him my opinion. I’ll give you that much help.”

  Åkeson stood up and turned off a dripping tap with a green hose attached to it. Then he sat down again.

  “Let’s wait until Monday,” he said.

  “Let’s do that,” said Wallander. Then he returned to Louise Fredman. He reiterated that there was no proof that Fredman had abused his daughter. But it might be true; he couldn’t rule out anything, and that was why he needed Åkeson’s help.

  “It’s possible I’m making a big mistake,” Wallander concluded. “And it wouldn’t be the first time. But I can’t afford to ignore any leads. I want to know why Louise Fredman is in a psychiatric hospital. And when I find out, we’ll decide whether there’s any reason to take the next step.”

  “Which would be?”

  “Talking to her.”

  Åkeson nodded. Wallander was sure he could count on his cooperation. They knew each other well. Åkeson respected Wallander’s instincts, even when they lacked solid evidence.

  “It can be complicated,” said Åkeson. “But I’ll try to do something over the weekend.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” said Wallander. “You can call me at the station or at home whenever you like.”

  Åkeson went inside to make sure he had all of Wallander’s phone numbers. The tension between them had evaporated. Åkeson followed him to the gate.

  “Summer is off to a good start,” he said. “But I’m afraid you haven’t had much time to think about that.”

  Wallander sensed that Åkeson was feeling sympathetic.

  “Not much,” he replied. “But Ann-Britt’s grandmother predicted that the good weather is going to last for a long time.”

  “Can’t she predict where we should be looking for the killer instead?” said Åkeson.

  Wallander shook his head in resignation.

  “We’re getting lots of tip-offs all the time. The usual prophets and psychics have been calling in. There are trainees sorting through the information. Then Höglund and Svedberg go through it, but so far nothing useful has come in. No-one saw a thing, either outside Wetterstedt’s house or at Carlman’s farm. There aren’t many leads about the pit outside the railway station or the van at the airport either.”

  “The man you’re hunting for is careful,” said Åkeson.

  “Careful, cunning, and totally devoid of human emotions,” said Wallander. “I can’t imagine how his mind works. Even Ekholm seems dumbstruck. For the first time in my life I’ve got the feeling that a monster is on the loose.”

  For a moment Åkeson seemed to be pondering what Wallander had said.

  “Ekholm told me he’s putting all the data into the computer. He’s using the F.B.I. programme. It might produce something.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Wallander.

  Wallander said no more. But Åkeson understood what was implied. Before he strikes again.

  Wallander drove back to the station. He arrived in the conference room a few minutes late. To cheer up his hardworking detectives, Hansson had driven down to Fridolf’s bakery and bought pastries. Wallander sat down in his usual spot and looked around. Martinsson was wearing shorts for the first time that season. Höglund had the first hint of a tan. He wondered enviously how she had had time to sunbathe. The only one dressed appropriately was Ekholm, who had established his base at the far end of the table.

  “One of our evening papers had the good taste to provide its readers with historical background on the art of scalping,” Svedberg said gloomily. “We can only hope that it won’t be the next craze, given all the lunatics we’ve got running around.”

  Wallander tapped the table with a pencil.

  “Let’s get started,” he said. “We’re searching for the most vicious killer we’ve ever had to deal with. He has committed all three murders. But that’s all we know. Except for the fact that there’s a real risk that he’ll strike again.”

  A hush fell around the table. Wallander hadn’t intended to create an oppressive atmosphere. He knew from experience that it was easier if the tone was light, even when the crimes being investigated were brutal. Everyone in the room was just as despondent as he was. The feeling that they were hunting a monster, whose emotional degeneracy was unimaginable, haunted each of them.

  It was one of the most demoralising meetings Wallander had ever attended. Outside, the summer was almost unnaturally beautiful, Hansson’s pastries were melting and sticky in the heat, and his own revulsion made him feel sick. Although he paid attention to everything said, he was also wondering how he could bear to remain a policeman. Hadn’t he reached a point where he ought to realise he had done his share? There had to be more to life. But he also knew that what made him down-hearted was the fact that they couldn’t see a single prospect of a break, a chink in the wall that they could squeeze through. They still had a great many leads to pursue, but they lacked a specific direction. In most cases there was an invisible navigation point against which they could correct their course. This time there was no fixed point. They were even starting to doubt that a connection between the murdered men existed.

  Three hours later, when the meeting was over, they knew that the only thing to do was keep going. Wallander looked at the exhausted faces around him and told them to try and get some rest. He cancelled all meetings for Sunday. They would meet again on Monday morning. He didn’t have to mention the one exception: unless something serious happened. Unless the man who was out there somewhere in the summertime decided to strike again.

  Wallander got home in the afternoon and found a note from Linda saying that she would be out that evening. He was tired, and slept for a few hours. When he awoke, he called Baiba twice without success. He talked to Gertrud, who told him everything was fine with his father. He was talking a lot about the trip to Italy. Wallander hoovered the flat and mended a broken window latch. The whole time the thought of the unknown killer occupied his thoughts. At 7 p.m. he made himself a supper of cod fillet and boiled potatoes. Then he sat on the balcony with a cup of coffee and absentmindedly leafed through an old issue of Ystad Recorder. When Linda got home they drank tea in the kitchen. The next day Wallander would be allowed to see a rehearsal of the revue she was working on with Kajsa, but Linda was very secretive and didn’t want to tell him what it was about. At 11.30 p.m. they both went to bed.

  Wallander fell asleep almost at once. Linda lay awake in her room listening to the night birds. Then she fell asleep too, leaving the door to her room ajar.

  Neither of them stirred when the front door was opened very slowly at 2 a.m. Hoover was barefoot. He stood motionless in the hall, listening. He could hea
r a man snoring in a room to the left of the living-room. He stepped into the flat. The door to another room stood ajar. A girl who might have been his sister’s age was in there sleeping. He couldn’t resist the temptation to go in and stand right next to her. His power over the sleeper was absolute. He went on towards the room where the snoring was coming from. The policeman named Wallander lay on his back and had kicked off all but a small part of the sheet. He was sleeping heavily. His chest heaved with his deep breathing.

  Hoover stood utterly still and watched him. He thought about his sister, who would soon be freed from all this evil. Who would soon return to life. He looked at the sleeping man and thought about the girl in the next room, who must be his daughter. He made his decision. In a few days he would return.

  He left the flat as soundlessly as he had come, locking the door with the keys he had taken from the policeman’s jacket. A few moments later the silence was broken by a moped starting up. Then all was quiet again, except for the night birds singing.

  CHAPTER 27

  When Wallander awoke on Sunday morning he felt that he had slept enough for the first time in a long while. It was past 8 a.m. Through a gap in the curtains he could see a patch of blue. He stayed in bed and listened for Linda. Then he got up, put on his newly washed dressing gown, and peeked into her room. She was still asleep. He felt transported back to her childhood. He smiled at the memory and went to the kitchen to make coffee. The thermometer outside the kitchen window showed 19°C. When the coffee was ready he laid a breakfast tray for Linda. He remembered what she liked. One three-minute egg, toast, a few slices of cheese, and a sliced-up tomato. Only water to drink.

  He drank his coffee and waited a while longer. She was startled out of her sleep when he called her name. When she saw the tray she burst out laughing. He sat at the foot of the bed while she ate. He hadn’t thought of the investigation except briefly when he’d woken.

  Linda set the tray aside, leaned back in bed, and stretched.

  “What were you doing up last night?” she asked. “Did you have trouble sleeping?”

  “I slept like a rock,” said Wallander. “I didn’t even get up to go to the bathroom.”

  “Then I must have been dreaming,” she said, yawning. “I thought you opened my door and came into my room.”

  “You must have been,” he said. “For once I slept the whole night through.”

  They agreed that they would meet at Österport Square at 7 p.m. Linda asked him if he knew that Sweden would be playing Saudi Arabia in the quarter-finals at that time. Wallander said he didn’t give a damn, although he had bet that Sweden would win it 3–1 and advanced Martinsson another hundred kronor. The girls had managed to borrow an empty shop for their rehearsals.

  After she left, Wallander took out his ironing board and started ironing his clean shirts. After doing a passable job on two of them, he got bored and called Baiba. She was glad to hear from him, he could tell. He told her that Linda was visiting and that he felt rested for the first time in weeks. Baiba was busy finishing her work at the university before the summer break. She talked about the trip to Skagen with childlike anticipation. After they hung up, Wallander went into the living-room and put on Aïda, the volume turned up high.

  He felt happy and full of energy. He sat out on the balcony and read through the newspapers from the past few days, skipping reports on the murders. He had granted himself half a day off, total escape until midday. Then he was going to get cracking again. But Åkeson called him at 11.15 a.m. He had been in touch with the chief prosecutor in Malmö and they had discussed Wallander’s request. Åkeson thought it would be possible for Wallander to get answers to some of his questions about Louise Fredman within the next few days. But he had one reservation.

  “Wouldn’t it be simpler to get the girl’s mother to give you the answers you need?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure I’d get the truth from her,” Wallander answered.

  “Which is what?”

  “The mother is protecting her daughter,” said Wallander. “It’s only natural. I would do the same. No matter what she told me, it would be coloured by the fact that she’s protecting her. Medical records and doctors’ reports speak another language.”

  “You know best,” said Åkeson, promising that he’d be in touch again as soon as he had something concrete to tell him.

  The talk with Åkeson set Wallander thinking about the case again. He decided to take a notebook and sit on the balcony to go over the plan of the investigation for the coming week. He was getting hungry, though, and thought he’d allow himself to eat out. Just before noon he left the flat, dressed all in white like a tennis player, wearing sandals. He drove east out of town along Österleden, thinking that he could drop in on his father later on. If he hadn’t had the investigation hanging over his head, he could have taken Gertrud and his father to lunch somewhere. But right now he needed time to himself. Over the past few weeks he had been constantly surrounded by people, involved in team meetings, and in discussions with others. Now he wanted to be alone.

  Hardly aware of where he was going, he drove all the way to Simrishamn. He parked by the marina and took a walk. He found a corner table to himself at the Harbour Inn, and sat watching the holiday makers all around him. One of these people could be the man I’m looking for, he thought. If Ekholm’s theories are right – that the killer lives a completely normal life, with no outward signs that he subjects his victims to the worst violence imaginable – then he could be sitting right here eating lunch. And at that instant the summer day slipped out of his hands. He went over everything one more time. He didn’t know why, but he began with the girl who died in the rape field. She had nothing to do with the other events; it had been a suicide, prompted by some as yet unknown cause. Still, that’s where Wallander began each time he started one of his reviews of the case.

  But on this particular Sunday, in the Harbour Inn in Simrishamn, something started churning in his subconscious. It came to him that someone had said something in connection with the girl’s death. He sat there with his fork in his hand and tried to coax the thought to the surface. Who had said it? What had been said? Why was it important? After a while he gave up. Sooner or later he’d remember what it was. His subconscious always demanded patience. As if to prove that he actually possessed that patience, he ordered dessert. With satisfaction he noted that the shorts he’d put on for the first time that summer weren’t quite as tight as they had been the year before. He ate his apple pie and ordered coffee.

  He tried to follow his thoughts the way a discerning actor reads through his part for the first time. Where were the gaps? Where were the faults? Where did he combine fact and circumstance too sloppily and draw a wrong conclusion? He went through Wetterstedt’s house again, through the garden, out onto the beach; he imagined Wetterstedt in front of him, and Wallander became the killer stalking Wetterstedt like a silent shadow. He climbed onto the garage roof and read a torn comic book while he waited for Wetterstedt to settle at his desk and maybe leaf through his collection of pornographic photographs.

  Then he did the same thing with Carlman; he put a motorcycle behind the road workers’ hut and followed the tractor path up to the hill where he had a view over Carlman’s farm. Now and then he made a note on his pad. The garage roof. What did he hope to see? Carlman’s hill. Binoculars? He went over everything that had happened, deaf to the noise around him. He paid another visit to Hugo Sandin, he talked once more with Sara Björklund, and he made a note that he ought to get in touch with her again. Maybe the same questions would provoke different, fuller answers. What would the difference be? He thought for a long time about Carlman’s daughter. He thought about Louise Fredman, and her polite brother. He was rested, his fatigue was gone, and his thoughts rose easily and soared on the updraughts inside him.

  He glanced at what he had scribbled on his pad, as if it were magic, automatic writing, and left the Harbour Inn. He sat on one of the benches in the park outside th
e Hotel Svea and looked out over the sea. There was a warm, gentle breeze blowing. The crew of a yacht with a Danish flag was struggling with an unruly spinnaker. Wallander read his notes again.

  The connection was always shifting, from parents to children. He thought about Carlman’s daughter and Louise Fredman. Was it just a coincidence that one of them had tried to commit suicide after her father died and the other had been in a psychiatric clinic for a long time?

  Wetterstedt was the exception. He had two adult children. Wallander recalled something Rydberg had once said. What happens first is not necessarily the beginning. Could that be true in this case? He tried to imagine that the killer they were looking for was a woman. But it was impossible. He thought of the physical strength needed for the scalpings, the axe blows, and the acid in Fredman’s eyes. It had to be a man. A man who kills men. While women commit suicide or suffer mental illness.

  He got up and moved to another bench, as if to register the fact that there were other conceivable explanations. Gustaf Wetterstedt was involved in shady deals. There was a vague but still unexplained connection between him and Carlman. It had to do with art, art theft, maybe forgery. It all had to do with money. It wasn’t inconceivable that Björn Fredman could also be involved in the same area. He hadn’t found anything useful in the dossier on his life, but he couldn’t write it off yet. Nothing could be written off yet; that presented both a problem and an opportunity.

  Wallander watched the Danish yacht. The crew had begun folding up the spinnaker. He took out his pad and looked at the last word he had written. Mystery. There was a hint of ritual to the murders. He had thought so himself, and Ekholm had pointed it out at the last meeting. The scalps were a ritual, as trophy collecting always was. The significance was the same as that of a moose’s head mounted on a hunter’s wall. It was the proof. The proof of what? For whom? For the killer alone, or for someone else as well? For a god or a demon conjured up in a sick mind? For someone else, whose demeanour was just as inconspicuous as the killer’s?