Sidetracked (31 page)

“Were there any witnesses?” asked Wallander. “Clues left by the murderer? How did he get into the house?”

“Through a basement window.”

They returned to the kitchen and went down to the basement that extended under the whole house. A little window stood ajar in a room where Wallander smelt the faint aroma of apples stored for the winter.

“We think he got in this way,” said Sjösten. “And left that way too. Even though he could have walked straight out the front door. Liljegren lived alone.”

“Did he leave anything behind?” Wallander wondered. “So far he has been careful to leave no clues. On the other hand, he hasn’t been excessively meticulous. We have a whole set of fingerprints. According to Nyberg, we’re missing only the left little finger.”

“Fingerprints he knows the police don’t have on file,” said Sjösten.

Wallander nodded. Sjösten was right.

“We found a footprint in the kitchen next to the stove,” said Sjösten.

“So he was barefoot again,” said Wallander.

“Barefoot?”

Wallander told him about the footprint they had found in the blood in Fredman’s van. He would have to provide Sjösten and his colleagues with all the material they had on the first three murders.

Wallander inspected the basement window. He thought he could see faint scrape marks near one of the latches, which had been broken off. When he bent down he found it, although it was hard to see against the dark floor. He didn’t touch it.

“It looks as though it might have been loosened in advance,” he said.

“You think he prepared for his visit?”

“It’s conceivable. It fits with his pattern. He puts his victims under surveillance. He stakes them out. Why, and for how long, we have no idea. Our psychologist from Stockholm, Mats Ekholm, claims this is characteristic of serial killers.”

They went into the next room. The windows were the same. The latches were intact.

“We should probably search for footprints in the grass outside that window,” Wallander said. He regretted his words immediately. He had no right to tell an experienced investigator like Sjösten what to do. They returned to the kitchen. Liljegren’s body was being removed.

“What I’ve been looking for the whole time is the connection,” said Wallander. “First I looked for one between Gustaf Wetterstedt and Arne Carlman. I finally found it. Then I looked for one between Björn Fredman and the two others. We haven’t been able to find a link yet, but I’m convinced there is one. Perhaps this is one of the first things we should do here. Is it possible to find some connection between Åke Liljegren and the other three? Preferably to all of them, but at least to any one of them.”

“In a way we already have a very clear connection,” said Sjösten quietly.

Wallander gave him a questioning glance.

“What I mean is, the killer is an identifiable link,” Sjösten went on. “Even if we don’t know who he is.”

Sjösten nodded towards the door to the garden. Wallander realised that Sjösten wanted to speak privately. Outside in the garden, they both squinted in the bright light. It was going to be another hot day. Sjösten lit a cigarette and led Wallander over to a table and chairs a little way from the house. They moved the chairs into the shade.

“There are plenty of rumours about Åke Liljegren,” Sjösten began. “His shell companies are only a part of his operations. Here in Helsingborg we’ve heard about a lot of other things. Low-flying Cessnas making drops of cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Pretty hard to prove, and I have difficulty associating this type of activity with Liljegren. It may just be my limited imagination, of course. I go on thinking that it’s possible to sort crimes into categories. Criminals are supposed to stay within those boundaries and not encroach on other people’s territory, which messes up our classifications.”

“I’ve sometimes thought along those same lines,” Wallander admitted. “But those days are gone. The world we live in is becoming more comprehensible and more chaotic at the same time.”

Sjösten waved his cigarette at the huge villa.

“There have been other rumours too,” he said. “These ones more concrete. About wild parties in this house. Women, prostitution.”

“Wild?” asked Wallander. “Have you ever had to get involved?”

“Never,” said Sjösten. “Actually I don’t know why I called the parties wild. But people used to come here a lot. And disappear just as quickly as they came.”

Wallander didn’t answer. A dizzying image flitted through his mind. He saw Dolores María Santana standing at the southern motorway entrance from Helsingborg. Could there be a connection? Prostitution? But he pushed the thought away. There was no evidence for this, he was confusing two different investigations.

“We’re going to have to work together,” Sjösten said. “You and your colleagues have several weeks on us. Now that we add Liljegren to the picture, how does it look? What’s changed? What seems clearer?”

“The National Criminal Bureau will certainly get involved now,” Wallander answered. “That’s good, of course. But I’m afraid that we’ll have problems working together, that information won’t get to the right person.”

“I have the same concern,” Sjösten agreed. “That’s why I want to suggest something. That you and I become an informal team, so we can step aside for discussion when we need to.”

“That’s fine by me,” Wallander said.

“We both remember the days of the old national homicide commission,” Sjösten said. “Something that worked very efficiently was dismantled. And things have never really been the same since.”

“Times were different. Violence had a different face, and there were fewer murders. Criminals operated in patterns that were recognisable in a way that they aren’t today. I’m not sure that the commission would have been as effective now.”

Sjösten stood up. “But we’re in agreement?”

“Of course,” Wallander replied. “Whenever we think it’s necessary, we’ll talk.”

“You can stay with me,” Sjösten said, “if you have to be here overnight. It’s no pleasure to have to stay at a hotel.”

“I’d like that,” Wallander thanked him. But he didn’t mind staying at a hotel when he was away. He needed to have at least a few hours to himself every day.

They walked back to the house. To the left was a large garage with two doors. While Sjösten went inside, Wallander decided to take a look in the garage. With difficulty he lifted one of the doors. Inside was a black Mercedes. The windows were tinted. He stood there thinking.

Then he went into the house, called Ystad, and asked to speak with Höglund. He told her briefly what had happened.

“I want you to contact Sara Björklund,” he said. “Do you remember her?”

“Wetterstedt’s housekeeper?”

“Right. I want you to bring her here to Helsingborg. As soon as you can.”

“Why?”

“I want her to take a look at a car. And I’ll be standing next to her hoping that she recognises it.”

Höglund asked no more questions.

CHAPTER 30

Sara Björklund stood for a long time looking at the black car. Wallander stayed in the background. He wanted his presence to give her confidence, but didn’t want to stand so close to her that he would be a disturbing factor. He could tell that she was doing her best to be absolutely certain. Was this the car she had seen on the Friday morning that she’d come to Wetterstedt’s house, thinking it was a Thursday? Had it looked like this one, could it even be the very same car she had seen drive away from the house where the old minister of justice lived?

Sjösten agreed with Wallander when he explained his idea. Even if the “charwoman” held in such contempt by Wetterstedt said that it could have been a car of the same make, that wouldn’t prove a thing. All they would get was an indication, a possibility. But it was important even so; they both realised that.

Sara Björklund hesitated. Since there were keys in the ignition, Wallander asked Sjösten to drive it once round the block. If she closed her eyes and listened, did she recognise the sound of the engine? Cars had different sounds. She listened.

“Maybe,” she said afterwards. “It looks like the car I saw that morning. But whether it was the same one I can’t say. I didn’t see the number plate.”

Wallander nodded.

“I didn’t expect you to,” he said. “I’m sorry I had to ask you to come all the way here.”

Höglund had brought Norén with her, who would now drive Sara Björklund back to Ystad. Höglund wanted to stay. It was barely midday, yet the whole country seemed to know already what had happened. Sjösten held an impromptu press conference out on the street, while Wallander and Höglund drove down to the ferry terminal and had lunch. He told her all that he had learned.

“Åke Liljegren appeared in our investigative material on Alfred Harderberg,” she said when he’d finished. “Do you remember?”

Wallander let his mind travel back to the year before. He remembered the businessman and art patron who lived behind the walls of Farnholm Castle with distaste. The man they had eventually prevented from leaving the country in a dramatic scene at Sturup Airport. Liljegren’s name had indeed come up in the investigation, but he had been on the periphery. They had never considered questioning him.

Wallander sat with his third cup of coffee and gazed out over the Sound, filled with yachts and ferries.

“We didn’t want this, but we’ve got it,” he said. “Another dead, scalped man. According to Ekholm our chances of identifying the killer will now increase dramatically. That’s according to the F.B.I. models. Now the similarities and differences should be much clearer.”

“I think somehow the level of violence has increased,” she said hesitantly. “If you can grade axe murders and scalpings.”

Wallander waited with interest for her to continue. Her hesitation often meant that she was on the trail of something important.

“Wetterstedt was lying underneath a rowing boat,” she went on. “He had been hit once from behind. His scalp was sliced off, as if the killer had taken the time to do it carefully. Or maybe there was some uncertainty. The first scalp. Carlman was killed from the front. He must have seen his killer. His hair was torn off, not sliced. That seems to indicate more frenzy, or maybe rage, almost uncontrolled. Then Fredman. He apparently lay on his back. Probably tied up, or he’d have resisted. He had acid poured in his eyes. The killer forced open his eyelids. The blow to the head was tremendous. And now Liljegren, with his head stuck in an oven. Something is getting worse. Is it hatred? Or a sick person’s thrill at demonstrating his power?”

“Outline this to Ekholm,” Wallander suggested. “Let him put it into his computer. I agree with you. Certain changes in his behaviour are evident. Something is shifting. But what does it tell us? Sometimes it seems as though we’re trying to interpret footprints that are millions of years old. What I worry about most is the chronology, which is based on the fact that we found the victims in a certain order, since they were killed in a certain order. So for us a natural chronology is created. But the question is whether there’s some other order among them that we can’t see. Are some of the murders more important than others?”

She thought for a moment. “Was one of them closer to the killer than the others?”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Wallander. “Was Liljegren closer to the heart of it than Carlman, for example? And which of them is furthest away? Or do they all have the same relationship to him?”

“A relationship which may only exist in his mind?”

Wallander pushed aside his empty cup. “At least we can be certain that these men were not chosen at random,” he said.

“Fredman is different,” she said as they got up.

“Yes, he is,” said Wallander. “But you can also turn it around and say that it’s the other three who are different.”

They returned to Tågaborg, where they were given the message that Hansson was on his way to meet with the chief of police in Helsingborg.

“Tomorrow the National Criminal Bureau will be here,” said Sjösten.

“Has anyone talked to Ekholm?” asked Wallander. “He should come up here as soon as possible.”

Höglund went to see to this, and Wallander made an examination of the house again with Sjösten. Nyberg was on his knees in the kitchen with the other technicians. When they were heading up the stairs to the top floor, Höglund caught up with them, saying that Ekholm was on his way with Hansson. They continued their inspection. None of them spoke. They were each following their own train of thought.

Wallander was trying to feel the killer’s presence, as he had done at Wetterstedt’s house, and in Carlman’s garden. Not twelve hours ago the man had climbed these same stairs. Wallander moved more slowly than the others. He stopped often, sometimes sitting down to stare at a wall or a rug or a door, as if he were in a museum, deeply engrossed in the objects on display. Occasionally he would retrace his steps.

Watching him, Höglund had the sense that Wallander was acting as though he were walking on ice. And in a sense, he was. Each step involved a risk, a new way of seeing things, a re-examination of a thought he’d just had. He moved as much in his mind as through the rooms. Wallander had never sensed the presence of the man he was hunting in Wetterstedt’s house. It had convinced him that the killer had never been inside. He had not been closer than the garage roof where he had waited, reading
The Phantom
and then ripping it to pieces. But here, in Liljegren’s house, it was different.

Wallander went back to the stairs and looked down the hall towards the bathroom. From here he could see the man he was about to kill. If the bathroom door was open, that is. And why would it have been closed if Liljegren was alone in the house? He walked towards the bathroom door and stood against the wall. Then he went into the bathroom and assumed the role of Liljegren. He walked out of the door, imagining the axe blow strike him with full force from behind, at an angle. He saw himself fall to the floor. Then he switched to the other role, the man holding an axe in his right hand. Not in his left; they had determined in examining Wetterstedt’s body that the man was right-handed. Wallander walked slowly down the stairs, dragging the invisible corpse behind him. Into the kitchen, to the stove. He continued down to the basement and stopped at the window, which was too narrow for him to squeeze through. Only a slight man could use that window as a way of getting into Liljegren’s house. The killer must be thin.

He went back to the kitchen and out into the garden. Near the basement window at the back of the house the technicians were looking for footprints. Wallander could have told them in advance that they wouldn’t find anything. The man had been barefoot, as before. He looked towards the hedge, the shortest distance between the basement window and the street, pondering why the killer had been barefoot. He’d asked Ekholm about it several times, but still didn’t have a satisfactory answer. Going barefoot meant taking a risk of injury. Of slipping, puncturing his foot, getting cut. And yet he still did it. Why did he go barefoot? Why choose to remove his shoes? This was another of the inexplicable details he had to keep in mind. He took scalps. He used an axe. He was barefoot. Wallander stopped in his tracks. It came to him in a flash. His subconscious had drawn a conclusion and relayed the message.

An American Indian, he said to himself. A warrior. He knew he was right. The man they were looking for was a lone warrior moving along an invisible path. He was an impersonator. Used an axe to kill, cut off scalps, went barefoot. But why would an American Indian go around in the Swedish summertime killing people? Who was really committing these murders? An Indian or someone playing the role?

Wallander held on tight to the thought so he wouldn’t lose it before he had followed it through. He travelled over great distances, he thought. He must have a horse. A motorcycle. Which had leant against the road workers’ hut. You drive in a car, but you
ride
a motorcycle.

He walked back to the house. For the first time he’d caught a glimpse of the man he sought. The excitement of the discovery was immediate. His alertness sharpened. For the time being, however, he would keep his idea to himself.

A window on the top floor opened. Sjösten leaned out.

“Come up here,” he shouted.

Wallander went in, wondering what they had found. Sjösten and Höglund were standing in front of a bookcase in a room that must have been Liljegren’s office. Sjösten had a plastic bag in his hand.

“I’m guessing cocaine,” he said. “Could be heroin.”

“Where was it?” Wallander asked.

Sjösten pointed to an open drawer.

“There may be more,” Wallander said.

“I’ll see about getting a dog in here,” said Sjösten.

“I wonder whether you shouldn’t send out a few people to talk to the neighbours,” said Wallander. “Ask if they noticed a man on a motorcycle. Not just last night, but earlier too. Over the last few weeks.”

“Did he come on a motorcycle?”

“I think so. It seems to be his means of getting around. You’ll find it in the investigative material.”

Sjösten left the room.

“There’s nothing about a motorcycle in the investigative material,” said Höglund, surprised.

“There should be,” said Wallander, sounding distracted. “Didn’t we confirm that it was a motorcycle that stood behind the road workers’ hut?”

Wallander looked out the window. Ekholm and Hansson were on their way up the path, with another man whom Wallander assumed was the Helsingborg chief of police. Birgersson met them halfway.

“We’d better go down,” he said. “Did you find anything?”

“The house reminds me of Wetterstedt’s,” she replied. “The same gloomy bourgeois respectability. But at least here there are some family photos. Whether they make it more cheerful I don’t know. Liljegren seems to have had cavalry officers in his family, Scanian Dragoons if you can believe it.”

“I haven’t looked at them,” Wallander apologised. “But I believe you. His scams undoubtedly had much in common with primitive warfare.”

“There’s a photo of an old couple outside a cottage,” she said. “If I understood what was written on the back, the picture was of his maternal grandparents on the island of Öland.”

They went down. Parts of the stairs were cordoned off to protect the blood traces.

“Old bachelors,” said Wallander. “Their houses resemble each other’s because they were alike. How old was Åke Liljegren, anyway? Was he over 70?”

Höglund didn’t know.

A conference room was set up in the dining room. Ekholm, who didn’t have to attend, was assigned an officer to fill him in. When they had all introduced themselves and sat down, Hansson surprised Wallander by being quite clear-cut about what should happen. During the trip up from Ystad he had spoken with both Åkeson and the National Criminal Bureau in Stockholm.

“It would be a mistake to state that our situation has changed significantly because of this murder,” Hansson began. “The situation has been dramatic enough ever since we realised that we were dealing with a serial killer. Now we might say that we have crossed a sort of boundary. There’s nothing to indicate that we will actually crack these murders. But we have to hope. As far as the Bureau is concerned, they are prepared to give us whatever help we request. The formalities involved shouldn’t present any serious difficulties either. I assume no-one has anything against Kurt being assigned leader of the new cross-boundary investigative team?”

No-one had any objections. Sjösten nodded approval from his side of the table.

“Kurt has a certain notoriety,” Hansson said, without a trace of irony. “The chief of the National Criminal Bureau regarded it as obvious that he should continue to lead the investigation.”

“I agree,” said the chief of the Helsingborg police. That was the only thing he said during the meeting.

“Guidelines have been drawn on how a collaboration such as this can be implemented as quickly as possible,” Hansson continued. “The prosecutors have their own procedures to follow. The key thing is to agree what type of assistance from Stockholm we actually require.”

Wallander had been listening to what Hansson was saying with a mixture of pride and anxiety. At the same time he was self-assured enough to realise that no-one else was more suitable to lead the investigation.