The Fifth Woman (21 page)

Wallander knew that Martinsson was right, but he still doubted that it was more than the usual manifestation of fear when a brutal crime had been committed.

“There’ll be more tomorrow once the news about Runfeldt gets out. It would probably be a good idea for us to prepare Chief Holgersson for what’s coming.”

“What’s your impression?” Martinsson asked.

“Of Lisa Holgersson? I think she seems first-rate.”

Martinsson stepped back into the room. Wallander saw how tired he was. He had aged rapidly during his years as a policeman.

“I thought what happened this summer was the exception,” he said. “Now I realise it wasn’t.”

“There aren’t many similarities,” Wallander said. “We shouldn’t draw parallels that aren’t there.”

“That’s not what I was thinking about. It’s all this violence. As if nowadays it’s not enough to kill, you have to torture your victims as well.”

“I know. But I can’t tell you how we’re supposed to deal with it.”

Martinsson left the room. Wallander thought about what he had heard. He decided to talk to Captain Olof Hanzell himself that very day.

As Wallander had predicted, the meeting was brief. Even though no-one had had much sleep, they all seemed determined and energised. Per Åkeson had shown up to listen to Wallander’s summary. Afterwards he had very few questions.

They divided up the assignments and discussed what should be given priority. The question of calling in extra manpower was left for the time being. Chief Holgersson had released more officers from other assignments so they could take part in the murder investigations, which would now involve twice as much work. When the meeting neared its conclusion after about an hour, they all had far too much work to handle.

“One more thing,” Wallander said in closing. “We have to expect that these murders are going to get a lot of press. What we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. As I understand it, people out in the surrounding areas have started to talk again about organising night patrols and a citizen militia. We’ll have to wait and see if things develop the way I think they will. For now, it’s easier if the chief and I handle the contact with the press. And I’d be grateful if Ann-Britt could help out at our press conferences.”

Wallander talked to Chief Holgersson for a while after the meeting. They decided to hold a press conference at 5.30 p.m that day. Wallander went to find Per Åkeson, but he had already left. He went back to his office and called the number Martinsson had given him, remembering as he did so that he still hadn’t put Svedberg’s note on his desk. Captain Hanzell answered the phone. He had a friendly voice. Wallander introduced himself and asked if he could come out and see him that morning. Hanzell said he was welcome to, and gave him directions.

When Wallander left the station the sky had cleared again. It was windy, but the sun was shining between the scattered clouds. He reminded himself to put a jumper in his car. Though he was in a hurry, he stopped at an estate agent’s and stood looking at the properties for sale in the window. One of the houses looked promising. If he’d had more time he would have gone and asked about it. He went back to his car, wondering whether Linda had managed to get on a plane to Stockholm or was still waiting at Sturup.

After taking several wrong turns, he finally found the correct address. He parked the car and walked through the gate of a villa that must have been less than ten years old, but still seemed rather dilapidated. The front door was opened by a man dressed in a tracksuit. He had close-cropped grey hair, a thin moustache, and seemed to be in good physical shape. He smiled and held out his hand in greeting. Wallander introduced himself.

“My wife died years ago,” Hanzell said. “Since then I’ve lived alone. Please forgive the mess. But come on in!”

The first thing Wallander noticed was a large African drum in the hall. Hanzell followed his gaze.

“The year I was in the Congo was the journey of my life. I never travelled again. The children were small and my wife didn’t want to. And then one day it was too late.”

He invited Wallander into the living room, where coffee cups were set out on a table. There too, African mementos hung on the walls. Wallander sat down on a sofa and said yes to coffee. Actually, he was hungry and could use something to eat. Hanzell had put out a tray of biscuits.

“I bake them myself,” he said, nodding at the biscuits. “It’s a good pastime for an old soldier.”

Wallander wanted to get to the point. He took the photograph of the three men out of his pocket and handed it across the table.

“I want to start by asking whether you recognise any of these men. I can tell you that the picture was taken in the Congo at the time that the Swedish UN force was there.”

Hanzell took the photograph and put on a pair of reading glasses. Wallander remembered the visit he would have to make to the optician. Hanzell took the photograph over to the window and looked at it for a long time. Wallander listened to the silence that filled the house. He waited. Then Hanzell came back from the window. Without a word he laid the photograph on the table and left the room. Wallander ate another biscuit. He had almost decided to go and look for Hanzell when he returned with a photograph album in his hand, went back to the window, and starting leafing through it. Wallander kept waiting. Finally Hanzell found what he was looking for. He came back to the table and handed the open album to Wallander.

“Look at the picture at the lower left,” Hanzell said. “It’s not very clear, I’m afraid. But I think it might interest you.”

Wallander looked. He gave an inward start. The photographs showed some dead soldiers. They lay lined up with bloody faces, arms blown off, their torsos torn apart by bullets. The soldiers were black. Behind them stood two white men holding rifles. They stood posing as if for a hunting photograph. The dead soldiers were their trophies.

Wallander recognised one of the white men at once. It was the one standing on the left in the photograph he had found stuffed into the binding of Harald Berggren’s diary. There was absolutely no doubt.

“I thought I recognised him,” Hanzell said. “But I couldn’t be sure. It took me a while to find the right album.”

“Who is he? Terry O’Banion or Simon Marchand?”

He saw Hanzell react with surprise.

“Simon Marchand,” he replied. “I must admit I’m curious how you knew that.”

“I’ll explain in a minute. But first tell me how you got hold of these pictures.”

Hanzell sat down.

“How much do you know about what was going on in the Congo in those days?” he asked.

“Practically nothing.”

“Let me give you some background. I think it’s necessary so you can understand.”

“Take all the time you need,” Wallander said.

“Let me start in 1953. At that time there were four independent countries in Africa that were members of the UN. Seven years later that number had climbed to 26. Which means that the entire African continent was in turmoil. Decolonisation had entered its most dramatic phase. New countries were proclaiming their independence in a steady stream. The birth pangs were often severe. But not always as severe as they were in the Belgian Congo. In 1959, the Belgian government worked out a plan for making the transition to independence. The date for the transfer of power was set for 30 June 1960. The closer that day came, the more the unrest in the country grew. Tribes took different sides, and acts of politically motivated violence happened every day. But independence came, and an experienced politician named Kasavubu became president, while Lumumba became prime minister. Lumumba is a name you’ve heard before, I presume.”

Wallander nodded doubtfully.

“For a few days it looked as though there would be a peaceful transition from colony to independent state, in spite of everything. But then
Force Publique
, the country’s regular army, mutinied against their Belgian officers. Belgian paratroopers were dropped in to rescue their own men. The country quickly sank into chaos. The situation became uncontrollable for Kasavubu and Lumumba. At the same time, Katanga province, the southernmost in the country and the richest because of its mineral resources, proclaimed its independence. Their leader was Moise Tshombe.

“Kasavubu and Lumumba requested help from the UN. Dag Hammarskjöld, the General Secretary at the time, quickly mustered an interventionist force of UN troops, including troops from Sweden. Our role was to serve as police only. The Belgians who were left in the Congo supported Tshombe in Katanga. With money from the big mining companies, they hired mercenaries. And that’s where this photograph comes in.”

Hanzell paused and took a sip of coffee.

“That might give you some idea how tense and complex the situation was.”

“I can see it must have been extremely confusing,” Wallander replied, waiting impatiently for him to continue.

“Several hundred mercenaries were involved during the conflict in Katanga,” Hanzell said. “They came from many different countries: France, Belgium, the French colonies in Africa. It was only 15 years after the end of the Second World War, and there were still plenty of Germans who couldn’t accept that the war had ended. They took their revenge on innocent Africans. There were also a number of Scandinavians. Some of them died and were buried in graves that can no longer be located. On one occasion an African came to the Swedish UN encampment. He had the papers and photographs of a number of mercenaries who had fallen. But none were Swedes.”

“Why did he come to the Swedish encampment?”

“We were known to be polite and generous. He came with a cardboard box and wanted to sell the contents. God knows where he had got hold of it.”

“And you bought it?”

“I think I paid the equivalent of ten kronor for the box. I threw most of it away. But I kept a few of the photographs. Including this one.”

Wallander decided to go one step further.

“Harald Berggren,” he said. “One of the other men in the photograph is Swedish and that’s his name. He must be either the one in the middle or the one on the right. Does that name mean anything to you?”

Hanzell shook his head.

“No. But on the other hand, that’s not so surprising.”

“Why?”

“Many of the mercenaries changed their names. Not just the Swedes. You took a new name for the time of your contract. When it was all over and if you were lucky enough to be alive, you could assume your old name again.”

“So Harald Berggren could have been in the Congo under a different name?’”

“Exactly.”

“And that could also mean that he may have been killed under another name?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s almost impossible to say whether he’s alive or dead, and it would be almost impossible to find him, if he didn’t want to be found.”

Hanzell nodded. Wallander stared at the tray of biscuits.

“Many of my former colleagues thought differently,” Hanzell said, “but for me, the mercenaries were despicable. They killed for money, even if they claimed they were fighting for an ideal: for freedom, against communism. But the truth was something else. They killed indiscriminately, and they took orders from whoever was paying the most at that moment.”

“A mercenary must have had considerable difficulty returning to normal life,” Wallander said.

“Many of them never managed to. They turned into shadows, on the periphery of society. Often they drank themselves to death. Many were probably mentally unbalanced to start with.”

“How do you mean?”

Hanzell’s reply was forthright.

“Sadists and psychopaths.”

Wallander stayed in Nybrostrand until late in the afternoon. He had left the house at 1 p.m., but when he came out into the autumn air, he felt at a total loss. Instead of returning to Ystad he drove down to the sea. A walk might help him think. But when he got down to the beach and felt the biting wind, he changed his mind and went back to the car. He sat in the front on the passenger side and leaned the seat back as far as it would go. Then he closed his eyes and started going over everything that had taken place since the morning when Sven Tyrén had come into his office and reported Holger Eriksson missing.

Wallander tried to map out the sequence of events. Of all the things he had learned from Rydberg over the years, one of the most important was that the events that occurred first were not necessarily the first in the chain of causality. Eriksson and Runfeldt had both been killed, but were their murders acts of revenge? Or was it a crime committed for gain, even though he couldn’t see what kind of gain that might be?

He opened his eyes and looked at a tattered string of flags whipping in the stiff breeze. Eriksson had been impaled in a pit full of sharpened stakes. Runfeldt had been held prisoner and then strangled. Why the explicit display of cruelty? And why was Runfeldt held prisoner before he was killed? Wallander tried to go through the basic assumptions that the investigative team had to start with. The killer must have known both victims. He was familiar with Eriksson’s routines. He must have known that Runfeldt was going to Africa. And he wasn’t at all concerned that the dead men would be found. The opposite seemed to be the case.

Why put something on display? he wondered. So that somebody will notice what you’ve done. Did the murderer want other people to see what he had accomplished? If so, what was it he wanted to show? That those two particular men were dead? No, not only that. He also wanted it to be clear that they had been killed in particularly gruesome, premeditated ways.

If that was the case, then the murders of Eriksson and Runfeldt were part of something much bigger. It didn’t necessarily mean that more people would die, but it definitely meant that Eriksson, Runfeldt, and the person who had killed them had to be looked for among a larger group of people. Some type of community – such as a group of mercenaries in a remote African war.