The Fifth Woman (33 page)

Linda poured herself some tea and suddenly asked him why it was so difficult to live in Sweden.

“Sometimes I think it’s because we’ve stopped darning our socks,” Wallander said.

She gave him a perplexed look.

“I mean it,” he continued. “When I was growing up, Sweden was still a country where people darned their socks. I even learned how to do it in school myself. Then suddenly one day it was over. Socks with holes in them were thrown out. No-one bothered to repair them. The whole society changed. ‘Wear it out and toss it’ was the only rule that applied. As long as it was just a matter of our socks, the change didn’t make much difference. But then it started to spread, until finally it became a kind of invisible moral code. I think it changed our view of right and wrong, of what you were allowed to do to other people and what you weren’t. More and more people, especially young people like you, feel unwelcome in their own country. How do they react? With aggression and contempt. The most frightening thing is that I think we’re only at the beginning of something that’s going to get a lot worse. A generation is growing up right now, the children who are younger than you, who are going to react with even greater violence. And they have absolutely no memory of a time when we darned our socks. When we didn’t throw everything away, whether it was our woollen socks or human beings.”

He paused. “Maybe I’m not expressing myself clearly,” he said.

“Maybe,” she said, “but I still think I know what you’re trying to say.”

“It’s also possible I’ve got this wrong. Maybe every age seems worse than the ones that came before.”

“I never heard Grandpa say anything about it.”

“I think he lived in his own world. He painted his pictures so he could decide where the sun would be in the sky. It hung in the same place, above the fields, with or without the grouse, for almost 50 years. Sometimes I don’t think he knew what was going on outside that studio of his. He had put up an invisible wall around himself.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “He knew a lot.”

“If he did, he never let me know about it.”

“He even wrote poems once in a while.”

Wallander looked at her in disbelief. “He wrote poems?”

“He showed me some of them once. Maybe he burned them later on. But he wrote poems.”

“Do you write poetry too?” asked Wallander.

“Maybe,” she replied. “I don’t know whether they’re really poems. But sometimes I write. Just for myself. Don’t you?”

“No,” replied Wallander. “Never. I live in a world of police reports and forensic records, full of unpleasant details. Not to mention all the memos from the national police board.”

She changed the subject so fast that afterwards he thought that she must have planned it all out.

“How’s it going with Baiba?”

“It’s going fine with her. How it’s going with us, I’m not so sure. But I’m hoping that she’ll come here to live.”

“What would she do in Sweden?”

“She’d live with me,” Wallander replied in surprise.

Linda slowly shook her head.

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“Don’t be offended,” she said. “But I hope you realise you’re a difficult person to live with.”

“Why is that?”

“Just think about Mama. Why do you think she wanted to live a different life?”

Wallander didn’t answer. In a vague way he felt he was being judged unfairly.

“Now you’re angry,” she said.

“No, I’m not,” he replied. “I’m not angry.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m tired.”

She got up from her chair and sat down next to him on the sofa.

“This doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” she said. “It just means that I’m growing up. Our conversations are going to be different.”

“I probably just haven’t got used to it yet,” he said.

When the conversation petered out, they watched a movie on TV. Linda had to go back to Stockholm early the next morning. Wallander thought he had had a glimpse of how the future would be. They would meet whenever they both had time. From now on she would also say what she really thought.

Just before 1 a.m. they said goodnight in the hall. Afterwards Wallander lay in bed for a long time, trying to decide whether he had lost something or gained something. His child was gone. Linda had grown up.

They met for breakfast at 7 a.m., and then he walked her the short distance to the train station. As they stood on the platform, she started to cry. Wallander stood there bewildered. Only a moment ago she hadn’t shown any signs of being upset.

“What is it?” he asked. “Did something happen?”

“I miss Grandpa,” she replied. “I dream about him every night.”

Wallander gave her a hug. “I do too.”

The train arrived. He stood on the platform until it pulled away. The station seemed terribly desolate. For a moment he felt like someone who was lost or abandoned, utterly powerless.

He wondered how he could go on.

When Wallander got back to the hotel, there was a message for him from Robert Melander. He went up to his room and dialled the number. Melander’s wife answered. Wallander introduced himself, careful to thank her for the nice lunch she had prepared the day before. Melander came to the phone.

“I couldn’t help thinking about things some more last night,” he said. “I called the old postman too. Ture Emmanuelsson is his name. He told me that Krista Haberman received postcards regularly from Skåne, a lot of them. From Falsterbo, he thought. I don’t know if this means anything, but I thought I’d tell you anyway. She had a lot of bird related post.”

“How did you find me?” Wallander asked.

“I called the police in Ystad and asked them. It wasn’t difficult.”

“Skanör and Falsterbo are well-known meeting places for bird-watchers,” Wallander said. “That’s the only reasonable explanation for why she got so many postcards from there. Thanks for taking the time to call me.”

“I just keep wondering,” Melander said, “why the car dealer should have left money to our church.”

“Sooner or later we’ll find out why. But it might take time. Anyway, thanks for calling.”

Wallander stayed where he was after he hung up. It wasn’t 8 a.m. yet. He thought about the feeling he had experienced at the train station, the feeling that something insurmountable stood before him. He also thought about the conversation with Linda. Most of all, he thought about what Melander had said and what he now faced. He was in Gävle because he had an assignment. It was six hours before his plane left and he had to turn in the rental car at Arlanda.

He got some papers out of his case. Höglund’s notes said that he should start by getting in touch with a police inspector named Sten Wenngren. He would be home all day Sunday and was expecting Wallander’s call. She had also written down the name of the man who had advertised in
Terminator
magazine: Johan Ekberg, who lived out in Brynäs. Wallander stood by the window. A cold autumn rain had started falling. Wallander wondered whether it would turn to sleet, and if there were snow tyres on the rental car. He thought again about what he had to do in Gävle. With each step he took he felt himself moving further and further away from the heart of the matter.

The feeling that there was something he hadn’t discovered; that he had misinterpreted something fundamental in the pattern of the crimes, came back as he stood by the window. Why the deliberate brutality? What is it the killer wants to tell us? The killer’s language was the code he hadn’t been able to crack.

He shook his head, yawned, and packed his suitcase. Since he didn’t know what he would talk to Sten Wenngren about, he decided to go straight to Johan Ekberg. If nothing else, he might be able to get a glimpse into the murky world where soldiers sold themselves to the highest bidder. He took his bag and left the room. At the front desk, he asked how to get to Södra Fältskärsgatan in Brynäs.

When he got into his car he was overcome by that feeling of weakness again. He sat there without starting the engine. Was he coming down with something? He didn’t feel sick – not even particularly tired. He realised it had to do with his father. It was a reaction to everything that had happened, to having to adjust to a new life that had been changed in a traumatic way. There was no other explanation. His father’s death was causing him to suffer recurrent attacks of powerlessness.

At last he started the engine and drove out of the garage. The desk clerk had given him clear directions, but Wallander got lost immediately. The city was deserted. He felt as though he was driving around in a labyrinth. It took him 20 minutes to find the right street. He stopped outside a block of flats in what he thought must be the old section of Brynäs. Vaguely he wondered whether mercenaries slept late on Sunday mornings. He also wondered if Johan Ekberg was a mercenary himself at all. Just because he advertised in
Terminator
didn’t mean he had done any military service.

Wallander sat in the car looking at the building. The rain was falling. October was the most disconsolate month. Everything turned to grey. The colours of autumn faded away.

For a moment he felt like giving up the whole thing and driving away. He might just as well go back to Skåne and ask one of the others to call this Johan Ekberg on the phone. Or he could do it himself. If he left Gävle now he might be able to catch an earlier flight to Sturup.

But of course he didn’t leave. Wallander had never been able to conquer the sergeant inside him who made sure he did what he was supposed to do. He hadn’t taken this trip at the taxpayer’s expense just to sit in his car and stare at the rain. He got out of the car and crossed the street.

Johan Ekberg lived on the top floor. There was no lift in the building. There was cheerful accordion music coming from one of the flats, and someone was singing. Wallander stopped on the stairs and listened. It was a schottische. He smiled to himself. Whoever was playing the accordion wasn’t sitting around staring at the miserable rain, he thought, as he continued up the stairs.

Ekberg’s door had a steel frame and two extra locks. Wallander rang the bell. He sensed someone looking at him through the peephole, and rang again, as if to announce that he wasn’t giving up. The door opened. It had a safety chain. The hall was dark. The man he glimpsed inside was very tall.

“I’m looking for Johan Ekberg,” Wallander said. “I’m a detective from Ystad. I need to talk to you, if you are Ekberg. You’re not suspected of anything, I just need some information.”

The voice that answered him was sharp, almost shrill.

“I don’t talk to policemen. Whether they’re from Gävle or anywhere else.”

Wallander’s earlier feeling of powerlessness was gone at once. He reacted instantly to the man’s stubborn attitude. He hadn’t come this far just to be turned away at the door. He took out his badge and held it up.

“I’m working on solving two murders in Skåne. You probably read about them in the paper. I didn’t come all the way up here to stand outside your door and argue. You are fully entitled to refuse me entry. But I’ll be back. And then you’ll have to come to the Gävle police station with me. Take your pick.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Either let me in or else come out into the hall,” Wallander answered. “I’m not going to talk to you through a crack in the door.”

The door closed, then opened. The safety chain was off now. A harsh lamp went on in the hall. It surprised Wallander. It was mounted so that it shined right into the eyes of a visitor. Wallander followed the man, whose face he had still not seen. They came to a living room. The curtains were drawn and the lights were on. Wallander stopped at the door. It was like walking into another era. The room was a relic from the 1950s. There was a Wurlitzer against one wall. Glittering neon colours danced inside its plastic hood. There were movie posters on the walls; one was of James Dean, but the others were mostly war movies.
Men in Action
. American marines fighting the Japanese on the beach. There were weapons hanging on the walls too: bayonets, swords, old cavalry pistols. A black leather sofa and chairs stood against another wall.

Ekberg stood looking at him. He had a crewcut and could have stepped out of one of his posters. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a white T-shirt. He had tattoos on the bulging muscles of his arms. Wallander could see that he was dealing with a serious bodybuilder.

Ekberg’s eyes were wary.

“What do you want?”

Wallander pointed inquiringly at one of the chairs. The man nodded. Wallander sat down while Ekberg remained standing. He wondered if Ekberg was even born when Harald Berggren was fighting his despicable war in the Congo.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Did you come all the way from Skåne to ask me that?”

Wallander made no attempt to hide his irritation. “Among other things,” he replied. “If you don’t answer my questions we’ll stop right now and you can to come to the station.”

“Am I suspected of committing a crime?”

“Have you?” Wallander shot back. He knew he was breaking all the rules of police conduct.

“No,” said Ekberg.

“Then we’ll start again,” said Wallander. “How old are you?”

“I’m 32.”

So Ekberg wasn’t even born when Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane crashed outside Ndola.

“I came to talk to you about Swedish mercenaries. I’m here because you’ve openly advertised in
Terminator
.”

“There’s no law against that, is there? I advertise in
Combat & Survival
and
Soldier of Fortune
too.”

“I didn’t say there was. This interview will go a lot faster if you just answer my questions and don’t ask any of your own.”

Ekberg sat down and lit a cigarette. Wallander saw he smoked non-filters. He lit the cigarette with a Zippo lighter. He wondered whether Johan Ekberg was living in a different era altogether.