The Fifth Woman Page 3

  “How was the trip?” Martinsson asked. “Welcome back, by the way.”

  “My father was very pleased,” Wallander replied.

  “What about you?”

  “It was great. And hot.”

  Ebba, the station’s receptionist for more than 30 years, greeted him with a big smile.

  “Can you get so brown in Italy in September?” she asked in surprise.

  “You can,” Wallander answered, “if you stay in the sun.”

  They walked down the hall. Wallander realised he should have brought Ebba a little something. He was annoyed at his thoughtlessness.

  “Everything’s calm here,” Martinsson said. “No serious cases. Almost nothing going on.”

  “Maybe we can hope for a calm autumn,” Wallander said dubiously.

  Martinsson went to get coffee. Wallander opened the door to his office. Everything was just as he’d left it. The desk top was empty. He hung up his jacket and opened the window a crack. In the in-tray was a stack of memos from the national police board. He picked up the top one, glanced at it and put it back. It was about the investigation into car smuggling from southern Sweden to the former Eastern bloc countries that he’d been working on for almost a year now. If nothing significant had happened while he’d been away, he’d have to go back to that investigation. He’d probably still be working on that case when he retired in 15 years.

  At 8.30 a.m. all the officers gathered in the conference room to go over the work for the coming week. Wallander walked around the table, shaking hands with everyone. They all admired his tan. Then he sat down in his usual place. The mood was normal for a Monday morning in the autumn: grey and weary, everyone a little preoccupied. He wondered how many Monday mornings he had spent in this room. As Lisa Holgersson, their new chief, was in Stockholm, Hansson led the meeting. Martinsson was right. Not much had happened.

  “I’ll have to go back to my smugglers,” Wallander said, with no attempt to conceal his reluctance.

  “Unless you want to take on a burglary,” Hansson said encouragingly. “At a florist’s shop.”

  Wallander looked at him in surprise.

  “A break-in at a florist’s? What did they steal, tulip bulbs?”

  “Nothing, as far as we can tell,” Svedberg said, scratching his balding head.

  At that moment the door opened and Ann-Britt Höglund hurried in. Since her husband seemed always to be overseas in a far-off country that no-one had heard of, she was mostly alone with their two children. Her mornings were chaotic, and she was frequently late to the meetings. She had been with the Ystad police for about a year now and was their youngest detective. At first, some of the older ones, among them Svedberg and Hansson, had done nothing to disguise their discomfort at having a female colleague. But Wallander, who quickly saw that she had real aptitude for police work, had come to her defence. Now no-one commented when she was late, at least not when he was there. She sat down and nodded cheerfully to Wallander.

  “We’re talking about the florist’s,” Hansson said. “We thought Kurt might be able to take a look at it.”

  “The break-in happened last Thursday night,” she said. “The assistant discovered it when she came in on Friday morning. The burglar came in through a back window.”

  “And nothing was stolen?” asked Wallander.

  “Not a thing.”

  Wallander frowned.

  “What do you mean, not a thing?”

  Höglund shrugged.

  “Not a thing means not a thing.”

  “There were traces of blood on the floor,” Svedberg said. “And the owner is away.”

  “Sounds very strange,” Wallander said. “Is it really worth spending time on?”

  “Strange, yes,” Höglund answered. “Whether it’s worth spending time on, I can’t say.”

  Wallander thought fleetingly that at least he’d avoid getting back to the hopeless smuggling investigation. He’d give himself a day to get used to not being in Rome.

  “I could take a look,” he said.

  “I’ve got all the information on it,” said Höglund.

  The meeting was over. Wallander went and got his jacket, and he and Höglund drove to the centre of town in his car. It was still raining.

  “How was your trip?” she asked.

  “I saw the Sistine Chapel,” Wallander replied, as he stared out at the rain. “And I got to see my father in a good mood for a whole week.”

  “Sounds like a nice trip.”

  “So how are things here?” Wallander asked.

  “Nothing changes in a week,” she replied. “It’s been quiet.”

  “And our new chief?”

  “She’s been in Stockholm discussing the proposed cutbacks. I think she’ll be fine. At least as good as Björk.”

  Wallander shot her a quick look.

  “I never thought you liked him.”

  “He did the best he could. What more can you expect?”

  “Nothing,” Wallander said. “Absolutely nothing.”

  They stopped at Västra Vallgatan, at the corner of Pottmakargränd. The shop was called Cymbia. Its sign was swinging in the blustery wind. They stayed in the car. Höglund gave Wallander some papers in a plastic folder. He looked at them as he listened.

  “The owner is Gösta Runfeldt. His assistant arrived just before 9 a.m. on Friday. She found a broken window at the back of the shop. There were shards of glass both outside on the ground and inside. There was blood on the floor inside. Nothing seems to have been stolen. They never keep cash in the shop at night. She called the police immediately. I got here just after 10 a.m. It was just as she had described it. A broken window. Blood on the floor. Nothing stolen.”

  Wallander thought for a moment.

  “Not a single flower?” he asked.

  “That’s what the assistant claimed.”

  “Could anyone really remember the exact number of flowers they have in each vase?”

  He handed back the papers.

  “We can always ask her,” Höglund said. “The shop’s open.”

  An old-fashioned bell jingled as Wallander opened the door. The scents inside the shop reminded him of the gardens in Rome. There were no customers. A woman came out from the back room. She nodded when she saw them.

  “I’ve brought along my colleague,” Höglund said.

  Wallander shook hands and introduced himself.

  “I’ve read about you in the newspapers,” said the woman.

  “Nothing derogatory, I hope.” Wallander smiled.

  “Oh no,” the woman replied. “Only good things.”

  Wallander had seen in the file that the woman who worked in the shop was named Vanja Andersson and that she was 53 years old.

  Wallander moved slowly around the shop. From old, ingrained habit he watched carefully where he stepped. The humid fragrance of flowers continued to fill his mind with memories. He went behind the counter and stopped at the back door, the top half of which was glass. The putty was new. This was where the burglar had entered. Wallander looked at the floor, which was covered with plastic mats.

  “I presume the blood was found here,” he said.

  “No,” said Höglund. “The traces of blood were in the storeroom at the back.”

  Wallander raised his eyebrows in surprise. Then he followed her into the back among the flowers. Höglund stood in the middle of the room.

  “Here,” she said. “Right here.”

  “But none by the window?”

  “No. Now do you understand why I think it’s a little strange? Why is there blood in here, but not by the window? If we assume that whoever broke the window cut himself, that is.”

  “Who else would it be?” asked Wallander.

  “That’s just it. Who else would it be?”

  Wallander went through the shop again, trying to picture what had happened. Someone had smashed the window and let himself into the shop. There was blood in the middle of the back room. Nothing had been stolen.
/>
  Every crime follows some kind of plan or reason, except those that are simply acts of insanity. He knew this from years of experience. But who would be so mad as to break into a florist’s shop and not steal anything? It just didn’t make sense.

  “I presume it was drops of blood,” he said.

  To his surprise, Höglund shook her head.

  “It was a little puddle,” she said. “Not drops.”

  Wallander said nothing. He had nothing to say. Then he turned to the shop assistant, who was standing in the background, waiting.

  “So nothing was stolen?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not even any flowers?”

  “Not that I could see.”

  “Do you really know exactly how many flowers you have in the shop at any one time?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Her reply was immediate and firm. Wallander nodded.

  “Do you have any explanation for this break-in?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t own the shop, is that right?”

  “The owner is Gösta Runfeldt. I work for him.”

  “If I understand correctly, he’s away. Have you been in contact with him?”

  “That’s not possible.”

  Wallander looked at her attentively.

  “Why not?”

  “He’s on an orchid safari in Kenya.”

  Wallander considered what she had said.

  “Can you tell me something more? An orchid safari?”

  “Gösta is a passionate orchid lover,” the woman answered. “He knows everything about them. He travels all over the world looking at all the types that exist. He’s been writing a book on the history of orchids. Right now he’s in Kenya. I don’t know where, exactly. All I know is he’ll be back next Wednesday.”

  Wallander nodded.

  “We’ll have to talk with him when he gets back,” said Wallander. “Maybe you could ask him to call us at the police station?”

  Vanja Andersson promised to pass on the message. A customer came into the shop. Höglund and Wallander went out into the rain and got into the car. Wallander waited to start the engine.

  “Of course, it could be a burglar who made a mistake,” he said. “A thief who smashed the wrong window. There’s a computer shop right next door.”

  “But what about the pool of blood?”

  Wallander shrugged.

  “Maybe the thief didn’t notice he cut himself. He stood there with his arm hanging down and looked around. The blood dripped from his arm. Blood dripping in the same spot will eventually form a puddle.”

  She nodded. Wallander turned the ignition.

  “This will be an insurance case,” he said. “Nothing more.”

  They drove back to the police station in the rain.

  It was 11 a.m. on Monday 26 September 1994.

  In Wallander’s mind the week in Rome was slipping away like a slowly dissolving mirage.

  CHAPTER 3

  On Tuesday, 27 September, rain was still falling in Skåne. The meteorologists had predicted that the hot summer would be followed by a wet autumn. Nothing had yet occurred to contradict their forecast.

  Wallander had come home from his first day at work after his trip to Italy, put together a hasty meal and eaten it without pleasure. He made several attempts to reach his daughter, who lived in Stockholm. He propped open the door to the balcony when there was a brief lull in the rain, feeling annoyed that Linda hadn’t called to ask him how the holiday had been. He tried, without much success, to convince himself that she was too busy to make contact. This autumn she was combining studies at a private theatre school with work as a waitress at a restaurant on Kungsholmen.

  Late that evening he had called Baiba in Riga. He had thought about her a great deal while he’d been in Rome. They’d spent some time together in Denmark, just a few months earlier, when Wallander was worn out and depressed after the terrible manhunt. On one of their last days together, he had asked Baiba to marry him. She gave him an evasive answer, not a definite no, but she made no attempt to conceal the reasons for her reluctance. They were walking along the vast beach at Skagen, where the two seas meet. Wallander had walked the same stretch many years before with his wife Mona, and once alone at a time when he had seriously considered leaving the police force.

  The evenings in Denmark had been almost tropically hot. The World Cup had people glued to their TV sets, and the beaches were deserted. They had strolled along, picking up pebbles and shells, and Baiba told him she didn’t think she could ever live with a policeman again. Her first husband, the Latvian police major Karlis, had been murdered in 1992. That was when Wallander had met her, during that confused and unreal time in Riga.

  In Rome, Wallander had asked himself whether deep down he really wanted to get married again. Was it even necessary to be married? To be tied by complicated, formal bonds which hardly had any meaning in this day and age?

  He had been married to Linda’s mother for a long time. Then one day, five years earlier, she had confronted him out of the blue and told him that she wanted a divorce. He had been dumbfounded. It was only now that he felt able to understand and begin to accept the reasons she had wanted to begin a new life without him. He could see now why things had turned out the way they had. He could even admit that he bore most of the blame, because of his frequent absences and his increasing lack of interest in what was important in Mona’s life.

  In Rome he had come to the conclusion that he did want to marry Baiba. He wanted her to leave Latvia and come to live in Ystad. And he had also decided to move, to sell his flat on Mariagatan and buy a house. Somewhere just outside town, with a flourishing garden. An inexpensive house, but in good enough shape that he could handle the necessary repairs himself. He had also thought about getting the dog he had been dreaming about for so long.

  Now he talked about all of this with Baiba as the rain fell over Ystad. It was a continuation of the conversation he had been having in his head in Rome. On a few occasions he had started talking out loud to himself. His father, of course, hadn’t let this go unnoticed, trudging along at his side in the heat. He’d asked which of them was the one getting old and senile.

  Baiba sounded happy. Wallander told her about the trip and then repeated his question from the summer. For a moment the silence bounced back and forth between Riga and Ystad. Then she said that she had been thinking too. She still had doubts; they hadn’t lessened, but they weren’t growing.

  “Why don’t you come over here?” Wallander said. “We can’t talk about this on the phone.”

  “You’re right,” she answered. “I’ll come.”

  They didn’t decide on a time. They would talk about that later. She had her job at the University of Riga, and her time away had to be planned far in advance. But when Wallander hung up he felt that he was now on his way to a new phase of his life. She would come. He would get married again.

  That night it took a long time for him to fall asleep. Twice he got up and stood by the kitchen window, staring out at the rain. He would miss the streetlight swinging on its wire out there, lonesome in the wind.

  Even though he didn’t get much sleep, he was up early on Tuesday. A little after 7 a.m. he parked his car outside the police station and hurried through the rain and wind. He’d decided to start working through the pile of paperwork on the car thefts immediately. The longer he put it off, the more his lack of enthusiasm would weigh him down. He hung his jacket over the visitor’s chair to dry. Then he lifted all the files, piled almost half a metre high, down from the shelf. He was just starting to organise the papers when there was a knock at the door. Wallander knew it would be Martinsson. He called to him to come in.

  “When you’re away I’m always the first one here in the morning,” Martinsson said. “Now I have to settle for second place again.”

  “I’ve missed my cars,” Wallander said, pointing at the files all over his desk.

  Martinsson had a piece of paper in his
hand.

  “I forgot to give this to you yesterday,” he said. “Chief Holgersson wanted you to have a look at it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Read it for yourself. You know that people expect us policemen to make statements about all kinds of topics.”

  “Something political?”

  “That sort of thing.”

  Wallander gave him an inquiring look. Martinsson didn’t usually beat around the bush. Several years before, he had been active in the Liberal party and had probably dreamt of a political career. As far as Wallander knew, this hope had gradually faded as the party’s popularity had dwindled. He decided not to mention their showing in the election the week before.

  Martinsson left. Wallander sat down and read the paper. After reading it twice he was furious. He went out to the hall and strode into Svedberg’s office.

  “Have you seen this?” he asked, waving Martinsson’s sheet of paper.

  Svedberg shook his head.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s from a new organisation that wants to know whether the police would have any objections to its name.”

  “Which is?”

  “They were thinking of calling themselves ‘Friends of the Axe’.”

  Svedberg gave Wallander a baffled look.

  “Friends of the Axe?”

  “That’s right. And now they’re wondering – in light of what happened here this summer – if the name might possibly be misconstrued. This organisation has no intention of going out and scalping people.”

  “What are they going to do?”

  “If I understand correctly, it’s some sort of home crafts association that wants to establish a museum for old-fashioned hand tools.”

  “That sounds all right, doesn’t it? Why are you so worked up?”

  “Because they think the police have time to make pronouncements about such things,” Wallander said. “Personally, I think Friends of the Axe is a pretty strange name for a home crafts association. But I can’t waste time on stuff like this.”

  “So tell the chief.”

  “I’m going to.”

  “Though she probably won’t agree with you, since we’re all supposed to become local police officers again.”