The Fifth Woman Read online

  “I read in the papers about a citizen militia being formed,” said the doctor. “Isn’t it possible that they would call themselves the night guards?”

  Wallander stared at the message in disbelief.

  “There’s something else that points to it,” the doctor continued. “The paper was attached to his body. It was stapled to his skin.”

  Wallander shook his head.

  “This is fucking incredible,” he said.

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “It’s incredible that it’s gone this far.”

  Wallander never liked to call a taxi. He walked home through the empty streets. He thought about Katarina Taxell. And Åke Davidsson.

  When he got home, he stretched out on the sofa with a blanket over him, taking off only his jacket and shoes. The alarm clock was set. But he found that he couldn’t sleep. He was starting to get a headache. He went out to the kitchen and took some aspirin. The streetlight swayed in the wind outside his window. Eventually he lay down again, and dozed uneasily until his alarm went off. When he sat up on the sofa he felt more tired than he had on lying down. He went to the bathroom, washed his face with cold water, and then changed his shirt. While he waited for the coffee to brew, he called Hansson at home. It took a long time before he answered. Wallander knew that he had woken him up.

  “I’m not done with the Östersund papers,” Hansson said. “I was up until 2 a.m. I have about four kilos left.”

  “We’ll talk about that later,” Wallander interrupted him. “I need you to go to the hospital and talk to a man named Åke Davidsson. He was assaulted somewhere near Lödinge last night and left lying by the side of the road, by people who are probably part of a citizen militia. I want you to look after it.”

  “What should I do about the Östersund papers?”

  “You’ll have to deal with those at the same time. Svedberg and I are going to Lund. I’ll tell you more later.”

  He hung up before Hansson could ask any questions. He didn’t have the energy to answer them.

  At 6 a.m. Svedberg was parked outside. Wallander stood at the kitchen window with his coffee cup and watched him pull up.

  “I talked to Martinsson,” Svedberg said when Wallander got into the car. “He was going to ask Nyberg to start work on the plastic holder.”

  “Did Martinsson understand what we came up with?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Wallander leaned back and closed his eyes. The best thing he could do on the way to Lund was sleep.

  Katarina Taxell lived in a block of flats on a square that Wallander wasn’t familiar with.

  “It might be best if we call Birch,” Wallander said. “So there won’t be any trouble later on.”

  Svedberg reached him at home. He handed the phone to Wallander, who explained what had developed. Birch said he’d be there within 20 minutes. They sat in the car and waited. The sky was grey, and the wind had picked up. Birch drew up behind them and they went inside.

  “I’ll stay in the background,” Birch said. “You can conduct the conversation.”

  Svedberg rang the bell of a flat on the third floor. The door opened almost at once. A woman wearing a dressing gown stood in front of them. She had dark circles under her eyes. She reminded Wallander of Ann-Britt.

  Wallander tried to sound as friendly as possible. But he noted her reaction when he said that he was a police officer from Ystad. They went into the flat, which was small and cramped. Everywhere were signs that she had just had a baby. It reminded Wallander of how his own home had looked when Linda was just born. They went into a living room with light-coloured, wooden furniture. On the table lay a brochure that caught Wallander’s attention. “Taxell’s Hair Products”.

  “I apologise for coming so early in the morning,” he said as they sat down. “But this can’t wait.”

  He wasn’t sure how to continue. She sat across from him and didn’t take her eyes off his face.

  “You’ve just had a child at Ystad’s maternity ward,” he said.

  “A boy,” she replied. “He was born on 15 October.”

  “My congratulations,” Wallander said. Svedberg and Birch murmured something similar.

  “About two weeks before that,” Wallander continued, “or to be precise, on the night of 30 September, I wonder if you had a visitor sometime after midnight?”

  She gave him a look of incomprehension. “Who would that have been?”

  “A nurse who you might not have seen before?”

  “I knew all of the nurses who worked at night.”

  “This woman came back two weeks later,” he continued. “And we think she was there to visit you.”

  “At night?”

  “Yes. Sometime after 2 a.m.”

  “No-one visited me. And besides, I’m a sound sleeper.”

  Wallander nodded slowly. Birch was standing behind the sofa. Svedberg was sitting on a chair against the wall. All of a sudden it was quiet. They were waiting for Wallander to go on, and he planned to do so in a moment. But first he wanted to collect himself. He was still tired. He really should ask her why she was in the maternity ward for so long. Were there complications with her pregnancy? But he didn’t ask her this. Something else was more important.

  She wasn’t telling the truth, he knew it. He was convinced that she’d had a visitor, and that she knew the woman who’d been to see her.

  CHAPTER 28

  Suddenly a child started to cry.

  Katarina Taxell got up and left the room. At that moment Wallander decided how he would proceed with the interview. He had sensed that she was being evasive. His years as a policeman had taught him to tell when someone was lying. He stood up and went over to the window where Birch was standing. Svedberg followed. Wallander spoke in a low voice, keeping his eye on the door.

  “She’s not telling the truth,” he said.

  The others didn’t seem to have noticed anything, or weren’t as convinced as he was, but they made no objections.

  “This may take some time,” Wallander went on. “But since in my opinion she’s crucial for us, I’m not going to give up. She knows who that woman is, and I’m more convinced than ever that she’s important.”

  Birch suddenly seemed to understand the connection.

  “You mean there might be a woman behind all this? The killer is a woman?” He sounded almost frightened by his own words.

  “She doesn’t necessarily have to be the killer,” Wallander said. “But there is a woman somewhere near the heart of this investigation. I’m certain of that. At the very least she’s blocking our view of what’s behind all this. Which is why we have to get to her as soon as possible. We have to find out who she is.”

  The crying stopped. Svedberg and Wallander returned quickly to their places in the room. A minute went by. Katarina Taxell came back and sat down on the sofa. Wallander could see that she was very much on her guard.

  “Let’s return to the maternity ward in Ystad,” Wallander said in a friendly voice. “You say that you were asleep. And nobody visited you there at night?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You live here in Lund. Yet you choose to give birth in Ystad. Why?”

  “I prefer the methods they practise there.”

  “I understand,” Wallander said. “My own daughter was born in Ystad.”

  She didn’t respond. Wallander sensed that she wanted only to answer the questions. She wasn’t going to say anything voluntarily.

  “I have to ask you some questions of a personal nature,” he continued. “Since this is not an interrogation, you can choose not to answer. But then I must warn you that we may have to take you down to the police station and arrange a formal interrogation. We came here because we’re looking for information connected with a number of extremely brutal and violent crimes.”

  Still she didn’t react. Her gaze was fixed on his face. It felt as if she was staring straight into his head. Something about her eyes made hi
m nervous.

  “Did you understand what I said?”

  “I understand. I’m not stupid.”

  “Do you agree that I can ask you some questions of a personal nature?”

  “I won’t know until I hear them.”

  “It seems that you live alone in this flat. You’re not married?”

  “No.”

  The reply came very swiftly and hard, Wallander thought, as if she was hitting something.

  “May I ask who the father of your child is?”

  “I don’t think I’ll answer that. It’s of no concern to anyone but myself. And the child.”

  “If the child’s father has been the victim of a violent crime, I would say it has something to do with the matter that I am concerned with.”

  “That would mean that you knew who the father of my child is. But you don’t. So the question is unreasonable.”

  Wallander saw that she was right. There was nothing wrong with her mind.

  “Let me ask another question. Do you know a man named Eugen Blomberg?”

  “Yes.”

  “In what way do you know him?”

  “I know him.”

  “Do you know that he was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I saw it in the paper this morning.”

  “Is he the father of your child?”

  “No.”

  She’s a good liar, thought Wallander. But not good enough.

  “You and Eugen Blomberg had a relationship, didn’t you?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But he isn’t the father of your child?”

  “No.”

  “How long did you have this relationship?”

  “For two and a half years.”

  “It must have been kept secret, since he was married.”

  “He lied to me. I didn’t find out about that until much later.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I ended it.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “About a year ago.”

  “After that you never met again?”

  “That’s right.”

  Wallander seized the moment and went on the attack.

  “We’ve found letters at his house that you wrote to him as recently as a few months ago.”

  She stood her ground.

  “We wrote letters, but we didn’t meet.”

  “The whole thing seems rather strange.”

  “He wrote letters. I answered them. He wanted us to meet again. I didn’t.”

  “Because you had met another man?”

  “Because I was pregnant.”

  “And you won’t tell us the father’s name?”

  “No.”

  Wallander cast a glance at Svedberg, who was staring at the floor. Birch was looking out the window. Wallander knew they were both on tenterhooks.

  “Who do you think might have killed Eugen Blomberg?”

  Wallander sent off the question at full force. Birch moved at the window. The floor creaked under his weight. Svedberg switched to staring at his hands.

  “I don’t know who would have wanted to kill him.”

  The child started fretting again. She got up at once and left them. Wallander looked at the others. Birch shook his head. Wallander tried to evaluate the situation. It would create big trouble if he took a woman with a three-day-old baby in for interrogation. And she wasn’t suspected of a particular crime. He made a quick decision. They huddled at the window once again.

  “I’ll stop the questions there,” Wallander said. “But I want her put under surveillance. And I want to know everything you can possibly dig up on her. She seems to have a business that sells hair products. I want to know all about her parents, her friends, what she did earlier in her life. Run her through all the databases. I want her life completely mapped out.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Birch said.

  “Svedberg will stay here in Lund. We need someone who’s familiar with the earlier murders.”

  “Actually, I’d prefer to go home,” Svedberg said. “You know that I don’t do well outside Ystad.”

  “I know that,” Wallander answered. “I’m afraid that right now it can’t be helped. I’ll ask someone to relieve you when I get back to Ystad. But we can’t have people driving back and forth unnecessarily.”

  Suddenly the woman was standing at the door, holding the baby. Wallander smiled. They went over and looked at the boy. Svedberg, who liked children even though he didn’t have any of his own, started playing with him.

  Something struck Wallander. He thought back to when Linda was a baby, when Mona had carried her around and when he had done it himself, always terrified of dropping her. Then it came to him. She wasn’t holding the baby against her body. It was as if the baby was something that didn’t really belong to her. He was getting angry, but he managed to hide it.

  “We won’t trouble you any longer,” he said. “But we’ll be in touch again, no doubt.”

  “I hope you catch the person who murdered Eugen,” she said.

  Wallander looked at her carefully. Then he nodded.

  “Yes, we’re going to solve this. I can promise you that.”

  When the three men reached the street, the wind had picked up.

  “What do you think of her?” Birch asked.

  “She’s not telling the truth, of course,” Wallander said. “But it didn’t seem like she was lying, either.”

  Birch gave him a quizzical look.

  “How am I supposed to take that? That it’s as though she was lying and telling the truth at the same time?”

  “Something like that. What it means I don’t know.”

  “I noticed a little detail,” Svedberg said suddenly. “She said she hoped we caught ‘the person’, not ‘the man’ who murdered Eugen Blomberg.”

  Wallander nodded. He had noticed it too.

  “Does that necessarily mean anything?” Birch asked sceptically.

  “No,” Wallander said. “But both Svedberg and I noticed it. And that might mean something in itself.”

  They decided that Wallander would drive back to Ystad in Svedberg’s car. He promised to send someone to relieve Svedberg in Lund as soon as he could.

  “This is important,” he told Birch once again. “Katarina Taxell had a visit at the hospital from this woman. We have to find out who she is. The midwife she knocked down gave a good description.”

  “Give me the description,” said Birch. “She might show up at her home too.”

  “She was quite tall,” said Wallander. “Ylva Brink herself is five-nine. She thought this woman was about five-eleven. Dark, straight, shoulder-length hair. Blue eyes, pointed nose, thin lips. She was stocky without looking overweight. No prominent bust. The power of her blow shows that she’s strong. And we can assume that she’s in good physical shape.”

  “That description fits quite a few people,” Birch said.

  “All descriptions do,” Wallander said. “Even so, you know right away when you find the right person.”

  “Did the woman say anything? What was her voice like?”

  “She didn’t say a word. She just knocked her to the ground.”

  “Did she notice the woman’s teeth?”

  Wallander looked at Svedberg, who shook his head.

  “Was she wearing make-up?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “What did her hands look like? Was she wearing false nails?”

  “We know for certain that she wasn’t. Ylva said she would have noticed.”

  Birch had made some notes. He nodded.

  “We’ll see what we can come up with,” he said. “We’ll do the surveillance very discreetly. She’s going to be on her guard.”

  They said goodbye. Svedberg gave Wallander his car keys. On the way to Ystad Wallander tried to comprehend why Katarina Taxell didn’t want to reveal that she’d had night-time visits while she was in the
Ystad maternity ward. Who was the woman? How was she connected to Taxell and Blomberg? Where did the threads lead from there? What did the chain of events look like that led to his murder?

  He was afraid that he might be on a completely wrong track, leading the investigation way off course. Nothing caused him more torment. Prevented him from sleeping, gave him an upset stomach. The thought that he could be heading at full speed towards the collapse of a criminal investigation. He’d been through it all before, the moment when an investigation suddenly shattered. There would be nothing to do but start again from the beginning. And it would be his fault.

  It was 9.30 a.m. when he parked outside the Ystad police station. Ebba stopped him in reception.

  “It’s total chaos here,” she said.

  “What happened?”

  “Chief Holgersson wants to speak to you right away. It’s about that man you and Svedberg found on the road last night.”

  “I’ll go and talk to her,” Wallander said.

  “Do it now,” Ebba said.

  He went straight to her office. The door was open. Hansson was sitting inside, looking pale. Lisa Holgersson was more upset than he had ever seen her. She motioned him to a chair.

  “I think you should hear what Hansson has to say.”

  Wallander took off his jacket and sat down.

  “I had a long conversation with Åke Davidsson this morning.”

  “How is he?” Wallander said.

  “It looks worse than it really is. It’s still bad, but nowhere near as bad as the story he had to tell.”

  Afterwards he knew that Hansson hadn’t been exaggerating. Wallander listened first in surprise, then with growing indignation. Hansson was clear and to the point. Wallander could hardly believe what he was hearing; it was something he never thought could happen. Now they’d have to live with it. Sweden was steadily changing. Usually these changes were subtle, nothing obvious at the time. But sometimes Wallander, when he observed these changes as a policeman, felt a shudder pass through the entire framework of society. Hansson’s story about Åke Davidsson was one such shudder, and it shook Wallander to the core.

  Åke Davidsson was a civil servant in the social welfare office in Malmö. He was classified as partially disabled because of bad eyesight. After struggling for many years, he had finally got a restricted driver’s licence. Since the late 1970s, Davidsson had a relationship with a woman in Lödinge. It had ended the previous evening. Usually Davidsson would sleep over in Lödinge, since he wasn’t allowed to drive in the dark. But this time he had no choice. He got lost, and finally stopped to ask directions. He was attacked by a night patrol of volunteers who had gathered in Lödinge. They accused him of being a burglar and refused to believe his explanation. His glasses vanished; maybe they were crushed. He was beaten senseless and didn’t wake up until the ambulance men lifted him onto the stretcher.