The White Lioness Page 36

  “Sten? It’s Kurt Wallander.”

  Once upon a time they had been very close friends. Wallander knew he hardly ever displayed a trace of surprise.

  “I can hear that,” he said. “You’re calling at four in the morning?”

  “I need your help.”

  Sten Widen said nothing. He was waiting to hear more.

  “On the road to Sandhammaren,” said Wallander. “You’ll have to come and get me. I need to hide in your house for a while. A few hours at least.”

  “Where?” asked Sten Widen.

  Then he started coughing.

  He’s still smoking those cheroots, thought Wallander.

  “I’ll wait for you at the Kåseberga exit,” he said. “What kind of car do you have?”

  “An old Duett.”

  “How long will it take you?”

  “It’s thick fog. Say forty-five minutes. Maybe a little less.”

  “I’ll be there. Thanks for your help.”

  He hung up and left the kitchen. Then he could not resist the temptation. He walked through the living room where the old television set was, and carefully pulled aside the curtain to the guest room where his daughter was sleeping. In the weak light from the lamp outside the kitchen door, he could see her hair and forehead, some of her nose. She was fast asleep.

  Then he left the house and cleaned up after himself in the inside room of the studio. He cycled down to the main road and turned right. When he came to the Kåseberga exit he put the bicycle behind a hut belonging to the telephone company, concealed himself in the shadows, and settled down to wait. The fog was just as thick as before. Suddenly a police car flashed past on the way to Sandhammaren. Wallander thought he recognized Peters behind the wheel.

  His thoughts turned to Sten Widen. They had not met for over a year. In connection with a criminal investigation Wallander had gotten the idea of calling on him at his stables near the ruined castle at Stjarnsund. That was where he trained a number of trotting horses. He lived alone, probably drank too much and too often, and had unclear relationships with his female employees. Once upon a time they had shared a common dream. Sten Widen had a fine baritone voice. He was going to become an opera singer, and Wallander would be his impresario. But the dream faded away, their friendship dissolved, and finally ceased to be.

  Even so, he’s perhaps the only real friend I’ve ever had, thought Wallander as he waited in the fog. If I don’t count Rydberg. But that was something different. We’d never have gotten close to each other if we hadn’t both been cops.

  Forty minutes later the wine-red Duett came gliding through the fog. Wallander emerged from behind the hut and got into the car. Sten Widen looked at his face, dirty, smeared with blood. But as usual he displayed no surprise.

  “I’ll explain later,” said Wallander.

  “When it suits you,” said Sten Widen. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and smelled of strong liquor.

  They passed the training ground. Wallander crouched down and made himself invisible. There were several police cars by the side of the road. Sten Widen slowed down but did not stop. The road was clear, no roadblocks. He looked across at Wallander, who was still trying to hide. But he said nothing. They drove past Ystad, Skurup, then took a right towards Stjarnsund. The fog was still as thick as ever when they turned into the stable yard. A girl of about seventeen stood yawning and smoking in front of the stalls.

  “My face has been in the newspapers and on TV,” said Wallander. “I’d prefer to be anonymous.”

  “Ulrika doesn’t read the papers,” said Sten Widen. “If she ever watches TV, it’s just videos. I have another girl, Kristina. She won’t say anything either.”

  They went into the untidy, chaotic house. Wallander had the feeling it looked exactly the same as the last time he was there. Sten Widen asked if he was hungry. Wallander nodded and they sat down in the kitchen. He had some sandwiches and a cup of coffee. Sten Widen occasionally went out into the next room. Whenever he came back he smelled even more strongly of spirits.

  “Thanks for coming for me,” said Wallander.

  Sten Widen shrugged.

  “No problem,” he said.

  “I need a few hours’ sleep,” Wallander went on. “Then I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

  “The horses have to be looked after,” said Sten Widen. “You can sleep in here.”

  He got up and Wallander followed him. His exhaustion caught up with him. Sten Widen showed him into a little room with a sofa.

  “I doubt if I have any clean sheets. But you can have a pillow and a blanket.”

  “That’s more than enough,” said Wallander.

  “You know where the bathroom is?”

  Wallander nodded. He could remember.

  Wallander took off his shoes. You could hear the sand crunching underfoot. He slung his jacket over a chair. Sten Widen stood watching him in the doorway.

  “How are things?” Wallander inquired.

  “I’ve started singing again,” said Sten Widen.

  “You must tell me all about it,” said Wallander.

  Sten Widen left the room. Wallander could hear a horse whinnying out in the yard. The last thing he thought before falling asleep was that Sten Widen was just the same as ever. The same tousled hair, the same dry eczema on his neck.

  Nevertheless there was something different.

  When he woke up, he was not sure where he was at first. He had a headache, and pain all over his body. He put his hand on his forehead and could feel he had a temperature. He lay still under the blanket, which smelled of horses. When he went to check his watch, he found he must have dropped it at some point during the night. He got up and went out into the kitchen. A clock on the wall showed half past eleven. He had slept for over four hours. The fog had lifted somewhat, but was still there. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. Then he stood up and opened various cabinets until he found some painkillers. Shortly afterwards the telephone rang. Wallander heard Sten Widen come in and answer it. The call had to do with hay. They were discussing the price of a delivery. When he finished talking, he came into the kitchen.

  “Awake?” he asked.

  “I needed some sleep,” said Wallander.

  Then he told him what had happened. Sten Widen listened in silence, expressionless. Wallander started with the disappearance of Louise Åkerblom. He talked about the man he had killed.

  “I just had to get away,” he concluded. “I know of course my colleagues will be looking for me now. But I’ll have to tell them a white lie. Say I passed out and lay behind a bush. But I’d be grateful if you could do one thing for me. Call my daughter and tell her I’m OK. And tell her she should stay where she is.”

  “Should I tell her where you are?”

  “No. Not yet. But you’ve got to convince her.”

  Sten Widen nodded. Wallander gave him the number. But there was no answer.

  “You’ll have to keep on trying until you reach her,” he said.

  One of the stable girls came into the kitchen. Wallander nodded, and she introduced herself as Kristina.

  “You can go get a pizza,” said Sten Widen. “Buy a few newspapers, too. There isn’t a bite to eat in the house.”

  Sten Widen gave the girl some money. She drove off in the Duett.

  “You said you started singing again,” said Wallander.

  Sten Widen smiled for the first time. Wallander could remember that smile, but it was many years since he had last seen it.

  “I’ve joined the church choir at Svedala,” ha said. “I sometimes sing solos at funerals. I realized I was missing it. But the horses don’t like it if I sing in the stables.”

  “Do you need an impresario?” wondered Wallander. “It’s hard to see how I can keep going as a cop after all this.”

  “You killed in self-defense,” said Sten Widen. “I’d have done the same thing. Just thank your lucky stars you had a gun.”

  “I don’t t
hink anybody can understand what it feels like.”

  “It’ll pass.”

  “Never.”

  “Everything passes.”

  Sten Widen tried calling again. Still no answer. Wallander went out to the bathroom and took a shower. He borrowed a shirt from Sten Widen. That also smelled like horses.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “How’s what going?”

  “The horse business.”

  “I’ve got one that’s good. Three more that might become good. But Fog’s got talent. She’ll bring in the money. She might even be a possibility for the Derby this year.”

  “Is she really called Fog?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I was thinking about last night. If I’d had a horse I might have been able to catch up with Konovalenko.”

  “Not on Fog you wouldn’t. She throws riders she doesn’t know. Talented horses are often a handful. Like people. Full of themselves, and whimsical. I sometimes wonder if she should have a mirror in the horse box. But she runs fast.”

  The girl called Kristina came back with the pizza and some newspapers. Then she went out again.

  “Isn’t she going to eat?” asked Wallander.

  “They eat in the stables,” said Sten Widen. “We have a little kitchen there.” He took the top newspaper and leafed through. One of the pages attracted his attention.

  “It’s about you,” he said.

  “I’d rather not know. Not yet.”

  “As you like.”

  Sten Widen got a reply the third time he called. It was Linda who answered, not Wallander’s father. Wallander could hear she was insisting on asking lots of questions. But Sten Widen only said what he was supposed to.

  “She was very relieved,” he said when the call was over. “She promised to stay put.”

  The ate their pizzas. A cat jumped up onto the table. Wallander gave it a piece. He noticed the cat smelled like horses, too.

  “The fog’s lifting,” said Sten Widen. “Did I ever tell you I’d been in South Africa? Apropos of what you were just saying.”

  “No,” said Wallander, surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

  “When nothing came of the opera-singing business, I went away,” he said. “I wanted to get away from everything, you’ll remember that. I thought I might become a big game hunter. Or go looking for diamonds in Kimberley. Must have been something I’d read. And I actually went. Got as far as Cape Town. I stayed for three weeks, and then I’d had enough. Ran away. Came back here. And so it was horses instead, when Dad died.”

  “Ran away?”

  “The way those blacks were treated. I was ashamed. It was their country, but they were forced to go around cap in hand, apologizing for their existence. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ll never forget it.”

  He wiped his mouth and went out. Wallander thought about what he had said. Then he realized he would soon have to go back to the police station in Ystad.

  He went into the room where the telephone was, and found what he was looking for. A half-empty whiskey bottle. He unscrewed the cap, took a large mouthful, and then another. He watched Sten Widen ride past the window on a brown horse.

  First I get burgled. Then they blow my apartment up. What next?

  He lay down on the sofa again, and pulled the blanket up to his chin. His fever had been imagined, and his headache was gone. He would have to get up again soon.

  Victor Mabasha was dead. Konovalenko had shot him. The investigation into Louise Åkerblom’s disappearance and death was littered with dead bodies. He could see no way out. How were they ever going to catch up with Konovalenko?

  After a while he fell asleep. He did not wake up again for another four hours.

  Sten Widen was in the kitchen, reading an evening paper.

  “You’re wanted,” he said.

  Wallander looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Who is?”

  “You,” repeated Sten Widen. “You’re wanted. They’ve sent out an APB. You can also read between the lines that they think you’ve gone temporarily insane.”

  Wallander grabbed hold of the newspaper. There was a picture of him, and of Björk.

  Sten Widen was telling the truth. He was a wanted man. He and Konovalenko. They also suspected he might not be fit to look after himself.

  Wallander stared in horror at Sten Widen.

  “Call my daughter,” he said.

  “I already did,” he said. “And I told her you were still compos mentis.”

  “Did she believe you?”

  “Yes. She believed me.”

  Wallander sat there motionless. Then he made up his mind. He would play the role they had given him. A chief detective inspector from Ystad, temporarily out of his mind, missing and wanted. That would give him the thing he needed above all else.

  Time.

  When Konovalenko caught sight of Wallander in the fog down by the sea, in the field with the sheep, he realized to his astonishment that he was up against a worthy opponent. It was at the very moment Victor Mabasha was thrown backwards and was dead before he hit the ground. Konovalenko heard a roar coming out of the fog, and turned around while crouching down. And there he was, the chubby provincial cop who had defied him time and time again. Konovalenko could now see he had underestimated him. He watched as Rykoff was hit by two bullets that ripped open his rib cage. Using the dead African as a shield, Konovalenko backed up as far as the beach, knowing that Wallander would come after him. He would not give up, and it was clear now that he was dangerous.

  Konovalenko ran along the beach in the fog. At the same time he called Tania on the mobile phone he had with him. She was waiting at the square in Ystad with a car. He got as far as the perimeter fence, scrambled up onto the road, and saw a sign pointing to Kåseberga. He directed her out of Ystad by telephone, talking to her all the time, and urged her to drive carefully. He said nothing about Vladimir being dead. That would come later. All the time he kept an eye out behind him. Wallander was not far away and he was dangerous, the first ruthless Swede he had come up against at close quarters. He could not believe what had happened. Wallander was just a provincial cop, after all. There was something about his behavior that simply did not add up.

  Tania arrived, Konovalenko took over the wheel, and they drove back to the house near Tomelilla.

  “Where’s Vladimir?” she asked.

  “He’ll be coming later,” replied Konovalenko. “We were forced to split up. I’ll get him later.”

  “What about the African?”

  “Dead.”

  “The cop?”

  No answer. Tania realized something had gone wrong. Konovalenko was driving too fast. There was something bugging him.

  It was while they were still in the car that Tania realized Vladimir was dead. But she said nothing, and managed to keep up the façade until they got back to the house where Sikosi Tsiki was sitting on a chair watching them, his face devoid of expression. Then she started screaming. Konovalenko slapped her, on the cheek with the flat of his hand at first, then harder and harder. But she kept on screaming until he managed to force some sedatives down her throat, so many they practically knocked her out. Sikosi Tsiki sat watching them the whole time from the sofa, without moving. Konovalenko had the impression he was performing on a stage, with Sikosi Tsiki the only member of the audience, albeit an attentive one. Once Tania had sunk into the no-man’s-land between deep sleep and unconsciousness, Konovalenko got changed and poured himself a glass of vodka. The fact that Victor Mabasha was dead at last did not give him the satisfaction he had expected. It solved the immediate practical problems, not least his sensitive relationship with Jan Kleyn. But he knew Wallander would come after him.

  He would not give in. He would pick up the trail once more.

  Konovalenko drank another glass of vodka.

  The African on the sofa is a dumb animal, he thought. He watches me all the time, not in a friendly way, not unfriendly either, just watchi
ng. He says nothing, asks nothing. He could sit like that for days on end if anyone asked him to.

  Konovalenko still had nothing to say to him. With every minute that passed, Wallander would be getting closer. What was needed now was an offensive on his part. Preparing for the actual assignment, the assassination in South Africa, would have to wait for a while.

  He knew Wallander’s weak spot. That was what Konovalenko wanted to get at. But where was his daughter? Somewhere not far away, presumably in Ystad. But not in the apartment.

  It took him an hour to figure out a solution to the problem. It was a very risky plan. But he had realized there was no such thing as a risk-free strategy as far as this remarkable cop Wallander was concerned.

  Since Tania was the key to his plan and she was going to be asleep for many hours, all he needed to do was to wait. But he did not forget for one moment that Wallander was out there in the fog and darkness, and that he was getting closer all the time.

  “I gather the big man won’t be coming back,” Sikosi Tsiki said suddenly. His voice was very husky, his English singsong.

  “He made a mistake,” said Konovalenko. “He was too slow. Perhaps he thought there was a way back. But there isn’t.”

  That was all Sikosi Tsiki said that night. He got up from the sofa and went back to his room. It occurred to Konovalenko that, despite everything, he preferred the replacement Jan Kleyn had sent. He would remember to point that out when he called South Africa the following night.

  He was the only one still awake. The drapes were carefully drawn, and he refilled his glass with vodka.

  He went to bed shortly before five in the morning.

  Tania arrived at the police station in Ystad just before one in the afternoon on Saturday, May 16. She was still groggy, as a result of the shock over Vladimir’s death and the strong sedatives Konovalenko had given her. But she was also determined. Wallander was the guy who had killed her husband. The cop who visited them in Hallunda. Konovalenko had described Vladimir’s death in a way that bore little resemblance to what actually happened in the fog. As far as Tania was concerned, Wallander was a monster of uncontrolled, sadistic brutality. For Vladimir’s sake she would play the part Konovalenko had given her. Eventually there would be an opportunity to kill him.