The White Lioness Page 51

  Nevertheless, the day after he had been ordered to take sick leave was a hot, windless summer day in southern Skåne, and Wallander was sitting in his office. He still had some paperwork to attend to before he could clear his desk and go off in search of a cure for his depression. He felt a nagging sense of uncertainty, and wondered when he would be able to go back to work.

  He had arrived at the office at six in the morning, after a sleepless night in his apartment. During the silent hours of the morning he had at last completed his comprehensive report on the murder of Louise Åkerblom and everything that followed in its wake. He read through what he had written, and it was like descending into the underworld yet again, repeating the journey he wished he had never needed to undertake. Moreover, he was about to submit a report that was in some respects untruthful. It was still a mystery to him why some parts of his strange disappearance and his secret collaboration with Victor Mabasha had not been exposed. His extremely weak and in some parts contradictory explanations of some of his remarkable behavior had not, as he expected, aroused widespread skepticism. He could only think it was because he was surrounded by sympathy mixed with a rather vague esprit de corps, because he had killed a fellow human being.

  He put the fat report on his desk and opened the window. Somewhere out there he could hear a child laughing.

  What about my own summary, he thought. I found myself in a situation where I had no control over what happened. I made every mistake a cop can make, and the worst of all was that I put my own daughter’s life at risk. She has assured me she doesn’t blame me for those horrific days when she was chained up in a cellar. But do I really have any right to believe her? Have I not caused her suffering which might only come to the surface sometime in the future, in the form of angst, nightmares, a ruined life? That’s where my report has to begin, the one I’ll never write. The one which ends today with me being so shattered that a doctor has put me on sick leave indefinitely.

  He went back to his desk and flopped down onto his chair. He had not slept a wink all night, it was true, but his weariness came from somewhere else, from the depths of his depression. Could it be that his fatigue was in fact depression? He thought about what would happen to him now. The doctor had suggested he should immediately start confronting his experiences through counseling. Wallander had taken that as an order that had to be obeyed. But what would he actually be able to say?

  In front of him was an invitation to his father’s wedding. He did not know how many times he had read it since it came in the mail a few days before. His father was going to marry his home aide the day before Midsummer Eve. That was in ten days. He had talked several times to his sister, Kristina, who had come on a short visit some weeks earlier, when the chaos had been at its worst, and thought she had managed to put an end to the whole idea. Now Wallander had no more doubts about whether or not it would happen. Nor could he deny that his father was in a better mood now than he could ever remember, no matter how hard he tried. He had painted a gigantic backdrop in the studio, where the ceremony was to take place. To Wallander’s amazement it was exactly the same motif as he had been painting all his life, the static, romantic woodland landscape. The only difference was that he had now reproduced it giant-sized. Wallander had also talked with Gertrud, the woman he was going to marry. It was actually she who had wanted to speak with him, and he realized she had a genuine affection for his father. He had felt quite touched, and said he was happy about what was going to happen.

  His daughter had returned to Stockholm over a week ago. She would come back for the wedding, and then go straight to Italy. That had brought home to Wallander the frightening realization of his own solitude. Wherever he turned, things seemed to be just as bleak. The night after Konovalenko’s death he visited Sten Widen and drank up nearly all his whiskey. He got very drunk, and started talking about the feeling of hopelessness that was getting him down. He thought it was something he shared with Sten Widen, even if his old friend had his stable girls to go to bed with occasionally, thus creating a superficial glimmer of what might be called companionship. Wallander hoped the renewed contact with Sten Widen would turn out to be lasting. He had no illusions about being able to return to the friendship they had shared in their youth. That was gone forever, and could not be resurrected.

  His train of thought was interrupted by a knock at the door. He started. He had noticed last week at the police station that he was scared of being with people. The door opened and Svedberg looked in, hoping he wasn’t disturbing him.

  “I hear you’re going away for a while,” he said.

  Wallander immediately felt a lump in his throat.

  “It seems to be necessary,” he said, blowing his nose.

  Svedberg could see he was emotional. He changed the subject immediately.

  “Do you remember those handcuffs you found in a drawer at Louise Åkerblom’s house?” he asked. “You mentioned them once in passing. Do you remember?”

  Wallander nodded. To him, the handcuffs had represented the mysterious side of everybody’s character. Only the day before he had been wondering what his own invisible handcuffs were.

  “I was clearing out a closet at home yesterday,” said Svedberg. “There were lots of old magazines there I’d decided to get rid of. But you know how it is. I ended up sitting down and reading them. I happened to come across an article about variety artistes over the last thirty years. There was a picture of an escape artist, and he’d used the fanciful professional name of Houdini’s Son. His real name was Davidsson, and he eventually stopped wriggling out of chains and metal boxes and the like. Do you know why he stopped?”

  Wallander shook his head.

  “He saw the light. He became a born-again Christian. Guess which denomination he joined.”

  “The Methodists,” said Wallander thoughtfully.

  “Exactly. I read the whole article. At the end it said he was happily married and had several children. Among them a daughter called Louise. Née Davidsson, later married to a man called Åkerblom.”

  “The handcuffs,” said Wallander pensively.

  “A souvenir of her father,” said Svedberg. “It was as simple as that. I don’t know what you thought. I have to admit a few thoughts I wouldn’t repeat in front of children entered my head.”

  “Mine, too,” said Wallander.

  Svedberg got up. He paused in the doorway and turned round.

  “There was one other thing,” he said. “Do you remember Peter Hanson?”

  “The thief?”

  “That’s the one. You may remember I asked him to keep his eyes open in case the things stolen from your apartment turned up on the market. He called me yesterday. Most of your stuff has no doubt been disposed of, I guess. You’ll never see it again. But oddly enough he managed to get hold of a CD he claims is yours.”

  “Did he say which one it was?”

  “I wrote it down.”

  Svedberg searched through his pockets and eventually came across a crumpled scrap of paper.

  “Rigoletto,” he read. “Verdi.”

  Wallander smiled.

  “I’ve missed that,” he said. “Send my regards to Peter Hanson, and thank him.”

  “He’s a thief,” said Svedberg. “You don’t thank guys like that.”

  Svedberg left the room with a laugh. Wallander started going through the remaining stacks of paper. It was nearly eleven by now, and he hoped to be finished by twelve.

  The telephone rang. At first he thought he would ignore it. Then he picked it up.

  “There’s a guy here who wants to talk with Chief Inspector Wallander,” said a female voice he did not recognize. He assumed it was the stand-in for Ebba, who was on vacation.

  “Transfer him to somebody else,” said Wallander. “I’m not receiving visitors.”

  “He’s very insistent,” said the receptionist. “He’s adamant he wants to talk with Chief Inspector Wallander. He says he has important information for you. He’s Danish.” />
  “Danish?” said Wallander in surprise. “What’s it about?”

  “He says it has something to do with an African.”

  Wallander thought for a moment.

  “Send him in,” he said.

  The man who came into Wallander’s office introduced himself as Paul Jørgensen, a fisherman from Dragør. He was very tall and powerfully built. When Wallander shook hands with him, it was like being gripped by an iron claw. He pointed to a chair. Jørgensen sat down and lit a cigar. Wallander was glad the window was open. He groped around in his drawers before finding an ashtray.

  “I have something to tell you,” said Jørgensen. “But I haven’t yet made up my mind whether I’m going to or not.”

  Wallander raised his eyebrows.

  “You should have made your mind up before coming here,” he said.

  In normal circumstances he would probably have been annoyed. Now he could hear that his voice was far from convincing.

  “It depends whether you can overlook a minor breach of the law,” said Jørgensen.

  Wallander began to wonder whether the man was making a fool of him. If so, he had chosen a most unfortunate moment. He could see he had better get a grip on the conversation, which looked like it was going off course almost before it had begun.

  “I was told you had something important to tell me about an African,” he said. “If it really is important, I might be able to overlook any minor breach of the law. But I can’t promise anything. You must make up your own mind. I have to ask you to do so right now, though.”

  Jorgensen screwed up he eyes and gazed at him from behind a cloud of smoke.

  “I’ll risk it,” he said.

  “I’m listening,” said Wallander.

  “I’m a fisherman on Dragør,” Jørgensen began. “I make just about enough to pay for the boat, the house, and a beer in the evenings. But nobody turns down the chance for some extra income, if the opportunity arises. I take tourists out for little sea trips now and then, and that produces some pocket money. Sometimes I’m asked to take somebody over to Sweden. That doesn’t happen often, just once or twice a year. It could be some passengers who have missed a ferry, for instance. A few weeks ago I did a trip over to Limhamn one afternoon. I had just one passenger on board.”

  He stopped abruptly, as if expecting a reaction from Wallander. But he had nothing to say. He nodded to Jørgensen, telling him to go on.

  “It was a black guy,” said Jørgensen. “He only spoke English. Very polite. He stood in the wheelhouse with me all the way. Maybe I should mention there was something special about this trip. It had been booked in advance. There was this Englishman who spoke Danish, and he came down to the harbor one morning and asked if I could do a little trip over the sound, with a passenger. I thought it sounded a bit suspicious, so I asked a pretty high fee in order to get rid of him. I asked for five thousand kronor. The funny thing was he took out the money right away and paid in advance.”

  Wallander was extremely interested by this. Just for a moment he forgot all about himself and concentrated exclusively on what Jørgensen had to say. He indicated he should continue.

  “I went to sea as a young man,” said Jørgensen. “I learned quite a bit of English. I asked the guy what he was going to do in Sweden. He said he was going to visit some friends. I asked how long he’d be staying, and he said he’d probably be going back to Africa in a month, at the latest. I suspected there was something fishy going on. He was probably trying to get into Sweden illegally. Since it’s not possible to prove anything now that happened so long ago, I’m taking the risk of telling you.”

  Wallander raised his hand.

  “Let’s dig a little deeper,” he said. “What day was this?”

  Jørgensen leaned forward and studied Wallander’s desk diary.

  “Wednesday, May 13,” he said. “About six in the evening.”

  That could fit, thought Wallander. It could have been Victor Mabasha’s replacement.

  “He said he would stay for about a month?”

  “I guess.”

  “Guess?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Go on,” said Wallander. “Don’t leave out any details.”

  “We chatted about this and that,” said Jørgensen. “He was open and friendly. But all the time I somehow felt he was on his guard. I can’t really put it any better than that. We got to Limhamn. I docked, and he jumped ashore.

  “Since I’d already been paid, I backed out again right away and turned back. I wouldn’t have given it another thought if I hadn’t happened to come across an old Swedish evening paper the other day. There was a photo on the front page of a guy I thought I recognized. A guy who got killed in a gun battle with the cops.”

  He paused briefly.

  “With you,” he said. “There was a picture of you as well.”

  “When was the paper from?” asked Wallander, although he already knew the answer.

  “I guess it was a Thursday paper,” said Jørgensen hesitantly. “It could have been the next day. May 14.”

  “Go on,” said Wallander. “We can check up on that later if it’s important.”

  “I recognized that photo,” said Jørgensen. “But I couldn’t place it. I didn’t catch on to who it was until the day before yesterday. When I dropped that African off in Limhamn, there was a giant of a guy waiting for him on the quayside. He stayed in the background, as if he didn’t want to be seen. But I have pretty good eyes. It was him. Then I started thinking about it all. I thought it might be important. So I took a day off and came here.”

  “You did the right thing,” said Wallander. “I’m not going to pursue the fact that you were involved in illegal immigration into Sweden. But that assumes, of course, that you have nothing more to do with it.”

  “I’ve already packed it in,” said Jørgensen.

  “That African,” said Wallander. “Describe him to me.”

  “About thirty,” said Jørgensen. “Powerfully built, strong and supple.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  Wallander put down his pen.

  “You did the right thing, reporting this,” he said.

  “Maybe it’s not important,” said Jørgensen.

  “It’s extremely important,” said Wallander.

  He stood up.

  “Thanks for coming to tell me,” he said.

  “That’s OK,” said Jørgensen, leaving.

  Wallander looked for the copy he had kept of the letter he sent to Interpol in South Africa by telex. He pondered for a moment. Then he called Swedish Interpol in Stockholm.

  “Chief Inspector Wallander, Ystad,” he said when they answered. “I sent a telex to Interpol in South Africa on Saturday, May 23. I wonder if there’s been any response.”

  “If there had been, you’d have heard right away,” came the reply.

  “Look into it, would you, just to be on the safe side,” Wallander requested.

  He got an answer a few minutes later.

  “A telex consisting of one page went to Interpol in Johannesburg in the evening of May 23. There has been no response beyond confirmation of receipt.”

  Wallander frowned.

  “One page?” he queried. “I sent two pages.”

  “I have a copy in front of me right now. The thing does seem to stop in mid-air.”

  Wallander looked at his own copy on the desk in front of him.

  If only the first page had been transmitted, the South African police would not know Victor Mabasha was dead, and that a replacement had probably been sent.

  In addition, it could be assumed the assassination attempt would be made on June 12, as Sikosi Tsiki had told Jørgensen the latest date he would be going home.

  Wallander could see the implications right away.

  The cops in South Africa had spent two weeks searching for a man who was dead.

  Today was Thursday, June 11. The assassination attempt would probab
ly be made on June 12.

  Tomorrow.

  “How the hell is this possible?” he roared. “How come you only sent half my telex?”

  “I have no idea,” was the answer he received. “You’d better talk to whoever was in charge.”

  “Some other time,” said Wallander. “I’ll be sending another telex shortly. And this one must go to Johannesburg without delay.”

  “We send everything without delay.”

  Wallander slammed down the receiver. He could not understand how the hell such incompetence was possible.

  He did not bother to try and invent some kind of response. Instead he just put a new sheet of paper into his typewriter and composed a brief message. Victor Mabasha is no longer relevant. Look instead for a guy named Sikosi Tsiki. Thirty years of age, well-proportioned (he looked the phrase up in the dictionary, and rejected “powerfully built”), no other obvious peculiarities. This message replaces all previous ones. I repeat that Victor Mabasha is no longer relevant. Sikosi Tsiki is presumably his replacement. We have no photograph. Fingerprints will be investigated.