Sidetracked (6 page)

Wallander shook his head.

“Not yet.”

He was thinking about the night before. He knew he wouldn’t give up until he knew what it was that had made the girl burn herself to death alone in the rape field. I’m living in a world where young people take their own lives because they can’t stand it any more, he thought. I have to understand why, if I’m going to keep on being a policeman.

He gave a start. Hansson had spoken.

“Do we have anything more to discuss right now?” Hansson asked again.

“I’ll take care of the pathologist in Malmö,” Wallander said. “Has anyone been in touch with Sven Nyberg? If not, I’ll drive over and talk to both of them.”

The meeting was over. Wallander went to his office and got his jacket. He hesitated a moment, wondering whether he ought to make another attempt to get hold of his sister. Or Baiba in Riga. But he decided against doing either.

He drove first to Salomonsson’s farm. Policemen were taking down the floodlights and rolling up the cables. The house was locked up, and he remembered that he must check and see how Salomonsson was doing. Maybe he had remembered something that would be of help.

He walked out into the field. The fire-blackened ground stood out sharply against the surrounding yellow crops. Nyberg was kneeling in the mud. In the distance he saw two other technicians who seemed to be searching along the edges of the burned area. Nyberg nodded curtly to Wallander. The sweat was running down his face.

“How’s it going?” asked Wallander. “Have you found anything?”

“She must have had a lot of petrol with her,” said Nyberg, getting up. “We found five half-melted containers. They were apparently empty when the fire broke out. If you draw a line through the spots where we found them, you can see that she had surrounded herself.”

“What do you mean?” Wallander asked.

Nyberg threw out one arm in a sweeping gesture.

“I mean that she built a fortress around herself. She poured petrol in a wide circle. It was a moat, and there was no way into her fortress. She was standing right in the middle, with the last container, which she had saved for herself. Maybe she was hysterical and depressed. Maybe she was mad or seriously ill. I don’t know. But that’s what she did. She knew full well what she was going to do.”

“Can you tell me anything about how she got here?”

“I’ve sent for a dog unit,” said Nyberg. “But they probably won’t be able to pick up her trail. The smell of petrol has permeated the ground. The dogs will just be confused. We haven’t found a bicycle. The tractor paths that lead down towards the E65 didn’t have anything either. She could have landed in this field by parachute.”

Nyberg took a roll of toilet paper out of one of his bags of equipment and wiped the sweat from his face.

“What do the doctors say?” he asked.

“Nothing yet,” said Wallander. “I think they’ve got a difficult job ahead of them.”

“Why would anyone do something like this?” Nyberg asked. “Could someone really have such strong reasons for dying that she’d end her life by torturing herself as much as she possibly could?”

“I’ve asked myself the same question,” said Wallander.

Nyberg shook his head.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

Wallander had no answer.

He went back to the car and called the station. Ebba answered. To avoid her concern, he pretended to be in a hurry.

“I’m going to see the farmer,” he said. “I’ll be in this afternoon.”

He drove back to Ystad. In the cafeteria at the hospital he had some coffee and a sandwich. Then he looked for the ward where Salomonsson was. He stopped a nurse, introduced himself, and stated his business. She gave him a quizzical look.

“Edvin Salomonsson?”

“I don’t remember whether his name was Edvin,” Wallander said. “Did he come in last night after the fire outside Marsvinsholm?”

The nurse nodded.

“I’d like to speak with him,” said Wallander. “If he’s not too sick, that is.”

“He’s not sick,” replied the nurse. “He’s dead.”

Wallander gave her an astonished look.

“Dead?”

“He died this morning in his sleep. Apparently it was a heart attack. It would probably be best if you spoke to one of the doctors.”

“I just came by to see how he was doing,” said Wallander. “Now I have my answer.”

He left the hospital and walked out into the bright sunshine. He had no idea what to do next.

CHAPTER 5

Wallander drove home knowing that he must sleep if he were ever going to be able to think clearly again. No-one could be blamed for the old farmer’s death. The person who might have been held responsible, the one who had set fire to his rape field, was already dead herself. It was the events themselves, the fact that any of this had happened, that made him feel sick at heart. He unplugged the phone and lay down on the sofa in the living-room with a flannel over his eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come. After half an hour he gave up. He plugged in the telephone, lifted the receiver, and dialled Linda’s number in Stockholm. On a sheet of paper by the phone he had a long list of numbers, each crossed out. Linda moved often, and her number was forever changing. He let it ring a long time. Then he dialled his sister’s number. She answered almost at once. They didn’t speak very often, and hardly ever about anything but their father. Sometimes Wallander thought that their contact would cease altogether when their father died.

They exchanged the usual pleasantries, without really being interested in the answers.

“You called,” Wallander said.

“I’m worried about Dad,” she said.

“Has something happened? Is he sick?”

“I don’t know. When did you visit him last?”

Wallander tried to remember.

“About a week ago,” he said, feeling guilty.

“Can you really not manage to see him more often?”

“I’m working almost round the clock. The department is hopelessly understaffed. I visit him as often as I can.”

“I talked to Gertrud yesterday,” she went on, without commenting on what Wallander had said. “I thought she gave an evasive answer when I asked how Dad was doing.”

“Why would she?” said Wallander, surprised.

“I have no idea. That’s why I’m calling.”

“He was the same as always,” Wallander said. “Cross that I was in a hurry and couldn’t stay very long. But the whole time I was there he sat painting his picture and made out as though he didn’t have time to talk to me. Gertrud was happy, as usual. I have to admit I don’t understand how she puts up with him.”

“Gertrud likes him,” she said. “It’s a question of love. Then you can put up with a lot.”

Wallander wanted to end the conversation as quickly as possible. As she got older, his sister reminded him more and more of their mother. Wallander had never had a very happy relationship with his mother. When he was growing up it was as though the family had been divided into two camps – his sister and his mother against him and his father. Wallander had been very close to his father until his late teens, when he decided to become a policeman. Then a rift had developed. His father had never accepted Wallander’s decision, but he couldn’t explain to his son why he was so opposed to this career, or what he wanted him to do instead. After Wallander finished his training and started on the beat in Malmö, the rift had widened to a chasm. Some years later his mother was stricken with cancer. She was diagnosed at New Year and died in May. His sister Kristina left the house the same summer and moved to Stockholm, where she got a job in a company then known as L. M. Ericsson. She married, divorced, and married again. Wallander had met her first husband once, but he had no idea what her present husband even looked like. He knew that Linda had visited their home in Kärrtorp a few times, but he got the impression that the visits were never very successful. Wallander knew that the rift from their childhood and teenage years was still there, and that the day their father died it would widen for good.

“I’m going to see him tonight,” said Wallander, thinking about the pile of dirty laundry on his floor.

“I’d appreciate it if you called me,” she said.

Wallander promised he would. Then he called Riga. When the phone was picked up he thought it was Baiba at first. Then he realised that it was her housekeeper, who spoke nothing but Latvian. He hung up quickly. At the same moment his phone rang and he jumped.

He picked up the phone and heard Martinsson’s voice.

“I hope I’m not bothering you,” said Martinsson.

“I just stopped by to change my shirt,” said Wallander, wondering why he always felt it necessary to excuse himself for being at home. “Has something happened?”

“A few calls have come in about missing persons,” said Martinsson. “Ann-Britt is busy going through them.”

“I was thinking more of what you had come up with on the computer.”

“The mainframe has been down all morning,” Martinsson replied glumly. “I called Stockholm a while ago. Somebody there thought it might be up and running again in an hour, but he wasn’t sure.”

“We’re not chasing crooks,” Wallander said. “We can wait.”

“A doctor called from Malmö,” Martinsson continued. “A woman. Her name was Malmström. I promised her you’d call.”

“Why couldn’t she talk to you?”

“She wanted to talk to
you
. I suppose it’s because you were the last one to see the woman alive.”

Wallander wrote down the number. “I was out there today,” he said. “Nyberg was on his knees in the filth, sweating. He was waiting for a police dog.”

“He’s like a dog himself,” said Martinsson, not disguising his dislike of Nyberg.

“He can be grumpy,” Wallander protested. “But he knows his stuff.”

He was about to hang up when he remembered Salomonsson.

“The farmer died,” he said.

“Who?”

“The man whose kitchen we were drinking coffee in last night. He had a heart attack.”

After he hung up, Wallander went to the kitchen and drank some water. For a long time he sat at the kitchen table doing nothing. Eventually he called Malmö. He had to wait while the doctor named Malmström was called to the phone. From her voice he could hear that she was very young. Wallander introduced himself and apologised for the delay in returning her call.

“Has any new information come to light that indicates that a crime was committed?” she asked.

“No.”

“In that case we won’t have to do an autopsy,” she replied. “That will make it easier. She burned herself to death using petrol – leaded.”

Wallander felt that he was about to be sick. He imagined her blackened body, as if it were lying right next to the woman he was speaking to.

“We don’t know who she was,” he said. “We need to know as much as possible about her in order to be able to give a clear description.”

“It’s always hard with a burned body,” she said, without emotion. “All the skin is burned away. The dental examination isn’t ready yet. But she had good teeth. No fillings. She was 163 centimetres tall. She had never broken a bone.”

“I need her age,” said Wallander. “That’s almost the most important thing.”

“That’ll take a few more days. We can base it on her teeth.”

“What would you guess?”

“I’d rather not.”

“I saw her from 20 metres away,” said Wallander. “I think she was about 17. Am I wrong?”

The female doctor thought a moment before she replied.

“I don’t like to guess,” she said at last. “But I think she was younger.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I’ll tell you when I know. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out she was only 15.”

“Could a 15-year-old really kill herself in that way?” Wallander asked. “I have a hard time believing that.”

“Last week I put together the pieces of a seven-year-old girl who blew herself up,” replied the doctor. “She had planned it very carefully. She made certain that no-one else would be hurt. Since she could barely write, she left behind a drawing as her farewell letter. And recently I heard of a four-year-old who tried to poke his own eyes out because he was afraid of his father.”

“That just isn’t possible,” said Wallander. “Not here in Sweden.”

“It was here, all right,” she said. “In Sweden. In the centre of the universe. In the middle of summer.”

Wallander’s eyes filled with tears.

“As we don’t know who she was, we’ll keep her here,” the doctor said.

“I have a question,” said Wallander. “Is it incredibly painful to burn to death?”

“People have known that through the ages,” she replied. “That’s why they used fire as one of the worst punishments or tortures that someone could be subjected to. They burned Joan of Arc, they burned witches. In every era people have been tortured by fire. The pain is beyond imagining. And, you don’t lose consciousness as fast as you would hope. There’s an instinct to run from the flames that’s stronger than the desire to escape the pain. That’s why your mind forces you not to pass out. Then you reach a limit. For a while the burned nerves become numbed. There are examples of people with 90 per cent of their body burned who for a brief time felt uninjured. But when the numbness wears off . . .”

She didn’t finish her sentence.

“She burned like a flare,” said Wallander.

“The best thing you can do is stop thinking about it,” she said. “Death can actually be a liberator. No matter how reluctant we are to accept that.”

When the conversation was over, Wallander got up, grabbed his jacket, and left the flat. The wind had started blowing outside. Cloud cover had moved in from the north. On the way to the station he pulled in to the M.O.T. garage and made an appointment. When he arrived at the station, he stopped at the reception desk. Ebba had recently slipped and broken her hand. He asked how she was feeling.

“It reminds me that I’m getting old,” she said.

“You’ll never get old,” said Wallander.

“That’s a nice thing to say,” she said. “But it’s not true.”

On the way to his office Wallander stopped to see Martinsson, who was sitting in front of his computer.

“They got it up and running 20 minutes ago,” he said. “I’m just checking the description to see whether there are any missing persons who fit.”

“Add that she was 163 centimetres tall,” said Wallander. “And that she was between 15 and 17 years old.”

Martinsson gave him a baffled look.

“Only 15? That can’t be possible, can it?”

“I wish it weren’t true,” said Wallander. “But for now we have to consider it a possibility. How’s it going with the initials?”

“I haven’t got that far yet,” said Martinsson. “But I was planning to stay late this evening.”

“We’re trying to make an identification,” said Wallander. “We’re not searching for a fugitive.”

“There’s no-one at home tonight anyway,” said Martinsson. “I don’t like going back to an empty house.”

Wallander left Martinsson and looked in on Höglund’s room, which was empty. He went back down the hall to the operations centre, where the emergency alerts and phone calls were received. Höglund was sitting at a table with a senior officer, going through a pile of papers.

“Any leads?” he asked.

“We’ve got a couple of tip-offs we have to look into more closely,” she said. “One is a girl from Tomelilla Folk College who’s been missing for two days.”

“Our girl was 163 centimetres tall,” said Wallander. “She had perfect teeth. She was between 15 and 17 years old.”

“That young?” she asked in amazement.

“Yep,” said Wallander. “That young.”

“Then it’s not the girl from Tomelilla, anyway,” said Höglund, putting down the paper in her hand. “She’s 23 and tall.”

She searched through the stack of papers for a moment.

“Here’s another one,” she said. “A 16-year-old girl named Mari Lippmansson. She lives here in Ystad and works in a bakery. She’s been missing from her job for three days. It was the baker who called. He was furious. Her parents evidently don’t care about her at all.”

“Take a look at her,” Wallander said encouragingly. But he knew she wasn’t the one.

He got a cup of coffee and went to his room. The folder on the car thefts was still lying on the floor. He’d better turn the case over to Svedberg now. He hoped no serious crimes would be committed before he started his holiday.

Later that afternoon they met in the conference room. Nyberg was back from the farm, where he had finished his search. It was a short meeting. Hansson had excused himself because he had to read an urgent memo from national headquarters.

“Let’s be brief,” said Wallander. “Tomorrow we’ll go over all the cases that can’t wait.”

He turned to Nyberg, sitting at the end of the table.

“How’d it go with the dog?” he asked.

“He didn’t find a thing,” Nyberg replied. “If there was ever anything to give him a scent, it was covered up by the odour of petrol.”

Wallander thought for a moment.

“You found five melted petrol containers,” he said. “That means that she must have come to Salomonsson’s field in some sort of vehicle. She couldn’t have carried all that petrol by herself. Unless she walked there several times. There’s one more possibility, of course. That she didn’t come alone. But that doesn’t seem reasonable, to say the least. Who would help a young girl commit suicide?”

“We could try to trace the petrol containers,” said Nyberg dubiously. “But is it really necessary?”