The Fifth Woman (38 page)

They reassigned various tasks so that Hamrén and the two detectives from Malmö could get involved in the investigation straight away. At 10.45 a.m., Wallander decided that it was time to adjourn. A phone rang. Martinsson, sitting closest, picked it up. Wallander was thinking that maybe he’d have time to go out to Löderup and see Gertrud later that afternoon after all. Martinsson raised his hand. Everyone stopped talking. Martinsson glanced at Wallander. Not again, he thought. We can’t handle this.

Martinsson hung up.

“A body has been found in Krageholm Lake,” Martinsson said.

Wallander’s first thought was that this didn’t have to mean a third murder. Drowning accidents were common enough.

“Where?” he asked.

“There’s a small camping ground on the eastern shore. The body was just off the end of a jetty.”

Wallander could tell that his feeling of relief was premature.

“The body of a man. Inside a sack,” he said.

It has happened again, Wallander thought. The knot in his stomach tightened.

“Who was that on the phone?” Svedberg asked.

“A camper. He was calling on his mobile phone. He was upset. It sounded like he was throwing up in my ear.”

“Nobody would be camping now, would they?” Svedberg asked.

“There are trailers for rent there all year round,” Hansson said. “I know where it is.”

Wallander felt suddenly incapable of dealing with the situation. Maybe Höglund felt the same way. She helped him out by getting to her feet.

“I guess we’d better go,” she said.

“Yes,” Wallander said. “We’d probably better leave right now.”

Since Hansson knew where they were going, Wallander got into his car. The others followed. Hansson drove recklessly and fast. Wallander braked with his feet. The car phone rang. It was Per Åkeson wanting to talk to Wallander.

“What’s this I hear?” he asked. “Is this another one?”

“It’s too early to tell. But it may be so. If it was just a body in the water, it might have been a drowning accident or a suicide, but a body in a sack is a murder.”

“God damn it to hell,” Åkeson said.

“You might say that.”

“Keep me posted. Where are you?”

“On our way to Krageholm Lake. We should be there in about 20 minutes.”

Wallander hung up. It occurred to him that they were headed towards the place where they had found the suitcase. Hansson seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“The lake is halfway between Lödinge and Marsvinsholm,” he said. “It’s no great distance.”

Wallander grabbed the phone and dialled Martinsson’s number. His car was right behind them.

“What else did the man who called say? What’s his name?”

“I don’t think I got his name, but he had a Skåne accent.”

“A body in a sack. How did he know there was a body in the sack? Did he open it?”

“There was a foot with a man’s shoe sticking out.”

Even though it was a bad connection, Wallander could hear Martinsson’s distress. He hung up.

They reached Sövestad and turned left. Wallander thought about Gösta Runfeldt’s client. Everywhere there were connections to the events. If there was a geographical centre, then Sövestad was it.

The lake was visible through the trees. Wallander tried to prepare himself for what awaited them. As they drove down towards the camping ground, a man came running towards them. Wallander climbed out of the car before Hansson had even stopped.

“Down there,” the man stammered.

Wallander walked slowly down the slope that led to the water. Even at this distance he could make out something in the water, to one side of the jetty. Martinsson came up beside him but stopped at the shore. The others waited in the background. Wallander walked cautiously out onto the jetty. It wobbled under his weight. The water was brown and looked cold. He shivered.

The sack was only partially visible above the water’s surface. A foot was indeed sticking out. The shoe was brown and had laces. White skin could be seen through a hole in the trouser leg.

Wallander looked back and motioned to Nyberg to join him. Hansson was talking to the man. Martinsson was waiting further up, and Höglund stood off to one side. It looked like a photograph, Wallander thought. Reality frozen, suspended. Nothing more would ever happen.

The mood was broken by Nyberg stepping onto the jetty. Reality returned. Wallander squatted down and Nyberg did the same.

“A sack made of jute,” Nyberg said. “They’re usually strong. But this one has a hole in it. It must be old.”

Wallander wished Nyberg were right, but he knew he wasn’t. The hole in the sack was new. It looked as though the man had kicked his way through it. The fibres had been pushed out and then ripped apart. Wallander knew what this meant. The man had been alive when he was put in the sack and thrown into the lake. Wallander took a deep breath. He felt sick and dizzy.

Nyberg gave him an inquiring look, but didn’t say anything. He waited. Wallander kept on taking deep breaths, one after another.

“He kicked a hole in the sack,” Wallander said when he felt able to speak. “He was alive when he was thrown into the lake.”

“An execution?” Nyberg asked. “A war between two crime gangs?”

“We could hope for that,” Wallander said. “But I don’t think so.”

“The same killer?”

“It looks like it.”

Wallander got to his feet with difficulty. His knees were stiff. He walked back to the shore. Nyberg remained out on the jetty. The forensic technicians had just arrived. Wallander went over to Höglund. She was standing with Chief Holgersson. The others followed. Finally they were all assembled. The man who had discovered the sack was sitting nearby.

“It could be the same killer,” Wallander said. “If that’s the case, then this time he’s drowned a man in a sack.”

Disgust passed like a ripple through the team.

“We have to stop this madman,” Lisa Holgersson said. “What’s become of this country?”

“A pungee pit,” Wallander said. “A man tied to a tree and strangled. And now a man tied up in a sack and drowned.”

“Do you still think a woman could have done something like this?” Hansson asked aggressively.

Wallander asked himself the same question. What did he really think? In a matter of a few seconds all the events passed through his mind.

“I don’t want to believe it, but yes a woman could have done this, or at least be involved.”

He looked at Hansson.

“You’re asking the wrong question,” he said. “It’s not about what I think.”

Wallander went back to the shore of the lake. A solitary swan was on its way towards the jetty. It glided soundlessly across the surface of the dark water. Wallander watched it for a long time. Then he zipped up his jacket and went to Nyberg, who was already starting his work out on the jetty.

Nyberg slowly slit open the sack. Wallander went onto the jetty to look at the dead man’s face. The doctor, who had just arrived, went with him.

He didn’t recognise the dead man, and of course he hadn’t expected to. Wallander guessed that he must have been between 40 and 50 years old.

He looked at the body as it was pulled clear of the sack. He looked for less than a minute; he simply couldn’t stand more. He felt dizzy the whole time.

Nyberg was going through the man’s pockets.

“He’s wearing an expensive suit,” Nyberg said. “His shoes aren’t cheap either.”

They didn’t find anything in his pockets. Someone had taken the trouble to remove his identity card, and yet the killer must have assumed that the body would very soon be discovered in Krageholm Lake.

The body had now been pulled free and was on a plastic sheet. Nyberg signalled to Wallander, who had stepped aside.

“This was carefully calculated,” he said. “You’d almost think the murderer knew about weight distribution and water resistance.”

“What do you mean?” Wallander asked.

Nyberg pointed to several thick seams running along the inside of the sack.

“The sack has weights sewn into it that ensured two things. One, the weights were light enough so that with the man’s body in it the sack wouldn’t sink to the bottom. Two, the sack would lie with only a narrow air pocket above the water’s surface. Since it was all so carefully calculated, the person who prepared the sack must have known the man’s weight. At least approximately. With a margin of error of maybe four to five kilos.”

Wallander forced himself to think this over, even though all thoughts of how the man had died made him feel sick.

“So the narrow air pocket guaranteed that the man would actually drown?”

“I’m not a doctor,” Nyberg said. “But it’s probable that this man was still alive when the sack was put into the water. So he was murdered.”

The doctor, who was kneeling down to examine the body, had been listening to their conversation. He stood up and came over to them. The jetty swayed under their weight.

“It’s too early to be certain,” he said. “But we have to presume that he drowned.”

“Not just that he drowned,” Wallander said. “But that somebody drowned him.”

“The police are the ones who will have to determine whether it was an accident or a murder,” the doctor said. “I can only speak about what happened to his body.”

“No external marks? No contusions? Or wounds?”

“We’ll need to get his clothes off to be able to answer that question. But I can’t see anything on the parts of his body that are visible. The autopsy may turn up other results.”

Wallander nodded. “I’d like to know as soon as possible if you find any signs of violence.”

The doctor went back to his work. Even though Wallander had met him several times before, he still couldn’t remember his name. Wallander went and gathered his colleagues on the shore. Hansson had just finished talking to the man who had discovered the sack.

“We didn’t find any identification,” Wallander began. “We have to find out who he is. That’s the most important thing right now. Until then we can’t do anything. We’ll start by going through the missing-persons files.”

“There’s a good chance that he hasn’t been missed yet,” Hansson said. “Nils Göransson, the man who found him, claims he was here as late as yesterday afternoon. He does shift work at a machine shop in Svedala and usually takes a walk out here because he has trouble sleeping. He was here yesterday. He always walks out on the jetty. And there wasn’t any sack. So it must have been thrown into the water during the night.”

“Or this morning,” Wallander said. “When did Göransson get here?”

Hansson checked his notes.

“At 8.15. He finished his shift at around 7 a.m. and drove here, stopping on the way for breakfast.”

“So not much time has passed,” Wallander said. “That may give us certain advantages. The difficulty is going to be to find out who he is.”

“The sack could have been put into the lake somewhere else,” Nyberg said.

Wallander shook his head.

“He hasn’t been in the water long. And there’s no current here to speak of.”

Martinsson kicked at the sand restlessly, as if he were cold.

“Does it really have to be the same man?” he asked. “I think this seems different.”

Wallander was as sure about this as he could possibly be.

“No. It’s the same killer. We’d better assume that it is, anyway.”

He sent them off. There was nothing more for them to do out there on the shore of Krageholm Lake. The cars drove away. Wallander stood and gazed out at the water. The swan was gone. He looked at the men working on the jetty. At the ambulance, the police cars, the crime-scene tape. Everything about it suddenly gave him a sense of depthless unreality. He encountered nature surrounded by plastic tape stretched out to protect crime sites. Everywhere he went there were dead people. He could look at a swan on the water, but in the foreground lay a man who had just been pulled dead out of a sack.

His work was little more than a poorly paid test of endurance. He was being paid to endure this. The plastic tape wound through his life like a snake.

He went over to Nyberg, who was stretching his back.

“We’ve found a cigarette butt,” he said. “That’s all. At least out here on the jetty. We’ve already done a superficial examination of the sand for drag marks. There aren’t any. Whoever carried the sack was strong. Unless he lured the man out here and then stuffed him in the sack.”

Wallander shook his head.

“Let’s assume that the sack was carried,” he said. “Carried with its contents.”

“Do you think there’s any reason to dredge the lake?”

“I don’t think so. The man was unconscious when he was brought here. There must have been a car involved. Then the sack was thrown in the water. The car drove off.”

“So we’ll wait on the dragging,” Nyberg said.

“Tell me what you see,” Wallander said.

Nyberg grimaced.

“It could be the same man,” he said. “The violence, the cruelty, they all look familiar. Even though he varies things.”

“Do you think a woman could have done this?”

“I say the same thing you do,” Nyberg replied. “I’d rather not believe that. But I can also tell you that she would have to be capable of carrying 80 kilos without difficulty. How many women can do that?”

“I don’t know any,” said Wallander. “But I’m sure they exist.”

Nyberg went back to his work. Wallander was about to leave the jetty when the swan caught his eye. He wished he had a piece of bread. It was pecking at something near the shore. Wallander took a step closer. The swan hissed and turned back towards the lake.

Wallander went over to one of the police cars and asked to be driven to Ystad. On the way back to town he tried to think. What he had feared most had now happened. The killer was not finished. They knew nothing about him. Was he at the end or the beginning of what he had decided to do? They didn’t even know whether he had motives for his premeditated acts or was just insane.