The White Lioness (24 page)

He suddenly felt uneasy. It was as if he expected something to happen any minute. Something he'd better start worrying about right now. Louise Akerblom's smiling face flashed across his mind's eye. What had she stumbled upon? he wondered. Had she time to realise she was going to die?

Steps led down from ground level to a black-painted iron door. Above it was a filthy red neon sign. Several of the letters had gone out. Wallander was moved to wonder why he had chosen to look at the place into which somebody had thrown tear gas grenades a couple of days ago. But he was to such an extent groping in the dark, he couldn't afford not to follow up every slightest chance of finding a black man with a bandaged hand. He went down the stairs, pushed open the door, and entered a dark room where at first he had difficulty seeing anything at all. He could barely hear the music coming from a loudspeaker attached to the ceiling. The room was full of smoke, and he thought at first he was the only one there. Then he made out some shadows in a corner with the whites of their eyes gleaming, and a bar counter slightly more illuminated than the rest of the room. When he was used to the light, he went to the bar and ordered a beer.

The barman had a shaven head. "We can manage on our own, thank you," he said. Wallander did not know what he was talking about.

"We can supply all the security cover we need ourselves," the man said.

"How do you know I'm a policeman?" he asked, wishing he hadn't even as the words crossed his lips.

"Trade secret," the barman said.

Wallander was starting to get angry. The man's arrogant self-assurance irritated him. "I have a few questions," he said. "Since you already know I'm a police officer, I don't need to show you my ID."

"I rarely answer questions," the barman said.

"You will this time," Wallander said. "God help you if you don't."

The man stared at Wallander in astonishment. "I might," he said.

"You get a lot of Africans in here," Wallander said.

"They just love this joint."

"I'm looking for a black man about 30, and there's something very special about him."

"Such as?"

"He's missing the index finger of his left hand."

Wallander did not expect the reaction he got. The barman burst out laughing.

"What's so funny about that?"

"You're the second one in two nights," the barman said. "There was a guy here last night wondering if I'd seen an African with his left hand in a bandage."

Wallander thought for a moment before going on. "What did you tell him?"

"No."

"No?"

"I ain't seen nobody missing a finger."

"Who was asking?"

"Never seen him before," he said, starting to wipe a glass.

Wallander suspected the man was lying. "I'll ask you one more time," he said. "But only once."

"I have nothing more to say."

"Who was doing the asking?"

"Like I said. No idea."

"Did he speak Swedish?"

"Sort of."

"What do you mean by that?"

"That he didn't sound like you and me."

Now we're getting somewhere, thought Wallander. "What did he look like?"

"Don't remember."

"There'll be hell to pay if you don't give me a straight answer."

"He looked kinda ordinary. Black jacket. Blond hair."

Wallander had the feeling the man was scared. "Nobody can hear us," he said. "I promise you I'll never repeat what you tell me."

"His name might have been Konovalenko," the man said. "The beer's on the house if you get out right now."

"Konovalenko?" Wallander said. "Are you sure of that?"

"How the hell can you be sure of anything in this world?" the barman said. "But one thing I am absolutely sure of: someone had hit him on the side of the head with a baseball bat." And that was as much as he would say.

Wallander left and managed to flag down a taxi right away. He sank into the back seat, and gave the name of his hotel.

When he got to his room, he reached for the phone to call Linda. Then he let it be. He would call her early tomorrow. He lay in bed for a long time, wide awake. Konovalenko. A name. Would it put him on the right track? He turned over in his mind everything that had happened since the morning Robert Akerblom first came to his office. It was dawn before he fell asleep.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When Wallander arrived at the police station the next morning, he was told Loven was already in a meeting with the team investigating Tengblad's killer. He got himself coffee, went to Loven's office, and called Ystad.

After a brief pause Martinsson answered. "What's new?" he said.

"I'm focusing on a man who might be Russian and whose name could be Konovalenko," Wallander said.

"I hope you haven't found yourself another Balt," Martinsson said.

"We don't know if Konovalenko really is his name," Wallander said. "Or indeed if he is Russian. He may be Swedish."

"Alfred Olsson told us that the man who rented the house had a foreign accent," Martinsson said.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Wallander said. "But I doubt whether that was Konovalenko."

"Why so?"

"Just a hunch. The investigation is riddled with hunches. I don't like it at all. He also said that the man who rented the room was very fat. That doesn't fit with what we know of the man who shot Tengblad."

"Where does this African with the missing finger fit in?"

Wallander gave him a rapid rundown on his visit to the Aurora.

"You could be onto something," Martinsson said. "You'll be staying on in Stockholm?"

"I have to. One more day. All quiet in Ystad?"

"Akerblom has asked through Pastor Tureson when he can bury his wife."

"There's nothing to stop him, is there?"

"Bjork said I should talk to you."

"OK, now you have. What's the weather like?"

"As it should be."

"Meaning what?"

"It's April. It changes by the minute."

"Could you call my father again and tell him I'm still in Stockholm?"

"The last time he invited me to go and see him, but I just didn't have time."

"Can you do it?"

"Right away."

Wallander then dialled his daughter's number. He could tell that she was half asleep when she answered.

"You were supposed to call last night," she said.

"I had to work until very late," Wallander said.

"I can see you this morning."

"I'm afraid that's not possible. I'm going to be extremely busy for the next few hours."

"Maybe you'd rather not see me at all?"

"You know that's not true. I'll call you later."

Wallander hung up abruptly as Loven stomped into the office. He knew he had offended his daughter. Why didn't he want Loven to hear he was talking with Linda? He didn't know himself.

"You look like shit," Loven said. "Did you get any sleep at all last night?"

"Maybe I slept too long," Wallander said evasively. "That does you in too. How's it going?"

"No breakthrough, but we're getting there."

"I have a question," Wallander said, deciding he would not yet disclose his visit to the Aurora. "They've had an anonymous call in Ystad to say that a Russian whose name could be Konovalenko might be mixed up in this police murder."

Loven frowned. "Is that something we should take seriously?"

"The informant apparently sounded as though he knew what he was talking about."

Loven thought for a while. "It's true that we have a lot of trouble with Russian criminal elements who are settling in Sweden. And it's likely to get worse over the next few years, and for that reason we have been doing some digging around the problem." He ferreted among some files in a bookcase before he found the one he was looking for. "We have a guy called Rykoff," he said. "Vladimir Rykoff. He lives out at Hallunda. If there's anybody by the name of Konovalenko in this town, he ought to know."

"Why?"

"He's said to be extremely well informed about what goes on in that particular circle of immigrants. We could drive out and say hello." Loven handed Wallander the file. "Read through this," he said. "It'll tell you as much as we know."

"I can go and see him myself," Wallander said. "We don't both need to go."

Loven shrugged. "I'd be glad not to go," he said. "Heaven knows, we have plenty more leads to follow up in the Tengblad case, even if there is no sign yet of a crucial lead. By the way, forensic thinks that your woman in Skane was shot by the same weapon. They can't be 100% certain, of course, but more than likely it was the same weapon. Then again, we can't know if it was the same killer."

It was nearly 1 p.m. by the time Wallander had found his way to Hallunda. He stopped at a motel on the way and had lunch while reading through the material Loven had given him about Vladimir Rykoff. When he located the apartment building, he paused for a while and studied the neighbourhood. It struck him that hardly any of the people in the streets were speaking Swedish.

This is where the future is, he thought. A kid growing up here, and maybe becoming a policeman, will have an experience of life very different from my own.

He found the name Rykoff in the entranceway and went up in the lift. A woman opened the door. Wallander could see at once that she was on her guard even before he had said who he was. He showed her his police ID.

"Rykoff," he said. "I have a few questions for him."

"What about?" She was foreign, probably from the Eastern bloc.

"That's a matter for me and him."

"He's my husband."

"Is he at home?"

"I'll get him for you."

As the woman disappeared through a door that he assumed led into the bedroom, he took a look around. The apartment was expensively furnished. Even so, he had the feeling everything was temporary. As if whoever lived there was ready to pack up at a moment's notice and move on.

The door opened and Vladimir Rykoff came into the living room. He was wearing a dressing gown that looked pretty expensive to Wallander. His hair was a mess. Wallander assumed he had been asleep.

Rykoff too was on his guard. Wallander realised that he was on the brink of a break in the investigation that had started almost two weeks ago when Robert Akerblom came to his office and reported his wife missing. An investigation that had become bogged down in a maze of confusing tracks, criss-crossing without providing any shape he could come to grips with.

He'd had a similar feeling in previous investigations. The sense of being on the verge of a breakthrough, and often he had turned out to be right.

"I apologise for disturbing you," he said, "but I have some questions I'd like to ask you."

"What about?"

Rykoff had not invited him to sit down. His tone was brusque and dismissive. Wallander decided to take the bull by the horns. He settled in a chair and gestured to Rykoff and his wife to do the same.

"According to my information you came here as an Iranian refugee," Wallander said. "You were granted Swedish citizenship in the 1970s. The name Vladimir Rykoff doesn't sound especially Iranian."

"My name is my own business."

Wallander watched Rykoff's face intently. "Of course," he said. "But in certain circumstances the case for granting citizenship in this country can be re-examined. If, for example, it turns out that it was based on false information."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Not at all. What is your work?"

"I run a travel agency."

"Name?"

"Rykoff's Travel Service."

"Which countries do you organise trips to?"

"It varies."

"Give me some examples."

"Poland."

"And?"

"Czechoslovakia."

"Go on!"

"Shit! What is this all about?"

"Your agency is registered as an independent business with the local authority, but according to the tax office you have made no declarations for the last two years. As I naturally assume that you are not trying to evade taxes, I have to conclude that your business hasn't been operating these last years."

Rykoff stared at him, dumbstruck.

"We're living on the profits from the good years," said his wife all of a sudden. "There's no law that says you have to keep working every year."

"Of course there isn't," said Wallander. "Most people do, all the same, for whatever reason."

The woman lit a cigarette. She was nervous. Her husband stared at her in disapproval, at which very deliberately she got up to open a window. It was stuck, and Wallander was about to help her when she finally managed it.

"I have a lawyer who takes care of everything concerning the travel agency," Rykoff said. He was beginning to look agitated. Wallander wondered if that was due to anger or to anxiety.

"Let's be frank," Wallander said. "You have no more roots in Iran than I have. You come from Russia. Probably it would be impossible to strip you of Swedish citizenship, and in any case, that's not why I'm here. I am here because you are Russian, Rykoff, and you know what's going on in the Russian community here - not least among your fellow countrymen who are on the wrong side of the law. As you know, a policeman was shot here in Stockholm. That's the stupidest thing a man can do. We get angry in a very special way, if you know what I mean."

Rykoff seemed to have recovered his composure, but Wallander could see that the wife was still uneasy, although she was trying to hide it. She kept looking at the wall behind him.

He had seen a clock hanging there. Something's supposed to happen, he thought. And they don't want me here when it does.

"I'm looking for a man called Konovalenko," Wallander said calmly. "Do you know anyone of that name?"

"No," Rykoff said. "I know no-one of that name."

At that moment, three things became clear to Wallander. First, that Konovalenko existed. Second, that Rykoff knew exactly who he was. And third, that he was not at all happy that the police should be asking after him.

Wallander had glanced at Rykoff's wife as he put the question. The sudden twitch in her eye had given him the answer.

"Are you so sure? I thought Konovalenko was quite a common name."

"I don't know any Konovalenko." He turned to his wife. "We don't know anybody of that name, do we?"

She shook her head, saying nothing.

Oh yes, Wallander thought. You know Konovalenko all right, and we're going to get to him through you.

"That's a pity," Wallander said.

Rykoff stared at him in surprise. "Was that all you wanted to know?"

"For the time being, yes," Wallander said. "But I've no doubt you'll be hearing from us again. We won't give up until we've nailed whoever shot that policeman."

"I know nothing about that," Rykoff said. "I think like everybody else, of course, it's very sad when a young policeman gets killed."

"Indeed it is," Wallander said, getting to his feet. "There was just one other thing: you might have read in the newspapers about a woman who was murdered in the south of Sweden a couple of weeks ago? Maybe you saw something about it on TV. We believe that this Konovalenko was involved in that, too."

Wallander noticed something about Rykoff that did not register right away.

Then he got it: the man was totally expressionless. It was the question he had been expecting. Wallander started prowling around the room to conceal his reaction as his pulse quickened.

"Do you mind if I take a look around?" he said.

"As you wish," Rykoff said. "Tania, open all the doors for our visitor."

Wallander looked into every room. But his attention was focused on Rykoff. Loven did not know how right he was. We have a lead in this apartment in Hallunda.

He was surprised at how calm he felt. He ought to have left the apartment right away, called Loven, and suggested a full-scale search. The Rykoffs would have been subjected to interrogation, and the police would not have relaxed until they had admitted the existence of Konovalenko, and with luck also revealed where he could be found.

It was when he looked into the small room he assumed was for visitors that something seemed to catch his attention, although he could not say what it was. There was nothing striking about the room. A bed, a desk, a Windsor-style chair, and blue curtains. A few ornaments and books in a bookcase. Wallander did his best to identify what it was he had seen without having seen it. He memorised the details, then turned on his heel.

"Time to leave you in peace," he said.

"We have nothing to hide from the police," Rykoff said.

"Then you have nothing to worry about," Wallander said.

He drove back to the centre. Now we'll pounce, he thought. I'll tell Loven and his boys this remarkable story, and we'll induce Rykoff or his wife to spill the beans.

But now we will get them, he was sure of it.

Konovalenko had very nearly missed Tania's signal. When he parked in front of the apartment block in Hallunda, he glanced up at the facade as usual. They had agreed that Tania would leave a window open if it was dangerous for any reason for him to come up. The window was shut. As he was on the way to the lift, he remembered the carrier bag with the two bottles of vodka in the car. He went back to fetch them, and from pure habit looked up again at the facade. The window was open. He got back into the car and waited.