The White Lioness (26 page)

"They must have left last night," Wallander said. "Or at the crack of dawn."

"We'll get them," Loven said. "Within half an hour there'll be a country-wide APB."

He handed Wallander a pair of plastic gloves. "Maybe you'd like to do some dusting," he said.

While Loven was talking to headquarters in Kungsholmen on his mobile, Wallander went into the little spare room. He put on the gloves and gently lifted the ashtray from the shelf. It was the model of the one he had been staring at a few nights ago, when he had had a skinful of whisky. He handed the ashtray to a forensic technician.

"There are bound to be fingerprints on this," he said. "Probably not in our files, but Interpol might have them." He watched the technician put the ashtray into a plastic bag. Then he went to the living room and absentmindedly contemplated the surrounding buildings and the grey sky. He remembered vaguely that this was the window that Rykoff's wife had opened to let the smoke out. Without really being able to decide whether he was depressed or annoyed at the failure of the raid, he went into the big bedroom. He examined the wardrobes. Many clothes were still there. On the other hand, there was no sign of a suitcase. He sat on one of the beds and opened a drawer in the bedside table. It contained only a cotton reel and a half-empty pack of cigarettes. He noted that Mrs Rykoff smoked Gitanes.

Then he bent down and looked under the bed. Only a pair of dusty slippers. He walked round the bed and opened the drawer in the other bedside table. Nothing in it. On the table were an ashtray and half a bar of chocolate. The cigarette butts had filters. He picked one of them up. A Camel.

He thought back to the previous day. The woman had lit a cigarette. Rykoff had immediately displayed his annoyance, and she had opened a window that was stuck. It was not usual for smokers to complain about others with the same habit. Especially when the room was not smoky. Did Tania smoke several different brands? That was hardly likely. So, Rykoff smoked too.

Thinking hard, he went back into the living room. He opened the same window the woman had opened. It was still sticking. He tried the other windows and the glazed door leading to the balcony. They all opened without difficulty.

He stood in the middle of the floor, frowning. Why had she chosen to open a window that stuck? And why was that window so difficult to open?

It suddenly dawned on him: there was only one possible answer. The woman had opened the window that stuck because there was some pressing reason for that of all the windows to be opened. And it was sticking because it was so seldom opened.

He went again to the window. If you were in a car in the car park, this was the window that could be seen most clearly. The other living room window was next to the projecting balcony. The balcony door itself was completely invisible from the car park.

He thought through the sequence one more time.

He'd cracked it. Tania seemed nervous. She had been looking at the clock on the wall behind his head. Then she opened a window - the signal to somebody in the car park that they should not come up to the apartment.

Konovalenko, it must have been. He had been that close.

When Loven was done with his phone calls, Wallander took him to the window and passed on his conclusion.

"You may well be right," Loven said. "Unless it was somebody else."

"Indeed," Wallander said. "Unless it was somebody else."

They drove back to Kungsholmen while the technicians continued their work. They were barely inside Loven's office when the telephone rang. The technicians at Hallunda had found a tin containing the same kind of tear gas grenades that had been thrown into the disco.

"It's all falling into place," Loven said. "Unless it's just getting more confusing. I don't understand what they had against that disco. In any case, the whole country is looking out for them. And we'll make sure there's wide coverage on the television and in the newspapers."

"Which means I can go back to Ystad tomorrow," Wallander said. "When you pick up Konovalenko, maybe we can borrow him in Skane for a while."

"It's always infuriating when a raid draws a blank," Loven said. "I wonder where they have gone to earth."

The question remained unanswered. Wallander went back to his hotel and decided to pay a visit to the Aurora that evening. He had some more questions now for the bald man behind the bar.

The case was coming to a head.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The man waiting outside the President's office was alone in the dimly lit antechamber. It was midnight, and he had been there since 8p.m. A security guard occasionally looked in and sympathised at his being kept waiting. He was an old man in a dark suit. He had put all of the lights out just after 11 p.m., apart from the one lamp which was still burning.

Georg Scheepers had the feeling the man could easily have been employed at a funeral parlour. His discretion and unobtrusiveness, his humility bordering on servility, reminded him of the man who had taken care of his own mother's funeral. Perhaps President de Klerk is taking care of the last, dying remnants of the white South African empire? Maybe this is more of an outer office for a funeral parlour than the office of someone leading a great country into its future?

He had had plenty of opportunity to think during the hours he had been waiting. Now and then the security guard opened the door quietly and explained that the President was held up by some urgent business. At 10 p.m. he brought him a cup of lukewarm tea.

Scheepers did not know why he had been summoned to see the President that evening, Wednesday, May 6. The previous day, at lunchtime, he had been called by the secretary of his superior, Henrik Verwey. Scheepers was an assistant of the widely feared chief prosecutor in Johannesburg, whom he seldom saw save in court or at their Friday meetings. Unlike this evening, he had been shown straight into the prosecutor's office. Verwey indicated a chair, and went on signing documents that a secretary was setting before him. Then they were left alone.

Verwey was a man feared not only by criminals. He was nearly 60, almost two metres tall, and sturdily built. Occasionally, performing various feats, he demonstrated his formidable strength. Some years ago, when his offices were being refurbished, he had alone carried out a cupboard that later took four men to lift on to a truck. But it was not his physical strength that made him so fearsome. During his many years as prosecutor he had always pressed for the death penalty whenever there was the slightest possibility of achieving it. When the court accepted his plea - and it was often - and sentenced a criminal to be hanged, Verwey was nearly always a witness to the sentence being carried out. That had given him the reputation of being a brutal man. Then again, no-one could accuse him of racial discrimination in applying his principles. A white criminal had as much to fear as a black one.

Scheepers sat there worrying whether he had done something to invoke censure. Verwey was known for his ruthless criticism of his assistants, if he considered it justified.

But the conversation turned out to be utterly unlike anything he had anticipated. Verwey had left his desk and sat in an easy chair beside him.

"Late last night a man was murdered in his hospital bed at a private clinic in Hillbrow," he began. "His name was Pieter van Heerden, and he worked for NIS. According to the CID, the evidence points to robbery with violence. His wallet is missing. Nobody saw anyone go into the room, nobody saw the murderer leave. It looks as if whoever did it acted alone, and there is some reason to think that he pretended to be a messenger from a laboratory used by the Brenthurst Clinic. As none of the nurses heard anything, the murderer must have used a gun with a silencer. It looks as though the police's theory is correct. On the other hand, we must also bear in mind that van Heerden worked for the intelligence service.

"There's another aspect which complicates matters," Verwey said. "What I'm about to say is confidential. You must be absolutely clear about that."

"I understand," Scheepers said.

"Van Heerden was responsible for keeping President de Klerk informed about secret intelligence activities outside the usual channels. In other words, his was an exceptionally sensitive post." Verwey fell silent. Scheepers waited tensely for him to continue.

"President de Klerk called me a few hours ago," he said. "He wanted me to select one of my prosecutors to keep him directly informed about the police investigation. He seems to be persuaded that the murder had to do with van Heerden's intelligence work. He has no proof, but he rejects outright the notion that this was a run-of-the-mill robbery."

Verwey looked at Scheepers. "We cannot know what van Heerden was keeping the President informed about," he said.

Scheepers nodded his understanding.

"I have picked you as the man to keep President de Klerk informed," he said. "You will drop all other matters and concentrate on the investigation into the circumstances surrounding van Heerden's death. Is that understood?"

Scheepers nodded. He was trying to absorb the implications of what Verwey had said.

"You will be summoned regularly by the President. You will keep no minutes of those meetings. You will report only to the President and speak only otherwise to me. If anybody in your section wonders what you're doing, the official explanation is that I've asked you to look into the recruitment policy for prosecutors over the next ten-year period. Is that clear?"

"It is," Scheepers said.

Verwey took a plastic folder from his desk, and handed it to Scheepers. "This is all the material the police have. Van Heerden has been dead for twelve hours. The investigation is being led by an Inspector Borstlap. I suggest you go to Brenthurst Clinic and speak with him."

That concluded the business.

"Do a good job," Verwey said. "I've chosen you because you have proved to be a good prosecutor. I don't like to be disappointed."

Scheepers went back to his office and tried to come to terms with what was being required of him. Then he thought he should buy himself a new suit. He had none that would be suitable for a meeting with the President.

Now he was in the antechamber, wearing a dark blue suit that had been very expensive. His wife wondered at the extravagance. He said he was to take part in an inquiry chaired by the Minister of Justice.

It was 12.40 p.m. before the security guard eventually came to tell him that the President was ready to receive him. Scheepers jumped up from his chair, acutely nervous. He followed the guard, who marched up to a high double door, knocked, and opened it for him.

Sitting behind a desk, illuminated by a single lamp, was the balding man he was destined to meet. Scheepers stood hesitating in the doorway until the man at the desk beckoned him to approach and gestured to a chair. Scheepers noticed that the President had large bags under his eyes. He came straight to the point. His voice had a sting of impatience about it, as if he was always having to deal with people who did not understand anything.

"The death of van Heerden had nothing to do with robbery, I am sure of that," said de Klerk. "It is your job to ensure the police investigators are properly aware of the fact that it's his intelligence work that lies behind the murder. I want all his computer files investigated, all his index files and documents, everything he's worked on over the last year. Is that understood?"

"Yes," Scheepers said.

De Klerk leaned forward so that the desk lamp lit up his face, giving it an almost ghost-like appearance.

"Van Heerden suspected there was a conspiracy in play that was a threat to South Africa as a whole," he said. "A plot that might lead to complete chaos. His death must be seen in this context. You don't need to know more than that. Chief Prosecutor Verwey selected you to keep me informed because he considers you to be completely reliable and loyal to the government authorities. But I want to stress the confidential nature of this assignment. Revealing what I have just told you would be high treason. You are a prosecutor, so I do not need to tell you what the punishment is for that crime."

"No, sir," Scheepers said, shifting uncomfortably on his chair.

"Talk to one of my secretaries whenever you have anything to report, and they will make an appointment. Thank you for coming." De Klerk turned back to his papers. Scheepers stood up, bowed, and walked across the thick carpet to the double doors.

The guard accompanied him down the stairs. Another armed guard escorted him to the car park. His hands were sweaty as he slid behind the wheel of his car.

A conspiracy, he thought. A plot that would lead the country into chaos? Aren't we there already?

He opened the glove compartment and took out his pistol. He checked the magazine, released the safety catch, and placed it on the seat beside him.

Scheepers did not enjoy driving at night. Armed robbery and assault were constant threats, and the scale of brutality was increasing. He drove home through sleeping Pretoria, through the South African night. He had much to think about.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Days and nights had merged to form a vague whole from which he was no longer able to distinguish the parts. Mabasha did not know how long it was since he had left Konovalenko dead in the farmhouse in the south, yet the man had come back to life and shot at him when the disco filled with tear gas. He had killed Konovalenko with the bottle, he was sure of it. But despite the smarting in his eyes, he had recognised him through the clouds of smoke. Mabasha had made his escape from the premises by a back staircase full of people in a panic, kicking and screaming, desperate to flee the smoke. For a moment, he thought he was back in South Africa, where tear gas attacks on black townships were not uncommon, but he was in Stockholm and Konovalenko had risen from the dead and was now pursuing him to kill him.

He had reached town at dawn and spent hours driving around the streets, not knowing what to do. He was very tired, so weary he did not dare to trust his judgment. That scared him. He had always felt that his ability to think himself out of difficult situations with a clear head was his ultimate life insurance. He wondered whether to take a room in a hotel, but he had no passport, no documents at all to establish his identity. He was a nobody among all these people, an armed man without a name.

The pain in his hand kept coming back. Soon he would have to see a doctor. The black blood had seeped through the bandages. He could not afford to succumb to infections and fever. That would make him completely defenceless. But the bloody stump hardly affected him. His finger might never have existed. He had transformed it into a dream. He was born without an index finger on his left hand.

He slept in a cemetery. He was cold in spite of the sleeping bag he had bought. In his dreams he was pursued by the singing hounds. As he lay awake watching the stars, he thought of how he might never return to his homeland. The dry, red, swirling soil would never again be touched by the soles of his feet. He was stricken with a sorrow so intense that he could not remember feeling anything like it since the death of his father. It also occurred to him that in South Africa, a country founded upon an all-embracing lie, there was seldom room for simple untruths. He thought about the lie that formed the backbone of his own life.

The nights he spent in the cemetery were filled with the
sangoma
's words. It was there, surrounded only by the unknown dead - white people he had never met and would not meet until he entered the underworld, the world of spirits - that he thought of his childhood. He saw his father's face, his smile, and heard his voice. Perhaps the spirit world would be divided, just like South Africa. Perhaps even the underworld consisted of a black world and a white world? He was stricken with grief as he imagined the spirits of his forefathers forced to live in smoky, slummy townships. He tried to get his
sangoma
to tell him how it was, but all he could hear was the singing of the hounds, and their howls which he was unable to interpret.

On the second morning he left the cemetery at dawn, having hidden his sleeping bag in a tomb where he had managed to pry open an air vent. He stole another car. It all happened very quickly: an opportunity arose, and he grasped it without hesitation. His judgment was coming to his aid once more. He had come round a corner just as a man left his car with the engine running and disappeared into a doorway. There was nobody in sight. It was a Ford; he had driven lots of them. He got in, threw the man's briefcase onto the street, and drove off. Eventually he managed to find his way out of the city, looking for a lake where he could be alone with his thoughts.

He came upon the seashore. He supposed it had to be the seashore; he did not know which sea it was, but when he tasted the water it was salty. Not as salty as he was used to from the beaches at Durban and Port Elizabeth. But could there be salt lakes in this country? He clambered over some rocks and imagined he was gazing into infinity through a narrow gap between two islands in the archipelago. There was a chill in the air and he was cold. Even so, he remained standing on a rock as far out as he could get, thinking that this was where his life had taken him. A very long way. But what would the future hold?

Just as he used to do when he was young, he squatted down and made a spiral-shaped labyrinth from pebbles beneath the rock. At the same time he tried to reach so deep into himself that he would hear the voice of his
sangoma
. But the noise of the sea was too strong and his concentration too weak. The stones he had arranged to form a labyrinth were no help. He just felt scared. If he could not talk to the spirits, he would grow so weak he might even die. He would no longer have any resistance to sickness, he couldn't think straight, and his body would become a mere shell that cracked as soon as touched.

Feeling uneasy, he turned from the sea and went back to the car. He tried to focus on the important things. How could Konovalenko have traced him to the disco suggested by some Africans from Uganda he met in a burger bar? That was the first question. The second was: how could he leave this country and get back to South Africa?

He was going to have to do what he least wanted to do: find Konovalenko. He would be as hard to track down as a single springbok in the measureless African bush. Somehow he would have to entice Konovalenko. He had the passport. He hoped he would not need to kill anybody, apart from Konovalenko.

That evening Mabasha went back to the disco. There were not many people there, and he sat in a corner, drinking beer. When he went to the bar with his empty glass for another beer, the bald man spoke to him. Mabasha did not understand at first what he was saying. Then he understood that there had been two different people there the day before, looking for him. One of them was obviously Konovalenko. But the other one? The man behind the bar said he was a policeman, and that to judge by his accent he came from the southern part of the country.

The bald man nodded at Mabasha's filthy bandage. "He was looking for a black man missing a finger."

He left the disco without more ado. Konovalenko might come back again. He was not yet ready to confront him, even though his pistol was at the ready, tucked into his belt.

When he reached the street, he knew what he would do. The policeman was going to help him to find Konovalenko.

There was an investigation going on somewhere or other into the disappearance of a woman. Maybe they had found her body by now. But if they had managed to find out about him, they might also know about Konovalenko. I left a trace behind, he thought. A finger. Perhaps Konovalenko left something behind as well.

He spent the rest of the evening in the shadows watching the disco, but neither Konovalenko nor the policeman appeared. The bald man had given him a description of the policeman. It occurred to Mabasha that a white man in his forties was not going to be a regular customer at the disco.

Late that night he went back to the cemetery. The next day he stole another car, and that evening he parked in the shadows opposite the disco.

Just on 9 p.m., a taxi drew up at the entrance. Mabasha sank down so that his head was level with the steering wheel. As soon as the policeman had disappeared into the underworld, Mabasha drove across to the entrance and got out. He withdrew to the darkest shadows, and waited, his pistol now in his jacket pocket, within easy reach.

The man who emerged a quarter of an hour later and looked around vaguely or possibly lost in thought was not on his guard. He gave the impression of being completely harmless, a solitary, unprotected nocturnal prowler. Mabasha drew his pistol, took swift strides, and pressed the gun against the underside of the man's chin.

"Not a move," he said in English. "Not a single move."

The man gave a start, but he understood English. He did not move.

"Go to the car," Mabasha said. "Get into the passenger seat." The man did as he was told. He was obviously frightened.

Mabasha ducked into the car and punched the man on the chin. Hard enough to knock him out, but not hard enough to break his jaw. Mabasha could martial his strength when he was in control of the situation. Something that did not apply on that catastrophic last evening with the Russian.

He drove to an unlit street and went through the policeman's pockets. Strangely, no weapon. Mabasha was more than ever convinced he was in a very odd country, with policemen unarmed. He bound the man's arms to his chest and taped over his mouth. A thin trickle of blood was seeping from the side of his mouth. It was never possible altogether to avoid injuring someone. Presumably the man had bitten his own tongue.

During the hours available to Mabasha that afternoon, he had memorised the route. He knew where he was going and had no wish to risk a wrong turn. At the first red light, he took out the man's wallet and saw he was called Kurt Wallander, 44 years old.

The lights changed, and he moved on. He kept a close watch on the rear-view mirror.

The second time he had to stop at a red light he began to think he was being followed. Could there have been a backup? If so, there would soon be problems. When he came to a three-lane stretch of road, he accelerated. Perhaps he had been imagining things, they seemed to be on their own after all.

The man in the passenger seat started groaning and moving. Mabasha judged that he had hit him precisely as hard as he had intended.

He turned into the road leading to the cemetery and came to a halt in the shadow of a green building that housed a shop which sold flowers and wreaths during the day. Now it was in darkness. He turned off his lights and watched the cars taking the slip road. None of them seemed to be slowing down.

He waited another ten minutes. Nothing happened, apart from the policeman coming to.

"Not a sound," Mabasha said, ripping the tape from the man's mouth. A policeman understands, he thought. He knows when a man means what he says. He wondered if a man who abducted a policeman risked being hanged in Sweden.

He got out of the car, listened, and looked all around. Apart from the passing traffic there was no sound. He opened the passenger door and motioned to the man to get out. Then he led him to one of the iron gates and they soon disappeared in the darkness that swallowed up the gravel paths and gravestones.

Mabasha guided him to the vault where he had opened the iron door without difficulty. It smelled musty in the damp interior, but he was not scared by graveyards. He had often hidden among the dead in the past.

He had bought a hurricane lamp and an extra sleeping bag. At first the policeman refused to go with him into the vault, and put up a show of resistance.

"I'm not going to kill you," he said. "I'm not even going to hurt you. But you have to go in there."

He lit the lamp and, taking great care not to risk being kicked, put the policeman into one of the sleeping bags. He went outside to see if the light could be seen. But there was no sign of it.

Once again he stood and listened. The many years he had spent forever on the alert had developed his hearing. Something moved on a gravel path. The backup, he thought. Or some animal of the night.

In the end he decided it was not a threat. He went back into the vault and squatted opposite the man whose name was Kurt Wallander.

The fear Wallander had first felt had now become positive fright, even terror.

"If you do as I say no harm will come to you," Mabasha said. "But you must answer my questions. And you must tell the truth. I know you are a policeman. I can see you're all the time looking at my left hand and the bandage. That means you've found my finger. The one Konovalenko cut off. He was the one who killed the woman. It's up to you if you believe me or not. I only came to this country to stay for a short time, and I've decided to kill only one person. Konovalenko. But first you have to help me by telling me where he is. Once Konovalenko's dead, I'll let you go."

Mabasha waited for a reply. Then he remembered something he had forgotten.

"I don't suppose you have a shadow?" he said. "A car following you?" The man shook his head.

"You're alone?"

"Yes," the policeman said.

"I had to make sure you didn't struggle," Mabasha said. "But I don't think my punch did much damage."

"No," the man said, grimacing.

Mabasha sat there in silence. There was no rush for the moment. The man would feel calmer if everything was quiet. Mabasha did not blame him for being afraid. He knew how a man could feel when he was terrified and on his own.

"Konovalenko," he said quietly. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," Wallander said.

Mabasha eyed him up and down, and realised that the policeman knew who Konovalenko was, but not where he was. That was a pity. It would make everything more difficult, it would take more time, but it wouldn't really change anything. Together, they would be able to find him.

Taking his time, Mabasha recounted everything that had happened when the woman was killed. But he said nothing about why he was in Sweden.

"So he was the one who blew the house up?" Wallander said, when he had finished.

"You know what happened now," Mabasha said. "So it's your turn to put me in the picture."

The policeman had apparently calmed down, even if he did seem put out at being in a cold, damp burial vault. Behind their backs were caskets inside sarcophagi, stacked one on top of the other.