The White Lioness (3 page)

"You realise, of course, there might have been an accident," he said.

"I've called every hospital in Skane,"Akerblom said. "She hasn't been admitted anywhere. Besides, a hospital would have been in touch with me if anything had happened. Louise always had her ID card on her."

"What make of car did she drive?"

"A Toyota Corolla. 1990 model. Dark blue. Registration number MHL 449."

Wallander wrote it all down. Then he went back to the beginning again, methodically going through the details Akerblom knew about what his wife was doing that afternoon. They looked at maps, and Wallander could feel unease growing within him.

For God's sake, let's not have the murder of a woman on our hands, he thought. Anything but that.

Wallander put down his pen at 10.45.

"There is no reason to suppose that your wife won't be found safe and sound," he said, hoping his scepticism was not apparent. "But we'll treat your report with the utmost seriousness."

Akerblom was slumped down in the chair. Wallander was afraid he might start weeping again. He felt incredibly sorry for him. He would have loved to console him. But how could he do that without showing how worried he himself felt?

He got up from his chair. "I'd like to listen to her telephone message," he said. "Then I'll drive over to Skurup and call in at the bank. Have you got somebody to help out with the children?"

"I don't need any help," Akerblom said. "I can manage on my own. What do you think has happened to Louise, Inspector?"

"I don't think anything at all as yet," Wallander said. "Except that she'll soon be back home again."

I'm lying, he thought. I don't think that. I'm just hoping.

Wallander followed Akerblom back into town. As soon as he had listened to the message on the answering machine and gone through her desk drawers, he'd go back to the office and talk to Bjork. Even if there were specific procedures for how to go about looking for a missing person, Wallander wanted all available resources placed at his disposal right away. The disappearance of Louise Akerblom, his instincts told him, involved a crime having been committed.

Akerblom's Estate Agency was located in a former grocery shop. Wallander recalled it from his first year in Ystad, when he'd arrived as a young policeman from Malmo. There were a couple of desks, and some stands with photographs and descriptions of properties. There was a table with visitors' chairs where clients could delve into the details of the houses they were interested in. On the wall were a couple of Land Survey maps, with pins on in various colours. Behind the office there was a small kitchen.

They went in the back way, but even so Wallander noticed the handwritten card taped to the front door: CLOSED TODAY.

"Which is your desk?" Wallander said.

Akerblom pointed. Wallander sat down at the other one. Apart from a diary, a photograph of the daughters, a few files, a green blotter and a pen stand, the desk top was empty, and Wallander had the impression it had only recently been tidied.

"Who does the cleaning?"

"We have a cleaner who comes in three times a week," Akerblom said. "Mind you, we generally do the dusting and empty the waste baskets every day ourselves."

Wallander made a note, then he took a look around the office. The only thing that struck him as odd was a little crucifix on the wall by the kitchen door.

Then he nodded at the answering machine.

"It'll come right away," Akerblom said. "It was the only message we had after 3.00 p.m. on Friday."

First impressions, was what Wallander was thinking. Listen carefully now.

Hi! I'm just going to take a look at a house at Krageholm. Then I'll be on my way home. It's 3.15. I'll be back by 5.00.

Cheerful, Wallander thought. She sounds happy and keen. Not threatened, not scared.

"One more time," Wallander said. "But first I want to hear what you yourself say on the tape. If you still have that?"

Akerblom rewound the cassette, and pressed a button.

Welcome to Akerblom's Estate Agency. We're out on business at the moment, but we'll be open again as usual on Monday, 8.00 a.m. If you would like to leave a message or send a fax, please do so after the beep. Thank you for calling, and we look forward to hearing from you again.

Wallander could hear that Akerblom had not been comfortable speaking the message into the answering machine's microphone. He sounded rather strained.

Then he turned his attention again to Louise Akerblom and asked her husband to wind the tape back time after time.

Wallander tried to listen for some message that might have been concealed behind the words. He had no idea what it might be. But he tried even so.

When he had heard the tape ten times, he nodded to Akerblom.

"I'll have to take the cassette with me," he said. "We can amplify the sound at the station."

Akerblom took out the little cassette and handed it to Wallander.

"I'd like you to do something for me while I'm going through the drawers in her desk," Wallander said. "Write down everything she did or was going to do last Friday. Who she was due to meet, and where. Write down what route you think she would have taken as well. Make a note of the times. And I want an exact description of where that house is, the one she was going to look at near Krageholm."

"That I can't tell you," Akerblom said. "It was Louise who took the call from the lady who wanted to sell the house. She drew herself a map and took it with her. She wouldn't be putting all the details into a file until today. If we'd taken on the house either she or I would have gone back there to take photographs."

Wallander thought for a moment. "In other words, at the moment Louise is the only one who knows where the house is," he said.

Akerblom nodded.

"When would the house owner get in touch again?" Wallander said.

"Some time today," Akerblom said. "That's why Louise wanted to try and see the house on Friday."

"It's important that you're here when she calls," Wallander said. "Say that your wife has taken a look at the house, but unfortunately she's sick today. Ask for a description of how to get there again, and get her telephone number. As soon as she's been in touch, give me a call."

Akerblom sat down to write out the details Wallander needed.

Wallander went through the desk drawers. He found nothing that seemed significant. None of them appeared to have been tidied recently. He lifted the green blotting pad, and found a recipe for hamburgers, torn from a magazine. Then he studied the photograph of the two daughters.

He went out into the kitchen. Hanging on one of the walls was a calendar and a sampler with a quotation from the Bible. A small jar of coffee was on one of the shelves, unopened. On another were several kinds of tea. He opened the refrigerator. A litre of milk and some margarine.

He thought of her voice, and what she had said in the message. He was sure the car had been stationary when she made the call. Her voice was steady. It would not have been if she had been concentrating on driving at the same time. Later, when they amplified the tape at the station, he was proved to have been right. Besides, Louise Akerblom was bound to be a careful, law-abiding citizen who would not risk her life or anybody else's by using the phone while driving.

If the times she mentioned are accurate, she'll have been in Skurup, Wallander thought. She'll have done her business at the bank and be about to set off for Krageholm. But she wants to call her husband first. She's pleased that everything went well at the bank. Moreover it's Friday afternoon, and she's finished work for the day. It's nice weather. She has every reason to feel happy.

Wallander went back and sat at her desk once more, leafing through the desk diary. Akerblom handed him his list.

"I have one question more for the moment," Wallander said. "It isn't really a question. But it is important. What kind of a person is Louise?" He was very careful to use the present tense, as if nothing had happened. In his own mind, however, Louise Akerblom was already someone who no longer existed.

"Everybody likes her," Akerblom said, straightforwardly. "She's even-tempered, laughs a lot, finds it easy to talk to people. Actually, she finds it hard to do business. Anything to do with money or complicated negotiations, she hands over to me. She's easily moved. And upset. She's troubled by other people's suffering."

"Does she have any special idiosyncrasies?" Wallander said.

"Idiosyncrasies?"

"Well, we all have our peculiarities," said Wallander.

"I can't think of anything," Akerblom said, eventually.

Wallander nodded and got to his feet. It was already 11.45. He wanted to have a word with Bjork before his boss went home for lunch.

"I'll be in touch later this afternoon," he said. "Try not to worry too much. See if you can think of anything you've forgotten. Anything I ought to know."

"What happened, do you think?" Akerblom said as they shook hands.

"Probably nothing at all," Wallander said. "There's bound to be a natural explanation."

Wallander got hold of Bjork just as he was about to leave. He was looking harassed, as usual. Wallander didn't suppose that a chief constable's job was something to feel envious about.

"Sorry to hear about the burglary," Bjork said, trying to look sympathetic. "Let's hope the newspapers don't get hold of this one. It wouldn't look good, a detective inspector's home being broken into. We have a high percentage of unsolved cases. The Swedish police force is pretty low on the international league table."

"That's the way it goes," Wallander said. "I need to talk to you about something else." They were in the corridor outside Bjork's office. "It can't wait till after lunch."

Bjork nodded, and they went back into the office.

Wallander reported in detail his meeting with Robert Akerblom.

"A mother of two and religious," Bjork said, when Wallander had finished. "Missing since Friday. Doesn't sound good."

"No," Wallander said. "It doesn't sound good at all."

Bjork eyed him shrewdly. "You think there's been a crime?"

Wallander shrugged. "I don't really know what I think," he said. "But this isn't a straightforward missing person case. I'm sure of it. That's why we ought to mobilise the appropriate resources from the start. Not apply the usual wait-and-see tactics."

Bjork nodded. "I agree," he said. "Who do you want? Don't forget we're understaffed as long as Hansson's away. He managed to pick just the wrong moment to break his leg."

"Martinsson and Svedberg," Wallander said. "By the way, did Svedberg pin down the young bull that was careering along the E14?"

"A farmer got it with a lasso in the end," Bjork said, glumly. "Svedberg twisted his ankle when he tumbled into a ditch. But he's still at work."

Wallander stood up. "I'll drive to Skurup now," he said. "Let's get together at 4.30 and sort out what we know. We'd better start looking for her car right away."

He put a piece of paper on Bjork's desk.

"Toyota Corolla, dark blue," Bjork said. "I'll see to it."

Wallander drove from Ystad to Skurup. He needed time to think, and took the coast road. A wind was picking up. Jagged clouds were racing across the sky. He could see a ferry from Poland on its way into the harbour. When he got to Mossby Beach, he drove down to the deserted car park and stopped by the boarded-up hamburger stand. He stayed in the car, thinking about the previous year, when a rubber dinghy had drifted into land just here, with two dead bodies in it. He thought about Baiba Liepa, the woman he'd met in Riga. Interesting that he hadn't managed to forget her, despite his best efforts. A year ago, and he was still thinking about her all the time.

A murdered woman was the last thing he needed right now. What he needed was peace and quiet. He thought about his father getting married. About the burglary and all the music he'd lost. It felt as if someone had robbed him of a significant portion of his life.

He thought about his daughter Linda, at college in Stockholm. He had the feeling that he was losing touch with her. It was too much, all at once.

He got out of the car, zipped up his jacket and walked to the beach. The air was chilly, and he was cold.

He went over in his mind what Akerblom had said, tried various theories yet again. Could there be a natural explanation, despite everything? Could she have committed suicide? He thought of her voice on the telephone. Her eagerness.

Shortly before 1 p.m. Wallander left the beach and continued his way towards Skurup.

He could not shake off the conviction that Louise Akerblom was dead.

CHAPTER THREE

Kurt Wallander had a recurring daydream, which he suspected he shared with a lot of other people: that he'd pulled off the ultimate bank robbery and astounded the world. He wondered how much money was generally kept at a medium-sized bank. Less than one might think? But more than enough? He didn't have any idea how he'd go about it, yet the fantasy kept recurring. He grinned at the thought. But the grin quickly gave way to the stirrings of a guilty conscience.

They would never find Louise Akerblom alive. He had no evidence; there was no crime scene, no body. And yet he knew.

He couldn't get the photograph of the two girls out of his mind. How do you explain what it's not possible to explain? How will Robert Akerblom be able to go on praying to his God in the future, the God who's left him and two children so cruelly in the lurch?

Wallander wandered around the Savings Bank at Skurup, waiting for the assistant manager who had helped Louise Akerblom with the property deal the previous Friday to come back from the dentist. When Wallander had arrived at the bank a quarter of an hour earlier, he had talked with the manager, Gustav Hallden, whom he had met once before. He also asked Hallden to keep his visit confidential.

"After all, we're not sure if anything serious has happened," Wallander said.

"I get it," Hallden said. "You just think something
may
have happened."

Wallander nodded. That's exactly how it was. How could you possibly be sure just where the boundary was between thinking and knowing?

His train of thought was interrupted by somebody addressing him. A fuzzy voice saying: "I believe you wanted to talk to me."

Wallander turned round. "Are you Moberg, the assistant manager?"

The man said that he was. He was young, surprisingly young according to Wallander's idea of how old an assistant manager should be. But there was something else that immediately attracted his attention.

One of the man's cheeks was noticeably swollen.

"I still have some trouble speaking."

Wallander couldn't understand what the man was saying.

"We'd better wait," Moberg said. "Shouldn't we wait until the injection has worn off ?"

"Let's try anyway," Wallander said. "I'm short of time, I'm afraid. If it doesn't hurt too much when you talk."

Moberg shook his head and led the way into a small meeting room at the back.

"This is exactly where we were," the assistant manager said. "You're sitting in Mrs Akerblom's chair. Hallden said you wanted to talk about her. Has she disappeared?"

"She's been reported missing," Wallander said. "I expect she's just visiting relatives and forgot to tell them at home."

He could see even from Moberg's swollen expression that he regarded Wallander's reservations with scepticism. Fair enough, thought Wallander. If you're missing, you're missing. You can't be partially missing.

"What was it you want to know?" asked the assistant manager, pouring a glass of water from the carafe on the table and gulping it down.

"All that happened last Friday afternoon," Wallander said. "In detail. Exact time, what she said, what she did. I also want the name of the parties buying and selling the house that was being exchanged, in case I need to contact them later. Had you met Louise Akerblom before?"

"I met her several times," Moberg said. "We were involved in four of her company's property deals."

"Tell me about last Friday."

Moberg took his diary from the inside pocket of his jacket. "The meeting had been set for 2.15," he said. "Louise Akerblom turned up a couple of minutes early. We exchanged a few words about the weather."

"Did she seem tense or worried?"

Moberg thought for a moment before answering. "No," he said. "On the contrary, she seemed happy. Before, I always thought she was uptight, but not on Friday."

Wallander nodded, encouraging him to go on.

"The clients arrived, a young couple called Nilson. And the seller, representing the estate of somebody who had died in Sovde. We sat down here and went through the whole procedure. There was nothing out of the ordinary. All the documents were just so. The deeds, the mortgage, the loan forms, the bank draft. It didn't take long. Then we broke up. I rather think we all wished one another a pleasant weekend, but I can't remember exactly."

"Was Louise Akerblom in a hurry?"

The assistant manager thought it over again. "Could be," he said. "Maybe she was. I'm not sure. But there is something I'm quite certain about."

"What?"

"She didn't go straight to her car." Moberg pointed at the window, which looked over a small car park. "Those lots are for the bank's customers. I saw her park there when she arrived. It was a quarter of an hour after she'd left the bank before she drove off. I was still in here, on the telephone. That's how I could see everything. I think she had a bag in her hand when she got to the car. As well as her briefcase."

"A bag?" Wallander said. "What did it look like?"

Moberg shrugged. Wallander could see the injection was wearing off.

"What does a bag look like?" said the assistant manager. "I think it was a paper bag. Not plastic."

"And then she drove off ?"

"Before that she made a call from her car phone."

To her husband, Wallander thought. Everything fits so far.

"It was just after 3.00," Moberg said. "I had another meeting at 3.30, and needed to prepare myself. My own call dragged on a bit."

"Could you see when she drove off ?"

"I had gone back to my office by then."

"So the last you saw of her was when she was using the car phone."

Moberg nodded.

"What make of car was it?"

"I'm not so up on cars," said the assistant manager. "But it was black. Possibly dark blue."

Wallander shut his notebook. "If you think of anything else, let me know right away," he said. "Any little thing could be important."

Wallander left the bank after making a note of the names and telephone numbers of the seller and the buyers. He went out the front entrance, and paused in the square.

A paper bag, he thought to himself. That sounds like a bakery. He remembered a bakery on the street running parallel to the railway. He crossed over the square then turned off to the left.

The girl behind the counter had been working all day Friday, but she didn't recognise Louise Akerblom from the photo Wallander showed her.

"There is another bakery," said the girl.

"Whereabouts?"

The girl explained, and Wallander could see it was just as close to the bank as the one he was in now. He thanked her, and left. He made his way to the bakery on the other side of the square. An elderly lady asked him what would he like as he entered the shop. Wallander showed her the photograph and explained who he was.

"I wonder if you recognise her?" he asked. "She might have been here shopping shortly after 3.00 last Friday afternoon."

The woman went to fetch her glasses to study the photograph more carefully.

"Has something happened?" she asked, curious to know. "Who is she?"

"Just tell me if you recognise her," Wallander said, gently.

The woman nodded.

"I remember her," she said. "I think she bought some pastries. Yes, I remember quite clearly. Napoleons. And a loaf of bread."

Wallander thought for a moment.

"How many pastries?" he asked.

"Four. I remember I was going to put them in a carton, but she said a bag would be OK. She seemed to be in a hurry."

Wallander nodded.

"Did you see where she went after she left?"

"No. There were other customers waiting."

"Thank you," Wallander said. "You've been a great help."

"What happened?" the woman said.

"Nothing," Wallander said. "Just routine."

He left the shop and walked back to the rear of the bank where Louise Akerblom had parked her car.

Thus far but no further, he thought. This is where we lose track. She sets out from here to see a house, but we still don't know where it is. After leaving a message on the answering machine. She's in a good mood, she has pastries in a paper bag, and she's due home at 5.00.

He looked at his watch. 2.57 p.m. Three days exactly since Louise Akerblom was standing on this very spot.

Wallander walked to his car, which was parked in front of the bank, put in a music cassette, one of the few he had left after the break-in, and tried to summarise where he'd got to so far. Placido Domingo's voice filled the car as he thought about the four pastries, one for each of the Akerbloms. Then he wondered if they said grace before eating pastries. He wondered what it felt like to believe in a god.

An idea occurred to him at the same time. He had time for one more interview before the meeting at the station to talk things through.

What had Akerblom said? Pastor Tureson?

Wallander started the engine and drove towards Ystad. When he joined the E14, he was only just within the speed limit. He called Ebba at the station reception, asked her to get hold of Pastor Tureson and tell him Wallander wanted to speak to him right away. Just before he got to Ystad, Ebba called him back. Pastor Tureson was in the Methodist chapel and would be pleased to see him.

"It'll do you no harm to go to church now and again," Ebba said.

Wallander thought about the nights he'd spent with Baiba Liepa in a church in Riga the previous year. But he said nothing. Even if he wanted to, he had no time to think about her just now.

Pastor Tureson was an old man, tall and well built, with a mop of white hair. Wallander could feel the strength in his grip when they shook hands.

The inside of the chapel was simple. Wallander did not feel the oppression that often affected him when he went into a church. They sat on wooden chairs by the altar.

"I called Robert a couple of hours ago," Pastor Tureson said. "Poor man, he was beside himself. Have you found her yet?"

"No," Wallander said.

"I don't understand what can have happened. Louise wasn't the type to get herself into dangerous situations."

"Sometimes you can't avoid them," Wallander said.

"What do you mean by that?"

"There are two kinds of dangerous situation. One is the kind you get yourself into. The other just sucks you in."

Pastor Tureson threw up his hands in acknowledgment. He seemed genuinely worried, and his sympathy for the husband and their children appeared to be real.

"Tell me about her," Wallander said. "What was she like? Had you known her long? What sort of a family were the Akerbloms?"

Pastor Tureson stared at Wallander, a serious expression on his face. "You ask questions as though it were all over," he said.

"It's a bad habit of mine," Wallander said, apologetically. "Of course I mean you should tell me what she
is
like."

"I've been pastor in this parish for five years," he began. "As you can probably hear, I'm originally from Goteborg. The Akerbloms have been members of my congregation the whole time I've been here. They both come from Methodist families, and they met through the chapel. Now they're bringing up their daughters in the true religion. Robert and Louise are good people. Hard-working, thrifty, generous. It's hard to describe them any other way. In fact, it's hard not to talk about them as a couple. Members of the congregation are shattered by her disappearance. I could feel that at our prayer meeting yesterday."

The perfect family. Not a single crack in the facade, Wallander thought. I could talk to a thousand different people, and they would all say the same thing. Louise Akerblom doesn't have a single flaw. Not one. The only odd thing about her is that she has disappeared.

Something doesn't add up. Nothing adds up.

"Something's on your mind, Inspector?" Pastor Tureson said.

"I was thinking about flaws," Wallander said. "Isn't that one of the basic features of all religions? That God will help us to overcome our flaws?"

"Absolutely."

"But it seems to me that Louise Akerblom didn't have any flaws. The picture I'm getting of her is so perfect, I start getting suspicious. Do such utterly good people exist?"

"That's the kind of person Louise is," Pastor Tureson said.

"You mean she's almost angelic?"

"Not quite," Pastor Tureson said. "I remember one time when she was making coffee for a chapel social evening. She burnt herself. I happened to hear that she actually swore."

Wallander tried going back to the beginning and starting again. "There's no chance she and her husband were fighting?"

"None at all," Pastor Tureson said.

"No other man?"

"Of course not. I hope that isn't a question you'll put to Robert."

"Could she have felt some kind of religious doubt?"