The White Lioness (37 page)

They wandered around the crumbled ruins of what had once been high walls.

"You have to understand: Martinsson and I were really shaken. You were covered in blood, your hair was standing on end, and you were waving guns at us in both hands."

"Yes, I realise that," Wallander said.

"All the same, it was wrong of us to tell Bjork that you appeared to be out of your mind."

"I wonder sometimes if I am, in fact."

"What are you going to do?" Svedberg said.

"I'm thinking of ways of enticing Konovalenko to come after me. That's the only way I can think of to get him to come out of wherever he's hiding."

Svedberg stared at him, grimly. "That's dangerous," he said.

"It's less risky when you can anticipate the danger," Wallander said, wondering as he did so if that really meant anything at all.

"You've got to have backup," Svedberg said.

"He wouldn't come out in that case," Wallander said. "It's not enough for him to think I'm on my own. He won't pounce until he's absolutely certain."

"What do you mean, pounce?"

Wallander shrugged. "He'll try to kill me, but he won't succeed."

"How so?"

"I don't know yet."

Svedberg stared at him in amazement, but he said nothing.

They started back, and stopped again on the bridge.

"There's something else," Wallander said. "I'm worried about Linda. Konovalenko's unpredictable. I want her to have a bodyguard."

"Bjork will want an explanation."

"That's why I'm asking you. You can talk with Martinsson. Bjork doesn't need to know."

"I'll try," Svedberg said. "I can understand your being worried."

They left the bridge and puffed their way up the hill.

"By the way, somebody who knows your daughter came to see Martinsson," Svedberg said, trying to change the subject to something less solemn.

Wallander stared at him in alarm. "At home?"

"In his office. She was reporting a theft from her car. She'd been your daughter's teacher or something. I don't remember exactly."

Wallander stopped dead. "One more time," he said. "Repeat that."

Svedberg told him again.

"What was her name?"

"I've no idea."

"What did she look like?"

"You'll have to ask Martinsson that."

"Try and remember precisely what he said."

"We were having coffee," Svedberg said. "Martinsson was complaining about being interrupted the whole time. He says he'll get an ulcer from all the work piling up. 'At least they could stop breaking into cars at a time like this. A woman came in, someone had broken into her car. She asked about Wallander's daughter. If she was still living in Stockholm.' Something along those lines."

"What did he tell her? That Linda is here?"

"I can't tell you what he told her."

"We have to call Martinsson," Wallander said. He started running towards the house, with Svedberg after him.

"Get him on the phone," Wallander said, when they were inside. "Ask him if he told the woman where Linda is right now. Find out who she is. If he asks why, just tell him that you'll explain later."

Svedberg nodded. "You don't believe there was a car theft?"

"I have no way of knowing, but I can't take any risks."

Svedberg was put through to Martinsson almost right away. He wrote a few notes in the margins of yesterday's paper. Wallander could hear that Martinsson was perplexed by Svedberg's questions. By the time their conversation was over, Svedberg had started to share Wallander's worry.

"He says he told her."

"Told her what?"

"That she was staying with your father at Osterlen."

"Why did he do that?"

"She asked him."

Wallander looked at the kitchen clock. "You'd better make the call," he said. "My father may answer. He's probably eating now. Ask to talk to Linda. Then I'll take over."

Wallander gave him the number. It rang for a long time before anybody answered. It was Wallander's father. Svedberg asked to speak to his granddaughter. When he heard the reply, he cut the conversation short.

"She went down to the beach on her bike," he said.

Wallander felt a stabbing pain in his stomach. "I told her to stay indoors."

"She left half an hour ago," Svedberg said.

They took Svedberg's car and drove fast. Svedberg glanced at him occasionally, but Wallander did not say a word.

They came to the Kaseberga exit.

"Keep going," Wallander said. "Next turning."

They parked as near to the beach as they could safely get. There were no other cars. Wallander raced onto the sands with Svedberg alongside him. The beach was deserted. Wallander could feel panic rising. Once again the invisible Konovalenko was breathing down his neck.

"She could be behind one of the sand dunes," he said.

"Are you sure this is where she'll be?" Svedberg said.

"This is her beach," Wallander said. "If she goes to the beach, this is where she comes. You go that way, I'll go this way."

Svedberg walked back towards Kaseberga while Wallander continued to the east. He tried to convince himself nothing had happened to her. But why hadn't she stayed inside the house as she had promised? Was it possible that she had not understood how serious it was? In spite of everything that had happened?

Every minute he turned and looked back at Svedberg.

Wallander found himself thinking of Akerblom. He would have said a prayer in this situation. I have no god to pray to. I don't even have any spirits, like Mabasha. I have my own joy and my own sorrow, that's all.

There was a man with a dog on top of the slope, gazing out to sea. Wallander asked him if he had seen a girl walking by herself, or with a bicycle along the beach. He had been on the beach with his dog for 20 minutes, but he had seen no-one in all that time.

"Not even a man by himself?" The man shook his head.

Wallander walked on. He felt cold though there was a trace of spring warmth in the wind. He started walking faster. The beach seemed endless. Then he looked around again. Svedberg was a long way away now, but Wallander could see somebody standing next to him. Svedberg started waving.

Wallander ran the whole way. When he got to Svedberg and his daughter he was exhausted. He looked at her without saying anything while he waited to get his breath back.

"You were supposed not to leave the house," he said. "Why did you?"

"I didn't think a walk along the beach would do any harm," she said. "Not when it's light. It's night-time when things happen, isn't it?"

Svedberg drove and they put the bicycle in the boot.

"What shall I tell Grandpa?" Linda said.

"Nothing," Wallander said. "I'll talk to him tonight. I'll play cards with him tomorrow. That will cheer him up."

They separated on the road not far from the house. Svedberg drove Wallander back to Stjarnsund.

"I want that guard starting tonight," Wallander said.

"I'll go and tell Martinsson right away," Svedberg said. "We'll arrange it somehow."

"A police car parked on the road," Wallander said. "I want it to be obvious that the house is being watched."

Svedberg got ready to leave.

"I need a few days," Wallander said. "Until then, keep on looking for me. But I'd like you to call me here from time to time."

"What shall I tell Martinsson?"

"Tell him it was your idea, guarding my father's house," Wallander said. "Find whatever way you think best to convince him."

"You really don't want me to tell Martinsson the truth?"

"It's enough that you know where I am."

After Svedberg left, Wallander fried a couple of eggs. Two hours later the horsebox returned.

"Did she win?" Wallander said, as Widen came into the kitchen.

"She won," he said. "But only just."

Peters and Noren were in their patrol car, drinking coffee.

They were both in a bad mood. They had been ordered by Svedberg to guard the house where Wallander's father lived. The longest shifts were always when your car was standing still. They would be here until someone came to relieve them, many hours away yet. It was 11.15 p.m. and pitch dark.

"What do you think's happened to Wallander?"

"No idea," Noren said. "How many times do I have to say it? I don't know."

"It's hard not to think about it," Peters said. "I'm sitting here wondering whether he might be an alcoholic."

"Why should he be?"

"Do you remember that time we caught him drunk?"

"That's not the same as being alcoholic."

"No. But still."

The conversation petered out. Noren got out of the car and stood legs apart to urinate. That was when he saw the fire. At first he thought it was the reflection from a car's headlights. Then he noticed smoke barrelling up from where the fire was burning.

"Fire!" he shouted to Peters.

Peters got out.

"Can it be a forest fire?" Noren said. The blaze was in a clump of trees on the far side of the nearest group of fields. It was hard to see where the heart of it was because of the slope in front of the trees.

"We'd better drive over and take a look," said Peters.

"Svedberg said we weren't to leave our posts, no matter what."

"It'll only take a few minutes," Peters said. "We have no choice but to act if we find a fire."

"Call Svedberg first and get permission."

"It'll take maximum ten minutes," Peters said. "What are you scared of ?"

"I'm not scared," Noren said. "But orders are orders."

Nevertheless, they did as Peters wanted. They reached the fire by way of a muddy tractor track. When they got there, they found only an oil drum that had been filled with paper and plastic to make a good blaze. The fire was almost out.

"Funny time to burn garbage," Peters said, looking round. The place was deserted.

"Let's get back," Noren said.

Twenty minutes had passed before they were at the house again. All was quiet. The lights were out. Wallander's father and daughter were asleep. Many hours later they were relieved by Svedberg himself.

"All quiet," Peters said. He did not mention the excursion to the burning oil drum.

Svedberg sat dozing in his car. Dawn broke, and developed into morning.

By 8 a.m. he was wondering why there was no sign of anybody being up. He knew that Wallander's father was an early riser. By 8.30 a.m., he had the distinct impression something was wrong. He got out of his car, crossed the courtyard to the front door and tried the handle. The door was not locked. He rang the bell and waited. Nobody opened. He entered the dark hall and listened. Not a sound. Then he thought he could hear a scratching sound somewhere. It sounded like a mouse trying to get through a wall. He followed the noise until he found himself in front of a closed door. He knocked. By way of answer he could hear a muffled bellowing. He flung open the door. Wallander's father was lying in bed. He was tied up, with a length of black tape over his mouth.

Svedberg stood stock still. Then he very gently removed the tape and untied the ropes. Then he searched the whole house. The room in which he assumed Wallander's daughter slept was empty. There was nobody else in the house.

"When did it happen?" he asked.

"Last night, just after 11 p.m."

"How many of them were there?"

"One."

"One?"

"That's right. But he had a gun."

Svedberg's mind was a complete blank. He went to the telephone to call Wallander.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The acrid smell of winter apples. That was the first thing she noticed. But after that, when she opened her eyes in the darkness, there was nothing but being alone and terrified. She was lying on a stone floor, but it smelled of damp earth. There was not a sound, even though fear sharpened all her senses. She felt the rough surface of the floor with one hand. It was made of individual slabs fitted together. She was in a cellar. In Osterlen, where her grandfather lived and where she had been brutally woken and abducted by an unknown man, there was a similar floor in the potato cellar.

When there was nothing more for her senses to register, she felt dizzy and her headache got steadily worse. She could not say how long she had been there in darkness and silence; her watch was still on her bedside table. Nevertheless she guessed that it was many hours since she had been woken up and dragged away.

Her arms were free, but she had a chain around her ankles. When she felt it with her fingers she discovered there was a padlock. The feeling of being confined by an iron lock turned her cold. People were usually tied up with ropes. They were softer, more flexible. Chains belonged to the past, to slavery and medieval witch trials.

But worst of all during this waking-up period were the clothes she had on. She could feel at once that they were not hers. They were unfamiliar - their shape, the colours she could not see but seemed to think she could feel with her fingertips, and the smell of a strong washing powder. Somebody must have dressed her in them. Somebody had taken off her nightie and dressed her in everything from underclothes to tights and shoes, an outrage that made her feel sick. The dizziness immediately grew stronger. She put her head in her hands and rocked backwards and forwards. It's not true, she thought in desperation. But it was true, and she could even remember what had happened.

She had been dreaming something but could no longer think of the context. She was woken by a man pressing a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. A pungent smell, then she was overcome by a feeling of numbness and fading senses. The light from the lamp outside the kitchen door produced a faint glow in her room. She could see a man in front of her. His face was very close when he bent over her. Now when she thought about him she recalled a strong smell of shaving lotion even though he was unshaven. He said nothing, but although it was almost dark in the room she could see his eyes and had time to think she would never forget them. Then she remembered nothing else until she woke up on the damp stone floor.

It did not take her long to understand why it had happened. The man who bent over her and drugged her must be the one who was hunting, and being hunted by, her father. His eyes were Konovalenko's eyes, just as she had imagined them. The man who killed Victor Mabasha, who had already killed a policeman and wanted to kill her father. He was the one who had crept into her room, dressed her and put chains around her ankles.

When the hatch in the cellar ceiling opened, she was utterly unprepared. It occurred to her afterwards that the man had probably been standing up there, listening. The light shining through the hole was very strong, perhaps deliberately to dazzle her. She caught a glimpse of a ladder being dropped down and a pair of brown shoes, a pair of trouser legs approaching her. Then, last of all, the face, the same face and the same eyes that had stared at her as she was being knocked out. She looked away so as to avoid the brilliant light, and because her fear had returned and was paralysing her. She saw that the cellar was larger than she had supposed. In the darkness the walls and ceiling seemed close to her. Maybe she was in a cellar the length of the whole ground floor of a house.

The man stood in such a way that he shielded her from the light streaming down. He had a torch in one hand. In the other he had a metal object she could not at first make out.

Then she realised it was a pair of scissors.

She screamed. Shrill, long. She thought he had climbed down the ladder in order to kill her, and that he would do it with the scissors. She grabbed the chains around her legs and started pulling at them, as if she could break free despite everything. All the time he was staring at her, and his head was no more than a silhouette against the strong background light.

Then he turned the torchlight onto his own face. He held it under his chin so that his face looked like a lifeless skull. She fell silent. Her screaming had only increased her fear. And yet she felt strangely exhausted. It was already too late. There was no point in offering resistance.

The skull suddenly started talking. "You're wasting your time screaming," Konovalenko said. "Nobody will hear you. Besides, there's the risk I'll get annoyed, and might hurt you. Better to keep quiet."

His last words were like a whisper.

Papa, she thought. You've got to help me.

Then everything happened very quickly. With the same hand in which he held the torch, he grabbed her hair, pulled it and started cutting it off. She started back, in pain and surprise. But he was holding her so tightly, she could not move. She could hear the dry sound of the sharp scissors snipping away around the back of her neck, just under her earlobes. It was over in no time, and he let her go. The feeling of wanting to vomit came back. Cropping hair was another outrage, like him dressing her without her being aware of it.

He rolled the hair into a ball and put it into his pocket. He's sick, she thought. He's crazy, a sadist, a madman who kills and feels nothing. Her thoughts were interrupted by him talking again. The torch was shining on her neck, on her necklace. It was in the form of a lyre. Her parents had given it to her for her 15th birthday.

"The necklace. Take it off."

She did as she was told and was careful to avoid touching his hands when she held it out. Without a word he left her, climbed up the ladder, and returned her to the darkness. She crawled away until she came to the wall, and groped her way along it until she came to a corner, still within the radius of the chain. And there she tried to hide.

After having carried off his plan to kidnap Wallander's daughter, Konovalenko had ordered Tania and Tsiki out of the kitchen. He had a great need to be alone, and the kitchen suited him best. The house, the one Rykoff had rented, was arranged so that the kitchen was the biggest room. It was in old-fashioned style, with exposed beams, a deep baking oven, and open china dressers. Copper pans were hanging along one wall. Konovalenko was reminded of his childhood in Kiev, the big kitchen in the
kolkhoz
where his father had been a political superintendent.

He was discovering that he missed Rykoff. It was not just a feeling of having now to shoulder a greater part of the work. There was also a feeling that could hardly be called melancholy or sorrow, but which nevertheless made him feel depressed. During his many years as a KGB officer, the value of life, for everybody but himself and his two children, had gradually been reduced to calculable resources or, at the opposite pole, to expendable persons. He was forever surrounded by sudden death, and emotional reactions gradually vanished. But Rykoff's death had affected him, and it made him hate even more this provincial Swedish police officer, who was always getting in his way. He was going to get his come-uppance. But he had the daughter in his hands, and she would be the bait that would lure him into the open. Yet the prospect of revenge could not liberate him entirely from his depression. He sat in the kitchen drinking vodka, careful not to get too drunk, and occasionally seeing himself in a mirror on the wall. It occurred to him that his face was ugly. He must be starting to get old. Had the collapse of the Soviet empire brought on the softening of his ruthless and implacable nature?

At 2 a.m., when Tania was asleep or at least pretending to be asleep, and Tsiki had shut himself away in his room, he telephoned Kleyn. He decided there was no reason to conceal the fact that one of his assistants was dead. It would do no harm for Kleyn to be aware that Konovalenko's work was not without its risks. Then he resolved to lie to him one more time. He would say that the damned nuisance of a policeman had been liquidated. He was so sure he would get him, now that he had his daughter locked in the cellar, that he dared to declare Wallander dead.

Kleyn made no special comment. Konovalenko knew Kleyn's silence was the most approval he would get for his efforts. Then Kleyn said that Tsiki should return to South Africa soon. He asked if there was the least doubt about his suitability, if he had displayed any sign of weakness, as Mabasha had done. Konovalenko said no, but in fact he had been able to devote very little time to Tsiki so far. The impression he had was chiefly of a man devoid of emotion. He hardly ever laughed, and was as controlled as he was impeccably dressed. Konovalenko reckoned that once Wallander and his daughter were out of the way he would spend a few intensive days teaching the African all he needed to know. But he said Tsiki would not let them down and Kleyn seemed satisfied. He told Konovalenko to call again in three days to receive instructions for Tsiki's return journey.

The conversation with Kleyn restored some of the energy he thought he had lost in the wake of Rykoff's death. He sat at the kitchen table and reflected that the abduction of Wallander's daughter had been almost embarrassingly easy. It had taken him only a few hours to find her grandfather's house, once Tania had been to the Ystad police station. He made the call himself and a housekeeper answered the phone. He said he was from the telephone company and was calling to know if there was likely to be a change of address before the next edition of the telephone directory went to press. Tania bought a large-scale map of Skane from the bookshop, and then they drove to the house and kept it under observation from a distance. The housekeeper went home late in the afternoon, and a few hours later a police car parked on the road. When he was satisfied that there were no other guards posted, he rapidly devised a diversion. He drove back to the house in Tomelilla, prepared an oil drum he found in a shed, and told Tania what she had to do. They rented a car from a nearby petrol station, then drove back to the house in two cars, saw the police car, decided on a time and set to work. Tania made the fire blaze up as intended and then left the scene before the police arrived to investigate. Konovalenko knew that he did not have much time, but that was just an extra challenge for him. He forced open the outside door, silenced the old man in his bed and tied him up, then chloroformed the daughter and carried her to the waiting car. The whole operation took less than ten minutes, and he had made his escape before the police car got back. Tania had bought some clothes for the girl during the day, and dressed her while she was still unconscious. Then he carried her down into the cellar and secured her legs with a padlock and chain. It was all so easy, and he wondered whether things would continue so straightforwardly. He had noticed her necklace and thought her father would be able to identify her by it. But he also wanted to give Wallander a different picture of the circumstances, something threatening that would leave no doubt as to what he was prepared to do. Cropped female hair smells of death and ruin, he thought. He's a policeman, he'll get the picture.

Konovalenko poured himself another glass of vodka and gazed out of the window. Dawn was in the sky, and there was warmth in the air. He thought about how he would soon be living in constant sunshine, far from this climate in which you never knew from one hour to the next what the weather would be like.

The hatch leading down to the cellar where Wallander's daughter was imprisoned was just behind his chair. He listened for any noises, but everything was silent. Then he got up, found an envelope and put the cropped hair and the necklace into it.

He went to bed for a few hours. When he woke up he looked at his wristwatch. It was 9.15 a.m., Monday, May 18. Wallander must know by now that his daughter has been abducted. He would be waiting for Konovalenko to contact him.

Well, he can wait a bit longer, Konovalenko thought. The silence will grow increasingly unbearable with every hour that passes, and his worry greater than his ability to control it.

The news hit Wallander like an attack of vertigo. It made him desperate and furious. Widen happened to be in the kitchen when the telephone rang, answered it, and looked on in astonishment as Wallander tore the instrument from the wall and hurled it through the open door into the office. But he saw at once how frightened Wallander was. His fear was raw, naked. Sympathy often aroused ambivalent reactions in him, but not this time. The man's agony over what had happened to his daughter and the fact that nothing could be done about it had hurt him terribly. He squatted down beside his friend and patted him on the shoulder.

Meanwhile Svedberg had worked up a frenzy of energy. Once he had made sure that Wallander's father was uninjured and did not seem to be especially shocked, he called Peters at home. His wife answered, and said her husband was still asleep after his night shift. Svedberg's bellowing left no doubt in her mind that he should be woken immediately. When Peters came to the phone, Svedberg gave him half an hour to get hold of Noren and be at the house they were supposed to have been guarding. Peters asked no questions and promised to hurry. He called Noren, and when they arrived at Wallander's father's house, Svedberg wasted no time before confronting them with what had happened.

"All we can do is tell you the truth," Noren said, who had been uneasy the previous evening that there was something odd about the burning oil drum.

Svedberg listened to what he had to say. It was Peters who insisted that they should investigate the fire, but of that he said nothing. In his report he said that the decision was a joint one.