The White Lioness (42 page)

She did not answer. He could not see any blood, nor was there any sign of a car in the ditch. He lifted her up and led her to his car. She could barely stand.

"What happened?" he said again.

Widen and Svedberg left the flat in Ystad at 1.45 a.m. It was raining hard as they got into Svedberg's car. Three kilometres out of town Svedberg knew that he had a puncture in one of the back tyres. He pulled into the side, worrying that the spare might be no good. It was OK when they fitted it, but the lost minutes had thrown out their schedule. Svedberg had assumed Wallander would approach the house before it got light. That meant they would have to set off earlier to avoid bumping into him. It was nearly 3 a.m. by the time they parked the car on a track into a wood a mile from the quarry and the house. They needed to catch up their schedule and moved quickly through the mist. They crossed a field on the north side of the quarry. Svedberg had suggested a position as near the house as they dared. They did not know which direction Wallander would come from, and they would have to have a view on all sides if they were to avoid being seen. They agreed that Wallander would probably take the western approach. It was slightly hilly on that side. There were high, dense clumps of bushes growing right up to the edge of the property. On that basis they decided to approach from the east. Svedberg had noticed a haystack on a narrow strip of ground between two fields. If necessary they could burrow into the stack itself. They were in position by 3.30 a.m. Both of them had their guns ready and loaded.

The house shimmered before them in the mist. Everything was still. Without knowing why, Svedberg had the feeling that something was not quite right. He took out his binoculars, wiped the lenses, and then examined the house wall bit by bit. There was a light in one window, probably the kitchen. He could see nothing unusual. He thought it unlikely Konovalenko was asleep. He would be there, waiting. He might even be outside the house. Each of them waited on tenterhooks, lost in a world of his own.

It was Widen who spotted Wallander. It was 5 a.m. As they had anticipated, he appeared on the western side of the house. Widen had good eyesight, and thought at first it was a hare or a deer moving among the bushes. But then he began to wonder, nudged Svedberg's arm gently, and pointed. Svedberg took out his binoculars. He could just make out Wallander's face among the bushes.

Was Wallander acting according to the instructions he had received from Konovalenko? Or had he decided to try and take him by surprise? And where was Konovalenko? And Wallander's daughter?

They could only wait. There was no movement around the house. Widen and Svedberg took turns observing Wallander's expressionless face. Again Svedberg was moved by a sense that something wasn't right. He looked at his watch. Wallander would soon have been lying in the bushes for an hour. There was still no sign of life in the house.

Suddenly Widen passed the binoculars to Svedberg. Wallander was on the move. He was wriggling his way towards the house, then stood there pressed against the wall. He had his pistol in one hand. So, he's decided to take Konovalenko on, Svedberg thought, and he could feel a lump in his stomach. There was nothing they could do but keep watching. Widen had taken aim with his rifle, pointing it at the front door. Wallander ducked under the windows as he ran to the front door. Svedberg could see that he was listening. He tried the handle. The door was unlocked. Without hesitation he flung it open and rushed in. Widen and Svedberg scrambled out of the haystack.

They had not agreed what their next move would be; they just knew that they had to follow Wallander. They ran to the corner of the house and took cover. It was still deathly quiet inside.

Svedberg realised why he had been uneasy. "They've moved out," he said. "There's nobody there."

Widen stared at him in disbelief. "How do you know?"

"I just know," Svedberg said, stepping out of the shadow of the wall. He shouted Wallander's name. Wallander came out onto the steps. He did not seem surprised to see them.

"She's gone," he said. He looked deadbeat. It was possible that he had already passed the limit of being so exhausted he might collapse at any moment.

They went into the house together and tried to interpret the clues. Widen stayed in the background and kept watch, while Wallander and Svedberg searched the house. Wallander did not refer to their having followed him to the house. Svedberg suspected that deep down he knew they would not abandon him. Perhaps he was even grateful.

It was Svedberg who found her. He opened the door to one of the rooms, and looked at the unmade bed. Without knowing why, he bent down and peered under it. There she was. For one horrible moment he thought it was Wallander's daughter, but it was the older woman, in the clothes he had seen her in earlier. Before telling the others what he had found, he swiftly checked under the other beds. He looked in the refrigerator and all the cupboards. Only when he was certain that Linda was not lying hidden somewhere did he attract their attention. They moved the bed to one side. When Wallander saw her head he turned on his heel, rushed out of the house and threw up.

She had no features left. Just a bloody mass in which it was impossible to pick out any features. Svedberg took a towel and laid it over her head. Then he examined the body. There were five bullet wounds. They formed a pattern, and that made him feel even worse than he did already. She had been shot in both feet, then in her hands, and finally through the heart.

They left her, and continued going through the house in silence. Neither of them said a word. They lifted the hatch to the cellar, and went down. Svedberg managed to hide the chain which he assumed had been used to tie up Wallander's daughter, but Wallander knew she had been kept down there in the darkness. Svedberg could see him biting his lips. He wondered how much longer Wallander could keep going. They went back to the kitchen. Svedberg discovered a cauldron full of blood-coloured water. When he stuck his finger in, he could feel traces of lingering heat. It slowly dawned on him what had happened. He went through the house one more time, painstakingly trying to follow up the various clues, make them reveal what had happened.

In the end, he proposed they should all sit down. Wallander was almost apathetic by this stage. Svedberg thought long and hard. Did he dare? The responsibility was enormous. But in the end he resolved to go ahead.

"I don't know where your daughter is," he said. "But she's still alive. I'm sure of that."

Wallander looked at him without saying anything.

"I think this is what happened," Svedberg said. "I can't be sure, but I'm trying to interpret the clues, piece them together, and see what kind of a story they tell. I think the dead woman tried to help your daughter to escape. I can't know whether or not she managed it. Maybe she got away, maybe Konovalenko stopped her? There are signs to suggest both possibilities. He killed Tania in such a sadistic fury, we have to believe that Linda has escaped. It could also have been a reaction to the fact that she even tried to help Linda. Tania let him down, and that was enough to trigger his brutality, which seems to be limitless. He scalded her face with boiling water. Then he shot her in the feet, that was for the escape, and then in the hands and finally through the heart. I would prefer not to try and imagine what her last hour in this life was like. Then he left. That is another indication that Linda escaped. If she managed to get away, Konovalenko could no longer regard the house as safe. But it could also be that Konovalenko was afraid somebody might have heard the shooting. That's what I think happened. But, of course, it could all have been quite different."

It was 7 a.m. now. Nobody said a word.

Svedberg went to the telephone. He called Martinsson, and had to wait as he was in the bathroom.

"Do me a favour," he said. "Drive to the railway station in Tomelilla. I'll be there in an hour. And don't tell anybody where you're going."

"Are you going off your rocker as well?" Martinsson said.

"No," Svedberg said. "I am in dead earnest."

He hung up and looked at Wallander. "Right now there's nothing you can do apart from get some sleep. Go home with Sten. Or we'll take you to your father's."

"How could I sleep?" Wallander said, as if in a dream.

"By lying down, for a start," Svedberg said. "You'd better do as I tell you. If you're going to be in any condition to help your daughter, you have to get some sleep. The state you're in, you'd only be a nuisance."

"I think I should go to my father's place," Wallander said.

"Where did you leave the car?" Widen said.

"Let me go and get it," Wallander said. "I need the air."

He went out. Svedberg and Widen stared at each other, too weary and upset to talk.

"By God, I'm glad I'm not a policeman," Widen said, gesturing towards the room where Tania was, as the Duett trundled into the yard.

"Thanks for your help," Svedberg said. He watched them drive away, wondering when the nightmare would end.

Widen stopped to drop Wallander at his father's house. They had not exchanged a single word during the journey.

"I'll be in touch before the day's over," Widen said.

He watched Wallander making his way slowly to the house. Poor devil, he thought. How much longer can he keep going?

His father was at the kitchen table. He was unshaven, and Wallander could smell that he needed a bath. He sat opposite him. Neither of them spoke for a long time.

"She's asleep," his father said eventually.

Wallander hardly heard what he said.

"She's sleeping calmly," repeated his father.

The words slowly penetrated Wallander's befuddled head.

"Who is?" he said, wearily.

"I'm talking about my granddaughter," his father said.

Wallander stared at him. For ages. Then he slowly got to his feet and went to the bedroom. Slowly, he opened the door. Linda was in bed, asleep. Her hair was cropped on one side of her head. But it was her all right. Wallander stood in the doorway. Then he walked to the bed and knelt down. He just looked. He did not want to know what had happened, he could not know what had taken place or how she had got home. He just wanted to look at her. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that Konovalenko was still out there. But just for the moment, he didn't care about Konovalenko. Right now she was the only person who existed.

He lay on the floor beside the bed. He curled up and went to sleep. His father put a cushion under his head and a blanket over him and closed the door. Then he went to his studio and carried on painting. He had reverted to his usual motif. He was putting the finishing touches to a grouse.

Martinsson arrived at the railway station in Tomelilla a little after 8 a.m. He got out of his car and greeted Svedberg.

"What's so important, then?" he said, not bothering to disguise his annoyance.

"You'll see," Svedberg said. "But I must warn you it's not a pretty sight."

Martinsson frowned. "What's happened?"

"Konovalenko," Svedberg said. "He's struck again. We have another body to deal with. A woman."

"Good God!"

"Follow me," Svedberg said. "We have a lot to talk about."

"Is Wallander mixed up in all this?"

Svedberg did not hear. He was on the way to his car.

CHAPTER THIRTY

She cut her own hair in the late afternoon. That was how she hoped to erase the ugly memories. Then she started describing what had happened. Wallander had tried in vain to persuade her to let him call a doctor, but she refused.

"My hair will grow again in its own good time," she said. "No doctor can make it grow any faster than it wants to."

Wallander was afraid of what was coming next. What scared him was that his daughter might blame him for what had happened to her. It would be hard to defend himself. It was his fault, dragging her into all this.

She had made up her mind not to see a doctor for the moment. Only once during the day did she start crying. Out of the blue, just as they were going to sit down for lunch. She looked at him and asked what had happened to Tania. He told her the truth, that she was dead. But he did not say that she had been tortured by Konovalenko. Wallander hoped the newspapers would leave out the details. He also told her that Konovalenko was apparently still at large.

"He's on the run," he said. "He's a hunted man; he can't attack whenever he likes any more."

Wallander suspected that this was not necessarily true. Konovalenko was probably just as dangerous now as before. He also knew that he himself, once again, would be setting out to find him. But not yet, not this Wednesday, when his daughter had come back to him from the darkness, silence and terror.

At one point in the evening he spoke with Svedberg on the telephone. Wallander asked for one more night to catch up on sleep and do some thinking. He would come out into the open on Thursday. Svedberg told him about the search going on at full scale. There was no trace of Konovalenko.

"He's not alone," Svedberg said. "There was somebody else in that house. Rykoff is dead. Tania too. The man called Victor Mabasha died some days ago. Konovalenko ought to be on his own, but he isn't. There was somebody else in that house. The question is: who?"

"I don't know," Wallander said. "A new, unknown henchman?"

Shortly after Svedberg had hung up, there was a call from Widen. Wallander assumed that he and Svedberg were in touch with each other. Widen asked about Wallander's daughter, and Wallander replied that she would no doubt be OK.

"I'm thinking about that woman," Widen said. "I'm trying to understand how anybody could possibly do something like that to another human being."

"There are such people," Wallander said. "Unfortunately there are more of them than we care to imagine."

When Linda had fallen asleep, Wallander went to the studio where his father was painting. Although he suspected it was just a temporary state of affairs, he felt they had both found it easier to talk with each other during the terrors of the last days. He also wondered just how much of what had happened his father had understood.

"Are you still determined to get married?" Wallander said, sitting on a stool out in the studio.

"You shouldn't joke about serious matters," his father said. "We're getting married in June."

"My daughter has been invited," Wallander said. "But I haven't."

"You will be."

"Where are you going to get married?"

"Here."

"Here? In the studio?"

"Why not? I'm going to paint a big backdrop."

"What do you think Gertrud will have to say about that?"

"It's her idea."

His father turned around and smiled at him. Wallander burst out laughing. He couldn't remember the last time he had a good laugh.

"Gertrud is an unusual woman."

"She must be," Wallander said.

On Thursday morning Wallander woke up refreshed. His joy at the fact his daughter had emerged unscathed filled him with renewed energy. Konovalenko was a constant presence at the back of his mind. He began to feel again that he was ready to go after him.

Wallander called Bjork just before 8 a.m. He had prepared his excuses meticulously.

"Kurt," Bjork said. "For God's sake! Where are you? What's happened?"

"I guess I had a bit of a breakdown," Wallander said, trying to sound convincing by speaking softly and slowly. "But I'm better now. I just need a few more days of peace and quiet."

"You must take sick leave, of course," Bjork said, firmly. "I don't know if you realise we've had a search on for you, and for Linda, of course. All very unpleasant. I'll call off the search right away, and I'll issue a press statement. The missing chief inspector has returned after a short illness. Where are you, by the way?"

"In Copenhagen," Wallander said.

"What the hell are you doing there?"

"I'm staying at a little hotel and getting some rest."

"And no doubt you're not going to tell me what that hotel is called? Or where it is?"

"I'd rather not."

"We need you as rapidly as possible. But in good health. Some horrible things are happening here. Martinsson and Svedberg and the rest of us feel helpless without you. We'll be asking for assistance from Stockholm."

"I'll be there on Friday. And sick leave won't be necessary."

"You'll never know how relieved I am. We've been extremely worried. What actually happened out there in the fog?"

"I'll write a full report, and I'll be with you on Friday."

He put the telephone down and started thinking about what Svedberg had said. Who was this other person? Who was hanging on Konovalenko's coat-tails now? He lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He went over all that had happened since the day poor Akerblom had come into his office. He thought of the many summaries he had tried to write, attempting to find some kind of path through all the confusing tracks. The sense of being caught up in an investigation that could never quite be pinned down came to him once more, and he still did not know the real cause of it all.

He called Svedberg late in the afternoon.

"We haven't been able to find any clue as to where they've gone," he said. "On the other hand, I think my theory about what happened during the night is correct. There's no other plausible explanation."

"I need your help," Wallander said. "I have to drive out to that house again tonight."

"You don't mean you're thinking of going after Konovalenko on your own again?" Svedberg said, horrified.

"Not at all," Wallander said. "My daughter dropped a piece of jewellery while she was being held there. I don't suppose you found it?"

"Not as far as I know."

"Who's on guard there tonight?"

"I expect there'll just be a patrol car checking up now and then."

"Can you keep that patrol car out of the way between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.? I'm in Copenhagen, as you might have heard from Bjork, and everybody has to know that."

"Yes," Svedberg said.

"How can I get into the house?"

"We found a key in the gutter on the right-hand corner of the house, seen from the front, that is. It's still there."

Wallander wondered whether Svedberg had really believed him. Searching for a piece of jewellery was a pretty feeble excuse. If it was there, then of course the police would have found it. Then again, he had no idea what he thought he might find. During the last year Svedberg had developed into a skilful crime scene investigator. Wallander thought he might one day get up to Rydberg's level. If there had been anything significant there, Svedberg would have found it. All Wallander might be able to do was to see new connections.

In any case, that was where he had to start. It was most likely, to his way of thinking, that Konovalenko and his companion had returned to Stockholm.

He left for Tomelilla at 8.30 p.m. It was a warm evening, and he drove with the window open. It crossed his mind that he had never discussed his holiday entitlement with Bjork.

He parked in the yard and retrieved the key. When he got into the house he started by switching on all the lights. He looked around, but he felt unsure where he should start. He wandered around the house, trying to isolate what it was he was looking for. A track leading to Konovalenko. A destination. An indication of who the unknown companion might be. Something that would reveal what was behind it all. He sat down in one of the chairs and thought back to when he checked the rooms first time around. At the same time he let his gaze wander. He saw nothing that seemed to him odd, or in any way remarkable. There's nothing here, he thought. Even if Konovalenko left in a hurry, he'll have covered his tracks. The ashtray in Stockholm was a fluke. Besides, Nyberg must have picked the house clean.

He got up from the chair and went around the house again, more slowly this time, and more carefully. He paused occasionally, lifted up a tablecloth, leafed through magazines, felt underneath the seats of chairs. Nothing. He went through the various bedrooms, leaving until last the room where they had found Tania. Nothing. In the rubbish bin, which Svedberg would have been through already, he found a dead mouse. Wallander poked at it with a fork and saw it had not been killed by a mousetrap. Somebody had stabbed it to death. A knife, he thought. He remembered that Mabasha had had a knife. But he was in the morgue. Wallander left the kitchen and went into the bathroom. Konovalenko had left nothing behind. He returned to the living room and sat down again. He picked a different chair this time, so he could see the room from another angle. There's always something, he thought. It's just a case of finding it. He set off to search through the house once more. Nothing. By the time he sat down again, it was already 10.15 p.m. He would have to leave soon. Time was running out.

Whoever used to live in this house had been very well organised. There was a place for every object, every piece of furniture, every light fixture. He looked to see if he could find anything out of place. After a while his eye settled on a bookcase against one of the walls. All the books were standing in straight lines. Except on the bottom shelf, where the back of one book was sticking out. He got up and picked out the book. It was a road atlas. He noticed a piece of the cover had been torn off and was inserted between the pages. He opened the atlas and found himself looking at a map of eastern Sweden, including sections of Smaland, Kalmar County, and the island of Oland. He studied the map. Then he sat down at a table and adjusted the lamp. He could see some traces of pencil marks here and there. As if somebody had been following a route with a pencil, occasionally letting it touch the paper. One of the faint pencil marks was at the point where the Oland bridge starts out from Kalmar. Right down at the bottom of the page, more or less level with Blekinge, he found another mark. He thought for a while. Then he turned to the map of Skane. There were no pencil marks there. He went back to the previous page. The faint marks followed the coastal road to Kalmar. He put the atlas down, went to the kitchen and called Svedberg at home.

"I'm still here," he said. "If I say Oland, what does that mean to you?"

Svedberg pondered. "Nothing," he said.

"You didn't find a notebook when you searched the house? No telephone book?"

"Tania had a little pocket diary in her purse," Svedberg said. "But there was nothing in it."

"No loose scraps of paper?"

"If you look in the woodstove, you'll see somebody has been burning paper," Svedberg said. "We went through the ashes. There was nothing there. Why do you mention Oland?"

"I found an atlas," Wallander said. "But I don't suppose it means anything."

"Konovalenko has probably gone back to Stockholm," Svedberg said. "I think he's had enough of Skane."

"You're probably right," Wallander said. "Sorry to disturb you. I'll be leaving soon."

"Just one thing," Svedberg said. "Linda's mother keeps calling."

"Keep her away from Linda until the weekend," Wallander said and hung up.

He returned the atlas to the bookcase.

He went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. He noticed that the telephone was nesting on a directory. He picked it up and opened it. Somebody had written an address on the inside cover: 14 Hemmansvagen. It was written in pencil. He thought for a moment. Then he called directory enquiries. When they answered he asked for the number of a subscriber by the name of Wallander who lived at 14 Hemmansvagen in Kalmar.

"There is nobody called Wallander at the address you gave," the operator said.

"It could be that the phone is in his boss' name, but I can't remember what he's called."

"Could it be Edelman?"

"That's it," Wallander said.

He was given the number, thanked the girl and hung up. Was it possible? Did Konovalenko have another safe house, this time on Oland?

He put the lights out behind him, locked up and replaced the key in the gutter. There was a breeze blowing. The warmth of the evening suggested early summer. His mind had been made up for him. He drove away from the house and headed for Oland.

He stopped in Brosarp and called home. His father answered.

"She's asleep," he said. "We've been playing cards."

"I won't be home tonight," Wallander said. "But don't worry. I just have to catch up with a stack of routine stuff. I'll be in touch tomorrow morning. And don't tell
anyone
she's there."