The White Lioness (7 page)

"What's the dog found?" he said.

The policeman turned round to face Wallander. He was white as a sheet, and trembling. Wallander hurried over and bent down. In the mud was a finger. A black finger. Not a thumb, and not a little finger. But a human finger. Wallander felt ill. He told the dog handler to get in touch with Svedberg and Martinsson right away.

"Get them here immediately," he said. "Even if they're halfway through their meal. There's an empty plastic bag on the back seat of my car. Get it."

The policeman did as he was told.

What's going on? Wallander thought. A black finger. A black man's finger. Cut off. In the depths of Skane.

When the policeman returned with the plastic bag, Wallander made a temporary cover to protect the finger from the rain. News of the discovery had spread, and several firemen gathered around the find.

"We have to start looking for the remains of bodies among the ashes," Wallander said to the fire chief. "God knows what's been going on here."

"A finger," Edler said, incredulously.

Twenty minutes later Svedberg and Martinsson arrived, and came running up to the spot. They stared, bewildered, at the black finger. In the end it was Wallander who broke the silence. "We can be sure of one thing," he said. "This isn't one of Mrs Akerblom's fingers."

CHAPTER FIVE

They met at 5 p.m. in one of the conference rooms at the police station. Wallander could not remember a less talkative meeting. In the middle of the table, on a plastic cloth, was the black finger. He could see that Bjork had angled his chair so he couldn't see it. Everyone else stared at the finger.

After a while, an ambulance arrived from the hospital and removed the finger. When it was gone, Svedberg went to get a tray of coffee, and Bjork started the proceedings again.

"Just for once, I'm speechless," was his opening gambit. "Can any of you suggest a plausible explanation?"

Nobody spoke up.

"Wallander," Bjork said, trying another angle, "could you perhaps give us a summary of where we are?"

"I'll give it a shot," Wallander said. "The rest of you can fill in the gaps."

He opened his notebook and leafed through. "Louise Akerblom went missing four days ago," he began. "To be more precise, 98 hours ago. Nobody's seen her since, as far as we know. While we were looking for her, and for her car, a house exploded close to where we think she might be found. We know that the occupant of that house is deceased, and that the house was up for sale. The estate's lawyer lives in Varnamo. He's at a loss to explain what has happened. The house has been empty for more than a year. The new owners have not yet been able to decide whether to sell or to keep it in the family, or rent it. It's possible that some of the heirs might buy out the rest. The lawyer's name is Holmgren, and we've asked our colleagues in Varnamo to discuss the matter with him. At the very least, we want the names and addresses of all the beneficiaries."

He took a slurp of coffee before continuing.

"The fire broke out at 9 a.m.," he said. "There is evidence to suggest that some form of powerful explosive was used, with a timing device. There is absolutely no reason to suppose the fire was started by natural causes. Holmgren says that there were no gas canisters and the whole house was rewired last year. While the fire was being fought, one of our police dogs sniffed out a human finger some 25 metres from the blaze. It's an index finger or middle finger of a left hand. In all probability a man's. A black man's. The forensic team have run a fine-tooth comb over such parts of the heart of the fire and the immediate area as are accessible, but they have found nothing more. We've run a line search over the whole area, and found nothing. No sign of the car, no sign of Mrs Akerblom. A house has blown up, and we've found a finger belonging to a black man. That's about it."

Bjork made a face. "What do the medics have to say?" he asked.

"Maria Lestadius from the hospital was here," Svedberg said. "She says we should get onto the forensic lab right away. She claims she's not competent to read fingers."

Bjork squirmed on his chair. "Say that again," he said. "Read fingers?"

"That's the way she put it." Svedberg seemed resigned. It was a well-known peculiarity of Bjork's, picking on inessentials.

Bjork thumped the table almost absentmindedly. "This is awful," he said. "To put it bluntly, we don't know anything at all. Hasn't Akerblom been able to give us any pointers?"

Wallander made up his mind there and then to say nothing about the handcuffs, not for now. He was afraid it might take them in directions that were of less than immediate significance. Besides, he was not persuaded that the handcuffs had any connection with her disappearance.

"Nothing at all," he said. "I think the Akerbloms were the happiest family in the whole of Sweden."

"Might she have gone over the top, from a religious point of view? We're always reading about those crazy sects."

"You can hardly call the Methodists a crazy sect," Wallander said. "It's one of our oldest free churches. I have to admit I'm not 100 per cent clear just what they stand for."

"We'll have to look into that," Bjork said. "What do you think we should do now?"

"Let's hope for what tomorrow might bring," Martinsson said. "We may get some calls."

"I've arranged extra personnel to man the telephones," Bjork said. "Anything else we should be doing?"

"Let's face it," Wallander said, "we have nothing to go on. We have a finger. That means that somewhere there's a black man missing a finger on his left hand. That means in turn he needs help from a doctor or a hospital. If he hasn't shown up already, he will do sooner or later. He might contact the police. Nobody cuts his own finger off. Well, not often. In other words, somebody has subjected him to torture. It's possible he has fled the country already."

"Fingerprints," Svedberg said. "I don't know how many Africans there are in this country, legally or illegally, but there's a chance we might be able to trace a print in our files. We can send a request to Interpol as well. To my knowledge, many African states have been building up advanced criminal files in the last few years. There was an article about it in
Swedish Policeman
recently. I agree with Kurt. Even if we can't see any connection between Louise Akerblom and this finger, we have to assume there might be one."

"Shall we give this to the newspapers?" Bjork said. "The Ystad police are looking for the owner of a finger. That should get a headline or two, anyway."

"Why not?" Wallander said.

"I'll think about it," Bjork said. "Let's wait a bit. I agree that every hospital in the country should be alerted, though. Surely the medics have a duty to inform the police if they suspect an injury may have been caused by a criminal action?"

"They're also bound by confidentiality," Svedberg said. "But of course the hospitals should be contacted. Health centres, too. Does anybody know how many doctors we have in this country?"

Nobody knew.

"Ask Ebba to find out," Wallander said.

"There are just over 25,000 doctors in Sweden," Wallander said, when she had reported to the conference room the result of her call to the secretary of the Swedish Medical Association.

They were astonished. Twenty-five thousand.

"Where are they all when we need them?" Martinsson said.

Bjork was starting to get impatient. "Is this getting us anywhere?" he said. "If not, we've all got plenty to do. We'll have another meeting tomorrow morning at 8.00."

"I'll see to the hospital business," Martinsson said.

They had just collected their papers and got to their feet when the telephone rang. Martinsson and Wallander were already out in the corridor when Bjork called them back.

"Breakthrough!" he said, his face flushed. "They think they've found the car. That was Noren. Some farmer showed up at the fire and asked the police if they were interested in something he'd found in a pond a few kilometres away. Out towards Sjobo, I think he said. Noren drove to the spot and saw a radio aerial sticking out of the mud. The farmer, whose name is Antonson, was sure the car wasn't there a week ago."

"Right, let's get the hell out of here," Wallander said. "We've got to get that car up tonight. It can't wait until tomorrow. We'll have to find searchlights and a crane."

"I hope there's nobody in the car," Svedberg said.

"That's exactly what we're going to find out," Wallander said. "Come on."

The pond was difficult to get to, close to a thicket, to the north of Krageholm on the way to Sjobo. It took the police three hours to get searchlights and a mobile crane on site, and it was 9.30 before they had managed to attach a cable to the car. Then Wallander contrived to slip and fall halfway into the water. He borrowed overalls from Noren, who had a spare set in his car. He hardly noticed how wet and cold he was. All his attention was concentrated on the car. He was also tense and uncomfortable. He hoped it was the right car, but he was afraid Louise Akerblom might be found inside it.

"This was no accident," Svedberg said. "The car was driven into the mud so that it wouldn't be seen. Probably in the middle of the night. Whoever did it missed the aerial sticking up."

Wallander nodded. Svedberg was right.

The cable slowly tightened. The crane strained against its stanchions and started to pull. The rear end slowly rose into view. Wallander looked at Svedberg, who was an expert on cars.

"Is it the right one?" he said.

"Hang on a bit," Svedberg said. "I can't see yet."

Then the cable came loose. The car sank back into the mud. They had to start all over again. Half an hour later, the crane started pulling once more.

Wallander kept looking from the slowly emerging car to Svedberg, and back again.

And then Svedberg nodded. "It's a Toyota Corolla. No doubt about it."

Wallander aimed a searchlight. Now they could see the car was dark blue.

The car rose slowly from the pond. The crane stopped. Svedberg looked at Wallander. They walked over and looked in, one at each side. The car was empty. Wallander opened the boot. Nothing.

"The car's empty," he told Bjork.

"She could still be in the water," Svedberg said.

Wallander nodded. The pond was about 100 metres in circumference, but the aerial had been visible, so it couldn't be very deep.

"We need divers," he said. "Now. Right away."

"A diver wouldn't be able to see anything, it's too dark," Bjork said. "We'd better wait till the morning."

"They only need to wade along the bottom," Wallander said. "Dragging grappling irons between them. I don't want to wait till tomorrow."

Bjork gave in. He went over to one of the police cars and made a call. Meanwhile Svedberg had opened the driver's door and poked around with a torch. He carefully detached the car telephone.

"The last number called is usually registered," he said. "She might have made some other call, as well as the one to the answering machine at the office."

"Good," Wallander said. "Good thinking, Svedberg."

While they were waiting for the divers, they made a preliminary search of the car. Wallander found a sodden paper bag on the back seat, with soggy pastries.

Everything fits so far, he thought. But then what happened? On the road? Who did you meet, Louise Akerblom? Somebody you'd arranged to see? Or somebody else? Somebody who wanted to meet you, without your knowing about it?

"No handbag," Svedberg said. "No briefcase. Nothing in the glove compartment apart from the log book and insurance documents. And a New Testament."

"Look for a handwritten map," Wallander said.

Svedberg did not find one.

Wallander walked slowly round the car. It was undamaged. It had not been involved in an accident.

They sat in one of the patrol cars, drinking coffee from a thermos. It had stopped raining, and there was barely a cloud in the sky.

"Is she in the pond?" Svedberg wondered.

"I don't know," Wallander said. "Could be."

Two young men arrived in one of the fire brigade's emergency vehicles. Wallander and Svedberg greeted them - they had met before.

"What are we looking for?" one of the divers said.

"Maybe a body," Wallander said. "Maybe a briefcase, or a handbag. Perhaps something else we don't know about."

The divers made their preparations, then waded out into the black, stagnant water, holding a line with grappling irons between them.

The policemen watched in silence.

Martinsson showed up just as the divers had completed their first drag. "It's the right car, I see," Martinsson said.

"And she could be in the pond," Wallander said.

The divers were conscientious. One of them would stop occasionally and pull at the grappling iron. A collection of objects was starting to build up on the bank. A broken sleigh, parts of a threshing attachment, rotten tree branches, a rubber boot.

It was past midnight and still no sign of Louise Akerblom.

"There's nothing more in there," one of the divers said. "We can try again tomorrow, if you think it would be worth it."

"No point," Wallander said. "She's not there."

They exchanged a few brief pleasantries, then drove home.

Wallander had a beer and a couple of crusty rolls when he got back. He was so exhausted, he couldn't think straight. He didn't bother to get undressed, just lay on the bed with a blanket over him.

By 7.30 on Wednesday morning, April 29, Wallander was back at the police station.

A thought had struck him while he was in the car. He looked up Pastor Tureson's telephone number. Tureson himself answered. Wallander apologised for calling so early, then asked if they could meet some time that day.

"Is it about anything in particular?" Tureson said.

"No," Wallander said. "I've just had a few thoughts that give rise to questions I'd like answering. You never know what might be important."

"I heard the radio reports," Tureson said. "And I've read the papers. Is there anything new?"

"She's still missing," Wallander said. "I can't say very much about how the investigation is proceeding, for technical reasons."

"I understand," Tureson said. "Forgive me for asking, it's just that I am worried about Louise's disappearance, naturally."