The Fifth Woman (15 page)

Three weeks later they got caught in an ambush and O’Banion was killed. They were forced to retreat, and it turned into a panicked rout. Wallander tried to sense the fear in Berggren. He was convinced it was there, but Berggren concealed it. He wrote only that they had buried their dead in the bush and marked their graves with wooden crosses. The war went on. On one occasion they used a group of apes for target practice. Another time they gathered crocodile eggs on the bank of a river. Berggren’s savings were now close to 30,000 kronor.

But then, in the summer of 1961, everything was over. The diary ended suddenly. Wallander thought it must have been as abrupt for Harald Berggren. He must have imagined that this peculiar jungle war would go on forever. In his last entries he described how they fled the country at night, in a cargo plane with no lights. One of its engines started shuddering as they lifted off from the runway they had made by clearing the jungle. The diary ended there, as though Berggren had grown tired of it, or else no longer had anything to say. Wallander didn’t even discover where the plane was headed. Berggren was flying through the African night, the engine noise died away, and he no longer existed.

Wallander stretched and went out onto the balcony. It was now 5 p.m. A cloud front was on its way in from the sea. Why was the diary kept in Eriksson’s safe along with a shrunken head? If Berggren was still alive, he would be at least 50. Wallander felt cold standing out on the balcony. He went inside and sat down on the sofa. His eyes hurt. Who was Berggren writing the diary for? Himself or someone else?

A young man keeps a diary of a war in Africa. Often what he describes is rich in detail, but it is also constrained in some way. Something was missing, something that Wallander couldn’t read even between the lines.

Not until Höglund rang the bell did it dawn on him what it was. He saw her in the door and suddenly he knew. The diary described a world dominated by men. The women Berggren wrote about were either dead or fleeing in panic. Except for Irene, who’d been sweet but too tall. Otherwise he didn’t mention women. He wrote about furloughs in various cities in the Congo, about how he got drunk and got into fights. But there were no women. Wallander couldn’t help thinking that this was significant. Berggren was a young man when he went off to Africa. The war was an adventure. In a young man’s world, women are an important part of the adventure. He was starting to wonder. But for the time being he kept his thoughts to himself.

Höglund had come to tell him that she had gone through Runfeldt’s flat with one of Nyberg’s forensic technicians. The result was negative. They had found nothing that would explain why he had bought bugging equipment.

“Gösta Runfeldt’s world consists of orchids,” she said. “I get the impression of a kindly and intense widower.”

“His wife seems to have drowned,” Wallander said.

“She was quite beautiful,” Höglund said. “I saw their wedding picture.”

“Maybe we ought to find out what happened to her,” Wallander said. “Sooner or later.”

“Martinsson and Svedberg are getting in touch with his children.”

Wallander had already talked to Martinsson on the phone. He had been in touch with Runfeldt’s daughter. She was utterly astonished at the idea that her father might have deliberately disappeared. She was extremely worried. She knew he was supposed to fly to Nairobi and had assumed that’s where he was.

“There’s too much that doesn’t add up,” he said. “Svedberg was supposed to call when he’d spoken to the son. He was out at a farm somewhere in Hälsingland where there wasn’t a phone.”

They decided to hold a meeting of the investigative team early on Sunday afternoon. Höglund would make the arrangements. Then Wallander recounted to her the contents of the diary. He took his time and tried to be thorough. Telling her about it was like reviewing it in his own mind.

“Berggren,” she said when he was through. “Could he be the one?”

“I don’t know, but at any rate as a young man he committed atrocities on a regular basis and for money,” Wallander said. “The diary makes horrifying reading. Maybe these days he’s living his life in fear that the contents might be divulged.”

“We’ll have to find him,” Höglund said. “The question is where to start looking.”

“The diary was in Eriksson’s safe,” Wallander said. “For the moment that’s the clearest lead we have. But we must continue to work with an open mind.”

“You know that’s impossible,” she said, surprised. “When we find a clue it shapes the search.”

“I’m just reminding you,” he replied evasively, “that we can be wrong in spite of everything.”

She was about to leave when the telephone rang. It was Svedberg, who had reached Runfeldt’s son.

“He was pretty upset,” Svedberg said. “He wanted to jump on a plane and come here right away.”

“When was the last time he heard from his father?”

“A few days before he was due to leave for Nairobi. Everything was normal. According to the son, his father always looked forward to his trips.”

Wallander handed the phone to Höglund, who set a time for the meeting of the investigative team. Wallander didn’t remember until she hung up that he had a note that was written by Svedberg. A report of a woman acting strangely in the Ystad hospital maternity ward.

Höglund went home to her children. When Wallander was alone he called his father. They decided that he would go out on Sunday morning. The pictures that his father had taken with his ancient camera had been developed.

Wallander devoted the rest of Saturday evening to writing up a summary of Eriksson’s murder. As he worked he mulled over Runfeldt’s disappearance. He was uneasy and restless and found it difficult to concentrate. The feeling that they were skirting something very big was growing stronger. The feeling of anxiety wouldn’t let up. By 9 p.m. he was so tired that he couldn’t think any longer. He shoved his notebook aside and called his daughter Linda. The phone rang into a void. She wasn’t home. He put on a heavy jacket and walked to a Chinese restaurant on the square. The place was unusually packed, even for a Saturday night. He indulged in a carafe of wine. After he’d eaten, he walked home in the rain, his head aching.

That night he dreamed that he was in a huge dark place, it was very hot, and somewhere in the dense night Berggren was pointing a gun at him.

He woke early. It was clear again. He got into his car at 7.15 a.m. and drove out to Löderup to see his father. In the morning light, the curves of the countryside were sharp and clear. Wallander thought he would try to tempt his father and Gertrud to come with him down to the beach. Soon it would be too cold to go.

He thought with displeasure about the dream he’d had. As he drove he also decided that at the investigative team’s meeting that afternoon they would have to make a schedule of the order in which various questions were to be answered. Locating Berggren was important. Especially if it turned out that that trail led to a dead end.

His father was standing on the steps waiting for him. They went into the kitchen, where Gertrud had set out some breakfast. They looked through the photographs. Some of them were blurred, and in some the subject was only partly inside the frame, but since his father was obviously pleased and proud of them, Wallander nodded appreciatively.

One picture stood out from the rest. It was taken by a waiter on their last night in Rome. They had just finished their dinner. Wallander and his father were squeezed close together. A bottle of red wine stood on the white tablecloth. Both of them were smiling straight at the camera.

For an instant the faded photograph from Eriksson’s diary flashed into Wallander’s mind, but he pushed it away. Right now he wanted to look at himself and his father. He realised that the picture confirmed once and for all what he had discovered on the trip. They were a lot alike. They even looked alike.

“I’d like to have a copy of this picture,” Wallander said.

“I’ve already taken care of it,” his father replied contentedly, handing him an envelope.

After breakfast they went to his father’s studio. He had nearly finished a landscape with a grouse in it. The bird was always the last thing he painted.

“How many pictures have you painted in your life?” Wallander asked.

“You ask me that every time you come here,” his father said. “How am I supposed to keep track? What would be the point? The main thing is that they’re all the same.”

Long ago Wallander had realised that there was only one explanation for his father painting the same subject over and over. It was his way of keeping at bay all the things that were changing around him. In his paintings he even controlled the path of the sun. It was motionless, locked in time, always at the same height above the forested ridges.

“It was a great holiday,” Wallander said as he looked at his father, who was busy mixing colours.

“I told you it would be,” said his father. “If it wasn’t for me you would have gone to your grave without ever seeing the Sistine Chapel.”

Wallander wondered briefly whether to ask about the solitary walk he’d taken on that night in Rome, but decided not to. It was nobody’s business but his father’s.

Wallander suggested that they drive down to the sea. To his surprise his father agreed at once. Gertrud preferred to stay home. They got into Wallander’s car and drove down to Sandhammaren. There was almost no breeze. They headed for the beach. His father took him by the arm when they passed the last cliff. The sea spread itself out before them. The beach was almost deserted. In the distance they could see some people playing with a dog. That was all.

“It’s beautiful,” his father said.

Wallander sneaked a look at him. Rome seemed to have made a fundamental change in his mood. Maybe it would also have a positive effect on the insidious disease the doctors had diagnosed. But he would never fully understand what the holiday had meant to his father. It had been the journey of a lifetime, and Wallander had been given the honour of accompanying him.

Rome was his father’s Mecca.

They took a long walk on the beach. Wallander wondered whether to bring up the old days. But there was no hurry, they had time. Suddenly his father stopped short.

“What is it?” Wallander asked.

“I’ve been feeling bad for a few days,” he said. “But it’ll pass.”

“Do you want to go home?”

“I said it’ll pass.”

They were on the beach more than two hours before his father thought they had walked enough. Wallander, who had forgotten the time, knew that he’d have to hurry so he wouldn’t be late for the meeting at the police station.

After he dropped off his father in Löderup he returned to Ystad with a feeling of relief. Maybe now they could regain the contact they had lost when Wallander had decided to become a policeman. His father had never accepted his choice of profession, but he’d never explained what he had against it. Wallander wondered whether he might finally get an answer to the question he had spent far too much of his life worrying about.

At 2.30 p.m. they closed the door to the conference room. Even Chief Holgersson showed up. Seeing her there reminded Wallander that he still hadn’t called Per Åkeson. He wrote a note to himself in his notebook.

He reported on finding the shrunken head and Harald Berggren’s diary. There was general agreement that this really did look like a lead. After they divided up the various tasks, Wallander shifted the discussion to Gösta Runfeldt.

“We have to assume that something has happened to Runfeldt,” he said. “We can’t rule out either an accident or foul play. Naturally there’s always the possibility that it’s a voluntary disappearance. On the other hand, I think we can discount the likelihood of any sort of connection between Eriksson and Runfeldt. There’s nothing to suggest that this is the case.”

Wallander wanted the meeting to be as short as possible. After all, it was Sunday. He knew that his colleagues were putting a lot of effort into completing their assignments, but he also knew that sometimes the best way to work meant taking a break. The hours he had spent with his father that morning had given him renewed energy. When he left the police station just after 4 p.m., he felt more rested than he had in days. His anxiety seemed to have abated a little.

If they did find Harald Berggren, there was a good chance they would find the solution. The murder was too well planned not to have been carried out by someone extremely unusual. Berggren might be just that killer.

On his way home Wallander stopped and bought groceries. He couldn’t resist the impulse to take out a video. It was a classic,
Waterloo Bridge
. He had seen it in Malmö with Mona in the early years of their marriage, but he had only a vague recollection of what it was about.

He was in the middle of the movie when Linda called. When he heard it was her he said he’d call her right back. He turned off the video and sat down in the kitchen. They talked for almost half an hour. She didn’t apologise for not having called in such a long time. He didn’t mention it either. He knew they were a lot alike. They could both be absentminded, but they knew how to concentrate if there was a task to be done. She told him that everything was fine, both the job in the restaurant and her drama classes. He didn’t press her on that subject. He had a strong impression that she still doubted her talent.

Just before they finished their conversation, he told her about his morning on the beach.

“It sounds like you had a wonderful day together,” she said.

“We did. It feels as if something has changed.”

When they hung up, Wallander went out on the balcony. There was almost no wind, a rare thing in Skåne. For a moment all his worries were gone. Now he had to get some sleep. Tomorrow he’d get down to work again. When he turned out the light in the kitchen, the diary was in his mind again. He wondered where Harald Berggren was at that very moment.