The Fifth Woman (29 page)

“Jacob Hoslowski,” replied the man. Wallander could hear a faint, almost imperceptible accent in his voice. The man was unwashed. He smelled bad. His long hair and beard were matted.

“I wonder if I might disturb you for a few minutes,” he said.

Hoslowski smiled and stepped aside.

“Come in. I always let in anyone who knocks on my door.”

Wallander stepped inside the dark hall and almost tripped over a cat. The whole house was full of them. He’d never in his life seen so many cats in one place before. It reminded him of the Forum Romanum, but here the stench was appalling. He followed Hoslowski into the larger of the two rooms in the house. There was almost no furniture, just mattresses and cushions, piles of books, and a single kerosene lamp on a stool. And cats, everywhere. Wallander had an uneasy feeling that they were all watching him with alert eyes, ready to hurl themselves at him at any moment.

“I don’t often visit a house without electricity,” said Wallander.

“I live outside of time,” Hoslowski replied simply. “In my next life I’m going to be reincarnated as a cat.”

Wallander nodded. “I see,” he said. “Were you living here ten years ago?”

“I’ve lived here ever since I left time behind.”

“When did you leave time behind?”

“A long time ago.”

Wallander could see this was the most accurate answer he was going to get. With some difficulty he sank down onto one of the cushions, hoping that it wasn’t covered with cat piss.

“Ten years ago a woman went out onto the ice at Stång Lake near here and drowned,” he went on. “Do you remember the incident? Even though, as you say, you live outside of time?”

Wallander noticed that Hoslowski reacted positively to having his timeless existence accepted.

“A winter Sunday ten years ago,” said Wallander. “According to the report, a man came here and asked you for help.”

Hoslowski nodded. “A man came and pounded on my door. He wanted to borrow my telephone.”

Wallander looked around the room. “But you don’t have a phone?”

“Who would I talk to?”

Wallander nodded. “What happened then?”

“I directed him to my nearest neighbours. They have a telephone.”

“Did you go with him?”

“I went over to the lake to see if I could pull her out.”

Wallander paused and backed up a bit.

“The man who pounded on your door – I presume he was upset?”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean by ‘maybe’?”

“I remember him as being oddly calm.”

“Did you notice anything else?”

“I forget. It took place in a cosmic dimension that has changed many times since then.”

“Let’s move on. You went over to the lake. What happened then?”

“The ice was smooth. I saw the hole. I walked over to it. But I didn’t see anything in the water.”

“You say that you walked? Weren’t you afraid the ice would crack?”

“I know what it can hold. Besides, I can make myself weightless when I have to.”

You can’t talk sense with a madman, Wallander thought.

“Can you describe the hole in the ice for me?”

“It was probably cut by a fisherman. Maybe it froze over, but the ice hadn’t had a chance to get thick.”

Wallander thought for a moment.

“Don’t ice fishermen drill small holes?”

“This one was almost rectangular. Maybe they had used a saw.”

“Are there usually ice fishermen on Stång Lake?”

“The lake is full of fish. I fish there myself. But not in the winter.”

“Then what happened? You stood next to the hole in the ice. You didn’t see anything. What did you do then?”

“I took off my clothes and got into the water.”

Wallander stared at him.

“Why in God’s name did you do that?”

“I thought I might be able to feel her body with my feet.”

“But you could have frozen to death.”

“I can make myself insensitive to extreme cold or heat if necessary.”

Wallander realised he should have anticipated this answer.

“But you didn’t find her?”

“No. I pulled myself back out of the water and got dressed. Right after that people came running. A car with ladders. Then I left.”

Wallander began to get up from the uncomfortable cushion. The stench in the room was unbearable. He had no further questions and didn’t want to stay any longer than he had to. At the same time he had to admit that Hoslowski had been obliging and friendly.

Hoslowski followed him out to the yard.

“They pulled her out later,” he said. “My neighbour usually stops by to tell me what he thinks I should know about the outside world. He’s a very nice man. He keeps me informed about everything that goes on in the local shooting club. Most of what happens elsewhere in the world he considers less important. That’s why I don’t know much about what’s happening. Maybe you’d permit me to ask whether at the present time there’s any kind of extensive war going on?”

“Nothing big,” said Wallander. “But lots of small ones.”

Hoslowski nodded. Then he pointed.

“My neighbour lives right nearby,” he said. “You can’t see his house. It’s maybe 300 metres from here. Earthly distances are hard to calculate.”

Wallander thanked him and left. It was quite dark now. He used his torch to see the way. Lights flickered between the trees. The house he came to seemed relatively new. In front stood a van with the words “Plumbing Services” painted on the side. Wallander rang the bell. A tall, barefoot man wearing a white undershirt wrenched open the door as if Wallander was the latest in an endless line of people who had come to disturb him. But he had an open and friendly face. He could hear a child crying somewhere in the house. Wallander explained briefly who he was.

“And it was Hoslowski who sent you over?” said the man with a smile.

“What makes you think that?”

“I can tell by the smell,” said the man. “It goes away with a good airing. Come on in.”

Wallander followed him into the kitchen. The crying was coming from upstairs. There was a TV on somewhere too. The man introduced himself as Rune Nilsson. Wallander declined a cup of coffee and told him why he was there.

“You don’t forget something like that,” Nilsson said. “It was before I was married. There was an old house here that I tore down when I built the new one. Was it really ten years ago that it happened?”

“Exactly ten years ago, give or take a few months.”

“He came and pounded on my door. It was the middle of the day.”

“How did he seem?”

“He was upset, but in control. He called the police while I put on my coat. Then we took off. We took a shortcut through the woods. I did a lot of fishing back then.”

“He gave you the impression of being in control the whole time? What did he say? How did he explain the accident?”

“She had fallen in. The ice broke.”

“But the ice was quite thick, wasn’t it?”

“You never know about ice. There can be invisible cracks or weaknesses. But it did seem strange.”

“Jacob Hoslowski said the hole in the ice was rectangular. He thought it might have been cut with a saw.”

“I don’t remember whether it was rectangular or not. Only that it was big.”

“But the ice around it was strong. You’re a big man but you weren’t afraid to go out on the ice?”

Nilsson nodded.

“I thought a lot about that afterwards,” he said. “It was a strange thing, a woman disappearing into a hole in the ice like that. Why couldn’t he have pulled her out?”

“What was his own explanation?”

“He said he tried, but she vanished too fast. Pulled down under the ice.”

“Was that true?”

“They found her several metres away from the hole, right under the ice. She hadn’t sunk down. I was there when they pulled her out. I’ll never forget it. I wouldn’t have believed that she could weigh so much.”

“What do you mean by that? That she could have ‘weighed so much’?”

“I knew Nygren, who was the police officer back then. He’s dead now. He told me several times that the man claimed that she weighed almost 80 kilos. That was supposed to explain why the ice broke. I never understood that. But I guess you always brood over accidents.”

“That’s probably true,” Wallander said, standing up. “Thanks for your time. Tomorrow I’d like you to show me where it happened.”

“Are we going to walk on water?”

Wallander smiled. “That’s not necessary. But maybe Jacob Hoslowski has that power.”

Nilsson shook his head.

“He’s harmless,” he said. “That man and all his cats. Harmless but nuts.”

Wallander walked back along the forest road. The kerosene lamp was still burning in Hoslowski’s window. Nilsson had promised to be home around 8 a.m. the next morning. He started up his car and headed back to Älmhult. The knocking in the engine was gone now. He was hungry. It might be sensible to suggest to Runfeldt that they have dinner together. For Wallander the trip no longer seemed pointless.

When Wallander reached the hotel there was a message for him at the front desk. Bo Runfeldt had rented a car and gone to Växjö. He had good friends there, and intended to spend the night. He promised to return to Älmhult early the next day. For a moment Wallander felt annoyed. He might have needed Runfeldt for something during the evening. He had left a phone number in Växjö, but Wallander had no reason to call him. He realised that he was relieved that he would have the evening to himself. He went to his room, took a shower, and found that he didn’t have a toothbrush with him. He got dressed and went in search of a shop where he could buy what he needed. He ate dinner at a pizzeria, thinking the whole time about the drowning accident. He was slowly piecing together a picture. Back in his hotel room, he called Höglund at home. He hoped her children were in bed asleep. When she answered, he outlined what had happened. What he wanted to know was whether they had succeeded in tracking down Mrs Svensson, Gösta Runfeldt’s last client.

“Not yet,” she told him.

He kept the conversation short. Then he turned on the TV and watched distractedly for a while. Eventually he fell asleep.

When Wallander woke up just after 6 a.m., he felt well rested. By 7.30 a.m. he had eaten breakfast and paid for his room. He sat down in reception to wait. Runfeldt arrived a few minutes later. Neither of them mentioned his having spent the night in Växjö.

“We’re going on an expedition,” said Wallander. “To the lake where your mother drowned.”

“Has the trip been worth the trouble?” asked Runfeldt. Wallander noticed that he was irritable.

“Yes,” he replied. “And your presence has actually been of crucial importance, whether you want to believe it or not.”

Wallander wasn’t sure of this, of course, but he spoke so firmly that Runfeldt, if not totally convinced, at least looked pensive.

Nilsson was waiting for them. They walked along a path through the woods. There was no wind and the temperature was close to freezing. The water spread out before them. The lake was oblong. Nilsson pointed to a spot in about the middle of the lake. Wallander noticed that Runfeldt looked uncomfortable, and assumed he had never been there before.

“It’s hard to imagine the lake covered with ice,” said Nilsson. “Everything changes when winter arrives. Especially your sense of distance. What seems far away in the summer can suddenly seem much closer. Or the other way around.”

Wallander walked down to the shore. The water was dark. He thought he caught a glimpse of a little fish moving next to a rock. Behind him he could hear Runfeldt asking if the lake was deep. He didn’t catch Nilsson’s reply.

He asked himself what had happened. Did Gösta Runfeldt plan to drown his wife on that particular Sunday? That’s what he must have done. Somehow he must have prepared the hole in the ice. The same way someone had sawed through the planks over the pit at Eriksson’s place. And had held Runfeldt prisoner.

Wallander stood there a long time, looking at the lake spread out before them. But what he saw was in his mind.

They walked back through the woods. At the car they said goodbye to Nilsson. Wallander thought they should be back in Ystad well before midday.

He was mistaken. Just south of Älmhult the car stopped, and wouldn’t start again. Wallander called the road service he belonged to. The man came in less than 20 minutes, but quickly concluded that the car had a problem that couldn’t be repaired on the spot. They would have to leave the car in Älmhult and take the train to Malmö.

Runfeldt offered to buy the tickets and bought firstclass seats. Wallander said nothing. At 9.44 a.m., the train left for Hässleholm and Malmö. By then Wallander had called the police station and asked for someone to come to Malmö and pick them up. There was no good connection by train to Ystad. Ebba promised to see to it that someone was there.

“Don’t the police have better cars than that?” Runfeldt asked suddenly after the train had left Älmhult behind. “What if there’d been an emergency?”

“That was my own car,” Wallander replied. “Our emergency vehicles are in much better shape.”

The landscape slid past the window. Wallander thought about Gösta Runfeldt. He was sure that he’d murdered his wife. Now Runfeldt himself was dead. A brutal man, probably a murderer, had now been killed in an equally gruesome way.

The most obvious motive was revenge. But who was taking it? And how did Holger Eriksson fit into the picture? Wallander had no answers.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the conductor. It was a woman. She smiled and asked for their tickets with a distinct Skåne accent. Wallander felt as though she recognised him. Maybe she’d seen his picture in a newspaper.

“When do we get to Malmö?” he asked.

“12.15,” she replied. “Hässleholm 11.13 a.m.”