The Fifth Woman (42 page)

He didn’t fully comprehend what had happened until the door closed behind him. He went down the few steps to his car and got in behind the wheel. Then he said his own name out loud: Åke Davidsson.

From now on Åke Davidsson was going to be a very lonely man. He hadn’t expected this to happen to him. He had never thought that the woman he had been in a relationship with for so many years, even though they didn’t live together, would tell him that it was over, and throw him out of her house.

He started to cry. It hurt. He didn’t understand. But she had been quite firm, telling him to leave and never come back. She’d met another man who wanted to move in with her.

It was almost midnight on Monday, 17 October. He peered into the darkness. He knew that he shouldn’t drive after dark. His eyes weren’t strong enough. He could really only drive in daylight, with special glasses. He squinted through the windscreen. He could only just make out the contours of the road. But he had no choice, he couldn’t stay here all night. He had to go back to Malmö.

He started the engine and turned onto the road, still feeling upset. He was really having trouble seeing. Maybe it would get easier when he got on to the motorway. But first he had to get out of Lödinge.

He took a wrong turn. There were so many side roads, and they all looked alike in the dark. After half an hour he knew that he was completely lost. He reached a courtyard where the road seemed to come to a dead end, and started to turn around. Suddenly he caught sight of a shadow in his headlights. Someone was coming towards the car. He felt relieved at once. There was someone out there who would tell him which way to go. He opened the car door and got out.

Then everything went black.

It took Svedberg a quarter of an hour to find the paper Wallander wanted to see. Wallander had made himself quite clear when Svedberg arrived back just before 10 p.m.

“This might be a shot in the dark,” Wallander had told him. “But we’re looking for a woman with the initials K.A. who recently gave birth or will soon give birth somewhere in Skåne. We thought she was in Lund, but that turned out to be wrong. Maybe she’s here in Ystad instead. I’ve been told that Ystad’s maternity ward is known even outside the country for its practices. Something strange has occurred there one night, and then a second time, and I want to know what happened.”

When Svedberg had found the paper, he went back to Wallander, who was waiting impatiently.

“Ylva Brink,” Svedberg said. “She’s my cousin, a distant cousin. And she’s a midwife at the maternity ward. She came here to report that an unknown woman had showed up one night in her ward. It made her nervous.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s simply not normal for a stranger to be in the maternity ward at night.”

“We need to take a good look at this,” Wallander said. “When was the first time it happened?”

“The night of 30 September.”

“And it made her nervous?”

“She came over here the following day, a Saturday. I talked with her for a while. That’s when I made these notes.”

“When was the second time?”

“The night of 13 October. Ylva happened to be working that night too. That’s when she was knocked to the ground. I was called out there in the morning.”

“What happened?”

“The woman showed up again. When Ylva tried to stop her, she was knocked down. Ylva said it felt like being kicked by a horse.”

“She’d never seen this woman before?”

“Just that one other time.”

“She was wearing a uniform?”

“Yes. But Ylva was positive she wasn’t on the nursing staff.”

“How could she be sure? There must be a lot of people she wouldn’t recognise who work at the hospital.”

“She was positive. I’m afraid that I didn’t ask her why.”

“This woman had an interest in the maternity ward between 30 September and 13 October,” Wallander said. “She made two visits late at night, not hesitating to knock down a midwife. So what was she really up to?”

“That’s what Ylva wants to know too.”

“She has no answer?”

“They went over the ward both times, but everything was in order.”

Wallander looked at his watch. It was almost 10.45 p.m.

“I want you to call your cousin,” he said. “Even if you have to wake her up.”

Svedberg nodded. Wallander pointed at his phone. He knew that Svedberg, generally forgetful, had a good memory for phone numbers. He dialled the number. It rang and rang. No answer.

“If she’s not home, that means she’s working,” Svedberg said.

Wallander jumped up.

“Even better,” he said. “I haven’t been back to the maternity ward since Linda was born.”

“The old wing was torn down,” Svedberg said. “The whole place is new.”

It took them only a few minutes to drive to the hospital. Wallander remembered the night several years ago when he’d woken up with violent pains in his chest and thought he was having a heart attack. Since then the hospital had been remodelled. They rang the bell and a guard came at once and opened the door. Wallander showed him his identification, and they took the stairs to the maternity ward. A woman was waiting for them at the door to the ward.

“My cousin,” Svedberg said. “Ylva Brink.”

Wallander shook her hand, catching a glimpse of a nurse in the background. Ylva took them to a small office.

“It’s calm right now,” she said. “But that can change at any minute.”

“I’ll get right to the point,” Wallander said. “I know that all information on patients is confidential, and I’m not intending to challenge that rule. The only thing I want to know is whether between 30 September and 13 October a woman gave birth here whose initials were K.A. K as in Karin and A as in Andersson.”

The woman looked uneasy.

“Has something happened?”

“No,” Wallander said. “I just need to identify someone, that’s all.”

“I can’t tell you,” she said. “That information is confidential unless the patient has signed a release form allowing details about her to be divulged. I’m certain that the rule must also apply to initials.”

“My question will be answered sooner or later,” Wallander said. “My problem is that I need to know right now.”

“I still can’t help you.”

Svedberg had been sitting in silence. Wallander saw that he was frowning.

“Is there a men’s room here?” he asked.

“Around the corner.”

Svedberg nodded to Wallander.

“You said that you needed to go.”

Wallander understood. He got up and left the room.

He waited for five minutes before he went back. Ylva Brink was not there. Svedberg stood leaning over several papers lying on the desk.

“What did you say to her?” Wallander asked.

“That she shouldn’t embarrass the family,” Svedberg replied. “I also explained that she could spend a year in jail.”

“For what?” Wallander asked in surprise.

“Obstructing the discharge of official duties.”

“There isn’t such an offence, is there?”

“She doesn’t know that. Here are all the names. I think we’d better read fast.”

They went through the list. None of the women had the initials K.A. Wallander realised it was as he had feared. Another dead end.

“Maybe those weren’t someone’s initials,” Svedberg said thoughtfully. “Maybe K.A. means something else.”

“What would that be?”

“There’s a Katarina Taxell here,” Svedberg replied, pointing. “Maybe the letters K.A. are just an abbreviation of Katarina.”

Wallander looked at the name. He went through the list again. There was no other name with the combination K.A. No Karin, no Karolina.

“You may be right,” he said. “Write down the address.”

“It’s not here,” he said. “Only her name. Maybe you’d better wait downstairs while I talk to Ylva one more time.”

“Stick with the line that she shouldn’t embarrass the family,” Wallander said. “Don’t mention bringing charges. That could cause us trouble later on. I want to know if Katarina Taxell is still here. I want to know if she’s had any visitors. I want to know if there’s anything special about her. Family relationships, that sort of thing. But especially, I want to know where she lives.”

“This is going to take a while,” Svedberg said. “Ylva is busy with a birth.”

“I’ll wait,” Wallander said. “All night if I have to.”

He took a biscuit from a plate and left the ward. When he passed the casualty ward downstairs he caught sight of a drunk man, covered in blood, who was being brought in from an ambulance. Wallander recognised him. His name was Niklasson, and he owned a junkyard outside Ystad. Normally he was sober, but occasionally he went on binges and got into fights.

Wallander knew the two medics bringing him in.

“Is it bad?” he asked them.

“Niklasson is tough,” said the older of the two. “He’ll survive. He got into a fight in a pub in Sandskogen.”

Wallander went out to the car park. It was chilly. They’d also have to find out if there was a Karin or Katarina in Lund. Birch could handle that. It was 11.30 p.m. He tried the doors of Svedberg’s car. It was locked. He wondered if he should go back and ask for the keys. He might have to wait a long time. Instead, he began pacing back and forth in the car park.

Suddenly he was back in Rome again. Ahead of him, in the distance, was his father, out on a secret midnight excursion towards an unknown destination. A son tailing his own father. The Spanish Steps, then the fountain. His eyes glistened. An old man alone in Rome. Did he know that he was going to die soon?

Wallander stopped. He had a lump in his throat. When would he ever have the peace and quiet that he needed to work through his grief over his father? Life tossed him back and forth. He would soon be 50. It was autumn now. Night. And he was walking around in a hospital car park, freezing. What he feared most was that the world would become so hostile and alien that he’d no longer be able to handle it. What would be left then? Retire early? Ask for a desk job? End up spending 15 years going around to schools giving talks about drugs and traffic accidents?

The house, he thought. And the dog. And maybe Baiba too. An outward change is necessary. I’ll start with that. Later we’ll see what happens with me. My workload is too heavy. I can’t continue like this.

It was past midnight. He paced the car park. The ambulance had left. Everything was quiet. He knew there were a lot of things he needed to think through, but he was too tired. The only thing he could manage to do was wait. And keep moving so he wouldn’t freeze.

Finally Svedberg appeared. He was walking fast. Wallander could see that he had news.

“Katarina Taxell is from Lund,” he said.

Wallander felt his excitement rise.

“Is she here?”

“She had her baby on 15 October. She’s gone home already.”

“Do you have the address?”

“I’ve got more than that. She’s a single mother, there’s no father listed in the records. And she didn’t have any visitors while she was here.”

Wallander realised that he was holding his breath. “Then it could be her,” he said. “The woman called K.A.”

They hurried back to the station. At the entrance Svedberg braked hard to avoid hitting a hare that had wandered into town. They sat down in the empty canteen. The phone rang in the duty officers’ room. Wallander filled a cup with bitter coffee.

“She couldn’t be the one who stuffed Blomberg in a sack,” Svedberg said, scratching his scalp with a coffee spoon. “There’s no way that a new mother would go out and kill someone.”

“She’s a link,” Wallander said. “If what I’m thinking is true. She fits in between Blomberg and the person who seems most important right now.

“The nurse who knocked Ylva down?”

“That’s the one.”

Svedberg strained to follow Wallander’s thoughts.

“So you think this nurse showed up at the maternity ward to see her?”

“Yes.”

“But why did she come at night? Why didn’t she come during normal visiting hours? There must be visiting hours, surely? And no-one writes down who visits patients, or who has visitors, do they?”

Wallander saw that Svedberg’s questions were important. He had to answer them before they could continue.

“She didn’t want to be seen,” he said. “That’s the only conceivable explanation.”

“Seen by whom?” Svedberg said stubbornly. “Was she afraid of being recognised? Did she not want even Katarina Taxell to see her? Did she visit the hospital at night to look at a woman asleep?”

“I don’t know,” Wallander said. “It’s strange, I agree.”

“There’s only one conceivable explanation,” Svedberg continued. “She comes at night because she could be recognised in the daytime.”

Wallander pondered this. “So you’re saying that someone who works there during the day might have recognised her?”

“You can’t ignore the fact that she has twice visited the maternity ward at night. And then she gets involved in a situation where it’s necessary to assault my cousin, who was doing nothing wrong.”

“There might be an alternative explanation,” Wallander said

“What’s that?”

“Night could be the only time she is able to visit the maternity ward.”

Svedberg nodded thoughtfully.

“That’s possible, of course. But why?”

“There could be lots of reasons. Where she lives. Her work. Maybe she wants to make these visits in secret.”

Svedberg pushed his coffee cup away.

“Her visits must have been important. She went there twice.”

“We can put together a timetable,” Wallander said. “The first time she came was on the night of 30 September. At the hour when everyone is at their most tired, and least alert. She stays a few minutes and then disappears. Two weeks later she repeats the whole thing. At the same hour. This time she’s stopped by Ylva Brink, who is knocked down. Then she disappears without a trace.”