“Not that I can remember.”
“That’s a pity,” said Wallander. “That would have linked him to Wetterstedt and Carlman.”
“I have a hard time imagining that Fredman and Wetterstedt could have had much use for each other,” said Forsfalt.
“Why not?”
“Let me put it bluntly,” said Forsfalt. “Bjorn Fredman was what used to be called a rough customer. He drank a lot and got into fights. His education was nearly non-existent, although he could read, write, and do arithmetic tolerably well. His interests could hardly be called sophisticated. And he was a brutal man. I interrogated him myself a number of times. His vocabulary consisted almost exclusively of swear words.”
Wallander listened. When Forsfalt stopped he looked at Svedberg.
“We’re back to square one again,” Wallander said slowly. “If there’s no connection between Fredman and the other two.”
“There could be things I don’t know about,” said Forsfalt.
“I’m just thinking out loud,” said Wallander.
“What about his family?” said Svedberg. “Do they live here in Malmo?”
“He’s been divorced for a number of years,” said Forsfalt. “I’m sure of that.”
He picked up the phone and made a call. After a few minutes a secretary came in with a file on Fredman and handed it to Forsfalt. He took a quick look and then put it down on the table.
“He got divorced in 1991. His wife stayed in their flat with the children. It’s in Rosengard. There are three children. The youngest was just a baby when they split up. Fredman moved back to a flat on Stenbrottsgatan that he’d kept for many years. He used it mostly as an office and storeroom. I don’t think his wife knew about it. That’s where he also took his other women.”
“We’ll start with his flat,” said Wallander. “The family can wait. You’ll see that they’re notified of his death?”
Forsfalt nodded. Svedberg had gone out to the hall to call Ystad. Wallander stood by the window, trying to decide what was most important. There seemed to be no link between the first two victims and Fredman. For the first time he had a premonition that they were following a false lead. Was there a completely different explanation for the murders? He decided he would go over all the investigative material that evening with an open mind. Svedberg came back and stood next to him.
“Hansson was relieved,” he said.
Wallander nodded. But he didn’t say a word.
“According to Martinsson an important message came from Interpol about the girl,” Svedberg went on.
Wallander hadn’t been paying attention. He had to ask Svedberg to repeat himself. The girl seemed to be part of something that had happened a long time ago. And yet he knew that sooner or later he’d have to take up her case again. They stood in silence.
“I don’t like it in Malmo,” said Svedberg suddenly. “I only feel happy when I’m home in Ystad.”
Svedberg hated to leave the town of his birth. At the station it had become a running joke. Wallander wondered when he himself ever really felt happy. But then he remembered the last time. When Linda appeared at his door so early on Sunday morning.
Forsfalt came to get them. They took the lift down to the car park and then drove out towards an industrial area north of the city. The wind had started to blow. The sky was still cloudless. Wallander sat next to Forsfalt in the front seat.
“Did you know Rydberg?” he asked.
“Did I know Rydberg?” he replied slowly. “I certainly did. Quite well. He used to come to Malmo sometimes.”
Wallander was surprised at his answer. He’d always thought that Rydberg had discarded everything to do with the job, including his friends.
“He was the one who taught me everything I know,” said Wallander.
“It was tragic that he left us so soon,” said Forsfalt. “He should have lived longer. He’d always dreamed of going to Iceland.”
“Iceland?”
Forsfalt nodded.
“That was his big dream. To go to Iceland. But it didn’t happen.”
Wallander was struck by the realisation that Rydberg had kept something from him. He wouldn’t have guessed that Rydberg dreamt of a pilgrimage to Iceland. He hadn’t imagined that Rydberg had any dreams at all, or indeed any secrets.
Forsfalt pulled up outside a three-storey block of flats. He pointed to a row of windows on the ground floor with the curtains drawn. The building was old and poorly maintained. The glass on the main door was boarded up with a piece of wood. Wallander had a feeling that he was walking into a building that should no longer exist. Isn’t this building’s existence in defiance of the constitution? he thought sarcastically. There was a stench of urine in the stairwell.
Forsfalt unlocked the door. Wallander wondered where he’d got the keys. They walked into the hall and turned on the light. Some junk mail lay on the floor. Wallander let Forsfalt lead the way. They walked through the flat. It consisted of three rooms and a tiny, cramped kitchen that looked out on a warehouse. Apart from the bed, which appeared new, the flat seemed neglected. The furniture was strewn haphazardly around the rooms. Some dusty, cheap porcelain figures stood on a 1950s-style bookshelf in the living-room. In one corner was a stack of magazines and some dumbbells. To his great surprise Wallander noticed a CD of Turkish folk music on the sofa. The curtains were drawn.
Forsfalt went around turning on all the lights. Wallander followed him, while Svedberg took a seat on a chair in the kitchen and called Hansson. Wallander pushed open the door to the pantry with his foot. Inside were several unopened boxes of Grant’s whisky. They had been shipped from the Scottish distillery to a wine merchant in Belgium. He wondered how they had ended up in Fredman’s flat.
Forsfalt came into the kitchen with a couple of photographs of the owner. Wallander nodded. There was no doubt that it was him they’d found. He went back to the living-room and tried to decide what he really hoped to discover. Fredman’s flat was the exact opposite of Wetterstedt’s and Carlman’s houses. This is what Sweden is like, he thought. The differences between people are just as great now as they were when some lived in manor houses and others in hovels.
He noticed a desk piled with magazines about antiques. They must be related to Fredman’s activities as a fence. There was only one drawer in the desk. Inside was a stack of receipts, broken pens, a cigarette case, and a framed photograph. It was of Fredman and his family. He was smiling broadly at the camera. Next to him sat his wife, holding a newborn baby in her arms. Behind the mother stood a girl in her early teens. She was staring into the camera, a look of terror in her eyes. Next to her, directly behind the mother, stood a boy a few years younger. His face was pinched, as if he was resisting something. Wallander took the photo over to the window and pulled back the curtain. He stared at it for a long time. An unhappy family? A family that hadn’t yet encountered unhappiness? A newborn child who had no idea what awaited him? There was something in the picture that disturbed him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He took it into the bedroom, where Forsfalt was looking under the bed.
“You said that he did time for battery,” said Wallander.
Forsfalt got up and looked at the photo.
“He beat his wife senseless,” he said. “He beat her up when she was pregnant. He beat her when the child was a baby. But strangely enough, he never went to prison for it. Once he broke a cab driver’s nose. He beat a former partner half to death when he suspected him of cheating.”
They continued searching the flat. Svedberg had finished talking to Hansson. He shook his head when Wallander asked him if anything had happened. It took them two hours to search the place. Wallander’s flat was idyllic compared to Fredman’s. They found nothing but a travel bag with antique candlesticks in it. Wallander understood why Fredman’s language was peppered with swear words. The flat was just as empty and inarticulate as his vocabulary.
Finally they left the flat. The wind had picked up. Forsfalt called the station and got word that Fredman’s family had been informed of his death.