“My father was an evil man,” he said. “He lost the right to live a long time ago.”
Wallander was shaken. How could a young person be so full of hatred?
“That’s not something you ought to say,” he replied. “That a person has lost his right to live. No matter what he did.”
The boy was unmoved.
“What did he do that was so bad?” Wallander asked. “Lots of people are thieves. Lots of them sell stolen goods. They don’t have to be monsters because of that.”
“He scared us.”
“How’d he do that?”
“We were all afraid of him.”
“Even you?”
“Yes. But not for the past year.”
“Why not?”
“The fear went away.”
“And your mother?”
“She was scared.”
“Your brother?”
“He’d run and hide when he thought Dad was coming home.”
“Your sister?”
“She was more afraid than any of us.”
Wallander heard an almost imperceptible shift in the boy’s voice. There had been an instant of hesitation, he was sure of it.
“Why?” he asked cautiously.
“She was the most sensitive.”
Wallander quickly decided to take a chance.
“Did your Dad touch her?”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. But he never touched her.”
There it is, thought Wallander, and tried to avoid revealing his reaction. He may have abused his own daughter. Maybe the younger brother too. Maybe even Stefan. Wallander didn’t want to go any further. The question of where the sister was and what may have been done to her was something he didn’t want to deal with alone. The thought of abuse upset him.
“Did your Dad have any good friends?” he asked.
“He hung around with a lot of people. But whether any of them were real friends, I don’t know.”
“Who do you think that I should talk to?”
The boy smiled involuntarily but then regained his composure at once.
“Peter Hjelm,” he replied.
Wallander wrote down the name.
“Why did you smile?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know Peter Hjelm?”
“I’ve met him.”
“Where can I find him?”
“He’s in the phone book under ‘Handyman’. He lives on Kungsgatan.”
“How did they know each other?”
“They used to drink together. I know that. What else they did, I can’t say.”
Wallander looked around the room. “Did your Dad have any of his things here in the flat?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Not a thing.”
Wallander stuffed the paper into his trouser pocket. He had no more questions.
“What’s it like to be a policeman?” the boy asked.
Wallander could tell that he was really interested. His eyes gleamed.
“It’s a little of this, a little of that,” said Wallander, unsure of what he thought about his profession at that moment.
“What’s it like to catch a murderer?”
“Cold and grey and miserable,” he replied, thinking with distaste of all the TV shows the boy must have seen.
“What are you going to do when you catch the person who killed my Dad?”
“I don’t know,” said Wallander. “That depends.”
“He must be dangerous. Since he’s already killed several other people.”
Wallander found the boy’s curiosity annoying.
“We’ll catch him,” he said firmly, to put an end to the conversation. “Sooner or later we’ll catch him.”
He got up from the chair and asked where the bathroom was. The boy pointed to a door in the hall leading to the bedroom. Wallander closed the door behind him. He looked at his face in the mirror. What he needed most was some sunshine. After he’d had a pee he opened the medicine cabinet. There were a few bottles of pills in it. One of them had Louise Fredman’s name on it. He saw that she was born on November 9th. He memorised the name of the medicine and the doctor who had prescribed it. Saroten. He had never heard of this drug before. He would have to look it up when he got back to Ystad.
In the living-room the boy was sitting in the same position. Wallander wondered whether he was normal after all. His precociousness and self-control made a strange impression. But then Stefan turned towards him and smiled, and for a moment the wariness in his eyes seemed to vanish. Wallander pushed away the thought, and picked up his jacket.
“I’ll be calling you again,” he said. “Don’t forget to tell your mother that I was here. It would be good if you told her what we talked about.”
“Can I come and visit you some time?” asked the boy.
Wallander was surprised by the question. It was like having a ball tossed at you and not being able to catch it.
“You mean you want to come to the station in Ystad?”
“Yes.”
“Of course,” said Wallander. “But call ahead of time. I’m often out. And sometimes it’s not convenient.”
Wallander went out to the landing and pressed the lift button. They nodded to each other. The boy closed the door. Wallander rode down and walked out into the sunshine.
It had turned into the hottest day yet. He stood for a moment, enjoying the heat, deciding what to do next, then drove down to the Malmo police station. Forsfalt was in. Wallander told him about his talk with the boy. He gave Forsfalt the name of the doctor, Gunnar Bergdahl, and asked him to get hold of him as soon as possible. Then he told him about his suspicions that Fredman might have abused his daughter and possibly the two boys as well. Forsfalt couldn’t recall that allegations of that nature had ever been directed at Fredman, but he promised to look into the matter.
Wallander moved on to Peter Hjelm. Forsfalt told him that he was a man who resembled Bjorn Fredman in many ways. He’d been in and out of prison. Once he was arrested with Fredman for taking part in a joint fencing operation. Forsfalt was of the opinion that Hjelm was the one who supplied the stolen goods, and Fredman then resold them. Wallander wondered whether Forsfalt would mind if he talked to Hjelm alone.
“I’m happy to get out of it,” said Forsfalt.
Wallander looked up Hjelm’s address in Forsfalt’s phone book. He also gave Forsfalt his mobile number. They decided to have lunch together. Forsfalt hoped that by then he would have copied all the material the Malmo police had on Bjorn Fredman.
Wallander left his car outside the station and walked towards Kungsgatan. He went into a clothing shop and bought a shirt, which he put on. Reluctantly he threw away the ruined one Baiba had given him. He went back out into the sunshine. For a few minutes he sat on a bench. Then he walked over to the building where Hjelm lived. The door had an entry code, but Wallander was lucky. After a few minutes an elderly man came out with his dog. Wallander gave him a friendly nod and stepped in the main door. He saw that Hjelm lived on the fourth floor. Just as he was about to open the lift door, his phone rang. It was Forsfalt.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m standing outside the lift in Hjelm’s building.”
“I was hoping you hadn’t got there yet.”
“Has something happened?”
“I got hold of the doctor. We know each other. I’d totally forgotten about it.”
“What’d he say?”
“Something he probably shouldn’t have. I promised I wouldn’t mention his name. So you can’t either.”
“I promise.”
“He thought that the person we’re talking about — I won’t mention the name since we’re on mobile phones — was admitted to a psychiatric clinic.”
Wallander held his breath.
“That explains why she left,” he said.
“No, it doesn’t,” said Forsfalt. “She’s been there for three years.”
Wallander stood there in silence. Someone pressed the button for the lift and it rumbled upwards.
“We’ll talk later,” Forsfalt said. “Good luck with Hjelm.”
He hung up. Wallander thought for a long time about what he had just heard. Then he started up the stairs to the fourth floor.