“What I’ve been looking for the whole time is the connection,” said Wallander. “First I looked for one between Gustaf Wetterstedt and Arne Carlman. I finally found it. Then I looked for one between Bjorn Fredman and the two others. We haven’t been able to find a link yet, but I’m convinced there is one. Perhaps this is one of the first things we should do here. Is it possible to find some connection between Ake Liljegren and the other three? Preferably to all of them, but at least to any one of them.”
“In a way we already have a very clear connection,” said Sjosten quietly.
Wallander gave him a questioning glance.
“What I mean is, the killer is an identifiable link,” Sjosten went on. “Even if we don’t know who he is.”
Sjosten nodded towards the door to the garden. Wallander realised that Sjosten wanted to speak privately. Outside in the garden, they both squinted in the bright light. It was going to be another hot day. Sjosten lit a cigarette and led Wallander over to a table and chairs a little way from the house. They moved the chairs into the shade.
“There are plenty of rumours about Ake Liljegren,” Sjosten began. “His shell companies are only a part of his operations. Here in Helsingborg we’ve heard about a lot of other things. Low-flying Cessnas making drops of cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Pretty hard to prove, and I have difficulty associating this type of activity with Liljegren. It may just be my limited imagination, of course. I go on thinking that it’s possible to sort crimes into categories. Criminals are supposed to stay within those boundaries and not encroach on other people’s territory, which messes up our classifications.”
“I’ve sometimes thought along those same lines,” Wallander admitted. “But those days are gone. The world we live in is becoming more comprehensible and more chaotic at the same time.”
Sjosten waved his cigarette at the huge villa.
“There have been other rumours too,” he said. “These ones more concrete. About wild parties in this house. Women, prostitution.”
“Wild?” asked Wallander. “Have you ever had to get involved?”
“Never,” said Sjosten. “Actually I don’t know why I called the parties wild. But people used to come here a lot. And disappear just as quickly as they came.”
Wallander didn’t answer. A dizzying image flitted through his mind. He saw Dolores Maria Santana standing at the southern motorway entrance from Helsingborg. Could there be a connection? Prostitution? But he pushed the thought away. There was no evidence for this, he was confusing two different investigations.
“We’re going to have to work together,” Sjosten said. “You and your colleagues have several weeks on us. Now that we add Liljegren to the picture, how does it look? What’s changed? What seems clearer?”
“The National Criminal Bureau will certainly get involved now,” Wallander answered. “That’s good, of course. But I’m afraid that we’ll have problems working together, that information won’t get to the right person.”
“I have the same concern,” Sjosten agreed. “That’s why I want to suggest something. That you and I become an informal team, so we can step aside for discussion when we need to.”
“That’s fine by me,” Wallander said.
“We both remember the days of the old national homicide commission,” Sjosten said. “Something that worked very efficiently was dismantled. And things have never really been the same since.”
“Times were different. Violence had a different face, and there were fewer murders. Criminals operated in patterns that were recognisable in a way that they aren’t today. I’m not sure that the commission would have been as effective now.”
Sjosten stood up. “But we’re in agreement?”
“Of course,” Wallander replied. “Whenever we think it’s necessary, we’ll talk.”
“You can stay with me,” Sjosten said, “if you have to be here overnight. It’s no pleasure to have to stay at a hotel.”
“I’d like that,” Wallander thanked him. But he didn’t mind staying at a hotel when he was away. He needed to have at least a few hours to himself every day.
They walked back to the house. To the left was a large garage with two doors. While Sjosten went inside, Wallander decided to take a look in the garage. With difficulty he lifted one of the doors. Inside was a black Mercedes. The windows were tinted. He stood there thinking.
Then he went into the house, called Ystad, and asked to speak with Hoglund. He told her briefly what had happened.
“I want you to contact Sara Bjorklund,” he said. “Do you remember her?”
“Wetterstedt’s housekeeper?”
“Right. I want you to bring her here to Helsingborg. As soon as you can.”
“Why?”
“I want her to take a look at a car. And I’ll be standing next to her hoping that she recognises it.”
Hoglund asked no more questions.
CHAPTER 30
Sara Bjorklund stood for a long time looking at the black car. Wallander stayed in the background. He wanted his presence to give her confidence, but didn’t want to stand so close to her that he would be a disturbing factor. He could tell that she was doing her best to be absolutely certain. Was this the car she had seen on the Friday morning that she’d come to Wetterstedt’s house, thinking it was a Thursday? Had it looked like this one, could it even be the very same car she had seen drive away from the house where the old minister of justice lived?
Sjosten agreed with Wallander when he explained his idea. Even if the “charwoman” held in such contempt by Wetterstedt said that it could have been a car of the same make, that wouldn’t prove a thing. All they would get was an indication, a possibility. But it was important even so; they both realised that.
Sara Bjorklund hesitated. Since there were keys in the ignition, Wallander asked Sjosten to drive it once round the block. If she closed her eyes and listened, did she recognise the sound of the engine? Cars had different sounds. She listened.
“Maybe,” she said afterwards. “It looks like the car I saw that morning. But whether it was the same one I can’t say. I didn’t see the number plate.”
Wallander nodded.
“I didn’t expect you to,” he said. “I’m sorry I had to ask you to come all the way here.”
Hoglund had brought Noren with her, who would now drive Sara Bjorklund back to Ystad. Hoglund wanted to stay. It was barely midday, yet the whole country seemed to know already what had happened. Sjosten held an impromptu press conference out on the street, while Wallander and Hoglund drove down to the ferry terminal and had lunch. He told her all that he had learned.
“Ake Liljegren appeared in our investigative material on Alfred Harderberg,” she said when he’d finished. “Do you remember?”
Wallander let his mind travel back to the year before. He remembered the businessman and art patron who lived behind the walls of Farnholm Castle with distaste. The man they had eventually prevented from leaving the country in a dramatic scene at Sturup Airport. Liljegren’s name had indeed come up in the investigation, but he had been on the periphery. They had never considered questioning him.
Wallander sat with his third cup of coffee and gazed out over the Sound, filled with yachts and ferries.
“We didn’t want this, but we’ve got it,” he said. “Another dead, scalped man. According to Ekholm our chances of identifying the killer will now increase dramatically. That’s according to the F.B.I. models. Now the similarities and differences should be much clearer.”
“I think somehow the level of violence has increased,” she said hesitantly. “If you can grade axe murders and scalpings.”
Wallander waited with interest for her to continue. Her hesitation often meant that she was on the trail of something important.
“Wetterstedt was lying underneath a rowing boat,” she went on. “He had been hit once from behind. His scalp was sliced off, as if the killer had taken the time to do it carefully. Or maybe there was some uncertainty. The first scalp. Carlman was killed from the front. He must have seen his killer. His hair was torn off, not sliced. That seems to indicate more frenzy, or maybe rage, almost uncontrolled. Then Fredman. He apparently lay on his back. Probably tied up, or he’d have resisted. He had acid poured in his eyes. The killer forced open his eyelids. The blow to the head was tremendous. And now Liljegren, with his head stuck in an oven. Something is getting worse. Is it hatred? Or a sick person’s thrill at demonstrating his power?”