“Outline this to Ekholm,” Wallander suggested. “Let him put it into his computer. I agree with you. Certain changes in his behaviour are evident. Something is shifting. But what does it tell us? Sometimes it seems as though we’re trying to interpret footprints that are millions of years old. What I worry about most is the chronology, which is based on the fact that we found the victims in a certain order, since they were killed in a certain order. So for us a natural chronology is created. But the question is whether there’s some other order among them that we can’t see. Are some of the murders more important than others?”
She thought for a moment. “Was one of them closer to the killer than the others?”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Wallander. “Was Liljegren closer to the heart of it than Carlman, for example? And which of them is furthest away? Or do they all have the same relationship to him?”
“A relationship which may only exist in his mind?”
Wallander pushed aside his empty cup. “At least we can be certain that these men were not chosen at random,” he said.
“Fredman is different,” she said as they got up.
“Yes, he is,” said Wallander. “But you can also turn it around and say that it’s the other three who are different.”
They returned to Tagaborg, where they were given the message that Hansson was on his way to meet with the chief of police in Helsingborg.
“Tomorrow the National Criminal Bureau will be here,” said Sjosten.
“Has anyone talked to Ekholm?” asked Wallander. “He should come up here as soon as possible.”
Hoglund went to see to this, and Wallander made an examination of the house again with Sjosten. Nyberg was on his knees in the kitchen with the other technicians. When they were heading up the stairs to the top floor, Hoglund caught up with them, saying that Ekholm was on his way with Hansson. They continued their inspection. None of them spoke. They were each following their own train of thought.
Wallander was trying to feel the killer’s presence, as he had done at Wetterstedt’s house, and in Carlman’s garden. Not twelve hours ago the man had climbed these same stairs. Wallander moved more slowly than the others. He stopped often, sometimes sitting down to stare at a wall or a rug or a door, as if he were in a museum, deeply engrossed in the objects on display. Occasionally he would retrace his steps.
Watching him, Hoglund had the sense that Wallander was acting as though he were walking on ice. And in a sense, he was. Each step involved a risk, a new way of seeing things, a re-examination of a thought he’d just had. He moved as much in his mind as through the rooms. Wallander had never sensed the presence of the man he was hunting in Wetterstedt’s house. It had convinced him that the killer had never been inside. He had not been closer than the garage roof where he had waited, reading The Phantom and then ripping it to pieces. But here, in Liljegren’s house, it was different.
Wallander went back to the stairs and looked down the hall towards the bathroom. From here he could see the man he was about to kill. If the bathroom door was open, that is. And why would it have been closed if Liljegren was alone in the house? He walked towards the bathroom door and stood against the wall. Then he went into the bathroom and assumed the role of Liljegren. He walked out of the door, imagining the axe blow strike him with full force from behind, at an angle. He saw himself fall to the floor. Then he switched to the other role, the man holding an axe in his right hand. Not in his left; they had determined in examining Wetterstedt’s body that the man was right-handed. Wallander walked slowly down the stairs, dragging the invisible corpse behind him. Into the kitchen, to the stove. He continued down to the basement and stopped at the window, which was too narrow for him to squeeze through. Only a slight man could use that window as a way of getting into Liljegren’s house. The killer must be thin.
He went back to the kitchen and out into the garden. Near the basement window at the back of the house the technicians were looking for footprints. Wallander could have told them in advance that they wouldn’t find anything. The man had been barefoot, as before. He looked towards the hedge, the shortest distance between the basement window and the street, pondering why the killer had been barefoot. He’d asked Ekholm about it several times, but still didn’t have a satisfactory answer. Going barefoot meant taking a risk of injury. Of slipping, puncturing his foot, getting cut. And yet he still did it. Why did he go barefoot? Why choose to remove his shoes? This was another of the inexplicable details he had to keep in mind. He took scalps. He used an axe. He was barefoot. Wallander stopped in his tracks. It came to him in a flash. His subconscious had drawn a conclusion and relayed the message.
An American Indian, he said to himself. A warrior. He knew he was right. The man they were looking for was a lone warrior moving along an invisible path. He was an impersonator. Used an axe to kill, cut off scalps, went barefoot. But why would an American Indian go around in the Swedish summertime killing people? Who was really committing these murders? An Indian or someone playing the role?
Wallander held on tight to the thought so he wouldn’t lose it before he had followed it through. He travelled over great distances, he thought. He must have a horse. A motorcycle. Which had leant against the road workers’ hut. You drive in a car, but you ride a motorcycle.
He walked back to the house. For the first time he’d caught a glimpse of the man he sought. The excitement of the discovery was immediate. His alertness sharpened. For the time being, however, he would keep his idea to himself.
A window on the top floor opened. Sjosten leaned out.
“Come up here,” he shouted.
Wallander went in, wondering what they had found. Sjosten and Hoglund were standing in front of a bookcase in a room that must have been Liljegren’s office. Sjosten had a plastic bag in his hand.
“I’m guessing cocaine,” he said. “Could be heroin.”
“Where was it?” Wallander asked.
Sjosten pointed to an open drawer.
“There may be more,” Wallander said.
“I’ll see about getting a dog in here,” said Sjosten.
“I wonder whether you shouldn’t send out a few people to talk to the neighbours,” said Wallander. “Ask if they noticed a man on a motorcycle. Not just last night, but earlier too. Over the last few weeks.”
“Did he come on a motorcycle?”
“I think so. It seems to be his means of getting around. You’ll find it in the investigative material.”
Sjosten left the room.
“There’s nothing about a motorcycle in the investigative material,” said Hoglund, surprised.
“There should be,” said Wallander, sounding distracted. “Didn’t we confirm that it was a motorcycle that stood behind the road workers’ hut?”
Wallander looked out the window. Ekholm and Hansson were on their way up the path, with another man whom Wallander assumed was the Helsingborg chief of police. Birgersson met them halfway.
“We’d better go down,” he said. “Did you find anything?”
“The house reminds me of Wetterstedt’s,” she replied. “The same gloomy bourgeois respectability. But at least here there are some family photos. Whether they make it more cheerful I don’t know. Liljegren seems to have had cavalry officers in his family, Scanian Dragoons if you can believe it.”