Robert Akerblom nodded without replying.
Wallander shook hands and went out to his car. The weather was changing. It was drizzling and the wind had eased off. Wallander drove down to Fridolf’s Cafe near the coach station for a coffee and a couple of sandwiches. It was half past twelve by the time he was back behind the wheel and on his way out to the scene of the fire. He parked, clambered over the barriers, and observed that both the house and the barn were already smoking ruins. It was too early yet for the police techies to start their investigation. Wallander approached the seat of the fire and had a word with the man in charge, Peter Edler, whom he knew well.
“We’re soaking it in water,” he said. “Not much else we can do. Is it arson?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Wallander. “Have you seen Svedberg or Martinson?’
“I think they’ve gone for something to eat,” said Edler. “In Rydsgard. And Lieutenant-Colonel Hernberg has taken his soaking wet recruits to their barracks. They’ll be back, though.”
Wallander nodded, and left the fire chief.
A policeman with a dog was standing a few meters away. He was eating a sandwich, and the dog was scratching away at the sooty, wet gravel with one paw.
Suddenly the dog started howling. The cop tugged impatiently at the leash a couple of times, then looked to see what the dog was digging for.
Then Wallander saw him draw back with a start and drop his sandwich.
Wallander couldn’t help being curious, and walked over towards them.
“What’s the dog found?” he asked.
The cop turned round to face Wallander. He was white as a sheet, and trembling.
Wallander hurried over and bent down.
In the mud before him was a finger.
A black finger. Not a thumb, and not a little finger. But a human finger.
Wallander felt ill.
He told the dog handler to get in touch with Svedberg and Martinson right away.
“Get them here immediately,” he said. “Even if they’re halfway through their meal. There’s an empty plastic bag in the back seat of my car. Get it.”
The cop did as he was told.
What’s going on? thought Wallander. A black finger. A black man’s finger. Cut off. In the middle of Skane.
When the cop returned with the plastic bag, Wallander made a temporary cover to protect the finger from the rain. The rumor had spread, and several firefighters gathered around the find.
“We must start looking for the remains of bodies among the ashes,” said Wallander to the fire chief. “God knows what’s been going on here.”
“A finger,” said Peter Edler incredulously.
Twenty minutes later Svedberg and Martinson arrived, and came running up to the spot. They stared at the black finger uncomprehendingly.
Neither had anything to say.
In the end, it was Wallander who broke the silence.
“One thing’s for sure at least,” he said. “This isn’t one of Louise Akerblom’s fingers.”
Chapter Five
They gathered at five o’clock in one of the conference rooms at the police station. Wallander could not remember a more silent meeting.
In the middle of the table, on a plastic cloth, was the black finger.
He could see that Bjork had angled his chair so he couldn’t see it.
Everyone else stared at the finger. Nobody said a word.
After a while, an ambulance arrived from the hospital and removed the severed remnant. Once it was gone, Svedberg went to get a tray of coffee cups, and Bjork commenced proceedings.
“Just for once, I’m speechless,” was his opening gambit. “Can any of you suggest a plausible explanation?”
Nobody responded. It was a pointless question.
“Wallander,” said Bjork, trying another angle, “could you perhaps give us a summary of where we’ve gotten so far?”
“It won’t be easy,” said Wallander, “but I’ll give it a shot. The rest of you can fill in the gaps.”
He opened his notebook and leafed through.
“Louise Akerblom went missing almost exactly four days ago,” he began. “To be more precise, ninety-eight hours ago. Nobody’s seen her since, as far as we know. While we were looking for her, and not least for her car, a house exploded just where we think she might be found. We now know the occupant is deceased, and the house was up for sale. The representative of the estate is a lawyer who lives in Varnamo. He’s at a loss to explain what has happened. The house has been empty for more than a year. The beneficiaries have not yet been able to decide whether to sell or to keep it in the family, and rent it. It’s not impossible that some of the heirs might buy out the rest. The lawyer’s name is Holmgren, and we’ve asked our colleagues in Varnamo to discuss the matter with him. At the very least, we want the names and addresses of the rest of the beneficiaries.”
He took a slurp of coffee before proceeding.
“The fire broke out at nine o’clock,” he said. “The evidence suggests some form of powerful explosive was used, with a timing device. There is absolutely no reason to suppose the fire was started by any other, natural causes. Holmgren was quite certain there were no propane canisters in the house, for instance. The whole house was rewired just last year. While the fire was being fought, one of our police dogs sniffed out a human finger some twenty-five meters from the blaze. It’s an index finger or middle finger from a left hand. In all probability, it belonged to a man. A black man. Our technical guys have run a fine-tooth comb over whatever parts of the heart of the fire and the surrounding area are accessible, but they’ve found nothing more. We’ve run an intensive line search over the whole area, and found nothing at all. No sign of the car, no sign of Louise Akerblom. A house has blown up, and we’ve found a finger belonging to a black man. That’s about it.”
Bjork made a face.
“What do the medics have to say?” he asked.
“Maria Lestadius from the hospital was here,” said Svedberg. “She says we should get onto the forensic lab right away. She claims she’s not competent to read fingers.”
Bjork squirmed on his chair.
“Say that again,” he said. “‘Read fingers’?”
“That’s the way she put it.” Svedberg seemed resigned. It was a well-known peculiarity of Bjork’s, picking on inessentials.
Bjork thumped the table almost absentmindedly.
“This is awful,” he said. “To put it bluntly, we don’t know anything at all. Hasn’t Robert Akerblom been able to give us any pointers?”
Wallander made up his mind on the spot to say nothing about the handcuffs, not for now. He was afraid that might take them in directions that were of less than immediate significance. Besides, he was not convinced the handcuffs had any direct connection with her disappearance.
“Nothing at all,” he said. “I think the Akerbloms were the happiest family in the whole of Sweden.”
“Might she have gone over the top, from a religious point of view?” asked Bjork. “We’re always reading about those crazy sects.”
“You can hardly call the Methodists a ‘crazy sect’,” said Wallander. “It’s one of our oldest free churches. I have to admit I’m not sure just what they stand for.”
“We’ll have to look into that,” said Bjork. “What do you think we should do now?”
“Let’s hope for what tomorrow might bring,” said Martinson. “We might get some calls.”
“I’ve already got personnel to man the telephones,” said Bjork. “Anything else we should be doing?”
“Let’s face it,” said Wallander, “we have nothing to go on. We have a finger. That means that somewhere or other, there’s a black man missing a finger on his left hand. That means in turn he needs help from a doctor or a hospital. If he hasn’t shown up already, he will do sooner or later. We can’t exclude the possibility that he might contact the police. Nobody cuts his own fingers off. Well, not very often. In other words, somebody has subjected him to torture. Needless to say, it’s possible he might have fled the country already.”