Sidetracked

  “His parties,” said Wallander. “Let’s get back to them. I’ve heard they were wild.”

  “They sure were.”

  “In what way?”

  “In every way.”

  “Can you be a little more specific?”

  She took a couple of deep drags on her cigarette while she thought about this, all the time looking Wallander in the eye.

  “Liljegren liked to bring people together who lived life to the fullest,” she said. “Let’s say they were insatiable. Insatiable with regard to power, wealth and sex. And Liljegren had a reputation for being discreet. He created a safety zone around his guests. No hidden cameras, no spies. Nothing ever leaked out about his parties. He also knew which women he could invite.”

  “Women like you?”

  “Yes, women like me.”

  “And who else?”

  She didn’t seem to understand his question at first.

  “What other women were there?”

  “That depended on their desires.”

  “Whose desires?”

  “The desires of the guests. The men.”

  “And what might they be?”

  “Some wanted me to be there.”

  “I understood that. Who else?”

  “You won’t get any names.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Young girls, some very young, blonde, brown, black. Older ones sometimes, some of them hefty. It varied.”

  “You knew them?”

  “Not always. Not often.”

  “How did he get hold of them?”

  She put out her cigarette and lit a new one before she answered. She didn’t release his gaze even when she was stubbing it out.

  “How does a person like Liljegren get what he wants? He had unlimited money. He had helpers. He had contacts. He could fly in a girl from Florida to attend a party. She probably had no idea she was going all the way to Sweden. Not to mention Helsingborg.”

  “You say he had helpers. Who were they?”

  “His chauffeurs. His assistant. He often had a butler with him. English, of course.”

  “What was his name?”

  “No names.”

  “We’ll find out about them anyway.”

  “You probably will. But that doesn’t mean the names are going to come from me.”

  “What would happen if you gave me some names?”

  She seemed utterly unmoved when she replied.

  “Then I might be killed. Maybe not with my head in an oven, but in an equally unpleasant manner, I’m sure.”

  “Were many of his guests public figures?”

  “Many.”

  “Politicians?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gustaf Wetterstedt?”

  “I said no names.”

  Suddenly he realised that she was sending him a message. Her answers had a subtext. She knew who Wetterstedt was, but he had not been at the parties.

  “Businessmen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Arne Carlman, the art dealer?”

  “Did he have almost the same name as me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll say it one last time. Don’t push me for names, or I’ll get up and go.”

  Not him either, thought Wallander. Her signals were very clear.

  “Artists? Celebrities?”

  “Once in a while. But seldom. I don’t think Åke trusted them. Probably with good reason.”

  “You talked about young girls. Brown girls. Did you mean brunettes, or girls with brown skin?”

  “Brown skin.”

  “Do you remember ever meeting a girl named Dolores María?”

  “No.”

  “A girl from the Dominican Republic?”

  “I don’t even know where that is.”

  “Do you remember a girl named Louise Fredman? A teenager. A blonde.”

  “No.”

  Wallander turned the conversation in another direction. She still seemed willing to continue.

  “You say that the parties were wild.”

  “Yes, they were.”

  “Tell me about wild.”

  “Do you want details?”

  “Please.”

  “Descriptions of naked bodies?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “They were orgies. You can imagine the rest.”

  “Can I?” said Wallander. “I’m not so sure.”

  “If I undressed and lay down on your desk it would be completely unexpected,” she said. “Something like that.”

  “Unexpected events?”

  “That’s what happens when insatiable people get together, isn’t it?”

  “Insatiable men?”

  “Exactly.”

  Wallander made a hasty outline in his head. He was still scratching the surface.

  “I’ve got a proposal,” he said. “And another question.”

  “I’m still here.”

  “My proposal is that you give me the opportunity to meet you one more time. Soon, within a few days.”

  She nodded her assent. Wallander got an unpleasant feeling that he was entering into some sort of agreement.

  “My question is simple,” he said. “You were speaking of Liljegren’s chauffeurs. And his butlers. But you said that he had an assistant. Not plural. Is that correct?”

  He saw a faint change in her expression. She knew she had said too much even without providing names.

  “This conversation is strictly for my memoirs,” said Wallander. “Did I hear correctly or not?”

  “You heard wrong,” she said. “Of course he had more than one assistant.”

  So, I was right, thought Wallander. “That’ll be all this time, then,” he said, getting up.

  “I’ll leave when I finish my cigarette,” she said. For the first time in the conversation she released him from her gaze.

  Wallander opened the door. Sjösten was sitting outside reading a sailing magazine. Wallander nodded. She put out her cigarette, stood up, and shook his hand. When Sjösten had shown her out and returned, Wallander was by the window, watching her get into her car.

  “Did it go well?” Sjösten asked.

  “Maybe,” said Wallander. “She agreed to meet me again.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing, actually.”

  “And you think that was good?”

  “It was what she didn’t know that interested me,” Wallander said. “I want 24-hour surveillance of Liljegren’s house, and I want you to put a tail on Carlén. Sooner or later somebody will show up who we’ll want to talk to.”

  “That sounds like an inadequate reason for surveillance,” said Sjösten.

  “I’ll take responsibility for that decision,” said Wallander kindly, “as the chosen leader of this investigation.”

  “I’m glad it wasn’t me,” replied Sjösten. “Are you staying overnight?”

  “No, I’ll drive home.”

  They went down the steps to the ground floor.

  “Did you read about a girl who burned herself to death in a field near here?” Wallander asked just before they said goodbye.

  “Yes. Terrible story.”

  “She had hitchhiked from Helsingborg,” Wallander went on. “And she was scared. I’m just wondering whether she might have had something to do with Liljegren’s fun and games. Although it’s a long shot.”

  “There were rumours about Liljegren trading in girls,” said Sjösten. “Among a thousand other rumours.”

  Wallander looked at him intently. “Trading girls?”

  “There were rumours that Sweden was being used as a transit country for poor girls from South America, on their way to brothels in southern Europe and the former Eastern bloc countries. We’ve found a couple of girls who have managed to escape but we’ve never caught the ones running the business. And we haven’t been able to build a proper case.”

  Wallander stared at Sjösten.

  “And you waited until now to tell me this?”
/>
  Sjösten shook his head, surprised.

  “You never asked me about this before now.”

  Wallander stood stock still. The girl had started running through his head again.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I’ll stay the night.”

  They took the lift back up to Sjösten’s office.

  CHAPTER 33

  On that lovely summer evening Wallander and Sjösten took the ferry to Helsingør on the Danish side and had dinner at a restaurant Sjösten liked. He entertained Wallander while they ate with stories about the boat he was restoring, his numerous marriages and his yet more numerous children. They didn’t begin talking about the investigation until they were having coffee. Wallander listened gratefully to Sjösten, who was a charming storyteller. He was very tired. After the excellent dinner he was feeling drowsy, but his mind was rested. Sjösten had drunk a few shots of aquavit with beer, while Wallander stuck to mineral water.

  When the coffee came they exchanged roles. Sjösten listened while Wallander talked. He went over everything that had happened. He talked to Sjösten in a way that forced him to clarify things for himself as well. For the first time he let the girl who had burned herself to death serve as the prelude to the murders. It had seemed improbable to him before that her death might be connected to them. Now he admitted that it had been careless to draw this conclusion. Sjösten was an attentive listener who pounced on him whenever he was vague.

  Wallander would think of that evening in Helsingør later as the point when the investigation sloughed off its skin. The pattern he thought he had discovered as he’d sat on the bench on the pier was confirmed. Gaps were filled, holes sealed; questions found their answers, or at least were formulated more clearly and arranged in order. He marched back and forth through the landscape of the case and for the first time felt that he had an overview. But he also had a nagging, guilty feeling that he should have seen it all sooner, that he had been sidetracked, instead of realising that he must go in an entirely different direction. Although he avoided mentioning it to Sjösten, there was one question always on his mind. Could any of the murders have been prevented? Or at least the last one – if it was the last one – Liljegren’s? He couldn’t help but ask. And he knew that it would haunt him for a very long time; maybe he’d never get an answer that he could live with.

  The problem was that they didn’t have a suspect, not even a group of people among whom they could cast their net. Nor were there any solid clues that led in a specific direction.

  Earlier in the day, when Sjösten had mentioned in passing that it was suspected that Sweden, and especially Helsingborg, served as a transit point for girls destined for brothels, Wallander’s reaction had been immediate. Sjösten was amazed at Wallander’s sudden burst of energy. Without thinking, Wallander had sat down behind the desk, so Sjösten had to take the visitor’s chair in his own office. Wallander told him all he knew about Dolores María Santana, that she seemed to be running away when she hitchhiked from Helsingborg.

  “A black car came once a week to Gustaf Wetterstedt’s house,” Wallander said. “By chance the housekeeper noticed it. She thought she might recognise the car in Liljegren’s garage. What conclusion can you draw from that?”

  “None,” said Sjösten. “There are plenty of black Mercedes with tinted windows.”

  “Put it together with the rumours about Liljegren. The rumours of the trade in girls. Is there anything that would prevent him from having parties somewhere else besides his house? Why couldn’t he also run a home delivery service?”

  “No reason at all,” said Sjösten. “But there doesn’t seem to be any basis for believing it.”

  “I want to know whether that car left Liljegren’s house on Thursdays,” said Wallander. “And came back on Fridays.”

  “How can we find that out?”

  “There are neighbours. Who drove the car? There seems to be such a vacuum around Liljegren. He had personal employees. He had an assistant. Where are all these people?”

  “We’re working on that,” said Sjösten.

  “Let’s set our priorities,” said Wallander. “The motorcycle is important. Liljegren’s assistant is too. And the car on Thursdays. Start there. Assign all your available people to look into these areas.”

  Sjösten went to set this in train. He told Wallander when he came back that the surveillance of Elisabeth Carlén had begun.

  “What’s she doing?”

  “She’s in her flat,” Sjösten said. “Alone.”

  Wallander called Ystad and talked to Åkeson.

  “I must talk with Louise Fredman now,” he said.

  “You’ll have to come up with a strong case for doing so,” Åkeson said, “or I can’t help you.”

  “It might be crucial.”

  “It has to be something concrete, Kurt.”

  “There’s always a way round this bureaucratic crap.”

  “What do you think she can tell you?”

  “Whether she ever had the soles of her feet cut with a knife, for instance.”

  “Good Lord. Why would that have happened to her?”

  Wallander didn’t feel like telling him.

  “Can’t her mother give me permission?” he said. “Fredman’s widow?”

  “That’s what I was wondering,” said Åkeson. “That’s the way we’ll have to proceed.”

  “I’ll drive to Malmö tomorrow,” Wallander said. “Do I need any kind of papers from you?”

  “Not if she gives you her permission,” said Åkeson. “But you mustn’t put pressure on her.”

  “Do I do that?” Wallander asked, surprised. “I didn’t realise.”

  “I’m just telling you the rules. That’s all.”

  Sjösten had suggested they take a ferry across to Denmark and have dinner, so they could talk, and Wallander had agreed. It was still too early to call Baiba. Maybe not too early for her, but certainly too early for him. It occurred to him that Sjösten, with all his marriages behind him, might be able to give him some advice on how to present his dilemma to Baiba. They took the ferry across the Sound, with Wallander wishing the journey was longer. They had dinner, which Sjösten insisted on paying for. Then they strolled back through Helsingør towards the terminal. Sjösten stopped at a doorway.

  “In here lives a man who appreciates Swedes,” he said, smiling.

  Wallander read on a brass plate that a doctor had his practice here.

  “He writes prescriptions for diet drugs that are banned in Sweden,” said Sjösten. “Every day there’s a long line of overweight Swedes outside.”

  They were on their way up the stairs to the terminal when Sjösten’s mobile phone rang. He kept walking as he listened.

  “That was Larsson, one of my colleagues. He’s found what may be a real gold mine,” Sjösten said, putting away his phone. “A neighbour of Liljegren’s who saw a number of things.”

  “What did he see?”

  “Black cars, motorcycles. We’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

  “We’ll talk to him tonight,” Wallander said. “It’ll only be 10 p.m. by the time we get back to Helsingborg.”

  Sjösten nodded without replying. Then he called the station and asked Larsson to meet them at the terminal. The young police officer waiting for them reminded Wallander of Martinsson. They got into his car and drove to Tågaborg. Wallander noticed a banner from the local football team hanging from his rear-view mirror. Larsson filled them in.

  “His name is Lennart Heineman, and he’s a retired diplomat,” he said, in a Skåne accent so broad that Wallander had to strain to understand him. “He’s almost 80, but quite sharp. His wife seems to be away. Heineman’s garden is just across from the main entrance to Liljegren’s grounds. He’s observed a number of things.”

  “Does he know we’re coming?” asked Sjösten.

  “I called,” said Larsson. “He said it was fine. He says he rarely goes to bed before 3 a.m. He told me he was writing a critical study of the
Swedish foreign office’s administration.”

  Wallander remembered with distaste an officious woman from the foreign office who had visited them in Ystad some years earlier, in connection with the investigation that led him to Latvia to meet Baiba. He tried to think of her name. Something to do with roses. He pushed the thought aside as they pulled up outside Heineman’s house. A police car was parked outside Liljegren’s villa across the street. A tall man with short white hair came walking towards them. He had a firm handshake, and Wallander trusted him instantly. The handsome villa he ushered them into was from the same period as Liljegren’s, but this house had an air of vitality about it, a reflection of the energetic old man who lived there. He asked them to have a seat and offered them a drink. They all declined. Wallander sensed that he was used to receiving people he hadn’t met before.

  “Terrible things going on,” said Heineman.

  Sjösten gave Wallander an almost imperceptible nod to lead the interview.

  “That’s why we couldn’t postpone this conversation until tomorrow,” Wallander replied.

  “Why postpone it?” said Heineman. “I’ve never understood why Swedes go to bed so early. The continental habit of taking a siesta is much healthier. If I’d gone to bed early I’d have been dead long ago.”

  Wallander pondered Heineman’s strong criticism of Swedish bed-time hours for a moment.

  “We’re interested in any observations you may have made of the traffic in and out of Liljegren’s villa,” he said. “But there are some things that are of particular interest to us. Let’s begin by asking about Liljegren’s black Mercedes.”

  “He must have had at least two,” said Heineman.

  Wallander was surprised at the answer. He hadn’t imagined more than one car, even though Liljegren’s big garage could have held two or three.

  “What makes you think he had more than one?”

  “I don’t just think so,” said Heineman, “I know. Sometimes two cars left the house at the same time. Or returned at the same time. When Liljegren was away the cars remained here. From my upper floor I can see part of his grounds. There were two cars over there.”

  One is missing, Wallander thought. Where is it now?

  Sjösten took out a notebook.

  “Can you recall whether one or perhaps both cars regularly left Liljegren’s villa late in the afternoon or evening on Thursdays?” Wallander said. “And returned during the night or in the next morning?”