The White Lioness

  “Which house?” asked one of the local press reporters.

  “I can’t answer that question for reasons connected with the investigation,” replied Wallander.

  The press conference died out of its own accord. The local radio reporter interviewed Björk. Wallander talked to one of the local press reporters in the corridor outside. When he was alone, he fixed himself a cup of coffee, went into his office and called the scene of the fire. He got hold of Svedberg, who told him that Martinson had already diverted a group of searchers to concentrate on the area around the burning house.

  “I’ve never seen a fire like this one,” said Svedberg. “There won’t be a single roof beam left when it’s over.”

  “I’ll be out there this afternoon,” said Wallander. “I’m going out to Robert Åkerblom’s place again. Call me there if anything develops.”

  “We’ll call you,” said Svedberg. “What did the press have to say?”

  “Nothing worth commenting on,” said Wallander, putting the phone down.

  That moment Björk knocked on his door.

  “That went pretty well,” he said. “No dirty tricks, just reasonable questions. Let’s just hope they write what we want them to.”

  “We’ll have to detail a few extra people to man the phones tomorrow,” said Wallander, not bothering to comment on his assessment of the press conference. “When a religious mother of two disappears, I’m afraid lots of folk who’ve seen nothing at all will be calling in. Giving the police the benefit of their blessing and prayers. Quite apart from those we hope might really have something useful to tell us.”

  “Assuming we don’t find her during the course of today,” said Björk.

  “I don’t believe that, and neither do you,” said Wallander.

  Then he told the story of the remarkable fire. The explosion. Björk listened with a worried look on his face.

  “What does all this mean?” he asked.

  Wallander stretched out his arms.

  “I don’t know. I’m going back to see Robert Åkerblom now, though. Find out what else he’s got to say.”

  Björk stood in the door.

  “We’ll have a debriefing in my office at five o’clock,” he said.

  Just as Wallander was about to leave his office, he remembered he’d forgotten to ask Svedberg to do something for him. He called the scene of the fire once more.

  “Do you remember how a police car nearly crashed into a Mercedes last night?” he asked.

  “I have a vague memory,” said Svedberg.

  “Find out all you can about the incident,” Wallander went on. “I have a strong suspicion that Mercedes has something to do with the fire. I’m not quite so sure whether it has anything to do with Louise Åkerblom.”

  “Roger,” said Svedberg. “Anything else?”

  “We have a meeting here at five o’clock,” said Wallander, replacing the receiver.

  A quarter of an hour later he was back in Robert Åkerblom’s kitchen. He sat down on the same chair he’d occupied a few hours earlier, and had another cup of tea.

  “Sometimes you get called out on some sudden emergency,” said Wallander. “There’s been a major fire incident. But it’s under control now.”

  “I understand,” said Robert Åkerblom politely. “I’m sure it’s not easy, being a cop.”

  Wallander observed the man opposite him at the table. At the same time, he could feel the handcuffs in his trouser pocket. He wasn’t looking forward to the interrogation he was about to launch.

  “I have a few questions,” he said. “We can talk just as easily here as anywhere else.”

  “Of course,” said Robert Åkerblom. “Ask as many questions as you like.”

  Wallander noticed he was irritated by the gentle and yet unmistakably admonishing tone in Robert Åkerblom’s voice.

  “I’m not sure about the first question,” said Wallander. “Does your wife have any medical problems?”

  The man looked at him in surprise.

  “No,” he said. “What are you getting at?”

  “It just occurred to me she might have heard she was suffering from some serious illness. Has she been to the doctor lately?”

  “No. And if she’d been ill, she’d have told me.”

  “There are some serious illnesses people are sometimes hesitant to talk about,” said Wallander. “Or at least, they need a few days to gather together their thoughts and emotions. It’s often the case that the sick person is the one who has to console whoever it is he or she tells.”

  Robert Åkerblom thought for a moment before answering.

  “I’m sure that’s not the case here,” he said.

  Wallander nodded and went on.

  “Did she have a drinking problem?” he asked.

  Robert Åkerblom winced.

  “How can you ask such a question?” he said after a moment’s silence. “Neither of us so much as touches a drop of alcohol.”

  “Nevertheless the cupboard under the sink is full of liquor,” said Wallander.

  “We have nothing against other people drinking,” said Robert Åkerblom. “Within reason, of course. We sometimes have guests. Even a little real estate agency like ours occasionally needs to entertain its clients.”

  Wallander nodded. He had no reason to question the response. He took the handcuffs out of his pocket and put them on the table. He kept his eye on Robert Åkerblom’s reaction the whole time.

  It was exactly what he had expected. Incomprehension.

  “Are you arresting me?” he asked.

  “No,” said Wallander. “But I found these handcuffs in the bottom drawer to the left of the desk, under a stack of writing paper, in your study upstairs.”

  “Handcuffs,” said Robert Åkerblom. “I’ve never seen them before.”

  “As it can hardly have been one of your daughters who put them there, we’ll have to assume it was your wife,” said Wallander.

  “I just don’t get it,” said Robert Åkerblom.

  Suddenly Wallander knew the man across the kitchen table was lying. A barely noticeable shift in his voice, a sudden insecurity in his eyes. But enough for Wallander to register it.

  “Could anybody else have put them there?” he went on.

  “I don’t know,” said Robert Åkerblom. “The only visitors we have are from the chapel. Apart from clients. And they never go upstairs.”

  “Nobody else at all?”

  “Our parents. A few relatives. The kids’ friends.”

  “That’s quite a lot of people,” said Wallander.

  “I don’t get it,” said Robert Åkerblom again.

  Maybe you don’t understand how you could have forgotten to take them away, thought Wallander. Just for now the question is, what do they mean?

  For the first time Wallander asked himself whether Robert Åkerblom could have killed his own wife. But he dismissed it. The handcuffs and the lie were not enough to overturn everything Wallander had already established.

  “Are you certain you can’t explain these handcuffs?” asked Wallander once again. “Perhaps I should point out it’s not against the law to keep a pair of handcuffs in your home. You don’t need a license. On the other hand, of course, you can’t just keep people locked up however you like.”

  “Do you think I’m not telling you the truth?” asked Robert Åkerblom.

  “I don’t think anything,” said Wallander. “I just want to know why these handcuffs were hidden away in a desk drawer.”

  “I’ve already said I don’t understand how they could have gotten into the house.”

  Wallander nodded. He didn’t think it was necessary to press him any further. Not yet, at least. But Wallander was sure he was lying. Could it be that the marriage concealed a perverted and possibly dramatic sex life? Could that in its turn explain why Louise Åkerblom had disappeared?

  Wallander slid his teacup to one side, indicating that the conversation was over. He put the handcuffs back in his pocket, wrapped i
nside a handkerchief. A technical analysis might be able to reveal more about what they’d been used for.

  “That’s all for the time being,” said Wallander, getting to his feet. “I’ll be in touch just as soon as I have anything to report. You’d better be ready for a bit of a fuss tonight, when the evening papers come out and the local radio has broadcast its piece. We’ll have to hope it all helps us, of course.”

  Robert Åkerblom 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 Skåne.

  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 Åkerblom’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 Björk 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 Björk 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 Björk, 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 Åkerblom 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 Åkerblom. A house has blown up, and we’ve found a finger belonging to a black man. That’s about it.”

  Björk 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.”

  Björk 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 Björk’s, picking on inessentials.

  Björk thumped the table almost absentmindedly.

  “This is awful,” he said. “To put it bluntly, we don’t know anything at all. Hasn’t Robert Åkerblom 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 Björk. “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 Björk. “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 Björk. “Anything else we should be doing?”

&nb
sp; “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.”

  “Fingerprints,” said Svedberg. “I don’t know how many Africans there are in this country, legally or illegally, but there’s a chance we might be able to trace a print in our files. We can send out a request to Interpol as well. To my knowledge a lot of African states have been building up advanced criminal files these last few years. There was an article about it in Swedish Policeman magazine a month or two ago. I agree with Kurt. Even if we can’t see any connection between Louise Åkerblom and this finger, we have to assume there might be one.”

  “Shall we give this to the newspapers?” Björk wondered. “The cops are looking for the owner of a finger. That should get a headline or two, anyway.”

  “Why not?” said Wallander. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Björk. “Let’s wait a bit. I agree every hospital in the country should be alerted, though. Surely the medics have a duty to inform the police if they suspect an injury has been caused by a criminal action?”

  “They’re also bound by confidentiality,” said Svedberg. “But of course the hospitals should be contacted. Health centers, too. Does anybody know how many medical practitioners we have in this country?”

  Nobody knew.

  “Ask Ebba to find out,” said Wallander.

  It took her ten minutes to call the secretary of the Swedish Medical Association.