“Not a pretty picture,” said Wallander.
“Remember what I asked? Do you want the truth or the rumours? Because the rumour about Wetterstedt was that he was a talented politician, a loyal party member, an amiable human being. Educated and competent. That’s how his obituaries will read. As long as none of the girls he whipped talk.”
“Why did he leave office?” asked Wallander.
“I don’t think he got along so well with some of the younger ministers. Especially the women. There was a big shift between the generations in those days. I think he realised that his time was over. Mine was too. I quit being a journalist. After he came to Ystad I never wasted a thought on him. Until now.”
“Can you think of anyone who would want to kill him, so many years later?”
Magnusson shrugged.
“That’s impossible to answer.”
Wallander had just one question left.
“Have you ever heard of a murder in this country where the victim was scalped?”
Magnusson’s eyes narrowed. He looked at Wallander with a sudden, alert interest.
“Was he scalped? They didn’t say that on TV. They would have, if they knew about it.”
“Just between the two of us,” Wallander said, looking at Magnusson, who nodded.
“We didn’t want to release it just yet,” he went on. “We can always say we can’t reveal it ‘for investigative reasons’. The excuse the police have for presenting half-truths. But this time it’s actually true.”
“I believe you,” said Magnusson. “Or I don’t believe you. It doesn’t really matter, since I’m no longer a journalist. But I can’t recall a murderer who scalped people. That would have made a great headline. Ture Svanberg would have loved it. Can you avoid leaks?”
“I don’t know,” Wallander answered frankly. “I’ve had a number of bad experiences over the years.”
“I won’t sell the story,” said Magnusson.
Then he accompanied Wallander to the door.
“How the hell can you stand being a policeman?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Wallander. “I’ll let you know when I work it out.”
Wallander drove back to Wetterstedt’s house. The wind was gusting up to gale force. Some of Nyberg’s men were taking fingerprints upstairs. Looking out of the balcony window, he saw Nyberg perched on a wobbly ladder leaning against the light pole by the garden gate. He was clinging to the pole, so the wind wouldn’t blow the ladder over. Wallander went to help him, but saw Nyberg begin to climb down. They met in the hall.
“That could have waited,” said Wallander. “You might have been blown off the ladder.”
“If I fell off I might have hurt myself,” Nyberg said sullenly. “And of course checking the light could have waited, but it might have been forgotten. Since you were the one who wondered about it, and I have a certain respect for your ability to do your job, I decided to look at the light. I can assure you that it was only because you were the one who asked me.”
Wallander was surprised, but he tried not to show it.
“What did you find?” he asked instead.
“The bulb wasn’t burnt out,” said Nyberg. “It was unscrewed.”
“Hold on a minute,” Wallander said, and went into the living-room to call Sara Bjorklund. She answered.
“Excuse me for disturbing you so late at night,” he began. “But I have an urgent question. Who changed the light bulbs in Wetterstedt’s house?”
“He did that himself.”
“Outside also?”
“I think so. He did all of his own gardening, and I think I was the only other person who set foot inside his house.”
Except for whoever was in the black car, thought Wallander.
“There’s a light by the garden gate,” he said. “Was it usually turned on?”
“In the winter, when it was dark, he always kept it lit.”
“That’s all I wanted to know,” said Wallander. “Thanks for your help.”
“Can you manage to climb up the ladder one more time?” he asked Nyberg when he came back to the hall. “I’d like you to screw in a new bulb.”
“The spare bulbs are in the room next to the garage,” said Nyberg and started to pull on his boots.
They went back out into the storm. Wallander held the ladder while Nyberg climbed up and screwed in the bulb. It went on at once. Nyberg climbed back down the ladder. They walked out onto the beach.
“There’s a big difference,” said Wallander. “Now it’s light all the way down to the water.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” said Nyberg.
“I think the place where he was murdered is somewhere within this circle of light,” said Wallander. “If we’re lucky we can get fingerprints from the light fixture.”
“So you think the murderer planned the whole thing? Unscrewed the bulb because it was too bright?”
“Yes,” said Wallander, “that’s pretty much what I’m thinking.”
Nyberg went back into the garden with the ladder. Wallander stayed behind, the rain pelting against his face.
The cordons were still there. A police car was parked just above the dunes. Except for a man on a moped there were no onlookers left.
Wallander turned around and went back inside the house.
CHAPTER 10
He stepped into the basement just after 7 a.m. The floor was cool under his bare feet. He stood still and listened. Then he closed the door behind him and locked it. He squatted to inspect the thin layer of flour he had dusted over the floor the last time he was here. No-one had intruded into his world. There were no footprints. Then he checked the traps. He had been lucky. He had a catch in all four cages. One of the cages held the biggest rat he had ever seen.
Once, towards the end of his life, Geronimo told the story of the Pawnee warrior he had vanquished in his youth. His name was Bear with Six Claws, since he had six fingers on his left hand. That had been his first enemy. Geronimo came close to dying that time, even though he was very young. He cut off his enemy’s sixth finger and left it in the sun to dry. Then he carried it in a little leather pouch on his belt for many years.
He decided to try out one of his axes on the big rat. On the small ones he would test the effect of the can of mace.
But that would be much later. First he had to undergo the big transformation. He sat down before the mirrors, adjusted the light so that there was no glare, and then gazed at his face. He had made a small cut on his left cheek. The wound had already healed. It was the first step in his final transformation.
The blow had been perfect. It had been like chopping down a tree when he cut into the spine of the first monster. He had heard the jubilation of the spirit world from within him. He had flopped the monster over on his back and cut off his scalp, without hesitation. Now it lay where it belonged, buried in the earth, with one tuft of hair sticking up from the ground.
Soon another scalp would join it. He looked at his face and considered whether he ought to make the second cut next to the first one. Or should the knife consecrate the other cheek? Really it made no difference. When he was finished, his face would be covered with cuts.
Carefully he began to prepare himself. From his backpack he pulled out his weapons, paints and brushes. Last of all he took out the red book in which the Revelations and the Mission were written. He set it down on the table between himself and the mirrors.
Last night he had buried the first scalp. There was a guard by the hospital grounds. But he knew where the fence had come down. The secure wing, where there were bars on the windows and doors, stood apart on the outskirts of the large grounds. When he had visited his sister he had established which window was hers. No light shone from it. A faint gleam from the hall light was all that escaped from the menacing building. He had buried the scalp and whispered to his sister that he had taken the first step. He would destroy the monsters, one by one. Then she would come out into the world again.