“Maybe it was registered under another name. Why not in Hans Logard’s name?”
“Why do you think Liljegren had a boat?”
“There are clothes in the basement that look like they’re for sailing.”
Sjosten followed Wallander to the basement. They stood in front of the open wardrobe.
“You may be right.” Sjosten said.
“It’s worth looking into,” said Wallander. “This house is too empty to be normal.”
They left the basement. Wallander opened the balcony doors and stepped into the sunshine. He thought of Baiba again and felt a knot in his stomach. Why didn’t he call her? Did he still think it would be possible for him to meet her? He wasn’t happy about asking Martinsson to lie for him, but now it was his only way out. He went back inside, into the shadows, with a feeling of utter self-loathing. Sjosten was on the phone. Wallander wondered when the killer would strike next. Sjosten hung up and dialled another number. Wallander went into the kitchen and drank some water, trying to avoid looking at the stove. As he came back, Sjosten slammed the phone down.
“You were right,” he said. “There’s a boat in Logard’s name down at the yacht club. The same one I belong to.”
“Let’s go,” said Wallander, feeling the tension rise.
A dock watchman showed them where Logard’s boat was berthed. Wallander could see that it was a beautiful, well-maintained boat. The hull was fibreglass, but it had a teak deck.
“A Komfortina,” said Sjosten. “Very nice. They handle well, too.”
He hopped on board like a sailor. The entrance to the cabin was locked.
“Do you know Hans Logard?” Wallander asked the watchman. He had a weatherbeaten face and wore a T-shirt advertising canned Norwegian fish-balls.
“He’s not talkative, but we say hello to each other when he comes down here.”
“When was he here last?”
“Last week, I think. But it’s high summer, you know, our busiest time, so I might be mistaken.”
Sjosten had managed to pick the cabin lock. From inside he opened the two half-doors. Wallander clambered clumsily aboard, as though walking on newly polished ice. He crept down into the cockpit and then into the cabin. Sjosten had had the foresight to bring along a torch. They searched the cabin without finding anything.
“I don’t get it,” Wallander said when they were back on the dock. “Liljegren must have been running his affairs from somewhere.”
“We’re checking his mobile phones,” said Sjosten. “Maybe that will produce something.”
They headed back. The man with the T-shirt followed them.
“I expect that you’ll want to take a look at his other boat too,” he said as they stepped off the long dock. Wallander and Sjosten reacted as one.
“Logard has another boat?” Wallander asked.
The man pointed towards the furthest pier.
“The white one, all the way at the end. A Storo class. It’s called the Rosmarin.”
“Of course we want to look at it,” Wallander said.
They ended up in front of a long, powerful, sleek launch.
“These cost money,” said Sjosten. “Lots and lots of money.”
They went aboard. The cabin door was locked. The man on the dock was watching them.
“He knows I’m a policeman,” Sjosten said.
“We don’t have time to wait,” said Wallander. “Break the lock. But do it the cheapest way.”
Sjosten managed it without breaking off more than a piece of the doorframe. They entered the cabin. Wallander saw at once that they had hit the jackpot. Along one wall was a whole shelf of folders and plastic binders.
“Find an address for Hans Logard,” said Wallander. “We can go through the rest later.”
In a few minutes they had found a membership card to a golf club outside Angelholm with Logard’s name and address on it.
“Bjuv,” Sjosten said. “That’s not far from here.”
As they were leaving the boat, Wallander opened a cupboard. To his surprise there was women’s clothing inside.
“Maybe they had parties on board, too,” Sjosten said.
“I’m not so sure.” Wallander said pensively.
They left the boat and went back to the dock.
“I want you to call me if Logard shows up,” Sjosten told the dock watchman.
He gave him a card with his phone number on it.
“But I shouldn’t let on that you’re looking for him, right?” the man asked, excitedly.
Sjosten smiled.
“Right in one,” he replied. “Pretend that everything’s normal. And then call me. No matter what time.”
“There’s nobody here at night,” said the man.
“Then we’ll have to hope he comes in the day.”
“May I ask what he did?”
“You can,” said Sjosten, “but you won’t get an answer.”
“Should we take more men along?” Sjosten asked.
“Not yet,” Wallander replied. “First we have to find his house and see if he’s home.”
They drove towards Bjuv. They were in a part of Skane that Wallander didn’t know. The weather had turned muggy. There would be a thunderstorm that evening.
“When’s the last time it rained?” he asked.
“Around Midsummer,” Sjosten said, after thinking for a bit. “And it didn’t rain much.”
They had just reached the turn-off to Bjuv when Sjosten’s mobile phone rang. He slowed down and answered it.
“It’s for you,” he said, handing it to Wallander.
It was Ann-Britt Hoglund. She got straight to the point. “Louise Fredman has escaped from the hospital.”
It took a moment before Wallander grasped what she said.
“Could you repeat that?”
“Louise Fredman has escaped from the hospital.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago.”
“How did you find out?”
“The hospital contacted Akeson. He called me.”
Wallander thought for a moment.
“How did it happen?”
“Someone came and got her.”
“Who?”
“No-one saw it happen. Suddenly she was gone.”
“God damn it to hell!”
Sjosten hit the brakes.
“I’ll call you back in a while,” Wallander said. “In the meantime, find out absolutely everything you can. Above all, who it was that picked her up.”
“Louise Fredman has escaped from hospital,” he told Sjosten.
“How?”
Wallander gave it some thought before he replied.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But this has something to do with our killer. I’m sure of it.”
“Should I go back?”
“No. Let’s keep going. Now it’s more important than ever to get hold of Logard.”
They drove into the village and stopped. Sjosten rolled down the window and asked the way to the street. They asked three people and got the same answer. Not one of them knew the address they were looking for.
CHAPTER 36
They were just on the point of giving up when they finally picked up the trail to Hans Logard and his address. Some scattered showers had started over Bjuv by that time. But the main thunderstorm passed by to the west.
The address they had been looking for was “Hordestigen”. It had a Bjuv postal code, but they couldn’t find it. Wallander went into the post office himself to check it. Logard didn’t have a post office box either, at least not in Bjuv. Finally there was nothing to do but think Logard’s address was false. At that point, Wallander walked into the bakery and struck up a conversation with the two ladies behind the counter while he bought a bag of cinnamon rolls. One of them knew the answer. Hordestigen wasn’t a road. It was the name of a farm north of the village, a place that was hard to find if you didn’t know the way.
“There’s a man living there named Hans Logard,” Wallander told them. “Do you know him?”
The two women looked at each other as if searching a shared memory, then shook their heads in unison.
“I had a distant cousin who lived at Hordestigen when I was a girl,” said one of the women. “When he died it was sold to a stranger. But Hordestigen is the name of the farm, I know that. It must have a different postal address, though.”