The moment of truth, he thought. This is it.
“We’re searching for Hans Logard,” he began. “We have to keep doing so of course. He shot Sjosten in the shoulder and he’s mixed up in the traffic of young girls. But he isn’t the one who committed four murders and scalped his victims. That was somebody else entirely.”
He paused.
“Stefan Fredman is the person who did this,” he said. “We’re looking for a 14-year-old boy who killed his father, along with the others.”
There was silence in the room. No-one moved. They were all staring at him. When Wallander had finished his explanation, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind. The team decided to return to Ystad. The greatest secrecy would have to attach to what they had just discussed. Wallander couldn’t tell which feeling was stronger among his colleagues, shock or relief.
Wallander called Akeson and gave him a brisk precis of his conclusions. As he did so, Svedberg stood next to him, staring at the fax that had come from Lund.
“Strange,” he said.
Wallander turned to him.
“What’s strange?”
“This signature. It looks as if he’s signed himself Geronimo.”
Wallander grabbed the fax out of Svedberg’s hand. He was right.
CHAPTER 38
They said goodbye in the dawn outside the station in Helsingborg. Everyone looked haggard, but more than anything they were shaken by what they now realised was the truth about the killer they had been hunting for so long. They agreed to meet at 8 a.m. at the Ystad police station. That meant they would have time to get home and shower, but not much else. They had to keep working. Wallander had been blunt in outlining his conclusions. He believed that the murders had happened because of the sick sister. But they couldn’t be sure. It was possible that she herself was in danger. There was only one approach to take: to fear the worst.
Svedberg went in Wallander’s car. It was going to be another beautiful day. They spoke very little during the trip. Svedberg discovered that he must have left his keys somewhere. It reminded Wallander that his own keys had never shown up. He told Svedberg to come home with him. They reached Mariagatan just before 7 a.m. Linda was asleep. After they had each taken a shower and Wallander had given Svedberg a clean shirt, they sat in the living-room and had coffee.
Neither of them noticed that the door to the cupboard next to Linda’s room, which had been closed when they arrived, was ajar.
Hoover had arrived at the flat at 6.50 a.m. He was on his way into the policeman’s bedroom with the axe in his hand when he heard a key turn in the lock. He hid in the cupboard. He heard two voices. When he could tell that they were in the living-room, he opened the door a crack. Hoover assumed that the other man was a policeman too. He gripped the axe the whole time, listening to them talking softly. At first Hoover didn’t understand what they were talking about. The name Hans Logard was mentioned repeatedly. The policeman whom he had come to kill was clearly trying to explain something to the other man. He listened carefully and finally understood that it was holy providence, the power of Geronimo, that had started working again. Hans Logard had been Ake Liljegren’s right-hand man. He had smuggled girls in from the Dominican Republic, and maybe from other parts of the Caribbean too. He was also the one who probably brought girls to Wetterstedt and maybe even Carlman. He also heard the policeman predict that Logard was on the death list that must exist in Stefan Fredman’s mind.
Then the conversation stopped. A few moments later Wallander and Svedberg left the flat. Hoover emerged from the cupboard and stood utterly still. Then he left, as soundlessly as he had come. He had gone to the empty shop where Linda and Kajsa had held their rehearsals. He knew they wouldn’t be using it again, so he had left Louise there while he went to the flat on Mariagatan to kill Perkins and his daughter. But as he’d stood in the cupboard, the axe ready in his hand, and heard the conversation he started to have doubts. There was one more person he had to kill. A man he had overlooked. Hans Logard. When the policeman described him, Hoover understood that he must have been the one who had brutally raped and abused his sister. That was before she had been drugged and taken to both Gustaf Wetterstedt and Arne Carlman — events that had forced her into the darkness. All of it was written down in the book he had taken from her. The book that contained the words that controlled him. He had assumed that Hans Logard was someone who didn’t live in Sweden. A foreign visitor, an evil man. Now he knew that he had made a mistake.
It was easy to get into the empty shop. Earlier he had seen Kajsa hide the key. Since he was moving around in broad daylight, he hadn’t painted his face. He didn’t want to frighten Louise, either. When he came back she was sitting on a chair, staring blankly into space. He had already decided to move her. And he knew where. Before he went to Mariagatan he went on the moped to see that the situation was as he’d thought. The house he’d selected was empty. But they weren’t going to move there until evening. He sat down on the floor at her side and tried to work out how to find Logard before the police did. He turned inward and asked Geronimo for advice. But his heart was strangely still this morning. The drums were so faint that he couldn’t hear their message.
At 8 a.m. they gathered in the conference room. Akeson was here, as was a sergeant from Malmo. Birgersson was hooked up via speaker phone from Helsingborg. Wallander looked around the table and said they’d start by bringing everyone up to date. The sergeant from Malmo was looking for a hiding place they assumed Stefan Fredman had access to. They still hadn’t found it. But one of the neighbours in the building told them that he had seen Stefan Fredman on a moped several times. The building where the family lived was under surveillance. Birgersson told them that Sjosten was doing well, although his ear would be permanently damaged.
“Plastic surgeons can work wonders,” Wallander shouted encouragingly. “Say hello to him from all of us.”
Birgersson went on to say that they weren’t Logard’s fingerprints on the comic book, the paper bag, Liljegren’s stove or Fredman’s left eyelid. This confirmation was crucial. The Malmo police were getting Stefan Fredman’s prints from objects taken from his room in the Rosengard flat. Nobody doubted that they would match, now that Logard’s didn’t.
They talked about Logard. The hunt had to continue. They had to assume he was dangerous, since he had shot at Wallander and Sjosten.
“Stefan Fredman is only 14, but he is dangerous,” Wallander said. “He may be crazy, but he’s not stupid. He’s very strong and he reacts fast. We have to be careful.”
“This is all so damned disgusting!” Hansson exploded. “I still can’t believe it’s true.”
“Nor can any of us,” Akeson said. “But what Kurt says is absolutely right. And we need to act accordingly.”
“Fredman got his sister Louise out of the hospital,” Wallander went on. “We’re looking for the nurse who will be able to identify him. Let’s assume it’ll be a positive identification. We still don’t know whether he intends to hurt Louise. It’s crucial that we find them. He has a moped and must ride with her on the back. They can’t get very far. Besides, the girl is sick.”
“A nutcase on a moped with a mentally ill girl on the back,” Svedberg said. “It’s so macabre.”
“He can also drive a car,” Ludwigsson pointed out. “He used his father’s van. So he may have stolen one by now.”
Wallander turned to the detective from Malmo.
“Stolen cars,” he said. “Within the past few days. Above all in Rosengard. And near the hospital.”
The detective went to a phone.
“Stefan Fredman carries out his actions after careful planning,” continued Wallander. “Naturally we have no way of knowing whether the abduction of his sister was also planned. Now we have to try and get into his mind to guess what he plans to do next. Where are they headed? It’s a shame Ekholm isn’t here when we need him most.”