“Put her aside,” Wallander said. “That’s a step in the right direction too.”
Hansson had come back from Lodinge when the rain and wind made it impossible to keep working. He told Wallander that from tomorrow he’d need more people on the job. Then he set to work on the eight remaining women. Wallander tried in vain to send him home, at least to change out of his wet clothes. But he refused, and Wallander could see that he wanted to shake off the unpleasant experience of standing out in the mud digging for Krista Haberman’s remains as soon as possible.
Just after 11 p.m., Wallander was on the phone trying to track down a relative of a female conductor named Wedin. She had moved five times in the past year. She had gone through a messy divorce and was on the sick list often. He was just dialling Information when Martinsson appeared at the door. Wallander could see by Martinsson’s face that something had happened and he hung up quickly.
“I think I’ve found her,” he said softly. “Yvonne Ander.”
“Why do you think she’s the one?”
“She actually lives here in Ystad. She has an address on Liregatan.”
“What else?”
“She seems strange in many ways. Elusive, like this whole investigation. But she has a background that should interest us. She has worked both as an assistant nurse and an ambulance medic.”
Wallander looked at him for a moment in silence. Then he got up quickly.
“Get the others,” he said. “Now, right away.”
In a few minutes they were gathered in the conference room.
“Martinsson may have found her,” Wallander said. “And she lives here in Ystad.”
Martinsson went over everything he had managed to find out about Yvonne Ander.
“She’s 47 years old,” he began. “She was born in Stockholm and came to Skane 15 years ago. The first few years she lived in Malmo before moving here to Ystad. She’s worked for Swedish Railways for the past ten years. But before that, when she was younger, she studied to be an assistant nurse and worked for many years in health care. She has also worked as an ambulance medic. And for long periods she doesn’t seem to have worked at all.”
“What was she doing then?” Wallander asked.
“There are big gaps.”
“Is she married?”
“She’s single.”
“Divorced?”
“There are no children in the picture. I don’t think she’s ever been married. But the times that she was working on the trains match Katarina Taxell’s.”
Martinsson had been reading from his notebook. Now he dropped it on the table.
“There’s one more thing. She’s active in the Swedish Railways Recreational Association in Malmo. I think a lot of people are. But what surprised me was that she was interested in weight training.”
It got very quiet in the room.
“So she’s presumably strong,” Martinsson continued. “And isn’t it a woman with great physical strength that we’re looking for?”
Wallander made a quick decision.
“We’ll put all the other names aside for the time being and work on Yvonne Ander. Take it from the beginning one more time. Slowly.”
Martinsson repeated his summary. They came up with new questions. Many of the answers were missing. Wallander looked at his watch. It was just before midnight.
“I think we should talk to her tonight.”
“If she’s not working,” Hoglund said. “She works on the night train occasionally. The other conductors work days or nights, never both.”
“Either she’s home or she’s not,” Wallander said.
“What are we actually going to talk to her about?”
The question came from Hamren. It was legitimate.
“I think it’s possible that Katarina Taxell might be there,” Wallander said. “If nothing else, we can use that as an excuse. Her mother is worried. We can start with that. We have no evidence against her. We don’t have a thing. But I want to get some fingerprints.”
“So we’re not sending a whole team,” Svedberg said.
Wallander nodded at Hoglund.
“I thought the two of us should visit her. We can have another car follow as backup. In case something happens.”
“Like what?” Martinsson asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Isn’t that a little irresponsible?” Svedberg said. “We do suspect she’s involved in murder.”
“We’ll be armed,” Wallander said.
They were interrupted by a man from the dispatch centre knocking on the door.
“There’s a message from a doctor in Lund,” he said. “He did a preliminary examination of the skeletal remains you found. He thinks they’re from a woman. And they’ve been in the ground a long time.”
“So we know that,” Wallander said. “If nothing else, we’re on our way to solving a 27-year-old case.”
The officer left the room.
“I don’t anticipate any trouble,” Wallander said.
“How are we going to explain it if Taxell isn’t there? After all, we’re thinking of knocking on her door in the middle of the night.”
“We’ll ask for Katarina,” Wallander said. “We’re looking for her. That’s all.”
“What happens if she’s not home?”
Wallander didn’t have to think it over.
“Then we go in. And the officers acting as backup will watch in case she’s on her way home. In the meantime I’d like to ask the rest of you to wait here. I know it’s late, but it can’t be helped.”
No-one had any objections.
They left the police station just after midnight. The wind was now at gale force. Wallander and Hoglund took her car. Martinsson and Svedberg were in the backup car. Liregatan was right in the middle of Ystad. They parked a block away. The streets were almost deserted. They met only one other car, one of the police night patrols. Wallander wondered if the planned new cycle commando unit would be able to handle patrol duty when it was blowing as hard as it was now.
Yvonne Ander lived in a flat in a restored wood and brick building. Hers was the middle of three flats, with her door facing the street. Apart from a light on in a window to the far left, the whole building was in darkness.
“Either she’s asleep or she’s not home,” Wallander said. “But we have to assume she’s there.”
The wind was blowing hard.
“Is she the one?” Hoglund asked.
Wallander was freezing cold and out of sorts. Was it because they were now hunting a woman?
“Yes,” he replied, “I think she is.”
They crossed the street. To their left was Martinsson and Svedberg’s car, the headlights turned off. Hoglund rang the bell. Wallander pressed his ear to the door and could hear the bell ringing inside. They waited tensely. He nodded to her to ring again. Still nothing. Then a third time, with the same result.
“Do you think she’s asleep?” Hoglund asked.
“No,” Wallander said, “I don’t think she’s home.”
He tried the door. It was locked. He took a step into the street and waved at the car. Martinsson came walking up. He was the best at opening locked doors without using force. He had a torch and a bundle of tools with him. Wallander held the light while Martinsson worked. It took him more than ten minutes. Finally he got the lock to open. He took the torch and went back to the car.
Wallander looked around. There was no-one about. He and Hoglund went inside. They stood listening to the silence. There was no window in the hall. Wallander turned on a lamp. To the left was a living room with a low ceiling, to the right a kitchen. Straight ahead a narrow staircase led to an upper floor. It creaked under their feet. There were three bedrooms, all empty. There was no-one in the flat.
He tried to take stock of the situation. Could they count on the woman who lived there coming back during the night? He thought it highly unlikely. Especially since she had Taxell and her baby with her. Would she move them around at night?
Wallander walked up to a glass door in one of the bedrooms and discovered a balcony outside. Big flowerpots filled almost the entire space. But there were no flowers in them, just soil. The balcony and the empty flowerpots filled him with sudden dismay. He left the room quickly. They returned to the hall.