Wallander was suddenly determined.
“That’s right. We have to do that as soon as possible. Find out whether there’s a connection.”
“Who’s going to do it?”
“Hansson. He reads faster than any of us. He usually goes right to the heart of the matter.”
She made a note. Then they left the topic of Holger Eriksson for the moment.
“Gosta Runfeldt was a brutal man,” Wallander said. “We know that for sure. On that point there’s a similarity with Eriksson. Now it turns out that it applies to Eugen Blomberg too. Runfeldt abused his wife, just like Blomberg. Where does this lead us?”
“To three men with violent tendencies, at least two of them who abused women.”
“It might also be true of Eriksson. We don’t know yet.”
“The Polish woman? Krista Haberman?”
“For example. And it might also be true that Runfeldt killed his wife. Prepared a hole in the ice for her to fall into and drown.”
They both knew that they were onto something. Wallander went back through the investigation again.
“The pungee pit,” he said. “What was it?”
“Prepared, well planned. A death trap.”
“More than that. A way to kill someone slowly.”
Wallander searched for a paper on his desk.
“According to the pathologist in Lund, Eriksson may have hung there impaled on the bamboo stakes for several hours before he died.”
He put down the paper in disgust.
“Runfeldt,” he said. “Emaciated, strangled, hanging tied to a tree. What does that tell us?”
“That he was held captive. He wasn’t hanging in a pungee pit.”
Wallander raised his hand. She didn’t say a word. He was thinking, recalling the visit to Stang Lake, how they’d found her under the ice.
“Drowning under ice,” he said. “I’ve always imagined that would be one of the most horrifying ways to die. To be beneath the ice and not be able to break through. Maybe even see the light through it.”
“Held captive under the ice,” she said.
“Precisely. That’s just what I was thinking.”
“Do you mean that this killer has invented methods of killing that are linked to the event that’s being avenged?”
“Something like that. It’s a possibility, anyway.”
“In that case, what happened to Eugen Blomberg looks more like what happened to Runfeldt’s wife.”
“I know,” Wallander said. “Maybe we can figure that out too if we keep at it a while longer.”
They went on. They discussed the suitcase. Wallander mentioned the false nail that Nyberg had found out in the woods near Marsvinsholm. Then they started on Blomberg. The pattern was repeated.
“The plan was to drown him, but not too fast. He had to be aware of what was happening to him.”
Wallander leaned back in his chair and looked at her across his desk.
“Tell me what you see.”
“A revenge motive is taking shape. At any rate, it runs through each crime as a possible link. Men who use force against women are attacked in return by a calculated violence of a masculine kind. As if they were being forced to feel their hands on their own bodies.”
“That’s a good way of putting it,” Wallander said. “Go on.”
“It could also be a way of hiding the fact that a woman committed the crimes. It took a long time for us to even imagine that a woman was involved. And when we did think of it, we rejected it immediately.”
“What is there to contradict the idea that the killer might be a woman?”
“We still know very little. Women almost never use violence unless they’re defending themselves or their children. And then it’s not premeditated violence, but instinctive, acts done in self-defence. A woman would not normally dig a pungee pit. Or hold a man captive. Or throw a man in the lake inside a sack.”
Wallander looked at her intently.
“Normally,” he said. “Your word.”
“If a woman is involved in this, then she must be very sick indeed.”
Wallander stood up and went to the window. “There’s one more thing,” he said, “which could knock down this whole house of cards we’re building. She isn’t avenging herself. She’s avenging others. Runfeldt’s wife is dead. Blomberg’s wife didn’t do it, I’m sure of that. Eriksson has no woman. If this is revenge and if it’s a woman, then she’s taking revenge for others. And that doesn’t sound likely. If it’s true, I’ve never come across anything like it.”
“It could be more than one woman,” Hoglund said hesitantly.
“A number of angels of death? A group of women? A cult?”
“That doesn’t sound plausible.”
“No,” Wallander said, “it doesn’t.”
He sat down again in his chair. “I’d like you to do just the opposite,” he said. “Go over all the material again. And then give me the reasons why it isn’t a woman who did this.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to wait until we know more about what happened to Blomberg?”
“Maybe. But I don’t think we have time.”
“You are thinking that it could happen again?”
Wallander wanted to give her an honest answer. He sat silently for a moment before he replied.
“There is no beginning,” he said. “At least none we can see. That makes it less likely that there will be an end. It could happen again. And we don’t have any idea what direction to look in.”
They didn’t get any further. Wallander felt impatient that neither Martinsson nor Svedberg had called. Then he remembered that he had blocked all his calls. He checked with the switchboard. Neither Martinsson nor Svedberg had rung in. He asked for their calls to be allowed through.
“The break-ins,” Hoglund said suddenly. “At the florist’s shop and at Eriksson’s house. How do they fit into the picture?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Or the blood on the floor. I thought I had an explanation, and now I don’t.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said.
Wallander could see that she was excited. He nodded to her to continue.
“We’re talking about having to distinguish what we can see from what has happened,” she began. “Holger Eriksson reported a break-in where nothing was stolen. Why did he report it at all?”
“I’ve thought about that too,” Wallander said. “He may have just been upset that someone broke into his house.”
“In that case it fits in with the pattern.”
Wallander didn’t understand immediately what she was getting at.
“There’s always the possibility that someone broke in to make him nervous. Not to steal anything.”
“A first warning?” he asked. “Is that what you mean?”
“Yes.”
“And the florist’s shop?”
“Runfeldt leaves his flat. Or he’s lured out. Or else it’s early in the morning. He goes down to the street to wait for a taxi. There he vanishes without a trace. What if he went to the shop? It only takes a few minutes. He could have left his suitcase inside the front door. Or carried it with him. It wasn’t heavy.”
“Why would he have gone to the shop?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he forgot something.”
“You mean he might have been attacked there?”
“I know it’s not a great idea. But it’s what I’ve been thinking.”
“It’s no worse than lots of others,” said Wallander. He looked at her.
“Has anyone checked if the blood on the floor was Runfeldt’s?”
“I don’t think it was ever done. If not, I’m to blame.”
“If we had to keep track of who was responsible for all the mistakes made during criminal investigations, there wouldn’t be time for anything else,” Wallander said. “I assume there aren’t any samples left?”
“I’ll find out. We’ll check it out just to be sure.”
She got up and left the room. Wallander was tired. They had had a good talk, but his anxiety had increased. They were as far from the heart of the matter as they could be. The investigation still lacked a gravitational force drawing them in a specific direction.
Someone was complaining loudly out in the hall. He started thinking of Baiba, but forced himself to concentrate on the investigation again. He got up and went for some coffee. Another officer asked him if he’d had time to decide whether it was proper for a local association to call itself “Friends of the Axe”. He said no. Went back to his office. The rain had stopped. The clouds hung motionless in the sky over the water tower.