Wallander paused for a moment and then continued.
“So, he’s taking a trip to Africa. He doesn’t go. Something prevents him. How he disappears, we don’t know. On the other hand, we can pinpoint the date. But we have no explanation for the break-in at his shop. We don’t know where he was held prisoner. The suitcase may, of course, provide a clue. For some reason it was repacked by a woman. If so, by the same woman who smoked a handrolled cigarette on the jetty where Blomberg was thrown into the water.”
“There could be two people,” Hoglund objected. “One who smoked the cigarette and left a fingerprint on the suitcase. Someone else could have repacked it.”
“You’re right,” Wallander said. “Let’s say that at least one person was present.” He glanced at Nyberg.
“We’re looking,” Nyberg said. “We’re going through Holger Eriksson’s place. We’ve found lots of fingerprints. But so far none that match.”
“The name tag,” Wallander said. “The one we found in Runfeldt’s suitcase. Did it have any fingerprints on it?”
Nyberg shook his head.
“It should have had,” said Wallander in surprise. “You use your fingers to put it on or take it off, don’t you?”
No-one had an explanation for this.
“So far we’ve talked about a number of women, one of whom keeps appearing,” he continued. “We also have spousal abuse and possibly an undetected murder. The question we have to ask ourselves is: who would have known about these things? Who would have had a reason to seek revenge? If the motive is revenge, that is.”
“There might be another thing,” Svedberg said, scratching the back of his neck. “We have two old police investigations that were both archived, unsolved. One in Ostersund and one in Almhult.”
Wallander nodded.
“That leaves Eriksson,” he went on. “Another brutal man. After a lot of effort, or rather a lot of luck, we find a woman in his background too. A Polish woman who’s been missing for 30 years or so.”
He looked around the table before he concluded.
“In other words, there’s a pattern,” he said. “Brutal men and abused, missing, and maybe murdered women. And one step behind, a shadow that follows in the tracks of these events. A shadow that might be a woman. A woman who smokes.”
Hansson dropped his pencil on the table and shook his head.
“It doesn’t seem possible,” he said. “Let’s imagine that there’s a woman involved, who seems to have enormous physical strength and a macabre imagination when it comes to methods of murder. Why would she have an interest in what happened to these women? Is she a friend of theirs? How did all these people cross paths?”
“That’s not just an important question,” Wallander said. “It could be crucial. How did these people come into contact with each other? Where should we start looking? Among men or among women? A car dealer, regional poet and bird-watcher; an orchid lover, private detective, and florist; and an allergy researcher. Blomberg, at any rate, doesn’t seem to have had any special interests. Or should we start with the women? A mother who lies about the father of her newborn child? A woman who drowned in Stang Lake outside Almhult ten years ago? A woman from Poland who lived in Jamtland and was interested in birds, missing for 30 years? And finally, this woman who sneaks around in the Ystad maternity ward at night and knocks down midwives? Where are the points of connection?”
The silence lasted a long time. Everyone tried to find an answer. Wallander waited. This was a key moment. He was hoping that someone would come up with an unexpected conclusion. Rydberg had told him many times that the most important task of the leader of an investigation was to stimulate his colleagues to think the unexpected. Had he been successful?
It was Hoglund who at last broke the silence.
“There are some occupations that are dominated by women,” she said. “Nursing is one of them.”
“Patients come from all different places,” Martinsson continued. “If we assume that the woman we’re looking for works in an emergency room, she would have seen lots of abused women pass through. None of them knew each other. But she knew them. Their names, their patient records.”
Hoglund and Martinsson had come up with something that might fit.
“We don’t know whether she really is a nurse,” Wallander said. “All we know is that she doesn’t work in the maternity ward in Ystad.”
“She could work somewhere else in the hospital,” Svedberg suggested.
Wallander nodded slowly. Could it really be so simple? A nurse at Ystad General Hospital?
“It should be relatively easy to find out,” Hansson said. “Even though patient records are confidential, it should be possible to find out if Gosta Runfeldt’s wife was treated there. And why not Krista Haberman, for that matter?”
Wallander took a new tack.
“Have Runfeldt and Eriksson ever been charged with assault? That’s easily checked.”
“There are also other possibilities,” Hoglund said, as though she felt the need to question her own previous suggestions. “There are other occcupations in which women dominate. There are crisis groups for women. Even the female officers in Skane have their own network.”
“We have to investigate all these,” Wallander said. “It will take a long time and I think we have to accept that this investigation is heading in many directions at once. Especially in terms of time.”
They spent the last two hours before midnight planning various strategies to be explored simultaneously, until at last they ran out of steam.
Hansson put the final question into words, the one they had all been waiting for the whole evening.
“Is it going to happen again?”
“I don’t know,” Wallander said. “I have a sense of incompleteness about what’s happened so far. Don’t ask me why. That’s all I can say. Something as unprofessional as a feeling. Intuition, maybe.”
“I have the same feeling,” Svedberg said. He said this with such force that everyone was surprised. “Isn’t it possible that we can expect a series of murders that go on indefinitely? If it’s someone pointing a vengeful finger at men who have mistreated women, then it’s never going to stop.”
Wallander knew it was likely that Svedberg was right. He’d been trying to avoid the thought himself all along.
“There is that risk,” he said. “Which in turn means that we have to catch the killer fast.”
“Reinforcements,” said Nyberg, who had barely uttered a word the past two hours. “Otherwise it won’t work.”
“Yes,” Wallander said. “I agree that we’re going to need them. Especially after what we’ve talked about tonight. We can’t manage without extra help to do much more than we already are.”
Hamren raised his hand to signal that he wanted to say something. He was sitting next to the two detectives from Malmo near the far end of the long table.
“I’d like to underline that last comment,” he said. “I’ve rarely if ever taken part in such efficient police work with so few personnel. Since I was here in the summer too, I can say with certainty that it’s the rule, not the exception. If you request reinforcements, no reasonable person is going to refuse you.”
The detectives from Malmo nodded in agreement.
“I’ll take it up with Chief Holgersson tomorrow,” Wallander said. “I’m also thinking of trying to get a few more female officers. If nothing else, it might boost morale.”
The weary mood lifted for a moment. Wallander seized the opportunity and stood up. It was important to know when to end a meeting. Now was the time. They wouldn’t make any more progress. They needed sleep.
Wallander went to his office. He leafed through the steadily growing stack of phone messages. Instead of putting on his jacket, he sat down in his chair. Footsteps disappeared down the hall. Soon it was quiet. He twisted the lamp down to shine on the desk. The rest of the room was dark.