The White Lioness (27 page)

"Do you have a name?" he said.

"Just call me Goli," Mabasha said. "That'll do."

"And you come from South Africa?"

"That's not important."

"It's important for me."

"The only thing that's important for both of us is where is Konovalenko."

The last part of this declaration he spat out. The policeman understood. The fear returned to his eyes.

That very same moment Mabasha stiffened. He had not relaxed his guard while talking to the policeman. Now his sensitive ears had picked up a noise outside the vault. He gestured to the policeman to keep still. Then he took out his pistol and turned down the flame in the hurricane lamp.

There was somebody outside the vault. It was not an animal. The movements were too meticulously cautious.

He leaned rapidly over the policeman and grabbed him by the throat.

"For the last time," he hissed, "was there anybody tailing you?"

"No. Nobody. I swear."

Mabasha let go. Konovalenko, he thought in a fury. I don't know how you do it, but I do know now why Kleyn wants you working for him in South Africa.

They could not stay in the vault. He eyed the hurricane lamp. That was their chance.

"When I open the door, throw the lamp to the left," he said to the policeman, untying his hands at the same time. He turned up the flame as far as it would go, and handed it over.

"Jump to the right," he whispered. "Crouch down. Don't get in my line of fire." He could tell that the man wanted to protest, but he raised his hand and Wallander said nothing. Then he cocked the pistol and they got ready for action.

"I'll count to three," he said.

He kicked open the door and the policeman hurled the lamp to the left. Mabasha fired at the same moment. The policeman came stumbling behind him and he almost overbalanced. Just then he heard shots from at least two different weapons. He threw himself to the ground and crawled behind a gravestone. The policeman crawled off in some other direction. The hurricane lamp lit up the burial vault. Mabasha detected a movement in one corner and fired. The bullet struck the iron door and whined into the vault. Another shot shattered the hurricane lamp and everything went black. Somebody scampered away along one of the gravel paths. Then all was quiet.

Wallander could feel his heart pounding like a piston against his ribs. He seemed not to be able to breathe properly, and wondered if he'd been hit. But there was no blood, and he couldn't feel any pain apart from his tongue, which he had bitten some time ago. With great care he positioned himself behind a tall gravestone. He lay there motionless. His heart was still pounding. Mabasha was nowhere to be seen or heard. When he was sure he was alone, he started running. He ran along the gravel paths, towards the lights on the road and the noise of what traffic there still was. He kept running until he was outside the boundary fence of the cemetery. He stopped at a bus stop and waved down a taxi coming back into the city from Arlanda airport.

"Central Hotel," he gasped.

The driver eyed him up and down. "I don't know that I want you in my taxi," he said. "You'll make everything filthy."

"I'm a policeman, dammit," Wallander roared at him. "Just drive!"

When they got to the hotel Wallander paid without waiting either for a receipt or his change, and collected his key from the receptionist, who stared at his clothes in astonishment. It was midnight when he collapsed on to his bed. When he had calmed down, he called Linda.

"Why are you calling as late as this?" she said.

"I've been busy until now," he said. "I didn't have a chance to call earlier."

"Why do you sound so funny? Is something the matter?"

Wallander had a lump in his throat and was on the point of bursting into tears. But he managed to control himself. "It's nothing," he said.

"Are you sure everything's all right?"

"Everything's fine. Why shouldn't it be?"

"You know better than I do."

"Don't you remember from when you used to live at home that I was always out working at strange hours?"

"I suppose so," she said. "I'd forgotten."

He made up his mind on the spur of the moment.

"I'm coming over," he said. "Don't ask me why. I'll explain when I get there."

He took a taxi to where she lived in Bromma. They sat at the kitchen table, each with a beer, and he told her what had happened.

"They say it's good for the young to get some idea of what their parents get up to at work," she said, shaking her head. "Weren't you scared?"

"Of course I was. People like this have no respect for life."

"Why don't you send the police after them?"

"I'm the police myself. And I need to think."

"And meanwhile they can kill again."

"You're right," he said. "I'll go to the station at Kungsholmen. But I wanted to talk to you first."

"I'm glad you came."

She went out into the hall with him. "Why did you ask if I was at home?" she said. "Why didn't you say you stopped by yesterday?"

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"I met Mrs Nilson from next door when I got home. She told me you'd been here asking if I was in. You have a key, don't you?"

"I haven't spoken to any Mrs Nilson," Wallander said.

"I must have got her wrong, then," Linda said.

A shiver suddenly ran down Wallander's spine. "One more time," he said. "You came home. You met Mrs Nilson. She said I'd been asking after you?"

"Right."

"Tell me again what she said, word for word."

"'Your Dad's been asking after you.' That's all."

Wallander was scared. "I've never met Mrs Nilson," he said. "How can she know what I look like?"

It was a while before she caught on. "You mean it could have been somebody else? But who? Why? Who would want to pretend they were you?"

Wallander switched off the light and went to one of the living room windows. The street below was deserted. He went back to the hall.

"I don't know who it was," he said. "But you're going back with me to Ystad tomorrow. I don't want you here on your own right now."

She could tell he was deadly serious.

"OK," she said simply. "Do I need to be frightened tonight?"

"You don't need to be frightened at all," he said. "It's just that you shouldn't be here on your own for the next few days."

"Don't say any more," she said. "Right now I want to know as little as possible."

She made up a bed for him on a mattress. He lay there in the dark, listening to her breathing. Konovalenko, he thought. When he was certain she was asleep, he got up and went over to the window.

The street was as empty as before.

Wallander found out that there was a train to Malmo at 7.03 a.m., and they left the apartment soon after 6 a.m.

He had slept restlessly, dozing off, then waking with a start. He needed to spend a few hours in a train. Flying would mean he got to Malmo too quickly. He needed rest, and he needed to think.

They came to a standstill just outside Mjolby with engine failure, and waited there nearly an hour. Wallander was grateful for the extra time. They occasionally exchanged a few words. But just as often Linda was buried in a book, and he was lost in thought. Fourteen days, he was thinking as he watched a lonely tractor ploughing what looked like a never-ending field. He tried counting the seagulls following the plough, but could not manage it. Fourteen days since Mrs Akerblom had disappeared. The image of her must already be beginning to melt away from her two small children's consciousness. He wondered if Robert Akerblom would be able to hold fast to his God. What sort of encouragement could Pastor Tureson give him?

He looked at his daughter, asleep with her cheek against the window. What did her mostly solitary anxieties look like? Was there a landscape where their abandoned thoughts could arrange to meet, without their knowing about it? We don't really know anybody, he thought. Least of all ourselves. Had Robert Akerblom truly known his wife?

The tractor disappeared into a dip in the field. Wallander imagined it sinking into a bottomless sea of mud.

The train jerked into motion. Linda woke up and looked at him. "Are we there?" she said, drowsily. "How long have I been asleep?"

"A quarter of an hour, maybe," he said with a smile. "We haven't reached Nassjo yet."

"I could use a cup of coffee." She yawned. "How about you?"

They sat in the buffet car as far as Hassleholm. For the first time he told her the full story of his two journeys to Riga the previous year. She listened in fascination.

"It doesn't sound at all like you," she said when he had finished.

"That's how I feel too," he said.

"You could have died," she said. "Did you never think about me and Mama?"

"I thought about you," he said. "But I don't think I thought about your mother."

When they got to Malmo, they only had to wait half an hour for a train to Ystad. They were in his apartment shortly before 4 p.m. He made up her bed, and when he went to look for clean sheets it struck him that he had forgotten all about the time he had booked in the laundry room. At about 7 p.m. they went out to one of the pizzerias on Hamngatan and had dinner. They were both tired, and were back home again before 9 p.m.

She called her grandfather, and Wallander stood by her side, listening. She said she would go and see him the next day. He was surprised at how different his father could sound when he talked to her.

He thought he had better call Loven. But he put it off, since he was not yet sure how he was going to explain why he did not contact the police immediately after he had got away from the cemetery. He could not understand it himself. It was a breach of duty, no doubt about it. Had he started to lose control over his own judgment? Or had he been so scared that he lost the ability to act?

Long after Linda had fallen asleep he stood in the window, looking down at the deserted street.

The images in his mind's eye were alternating between the African in the vault and the man known as Konovalenko.

While Wallander was standing at his window in Ystad, Rykoff was observing that the police were still taking an interest in his apartment. He was two floors up in the same building. It was Konovalenko who had once suggested they should have an escape route in case their own apartment ought not to be used. It was also Konovalenko who explained that the safest haven was not always the one furthest away. The best plan was the unexpected one. So Rykoff rented an identical apartment in Tania's name, two floors higher up. That made it easier to move the necessary clothes and other baggage.

Konovalenko had told them to leave the apartment. Having quizzed the couple, he concluded that the policeman was no fool. Nor could they exclude the possibility that the police would search the place. But above all, Konovalenko was afraid that Vladimir and Tania could be subjected to more serious interrogation.

Konovalenko had also wondered whether the best solution might not be to shoot them. But he still needed Rykoff's legwork. And the police would only get more excited than they already were.

They moved upstairs that same night. Konovalenko had given them strict instructions to stay at home for several days.

Among the first things Konovalenko had learned as a young KGB officer was that there were deadly sins in the intelligence service. Being a servant of secrecy meant joining a brotherhood in which the most important rules were written in invisible ink. The worst sin, of course, was being a double agent. Betraying one's own organisation, and in the service of an enemy.

There were other deadly sins. One was to arrive too late. Not just to a meeting, or clearing a secret letterbox, or a kidnapping, even for something as straightforward as a journey. Just as bad was being late with regard to oneself, one's own plans, one's own decisions.

And that is what happened to Konovalenko early in the morning of May 7. The mistake he made was to put too much faith in the BMW. His superiors had always taught him to plan a journey on the basis of two parallel possibilities. If one vehicle proved to be unserviceable, there should always be time to resort to a pre-arranged alternative. But that Friday morning, when his BMW stopped near St Erik's Bridge and refused to start again, he had no alternative plan. Of course, he could take a taxi or the underground. Besides, since he did not know if and when the policeman or his daughter would leave the apartment in Bromma, it was not even certain he would be too late, anyway. Nevertheless, it seemed to him that the mistake, the guilt, was his, not the car's. He spent nearly 20 minutes trying to restart it, but the engine was dead and he left the vehicle where it had died, by good fortune not in a conspicuous place. He gave up and hailed a taxi. He had planned to be outside the red-brick apartment by 7 a.m. at the latest. As it was, he did not get there until nearly 7.45 a.m.

It had been simple to find out that Wallander had a daughter and that she was the one living in Bromma. He called the police station in Ystad and was told that Wallander was staying at the Central Hotel in Stockholm. He claimed to be a policeman himself. Then he went to the hotel and discussed a block booking for a group of tourists later in the summer. When he was not being observed, he stole a look at a message left for Wallander and memorised a telephone number and the name Linda. He traced the number to an address in Bromma. He chatted to a woman on the stairs there, and swiftly discovered how things stood.