'I'll see what I can do,' Nyberg said.
'Don't see what you can do, just do it,' Wallander said.
Wallander went into the soundproofed room and sat down on the bed. Hansson appeared in the doorway, but Wallander waved him away.
Why build a soundproofed room? To keep sounds out, or to keep them in? Why, in a town like Ystad? Traffic is never that bad. His thoughts wandered. The bed was uncomfortable to sit on. He got up and looked under the sheets. There was no mattress, just the hard platform of the bedframe. He's a masochist, Wallander thought. Why? He stooped to peer under the bed. There was nothing there, not even a speck of dust. Wallander tried to summon forth the spirit of the man who lived here. Ake Larstam, 44 years of age. Born in Eskilstuna, a graduate of Chalmers. An engineer turned postal worker. You suddenly go out and kill eight people. Apart from Svedberg and the photographer, your victims were all dressed up. The photographer just happened to be in the way, and you killed Svedberg because he was on to you. His worst fears were confirmed. But the others were dressed up, and they were happy. Why did you kill them? Was it in here, in your soundproofed chamber, that you planned everything?
Wallander didn't feel any closer to the killer's thoughts. He walked out into the living room, and looked around at all the porcelain figures. Dogs, roosters, dolls in 19th-century dress, gnomes and trolls. It's like a doll's house, Wallander thought. A doll's house inhabited by a lunatic with bad taste. He wondered why Larstam kept all these kitsch souvenirs.
Hoglund came in from the kitchen and interrupted his train of thought. Wallander knew immediately that she had found something.
'I think you'd better take a look at this,' she said. Wallander followed her into the kitchen. One of the drawers had been pulled out and placed on the table. At the top of a pile of papers in the drawer was a piece of mathematical paper. Something was written on it in pencil. If that was Larstam's handwriting, he wrote in an unusually spiky style. Wallander put on his glasses and read what it said.
There were only ten words, forming a macabre poem of sorts.
'He's already killed eight people,' Wallander said. 'This is about victim number nine.'
'It's the 21st today,' she said. 'And it's Wednesday.'
'We have to find him,' Wallander said, 'before he gets a chance to do this.'
'What about the last part? What does he mean by 'He giveth and He taketh away'?'
'It means Larstam hates happy people. He wants what they have to be taken from them.'
Wallander told her what Albinsson had said.
'How do you go about locating happy people?' she asked.
'You go out and look for them.'
He felt the knot in his stomach return.
'One thing is strange,' she said. 'This number nine sounds like a single person. But if you disregard Svedberg, he's always gone for a group of some sort in the past.'
'You're right to disregard Svedberg. He's not part of the pattern. It's a good point.'
It was 4.20 a.m. Wallander walked over to the window and looked out into the night. It was still dark. Ake Larstam was out there in that darkness. Wallander felt a sudden twinge of panic. We're not going to get him in time, he thought. We're going to be too late. He's already chosen his victim and we have no idea who it is. We're scurrying around like blind mice, not knowing where to turn. We know nothing.
Wallander put on a pair of rubber gloves and starting going through the rest of the papers in the drawer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The sea. That would be his place of last resort, if it ever came to that. He imagined himself walking straight out, slowly sinking down to the place where eternal darkness and silence reigned. A place where no one would ever find a single trace of him.
He took one of his cars and drove down to the sea, just west of Ystad. Mossbystrand was deserted this August evening. Few cars went by on the road to Trelleborg. He parked so that none of the lights from oncoming traffic would hit him, and so that he could make a quick getaway if he was being followed.
There was one detail about the latest events that disturbed him. He had been lucky. If his bedroom door had been completely closed, as it usually was, he would never have heard them breaking into the flat that evening. He had woken up with a start, realised what was happening, and slipped out the back door. He had no idea if he had remembered to close it behind him. The only thing that he had grabbed, apart from some clothes, was his gun.
Although he had been shaken, he'd forced himself to drive calmly. He didn't want to risk having an accident.
Now it was 4 a.m. and it would be a while before the sun came up. He thought about everything that had happened and wondered if he had made a mistake. But he couldn't find anything. He was not going to alter his plans.
Everything had gone well. During Svedberg's funeral he had gone to the policeman's flat on Mariagatan. It was easy enough to pick the lock. He'd looked through the flat and quickly established that the man lived alone. Then he'd made his plans. It was easier than he expected; he found a set of spare keys to the flat in a kitchen drawer. He wouldn't have to pick the lock next time. For fun he lay down on the policeman's bed, but it was much too soft. He felt as though he was drowning.
Afterwards he had gone home, showered, eaten and rested in the soundproofed room. Later he'd done something that he had been planning to do for a long time. He polished all his porcelain figurines. That had taken quite a while. When he was done, he'd eaten his supper and gone to bed. He had been sleeping for several hours when he'd heard the policemen at the door.
He thought about the fact that the police were in his flat right now, pulling out drawers, dirtying the floor, moving his porcelain figurines around. It enraged him, and he could hardly control his desire to rush back and shoot them all. But self-preservation was more important than revenge, and he knew they would find nothing in the flat to help them in their search. He kept no photographs there, no private documents, nothing. They didn't know about the safe-deposit box he kept at the bank under an assumed name. That's where all the important documents were, such as his car registration and his financial information.
They would probably be in his flat for many hours but sooner or later the policeman would return home, exhausted after his sleepless night. And he would be there waiting for him.
He returned to the car. The most important thing was for him to catch up on the sleep he had missed. He could of course sleep in one of his cars, but there was a slight chance that he could be discovered. He also disliked the idea of curling up in the back seat. It was undignified. He wanted to stretch out in a real bed, one where he could remove the mattress to give him the firm support he liked.
He considered checking into a hotel under a false name, but dismissed the possibility when he had a sudden flash of inspiration. There was one place he could go where no one would disturb him. And there was always the back door if someone turned up unexpectedly. He started the engine and turned on the headlights. It was almost time for the sun to rise. He needed to sleep, to rest in preparation for the coming day.
He turned on to the main road and drove back to Ystad.
It was close to 5 a.m. when Wallander started to realise how best to describe the kind of person Ake Larstam was. He was someone who left no trace of himself. They had nearly finished their search of the flat and hadn't managed to find even one object that revealed anything about the person who lived there. There was no post, not even a piece of paper with Ake Larstam's name on it.
'I've never seen anything like it,' Wallander said. 'Ake Larstam doesn't seem to exist. We can't find a single document that verifies his existence, even though we know he's real.'
'Maybe he keeps another flat somewhere,' Martinsson said.
'Maybe he has ten other flats,' Wallander answered. 'He might have all kinds of villas and summer houses, but if so we have nothing here that will lead us to them.'
'Perhaps he took everything with him when he fled,' Hansson said. 'He may have known we were closing in on him.'
