Faceless Killers - Wallander 01

by Henning Mankell

  But, it turned out that the man hadn't seen a thing. "Ask him why he volunteered as a witness," Wallander said wearily.

  The missionary and the young man went off into a lengthy exchange.

  "He just thought it was rather exciting," she said at last. "And that's understandable."

  "It is?" Wallander wondered.

  "You must have been young once yourself," said the woman.

  The young man from Malawi was sent back to Hageholm, and the missionary returned to Trelleborg. The next witness actually had something to tell them. He was an Iranian who worked as an interpreter and who spoke fluent Swedish. Like the murdered Somali, he had been walking close to Hageholm when the shots were fired.

  Wallander picked out a section of the map that showed the area around Hageholm. He put an X at the scene of the murder, and the Iranian was able to point at once to where he had been when he heard the shots. Wallander calculated the distance as about 300 metres.

  "After the shots I heard a car," said the man.

  "But you didn't see it?"

  "No. I was in the woods. I couldn't see the road." The Iranian pointed again. To the south. Then he really surprised Wallander. "It was a Citroen," he said. "A Citroen?"

  "The kind you call a turtle here in Sweden." "How can you be sure of that?"

  "I grew up in Tehran. When we were boys we learned to recognise the makes of cars by the sound of the engine. Citroens are easy. Most of all the turtle."

  Wallander had a hard time believing what he heard. "Come out to the car park with me, and when you get outside, turn your back and shut your eyes."

  Outside in the rain he started his Peugeot and drove around the car park. He watched the Iranian carefully the whole time.

  "All right," he said when he returned. "What was that?" "A Peugeot," replied the Iranian with the utmost confidence.

  "Good," said Wallander. "Damned amazing."

  He sent the man home and gave the instruction that an APB be issued on a Citroen that might have been seen between Hageholm and the E65 to the west. The wire service was also advised that the police were looking for a Citroen that was believed to be linked to the murder.

  The third witness was a young woman from Romania. She sat in Wallander's office nursing her baby during the interview. Her interpreter spoke poor Swedish, but Wallander still had a good idea of what the woman was saying.

  She had walked the same way as the Somali, and she had passed him on her way back to the camp.

  "How long?" asked Wallander. "How long was it from when you passed him to when you heard the shots?"

  "Maybe three minutes."

  "Did you see anyone else?"

  The woman nodded, and Wallander leaned over the desk in suspense.

  "Where?" he asked. "Show me on the map!"

  The interpreter held the baby while the woman searched on the map.

  "There," she said, pressing the pen to the map. Wallander saw that the spot was very near the scene of the murder.

  "Tell me about it," he said. "There's no hurry. Think carefully."

  The woman thought for a while.

  "A man in blue overalls," she said. "He was standing out in the field."

  "What did he look like?"

  "He didn't have much hair."

  "How tall was he?"

  "Normal height."

  "Am I a man of normal height?" Wallander stood up straight. "He was taller." "How old was he?"

  "He wasn't young. Not old either. Maybe 45." "Did he see you?" "I don't think so."

  "What was he doing out in the field?"

  "He was eating."

  "Eating?"

  "He was eating an apple."

  Wallander thought for a moment. "A man in blue overalls standing in a field near the road and eating an apple. Did I understand you correctly?"

  "Yes."

  "Was he alone?"

  "I didn't see anyone else. But I don't think he was alone." "Why not?"

  "He seemed to be waiting for someone."

  "Did this man have a weapon of any kind?"

  The woman thought again. "There might have been

  a brown package at his feet. Maybe it was just mud." "What happened after you saw the man?" "I hurried home as fast as I could." "Why in a hurry?"

  "It's not a good idea to run into strange men in the woods." Wallander nodded. "Did you see a car?" he asked. "No. No car."

  "Can you describe the man in more detail?"

  She thought for a long time before she replied.

  "He looked strong," she said. "I think he had big hands."

  "What colour was his hair? What little he had."

  "Swedish colour."

  "Blond hair?"

  "Yes. And he was bald like this."

  She drew a half moon in the air.

  Then she was allowed to go back to the camp. Wallander went to get a cup of coffee. Svedberg asked if he wanted pizza. He nodded.

  At 9 p.m. the team met in the canteen. Wallander thought that everyone apart from Näslund still looked surprisingly alert. Näslund had a cold and a fever but stubbornly refused to go home.

  As they divided up pizzas and sandwiches, Wallander tried to sum up. At one end of the room he had taken down a picture and projected a slide that showed a map of the murder scene. He had put an X on the site of the crime and drawn in the location and movements of both witnesses.

  "So we aren't totally out in the cold here," he began. "We've got the time, and we have two reliable witnesses. A few minutes before the first shot, the female witness sees a man in blue overalls standing in a field very close to the road. This fits exactly with the time it should have taken the dead man to reach that point. And we know that the killer took off in a Citroen and headed southwest."

  Wallander's summary was interrupted when Rydberg came into the canteen. All the team members began to laugh. Rydberg was covered in mud all the way up to his chin. He kicked off his wet and filthy shoes and took a sandwich that someone handed him. Wallander repeated his summary of the interviews for Rydberg.

  "You're just in time," said Wallander. "What have you found?"

  "I've been slogging around in that field for hours," Rydberg replied. "The Romanian woman pointed out pretty well where the man was most likely standing. We took casts of some footprints there. From rubber boots. She said that's what the man was wearing. Ordinary green rubber boots. And I found an apple core."

  Rydberg took a plastic bag out of his pocket.

  "With a little luck we might get some prints from it," he said.

  "Can you take fingerprints from an apple core?" Wallander wondered.

  "You can take prints from anything," said Rydberg. "There might be a strand of hair, a little saliva, skin fragments."

  He set the plastic bag on the table, carefully, as if it were made of porcelain.

  "Then I followed the footprints," he went on. "And if the Apple Man is the killer, then this is how I think it happened."

  Rydberg took his pen out of the notebook and went over to the map projected onto the wall.

  "He saw the Somali coming up the road. He threw away the apple core and walked straight onto the road in front of him. I could see his tracks. There he fired off his two shots at a distance of about 4 metres. Then he turned around and ran about 50 metres down the road from the murder scene. The road widens a little, making it possible for a car to turn around. Sure enough, there were tyre tracks. And I also found two cigarette butts."

  He took the next plastic bag from his pocket.

  "The man hopped in the car and drove south. That's how I think it happened. By the way, I think I'll send my cleaning bill to the police department."

  "I'll sign for it," promised Wallander. "But now we have to think."

  Rydberg raised his hand, as if he were in school.

  "I've got a couple of ideas," he said. "First of all, I'm sure there were two of them. One the driver and one the shooter."

  "Why do you think that?" asked Wallander.


  "People who choose to eat an apple in a tense situation are probably not smokers. I think there was one person waiting by the car. A smoker. And a killer who ate an apple."

  "That sounds reasonable."

  "Also, I've got a feeling that the whole thing was well-planned. It doesn't take much to figure out that the refugees at Hageholm use this road to take walks. Most often they probably go in groups. But now and then someone will be walking alone. If you then dress like a farmer, no-one would think it looked suspicious. And the spot was well chosen, because the car could wait right nearby without being seen. So I think that this was a cold-blooded execution. The only thing the killers didn't know was who would come walking up that road alone. And they didn't care."

  Silence fell over the canteen. Rydberg's analysis had been so clear that no-one had anything to say. The ruthlessness of the murder was now obvious.

  It was Svedberg who finally broke the silence. "A messenger brought over a cassette tape from Sydsvenskan? he said.

  Someone found a tape recorder. Wallander recognised the voice. It was the same man who had called him twice and threatened him.

  "We'll send this tape up to Stockholm," he said. "Maybe they can figure out something by analysing it."

  "I also think we should find out what kind of apple he was eating," said Rydberg. "With a little luck we might track down the shop where he bought it."

  They moved on to the motive.

  "Racial hatred," said Wallander. "It can be so many things. But I assume we have to start poking around in these Swedish Neo-Nazi groups. Obviously we've entered a new and more serious phase. They're not just painting slogans any more. They're throwing fire bombs and killing people. But I don't think the same people did this as set fire to the huts in Ystad. I still think that was more of a prank or the act of a drunk who got worked up about refugees. This murder is different. It's individuals either acting on their own or in some way involved in one of these movements. We'll have to give them a good shake-up. We also need to go out and appeal to the public for tip-offs. I'm thinking of asking Stockholm for help in charting these Swedish Neo-Nazi movements. This murder is of national concern. That means we can have all the resources we need. And, someone must have seen that Citroen."

  "There's a club for Citroen owners," said Näslund in a hoarse voice. "We could match their list against the list of registered vehicles. The people in the club probably know just about every Citroen on the road in the whole country."

  The assignments were given out. It was almost 10.30 p.m.

  before the meeting was over. No-one had even thought of' going home.

  Wallander arranged an impromtu press conference in the reception of the police station. Again he urged anyone who had seen a Citroen on the E65 to get in touch with the police. He also gave a preliminary description of the murderer. When he was finished, the questions rained down.

  "Not now," he said. "I've said all I'm going to say."

  When Wallander was on the way back to his office, Hansson came and asked if he wanted to see a video tape of the discussion programme on which the chief of the national police had been a guest.

  "I'd rather not," he replied. "Not right now, at least."

  He cleared his desk. He stuck the note reminding him to call his sister on his telephone receiver. Then he called Goran Boman at home.

  Boman answered. "How's it going?" he asked.

  "We've got a good deal to go on," said Wallander. "We'll have to work hard."

  "I've got good news for you too."

  "I was hoping you would."

  "Our colleagues in Solvesborg found Nils Velander. Apparently he has a boat at a shipyard that he goes and works on once in a while. The transcript of the interview is coming tomorrow, but they told me the key things. He claims that he earned the money in the plastic bag from his underwear business. And he agreed to exchange the notes for new ones, so we can check for fingerprints."

  "I'll have to visit the Union Bank here in Ystad," said Wallander. "We need to find out whether the serial numbers can be traced."

  "The money is arriving tomorrow. But honestly, I don't think he's the one."

  "Why not?" "I don't know."

  "I thought you said you had good news?" "I do. Now I'm getting to the third woman. I didn't think you'd mind if I looked her up by myself." "Of course not."

  "As you recall, her name is Ellen Magnusson. She's 60 and she works at one of the chemists here in Kristianstad. I had in fact met her once before. Several years ago she ran over and killed a road worker. That was outside the airport at Everod. She said that she had been blinded by the sun, which was no doubt true. In 1955 she had a son and listed the father as unknown. The son's name is Erik, and he lives in Malmö. He's a civil servant at the county council. I drove out to her house. She seemed frightened and upset, as if she'd been waiting for the police to turn up. She denied that Johannes Lövgren was the father of her boy. But I had a strong feeling that she was lying. If you trust my judgement, I'd like to focus on her. But of course I won't exclude the bird dealer and his mother."

  "For the next 24 hours I doubt I'll be able to do much beyond what I'm working on right now," said Wallander. "I'm grateful for all the time you're devoting to this."

  "I'll send over the papers," said Boman. "And the money. I assume you'll have to give us a receipt for them."

  "When all this is over we'll sit down and have that whisky," said Wallander.

  "There's going to be a conference at Snogeholm Castle in March on the new narcotics routes in Eastern Europe," said Boman. "How would that be?"

  "That sounds fine," said Wallander.

  They hung up, and he went over to Martinsson's room

  to hear whether any information had come in on the Citroen.

  Martinsson shook his head. Nothing yet.

  Wallander went back to his office and put his feet up on his desk. It was 11.30 p.m. Slowly he let his thoughts take shape. First he methodically played out in his mind the murder outside the refugee camp. Had he forgotten anything? Was there any gap in Rydberg's account of what had happened, or something else that they ought to be working on right away?

  He concluded that the investigation was rolling along as efficiently as could be expected. All they had to do now was wait for the various technical analyses and hope that the car could be traced. He shifted in his chair, loosened his tie, and thought about what Boman had told him. He had full confidence in his judgement. If Boman felt the woman was lying, then that was undoubtedly the case. But why was he going so easy on Nils Velander?

  He took his feet down from the desk and pulled over a blank sheet of paper. He made a list of everything he had to do in the next few days. He decided to try to get the Union Bank to open its doors for him tomorrow, even though it was Saturday.

  When he finished his list, he stood up and stretched. It was just after midnight. Out in the corridor he could hear Hansson talking with Martinsson, but he couldn't hear what they were saying.

  Outside the window a streetlight was swaying in the wind. He felt sweaty and dirty and considered taking a shower downstairs in the changing room. He opened the window and breathed in the cold air.

  He felt restless. How would they be able to stop the murderer from striking again?

  The next one was to be a woman, in retribution for Maria Lövgren's death. He sat down at his desk and pulled over the folder with the data on the refugee camps in Skåne.

  It was improbable that the murderer would return to Hageholm. But there were any number of alternatives. And if the murderer was going to select his victim as randomly as he had at Hageholm, they had even less to go on. Besides, it was impossible to require the refugees to stay indoors.

  He shoved the folder aside and rolled a sheet of paper into his typewriter. He thought he might as well write his memo to Björk. Just then the door opened and Svedberg came in.

  "News?" asked Wallander.

  "You might call it that," said Svedberg, looking unhappy. "W
hat is it?"

  "I don't quite know how to tell you. But we just got a call from a farmer out by Loderup." "Did he see the Citroen?"

  "No. But he claimed that your father was walking around out in the fields in his pyjamas. With a suitcase in his hand."

  Wallander was stunned. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "The farmer sounds lucid enough. It was you he actually wanted to talk to. But the switchboard put it through to me by mistake. I thought you ought to decide what to do."

  Wallander sat quite still, his expression blank.

  Then he stood up. "Where?" he asked.

  "It sounded like your father was walking down by the main highway."

  "I'll handle this myself. I'll be back as soon as I can. Call me if anything happens."

  "Do you want me or somebody else to go along?"

  Wallander shook his head.

  "My father is senile," he said. "I have to see about getting him into a home somewhere."

  Just as Wallander was going out the main doors, he noticed a man standing in the shadows outside. He recognised him as a reporter from one of the afternoon papers.

  "I don't want him following me," he told Svedberg.

  Svedberg nodded. "Wait till you see me back out and stall in front of his car. Then you can get away."

  Wallander waited. He saw the reporter making rapidly for his car. Seconds later, Svedberg drove up and turned off his ignition, blocking the reporter's way. Wallander drove away.

  He drove fast. Much too fast. He ignored the speed limit through Sandskogen. He was alone. Hares fled terrified across the rain-slicked road.

  When he reached the village where his father lived, he didn't even have to look for him. He caught the old man in his headlights, in his blue-trimmed pyjamas, squishing barefoot through a field. He was wearing his old hat and carrying a big suitcase. When the headlights blinded him, his father held his hand in front of his eyes in annoyance. Then he kept on walking. Energetically, as if on his way to some specific destination.