Faceless Killers - Wallander 01

by Henning Mankell

  "Thank heavens for that," said Wallander.

  He went back to his office with Rydberg and closed the door.

  "Do you have any idea how you look?" Rydberg asked. "Don't tell me, please."

  "Your sister called. I asked Martinsson to drive out and collect her from the airport. I assumed that you had forgotten. He said he'd take care of her until you were free."

  Wallander nodded gratefully. A few minutes later, Björk barrelled in.

  "The identification is positive," he said. "We've got the murderer we were looking for." "She recognised him?"

  "Not a shadow of a doubt. It was the man who was eating the apple out in the field." "Who was he?" asked Rydberg.

  "Ström called himself a businessman," replied Bjdrk. "He was 47. But the Security Police in Stockholm didn't take long to answer our inquiry. He has been engaged in nationalist movements since the 1960s. First in something called the Democratic Alliance, later in much more militant factions. But how he ended up a cold-blooded murderer is something Bergman may be able to tell us. Or his wife."

  Wallander stood up. "Now we'll tackle Bergman," he said.

  All three of them went into the room where Bergman sat smoking. Wallander led the interrogation. He went on the offensive at once.

  "Do you know what I was doing last night?" he asked.

  Bergman gave him a look of contempt. "How would I know that?"

  "I tailed you to Lund."

  Wallander thought he caught a fleeting shift in the man's face.

  "I followed you to Lund," repeated Wallander. "And I climbed up on the scaffolding outside the building where Ström lived. I saw you exchange your shotgun for another one. Now Ström is dead. But a witness has identified him as the murderer at Hageholm. What do you have to say to all that?"

  Bergman didn't say anything. He lit another cigarette and stared into space.

  "OK, we'll take it from the top," said Wallander. "We know how everything happened. There are only two things we don't know yet. First, what did you do with your car? Second, why did you shoot the Somali?"

  Bergman wasn't talking. Just after 3 p.m. he was formally put under arrest and assigned a legal aid lawyer. The charge was murder or accessory to murder.

  At 4 p.m. Wallander briefly questioned Valfrid Ström's wife. She was still in shock, but she answered his questions. He learned that Ström imported exclusive cars. She told him that Ström was violently opposed to Sweden's policy on refugees. She had been married to him for just a little over a year. Wallander formed the conviction that she would get over her loss rather quickly.

  After the interrogation he talked with Rydberg and Björk. Then they released the woman with a warning not to leave Lund and she was taken home.

  Wallander and Rydberg made another attempt to get Bergman to talk. The legal aid lawyer was young and ambitious, and he claimed that there were no grounds for submission of evidence, and that in his opinion the arrest was equivalent to a preliminary miscarriage of justice.

  They talked some more, and Rydberg had an idea.

  "Where was Ström trying to escape to?" he asked Wallander.

  He pointed at a map.

  "The chase ended at Staffanstorp. Maybe he had a warehouse there or somewhere in the vicinity. It's not far from Hageholm, if you know the back roads."

  A call to Ström's wife confirmed that Rydberg was on the right track. He did indeed have a warehouse between

  Staffanstorp and Veberod. It was where he kept his imported cars. Rydberg drove there in a squad car. Very soon he called Wallander.

  "Bingo," he said. "There's a pale-blue Citroen here."

  "Maybe we ought to teach our children to identify cars by their sound," said Wallander.

  He tackled Bergman again. But the man said nothing.

  Rydberg returned to Ystad after a preliminary examination of the Citroen. In the glove compartment he found a box of shotgun shells. In the meantime the police in Malmö and Lund searched Bergman's and Ström's apartments.

  "It seems as though these two gentlemen were members of some sort of Swedish Ku-Klux-Klan movement," said Bjdrk. "I'm afraid this is going to be difficult to untangle. There might be more people involved."

  And Bergman still wasn't talking.

  Wallander was greatly relieved that Björk was back and could deal with the media. His face stung and burned, and he was very tired. By 6 p.m. he finally had time to call Martinsson and talk to his sister. Then he drove over and picked her up. She was startled when she saw his battered face.

  "It might be best if Dad didn't see me," said Wallander. "I'll wait for you in the car."

  His sister said she had already visited their father. The old man was still tired, but he brightened up a little when he saw his daughter.

  "I don't think he remembers much about that night," she said as they drove up to the hospital.

  "Maybe that's just as well."

  Wallander sat in the car and waited while she visited their father again. He closed his eyes and listened to a Rossini opera. When she opened the car door, he jumped. He had fallen asleep. Together they drove to the house in Loderup.

  Wallander could see that his sister was shocked at their father's decline. Together they cleaned out the stinking rubbish and filthy clothes.

  "How could this happen?" she asked, and Wallander felt that she was blaming him.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe he could have done more. At least recognised his father's decline earlier. They stopped and bought groceries and then returned to Mariagatan. Over dinner they talked about what would happen to their father.

  "He'll die if we put him in a retirement home," she said.

  "What's the alternative?" asked Wallander. "He can't live here. He can't live with you. The house in Loderup won't work either. What's left?"

  They agreed that it would be best, all the same, if their father could keep on living in his own house, with regular home visits.

  "He has never liked me," said Wallander as they were drinking coffee.

  "Of course he does."

  "Not since I decided to be a policeman."

  "You think maybe he had something else in mind for you?"

  "Yes, but what? He's never said."

  Wallander made up the sofa for his sister. When they had no more to say about their father, Wallander told her everything that had happened. And in the telling he realised that the old sense of intimacy, which had always bound them before, was gone. We haven't seen each other often enough, he thought. She doesn't even dare ask me why Mona and I went our separate ways.

  He brought out a half-empty bottle of cognac. She shook her head, so he poured one for himself.

  The late news was dominated by the story of Ström. Bergman's identity was not revealed. Wallander knew that it was because of his having been a policeman. He assumed that the chief of the national police was hard at work setting out the necessary smoke screens so they could keep Bergman's identity secret for as long as possible. Sooner or later, of course, the truth would have to come out.

  When the news was finished, the telephone rang.

  Wallander asked his sister to answer it. "Find out who it is and say you'll check to see if I'm home," he told her.

  "It's someone called Brolin," she said when she came back from the corridor.

  Painfully, he got up from his chair and took the telephone.

  "I hope I didn't wake you," said Anette Brolin.

  "Not at all. My sister is visiting."

  "I just thought I'd call and say that I think all of you did an extraordinary job."

  "Mostly we were lucky."

  Why is she calling? he wondered. He made a quick decision.

  "How about a drink?" he suggested. "Great. Where?" He could hear that she was surprised. "My sister is just going to bed. How about your place?" "That's fine."

  He hung up and went back into the living room. "I wasn't planning to go to bed at all," said his sister. "I have to go out for a while. Don't wait up for me. I don't kn
ow how long I'll be."

  The cool evening made it easy to breathe. He turned down Regementsgatan and felt a sudden sense of relief. They had solved the murder in Hageholm within 48 hours. Now they had to turn their attention back to the murders in Lunnarp.

  He knew that he'd done a good job. He had trusted his intuition, acted without hesitation, and it had produced results. The thought of the crazy chase with the horsebox gave him the shakes. But the relief was still there.

  Anette Brolin lived on the third floor of a turn-of-the-century building. He called her on the intercom and she answered. The flat was large but sparsely furnished. Against one wall were several paintings still waiting to be hung up.

  "Gin and tonic?" she asked. "I'm afraid I don't have much of a selection."

  "Please," he said. "Right now anything is fine. Just so as long as it's strong."

  She sat down across from him on a sofa and pulled her legs up under her. He thought she was extremely beautiful.

  "Do you have any idea how you look?" she asked with a laugh.

  "A lot of people ask me that," he replied.

  Then he remembered Klas Mansön. The man who robbed the shop, whom Anette Brolin had refused to detain. He really didn't think he should talk about work, but he couldn't help it.

  "Klas Mansön," he said. "Do you remember that name?"

  She nodded.

  "Hansson told me that you thought our investigation was poor. That you didn't intend to apply for Mansön's remand in custody to be extended unless it was done more carefully."

  "The investigation was poor, sloppily written. Insufficient evidence. Vague testimony. I'd be in dereliction of my duty if I sought further detention based on material like that."

  "The investigation was no worse than most. Besides, you forgot one important fact."

  "What was that?"

  "That Klas Mansön is a guilty man. He's robbed shops before."

  "Then you'll have to come up with better investigative work."

  "I don't think there's anything wrong with the report. If we let the man loose, he'll just commit more crimes."

  "You can't just put people in jail willy-nilly."

  Wallander shrugged. "Will you hold off releasing him if I rustle up some more exhaustive testimony?" he asked.

  "That depends on what the witness says."

  "Why are you so stubborn? Mansön is guilty. If we just hold him for a while, he'll confess. But if he has the slightest inkling that he can get out, he'll clam up."

  "Prosecutors have to be stubborn. Otherwise what do you think would happen to law and order in this country?"

  Wallander could feel that the gin had made him reckless.

  "That question can also be asked by an insignificant, provincial police detective," he said. "Once I believed that being on the force meant that you were involved in protecting the property and safety of ordinary people. Probably I still believe it. But I've seen law and order being eroded away. I've seen young people who commit crimes being almost encouraged to continue. No-one intervenes. No-one cares about the increasing number of victims. It just gets worse and worse."

  "Now you sound like my father," she said. "He's a retired judge. A true old-fashioned, reactionary civil servant."

  "Could be. Maybe I am conservative. But I mean what I say. I actually understand why people sometimes take matters into their own hands."

  "So you probably also understand how some misguided individuals can fatally shoot an innocent asylum seeker?"

  "Yes and no. The insecurity in this country is enormous. People are afraid. Especially in farming communities like this one. You'll soon find out that there's a big hero right now at this end of the country. A man who is applauded behind drawn curtains. The man who saw to it that there was a municipal vote that said no to accepting refugees."

  "So what happens if we put ourselves above the decisions of parliament? We have a policy for refugees in this country and it must be adhered to."

  "Wrong. It's precisely the absence of a clear policy on refugees that creates chaos. Right now we're living in a country where anyone for any reason can come across the border in any manner. Control has been eliminated. The customs service is paralysed. There are plenty of unsupervised airfields where the dope and the illegal immigrants are unloaded every night."

  He was aware that he was losing his cool. The murder of the Somali was a crime with many layers.

  "Bergman, of course, must be locked up with the most severe punishment," he went on. "But the Immigration Service and the government have to take their share of the blame."

  "That's nonsense."

  "Is it? People who belonged to the fascist secret police in Romania are starting to show up here in Sweden. Seeking asylum. Should it be granted to them?"

  "The principle has to apply equally."

  "Does it really? Always? Even when it's wrong?"

  She got up from the sofa and refilled their glasses. Wallander was starting to feel depressed. We're too different, he thought. We talk for 10 minutes and a chasm opens.

  He felt aggressive. And he looked at her and could feel himself getting aroused. How long was it since the last time he and Mona had made love? A year ago almost. A whole year with no sex.

  He groaned at the thought.

  "Are you in pain?" she asked.

  He nodded. He wasn't, but he yielded to his desire for sympathy.

  "Maybe it would be best if you went home," she said.

  That was the last thing he wanted to do. He didn't feel that he even had a home since Mona moved out. He finished his drink and held out his glass for a refill. Now he was so intoxicated that he was starting to shed his inhibitions.

  "One more," he said. "I've earned it."

  "Then you have to go," she said.

  Her voice had suddenly turned cool. But he didn't let it bother him. When she brought his glass, he grabbed her and pulled her down in the chair.

  "Sit here by me," he said, laying his hand on her thigh.

  She pulled herself free and slapped him. She hit him with the hand with the wedding ring, and he could feel it tear his cheek.

  "Go home now," she said.

  He put his glass down on the table. "Or you'll do what?" he asked. "Call the police?"

  She didn't answer, but he could see that she was furious. He stumbled when he stood up. Suddenly he realised what he had tried to do.

  "Forgive me," he said. "I'm exhausted."

  "We'll forget all about this," she replied. "But now you have to go home."

  "I don't know what came over me," he said, putting out his hand.

  She took it.

  "We'll just forget it," she said. "Good night."

  He tried to think of something more to say. Somewhere in his muddled consciousness the thought gnawed at him that he had done something both unforgivable and dangerous. Just as he had driven his car home from the meeting with Mona when he was drunk. He left, and heard the door close behind him.

  I have to stop drinking, he thought angrily. I can't handle it. Down on the street he sucked the cool air deep into his lungs.

  How the hell could anyone be so stupid? he thought. No better than a drunken boy who doesn't know a thing about himself, women, or the world.

  He went home to Mariagatan. The next day he would have to get back onto the hunt for the Lunnarp killers.

  CHAPTER 13

  Early on Monday morning, 15 January, Wallander drove out to the shopping centre on the Malmö road and bought two bouquets of flowers. Just over a week earlier he had driven the same road, towards Jenarp and the scene of the crime that was still demanding all of his attention. The past week had been the most intense of his career. When he looked at his face in the rearview mirror, he thought that every scratch, every lump, every discolouration from purple to black was a memento of the week's events.

  It was - 6° C. There was no wind. The white ferry from Poland was making its way into the harbour.

  When Wallander arrived at the police s
tation a little after 8 a.m., he gave one of the bouquets to Ebba. At first she refused to take it, but he could see that she was pleased. He took the other bouquet with him to his office. He took a card from his desk drawer and pondered a long time what to write to Anette Brolin. Too long. By the time he managed a few lines, he had abandoned all attempts to find the perfect words. He simply apologised for his rash behaviour the night before. He blamed his rashness on fatigue.

  "I'm actually quite shy by nature," he wrote. Which was not entirely true. But he thought this might give Anette Brolin the opportunity to turn the other cheek.

  He was on the point of going over to the prosecutor's office when Björk came in. As usual, he had knocked so softly that Wallander hadn't heard him.

  "Somebody sent you flowers?" said Björk. "You deserve them, as a matter of fact. I'm impressed how quickly you solved the murder of the Negro."

  Wallander disliked Björk referring to the Somali as the Negro. A person lying under that tarpaulin was what there had been. But he had no intention of getting into an argument about it.

  Björk was wearing a flowery shirt that he had bought in Spain. He sat down on the rickety wooden chair near the window.

  "I thought we ought to go over the murders at Lunnarp," he said. "I've looked through the investigation reports. There seem to be a lot of gaps. I've been thinking that Rydberg should take over the primary responsibility for the investigation while you concentrate on getting Bergman to talk. What do you think about that?"

  Wallander countered with a question. "What does Rydberg say?"

  "I haven't talked to him yet."

  "I think we should do it the other way around. Rydberg has a bad leg, and there's still a lot of footwork to be done in that investigation."

  What Wallander said was true enough, but it wasn't concern for Rydberg's rheumatism that made him suggest reversing the responsibilities. He didn't want to give up the hunt for the Lunnarp killers. Police work was a team effort, but he thought of the murderers as belonging to him.