Faceless Killers - Wallander 01

by Henning Mankell

  "There's a third option," said Björk. "We could let Svedberg and Hansson handle Bergman." Wallander nodded. He'd go along with that. Björk got up from the rickety chair. "We need some new furniture," he said.

  "We need more manpower," replied Wallander.

  After Björk had left, Wallander sat down at his typewriter and typed up a comprehensive report on the arrest of Rune Bergman and the death of Valfrid Ström. He made a particular effort to compile something that Anette Brolin would not object to. It took him over two hours. Finally, he pulled the last page out of the typewriter, signed it, and took it to Rydberg.

  Rydberg was sitting at his desk. He looked tired. When Wallander came into his office, he was just putting the telephone down.

  "I hear that Bjdrk wants to split us up," he said. "I'm glad to be spared dealing with Bergman."

  Wallander put his report on the desk. "Read through it," he said. "If you have no quarrel with it, give it to Hansson."

  "Svedberg had a go at Bergman this morning," said Rydberg. "But he still refuses to talk. Even though the cigarettes match. The same brand that was lying in the mud next to where the car must have been."

  "I wonder what's going to turn up," said Wallander. "What's behind this whole thing? Neo-Nazis? Racists with connections all over Europe? Why would someone commit a crime like this anyway? Jump out into the road and shoot a complete stranger? Just because he happened to be black?"

  "No way of knowing," said Rydberg. "But it's something we're going to have to learn to live with."

  They agreed to meet again in half an hour, after Rydberg had been through the report. Then they would start on the Lunnarp investigation in earnest.

  Wallander went over to the prosecutor's office. Anette Brolin was in district court. He left the flowers with the young woman at reception.

  "Is it her birthday?" she asked. "Sort of" said Wallander.

  When he got back to his office, Kristina was waiting for him. She had already left the flat by the time he woke up that morning. She told him that she had talked to both a doctor and the social worker.

  "Dad seems better," she said. "They don't think he's slipping into chronic senility. Maybe it was just a temporary period of confusion. We agreed to try regular home care. I was thinking about asking you to drive us out there around midday today. If you can't do it, maybe I could borrow your car."

  "Of course I can drive you. Who's going to do the home care?"

  "I'm supposed to have a meeting with a woman who doesn't live far from Dad."

  Wallander nodded. "I'm glad you're here. I couldn't have handled this alone."

  They agreed that he would come to the hospital right after midday. After his sister left, Wallander straightened up his desk and placed the thick folder of material on the Lövgren case in front of him. It was time to get started.

  Björk had told him that for the time being, there would be four people on the investigative team. Since Näslund was laid up with the flu, only three of them were at the case meeting in Rydberg's office. Martinsson had nothing to say and seemed to have a hangover. But Wallander remembered the decisive manner with which he had taken care of the hysterical widow at Hageholm.

  They began with a thorough review of all the material. Martinsson was able to add information produced by his work with the central criminal records. Wallander felt a great sense of security in this methodical and meticulous scrutiny of details. To an outside observer such work would probably seem unbearably tedious. But that was not the case for the three police officers. The solution and the truth might be found through the combination of the most inconsequential information.

  They isolated the loose ends that had to be dealt with first.

  "You take Lövgren's trip to Ystad," Wallander said to Martinsson. "We need to know how he got to town and how he got home. Are there other safe-deposit boxes? What did he do during the hour between his appearances at the two banks? Did he go into a shop and buy something? Who saw him?"

  "I think Näslund has already started calling around the banks," said Martinsson.

  "Call him at home and find out," said Wallander. "This can't wait until he's feeling better."

  Rydberg was to pay a visit to Lars Herdin and Wallander to drive over to Malmö again to talk to the man called Erik Magnusson, the one Goran Boman thought might be Lövgren's secret son.

  "All the other items will have to wait," said Wallander. "We'll start with these and meet again at five o'clock."

  Before he left for the hospital, Wallander called Boman in Kristianstad.

  "Erik Magnusson works for the county council," said Boman. "Unfortunately, I haven't discovered exactly what he does. We've had an unusually rowdy weekend up here with a lot of fights and drunkenness. I haven't had time for much besides hauling people in."

  "No problem. I'll find him," said Wallander. "I'll call you tomorrow morning at the latest."

  Just after midday he set off for the hospital. His sister was waiting in the reception. They took the lift up to the ward where their father had been moved after the first 24 hours of observation.

  By the time they arrived, he had already been discharged and was sitting in the corridor, waiting for them. He had his hat on, and the suitcase full of dirty underwear and tubes of paint was by his side. Wallander didn't recognise the suit he was wearing.

  "I bought it for him," his sister said. "It must be 30 years since he bought himself a new suit."

  "How are you Dad?" asked Wallander.

  His father looked him in the eye. Wallander could see that he had recovered.

  "It'll be nice to get back home," he said curtly and stood up.

  Wallander picked up the suitcase as his father leaned on Kristina's arm. She sat with him in the back seat on the drive to Loderup.

  Wallander, who was in a hurry to get to Malmd, promised to come back around 6 p.m. His sister was going to stay the night, and she asked him to buy food for dinner. His father had immediately changed out of his suit and into his painting overalls. He was already at his easel, working on the unfinished painting.

  "Do you think he'll be able to get by with home care?" asked Wallander.

  "We'll have to wait and see," replied his sister.

  It was almost 2 p.m. when Wallander pulled up in front of the county council's main building in Malmö. He parked his car and went into the large reception.

  "I'm looking for Erik Magnusson," he told the woman who shoved the glass window open.

  "We have at least three Erik Magnussons working here," she said. "Which one are you looking for?"

  Wallander took out his police identity card and showed it to her.

  "I don't know," he said. "But he was born in the late 1950s."

  The woman behind the glass knew at once who it was.

  "Then it must be Erik Magnusson in central supply," she said. "The two other Erik Magnussons are much older. What did he do?"

  Wallander smiled at her undisguised curiosity.

  "Nothing," he said. "I just want to ask him some questions."

  She told him how to get to central supply. He thanked her and returned to his car. The county council's supply warehouse was located on the northern outskirts, near the Oil Harbour. Wallander wandered around for a long time before he found the right place.

  He went through a door marked Office. Through a big glass window he could see yellow fork-lift trucks driving back and forth between long rows of shelves.

  The office was empty. He went down some stairs and into the enormous warehouse. A young man with hair down to his shoulders was piling up big plastic sacks of toilet paper. Wallander went over to him.

  "I'm looking for Erik Magnusson," he said.

  The young man pointed to a yellow fork-lift which had stopped next to a loading dock where a van was being unloaded.

  The man in the cab of the yellow fork-lift had fair hair. It seemed unlikely that Maria Lövgren would have thought about foreigners if this blonde man was the one who put the noose around her
neck. He pushed the thought away with annoyance. He was getting ahead of himself again.

  "Erik Magnusson!" he shouted over the engine noise. The man gave him an inquiring look before he turned off the engine and jumped down.

  "Erik Magnusson?" asked Wallander.

  "Yes?"

  "I'm a policeman. ‘I’d like to have a word with you for a moment."

  Wallander scrutinised his face. There was nothing unexpected about his reaction. He merely looked surprised. Quite naturally surprised.

  "Why is that?" he asked.

  Wallander looked around. "Is there somewhere we can sit down?" he asked.

  Magnusson led the way to a corner with a coffee vending machine. There was a dirty wooden table and several makeshift benches. Wallander fed two one-krona coins into the machine and got a cup of coffee. Magnusson settled for a pinch of snuff.

  "I'm from the police in Ystad" he began. "I have a few questions for you regarding a particularly nasty murder in a village called Lunnarp. Maybe you read about it in the papers?"

  "I think so. But what does that have to do with me?"

  Wallander was beginning to wonder the same thing. The man named Erik Magnusson seemed completely unruffled by a visit from the police at his place of work.

  "I have to ask you for the name of your father."

  The man frowned.

  "My dad?" he said. "I don't have a dad." "Everybody has one." "Not one that I know about, at any rate." "How can that be?"

  "Mum wasn't married when I was born."

  "And she never told you who your father was?" "No."

  "Did you ever ask her?"

  "Of course I've asked her. I bugged her about it my whole childhood. Then I gave up."

  "What did she say when you asked her about it?"

  Magnusson stood up and pressed the button for a cup of coffee. "Why are you asking about my dad? Does he have something to do with the murder?"

  "I'll get to that in a minute," said Wallander. "What did your mother say when you asked her about your father?"

  "It varied."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Sometimes she would say that she didn't really know. Sometimes that it was a salesman she never saw again. Sometimes something else."

  "And you were satisfied with that?"

  "What the hell was I supposed to do? If she won't tell me, she won't tell me."

  Wallander thought about the answers he was getting. Was it really possible to be so uninterested in who your father was?

  "Do you get along well with your mother?" he asked.

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Do you see each other often?"

  "She calls me now and then. I drive over to Kristianstad once in a while. I got along better with my stepfather."

  Wallander gave a start. Boman had said nothing about a stepfather.

  "Is your mother remarried?"

  "She lived with a man while I was growing up. They probably weren't ever married. But I still called him my dad. Then they split up when I was about 15.1 moved to Malmö a year later." "What's his name?"

  " Was his name. He's dead. He was killed in a car crash."

  "And you're sure that he wasn't your real father?"

  "You'd have to look hard to find two people as unlike each other as we were."

  Wallander tried a different tack. "The man who was murdered at Lunnarp was named Johannes Lövgren," he said. "Is it possible that he might have been your father?"

  The man sitting across from Wallander gave him a look of surprise.

  "How the hell would I know? You'll have to ask my mother."

  "We've already done that. But she denies it."

  "So ask her again. I'd like to know who my father is. Murdered or not."

  Wallander believed him. He wrote down Magnusson's address and personal identity number and then stood up.

  "You may hear from us again," he said.

  The man climbed back into the cab of the fork-lift.

  "That's fine with me," he said. "Say hello to my mum if you see her."

  Wallander returned to Ystad. He parked near the square and headed down the street to buy some gauze bandages at the chemist. The salesman gazed sympathetically at his battered face. He bought food for dinner in the supermarket on the square. On his way back to the car he changed his mind and retraced his steps to the state liquor oudet. There he bought a bottle of whisky. Even though he couldn't really afford it, he chose malt.

  By late afternoon Wallander was back at the station. Neither Rydberg nor Martinsson was there. He went over to the prosecutor's office. The girl at the reception desk smiled.

  "She loved the flowers," she said. "Is she in her office?" "She's in district court."

  Wallander headed back. In the corridor he ran into Svedberg.

  "How's it going with Bergman?" asked Wallander.

  "He's still not talking," said Svedberg. "But he'll soften up eventually. The evidence is piling up. The laboratory technicians think they can connect the weapon to the crime."

  "What else have we got on this?"

  "It looks as if Ström and Bergman were both active in a number of nationalist groups. But we don't know whether they were operating on their own or were acting under the instruction of an organisation."

  "In other words, everybody is perfectly happy?"

  "I'd hardly say that. Björk was saying how anxious he was to catch the murderer, but then it turned out to be a policeman. I suspect they're going to play down Bergman's importance and dump it all on Ström, who has nothing more to say about it. Personally, I think Bergman was equally up to his neck in the whole thing."

  "I wonder whether Ström was the one who called me at home," said Wallander. "I never heard him say enough to tell for sure."

  Svedberg gave him a searching look. "Which means?"

  "That in the worst case, there are others who are prepared to take over the killing from Bergman and Ström."

  "I'll tell Björk that we have to continue our patrols of the camps," said Svedberg. "By the way, we have a number of tip-offs indicating that it was a gang of youths who set the fire here in Ystad."

  "Don't forget the old man who got a sack of turnips in the head," said Wallander.

  "How's it going with Lunnarp?"

  Wallander hesitated with his answer. "I'm not really sure," he said. "But we're doing some serious work on it again."

  At 5.30 p.m. Martinsson and Rydberg were in Wallander's office. He thought that Rydberg still looked tired and worn-out. Martinsson was in a bad mood.

  "It's a mystery how Lövgren got to Ystad and back again on Thursday, 4 January," he said. "I talked to the bus driver on that route. He said that Johannes and Maria used to ride with him whenever they went into town. Either together or separately. He was absolutely certain that Johannes Lövgren did not ride in his bus any time after New Year's. And no taxi had a fare to Lunnarp. According to Nyström, they took the bus whenever they had to go anywhere. And we know that Lövgren was tightfisted."

  "They always drank coffee together," said Wallander. "In the afternoon. The Nyströms must have noticed if Lövgren went off to Ystad or not."

  "That's exactly what's such a mystery," said Martinsson. "Both of them claim that he didn't go into town that day. And yet we know that he went to two different banks between 11.30 a.m. and 1.15 p.m. He must have been gone from home at least three or four hours."

  "Strange," said Wallander. "You'll have to keep working on it."

  Martinsson referred to his notes. "At any rate, he doesn't have any other safe-deposit boxes in town."

  "Good," said Wallander. "At least we know that much."

  "But he might have one in Simrishamn," Martinsson said. "Or Trelleborg. Or Malmö."

  "Let's concentrate on his trip to Ystad first," said Wallander, turning to Rydberg.

  "Herdin stands by his story," he said after glancing at his worn notebook. "Quite by chance he ran into Lövgren and the woman in Kristianstad in the spring of 1979. And h
e says that it was from an anonymous letter that he found out they had a child together."

  "Could he describe the woman?"

  "Vaguely. In the worst case we could line up all the ladies and have him point out the right one. If she's one of them, that is," he added.

  "You sound as though you have some doubt."

  Rydberg closed his notebook with an irritable snap.

  "I can't get anything to fit," he said. "You know that. Obviously we have to follow up the leads we have. But I'm not at all sure that we're on the right track. What bothers me is that I can't see an alternative path to take."

  Wallander told them about his meeting with Erik Magnusson.

  "Why didn't you ask him for an alibi for the night of the murder?" wondered Martinsson in surprise.

  Wallander felt himself starting to blush behind his black and blue marks. It had slipped his mind. But he didn't tell them that.

  "I decided to wait," he said. "I wanted to have an excuse to visit him again."

  He could hear how lame that sounded. But neither Rydberg nor Martinsson appeared to react to his explanation. The conversation came to a halt. Each was wrapped up in his own thoughts. Wallander wondered how many times he had found himself in exactly this same situation. When an investigation suddenly ceases to breathe. Like a horse that refuses to budge. Now they would be forced to tug and pull at the horse until it started to move.

  "How should we continue?" asked Wallander at last, when the silence became too oppressive.

  He answered his own question. "For your part, Martinsson, it's a matter of finding out how Lövgren could go to Ystad and back without anyone noticing. We have to work that out as soon as possible."

  "There was a jar full of receipts in one of the kitchen cupboards," said Rydberg. "He might have bought something in a shop on that Friday. Maybe a salesman would remember seeing him."

  "Or maybe he had a flying carpet," said Martinsson. "I'll keep working on it."