Faceless Killers - Wallander 01

by Henning Mankell

  "His relatives," said Wallander. "We have to go through all of them."

  He pulled out a list of names and addresses from the thick folder and handed it to Rydberg.

  "The funeral is on Wednesday," said Rydberg. "In Villie Church. I don't care much for funerals. But I think I'll go to this one."

  "I'm going back to Kristianstad tomorrow," said Wallander. "Boman was suspicious of Ellen Magnusson. He didn't think she was telling the truth."

  It was just before 6 p.m. when they finished their meeting. They decided to meet again on the following afternoon.

  "If Näslund is feeling better, he can work on the stolen rental car," said Wallander. "By the way, did we ever find out what that Polish family is doing in Lunnarp?"

  "The husband works at the sugar refinery in Jordberga," said Rydberg. "All his papers are in order. Even though he wasn't fully aware of it himself."

  Wallander sat in his office for a while after Rydberg and

  Martinsson left. There was a stack of papers on his desk that he was supposed to go through, including all the material from the assault case he had been working on over New Year's. There were also reports pertaining to everything from missing bullocks to lorries that had tipped over during the last storm. At the bottom of the stack he found a note informing him that he had been given a pay rise. He worked out that he would be taking home an extra 39 kronor per month.

  By the time he had made his way through the pile of papers, it was almost 7.30 p.m. He called Loderup and told his sister that he was on his way.

  "We're starving," she said. "Do you always work this late?"

  Wallander selected a cassette of a Puccini opera and went out to his car. He had wanted to make sure that Anette Brolin had put out of her mind what had happened the night before after all. But this would have to wait.

  Kristina told him that the help for their father had turned out to be a solid woman in her 50s who would have no trouble taking care of him.

  "He couldn't ask for anyone better," she said when she came out to the driveway and met him in the dark.

  "What's Dad doing?"

  "He's painting," she said.

  While his sister made dinner, Wallander sat on the toboggan in the studio and watched the autumn motif emerge. His father seemed to have completely forgotten about what had happened.

  I have to visit him more regularly, thought Wallander. At least three times a week, and preferably at specific times.

  After dinner they played cards with their father for a couple of hours. At 11 p.m. he went to bed.

  "I'm going home tomorrow," said Kristina. "I can't be away any longer."

  "Thanks for coming," said Wallander.

  They decided that he would pick her up at 8 a.m. the next morning and drive her to the airport.

  "The plane was full out of Sturup," she said. "I'm leaving from Everod."

  That suited Wallander just fine, since he had to drive to Kristianstad anyway.

  Just after midnight he walked into his apartment on Mariagatan. He poured himself a big glass of whisky and took it with him into the bathroom. He lay in the bath for a long time, thawing out his limbs in the hot water.

  He tried to push them away, but Rune Bergman and Valfrid Ström kept popping into his thoughts. He was trying to understand. The only thing he came up with was the same idea he had had so many times before. A new world had emerged, and he hadn't even noticed it. As a policeman, he still lived in another, older world. How was he going to learn to live in the new? How would he deal with the great uneasiness he felt at these changes, at so much happening so fast?

  The murder of the Somali had been a new kind of murder. The double murder in Lunnarp, however, was an old-fashioned crime. Or was it really? He thought about the savagery, and the noose. He wasn't sure.

  It was 1.30 a.m. when finally he crawled between the chilly sheets. He felt more lonely there than ever.

  For the next three days nothing happened. Näslund came back to work and succeeded in solving the problem of the stolen car. A man and a woman went on a robbery spree and then left the car in Halmstad. On the night of the murder they had been staying in a boarding house in Bastad. The owner vouched for their alibi.

  Goran Boman talked to Ellen Magnusson. She resolutely denied that Johannes Lövgren was the father of her son.

  Wallander visited Erik Magnusson again and asked for the alibi he had forgotten to get during their first encounter. He had been with his fiancee. There was no reason to doubt him. Martinsson got nowhere with Lövgren's trip to Ystad. The Nyströms were quite sure about their story, as were the bus drivers and taxi companies. Rydberg went to the funeral, and talked to nineteen different relatives of the Lövgrens.

  Nothing gave them any leads.

  The temperature hovered around freezing point. One day there was no wind, the next day it was gusty. Wallander ran into Anette Brolin in the corridor. She thanked him for the flowers. But he couldn't be certain that she really had decided to forget about what had happened that night.

  Bergman still refused to talk, even though the evidence against him was overwhelming. Various extreme nationalist movements tried to take credit for the crime. The press and the rest of the media became involved in a violent debate about Sweden's immigration policy. Although all was calm in Skåne, crosses burned in the night outside various refugee camps in other parts of the country.

  Wallander and his colleagues on the investigative team shielded themselves from all of this. Only rarely were any opinions expressed that were not directly related to the deadlocked investigation. But Wallander realised that he was not alone in his feelings of uncertainty and confusion at the new society that was emerging.

  We live as if we were in mourning for a lost paradise, he thought. As if we longed for the car thieves and safecrackers of the old days, who doffed their caps and behaved like gentlemen when we came to take them in. But those days have irretrievably vanished, and nor is it certain that they were as idyllic as we remember them.

  Then on Friday, 19 January, everything happened at once.

  The day did not start off well for Wallander. At 7.30 a.m. he had his Peugeot checked out and barely managed to avoid having it declared unfit for the road. When he went through the inspection report, he saw that his car needed repairs that would cost thousands of kronor. Despondent, he drove to the police station.

  He hadn't even taken off his overcoat when Martinsson came storming into his office.

  "Damn it," he said. "I know how Johannes Lövgren got to Ystad and back home again."

  Wallander forgot all about the car and felt himself instantly seized with excitement.

  "It wasn't a flying carpet, after all," continued Martinsson. "The chimney sweep drove him."

  Wallander sat down in his desk chair.

  "What chimney sweep?"

  "Master chimney sweep Arthur Lundin from Slimminge. Out of the blue Hanna Nyström has remembered that the chimney sweep had been that Thursday, 4 January. He cleaned the chimneys at both houses and then left. When she told me that he cleaned the Lövgrens' flues second and that he left around 10.30 a.m., bells started to go off in my head. I just talked to him. He was cleaning the hospital chimney in Rydsgard. It turned out that he never listens to the radio or watches TV or reads the papers. He cleans chimneys and spends the rest of his time drinking aquavit and looking after pet rabbits. He had no idea that the

  Lövgrens had been murdered. But he told me that he gave Johannes Lövgren a lift into Ystad. Since he has a van and Lövgren was sitting in the windowless back seat, it's not so strange that nobody saw him."

  "But didn't the Nyströms see the car coming back?"

  "No," replied Martinsson triumphantly. "That's just it. Lövgren asked Lundin to stop on Veberodsvagen. From there you can walk along a dirt road right up to the back of Lövgren's house. It's about a kilometre. If the Nyströms were sitting in the window, it would have looked as if Lövgren were coming in from the stable."

  Walla
nder frowned. "It still seems odd."

  "Lundin was very frank. He said that Lövgren promised him a bottie of vodka if he would drive him home. He let Lövgren out in Ystad and then went on to a couple of houses north of town. He picked up him up at the agreed time, dropped him off on Veberodsvagen, and got his bottle of vodka."

  "Good," said Wallander. "Do the times match up?"

  "They fit perfectly."

  "Did you ask him about the briefcase?" "Lundin seemed to remember that he had a briefcase with him."

  "Did he have anything else?" "Lundin didn't think so."

  "Did he see whether Lövgren met anybody in Ystad?" "No."

  "Had Lövgren said anything about what he was going to do in town?" "No, nothing."

  "And you don't think that this chimney sweep knew about Lövgren having 27,000 kronor in his briefcase?" "Hardly. He seemed the least likely person to be a robber.

  I think he's just a solitary chimney sweep who lives contentedly with his rabbits and his aquavit. That's all."

  Wallander thought for a moment. "Do you think Lövgren could have arranged a meeting with someone on that dirt road? Since the briefcase is gone."

  "Maybe. I was thinking of taking a dog patrol out there."

  "Do it right away," said Wallander. "Maybe we're at last getting somewhere."

  Martinsson left the office. He almost collided with Hansson, who was on his way in.

  "Do you have a minute?" he asked.

  Wallander nodded. "How's it going?"

  "He's not talking. But he's been linked to the crime. That bitch Brolin is going to remand him today."

  Wallander didn't feel like commenting on Hansson's contemptuous opinion of Anette Brolin.

  "What do you want?" he asked.

  Hansson sat down on the wooden chair near the window, looking ill at ease.

  "You probably know that I play the horses a bit," he began. "By the way, the horse you recommended came last by a street. Who gave you that tip?"

  Wallander vaguely recalled a remark he had made one time in Hansson's office. "It was just a joke," he said. "Go on."

  "There's a chap named Erik Magnusson who often shows up at Jagersro. He bets big time, loses a bundle, and I happen to know that he works for the county council."

  Wallander was immediately interested.

  "How old is he? What does he look like?"

  Hansson described him. Wallander knew at once that it was the man he had met.

  "There are rumours that he's in debt," said Hansson. "And gambling debts can be dangerous."

  "Good," said Wallander. "That's exactly the kind of information we need."

  Hansson stood up. "You never know," he said. "Gambling and drugs can sometimes have the same effect. Unless you're like me and just gamble for the fun of it."

  Wallander thought about something Rydberg had said. About people who, because of a drug dependency, were capable of unlimited brutality.

  "Good," he said to Hansson. "Excellent."

  Hansson left the office. Wallander thought for a moment and then called Boman in Kristianstad. He was in luck and got hold of him at once.

  "What do you want me to do?" he asked after Wallander had given him Hansson's news.

  "Run the vacuum cleaner over him," said Wallander. "And keep an eye on her."

  Boman promised to put Ellen Magnusson under surveillance.

  Wallander got hold of Hansson just as he was on his way out of the station.

  "Gambling debts," he said. "Who would he owe the money to?"

  Hansson knew the answer. "There's a man from Tagarp who lends money," he said. "If Magnusson owes money to anybody, it would be him. He's a loan shark for a lot of the high rollers at Jagersro. And as far as I know, he's got some really unpleasant types working for him that he sends out with reminders to people who are lax with their payments."

  "Where can I get hold of him?"

  "He's got a hardware shop in Tagarp. A short, hefty guy in his 6os."

  "What's his name?"

  "Larson. But people call him the Junkman."

  Wallander went back to his office. He tried to find Rydberg. Ebba, who was on the switchboard, knew where he was. He wasn't due in until 10 a.m., because he was at the hospital.

  "Is he ill?" wondered Wallander.

  "It's probably his rheumatism," said Ebba. "Haven't you noticed how he's been limping this winter?"

  Wallander decided not to wait for Rydberg. He put on his coat, went out to his car, and drove to Tagarp.

  The hardware shop was in the middle of the town. It was advertising a sale on wheelbarrows. The man who came out of the back room when the bell rang was indeed short and hefty. Wallander was the only person in the shop, and he decided to get right to the point. He took out his identity card. The Junkman studied it carefully but seemed totally unaffected.

  "Ystad," he said. "What can the police from Ystad want with me?"

  "Do you know a man named Erik Magnusson?"

  The man behind the counter was much too experienced to lie.

  "Could be. Why?"

  "When did you first meet him?"

  Wrong question, thought Wallander. It gives him the chance to retreat.

  "I don't remember."

  "But you do know him?"

  "We have a few common interests."

  "Such as betting on the horses?"

  "That's possible."

  Wallander felt provoked by the man's overbearing self-confidence.

  "Listen," he said. "I know that you lend money to people who can't control their gambling. Right now I'm not thinking of asking about the interest rates you charge on your loans. I don't give a damn about your involvement in an illegal money-lending operation. I want to know about something else entirely."

  The Junkman looked at him with curiosity.

  "I want to know whether Erik Magnusson owes you money," he said. "And I want to know how much."

  "Nothing," replied the man.

  "Nothing?" . "Not a single ore."

  Dead end, thought Wallander. Hansson's lead was a dead end.

  "But if you want to know, he did owe me money," said the man. "How much?"

  "A lot. But he paid up 25,000 kronor." "When?"

  The man made a swift calculation. "A little over a week ago. The Thursday before last."

  Thursday, 11 January, thought Wallander. They were finally on the right track.

  "How did he pay you?"

  "He came over here."

  "In what denominations?"

  "Thousands. Five hundreds."

  "Where did he have the money?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "In a bag? A briefcase?"

  "In a plastic grocery bag. From I.C.A., I think." "Was he late paying?" "A little."

  "What would have happened if he hadn't paid?"

  "I would have had to send him a reminder."

  "Do you know how he came up with the money?"

  The Junkman shrugged. At that moment a customer came into the shop.

  "That's none of my business," he said. "Will there be anything else?"

  "No, thanks. Not at the moment. But you may hear from me again."

  Wallander went out to his car. The wind had picked up. OK, he thought. Now we've got him. Who would have thought that something good would come out of Hansson's lousy gambling? Wallander drove back to Ystad feeling as if he had won the lottery. He was on the scent of an answer.

  Erik Magnusson, he thought. Here we come.

  CHAPTER 14

  After intensive work that dragged on until late into the night of Friday, 19 January, Wallander and his colleagues were ready for battle. Björk had sat in on the long case meeting, and at Wallander's request he had let Hansson put aside work on the murder in Hageholm so he could join the Lunnarp group, as they now called themselves. Näslund was off ill again, but he rang in and said he'd be there the next day.

  In spite of the weekend, the work had to continue with undiminished effort. Martinsson had returned w
ith a dog patrol from a detailed inspection of the dirt road that led from Veberodsvagen to the back of Lövgren's stable. He had made a meticulous examination of the road, which ran for nearly two kilometres through a couple of copses, divided two pieces of pasture land as the boundary line, and then ran parallel to an almost dry creek bed. He hadn't found anything out of the ordinary, even though he came back to the station with a plastic bag full of bits and pieces. Among other things, there was a rusty wheel from a doll's pram, a greasy sheet of plastic, and an empty cigarette pack of a foreign brand. The objects would be examined, but Wallander didn't think they would produce anything of use to the investigation.

  The most important decision during the meeting was that Magnusson would be placed under round-the-clock surveillance. He lived in a rented house in the old Rosengard district. Hansson reported that there were trotting races at Jagersro on Sunday, and he was assigned the surveillance during the races.

  "But I'm not authorising any bets," said Björk, in a halfhearted attempt at a joke.

  "I propose that we all go in," replied Hansson. "There's good odds that this murder investigation could pay off."

  But it was a serious mood that prevailed in Björk's office. There was a feeling that a decisive moment was approaching.

  The question that aroused the longest discussion concerned whether Magnusson should be told that they were onto him. Both Rydberg and Björk were sceptical. But Wallander thought that they had nothing to lose if Magnusson discovered that he was the object of police interest. The surveillance would be discreet, of course. But beyond that, no measures would be taken to hide the fact that he was the subject of an investigation.

  "Let him get nervous," said Wallander. "If he has anything to be nervous about, then I hope we discover what it is."

  It took three hours to go through all the investigative material to look for threads that could be tied to Magnusson. They found nothing, but they also found nothing to contradict the possibility that it could have been Magnusson who was in Lunnarp that night, despite his fiancee's alibi.