Wallander knew what he meant.
Twenty kilometers from Lenarp there was a big refugee camp that on several occasions had been the object of attacks against foreigners. Crosses had been burned at night in the courtyard, rocks had been thrown through windows, buildings had been spray-painted with slogans. The refugee camp in the old castle of Hageholm had been established despite vigorous protests from the surrounding communities. And the protests had continued.
Hostility to refugees was flaring up.
But Wallander and Rydberg knew something else that the general public did not know.
Some of the asylum seekers being housed at Hageholm had been caught red-handed breaking into a business that rented out farm machinery. Fortunately the owner was not among the fiercest opponents of taking in refugees, so it was possible to hush up the whole affair. The two men who had committed the break-in were no longer in Sweden either, since they had been denied asylum.
But Wallander and Rydberg had on several occasions discussed what might have happened if the incident had been made public.
“I have a hard time believing that any refugees seeking asylum could commit murder,” said Wallander.
Rydberg gave Wallander a circumspect look. “You remember what I told you about the noose?”
“Something about the knot?”
“I didn’t recognize it. And I know quite a bit about knots, since I spent my summers sailing when I was young.”
Wallander looked at Rydberg attentively. “What are you getting at?” he mused.
“What I’m getting at is that this knot wasn’t tied by anyone who was a member of the Swedish Boy Scouts.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“The knot was made by a foreigner.”
Before Wallander could reply, Ebba came into the lunchroom to get some coffee.
“Go home and get some rest if you can,” she said. “By the way, reporters keep calling and want you to make a statement.”
“About what?” asked Wallander. “About the weather?”
“They seem to have found out that the woman died.”
Wallander looked at Rydberg, who shook his head.
“We’re not making a statement tonight,” he said. “We’re waiting till tomorrow.”
Wallander got up and went over to the window. The wind had picked up, but the sky was still cloudless. It was going to be another cold night.
“We can hardly avoid mentioning what happened,” he said. “The fact that she managed to say something before she died. And if we say that much, then we’ll have to tell them what she said. And then all hell will break loose.”
“We could try to keep it internal,” said Rydberg, getting up and putting on his hat. “For investigative reasons.”
Wallander looked at him in surprise.
“And risk having it come out later that we withheld important information from the press? That we were shielding foreign criminals?”
“It’s going to affect so many innocent people,” said Rydberg. “What do you think will happen at the refugee camp when it gets out that the police are looking for some foreigners?”
Wallander knew that Rydberg was right.
Suddenly he was full of doubt.
“Let’s sleep on it till tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll have a meeting, just you and me, tomorrow morning at eight. Then we’ll decide.”
Rydberg nodded and limped toward the door. There he stopped and turned to Wallander again.
“There is one possibility we shouldn’t overlook,” he said. “That it really was refugees seeking asylum who did it.”
Wallander rinsed out his coffee cup and put it in the dish rack.
Actually I hope it was, he thought. I really hope that the killers are at that refugee camp. Then maybe it’ll put an end to this arbitrary, sloppy attitude that anyone at all, for any reason at all, can come across the Swedish border.
But of course he couldn’t say that to Rydberg. It was an opinion he intended to keep to himself.
He fought his way through the heavy wind out to his car.
Even though he was tired, he had no desire to drive home.
Every evening the loneliness would set in.
He turned on the ignition and changed the cassette. The overture to Fidelio filled the darkness inside the car.
His wife’s sudden departure had come as a complete surprise. But deep inside he realized, even though he still had a hard time accepting it, that he should have sensed the danger long before it happened. That he was living in a marriage that was slowly breaking apart because of its own dreariness. They had married when they were very young, and far too late they realized that they were growing apart. Of the three of them, maybe it was Linda who had reacted most openly to the emptiness surrounding them.
On that night in October when Mona had said that she wanted a divorce, he thought that he had actually been waiting for this to happen. But since the thought involved a threat, he had pushed it aside and blamed it on the fact that he was working so hard. Too late he realized that she had prepared her departure down to the smallest detail. One Friday evening she had talked about wanting a divorce, and by Sunday she had left him and moved into the apartment in Malmö, which she had rented in advance. The feeling of being abandoned had filled him with both shame and anger. In an impotent rage, all his feelings numbed, he had slapped her in the face.
Afterwards there was only silence. She had picked up some of her things during the daytime when he wasn’t home. But she left most of her belongings behind, and he had been deeply hurt that she seemed prepared to trade in her entire past for a life that did not include him, even as a memory.
He had telephoned her. Late in the evenings their voices had met. Devastated by jealousy, he had tried to find out whether she had left him for another man.
“Another life,” she had replied. “Another life, before it’s too late.”
He had appealed to her. He had tried to give the impression that he was indifferent. He had begged her forgiveness for all the attention he had denied her. But nothing he said was able to alter her decision.
Two days before Christmas Eve the divorce papers had arrived in the mail.
When he opened the envelope and realized that it was all over, something had burst inside him. As if in an attempt to flee, he had called in sick over the Christmas holidays and had taken off on an aimless trip that had led him to Denmark. In northern Sjælland a sudden storm had left him snowbound, and he had spent Christmas in Gilleleje, in a freezing room at a pension near the beach. There he had written long letters to her, which he later tore to bits and strewed out over the sea in a symbolic gesture, signifying that in spite of everything he had begun to accept what had happened.
Two days before New Year’s he had returned to Ystad and gone back to work. He spent New Year’s Eve working on a serious case involving spousal abuse in Svarte, and he had a frightening revelation that he might just as well have been abusing Mona physically himself.
The music from Fidelio broke off with a screech.
The machine had eaten the tape.
The radio came on automatically, and he heard the play-byplay of a hockey game.
He pulled out of the parking lot and decided to head home to Mariagatan.
But he drove in the opposite direction instead, out along the coast road heading west to Trelleborg and Skanör. When he passed by the old prison he stepped on the gas. Driving had always distracted his thoughts...
Suddenly he realized that he had driven almost all the way to Trelleborg. A big ferry was just entering the harbor, and on a sudden impulse he decided to stay for a while.
He knew that some former police officers from Ystad had become immigration police at the ferry dock in Trelleborg. He thought some of them might be on duty tonight.
He walked across the harbor area, which was bathed in pale yellow light. A big truck came roaring toward him like a ghostly prehistoric beast.
But when he walked thr
ough the door with the sign “Authorized Personnel Only,” he didn’t know either of the officers.
Kurt Wallander nodded and introduced himself. The older of the two had a gray beard and a scar across his forehead.
“That’s a nasty business you’ve got in Ystad,” he said. “Did you catch them?”
“Not yet,” replied Wallander.
The conversation was interrupted, since the passengers from the ferry were approaching passport control. The majority of them were Swedes returning from celebrating the New Year’s holiday in Berlin. But there were also some East Germans trying out their newly won freedom by taking a trip to Sweden.
After twenty minutes there were only nine passengers left. All of them were trying in various ways to make it clear that they were seeking asylum in Sweden.
“It’s pretty quiet tonight,” said the younger of the two officers. “Sometimes up to a hundred asylum seekers arrive on one ferry. You can imagine.”
Five of the asylum seekers belonged to the same Ethiopian family. Only one of them had a passport, and Wallander wondered how they had managed to make this long journey and cross all those borders with a single passport. Besides the Ethiopian family, two Lebanese and two Iranians were waiting at passport control.
Wallander had a hard time deciding whether the nine refugees looked expectant or whether they were just scared.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“Malmö will come and pick them up,” replied the older officer. “It’s their turn tonight. We get word over the radio when there are a lot of people without passports on the ferries. Sometimes we have to call for extra manpower.”
“What happens in Malmö?” asked Wallander.
“They’re put on one of the ships anchored out in the Oil Harbor. They have to stay there until they’re shuttled on. If they’re allowed to stay in Sweden, that is.”
“What do you think about these people here?”
The policeman shrugged.
“They’ll probably get in,” he answered. “Do you want some coffee? It’ll be a while before the next ferry.”
Wallander shook his head.
“Some other time. I have to get going.”
“Hope you catch them.”
“Right,” said Wallander. “So do I.”
On the way back to Ystad he ran over a hare. When he saw the animal in the beam of his headlights he hit the brakes, but the hare struck the left front wheel with a soft thud. He didn’t stop the car to get out and check whether the hare was still alive.
What’s wrong with me? he thought.
That night Wallander slept uneasily. Just after five he awoke with a start. His mouth was dry, and he had dreamed that somebody was trying to strangle him. When he realized that he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, he got up and made some coffee.
The thermometer outside the kitchen window showed -6° Celsius. The streetlight was swaying in the wind. He sat down at the kitchen table and thought about his conversation with Rydberg the night before. What he had feared had happened. The dead woman had revealed nothing that could give them a lead. Her words about something foreign were just too vague. He realized that they didn’t have a single clue to go on.
At six thirty he got dressed and searched for a long time before finding the heavy sweater he was looking for.
He went outside, felt the wind tearing and biting at him, and then drove out Osterleden and turned onto the main road toward Malmö. Before he met Rydberg at eight, he had to pay a return visit to the neighbors of the old couple that was killed. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something didn’t quite add up. Attacks on lonely old people were not often random. They were usually preceded by rumors of money stashed away. And even though the attacks could be brutal, they were hardly characterized by the methodical malice that he had witnessed at this murder scene.
People in the country get up early in the morning, he thought as he swung onto the narrow road that led to the Nyströms’ house. Maybe they’ve had time to mull things over.
He stopped in front of the house and turned off the engine. At the same instant the light in the kitchen window went off.
They’re scared, he thought. They probably think it’s the killers coming back.
He left the lights on as he got out of the car and walked across the gravel to the steps.
He sensed rather than saw the muzzle flash coming from a bush beside the house. The ear-splitting noise made him dive for the ground. A pebble slashed his cheek, and for an instant he thought he had been hit.
“Police!” he yelled. “Don’t shoot! Damn it, don’t shoot!”
A flashlight shone on his face. The hand holding the flashlight was shaking, and the beam wobbled back and forth. Nyström was standing in front of him, an old shotgun in his hand.
“Is it you?” he said.
Wallander got up and brushed off the gravel.
“What were you aiming at?” he asked.
“I shot straight up in the air,” said Nyström.
“Do you have a permit for that weapon?” Wallander queried. “Otherwise there could be trouble.”
“I’ve been up all night, keeping watch,” said Nyström. Wallander could hear how upset the man was.
“I have to turn off my lights,” said Wallander. “Then we’ll talk, you and I.”
Two boxes of shotgun shells lay on the kitchen table. On the sofa lay a crowbar and a big sledgehammer. The black cat was in the window, staring menacingly at Wallander as he came in. The old woman stood at the stove stirring a pan of coffee.
“I had no idea it was the police coming,” said Nyström, sounding apologetic. “And so early.”
Wallander moved the sledgehammer and sat down.
“Mrs. Lövgren died last night,” he said. “I thought I’d come out and tell you myself.”
Every time Wallander was forced to notify someone of a death, he had the same feeling of unreality. To tell strangers that a child or a relative had suddenly died, and to do it with dignity, was impossible. The deaths that the police announced were always unexpected, and often violent and gruesome. Somebody drives off to buy something at the store and dies. A child on a bicycle is run over on the way home from the playground. Someone is abused or robbed, commits suicide or drowns. When the police are standing in the doorway, people refuse to accept the news.
The two old people in the kitchen were silent. The woman stirred the coffee with a spoon. The man fidgeted with his shotgun, and Wallander discreetly moved out of the line of fire.
“So, Maria is gone,” the man said slowly.
“The doctors did everything they could.”
“Maybe it was just as well,” said the woman at the stove, unexpectedly forceful. “What did she have left to live for after he was dead?”
The man put the shotgun down on the kitchen table and stood up. Wallander noticed that he favored one knee.
“I’ll go out and give the horse some hay,” he said, putting on an old cap.
“Do you mind if I come with you?” asked Wallander.
“Why would I mind?” said the man, opening the door.
From her stall the mare whinnied as they entered the stable, which smelled like warm manure. With a practiced hand Nyström flung an armload of hay into the stall.
“I’ll muck out later,” he said, stroking the horse’s mane.
“Why did they keep a horse?” Wallander wondered.
“To an old dairy farmer an empty stable is like a morgue,” replied Nyström. “The horse was company.”
Wallander thought that he might just as well start asking his questions here in the stable.
“You stayed up to keep watch last night,” he said. “You’re scared, and I can understand that. You must have thought to yourself: Why were they the ones who were attacked? You must have thought: Why them? Why not us?”
“They didn’t have any money,” said Nyström. “And nothing else that was especially valuable. Anyway, nothing was stolen. I told that to
one of the policemen who were here yesterday. The only thing that might have been stolen was an old wall clock.”
“Might have been?”
“One of their daughters might have taken it. I can’t remember everything.”
“No money,” said Wallander. “And no enemies.”
A thought suddenly occurred to him.
“Do you keep any money in the house?” he asked. “Could it be that whoever did this got the wrong house?”
“Everything we have is in the bank,” replied Nyström. “And we don’t have any enemies either.”
They went back to the house and drank coffee. Wallander saw that the woman was red-eyed, as if she had been careful to cry while they were out in the stable.
“Have you noticed anything unusual recently?” he asked. “Anyone visiting the Lövgrens that you didn’t recognize?”
The old folks looked at each other and then shook their heads.
“When was the last time you talked to them?”
“We were over there for coffee the day before yesterday,” said Hanna. “Just like always. We drank coffee together every day. For over forty years.”
“Did they seem afraid of anything?” asked Wallander. “Worried?”
“Johannes had a cold,” said Hanna. “But otherwise everything was normal.”
It seemed hopeless. Wallander didn’t know what to ask them about. Each reply he got was like a new door slamming shut.
“Did they have any acquaintances who were foreigners?” he asked.
The man raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Foreigners?”
“Anyone who wasn’t Swedish,” Wallander ventured.
“A few years ago there were some Danes camping on their field one midsummer.”
Wallander looked at the clock. Almost seven thirty. At eight he was supposed to meet Rydberg, and he didn’t want to be late.
“Try and think,” he said. “Anything you can come up with might be of some help.”
Nyström walked out to the car with him.
“I have a permit for the shotgun,” he said. “And I didn’t aim at you. I just wanted to scare you.”
“You did a good job of it,” replied Wallander. “But I think you ought to get some sleep tonight. Whoever did this isn’t coming back.”
Faceless Killers: A Mystery Page 5