Faceless Killers: A Mystery

by Henning Mankell

  He drove slowly eastward, through Sandskogen, past the abandoned golf course, and turned off toward Kaseberga.

  For the first time in days he felt that he had had enough sleep. He had slept nine hours straight. The swelling on his forehead had started to go down, and his burned arm didn’t sting anymore.

  Methodically he went through the summary he had written up the night before. The main thing now was to find Johannes Lövgren’s mystery woman. And the son. Somewhere, in the circles surrounding these people, the perpetrators would be found. It was quite obvious that the double murder was connected to the missing 27,000 kronor, and maybe even to Lövgren’s other assets.

  Someone who knew about the money, and who had taken time to give the horse some hay before he disappeared. One or more persons who knew Johannes Lövgren’s habits.

  The rental car from Göteborg didn’t fit into the picture. Maybe it had nothing to do with the case at all.

  He looked at his watch. Twenty to eight. Thursday, January eleventh.

  Instead of driving straight to his father’s house, he went a few kilometers past it and turned off on the little gravel road that wound through rolling sand dunes up toward Båckakra, Dag Hammarskjöld’s estate, which the statesman had bequeathed to the Swedish public. Wallander left the car in the empty parking lot and walked up the hill; from there he could see the sea stretched out below.

  There was a stone circle there. A stone circle of contemplation, built some years earlier. It was an invitation to solitude and peace of mind.

  He sat down on a stone and looked out over the sea.

  He had never been particularly inclined to philosophical meditation. He had never felt a need to delve into himself. Life was a continual interplay among various practical questions awaiting a solution. Whatever was out there was something inescapable which he could not affect no matter how much he worried about some meaning that probably didn’t even exist.

  Having a few minutes of solitude was another thing altogether. It was the vast peace that lay hidden in not having to think at all. Just listen, observe, sit motionless.

  There was a boat on its way somewhere. A large sea bird glided soundlessly on the updrafts. Everything was very quiet.

  After ten minutes he stood up and went back to the car.

  His father was in his studio painting when Wallander walked in. This time it was going to be a canvas with a wood grouse.

  His father looked at him crossly.

  Wallander could see that the old man was filthy. And he smelled bad too.

  “Why are you here?” his father said.

  “We made a date yesterday.”

  “Eight o’clock, you said.”

  “Good grief, I’m only eleven minutes late.”

  “How the hell can you be a cop if you can’t keep track of time?”

  Wallander didn’t answer. Instead he thought about his sister Kristina. Today he would have to make time to call her. Ask her whether she was aware of their father’s rapid decline. He had always imagined that senility was a slow process. That wasn’t the case at all, he realized now.

  His father was searching for a color with his brush on the palette. His hands were still steady. Then he confidently daubed a nuance of pale red on the grouse’s plumage.

  Wallander had sat down on the old sled to watch.

  The stench of his father’s body was acrid. Wallander was reminded of a foul-smelling man lying on a bench in the Paris Metro when he and Mona were on their honeymoon.

  I have to say something, he thought. Even if my father is on his way back to his childhood, I still have to speak to him like a grownup.

  His father kept on painting with great concentration.

  How many times has he painted that same motif? thought Wallander.

  A quick and incomplete reckoning in his head came up with the figure of seven thousand.

  Seven thousand sunsets.

  He poured coffee out of the kettle that stood steaming on the kerosene stove.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “When you’re as old as I am, how you’re feeling is how you’re feeling,” his father replied dismissively.

  “Have you thought about moving?”

  “Where would I move to? And why should I move anyway?”

  The questions he countered with came like the cracks of a whip.

  “To a retirement home.”

  His father pointed his brush at him ferociously, as if it were a weapon.

  “Do you want me to die?”

  “Of course not! I’m thinking of your own good.”

  “How do you think I’d survive with a bunch of old fogies? And they certainly wouldn’t let me paint in my room.”

  “Nowadays you can have your own apartment.”

  “I’ve already got my own house. Maybe you didn’t notice that. Or maybe you’re too sick to notice?”

  “I just have a little cold.”

  At that moment he realized that the cold had never broken out. It had vanished as quickly as it came. He had been through this a few times before. When he had a lot to do, he refused to permit himself to get sick. But once the investigation was over, an illness could often break out instantly.

  “I’m going to see Mona tonight,” he said.

  Continuing to talk about an old folks’ home or an apartment in a building for senior citizens was pointless, he realized. First he had to talk with his sister about it.

  “If she left you, she left you. Forget her.”

  “I have absolutely no wish to forget her.”

  His father kept on painting. Now he was working on the pink clouds. The conversation had stopped.

  “Is there anything you need?” asked Wallander.

  His father replied without looking at him. “Are you leaving already?”

  The reproach in the words was evident. Wallander knew it was impossible to try and stifle the guilt that instantly flared up.

  “I’ve got a job to do,” he said. “I’m the acting chief of police. We’re trying to solve a double murder. And track down some pyromaniacs.”

  His father snorted and scratched his crotch. “Chief of police. Is that supposed to impress me?”

  Wallander got up.

  “I’ll be back, Dad,” he said. “I’m going to help you clean up this mess.”

  His father’s outburst took him completely by surprise.

  The old man flung his brush to the floor and stood in front of his son shaking his fist.

  “You think you can come here and tell me this place is a mess?” he shouted. “You think you can come here and meddle in my life? Let me tell you this, I have both a cleaning woman and a housekeeper here. By the way, I’m taking a trip to Rimini for winter vacation. I’m going to have a show there. I’m demanding twenty-five thousand kronor per canvas. And you come here talking about old folks’ homes. But you’re not going to kill me off, I can tell you that!”

  He left the studio, slamming the door behind him.

  He’s nuts, thought Wallander. I’ve got to put a stop to this. Maybe he really imagines he has a cleaning woman and a housekeeper. That he’s going to Italy to open a show.

  He wasn’t sure if he should go inside after his father, who was banging around in the kitchen. It sounded as if he was throwing pots and pans around.

  Then Wallander went out to his car. The best thing would be to call his sister. Now, right away. Together maybe they could get their father to admit that he couldn’t go on like this.

  At nine o’clock he went through the door of the police station and left his suit with Ebba, who promised to have it cleaned and pressed by that afternoon.

  At ten o’clock he called a meeting for all the team members who weren’t out. The ones who had seen the spot on the news the night before shared his indignation. After a brief discussion they agreed that Wallander should write a sharp rebuttal and distribute it on the wire service.

  “Why doesn’t the chief of the National Police respond?” Ma
rtinson wondered.

  His question was met with disdainful laughter.

  “That guy?” said Rydberg. “He only responds if he has something to gain from it. He doesn’t give a damn about how the police in the provinces are doing.”

  After this comment their focus shifted to the double homicide.

  Nothing remarkable had happened that demanded the attention of the investigators. They were still laying the groundwork.

  Material was collected and gone over, various tips were checked out and entered in the daily log.

  The whole team agreed that the mystery woman and her son in Kristianstad were the hottest lead. No one had any doubt either that the murder they were trying to solve had robbery as a motive.

  Wallander asked whether things had been quiet at the various refugee camps.

  “I checked the nightly report,” said Rydberg. “It was calm. The most dramatic thing last night was a moose running around on E14.”

  “Tomorrow is Friday,” said Wallander. “Yesterday I got another anonymous phone call. The same individual. He repeated the threat that something was going to happen tomorrow, Friday.”

  Rydberg suggested that they contact the National Police. Let them decide whether additional manpower should be committed.

  “Let’s do that,” said Wallander. “We might as well be on the safe side. In our own district we’ll send out an extra night patrol to concentrate on the refugee camps.”

  “Then you’ll have to authorize overtime,” said Hanson.

  “I know,” said Wallander. “I want Peters and Norén on this special night detail. Then I want someone to call and talk with the directors at all the camps. Don’t scare them. Just ask them to be a little more vigilant.”

  After about an hour the meeting was over.

  Wallander was alone in his office, getting ready to write the response to Swedish Television.

  Then the telephone rang.

  It was Göran Boman in Kristianstad.

  “I saw you on the news last night,” he said, laughing.

  “Wasn’t that a bitch?”

  “Yeah, you ought to protest.”

  “I’m writing a letter right now.”

  “What the hell are those reporters thinking of?”

  “Not about what’s true, that’s for sure. But about what big headlines they can get.”

  “I’ve got good news for you.”

  Wallander felt himself tense up.

  “Did you find her?”

  “Maybe. I’m faxing you some papers. We think we’ve found nine possibles. The register of citizens isn’t such a stupid thing to have. I thought you ought to take a look at what we came up with. Then you can call me and tell me which ones you want us to check out first.”

  “Great, Göran,” said Wallander. “I’ll call you back.”

  The fax machine was out in the lobby. A young female temp he had never seen before was just taking a piece of paper out of the tray.

  “Which one is Kurt Wallander?” she asked.

  “That’s me,” he said. “Where’s Ebba?”

  “She had to go to the dry cleaners,” said the woman.

  Wallander felt ashamed. He was making Ebba run his private errands.

  Boman had sent a total of four pages. Wallander returned to his room and spread them out on the desk. He went through one name after another, their birthdates, and when their babies with unknown fathers had been born. It didn’t take long for him to eliminate four of the candidates. That left five women who had borne sons during the fifties.

  Two of them were still living in Kristianstad. One was listed at an address in Gladsax outside Simrishamn. Of the two others, one lived in Strömsund and the other had emigrated to Australia.

  He smiled at the thought that the investigation might require sending someone to the other side of the world.

  Then he called up Göran Boman.

  “Great,” he said again. “This looks promising. If we’re on the right track, we’ve got five to choose from.”

  “Should I start bringing them in for a talk?”

  “No, I’ll take care of it myself. Or rather, I thought we could do it together. If you have time, I mean.”

  “I’ll make time. Are we starting today?”

  Wallander looked at his watch.

  “Let’s wait till tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll try to get up there by nine. If there’s no trouble tonight, that is.”

  He quickly told Göran about the anonymous threats.

  “Did you catch whoever set the fire the other night?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll set things up for tomorrow. Make sure none of them has moved.”

  “Maybe I should meet you in Gladsax,” Wallander suggested. “It’s about halfway.”

  “Nine o’clock at the Hotel Svea in Simrishamn,” said Boman. “A cup of coffee to start the day with.”

  “Sounds good. See you there. And thanks for your help.”

  Now, you bastards, thought Wallander after he hung up the phone. Now I’m going to let you have it.

  He wrote the letter to Swedish Television. He did not mince words, and he decided to send copies to the Immigration Service, the Immigration Ministry, the County Chief of Police, and the Chief of the National Police.

  Standing in the corridor, Rydberg read through what he had written.

  “Good,” he said. “But don’t think they’ll do anything about it. Reporters in this country, especially on television, can do no wrong.”

  He dropped the letter off to be typed and went into the lunchroom for coffee. He hadn’t had time to think about food yet. It was almost one o’clock, and he decided to go through all his phone messages before he went out to eat.

  The night before, he had felt sick to his stomach when he took the anonymous phone call. Now he had cast off all sense of foreboding. If anything happened, the police were ready.

  He punched in the number for Sten Widen. But before the phone started to ring on the other end, he abruptly hung up. Widen could wait. There would be plenty of time later to amuse themselves by timing how long it took for a horse to finish off a ration of hay.

  Instead he tried the number of the DA’S office.

  The woman at the switchboard told him that Anette Brolin was in.

  He got up and walked down to the other wing of the police building. Just as he raised his hand to knock, the door opened.

  She had her coat on. “I’m just on my way to lunch.”

  “May I join you?”

  She seemed to think about it for a moment. Then she gave him a quick smile. “Why not?”

  Wallander suggested the Continental. They got a window table facing the station, and they both ordered salted salmon.

  “I saw you on the news yesterday,” said Anette Brolin. “How can they broadcast such incomplete and insinuating reports?”

  Wallander, who had instantly braced himself for criticism, relaxed.

  “Reporters view the police as fair game,” he said. “Whether we do too much or too little, we get criticized for it. And they don’t understand that sometimes we have to hold back certain information for investigative purposes.”

  Without hesitating, he told her about the leak. How furious he had been when information from the investigative meeting had gone straight to a TV broadcast.

  He noticed that she was listening. Suddenly he thought he had discovered someone else behind the prosecutor role and the tasteful clothes.

  After lunch they ordered coffee.

  “Did your family move here too?” he asked.

  “My husband is still in Stockholm,” she said. “And the kids won’t have to change schools for a year.”

  Wallander could feel his disappointment.

  Somehow he had hoped that the wedding ring meant nothing after all.

  The waiter came with the check, and Wallander reached out to pay.

  “We’ll split it,” she said.

  They got refills on the coffee.

 
; “Tell me about this town,” she said. “I’ve looked through a number of criminal cases for the last few years. It’s a lot different from Stockholm.”

  “That’s changing fast,” he said. “Soon the entire Swedish countryside will be nothing but one solid suburb of the big cities. Twenty years ago, for example, there were no narcotics here. Ten years ago drugs had come to towns like Ystad and Simrishamn, but we still had some control over what was happening. Today drugs are everywhere. When I drive by some beautiful old Scanian farm I sometimes think: there might be a huge amphetamine factory hidden in there.”

  “There are fewer violent crimes,” she said. “And they’re not quite as brutal.”

  “It’s coming,” he said. “Unfortunately, I guess I’m supposed to say. But the differences between the big cities and the countryside have been almost totally wiped out. Organized crime is widespread in Malmö. The open borders and all the ferries coming in are like candy for the underworld. We have one detective who moved down here from Stockholm a few years ago. Svedberg is his name. He moved here because he couldn’t stand Stockholm anymore. A few days ago he said he was thinking about moving back.”

  “Still, there’s a sense of calm here,” she said pensively. “Something that’s been totally lost in Stockholm.”

  They left the Continental. Wallander had parked his car on Stickgatan nearby.

  “Are you really allowed to park here?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied. “But when I get a ticket I usually pay it. Otherwise it might be an interesting experience to say the hell with it and get taken to court.”

  They drove back to the police station.

  “I was thinking of asking you to dinner some evening,” he said. “I could show you around the area.”

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  “How often do you go home?” he asked.

  “Every other week.”

  “And your husband? The kids?”

  “He comes down when he can. And the kids when they feel like it.”

  I love you, thought Kurt Wallander.

  I’m going to see Mona tonight and I’m going to tell her that I love another woman.

  They said goodbye in the lobby of the police station.

  “You’ll get a briefing on Monday,” said Wallander. “We’re starting to get a few leads to go on.”