Faceless Killers: A Mystery

by Henning Mankell

  “Yes. I always notice if any of them are broken.”

  Wallander looked around, thinking. He had no further questions.

  “I assume that we’ll be talking to you again,” he said.

  “I want my car back,” replied the man.

  Wallander suddenly realized that he had one more question.

  “Do you have a permit to carry a weapon?” he asked. “Do you own any weapons?”

  The man stiffened.

  At that instant a crazy idea flashed through Kurt Wallander’s mind.

  The car theft was completely made up.

  The man standing beside him was one of the two men who had shot the Somali the day before.

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” said the man. “A weapons permit? Don’t tell me you’re so fucking stupid that you think I had anything to do with that?”

  “You’ve been a cop, so you should know that we have to ask all kinds of questions,” said Wallander. “Do you have any weapons in your house?”

  “I have weapons and a permit.”

  “What kind of weapons?”

  “I like to hunt once in a while. I have a Mauser rifle for hunting moose.”

  “Anything else?”

  “A shotgun. A Lanber Baron. It’s a Spanish gun. For hunting rabbits.”

  “I’m thinking of sending someone over to pick up the weapons.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because the man who was killed yesterday was shot at close range with a shotgun.”

  The man gave him a disdainful look. “You’re crazy,” he said. “You’re fucking out of your mind.”

  Wallander left. He drove straight back to the Malmö police station. He borrowed a phone and called Ystad. No car had been found yet. Then he asked to speak to the officer in charge of the department for homicide and violent crimes in Malmö. Wallander had met him once before and found him to be overbearing and self-important. That was on the same occasion when he met first Göran Boman.

  Wallander explained the case he was working on.

  “I want to have his weapons checked,” he said. “I want his house searched. I want to know whether he has any connections with racist organizations.”

  The police officer gave him a long look. “Do you have any reason whatsoever to believe that he made up the story about a stolen car? That he might be involved in the murder?”

  “He owns guns. And we have to investigate everything.”

  “There are hundreds of thousands of shotguns in this country. And what makes you think I can get authorization to search his house when the case is about a stolen car?”

  “This case has top priority,” said Wallander, starting to get annoyed. “I’ll call the county police chief. The chief of the National Police, if necessary.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” said the officer. “But it’s never popular to mess around in the personal life of a colleague. And what do you think would happen if this got out to the press?”

  “I don’t give a shit,” said Wallander. “I’ve got three murders on my hands. And somebody who’s promised me a fourth one. Which I intend to prevent.”

  On his way to Ystad, Wallander stopped at Hageholm. The crime technicians were just wrapping up their investigation. At the scene he went over Rydberg’s theory about how the murder most likely occurred, and he thought he was right. The car had probably been parked at the spot Rydberg had pointed out.

  Suddenly he realized that he had forgotten to ask the policeman whose car was stolen whether he smoked. Or whether he ate apples.

  He continued on to Ystad. It was noon. On his way in he ran into a temp who was on her way out to lunch. He asked her to pick up a pizza for him.

  He stuck his head in Hanson’s door; still no car.

  “Meeting in my office in fifteen minutes,” said Wallander. “Try to round everybody up. You should be able to reach anybody who isn’t here by phone.”

  Without taking off his overcoat, Wallander sat down and called his sister again. They decided that he would pick her up at Sturup airport at ten o’clock the following morning.

  Then he touched the lump on his forehead, which was now changing color, shifting to yellow and black and red.

  Twenty minutes later everyone except Martinson and Svedberg had shown up.

  “Svedberg is out digging around in a gravel pit,” said Rydberg. “Somebody called and said they saw a mysterious car out there. Martinson is trying to track down someone in the Citroen club who supposedly knows everything about all the Citroëns on the road in Skane. Some dermatologist from Lund.”

  “A dermatologist from Lund?” Wallander asked in surprise.

  “There are hookers who collect stamps,” said Rydberg. “Why shouldn’t a dermatologist love Citroëns?”

  Wallander reported on his meeting with the cop in Malmö.

  He could hear how hollow it sounded when he said that he had ordered a thorough investigation of the man.

  “That doesn’t sound very likely,” said Hanson. “A cop who wants to commit a murder wouldn’t be dumb enough to report his own car stolen, would he?”

  “Maybe not,” said Wallander. “But we can’t afford to ignore a single lead, no matter how unlikely it seems.”

  Then the discussion turned to the missing car.

  “We aren’t getting many tips from the public,” said Hanson. “Which just reinforces my belief that the car never left the area.”

  Wallander unfolded the topographic map, and they leaned over it as if preparing for battle.

  “The lakes,” said Rydberg. “Krageholm Lake, Svaneholm Lake. Let’s assume that they drove out there and ditched the car. There are little roads all over the place.”

  “It still sounds risky,” objected Wallander. “Somebody could easily have seen them.”

  They decided at any rate to drag the lakes along the shore. And to send some men out to search through abandoned barns.

  A canine patrol from Malmö had been out searching without finding a single trace. The helicopter search had produced no results either.

  “Could your Arab have been mistaken?” wondered Hanson.

  Wallander thought about this for a moment.

  “We’ll bring him in again,” he said. “We’ll test him on six different kinds of cars. Including a Citroën.”

  Hanson promised to take care of the witness.

  Then they moved on to a summary of the search for the perpetrators in Lenarp. Here too the car that the early-morning truck driver had seen still eluded them.

  Wallander could see that the officers were tired. It was Saturday, and many of them had been working nonstop for a long time.

  “We’ll put Lenarp on hold until Monday morning,” he said. “Right now we’re going to concentrate on Hageholm. Whoever isn’t needed at the moment should go home and get some rest. It looks like next week is going to be just as busy as this one.”

  Then he remembered that Björk would be back to work on Monday.

  “Björk will be taking over,” he said. “So I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their efforts so far.”

  “Did we pass?” asked Hanson sarcastically.

  “You get the highest marks,” replied Wallander.

  After the meeting he asked Rydberg to stay behind for a moment. He realized that he needed to talk through the situation with somebody in peace and quiet. And Rydberg was, as usual, the one whose opinion he respected most. He told him about Göran Boman’s efforts in Kristianstad. Rydberg nodded thoughtfully. Wallander saw that he was obviously hesitant.

  “It might be a dud,” said Rydberg. “This double murder is puzzling me more and more, the longer I think about it.”

  “In what way?” asked Wallander.

  “I can’t get away from what the woman said before she died. I have a feeling that deep inside her tormented and wounded consciousness, she must have realized that her husband was dead. And that she was going to die too. I think it’s human instinct to offer a solution
to a mystery if there’s nothing else left. And she said only one word: ‘foreign.’ She repeated it. Four or five times. It has to mean something. And then we have that noose. The knot. You said it yourself. That murder smells of revenge and hatred. But we’re still looking in a completely different direction.”

  “Svedberg has made a chart of all of Lövgren’s relatives,” said Wallander. “There are no foreign connections. Only Swedish farmers and one or two craftsmen.”

  “Don’t forget his double life,” said Rydberg. “Nyström described the neighbor he had known for forty years as an ordinary man. With no assets. After two days we discovered that none of this was true. So what’s to prevent us from finding other false bottoms to this story?”

  “So what do you think we should do?”

  “Exactly what we are doing. But be open to the possibility that we might be on the wrong track.”

  Then they switched over to talking about the murdered Somali.

  Ever since he left Malmö, Wallander had been carrying around an idea.

  “Can you hang in there a little longer?” he asked.

  “Sure,” replied Rydberg, surprised. “Of course I can.”

  “There was something about that police officer,” said Wallander. “I know it’s mostly a hunch. An extremely dubious trait in a cop. But I thought we ought to keep an eye on that guy, you and I. Through the weekend, in any case. Then we can see whether we should keep it up and bring in more manpower. But if I’m right, that he might be involved himself, that his car wasn’t stolen at all, then he should be feeling a little uneasy right now.”

  “I agree with Hanson when he said that no cop would be stupid enough to pretend his car had been stolen if he were planning to commit a murder,” Rydberg objected.

  “I think you’re both wrong,” replied Wallander. “The same way that he was wrong. Thinking that just because he had once been a cop, that fact alone would steer all suspicion away from him.”

  Rydberg rubbed his aching knee.

  “We’ll do as you say, then,” he said. “What I believe or don’t believe is irrelevant as long as you think it’s important that we proceed.”

  “I want to put him under surveillance,” said Wallander. “We’ll split up the shifts until Monday morning. It’ll be rough, but we can do it. I can take the night shifts, if you like.”

  It was noon. Rydberg said that he might as well handle the surveillance until midnight. Wallander gave him the address.

  At that instant the temp came into the office with the pizza he had ordered.

  “Have you eaten?” Wallander asked.

  “Yes,” replied Rydberg hesitantly.

  “No you haven’t. Take this one and I’ll get another.”

  Rydberg ate the pizza while sitting at Wallander’s desk. Then he wiped his mouth and stood up.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said.

  “Maybe,” replied Wallander.

  Nothing happened the rest of the day.

  The car continued to elude them. The fire department dragged the lakes without finding anything except parts of an old combine.

  Only a few tips came in from the public.

  Reporters from the newspapers, radio, and TV called incessantly, wanting updated status reports. Wallander repeated his appeal for tips about a pale blue Citroen. Nervous directors of the refugee camps called in, demanding increased police protection. Wallander answered as patiently as he could.

  At four o’clock an old woman was hit by a car and killed in Bjäresjö. Svedberg, who had returned from the gravel pit, led the investigation, even though Wallander had promised him the afternoon off.

  Näslund called at five o’clock, and Wallander could hear that he was tipsy. He wanted to know whether anything was happening, or whether he could go to a party in Skillinge. Wallander told him to go ahead.

  He called the hospital twice to ask about his father. They told him that his father was tired and uncommunicative.

  Right after his conversation with Naslund, he called up Sten Widen. A familiar voice answered the phone.

  “I was the one who helped you with the ladder up to the loft,” Wallander said. “The man you guessed was a cop. I’d like to talk to Sten, if he’s there.”

  “He’s in Denmark buying horses,” replied the young woman, whose name was Louise.

  “When will he be back?”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Would you ask him to call me?”

  “I’ll do that.”

  He hung up. Wallander had the distinct impression that Sten Widen was not in Denmark at all. Maybe he was even standing right next to the young woman and listening in.

  Maybe they were together in the unmade bed when he called.

  There was no word from Rydberg.

  He gave his memo to one of the patrol officers, who promised to hand it to Björk the minute he stepped off the plane at Sturup airport later that evening.

  Then Wallander went through his bills, which he had forgotten to pay on the first of the month. He filled out a bunch of postal banking forms and enclosed a check in the manila envelope. He realized that he wasn’t going to be able to afford either a VCR or a stereo this month.

  Then he answered an inquiry about whether he intended to participate in a tour to the Royal Opera in Copenhagen at the end of February. He said yes. Woyzeck was one of the operas he had never seen staged.

  At eight o’clock he read through Svedberg’s report on the fatal accident in Bjäresjö. He could see at once that there was no question of any kind of criminal proceedings. The woman had stepped right out into the road in front of a car traveling at a low speed. The farmer who was driving the car was not at fault. All the eyewitness accounts agreed. He made a note to see to it that Anette Brolin read through the investigation report after the autopsy on the woman was done.

  At eight thirty two men started slugging each other in an apartment building on the outskirts of Ystad. Peters and Norén quickly managed to separate the combatants. They were two brothers who were well known to the police. They got into a fight about three times a year.

  A greyhound was reported lost in Marsvinsholm. Since the dog had been seen heading west, he passed the report on to his colleagues in Skurup.

  At ten o’clock he left the police station. It was cold and the wind was blowing in gusts. The sky was clear and filled with stars. Still no snow. He went home and put on heavy long underwear and a woolen cap. Absentmindedly he also watered the drooping plants in the kitchen window. Then he drove to Malmö.

  Norén was on duty that night. Wallander had promised to call in regularly. But presumably Norén would have his hands full with Björk, who would be coming home to discover that his vacation was definitely over.

  Wallander stopped at a motel restaurant in Svedala. He hesitated for a long time before deciding on only a salad. He doubted that this was the proper time to change his eating habits. But he knew that he might fall asleep if he ate too much before an all-night shift.

  He drank several cups of strong coffee after he finished eating. An elderly woman came over to his table and wanted to sell him The Watch Tower. He bought a copy, thinking that it would be sufficiently dull reading to last all night.

  Just after eleven he pulled out onto E14 again and drove the last stretch to Malmö. He suddenly started to doubt the value of the assignment he had given Rydberg and himself. How justified was he in trusting his intuition? Shouldn’t Hanson’s and Rydberg’s objections have been enough for him to drop the idea of this nighttime stakeout?

  He felt unsure of himself. Irresolute.

  And the salad had not filled him up.

  It was a few minutes past eleven thirty when he turned onto a cross street near the yellow row house where Rune Bergman lived. He pulled his cap over his ears as he stepped out into the cold night. All around him were dark houses. In the distance he heard the screech of car tires. He kept to the shadows as much as possible and turned down the street called Rosenallé.


  Almost at once he caught sight of Rydberg, who was standing next to a tall chestnut tree. The trunk was so thick that it hid him entirely. Wallander discovered him only because it was the only conceivable hiding place that allowed a view of the yellow row house.

  Wallander slipped into the shadow of the mighty tree trunk.

  Rydberg was freezing. He was rubbing his hands together and stamping his feet.

  “Anything going on?” asked Wallander.

  “Not much in twelve hours,” replied Rydberg. “At four o’clock he went over to a local store to buy groceries. Two hours later he came out to close the gate, which had blown open. But he’s definitely on guard. I think you may be right after all.”

  Rydberg pointed at the house next to the one where Rune Bergman lived.

  “That one’s empty,” he said. “From the yard you can see both the street and his back door. In case he takes it into his head to slip out that way. There’s a bench where you can sit. If your clothes are warm enough.”

  Wallander had noticed a phone booth on his way over to Bergman’s house. He asked Rydberg to go over and call Norén. If nothing urgent was happening, Rydberg could get in his car and drive home.

  “I’ll be back around seven,” said Rydberg. “Don’t freeze to death.”

  He vanished without a sound. Wallander stood still for a moment, looking at the yellow house. Lights were on in two of the windows, one on the lower floor and one upstairs. The curtains were drawn. He looked at his watch. Three minutes past midnight. Rydberg had not returned. So everything must be quiet at the police station in Ystad.

  He hurried across the street and opened the gate to the yard of the empty house. He fumbled his way in the dark and found the bench that Rydberg had mentioned. From there he had a good view. To keep warm, he started pacing, five steps forward and five steps back.

  The next time he looked at his watch, it was only ten minutes to one. It was going to be a long night. He was already feeling cold. He tried to make the time pass by studying the starry sky. When his neck started to hurt, he resumed his pacing.

  At one thirty the light on the ground floor went out. Wallander thought he could hear a radio on the second floor.

  Rune Bergman keeps late hours, he thought.