Faceless Killers kw-1

by Henning Mankell

  "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 failed to give. But nothing he said changed her mind.

  Two days before Christmas Eve the divorce papers had arrived in the post. When he opened the envelope and realised that it was all over, something had cracked inside him. As if in an attempt to flee, he had called in sick over the Christmas holidays and had set off on an aimless trip that had taken him to Denmark. In northern Sjaelland 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 her long letters, which he had later torn to pieces and strewn out over the sea in a symbolic gesture, demonstrating 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 terrifying revelation that he could just as easily have physically abused Mona.

  The music from Fideliobroke off with a screech. The machine had swallowed the tape. The radio came on automatically, and he heard the commentary of an ice hockey game.

  He pulled out of the car park, intending to drive towards home. But he drove in the opposite direction instead, out along the coast road heading west to Trelleborg and Skanor. When he passed the old prison he accelerated. Driving had always distracted his thoughts ...

  He realised that he had driven almost all the way to Trelleborg. A big ferry was just entering the harbour, and on an impulse he decided to stay for a while. He knew that a number of former policemen from Ystad had become immigration officers at the ferry dock in Trelleborg. He thought some of them might be on duty tonight.

  He walked across the harbour area, which was bathed in pale yellow light. A large lorry came roaring towards him like a ghostly prehistoric beast.

  When he walked through the door with the sign "Authorised Personnel Only", he found he didn't know either of the officers. Wallander introduced himself. The older of the two had a grey 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 as the passengers from the ferry approached passport control. The majority of them were Swedes returning from celebrating the New Year's holiday in Berlin. There were also some East Germans exercising their newly-won freedom by taking a trip to Sweden.

  After 20 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 what it's like."

  Five belonged to the same Ethiopian family. Only one of them had a passport, and Wallander wondered how they had managed to make the 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 found it difficult to decide whether the nine refugees looked hopeful or whether they were simply 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 Harbour. They have to stay there until they're moved 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 it in the beam of his headlights he hit the brakes, but it struck the left front wheel with a soft thud. He didn't stop to check whether the hare was still alive.What's wrong with me? he thought.

  That night Wallander slept uneasily. Just after 5 a.m. he awoke with a start. His mouth was dry, and he had dreamt that somebody was trying to strangle him. When he realised 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° C. The light that hung on a wire suspended across the street 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. Mrs Lövgren had revealed nothing before she died that could give them a lead. Her mention of something "foreign" was just too vague. They didn't have a single clue to go on.

  He got dressed, searching for a long time before finding the heavy sweater he wanted. He went outside, feeling

  the wind tearing and biting at him, drove out of Österleden and turned onto the main road towards Malmö. Before he met Rydberg, he had to pay a return visit to the Nyströms. He couldn't shake the feeling that something didn't quite add up. Attacks like this one usually weren't random, but were preceded by rumours of money stashed away. And even though they could be brutal, they were hardly characterised by the methodical violence 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 moment the light in the kitchen went out. 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 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 torch shone on his face. The hand holding the torch was shaking, and the beam wobbled back and forth. Nyström was standing in front of him, an ancient shotgun in his hand."Is it you?" he asked.

  Wallander got up and brushed off the gravel. "What were you aiming at?""I shot straight up in the air," said Nyström.

  "Do you have a permit for that gun?" Wallander asked. "Otherwise there could be trouble."

  "I've been up all night, keeping watch," said Nyström. Wallander could hear how upset he 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, and stared menacingly at Wallander as he came in. Hanna Nyström stood at the stove stirring a pot of coffee.

  "I had no idea that it was the police," 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 unreal feeling. To tell strangers that a child or a relative had died, and to do it with dignity, was impossible. The deaths that the police informed people of were always unexpected, and often violent and gruesome. Somebody drives off to buy something at the shops 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 couple 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," Nys
tröm said slowly."The doctors did everything they could."

  "Maybe it was just as well," said Hanna Nyström, 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 put his weight on one knee.

  "I'll go out and give the horse some hay," he said, putting on a tattered 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. With a practised hand Nyström flung an arm load 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 a retired 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. "Or anything else that was especially valuable. Anyway, nothing was stolen, as I told one of the policemen here yesterday. The only thing that might have been stolen was a 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." Something occurred to him.

  "Do you keep any money in the house?" he asked. "Could it be that whoever did this got the wrong house?"

  "All that 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 Hanna Nystrdm 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 the couple. "Anyone visiting the Lövgrens you didn't recognise?"They 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. "As always. We drank coffee together every day. For over 40 years."

  "Did they seem frightened of anything?" asked Wallander. "Worried?"

  "Johannes had a cold," Hanna replied. "But otherwise everything was normal."

  It seemed hopeless. Wallander didn't know what else to ask them. Each reply he got was like a 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.

  "One Midsummer a few years ago some Danes camped on their field."

  Wallander looked at the clock. At 8 a.m. 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 may 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," replied Wallander. "But I think you ought to get some sleep tonight. Whoever did this isn't coming back."

  "Would you be able to sleep?" asked Nyström. "Would you be able to sleep if your neighbours had been slaughtered like dumb animals?"

  Since Wallander couldn't think of a good answer, he said nothing.

  "Thanks for the coffee," he said, got in his car, and drove away.

  This is all going to hell, he thought. Not one clue, nothing. Only Rydberg's strange knot, and the word "foreign". Two old people with no money under the bed, no antique furniture, are murdered in such a way that there seems to be something more than robbery behind it. A murder of hate or revenge.

  There must be something out of the ordinary about them, he thought. If only the horse could talk! He had an uneasy feeling about that horse. It was just a vague hunch. But he was too experienced a policeman to ignore his unease.

  Just before 8 a.m. he braked to a halt outside the police station in Ystad. The wind was down to light gusts. Still, it felt a few degrees warmer today. Just so long as we don't get snow, he thought.

  He nodded to Ebba at the switchboard. "Did Rydberg show up yet?"

  "He's in his office," replied Ebba. "They're calling already. TV, radio and the newspapers. And the county police commissioner.

  "Stall them a while," said Wallander. "I have to talk with Rydberg first."

  He hung up his jacket in his office before he went in to see Rydberg, whose office was a few doors down the corridor. He knocked and heard a grunt in reply.

  Rydberg was standing looking out the window when Wallander entered. It was obvious that he hadn't had enough sleep.

  "Good morning" said Wallander. "Shall I bring in some coffee?""Sure. But no sugar. I've cut it out."

  Wallander went out to get two coffees in plastic mugs and then went back to Rydberg's office. Outside the door he stopped. What's my plan, anyway? he thought. Should we keep her last words from the press for "investigative reasons"? Or should we release them?

  I don't have a plan, he thought, annoyed, and pushed open the door with his foot. Rydberg was sitting behind his desk combing his sparse hair. Wallander sank into a visitor's chair with worn-out springs."You ought to get a new chair," he said.

  "There's no money for one," said Rydberg, putting away his comb in a desk drawer.Wallander set his cup on the floor beside his chair.

  "I woke up so damned early this morning," he said. "I drove out and talked to the Nyströms. The old man was waiting in a bush and took a shot at me with a shotgun."Rydberg pointed at his cheek.

  "Not from buckshot," said Wallander. "I hit the deck. He claimed he had a permit for the gun. Who the hell knows?""Did they have anything new to say?"

  "Not one thing. Nothing out of the ordinary. No money, nothing. Provided they're not lying, of course.""Why would they be lying?""No, why would they?"

  Rydberg took a slurp of coffee and made a face. "Did you know that policemen are unusually susceptible to stomach cancer?" he asked.

  "I didn't know that.""If it's true, it's because of all the lousy coffee we drink." "But we solve our cases over our mugs of coffee." "Like now?"

  Wallander shook his head. "What do we really have to go on? Nothing."

  "You're too impatient, Kurt." Rydberg looked at him while he stroked his nose. "You'll have to excuse me if I seem like a schoolteacher," he went on. "But in this case I think we have to be patient."

  They went over the progress of the investigation again. The technicians had taken fingerprints from the scene of the crime and were checking them against the national centralised records. Hansson was busy investigating the location of all known criminals with records of assault on old people, to find out whether they were in prison or had alibis. They would continue questioning the residents of Lunnarp, and perhaps the questionnaire they sent out would produce something. Both Rydberg and Wallander knew that the police in Ystad carried out their work precisely and methodically. Sooner or later something would turn up. A trace, a clue. It was just a matter of waiting. Of working methodically and waiting.

  "The motive," Wallander persisted. "If the motive isn't money, or the rumour of money hidden away, then what is it? The noose? You must have thought the same thing I did. This crime has revenge or hate in it. Or both."

  "Let's imagine a pair of suitably desperate robbers," said Rydberg. "Let's assume that they were convinced that Lövgren had money squirreled away. Let's assume that they were sufficiently indifferent to human life. Then torture isn't out of the question.""Who would be that desperate?"

  "You know as well as I do that there are plenty of drugs that create such a dependency that people are ready to do anything."

  Wallander did know that. He had seen the accelerating violence first hand, and narcotics trafficking and drug dependency almost always lurked in the background. Even though Ystad's police district was seldom hit by thi
s increasing violence, he harboured no illusions: it was steadily creeping up on them.

  There were no protected zones any more. An insignificant little village like Lunnarp was confirmation of that fact. He sat up straight in the uncomfortable chair."What are we going to do?" he said."You're the boss," replied Rydberg."I want to hear what you think."

  Rydberg got up and went over to the window. With one finger he felt the soil in a flowerpot. It was dry.

  "If you want to know what I think, I'll tell you. But you should know that I'm by no means sure that I'm on the right track. I think that no matter what we decide to do, there's going to be a big fuss. But maybe it would be a good idea to keep quiet for a few days anyway. There are plenty of things to investigate.""Like what?"

  "Did the Lövgrens have any foreign acquaintances?" "I asked about that this morning. They may have known some Danes." "There, you see.""It couldn't have been Danish campers, could it?"

  "Why not? No matter what, we'll have to check it out. And there are more people than just the neighbours to question. If I understood you correctly yesterday, the Lövgrens had a big family."

  Wallander realised that Rydberg was right. There were investigative reasons to keep quiet about the fact that the police were searching for a person or persons with foreign connections.

  "What do we know about foreigners who have committed crimes in Sweden?" he asked. "Do the national police have special files on that?"

  "There are files on everything" Rydberg replied. "Put someone in front of a computer and link up to the central criminal database, and maybe we'll find something."

  Wallander stood up.

  Rydberg looked at him quizzically. "Aren't you going to ask about the noose?" "I forgot."

  "There's supposed to be an old sail maker in Limhamn who knows all about knots. I read about him in a newspaper some time last year. I thought I'd try to track him down. Not because I'm confident anything will come of it. But just in case."