Faceless Killers kw-1

by Henning Mankell

  His father was in his studio painting when Wallander walked in. This time it was going to be a canvas with a grouse. His father looked at him crossly. Wallander could see that the old man was filthy. And he smelled terrible. "Why are you here?" his father said.

  "We made a date yesterday.""Eight o'clock, you said.""Good grief, I'm only 11 minutes late."

  "How the hell can you be a policeman 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 realised now.

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

  Wallander sat down on the old toboggan 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 as if he's an adult.

  His father went on painting with great concentration. How many times has he painted that same motif? Wallander wondered. A quick and incomplete reckoning in his head came up with the figure of 7,000. He'd painted 7,000 sunsets.

  He got up and poured coffee from the kettle 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 brusquely."Have you thought about moving?"

  "Where would I move to? And why should I move anyway?"

  The answers were 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! It would be for 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 flat."

  "I've already got my own house. Maybe you didn't notice that. Or maybe you're too ill to notice?""I just have a little cold."

  At that moment he realised that the cold hadn't come to anything. He had been through this a few times before. When he had a lot to do, he refused to permit himself to get ill. But once the investigation was over, he would succumb almost at once."I'm going to see Mona tonight," he said.

  Continuing to talk about an old people's home or a flat in sheltered accommodation was pointless. First he had to talk to his sister."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 died."Is there anything you need?" asked Wallander.

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

  The reproach was unconcealed. Wallander knew it would do no good to try and stifle the guilt that flared up in him.

  "I've got a job to do," he said. "I'm the acting chief. 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."

  The old man flung his brush to the floor and stood in front of his son shaking his fist. The outburst took Wallander completely by surprise.

  "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. And by the way, I'm taking a trip to Rimini for my winter holiday. I'm going to have a show there. I'm demanding 25,000 kronor per canvas. And you come here talking about old people's homes. But you're not going to kill me off, I can tell you that!"

  He walked out of the studio, slamming the door behind him.

  He's off his perch, 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 follow his father inside. He could hear him banging around in the kitchen. It sounded as if he was throwing pots and pans on the floor.

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

  At 9 a.m. he walked into station and left his suit with Ebba, who promised to have it cleaned and pressed by that afternoon.

  At 10 a.m. he called a case meeting for all the team members who were still in the station. 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?" Martinsson 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."

  Nothing new had happened that demanded the attention of the investigators. They were still laying the groundwork. Material was collected and gone over, various tip-offs were checked and entered in the daily log.

  Everyone agreed that the mystery woman in Kristianstad and her son 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 to happen last night was an elk running about on the E65.

  "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 or Saturday at the latest."

  Rydberg suggested that they contact the national police. Let them decide whether additional manpower should be provided.

  "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 authorise overtime," said Hansson.

  "I know," said Wallander. "I want Peters and Norén on this special night detail. And I want someone to call and talk to the directors at all of the camps. Don't scare them. Just ask them to be a little more vigilant."

  After about an hour the meeting was finished. Wallander was left alone in his office, getting ready to write the response to Swedish Television.The telephone rang. It was Goran Boman in Kristianstad."I saw you on the news last night," he said, laughing."Wasn't that a bugger?""You're right. You ought to protest.""I'm writing a letter as we speak.""What the hell are those reporters thinking of?"

  "Not about the truth, that's for sure, but how big a headline they can get.""I've got good news for you."Wallander felt himself go tense."Did you find her?"

  "Maybe. I'm faxing you some papers now. We've found nine possibilities. The register of citizens isn't such a silly thing to have. I thought you ought to take a look at what we came up with. Call me and tell me which ones you want us to check first.""Great, Goran," said Wallander. "I'll call you."

  The fax machine was in the reception. A young female temp he hadn't never seen before was just taking a fax sheet 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 personal errands.Boman had sent four pages in all. Wallander went back to his room and spread them on the desk. He studied one woman after another, their birth dates, when their babies with "fathers unknown" had been born. It didn't take him long to eliminate four. That left five who had given birth to sons
during the 1950s.

  Two were still living in Kristianstad, one in Gladsax outside Simrishamn. Of the other two, one lived in Strömsund and one had emigrated to Australia. He smiled at the idea that the investigation might require someone to be sent to the other side of the world.He called Goran Boman.

  "This looks promising," he said. "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 might 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 Goran about the anonymous threats. "Did you catch the arsonist from the other night?" "Not yet."

  "I'll set things up for tomorrow, and I'll 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. 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.

  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 canteen to get himself some coffee. He hadn't had time to think about eating yet. It was almost 1 p.m., 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 Widén. But before the phone started to ring, he put the receiver down. Widén could wait. There would be time enough later to amuse themselves by measuring how long it took a horse to finish off a ration of hay.

  Instead he tried the number of the public prosecutor's office. The woman at the switchboard told him that Anette Brolin was in. He hung up and walked to the other wing of the 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, and both ordered salted salmon.

  "I saw you on the news yesterday," said Anette Brolin. "How can they broadcast such inaccurate and biased reports?"Wallander, who had braced himself for criticism, relaxed.

  "Reporters regard the police as fair game," he said. "Whether we do too much or too little, we get criticised for it. And they don't understand that sometimes we have to hold back certain information for investigative reasons."

  He told her about the leak. How furious he had been when information from the case meeting had gone straight to a TV broadcast. He noticed that she was listening, and felt that he had discovered someone human behind the prosecutor's role and the expensive clothes.After lunch they ordered coffee."Did your family move here too?" he asked.

  "My husband is still in Stockholm," she said. "And the children aren't going to change schools for a year."

  Wallander's disappointment was palpable. Somehow he had hoped that the wedding ring meant nothing.

  The waiter came with the bill, and he reached out to pay."We'll split it," she said. They ordered more coffee.

  "Tell me about this town," she said. "I've looked through a number of criminal cases from 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 suburbs of the big cities. There were no narcotics here twenty years ago. 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 one of the beautiful old Scanian farms, 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 erased. Organised crime is widespread in Malmö. The open borders and all the ferries coming in are like candy for the underworld."

  "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 in Stickgatan nearby."Are you really allowed to park here?" she asked.

  "No," he replied. "But when I get a ticket I pay it. Although it might be an interesting experience to say to 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 round the area.""I'd like that," she said."How often do you go home?" he asked."Every other week.""And your husband? The children?"

  "He comes down when he can. And the children when they feel like it."

  I love you, thought Wallander. I'm going to see Mona tonight and I'm going to tell her that I love another woman.They said goodbye in reception.

  "You'll get a briefing on Monday," said Wallander. "We're starting to get a few leads.""Any closer to an arrest?""No. But the searches at the banks produced good results."

  She nodded.

  "Preferably before ten on Monday," she said. "The rest of the day I have detention hearings and negotiations in the district court."

  They settled on 9 a.m. Wallander watched her as she disappeared down the corridor. He felt strangely exhilarated when he got back to his office. Anette Brolin, he thought. In a world where everything is said to be possible, anything could happen.

  He devoted the rest of the day to reading the notes from various interviews that he had only skimmed before. The definitive autopsy report had also arrived. Once again he was shocked at the degree of violence the old couple had been subjected to. He read the reports of the interviews with the two daughters and the door-to-door canvassing in Lunnarp. All the information matched and added up.

  No-one had any idea that Johannes Lövgren was a significantly more complex person than he had appeared. The simple farmer had been hiding a split personality. Once during the war, in the autumn of 1943, he had been taken to court in a case of assault and battery. But he had been acquitted. Someone had dug up a copy of the report, and Wallander read through it carefully. But he could not see a reasonable motive for revenge. It seemed to have been an ordinary quarrel that led to blows at the community centre at Erikslund.

  Ebba brought in his suit."You're an angel," he said.

  "Hope you have a wonderful time tonight," she said with a smile.

  Wallander felt a lump in his throat. She really meant what she said.

  He spent the time until 5 p.m. filling in a football lottery form, making an appointment to have his car serviced, and thinking through the important interviews he had the following day. He also wrote a reminder to himself that he had to prepare a memo for Björk for his return.

  Just after 5 p.m., Thomas Näslund stuck his head round the door."Are you still here?" he said. "I thought you'd gone home." "Why would I have done that?" "That's what Ebba said."

  Ebba keeps watch over me, he thought with a smile. Tomorrow I'll bring her some flowers before I leave for Simrishamn.Näslund came into the room."Do you have time right now?" he asked."Not much.""I'll make it quick. It's about Klas Mansön."

  Wallander had to think for a moment before he remembered who that was."The one who robbed that s
hop?"

  "That's the one. We have witnesses who can identify him, even though he had a stocking over his head. A tattoo on his wrist. There's no doubt that he's the one. But this new prosecutor doesn't agree with us."Wallander raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?""She thinks the investigation was sloppy."

  "Was it?"

  Näslund looked at him in amazement. "It was no sloppier than any other investigation. It's a cut-and-dried case." "So what did she say?"

  "If we can't come up with more convincing proof she's considering opposing the detention order. It's bullshit that a Stockholm bitch like that can come here and pretend she's somebody!"

  Wallander could feel himself getting angry, but he was careful not to betray his feelings.

  "Per wouldn't have given us a problem," Näslund went on. "It's bloody obvious that this bastard is the one who robbed the shop.""Have you got the report?" asked Wallander."I asked Svedberg to read it through.""Leave it here for me so I can look at it tomorrow."

  Näslund stood up."Somebody ought to tell that bitch," he said.

  Wallander nodded and smiled. "We can't have a prosecutor coming down from Stockholm and interfering with the way we do things.""I thought you'd say that," said Näslund and left.

  An excellent excuse to have dinner, thought Wallander. He put on his jacket, hung his clean suit over his arm, and turned off the light.

  After a quick shower he made it to Malmö just before 7 p.m. He found, a park near Stortorget and went down the steps to Kock's Tavern. He would knock back a couple of drinks before meeting Mona at the restaurant.

  Even though the price was outrageous, he ordered a large whisky. He would have preferred a malt, but an ordinary blend would have to do.

  At the first gulp he spilled some on himself. Now he'd have a new spot on his lapel. Almost in the same place as the old one. I'm going home, he thought, full of self-reproach. I'll go home and go to bed. I can't even hold a glass without spilling it all over myself. At the same time he knew this feeling was pure vanity. Vanity and nervousness at seeing