Faceless Killers kw-1

by Henning Mankell

  Wallander immediately sensed that the man sitting in front of him was on guard. He couldn't say why. But the feeling was palpable, and it grew stronger as the conversation progressed.

  "Tell me what happened," he said. "At four o'clock in the morning you discovered your car was missing."

  "I was going to drive to Goteborg. I like to get started before dawn when I'm going on a long drive. When I went outside, the car was gone.""From the garage or from a parking place?"

  "From the street outside my house. I have a garage. But there's so much junk in it that there's no room for the car.""Where do you live?""In a suburb near Jagersro.""Do you think any of your neighbours saw anything?" "I asked them. But no-one heard or saw anything."

  "When did you last see your car?""I was inside all day. But the car was there the night before.""Locked?""Of course it was locked.""Did it have a lock on the steering wheel?""Unfortunately, no. It was broken."

  His answers came easily. But Wallander couldn't rid himself of the feeling that the man was on guard."What kind of trade show were you going to?" he asked.

  The man sitting across from him looked surprised. "What does that have to do with this?""Nothing. I just wondered.""An air show, if you must know."

  "An air show?""I'm interested in old planes. I build model planes myself.""Is it true that you took early retirement?""What the hell does that have to do with my stolen car?"

  "Nothing."

  "Why don't you start looking for my car instead of poking around in my personal life?"

  "We're already onto it. As you know, we think that the person who stole your car may have committed a murder. Or maybe I should say an execution."

  The man looked him straight in the eye. The nervous flitting had stopped."That's what I heard," he said.

  Wallander had no more questions. "I thought we'd go over to your place. So I can see where the car was parked." "I can't invite you in for coffee. The place is a mess." "Are you married?" "I'm divorced."

  They went out to Wallander's car. The neighbourhood was an old one, situated just beyond the trotting track at

  Jagersro. They stopped outside a yellow brick house with a small front lawn.

  "This is where the car was, right where you're parked," said the man. "Right here."

  Wallander backed up a few metres and they got out. Wallander noticed that the car must have been parked between two streetlights.

  "Are there a lot of cars parked on this street at night?" he asked.

  "Usually one in front of every house. A lot of people who live here have two cars. Their garages only hold one."

  Wallander pointed at the streetlights. "Do they work?" he asked.

  "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 realised that he did have one more question.

  "Do you have a licence to carry a gun?" he asked. "Do you own any guns?"

  The man stiffened. At that moment a crazy idea flashed through Wallander's mind. The car theft was pure fiction. 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?" said the man. "A gun licence? Don't tell me you're so fucking stupid that you think I had anything to do with that?"

  "You were a policeman, so you should know that we have to ask these questions," said Wallander. "Do you have any guns in your house?""I have guns and a licence.""What kind of guns?"

  "I like to shoot once in a while. I have a Mauser for hunting moose." "Anything else?"

  "A shotgun. A Lanber Baron. It's a Spanish gun. For shooting rabbits.""I'll send someone over to pick them up." "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 out of your fucking mind."

  Wallander left. He drove straight back to the Malmö police station. He called Ystad. The car hadn't been found. 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. It had been on the same occasion that he met Goran Boman.Wallander explained the case he was working on.

  "I want his weapons checked," he said. "I want his house searched. I want to know whether he has any connections with racist organisations."

  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 authorisation 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 national police chief, if necessary."

  "I'll do what I can," said the officer. "But no-one likes it when you dig around in the private 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. Which I intend to prevent."

  On his way to Ystad, Wallander stopped at Hageholm. The technicians were just wrapping up their investigation. At the scene he went over Rydberg's theory about how the murder occurred, and he decided he was right. The car had probably been parked at the spot Rydberg had pinpointed. He realised that he hadn't asked the policeman whether he smoked. Or whether he ate apples.

  He continued on to Ystad. 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 looked into Hansson's office: still no car.

  "Case meeting in my office in 15 minutes," said Wallander. "Try to round everybody up. Anyone who isn't here should be reached by phone."

  Without taking off his overcoat, Wallander sat down and called his sister again. They agreed that he would pick her up at Sturup airport at 10 a.m. the following morning.

  He felt the lump on his forehead, which was now changing colour, shifting to yellow and black and red. Within 20 minutes, everyone except Martinsson and Svedberg was there.

  "Svedberg is out digging around in a gravel pit," said Rydberg. "Somebody called and said they saw a mysterious car out there. Martinsson is trying to track down a man in the Citroen club who apparently knows about all the Citroens on the road in Skåne. A dermatologist from Lund.""A dermatologist from Lund?" Wallander asked in surprise.

  "There are hookers who collect stamps," said Rydberg. "Why shouldn't a dermatologist be into Citroens?"

  Wallander reported on his meeting with the ex-policeman in Malmd. 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 Hansson. "A policeman 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."The discussion turned to the missing car.

  "We aren't getting tip-offs from the public," said Hansson. "Which reinforces my belief that the car never left the area."

  Wallander unfolded a detailed 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 minor 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. And to send some men out to search through abandoned barns. A dog patrol from Malmö had been out searching without finding a single trace. The helicopter search had produced no results either.

  "Could your Iranian have been mistaken?"
wondered Hansson.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 Citroen."

  Hansson was detailed to take care of the witness. They moved on to a summary of the search for the killers in Lunnarp. Here, too, the car that the early-morning lorry driver had seen still eluded them.

  Wallander could see that his colleagues were tired. It was Saturday, and many of them had been working non-stop for a long time.

  "We'll put Lunnarp 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 at 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 Hansson sarcastically."You get the highest marks," replied Wallander.

  After the meeting he asked Rydberg to stay behind for a moment. 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 Boman's efforts in Kristianstad. Rydberg nodded thoughtfully. Wallander saw that he was 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 realised 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 that noose. The knot. You said it yourself. That murder smells of revenge and hatred. But still we're 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 neighbour he had known for 40 years as an ordinary man. With few 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."

  They turned to the murdered Somali. Ever since he left Malmö, Wallander had been toying with an idea."Can you stay 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 unreliable trait in a policeman. But I thought we ought to keep an eye on that gentleman, you and I. Through the weekend, in any case. Then we can see whether we should continue and bring in more manpower. But if I'm right, that he might be involved, that his car wasn't stolen, then he should be feeling a little uneasy right now."

  "I agree with Hansson that no policeman would be dim enough to pretend his car had been stolen if he were planning to commit a murder," Rydberg objected.

  "I think you're both wrong," Wallander replied. "The same way that he was wrong in thinking that just because he had once been a policeman, that 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 neither here or there if you think it's important."

  "I want 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."

  Rydberg said that he might as well handle the watch until midnight. Wallander gave him the address. 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 at Wallander's desk. 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, finding only parts of an old combine. Few tip-offs came in from the public.

  Reporters from the newspapers, radio and TV called constantly, wanting updates. Wallander repeated his appeal for information on a missing pale blue Citroen with a white roof. Directors of the various refugee camps called in, anxious and demanding increased police protection. Wallander answered as patiendy as he could.

  An old woman was hit and killed by a car in Bjaresjo. Svedberg, back from the gravel pit, took on that case, even though Wallander had promised him the afternoon off.

  Näslund called at 5 p.m., and Wallander could tell 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. Each time they told him that he was tired and uncommunicative. He also called Sten Widén. 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 policeman. I'd like to talk to Sten, if he's there.""He's in Denmark buying horses," replied Louise."When is he back?""Maybe tomorrow.""Would you ask him to call me?"‘I’ll do that."

  He hung up. Wallander had the distinct impression that Sten Widénwas not in Denmark at all. Maybe he was even standing right next to the young woman, listening. Maybe they were together in the unmade bed when he called.

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

  He decided to go through his bills, which he had forgotten to pay on the first of the month. He filled out a bunch of giro slips and enclosed a cheque in the manila envelope. He wasn't going to be able to afford either a video or a stereo this month.

  Next he answered an inquiry about a trip to the Royal Opera in Copenhagen at the end of February. He said yes. Woyzeckwas an opera he hadn't seen staged.

  It was 8 p.m. He read through Svedberg's report on the fatal accident in Bjaresjo. He could see at once that there was no question of criminal proceedings. The woman had stepped out into the road slap in front of a car travelling within the speed limit. The farmer who was driving the car was not at fault, all the eyewitness accounts agreed on that. He made a note to see to it that Anette Brolin read through the report after the autopsy was done.

  At 8.30 p.m. two men started slugging each other in a block of flats on the outskirts of Ystad. Peters and Norén swiftly separated the combatants. They were two brothers, well known to the police. They got into a fight about three times a year.

  A greyhound was reported lost in Marsvinsholm. The dog had been seen heading west, so the report was passed to the station in Skurup.

  At 10 p.m. Wallander 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-duty long underwear and a woollen cap. Absent-mindedly he watered the drooping plants in the kitchen window. Then he drove to Malmö.

  Norén was duty officer 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 holiday was definitely over.

  Wallander stopped at a hotel restaurant in Svedala. He hesitated before deciding on only a salad. He doubted that this was a wise moment 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 his meal. An elderly woman came over to his table and tried to sell him The Watch Tower. He bought a copy, thinking that it would be sufficiently dull to last all n
ight.

  Wallander pulled out onto the E65 again and drove the last stretch to Malmö. He began to doubt the value of this assignment. Was he justified in trusting his intuition? Shouldn't Hansson's and Rydberg's objections have been enough for him to drop the idea of this surveillance? He felt unsure of himself. Irresolute. And the salad had not been enough.

  It was 11.35 pm when he turned onto a street near the yellow house where Bergman lived. He pulled his cap over his ears as he stepped out into the freezing night. All around him were darkened houses. In the distance he heard the screech of car tyres. He kept to the shadows as far as possible and turned down the street called Rosenalle.

  Almost at once he caught sight of Rydberg, who was standing under a tall chestnut tree. The trunk was so thick that it nearly hid him entirely.

  Wallander slipped into the shadow of the huge 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, he went to buy groceries. Two hours later he came out to close the gate, which had blown open. But he's definitely on his guard. I think you may be right after all."Rydberg pointed at the house next door.

  "That one's empty," he said. "From the yard you can see both the street and his back door. He might take 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 box 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."