The White Lioness

by Henning Mankell

  Wallander sat in silence for a moment. Björk looked expectantly at him.

  “Let’s concentrate our efforts,” said Wallander at length. “We have to find Stig Gustafson, that’s the first priority. If the only lead we have is that relative in Malmö, then that’s the one we’ll have to follow up. Everybody in this station who’s capable of picking up a phone will have to help. I’ll join in and assist with the telephoning, as soon as I’ve dealt with the hospital.”

  Then he turned to Björk.

  “We’d better keep going all evening,” he said. “It’s essential.”

  Björk nodded in agreement.

  “Do that,” he said. “I’ll be around if anything important happens.”

  Svedberg began organizing the hunt for marine engineer Stig Gustafson’s relative in Malmö, while Wallander went back to his office. Before calling the hospital, he dialed his father’s number. It was a long time before he answered. He assumed his father had been in his studio, painting. Wallander could hear right away that he was in a bad mood.

  “Hi! It’s me,” he said.

  “Who’s me?” asked his father.

  “You know full well who it is,” said Wallander.

  “I’ve forgotten what your voice sounds like,” said his father.

  Wallander gritted his teeth and resisted the temptation to slam down the receiver.

  “I’m busy,” he said. “I’ve just found a dead woman in a well. A woman who was murdered. I won’t be able to get out to your place today. I hope you’ll understand.”

  To his astonishment his father suddenly sounded friendly.

  “I can see you can’t do that,” he said. “It sounds unpleasant.”

  “It is,” said Wallander. “I just want to wish you a pleasant evening. And I’ll try and come out tomorrow.”

  “Only if you get time,” said his father. “I can’t go on talking any longer right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m expecting a visitor.”

  Wallander could hear he’d been cut off. He was left sitting there with the receiver in his hand.

  A visitor, he thought. So Gertrud Anderson goes around to see him even when she’s not working?

  He shook his head for a long time.

  I must make time to go and see him soon, he thought. It would be a complete disaster if he married her.

  He got up and went in to Svedberg. He collected a list of names and telephone numbers, returned to his office, and dialed the first on the list. At the same time he remembered he had to contact the on-duty prosecutor at some point during the afternoon.

  Four o’clock came and they still hadn’t traced Stig Gustafson’s relative.

  At half past four Wallander called Per Akeson at home. He reported on what had happened so far, and announced that they could now concentrate on tracking down Stig Gustafson. The prosecutor had no objections. He asked Wallander to let him know if anything developed during the evening.

  At a quarter past five, Wallander fetched his third list of names from Svedberg. Still no luck. Wallander groaned at the thought of it being Walpurgis Eve. A lot of people were out. They had gone away for the holiday.

  Nobody answered the first two numbers he called. The third was to an elderly lady who was quite sure there was no one called Stig in her family.

  Wallander opened the window, and could feel a headache coming on. Then he went back to the phone and dialed the fourth number. He let it go on ringing for quite a while, and was just about to replace the receiver when somebody answered. He could hear it was a young woman on the other end. He explained who he was and what he wanted to know.

  “Sure,” said the young woman, whose name was Monica. “I have a half-brother called Stig. He’s a marine engineer. Has something happened to him?”

  Wallander could feel all his exhaustion and dissatisfaction falling away at a stroke.

  “No,” he said. “But we’d like to get in touch with him as soon as possible. Do you know where he lives?”

  “Of course I know where he lives,” she said. “In Lomma. But he’s not at home.”

  “Where is he, then?”

  “He’s in Las Palmas. He’ll be back home tomorrow, though. He’s due to land at Copenhagen at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I think he’s on a Spies package.”

  “Excellent,” said Wallander. “I’d be grateful if you could give me his address and phone number.”

  She told him what he wanted to know, he apologized for disturbing her evening, and hung up. Then he rushed into Svedberg’s office, collecting Martinson on the way. No one knew where Björk was.

  “We’ll go to Malmö ourselves,” said Wallander. “Our colleagues in town can assist. Run a check at the passport control on everybody disembarking from the various ferries. Björk will have to fix that.”

  “Did she say how long he’d been away?” asked Martinson. “If he had a week’s vacation, that would mean he’d left last Saturday.”

  They looked at one another. The significance of Martinson’s point was obvious.

  “I think you should go home now,” said Wallander. “At least some of us ought to have had a good night’s sleep before tomorrow. Let’s meet here at eight tomorrow morning. Then we’ll drive to Malmö.”

  Martinson and Svedberg went home. Wallander talked to Björk, who promised to call his counterpart in Malmö and arrange things according to Wallander’s wishes.

  At a quarter past six Wallander called the hospital. The doctor was only able to give vague answers.

  “There are no visible injuries on the body,” she said. “No bruises, no fractures. Superficially, it doesn’t look as though there was any sexual assault. I’ll have to come back to that, though. I can’t see any marks on her wrists or ankles.”

  “That’s fine,” said Wallander. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch again tomorrow.”

  Then he left the police station.

  He drove out to Kåseberga and sat for a while on the cliff top, staring out to sea.

  He was back home soon after nine.

  Chapter Seven

  At dawn, just before he woke up, Kurt Wallander had a dream.

  He had discovered that one of his hands was black. He had not put on a black glove. It was his skin that had grown darker until his hand was like an African’s.

  In his dream Wallander wavered between reactions of horror and satisfaction. Rydberg, his former colleague who had been dead for nearly two years, looked disapprovingly at the hand. He asked Wallander why only one of them was black.

  “Something will have to happen tomorrow as well,” Wallander replied in his dream.

  When he woke up and recalled the dream, he lay in bed wondering about the reply he gave Rydberg. What did he mean, in fact?

  Then he got up and looked out the window. The first of May in Skane this year was cloud-free and sunny, but very windy. It was six o’clock.

  Although he had only slept for two hours, he did not feel tired. That morning they would get an answer to the question of whether Stig Gustafson had an alibi for Friday afternoon the previous week, when Louise Åkerblom had most probably been murdered.

  If we can solve the crime today already, it will have been surprisingly simple, he thought. The first few days we had nothing to go on. Then everything started to happen very quickly. A criminal investigation seldom follows everyday rhythms. It has its own life, its own energy. The clocks of a criminal investigation distort time, making it stand still, or race forward. No one can know in advance.

  They met at eight o’clock in the conference room, and Wallander set the ball rolling.

  “There’s no need for us to interfere in what the Danish police are doing,” he began. “If what his half-sister says is to believed, Stig Gustafson will land on a Scanair flight to Copenhagen at ten o’clock. You can check that, Svedberg. Then he has three possible ways of getting to Malmö. The ferry to Limhamn, the hydrofoil, or the SAS hovercraft. We’ll be keeping an eye on all three.”

 
“An old marine engineer will probably take the big ferry,” said Martinson.

  “He might have had enough of boats,” objected Wallander. “We’ll have two men at each spot. He’s to be taken firmly and informed of the reasons. A certain amount of caution would no doubt be appropriate. Then we’ll bring him here. I thought I would start talking to him.”

  “Two men seem on the low side,” said Björk. “Shouldn’t we have a patrol car in the background, at least?”

  Wallander went along with that.

  “I’ve talked to our colleagues in Malmö,” Björk went on. “We’ll get all the help we need. You can decide for yourselves what signal the immigration people should give you when he shows up.”

  Wallander looked at his watch.

  “If that’s all, we’d better get going,” said Wallander. “It’s best if we get to Malmö in good time.”

  “The flight could be delayed by up to twenty-four hours,” said Svedberg. “Wait until I’ve checked.”

  Fifteen minutes later, he informed them the plane from Las Palmas was expected at Kastrup at twenty minutes past nine.

  “It’s already taken off,” said Svedberg. “And they have a tailwind.”

  They drove to Malmö immediately, talked to their colleagues there, and divided up the assignments. Wallander allocated himself to the hovercraft terminal, along with a rookie cop named Engman, who was wet behind the ears. He had come in place of a cop named Naslund, with whom Wallander had worked for many years. He was from the island of Gotland, and couldn’t wait for an assignment back home. When a vacancy occurred in the Visby force, he did not hesitate to go for it. Wallander missed him at times, especially his unfailing good humor. Martinson and a colleague were taking care of Limhamn, and Svedberg was keeping an eye on the hydrofoils. They were in touch by walkie-talkie. Everything was set by half past nine. Wallander managed to arrange for coffee to be delivered to himself and the trainee by colleagues at the terminal.

  “This is the first murderer I’ve ever hunted,” said Engman.

  “We don’t know if he’s our man,” said Wallander. “In this country a man is innocent until he’s proven guilty. Never forget that.”

  He was uncomfortable about the critical tone of his voice. He thought he’d better make up for it by saying something kind. But he couldn’t think of anything.

  At half past ten Svedberg and his colleague made an undramatic arrest at the hydrofoil terminal. Stig Gustafson was a small man, thin, balding, sunburnt after his holiday.

  Svedberg explained how he was suspected of murder, put the cuffs on him and announced he was being taken to Ystad.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Stig Gustafson. “Why do I have to be handcuffed? Why are you taking me to Ystad? Who am I supposed to have murdered?”

  Svedberg noted that he seemed genuinely surprised. The thought suddenly struck him that marine engineer Gustafson might be innocent.

  At ten minutes to twelve Wallander was sitting opposite Gustafson in an interview room at the Ystad police station. By that time he had already informed the prosecutor, Per Akeson, of the arrest.

  He started by asking if Stig Gustafson would like a cup of coffee.

  “No,” he said. “I want to go home. And I want to know why I’m here.”

  “I want to talk to you,” said Wallander, “and the answers I get will decide whether or not you can go home.”

  He started from the beginning. Wrote down Gustafson’s personal details, noted that his middle name was Emil, and that he was born in Landskrona. The man was obviously nervous, and Wallander could see he was sweating at the roots of his hair. But that did not necessarily mean anything. Police phobia is just as real as snake phobia.

  Then the real interrogation started. Wallander came straight to the point, intrigued to find out what sort of a reaction he would get.

  “You are here to answer questions about a brutal murder,” he said. “The murder of Louise Åkerblom.”

  Wallander saw the man stiffen. Had he not counted on the body being found so soon? wondered Wallander. Or is he genuinely surprised?

  “Louise Åkerblom disappeared last Friday,” he continued. “Her body was found a few days ago. She was probably murdered during the latter part of Friday. What have you to say to that?”

  “Is it the Louise Åkerblom I know?” asked Stig Gustafson.

  Wallander could see he was scared now.

  “Yes,” he said. “The one you got to know through the Methodists.”

  “Has she been murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s terrible!”

  Wallander immediately began to feel a gnawing sensation in his stomach, and knew something was wrong, absolutely damned wrong. Stig Gustafson’s shocked astonishment gave the impression of being completely genuine. Mind you, Wallander knew from his own experience there were perpetrators of the most horrific crimes you could think of who nevertheless had the ability to appear innocent in the most convincing way possible.

  All the same, he could feel that gnawing sensation.

  Had they been following a trail that was cold from the start?

  “I want to know what you were doing last Friday,” said Wallander. “Start by telling me about the afternoon.”

  The answer he got surprised him.

  “I was with the police,” said Stig Gustafson.

  “The police?”

  “Yes. The cops in Malmö. I was flying to Las Palmas the next day. And I’d suddenly realized my passport had run out. I was at the station in Malmö, getting a new passport. The office was already closed by the time I got there, but they were nice and helped me anyway. I got my passport at four o’clock.”

  Deep down Wallander knew from that moment on that Stig Gustafson was out of the picture. Even so, he didn’t seem to want to let go. He had a pressing need to solve this murder as soon as humanly possible. Anyway, it would have been dereliction of duty to allow the interrogation to be governed by his feelings.

  “I parked at Central Station,” added Gustafson. “Then I went to the bar for a beer.”

  “Is there anybody who can prove you were in the bar shortly after four o’clock last Friday?” asked Wallander.

  Stig Gustafson considered for a moment.

  “I don’t know,” he said eventually. “I was sitting on my own. Maybe one of the bartenders will remember me? I very rarely go to the bar, though. I’m not exactly a regular customer.”

  “How long were you there?” asked Wallander.

  “An hour, maybe. No longer.”

  “Until about half past five? Is that right?”

  “I suppose so. I’d planned to go to the liquor store before they closed.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one behind the NK department store. I don’t know the name of the street.”

  “And you went there?”

  “I just bought a few beers.”

  “Can anybody prove you were there?”

  Stig Gustafson shook his head.

  “The man who served me had a red beard,” he said. “But I might still have the receipt. There’s the date on those receipts, isn’t there?”

  “Go on,” said Wallander, nodding.

  “Then I collected the car,” said Stig Gustafson. “I was going to buy a suitcase at the B&W discount warehouse, out at Jägersro.”

  “Is there anybody there who might recognize you?”

  “I didn’t buy a suitcase,” said Stig Gustafson. “They were too expensive. I thought I could manage with my old one. It was a disappointment.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I had a hamburger at the McDonald’s out there. But the servers are only kids. I don’t suppose they’ll remember anything at all.”

  “Young people often have good memories,” said Wallander, thinking of a young bank teller who had been extremely helpful in an investigation some years ago.

  “I’ve just remembered something else,” said Stig Gustafson sudde
nly. “Something that happened while I was at the bar.”

  “Go on.”

  “I went down to the rest room. I stood there talking to a guy for a couple of minutes. He was complaining that there weren’t any paper towels to dry your hands on. He was a bit drunk. Not too much. He said his name was Forsgård and he ran a garden center at Höör.”

  Wallander made a note.

  “We’ll follow that one up,” he said. “If we go back to Mc-Donald’s at Jagersro, the time would have been about half past six, right?”

  “That’s probably about right,” said Stig Gustafson.

  “What did you do next?”

  “I went to Nisse’s to play cards.”

  “Who’s Nisse?”

  “An old carpenter I used to have as a shipmate for many years. His name’s Nisse Strömgren. Lives on Föreningsgatan. We play cards now and then. A game we learned in the Middle East. It’s pretty complicated. But fun once you know it. You have to collect jacks.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “It was probably near midnight by the time I went home. A bit too late, as I was going to have to get up so early. The bus was due to leave at six from Central Station. The bus to Kastrup, that is.”

  Wallander nodded. Stig Gustafson has an alibi, he thought. If what he says is true. And if Louise Åkerblom really was killed last Friday.

  Right now there were not enough grounds to arrest Stig Gustafson. The prosecutor would never agree to it.

  It’s not him, thought Wallander. If I start pressing him on his persecution of Louise Åkerblom, we’ll get nowhere.

  He stood up.

  “Wait here,” he said and left the room.

  They gathered in the conference room and listened gloomily to Wallander’s account.

  “We’ll check up on what he said,” said Wallander. “But to be honest, I no longer think he’s our man. This was a blind alley.”

  “I think you’re jumping the gun,” objected Björk. “We don’t even know for sure she really did die on Friday afternoon. Stig Gustafson could in fact have driven from Lomma to Krageholm after leaving his card-playing pal.”