The White Lioness kw-3

by Henning Mankell

  “570503-0370,” he said.

  Wallander closed his notebook.

  “You were right to tell me about this,” he said. “I’d have found out about it sooner or later, anyway. This way, we save time.”

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Tureson suddenly exclaimed.

  “I don’t know,” said Wallander. “To be absolutely honest with you, I just don’t know the answer to that question.”

  Wallander shook hands with the minister and left the church. It was a quarter past twelve.

  Now, he thought, at last I have something to go on.

  He almost ran to his car and drove straight to the station. He hurried up to his office in order to summon his colleagues to a meeting. Just as he was sitting down at his desk, the phone rang. It was Nyberg, who was still rummaging through the ashes.

  “Found something new?” asked Wallander.

  “No,” said Nyberg. “But I’ve just realized what the make on the handgun is. The one we found the butt of.”

  “I’m writing it down,” said Wallander, taking out his notebook.

  “I was right when I said it was an unusual pistol,” Nyberg went on. “I doubt if there are many of them in this country.”

  “So much the better,” said Wallander, “Makes it easier to trace.”

  “It’s a 9mm Astra Constable,” said Nyberg. “I saw one at a gun show in Frankfurt once upon a time. I’ve got a pretty good memory for guns.”

  “Where is it made?” asked Wallander.

  “That’s what so odd about it,” said Nyberg. “As far as I know, it’s only manufactured legally in one country.”

  “Which?”

  “South Africa.”

  Wallander put his pen down.

  “South Africa?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I can’t tell you why a particular gun is popular in one country but not in another. It just is.”

  “Damn it. South Africa?”

  “There’s no denying it gives us a link to that finger we found.”

  “What’s a South African pistol doing in this country?”

  “That’s your job to find out,” said Nyberg.

  “OK,” said Wallander. “It’s good that you called me right away. We’ll talk about this again later.”

  “I just thought you’d want to know,” said Nyberg, and hung up.

  Wallander got out of his chair and went over to the window.

  A couple of minutes later, he’d made up his mind.

  They’d give priority to finding Louise Akerblom and checking out Stig Gustafson. Everything else would have to take a back seat for the time being.

  This is as far as we’ve gotten, thought Wallander. This is as far as we’ve gotten, a hundred and seventeen hours after Louise Akerblom disappeared.

  He picked up the telephone.

  Suddenly he didn’t feel the slightest bit tired.

  Chapter Six

  Peter Hanson was a thief.

  He was not a particularly successful criminal, but he usually managed to execute the assignments allocated to him by his employer and customer, a fence in Malmo by the name of Morell.

  That very day, the morning of Walpurgis Eve, April 30, Morell’s stock was at a pretty low ebb with Hanson. He planned to take the day off, like everyone else, and maybe treat himself to a trip to Copenhagen. Late the previous night, however, Morell called to say he had an urgent job for Peter Hanson.

  “I want you to get hold of four water pumps,” Morell said. “The old-fashioned sort. The kind you can see outside every cottage in the countryside.”

  “Surely it can wait until after the holiday,” Peter Hanson objected. He was already asleep when Morell called, and he did not like being woken up.

  “It can’t wait,” said Morell. “There’s a guy who lives in Spain, and he’s driving there the day after tomorrow. He wants those pumps in the car with him. He sells them to other Swedish residents down there. They are sentimental, and pay good money to have old Swedish water pumps outside their haciendas.”

  “How the hell am I going to get hold of four water pumps?” Peter Hanson asked. “Have you forgotten it’s a holiday? Every summer cottage will be occupied tomorrow.”

  “That’s your problem,” Morell replied. “Start early enough and you’ll manage it.”

  Then he turned threatening.

  “If you don’t, I’ll be forced to go through my papers and work out how much your brother owes me,” he said.

  Peter Hanson slammed down the phone. He knew Morell would take that as a positive reply. As he had been woken up and would not be able to get to sleep again for ages, he got dressed and drove down to town from Rosengard, where he lived. He went into a bar and ordered a beer.

  Peter Hanson had a brother called Jan-Olof. He was Peter Hanson’s big misfortune in life. Jan-Olof played the ponies at Jagersro, at the Tote, and occasionally also at other trotting tracks up and down the country. He did a lot of betting, and he did it badly. He lost more than he could afford, and ended up in Morell’s hands. As he could not provide any guarantees, Peter Hanson had been forced to step in as a living guarantee.

  Morell was first and foremost a fence. In recent years, however, he had realized that, like all other businessmen, he would have to make up his mind how to develop his future activities. Either he would have to specialize and concentrate on a smaller field, or he could broaden his base. He chose the latter.

  Although he had a big network of customers who could give very precise information about the goods they ordered, he decided to go in for loan-sharking as well. That way, he figured he could increase his turnover considerably.

  Morell was just turned fifty. After twenty years in the fraud business, he had changed course and since the end of the 1970s had built up a successful receiving empire across southern Sweden. He had about thirty thieves and drivers on his secret payroll, and every week truckloads of stolen goods would be transported to his warehouse in the Malmo free port, ready for moving on to foreign importers. He collected stereos, televisions, and mobile telephones from Smaland. Caravans of stolen cars came rolling up from Halland and were passed on to expectant buyers in Poland and, nowadays, the former East Germany. He could see an important new market ready to be opened up in the Baltic states, and he had already delivered a few luxury cars to Czechoslovakia as well. Peter Hanson was one of the least important cogs in his organization. Morell was still doubtful about how good he was, and used him mostly for the occasional one-off deal. Four water pumps was an ideal assignment for him.

  That was why Peter Morell was sitting cursing in his car on the morning of Walpurgis Eve. Morell had ruined his holiday. He was also worried about the assignment he had taken on. There were too many people on the move for him to be confident of working undisturbed.

  Peter Hanson was born in Horby, and knew Skane inside out. There was not the tiniest of side roads in this part of the country he had not been on, and his memory was good. He had been working for Morell for four years now, ever since he was nineteen. He sometimes thought about all the things he had loaded into his rusty old van. He once rustled two young bulls. Orders for pigs were common around Christmas time. Several times he had acquired a few tombstones, and wondered what kind of a sick person ordered those. He had carried off front doors while the house owner was asleep upstairs, and dismantled a church spire with the assistance of a crane operator brought in for the purpose. Water pumps were nothing unusual. But it was an unfortunate choice of day.

  He decided to start in the area to the east of Sturup airport. He banished all thought of Osterlen. Every single second home would be occupied today.

  If he was going to make it, he’d have to concentrate on the area between Sturup, Horby, and Ystad. There were quite a few empty houses around there, and with luck he might be able to work undisturbed.

  Just beyond Krageholm, on a little dirt road winding through the woods and eventually hitting the main road at Sovde, h
e found his first pump. The house had almost collapsed, and was well hidden from view. The pump was rusty, but intact. He started working it loose from the wooden base with a crowbar, but the wood was rotten. He dropped the crowbar and tugged at the pump, easing it away from the boards over the well itself. He began to think that maybe it wouldn’t be impossible to find four pumps for Morell after all. Three more deserted houses, and he could be back in Malmo by early afternoon. It was still only ten past eight. Maybe he would be able to nip over to Copenhagen that evening after all.

  Then he broke loose the rusty pump.

  As a result, the wooden boards crumbled and fell away.

  He glanced down into the well.

  There was something down there in the darkness. Something light yellow.

  He realized to his horror that it was a human head with blond hair.

  There was a woman lying there.

  A corpse doubled up, twisted, deformed.

  He dropped the pump and ran away. He drove off at a crazy speed, getting away from the deserted house as fast as possible. After a few kilometers, just before he got to Sovde, he braked, opened the car door, and threw up.

  Then he tried to think. He knew he had not imagined it all. There was a woman down the well.

  A woman lying in a well must have been murdered, he thought.

  Then it occurred to him he’d left his fingerprints on the water pump he’d broken off.

  His fingerprints were in the files.

  Morell, he thought, all confused. Morell’s the man to sort this one out.

  He drove through Sovde, far too fast, then took a left southwards towards Ystad. He would drive back to Malmo and let Morell see to everything. The guy leaving for Spain would have to go without his pumps.

  Just before he got to the turnoff for the Ystad garbage dump, his journey came to an end. He went into a skid as he tried to light a cigarette with his shaking hands, and could only partially correct it. The van crashed into a fence, smashed through a row of mailboxes, and came to a stop. Peter Hanson was wearing a seat belt, which prevented him from shooting through the windshield. Even so, the crash dazed him, and he remained in his seat, in shock.

  A man mowing his lawn had seen what happened. He first ran over the road to make sure nobody had been badly injured, then he hurried back to his house, called the police, and stood by the car to make sure the man behind the wheel did not try to run away. He must be drunk, he assumed. Why else would he lose control on a stretch of straight road?

  A quarter of an hour later, a patrol car arrived from Ystad. Peters and Noren, two of the most experienced cops in the district, had taken the call. Once they had established that no one was injured, Peters started directing traffic past the scene of the accident, while Noren sat beside Peter Hanson in the back of the police car, to try and find out what happened. Noren made him blow into the booze bag, but the result was negative. The man seemed very confused, and not in the least interested in explaining how the accident happened. Noren was starting to think the man was mentally deranged. He was talking disjointedly about water pumps, a fence in Malmo, and an empty house with a well.

  “There’s a woman in the well,” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” said Noren. “A woman in a well?”

  “She was dead,” mumbled Hanson.

  Noren suddenly started to feel uneasy. What was the man trying to say? That he’d found a dead woman in a well at a deserted house?

  Noren told the man to stay in the car. Then he hurried out into the road where Peters was keeping the traffic moving and waving on curious drivers who slowed down and showed signs of stopping.

  “He claims he’s found a dead woman in a well,” said Noren. “With blond hair.”

  Peters dropped his arms to his side.

  “Louise Akerblom?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s true.”

  “Get hold of Wallander,” said Peters. “Right away.”

  The mood among the detectives in the Ystad police station this Walpurgis Eve morning was expectant. They had gathered in the conference room at eight, and Bjork rushed through the business. He had other things besides a missing woman to think about on a day like this. It was traditionally one of the most unruly days in the whole year, and there was a lot to do in preparation for the fun and games they could expect that evening and into the night.

  The whole meeting was devoted to Stig Gustafson. Wallander had set his troops looking for the former marine engineer all Thursday afternoon and evening. When he reported on his conversation with Pastor Tureson, everybody thought they were on the threshold of a breakthrough. They also realized that the severed finger and the blown-up house would have to wait. Martinson had even been of the view that it was pure coincidence after all. That there simply was no connection between the incidents.

  “This kind of thing has happened before,” he said. “We’ve raided an illegal home distillery, and found an Aladdin’s cave in a neighbor’s house when we stopped to ask the way”

  By Friday morning they still had not succeeded in finding out where Stig Gustafson lived.

  “We have to crack this today,” said Wallander. “Maybe we won’t find him. But if we get his address, we can establish whether he’s gone off in a hurry.”

  At that very moment, the telephone rang. Bjork grabbed the receiver, listened briefly, then handed it to Wallander.

  “It’s Noren,” he said. “He’s at a car accident somewhere outside of town.”

  “Somebody else can take it,” said Wallander, annoyed.

  He took the receiver nevertheless, and listened to what Noren had to say. Martinson and Svedberg were well acquainted with Wallander’s reactions and adept at picking up the slightest change in his mood, and they could see right away that the call was important.

  Wallander replaced the receiver slowly, and looked at his colleagues.

  “Noren’s at the junction with the road leading to the garbage dump,” he said. “There’s been a minor car accident. They have a guy who claims he’s found a dead woman stuffed down a well.”

  They waited anxiously to hear what Wallander had to say next.

  “If I understood it rightly,” said Wallander, “this well is less than five kilometers from the property Louise Akerblom was going to inspect. And even closer to the pond where we found her car.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then they all got to their feet at the same time.

  “Do you want a full-scale call-out right away?” asked Bjork.

  “No,” said Wallander. “We’ve got to get it confirmed first. Noren warned us not to get overexcited. He thought the man seemed very confused.”

  “So would I have been,” said Svedberg. “If I’d first of all found a dead woman in a well, then driven off the road.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” said Wallander.

  They left Ystad in patrol cars. Wallander had Svedberg with him, while Martinson had a car to himself. When they got to the northern exit road, Wallander switched on the siren. Svedberg stared at him in surprise.

  “There’s hardly any traffic,” he said.

  “Even so,” said Wallander.

  They stopped at the turnoff to the garbage dump, put the ashen Peter Hanson in the back seat, and followed his directions.

  “It wasn’t me,” he said, over and over again.

  “Who did what?” asked Wallander.

  “I didn’t kill her,” he said.

  “What were you doing there, then?” asked Wallander.

  “I was only going to steal the pump.”

  Wallander and Svedberg exchanged glances.

  “Morell called late last night and ordered four water pumps,” muttered Hanson. “But I didn’t kill her.”

  Wallander was lost. The penny suddenly dropped for Svedberg, and he explained.

  “I think I get it,” he said. “There is a notorious fence in Malmo called Morell. He’s notorious because our colleagues in town have never been able to pin anythi
ng onto him.”

  “Water pumps?” Wallander was suspicious.

  “Antique value,” said Svedberg.

  They drove into the yard in front of the deserted house. Wallander had time to register that it looked like a nice day for the holiday. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, not a puff of wind, and it must be at least 60 degrees, even though it was only nine o’clock.

  He contemplated the well and the broken-off pump lying beside it. Then he took a deep breath, went up to the well, and looked down.

  Martinson and Svedberg were waiting in the background, with Peter Hanson.

  Wallander could see right away that it was Louise Akerblom.

  Even in death, there was a fixed smile on her face.

  He suddenly felt very ill. He turned away quickly and sat on his haunches.

  Martinson and Svedberg approached the well. Both of them jerked back violently.

  “Damn,” said Martinson.

  Wallander swallowed and forced himself to breath deeply. He thought of Louise Akerblom’s daughters. And of Robert Akerblom. He wondered how they would be able to keep on believing in a good and all-powerful God when their mother and wife had been murdered and shoved down a well.

  He stood up and went back to the well.

  “It’s her,” he said. “No doubt about it.”

  Martinson ran to his car, called Bjork, and requested a full-scale emergency call-out. They would need the fire brigade to get Louise Akerblom’s body out of the well. Wallander sat down with Peter Hanson on the dilapidated veranda, and listened to his story. He occasionally asked questions, and nodded when Peter Hanson answered. He could tell already that Hanson was telling the truth. In fact, the police had reason to be grateful that he had set out that morning to steal old water pumps. If he hadn’t, it could have been a very long time before they found Louise Akerblom.

  “Take down his personal details,” said Wallander to Svedberg, when he had finished talking to Peter Hanson. “Then let him go. But make sure that Morell guy backs up his story.”

  Svedberg nodded.

  “Who’s the prosecutor on duty?” Wallander wondered.

  “I think Bjork said it was Per Akeson,” replied Svedberg.