Faceless Killers - Wallander 01

by Henning Mankell

  Wallander accelerated after he passed the turn-off to Bjare Lake, thinking that it was undoubtedly an old man who was struck by a flare-up of senility. In his many years on the force he had seen more than once how old, lonely people would call the police as a desperate cry for help.

  The squad car was waiting for him at the side road towards Kade Lake. Peters had climbed out and was watching a hare bounding back and forth out in a field. When he saw Wallander approaching in his blue Peugeot, he raised his hand in greeting and got in behind the wheel.

  Wallander followed the police car, the frozen gravel crunching under the tyres. They passed the turn-off towards Trunnerup and continued up a number of steep hills until they came to Lunnarp. They swung onto a narrow dirt road that was hardly more than a tractor rut. After a kilometre they were there. Two farms next to each other, two whitewashed farmhouses, and neatly-tended gardens.

  An elderly man came hurrying towards them. Wallander saw that he was limping, as if one knee was hurting him. When Wallander got out of the car he noticed that the wind had started to blow. Maybe snow was on the way after all. As soon as he saw the old man he knew that something truly unpleasant awaited him. In the man's eyes shone a horror that could not be imaginary.

  "I broke open the door," he repeated feverishly, over and over. "I broke open the door because I had to see. But she'll be dead soon too."

  They went in through the damaged doorframe. Wallander was met by a pungent old-man smell. The wallpaper was fusty, and he was forced to squint to be able to see anything in the dim light.

  "So what happened here?" he asked.

  "In there," replied the old man. Then he started to cry.

  The three policemen looked at each other. Wallander pushed open the door with one foot. It was worse than he had expected. Much worse. Later he would say that it was the worst he had ever seen. And he had seen plenty.

  The couple's bedroom was covered in blood. It had even splashed onto the porcelain lamp hanging from the ceiling. Prostrate across the bed lay an old man with no shirt on and his long underwear pulled down. His face was crushed beyond recognition. It looked as though someone had tried to cut off his nose. His hands were tied behind his back and his left thigh was shattered. The white bone shone against all that red.

  "Oh shit," he heard Norén moan behind him, and Wallander felt nauseated himself.

  "Ambulance," he said, swallowing. "And make it quick."

  Then they bent over the woman, half-lying on the floor, tied to a chair. Whoever had tied her up had rigged a noose around her scrawny neck. She was breathing feebly, and Wallander yelled at Peters to find a knife. They cut the thin rope that was digging deep into her wrists and neck, and laid her gently on the floor. Wallander held her head on his knee.

  He looked at Peters and realised that they were both thinking the same thing. Who could have been cruel enough to do this? Tying a noose on a helpless old woman.

  "Wait outside," said Wallander to the old man sobbing in the doorway. "Wait outside and don't touch anything."

  He could hear that his voice sounded like a roar. I'm yelling because I'm scared, he thought. What kind of world are we living in? Almost 20 minutes passed before the ambulance arrived. The woman's breathing grew more and more irregular, and Wallander began to worry that it might come too late.

  He recognised the ambulance driver, a man called Antonson. His assistant was a young man he had never seen before.

  "Good morning," said Wallander. "He's dead. But the woman here is alive. Try to keep her that way."

  "What happened?" asked Antonson.

  "I hope she'll be able to tell us, if she makes it Hurry up now!"

  When the ambulance had vanished down the road, Wallander and Peters went outside. Norén was wiping his face with a handkerchief. The dawn was approaching. Wallander looked at his wristwatch. It was 7.28 a.m.

  "It's a slaughterhouse in there," said Peters.

  "Worse," replied Wallander. "Call in and request a full team. Tell Norén to seal off the area. I'm going to talk to the old man."

  Just as he said that, he heard something that sounded like a scream. He jumped, and then the scream came again. It was a horse whinnying. They went over to the stable and opened the door. Inside in the dark a horse was rustling in its stall. The place smelled of warm manure and urine.

  "Give the horse some water and hay," said Wallander. "Maybe there are other animals here too."

  When he emerged from the stable he gave a shudder. Crows were screeching in a lone tree far out in a field. He sucked the cold air into his throat and noted that the wind was picking up.

  "Your name is Nyström," he said to the man, who by now had stopped weeping. "You have to help me. If I understand correctly, you live next door."

  The man nodded. "What happened here?" he asked in a quavering voice.

  "That's what I'm hoping you can tell me," said Wallander. "Maybe we could go to your house."

  In the kitchen a woman in an old-fashioned dressing gown sat slumped in a chair crying. But as soon as Wallander introduced himself she got up and started to make coffee. The men sat down at the kitchen table. Wallander noticed Christmas decorations still hanging in the window. An old cat lay on the windowsill, staring at him without blinking. He reached out his hand to pat it.

  "He bites," said Nyström. "He's not used to people. Except for Hanna and me."

  Wallander thought of his own wife, who had left him and wondered where to begin. A bestial murder, he thought. And if we're really unlucky, it'll be a double murder. Something occurred to him. He knocked on the kitchen window to get Norén's attention.

  "Excuse me for a moment," he said, getting up.

  "The horse had both water and hay," said Norén. "There aren't any other animals."

  "See that someone goes over to the hospital," said Wallander. "In case she wakes up and says something. She must have seen everything."

  Norén nodded.

  "Send somebody with good ears," said Wallander. "Preferably someone who can lip-read."

  When he came back into the kitchen he took off his overcoat and laid it on the sofa.

  "Now tell me," he said. "Tell me, and leave nothing out. Take your time."

  After two cups of weak coffee he could see that neither

  Nyström nor his wife had anything significant to tell. He got the chronology of events, and the life story of the couple who had been attacked. He had two questions left to ask them.

  "Do you know if they kept any large sums of money in the house?" he asked.

  "No," said Nyström. "They put everything in the bank. Their pensions too. And they weren't rich. When they sold off the fields and the animals and the machinery, they gave the money to their children."

  The second question seemed futile. But he asked it anyway. In this situation he had no choice.

  "Do you know if they had any enemies?" he asked.

  "Enemies?"

  "Anybody who might possibly have done this?"

  They didn't seem to understand the question. He repeated it. The two old people looked at each other, bewildered.

  "People like us don't have enemies," the man replied, sounding offended. "Sometimes we quarrel with each other. About the upkeep of a wagon path, or the location of the field boundaries. But we don't kill each other."

  Wallander nodded.

  "I'll be in touch again soon," he said, getting up and taking his coat. "If you think of anything else, don't hesitate to call the police. Ask for me, Inspector Wallander."

  "What if they come back ... ?" asked the old woman.

  Wallander shook his head.

  "They won't," he said. "It was probably robbers. They never come back. There's nothing for you to worry about."

  He thought that he ought to say something more to reassure them. But what? What security could he offer to people who had just seen their close neighbour brutally murdered? Who had to wait and see whether his wife was also going to die?

  "The horse,"
he said. "Who will feed it?"

  "We will," replied the old man. "We'll see that she gets what she needs."

  Wallander went outside into the cold dawn. The wind was stronger, and he hunched his shoulders as he walked towards his car. He knew he ought to remain and give the crime-scene technicians a hand. But he was freezing and feeling lousy and didn't want to stay any longer. Besides, he saw through the window that it was Rydberg who had come with the team's car. That meant that the technicians wouldn't finish their work until they had turned over and inspected every lump of clay. Rydberg, who was supposed to retire in a couple of years, was a passionate policeman. He might appear pedantic and slow, but his presence was a guarantee that a crime scene would be treated the way it should be.

  Rydberg had rheumatism and used a cane. Now he came limping across the yard towards Wallander.

  "It's not pretty," Rydberg said. "It looks like a slaughterhouse in there."

  "You're not the first to say that," said Wallander.

  Rydberg looked serious. "Have we got any leads?"

  Wallander shook his head.

  "Nothing at all?" There was something of an entreaty in Rydberg's voice.

  "The neighbours didn't hear or see anything. I think it was ordinary robbers."

  "You call this insane brutality ordinary?"

  Rydberg was upset, and Wallander regretted his choice of words. "I meant, of course, that it was particularly fiendish individuals who did this last night. The kind who make their living picking outfarms in isolated locations where lonely old people live."

  "We have to find these people," said Rydberg. "Before they strike again."

  "You're right," said Wallander. "Even if we don't catch anyone else this year."

  He got into his car and drove off. On the narrow farm road he almost collided with a car coming around a curve towards him at high speed. He recognised the man driving. It was a reporter for one of the big national papers, who always showed up when something of more than local interest happened in the Ystad area.

  Wallander drove back and forth through Lunnarp a few times. There were lights in the windows, but no-one was out and about. What were they going to think when they found out?

  He was feeling uneasy. Being confronted with the old woman with the noose around her neck had shaken him. The cruelty of it was unthinkable. Who would do something like that? Why not hit her over the head with an axe so it would all be over in an instant? Why torture her?

  He tried to plan the investigation in his head as he drove slowly through the village. At the crossroads towards Blentarp he stopped, turned up the heat in the car because he was cold, and then sat motionless, gazing off towards the horizon.

  He was the one who would have to lead the investigation, he knew that. No-one else was even possible. After Rydberg, he was the criminal detective in Ystad who had the most experience, despite the fact that he was only 42 years old.

  Much of the investigative work would be routine. Examining the scene of the crime, questioning people in Lunnarp and along the escape routes the robbers might have taken. Had anyone seen anything suspicious? Anything unusual? The questions were already running through his mind. But Wallander knew from experience that farm robberies were often difficult to solve. What he could hope for was that the old woman would survive. She had seen what happened. She knew. But if she died, a double murder would be even harder to solve.

  He felt uneasy. Under normal circumstances this unease would have spurred him to greater energy and activity. Since these were the prerequisites for all police work, he had imagined that he was a good policeman. But right now he felt uncertain and tired. He forced himself to shift into first gear. The car rolled a few metres. Then he stopped again. It was as if he only now realised what he had witnessed on that frozen winter morning.

  The senselessness and savagery of the attack on the helpless couple scared him. Something had happened that shouldn't have, not here. He looked out of the car window. The wind was rushing and whistling around the doors. I have to get started, he thought. It's as Rydberg said: we've got to find whoever did this.

  He drove directly to the hospital in Ystad and took the lift up to the intensive care unit. In the corridor he immediately recognised the young police cadet Martinsson sitting on a chair outside one of the rooms. Wallander could feel himself getting annoyed. Was there really no-one else available to send to the hospital but a young, inexperienced cadet? And why was he sitting outside the door? Why wasn't he sitting at the bedside, ready to catch the slightest whisper from the brutalised woman?

  "Hello," said Wallander, "how is she?"

  "She's unconscious," replied Martinsson. "The doctors don't seem too hopeful."

  "Why are you sitting out here? Why aren't you in the room?"

  "They said they'd tell me if anything happened."

  Wallander noticed that Martinsson was starting to feel unsure of himself.

  I sound like a grumpy schoolteacher, he thought. Carefully he pushed open the door and looked in. Various machines were sucking and pumping in death's waiting room. Tubes undulated like transparent worms along the walls. A nurse was standing there reading a chart.

  "You can't come in here," she said sharply.

  "I'm a police inspector," replied Wallander feebly. "I just wanted to hear how she's doing."

  "You've been asked to wait outside," said the nurse.

  Before he could answer, a doctor came rushing into the room. Wallander thought he looked surprisingly young.

  "We would prefer not to have any unauthorised persons in here," said the doctor when he caught sight of Wallander.

  "I'm leaving. But I just wanted to hear how she's doing. My name is Wallander, and I'm a police inspector. Homicide," he added, not sure whether that made any difference. "I'm heading the investigation into the person or persons who did this. How is she?"

  "It's amazing that she's still alive," said the doctor, nodding to Wallander to step over to the bed. "We can't tell yet the extent of the internal injuries she may have suffered. First we have to see whether she survives. But her windpipe has been severely traumatised. As if someone had tried to strangle her."

  "That's exactly what happened," said Wallander, looking at the thin face visible among the sheets and tubes.

  "She should have died," said the doctor.

  "I hope she survives," said Wallander. "She's the only witness we've got."

  "We hope all our patients survive," replied the doctor sternly, studying a monitor where green lines moved in uninterrupted waves.

  Wallander left the room after the doctor insisted that he could tell him nothing more. The prognosis was uncertain. Maria Lövgren might die without regaining consciousness. There was no way to know.

  "Can you Hp-read?" Wallander asked the cadet.

  "No," Martinsson replied in surprise.

  "That's too bad," said Wallander, and left.

  From the hospital he drove to the brown police station that lay on the road out towards the east end of town. He sat down at his desk and looked out of the window, over at the old red water tower.

  Maybe the times require another kind of policeman, he thought. Policemen who aren't distressed when they're forced to go into a human slaughterhouse in the Swedish countryside early on a January morning. Policemen who don't suffer from my uncertainty and anguish.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the telephone. The hospital, he thought at once. They're calling to say that Maria Lövgren is dead. But did she wake up? Did she say anything? He stared at the ringing telephone. Damn, he thought. Damn. Anything but that.

  But when he picked up the receiver, it was his daughter. He gave a start and almost dropped the phone on the floor.

  "Papa," she said, and he heard the coin dropping into the pay phone.

  "Hello," he said. "Where are you calling from?"

  Just so long as it's not Lima, he thought. Or Katmandu. Or Kinshasa.

  "I'm here in Ystad."

  He felt happy. That mean
t he'd get to see her.

  "I came to visit you," she said. "But I've changed my plans. I'm at the train station. I'm leaving now. I just wanted to tell you that at least I thought about seeing you."

  Then the conversation was cut off, and he was left sitting there with the receiver in his hand. It was like holding something dead, something hacked off. That damned kid, he thought. Why does she do things like this?

  His daughter Linda was 19. Until she was 15 their relationship had been good. She came to him rather than to her mother when she had a problem or when there was something she really wanted to do but didn't quite dare. He had seen her metamorphose from a chubby little girl to a young woman with a defiant beauty. Before she was 15, she never gave any hint that she was carrying around secret demons that one day would drive her into a precarious and inscrutable landscape.

  One spring day, soon after her 15th birthday, Linda had without warning tried to commit suicide. It happened on a Saturday afternoon. Wallander had been fixing one of the garden chairs and his wife was washing the windows. He had put down his hammer and gone into the house, driven by a sudden unease. Linda was lying on the bed in her room. She had used a razor to cut her wrists and her throat. Afterwards, when it was all over, the doctor told Wallander that she would have died if he hadn't come in when he did and had the presence of mind to apply pressure bandages.

  He couldn't get over the shock. All contact between him and Linda was broken off. She pulled away, and he never managed to understand what had driven her to attempt suicide. When she finished school she took a string of odd jobs, and would abruptly disappear for long periods of time. Twice his wife had pressed him to report her missing. His colleagues had seen his pain when Linda became the subject of his own investigation. But then she would reappear, and the only way he could follow her travels was to go through her pockets and leaf through her passport on the sly.