Faceless Killers kw-1

by Henning Mankell

  "We've got a good deal to go on," said Wallander. "We'll have to work hard.""I've got good news for you too.""I was hoping you would."

  "Our colleagues in Solvesborg found Nils Velander. Apparently he has a boat at a shipyard that he goes and works on once in a while. The transcript of the interview is coming tomorrow, but they told me the key things. He claims that he earned the money in the plastic bag from his underwear business. And he agreed to exchange the notes for new ones, so we can check for fingerprints."

  "I'll have to visit the Union Bank here in Ystad," said Wallander. "We need to find out whether the serial numbers can be traced."

  "The money is arriving tomorrow. But honestly, I don't think he's the one."

  "Why not?" "I don't know."

  "I thought you said you had good news?" "I do. Now I'm getting to the third woman. I didn't think you'd mind if I looked her up by myself." "Of course not."

  "As you recall, her name is Ellen Magnusson. She's 60 and she works at one of the chemists here in Kristianstad. I had in fact met her once before. Several years ago she ran over and killed a road worker. That was outside the airport at Everod. She said that she had been blinded by the sun, which was no doubt true. In 1955 she had a son and listed the father as unknown. The son's name is Erik, and he lives in Malmö. He's a civil servant at the county council. I drove out to her house. She seemed frightened and upset, as if she'd been waiting for the police to turn up. She denied that Johannes Lövgren was the father of her boy. But I had a strong feeling that she was lying. If you trust my judgement, I'd like to focus on her. But of course I won't exclude the bird dealer and his mother."

  "For the next 24 hours I doubt I'll be able to do much beyond what I'm working on right now," said Wallander. "I'm grateful for all the time you're devoting to this."

  "I'll send over the papers," said Boman. "And the money. I assume you'll have to give us a receipt for them."

  "When all this is over we'll sit down and have that whisky," said Wallander.

  "There's going to be a conference at Snogeholm Castle in March on the new narcotics routes in Eastern Europe," said Boman. "How would that be?""That sounds fine," said Wallander.They hung up, and he went over to Martinsson's room

  to hear whether any information had come in on the Citroen.Martinsson shook his head. Nothing yet.

  Wallander went back to his office and put his feet up on his desk. It was 11.30 p.m. Slowly he let his thoughts take shape. First he methodically played out in his mind the murder outside the refugee camp. Had he forgotten anything? Was there any gap in Rydberg's account of what had happened, or something else that they ought to be working on right away?

  He concluded that the investigation was rolling along as efficiently as could be expected. All they had to do now was wait for the various technical analyses and hope that the car could be traced. He shifted in his chair, loosened his tie, and thought about what Boman had told him. He had full confidence in his judgement. If Boman felt the woman was lying, then that was undoubtedly the case. But why was he going so easy on Nils Velander?

  He took his feet down from the desk and pulled over a blank sheet of paper. He made a list of everything he had to do in the next few days. He decided to try to get the Union Bank to open its doors for him tomorrow, even though it was Saturday.

  When he finished his list, he stood up and stretched. It was just after midnight. Out in the corridor he could hear Hansson talking with Martinsson, but he couldn't hear what they were saying.

  Outside the window a streetlight was swaying in the wind. He felt sweaty and dirty and considered taking a shower downstairs in the changing room. He opened the window and breathed in the cold air.

  He felt restless. How would they be able to stop the murderer from striking again?

  The next one was to be a woman, in retribution for Maria Lövgren's death. He sat down at his desk and pulled over the folder with the data on the refugee camps in Skåne.

  It was improbable that the murderer would return to Hageholm. But there were any number of alternatives. And if the murderer was going to select his victim as randomly as he had at Hageholm, they had even less to go on. Besides, it was impossible to require the refugees to stay indoors.

  He shoved the folder aside and rolled a sheet of paper into his typewriter. He thought he might as well write his memo to Björk. Just then the door opened and Svedberg came in."News?" asked Wallander."You might call it that," said Svedberg, looking unhappy. "What is it?"

  "I don't quite know how to tell you. But we just got a call from a farmer out by Loderup." "Did he see the Citroen?"

  "No. But he claimed that your father was walking around out in the fields in his pyjamas. With a suitcase in his hand."

  Wallander was stunned. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "The farmer sounds lucid enough. It was you he actually wanted to talk to. But the switchboard put it through to me by mistake. I thought you ought to decide what to do."Wallander sat quite still, his expression blank.

  Then he stood up. "Where?" he asked.

  "It sounded like your father was walking down by the main highway."

  "I'll handle this myself. I'll be back as soon as I can. Call me if anything happens.""Do you want me or somebody else to go along?"

  Wallander shook his head.

  "My father is senile," he said. "I have to see about getting him into a home somewhere."

  Just as Wallander was going out the main doors, he noticed a man standing in the shadows outside. He recognised him as a reporter from one of the afternoon papers."I don't want him following me," he told Svedberg.

  Svedberg nodded. "Wait till you see me back out and stall in front of his car. Then you can get away."

  Wallander waited. He saw the reporter making rapidly for his car. Seconds later, Svedberg drove up and turned off his ignition, blocking the reporter's way. Wallander drove away.

  He drove fast. Much too fast. He ignored the speed limit through Sandskogen. He was alone. Hares fled terrified across the rain-slicked road.

  When he reached the village where his father lived, he didn't even have to look for him. He caught the old man in his headlights, in his blue-trimmed pyjamas, squishing barefoot through a field. He was wearing his old hat and carrying a big suitcase. When the headlights blinded him, his father held his hand in front of his eyes in annoyance. Then he kept on walking. Energetically, as if on his way to some specific destination.

  Wallander turned off his engine but left the headlights on and walked out into the field."Dad!" he yelled. "What the hell are you doing?"

  His father didn't answer but kept going. Wallander followed him. He tripped and fell and got wet up to his waist"Dad!" he shouted again. "Stop! Where are you going?"

  No answer. His father seemed to pick up speed. Soon they would be down by the main highway. Wallander ran and stumbled to catch up with him, grabbing him by the arm. But his father pulled away and kept going.

  Wallander got angry. "Police," he yelled. "If you don't stop, we'll fire a warning shot."

  His father stopped and turned around. Wallander saw him blinking in the glare of the headlights.

  "What did I tell you?" the old man screamed. "You want to kill me!"

  Then he flung his suitcase at Wallander. The lid flew open and revealed the contents: dirty underwear, tubes of paint, and brushes. Wallander felt a huge sadness well up inside him. His father had tramped out into the night with the bewildered notion that he was on his way to Italy.

  "Calm down, Dad," he said. "I just thought I'd drive you down to the railway station. Then you won't have to walk."

  His father gave him a sceptical look. "I don't believe you," he said.

  "Of course I'd drive my own father to the station if he's going on a journey."

  Wallander picked up the suitcase, closed the lid, and started for the car. He put the bag in the boot and stood waiting. His father looked like a wild beast caught in the headlights. An animal chased to exhaustion, waiting
for the fetal shot.

  He started to walk towards the car. Wallander couldn't decide whether what he saw was an expression of dignity or humiliation. He opened the rear door and his father crawled in. Wallander had taken a blanket from the boot, and now he wrapped it around his father's shoulders.

  He gave a start when a man stepped out of the shadows. An old man, dressed in dirty overalls.

  "I'm the one who telephoned," said the man. "How's it going?"

  "Everything's fine," replied Wallander. "And thanks for the call.""It was pure chance that I saw him." "I understand. Thanks again."

  He got behind the wheel. When he turned his head he could see that his father was so cold he was shaking beneath the blanket.

  "Now I'll drive you to the station, Dad," he said. "It won't take long."

  He drove straight to the emergency entrance of the hospital. He was lucky enough to run into the young doctor he had met at Maria Lövgren's deathbed. He explained what had happened.

  "We'll admit him overnight for observation," said the doctor. "He may be suffering from exposure. Tomorrow the social worker will try to find a place for him.""Thank you," said Wallander. ‘I’ll stay with him a while."His father had been dried off and was lying on a stretcher."Sleeping car to Italy," he said. "I'm finally on my way."Wallander sat on a chair next to the stretcher."That's right," he said. "Now you'll get to Italy."

  It was past 2 a.m. when he left the hospital. He drove the short distance to the station. Everyone except Hansson had gone home. Hansson was watching the taped discussion programme with the chief of the national police."Anything going on?" asked Wallander.

  "Not a thing," said Hansson. "A few tip-offs, of course. But nothing earthshaking. I took the liberty of sending people home to get a few hours' sleep.""That's good. Funny mat nobody has called about the car."

  "I was just thinking that. Maybe he just drove out on the E65 a littie way and then took off on one of the back roads.

  I've looked at the maps. There's a whole maze of little roads in that area. Plus a big nature reserve, where no-one goes in the winter. The patrols that check the camps are running a fine-tooth comb over those roads tonight." Wallander nodded.

  "We'll send in a helicopter when it gets light," he said. "The car might be hidden somewhere in that nature reserve." He poured a cup of coffee.

  "Svedberg told me about your father," said Hansson. "How did it go?"

  "It went all right. The old boy is going senile. He's at the hospital. But it was OK.""Go home and sleep for a few hours. You look exhausted.""I've got some things to write up."Hansson turned off the video."I'll stretch out on the sofa for a while," he said.

  Wallander went into his office and sat down at the typewriter. His eyes stung with fatigue. And yet the weariness brought with it an unexpected clarity. A double murder is committed, he thought. And the manhunt triggers another murder. Which we have to solve fast, so as to prevent more murders. All this has happened in less than a week.

  He wrote his memo to Björk, deciding to make sure that it was delivered to him by hand at the airport. He yawned. It was 3.45 a.m. He was too tired to think about his father. He was only afraid that the social worker at the hospital wouldn't be able to come up with a good solution.

  The note with his sister's name on it was still sticking to the telephone. In a few hours, when it was morning, he would have to call her.

  He yawned again and sniffed his armpits. He stank. Just then Hansson appeared in the half-open door. Wallander saw at once that something had happened.

  "We've got something," said Hansson. "What?"

  "A guy from Malmö just called and said his car has been stolen." "A Citroen?" Hansson nodded.

  "How come he discovers it at four o'clock in the morning?""He said he was leaving to go to a trade fair in Goteborg.""Did he report this to our colleagues in Malmö?"Hansson nodded. Wallander grabbed the phone."Then let's get moving," he said.

  The police in Malmö promised to speed up their interrogation of the man. The registration number of the stolen car, the model, year and colour were already being sent all over the country.

  "BBM 160," said Hansson. "A dove-blue turtle with a white roof. How many of those can there be in this country? A hundred?"

  "If the car isn't buried, we'll find it," said Wallander. "What time is sunrise?""Around eight or nine o'clock," replied Hansson.

  "As soon as it gets light we need a helicopter over the reserve. You take care of that."

  Hansson nodded. He was just leaving the room when he stopped."Damn it! There was one more thing."

  "Yes?"

  "The man who called and said that his car was stolen. He was a policeman." Wallander gave Hansson a puzzled look. "A policeman? What do you mean?" "I mean that he was a policeman. Like you and me."

  CHAPTER 11

  Wallander went into one of the holding cells in the station and lay down for a nap. After a great deal of effort, he managed to set the alarm function on his watch. He was going to allow himself to sleep for two hours. When the beeping sound on his wrist woke him up, he had a slight headache. The first thing he thought about was his father. He took a few aspirin out of the first aid kit he found in a cupboard and washed them down with a cup of lukewarm coffee. Then he hesitated, trying to decide whether he should take a shower first or call his sister in Stockholm.

  Finally he went down to the changing room and got into the shower. Slowly his headache evaporated. But he felt weighed down with weariness as he sank into the chair behind his desk. It was 7.15 a.m. His sister was always up early. She picked up the phone almost as soon as it started ringing. As gently as possible he told her what had happened.

  "Why didn't you call me before?" she asked indignantly. "You must have noticed what was going on.""I guess I noticed too late," he replied warily.

  They agreed that she would wait until after he had spoken to the social worker before she decided when to come to Skåne.

  "How are Mona and Linda?" she asked as the conversation was drawing to a close.

  It dawned on him that she didn't know about the separation.

  "Fine," he said. ‘I’ll call you later."

  He drove to the hospital. The temperature had fallen below freezing again. An icy wind was blowing through the town from the southwest.

  A nurse, who had just received a report from the night staff, told Wallander that his father had slept fitfully. But he had not suffered from his night-time promenade through the fields. Wallander decided to see the social worker first.

  Wallander distrusted social workers. All too often in his career he had encountered welfare people, called in when the police had caught juvenile offenders with misguided views on what action should be taken. Social workers were often too soft and yielding when they ought in his opinion to be making tough decisions. More than once he had raged at the welfare authorities because he felt that their pussy-footing encouraged young criminals to continue their activities.

  Maybe this one is different, he thought. After a short wait he was greeted by a woman in her 50s. Wallander described his father's sudden decline. How unexpected it was, how helpless he felt.

  "It might be temporary," said the social worker. "Sometimes elderly people suffer from periods of confusion. If it passes, it might be enough to see that he gets regular home care. If it turns out that he really is senile, then we'll have to come up with some other solution."

  They decided that his father should stay in over the weekend. Then she would discuss with the doctors what to do next. Wallander stood up. This woman seemed to know what she was talking about."It's hard to be sure what to do," he said.

  She nodded. "Nothing is as troublesome as when we're forced to become parents to our own parents," she said.

  "I know. My mother finally became so difficult that I couldn't keep her at home."

  Wallander went to see his father, who was in a room with four beds. All were occupied. One man was in a cast, another was curled up as if he had severe stomach pa
ins. Wallander's father was lying staring at the ceiling."How are you, Dad?" he asked.

  It was a moment before his father answered. "Leave me alone."

  He spoke in a low voice. There was no hint of petulance. Wallander had the impression that his father's voice was full of sorrow. He sat on the edge of the bed for a while. Then he left."I'll be back, Dad. And Kristina says hello."

  Wallander hurried out of the hospital, filled with a sense of helplessness. The icy wind whipped his face. He didn't feel like going back to the station, so he called Hansson on the scratchy car phone.

  "I'm driving over to Malmö," he said. "Have we got a helicopter in the air?"

  "It's been up for half an hour," replied Hansson. "Nothing yet. We have two dog patrols out too. If that damned car is anywhere in the reserve, we'll find it."

  Wallander drove to Malmö. The morning traffic was fierce and intense. He was frequently forced over towards the shoulder by drivers passing without enough room. I should have taken a squad car, he thought. But maybe that doesn't make any difference these days.

  Wallander arrived at the Malmö police station where the man who had had his car stolen was waiting for him. Before Wallander went in to see him, he talked to the officer who had taken the report of the theft.

  "Is it true that he's a policeman?" Wallander asked. "He was," the officer replied. "But he took early retirement." "Why was that?"

  The officer shrugged. "Problems with his nerves. I honestly don't know." "Do you know him?"

  "He mostly kept to himself. Even though we worked together for ten years, I can't say that I really knew him." "But surely someone does?"

  The police officer shrugged again. "I'll find out," he said. "But remember, anybody can have his car stolen."

  Wallander went into the room and said hello to the man, whose name was Rune Bergman. He was 53 and had been retired for four years. He was thin, with nervous, flitting eyes. Along one side of his nose he had a scar from what looked like a knife wound.