The White Lioness

by Henning Mankell

  “I think I get it,” he said. “There is a notorious fence in Malmö called Morell. He’s notorious because our colleagues in town have never been able to pin anything 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 Åkerblom.

  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 Åkerblom’s daughters. And of Robert Åkerblom. 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 Björk, and requested a full-scale emergency call-out. They would need the fire brigade to get Louise Åkerblom’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 Åkerblom.

  “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 Björk said it was Per Akeson,” replied Svedberg.

  “Get hold of him,” said Wallander. “Tell him we’ve found her. And that it’s murder. I’ll give him a report later this afternoon.”

  “What do we do about Stig Gustafson?” asked Svedberg.

  “You’ll have to keep on hunting him by yourself for the time being,” said Wallander. “I want Martinson to be here when we get her up and make the first examination.”

  “I’ll be only too glad to miss that,” said Svedberg.

  He drove off in one of the cars.

  Wallander took a few more deep breaths before approaching the well once more.

  He did not want to be on his own when he informed Robert Åkerblom where they found his wife.

  It took two hours to get Louise Åkerblom’s corpse out of the well. The ones who did the work were the same two young firemen who had dragged the pond two days before, when her car had been found. They pulled her up using a rescue harness, and put the body in an investigation tent that had been raised alongside the well. As they were pulling up the body, it became clear to Wallander how she died. She had been shot in the forehead. Once again he was struck by the thought that nothing in this investigation was straightforward. He still had not met Stig Gustafson, if he really was the one who killed her. But would he have shot her from the front? There was something that didn’t add up.

  He asked Martinson for his first reaction.

  “A bullet straight into the forehead,” said Martinson. “That doesn’t make me think of uncontrolled passion and unhappy love. It makes me think of a cold-blooded execution.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” said Wallander.

  The firemen pumped the water out of the well. Then they went down again, and when they came back up they had with them Louise Åkerblom’s purse, her briefcase, and one of her shoes. The other was still on her foot. The water was pumped into a hastily constructed plastic pool. Martinson found nothing else of interest when they filtered it.

  The firemen went back one more time to the bottom of the well. They shone powerful lamps all around, but found nothing apart from a cat’s skeleton.

  The doctor looked pale when he emerged from the tent.

  “It’s terrible,” she said to Wallander.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “We know the most important thing, namely that she was shot. I want the pathologists in Malmö to find out two things for me right away: first the bullet, second a report on any other injuries which might suggest she had been beaten or held prisoner. Anything you can find. And of course, whether she’s been subjected to sexual assault.”

  “The bullet’s still in her head,” said the doctor. “I can’t see any exit hole.”

  “One other thing,” said Wallander. “I want her wrists and ankles examined. I want to know if there is any sign of her having been put in handcuffs.”

  “Handcuffs?”

  “That’s right,” said Wallander. “Handcuffs.”

  Björk had been staying in the background while they worked to lift the corpse out of the well. Once the body had been placed on a stretcher and driven off to the hospital in an ambulance, he took Wallander aside.

  “We have to inform her husband,” he said.

  “We,” thought Wallander. You mean, I’ll have to do it.

  “I’ll take Pastor Tureson with me,” he said.

  “You’ll have to try and find out how long it will take him to inform all her close relatives,” Björk continued. “I’m very much afraid we won’t be able to keep this quiet for very long. And then, I really don’t understand how you could just let that thief go. He can run to some evening tabloid or other and earn himself a fortune if he spills the beans on this story.”

  Wallander was irritated by Björk’s niggling tone. On the other hand, he had to admit that there was a very real risk.

  “Yes,” he said. “That was stupid. My fault.”

  “I thought it was Svedberg who let him go,” said Björk.

  “It was Svedberg,” said Wallander. “But it’s my responsibility in any case.”

  “Please don’t get angry with me for saying this,” said Björk.

  Wallander shrugged.

  “I’m angry at whoever did this to Louise Åkerblom,” he said. “And to her daughters. And to her husband.”

  They put the house out of bounds, and the investigation continued. Wallander got into his car and called Pastor Tureson. He answered more or less right away. Wallander explained what had happened. Pastor Tureson was silent for quite some time before answering. He promised to wait for Wallander outside the church.

  “Will he break down?” asked Wallander.

  “He has faith in God,” said Pastor Tureson.

  We’ll see about that, thought Wallander. We’ll see if that’s enough.

  But he said nothing.

  Pastor Tureson was standing on the street, his head bowed.

  Wallander found it difficult to gather his thoughts as he drove into town. There was nothing he found more difficult than informing relatives that someone in their family had suddenly died. There was no real difference whether the death was caused by an accident, a suicide, or a violent crime. No matter how hard he tried to express himself carefully and considerately, his words were cruelty itself. It had occurred to him that he was the ultimate herald of tragedy. He remembered what Rydberg, his friend and colleague, had said a few months before he died. There will never be an appropriate way for a cop to tell somebody a sudden death has occurred. That’s why we have to do it ourselves, and never delegate it to anybody else. We’re probably more resilient than the others—we’ve seen more of what nobody ought ever to se
e.

  On the way into town he had also been aware of that persistent feeling that something was completely wrong, absolutely incomprehensible; the whole investigation was totally misguided, and some explanation or other must soon come to light. He would ask Martinson and Svedberg straight up if they felt the same as he did. Was there a link between that severed black finger and Louise Åkerblom’s disappearance and eventual death? Or was it just a combination of unpredictable coincidences?

  It occurred to him that there might also be a third possibility: that somebody had intentionally created the confusion.

  But why had this death taken place so suddenly, he asked himself. The only motive we have been able to find so far is unrequited love. But it is a pretty big step from there to accusations of murder. Not to mention being so cold-blooded that the car was hidden in one place while the body was found somewhere else.

  Maybe we haven’t found a single stone worth turning over, he thought. What do we do if we find Stig Gustafson is not worth following up?

  He thought of the handcuffs. Of Louise Åkerblom’s constant smile. Of the happy family that no longer existed.

  But was it the image that had collapsed? Or was it the reality?

  Pastor Tureson got into the car. He had tears in his eyes. Wallander immediately felt a lump in his throat.

  “Well, she’s dead,” said Wallander. “We’ve found her at the site of an empty house some way outside of Ystad. I can’t tell you any more just now.”

  “How did she die?”

  Wallander thought for a moment before replying.

  “She was shot,” he said.

  “I have one more question,” said Pastor Tureson. “Apart from wanting to know who could have carried out such a crazy act. Did she suffer a lot before she died?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Wallander. “But even if I did know, I would tell her husband that death came very quickly, and hence painlessly.”

  They stopped outside the house. On the way to the Methodist church Wallander had stopped off at the station and taken his own car. He did not want to turn up in a police car.

  Robert Åkerblom answered almost as soon as they rang the doorbell. He’s seen us, thought Wallander. The moment a car brakes in the street outside, he runs over to the nearest window to see who it is.

  He ushered them into the living room. Wallander listened to see if there was any noise. The two girls did not appear to be home.

  “I’m afraid I have to tell you your wife is dead,” Wallander began. “We’ve found her at an abandoned house some way outside of town. She was murdered.”

  Robert Åkerblom stared at him, his face motionless. It seemed he was waiting for more.

  “I very much regret this, ” said Wallander. “But the best I can do is to tell you exactly how it is. I’m afraid I shall also have to ask you to identify the body. But that can wait. It doesn’t need to be done today. And it would be all right if Pastor Tureson were to do it.”

  Robert Åkerblom kept on staring at him.

  “Are your daughters at home?” asked Wallander, cautiously. “This must be awful for them.”

  He turned to Pastor Tureson, appealing for help.

  “We’ll do all we can to help,” said Tureson.

  “Thank you for letting me know,” said Robert Åkerblom all of a sudden. “All this uncertainty has been so difficult to bear.”

  “I am really sorry things have turned out so badly,” said Wallander. “All of us on the case were hoping there would have been some natural explanation.”

  “Who?” said Robert Åkerblom.

  “We don’t know,” said Wallander. “But we shall not rest until we do know.”

  “You’ll never know,” said Robert Åkerblom.

  Wallander looked at him inquiringly.

  “Why do you think that?” he said.

  “Nobody could have wanted to kill Louise,” said Robert Åkerblom. “So how could you possibly find whoever is guilty?”

  Wallander did not know what to say. Robert Åkerblom had put his finger on their biggest problem.

  A few minutes later he stood up. Pastor Tureson accompanied him into the hall.

  “You have a few hours in which to contact all the closest relatives,” said Wallander. “Call me if you can’t locate them. We can’t keep this secret for ever.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” said Pastor Tureson.

  Then he lowered his voice.

  “Stig Gustafson?” he asked.

  “We’re still looking,” said Wallander. “We don’t know if it is him.”

  “Have you any other leads?” asked Pastor Tureson.

  “Could be,” said Wallander, “but I’m afraid I can’t answer that either.”

  “For technical reasons?”

  “Exactly.”

  Wallander could see Pastor Tureson had one more question.

  “Well,” he said. “Fire away!”

  Pastor Tureson lowered his voice so far that Wallander could hardly hear what he was saying.

  “Rape?” he asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” said Wallander. “But of course, that’s not an impossibility.”

  Wallander felt a strange mixture of hunger and uneasiness when he left the Akerbloms’ house. He stopped on the Österleden highway and forced down a hamburger. He couldn’t remember when he had last eaten. Then he hurried along to the police station. When he got there he was met by Svedberg, who informed him that Björk had been forced to improvise a press conference at short notice. As he knew Wallander was busy informing relatives of Louise Åkerblom’s death and he didn’t want to disturb him, he had enlisted the help of Martinson.

  “Can you guess how the news leaked out?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Wallander. “Peter Hanson?”

  “Wrong! Try again!”

  “One of us?”

  “Not this time. It was Morell. He saw the chance to squeeze some money from one of the evening papers if he tipped them off. He’s obviously a real bastard. At least the guys in Malmö have something to pin on him now. Ordering somebody to steal four water pumps is a criminal offense.”

  “He’ll only get probation,” said Wallander.

  They went to the canteen and poured a mug of coffee each.

  “How did Robert Åkerblom take it?” asked Svedberg.

  “I don’t know,” said Wallander. “It must feel like half your life has been taken away. No one can imagine what it’s like unless they’ve been through something similar themselves. I can’t. All I can say just now is that we’ll have to have a meeting as soon as the press conference is over. I’ll be in my office till then, writing a summary.”

  “I thought I could try and put together an overview of the tipoffs we’ve had,” said Svedberg. “Somebody might have seen Louise Åkerblom on Friday with a man who could be Stig Gustafson.”

  “Do that,” said Wallander. “And let us have all you know about the man.”

  The press conference dragged on and on, eventually ending after an hour and a half. By then Wallander had tried to compose a summary under various headings and draw up a plan for the next phase of the investigation.

  Björk and Martinson were totally exhausted when they came to the conference room.

  “Now I understand how you usually feel,” said Martinson, flopping down into a chair. “The only thing they didn’t ask about was the color of her underwear.”

  Wallander reacted immediately.

  “That was unnecessary,” he said.

  Martinson opened his arms wide in apology.

  “I’ll try and give you a summary,” said Wallander. “We know how it all started, so I’ll jump over that bit. Anyway, we’ve found Louise Åkerblom. She’s been murdered, shot through the forehead. My guess is she was shot at close range. But we’ll know for sure later. We don’t know if she was subjected to sexual assault. Nor do we know if she was ill-treated or held prisoner. We don’t know where she was killed, either. Nor when. But we can be sure sh
e was dead when she was put down that well. We’ve also found her car. It’s essential we get a preliminary report from the hospital as soon as possible. Not least as to whether there was a sexual assault. Then we can start checking up on known criminals who might have done it.”

  Wallander took a slurp of coffee before continuing.

  “As for motive and murderer, we only have one track to follow so far,” he went on. “The engineer Stig Gustafson, who’s been persecuting her and pestering her with hopeless declarations of love. We still haven’t found him. You know more about that, Svedberg. You can also give us a summary of the tipoffs we’ve had. Further complications in this investigation are the severed black finger and the house that blew up. Things have been made no easier by the fact that Nyberg found the remains of an advanced radio transmitter in the ashes, and the butt of a handgun used mainly in South Africa, if I understood him properly. In one sense the finger and the pistol are linked by that fact. Not that it helps much. We still don’t know if the two incidents are connected.”

  Wallander was through, and looked at Svedberg, who was leafing through the stack of papers he was constantly fiddling with.

  “I’ll start with the tipoffs,” he said. “I’m thinking of writing a book one of these days called People Who Want to Help the Police. It’ll make me a rich man. As usual we’ve had curses, blessings, confessions, dreams, hallucinations, and the occasional sensible tip. As far as I can see, though, there’s only one of immediate interest. The warden of the Rydsgard estate is quite certain he saw Louise Åkerblom driving past last Friday afternoon. The time is about right. That means we know which route she took. Apart from that there’s very little of interest. Now we know, of course, it’s often a day or two before the best tipoffs come in. They come from sensible people who hesitate before getting in touch. As for Stig Gustafson, we haven’t managed to discover where he’s moved to. But he’s supposed to have an unmarried female relative in Malmö. Unfortunately we don’t know her first name. The Malmö telephone directory is full of Gustafsons, of course. Stacks and stacks of them. We’ll just have to get down to it and divide the list between us. That’s all I have to say.”