The White Lioness

by Henning Mankell

  “Whiskey,” he said. “No ice. But a glass of water on the side.”

  He emptied the glass the moment it reached his table, and immediately ordered another. He did not often drink to get drunk. But tonight he was not going to hold back.

  When he got his third whiskey, he remembered who the waiter was. A few years previously Wallander had interrogated him about a series of robberies and car thefts. He was later arrested and found guilty.

  So things have turned out all right for him at least, he thought. And I’m not going to remind him about his past. Maybe you could say things have gone better for him than they have for me? If you take the circumstances into account.

  He could feel the effects of the liquor almost immediately.

  Shortly afterwards Wallander moved over to the dining section and ordered dinner. He drank a bottle of wine with the food, and two brandies with his coffee.

  It was half past ten when he left the restaurant. He was pretty drunk by then, but had no intention of going home to lie down.

  He crossed over to the taxi stand opposite the bus station and took a cab to the only dance club in town. It was surprisingly full, and he had some difficulty finding room at a table near the bar. Then he drank a whiskey and went out on the dance floor. He was not a bad dancer, and always performed with a certain degree of self-confidence. Music from the Swedish hit parade made him sentimental and maudlin. He invariably fell in love right away with every woman he danced with. He always planned to take them back to his apartment afterwards. But the illusion was shattered on this occasion when he suddenly started to feel queasy, barely managing to get outside before throwing up. He did not go back in, but staggered back to town instead. When he got back to his apartment, he stripped and stood naked in front of the hall mirror.

  “Kurt Wallander,” he said aloud. “This is your life.”

  Then he decided to call Baiba Liepa in Riga. It was two in the morning, and he knew he shouldn’t do it. But he hung on until she eventually answered.

  All of a sudden, he had no idea what to say. He could not find the English words he needed. He had obviously awoken her, and she had been frightened by the telephone ringing in the middle of the night.

  Then he told her he loved her. She did not know what he meant at first. Once it had dawned on her, she also realized he was drunk, and Wallander himself felt the whole thing was a terrible mistake. He apologized for disturbing her and went straight into the kitchen and took a half bottle of vodka from the refrigerator. Although he still felt sick, he forced it down.

  He woke at dawn on the sofa in the living room. He had a king-size hangover. What he regretted most was the call to Baiba Leipa.

  He groaned at the thought of it, staggered into the bedroom, and sank into his bed. Then he forced his mind to go blank. It was late in the afternoon before he got up and made coffee. He sat in front of the television and watched one program after another. He did not bother to call his father, nor did he try to contact his daughter. At about seven he heated up some fish au gratin, which was all he had in the freezer. Then he returned to the television. He tried to avoid thinking about last night’s telephone call.

  At eleven o’clock he took a sleeping pill and pulled the covers over his head.

  Everything will be better tomorrow, he thought. I’ll call her then and explain everything. Or maybe I’ll write a letter. Or something.

  Monday, May 4 turned out to be very different than Wallander had imagined, however.

  Everything seemed to happen all at once.

  He had just arrived at his office shortly after half past seven when the telephone rang. It was Lovén in Stockholm.

  “There’s a rumor going around town,” he said. “A rumor about a contract on an African. He can be recognized first and foremost by the bandage he has on his left hand.”

  It was a second before it dawned on Wallander what kind of a contract Lovén was talking about.

  “Oh, shit,” he said.

  “I thought that’s what you would say,” said Lovén. “If you can tell me when you’ll arrive, we can drive out and pick you up.”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Wallander. “But it won’t be before this afternoon. Björk, if you remember who that is, has gallstones. I have to sort things out here first. But I’ll call as soon as I get things straightened out.”

  “We’ll be waiting,” said Lovén.

  Wallander had just replaced the receiver when the telephone rang again. At the same time, Martinson marched into the room waving a sheet of paper around in excitement. Wallander pointed to a chair, and answered the phone.

  It was the pathologist in Malmö, Högberg, who had completed the preliminary autopsy on Louise Åkerblom’s body. Wallander had dealt with him before, and knew the man was thorough. Wallander pulled a notebook towards him and gesticulated to Martinson to give him a pen.

  “There is absolutely no trace of rape,” said Högberg. “Unless the attacker used a condom, and it all took place in peaceful fashion. Nor does she have any injuries to suggest there was any other kind of violence. Just a few abrasions she could easily have suffered in the well. I couldn’t find any sign of her having had handcuffs on either her wrists or her ankles. All that happened to her is that she was shot.”

  “I need the bullet as soon as possible,” said Wallander.

  “You’ll get it this morning,” said Högberg. “But it will be some time before you get the comprehensive report, of course.”

  “Thank you for your efforts,” said Wallander.

  He hung up and turned to Martinson.

  “Louise Åkerblom was not raped,” he said. “We can exclude any sexual motives.”

  “So now we know,” said Martinson. “In addition, we also know the black finger is the index finger of a black man’s left hand. The man is probably about thirty. It’s all here in this fax we just got from Stockholm. I wonder how they do things when they’re as precise as this.”

  “No idea,” said Wallander. “But the more we know, the better. If Svedberg is around, I thing we’d better have a meeting right away. I’m going to Stockholm this afternoon. I’ve also promised to hold a press conference at two o’clock. You and Svedberg had better take care of that. If anything else important happens, give me a call in Stockholm.”

  “Svedberg will be pleased when he hears that,” said Martinson. “Are you sure you can’t travel a little later?”

  “Absolutely certain,” said Wallander, getting to his feet.

  “I hear our colleagues in Malmö have brought Morell in,” said Martinson when they were out in the corridor.

  Wallander stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Morell. That fence in Malmö. The one with the water pumps.”

  “Oh, him,” said Wallander absentmindedly. “You mean him.”

  He went out into reception and asked Ebba to book him a flight at about three that afternoon. He also asked her to reserve a room at the Central Hotel on Vasagatan in Stockholm, which wasn’t too expensive. Then he went back to his office and reached the receiver, intending to call his father. But he had second thoughts. He did not dare risk getting into a bad mood. He would need all his powers of concentration today. Then he had a brainstorm. He would ask Martinson to call Löderup later in the day, pass on greetings to his father, and explain that Wallander had been forced to go off to Stockholm at short notice. That might convince the old man that Wallander was up to his neck in important business.

  The thought cheered him up. It could be a useful ploy for the future.

  At five minutes to four Wallander landed at Arlanda, where it was drizzling slightly. He passed through the hangar-like terminal and saw Lovén waiting outside the swinging doors.

  Wallander noticed he had a headache. It had been a very intense day. He had spent nearly two hours with the prosecutor. Per Akeson had many questions and critical observations. Wallander wondered how to explain to a prosecutor that cops were occasionally for
ced to rely on instinct when priorities had to be set. Akeson criticized the reports he had received so far. Wallander defended the investigation, and by the end of the meeting the atmosphere was tense between them. Before Peters drove Wallander to Sturup Airport, he managed to stop by at home and throw a few clothes into a bag. That was when he finally managed to get hold of his daughter on the telephone. She was pleased to hear he was coming, he could hear that. They agreed he would call her that night, no matter how late it was.

  Only when Wallander was in his seat and the plane had taken off did he realize how hungry he was. The SAS sandwiches were the first food to pass his lips that day.

  As they drove to the police station at Kungsholmen, Wallander was filled in about the hunt for Tengblad’s murderer. Lovén and his colleagues obviously had no real clues to follow up, and he could see their search was characterized by frustration. Lovén also managed to give him a summary of what had happened at the discotheque where the tear gas attack took place. It all seemed to point to either a heavy-handed prank or an act of revenge. There were no definite clues here, either. In the end Wallander asked about the contract. As far as he was concerned, this was something new and frightening. Something that had only come into the mix in the last few years, and then only in the three largest cities in the country. But he had no illusions. Before long it would be happening in his own back yard. Contracts were made between a customer and a professional killer, with the aim of murdering people. The whole affair was a business deal. It seemed to Wallander this must be the ultimate proof that the brutalization of society had reached incomprehensible proportions.

  “We have people out there trying to find out what’s actually going on,” said Lovén as they passed the Northern Cemetery on the way into Stockholm.

  “I can’t figure it all out,” said Wallander. “It’s like it was last year, when that raft drifted ashore. Nothing added up then, either.”

  “We’ll have to hope our technical guys can come up with something,” said Lovén. “They might be able to make something of the bullets.”

  Wallander tapped his jacket pocket. He had with him the bullet that had killed Louise Åkerblom.

  They drove into the underground garage and then took the elevator straight up to headquarters, where the hunt for Tengblad’s killer was being organized.

  As Wallander entered the room, he was struck by the number of cops present. Fifteen or more were staring at him, and he thought about how different it was from Ystad.

  Lovén introduced him, and Wallander took the chorus of mumbles as a greeting. A short, balding man in his fifties introduced himself as Stenberg, the officer in charge of the investigation.

  Wallander suddenly felt nervous and badly prepared. He was also a little worried that they might not understand his Scanian dialect. Nevertheless, he sat down at the table and filled them in on everything that had happened. He had to field a lot of questions, and it was obvious he was dealing with experienced detectives who were very quick to get to the heart of an investigation, locate the weak points, and formulate the right questions.

  The meeting dragged on and on, and lasted for more than two hours. In the end, when everyone was obviously beginning to feel washed out and Wallander was forced to ask for some aspirin, Stenberg gave a summary.

  “We need a rapid response regarding the results of the ammunition analysis,” he said by way of conclusion. “If we can establish a link between the weapons used, then if nothing else, we’ve succeeded in muddying the waters a bit more.”

  One or two of the cops managed a smile, but most of them just sat staring into space.

  It was nearly eight by the time Wallander left the Kungsholmen police station. Lovén drove him to his hotel on Vasagatan.

  “Will you be OK?” asked Lovén as he dropped Wallander off.

  “I have a daughter here in town,” Wallander replied. “By the way, what’s the name of that disco where they threw the tear gas canisters?”

  “Aurora,” said Lovén. “But I hardly think it’s the sort of place for you.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t,” said Wallander.

  Lovén nodded, and drove off. Wallander picked up his key and resisted the temptation to look for a bar close to the hotel. The memory of Saturday night in Ystad was still all too vivid. He took the elevator to his room, showered, and changed his shirt. After a catnap for an hour on top of the bed, he looked up the address of the Aurora in the telephone book. He left the hotel at a quarter to nine. He wondered whether he should call his daughter before going out. In the end, he decided to wait. His excursion to the Aurora should not take too long. Besides, Linda was a night owl. He crossed over toward Central Station, found a cab and gave an address in the Söder district. Wallander gazed thoughtfully at the city as they drove through it. Somewhere out there was his daughter Linda, and somewhere else his sister Kristina. Hidden among all those houses and people was presumably also an African missing the index finger of his left hand.

  He suddenly felt uneasy. It was like he expected something to happen any minute. Something he’d better start worrying about even now.

  Louise Åkerblom’s smiling face flashed across his mind’s eye.

  What had she stumbled upon? he wondered. Had she realized she was going to die?

  A staircase led down from ground level to a black-painted iron door. Above it was a filthy red neon sign. Several of the letters had gone out. Wallander began to wonder why he had decided to take a look at the place into which somebody had thrown a few tear gas canisters a couple of days previously. But he was groping so much in the dark, he couldn’t afford not to follow up the very slightest chance of finding a black man with a severed finger. He went down the stairs, opened the door, and entered a dark room where he had difficulty seeing anything at all at first. He could barely hear some music coming from a loudspeaker hanging from the ceiling. The room was full of smoke, and he thought at first he was the only one there. Then he made out some shadows in a corner with the whites of their eyes gleaming, and a bar counter slightly more illuminated than the rest of the room. When he’d gotten used to the light, he went over to the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender had a shaven head.

  “We can manage on our own, thank you,” he said.

  Wallander did not know what he was talking about.

  “We can supply all the security cover we need ourselves,” the guy said.

  Wallander realized to his surprise that the bartender was onto him.

  “How do you know I’m a cop?” he asked, wishing he hadn’t even as the words crossed his lips.

  “Trade secret,” the bartender replied.

  Wallander noticed he was starting to get angry. The guy’s arrogant self-assurance irritated him.

  “I have a few questions,” he said. “Since you already know I’m a cop, I don’t need to show you my ID.”

  “I very rarely answer questions,” said the bartender.

  “You will this time,” said Wallander. “God help you if you don’t.”

  The man stared at Wallander in astonishment.

  “I might answer,” he said.

  “You get a lot of Africans in here,” said Wallander.

  “They just love this joint.”

  “I’m looking for a black guy about thirty, and there’s something very special about him.”

  “Such as?”

  “He’s missing a finger. On his left hand.”

  Wallander did not expect the reaction he got. The bald guy burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny about that?” Wallander wondered.

  “You’re number two,” said the bartender.

  “Number two?”

  “Who’s asking. There was a guy here last night who was also wondering if I’d seen an African with a maimed left hand.”

  Wallander thought for a moment before going on.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I ain’t seen nobody missing a
finger.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who was asking?”

  “Never seen him before,” he said, starting to wipe a glass.

  Wallander suspected the man was lying.

  “I’ll ask you one more time,” he said. “But only once.”

  “I have nothing more to say.”

  “Who was doing the asking?”

  “Like I said. No idea.”

  “Did he speak Swedish?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That he didn’t sound like you and me.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere, thought Wallander. I must make sure he doesn’t wriggle off the hook.

  “What did he look like?”

  “Don’t remember.”

  “There’ll be hell to pay if you don’t give me a straight answer.”

  “He looked kinda ordinary. Black jacket. Blond hair.”

  Wallander suddenly got the feeling the man was scared.

  “Nobody can hear us,” said Wallander. “I promise you I’ll never repeat what you tell me.”

  “His name might have been Konovalenko,” said the man. “The beer’s on the house if you get out right now.”

  “Konovalenko?” said Wallander. “Are you sure?”

  “How the hell can you be sure of anything in this world?” said the man.

  Wallander left and managed to flag down a cab right away. He sank back into the back seat, and gave the name of his hotel.

  When he got back to his room, he reached for the phone and was about to call his daughter. Then he let it be. He would call her early next morning.

  He lay in bed for a long time, wide awake.

  Konovalenko, he thought. A name. Would it put him on the right track?

  He thought through everything that had happened since the morning Robert Akerbloms first came to his office.

  It was dawn before he finally fell asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Wallander got to the police station the next morning, Whe was told Lovén was already in a meeting with the team investigating Tengblad’s killer. He got himself some coffee, went to Lovén’s office, and called Ystad. After a brief pause Martinson answered.