At the training ground they met the man who had spoken first with Wallander, and then with Martinson and Svedberg.
“Has anything happened?” asked Bjork.
“Nothing at all,” said the man.
Just then a single shot rang out somewhere in the middle of the training ground. It was followed shortly afterwards by a long salvo. Then all was silent again.
“Where are Martinson and Svedberg?” asked Bjork in a voice betraying his fear.
“They ran into the training ground,” answered the man.
“And Wallander?”
“I haven’t seen him since he went off into the fog.”
The searchlights on the squad car roofs were lighting up the fog and the sheep.
“We must let them know we’re here,” said Bjork. “We’ll surround the place as best as we can.”
A few minutes later his voice rang out over the whole training ground. The loudspeaker echoed spookily. Then they spread themselves around the perimeter, and started the wait.
Once Wallander had crawled into the training ground, he had been completely swallowed up by the fog. Things happened very fast. He walked toward the bleating sheep. He was moving quickly, crouching down, as he had the distinct impression he was in danger of arriving too late. Several times he tripped over sheep lying on the ground, and they ran off bleating. He realized the sheep he was using to guide him were also betraying the fact that he was on his way.
Then he came upon them.
They were at the far side of the artillery range, where it started sloping down to the sea. It was like a still photograph from a film. Victor Mabasha had been forced down on his knees. Konovalenko was standing in front of him, pistol in hand, and Rykoff a few paces to the side, looking fatter than ever. Wallander could hear Konovalenko repeating the same question over and over again.
“Where’s the cop?”
“I don’t know.”
Wallander could hear Victor Mabasha’s voice was defiant. That made him see red. He hated the man who had killed Louise Akerblom, and no doubt Tengblad as well. At the same time his mind was racing in an attempt to figure out what he should do. If he tried to crawl any closer, they would notice him. He doubted whether he could hit them with his pistol, given the distance. They were out of shotgun range. If he tried to storm them, he would simply be signing his own death warrant. The automatic pistol in Rykoff’s hand would wipe him out.
The only thing he could do was wait and hope his colleagues would turn up soon. But he could hear Konovalenko getting more and more annoyed. He wondered if they could get there in time.
He had his pistol ready. He tried lying so that he could aim with steady hands. He was aiming straight at Konovalenko.
But the end came too soon. And it came so fast, Wallander had no time to react before it was too late. Looking back, he could see more clearly than ever before how quickly you can waste a life.
Konovalenko repeated his question one last time. Victor Mabasha gave his negative, defiant response. Then Konovalenko raised his pistol and shot Victor Mabasha right through the head. Just as he had killed Louise Akerblom three weeks previously.
Wallander yelled out and fired. But it was all over. Victor Mabasha had fallen backwards and was lying at an unnatural angle, motionless. Wallander’s bullet had missed Konovalenko. He could see now that the biggest threat was Rykoff’s automatic pistol. He aimed at the fat man and fired shot after shot. To his amazement, he saw Rykoff suddenly twitch, then fall in a heap. When Wallander turned his gun on Konovalenko, he saw that the Russian had lifted up Victor Mabasha and was using him as a shield as he shuffled backwards toward the beach. Although Wallander knew Victor Mabasha was dead, he could not bring himself to shoot. He stood up and yelled at Konovalenko to drop his gun and give himself up. His answer came in the form of a bullet. Wallander flung himself to one side. Victor Mabasha’s body had saved him from being hit. Not even Konovalenko could aim with a steady hand while holding a heavy corpse upright in front of him. In the distance he could hear a single siren approaching. The fog got thicker as Konovalenko got closer to the beach. Wallander followed him, holding both his weapons in position. Suddenly Konovalenko dropped the dead body and disappeared down the slope. Just then Wallander heard a sheep bleat behind him. He spun around and raised both the pistol and the shotgun.
Then he saw Martinson and Svedberg emerging from out of the fog. Their faces were pictures of astonished horror.
“Drop your guns!” yelled Martinson. “It’s us, can’t you see!”
Wallander knew Konovalenko was about to escape yet again. There was no time for explanations.
“Stay where you are,” he yelled. “Don’t follow me!”
Then he started backing away, still pointing his guns. Martinson and Svedberg did not move a muscle. Then he disappeared into the fog.
Martinson and Svedberg looked at each other in horror.
“Was that really Kurt?” wondered Svedberg.
“Yeah,” said Martinson. “But he seemed out of his mind.”
“He’s alive,” said Svedberg. “He’s still alive despite everything.”
They cautiously approached the slope down to the beach where Wallander had disappeared. They could not detect any movements in the fog, but could hear the gentle lapping of the sea on the sand.
Martinson contacted Bjork while Svedberg started to examine the two men lying on the ground. Martinson gave Bjork precise directions, and called for ambulances.
“What about Wallander?” asked Bjork.
“He’s still alive,” replied Martinson. “But I can’t tell you where he is just now.”
Then he switched off his walkie-talkie, before Bjork could ask any more questions.
He went over to Svedberg and looked at the man Wallander had killed. Two bullets had gone in just above Rykoff’s navel.
“We’ll have to tell Bjork,” said Martinson. “Wallander seemed completely out of his mind.”
Svedberg nodded. He could see they had no choice.
They went over to the other body.
“The man without a finger,” said Martinson. “Now he’s also dead.” He bent down and pointed to the bullet hole in his forehead.
Both of them were thinking the same thing. Louise Akerblom.
Then the police cars arrived, followed by two ambulances. As the examination of the two bodies got under way, Svedberg and Martinson took Bjork aside and led him over to one of the squad cars. They told him what they had seen. Bjork looked at them doubtfully.
“This all sounds very strange,” he said. “Even if Kurt can be strange at times, I find it hard to imagine him going crazy.”
“You should have seen what he looked like,” said Svedberg. “He seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown. He pointed guns at us. He had one in each hand.”
Bjork shook his head.
“And then he disappeared along the beach?”
“He was following Konovalenko,” said Martinson.
“Along the beach?”
“That’s where he disappeared.”
Bjork said nothing, trying to let what he had heard sink in.
“We’d better send in dog patrols,” he said after a few moments. “Set up roadblocks, and call in helicopters as soon as it gets light and the fog lifts.”
As they got out of the car, a single shot rang out in the fog. It came from the beach, somewhere to the east of where they were standing. Everything got very quiet. Police, ambulance men and dogs all waited to see what would happen next.
Finally a sheep bleated. The desolate sound made Martinson shudder.
“We’ve got to help Kurt,” he said eventually. “He’s on his own out there in the fog. He’s up against a guy who won’t hesitate to shoot. We’ve got to help Kurt. Now, Otto.”
Svedberg had never heard Martinson call Bjork by his first name before. Even Bjork was startled, as if he did not realize at first who Martinson meant.
“Dog handlers with bulletproof vests,” h
e said.
Within a short space of time the hunt was on. The dogs picked up the scent immediately, and started straining at their leashes. Martinson and Svedberg followed close on the heels of the dog handlers.
About two hundred meters from the murder scene the dogs discovered a patch of blood in the sand. They searched around in circles without finding anything else. Suddenly one of the dogs set off in a northerly direction. They were on the perimeter of the training ground, following the fence. The trail the dogs found led over the road and then toward Sandhammaren.
After a couple of kilometers the trail fizzled out. Disappeared into thin air.
The dogs whimpered and started backtracking the way they had just come.
“What’s going on?” Martinson asked one of the dog handlers.
He shook his head.
“The trail’s gone cold,” he said.
Martinson looked uncomprehending.
“Wallander can’t just have gone up in smoke?”
“It looks like it,” said the dog handler.
They kept on searching as dawn came. Roadblocks were erected. The whole southern Swedish police force was involved one way or another in the hunt for Konovalenko and Wallander. When the fog lifted, helicopters joined the search.
But they found nothing. The two men had disappeared.
By nine o’clock in the morning Svedberg and Martinson were sitting with Bjork in the conference room. Everybody was tired and soaked through from the fog. Martinson was also displaying the first symptoms of a cold coming on.
“What am I going to tell the Commissioner of Police?” asked Bjork.
“Sometimes it’s best to tell it like it is,” said Martinson softly.
Bjork shook his head.
“Can’t you just see the headlines?” he asked. “‘Crazy cop is Swedish police secret weapon in hunt for police killer.’ ”
“A headline has to be short,” Svedberg objected.
Bjork stood up.
“Go home and get something to eat,” he said. “Get changed. Then we have to get going again.”
Martinson raised his hand, as if in a classroom.
“I think I’ll drive out to his father’s place at Loderup,” he said. “His daughter’s there. She might be able to tell us something useful.”
“Do that,” said Bjork. “But get moving.”
Then he went into his office and called the commissioner.
When he eventually managed to end the conversation, his face was red with anger.
He had received the negative criticism he was expecting.
Martinson was sitting in the kitchen of the house in Osterlen. Wallander’s daughter was making coffee as they talked. When he arrived, he went straight out to the studio to say hello to Wallander’s father. He said nothing to him about what had happened during the night, however. He wanted to talk to the daughter first.
He could see she was shocked. There were tears in her eyes.
“I should really have been sleeping at the apartment on Mariagatan last night, too,” she said.
She served him coffee. He noticed her hands were shaking.
“I don’t understand it all,” she said. “That he’s dead. Victor Mabasha. I just don’t understand it.”
Martinson mumbled something vague in reply.
He suspected she could tell him quite a lot about what had been going on between her father and the dead African. He realized it was not her Kenyan boyfriend in Wallander’s car a few days earlier. But why had he lied?
“You’ve got to find Dad before something happens,” she said, interrupting his train of thought.
“We’ll do what we can,” said Martinson.
“That’s not good enough,” she said. “Do more.”
Martinson nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll do more than we can.”
Martinson left the house half an hour later. She had promised to tell her grandfather what had happened. He in turn had promised to keep her informed as things developed. Then he drove back to Ystad.
After lunch Bjork sat down with Svedberg and Martinson in the conference room at the police station in Ystad. Bjork did something most unusual. He locked the door.
“We need to be undisturbed,” he said. “It’s essential that we put a stop to this catastrophic mess before we lose control.”
Martinson and Svedberg stared down at the table. Neither of them knew what he was going to say next.
“Has either of you noticed any signs that Kurt was losing his mind?” asked Bjork. “You must have seen something. I’ve always thought he could be strange at times. But you’re the ones who work with him every day.”
“I don’t think he’s out of his mind,” said Martinson after a long pause. “Maybe he’s overworked?”
“If that were anything to go by every cop in the country would go crazy now and then,” said Bjork dismissively. “And they don’t normally do that. Of course he’s out of his mind. Or mentally unbalanced, if that sounds better. Does it run in the family? Didn’t somebody find his dad wandering around in a field a year or two back?”
“He was drunk,” said Martinson. “Or temporarily senile. Kurt isn’t suffering from senility.”
“Do you think he might have Alzheimer’s?” wondered Bjork.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Svedberg suddenly. “For God’s sake, let’s stick to the facts. Whether or not Kurt has had some kind of mental breakdown is something only a doctor can decide. Our job is to find him. We know he was involved in a violent shoot-out in which two people died. We saw him out there in the training ground. He pointed his gun at us. But he wasn’t dangerous. It was more like desperation. Or confusion. I’m not sure which. Then he disappeared.”
Martinson nodded slowly.
“Kurt wasn’t at the scene by chance,” he said thoughtfully. “His apartment had been attacked. We must assume the black man was there with him. What happened next we can only guess. But Kurt must be onto something, something he never had a chance to tell us about. Or maybe something he chose not to tell us about for the moment. We know he does that sometimes, and we get annoyed. But right now only one thing counts. Finding him.”
Nobody said a word.
“I never thought I’d have to do anything like this,” said Bjork eventually.
Martinson and Svedberg understood what he meant.
“But you’ve got to do it,” said Svedberg. “You have to get the whole force looking for him. Put out an APB on him.”
“Awful,” muttered Bjork. “But I have no choice.”
There was nothing else to say.
With a heavy heart, Bjork went back to his office to put out an APB on his colleague and friend, Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander.
It was May 15, 1992. Spring had arrived in Skane. It was a very hot day. Toward evening a thunderstorm moved in over Ystad.
The White Lioness
Chapter Twenty-three
The lioness seemed completely white in the moonlight.
Georg Scheepers held his breath as he stood in the back of the safari vehicle, watching her. She was lying motionless down by the river, about thirty meters away. He glanced at his wife Judith, who was standing beside him. She looked back at him. He could see she was scared. He shook his head carefully.
“It’s not dangerous,” he said. “She won’t hurt us.”
He believed what he said. But even so, deep down, he was not convinced. Animals in the Kruger National Park, where they were, were used to people watching them from the back of open safari vehicles, even at midnight as in this case. But he could not forget that the lioness was a beast of prey, unpredictable, governed by instinct and nothing else. She was young. Her strength and speed would never be greater than they were now. It would take her three seconds at most to shake herself out of her sprawling langor and bound powerfully over to their car. The black driver did not seem to be particularly alert. None of them carried a gun. If she wanted to, she could kill them a
ll within the space of a few seconds. Three bites from those powerful jaws, on their necks or spines, was all that was needed.
Suddenly it seemed as if the lioness had read his thoughts. She lifted her head and gazed at the car. He felt Judith grab hold of his arm. It was as if the lioness was looking straight at them. The moonlight was reflected in her eyes, making them luminous. Georg Scheepers’ heart started beating faster. He wished the driver would start the engine, but the black man was sitting motionless behind the wheel. It suddenly occurred to Georg Scheepers in horror that the guy might have fallen asleep.
At that moment the lioness got up from the sand. She never took her eyes off the people in the car for a moment. Georg Scheepers knew there was such a thing as freezing. You were able to think about being afraid and running away, but had no strength to move.
She stood absolutely still, watching them. Her powerful shoulders rippled prominently under her skin. He thought how beautiful she was. Her strength is her beauty, her unpredictability her character.
He also thought how she was first and foremost a lion. Being white was only a secondary thing. That thought stuck fast in his mind. It was a sort of reminder to himself of something he had forgotten about. But what? He couldn’t remember.
“Why doesn’t he drive away?” whispered Judith by his side.
“It’s not dangerous,” he said. “She won’t come over here.”
The lioness stood motionless, watching the people in the car parked right out by the water’s edge. The moonlight was very strong. The night was clear, and it was warm. Somewhere in the dark river they could hear the lazy sounds of hippos moving.
It seemed to Georg Scheepers the whole situation was a reminder. The feeling of imminent danger, which could turn into uncontrollable violence at any moment, was the normal daily state of affairs in his country. Everybody went around waiting for something to happen. The beast of prey was watching them. The beast of prey inside them. The blacks who were impatient because developments were taking place so slowly. The whites with their fears of losing their privileges, their fear of the future. It was like being there on the river bank with a lion watching them.
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