Faceless Killers - Wallander 01 Page 11

  In fact, I've heard rumours that we're going to have some new positions opening up down here."

  Wallander started the meeting by reporting what Edler had told him. A brief discussion followed concerning possible motives for the attack. All were agreed that it was most likely a rather well-organised youthful prank, but no-one denied the seriousness of what had happened.

  "It's important for us to catch those responsible," said Hansson. "Just as important as catching the killers at Lunnarp."

  "Maybe it was the same people who threw the turnips at the old man," said Svedberg.

  Wallander noticed the contempt in his voice.

  "Talk to him. Maybe he can give you a description."

  "I don't speak Arabic," said Svedberg.

  "We have interpreters, for God's sake! I want to know what he has to say by this afternoon."

  The meeting was brief. This was one of those days when the police officers were busy trying to establish facts. Conclusions and results were sparse.

  "We'll skip the afternoon meeting," Wallander decided, "provided nothing out of the ordinary happens. Martinsson will go out to the camp. Svedberg, maybe you could take over whatever Martinsson was doing that can't wait."

  "I'm searching for the car that the lorry driver saw," said Martinsson. "I'll give you my paperwork."

  When the meeting was over, Näslund and Rydberg stayed behind in Wallander's office.

  "We're starting to go into overtime," said Wallander. "When is Björk due back?"

  Neither man knew.

  "Does he have any idea about what's happened?" Rydberg wondered.

  "Does he care?" Wallander countered.

  He called Ebba and got an answer at once. She even knew which airline he would be coming in on.

  "Saturday night," he told the others. "But since I'm the acting chief, I'm going to authorise all the overtime we need."

  Rydberg raised his visit to the Lövgren farm.

  "I've been snooping about," he said. "In fact I've turned the whole place upside down. I've even dug around in the hay bales out in the stable. But there was no brown briefcase."

  Wallander knew that that was that. Rydberg never gave up until he was 100 per cent sure.

  "So now we know this much," he said. "One brown briefcase containing 27,000 kronor is missing."

  "People have been killed for much less," said Rydberg.

  They sat in silence for a moment, pondering these words.

  "I can't understand why it should be so hard to locate that car," said Wallander, touching the tender lump on his forehead. "I gave out its description at the press conference and asked the driver to contact us."

  "Patience," said Rydberg.

  "What came out of the interviews with the daughters? If there are any reports, I can read them in the car on the way to Kristianstad. By the way, do either of you think that the attack last night had anything to do with the threat I received?"

  Both Rydberg and Näslund shook their heads.

  "I don't either," said Wallander. "That means that we need to be prepared for something to happen on Friday or Saturday. I thought that you, Rydberg, could think this matter through and come up with some suggestions for action by this afternoon."

  Rydberg made a face.

  "I'm not good at things like that."

  "You're a good policeman. You'll do just fine."

  Rydberg gave him a sceptical look. Then he stood up to go. He paused at the door.

  "The daughter that I talked to, the one from Canada, had her husband with her. The Mountie. He wondered why we don't carry guns."

  "In a few years we probably will," said Wallander.

  He was just about to brief Näslund on his conversation with Lars Herdin when the phone rang. Ebba told him that the head of the Immigration Service was on the line.

  Wallander was surprised to be speaking to a woman. He assumed that all senior government officials were still elderly gentlemen full of arrogant self-esteem.

  The woman had a pleasant voice, but what she said annoyed him instantly.

  "We are most displeased," the woman said. "The police have an obligation to guarantee the safety of our refugees."

  Just like that damned director, thought Wallander.

  "We do what we can," he said, trying to conceal his irritation. It occurred to him that it might be a breach of conduct for an acting police chief in a small town to contradict what the high priestess of a government civil service agency had to say.

  "Obviously that is not sufficient."

  "Our job would have been much easier if we had received up-to-date information about how many refugees were at each of the various camps."

  "The service has complete data on the refugees."

  "That's not my impression at all."

  "The Minister of Immigration is very concerned."

  Wallander brought to mind a red-haired woman who was regularly interviewed on TV.

  "She's welcome to contact us," said Wallander, making a face at Näslund, who was leafing through some papers.

  "It's clear that the police are not allocating enough resources to the protection of these refugees."

  "Or maybe there are just too many to cope with. And you have no idea where they are lodged."

  "What do you mean by that?" The polite voice was now cool.

  Wallander felt his anger growing.

  "Last night's fire highlighted the shocking disarray at the camp. That's what I mean. In general, it's difficult to get any clear directives from the Immigration Service. You often ask the police to instigate deportations, but we have no idea where to find the deportees. Sometimes we waste several weeks searching for the people we are supposed to deport."

  What he said was true. He had heard of colleagues in Malmö being driven to despair at the inability of the Immigration Service to handle its job.

  "That's simply not the case," said the woman, "and I'm not going to waste valuable time arguing with you."

  The conversation was over.

  "Bitch," said Wallander, slamming down the phone.

  "Who was that?" asked Näslund.

  "The head of the Immigration Service," replied Wallander, "who's living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Feel like getting some coffee?"

  Rydberg turned in transcripts of the interviews that he and Svedberg had held with Lövgren's two daughters. Wallander described his phone conversation.

  "The Minister of Immigration will be calling soon, and she'll be concerned," said Rydberg, with a wicked laugh.

  "You can deal with her" said Wallander. "I'll try to be back from Kristianstad by four."

  When Näslund reappeared with the two mugs of coffee, Wallander no longer wanted his. He had to get out of the building. His bandages were too tight, and his head ached. A drive would do him good.

  "Tell me about it in the car," he said, pushing the coffee away.

  Näslund looked doubtful.

  "I don't really know where we should go. Herdin knew virtually nothing about the mystery woman, for all that he was well-informed about Lövgren's financial assets."

  "He must have known something."

  "I gave him a thorough grilling," said Näslund. "I actually think he was telling the truth. The only thing he knew for sure was that she existed."

  "How did he know that?"

  "He happened to be in Kristianstad once, and saw Lövgren and her in the street."

  "When was that?"

  Näslund flipped through his notes.

  "Eleven years ago."

  Wallander toyed with his coffee.

  "It doesn't fit," he said. "He has to know a great deal more. How can he be so sure that there's a son? How does he know about the payments to the woman? Couldn't you force it out of him?"

  "He claimed that somebody had written to him and told him."

  "Who?"

  "He wouldn't say."

  Wallander thought about this for a moment.

  "We'll go to Kristianstad anyway," he said. "Our colleagues up t
here will have to help us. Then I'm going to take on Herdin myself."

  They took a squad car. Wallander clambered into the back seat and left the driving to Näslund. When they had left town, Wallander noticed that Näslund was driving much too fast.

  "This isn't an emergency," he said. "Slow down. I have to read these papers and think."

  Näslund drove more slowly.

  The landscape was grey and foggy. Wallander stared out at the dreary desolation. Although he felt at home in the Scanian spring and summer, he felt alienated by the barren silence of autumn and winter.

  He leaned back and closed his eyes. His body ached and the burn on his arm stung. And he was having palpitations. Divorced men have heart attacks, he thought. We put on weight from eating too much and feel tormented about being abandoned. Or else we throw ourselves into new relationships, and in the end our hearts just give out.

  The thought of Mona made him both furious and sad. He opened his eyes and looked out again at the landscape of Skåne.

  He read through the transcripts of the interviews with Lövgren's daughters. There was nothing there to give them a lead. No enemies, no simmering hostilities. And no money either. Johannes Lövgren had even kept his own daughters in the dark about his vast assets.

  Wallander tried to imagine this man. How had he operated? What had driven him? What did he suppose would happen to the money after he was gone?

  He was startled by his train of thought. Somewhere there should be a will. But if it wasn't in one of the safe-deposit boxes, then where was it? Did the murdered man have another safe-deposit box somewhere else?

  "How many banks are there in Ystad?" he asked Näslund.

  Näslund knew everything about the town. "Ten, I should say."

  "Tomorrow I want you to investigate the ones we haven't visited so far. Did Lövgren have more safe-deposit boxes? I also want to know how he got back and forth from Lunnarp. Taxi, bus, whatever."

  Näslund nodded. "He could have taken the school bus."

  "Someone would have seen him."

  They took the Tomelilla route, crossing the main road to Malmö and continuing north.

  "What did the inside of Herdin's house look like?" Wallander asked.

  "Old-fashioned. But clean, tidy. Strangely enough, he uses a microwave to do his cooking. He offered me homemade rolls. He has a big parrot in a cage. The farm is well cared for. The whole place looks neat. No broken-down fences."

  "What make of car does he drive?"

  "A red Mercedes."

  "A Mercedes?"

  "Yes, a Mercedes."

  "I thought he told us it was hard making ends meet."

  "Well, that Mercedes of his would have set him back 300,000 plus."

  Wallander thought for a moment. "We need to know more about Lars Herdin. Even if he says he has no idea who killed them, he could easily know something without realising it himself."

  "What's that got to do with the Mercedes?"

  "Nothing. I've just got a hunch that Herdin is more important to us than he thinks he is. And we might wonder how a farmer today can afford to buy a car for 300,000 kronor. Maybe he has a receipt that says he bought a tractor."

  They drove into Kristianstad and parked outside the police station just as sleet started to fall. Wallander registered the first vague prickles in his throat, warning him that a cold was coming on. Damn, he thought. I can't get sick now. I don't want to meet Mona with a fever and sniffles.

  The Ystad police and the Kristianstad police had no special relationship with each other beyond co-operating whenever the occasion arose. But Wallander knew several of the officers rather well from various conferences at county level. He was hoping, above all, that Goran Boman would be on duty. He was the same age as Wallander, and they had met over a whisky at Tylosand. Together they had endured a tedious study day organised by the educational department of the national police. The purpose had been to inspire them to improve and make more effective the staff policies at their respective workplaces. In the evening they sat and shared half a bottle of whisky and soon discovered that they had a lot in common. In particular, both their fathers had been extremely reluctant at their decision to go into police work.

  Wallander and Näslund stepped into the reception. The young woman at the switchboard, who oddly enough spoke with a lilting Norrland accent, told them that Goran Boman was indeed on duty.

  "He's in an interview at present," said the woman. "But it probably won't last long."

  Wallander went out to use the toilet. He gave a start when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. The bruises and abrasions were bright red. He splashed his face with cold water. At that moment he heard Boman's voice in the corridor.

  The reunion was a hearty one. Wallander was delighted to see Boman again. They got some coffee and took it to his office. Wallander noted that they had exactly the same kind of desk, but otherwise Boman's office was better furnished. It made his office more pleasant, in the same way that Anette Brolin had transformed the sterile office she had taken over.

  Boman knew, of course, about the murders in Lunnarp, as well as the attack on the refugee camp and Wallander's rescue attempt that had been so exaggerated in the papers. They talked for a while about refugees. Boman had the same impression as Wallander, that people seeking asylum were dealt with in a chaotic and disorganised fashion. The Kristianstad police also had numerous examples of deportation orders that could be executed only with great difficulty. As recently as a few weeks before Christmas they had been advised that several Bulgarian citizens were to be expelled. According to the Immigration Service, they were living at a camp in Kristianstad. Only after several days' work did the police find out that the Bulgarians were living at a camp in Arjeplog, more than 1,000 kilometres to the north.

  They switched to the reason for their visit. Wallander gave Boman a detailed run-down.

  "And you want us to find her for you," said Boman when he was done.

  "That wouldn't be a bad plan."

  Näslund had been sitting in silence.

  "I've got an idea," he said. "If Johannes Lövgren had a son by this woman, and we assume that he was born in this town, we should be able to look it up in the town's records. Lövgren must have been listed as the child's father, don't you think?"

  Wallander nodded. "Besides, we know approximately when the child was born. We can concentrate on a ten-year period, from about 1947 to 1957, if Herdin's story is correct. And I think it is."

  "How many children are born over a ten-year period in Kristianstad?" asked Boman. "It would have taken an awfully long time to check before we had computers."

  "It's of course, possible that the record will state 'father unknown," said Wallander. "But then we just have to go through all of those cases with extra care."

  "Why don't you just put out a public appeal for the woman?" asked Boman. "And ask her to contact you."

  "Because I'm quite sure that she wouldn't do that," said Wallander. "It's just a feeling I have. It may not be particularly professional. But I think I'd rather try this route instead."

  "We'll find her," said Boman. "We live in a society and an age when it's almost impossible to disappear. Unless you commit suicide in such an ingenious fashion that your body is completely obliterated. We had a case like that last summer. At least that's what I assume happened. A man who was sick of it all. He was reported missing by his wife. His boat was gone. We never found him. And I don't think we're ever going to, either. I think he put out to sea, scuttled the boat, and drowned himself. But if this woman and her son exist, we'll find them. I'll put an officer on it right away."

  Wallander's throat hurt. He had started to sweat. He would have liked most of all to stay sitting there, discussing the case with Boman. He had the feeling that Boman was a talented policeman. His opinion would be valuable. But Wallander was too tired. They tied up the loose ends and Boman accompanied them out to the car.

  "We'll find her," he repeated.

  "Let's get
together some evening," said Wallander. "In peace and quiet. And have some whisky."

  Boman nodded. "Maybe on another pointless study day," he said.

  The sleet was still coming down. Wallander felt the dampness seeping into his shoes. He crawled again into the back seat and huddled up in the corner. Soon he fell asleep.

  He didn't wake until Näslund pulled up in front of the police station in Ystad. He was feverish and miserable. It continued to sleet. He managed to beg a couple of aspirin from Ebba. He knew that he ought to go home to bed, but he couldn't resist getting an update on the day's developments. And he wanted to hear what Rydberg had come up with regarding protection for the refugees.

  His desk was piled high with phone messages. Anette Brolin was among the many people who had called. And his father. But not Linda. Or Widén. He shuffled through the messages and then put them aside except for the ones from Anette Brolin and his father. Then he called Martinsson.

  "Bingo," said Martinsson. "I think we've found it. A car that fits the description was rented last week by an Avis office in Goteborg. It hasn't been returned. There's just one thing that's strange."

  "What's that?"

  "The car was rented by a woman." "What's strange about that?"

  "I have a little trouble picturing a woman as the killer."

  "Now you're on the wrong track. We have to get hold of that car. And the driver. Even if it is a woman. Then we'll see if they were involved. Eliminating someone from an investigation is just as important as getting a positive lead. And give the registration number to the lorry driver in case he recognises it."

  He hung up and went into Rydberg's office.

  "How's it going?" he asked.

  "This is certainly not much fun," replied Rydberg gloomily.

  "Who said police work was supposed to be fun,"

  But Rydberg had made a thorough job of it, just as Wallander had known he would. The various camps were pinpointed, and Rydberg had written a brief memo about each one. For the time being he suggested that the night patrols should make rounds of the camps according to a schedule he had devised.

  "Good," said Wallander. "Just make sure the patrols understand that it's a serious matter."