Wallander's First Case Read online

  Wallander knocked again. No answer. Then he opened the door and called out. It was quiet. He took some hesitant steps into the hallway. It smelled closed in, a stale old-man smell. Wallander called out again.

  He must have forgotten to lock up when he went out, Wallander thought. He is about seventy years old, after all. He must be getting forgetful.

  Wallander glanced into the kitchen. A crumpled-up football betting form lay on the wax tablecloth next to a coffee cup. Then he drew aside the curtains that led into the room. He winced. Hålén was lying on the floor. His white shirt was stained with blood. A revolver lay next to his hand.

  The bang, Wallander thought. What I heard was a shot.

  He felt himself start to get sick to his stomach. He had seen dead bodies many times before. People who had drowned or hanged themselves. People who had burned to death or been crushed beyond recognition in traffic accidents. But he had not grown accustomed to it.

  He looked around the room. Hålén’s apartment was a mirror image of his own. The furnishings gave a meagre impression. Not one plant or ornament. The bed was unmade.

  Wallander studied the body for a few more moments. Hålén must have shot himself in the chest. And he was dead. Wallander did not need to check his pulse in order to determine that.

  He returned quickly to his own apartment and called the police. Told them who he was, a colleague, filled them in on what had happened. Then he walked out onto the street and waited for the first responders to arrive.

  The police and emergency medical technicians arrived at almost the same time. Wallander nodded at them as they got out of their cars. He knew them all.

  ‘What have you found in there?’ one of the patrol officers asked. His name was Sven Svensson; he came from Landskrona and was always referred to as ‘The Thorn’ because once, while chasing a burglar, he had fallen into a thicket and been pierced in his lower abdomen by a number of thorns.

  ‘My neighbour,’ Wallander said. ‘He’s shot himself.’

  ‘Hemberg is on his way,’ the Thorn said. ‘The crime squad is going to have to go over everything.’

  Wallander nodded. He knew. Every fatal event, however natural it might seem, had to be investigated.

  Hemberg was a man with a certain reputation, not entirely positive. He angered easily and could be unpleasant to his co-workers. But at the same time he was such a virtuoso in his profession that no one really dared contradict him. Wallander noticed that he was starting to get nervous. Had he done anything wrong? If so, Hemberg would immediately let him know. And it was for Detective Inspector Hemberg that Wallander was going to be working as soon as his transfer came through.

  Wallander stayed out on the street, waiting. A dark Volvo pulled up to the kerb and Hemberg got out. He was alone. It took several seconds before he recognised Wallander.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Hemberg asked.

  ‘I live here,’ Wallander answered. ‘It’s my neighbour who’s shot himself. I was the one who made the call.’

  Hemberg raised his eyebrows with interest.

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘What do you mean, “see”?’

  ‘Did you see him shoot himself?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then how do you know it was a suicide?’

  ‘The weapon was lying right next to the body.’

  ‘So?’

  Wallander didn’t know what to say to this.

  ‘You have to learn to pose the right questions,’ Hemberg said. ‘If you are to work as a detective. I already have enough people who don’t know how to think. I don’t want another one.’

  Then he changed tack and adopted a friendlier tone.

  ‘If you say it was a suicide it probably was. Where is it?’

  Wallander pointed to the entrance. They went in.

  Wallander attentively followed Hemberg in his work. Watched him crouch down next to the body and discuss the bullet’s point of entry with the doctor who had arrived. Studied the position of the weapon, the body, the hand. Then he walked around the apartment, examining the contents in the chest of drawers, the cupboards and the clothes.

  After about an hour, he was done. He signalled to Wallander to join him in the kitchen.

  ‘It certainly looks like suicide,’ Hemberg said while he absently smoothed and read the football betting form on the table.

  ‘I heard a bang,’ Wallander said. ‘That must have been the shot.’

  ‘You didn’t hear anything else?’

  Wallander thought it was best to tell the truth.

  ‘I was napping,’ he said. ‘The sudden noise woke me up.’

  ‘And after that? No sound of anyone running in the stairwell?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  Wallander told him the little he knew.

  ‘He had no relatives?’

  ‘None that I’m aware of.’

  ‘We’ll have to look into the matter.’

  Hemberg sat quietly for a moment.

  ‘There are no family pictures,’ he went on. ‘Not on the chest of drawers in there or on the walls. Nothing in the drawers. Only two old sailing books. The only thing of interest that I could find was a colourful beetle in a jar. Larger than a stag beetle. Do you know what that is?’

  Wallander did not.

  ‘The largest Swedish beetle,’ Hemberg said. ‘But it is nearly extinct.’

  He put down the betting form.

  ‘There was also no suicide note,’ he continued. ‘An old man who has had enough and says goodbye to everything with a bang. According to the doctor he aimed well. Right in the heart.’

  An officer came into the kitchen with a wallet and handed it to Hemberg, who opened it and took out an ID card issued by the post office.

  ‘Artur Hålén,’ Hemberg said. ‘Born in 1898. He had many tattoos. Which is appropriate for a sailor of the old school. Do you know what he did at sea?’

  ‘I think he was a ship’s engineer.’

  ‘In one of the sailing logs he is registered as an engineer. In an earlier one, simply as a deckhand. He worked in various capacities. Once he became infatuated with a girl named Lucia. That name was tattooed on both his right shoulder and on his chest. One could say he symbolically shot himself straight through this beautiful name.’

  Hemberg put the ID card and wallet into a bag.

  ‘The medical examiner will have to have the last word,’ he said. ‘And we will do a routine examination of both the weapon and the bullet. But it’s definitely suicide.’

  Hemberg threw another glance at the betting form.

  ‘Artur Hålén did not know much about English football,’ he said. ‘If he had won on this prediction the jackpot would have been his alone.’

  Hemberg stood up. At the same time the body was being carried out. The covered stretcher was carefully guided out through the narrow hall.

  ‘It happens more often,’ Hemberg said thoughtfully. ‘Old people who take their final exit into their own hands. But not so often with a bullet. And even less often with a revolver.’

  He was suddenly scrutinising Wallander.

  ‘But of course this has already occurred to you.’

  Wallander was taken aback.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That it was strange that he had a revolver. We have gone through the chest of drawers. But there is no licence.’

  ‘He must have bought it sometime at sea.’

  Hemberg shrugged.

  ‘Of course.’

  Wallander followed Hemberg down onto the street.

  ‘Since you are the neighbour I thought perhaps you could take care of the key,’ he said. ‘When the others are done they will leave it with you. Make sure no one who is not supposed to enter goes in there until we are completely sure it is a suicide.’

  Wallander went back into the building. In the stairwell he bumped into Linnea Almquist, who was on her way out with a bag of rubbish.
r />   ‘What is all this commotion?’ she asked irritably.

  ‘Unfortunately there has been a death,’ Wallander said politely. ‘Hålén has passed away.’

  She was clearly shaken by the news.

  ‘He must have been very lonely,’ she said slowly. ‘I tried to get him to come in for a cup of coffee a few times. He excused himself with the fact that he didn’t have time. But surely time was the only thing he had?’

  ‘I hardly knew him,’ Wallander said.

  ‘Was it his heart?’

  Wallander nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was probably his heart.’

  ‘We’ll have to hope no noisy young people move in,’ she said, and left.

  Wallander returned to Hålén’s apartment. It was easier now that the body had been removed. A technician was packing up his bag. The pool of blood had darkened on the linoleum floor. The Thorn was picking at his cuticles.

  ‘Hemberg said that I should take the keys,’ Wallander said.

  The Thorn pointed to a key ring on the chest of drawers.

  ‘I wonder who owns the building,’ he said. ‘I have a girlfriend who’s looking for a place to live.’

  ‘The walls are very thin,’ Wallander said. ‘Just so you know.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard about those new exotic waterbeds?’ the Thorn asked. ‘They don’t creak.’

  It was already a quarter past six when Wallander could finally lock the door to Hålén’s apartment. There were still several hours left before he was supposed to meet Mona. He went back to his place and put on some coffee. The wind had picked up. He closed the window and sat down in the kitchen. He had not had any time to buy groceries and now the shop was closed. There was no shop that was open late nearby. It occurred to him that he would have to take Mona out for dinner. His wallet was on the table. There was enough money. Mona liked going out to dinner, but Wallander thought it was throwing away money for no reason.

  The coffee pot started to whistle. He poured himself a cup and added three lumps of sugar. Waited for it to cool.

  Something was nagging at him.

  Where it came from, he didn’t know.

  But all at once the feeling was very strong.

  He did not know what it was, other than that it had to do with Hålén. In his mind he went over what had happened. The bang that woke him, the door that was ajar, the dead body on the floor inside the room. A man who had committed suicide, a man who had been his neighbour.

  Nonetheless something didn’t add up. Wallander walked into the main room and lay down on the bed. Listened in his memory to the bang. Had he heard anything else? Before or after? Had any sounds penetrated his dreams? He searched but found nothing. Still, he was sure. There was something he had overlooked. He continued to go through his memories. But he remembered only silence. He got up from his bed and walked back out into the kitchen. The coffee had cooled.

  I’m imagining things, he thought. I saw it, Hemberg saw it, everyone saw it. An old, lonely man who had had enough.

  And yet it was as if he had seen something without realising what he was seeing.

  At the same time he had to admit that there was something inherently attractive about this idea. That he may have noticed something that had escaped Hemberg. That would increase his chances of advancing to criminal investigator sooner rather than later.

  He checked his watch. He still had time before he had to leave and meet Mona at the Denmark ferry. He put the coffee cup in the sink, grabbed the keys and entered Hålén’s apartment. When he reached the main room everything was as it had been when he discovered the body, except that the body itself was now missing. But the room was unchanged. Wallander looked around slowly. How do you do this? he wondered. How do you discover what you see but aren’t seeing?

  It was something, he was sure of it.

  But he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  He walked into the kitchen and sat down on the chair that Hemberg had used. The betting form lay in front of him. Wallander did not know very much about English football. Actually, he didn’t know very much about football, period. If he felt like gambling, he bought a lottery ticket. Nothing else.

  The betting form was made out for this coming Saturday, he could see. Hålén had even written out his name and address.

  Wallander returned to the room and walked over to the window in order to look at it from another angle. His gaze stopped by the bed. Hålén had been dressed when he took his life. But the bed was unmade. Even though the rest of the apartment was characterised by a meticulous order. Why hadn’t he made the bed? Wallander thought. He could hardly have slept with his clothes on, woken up and then shot himself without making his bed. And why leave a completed betting form on the kitchen table?

  It did not make sense, but on the other hand it did not necessarily mean anything. Hålén could have very quickly decided to kill himself. Perhaps he had realised the senselessness of making his bed one last time.

  Wallander sat down in the room’s only armchair. It was old and worn. I’m imagining things, he thought again. The medical examiner will establish that it was a suicide, the forensic investigation will confirm that the weapon and bullet match up and that the shot was fired by Hålén’s own hand.

  Wallander decided to leave the apartment. It was time to freshen up and change his clothes before leaving to meet Mona. But something kept him there. He walked over to the chest and started pulling open the drawers. He immediately found the two sea logs. Artur Hålén had been a handsome man in his youth. Blond hair, a big wide smile. Wallander had trouble connecting this image with the same man who had lived out his days in Rosengård in peace and quiet. Least of all he felt that these were pictures of someone who would one day come to take his own life. But he knew how wrong his thinking was. People who ended up committing suicide could never be characterised from a given model.

  He found the colourful beetle and took it over to the window. On the bottom of the jar he thought he could make out the stamped word ‘Brazil’. A souvenir that Hålén had bought on some trip. Wallander continued to go through the drawers. Keys, coins from various countries, nothing that caught his attention. Halfway under the worn and torn drawer liner he found a brown envelope. Inside was an old photograph, a wedding picture. On the back was the name of the studio and a date: 15 May 1894. The studio was located in Härnösand. There was also the note: Manda and I the day we got married. His parents, Wallander thought. Four years later their son was born.

  When he was done with the chest of drawers he walked over to the bookcase. To his surprise he found several books in German. They were well thumbed. There were also some books by Vilhelm Moberg, a Spanish cookbook and a few issues of a magazine for people interested in model aeroplanes. Wallander shook his head in bewilderment. Hålén was considerably more complex than he could have imagined. He walked away from the bookcase and checked under the bed. Nothing. He then went on to the cupboard. The clothes were neatly hung; three pairs of shoes, well polished. It is only the unmade bed, Wallander thought again. It doesn’t fit.

  He was about to shut the cupboard door when the doorbell rang. Wallander flinched. Waited. There was another ring. Wallander had the feeling that he was trespassing on forbidden territory. He kept waiting, but when it rang the third time he went over and opened the door.

  Outside there was a man in a grey coat. He looked enquiringly at Wallander.

  ‘Am I mistaken?’ he asked. ‘I am looking for Mr Hålén.’

  Wallander tried to adopt a formal tone that would sound appropriate.

  ‘May I ask who you are?’ he said with unnecessary brusqueness.

  The man frowned.

  ‘And if I could ask the same of you?’ he asked.

  ‘I am from the police,’ Wallander said. ‘Detective Sergeant Kurt Wallander. Would you now be so kind as to answer my question: who are you and what do you want?’

  ‘I sell encyclopedias,’ the man said meekly. ‘I was here last week and
made a presentation of my books. Artur Hålén asked me to come back today. He has already sent in the contract and the first payment. I was to deliver the first volume and then the gift book that all new clients receive as a welcome bonus.’

  He took two books out of his briefcase as if to assure Wallander that he was telling the truth.

  Wallander had been listening with increasing amazement. The feeling that something didn’t add up was strengthened. He stepped aside and nodded for the salesman to come in.

  ‘Has anything happened?’ the man asked.

  Wallander ushered him into the kitchen without answering and indicated that he should sit down at the table.

  Then Wallander realised that he was now going to deliver the news of a death. Something he had always dreaded. But he reminded himself that he was not talking to a relative, only to an encyclopedia salesman.

  ‘Artur Hålén is dead,’ he said.

  The man on the other side of the table did not seem to understand this.

  ‘But I spoke to him earlier today.’

  ‘I thought you said you had spoken to him last week?’

  ‘I called him this morning and asked if it would be all right for me to come by this evening.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That it would be fine. Why else would I have come? I am not an intrusive person. People have such bizarre preconceptions about door-to-door salesmen.’

  It was likely that the man was lying.

  ‘Let’s take the whole thing from the top,’ Wallander said.

  ‘What is it that’s happened?’ the man interrupted.

  ‘Artur Hålén is dead,’ Wallander answered. ‘And that is as much as I can say at this point.’

  ‘But if the police are involved then something must have happened. Was he hit by a car?’

  ‘For now that is as much as I can say,’ Wallander repeated and wondered why he had to overdramatise the situation.

  Then he asked the man to tell him the whole story.

  ‘I am Emil Holmberg,’ the man began. ‘I am actually a school biology teacher. But I’m trying to sell encyclopedias to save up for a trip to Borneo.’