The White Lioness Read online

  After the interment he shook hands solemnly with Robert Åkerblom and the other principal mourners. He avoided looking at the two daughters, afraid of bursting into tears.

  Pastor Tureson took him to one side outside the chapel. “Your presence was very much appreciated,” he told Wallander. “Nobody had expected the police to send a representative to the funeral.”

  “I’m representing nobody but myself,” said Wallander.

  “So much the better that you came,” said Pastor Tureson. “Are you still looking for the man behind the tragedy?”

  Wallander nodded.

  “But you will catch him?”

  Wallander nodded again.

  “Yes,” he said. “Sooner or later. How’s Robert Åkerblom taking it? And the daughters?”

  “The support they’re getting from the church is all-important to them just now,” said Pastor Tureson. “And then, he has his God.”

  “You mean he still believes?” wondered Wallander quietly.

  Pastor Tureson frowned.

  “Why should he abandon his God for something human beings have done to him and his family?”

  “No,” said Wallander quietly. “Why should he do that?”

  “There’ll be a meeting at the church in an hour,” said Pastor Tureson. “You’re welcome to come.”

  “Thanks,” said Wallander. “But I’ve got to get back to work.”

  They shook hands and Wallander returned to his car. It suddenly dawned on him that spring had really arrived.

  Just wait till Victor Mabasha has left, he thought. Just wait till we’ve caught Konovalenko. Then I can devote myself to spring.

  On Thursday morning Wallander drove his daughter out to his father’s house in Löderup. When they got there, she suddenly decided to stay overnight. She took one look at the overgrown yard and announced her intention to tidy it up before returning to Ystad. That would take her at least two days.

  “If you change your mind, just give me a call,” said Wallander.

  “You should thank me for cleaning up your apartment,” she said. “It looked awful.”

  “I know,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “How much longer do I have to stay?” she asked. “I’ve got lots to do in Stockholm, you know.”

  “Not much longer,” said Wallander, aware that he did not sound very convincing. But to his surprise, she seemed satisfied with his reply.

  Afterwards he had a long talk with the prosecutor, Åkeson. When he got back, Wallander gathered together all the investigation material with the help of Martinson and Svedberg.

  At about four in the afternoon he went shopping and bought some food before driving home. Outside the apartment door was an unusually big stack of leaflets from some store or other. Without looking to see what they were, he shoved them into the garbage sack. Then he made dinner and went through all the practical details of the journey with Victor Mabasha one more time. The lines he had memorized sounded better every time he pronounced them.

  After dinner they went through the finer points. Victor Mabasha would have an overcoat over his left arm to hide the bandage he still had on his injured hand. He practiced taking his passport from his inside pocket while keeping the coat over his left arm. Wallander was satisfied. Nobody would be able to see the injury.

  “You’ll be flying to London with a British airline,” he said. “SAS would be too risky. Swedish air hostesses will probably read the newspapers and see the TV news. They’d notice your hand and sound the alarm.”

  Later that evening, when there were no more practical details to discuss, silence fell and neither seemed inclined to break it for a long time. In the end Victor Mabasha got up and stood in front of Wallander.

  “Why have you been helping me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” answered Wallander. “I often think I ought to slip the handcuffs on you. I can see I’m taking a big risk in letting you go. Maybe it was you who killed Louise Åkerblom after all? You say yourself how good a liar everybody becomes back home in your country. Maybe I’m letting a murderer go?”

  “But you’re doing it even so?”

  “I’m doing it even so.”

  Victor Mabasha took off his necklace and handed it to Wallander. He could see that it featured the tooth of a wild animal.

  “The leopard is the solitary hunter,” said Victor Mabasha. “Unlike the lion, the leopard goes its own way and only crosses its own tracks. During the day when the heat is at its height, it rests in the trees alongside the eagles. At night it hunts alone. The leopard is a skillful hunter. But the leopard is also the biggest challenge for other hunters. This is a canine tooth from a leopard. I want you to have it.”

  “I’m not sure I understood what you mean,” said Wallander, “but I’ll be glad to have the tooth.”

  “Not everything is understandable,” said Victor Mabasha. “A story is a journey without an end.”

  “That’s probably the difference between you and me,” said Wallander. “I’m used to stories having an end, and expect one. You say a good story doesn’t have one.”

  “That may be so,” said Victor Mabasha. “It can be a good thing to know you’ll never meet a certain person again. That means that something will live on.”

  “Perhaps,” said Wallander. “But I doubt it. I wonder if that’s the way things really are.”

  Victor Mabasha did not answer.

  An hour later he was asleep under a blanket on the sofa, while Wallander sat looking at the tooth he had been given.

  Suddenly he felt uneasy. He went out into the dark kitchen and looked down at the street. All was quiet. Then he went out into the hall and checked that the door was securely locked. He sat down on a stool by the telephone, and thought maybe he was just tired. Another twelve hours and Victor Mabasha would be gone.

  He examined the tooth once more.

  Nobody would believe me, he thought. If for no other reason, I’d better keep quiet about the days and nights I spent with a black man who once had a finger cut off in a remote house in Skåne.

  That’s a secret I’d better take to the grave.

  When Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan met at Hammanskraal in the morning of Friday, May 15, it did not take them long to establish that neither of them had found any significant weaknesses in the plan.

  The assassination would take place in Cape Town on June 12. Nelson Mandela would be speaking in the stadium, and from the summit of Signal Hill Sikosi Tsiki would have an ideal position for his long-range rifle. Then he could disappear unnoticed.

  But there were two things Jan Kleyn had not mentioned to Franz Malan, nor to the other committee members. In fact, they were matters he had no intention of mentioning to anybody at all. In order to ensure the continued dominance of white rule in South Africa, he was prepared to take certain selected secrets with him to the grave. Certain events and connections would never be revealed in the history of the country.

  The first thing was that he was not prepared to take the risk of allowing Sikosi Tsiki to live with the knowledge of whom he had killed. He did not doubt for a moment that Sikosi Tsiki could keep his mouth shut. But just as the pharaohs of ancient times killed off those who had built the secret chambers in the pyramids, to ensure that any knowledge of their existence would be lost, he would sacrifice Sikosi Tsiki. He would kill him himself, and make sure the body would never be found.

  The other secret Jan Kleyn would keep to himself was the fact that Victor Mabasha had been alive as recently as the previous afternoon. Now he was dead, no doubt about that. But it was a personal defeat for Jan Kleyn that Victor Mabasha had managed to survive as long as he had. He felt personally responsible for Konovalenko’s errors and repeated inability to bring the Victor Mabasha chapter to a close. The KGB man had displayed unexpected weaknesses. His attempt to cover up his shortcomings by lying was the biggest weakness of all. Jan Kleyn always regarded it as a personal slight when anybody doubted his ability to keep abreast of the information he needed. Once
the assassination of Mandela was accomplished, he would decide whether or not he was ready to receive Konovalenko into South Africa. He did not doubt the man’s ability to take care of the necessary preliminary training of Sikosi Tsiki. On the other hand, he thought it could well be that the downfall of the Soviet empire had been ultimately due to the same kind of unreliable skills that Konovalenko had. He did not exclude the possibility that even Konovalenko might have to go up in smoke, together with his henchmen Vladimir and Tania. The whole operation needed a thorough spring cleaning. He had no intention of delegating that job to anyone else.

  They were sitting at the table with the green felt cloth, going over the plan one more time. The previous week Franz Malan had been to Cape Town to examine the stadium where Nelson Mandela was due to speak. He also spent an afternoon at the spot where Sikosi Tsiki was to fire his rifle. He made a videotape, which they watched three times on the television set in the room. The only thing still missing was a report on Cape Town’s usual wind conditions. Pretending to represent a yacht club, Franz Malan had been in touch with the national weather center, which had promised to send him the information he had asked for. The name and address he gave would never be traced.

  Jan Kleyn had not done any legwork. His contribution was of a different kind. His specialty was a theoretical dissection of the plan. He had considered unexpected developments, tried out a one-man role-play, and kept at it until he was convinced no undesirable problems could crop up.

  After two hours their work was completed.

  “There’s just one more thing,” said Jan Kleyn. “We have to establish before June 12 exactly how the Cape Town police will be deployed.”

  “I can take care of that,” said Franz Malan. “We can send out a flyer to all the police districts in the country requesting copies of their security plans, to give us time to prepare all the political measures that need to be taken when big crowds are expected.”

  They went out onto the veranda, waiting for the rest of the committee to arrive. They contemplated the view in silence. On the far horizon was a heavy blanket of smoke over a black shanty town.

  “There’ll be a bloodbath,” said Franz Malan. “I still have trouble envisioning what will happen.”

  “Regard it as a purification process,” said Jan Kleyn. “Those words sound rather better than bloodbath. Besides, that’s what we are hoping to achieve.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Franz Malan. “I sometimes feel uneasy. Will we be able to control what happens?”

  “The answer to that is simple,” said Jan Kleyn. “We have to.”

  That fatalism again, thought Franz Malan. He glanced surreptitiously at the man standing a few meters away from him. Was Jan Kleyn crazy? A psychopath hiding the violent truth about himself behind a public mask that was always under control?

  He did not like the thought. All he could do was suppress it.

  The whole committee gathered at two o’clock. Franz Malan and Jan Kleyn showed the videotape and presented their summary. There were not many questions, and objections were easily fended off. The whole thing lasted less than an hour. They took a vote shortly before three. The decision was made.

  Twenty-eight days later Nelson Mandela would be killed while speaking at a stadium near Cape Town.

  The members of the committee left Hammanskraal at intervals of a few minutes. Jan Kleyn was the last to leave.

  The countdown had started.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The attack came just after midnight.

  Victor Mabasha was asleep on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket. Wallander was standing by the kitchen window, trying to decide whether he was hungry or should just have a cup of tea. At the same time he was wondering whether his father and daughter were still up. He assumed so. They always had a surprising number of things to talk about.

  As he was waiting for the water to boil it occurred to him it was three weeks since they had started looking for Louise Åkerblom. Now, three weeks later, they knew she had been killed by a guy called Konovalenko. The same guy who had most probably killed the cop Tengblad as well.

  In a few more hours, when Victor Mabasha was out of the country, he would be able to tell people what had happened. But he would do so anonymously, even though he realized hardly anybody would believe the unsigned letter he intended to send to the police. In the end everything depended on what they could make Konovalenko confess to. And it was doubtful whether even he would be believed either.

  Wallander poured the boiling water into the pot and left it to brew. Then he pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down.

  As he did so the apartment door and hall blew up. Wallander was thrown backwards by the blast, and hit his head against the refrigerator. The kitchen started to fill up rapidly with smoke, and he groped his way to the bedroom door. Just as he got to his bed and was fumbling for his pistol on the bedside table he heard four shots in rapid succession behind him. He flung himself flat on the floor. The shots came from the living room.

  Konovalenko, he thought frantically. Now he’s coming for me.

  He wriggled under the bed as fast as he could. He was so scared, he wasn’t sure his heart could cope with the strain. Looking back later on, he would recall being struck by how degrading it would be, having to die under one’s own bed.

  He heard some thuds and breathless groans from the living room. Somebody came into the bedroom, stood motionless for a moment, then went out again. Wallander heard Victor Mabasha shouting something. So he was still alive. Then came footsteps fading away into the stairway. At the same time somebody started yelling, though he could not tell if it came from the street or from one of the neighboring apartments.

  He crept out from under the bed and hoisted himself up carefully so he could see the street through the window. The smoke was choking, and he had difficulty in making anything out. But then he saw two men dragging Victor Mabasha between them. One of them was Rykoff. Without thinking Wallander flung open the bedroom window and fired straight up into the air. Rykoff let go of Victor Mabasha and turned around. Wallander just managed to hit the floor before a salvo from an automatic weapon shattered the window pane. Splinters showered down over his face. He heard people shrieking and a car starting. He just had time to see it was a black Audi before it disappeared down the street. Wallander rushed downstairs and onto the sidewalk, where half-dressed people were starting to gather. When they saw Wallander with a pistol in his hand, they jumped aside screaming. Wallander opened the door of his car with fumbling fingers, cursed as he stabbed at the ignition lock with his key before getting it right, then set off after the Audi. He could hear the sound of sirens approaching from a distance. He decided to head for the Osterleden highway and got lucky. The Audi came skidding around the corner from Regementsgatan and took off bearing east. Wallander thought they might not realize it was him in the car. The only reason the man in the bedroom had not looked under the bed must have been the fact that it was still made, indicating Wallander was not at home.

  Wallander did not normally bother to make his bed in the morning, but that day his daughter, upset by all the mess, had cleaned up the apartment and changed his bed linen.

  They left the town at high speed. Wallander kept his distance, and felt like he was in the middle of a nightmare. No doubt he was breaking all the rules for how to arrest dangerous criminals. He started to brake, intending to stop and turn back. Then he changed his mind and kept going. They had already passed Sandskogen, with the golf course on the left, and Wallander began to wonder if the Audi would take a left towards Sandhammaren or keep going straight on towards Simrishamn and Kristianstad.

  He suddenly noticed the back lights on the car in front shuddering, and getting closer. The Audi must have a flat. He watched the car slide into a ditch and come to rest on its side. Wallander hit the brakes outside the driveway to a house by the roadside, and turned in. When he got out of the car he saw a man standing in the doorway with a light on.

  Wallander
had his pistol in his hand. When he started talking he made an effort to sound friendly and firm at the same time.

  “My name’s Wallander and I’m a cop,” he said, noticing how breathless he was. “Call the police and tell them I’m chasing a guy called Konovalenko. Explain where you live and tell them to start searching the military training ground. Is that clear?”

  The man nodded. He seemed to be in his thirties.

  “I recognize you,” he said. “I’ve seen you in the papers.”

  “Call right away,” said Wallander. “You do have a telephone?”

  “Sure I have a phone,” said the man. “Don’t you need a better weapon than that pistol?”

  “Of course I do,” said Wallander. “But I don’t have time to change right now.”

  Then he ran out onto the road.

  He could see the Audi some way ahead. He tried to stick to the shadows as he approached cautiously. He was still wondering how long his heart would cope with the strain. All the same, he was glad he hadn’t died under his bed. Now it seemed as if his fear was driving him on. He paused behind a road sign and listened. There was nobody left in the car. Then he noticed that a section of the fence around the military training ground had been destroyed. Fog was drifting in rapidly from the sea and settling densely over the artillery range. He could see a group of sheep lying motionless on the ground. Then he suddenly heard a bleat from a sheep he could not see through the fog, and another answering restlessly.