Wallander's First Case Read online

  ‘Summarise this for me.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can.’

  ‘Try it!’

  ‘Hålén swallowed the diamonds because he was afraid that someone was going to steal them. And then he shot himself. The person who was there that night was looking for them. But I can’t explain the blaze.’

  ‘Can’t you explain it a different way?’ Hemberg suggested. ‘If you tweak Hålén’s motive a little. Where does that put you?’

  Wallander suddenly realised what Hemberg was getting at.

  ‘Maybe he wasn’t afraid,’ Wallander said. ‘He had maybe just decided never to be parted from his diamonds.’

  Hemberg nodded.

  ‘You can draw one more conclusion. That someone knew that Hålén had these diamonds.’

  ‘And that Hålén knew that someone knew.’

  Hemberg nodded, pleased.

  ‘You’re coming along,’ he said. ‘Even though it’s going very slowly.’

  ‘But this doesn’t explain the fire.’

  ‘You still have to ask yourself what is most important,’ Hemberg said. ‘Where is the centre? Where is the very kernel? The fire can be a distraction. Or the act of someone who is angry.’

  ‘Who?’

  Hemberg shrugged.

  ‘It’ll be hard for us to find that out. Hålén is dead. How he has managed to get a hold of these diamonds I don’t know. If I go to the public prosecutor with this he’ll laugh in my face.’

  ‘What happens to the diamonds?’

  ‘They go to the General Inheritance Fund. And we can stamp our papers and send in our report about Hålén’s death to go as deep in the basement as possible.’

  ‘Does this mean that the fire won’t be investigated?’

  ‘Not very thoroughly, I suspect,’ Hemberg said. ‘There is no reason to.’

  Hemberg walked over to a cabinet that stood against one wall. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked it. Then he nodded at Wallander to join him. He pointed at some folders with a ribbon around them that were lying to one side.

  ‘These are my constant companions,’ Hemberg said. ‘Three murder cases that are still neither solved nor old enough to have lapsed. I am not the one who is in charge of them. We review these cases once a year. Or if we receive additional information. These are not originals. They are copies. Sometimes I look at them. On occasion I dream about them. Most policemen aren’t like this. They do their job and when they go home they forget what they are working on. But then there is another type, like me. Who can never let go of an unsolved case. I even take these folders along with me on holiday. Three cases of murder. A nineteen-year-old girl. 1963. Ann-Louise Franzén. She was found strangled behind some bushes by the highway leading north out of town. Leonard Johansson, also 1963. Only seventeen years old. Someone had crushed his skull with a rock. We found him on the beach south of the city.’

  ‘I remember him,’ Wallander said. ‘Didn’t they suspect that it was a fight over a girl that had spiralled out of control?’

  ‘There was a fight over a girl,’ Hemberg said. ‘We interviewed the rival for many years. But we didn’t get him. And I don’t even think it was him.’

  Hemberg pointed to the file on the bottom.

  ‘One more girl. Lena Moscho. Twenty years old. 1959. The same year that I came here to Malmö. Her hands had been cut off and buried along a road out to Svedala. It was a dog that found her. She had been raped. She lived with her parents out in Jägersro. An upright sort who was studying to become a physician, of all things. It was in April. She was heading out to buy a newspaper but never returned. It took us five months to find her.’

  Hemberg shook his head.

  ‘You will discover what type you belong to,’ he said and closed the cabinet. ‘The ones who forget or the ones who don’t.’

  ‘I don’t even know if I measure up,’ Wallander said.

  ‘You want to, at least,’ Hemberg answered. ‘And that’s a good start.’

  Hemberg had started to put on his coat. Wallander checked his watch and saw that it was five minutes to seven.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  ‘I can give you a lift home,’ Hemberg said, ‘if you can hold your horses.’

  ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry,’ Wallander said.

  Hemberg shrugged.

  ‘Now you know,’ he said. ‘Now you know what Hålén had in his stomach.’

  Wallander was lucky and managed to catch a taxi right outside. When he got to Rosengård it was nine minutes past seven. He hoped that Mona was running late. But when he read the note he had posted on the door he realised that this was not the case.

  Is this how it’s going to be? she had written.

  Wallander took down the note. The drawing pin fell onto the stairs. He didn’t bother to retrieve it. In the best-case scenario it would get stuck in Linnea Almquist’s shoe.

  Is this how it’s going to be? Wallander understood Mona’s impatience. She did not have the same expectations for her professional life as he did. Her dreams about her own salon were not going to come true for a long time.

  When he had gone into the apartment and sat down on the sofa he felt guilty. He should spend more time with Mona. Not simply expect her to be patient every time he was late. To try to call her was pointless. Right now she was driving that borrowed car to Helsingborg.

  Suddenly there was an anxiety in him that everything was wrong. Had he really thought about what it would mean to live with Mona? To have a child with her?

  He pushed the thoughts away. We’ll talk to each other in Skagen, he thought. Then we’ll have time. You can’t be too late on a beach.

  He looked at the clock. Half past seven. He turned on the television. As usual a plane had crashed somewhere. Or was it just a train that had run off the rails? He walked into the kitchen and only half listened to the news. Looked in the fridge for a beer, but only found an opened soda. The desire for something stronger was suddenly very intense. The thought of going into town again and sitting in a bar seemed attractive. But he waved it away since he hardly had any money. Even though it was only the beginning of the month.

  Instead he warmed the coffee that was in the pot and thought about Hemberg. Hemberg with his unsolved cases in a cupboard. Was he going to be like that? Or would he learn to switch off work when he came home? I’ll have to, for Mona’s sake, he thought. She’ll go crazy otherwise.

  The key ring cut into the chair. He took it up and put it on the table without thinking about it. Then something came into his head, something that had to do with Hålén.

  The extra lock. That he had had installed only a short time ago. How to interpret that? It could be a sign of fear. And why had the door been ajar when Wallander found him?

  There was too much that didn’t add up. Even though Hemberg had declared suicide to be the cause of death, doubt gnawed at Wallander.

  He was becoming increasingly certain that there was something hidden in Hålén’s death, something they had not even come close to. Suicide or not, there was something more.

  Wallander located a pad of paper in a kitchen drawer and sat down to write out the points he was still puzzling over. There was the extra lock. The betting form. Why had the door been ajar? Who had been there that night looking for the diamonds? And why the fire?

  Then he tried to remind himself what he had seen in the sailor scrapbooks. Rio de Janeiro, he recalled. But was that the name of a ship or the city? He remembered seeing Gothenburg and Bergen. Then he reminded himself that he had seen the name St Luis. Where was that? He stood up and walked around the room. At the very back of the wardrobe he found his old atlas from school. But suddenly he wasn’t sure of the spelling. Was it St Louis or St Luis? The United States or Brazil? As he looked down the list of names in the index he suddenly came to São Luis and was immediately sure that this had been the name.

  He went through his list again. Do I see anything that I haven’t discovered? he thought. A connection, an explanat
ion, or what Hemberg talked about, a centre?

  He found nothing.

  The coffee had grown cold. Impatiently he went back to the couch. Now there was one of those public television talk shows on again. This time a number of long-haired people were discussing the new English pop music. He turned it off and put the record player on instead. Immediately Linnea Almquist started to thump on the floor. Mostly he had the desire to turn the volume right up. Instead he turned it off.

  At that moment the telephone rang. It was Mona.

  ‘I’m in Helsingborg,’ she said. ‘I’m in a telephone kiosk down by the harbour.’

  ‘I’m so sorry I came home too late,’ Wallander said.

  ‘You were called back on duty, I presume?’

  ‘They did actually call for me. From the crime squad. Even though I don’t work there yet they called me in.’

  He was hoping she would be a little impressed but heard that she did not believe him. Silence wandered back and forth between them.

  ‘Can’t you come here?’ he said.

  ‘I think it’s best if we take a break,’ she said. ‘At least for a week or so.’

  Wallander felt himself go cold. Was Mona moving away from him?

  ‘I think it’s best,’ she repeated.

  ‘I thought we were going on holiday together?’

  ‘I thought so too. If you haven’t changed your mind.’

  ‘Of course I haven’t changed my mind.’

  ‘You don’t need to raise your voice. You can call me in a week. But not before.’

  He tried to keep her on, but she had already hung up.

  Wallander spent the rest of the evening with a sense of panic growing inside. There was nothing he feared as much as abandonment. It was only with the utmost effort that he managed to stop himself from calling Mona when it was past midnight. He lay down only to get back up again. The light summer sky was suddenly threatening. He fried a couple of eggs that he didn’t eat.

  Only when it was approaching five o’clock did he manage to doze off. But almost immediately he was up again.

  A thought in his mind.

  The betting form.

  Hålén must have turned these in somewhere. Probably at the same place every week. Since he mostly kept to the neighbourhood, it must be in one of the little newsagents that were close by.

  Exactly what finding the right shop would yield, he wasn’t sure. In all likelihood, nothing.

  Nonetheless he decided to pursue his thought. It at least had the benefit that it kept his panic about Mona at bay.

  He fell into a restless slumber for several hours.

  The next day was Sunday. Wallander spent that day doing nothing much at all.

  On Monday, 9 June, he did something he had not done before. He called in sick, citing stomach flu as the cause. Mona had been sick the week before. To his surprise, he felt no guilt.

  It was overcast but there was no precipitation when he left his building shortly after nine in the morning. It was windy and had become colder. Summer had still not arrived in earnest.

  There were two small newsagents nearby that handled bets. One was very close by, on a side street. As Wallander walked through the door it occurred to him that he should have brought a picture of Hålén with him. The man behind the counter was Hungarian. Even though he had lived here since 1956 he spoke Swedish very badly. But he recognised Wallander, who often bought cigarettes from him. He did so now as well, two packs.

  ‘Do you take bets?’ Wallander asked.

  ‘I thought you only bought lottery tickets?’

  ‘Did Artur Hålén place his bets with you?’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘The man who died in the fire recently.’

  ‘Has there been a fire?’

  Wallander explained. But the man behind the counter shook his head when Wallander described Hålén.

  ‘He did not come here. He must have gone to someone else.’

  Wallander paid and thanked him. It had started to rain lightly. He hurried his pace. The whole time he was thinking about Mona. The next newsagent had not had anything to do with Hålén either. Wallander went and stood under the cover of an overhanging balcony and asked himself what he was doing. Hemberg would think I was crazy, he thought.

  Then he walked on. The next newsagent was almost a kilometre away. Wallander regretted not having worn a raincoat. When he reached the newsagent, which was right next to a grocery, he had to wait behind someone else. The person behind the counter was a woman about Wallander’s age. She was beautiful. Wallander did not take his eyes off her as she searched for an old issue of a specialised motorcycle magazine that the customer ahead of him wanted. It was very hard for Wallander not to immediately fall in love with a beautiful woman who came his way. Then and only then could he force all thoughts of Mona and associated anxiety into submission. Even though he had already bought two packs of cigarettes he bought one more. At the same time he was trying to work out if the woman in front of him was someone who would show disapproval if he said he was a policeman. Or if she belonged to the majority of the population who despite everything still believed that most policemen were in fact needed and honourably occupied. He took a chance on the latter.

  ‘I have some questions for you too,’ he said as he paid for his cigarettes. ‘I am Detective Inspector Kurt Wallander.’

  ‘Oh my,’ the woman answered. Her dialect was different.

  ‘You aren’t from around here?’ he asked.

  ‘Was that what you wanted to ask?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m from Lenhovda.’

  Wallander did not know where that was. He guessed it was in Blekinge. But he did not say this. Instead he continued to the matter of Hålén and the betting forms. She had heard about the fire. Wallander described Hålén’s appearance. She thought for a moment.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Did he speak slowly? Kind of quietly?’

  Wallander thought about it and nodded. That could describe Hålén’s manner of speaking.

  ‘I think he played a small game,’ Wallander said. ‘Only thirty-two rows or so.’

  She reflected on this, then nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He came here. Once a week. One week thirty-two rows, the next sixty-four.’

  ‘Do you remember what he wore?’

  ‘A blue coat,’ she said immediately.

  Wallander recalled that almost every time he had seen Hålén he had been wearing a blue jacket with a zip.

  There was nothing wrong with her memory. Nor with her curiosity.

  ‘Had he done something?’

  ‘Not that we know.’

  ‘I heard it was suicide.’

  ‘Indeed it was. But the fire was arson.’

  I shouldn’t have said that, Wallander thought. We don’t know that for sure yet.

  ‘He always had exact change,’ she said. ‘Why do you want to know if he placed his bets here?’

  ‘Routine questioning,’ Wallander answered. ‘Can you remember anything else about him?’

  Her answer caught him by surprise.

  ‘He used to borrow the telephone,’ she said.

  The telephone was on a little shelf next to the table where the betting forms were kept.

  ‘Was that a frequent occurrence?’

  ‘It happened every time. First he placed the bet and paid. Then he made his call, came back to the counter and paid for it.’

  She bit her lip.

  ‘There was something strange about those phone calls. I remember thinking about it one time.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘He always waited until another customer came into the shop before he dialled the number and started to talk. He never called when he and I were the only ones in the shop.’

  ‘He didn’t want you to overhear.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Maybe he just wanted his privacy. Isn’t that normal?’

  ‘Did you ever hear what he talked about?’
/>
  ‘You can listen even when you’re attending a customer.’

  Her curiosity is a big help, Wallander thought.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not very much,’ she answered. ‘The conversations were always very brief. He gave times, I think. Not much more.’

  ‘Times?’

  ‘I had the feeling he was arranging a time with someone. He often looked at his watch while he was talking.’

  Wallander thought for a moment.

  ‘Did he usually come here on the same day of the week?’

  ‘Every Wednesday afternoon. Between two and three, I think. Or perhaps a little later.’

  ‘Did he buy anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can you remember all this so precisely? You must have a large number of customers.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But I think you remember more than you realise. If someone starts to ask you it just comes back up.’

  Wallander looked at her hands. She wore no rings. He briefly considered asking her out but then dismissed the thought, horrified.

  It was as if Mona had overheard his thoughts.

  ‘Is there anything else you remember?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure he was talking to a woman.’

  That surprised Wallander.

  ‘How can you be sure of that?’

  ‘You can hear it,’ she said firmly.

  ‘You mean that Hålén was calling to set up a time to meet with a woman?’

  ‘What would be strange about that? He was old, of course, but that doesn’t matter.’

  Wallander nodded. Of course she was right. And if she was right he had found out something valuable. There had been a woman in Hålén’s life after all.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Do you remember anything else?’

  Before she answered, a customer walked in. Wallander waited. There were two little girls who took a great deal of care in selecting two bags of sweets, which they then paid for with an endless series of five-öre pieces.

  ‘That woman may have had a name that started with A,’ she said. ‘He always spoke very quietly. I said that earlier. But her name may have been Anna. Or a double name. Something with A.’

  ‘Are you sure of this?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I think so.’