An Event in Autumn: A Kurt Wallander Mystery Read online

  Lisa Holgersson could no longer limit the allocation of resources. Wallander was put in charge of the case along with a female prosecutor, who had just returned from study leave during which she had undergone further training. She told Wallander to take his time, and to be thorough in all aspects of the investigation. Until the identity of those who had been buried in the garden had been established, there was very little that could be done with regard to finding a culprit.

  Stefan Lindman continued to search through registers and old cases which might possibly give them a clue they could follow up. At first they had been looking for one woman. Now it was two missing persons. The general public came up with various tips—shadows of people who had disappeared mysteriously many years ago. Wallander allocated another police officer to assist Lindman in making a rough preliminary assessment of all the tips they received.

  After two weeks, they still hadn’t got anywhere when it came to identifying the two dead bodies. Wallander gathered together all his assistants one Thursday afternoon in the large conference room, asked everybody to switch off their cell phones, and gave a thorough account of what had happened so far. They went back to the start, reassessed the forensic and medical reports, and listened to what Wallander described as a brilliant presentation by Stefan Lindman. After four hours, when everything had been discussed ad nauseam, Wallander adjourned the meeting briefly and aired the room, then reassembled everybody for a summary.

  He used five words to say what they all knew already.

  We’re still at square one.

  They had two skeletons, the remains of two middle-aged people who had been murdered. But they had no identities, and didn’t even have any potentially rewarding leads to follow up.

  “The past has closed all doors behind it,” said Wallander when the formal summary was complete and they were talking more freely about what had happened.

  There was no need to allocate new duties—they were already following the only routes open to them. They would make no progress until they discovered new information about who these two people could have been.

  During the two weeks that had passed Wallander and Martinson had tried, with increasing levels of impatience, to find people who could remember a little more about the years during the war when Ludvig Hansson had lived alone on the farm. But they were all dead. Wallander had a recurrent, creepy feeling that what he really ought to be doing was to set up interrogations with all the gravestones in nearby cemeteries. That was where all conceivable witnesses, and any others who might have been involved, were to be found now. There might even be a murderer lying there, with all the answers Wallander and his colleagues were looking for.

  Martinson shared his superior’s feelings with regard to the seemingly hopeless search for some living person who could be of assistance to them. But they did not give up, of course. They followed their routines, kept sifting through various archives and old criminal investigations—looking for people who might still be alive and could possibly have something of interest to tell them.

  One evening when Wallander returned home with a headache, Linda sat down opposite him at the kitchen table and asked how things were going.

  “We’re not giving up,” he said. “We never give up.”

  She asked no more questions. She knew her father.

  He had said all he had to say.

  CHAPTER 17

  The next day, November 29, it was snowing heavily over Skåne. A storm was blowing in from the west, and flights were disrupted at Sturup airport for several hours. Lots of cars skidded off the road between Malmö and Ystad. But after a few hours, the strong wind suddenly dropped, it became warmer, and it began to rain.

  Wallander stood at his window in the police station, gazing out over the road and noting how the snow suddenly became rain. The telephone rang. As usual he gave a start. He answered it.

  “It’s Simon,” said a voice.

  “Simon?”

  “Simon Larsson. Once upon a time we used to be colleagues.”

  Wallander thought at first that he had misunderstood what had been said. Simon Larsson had been a police officer when Wallander had come to Ystad from Malmö. That was a long time ago. Simon Larsson had been old even then. Two years after Wallander’s arrival in Ystad Larsson had retired and been formally thanked at a party hosted by the then chief of police. As far as Wallander was aware, Simon Larsson had never set foot inside the police station since then. He had severed all contact. Wallander had heard a rumor that Larsson had an apple orchard just north of Simrishamn to which he devoted all his time.

  He was surprised to hear that Simon Larsson was evidently still alive. He did the mental arithmetic and concluded that Larsson must now be at least eighty-five.

  “I remember who you are,” said Wallander. “But I must say that this call has come as a surprise.”

  “No doubt you thought I was dead. I sometimes think I am myself.”

  Wallander said nothing.

  “I’ve read about the two people you found,” said Larsson. “I might have something useful to say about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I say. If you come around to my place, then maybe—but only maybe—I might have something useful to tell you.” Simon Larsson spoke in a clear and lucid voice.

  Wallander made a note of his address. It was a care home for the elderly just outside Tomelilla. Wallander promised to visit him right away. He stopped in at Martinson’s office but it was empty—his cell phone was lying on his desk. Wallander shrugged and decided to drive out to Tomelilla on his own.

  Simon Larsson seemed to be in a fragile state. He had a wrinkled face and a hearing aid. He opened the door and Wallander entered a pensioner’s apartment that was frightening in its dreariness. It seemed to Wallander that he was entering the hallway of death. The apartment comprised two rooms. Through a half-open door Wallander could see an old woman lying on top of a bed, resting. Hands shaking, Simon Larsson served up coffee. Wallander felt ill at ease. It was as if he were looking at himself at some time in the future. He didn’t like what he saw. He sat down in a worn armchair. A cat immediately jumped up onto his knee. Wallander let it stay there. He preferred dogs, but he had nothing against cats that occasionally expressed an interest in him.

  Simon Larsson sat down on a Windsor chair opposite him.

  “I don’t hear well, but I see well. I suppose it’s a hangover from all my years as a police officer—wanting to see the people I’m talking to.”

  “I have the same problem,” said Wallander. “Or custom, perhaps I ought to say. What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  Simon Larsson took a deep breath, as if he needed to brace himself for what was about to come.

  “I was born in August 1917,” he said. “It was a warm summer, the year before the war ended. In 1937 I started working for the public prosecution service in Lund, and I came to Ystad in the sixties, after the police force had been nationalized. But what I wanted to tell you about, which might be of significance, happened during the forties. I worked for a few years then here in Tomelilla. They weren’t so strict about borderlines in those days—sometimes we helped out in Ystad and sometimes they came to assist us here. Anyway, at some time during the war a horse and an old caravan were found on the road not far from Löderup.”

  “A horse? And a caravan? I don’t really understand.”

  “You will if you stop interrupting me. It was in the autumn. Somebody rang us here in Tomelilla. Some bloke or other from Löderup. He ought to have telephoned Ystad, but instead he phoned the chief inspector’s office here in Tomelilla. He wanted to report that he had found a horse pulling a caravan along a road, without anybody inside or in the driver’s seat. I was the only person around that morning. As I was learning to drive, I didn’t bother ringing Ystad but instead took the car and drove to Löderup. Sure enough, there was a horse and caravan there, but no people. It was obvious from the inside of the caravan that gypsies lived in it. Nowadays we
’re supposed to call them travelers, which makes them sound much more respectable. Anyway, they had vanished. It was all very odd. The horse and caravan had simply turned up there as dawn broke. Seven days earlier they had been seen in Kåseberga—a man and a woman in their fifties. He sharpened scissors and knives, they were friendly and reliable—but then they suddenly vanished.”

  “Were they ever found?”

  “Not as far as I know. I thought this information might be of some use to you.”

  “Absolutely. What you say is very interesting. But it’s odd that nobody reported them missing—if they had done they would have been in our register.”

  “I don’t really know what happened. Somebody looked after the horse, and I suppose the caravan just rotted away. I suspect the fact is that nobody cared much about travelers. I recall asking about what had happened, a year or so later, but nobody knew anything. There was an awful lot of prejudice in those days. But perhaps there is now as well?”

  “Can you remember anything else?”

  “It was such a long time ago. I’m just glad I can remember what I’ve told you.”

  “Can you say what year it was?”

  “No. But there was a fair bit about it in the newspapers at the time. It must be possible to find those articles.”

  Wallander felt the urge to act immediately. He drained his cup of coffee and stood up.

  “Many thanks for getting in touch. This could well turn out to be important. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Don’t leave it too long,” said Larsson. “I’m an old man. I could die at any time.”

  Wallander left Tomelilla. He drove fast. For the first time during this investigation, he had the feeling that they were about to make a breakthrough.

  CHAPTER 18

  It took Martinson four hours to find microfilm versions of Ystads Allehanda that contained articles about the mysterious horse and caravan. A few hours later he came to the police station with lots of copies of the microfilm pages. Together with Stefan Lindman, Wallander and Martinson sat down in the conference room.

  “The fifth of December 1944,” said Martinson. “That’s when it begins. The headline over the first report of the incident in Ystads Allehanda is ‘THE FLYING DUTCHMAN ON THE COUNTRY ROAD.’ ”

  They spent the next hour reading through everything that Martinson had collected. Wallander noted that the two people who had lived in the caravan were called Richard and Irina Pettersson. There was even a blurred picture of them—a copy of a framed photograph hanging inside the caravan.

  “Simon Larsson has a good memory,” said Wallander when they had finished reading the articles. “We can be grateful for that. We might have caught on to this pair sooner or later, but you never know. The question is, of course: can these two be the people we are looking for?”

  “They are the right age,” said Lindman. “And the place fits in. The question is: what happened?”

  “The records,” said Wallander. “We need to dig out all the information we can find about them. If there really were such a thing as a time machine, now is when we could make use of it.”

  “Perhaps Nyberg has one,” suggested Lindman.

  Wallander and Martinson burst out laughing. Wallander stood up and walked over to the window. Martinson continued laughing in the background, and Lindman sneezed.

  “Let’s concentrate on this for the next few days,” said Wallander. “We shouldn’t abandon all the other leads, but we’ll let them rest. Let them mature, as you might say. But something tells me this one is right. There are too many things that fit in for these not to be the two people we’re looking for.”

  “Everybody in the newspapers speaks well of them,” said Martinson. “But somewhere between the lines you get the feeling that people didn’t care all that much about what happened to them. It’s the mystery that captured everybody’s attention. You get the impression that we should feel most sorry for the horse, pulling around an empty caravan. Just imagine what would have been said and written if it had been two old local farmers who had disappeared.”

  “You’re right,” said Wallander. “But until we know just who exactly those two people were, we can’t exclude the possibility that they are somehow involved in the murder. I’ll ring the prosecutor and tell her about this. OK, let’s get going.”

  They agreed who would do what in their efforts to get a more detailed picture of Richard and Irina Pettersson who had gone missing sixty years ago. Wallander went to his office to ring the prosecutor and report on the new development, and was given the green light to go ahead as they had planned. Then he sat down and read through the newspaper articles one more time

  When he had finished, he still felt strongly about it. He really did think they were finally on the right track.

  CHAPTER 19

  They carried on working hard until December 2. The weather in Skåne continued to be bad. Nonstop wind and rain. Wallander spent most of his time on the telephone or at the computer, which now, at last, after many years of trying, he had finally learned how to use. On the morning of December 2 he had tracked down one of Richard and Irina Pettersson’s grandchildren. Her name was Katja Blomberg and she lived in Malmö. When he rang her it was a man who answered. Katja Blomberg was not at home, but Wallander left his telephone number and said it was urgent. He did not spell out any details.

  He was still waiting for her to call back when he was contacted by reception.

  “You have a visitor,” said a receptionist whose voice he did not recognize.

  “Who is it?”

  “She says her name’s Katja Blomberg.”

  Wallander held his breath.

  “I’m coming.”

  He went out to the reception desk. Katja Blomberg was in her forties, heavily made up, and wore a short skirt and high-heeled boots. A few traffic police officers glanced enviously at Wallander as they passed. He shook hands with her. Her grip was strong.

  “I thought I might just as well come here.”

  “That was kind of you.”

  “Of course it was kind of me. I could have just said bollocks, couldn’t I? What is it you want?”

  Wallander led her to his office. On the way he glanced in at Martinson’s office: it was empty, as usual. Katja Blomberg sat down on the visitor chair and took out a packet of cigarettes.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” said Wallander.

  “Do you want to talk to me or don’t you?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “Then I shall smoke. Just to put you in the picture.”

  Wallander felt that he didn’t have the strength to argue with her. And in any case, cigarette smoke didn’t irritate him all that much. He stood up to look for something that could serve as an ashtray.

  “You needn’t bother. I have an ashtray with me.”

  She placed a small metal beaker on the edge of the desk and lit her cigarette.

  “It wasn’t me,” she said.

  Wallander frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard what I said. I said it wasn’t me.”

  Wallander raised an eyebrow. He realized she must be referring to something he knew nothing about.

  “Who was it then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Wallander reached for a notepad and a pencil.

  “Just a few formalities,” he said.

  “620202-0445.”

  It was clear that Katja Blomberg had been in police custody before. He noted down her address, then excused himself and left the room. Martinson still wasn’t in his office, but Wallander managed to contact Stefan Lindman and passed on the information.

  “I want to know what we have on this woman.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  He explained briefly. Lindman understood. Wallander returned to his own office. It was heavy with tobacco smoke. Katja Blomberg smoked cigarettes without filters. He opened the window.

  “It wasn’t me,” she said again.

  “We�
�ll come to that later,” said Wallander. “Just now there’s something else I want to talk to you about.”

  He could see that she was immediately on her guard.

  “What?”

  “I want to talk to you about your maternal grandmother and grandfather. Richard and Irina Pettersson.”

  “What the hell have they got to do with it?”

  She stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit a new one. Wallander noted that she had an expensive lighter.

  “For various reasons I want to know what happened that time when they disappeared. You weren’t born then. You were born twenty years later. But you must have heard about it.”

  She stared at him as if he was not quite right in the head.

  “Have you got in touch with me to talk about that?”

  “Not only that.”

  “But it was a hundred years ago.”

  “Not quite. Only a little short of sixty.”

  She looked him straight in the eye.

  “I want some coffee.”

  “By all means. Milk and sugar?”

  “Not milk. Cream and sugar.”

  “We don’t have any cream. You can have milk. And sugar.”

  Wallander fetched some coffee. As there was something wrong with the machine it was nearly ten minutes before he returned. The room was empty. He cursed aloud. When he went back into the corridor he saw her approaching from the toilet.

  “Did you think I’d escaped?”

  “You’ve not been charged or arrested, so you can’t escape.”

  They drank the coffee. Wallander waited. He wondered what it was she thought he wanted to talk to her about.

  “Richard and Irina,” he said again. “What can you tell me about them?”

  Before she had time to reply the telephone rang. It was Stefan Lindman.

  “That went quickly. Shall I tell you over the phone?”