Faceless Killers

Chapter thirteen

On Monday morning, January fifteenth, Kurt Wallander drove out to the shopping center on the road to Malmö and bought two bouquets of flowers. He recalled that eight days ago he had driven the same road, toward Lenarp and the crime scene, which was still demanding all his attention. He thought that the past week had been the most intense he had ever experienced in all his years as a cop. When he looked at his face in the rearview mirror, he thought that every scratch, every lump, every discoloration from purple to black was a reminder of the past week.

The temperature was several degrees below freezing. There was no wind. The white ferry from Poland was making its way into the harbor.

When Wallander arrived at the police station a little after eight, he gave one of the bouquets to Ebba. At first she refused to take it, but he could see that she was pleased with the attention. He took the other bouquet along with him to his office. He got a card from his desk drawer and pondered for a long time what to write to Anette Brolin. Too long a time. By the time he finally wrote a few lines, he had given up any attempt to find the perfect phrasing. Now he simply apologized for his rash behavior the night before. He blamed his actions on fatigue.

“I’m actually quite shy by nature,” he wrote. Which was not exactly true.

But he thought it would give Anette Brolin the opportunity to turn the other cheek.

He was just about to go over to the prosecutor’s office when Björk came through the door. As usual, he had knocked so softly that Wallander hadn’t heard him.

“Somebody sent you flowers?” said Björk. “You deserve them, as a matter of fact. I’m impressed how quickly you solved the murder of the Negro.”

Wallander didn’t like the way Björk referred to the Somali as the Negro. There had been a dead man lying in the mud under the tarp, nothing more. But of course he had no intention of getting into a discussion about it.

Björk was wearing a flowered shirt that he had bought in Spain. He sat down on the rickety spindle-backed chair near the window.

“I thought we ought to go over the murders at Lenarp,” he said. “I’ve looked through the investigative material. There seem to be a lot of gaps. I’ve been thinking that Rydberg should take over the main responsibility for the investigation while you concentrate on getting Rune Bergman to talk. What do you think about that?”

Wallander countered with a question. “What does Rydberg say?”

“I haven’t talked to him yet.”

“I think we should do it the other way around. Rydberg has a bad leg, and there’s still a lot of footwork to be done in that investigation.”

What Wallander said was true enough. But it wasn’t concern for Rydberg’s rheumatism that made him suggest reversing the responsibilities.

He didn’t want to give up the hunt for the Lenarp killers.

Even though police work was a team effort, he thought of the murderers as belonging to him.

“There’s a third option,” said Björk. “We could let Svedberg and Hanson handle Rune Bergman.”

Wallander nodded. He agreed with Björk.

Björk got up out of the rickety chair.

“We need new furniture,” he said.

“We need more manpower,” replied Wallander.

After Björk had left, Wallander sat down at his typewriter and typed up a comprehensive report about the capture of Rune Bergman and Valfrid Ström. He made a special effort to compile a report that Anette Brolin would not object to. It took him over two hours. At ten fifteen he pulled the last page out of the typewriter, signed it, and took the report over to Rydberg.

Rydberg was sitting at his desk; he looked tired. When Wallander came into his office, he was just finishing a phone conversation.

“I hear that Björk wants to split us up,” he said. “I’m glad I got out of dealing with Bergman.”

Wallander put his report on the desk. “Read through it,” he said. “If you don’t have any objections, give it to Hanson.”

“Svedberg had a go at Bergman this morning,” said Rydberg. “But he still refuses to talk. Even though the cigarettes match. The same brand that was lying in the mud next to the car.”

“I wonder what’s going to turn up,” said Wallander. “What’s behind this whole thing? Neo-Nazis? Racists with connections all over Europe? Why would someone commit a crime like this anyway? Jump out into the road and shoot a complete stranger? Just because he happened to be black?”

“I don’t know,” said Rydberg. “But it’s something we’re going to have to learn to live with.”

They agreed to meet again in half an hour, after Rydberg had read the report. Then they would start on the Lenarp investigation in earnest.

Wallander went over to the prosecutor’s office. Anette Brolin was in district court. He left the bouquet of flowers with the young woman at the reception desk.

“Is it her birthday?” asked the receptionist.

“Sort of,” said Wallander.

When he got back to his office, his sister Kristina was sitting there waiting for him. She had already left the apartment by the time he woke up that morning.

She told him that she had talked to both a doctor and a social worker.

“Dad seems better,” she said. “They don’t think he’s slipping into chronic senility. Maybe it was just a temporary period of confusion. We agreed to try regular home care. I was thinking about asking you to drive us out there around noon today. If you can’t do it, maybe I could borrow your car.”

“Of course I can drive you. Who’s going to do the home care?”

“I’m supposed to meet with a woman who doesn’t live far from Dad.”

Wallander nodded. “I’m glad you’re here. I couldn’t have handled this alone.”

They agreed that he would come over to the hospital right after twelve. After his sister left, Wallander straightened up his desk and placed the thick folder of investigative material pertaining to Johannes and Maria Lövgren in front of him. It was time to get started.

Björk had told him that for the time being, there would be four people on the investigative team. Since Naslund was at home with the flu, only three of them attended the meeting in Rydberg’s office. Martinson was silent and seemed to have a hangover. But Wallander remembered his decisive manner when he had taken care of the hysterical widow at Hageholm.

They began with a thorough review of all the investigative material.

Martinson was able to add information produced by his work with the central criminal records. Wallander felt a great sense of security in this methodical and careful scrutiny of numerous details. To an outside observer such work would probably seem unbearably tedious and dull. But that was not the case for the three police officers. The solution and the truth might be found under the most inconsequential combination of details.

They isolated the loose ends that had to be dealt with first.

“You take Johannes Lövgren’s trip to Ystad,” Wallander said to Martinson. “We need to know how he got to town and how he got back home. Does he have other safe-deposit boxes that we don’t know about? What did he do during the hour between his appearances at the two banks? Did he go into a store and buy something? Who saw him?”

“I think Naslund has already started calling around to the banks,” said Martinson.

“Call him at home and find out,” said Wallander. “This can’t wait until he’s feeling better.”

Rydberg was going to pay a visit to Lars Herdin, while Wallander again drove over to Malmö to talk to the man named Erik Magnusson, the one Göran Boman thought might be Johannes Lövgren’s secret son.

“All the other details will have to wait,” said Wallander. “We’ll start with these and meet again at five o’clock.”

Before he left for the hospital, Wallander called Göran Boman in Kristianstad and talked to him about Erik Magnusson.

“He works for the county council,” said Boman. “Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly what he does. We’ve had an unusually rowdy weekend up here with a lot of fights and drunkenness. I haven’t had time for much besides hauling people in.”

“No problem. I’ll find him,” said Wallander. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning at the latest.”

At a few minutes past twelve he set off for the hospital. His sister was waiting in the lobby, and together they took the elevator up to the ward where their father had been moved after the first twenty-four hours of observation.

By the time they arrived, he had already been discharged and was sitting on a chair in the hall, waiting for them. He had his hat on his head, and the suitcase with the dirty underwear and tubes of paint stood by his side. Wallander didn’t recognize the suit he was wearing.

“I bought it for him,” his sister said. “It must be thirty years since he bought himself a new suit.”

“How are you feeling, Dad?” asked Wallander.

His father looked him in the eye. Wallander could see that he had recovered.

“It’ll be nice to get back home,” he said curtly and stood up.

Wallander picked up the suitcase as his father leaned on Kristina’s arm. She sat next to him in the back seat during the drive to Löderup.

Wallander, who was in a hurry to get to Malmö, promised to come back around six. His sister was going to stay the night, and she asked him to buy food for dinner.

His father immediately changed out of his suit and into his painting overalls. He was already at his easel, working on the unfinished painting.

“Do you think he’ll be able to get by with home care?” asked Wallander.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” replied his sister.

It was almost two in the afternoon when Wallander pulled up in front of the county council’s main building in Malmö. On the way he had stopped at the motel restaurant in Svedala for a quick lunch. He parked his car and went into the large lobby.

“I’m looking for Erik Magnusson,” he told the woman who shoved the glass window open.

“We have at least three Erik Magnussons working here,” she said. “Which one are you looking for?”

Wallander took out his police ID and showed it to her.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But he was born in the late fifties.”

The woman behind the glass knew at once who it was.

“Then it must be Erik Magnusson in central supply,” she said. “The two other Erik Magnussons are much older. What did he do?”

Wallander smiled at her undisguised curiosity.

“Nothing,” he said. “I just want to ask him some routine questions.”

She told him how to get to central supply. He thanked her and returned to his car.

The county council’s supply warehouse was located on the northern outskirts of Malmö, near the Oil Harbor. Wallander wandered around for a long time before he found the right place.

He went through a door marked Office. Through a big glass window he could see yellow forklift trucks driving back and forth between endless rows of shelves.

The office was empty. He went down a stairway and entered the enormous warehouse. A young man with hair down to his shoulders was piling up big plastic bags of toilet paper. Wallander went over to him.

“I’m looking for Erik Magnusson,” he said.

The young man pointed to a yellow forklift which had stopped next to a loading dock where a semi was being unloaded.

The man sitting in the cab of the yellow truck had blond hair.

Wallander thought it unlikely that Maria Lövgren would have thought about foreigners if this blond man was the one who put the noose around her neck.

Then he pushed the thought away with annoyance. He was getting ahead of himself again.

“Erik Magnusson!” he shouted over the engine noise from the forklift.

The man gave him an inquiring look before he turned off the engine and jumped down.

“Erik Magnusson?” asked Wallander.

“Yes?”

“I’m from the police. I’d like to have a word with you for a moment.”

Wallander scrutinized his face.

There was nothing unexpected about his reaction. He merely looked surprised. Quite naturally surprised.

“Why is that?” he asked.

Wallander looked around. “Is there someplace we can sit down?” he asked.

Erik Magnusson led the way to a corner with a coffee vending machine. There was a dirty wooden table and several rickety benches. Wallander fed two one-krona coins into the machine and got a cup of coffee. Erik Magnusson settled for a pinch of snuff.

“I’m from the police in Ystad,” he began. “I have a few questions for you regarding a brutal murder in a town called Lenarp. Maybe you read about it in the papers?”

“I think so. But what does that have to do with me?”

Wallander was beginning to wonder the same thing. The man named Erik Magnusson seemed completely unruffled by a visit from the police at his workplace.

“I have to ask you for the name of your father.”

The man frowned.

“My dad?” he said. “I don’t have any dad.”

“Everybody has a father.”

“Not one that I know about, at any rate.”

“How can that be?”

“Mom wasn’t married when I was born.”

“And she never told you who your father was?”

“No.”

“Did you ever ask her?”

“Of course I’ve asked her. I bugged her about it my whole childhood. Then I gave up.”

“What did she say when you asked her about it?”

Erik Magnusson stood up and pressed the button for a cup of coffee. “Why are you asking about my dad? Does he have something to do with the murder?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute,” said Wallander. “What did your mother say when you asked her about your father?”

“It varied.”

“It varied?”

“Sometimes she would say that she didn’t really know. Sometimes that it was a salesman she never saw again. Sometimes something else.”

“And you were satisfied with that?”

“What the hell was I supposed to do? If she won’t tell me, she won’t tell me.”

Wallander thought about the answers he was getting. Was it really possible to be so uninterested in who your father was?

“Do you get along well with your mother?” he asked.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Do you see each other often?”

“She calls me now and then. I drive over to Kristianstad once in a while. I got along better with my stepfather.”

Wallander gave a start. Göran Boman had said nothing about a stepfather.

“Is your mother remarried?”

“She lived with a man while I was growing up. They probably weren’t ever married. But I still called him my dad. Then they split up when I was about fifteen. I moved to Malmö a year later.”

“What’s his name?”

“Was his name. He’s dead. He was killed in a car crash.”

“And you’re sure that he wasn’t your real father?”

“You’d have to look hard to find two people as unlike each other as we were.”

Wallander tried a different tack. “The man who was murdered at Lenarp was named Johannes Lövgren,” he said. “Isn’t it possible that he might have been your father?”

The man sitting across from Wallander gave him a look of surprise.

“How the hell would I know? You’ll have to ask my mother.”

“We’ve already done that. But she denies it.”

“So ask her again. I’d like to know who my father is. Murdered or not.”

Kurt Wallander believed him. He wrote down Erik Magnusson’s address and personal ID number and then stood up.

“You may hear from us again,” he said.

The man climbed back into the cab of the forklift.

“That’s fine with me,” he said. “Say hello to my mom if you see her.”

Wallander returned to Ystad. He parked near the square and headed down the pedestrian street to buy some gauze bandages at the pharmacy. The clerk gazed sympathetically at his battered face. He bought food for dinner in the supermarket on the square. On his way back to the car he changed his mind and retraced his steps to the state liquor store. There he bought a bottle of whiskey. Even though he couldn’t really afford it, he chose malt whiskey.

By four thirty Wallander was back at the station. Neither Rydberg nor Martinson was around. He went over to the prosecutor’s office. The girl at the reception desk smiled.

“She loved the flowers,” she said.

“Is she in her office?”

“She’s in district court until five o’clock.”

Wallander headed back. In the corridor he ran into Svedberg.

“How’s it going with Bergman?” asked Wallander.

“He’s still not talking,” said Svedberg. “But he’ll soften up eventually. The evidence is piling up. The crime lab technicians think they can connect the weapon to the crime.”

“What else have we got on this?”

“It looks as if both Ström and Bergman were active in various anti-immigrant groups. But we don’t know whether they were operating on their own or as entrepreneurs working for some organization.”

“In other words, everybody is perfectly happy?”

“I’d hardly say that. Björk’s talking about how he was so anxious to catch the murderer, but then it turned out to be a cop. I suspect they’re going to play down Bergman’s importance and dump it all on Valfrid Ström, who has nothing more to say about it. Personally, I think Bergman was just as involved in the whole thing.”

“I wonder whether Ström was the one who called me at home,” said Wallander. “I never heard him say enough to tell for sure.”

Svedberg gave him a searching look. “Which means?”

“That in the worst case, there are others who are prepared to take over the killing from Bergman and Ström.”

“I’ll tell Björk that we have to continue our patrols of the camps,” said Svedberg. “By the way, we’ve gotten a lot of tips indicating that it was a gang of kids who set the fire here in Ystad.”

“Don’t forget the old man who got a sack of turnips in the head,” said Wallander.

“How’s it going with Lenarp?”

Wallander hesitated with his answer. “I’m not really sure,” he said. “But we’re doing some serious work on it again.”

At ten minutes past five Martinson and Rydberg were in Wallander’s office. He thought that Rydberg still looked tired and worn-out. Martinson was in a bad mood.

“It’s a mystery how Lövgren got to Ystad and back again on Friday, January fifth,” he said. “I talked to the bus driver on that route. He said that Johannes and Maria used to ride with him whenever they went into town. Either together or separately. He was absolutely certain that Johannes Lövgren did not ride his bus any time after New Year’s. And no cab had a fare to Lenarp. According to Nyström, they took the bus when they had to go anywhere. And we know that Lövgren was tight-fisted.”

“They always drank coffee together,” said Wallander. “In the afternoon. The Nyströms must have noticed if Lövgren went off to Ystad or not.”

“That’s exactly what’s such a mystery,” said Martinson. “Both of them claim that he didn’t go into town that day. And yet we know that he went to two different banks between eleven thirty and one fifteen. He must have been away from home at least three or four hours that day.”

“Strange,” said Wallander. “You’ll have to keep working on it.”

Martinson referred to his notes. “At any rate, he doesn’t have any other safe-deposit boxes in town.”

“Good,” said Wallander. “At least we know that much.”

“But he might have one in Simrishamn,” Martinson objected. “Or Trelleborg. Or Malmö.”

“Let’s concentrate on his trip to Ystad first,” said Wallander, turning to Rydberg.

“Lars Herdin stands by his story,” he said after glancing at his worn notebook. “By coincidence he ran into Lövgren and that woman in Kristianstad in the spring of 1979. And he claims that it was from an anonymous letter that he found out they had a child together.”

“Could he describe the woman?”

“Vaguely. In the worst case we could line up all the ladies and have him point out the right one. If she’s one of them, that is,” he added.

“You sound like you have some doubt.”

Rydberg closed his notebook with an irritable snap.

“I can’t get anything to fit,” he said. “You know that. Obviously we have to follow up the leads we have. But I’m not at all sure that we’re on the right track. What bothers me is that I can’t figure out any alternative path to take.”

Wallander told them about his meeting with Erik Magnusson.

“Why didn’t you ask him for an alibi for the night of the murder?” wondered Martinson in surprise when he was done.

Wallander felt himself starting to blush behind his black and blue marks.

It had slipped his mind.

But he didn’t tell them that.

“I decided to wait,” he said. “I wanted to have an excuse to visit him again.”

He could hear how lame that sounded. But neither Rydberg nor Martinson seemed to react to his explanation.

The conversation came to a halt. Each was wrapped up in his own thoughts.

Wallander wondered how many times he had found himself in exactly this same situation. When an investigation suddenly ceases to breathe. Like a horse that refuses to budge. Now they would be forced to tug and pull at the horse until it started to move.

“How should we continue?” asked Wallander at last, when the silence became too oppressive.

He answered his own question. “For your part, Martinson, it’s a matter of finding out how Lövgren could go to Ystad and back without anyone noticing. We have to figure that out as soon as possible.”

“There was a jar full of receipts in one of the kitchen cupboards,” said Rydberg. “He might have bought something in a shop on that Friday. Maybe some clerk would remember seeing him.”

“Or maybe he had a flying carpet,” said Martinson. “I’ll keep working on it.”

“His relatives,” said Wallander. “We have to go through all of them.”

He pulled out a list of names and addresses from the thick folder and handed it to Rydberg.

“The funeral is on Wednesday,” said Rydberg. “In Villie Church. I don’t care much for funerals. But I think I’ll go to this one.”

“I’m going back to Kristianstad tomorrow,” said Wallander. “Göran Boman was suspicious about Ellen Magnusson. He didn’t think she was telling the truth.”

It was a few minutes before six when they finished their meeting.

They decided to meet again on the following afternoon.

“If Näslund is feeling better, he can work on the stolen rental car,” said Wallander. “By the way, did we ever find out what that Polish family is doing in Lenarp?”

“The husband works at the sugar refinery in Jordberga,” said Rydberg. “All his papers are in order. Even though he wasn’t fully aware of it himself.”

Wallander sat in his office for a while after Rydberg and Martinson left. There was a stack of papers on his desk that he was supposed to go through, including all the investigative material from the assault case he had been working on over New Year’s. There were also countless reports pertaining to everything from missing bull calves to trucks that had tipped over during the last stormy night. At the bottom of the stack he found a paper informing him that he had been given a raise. He swiftly calculated that he would be taking home an extra 39 kronor per month.

By the time he had made his way through the pile of papers, it was almost half past seven. He called Löderup and told his sister that he was on his way.

“We’re starving,” she said. “Do you always work late?”

Wallander selected a cassette tape of a Puccini opera and went out to his car. He had wanted to make sure that Anette Brolin had really forgotten all about what had happened the night before. But he put it out of his mind. It would have to wait.

Kristina told him that the home-care help for their father had turned out to be a resolute woman in her fifties who would have no trouble taking care of him.

“He couldn’t ask for anyone better,” she said when she came out to the driveway and met him in the dark.

“What’s Dad doing?”

“He’s painting,” she said.

While his sister made dinner, Wallander sat on the sled in the studio and watched the autumn motif emerge. His father seemed to have completely forgotten about what had happened a few days before.

I have to visit him more regularly, thought Wallander. At least three times a week, and preferably at specific times.

After dinner they played cards with their father for a couple of hours. At eleven o’clock he went to bed.

“I’m going home tomorrow,” said Kristina. “I can’t be away any longer.”

“Thanks for coming,” said Wallander.

They decided that he would pick her up at eight o’clock the next morning and drive her to the airport.

“The plane was full out of Sturup airport,” she said. “I’m leaving from Everöd.”

That suited Wallander just fine, since he had to drive to Kristianstad anyway.

Just after midnight he walked into his apartment on Mariagatan. He poured himself a big glass of whiskey and took it with him into the bathroom. He lay in the tub for a long time, thawing out his limbs in the hot water.

Even though he tried to push them out of his mind, Rune Bergman and Valfrid Ström kept popping into his thoughts. He was trying to understand. But the only thing he came up with was the same idea he had had so many times before. A new world had emerged, and he hadn’t even noticed it. As a cop, he still lived in another, older world. How was he going to learn to live in this new time? How would he deal with the great uncertainty he felt about the great changes, which were happening much too fast?

The murder of the Somali had been a new kind of murder.

The double murder in Lenarp, however, was an old-fashioned crime.

Or was it really? He thought about the brutality and the noose.

He wasn’t sure.

It was one-thirty when he finally crawled between the cool sheets.

His loneliness in bed felt worse than ever.

For the next three days nothing happened.

Näslund came back to work and succeeded in solving the problem of the stolen car.

A man and a woman went on a robbery spree and then left the car in Halmstad. On the night of the murder they had been staying in a boarding house in Bastad. The owner vouched for their alibi.

Wallander talked to Ellen Magnusson. She firmly denied that Johannes Lovgren was the father of her son Erik.

He also visited Erik Magnusson again and asked for the alibi he had forgotten to get during their first encounter.

Erik Magnusson had been with his fiancée. There was no reason to doubt his statement.

Martinson got nowhere with Lövgren’s trip to Ystad.

The Nyströms were quite sure about their story, as were the bus drivers and cab owners.

Rydberg went to the funeral, and he talked to nineteen different relatives of the Lövgrens.

Nothing came up that gave them any leads.

The temperature hovered around the freezing point. One day there was no wind, the next day it was gusty.

Wallander ran into Anette Brolin in the hall. She thanked him for the flowers. But he was still uncertain whether she had really decided to forget about what had happened that night.

Rune Bergman still refused to talk, even though the evidence against him was overwhelming. Various nationalist extremist movements tried to take credit for the crime. The press and the rest of the media became engulfed in a violent debate about Sweden’s immigration policy. Although it was calm in Skåne, crosses burned in the night outside various refugee camps in other parts of the country.

Wallander and his colleagues on the investigative team trying to solve the double murder in Lenarp shielded themselves from all of this. Only rarely were any opinions expressed that were not directly related to the deadlocked investigation. But Wallander realized that he was not alone in his feelings of uncertainty and confusion about the new society that was emerging.

We’re living as if we were in mourning for a lost paradise, he thought. As if we longed for the car thieves and safecrackers of the old days, who doffed their caps and behaved like gentlemen when we came to take them in. But those days have irretrievably vanished, and it’s questionable whether they were ever as idyllic as we remember them.

On Friday, January nineteenth, everything happened at once.

The day did not start off well for Kurt Wallander. At seven thirty he had his Peugeot checked out and barely managed to avoid having his car declared unfit to drive. When he went through the inspection report, he saw that his car needed repairs that would cost thousands of kronor.

Despondent, he drove to the police station.

He hadn’t even taken off his overcoat when Martinson came storming into his office.

“Goddamn,” he said. “Now I know how Johannes Lövgren got to Ystad and back home again.”

Wallander forgot all about his misery over his car and felt himself instantly seized with excitement.

“It wasn’t a flying carpet, after all,” continued Martinson. “The chimney sweep drove him.”

Wallander sat down in his desk chair.

“What chimney sweep?”

“Master chimney sweep Arthur Lundin from Slimminge. Hanna Nyström suddenly remembered that the chimney sweep had been there on Friday, January fifth. He cleaned the chimneys at both properties and then took off. When she told me that he cleaned Lövgren’s flues last and that he left around ten thirty, bells started to go off in my head. I just talked to him. I got hold of him while he was cleaning the hospital chimney in Rydsgård. It turned out that he never listens to the radio or watches TV or reads the papers. He cleans chimneys and spends the rest of his time drinking aquavit and taking care of several caged rabbits. He had no idea that the Lövgrens had been murdered. But he told me that Johannes Lövgren rode with him to Ystad. Since he has a van and Lövgren was sitting in the windowless back seat, it’s not so strange that nobody saw him.”

“But didn’t the Nyströms see the car coming back?”

“No,” replied Martinson triumphantly. “That’s just it. Lövgren asked Lundin to stop on Veberödsvägen. From there you can walk along a dirt road right up to the back of Lövgren’s house. It’s about a kilometer. If the Nyströms were sitting in the window, it would have looked as if Lövgren were coming in from the stable.”

Wallander frowned. “It still seems odd.”

“Lundin was very frank. He said that Johannes Lövgren promised him a bottle of vodka if he would drive him back home. He let Lövgren out in Ystad and then continued on to a couple of houses north of town. Later he picked up Lövgren at the appointed time, dropped him off on Veberödsvägen, and got his bottle of vodka.”

“Good,” said Wallander. “Do the times match up?”

“It all fits perfectly.”

“Did you ask him about the briefcase?”

“Lundin seemed to remember that he had a briefcase with him.”

“Did he have anything else?”

“Lundin didn’t think so.”

“Did Lundin see whether Lövgren met anybody in Ystad?”

“No.”

“Did Lövgren say anything about what he was going to do in town?”

“No, nothing.”

“And you don’t think that this chimney sweep knew about Lövgren having twenty-seven thousand kronor in his briefcase?”

“Hardly. He seemed the least likely person to be a robber. I think he’s just a solitary chimney sweep who lives contentedly with his rabbits and his aquavit. That’s all.”

Wallander thought for a moment. “Do you think Lövgren could have arranged a meeting with someone on that dirt road? Since the briefcase is gone.”

“Maybe. I was thinking of taking a canine patrol out to fine-comb the road.”

“Do it right away,” said Wallander. “Maybe we’re finally getting somewhere.”

Martinson left the office. He almost collided with Hanson, who was on his way in.

“Do you have a minute?” he asked.

Wallander nodded. “How’s it going with Bergman?”

“He’s not talking. But he’s been linked to the crime. That bitch Brolin is going to remand him today.”

Wallander didn’t feel like commenting on Hanson’s contemptuous attitude toward Anette Brolin.

“What do you want?” he merely asked.

Hanson sat down on the spindle-backed chair near the window, looking ill at ease.

“You probably know that I play the horses a bit,” he began. “By the way, the horse you recommended ran dead last. Who gave you that tip?”

Wallander vaguely recalled a remark he had let drop one time in Hanson’s office. “It was just a joke,” he said. “Go on.”

“I heard that you were interested in an Erik Magnusson, who works in central supply for the county council in Malmö,” he said. “It just so happens that there’s a guy named Erik Magnusson who often shows up at Jägersrö. He bets big time, loses a bundle, and I happen to know that he works for the county council.”

Wallander was immediately interested.

“How old is he? What does he look like?”

Hanson described him. Wallander realized at once that he was the same man he had met twice.

“There are rumors that he’s in debt,” said Hanson. “And gambling debts can be dangerous.”

“Good,” said Wallander. “That’s exactly the kind of information we need.”

Hanson stood up. “You never know,” he said. “Gambling and drugs can sometimes have the same effect. Unless you’re like me and just gamble for the fun of it.”

Wallander thought about something Rydberg had said. About people who, because of a drug dependency, were capable of unlimited brutality.

“Good,” he said to Hanson. “Excellent.”

Hanson left the office. Wallander thought for a moment and then called Göran Boman in Kristianstad. He was in luck and got hold of him at once.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked after Wallander told him about Hanson’s story.

“Run the vacuum cleaner over him,” said Wallander. “And keep an eye on her.”

Boman promised to put Ellen Magnusson under surveillance.

Wallander got hold of Hanson just as he was on his way out of the station.

“Gambling debts,” he said. “Who would he owe the money to?”

Hanson knew the answer. “There’s a hardware dealer from Tågarp who lends money,” he said. “If Erik Magnusson owes money to anybody, it would be him. He’s a loan shark for a lot of the high rollers at Jägersrö. And as far as I know, he’s got some real unpleasant types working for him that he sends out with reminders to people who are lax with their payments.”

“Where can I get hold of him?”

“He’s got a hardware store in Tågarp. A short, hefty guy in his sixties.”

“What’s his name?”

“Larson. But people call him the Junkman.”

Wallander went back to his office. He looked for Rydberg but couldn’t find him. Ebba, who was at the switchboard, knew where he was. Rydberg wasn’t due in until ten, because he was over at the hospital.

“Is he sick?” wondered Wallander.

“It’s probably his rheumatism,” said Ebba. “Haven’t you noticed how he’s been limping this winter?”

Wallander decided not to wait for Rydberg. He put on his coat, went out to his car, and drove to Tågarp.

The hardware store was in the middle of town.

At the moment there was a sale on wheelbarrows.

The man who came out of the back room when the doorbell rang was indeed short and hefty. Wallander was the only one in the store, and he decided to get right to the point. He took out his police ID. The man called the Junkman studied it carefully but seemed totally unaffected.

“Ystad,” he said. “What can the police from Ystad want with me?”

“Do you know a man named Erik Magnusson?”

The man behind the counter was much too experienced to lie.

“Could be. Why?”

“When did you first meet him?”

Wrong question, thought Wallander. It gives him the chance to retreat.

“I don’t remember.”

“But you do know him?”

“We have a few common interests.”

“Such as the sport of harness racing and tote betting?”

“That’s possible.”

Wallander felt provoked by the man’s overbearing self-confidence.

“Now you listen to me,” he said. “I know that you lend money to people who can’t control their gambling. Right now I’m not thinking of asking about the interest rates you charge on your loans. I don’t give a damn about your involvement in an illegal money-lending operation. I want to know something else entirely.”

The man called the Junkman looked at him with curiosity.

“I want to know whether Erik Magnusson owes you money,” he said. “And I want to know how much.”

“Nothing,” replied the man.

“Nothing?”

“Not a single öre.”

A dead end, thought Wallander. Hanson’s lead was a dead end.

The next second he realized that he was wrong. They were finally on the right track.

“But if you want to know, he did owe me money,” said the man.

“How much?”

“A lot. But he paid up. Twenty-five thousand kronor.”

“When?”

The man made a swift calculation. “A little over a week ago. The Thursday before last.”

Thursday, January eleventh, thought Wallander.

Three days after the murder in Lenarp.

“How did he pay you?”

“He came over here.”

“In what denominations?”

“Thousands. Five hundreds.”

“Where did he have the money?”

“What do you mean?”

“In a bag? A briefcase?”

“In a plastic grocery bag. From ICA, I think.”

“Was he late with the payment?”

“A little.”

“What would have happened if he hadn’t paid?”

“I would have been forced to send him a reminder.”

“Do you know how he got hold of the money?”

The man called the Junkman shrugged. At that moment a customer came into the store.

“That’s none of my business,” he said. “Will there be anything else?”

“No, thanks. Not at the moment. But you may hear from me again.”

Wallander went out to his car.

The wind had picked up.

Okay, he thought. Now we’ve got him.

Who would have thought that something good would come out of Hanson’s lousy gambling?

Wallander drove back to Ystad, feeling as if he had drawn a winning number in the lottery.

He was on the scent of the solution.

Erik Magnusson, he thought.

Here we come.