Faceless Killers

Chapter six

Overnight a storm moved in over Skåne. Kurt Wallander was sitting in his untidy apartment while the winter wind tore at the roof tiles. He was drinking whiskey and listening to a German recording of Aida when everything suddenly went dark and silent around him. He went over to the window and looked out into the darkness. The wind was howling, and somewhere an advertising sign was banging against the wall of a building.

The glow-in-the-dark hands on his wristwatch were pointing at ten minutes to three. Oddly enough, he did not feel in the least tired. It had been almost twelve thirty by the time he got away from the police station that night. The last person to call him had been a man who refused to give his name. He had proposed that the police join forces with the domestic nationalist movements and chase all the foreigners out of the country once and for all. For a moment Wallander had tried to listen to what the anonymous man was saying. Then he had slammed down the receiver, called the switchboard, and had all incoming calls held. He turned off the lights in his office, walked down the silent corridor, and drove straight home. When he unlocked his front door, he had decided to find out who on the police force had leaked the confidential information. It wasn’t really his business at all. If conflicts arose within the police force, it was the duty of the chief of police to intervene. In a few days Björk would be back from his winter vacation. Then he could take over. The truth would have to come out.

But by the time Wallander had drunk his first glass of whiskey, he realized that Björk wouldn’t do a thing. Even though each individual police officer was bound by an oath of silence, it could hardly be considered a criminal offense if an officer called up a contact at Swedish Television and told him what was discussed at an internal meeting in the investigative group. It would hardly be possible to prove any irregularities, either, if Swedish Television had paid its secret informant. Wallander wondered for an instant how Swedish Television entered such an expense in their books.

Then he thought that Björk wouldn’t be inclined to question internal loyalty while they were in the middle of a murder case.

By the second glass of whiskey he was again worrying about who could have been the source of the leak. Apart from himself he felt he could safely eliminate Rydberg. But why was he so sure of Rydberg? Could he see more deeply into him than into any of the others?

Now the storm had knocked out the power and he was sitting alone in the dark.

His thoughts about the murdered couple, about Lars Herdin, and about the strange knot on the noose were mixed with thoughts of Sten Widén and Mona, of Linda and his old father. Somewhere in the dark a vast meaninglessness was beckoning to him. A grinning face that laughed scornfully at all his vain attempts to manage his life.

He woke up when the power came back on. From his watch he could see that he had slept for over an hour. The record was still spinning on the phonograph. He emptied his glass and went to lie down on his bed.

I’ve got to talk to Mona, he thought. I’ve got to talk to her after all that’s happened. And I’ve got to talk to my daughter. I have to visit my father and see what I can do for him. On top of all that I really ought to catch a murderer too.

He must have dozed off again. He thought he was in his office when the telephone rang. Drowsily he stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. Who could be calling him at a quarter past four in the morning?

Before he answered, the thought crossed his mind that he hoped it was Mona.

At first he thought that the man on the line sounded like Sten Widen.

“Now you’ve got three days to make good,” said the man.

“Who is this?” said Wallander.

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” replied the man. “I’m one of the Ten Thousand Redeemers.”

“I refuse to talk to anyone when I don’t know who it is,” said Wallander, now wide awake.

“Don’t hang up,” said the man. “You now have three days to make up for shielding foreign criminals. Three days, no more.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” said Wallander, feeling ill at ease at the unknown voice.

“Three days to catch the killers and put them on display,” said the man. “Or else we’ll take over.”

“Take over what? Who’s ‘we’?”

“Three days. No more. Then something’s going to burn.”

The connection was broken off.

Wallander turned on the kitchen light and sat down at the table. He wrote down the conversation in an old notebook that Mona used to use for her shopping lists. At the top of the pad it said “bread.” He couldn’t read what she had written below that.

It wasn’t the first time that Wallander had received an anonymous threat during his years as a cop. A man who considered himself unjustly convicted of assault and battery had harassed him with insinuating letters and nighttime phone calls several years earlier. That time it was Mona who finally got fed up and demanded that he do something about it. Wallander had sent Svedberg to the man with a warning that he was risking a long jail sentence if he didn’t stop harassing him. Another time someone had slashed his tires.

But this man’s message was different.

Something’s going to burn, he had said. Wallander realized that it could be anything from refugee camps to restaurants to houses owned by foreigners.

Three days. Seventy-two hours. That meant Friday, or Saturday the thirteenth at the latest.

He went and lay down on top of the bed again and tried to sleep.

The wind tore and ripped at the walls of the houses.

How could he sleep when he kept waiting for the man to call again?

At six thirty he was back at the police station. He exchanged a few words with the duty officer and learned that the stormy night had been peaceful at least. A tractor-trailer rig had tipped over outside Ystad, and a building under construction had blown down in Skårby. That was all.

He got some coffee and went into his office. With an old electric shaver that he kept in a desk drawer he got rid of the stubble on his cheeks. Then he went out for the morning papers. The more he looked through them, the more displeased he became. Despite the fact that he had been on the telephone talking to a number of reporters until late the night before, they printed only vague and incomplete denials that the police were concentrating their investigation on some foreign citizens. It was as though the papers had only reluctantly accepted the truth.

He decided to call another press conference for that afternoon and to present an account of the status of the investigation. He would also report on the anonymous threat he had received during the night.

He took down a folder from a shelf behind his desk. There he kept information on the various refugee conduits in the vicinity. Besides the big refugee camp in Ystad, several smaller units were scattered throughout the district.

But what was there to prove that the threat actually had to do with a refugee camp in Ystad’s police district? Nothing. Besides, the threat might just as well be directed at a restaurant or a residence. For instance, how many pizzerias were there in the Ystad area? Fifteen? More?

There was one thing he was quite sure of. The threat in the night had to be taken seriously. In the past year there had been too many incidents confirming the fact that there were organized forces in Sweden that would not hesitate to resort to open violence against foreign citizens or refugees seeking asylum.

He looked at his watch. Quarter to eight. He picked up the phone and dialed the number of Rydberg’s house. After ten rings he hung up. Rydberg was on his way.

Martinson stuck his head in the door.

“Hi,” he said. “What time is the meeting today?”

“Ten o’clock,” said Wallander.

“How about this weather?”

“As long as we don’t get snow, I don’t care if it’s windy.”

While he waited for Rydberg, he looked for the piece of paper he had received from Sten Widen. After Lars Herdin’s visit he realized that perhaps it wasn’t so unusual that someone had given the horse some hay during the night. If the killers were among Johannes and Maria Lövgren’s acquaintances, or even members of their family, then they would naturally know about the horse. Maybe they also knew that Johannes Lövgren made a habit of going out to the stable at night.

Wallander had only a vague idea of what Sten Widen would be able to add. Maybe the real reason he had called him was to avoid losing touch with him again.

No one answered, even though he let the phone ring for over a minute. He hung up and decided to try again a little later.

He also had another phone call he hoped to finish before Rydberg arrived. He dialed the number and waited.

“District attorney’s office,” a cheerful female voice said.

“This is Kurt Wallander. Is Åkeson there?”

“He’s on leave of absence this spring. Did you forget?”

He had forgotten. It had completely slipped his mind that District Attorney Per Åkeson was taking some university courses. And they had had dinner together as recently as the end of November.

“I can connect you with his deputy, if you like,” said the receptionist.

“Do that,” said Wallander.

To his surprise a woman answered. “Anette Brolin.”

“I’d like to talk with the prosecutor,” said Wallander.

“Speaking,” said the woman. “What is this regarding?”

Wallander realized that he had not introduced himself. He gave her his name and went on, “It’s about this double murder. I think it’s time we presented a report to the DA’s office. I had forgotten that Per was on leave.”

“If you hadn’t called this morning, I would have called you,” said the woman.

Wallander thought he detected a reproachful tone in her voice. Bitch, he thought. Are you going to teach me how the police are supposed to cooperate with the DA’s office?

“We actually don’t have much to tell you,” he said, noticing that his voice sounded a little hostile.

“Is an arrest imminent?”

“No. I was thinking more of a short briefing.”

“All right,” said the woman. “Shall we say eleven o’clock at my office? I’ve got a detention hearing at ten fifteen. I’ll be back by eleven.”

“I might be a little late. We have a meeting of the investigative team at ten. It might run long.”

“Try to make it by eleven.”

She hung up, and he sat there holding the receiver.

Cooperation between the police and the district attorney’s office wasn’t always easy. But Wallander had established an unbureaucratic relationship of trust with Per Åkeson. They often called each other up to ask advice. They seldom disagreed on when detention or release was justified.

“Damn,” he said out loud. Anette Brolin, who the hell is she?

Just then he heard the unmistakable sound of Rydberg limping out in the hall. He stuck his head out the door and asked him to come in. Rydberg was dressed in an outmoded fur jacket and beret. When he sat down he grimaced.

“Bothering you again?” asked Wallander, pointing at his leg.

“Rain is okay,” said Rydberg. “Or snow. Or cold. But this damned leg can’t stand the wind. What do you want?”

Wallander told him about the anonymous threat he had received during the night.

“What do you think?” he asked when he was done. “Serious or not?”

“Serious. At least we have to act as if it is.”

“I’m thinking about a press conference this afternoon. We’ll present the status of the investigation and zero in on Lars Herdin’s story. Without mentioning his name, of course. Then I’ll tell about the threat. And say that all rumors about foreigners are groundless.”

“But that’s actually not true,” Rydberg mused.

“What do you mean?”

“The woman said what she said. And the knot may be Argentine.”

“How did you intend to make that fit in with a robbery that was presumably committed by someone who knew Johannes Lövgren very well?”

“I don’t know yet. I think it’s too soon to draw conclusions. Don’t you?”

“Provisional conclusions,” said Wallander. “All police work deals with drawing conclusions. Which you later discard or keep building on.”

Rydberg shifted his sore leg.

“What are you thinking of doing about the leak?” he asked.

“I’m thinking of giving them hell at the meeting,” said Wallander. “Then Björk can take care of it when he gets back.”

“What do you think he’ll do?”

“Nothing.”

“Exactly.”

Wallander threw his arms wide.

“We might as well admit it right now. Whoever leaked it to the TV people isn’t going to get his nose twisted off. By the way, how much do you think Swedish Television pays to snitching cops?”

“Probably way too much,” said Rydberg. “That’s why they don’t have money for any good programs.”

He got up from his chair.

“Don’t forget one thing,” he said as he stood with his hand on the door frame. “A cop who snitches can snitch again.”

“What do you mean?”

“He can insist that one of our leads does point toward foreigners. It’s true, after all.”

“It’s not even a lead,” said Wallander. “It’s the last confused word of a groggy old woman who was dying.”

Rydberg shrugged.

“Do as you like,” he said. “See you in a while.”

The meeting went as badly as an investigative meeting can go. Wallander had decided to start with the leak and its possible consequences. He would describe the anonymous phone call he had received and then entertain suggestions on what should be done before the deadline ran out. But when he angrily complained that someone among those present was apparently so disloyal that he spread confidential information and possibly also took money for it, he was met by equally angry protests. Several of the police officers thought that the rumor might well have been leaked from the hospital. Hadn’t both doctors and nurses been present when the old woman uttered her last words?

Wallander tried to refute their objections, but they kept protesting. By the time he finally managed to steer the discussion to the investigation itself, a sullen mood had settled over the room. Yesterday’s optimism had been replaced by a slack, uninspired atmosphere. Wallander realized that he had gotten off on the wrong foot.

The attempt to identify the car with which the truck driver had almost collided had yielded no results. To increase efficiency, an additional man was assigned to concentrate on the car.

The investigation of Lars Herdin’s past was ongoing. On the first check nothing remarkable had come to light. Lars Herdin had no record and no conspicuous debts.

“We’re going to run a vacuum over this guy,” said Wallander. “We have to know everything there is to know. I’m going to be meeting with the prosecutor in a few minutes. I’ll request authorization to go into the bank.”

Peters was the one who brought the biggest news of the day.

“Johannes Lövgren had two safe-deposit boxes,” he said. “One at the Union Bank and one at the Merchants’ Bank. I went through the keys on his key ring.”

“Good,” said Wallander. “We’ll go check them out later today.”

The charting of Lövgrens’ family, friends, and relatives would continue.

It was decided that Rydberg should take care of the daughter who lived in Canada, who would be arriving at the hovercraft terminal in Malmö just after three in the afternoon.

“Where’s the other daughter?” asked Wallander. “The handball player?”

“She’s already arrived,” said Svedberg. “She’s staying with relatives.”

“You go talk to her,” said Wallander. “Do we have any other tips that might produce something? Ask the daughters if either of them received a wall clock, by the way.”

Martinson had sifted through the tips. Everything that the police learned was fed into a computer. Then Martinson did a rough sort. The most ridiculous tips never got beyond the printouts.

“Hulda Yngveson phoned from Vallby and said that it was the disapproving hand of God that dealt the blow,” said Martinson.

“She always calls,” sighed Rydberg. “If a calf runs off, it’s because God is displeased.”

“I put her on the CF list,” said Martinson.

The sullen atmosphere was broken by a little amusement when Martinson explained that CF stood for “crazy fools.”

They hadn’t received any tips of immediate interest. But everything would be checked out in time.

Finally the question remained of Johannes Lövgren’s secret relationship in Kristianstad and the child they had together.

Wallander looked around the room. Thomas Naslund, a thirty-year veteran who seldom called attention to himself but who did solid, thorough work, was sitting in a corner, pulling on his lower lip as he listened.

“You can come with me,” said Wallander. “See if you can do a little footwork first. Call up Herdin and pump him for everything you can about this woman in Kristianstad. And the child too, of course.”

he press conference was set for four o’clock. By then Kurt Wallander and Thomas Naslund hoped to be back from Kristianstad. If they were late, Rydberg promised to preside.

“I’ll write the press release,” said Wallander. “If no one has anything more, we’ll adjourn.”

It was eleven twenty-five when he knocked on Per Åkeson’s door in another part of the police building.

The woman who opened the door was very striking and very young. Wallander stared at her.

“Seen enough yet?” she said. “You’re half an hour late, by the way.”

“I told you the meeting might run over,” he countered.

When he entered her office, he hardly recognized it. Per Åkeson’s spartan, colorless space had been transformed into a room with colorful curtains and big flowerpots along the walls.

He followed her with his eyes as she sat down behind her desk. He thought she couldn’t be more than thirty years old. She was dressed in a rust-brown suit that he was sure was of good quality and no doubt quite expensive.

“Have a seat,” she said. “Maybe we ought to shake hands, by the way. I’ll be filling in for Åkeson the entire time he’s away. So we’ll be working together for quite a while.”

He put out his hand and noticed at the same time that she was wearing a wedding ring. To his surprise he realized that he felt disappointed.

She had dark brown hair, cut short and framing her face. A bleached lock of hair curled down beside one ear.

“I’d like to say welcome to Ystad,” he said. “I have to admit that I totally forgot that Per was on leave.”

“I assume we’ll be using our first names. Mine is Anette.”

“Kurt. How do you like Ystad?”

She shook off the question with a curt reply. “I don’t really know yet. Stockholmers no doubt have a hard time getting used to the leisurely pace of Skåne.”

“Leisurely?”

“You’re half an hour late.”

Wallander could feel himself getting angry. Was she provoking him? Didn’t she understand that a meeting of an investigative team could run over? Did she view all Scanians as leisurely?

“I don’t think Scanians are any lazier than anyone else,” he said. “All Stockholmers aren’t stuck-up, are they?”

“Pardon?”

“Forget it.”

She leaned back in her chair. He noticed that he was having a hard time looking her in the eye.

“Perhaps you could give me a rundown,” she said.

Wallander tried to make his report as concise as possible. He could tell that, without really intending it, he had wound up in a defensive position.

He avoided mentioning the leak in the police department.

She interjected a few brief questions, which he answered. He could see that despite her youth she did have professional experience.

“We have to go take a look at Lövgren’s bank balances,” he said. “He also has two safe-deposit boxes we want to open.”

She wrote up the documents he needed.

“Does a judge have to look at this?” asked Wallander as she shoved the documents over to him.

“We’ll do that later,” she said. “Then I’d appreciate receiving ongoing copies of all the investigative material.”

He nodded and got ready to leave.

“This article in the papers,” she inquired. “About foreigners who may have been involved?”

“A rumor,” replied Wallander. “You know how it is.”

“Do I?” she asked.

When he left her office he noticed that he was sweating.

What a babe, he thought. How the hell can someone like that become a prosecutor? Devote her life to catching small-time crooks and keeping the streets clean?

He stopped in the big reception area of the police station, unable to decide what to do next.

Eat, he decided. If I don’t get some food now, I never will. I can write the press release while I eat.

When he walked out of the police station he was almost blown over.

The storm had not died down.

He thought he ought to drive home and make himself a simple salad. Despite the fact that he had hardly eaten a thing all day, his stomach felt heavy and bloated. But then he allowed himself to be tempted to eat at the Lurhorn Blower down by the square instead. He wasn’t going to tackle his eating habits seriously today either.

At quarter to one he was back at the station. Since he had once again eaten too fast, he had an attack of diarrhea and ran to the toilet. When his stomach had settled somewhat, he turned in the press release to one of the office clerks and then headed for Näslund’s room.

“I can’t get hold of Herdin,” said Näslund. “He’s out on some kind of winter hike with a conservation group in Fyle Valley.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to drive out there and look for him,” said Wallander.

“I thought I might as well do that, then you can go check the safe-deposit boxes. If everything was so hush-hush with this woman and their kid, maybe there’s something locked up in there. We’ll save time that way, I mean.”

Wallander nodded. Näslund was right. He barged forward like an impatient locomotive.

“Okay, that’s what we’ll do,” he said. “If we don’t make it today we’ll go up to Kristianstad tomorrow morning.”

Before he got into his car to drive down to the bank, he tried once more to get hold of Sten Widen. There was no answer this time either.

He dropped off the slip with Ebba at the reception desk.

“See if you can get an answer,” he said. “Check whether this number is right. It’s supposed to be in the name of Sten Widen. Or a racehorse stable that might have a name I don’t know.”

“Hanson probably knows,” said Ebba.

“I said racehorses, not trotters.”

“He plays anything that moves,” said Ebba with a laugh.

“I’ll be at the Union Bank if there’s anything urgent,” said Wallander.

He parked the car across from the bookstore on the square. The powerful wind almost blew the parking stub out of his hand after he put the money in the automat. The town seemed abandoned. The strong winds were keeping people indoors.

He stopped at the radio store by the square. In an attempt to combat the sadness in the evenings, he was considering buying a VCR. He looked at the prices and tried to figure out whether he could afford the purchase this month. Or should he invest in a new stereo instead? After all, it was music he turned to when he lay tossing and turning and couldn’t sleep.

He tore himself away from the display window and turned down the pedestrian street by the Chinese restaurant. The Union Bank was right next door. When he walked in through the glass doors, he found only one customer inside the small bank lobby. A farmer with a hearing aid, complaining about the high interest rate in a high, shrill voice. To the left a door stood open to an office where a man sat studying a computer screen. He assumed that’s where he was supposed to go. When he stood in the doorway the man looked up quickly, as if Wallander were a possible bank robber.

He walked into the room and introduced himself.

“We’re not happy about this at all,” said the man behind the desk. “In all the years I’ve been at this bank we’ve never had any trouble with the police.”

Wallander was instantly annoyed by the man’s uncooperative attitude. Sweden had turned into a country where people more than anything else seemed to be afraid of being bothered. Nothing was holier than ingrained routine.

“It can’t be helped,” said Wallander, taking out the documents that Anette Brolin had drawn up.

The man read them carefully.

“Is this really necessary?” he asked. “The whole point of a safe-deposit box is that it’s protected from inspection by outsiders.”

“It’s necessary,” said Wallander. “And I haven’t got all day.”

With a sigh the man got up from his desk. Wallander realized that he had prepared himself for a visit from the police.

They passed through a barred doorway and entered the safe-deposit vault. Johannes Lövgren’s box was at the bottom in one corner. Wallander unlocked it, pulled out the drawer, and set it on the table.

Then he raised the lid and started going through the contents. There were some papers for burial arrangements and some title deeds to the farm in Lenarp. Some old photographs and a pale envelope with old stamps on it. That was all.

Nothing, he thought. Nothing of what I had hoped for.

The bank man stood to the side watching him. Wallander wrote down the number of the title deed and the names on the burial documents. Then he closed the box.

“Will that be all?” asked the bank official.

“For the time being,” said Wallander. “Now I’d like to take a look at the accounts he had here at the bank.”

On the way out of the vault something occurred to him. “Did anyone else besides Johannes Lövgren have access to his safe-deposit box?” he asked.

“No,” replied the bank official.

“Do you know whether he opened the box recently?”

“I looked at the visitor register,” the official replied. “It has to be many years since he last opened the box.”

The farmer was still complaining when they returned to the bank lobby. Now he had started in on a tirade about the declining price of grain.

“I have all the information in my office,” said the man.

Wallander sat down by his desk and went through two full sheets of printouts. Johannes Lövgren had four different accounts. Maria Lövgren was a joint signatory on two of them. The total amount in these two accounts was 90,000 kronor. Neither of the accounts had been touched in a long time. In the past few days interest had been posted. The third account was left over from Lövgren’s days as an active farmer. The balance in that one was 132 kronor and 97 öre.

There was one more account. Its balance was almost a million kronor. Maria Lövgren was not a signatory to it. On January 1, interest of more than 90,000 kronor had been posted to the account. On January 4, Johannes Lövgren had withdrawn 27,000 kronor.

Wallander looked up at the man sitting on the other side of the desk.

“How far back can you trace this account?” he asked.

“In principle, for ten years. But it’ll take some time, of course. We’ll have to run a computer search.”

“Start with last year. I want to see all activity in this account during 1989.”

The bank official rose and left the room. Wallander started studying the other document. It showed that Johannes Lövgren had almost 700,000 kronor in various mutual funds that the bank administered.

So far Lars Herdin’s story seems to check out, he thought.

He recalled the conversation with Nyström, who had sworn that his neighbor didn’t have any money.

That’s how much you know about your neighbors, he thought.

After about five minutes the man came back from the lobby. He handed Wallander another printout.

On three occasions in 1989 Johannes Lövgren had withdrawn a total of 78,000 kronor. The withdrawals were made in January, July, and September.

“May I keep these papers?” he asked.

The man nodded.

“I’d very much like to speak with the teller who paid out the money to Johannes Lövgren the last time,” he said.

“Britta-Lena Bodén,” said the man.

The woman who entered the office was quite young. Wallander thought she was hardly more than twenty years old.

“She knows what it’s all about,” said the man.

Wallander nodded and introduced himself. “Tell me what you know.”

“It was quite a lot of money,” said the young woman. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have remembered it.”

“Did he seem uneasy? Nervous?”

“Not that I recall.”

“How did he want the money?”

“In thousand-krona bills.”

“Just thousands?”

“He took a few five hundreds too.”

“What did he put the money in?”

The young woman had a good memory.

“A brown briefcase. One of those old-fashioned ones with a strap around it.”

“Would you recognize it if you saw it again?”

“Maybe. The handle was ragged.”

“What do you mean by ragged?”

“The leather was cracked.”

Wallander nodded. The woman’s memory was excellent. “Do you remember anything else?”

“After he got the money, he left.”

“And he was alone?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t see whether anyone was waiting for him outside?”

“I wouldn’t be able to see that from the teller’s window.”

“Do you remember what time it was?”

The woman thought before she replied. “I went to lunch right afterwards. It was around noon.”

“You’ve been a great help. If you remember anything else, please let me know.”

Wallander got up and went out to the bank lobby. He stopped for a moment and looked around. The young woman was right. From the tellers’ windows it was impossible to see whether anyone was waiting on the street outside.

The hard-of-hearing farmer was gone, and new customers had arrived. Someone speaking a foreign language was changing money at one of the tellers’ windows.

Wallander went outside. The Merchants’ Bank was on Hamngatan close by.

A considerably friendlier bank officer accompanied him down to the vault. When Wallander opened the steel drawer, he was disappointed at once. The box was completely empty.

No one but Johannes Lövgren had access to this safe-deposit box either. He had rented it in 1962.

“When was he here last?” asked Wallander.

The answer gave him a start.

“On January fourth,” the official replied after studying the register of visitors. “At one fifteen in the afternoon, to be precise. He stayed for twenty minutes.”

But even when Wallander asked all the employees, no one remembered whether Lövgren had anything with him when he left the bank. No one remembered his briefcase either.

The young woman from the Union Bank, he thought. Every bank ought to have someone like her.

Wallander struggled down windblown back streets to Fridolf’s Bakery, where he drank some coffee and ate a cinnamon roll.

I would like to know what Johannes Lövgren did between noon and one fifteen, he thought. What did he do between his first and second bank visits? And how did he arrive in Ystad? How did he get back? He didn’t own a car.

He took out his notebook and brushed some crumbs off the table. After half an hour he had drawn up a summary of the questions that had to be answered as soon as possible.

On the way back to the car he went into a menswear shop and bought a pair of socks. He was shocked at the price but paid without protesting. Before, it had always been Mona who bought his clothes. He tried to remember the last time he had bought a pair of socks.

When he got back to his car, a parking ticket had been stuck under one windshield wiper.

If I don’t pay it, they’ll eventually start legal proceedings against me, he thought. Then acting district attorney Anette Brolin will be forced to stand up in court and take me to task.

He tossed the parking ticket into the glove compartment and thought once again about how good-looking she was. Good-looking and charming. Then he thought about the roll he’d just eaten. It was three o’clock before Thomas Naslund called in. By that time Wallander had already decided to postpone the trip to Kristianstad to the next day.

“I’m soaked,” said Naslund on the phone. “I’ve tramped around in the mud after Herdin all over Fyle Valley.”

“Pump him good,” said Wallander. “Put a little pressure on him. We want to know everything he knows.”

“Should I bring him in?” asked Naslund.

“Go home with him. Maybe he’ll talk more freely at home at his own kitchen table.”

The press conference started at four. Wallander looked for Rydberg, but nobody knew where he was.

The room was full of reporters. Wallander saw that the female reporter from the local radio was there, and he quickly decided to find out what she really knew about Linda.

He could feel his stomach churning.

I’m repressing things, he thought. Along with everything else I don’t have time for. I’m searching for the slayers of the dead and can’t even manage to pay attention to the living.

For a dizzying instant his entire consciousness was filled with only one urge.

To take off. Flee. Disappear. Start a new life.

Then he climbed up on the little dais and welcomed his audience to the press conference.

After fifty-seven minutes it was over. Wallander thought that he probably came off pretty well by denying all rumors that the police were searching for some foreign citizens in connection with the double murder. He hadn’t been asked any questions that gave him trouble. When he stepped down from the podium, he felt satisfied.

The young woman from the local radio waited while he was interviewed for television. As always when a TV camera was pointed at his face, he got nervous and stumbled over his words. But the reporter was satisfied and didn’t ask for another take.

“You’ll have to get yourself some better informants,” said Wallander when it was all over.

“I might have to at that,” replied the reporter and laughed.

When the TV crew had left, Wallander suggested that the young woman from the local radio station accompany him to his office.

He was less nervous in front of a radio microphone than in front of the camera.

When she was finished, she turned off the tape recorder. Wallander was just about to bring up Linda when Rydberg knocked on the door and came in.

“We’re almost done,” said Wallander.

“We’re done now,” said the young woman, getting up.

Crestfallen, Wallander watched her go. He hadn’t managed to get in one word about Linda.

“More trouble,” said Rydberg. “They just called from the refugee receiving unit here in Ystad. A car drove into the courtyard and threw a bag of rotten turnips at an old man from Lebanon and hit him in the head.”

“Damn,” said Wallander. “What happened?”

“He’s at the hospital getting bandaged up. But the director is nervous.”

“Did they get the license number?”

“It all happened too fast.”

Wallander thought for a moment.

“Let’s not do anything conspicuous right now,” he said. “In the morning there will be strong denials about the foreigners in all the papers. It’ll be on TV tonight. Then we just have to hope that things calm down. We could ask the night patrols to check out the camp.”

“I’ll tell them,” said Rydberg.

“Come back afterwards and we’ll do an update,” said Wallander.

It was half past eight when Wallander and Rydberg finished.

“What do you think?” asked Wallander as they gathered up their papers.

Rydberg scratched his forehead. “It’s obvious that this Herdin lead is a good one. As long as we can get hold of that mystery woman and the boy. There’s a lot to indicate that the solution might be close at hand. So close that it’s hard to see. But at the same time...” Rydberg broke off his sentence.

“At the same time?”

“I don’t know,” Rydberg went on. “There’s something funny about all this. Especially that noose. I don’t know what it is.”

He shrugged and stood up.

“We’ll have to continue tomorrow,” he said.

“Do you remember seeing a brown briefcase at Lövgren’s house?” Wallander asked.

Rydberg shook his head.

“Not that I can recall,” he said. “But a whole bunch of old junk fell out of the wardrobes. I wonder why old people turn into such pack rats?”

“Send someone out there tomorrow morning to look for an old brown briefcase,” said Wallander. “With a cracked handle.”

Rydberg left. Wallander could see that his lame leg was bothering him a lot. He thought he’d better find out whether Ebba had gotten hold of Sten Widen. But he didn’t bother. Instead he looked up Anette Brolin’s home address in a department directory. To his surprise he discovered that she was almost his neighbor.

I could ask her to dinner, he thought.

Then he remembered that she wore a wedding ring.

He drove home through the storm and took a bath. Then he lay down on his bed and leafed through a book about the life of Giuseppe Verdi.

He woke up with a start a few hours later because he was cold.

His watch showed a few minutes to midnight.

He felt dejected about waking up. Now he’d have another sleepless night.

Driven by his despondency, he got dressed. He thought he might as well spend a few nighttime hours at his office.

Outside he noticed that the wind had died down. It had started to get cold again.

Snow, he thought. It’ll be here soon.

He turned onto Osterleden. A lone taxi was headed in the opposite direction. He drove slowly through the empty town.

Suddenly he decided to drive past the refugee camp on the west side of town.

The camp consisted of a number of barracks in long rows in an open field. Bright floodlights lit up the green-painted buildings.

He stopped at a parking lot and got out of the car. The waves breaking on the beach were not far away.

He looked at the refugee camp.

Put a fence around it and it’d be a concentration camp, he thought.

He was just about to get back in his car when he heard a faint crash of glass breaking.

In the next instant there was a dull boom.

Then tall flames were shooting out of one of the barracks.