Faceless Killers

Chapter seven

He had no idea how long he stood there, stunned by the flames blazing in the winter night. Maybe it was several minutes, maybe only a few seconds. But when he managed to break through his paralysis, he had enough presence of mind to grab the car phone and call in the alarm.

The static on the phone made it difficult to hear the man who answered.

“The refugee camp in Ystad is on fire!” shouted Wallander. “Get the fire department out here! The wind is blowing hard.”

“Who am I speaking with?” asked the man at the emergency switchboard.

“This is Wallander of the Ystad police. I just happened to be driving past when the fire started.”

“Can you identify yourself?” continued the voice on the phone, unmoved.

“Damn it! Four-seven-one-one-two-one! Move your butt!”

He hung up the phone to avoid answering any more questions. Besides, he knew that the emergency switchboard could identify all the police officers on duty in the district.

Then he ran across the road toward the burning barracks. The fire was sizzling in the wind. He wondered fleetingly what would have happened if the fire had started the night before, during the heavy storm. But right now the flames were already getting a firm grip on the barracks next door.

Why didn’t someone sound the alarm? he thought. But he didn’t know whether there were refugees living in all the barracks. The heat of the fire hit him in the face as he pounded on the door of the barracks that had so far only been licked by the flames.

The barracks where the fire had started was now completely engulfed. Wallander tried to approach the door, but the fire drove him back. He ran around to the other side of the building. There was only one window. He banged on the glass and tried to look inside, but the smoke was so thick that he found himself staring straight into a white haze. He looked around for something to break the glass with but found nothing. Then he tore off his jacket, wrapped it around his arm, and smashed his fist through the windowpane. He held his breath to keep from inhaling the smoke and groped for the window latch. Twice he had to leap back to catch his breath before he managed to open the window.

“Get out!” he shouted into the fire. “Get out! Get out!”

Inside the barracks were two bunk beds. He hauled himself up onto the window ledge and felt the splinters of glass cutting into his thigh. The upper bunks were empty. But someone was lying on one of the lower bunks.

Wallander yelled again but got no response. Then he heaved himself through the window, hitting his head on the edge of a table as he landed on the floor. He was almost suffocating from the smoke as he fumbled his way toward the bed. At first he thought he was touching a lifeless body. Then he realized that what he had taken for a person was merely a rolled-up mattress. At the same moment his jacket caught fire and he threw himself headfirst out the window. From far off he could hear sirens, and as he stumbled away from the fire he saw crowds of half-dressed people milling around outside the barracks. The fire had now ignited two more of the low buildings. Wallander threw open doors and saw that people were living in these barracks. But those who had been asleep inside were already out. His head was pounding and his thigh hurt, and he felt sick from the smoke he had inhaled into his lungs. At that moment the first fire truck arrived, followed closely by an ambulance. He saw that the fire captain on duty was Peter Edler, a thirty-five-year-old man who flew kites in his spare time. Wallander had heard only favorable things about him. He was a man who was never bothered by uncertainty. Wallander staggered over to Edler, noting at the same time that he had burns on one arm.

“The barracks that are burning are empty,” he said. “I don’t know about the other ones.”

“You look like shit,” said Edler. “I think we can handle the other barracks.”

The firefighters were already hosing down the closest barracks. Wallander heard Edler order a tractor to tow away the barracks that were already on fire in order to isolate the hot spots.

The first police car came to a skidding stop, its blue light flashing and siren wailing. Wallander saw that it was Peters and Norén. He hobbled over to their car.

“How’s it going?” asked Norén.

“It’ll be okay,” said Wallander. “Start cordoning off the area and ask Edler if he needs any help.”

Peters stared at him. “You sure look like shit. How’d you happen to be here?”

“I was out driving around,” replied Wallander. “Now get moving.”

For the next hour a peculiar mixture of chaos and efficient firefighting prevailed. The dazed director of the refugee camp was wandering around aimlessly, and Wallander had to take him to task to find out how many refugees were at the camp and then do a count. To his great surprise, it turned out that the Immigration Service’s record of the refugees in residence at Ystad was completely and hopelessly confused. And he got no help from the dazed director either. In the meantime a tractor towed away the smoldering barracks, and the firefighters soon had the blaze under control. The medics had to take only a few of the refugees to the hospital. Most of them were suffering from shock. But there was a little Lebanese boy who had fallen and hit his head on a rock.

Edler pulled Wallander aside. “Go get yourself patched up.”

Wallander nodded. His arm was stinging and burning, and he could feel that one leg was sticky with blood.

“I don’t dare think about what might have happened if you hadn’t called in the alarm the instant the fire broke out,” said Edler.

“Why the hell do they put the barracks so close together?” asked Wallander.

Edler shook his head. “The old boss here is starting to get tired. Of course you’re right; the buildings are too damn close to each other.”

Wallander went over to Norén, who had just finished the job of cordoning off the area.

“I want that director in my office first thing tomorrow morning,” he said.

Norén nodded.

“Did you see anything?” he asked.

“I heard a crash. Then the barracks exploded. But no cars. No people. If it was set, then it was done with a delayed-action detonator.”

“Shall I drive you home or to the hospital?”

“I can drive myself. But I’m leaving now.”

At the hospital emergency room Wallander realized that he was more battered than he had thought. On one forearm he had a large burn, his groin area and one thigh had been lacerated by the glass, and above his right eye he had a big lump and several nasty abrasions. He had also evidently bitten his tongue without being aware of it.

It was almost four o’clock by the time Wallander could leave the hospital. His bandages were too tight, and he still felt sick from the smoke he had inhaled.

As he left the hospital, a camera flashed in his face. He recognized the photographer from the biggest morning newspaper in Skåne. He waved his hand to dismiss a reporter who popped up out of the shadows, wanting an interview. Then he drove home.

To his own great amazement he was actually feeling sleepy. He undressed and crawled under the covers. His body ached, and flames were dancing in his head. And yet he fell asleep at once.

At eight o’clock Wallander woke up because somebody was pounding a sledgehammer inside his head. When he opened his eyes, he became aware of the throbbing in his temples. He had once again dreamed of the unknown black woman who had visited him before in his dreams. But when he stretched out his hand for her, Sten Widen was suddenly standing there with the whiskey bottle in his hand, and the woman had turned her back on Wallander and gone off with Sten instead.

He lay completely still, taking stock of how he felt. His neck and arm were stinging. His head was pounding. For a moment he was tempted to turn to the wall and go back to sleep. Forget all about the murder investigation and the conflagration that had blazed in the night.

He didn’t get a chance to decide. His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.

I don’t feel like answering it, he thought.

Then he quickly slipped out of bed and stumbled out to the kitchen.

It was Mona on the phone.

“Kurt,” she said. “It’s Mona.”

He was filled with an overwhelming sense of joy.

Mona, he thought. Dear God! Mona! How I’ve missed you!

“I saw your picture in the paper,” she said. “How are you doing?”

He remembered the photographer outside the hospital during the night. The camera that had flashed.

“Fine,” he said. “Just a little sore.”

“Are you sure?”

Suddenly his joy was gone. Now the bad feelings came back, the sharp pain in his stomach.

“Do you really care how I am?”

“Why shouldn’t I care?”

“Why should you?”

He heard her breathing in his ear.

“I think you’re so brave,” she said. “I’m proud of you. In the paper it said that you risked your life to save people.”

“I didn’t save anybody! What kind of crap is that?”

“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt.”

“What would you have done if I was?”

“What would I have done?”

“If I was hurt. If I was dying. What would you have done then?”

“Why do you sound so angry?”

“I’m not angry. I’m just asking you. I want you to come back home. Back here. To me.”

“You know I can’t do that. I just wish we could talk to each other.”

“I never hear from you! So how are we supposed to talk to each other?”

He heard her sigh. That made him furious. Or maybe scared.

“Of course we can meet,” she said. “But not at my place. Or at yours.”

Suddenly he made up his mind. What he had said was not entirely true. But it wasn’t really a lie either.

“There are a lot of things we need to talk about,” he told her. “Practical matters. I can drive over to Malmö if you like.”

There was a pause before she answered.

“Not tonight,” she said. “But I can do it tomorrow.”

“Where? Shall we have dinner? The only places I know are the Savoy and the Central.”

“The Savoy is expensive.”

“Then how about the Central? What time?”

“Eight o’clock?”

“I’ll be there.”

The conversation was over. He looked at his pummeled face in the hall mirror.

Was he looking forward to the meeting? Or was he feeling uneasy?

He couldn’t make up his mind. All his thoughts were confused. Instead of picturing his meeting with Mona, he saw himself with Anette Brolin at the Savoy. And even though she was still the acting district attorney in Ystad, she was suddenly transformed into a black woman.

Wallander got dressed, skipped his morning coffee, and went out to his car. There was no wind at all. It had turned warmer again. The remnants of a damp fog were drifting in over the town from the sea.

He was greeted with friendly nods and pats on the back when he entered the police station. Ebba gave him a hug and a jar of pear preserves. He felt both embarrassed and a little proud of himself.

If only Björk had been here, he thought.

In Ystad instead of in Spain.

This was the kind of thing he dreamed of. Heroes on the police force...

By nine thirty everything had returned to normal. By then he had already managed to give the director of the refugee camp a fierce lecture about the sloppy supervision of the refugees who occupied the barracks. The director, who was short and plump and radiated a large measure of apathetic laziness, had vigorously defended himself by insisting that he had followed the rules and regulations of the Immigration Service to the letter.

“It’s the responsibility of the police to guarantee our safety,” he said, trying to twist the entire discussion around 180 degrees.

“How are we supposed to guarantee anything at all when you have no idea how many people are living in those damned barracks or who they are?”

The director was red-faced with fury when he left Kurt Wallander’s office.

“I’m going to file a complaint,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of the police to guarantee the safety of the refugees.”

“Complain to the king,” replied Wallander. “Complain to the prime minister. Complain to the European Court. Complain to whoever the hell you like. But from now on you’re going to have precise lists of how many people there are at your camp, what their names are, and which barracks they live in.”

Right before the meeting with the investigative team was due to start, Peter Edler called.

“How are you doing?” he asked. “The hero of the day.”

“Kiss my ass,” replied Wallander. “Have you found anything?”

“It wasn’t hard,” replied Edler. “A handy little detonator that ignited some rags soaked in gasoline.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’re damn right I’m sure! You’ll have the report in a few hours.”

“We’ll have to try and run the arson investigation parallel with the double homicide. But if anything else happens, I’m going to need reinforcements from Simrishamn or Malmö.”

“Are there any police in Simrishamn? I thought the station there was closed down.”

“It was the volunteer firefighters who were disbanded. In fact, I’ve heard rumors that we’re going to have some new positions opening up down here.”

Wallander started the investigative meeting by reporting what Peter Edler had told him. A brief discussion followed concerning possible reasons for the attack. Everyone agreed that it was most likely a rather well-organized boyish prank. But no one denied the seriousness of what had occurred.

“It’s important for us to get them,” said Hanson. “Just as important as catching the killers at Lenarp.”

“Maybe it was the same people who threw the turnips at the old man,” said Svedberg.

Wallander noticed an unmistakable hint of contempt in his voice.

“Talk to him. Maybe he can give you a description.”

“I don’t speak Arabic,” said Svedberg.

“We have interpreters, for God’s sake! I want to know what he has to say no later than this afternoon.” Wallander could feel that he was angry.

The meeting was extremely brief. This was one of those days when the police officers were in the midst of an intense investigative phase. Conclusions and results were sparse.

“We’ll skip the afternoon meeting,” Wallander decided. “Provided nothing out of the ordinary happens. Martinson will go out to the camp. Svedberg, maybe you could take over whatever Martinson was doing that can’t wait.”

“I’m searching for the car that the truck driver saw,” said Martinson. “I’ll give you my paperwork.”

When the meeting was over, Naslund and Rydberg stayed behind in Wallander’s office.

“We’re starting to go into overtime,” said Wallander. “When is Björk coming back from Spain?”

Nobody knew.

“Does he have any idea about what’s happened?” Rydberg wondered.

“Does he care?” Wallander countered.

He called Ebba and got an immediate reply. She even knew which airline he would be coming in on.

“Saturday night,” he told the others. “But since I’m the acting chief, I’m going to authorize all the overtime we need.”

Rydberg changed the subject to his visit to the farm where the murder was committed.

“I’ve been snooping around,” he said. “I’ve turned the whole place upside down. I’ve even dug around in the hay bales out in the stable. But there was no brown briefcase.”

Wallander knew this had to be true. Rydberg never gave up until he was one hundred percent sure.

“So now we know this much,” he said. “One brown briefcase containing twenty-seven thousand kronor is missing.”

“People have been killed for much less,” said Rydberg.

They sat in silence for a moment, pondering Rydberg’s words.

“I can’t understand why it should be so hard to locate that car,” said Wallander, touching the tender lump on his forehead. “I gave the description of the car at the press conference and asked the driver to contact us.”

“Patience,” said Rydberg.

“What came out of the conversations with the daughters? If there are any reports, I can read them in the car on the way to Kristianstad. By the way, do either of you think that the attack last night had anything to do with the threat I received?”

Both Rydberg and Naslund shook their heads.

“I don’t either,” said Wallander. “That means that we need to be prepared for something to happen on Friday or Saturday. I thought that you, Rydberg, could think through this matter and come up with some suggestions for action by this afternoon.”

Rydberg made a face.

“I’m not good at things like that.”

“You’re a good cop. You’ll do just fine.”

Rydberg gave him a skeptical look.

Then he stood up to go. He stopped at the door.

“The daughter that I talked to, the one from Canada, had her husband with her. The one who’s the Mountie. He wondered why we don’t carry side arms.”

“In a few years we probably will,” said Wallander.

He was just about to start talking to Naslund about his conversation with Lars Herdin when the phone rang. Ebba told him that the head of the Immigration Service was on the line.

Wallander was surprised when he realized that he was speaking to a woman. In his mind, high government officials were still elderly gentlemen with an air of guarded dignity and arrogant self-esteem.

The woman had a pleasant voice. But what she said annoyed him instantly. It occurred to him that it might be a breach of conduct for an acting police chief in a small town to contradict what the high priest of a government civil service agency had to say.

“We are most displeased,” said the woman. “The police have to guarantee the safety of our refugees.”

She sounds just like that damned director, thought Wallander.

“We do what we can,” he said, trying not to reveal that he was angry.

“Clearly that is not sufficient.”

“It would have been considerably easier if we had received updated information about how many refugees were assigned to the various camps.”

“The service has complete data on the refugees.”

“That’s not my impression at all.”

“The Minister of Immigration is quite concerned.”

Wallander visualized a red-haired woman who was regularly interviewed on TV.

“She’s welcome to contact us,” said Wallander, making a face at Naslund, who was leafing through some papers.

“It’s clear that the police are not allocating enough resources to protecting the refugees.”

“Or maybe there are just too many coming in. And you have no idea where they’re living.”

“What do you mean by that?”

The polite voice was suddenly cool.

Wallander felt his anger grow.

“Last night’s fire revealed an enormous disarray at the camp. That’s what I mean. In general, it’s difficult to get any clear directives from the Immigration Service. You often tell the police to instigate deportations. But we have no idea where to find the deportees. Sometimes we have to search for several weeks before we find the people we are supposed to expel.”

What he said was true. He had heard about his colleagues in Malmö who were driven to despair by the inability of the Immigration Service to handle its job.

“That’s a lie,” said the woman. “I’m not going to waste my valuable time arguing with you.”

The conversation was over.

“Bitch,” said Wallander, slamming down the phone.

“Who was that?” asked Naslund.

“A director general,” replied Wallander, “who doesn’t know a thing about reality. Feel like getting some coffee?”

Rydberg turned in transcripts of the interviews that he and Svedberg had held with Lövgren’s two daughters. Wallander quickly recounted his phone conversation.

“The Minister of Immigration will be calling soon, and she’ll be concerned,” said Rydberg, laughing wickedly.

“You can talk to her,” said Wallander. “I’ll try to be back from Kristianstad by four.”

When Naslund came back with the two mugs of coffee, Wallander no longer wanted any. He felt a need to get out of the building. His bandages were too tight, and his head ached. A drive might do him good.

“You can tell me about it in the car,” he said, pushing the coffee away.

Näslund looked doubtful.

“I don’t really know where we should go. Lars Herdin knew virtually nothing about this mystery woman’s identity, even though he was well informed about Lövgren’s financial assets.”

“He must have known something.”

“I interrogated him up and down,” said Naslund. “I actually think he was telling the truth. The only thing he knew for sure was that she existed.”

“How did he know that?”

“By coincidence he was once in Kristianstad and saw Lövgren and the woman on the street.”

“When was that?”

Naslund flipped through his notes.

“Eleven years ago.”

Wallander sipped his coffee.

“It doesn’t fit,” he said. “He has to know more, much more. How can he be so sure that there’s a child? How does he know about the payments? Didn’t you try to squeeze it out of him?”

“He claimed that somebody had written to him and told him about the situation.”

“Who?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

Wallander thought about this for a moment.

“We’ll go to Kristianstad anyway,” he said. “Our colleagues up there will have to help us. Then I’m going to take on Lars Herdin myself.”

They took one of the squad cars. Wallander crawled into the back seat and let Naslund drive. When they were outside of town, Wallander noticed that Naslund was driving much too fast.

“This isn’t an emergency,” said Wallander. “Drive slower. I have to read these papers and think.”

Naslund slowed down.

The landscape was gray and foggy. Wallander stared out at the dreary desolation. Although he felt at home in the Scanian spring and summer, he felt alienated by the barren silence of fall and winter.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. His body ached and his arm burned. He also noticed that he was having palpitations.

Divorced men have heart attacks, he thought. We put on weight eating too much and feel tormented about being abandoned. Or else we throw ourselves into new relationships, and finally our hearts just give out.

The thought of Mona made him both furious and sad.

He opened his eyes and looked out at the landscape of Skane again.

Then he read through the transcripts of the interviews the police had conducted with Lövgren’s two daughters.

There was nothing to give them a lead. No enemies, no pent-up hostilities.

And no money either.

Johannes Lövgren had kept even his own daughters in the dark about his vast financial assets.

Wallander tried to imagine this man. How had he operated? What had driven him? What did he think would happen to all the money after he was gone?

He was startled by his own thought.

Somewhere there ought to be a will.

But if it wasn’t in one of the safe-deposit boxes, then where was it? Did the murdered man have another safe-deposit box somewhere else?

“How many banks are there in Ystad?” he asked Naslund.

Naslund knew everything about the town. “Around ten.”

“Tomorrow I want you to investigate the ones we haven’t visited so far. Did Johannes Lövgren have more safe-deposit boxes? I also want to know how he got back and forth from Lenarp. Taxi, bus, whatever.”

Naslund nodded. “He might have taken the school bus.”

“Someone must have seen him.”

They took the route past Tomelilla. They crossed the main road to Malmö and continued north.

“What did the inside of Lars Herdin’s house look like?” Wallander asked.

“Old-fashioned. But clean and tidy. Strangely enough, he uses a microwave oven to do his cooking. He offered me homemade rolls. He has a big parrot in a cage. The farm is well cared for. The whole place looks neat. No tumbledown fences.”

“What kind of car does he have?”

“A red Mercedes.”

“A Mercedes?”

“Yes, a Mercedes.”

“I thought he told us it was hard making ends meet.”

“That Mercedes of his cost over three hundred thousand.”

Wallander thought for a moment. “We need to know more about Lars Herdin. Even if he has no idea who killed them, he might actually know something without realizing it himself.”

“What’s that got to do with the Mercedes?”

“Nothing. I’ve just got a hunch that Lars Herdin is more important to us than he realizes. Then we might wonder how a farmer today can afford to buy a car for three hundred thousand kronor. Maybe he has a receipt that says he bought a tractor.”

They drove into Kristianstad and parked outside the police station just as rain mixed with snow started to fall. Wallander noticed the first vague prickles in his throat, warning him that a cold was coming on.

Damn, he thought. I can’t get sick now. I don’t want to meet Mona with a fever and sniffles.

The Ystad police and the Kristianstad police had no special relationship with each other other than cooperating whenever the situation called for it. But Wallander knew several of the officers rather well from various conferences on the county level. He was hoping, above all, that Göran Boman would be on duty. He was the same age as Wallander, and they had met while sitting over a whiskey at Tylösand. They had both endured a tedious study day organized by the educational delegation of the National Police. The purpose was to inspire them to improve and make more effective the staff policies at their respective workplaces. In the evening they sat and shared half a bottle of whiskey and soon discovered that they had a lot in common. In particular, both their fathers had been extremely resistant when the sons had decided to go into police work.

Wallander and Naslund stepped into the lobby. The young woman at the switchboard, who oddly enough spoke with a lilting Norrland accent, told them that Göran Boman was on duty.

“He’s in an interrogation,” said the woman. “But it probably won’t last long.”

Wallander went out to use the toilet. He gave a start when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. The bruises and abrasions were bright red. He splashed his face with cold water. At that moment he heard Boman’s voice out in the hall.

The reunion was a hearty one. Wallander realized that he was overjoyed to see Boman again. They got some coffee and took it to his office. Wallander discovered that both of them had exactly the same kind of desk. But otherwise Boman’s office was better furnished. It made his office look better, the same way that Anette Brolin had transformed the sterile office she had taken over.

Göran Boman knew, of course, about the double homicide in Lenarp, as well as the attack on the refugee camp and Kurt Wallander’s rescue attempt that had been so exaggerated in the papers. They talked for a while about refugees. Boman had the same impression as Wallander that people seeking asylum were dealt with in a chaotic and disorganized fashion. The police in Kristianstad also had numerous examples of deportation orders that could be carried out only with great difficulty. As recently as a few weeks before Christmas they had been advised that several Bulgarian citizens were supposed to be expelled. According to the Immigration Service, they were living at a camp in Kristianstad. Only after several days’ work did the police manage to find out that the Bulgarians were living at a camp in Arjeplog, over a thousand kilometers to the north.

Then they switched to the real reason for their visit. Wallander gave Boman a detailed rundown.

“And you want us to find her for you,” said Boman when he was done.

“That wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

Up until then Naslund had been sitting in silence.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “If Johannes Lövgren had a child by this woman, and we assume that the child was born in this town, we should be able to look it up in the vital statistics records. Lövgren must have been listed as the child’s father, don’t you think?”

Wallander nodded. “Besides, we know approximately when the child was born. We can concentrate on a ten-year period, from about 1947 to 1957, if Lars Herdin’s story is correct. And I think it is.”

“How many children are born over a ten-year period in Kristianstad?” asked Boman. “It would have taken an awfully long time to check it out before we had computers.”

“Of course it’s possible that Johannes Lövgren was listed as ‘father unknown,’ said Wallander. ”But then we just have to go through all of those cases with extra care.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and put out a public appeal for the woman?” asked Boman. “Ask her to contact you.”

“Because I’m quite sure that she wouldn’t do that,” said Wallander. “It’s just a feeling I have. It may not be particularly professional. But I think I’d rather try this route instead.”

“We’ll find her,” said Boman. “We live in a society and an age when it’s almost impossible to disappear. Unless you commit suicide in such an ingenious fashion that your body is completely obliterated. We had a case like that last summer. At least that’s what I assume happened. A man who was sick of it all. He was reported missing by his wife. His boat was gone. We never found him. And I don’t think we’re ever going to, either. I think he put out to sea, scuttled the boat, and drowned himself. But if this woman and her child exist, we’ll find them. I’ll put a man on it right away.”

Wallander’s throat hurt.

He noticed that he had started to sweat.

Most of all he would have liked to stay sitting there, discussing the double homicide with Göran Boman in peace and quiet. He had the feeling that Boman was a talented cop. His opinion would be valuable. But Wallander suddenly felt too tired.

They concluded their conversation. Boman followed them out to the car.

“We’ll find her,” he repeated.

“Let’s get together some evening,” said Wallander. “In peace and quiet. And have some whiskey.”

Boman nodded.

“Maybe on another meaningless study day,” he said.

The wet snow was still coming down. Wallander felt the dampness seeping into his shoes. He crawled into the back seat and huddled up in the corner. Soon he fell asleep.

He didn’t wake up until Naslund pulled up in front of the police station in Ystad. He was feeling feverish and miserable. The wet snow was still coming down, and he asked Ebba for a couple of aspirin. Even though he realized that he ought to go home to bed, he couldn’t resist getting an update on what had happened during the day. Besides, he wanted to hear what Rydberg had come up with regarding protection for the refugees.

His desk was covered with phone messages. Anette Brolin was among the many people who had called. And his father. But not Linda. Or Sten Widen. He shuffled through the messages and then put them aside except for the ones from Anette Brolin and his father. Then he called Martinson on the phone.

“Bingo,” said Martinson. “I think we’ve found the car. A vehicle that fits the description was rented last week by an Avis office in Göteborg. It hasn’t been returned. There’s just one thing that’s strange.”

“What’s that?”

“The car was rented by a woman.”

“What’s so strange about that?”

“I have a little trouble picturing a woman committing the double murder.”

“Now you’re on the wrong track. We have to get hold of that car. And the driver. Even if it is a woman. Then we’ll see if they had anything to do with it. Eliminating someone from an investigation is just as important as getting a positive lead. But give the license number to the truck driver and see whether he recognizes it after all.”

He hung up and went into Rydberg’s office.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“This is certainly not much fun,” replied Rydberg gloomily.

“Who ever said police work was supposed to be fun?”

But Rydberg had made a thorough job of it, exactly as Wallander had known he would. The various camps were cordoned off, and Rydberg had drawn up a brief memo about each one. For the time being he suggested that as a precaution the night patrols should make regular rounds of the camps according to a cleverly devised timetable.

“Good,” said Wallander. “Just make sure the patrols understand that it’s a serious matter.”

He gave Rydberg a report of the results from his visit to Kristianstad. Then he stood up.

“I’m going home now,” he said.

“You’re looking a little bedraggled.”

“I’m coming down with a cold. But everything seems to be moving along by itself right now.”

He drove straight home, made some tea, and crawled into bed. When he woke up several hours later, the teacup was standing next to his bed untouched. It was quarter to seven. He was feeling a little better after getting some sleep. He threw out the cold tea and made coffee instead. Then he called his father.

Wallander realized at once that his father had heard nothing about the fire in the night.

“Weren’t we going to play cards?” snapped his father.

“I’m sick,” said Wallander.

“But you’re never sick.”

“I’ve got a cold.”

“I don’t call that being sick.”

“Not everybody is as healthy as you are.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Kurt Wallander sighed.

If he didn’t come up with something, this conversation with his father was going to be unbearable.

“I’ll come out to see you early in the morning,” he said. “Around eight o’clock. If you’re up by then.”

“I never sleep past four thirty.”

“But I do.”

He ended the conversation and hung up the phone.

At the same instant he regretted having made this appointment with his father. Starting off the day by driving out to visit him was equivalent to accepting a whole day filled with depression and guilt feelings.

He looked around his apartment. There were thick layers of dust everywhere. Even though he frequently aired out the place, it still smelled musty. Lonely and musty.

All of a sudden he started thinking about the black woman he had been dreaming about lately. The woman who willingly came to him, night after night. Where did she come from? Where had he seen her? Was it a picture in the newspaper, or did he catch a glimpse of her on TV?

He wondered why it was that in his dreams he had an erotic obsession that differed completely from his experiences with Mona.

The thought got him excited. Again he wondered whether he should call up Anette Brolin. But he couldn’t talk himself into it. Angrily he sat down on the floral-patterned sofa and switched on the TV. It was one minute to seven. He rolled through to one of the Danish channels, where the news broadcast was just about to start.

The anchorman reviewed the top stories. Another catastrophic famine. Terror was on the rise in Romania. A huge quantity of drugs had been confiscated in Odense.

Wallander grabbed the remote control and turned off the TV. Suddenly he couldn’t take any more news.

He thought about Mona. But his thoughts took an unexpected turn. All of a sudden he was no longer sure that he really wanted her back. What guarantee was there that anything would be better? a

None. He was just fooling himself.

Feeling restless, he went out to the kitchen and drank a glass of juice. Then he sat down and wrote a detailed status report of the investigation. When he was done, he spread out all his notes on the table and looked at them as if they were pieces of a puzzle. He suddenly had a strong feeling that they might not be too far from finding a solution. Even though there were still a lot of loose ends, a number of details did fit together.

It wasn’t possible to point to a particular person. There weren’t even any possible suspects. But he still had the feeling that the police were close. This made him feel both gratified and uneasy. Too many times he had headed up complicated criminal investigations that seemed promising at first but later petered out in dead ends which they never managed to get out of, and in the worst instances they had to drop these cases altogether.

Patience, he thought. Patience.

It was almost nine o’clock. Again he was tempted to call Anette Brolin. But he resisted. He had no idea what he would say to her. And maybe her husband would answer the phone.

He sat down on the couch and switched on the TV again.

To his immense surprise he found himself staring at his own face. In the background he heard the droning voice of a woman reporter. The story was about the fact that Wallander and the police in Ystad seemed to be showing a deplorable lack of interest in guaranteeing the safety of the various refugee camps.

Wallander’s face disappeared and was replaced by a woman who was being interviewed outside a large office complex. When her name appeared on the screen, he realized that he should have recognized her. It was the head of the Immigration Service, whom he had talked to on the phone that very day.

“It cannot be ruled out that there may be an element of racism behind the lack of interest shown by the police,” she stated.

Bitter anger welled up inside him.

That bitch, he thought. What you’re saying is a total lie. And why didn’t those damned reporters contact me? I could have showed them Rydberg’s protection plan.

Racists? What was she talking about? His fury was mixed with shame at being unjustly accused.

Then the phone rang. He considered not answering it. But then he went out to the hallway and grabbed the receiver.

The voice was the same as last time. A little hoarse, muffled. Wallander guessed that the man was holding a handkerchief over the mouthpiece.

“We’re waiting for results,” said the man.

“Go to hell!” roared Wallander.

“By Saturday at the latest,” continued the man.

“Were you the bastards who set the fire last night?” he shouted into the phone.

“By Saturday at the latest,” repeated the man, unmoved. “Saturday at the latest.”

The line went dead.

Wallander suddenly felt sick. He couldn’t rid himself of a sense of foreboding. It was like an ache in his body that was slowly spreading.

Now you’re scared, he thought. Now Kurt Wallander is scared.

He went back to the kitchen and stood at the window and looked out into the street.

All of a sudden he realized that there was no wind. The street light was hanging motionless.

Something was going to happen. He was positive of that.

But what? And where?