Faceless Killers (34 page)

"Have you ever regretted becoming a policeman?" asked Wallander.

"Never. Not once."

They drank their cognac. Talked some, or sat in silence. Not until midnight did Wallander get up to leave. He promised to return the following evening. He left Rydberg where he was, sitting on the balcony in the dark.

On Wednesday morning, 1 August, Wallander briefed Hansson and Martinsson on what had happened the day before. The press conference would be in the afternoon, so they decided to check the Kivik market in the meantime. Hansson took on the job of writing the press release with Björk. Wallander said that he and Martinsson would be back not later than midday.

They went by way of Tomelilla and joined a long queue of cars just south of Kivik. They pulled in and parked in a field where an opportunistic farmer charged them 20 kronor.

It started to rain as they reached the market area, which stretched before them with a view of the sea. They stared in dismay at the mass of stalls and people. Loudspeakers were squawking, drunken youths were yelling, and they were shoved this way and that by the crowd.

"Let's try to meet somewhere in the middle," said Wallander.

"We should have brought walkie-talkies in case something happens," said Martinsson.

"Nothing's going to happen," said Wallander. "Let's meet one hour from now."

He watched Martinsson shamble off and be swallowed up by the crowd. He turned up the collar of his jacket and headed in the opposite direction.

After a little more than an hour they met again. They were soaked and exasperated with the crowds and the jostling.

"To hell with this," said Martinsson. "Let's go somewhere to have coffee."

Wallander pointed at a cabaret tent in front of them.

"Have you been in there?" he asked.

Martinsson grimaced. "Some tub of lard doing a striptease. The crowd screamed as if it were some kind of sexual revivalist meeting. Fuck!"

"Let's walk round the back of the tent," said Wallander. "I think there are a few stalls over there too. Then we can call it a day."

They trudged through the mud, pushing their way between a caravan and rusty tent pegs. The stalls were selling different goods, but each looked the same, their awnings pitched above red-painted metal poles.

Wallander and Martinsson saw the men at exactly the same moment. They were inside a stall, its counter covered with leather jackets. One price was displayed for all of them, and Wallander had time to think that the jackets were amazingly cheap.

The men behind the counter stared at the two police officers. Much too late Wallander realised that they had recognised him. His face had appeared so often in the newspapers and on television that it was known all over the country.

Everything happened very fast. Lucia stuck his hand under the leather jackets on the counter and pulled out a revolver. Martinsson and Wallander threw themselves to one side.

Martinsson got tangled in the guy ropes of the tent. Wallander hit his head on the back end of the caravan. Lucia aimed at Wallander. The shot could hardly be heard above the commotion from the tent where "death riders" were hurtling around on roaring motorcycles. The bullet struck the caravan, inches from Wallander's head. In the next instant he saw that Martinsson was holding his revolver.

Martinsson fired. Wallander watched Lucia fly back and put his hand up to his shoulder. The gun fell from his hand and landed outside the counter. With a bellow Martinsson yanked himself free of the guy ropes and launched himself at the counter, straight at the wounded man. The counter collapsed, and Martinsson landed in a jumble of leather jackets.

Wallander lunged forwards and grabbed the gun from the mud. He saw Skinhead dash past him into the crowd. No-one seemed to have noticed the shots. The traders in the surrounding stalls had watched in amazement as Martinsson made his ferocious tiger pounce.

"Get after him," Martinsson shouted from the heap of leather jackets. "I'll take care of this bastard."

Wallander ran. Terrified people shrank away as Wallander came running with mud on his face and the gun in his hand. He was afraid that he had lost Skinhead, when suddenly he caught sight of him again, in wild and reckless flight through the market crowds. He shoved aside an elderly woman who stepped in front of him and crashed into a stall selling cakes. Wallander ran through the mess, knocked over a sweet stand, and then took off after him.

Again the man disappeared.

Wallander swore and fought his way through the ambling crowd. Then he saw him again. He was running to the edge of the market, down to the cliff. Two security guards came running at him, but they leaped aside when he waved the gun and yelled at them to stay away. One fell back into a tent serving beer, while the other one knocked over a candlestick stall.

Wallander ran, his heart pounding like a piston. The man vanished over the cliff edge. Wallander was about 30 metres behind him. When he reached the edge himself, he stumbled and fell headlong down the slope. He lost his grip on the gun. For a moment he hesitated, wondering whether he should stop and find it. Then he saw Skinhead running along the beach, and set off after him.

The chase ended when neither of them had any strength left to keep running. Skinhead leaned against the bottom of a black-tarred rowing boat. Wallander stood 10 metres away, so out of breath that he thought he was going to fall over.

Skinhead had drawn a knife and was coming towards him. That's the knife he used to cut off Johannes Lövgren's nose, he thought. That's the knife he used to force Lövgren to tell him where the money was. He looked around for a weapon. A broken oar was all he could see. Skinhead made a lunge with the knife. Wallander parried with the heavy oar. The man jabbed again with the knife, and Wallander swung at him. The oar caught him on the collarbone. Wallander heard the bone crack. Skinhead stumbled, and Wallander dropped the oar and slammed his right fist into his chin. The pain in his knuckles was agonising, but Skinhead fell.

Wallander collapsed onto the wet sand. Seconds later Martinsson came running. The rain was pouring down.

"We got them," said Martinsson.

"Yes," said Wallander. "I guess we did."

He walked over to the water's edge and rinsed his face. In the distance he saw a tanker heading south. He thought how glad he was to be able to give Rydberg some good news to lighten his misery.

Two days later the man named Andreas Haas confessed to the murders, but he blamed it all on the other man. When Lothar Kraftczyk was confronted with the confession, he gave up too. The brutality, he insisted, was all Andreas Haas's doing.

It was exactly as Wallander had imagined it. On several occasions the two men had gone into banks to change money and to look for a customer who was withdrawing a large sum. They had followed Lövgren in the car from the refugee camp when Lundin, the chimney sweep, had driven him home. They had tailed him along the dirt road, and two nights later they had returned.

"There's one thing that puzzles me," said Wallander, who was leading the interrogation of Lothar Kraftczyk. "Why did you feed the horse?"

The man looked at him in surprise.

"The money was hidden in the hay net," he said. "Perhaps we threw some hay to the horse when we were looking for the briefcase."

Wallander nodded. The solution to the mystery was that simple.

"One more thing," said Wallander. "Why the noose?"

No answer. Neither man would confess to that insane violence. He repeated his question but never got an answer.

The Czech police sent word that Haas and Kraftczyk had both done time for assault in Czechoslovakia.

When they had abandoned Celsius House, the two men had rented a dilapidated cottage outside of Hoor. The jackets they were selling had been stolen from a leather shop in Tranas.

The detention hearing was over in a matter of minutes. No-one doubted that the case would be airtight, even though the two men were still blaming each other for the violence.

Wallander sat in the courtroom and stared at the men he had been hunting for so long. He remembered that early morning in January when he stepped into the farmhouse in Lunnarp. The double murder had now been solved and the criminals would soon be sentenced, Wallander still wasn't happy. Why the noose around Maria Lövgren's neck? Why such violence?

He shuddered. He couldn't answer these questions, and that left him feeling unsatisfied.

Late on Saturday, 11 August, Wallander took a bottle of whisky over to Rydberg's. On Sunday Anette Brolin was going to go with him to visit his father. Wallander thought of the question he had put to her. Would she consider getting a divorce for him? Of course she had said no, but he knew that she hadn't been offended by his asking.

As he was driving to see Rydberg, he listened to Maria Callas on the tape deck. He was taking the next week off, as time off in lieu of the extra hours he had worked. He was going to Lund to meet Herman Mboya, who had come back from Kenya, and then planned to spend the rest of the time repainting his flat. Maybe he would even treat himself to that new stereo. As he parked, he caught a glimpse of the yellow moon overhead. Autumn was on its way.

Rydberg was sitting as usual in the dark on his balcony. Wallander poured two glasses of whisky.

"Do you remember when we sat around worrying about Mrs Lövgren's last words?" said Rydberg. "That we would be forced to search for some foreigners? Then, when Erik

Magnusson came into the picture, we desperately wanted him to be the murderer. But he wasn't. So we got a pair of foreigners after all. And the wretched Somali died for no good reason."

"You knew all along," said Wallander. "Didn't you? You were sure that it was foreigners."

"I wasn't positive," said Rydberg. "But I thought so."

Slowly they went over the investigation, as if it were already a distant memory.

"We made lots of mistakes," said Wallander thoughtfully. "I made lots of mistakes."

"You're a good policeman," said Rydberg emphatically. "Maybe I never told you that. But I think you're a damned fine policeman."

"I made too many mistakes," replied Wallander.

"You kept at it," said Rydberg. "You never gave up. You wanted to catch whoever committed those murders in Lunnarp. That's the important thing."

The conversation gradually petered out. I'm sitting here with a dying man, thought Wallander in despair. I don't think I ever took in that Rydberg is actually going to die. He remembered the time he was stabbed. He also thought about the fact that a little less than six months ago he had driven his car while drunk. He should have been dismissed from the force.

Why don't I tell Rydberg about that? he wondered. Why don't I say anything? Or perhaps he already knows?

The incantation flashed through his mind.
A time to live, a time to die.

"How are you?" he asked cautiously.

Rydberg's face was unreadable in the darkness.

"At the moment I don't have any pain," he said. "But tomorrow it'll be back. Or the next day."

It was almost 2 a.m. when Wallander left Rydberg sitting on his balcony. Wallander left his car where it was and walked home. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud. Now and then he skipped. The voice of Maria Callas resounded in his head.

Before he went to sleep, he lay in bed for a while in the darkness of his apartment with his eyes open. Again he thought about the violence. The new era, which demanded a different kind of policeman. We're living in the age of the noose, he thought. Fear will be on the rise.

He forced himself to push these thoughts aside and sought out the black woman of his dreams. The investigation was over. Now he could finally get some rest.