The White Lioness (31 page)

"That's something I'll never do," Wallander said. "I don't have room in my psyche for such big plans. The most I can do is to wonder if there is some other job I'd rather have."

"You'll be a police officer as long as you live," Rydberg said. "You're like me. Face up to that."

Wallander banished thoughts of Rydberg, took out a note pad, and reached for a pen. Then he just sat there. Questions and answers, he thought. That's probably where I'm making the first mistake. Many people, not least those who come from continents a long way away, have to be allowed to tell the story their own way in order to be able to formulate an answer. That's something I ought to have learned by now, considering the number of Africans and Arabs and South Americans I've met. They are often put off by the hurry we're always in, and they think it's a sign of our contempt. Not having time for a person, not being able to sit in silence with somebody, that's the same as rejecting them, as being scornful of them.

Tell their own story
, he wrote at the top of the page. That might put him on the right path. Tell their own story, that's all.

He pushed the pad to one side and put his feet on the desk. Then he called home and was told that everything was calm. He said he would be back in a couple of hours.

His mind elsewhere, he read the memo on the missing horses. It told him little more than that three valuable animals had disappeared on the night of May 5. They had been put into their stalls for the night. At about 5.30 a.m. the following morning, when one of the stable girls went in with their feed, the stalls were empty.

He glanced at his watch and decided to drive to the stables. He talked to three grooms and the owner's secretary. Wallander was inclined to think the whole thing was a sophisticated insurance fraud. He made a few notes and told them he would be coming back.

He stopped at a cafe for a cup of coffee on the way home to Ystad. He wondered if they had racehorses in South Africa.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Sikosi Tsiki landed in Sweden on Wednesday, May 13. That evening, Konovalenko told him, he would be staying in the southern part of the country. This was where his training would take place, and where he would leave from. He had considered setting up camp in the Stockholm area. There were possibilities, especially around Arlanda, where the noise of aeroplanes landing and taking off would drown out most other sounds. The shooting practice could take place there. Furthermore there was the problem of Mabasha, and the Swedish policeman. If they were still in Stockholm, he would have to be there until they had been disposed of. He had to take into account that the scale of police activity all over the country would be heightened as a result of the death of the officer. To be on the safe side, he advanced on two fronts. He kept Tania with him in Stockholm, but sent Rykoff to the country again to find a suitably isolated retreat. Rykoff had pointed out on a map an area to the north of Skane called Smaland, claiming it was much easier to find what they were looking for there, but Konovalenko wanted to be near Ystad. If they did not catch Mabasha and the policeman in Stockholm, they would turn up sooner or later in Wallander's home town. He was as sure of that as he was that some kind of unexpected relationship had formed between the African and Wallander. If he could find one of them, he was confident he would find the other.

Through a travel agency in Ystad, Rykoff rented a house northeast of Ystad, towards Tomelilla. The location could have been better, but next to the house was an abandoned quarry that could be used for target practice. As Konovalenko had decreed that Tania could go with them, Rykoff did not need to fill the freezer with food. Instead, at Konovalenko's instruction, he spent his time finding out where Wallander lived, and then keeping his apartment under observation. But Wallander did not appear. The day before Sikosi Tsiki was due to arrive, Tuesday, May 12, Konovalenko decided to stay in Stockholm. None of the people he had sent out looking for Mabasha had seen him, but Konovalenko's instinct told him that he was lying low in the city. Also it was difficult to believe that a policeman as careful and well organised as Wallander would return directly to his home, which he would have to expect to be watched.

Nevertheless that is where Rykoff finally found him, late on Tuesday afternoon. The door opened and Wallander walked out. He was on his own, and Rykoff, who was sitting in his car, could see right away that he was on guard. Rykoff realised he would be spotted at once if he tried to follow him in his car. He was still there ten minutes later when the front door opened once again. Rykoff stiffened. This time two people. The girl had to be Wallander's daughter, whom he had never seen before. Behind her was Mabasha. They crossed the street, got into a car, and drove away. Rykoff did not follow them this time either. Instead he stayed where he was and dialled the number of the apartment in Jarfalla. Tania answered. Rykoff greeted her briefly and asked to speak to Konovalenko. After hearing what Rykoff had to say, Konovalenko made up his mind right away. He and Tania would go to Skane early the next day. They would stay there until they had collected Tsiki and killed Wallander and Victor Mabasha; the daughter as well, if necessary. Then they could make up their minds what to do next. But the apartment in Jarfalla would be a possibility.

Konovalenko drove down to Skane with Tania overnight. Rykoff met them at a car park on the western outskirts of Ystad. They went straight to the house he had rented. In the afternoon Konovalenko also paid a visit to Mariagatan. He spent some time observing the block where Wallander lived. On the way back, he stopped for a while on the hill where the police station was, observing it.

The situation seemed very simple to him. He could not afford to fail again. That would mean the end of his dreams about a future life in South Africa. He was already living dangerously. There was a risk, albeit a small one, that Kleyn had someone passing on information. Occasionally he had sent out scouts to see if they could identify anyone shadowing him. But nobody had come across any kind of surveillance.

Konovalenko and Rykoff spent the day deciding how to proceed. Konovalenko made up his mind from the very first to act resolutely and ruthlessly. It would be a brutal, direct attack.

"What kind of weapons do we have?"

"Practically anything you like short of a rocket launcher," Rykoff said. "We have various explosives, long-distance detonators, grenades, automatic rifles, shotguns, pistols, radio equipment."

Konovalenko drank a glass of vodka. What he most of all wanted was to take the policeman alive. There were questions he needed answering before he killed him. But he rejected the thought. He could afford no risks.

Then he made up his mind what to do. "Tomorrow morning when Wallander is out, Tania can go into the building and see what the staircase and apartment doors look like," he said. "You can be distributing leaflets. Pick up some from a supermarket. Then the building has to be kept under observation. If we know they're at home tomorrow evening, we'll make our move. We'll blow the door in, kill the pair of them and make our escape."

"There are three of them," Rykoff said.

"Two or three," Konovalenko said. "Nobody survives."

"The new man I'm picking up this evening, will he be in on it?" Rykoff said.

"No," Konovalenko said. "He waits here with Tania."

His expression was serious as he eyed Rykoff and Tania.

"The fact is, Mabasha has been dead for several days," he said. "That is what Tsiki has to believe. Is that clear?"

They both nodded.

Konovalenko poured another vodka for himself and Tania. Rykoff refused, since he was going to prepare the explosives. Besides, he was going to drive to Limhamn later to collect Tsiki.

"Let's put on a welcoming dinner for the man from South Africa," Konovalenko said. "None of us enjoys sitting at dinner with an African, but sometimes you have to do it for the sake of the job."

"Mabasha didn't like Russian food," Tania said.

"Chicken," Konovalenko said eventually. "All Africans like chicken."

At 6 p.m. Rykoff met Sikosi Tsiki off his boat at Limhamn. Now they were all sitting around the table. Konovalenko raised his glass. "You have a day off tomorrow," he said. "We get started on Friday."

Tsiki nodded. He was as laconic as his predecessor. Quiet people, Konovalenko thought, but ruthless when necessary. As ruthless as I am.

Wallander devoted most of the first days after his return to Ystad to planning various forms of criminal activities. He arranged for Mabasha's escape from Sweden. He had decided after much soul-searching that it was the only way to get the situation under control. He had severe pangs of conscience: what he was doing was reprehensible. Even if Mabasha had not himself killed Louise Akerblom, he was there when the killing took place. He had stolen cars and robbed a store at gunpoint and the storekeeper had died, though no shot was fired. Wallander convinced himself that this was a way of preventing the crime - whatever it was - that he had been preparing to commit in South Africa. This way Konovalenko could be stopped from murdering Mabasha. He would be charged with the murder of Mrs Akerblom once he was caught. What he intended to do now was to send a message to his colleagues in South Africa via Interpol. But first he wanted Mabasha out of the country. He contacted a travel agency in Malmo. Mabasha had told him he could not get into South Africa without a visa. But with his fake Swedish passport, he did not need a visa for Zambia. He still had enough money for both an airline ticket and the journey home via Zimbabwe and Botswana. He would slip over the South African border at an unguarded point. The travel agent arranged a flight to London and thence a Zambia Airways flight to Lusaka. It meant Wallander would have to get him a false passport. That caused him the acutest problem, and also the worst worry. Arranging a forged passport in his own police station seemed to him a betrayal. It made things no better to have extracted from Mabasha a solemn promise to destroy the passport when he had passed the immigration desk in Zambia.

"The very same day," Wallander had insisted. "And it must be burned."

Linda took Mabasha to a booth for passport photographs in the port. The problem that could not be resolved until the last minute was how Mabasha would get through passport control. Even if he had a Swedish passport that was technically genuine and did not appear on the blacklist held by the border police, there was a risk that something would go wrong. Wallander decided to get Mabasha out through the hovercraft terminal in Malmo. He would buy him a first-class ticket. He assumed the embarkation card would help to ensure that passport officials were not especially interested in him. Linda would be his girlfriend. They would kiss goodbye right under the noses of the immigration officials, and Wallander would teach him a few phrases of Swedish.

The connections and the confirmed reservations were for the morning of May 15. Wallander would have to fix a passport for him by then.

On Tuesday afternoon he completed a passport application form for his father, and took with him two photographs. The procedures for issuing passports had lately been revised. The document was now produced while the applicant waited. Wallander hung around until the woman behind the counter had finished with the last of her customers and was about to close.

"Excuse me for being a little late," Wallander said. "But my father is going on a senior citizens' trip to France. He managed to throw away his old one when he was sorting some papers."

"These things happen," the woman said. "Does he have to have it today?"

"If possible," Wallander said. "I'm sorry I'm late."

"You can't solve the murder of that woman either," she said, taking the photos and the application form.

Wallander watched closely as she created the passport. Afterwards, when he had the document in his hand, he was confident he could do himself exactly what she had done.

"Impressively simple," he said.

"But boring," the woman said. "Why is it that all jobs get more boring when they're made easier?"

"Try being a policeman," Wallander said. "What we do is never boring."

"I am already a policewoman," she said. "Besides, I don't think I'd want to change places with you. It must be awful, pulling a body out of a well. What does it feel like, in fact?"

"I suppose it feels so awful," Wallander said, "that you get numb and you don't feel anything at all. But you can bet your boots there'll be a committee in the Ministry of Justice looking into what policemen feel when they pull dead women out of wells."

He stayed chatting while she locked up. All the bits and pieces you needed to make a passport were locked away in a cupboard. But he knew where the keys were kept.

Wallander had tried out many combinations of names to find out which ones Mabasha found easiest to pronounce. They settled on Jan Berg, Swedish citizen. Wallander knew from their conversations that the South African lived in close contact with a spirit world that was beyond his own comprehension. Nothing was coincidental, not even a change of name. Linda had been able to help him with some explanations of why Mabasha thought as he did. Mabasha spoke of his ancestors as if they were alive. Wallander was sometimes unsure whether what he described had taken place a hundred years ago or very recently. He could not help but be fascinated by the man. It became harder and harder to accept that this was a criminal preparing to commit a serious crime in his home country.

Wallander stayed in his office until late on Tuesday evening. To help the time pass he began a letter to Baiba Liepa in Riga. When he read through it, he tore the pages up. One of these days he would write her a letter and actually send it.

By about 10 p.m. only the night shift were still at the station. As he walked along the hall to the room where the passports were assembled, he thought of Mabasha's spirit world, and wondered if Swedish policemen had a special patron saint who would watch over them when they were about to do something illegal.

He had found a torch with a pale blue light since he could not risk turning on the light. The key was in the filing cabinet. He paused, staring at the machine that converted the photographs and the completed application forms into a passport. Then he put on his rubber gloves and started work. At one point he thought he heard footsteps approaching. He turned the torch off and hid behind the machine. He could feel sweat streaming down under his shirt. In the end, though, he had a passport in his hand. He switched off the machine, locked the cupboard and put the key back in the cabinet. Sooner or later a routine check would show that a passport template was missing. Bearing the registration numbers in mind, it could happen the very next day, he thought. That would cause Bjork a sleepless night or two, but nothing could be traced to Wallander.

Not until he was back in his office and sat at his desk did he realise that he had forgotten to stamp the passport. He cursed himself, and flung it onto the desk.

Just then the door opened and Martinsson marched in. He gave a start when he saw Wallander in his chair.

"Oh, excuse me," he said. "I didn't think you were here. I was just looking to see if I had left my cap."

"Cap?" Wallander said. "In the middle of May?"

"I have a cold coming on," Martinsson said. "I had it with me yesterday."

Wallander could not remember Martinsson having his cap when he and Svedberg had been in Wallander's office to go through the investigation.