Henning Mankell - The White Lioness

He was convinced they would never find Louise Akerblom alive. He had no evidence; there was no crime scene, no victim. And yet he knew.

He couldn’t get the photo of the two girls out of his mind.

How do you explain what it’s not possible to explain, he wondered. How will Robert Akerblom be able to go on praying to his God in the future, the God who’s left him and two kids so cruelly in the lurch?

Kurt Wallander wandered around the Savings Bank at Skurup, waiting for the assistant manager who had helped Louise Akerblom with the property deal the previous Friday to come back from the dentist. When Wallander had arrived at the bank a quarter of an hour earlier, he had talked with the manager, Gustav Hallden, whom he had met once before. He also asked Hallden to keep any information confidential.

“After all, we’re not sure if anything serious has happened,” Wallander explained.

“I get it,” said Hallden. “You just think something may have happened.”

Wallander nodded. That’s exactly how it was. How could you possibly be sure just where the boundary was between thinking and knowing?

His train of thought was interrupted by somebody addressing him.

“I believe you wanted to talk to me,” said a man with a fuzzy voice behind him.

Wallander turned round.

“Are you Moberg, the assistant manager?”

The man nodded. He was young, surprisingly young according to Wallander’s idea of how old an assistant manager should be. But there was something else that immediately attracted his attention.

One of the man’s cheeks was noticeably swollen.

“I still have some trouble speaking,” sputtered Moberg.

Wallander couldn’t understand what the man was saying.

“We’d better wait,” Moberg said. “Shouldn’t we wait until the injection has worn off?”

“Let’s try anyway,” said Wallander. “I’m short on time, I’m afraid. If it doesn’t hurt too much when you talk.”

Moberg shook his head and led the way into a small conference room at the back.

“This is exactly where we were,” explained the assistant manager. “You’re sitting in Louise Akerblom’s chair. Hallden said you wanted to talk about her. Has she disappeared?”

“She’s been reported missing,” said Wallander. “I expect she’s just visiting relatives and forgot to tell them at home.”

He could see from Moberg’s swollen face that he regarded Wallander’s reservations with great skepticism. Fair enough, thought Wallander. If you’re missing, you’re missing. You can’t be half-way missing.

“What was it you want to know?” asked the assistant manager, pouring a glass of water from the carafe on the table and gulping it down.

“What happened last Friday afternoon,” said Wallander. “In detail. Exact time, what she said, what she did. I also want the name of the parties buying and selling the house, in case I need to contact them later. Had you met Louise Akerblom before?”

“I met her several times,” answered Moberg. “We were involved in four property deals together.”

“Tell me about last Friday.”

The assistant manager took out his diary from the inside pocket of his jacket.

“The meeting had been set for a quarter after two,” he said. “Louise Akerblom turned up a couple of minutes early. We exchanged a few words about the weather.”

“Did she seem tense or worried?” asked Wallander.

Moberg thought for a moment before answering.

“No,” he said. “On the contrary, she seemed happy. Before, I always thought she was uptight, but not on Friday.”

Wallander nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“The clients arrived, a young couple called Nilson. And the seller, representing the estate of somebody who’d died in Sovde. We sat down here and went through the whole procedure. There was nothing unusual. All the documents were in order. The deeds, the mortgage bond, the loan forms, the draft. It didn’t take long. Then we broke up. I expect we all wished one another a pleasant weekend, but I can’t remember that.”

“Was Louise Akerblom in a hurry?” asked Wallander.

The assistant manager thought it over again.

“Could be,” he said. “Maybe she was. I’m not sure. But there is something I’m quite certain about.”

“What?”

“She didn’t go straight to her car.”

Moberg pointed at the window, which looked out over a little parking lot.

“Those lots are for the bank’s customers,” the assistant manager went on. “I saw her park there when she arrived. It was a quarter of an hour after she’d left the bank before she drove off. I was still in here, on the telephone. That’s how I could see everything. I think she had a bag in her hand when she got to the car. As well as her briefcase.”

“A bag?” asked Wallander. “What did it look like?”

Moberg shrugged his shoulders. Wallander could see the injection was wearing off.

“What does a bag look like?” said the assistant manager. “I think it was a paper bag. Not plastic.”

“And then she drove off?”

“Before that she made a call from her car phone.”

To her husband, thought Wallander. Everything fits in so far.

“It was just after three,” Moberg went on. “I had another meeting at three-thirty, and needed to prepare myself. My own call dragged on a bit.”

“Could you see when she drove off?”

“I’d already gone back to my office by then.”

“So the last you saw of her was when she was using the car phone.”

Moberg nodded.

“What make of car was it?”

“I’m not so up on cars,” said the assistant manager. “But it was black. Dark blue, perhaps.”

Wallander shut his notebook.

“If you think of anything else, let me know right away,” he said. “Any little thing could be important.”

Wallander left the bank after noting down the name and telephone numbers of both the seller and the buyer. He used the front entrance, and paused in the square.

A paper bag, he thought to himself. That sounds like a bakery. He remembered there was a bakery on the street running parallel to the railroad. He crossed over the square then turned off to the left.

The girl behind the counter had been working all day Friday, but she didn’t recognize Louise Akerblom from the photo Wallander showed her.

“There is another bakery,” said the girl.

“Whereabouts?”

The girl explained, and Wallander could see it was just as close to the bank as the one where he was now. He thanked her, and left. He made his way to the bakery on the other side of the square. An elderly lady asked him what he wanted as he entered the shop. Wallander showed her the photograph and explained who he was.

“I wonder if you recognize her?” he asked. “She might have been here shopping shortly after three o’clock last Friday.”

The woman went to fetch her eyeglasses in order to study the photo more carefully.

“Has something happened?” she asked, curious to know. “Who is she?”

“Just tell me if you recognize her,” said Wallander gently.

The woman nodded.

“I remember her,” she said. “I think she bought some pastries. Yes, I remember quite clearly. Napoleons. And a loaf of bread.”

Wallander thought for a moment.

“How many pastries?” he asked.

“Four. I remember I was going to put them in a carton, but she said a bag would be OK. She seemed to be in a hurry.”

Wallander nodded.

“Did you see where she went after she left?”

“No. There were other customers waiting to be served.”

“Thank you,” said Wallander. “You’ve been a great help.”

“What happened?” the woman asked.

“Nothing,” said Wallander. “Just routine.”