Henning Mankell - Wallander's First Case

‘Any other evidence?’ Hemberg said.

‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’

Hemberg pushed away the papers that were spread out in front of him.

‘Then all we can do is keep going,’ he said. ‘The medical examiner will have to hurry up. The best possible outcome is if Halen can be bound to the crime. Personally, that is what I believe. But we will have to keep talking to neighbours and digging around in background material.’

Then Hemberg turned to Wallander.

‘Do you have anything to add? You found her, after all.’

Wallander shook his head and noticed that his mouth was dry.

‘Nothing?’

‘I didn’t notice anything that you haven’t already commented on.’

Hemberg drummed his fingers against the tabletop.

‘Then we have no need to sit here any longer,’ he said. ‘Does anyone know what the lunch is today?’

‘Herring,’ Horner said. ‘It’s usually good.’

Hemberg asked Wallander to join him for lunch. But he declined. His appetite was gone. He felt that he needed to be alone to think. He went to his office to get his coat. He could see through the window that it had stopped raining. Just as he was about to leave his office, one of his colleagues from the patrol squad came in and threw his police cap on a table.

‘Shit,’ he said, and sat down heavily in a chair.

His name was Jorgen Berglund and he came from a farm outside Landskrona. Wallander sometimes had trouble understanding his dialect.

‘We’ve cleaned up two blocks,’ he said. ‘In one of them we found some runaway thirteen-year-old girls who had been missing for weeks. One of them smelled so bad we had to hold our noses. Another one bit Persson on the leg when we were going to lift them out. What is happening in this country, anyway? And why weren’t you there?’

‘I was called in by Hemberg,’ Wallander said. As to the other question, about what was happening in Sweden, he had no answer.

He took his coat and left. In the reception area he was stopped by one of the girls who worked in the call centre.

‘You have a message,’ she said and she handed him a note through the window. There was a phone number on it.

‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘Someone called and said he was a distant relative to you. He wasn’t sure you would even remember him.’

‘Didn’t he say what his name was?’

‘No, but he seemed old.’

Wallander studied the telephone number. There was an area code: 0411. This can’t be true, he thought. My father calls and introduces himself as a distant relative. One I may not even remember.

‘Where is Loderup?’ he asked.

‘I think that’s the Ystad police district.’

‘I’m not asking about the police district. Which area code is it?’

‘It’s Ystad.’

Wallander tucked the note in his pocket and left. If he had had a car he would have driven straight out to Loderup and asked his father what he had meant by calling like that. When he had got an answer, he would let him have it. Say that from this point on all contact between them would be severed. No more poker evenings, no phone calls. Wallander would promise to come to the funeral, which he hoped was not too far off. But that was all.

Wallander walked along Fiskehamnsgatan. Then he swung onto Slottsgatan and continued into Kungsparken. I have two problems, he thought. The biggest and most important one is Mona. The other is my father. I have to solve both problems as soon as possible.

He sat down on a bench and watched some grey sparrows bathing in a puddle of water. A drunk man was sleeping behind some bushes. I should really lift him up, Wallander thought. Put him down on this bench or even make sure he gets picked up and can sleep it off somewhere. But right now I don’t care about him. He can stay where he is.

He rose from the bench and kept going. Left Kungsparken and came out on Regementsgatan. He still wasn’t feeling hungry. Even so, he stopped at a hot-dog stand on Gustav Adolf’s Square and bought a grilled hot dog on a bun. Then he returned to the station.

It was half past one. Hemberg was unavailable. What he should do with himself, he didn’t know. He should really talk to Lohman about what he was expected to do during the afternoon. But he didn’t. Instead he pulled out the lists that Helena had given him. Again he browsed through the names. Tried to see the faces, imagine their lives. Sailors and engineers. Their birth information was noted in the margins. Wallander put the lists down again. From the corridor he heard something that sounded like a taunting laugh.

Wallander tried to think about Halen. His neighbour. Who had turned in betting sheets, put in an extra lock and thereafter shot himself. Everything pointed to Hemberg’s theory holding water. For some reason Halen had killed Alexandra Batista and then taken his own life.

That’s where it came to a stop for Wallander. Hemberg’s theory was logical and straightforward. Nonetheless Wallander thought it was hollow. The outside coordinates matched up. But the content? It was still very murky. Not least, this idea did not fit very well with the impression Wallander had had of his neighbour. Wallander had never found anything passionate or violent in him.

Of course even the most retiring person was capable of exploding in anger and violence under certain circumstances. But did it actually make sense to think that Halen had taken the life of the woman he most likely had a relationship with?

Something is missing, Wallander thought. Inside this shell there is nothing.

He tried to think more deeply but didn’t get anywhere. Absently he gazed at the lists on the table. Without being able to say where the thought came from, he suddenly started to look through all of the birth information in the margins. How old had Halen been? He recalled that he was born in 1898. But which date? Wallander called reception and asked to be put through to Stefansson. He picked up at once.

‘This is Wallander. I’m wondering if you have Halen’s birthdate available?’

‘Are you planning to wish him a happy birthday?’

He doesn’t like me, Wallander thought. But in time I’ll show him that I am a much better investigator than he is.

‘Hemberg asked me to look into something,’ Wallander lied.

Stefansson put down the receiver. Wallander could hear him riffling through papers.

‘It’s 17 September 1898,’ Stefansson said. ‘Anything else?’

‘That’s all,’ Wallander said and hung up.

Then he pulled over the lists again.

On the third page he found what he had not been consciously aware of looking for. An engineer who was born on 17 September 1898. Anders Hansson. Same initials as Artur Halen, Wallander thought.

He went through the rest of the entries to assure himself that there were no others who were born on the same day. He found a sailor who was born on 19 September 1901. That was the closest thing. Wallander took out the phone book and looked up the number of his local pastor’s office. Since Wallander and Halen had lived in the same building, they must also be registered in the same parish. He dialled the number and waited. A woman answered. Wallander thought he might as well continue to introduce himself as a detective.

‘My name is Wallander and I’m with the Malmo police,’ he started. ‘This is in regard to a violent death that occurred a few days ago. I’m from the homicide unit.’

He gave Halen’s name, address and birthdate.

‘What is it you want to know?’ the woman asked.

‘If there is any information about Halen possibly having a different name earlier in his life.’

‘You mean such as changing his last name?’

Damn it, Wallander thought. People don’t change their first names. Only their last names.