Henning Mankell: Wallander's First Case

‘Just what I’ll say to Anne-Birte.’

They had walked out into the hall.

‘Thanks for coming,’ Wallander said. ‘And thanks for your help.’

‘Thank you,’ Jespersen said. ‘If you hadn’t been there I would have got nothing but trouble and fines that time the guys started to fight.’

‘I’ll see you around,’ Wallander said. ‘But no more mussels next time.’

‘No more mussels,’ Jespersen said and left.

Wallander went back into the kitchen and wrote down everything he had just heard. Someone had been asking about Halen or Hansson. This had taken place about a month ago. At around the same time that Halen had an extra lock put in. The man looking for Halen had a sagging eyelid. Seemed in one way or another to be drifting along. And was possibly hanging out in Pildamms Park.

Wallander put the pen down. I’m going to talk to Hemberg about this too, he thought. Right now this is actually a real lead.

Then Wallander thought that he should of course have asked Jespersen to find out if there was anyone in his circle who had heard of a woman named Alexandra Batista.

He was irritated at his sloppiness. I didn’t think it all the way through, he said to himself. I make unnecessary errors.

It was already a quarter to eight. Wallander walked to and fro in the apartment. He was nervous, but his stomach was fine now. He thought about calling his father at the new telephone number in Loderup, but chances were they would start quarrelling. It was enough to deal with Mona. In order to get the time to pass he took a walk around the block. Summer had arrived. The evening was warm. He wondered what would happen with their planned trip to Skagen.

At half past eight he walked back into his apartment. Sat down at the kitchen table with his watch laid out in front of him. I’m acting like a child, he thought. But right now I don’t know what to do in order to act any different.

He called at nine o’clock. Mona picked up almost immediately.

‘Before you hang up, I would like to explain myself,’ Wallander started.

‘Who said I was going to hang up?’

This threw him off guard. He had prepared himself carefully, knew what he was going to say. Instead she was the one who talked.

‘I actually do believe that you have an explanation,’ she said. ‘But right now that doesn’t interest me. I think we should meet and talk in person.’

‘Now?’

‘Not tonight. But tomorrow. Can you do that?’

‘Yes, I can do that.’

‘Then I’ll come to your place. But not until nine o’clock. It’s my mother’s birthday. I promised to stop by.’

‘I can cook dinner.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

Wallander started over again from the beginning with his prepared explanations. But she interrupted him.

‘Let’s talk tomorrow. Not now, not on the phone.’

The conversation was over in less than a minute. Nothing had turned out the way Wallander had expected. It had been a conversation that he had hardly dared to dream about. Even if there had also been something that he could interpret as ominous.

The thought of staying in for the rest of the evening made him restless. It was only a quarter past nine. Nothing prevents me from taking a walk through Pildamms Park, he thought. Maybe I’ll even bump into a man with a sagging eyelid.

Wallander took out a hundred kronor in small notes which he kept tucked between the pages of a book in his bookcase. He put the notes in his pocket, picked up his coat and walked out. There was no wind and it was still warm. While he walked to the bus stop he hummed a melody from an opera. Rigoletto . He saw the bus come and started to run.

When he reached Pildamms Park he began to wonder if it had been such a good idea. It was a large park. In addition, he was actually looking for a suspected murderer. The regulations against officers acting on their own rang in his ears. But I can take a walk, he thought. I have no uniform, no one knows that I’m a policeman. I’m just a single man who’s out walking his invisible dog.

Wallander started to walk down one of the park paths. A group of young people were sitting under one of the trees. Someone was playing guitar. Wallander saw a few bottles of wine. He wondered how many laws they were breaking at this moment. Lohman would surely have moved in quickly. But Wallander simply walked on by. A few years ago he could have been one of the people sitting under the tree. But now he was a policeman and should instead arrest a person drinking wine in a public place. He shook his head at the thought. He could hardly wait until he got to work in criminal investigations. It wasn’t for this that he had joined the police. To seize young people who were playing guitar and drinking wine on one of the first warm evenings of the summer. It was to get the really big criminals. The ones who committed violent crimes or large-scale theft, or smuggled drugs.

He walked on into the park. Traffic roared in the distance. Two young people walked by, wrapped tightly around each other. Wallander thought about Mona. It would probably work out. Soon they would take their trip to Skagen, and he would never again be late for a date.

Wallander stopped. Some people were sitting and drinking alcohol on a bench not far ahead. One of them was pulling on the leash of a German shepherd who wouldn’t lie still. Wallander approached them slowly. They didn’t appear to pay him any attention. Wallander couldn’t see that any of them had a sagging eyelid. But suddenly one of the men stood up on swaying legs in front of Wallander. He was very burly. The muscles swelled out under his shirt, which was unbuttoned over his stomach.

‘I need a tenner,’ he said.

Wallander had at first intended to say no. Ten kronor was a lot of money. Then he changed his mind.

‘I’m looking for a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘A guy with a sagging eyelid.’

Wallander had not expected a hit. But to his amazement, he received an unexpected reply.

‘Rune’s not here. The devil only knows where he’s got to.’

‘That’s the one,’ Wallander said. ‘Rune.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ the swaying man said.

‘My name is Kurt,’ Wallander said. ‘I’m an old friend.’

‘I’ve never seen you before.’

Wallander gave him a ten.

‘Tell him if you see him,’ Wallander said. ‘Tell him Kurt was here. Do you happen to know Rune’s last name, by the way?’

‘I don’t even know if he has a last name. Rune is Rune.’

‘Where does he live, then?’

The man stopped swaying for a moment.

‘I thought you said you were friends? Then you should know where he lives.’

‘He moves around a lot.’

The man turned to the others who were sitting on the bench.

‘Do any of you know where Rune lives?’

The conversation that followed was extremely confused. At first it took a long time to establish which Rune they were talking about. Then many suggestions were offered to where this Rune might live. If he even had a home. Wallander waited. The German shepherd next to the bench barked the whole time.

The man with the muscles returned.

‘We don’t know where Rune lives,’ he said. ‘But we’ll tell him that Kurt was here.’

Wallander nodded and swiftly walked away. Of course, he might be wrong. There was more than one person with a sagging eyelid. But still, he was sure he was on the right track. It occurred to him that he should immediately contact Hemberg and suggest that the park be put under surveillance. Maybe the police already had a man with a sagging eyelid on their records?

But then Wallander felt doubtful. He was proceeding too fast again. First he should have a thorough conversation with Hemberg. He should tell him about the name change and what Jespersen had said. Then it would be up to Hemberg to decide if this was a lead or not.