Henning Mankell - Wallander's First Case

Wallander would wait to talk to Hemberg the following day.

Wallander left the park and took the bus home.

He was still tired from the stomach flu and fell asleep before midnight.

The following day Wallander woke up refreshed at seven o’clock. After noting that his stomach was completely restored to normal he had a cup of coffee. Then he dialled the number he had been given by the girl in reception.

His father answered after many rings.

‘Is that you?’ his father said brusquely. ‘I couldn’t find the telephone in all this mess.’

‘Why did you call the police station and introduce yourself as a distant relative? Can’t you damn well say that you’re my father?’

‘I don’t want anything to do with the police,’ his father answered. ‘Why don’t you come to see me?’

‘I don’t even know where you live. Kristina only explained it vaguely.’

‘You’re too lazy to figure it out. That’s your whole problem.’

Wallander realised the conversation had already taken a wrong turn. The best thing he could do now would be to end it as soon as possible.

‘I’ll be out in a few days,’ he said. ‘I’ll call first and get directions. How are you liking it?’

‘Fine.’

‘Is that it? “Fine”?’

‘Things are in a bit of disarray. But once I get that sorted out it will be excellent. I have a wonderful studio in an old barn.’

‘I’ll be there,’ Wallander said.

‘I won’t believe it until you stand here,’ his father said. ‘You can’t really trust the police.’

Wallander finished and hung up. He could live for twenty more years, he thought desperately. And I’m going to have him over me the whole time. I’ll never escape him. I may as well face that now. And if he’s bad-tempered now it will only get worse as he gets older.

Wallander ate some sandwiches with a newly regained appetite and then took the bus in to the station. He knocked on Hemberg’s half-open door shortly after eight. He heard a grunt in reply and walked in. For once Hemberg did not have his feet on the table. He was standing at the window, flipping through a morning paper. As Wallander walked in, Hemberg scrutinised him with an amused expression.

‘Mussels,’ he said. ‘You should watch out for them. They suck up everything that’s in the water.’

‘It could have been something else,’ Wallander said evasively.

Hemberg set the newspaper down and took his seat.

‘I need to talk to you,’ Wallander said. ‘And it will take longer than five minutes.’

Hemberg nodded at his visitor’s chair.

Wallander told him of his discovery, that Halen had changed his name a few years earlier. He noticed that Hemberg immediately became more attentive. Wallander went on and told him about his conversation with Jespersen, last night’s visit, and the walk in Pildamms Park.

‘A man named Rune,’ he concluded. ‘Who doesn’t have a last name. And has a droopy eyelid.’

Hemberg considered everything he had said in silence.

‘No person lacks a last name,’ he said thereafter. ‘And there can’t be that many people with droopy eyelids in a city like Malmo.’

Then he frowned.

‘I’ve already told you once not to act on your own. And you should have contacted me or someone else last night. We would have picked up the people you met in the park. With some thorough questioning and some time to sober up, people tend to remember more. Did you, for example, write down any of these men’s names?’

‘I didn’t say I was from the police. I said I was a friend of Rune’s.’

Hemberg shook his head.

‘You can’t do that kind of stuff,’ he said. ‘We act openly unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary.’

‘He wanted money,’ Wallander said, defending himself. ‘Otherwise I would simply have walked on by.’

Hemberg looked narrowly at him.

‘What were you doing in Pildamms Park?’

‘Taking a walk.’

‘You were not undertaking your own investigation?’

‘I needed some exercise after my illness.’

Hemberg’s face expressed strong disbelief.

‘It was, in other words, pure coincidence that made you choose Pildamms Park?’

Wallander did not reply. Hemberg got up out of his chair.

‘I’ll put some men on this development. Right now we need to proceed on the widest possible front. I think I had fixed on it being Halen who killed Batista, but you get it wrong sometimes. Then all you can do is strike it and start over.’

Wallander left Hemberg’s room and walked down to the lower floor. He was hoping to be able to avoid Lohman but it was as if his boss had been waiting for him. Lohman walked out of a conference room, a cup of coffee in his hand.

‘I had just started to wonder where you were,’ he said.

‘I’ve been ill,’ Wallander said.

‘And yet people reported seeing you in the building.’

‘I’m fine again now,’ Wallander said. ‘It was the stomach flu. Mussels.’

‘You’ve been assigned to foot patrol,’ Lohman said. ‘Talk to Hakansson.’

Wallander walked to the room where the patrol squad received their assignments. Hakansson, who was large and fat and always sweating, was sitting at a table and leafing through a magazine. He looked up when Wallander walked in.

‘Central city,’ he said. ‘Wittberg is leaving at nine. End at three. Go with him.’

Wallander nodded and walked to the changing room. He took his uniform out of his locker and changed. Just as he finished, Wittberg walked in. He was thirty years old and always talked about his dreams of one day driving a racing car.

They left the station at a quarter past nine.

‘Things are always calmer when it’s warm,’ Wittberg said. ‘No unnecessary intervention on our part, then perhaps the day will turn out calm.’

And the day did indeed turn out to be calm. By the time Wallander hung up his uniform, shortly after three, they had not made a single intervention, except for stopping a cyclist who was riding on the wrong side of the street.

Wallander got home at four o’clock. He had stopped at the shop on the way home, just in case Mona changed her mind and was hungry when she came by after all.

By half past four he had showered and changed his clothes. There were still four and a half hours until Mona would come. Nothing prevents me from taking another walk in Pildamms Park, Wallander thought. Especially if I’m out with my invisible dog.

He hesitated. Hemberg had given him express orders.

But he went anyway. At half past five he walked down the same path as before. The young people who had been playing guitar and drinking wine were gone. The bench where the drunk men had been sitting was also empty. Wallander decided to keep going for another quarter of an hour. Then he would go home. He walked down a hill and paused, watching some ducks swimming around in the large pond. He heard birds singing nearby. The trees gave off a strong scent of early summer. An older couple walked past. Wallander heard them talking about someone’s ‘poor sister’. Whose sister it was and why she was the object of pity, he never found out.

He was just about to walk back the same way he had come when he discovered two people sitting in the shade of a tree. If they were drunk, he couldn’t tell. One of the men stood up. His walk was unsteady. His friend still sitting under the tree had nodded off. His chin rested against his chest. Wallander walked closer but did not recognise him from the night before. The man was poorly dressed and there was an empty vodka bottle between his feet.

Wallander crouched down to try to see his face. At the same time he heard the crunch of steps on the gravel path behind him. When he turned round there were two girls standing there. He recognised one of them without being able to say from where.