Henning Mankell: Wallander's First Case

‘It’s one of those damn cops,’ the girl said. ‘Who hit me at the demonstration.’

Then Wallander realised who it was: the girl who had verbally assaulted him at the cafe the week before.

Wallander rose to his feet. At that same moment he saw from the other girl’s face that something was happening behind his back. He quickly turned round. The man who had been leaning against the tree had not been asleep. Now he was standing. And he had a knife in his hand.

After that everything happened very quickly. Later Wallander would only remember that the girls had screamed and run away. Wallander had lifted his arms to shield himself, but it was too late. He had not managed to block the thrust. The knife struck him in the middle of his chest. A warm darkness washed over him.

Even before he sank down onto the gravel path his memory had stopped registering what was happening.

After that everything had been a fog. Or perhaps a thickly flowing sea in which everything was white and still.

Wallander lay sunken in deep unconsciousness for four days. He underwent two complicated operations. The knife had grazed his heart. But he survived. And slowly he returned from the fog. When at last, on the morning of the fifth day, he opened his eyes, he did not know what had happened or where he was.

But next to his bed there was a face he recognised.

A face that meant everything. Mona’s face.

And she was smiling.

One day at the start of September, when Wallander received the go-ahead from his doctor that he could start work a week later, he called up Hemberg. Later that afternoon Hemberg came out to his apartment in Rosengard. They bumped into each other in the stairwell. Wallander had just taken out the rubbish.

‘It was here where it all started,’ Hemberg said, nodding at Halen’s door.

‘No one else has moved in yet,’ Wallander said. ‘The furniture is still there. The fire damage hasn’t been repaired. Every time I walk in or out I still think it smells like smoke.’

They sat in Wallander’s kitchen drinking coffee. The September day was unusually brisk. Hemberg was wearing a thick sweater under his coat.

‘Autumn came early this year,’ he said.

‘I went out to visit my father yesterday,’ Wallander said. ‘He’s moved from the city to Loderup. It’s beautiful out there in the middle of the plains.’

‘How one can voluntarily make one’s home out there in the middle of all that mud exceeds my powers of comprehension,’ Hemberg said dismissively. ‘Then comes winter. And one is trapped by the snow.’

‘He seems to like it,’ Wallander said. ‘And I don’t think he cares very much about the weather. He just works on his paintings from morning till night.’

‘I didn’t know your father was an artist.’

‘He paints the same motif again and again,’ Wallander said. ‘A landscape. With or without a grouse.’

He stood up. Hemberg followed him to the main room, where the painting hung.

‘One of my neighbours has one of those,’ Hemberg said. ‘They appear to be popular.’

They returned to the kitchen.

‘You made all the mistakes you can make,’ Hemberg said. ‘But I’ve already told you that. You don’t undertake investigative work alone, you don’t intervene without backup. You were only a centimetre or so from death. I hope you’ve learned something. At least how not to act.’

Wallander did not answer. Hemberg was right, of course.

‘But you were stubborn,’ Hemberg continued. ‘It was you who discovered that Halen had changed his name. We would of course also have discovered this eventually. We would also have found Rune Blom. But you thought logically, and you thought correctly.’

‘I called you out of curiosity,’ Wallander said. ‘There’s still a lot I don’t know.’

Hemberg told him. Rune Blom had confessed, and he could also be tied to the murder of Alexandra Batista through the forensic evidence.

‘The whole thing started in 1954,’ Hemberg said. ‘Blom has been very detailed. He and Halen, or Hansson as he was called back then, had been on the same crew on a ship bound for Brazil. In Sao Luis they had come into possession of the precious stones. He claims that they bought them for a negligible price from a drunk Brazilian who didn’t know their true worth. They probably didn’t either. If they stole them or actually purchased them, we’ll probably never know. They had decided to split their bounty. But then it so happened that Blom ended up in a Brazilian prison, for manslaughter. And then Halen took advantage of the situation, since he had the stones. He changed his name and quit sailing after a few years and hid out here in Malmo. Met Batista and counted on the fact that Blom would spend the rest of his life in a Brazilian prison. But Blom was later released and started to look for Halen. Somehow Halen found out that Blom had turned up in Malmo. He got scared and put an extra lock on the door. But continued seeing Batista. Blom was spying on him. Blom claims that Halen committed suicide on the day that Blom found out where he lived. Apparently this was enough to frighten him so much that he went home and shot himself. You may wonder about that. Why didn’t he give the stones to Blom? Why swallow them and then shoot himself? What’s the point of being so greedy that you prefer dying instead of giving away something that has a little monetary value?’

Hemberg sipped his coffee and looked thoughtfully out the window. It was raining.

‘You know the rest,’ he continued. ‘Blom did not find any stones. He suspected that Batista must have them. Since he introduced himself as a friend of Halen, she let him in without suspecting anything. And Blom took her life. He had a violent nature. He had shown that before. From time to time when he was drinking he proved himself capable of extreme brutality. There are a number of cases of assault in his past. On top of the manslaughter charge in Brazil. This time Batista bore the brunt.’

‘Why did he take the trouble to go back and set the apartment on fire? Wasn’t he taking a risk?’

‘He hasn’t given any explanation other than the fact that he became enraged that the stones were missing. I think it’s true. Blom is an unpleasant person. But perhaps he was afraid that his name was somewhere in the apartment on some piece of paper. He probably hadn’t had time to check around exhaustively before you surprised him. But of course he was taking a risk. He could have been discovered.’

Wallander nodded. Now he had the whole picture.

‘It’s really just a case of a horrible little murder, and a greedy man who shoots himself,’ Hemberg said. ‘When you become a criminal investigator you’ll come across this many times. Never in the same way. But with more or less the same basic motive.’

‘That was what I was going to ask you about,’ Wallander said. ‘I realise that I have made many mistakes.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Hemberg said curtly. ‘You’ll start with us the first of October, but not before.’

Wallander had heard correctly. He exulted inside. But he didn’t show it, only nodded.

Hemberg stayed a little while longer. Then he left and went off in the rain. Wallander stood at the window and watched him drive away in his car. He absently fingered the scar on his chest.

Suddenly he thought of something he had read. In what context, he did not know.

There is a time to live, and a time to die.

I made it, he thought. I was lucky.

Then he decided never to forget these words.

There is a time to live, and a time to die.

These words would become his personal incantation from now on.

The rain spattered against the windowpane.