Henning Mankell - Faceless Killers

The girl started tugging at a ladder that led to the stable loft.

When she caught sight of him she let go of the ladder and wiped her hands on her gray riding pants.

“Hi,” said Wallander. “I’m looking for Sten Widen. Is this the right place?”

“Are you a cop?” asked the girl.

“Yes,” Wallander replied, surprised. “How did you know?”

“I could hear it in your voice,” said the girl, once more pulling at the ladder, which seemed to be stuck.

“Is he home?” asked Wallander.

“Help me with the ladder,” the girl said.

He saw that one of the rungs had caught on the wainscoting of the stable wall. He grabbed hold of the ladder and twisted it until the rung came free.

“Thanks,” said the girl. “Sten is probably in his office.”

She pointed to a red brick building a short distance from the stable.

“Do you work here?” asked Wallander.

“Yes,” said the girl, climbing quickly up the ladder. “Now move!”

With surprisingly strong arms she began heaving bales of hay out through the loft doors. Wallander walked over toward the red building. Just as he was about to knock on the heavy door, a man came walking around the end of the building.

It was at least ten years since Wallander had seen Sten Widen, yet the man did not seem to have changed. The same tousled hair, the same thin face, the same red eczema near his lower lip.

“Well, this is a surprise,” said the man with a nervous laugh. “I thought it was the blacksmith. And it’s you instead. How long has it been, anyway?”

“Eleven years,” said Wallander. “Summer of seventy-nine.”

“The summer all our dreams fell apart,” said Sten Widen. “Would you like some coffee?”

They went inside the red brick building. Wallander noticed a smell of oil coming from the walls. A rusty combine harvester stood inside in the darkness. Widen opened another door. A cat ran out as Wallander entered a room that seemed to be a combination of office and residence. An unmade bed stood along one wall. There were a TV and a VCR, and a microwave stood on a table. An old armchair was piled high with clothes. The rest of the room was taken up by a large desk. Sten Widen poured coffee from a thermos next to a fax machine in one of the wide window recesses.

Kurt Wallander was thinking about Widén’s lost dreams of becoming an opera singer. About how in the late seventies the two of them had imagined a future for themselves that neither of them would be able to achieve. Wallander was supposed to become the impresario, and Sten Widén’s tenor would resound from the opera stages of the world.

Wallander had been a cop back then. And he still was.

When Widen realized that his voice wasn’t good enough, he had taken over his father’s run-down stables for training race horses. Their earlier friendship had not been able to withstand the shared disappointment. At one time they had seen each other every day, but now eleven years had passed since their last meeting. Although they lived no more than fifty kilometers apart.

“You’ve put on weight,” said Widen, moving a stack of newspapers from a spindle-backed chair.

“And you haven’t,” said Wallander, aware of his own annoyance.

“Race-horse trainers seldom get fat,” said Widen, giving his nervous laugh once more. “Skinny legs and skinny wallets. Except for the big-time trainers, of course. Khan or Strasser. They can afford it.”

“So how’s it going?” asked Wallander, sitting down in the chair.

“So-so,” said Widen. “I get by. I’ve always got some horse in training that does well. I get in a few new colts and manage to keep the whole place going. But actually—” He broke off without finishing his sentence.

Then he stretched, opened a desk drawer, and pulled out a half-empty bottle of whiskey.

“You want some?” he asked.

Wallander shook his head. “It wouldn’t look good if a cop got caught for DWI,” he replied. “Even though it does happen once in a while.”

“Well, skål , anyway,” said Widen, drinking from the bottle.

He took a cigarette from a crumpled pack and rummaged through the papers and racing forms before he found a lighter.

“How’s Mona doing?” he asked. “And Linda? And your dad? And your sister, what’s her name, Kerstin?”

“Kristina.”

“That’s it. Kristina. I’ve never had a very good memory, you know that.”

“You never forgot the music.”

“Didn’t I?”

He drank from the bottle again, and Wallander noticed that something was eating him. Maybe he shouldn’t have dropped by. Maybe Sten didn’t want to be reminded of what once had been.

“Mona and I broke up,” Wallander said, “and Linda’s got her own place. Dad is the same as always. He keeps painting that picture of his. But I think he’s becoming a little senile. I don’t really know what to do with him.”

“Did you know that I got married?” said Widen.

Wallander got the feeling he hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “I didn’t know that.”

“I took over these goddamn stables, after all. When Dad finally realized that he was too old to take care of the horses, he started doing some serious drinking. Before, he always had control over how much he guzzled down. I realized that I couldn’t handle him and his drinking buddies. I married one of the girls who worked here at the stables. Mostly because she was so good with Dad, I guess. She treated him like an old horse. Refused to go along with his habits, and set limits for him. Took the rubber hose and rinsed him off when he got too filthy. But when Dad died, it seemed as if she started to smell like him. So I got a divorce.”

He took another slug from the bottle, and Wallander could see that he was beginning to get drunk.

“Every day I think about selling this place,” he said. “I own the farm itself. I could probably get a million kronor for the whole thing. After the mortgage is paid off, I might have four hundred thousand left over. Then I’ll buy an RV and hit the road.”

“Where to?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. There’s nowhere I want to go.”

Kurt Wallander felt uncomfortable listening to all this. Even though Widen was outwardly the same as ten years ago, inwardly he had gone through some big changes. It was the voice of a ghost talking to him, cracked and despairing. Ten years ago Sten Widen had been happy and high-spirited, the first one to invite you to a party. Now all his joy in life seemed to be gone.

The girl who had asked if Wallander was a cop rode past the window.

“Who’s she?” he asked. “She could tell I was a cop.”

“Her name is Louise,” said Widen. “She could probably smell that you’re a cop. She’s been in and out of institutions since she was twelve years old. I’m her guardian. She’s good with the horses. But she hates cops. She claims she was raped by a cop once.”

He took another hit from the bottle and gestured toward the unmade bed.

“She sleeps with me sometimes,” he said. “At least that’s how it feels. That she’s the one taking me to bed, and not the other way around. I suppose that’s against the law, right?”

“Why should it be? She isn’t a minor, is she?”

“She’s nineteen. But do guardians have the right to sleep with their wards?”

Wallander thought he heard a hint of aggression in Widén’s voice.

All of a sudden he was sorry he had come.

Even though he actually had a reason for the visit that was connected with the investigation, he now wondered whether it was merely an excuse. Had he come to visit Widen to talk about Mona? To seek some sort of consolation?

He no longer knew.

“I came here to ask you about horses,” he said. “Maybe you saw in the paper that there was a double murder in Lenarp last night?”