Henning Mankell: Faceless Killers

It had been a day of waiting. In the intensive-care unit the old woman who had survived the noose was fighting for her life.

Would they ever find out what she had seen on that appalling night in the isolated farmhouse? Or would she die before she could tell them anything?

Wallander looked out the window, into the darkness.

Instead of a press release he started writing a summary of what had been done that day and what the police actually had to go on.

Nothing, he thought when he was finished. Two old people with no enemies, no hidden cash, were brutally attacked and tortured. The neighbors heard nothing. Not until the perpetrators were gone did they notice that a window had been smashed and hear the old woman’s cry for help. Rydberg had not yet found any clues. That was it.

Old people on isolated farms have always been subjected to robbery. They have also been bound, beaten, and sometimes killed.

But this is something else, thought Wallander. A noose tells its gruesome story of viciousness and hate, maybe even revenge.

There was something about this attack that didn’t make sense.

Now all they could do was hope. Several police patrols had been talking to the inhabitants of Lenarp all day long. Perhaps someone had seen something? When old people living in isolated locations were attacked, the perpetrators had often cased the place in advance. Maybe Rydberg would find some clues at the crime scene in spite of everything.

Wallander looked at the clock.

How long has it been since I last called the hospital? Forty-five minutes? An hour?

He decided to wait until after he had written his press release.

He put on the headphones of his Walkman and popped in a cassette of Jussi Björling. The scratchy sound of the ’30s recordings could not detract from the magnificence of the music from Rigoletto .

The press release turned out to be eight lines long. Wallander took it to one of the clerks and asked her to type it up and then make copies. At the same time he was reading through a questionnaire that was supposed to be mailed out to everyone who lived in the area around Lenarp. Had anyone seen anything unusual? Anything that could be tied to the brutal attack? He didn’t have much faith that the questionnaire would produce anything but inconvenience. He knew that the telephones would ring incessantly and two officers would have to be assigned full time to listen to useless reports.

Still, it has to be done, he thought. At least we can ascertain that no one saw anything.

He went back to his office and phoned the hospital again. But nothing had changed. The old woman was still fighting for her life.

Just as he put down the phone, Naslund came in.

“I was right,” he said.

“About what?”

“Månson’s lawyer hit the roof.”

Wallander shrugged. “We’ll just have to live with it.”

Naslund scratched his forehead and asked how the investigation was going.

“Not a thing so far. We’ve gotten started. That’s about it.”

“I noticed that the preliminary forensic report came in.”

Wallander raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t I get it?”

“It was in Hanson’s office.”

“Well, that’s not where it’s supposed to be, damn it!”

Wallander got up and went out in the hall. It was always the same, he thought. Papers didn’t wind up where they were supposed to go. Even though more and more police work was recorded on computers, important papers had a tendency to get lost.

Hanson sat talking on the phone when Wallander knocked and went in. He saw that Hanson’s desk was covered with poorly concealed betting slips and racing forms from various tracks around the country. At the police station it was common knowledge that Hanson spent the major part of his working day calling around to various trotting-horse trainers begging for stable tips. Then he spent his evenings figuring out innumerable betting systems that would guarantee him the greatest winnings. It was also rumored that Hanson had hit it big on one occasion. But no one knew for sure. And Hanson wasn’t exactly living high on the hog.

When Wallander came in, Hanson put his hand over the mouthpiece.

“The forensic report,” said Wallander. “Have you got it?”

Hanson pushed aside a racing form from Jägersrö.

“I was just about to take it over to you.”

“Number four in the seventh race is a sure thing,” said Wallander, taking the plastic folder from the desk.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean it’s a sure thing.”

Wallander walked out, leaving Hanson gaping behind him. He saw by the clock in the hall that there was half an hour left until the press conference. He went back to his office and carefully read through the doctor’s report.

The brutal nature of the murder was thrown into even sharper relief, if possible, than when he had arrived in Lenarp that morning.

In the first preliminary examination of the body, the doctor was not able to pinpoint the actual cause of death.

There were just too many to choose from.

The body had received eight deep stab or chopping wounds with a sharp, serrated implement. The doctor suggested a compass saw. In addition, the right femur was broken, as were the left upper arm and wrist. The body showed signs of burn wounds, the scrotum was swollen up, and the forehead was bashed in. The actual cause of death could not yet be determined.

The doctor had made a note beside the official report. “An act of madness,” he wrote. “This man was subjected to enough violence to kill four or five individuals.”

Wallander put down the report.

He was feeling worse and worse.

Something didn’t add up.

Robbers who attacked old people were hardly full of hate. They were after money.

Why this insane violence?

When Wallander realized that he couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer to the question, he again read through the summary he had written. Had he forgotten something? Had he overlooked some detail that would later turn out to be significant? Even though police work was largely a matter of patiently searching for facts that could be combined with each other, he had also learned from experience that the first impression of a crime scene was important. Especially when the officer was one of the first to arrive at a scene after the crime had been committed.

There was something in his summary that puzzled him. Had he left out some detail after all?

He sat for a long time without coming up with what it might be.

A woman opened the door and handed him the typed press release and the copies. On the way to the press conference he stepped into the men’s room and looked in the mirror. He noticed that he needed a haircut. His brown hair was sticking out around his ears. And he ought to lose some weight too. In the three months since his wife had so unexpectedly left him, he had put on fifteen pounds. In his apathetic loneliness he had eaten nothing but fast food and pizza, greasy hamburgers, and donuts.

“You flabby piece of shit,” he said out loud to himself. “Do you really want to look like a pitiful old man?”

He made a decision to change his eating habits at once. If it would help him lose weight, he might even consider taking up smoking again.

He wondered what the real reason was. Why almost every cop was divorced. Why the wives left their husbands. Sometimes, when he read a crime novel, he discovered with a sigh that it was just as bad in fiction.

Cops were divorced. That’s all there was to it.

The room where the press conference was being held was full of people. He recognized most of the reporters. But there were a few unfamiliar faces too, and an adolescent girl with a pimply face was casting amorous glances at him as she adjusted her tape recorder.