“I want you to get hold of four water pumps,” Morell said. “The old-fashioned sort. The kind you can see outside every cottage in the countryside.”
“Surely it can wait until after the holiday,” Peter Hanson objected. He was already asleep when Morell called, and he did not like being woken up.
“It can’t wait,” said Morell. “There’s a guy who lives in Spain, and he’s driving there the day after tomorrow. He wants those pumps in the car with him. He sells them to other Swedish residents down there. They are sentimental, and pay good money to have old Swedish water pumps outside their haciendas.”
“How the hell am I going to get hold of four water pumps?” Peter Hanson asked. “Have you forgotten it’s a holiday? Every summer cottage will be occupied tomorrow.”
“That’s your problem,” Morell replied. “Start early enough and you’ll manage it.”
Then he turned threatening.
“If you don’t, I’ll be forced to go through my papers and work out how much your brother owes me,” he said.
Peter Hanson slammed down the phone. He knew Morell would take that as a positive reply. As he had been woken up and would not be able to get to sleep again for ages, he got dressed and drove down to town from Rosengard, where he lived. He went into a bar and ordered a beer.
Peter Hanson had a brother called Jan-Olof. He was Peter Hanson’s big misfortune in life. Jan-Olof played the ponies at Jagersro, at the Tote, and occasionally also at other trotting tracks up and down the country. He did a lot of betting, and he did it badly. He lost more than he could afford, and ended up in Morell’s hands. As he could not provide any guarantees, Peter Hanson had been forced to step in as a living guarantee.
Morell was first and foremost a fence. In recent years, however, he had realized that, like all other businessmen, he would have to make up his mind how to develop his future activities. Either he would have to specialize and concentrate on a smaller field, or he could broaden his base. He chose the latter.
Although he had a big network of customers who could give very precise information about the goods they ordered, he decided to go in for loan-sharking as well. That way, he figured he could increase his turnover considerably.
Morell was just turned fifty. After twenty years in the fraud business, he had changed course and since the end of the 1970s had built up a successful receiving empire across southern Sweden. He had about thirty thieves and drivers on his secret payroll, and every week truckloads of stolen goods would be transported to his warehouse in the Malmo free port, ready for moving on to foreign importers. He collected stereos, televisions, and mobile telephones from Smaland. Caravans of stolen cars came rolling up from Halland and were passed on to expectant buyers in Poland and, nowadays, the former East Germany. He could see an important new market ready to be opened up in the Baltic states, and he had already delivered a few luxury cars to Czechoslovakia as well. Peter Hanson was one of the least important cogs in his organization. Morell was still doubtful about how good he was, and used him mostly for the occasional one-off deal. Four water pumps was an ideal assignment for him.
That was why Peter Morell was sitting cursing in his car on the morning of Walpurgis Eve. Morell had ruined his holiday. He was also worried about the assignment he had taken on. There were too many people on the move for him to be confident of working undisturbed.
Peter Hanson was born in Horby, and knew Skane inside out. There was not the tiniest of side roads in this part of the country he had not been on, and his memory was good. He had been working for Morell for four years now, ever since he was nineteen. He sometimes thought about all the things he had loaded into his rusty old van. He once rustled two young bulls. Orders for pigs were common around Christmas time. Several times he had acquired a few tombstones, and wondered what kind of a sick person ordered those. He had carried off front doors while the house owner was asleep upstairs, and dismantled a church spire with the assistance of a crane operator brought in for the purpose. Water pumps were nothing unusual. But it was an unfortunate choice of day.
He decided to start in the area to the east of Sturup airport. He banished all thought of Osterlen. Every single second home would be occupied today.
If he was going to make it, he’d have to concentrate on the area between Sturup, Horby, and Ystad. There were quite a few empty houses around there, and with luck he might be able to work undisturbed.
Just beyond Krageholm, on a little dirt road winding through the woods and eventually hitting the main road at Sovde, he found his first pump. The house had almost collapsed, and was well hidden from view. The pump was rusty, but intact. He started working it loose from the wooden base with a crowbar, but the wood was rotten. He dropped the crowbar and tugged at the pump, easing it away from the boards over the well itself. He began to think that maybe it wouldn’t be impossible to find four pumps for Morell after all. Three more deserted houses, and he could be back in Malmo by early afternoon. It was still only ten past eight. Maybe he would be able to nip over to Copenhagen that evening after all.
Then he broke loose the rusty pump.
As a result, the wooden boards crumbled and fell away.
He glanced down into the well.
There was something down there in the darkness. Something light yellow.
He realized to his horror that it was a human head with blond hair.
There was a woman lying there.
A corpse doubled up, twisted, deformed.
He dropped the pump and ran away. He drove off at a crazy speed, getting away from the deserted house as fast as possible. After a few kilometers, just before he got to Sovde, he braked, opened the car door, and threw up.
Then he tried to think. He knew he had not imagined it all. There was a woman down the well.
A woman lying in a well must have been murdered, he thought.
Then it occurred to him he’d left his fingerprints on the water pump he’d broken off.
His fingerprints were in the files.
Morell, he thought, all confused. Morell’s the man to sort this one out.
He drove through Sovde, far too fast, then took a left southwards towards Ystad. He would drive back to Malmo and let Morell see to everything. The guy leaving for Spain would have to go without his pumps.
Just before he got to the turnoff for the Ystad garbage dump, his journey came to an end. He went into a skid as he tried to light a cigarette with his shaking hands, and could only partially correct it. The van crashed into a fence, smashed through a row of mailboxes, and came to a stop. Peter Hanson was wearing a seat belt, which prevented him from shooting through the windshield. Even so, the crash dazed him, and he remained in his seat, in shock.
A man mowing his lawn had seen what happened. He first ran over the road to make sure nobody had been badly injured, then he hurried back to his house, called the police, and stood by the car to make sure the man behind the wheel did not try to run away. He must be drunk, he assumed. Why else would he lose control on a stretch of straight road?
A quarter of an hour later, a patrol car arrived from Ystad. Peters and Noren, two of the most experienced cops in the district, had taken the call. Once they had established that no one was injured, Peters started directing traffic past the scene of the accident, while Noren sat beside Peter Hanson in the back of the police car, to try and find out what happened. Noren made him blow into the booze bag, but the result was negative. The man seemed very confused, and not in the least interested in explaining how the accident happened. Noren was starting to think the man was mentally deranged. He was talking disjointedly about water pumps, a fence in Malmo, and an empty house with a well.
“There’s a woman in the well,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” said Noren. “A woman in a well?”
“She was dead,” mumbled Hanson.
Noren suddenly started to feel uneasy. What was the man trying to say? That he’d found a dead woman in a well at a deserted house?
Noren told the man to stay in the car. Then he hurried out into the road where Peters was keeping the traffic moving and waving on curious drivers who slowed down and showed signs of stopping.
“He claims he’s found a dead woman in a well,” said Noren. “With blond hair.”
Peters dropped his arms to his side.
“Louise Akerblom?”
