there for? Was anyone with him?''Yes. But I don't know who it was.'
Wallander slammed down the phone. What the hell was he up to? He picked up the phone again.
'Can you get Hansson on the phone for me?' he asked Ebba.'At the Union Bank?' 'If that's where he is.'
He very rarely asked Ebba for help tracking people down. If he needed something done, he did it himself. In the past he'd put it down to his upbringing. Only rich, arrogant people sent others out to do their footwork. Not being able to look up a number in the phone book and pick up a receiver was indefensible laziness.
The telephone rang, interrupting his thoughts. It was Hansson calling from the Union Bank.
'I thought I'd get back before you did,' said Hansson. 'You're probably wondering what I'm doing here.''You could say that.''We're taking a look at Lovgren's bank account.' 'Who's we?'
'His name is Herdin. But you'd better talk to him yourself. We'll be back in half an hour.'
Wallander finally met the man called Herdin an hour and a half later. He was almost six foot six, thin and wiry, and Wallander felt like he was shaking hands with a giant.
'It took a while,' said Hansson. 'But we got results. You have to hear what Herdin has to say. And what we've discovered.'
Herdin was sitting erect and silent on a wooden chair. Wallander guessed that the man had put on his Sunday best before coming to the police station. Even if it was only a worn suit and a shirt with a frayed collar.
'We'd better start at the beginning,' said Wallander, picking up a pad.Herdin gave Hansson a bewildered look.'Should I start all over again?' he asked.'That would probably be best,' said Hansson.'It's a long story,' Herdin began hesitantly.
'What's your name?' asked Wallander. 'Let's start with that.'
'Lars Herdin. I have a farm of 40 acres near Hagestad. I'm trying to make ends meet raising livestock. But things are pretty tight.'
'I've got all his personal data,' Hansson interrupted, and Wallander guessed that Hansson was in a hurry to get back to his form guides.
'If I understand correctly, you came here because you think you may have information relating to the murder of Mr and Mrs Lovgren,' said Wallander, wishing he had expressed himself more simply.'It's obvious that it was the money,' Lars Herdin said.'What money?''All the money they had!''Could you clarify that a little?''The German money.'
Wallander looked at Hansson, who shrugged slightly. Wallander took this to mean that he had to be patient.
'I think we're going to need a little more detail on this,' he said. 'Do you think you could be more specific?'
'Lovgren and his father made money during the war,' said Herdin. 'They kept livestock in secret on some forest pastures up in Smaland. And they bought up worn-out old horses. Then they sold them on the black market to
Germany. They made an obscene amount of money on the meat. And nobody ever caught them. Lovgren was both greedy and clever. He invested the money, and it's been growing over the years.' 'You mean Lovgren's father?'
'His father died straight after the war. I mean Lovgren himself.''So you're telling me that the Lovgrens were wealthy?'
'Not the family. Just Lovgren. She didn't know a thing about the money.'
'Would he have kept his fortune a secret from his own wife?'
Herdin nodded. 'Nobody has ever been as foully cheated as my sister.'Wallander raised his eyebrows in surprise.
'Maria Lovgren was my sister. She was killed because he had stashed away a fortune.'
Wallander heard the barely concealed bitterness. So maybe it
'And this money was kept at home?''Only sometimes,' replied Herdin.'Sometimes?''When he made the large withdrawals.''Could you give me a little more detail?'
Suddenly something seemed to boil over inside the man in the worn-out suit.
'Johannes Lovgren was a brute,' he said. 'It's better now that he's gone. But that Maria had to die, that I can never forgive.'
Lars Herdin's outburst came so suddenly that neither Hansson nor Wallander had time to react. He grabbed a solid glass ashtray from the table beside him and flung it full force at the wall, where it smashed close to Wallander's head. Splinters of glass flew in every direction, and Wallander felt a shard strike his upper lip.The silence after the outburst was deafening.
Hansson had sprung out of his chair and seemed ready to throw himself at the rangy Herdin, but Wallander raised his hand to stop him, and Hansson sat back down.
'I beg your pardon,' said Herdin. 'If you have a broom and dustpan I'll clean up the glass. I'll pay for it.'
'The cleaners will take care of it,' said Wallander. 'I think we should go on with our talk.'Herdin now seemed perfectiy calm.
'Johannes Lovgren was a beast,' he repeated. 'He pretended to be like everybody else. But the only thing he thought about was the money he and his father made from the war. He complained that everything was so expensive, and the farmers so poor. But he had his money, and it kept on growing and growing.''And he kept this money in the bank?'
Herdin shrugged. 'In the bank, in shares and bonds, who knows what else.''Why did he keep the money at home sometimes?'
'Lovgren had a mistress,' said Herdin. 'There was a woman in Kristianstad whom he had a son with in the 1950s. Maria knew nothing about that either - not the woman, not the child. He gave his mistress more money every year than he spent on Maria in her whole life.''How much money are we talking about?'
'Two or three times a year he gave her 25 or 30 thousand. He withdrew the money in cash. Then he would think up some excuse and go to Kristianstad.'
Wallander thought for a moment about what he had heard. He tried to decide which questions were the most important. It would take hours to work out all the details.
'What did they say at the bank?' he asked Hansson.
'If you don't have the search warrants all in order, the bank doesn't say anything,' said Hansson. 'They wouldn't let me look at his bank statements. But I did get the answer to one question: Had he been to the bank recently?''Well?'
Hansson nodded. 'Last Thursday. Three days before he was killed.''Are they sure?''One of the clerks recognised him.''And he withdrew a large sum of money?'
'They wouldn't say exactly. But the clerk nodded when the bank manager turned his back.'
'We'll have to talk to the prosecutor when we have written up this statement,' said Wallander. 'Then we can look into his assets and see where we are.''Blood money,' said Herdin.
Wallander wondered whether he was going to start throwing things again.
'There are plenty of questions left,' he said. 'But one is more important than all the others right now. How do you know about all this? You say that Lovgren kept it secret from his wife. So how come you know?'
Herdin didn't answer the question. He stared mutely at the floor.Wallander looked at Hansson, who shook his head.'You really have to answer the question,' said Wallander.
'I don't have to answer at all,' said Herdin. 'I'm not the one who killed them. Would I murder my own sister?'
Wallander tried to approach the question from another angle. 'How many other people know what you just told us?'Herdin didn't answer.
'Whatever you say won't go beyond this room,' Wallander said.
