attacks involving old people. At least four different individuals or gangs were known to have assaulted old, isolated people in Skane during the past twelve months. But Martinsson had also found out that every one of them was in prison. He was still waiting for word on whether any of them had been granted leave on the day in question.
They held the case meeting in Rydberg's office, since one of the office clerks had offered to sweep up the glass from Wallander's floor. Wallander's phone rang almost non-stop, but the clerk didn't pick it up.
The meeting was long. Everyone agreed that Lars Herdin's testimony was a breakthrough. Now they had a direction to go in. At the same time they went over everything that had been gleaned from the interviews with the residents of Lunnarp, and the people who had telephoned the police or responded to the questionnaire they had sent out. A car that had driven through a village a few kilometres from Lunnarp at high speed late on Saturday night attracted special attention. A lorry driver who had set out on a journey to Goteborg at 3 a.m. had almost been hit going around a tight curve. When he heard about the double murder he called the police. He wasn't sure, but after going through pictures of various cars he decided it was probably a Nissan.
'Don't forget rental cars,' said Wallander. 'People on the move want to be comfortable these days. Robbers rent cars as often as they steal them.'
It was already 6 p.m. by the time the meeting was over. Wallander realised that all his colleagues were now on the offensive. There was palpable optimism after Lars Herdin's visit.
He went to his office and typed up his notes of the interview with Herdin. He had Hansson's notes of the earlier interview so he could compare them. He realised at once that Lars Herdin had not been evasive. The information was the same in both.
Just after 7 p.m. he put the papers aside. He realised that the TV people hadn't called back. He asked the switchboard whether Ebba had left any message before she went home.
The girl who answered was a temp. 'There's nothing here,' she said.
He went to the canteen and switched on the TV, on a whim. The local news had just started: He leaned on a table and distractedly watched a report about how short of funds the city of Malmo was.
He thought about Sten Widen. And Johannes Lovgren, who had sold meat to the Nazis during the war. He thought about himself, and about his stomach, which was far too big.
He was just about to turn off the TV when the anchor-woman started talking about the murders in Lunnarp. In astonishment he heard that the police in Ystad were concentrating their search on as-yet-unidentified foreign citizens. The police were convinced that those responsible were foreigners. It could not be ruled out that they might be refugees seeking asylum.
Finally the reporter talked about Wallander himself. Despite repeated efforts, it had been impossible to get any of the detectives in charge to comment on the information, which had been obtained from anonymous but reliable sources.
The reporter was speaking in front of a shot of the Ystad police station. Then she moved straight on to the weather report. A storm was approaching from the west. The wind would increase, but there was no risk of snow. The temperature would continue to stay above freezing level.
Wallander turned off the TV. He couldn't make up his mind whether he was upset or merely tired. Or maybe he was just hungry.
Someone at the police station had leaked the information. Perhaps nowadays people got paid for passing on confidential information. Did the state-run television monopoly have slush funds too?
Who? he wondered. It could have been anyone except me. And why? Was there some other explanation besides money? Racial hatred? Fear of refugees? As he walked back to his room, he could hear the phone ringing all the way down the corridor.
It had been a long day. He would have liked to drive home and cook himself some dinner. With a sigh he sat down and pulled over the phone. I guess I'll have to get started, he thought. Start denying the information on the TV. And hope that nobody burns any wooden crosses in the days to come.
CHAPTER 6
Overnight a storm moved in across Skane. Kurt Wallander was sitting in his untidy flat as the winter wind tore at the roof tiles, drinking whisky and listening to a German recording of
The luminous hands on his wristwatch showed 2.50 a.m. Oddly enough, he no longer felt tired. It had been after midnight by the time he got away from the station. The last caller had been a man who refused to give his name. He had proposed that the police join forces with the domestic nationalist movements and chase the foreigners out of the country once and for all. For a moment Wallander had tried to listen to what the man was saying. Then he had slammed down the receiver, called the switchboard, and had all incoming calls held. He'd turned off the lights in his office, walked down the silent corridor, and driven straight home. By the time he unlocked his front door, he had decided to find out who had leaked the information. It wasn't really his business at all. If conflicts arose within the police force, it was the duty of the chief of police to intervene. In a few days Bjork would be back from his winter holiday. Then he could deal with it. The truth would have to come out.
But as Wallander drank his first glass of whisky, it had occurred to him that Bjork would do nothing. Even though each individual police officer was bound by an oath of silence, it could hardly be considered a criminal offence if an officer called up a contact at Swedish Television and told him what was discussed at a case meeting. Nor would it be easy to prove any irregularities if Swedish Television had paid its secret informant. Wallander wondered briefly how -Swedish Television entered such an expense in their books. And in any case Bjork wouldn't be disposed to question internal loyalty in the middle of a murder investigation.
By the second glass of whisky he was back to worrying who could have been the source of the leak. Apart from himself, he felt he could safely eliminate Rydberg. But then why was he so sure of Rydberg? Could he see more deeply into him than into any of the others?
The storm had obviously knocked out the power. He sat alone in the dark, thinking. His thoughts about the murdered couple, about Lars Herdin, about the strange knot on the noose were mixed with thoughts of Sten Widen and Mona, of Linda and his ageing father. Somewhere in the dark a vast meaninglessness was beckoning. A sneering face that laughed scornfully at every attempt he made to manage his life.
He woke up when the power came back on. He had slept for over an hour. The record was still spinning on the record player. He emptied his glass and went to lie down on his bed.
I've got to talk to Mona, he thought. I've got to talk to her after all that's happened. And I've got to talk to my daughter. I have to visit my father and see what I can do for him. On top of all that I really ought to catch the murderers ...
He had dozed off again. He thought he was in his office when the telephone rang. Drowsily he snatched the phone. Who could be calling him at this hour? As he answered, he prayed that it was Mona.
At first he thought that the man on the line sounded like Sten Widen.'Now you've got three days to make good,' said the man.'Who is this?' said Wallander.
'It doesn't matter who I am,' replied the man. 'I'm one of the Ten Thousand Redeemers.'
'I refuse to talk to anyone if I don't know who it is,' said Wallander, wide awake now.
'Don't hang up,' said the man. 'You now have three days to make up for shielding foreign criminals. Three days, no more.'
'I don't understand what you're talking about,' said Wallander, feeling uneasy at the unknown voice.
'Three days to catch the killers and put them on display,' said the man. 'Or else we'll take over.''Take over what? And who's 'we'?''Three days. No more. Then something's going to burn.'The connection was broken off.
Wallander went into the kitchen, turned on the light and sat down at the table. He wrote down the conversation in an old notebook that Mona used to use for her shopping lists. At the top of the pad it said 'bread'. He couldn't read what she had written below that.
