Wallander looked out of 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 elderly people with no enemies, no hidden cash, were brutally attacked and tortured. The neighbours heard nothing. Not until the attackers were gone had they noticed that a window had been broken and heard the old woman's cry for help. Rydberg had so far found no clues. That was it.
Old people in the countryside have always been targets for robbery. They have been bound, beaten, and sometimes killed. But this is different, thought Wallander. The noose tells a gruesome story of viciousness or hate, maybe even revenge. Something about this attack doesn't add up.
All they could do now was hope. All day long police patrols had been talking to the inhabitants of Lunnarp. Perhaps someone had seen something? In crimes of this nature those responsible had often cased the place in advance. Maybe Rydberg would find some clues at the farmhouse after all.
Wallander looked at the clock. How long since he'd last called the hospital? 45 minutes? An hour? He decided to wait until after he had written his press release. He popped a cassette of Jussi Bjorling into his Walkman and put on the headphones. The scratchy sound of the 1930s recording could not detract from the magnificence of the music from
The press release ran to eight lines. Wallander took it to one of the clerks to type up and make copies. While this was being done he read through a questionnaire that was to be mailed to everyone living in the area around Lunnarp. Had anyone seen anything out of the ordinary? Anything that could be connected to the brutal attack? He didn't have much confidence that the questionnaire would produce anything but inconvenience. The telephones would ring incessandy and two officers would need to be assigned to listen to useless reports.
Still, it has to be done, he thought. At least we can satisfy ourselves that no-one saw anything. He went back to his office and phoned the hospital. Nothing had changed. Mrs Lovgren was still fighting for her life. Just as he put down the phone, Naslund came in.'I was right,' he said.'What about?''Manson's lawyer hit the roof.'Wallander shrugged. 'We'll just have to live with that.'
Naslund scratched his forehead and asked how the investigation was going.'Not a thing so far. We've 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 Hansson's office.''That's not where it's supposed to be, damn it!'
Wallander got up and went out into the corridor. Always the same, he thought. Papers never end up where they're supposed to. More and more police work was recorded on computers, but even so there was a tendency for important papers to get lost.
Wallander knocked and went into Hansson's office. Hansson was talking on the phone. He saw that Hansson's desk had strewn all over it, hardly concealed, betting slips and form guides from racetracks around the country. It was common knowledge at the station that he spent the best part of his working day calling various horse trainers begging for tips. Then he spent his evenings figuring out all manner of betting systems that would guarantee him the maximum winnings. It was also rumoured that Hansson had hit it big on one occasion, but no- one knew this for certain. And Hansson wasn't exactly living the highlife.
When Wallander came in, Hansson put his hand over the mouthpiece.
'The forensic report,' said Wallander. 'Have you got it?'
Hansson pushed aside a form guide from Jagersro. 'I was just about to bring 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 Hansson gaping. He saw by the clock in the corridor that there was half an hour left until the press conference. He went back to his office and read carefully through the doctor's report.
The brutal nature of the murder of Johannes Lovgren was thrown into even sharper relief, if possible, than when he had arrived in Lunnarp that morning. In the preliminary examination of the body, the doctor had not been able to determine the actual cause of death. There were too many to choose from.
The body had received eight deep stab wounds with a sharp, serrated implement. The report 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, and the forehead was bashed in.
The doctor had made a note beside the official report. 'An act of madness,' he had written. 'This man was subjected to injuries sufficient to kill him four or five times over.'
Wallander put down the report. He was feeling worse and worse. Something here was beyond reason. Robbers who attacked old people weren't full of hate. They were after money. Why this insane degree of violence?
When Wallander realised that he couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer, he read again through the summary he had written. Had he forgotten something? Had he overlooked some detail that would later turn out to have been significant? Even though police work was mostly a matter of patiently searching for clues that could then be combined, he had also learnt from experience that the initial impression of the scene of a crime was important. More so when the officer was one of the first there after the crime had been committed.
There was something in his summary that puzzled him. Had he left out an important detail? He sat for a long time without managing to think 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 went to the men's room and looked in the mirror. He saw that he needed a haircut. His brown hair was sticking out round his ears. And he ought to lose some weight too. In the three months since his wife had left him, he had put on seven kilos. In his apathetic loneliness he had eaten nothing but takeaways and pizza, greasy hamburgers and pastries.
'You flabby piece of shit,' he said out loud. '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 why almost every policeman was divorced. Why their wives left them. Sometimes, when he read a crime novel, he discovered with a sigh that things were just as bad in fiction. Policemen were divorced. That's all there was to it.
The room where the press conference was to be held was full. He recognised most of the reporters. But there were a few unfamiliar faces too, including a young girl with a pimply face, who seemed to be casting amorous glances at him as she adjusted her tape recorder.
Wallander passed out the press release and sat down on the little dais at one end of the room. The Ystad chief of police should have been there too, but he was on his winter holiday in Spain. If Rydberg managed to finish with the TV crews, he had promised to attend. But otherwise Wallander was on his own.
'You've received the press release,' he began. 'I don't have anything to add at present.'
'Can we ask questions?' said a reporter Wallander recognised as the local stringer for
'If you don't mind my saying so, this is an unusually poor press release,' said the reporter. 'You must be able to tell us more than this.''We have no leads on the offenders,' said Wallander.'So there were more than one?'
'Possibly.'
'Why do you think so?' 'We think there were. But we don't know.' The reporter made a face, and Wallander nodded to another reporter he recognised. 'How was Mr Lovgren killed?' 'By external force.''That can mean a lot of different things!''Well, we don't know yet. The doctors haven't finished the forensic examination. It'll take a couple of days.'
The reporter had more questions, but he was interrupted by the pimply girl with the tape recorder. Wallander could see by the letters on the lid that she was from the local radio station.'What did the robbers take?'
'We don't know,' replied Wallander. 'We don't even know if it was a robbery.' 'What else could it be?' 'We don't know.'
