Faceless Killers (24 page)

At 8.30 p.m. two men started slugging each other in a block of flats on the outskirts of Ystad. Peters and Norén swiftly separated the combatants. They were two brothers, well known to the police. They got into a fight about three times a year.

A greyhound was reported lost in Marsvinsholm. The dog had been seen heading west, so the report was passed to the station in Skurup.

At 10 p.m. Wallander left the police station. It was cold and the wind was blowing in gusts. The sky was clear and filled with stars. Still no snow. He went home and put on heavy-duty long underwear and a woollen cap. Absent-mindedly he watered the drooping plants in the kitchen window. Then he drove to Malmö.

Norén was duty officer that night. Wallander had promised to call in regularly. But presumably Norén would have his hands full with Björk, who would be coming home to discover that his holiday was definitely over.

Wallander stopped at a hotel restaurant in Svedala. He hesitated before deciding on only a salad. He doubted that this was a wise moment to change his eating habits, but he knew that he might fall asleep if he ate too much before an all-night shift.

He drank several cups of strong coffee after his meal. An elderly woman came over to his table and tried to sell him
The Watch Tower
.
He bought a copy, thinking that it would be sufficiently dull to last all night.

Wallander pulled out onto the E65 again and drove the last stretch to Malmö. He began to doubt the value of this assignment. Was he justified in trusting his intuition? Shouldn't Hansson's and Rydberg's objections have been enough for him to drop the idea of this surveillance? He felt unsure of himself. Irresolute. And the salad had not been enough.

It was 11.35 pm when he turned onto a street near the yellow house where Bergman lived. He pulled his cap over his ears as he stepped out into the freezing night. All around him were darkened houses. In the distance he heard the screech of car tyres. He kept to the shadows as far as possible and turned down the street called Rosenalle.

Almost at once he caught sight of Rydberg, who was standing under a tall chestnut tree. The trunk was so thick that it nearly hid him entirely.

Wallander slipped into the shadow of the huge tree trunk. Rydberg was freezing. He was rubbing his hands together and stamping his feet.

"Anything going on?" asked Wallander.

"Not much in twelve hours," replied Rydberg. "At four, he went to buy groceries. Two hours later he came out to close the gate, which had blown open. But he's definitely on his guard. I think you may be right after all."

Rydberg pointed at the house next door.

"That one's empty," he said. "From the yard you can see both the street and his back door. He might take it into his head to slip out that way. There's a bench where you can sit. If your clothes are warm enough."

Wallander had noticed a phone box on his way over to Bergman's house. He asked Rydberg to go over and call Norén. If nothing urgent was happening, Rydberg could get in his car and drive home.

"I'll be back around seven," said Rydberg. "Don't freeze to death."

He vanished without a sound. Wallander stood still for a moment, looking at the yellow house. Lights were on in two of the windows, one on the lower floor and one upstairs. The curtains were drawn. He looked at his watch. Just after midnight. Rydberg had not returned. So everything must be quiet at the station in Ystad.

He hurried across the street and opened the gate to the yard of the empty house. He fumbled his way in the dark and found the bench that Rydberg had mentioned. From there he had a good view. To keep warm, he started pacing, five steps forwards and five steps back.

The next time he looked at his watch, it was only 12.50 a.m. It was going to be a long night. He was already feeling cold. He tried to make the time pass by studying the starry sky. When his neck started to hurt, he resumed his pacing.

At 1.30 a.m. the light on the ground floor went out. Wallander thought he could hear a radio on the second floor. Mr Bergman keeps late hours, he thought. Maybe that's what happens if you take early retirement. At 1.55 a.m. a car drove past, immediately followed by another one. Then all was quiet again. The light was still on upstairs. Wallander was freezing.

At 2.55 a.m. the light went out. Wallander listened for the radio. But everything was quiet. He flapped his arms to keep warm. In his head he hummed the melody of a Strauss waltz.

The sound was so slight that he almost missed it.

The click of a door latch. That was all. Wallander stood stock-still and listened. Then he noticed the shadow.

The man must have been moving very quietiy. Even so, Wallander caught a glimpse of Rune Bergman as he slipped through the back yard of his house. Wallander waited a few seconds. Then cautiously he climbed over the fence. It was hard to get his bearings in the dark, but he could just make out a narrow passage between a shed and the yard opposite Bergman's house. He moved fast. Too fast, considering how little he could see.

He emerged onto the street parallel to Rosenalle. One second later and he would not have seen Bergman vanish down a cross-street to the right.

For a moment Wallander hesitated. His car was only 50 metres away. If he didn't get it now, and Bergman had another car parked somewhere nearby, he would have no chance of following him.

He ran like a madman. His frozen joints creaked and he was soon out of breath. He fumbled with his keys, and yanked open the door, deciding to try to intercept Bergman.

He turned into the street that he thought was the right one. Too late he saw that it was a dead end. He swore and backed up. Bergman probably had any number of streets to choose from. There was also a park nearby.

Make up your mind, he thought furiously. Make up your mind, damn it.

He drove towards the big car park between the Jagersro track and some large department stores. He was just about to give up when he caught sight of Bergman. He was in a phone box over by a new hotel next to the stables.

Wallander pulled over and turned off his engine and headlights. The man in the phone box hadn't noticed him.

A few minutes later a taxi pulled up and Bergman got into the back. Wallander started the car. The taxi took the motorway heading towards Goteborg. Wallander had to let a lorry go by before he took up the chase. He glanced at the petrol gauge. He wasn't going to be able to follow the taxi further than Halmstad. Suddenly it indicated a right turn. He was going to take the exit for Lund. Wallander followed.

The taxi stopped at the railway station. As Wallander drove past, Bergman was paying the driver. He turned off the main road and parked hurriedly. Bergman was walking fast. Wallander followed him, hugging the shadows.

Rydberg had been right. The man was on his guard. Without warning he stopped short and looked around. Wallander threw himself headlong into a doorway. He struck his forehead on the edge of a step and could feel the lump above his eye split open. Blood ran down his face. He wiped it off with his glove, counted slowly to ten, and took up his pursuit. The blood over his eye was sticky.

Bergman stopped outside a building covered with scaffolding and protective sacking. Again he looked around, and Wallander crouched down behind a parked car.

Then he was gone. Wallander waited until he heard a door shut. Soon afterwards the lights went on in rooms on the third floor.

He ran across the street and pushed his way behind the sacking. Without hesitating, he climbed up onto the scaffolding. It creaked and groaned under him. He had to keep wiping away the blood trickling into his eye. He heaved himself up onto the second level. The lit windows were barely a metre above his head. He took out his handkerchief and tied it around his head to stem the blood.

Cautiously he hauled himself up onto the next platform. The effort so exhausted him that he had to remain lying down for over a minute before he could go on. He crept forwards along the freezing planks, which were covered with scraped off stucco. He dared not think how far above the ground he was, or he would get vertigo at once.

He peered over the window ledge into the first lit room. Through the net curtains he could see a woman sleeping in a double bed. The covers next to her had been thrown back as if someone had got out in a hurry.

He crawled further along. When he looked over the next window ledge, he saw Bergman talking to a man wearing a dark-brown dressing gown. Wallander felt as if he had actually seen him before. That was how well the Romanian woman had described the man standing in the field eating an apple.

He felt his heart pounding. So he had been right after all. It had to be the same man. They were talking in low voices. Too low to hear what they were saying. The man in the dressing gown disappeared through a door and at the same moment Bergman looked straight at Wallander.

Caught, he thought, as he pulled back his head. Those bastards won't hesitate to shoot me. He was paralysed with fear. I'm going to die, he thought desperately. They're going to blow my head off. But nothing happened.

Finally he got up the nerve to peer inside again. The man in the dressing gown was standing there, eating an apple. Bergman was holding two shotguns. He laid one of them on a table. The other one he stuffed under his coat. Wallander realised he had seen more than enough. He turned and crept back the way he had come.

How it happened, he would never know.

He lost his footing in the dark. When he reached for the scaffolding, his hand grabbed at empty space. He fell. He had no time to think that he was going to die. One of his legs caught between two planks. He jerked to a halt, the pain excruciating. He was hanging upside down with his head a metre above the ground.

He tried to wriggle loose. But his foot was wedged tight. He was hanging in midair, unable to do anything. The blood was pounding in his temples. The pain was so bad that he had tears in his eyes. At that moment he heard the outside door open.

Bergman had left the flat. Wallander bit his knuckles to keep from screaming. Through the sacking he saw the man stop suddenly. Right in front of him. He saw a flash. The shot, thought Wallander. Now I'm going to die.

He realised that Bergman had lit a cigarette. The footsteps moved away. Wallander was about to pass out. An image of Linda flickered before him.

With enormous effort he swung his body and with one hand managed to grab hold of one of the uprights on the scaffolding. He pulled himself up far enough to get a grip on the planks where his foot was wedged tight. He gathered all his remaining strength. Then he tugged hard. His foot broke loose, and he lost his grip. He landed on his back in a mound of gravel. He lay perfectly still, trying to feel if anything was broken.

When he stood up, he was so dizzy that he had to hold on to the wall so he wouldn't fall. It took him almost 20 minutes to make his way back to the car. He saw the hands of the station clock pointing to 4.30 a.m.

Wallander sank into the driver's seat and closed his eyes. Then he drove back to Ystad. I have to get some sleep, he thought. Tomorrow is another day. Then I'll do what has to be done.

He groaned when he saw his face in the bathroom mirror. He rinsed his wounds with warm water.

It was almost 6 a.m. by the time he crawled between the sheets. He set the alarm clock for 6.45. He didn't dare sleep any later than that.

He tried to find the position that hurt the least. Just as he was falling asleep, he was jerked awake by a bang on the front door. The morning paper. Then he stretched out again. In his dreams Anette Brolin was coming towards him. Somewhere a horse neighed.

It was Sunday, 14 January. The day dawned with increased wind from the northeast.

Kurt Wallander slept.

CHAPTER 12

He thought he had slept for a long time, but when he woke up and looked at the clock, he realised that he had been asleep only briefly. The telephone had woken him. Rydberg was calling from a phone box in Malmö.

"Come on back," said Wallander. "You don't have to stand there freezing. Come here, to my place."

"What happened?"

"It's him."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely positive."

"I'm on my way."

Wallander climbed painfully out of bed. His body ached and his temples were throbbing. While the coffee was brewing, he sat at the kitchen table with a pocket mirror and a piece of cotton wool. With great difficulty he succeeded in fastening a gauze pad over the wound on his forehead. His whole face was a palette of shades of blue and purple.

Rydberg appeared in the doorway less than an hour later. While they drank coffee, Wallander told him his story.

"Good," Rydberg said afterwards. "Excellent work. Now we'll bring in those bastards. What was the name of the guy in Lund?"

"I forgot to look at the name in the doorway. And we're not the ones who'll bring them in. That's Björk's job."

"Is he back?"

"He was supposed to get in last night."

"Then let's haul him out of his bed."

"The prosecutor too. And we'll have to co-ordinate with Malmö and Lund, right?"

While Wallander was dressing, Rydberg was on the phone. Wallander was gratified to hear that he wasn't taking no for an answer. He wondered whether Anette Brolin's husband was visiting this weekend.

Rydberg stood in the bedroom doorway and watched him knot his tie.

"You look like a boxer," he said, laughing. "A punch-drunk boxer."

"Did you get Björk?"

"He seems to have spent the evening catching up with everything that's happened. He was relieved to hear that we had solved one of the murders, at least."

"The prosecutor?"

"She'll come right away."

"Was she the one who answered the phone?"