Tags:
Fiction,
General,
detective,
Suspense,
Mystery & Detective,
Mystery,
Police,
Political,
Hard-Boiled,
Fiction - Mystery,
Police Procedural,
Mystery & Detective - General,
Swedish (Language) Contemporary Fiction,
Kurt (Fictitious character),
Wallander
ambulance driver, a man called Antonson. His assistant was a young man he had never seen before.
"Good morning," said Wallander. "He's dead. But the woman here is alive. Try to keep her that way."
"What happened?" asked Antonson.
"I hope she'll be able to tell us, if she makes it Hurry up now!"
When the ambulance had vanished down the road, Wallander and Peters went outside. Norén was wiping his face with a handkerchief. The dawn was approaching. Wallander looked at his wristwatch. It was 7.28 a.m.
"It's a slaughterhouse in there," said Peters.
"Worse," replied Wallander. "Call in and request a full team. Tell Norén to seal off the area. I'm going to talk to the old man."
Just as he said that, he heard something that sounded like a scream. He jumped, and then the scream came again. It was a horse whinnying. They went over to the stable and opened the door. Inside in the dark a horse was rustling in its stall. The place smelled of warm manure and urine.
"Give the horse some water and hay," said Wallander. "Maybe there are other animals here too."
When he emerged from the stable he gave a shudder. Crows were screeching in a lone tree far out in a field. He sucked the cold air into his throat and noted that the wind was picking up.
"Your name is Nyström," he said to the man, who by now had stopped weeping. "You have to help me. If I understand correctly, you live next door."
The man nodded. "What happened here?" he asked in a quavering voice.
"That's what I'm hoping you can tell me," said Wallander. "Maybe we could go to your house."
In the kitchen a woman in an old-fashioned dressing gown sat slumped in a chair crying. But as soon as Wallander introduced himself she got up and started to make coffee. The men sat down at the kitchen table. Wallander noticed Christmas decorations still hanging in the window. An old cat lay on the windowsill, staring at him without blinking. He reached out his hand to pat it.
"He bites," said Nyström. "He's not used to people. Except for Hanna and me."
Wallander thought of his own wife, who had left him and wondered where to begin. A bestial murder, he thought. And if we're really unlucky, it'll be a double murder. Something occurred to him. He knocked on the kitchen window to get Norén's attention.
"Excuse me for a moment," he said, getting up.
"The horse had both water and hay," said Norén. "There aren't any other animals."
"See that someone goes over to the hospital," said Wallander. "In case she wakes up and says something. She must have seen everything."
Norén nodded.
"Send somebody with good ears," said Wallander. "Preferably someone who can lip-read."
When he came back into the kitchen he took off his overcoat and laid it on the sofa.
"Now tell me," he said. "Tell me, and leave nothing out. Take your time."
After two cups of weak coffee he could see that neither
Nyström nor his wife had anything significant to tell. He got the chronology of events, and the life story of the couple who had been attacked. He had two questions left to ask them.
"Do you know if they kept any large sums of money in the house?" he asked.
"No," said Nyström. "They put everything in the bank. Their pensions too. And they weren't rich. When they sold off the fields and the animals and the machinery, they gave the money to their children."
The second question seemed futile. But he asked it anyway. In this situation he had no choice.
"Do you know if they had any enemies?" he asked.
"Enemies?"
"Anybody who might possibly have done this?"
They didn't seem to understand the question. He repeated it. The two old people looked at each other, bewildered.
"People like us don't have enemies," the man replied, sounding offended. "Sometimes we quarrel with each other. About the upkeep of a wagon path, or the location of the field boundaries. But we don't kill each other."
Wallander nodded.
"I'll be in touch again soon," he said, getting up and taking his coat. "If you think of anything else,