Before the Frost
- Автор: Манкелль Хеннинг
- Серия: Linda Wallander #1
- Год: 2004
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Harvill Press
- ISBN: 978-1-84343-113-8
- Переводчик: Ebba Segerberg
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «Before the Frost». Краткое содержание книги:
“It may help us identify her,” Wallander said. “That’s what counts right now.”
Nyberg walked back over to the low wall next to the graveyard and started yelling at a photographer who was taking pictures of the burning church. Wallander and Martinsson walked down to the barricades.
They saw Linda and waved her over.
“Just couldn’t stay away?” her dad said. “You can come with us.”
“How is it going?”
“We don’t know what we’re looking for,” Wallander said slowly. “But these churches didn’t set fire to themselves, that much is certain.”
“They’re working on tracing Harriet Bolson,” Martinsson said. “They’ll let me know the minute they find something.”
“I’m trying to understand the significance of the rope,” Wallander said. “Why a church, and why an American woman? What does it mean?”
“A few people, at least three but maybe more, come to a church in the middle of the night,” Martinsson said.
Wallander stopped him.
“Why more than three? Two who commit the murder and one victim. Isn’t that enough?”
“Theoretically, yes. But something tells me there were more, maybe many more. They unlocked the door. There are only two existing keys. The minister has one, and the church warden who fainted has the other. They’ve both confirmed possession of their keys. Therefore we have to assume these people used a sophisticated pass key or a copy,” Martinsson said.
“A group, a society. A band of people who chose this church to execute Harriet Bolson. Is she guilty of something? Did she become victim to a kind of religious extremism? Are we dealing with satanists or some other kind of lunatic fringe? We don’t have the answers.”
“Another thing,” Wallander said. “What about the note I found on her body? Why was it left behind?”
“So that we would be able to identify her. Perhaps it was a message to us.”
“We have to confirm her identity,” Wallander said. “If she so much as visited a dentist in this country, we’ll know.”
“They’re working on it.”
Martinsson sounded affronted.
“I don’t mean to get on your case. What’s the word?”
“Nothing, as of yet,” Martinsson said. “Then there’s another thing. Whoever saw a pendant necklace shaped like a shoe or a sandal?”
He shook his head and walked away.
Linda held her breath. Had she heard him correctly?
“What was it he said? What have you found?”
“A note with a name and address.”
“Apart from that. Something else?”
“A pendant necklace.”
“That looked like something?”
“A footprint. A shoe. Why do you ask?”
She ignored his question.
“What kind of shoe?”
“Maybe a sandal.”
The light from the fire grew brighter in spurts as gusts of wind caught the flames.
“May I remind you that Anna’s dad was a sandal-maker before he disappeared? That’s all.”
It took a moment to click in his mind. Then he nodded slowly.
“Good,” he said. “Very good. That may just be the opening we need. The question is, where does it leave us?”
38
Wallander had tried to send Linda home to get some sleep, but she had insisted on staying. She had curled up in the back seat of a patrol car and only woke up when he rapped sharply on the window. He’s never learned the art of waking a person gently, she thought. My father doesn’t simply wake people up, he tears them from their dreams.
She stepped out of the car and shivered. Shreds of fog drifted over the fields. The church had burned to the ground, and only the gaping, sooty walls remained. Thick smoke still rose from the caved-in roof. Most of the fire trucks were gone; only two crews were needed for the mop-up. Martinsson had left, but she could see Lindman in the distance. He came over to her and handed her a cup of coffee. Her dad was speaking with a journalist on the other side of the police line.
“I’ve never seen anything like this landscape before,” Lindman said. “Not in the west, not up in Härjedalen. Here Sweden simply slopes down into the sea and ends. All this mud and fog. It’s very strange. I’m trying to find my feet in a landscape that’s completely alien to me.”
Linda mumbled that fog was fog, mud was mud. What could possibly be strange about something so ordinary?
“Anything new on the woman?” she asked.
“Not yet. But she’s definitely not a Swedish citizen.”
“Any reason to think she’s not the person named in the note?”
“No. It’s far-fetched to think the murderer would leave a false name.”
Wallander came walking over. The journalist disappeared down the hill.
“I’ve talked to Chief Holgersson,” he said. “Since you’re already involved in the fringes of this investigation, we may as well let you in on the whole thing. I’d better get used to having you around. It’ll be a little like having a ball constantly bouncing up and down by my side.”
Linda thought he was making fun of her.
“At least I can still bounce. That’s more than some people I know.”
Lindman laughed. Wallander looked angry, but controlled himself.
“Don’t ever have children, Lindman,” he said. “You see what I have to deal with.”
A car swung onto the road leading up to the church. Nyberg got out.
“He’s freshly showered,” Wallander noted. “Ready for another day of unpleasantness, no doubt. He’ll keel over and die the day he retires and no longer has to be digging in the mud with rainwater up to his knees.”
“He acts like a dog,” Lindman said in a low voice. “Have you noticed? It’s almost as if he’s sniffing around, and wishing he could just get down on all fours.”
Linda had to agree: Nyberg really did look like an animal intent on picking up a scent.
Nyberg joined their group, seeming not to notice Linda. He smelled strongly of aftershave.
“Do we have any idea how the fires started?” Wallander asked. “I talked to Olsson and he said both churches started burning in several places. The church warden who came on the scene early said that it looked like the fire was burning in a circle, which would imply that it caught in several places at once.”
“We haven’t found anything yet,” Nyberg said. “But it’s clearly arson.”
“There’s a difference between the two cases,” Wallander said. “The fire in Hurup seems to have started more in the manner of an explosion. Someone in one of the neighboring houses said it sounded as if a bomb had gone off. The blazes were started in different ways, but synchronized.”
“It’s a definite pattern,” Lindman said. “Starting a fire to distract attention from the murder.”
“But why a church?” Wallander asked. “And why would you strangle a person with a hawser?”
He looked over at Linda.
“What do you see in all this?”
She felt herself blushing. The question had come so suddenly that she was unprepared for it.
“The site has been chosen deliberately,” she started hesitantly. “Strangling someone with a rope seems akin to torture. But this is also something that has to do with religion, like an eye for an eye, death by stoning, or living burial. Why not strangle someone with a hawser?”
Before anyone had a chance to respond, Lindman’s cell phone rang. He listened, then held it out to Wallander.
“We’re starting to get information from the States,” he said. “Let’s go back to Ystad.”
“Do you need me?” Nyberg asked.