The man in the passenger seat started groaning and moving. Victor Mabasha could see he must have hit him precisely as hard as he had intended.
He turned into the cemetery and came to a halt in the shadow of a green building containing a shop that sold flowers and wreaths during the day. Now it was closed and in darkness. He turned off his lights and watched the cars taking the slip road. None of them seemed to be slowing down.
He waited another ten minutes. But nothing happened, apart from the policeman coming to.
“Not a sound,” said Victor Mabasha, ripping off the tape over the man’s mouth.
A cop understands, he thought. He knows when a guy means what he says. He then began to wonder if a man who abducted a policeman risked hanging in Sweden.
He got out of the car, listened, and looked around. All was quiet, apart from the passing traffic. He walked round the car, opened the door and motioned to the man to get out. Then he led him to one of the iron gates and they soon disappeared in the darkness consuming the gravel paths and gravestones.
Victor Mabasha led him over to the burial vault where he had managed to open the iron door without difficulty. It smelled musty in the damp vault, but he was not scared by graveyards. He had often hidden among the dead in the past.
He had bought a hurricane lamp and an extra sleeping bag. At first the cop refused to go with him into the vault, and put up a show of resistance.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you, either. But you’ve got to go in there.”
He tucked the cop into one of the sleeping bags, lit the lamp, and went out to see if the light could be seen. But it was all dark.
Once again he stood still and listened. The many years he had spent constantly on the alert had developed his hearing. Something had moved on a gravel path. The cop’s backup, he thought. Or some nocturnal animal.
In the end he decided it was not a threat. He went back into the vault and squatted opposite the cop, whose name was Kurt Wallander.
The fear Wallander had first felt had now become positive fright, perhaps even terror.
“If you do as I say no harm will come to you,” said Victor Mabasha. “But you must answer my questions. And you must tell the truth. I know you’re a cop. I can see you’re looking at my left hand and the bandage all the time. That means you’ve found my finger. The one Konovalenko cut off. I want to tell you right away he was the one who killed the woman. It’s up to you if you believe me or not. I only came to this country to stay for a short time, and I’ve decided to kill only one person. Konovalenko. But you have to help me first by telling me where he is. Once Konovalenko’s dead, I’ll let you go right away.”
Victor Mabasha waited for a reply. Then he remembered something he had forgotten.
“I don’t suppose you have a shadow?” he asked. “A car following you?”
The man shook his head.
“You’re on your own?”
“Yes,” said the policeman, making a face.
“I had to make sure you didn’t start struggling,” said Victor Mabasha. “But I don’t think my punch did too much damage.”
“No,” said the man, grimacing.
Victor Mabasha sat there in silence. There was no rush for the moment. The cop would feel calmer if everything was quiet.
Victor Mabasha did not blame him for being afraid. He knew how abandoned a man could feel when he was terrified.
“Konovalenko,” he said quietly. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” said Wallander.
Victor Mabasha eyed him up and down, and realized the cop knew who Konovalenko was, but did not actually know where he was. That was unfortunate. That would make everything more difficult, would take more time. But it wouldn’t really change anything fundamentally. Together, they would be able to find Konovalenko.
Victor Mabasha slowly recounted everything that had happened when the woman was killed. But he said nothing about why he was in Sweden in the first place.
“So he was the one who blew the house up?” said Wallander when he was through.
“You know what happened now,” said Victor Mabasha. “Now it’s your turn to put me in the picture.”
The cop had suddenly calmed down, even if he did seem put out at being in a cold, damp burial vault. Behind their backs were caskets inside sarcophagi, stacked on top of one another.
“Do you have a name?” he asked.
“Just call me Goli,” said Victor Mabasha. “That’ll do.”
“And you come from South Africa?”
“Maybe. But that’s not important.”
“It’s important for me.”
“The only thing that’s important for both of us is where Konovalenko is.”
The last part of this claim was spat out. The policeman understood. The fear returned to his eyes.
That very same moment Victor Mabasha stiffened. He had not relaxed his guard while talking to the policeman. Now his sensitive ears had picked up a noise outside the vault. He gestured to the cop to keep still. Then he took out his pistol and turned down the flame in the hurricane lamp.
There was somebody outside the vault. And it was not an animal. The movements were too meticulously cautious.
He leaned rapidly over the cop and grabbed him by the throat.
“For the last time,” he hissed, “was there anybody tailing you?”
“No. Nobody. I swear.”
Victor Mabasha let go. Konovalenko, he thought in a fury. I don’t know how you do it, but I do know now why Jan Kleyn wants you working for him in South Africa.
They could not stay in the vault. He eyed the hurricane lamp. That was their chance.
“When I open the door, throw the lamp to the left,” he said to the cop, untying his hands at the same time. He turned up the flame as far as it would go, and handed it over.
“Jump to the right,” he whispered. “Crouch down. Don’t get in my line of fire.”
He could see the cop wanted to protest. But he raised his hand and Wallander said nothing. Then he cocked the pistol and they got ready for action.
“I’ll count to three,” he said.
He flung open the iron door and the cop hurled the lamp to the left. Victor Mabasha fired at the same moment. The cop came stumbling behind him and he almost overbalanced. Just then he heard shots from at least two different weapons. He threw himself to one side and crawled behind a gravestone. The cop crawled off in some other direction. The hurricane lamp lit up the burial vault. Victor Mabasha detected a movement in one corner and fired. The bullet hit the iron door and disappeared whining into the vault. Another shot shattered the hurricane lamp and everything went black. Somebody scampered away along one of the gravel paths. Then all was quiet once more.
Kurt Wallander could feel his heart pounding like a piston against his ribs. He did not seem able to breathe properly, and thought he’d been hit. But there was no blood, and he couldn’t feel any pain apart from his tongue, which he had bitten some time ago. With great care he crawled behind a tall gravestone. He lay there absolutely still. His heart was still pounding away. Victor Mabasha was nowhere to be seen. Once he was sure he was alone, he started running. He stumbled his way forward along the gravel paths, running towards the lights on the main road, and the noise from what cars were still out. He kept running until he was outside the boundary fence of the cemetery. He stopped at a bus stop and managed to wave down a cab on its way back to the city from Arlanda airport.
“Central Hotel,” he gasped.
The driver eyed him up and down in suspicion.
“I don’t know if I want you in my cab,” he said. “You’ll make everything filthy.”
“I’m a cop, dammit,” Wallander roared. “Just drive!”
The driver pulled away from the bus stop. When they got to the hotel he paid for the taxi without waiting for either a receipt or his change, and collected his key from the receptionist, who stared at his clothes in astonishment. It was midnight when he closed the door behind him and collapsed onto the bed.