01. Faceless Killers

4 parts of 55 minutes each - First broadcast: 24.08.2003 

Part 1: In Lenarp, a small village in southern Sweden, an old farmer couple is brutally attacked at night. The bestially executed man is already dead, the woman is critically injured. Her last words before she succumbs to her injuries in hospital are "Foreigner, foreigner". Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team from the Ystadt police take on the explosive case. At first there are no concrete clues. The couple were not wealthy and had no obvious enemies. Only a strangely knotted noose around the woman's neck gives a hint of a clue. When the dead woman's brother tells the police that his brother-in-law had made a fortune through crooked deals during the war, the first promising breakthrough in the investigation seems to have been made. The farmer Johannes Löwgren also had an illegitimate son with a woman in Kristiansand. A motive at last? However, Wallander is unable to counter the anger and mistrust of foreigners that is growing in the population: An arson attack is carried out on the asylum seekers' home on the outskirts of the city. Only the courageous efforts of Wallander himself, who is on the scene investigating, prevent the worst from happening.

Part 2: The gruesome murder of the elderly farmer couple Johannes and Maria Löwgren continues to cause great unrest among the population. The investigation is making slow progress. Wallander, who is suffering privately from the separation from his wife Mona, has to motivate his colleagues again and again. In his desire for human warmth and affection, the detective fixates on his new colleague and prosecutor Anette Brolin. The situation escalates when an indiscretion leaks information to the press that the perpetrators are probably foreigners. Wallander soon receives anonymous phone calls from the right-wing, xenophobic scene giving him an ultimatum. If the police did not arrest the murderer immediately, the caller would take matters into his own hands. Shortly afterwards, the unbelievable happens: A Somali refugee from the asylum seekers' home, father of nine children, is shot dead during a walk. Is it really an act of revenge from the right-wing scene? The first hot lead emerges when Bergman, a retired police officer who had reported his car stolen shortly after the murder of the Somali, is taken in for questioning. Eva Strandberg, the manager of the asylum seekers' home, heard this car start up and drive away on the day of the murder.

Part 3: The farmer couple Löwgren, who were so horribly murdered on their estate, are buried. The investigation seems to be at a standstill, but the case of the murdered Somali man provides the first hot lead. Wallander has Bergman, a retired police colleague, whose car was spotted in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene, followed. During the night, Wallander observes Bergman and his accomplice Ström exchanging the murder weapon for a shotgun. Bergman's accomplice Ström tries to escape. He is killed during a breakneck chase. Bergman is sentenced to life imprisonment for aiding and abetting the murder of the Somali. Wallander's relationship with the new public prosecutor Anette Brolin cools considerably after the inspector becomes intrusive while drunk. But Wallander unexpectedly finds a new love in Eva, the cheerful and down-to-earth manager of the asylum seekers' home. Wallander's daughter Linda also has a surprise in store for her father: she confronts him with her Kenyan boyfriend and recent fiancé. Despair slowly spreads in the case of the murdered Löwgren couple, as there are still no leads.

Part 4: Months have passed, it is now summer again, and there is still no decisive clue to the perpetrators who murdered the farming couple Löwgren so horribly on the estate in Lenarp -91-. When a report appears about a failed attempt on the life of a pensioner couple in Lund, the investigation picks up speed again, especially as it soon becomes clear that the perpetrators may be the same as those in Lenarp. Unexpectedly, Wallander falls in love. The relationship between him and the manager of the asylum seekers' home, Eva, becomes increasingly intimate. After a visit to the opera together in Copenhagen, they spend their first night together. Then the bank employee Britta-Lena Bodén makes a crucial witness statement, and suddenly, like a jigsaw puzzle, all the threads of the investigation into the farmer couple's case come together. An encounter with the potential perpetrators takes place at a fair in Kivik. When they are arrested, Wallander has to find out for himself just how ruthless and dangerous these criminals are.

© Photo: Nille Leander