One Step Behind

Wallander parked the car and hurried into the building, hunching his shoulders against the rain and wind. Ebba had a cold. She warned him to keep his distance and blew her nose. Wallander thought about the fact that she wouldn't be working there in a little less than a year.

David was due at 8.45 a.m. While he was waiting, Wallander cleaned up his desk. In a few hours he was leaving Ystad. He still wasn't sure if this was the right decision or not, but he looked forward to the prospect of driving his car through the autumn landscape, listening to opera.

David was punctual. Ebba showed him to Wallander's office.

"You have a visitor," she said smiling.

"A VIP by the looks of it," Wallander said.

He looked like his father. There was something introverted about him, something that Wallander noticed in Martinsson as well. Wallander put his policeman's cap on the table.

"What should we start with?" he asked. "Your questions or the cap?"

"The questions."

David took a piece of paper out of his pocket. He was well prepared. "Why did you become a policeman?"

The simple question threw Wallander. He was forced to think for a minute, since he had already decided to take the meeting seriously. He wanted to make his answers honest and thoughtful.

"I think I believed I would make a good policeman."

"Aren't all policemen good?"

This was not a question written on the sheet.

"Most of them, but not all. In the way that not all teachers are good."

"What did your parents say about you becoming a policeman?"

"My mother didn't say anything. She died before I had made up my mind."

"What about your dad?"

"He was against it. He was so much against it, in fact, that we almost stopped talking to each other."

"Why?"

"I don't even really know. That may sound strange, but it's the way it was."

"You must have asked him why."

"I never got a good answer."

"Is he dead?"

"He died not so long ago. So now I can't ask him any more, even if I wanted to."

Wallander's answer seemed to worry David. He hesitated over his next question.

"Have you ever regretted becoming a policeman?"

"Many times. I think everyone does."

"Why?"

"Because you have to see so much suffering. You feel helpless, and you wonder how you're going to hold out until your retirement."

"Don't you ever feel that you're helping people?"

"Sometimes, but not always."

"Do you think I should become a policeman?"

"I think you should take your time to make a decision. I think you have to be 17 or 18 years old before you really know what you want to do."

"I'm going to be either a policeman or a road construction worker."

"Road construction?"

"Helping people get around is also good."

Wallander nodded. This was a thoughtful child.

"I only have one question left," David said. "Are you ever scared?"

"Yes."

"What do you do then?"

"I don't know. I end up sleeping badly. I try to think of other things, if I can."

The boy put the piece of paper back in his pocket and looked at the cap. Wallander pushed it towards him and he tried it on. Wallander gave him a mirror. The cap was so large it fell down over his ears.

Wallander accompanied him out to the reception area. "Feel free to come back and see me again if you have more questions."

He watched the boy walk out into the blustery cold. Then he returned to his office in order to finish cleaning it out, although his desire to leave the station was growing. Höglund appeared in the doorway.

"I thought you were on sick leave."

"I am."

"How was your meeting? Martinsson told me about it."

"David is a smart boy. I tried to answer his questions as honestly as possible, but I think his dad could have done as well."

"Do you have time to talk?"

"A little. I'm about to leave town for a couple of days."

She closed the door and sat down in the chair across from his desk.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this," she said. "I want you to keep it to yourself for the time being."

She's quitting, Wallander thought. She can't take it any more.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Sometimes it's such a relief just to tell one other person."

"I'm the same."

"I'm getting a divorce," she said. "We've finally agreed on it, if you can call it that when there are two young children involved."

Wallander wasn't surprised. She had indicated that they were having serious problems early in the summer.

"I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know."

"I've gone through a divorce myself," he said. "Or was divorced. I know what hell it can be."

"But you've done so well."

"Have I? I would tend to say the opposite."

"In that case you hide it well."

The rain outside was falling harder.

"There was one other thing I wanted to tell you," she said. "Larstam is writing a book."

"A book?"

"About the murders. About what it felt like to do it."

"How do you know that?"

"I saw it in the papers."

Wallander was upset. "Who's paying him?"

"Some publishers. They're keeping the advance a secret, but I think we can safely assume it's quite large. I'm sure a mass murderer's memoirs will be a bestseller."

Wallander shook his head angrily. "It makes me sick."

She got to her feet. "I just wanted you to know."

She turned when she reached the doorway. "Have a nice trip," she said. "Wherever you're going."

She disappeared. Wallander thought about what she had told him, about her divorce and the book. They had caught Larstam before he had managed to kill his ninth victim. Afterwards everyone who came into contact with him was struck by his gentle and reserved ma

He had spent many days interrogating him. It struck him repeatedly that Åke Larstam wasn't just an enigma to the world around him but also to himself. He seemed to answer Wallander's questions honestly, but his answers shed no light.

"Why did you kill the young people celebrating Midsummer in the nature reserve?" Wallander had asked him. "You opened their letters, you followed their preparations for the party, and you shot them. Why?"

"Is there a better way for life to end?"

"Was that why you killed them? Because you thought you were doing them a favour?"

"I think so."

"Think? You must know why you did it."

"It's possible to plan things and still not be sure why you do them."

"You travelled all around Europe and sent postcards in their names. You hid their cars and buried their bodies. Why?"

"I didn't want them to be found."

"But you buried them in a way that gave you the option of disinterring them again."

"I wanted to have that option, yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know, to make my presence known perhaps. I don't know."

"You took the trouble of following Isa Edengren to Bärnsö and killing her there. Why not let her live?"

"You should finish what you start."

Sometimes Wallander had to leave the room, knowing he was in fact talking to a monster and not a human being, despite the smiling and gentle exterior. But he always returned, determined to cover all the aspects of the case, from the newly-weds whose joy Larstam had been unable to tolerate, to Svedberg.

Svedberg. They discussed their long and complicated love affair. Bror Sundelius hadn't known that Svedberg was betraying him with another man. Nils Stridh found out and threatened to talk. They talked about Svedberg's growing fears that the man he had loved in secret for ten years was somehow co