One Step Behind

Holgersson and Thurnberg appeared at his side. Wallander had been so lost in thought that he jumped.

"The road should have been blocked off," Thurnberg said, by way of greeting.

Wallander looked back at him stonily. At that moment he decided two things. He wasn't going to relinquish leadership in this case willingly, and he was going to start speaking his mind, the latter effective immediately.

"Wrong," he answered. "The roads shouldn't have been blocked off at all. You can of course order us to do so, but it won't receive my endorsement."

This wasn't the answer Thurnberg was expecting, and he looked taken aback.

He was too puffed up, Wallander thought with satisfaction. He was so puffed up by his own sense of importance that he burst. Wallander turned his back on Thurnberg. Holgersson looked paler than he'd ever seen her before. He could see his own fear in her eyes.

"It's the same man?"

"I'm sure of it."

"But a couple of newly-weds?"

It was the first thought that had come to him as well.

"You could say that wedding clothes are a kind of costume."

"Is that what he's after?"

"I don't know."

"What else could it be?"

Wallander didn't answer. The only possibility he could see was a madman. A madman who wasn't a madman, but who had killed eight people, including a police officer.

"I've never been involved in anything so horrible in my whole life," she said. After a moment she added, "I heard they were married nearby."

"In Köpingebro," Wallander told her. "The reception is about to begin."

She looked at him and he knew what she was thinking.

"I'm going to ask Martinsson to contact the photographer's family," he said. "He can contact the Malmö police for help. You and I will drive out to Köpingebro."

Thurnberg stood a short distance away, talking to someone on his mobile phone. Wallander wondered who it was. He gathered everyone around him and asked Hansson to take charge until he returned.

"Answer all of Thurnberg's questions," Wallander said. "But if he tries to tell you what to do, let me know."

"Why on earth would a chief prosecutor try to tell the police how to do their work?"

Now there's a good question, Wallander thought. But he left without answering and joined Holgersson, who was waiting silently in her car.

At 10 p.m. on Saturday, 17 August, it began to rain. Wallander was already back at the crime scene. Notifying the next of kin, entering that room of joy with his brutal news, was even worse than he had imagined. Holgersson was strangely passive during the visit, perhaps because her encounters with the parents of the young people in the reserve the week before had drained her of any remaining energy. Maybe we have a set quota for these kinds of experiences, Wallander thought. I must have met mine by now.

It was a relief to get back to Nybrostrand. Holgersson had already returned to Ystad by then. Wallander had been in touch with Hansson by phone several times, but there was nothing new to report. Hansson told him that Rolf Haag was unmarried and childless. Martinsson had delivered the news to his aged father, who was in a nursing home. A nurse assured Martinsson that the old man had long since forgotten he even had a son.

Nyberg had just been given a freshly developed copy of the one photograph Rolf Haag had taken. The bride and groom smiled into the camera. Wallander looked at it intently for a moment. He suddenly remembered something Nyberg had said to him earlier.

"What was it you said?" he asked. "When we were standing here before. You had just discovered that he had managed to take a picture."

"I said something?"

"It was some kind of comment."

Nyberg thought hard. "I think I said that the killer didn't like happy people."

"What did you mean by that?"

"Svedberg is the exception, of course. But with the young people in the nature reserve, I think their celebration could be characterised as joyous."

Wallander sensed he was on to something. He looked at the wedding picture again, then gave it back to Nyberg and was about to say a few words to Höglund when Martinsson pulled him aside.

"I thought you should know that someone has filed charges against you."

Wallander stared back at him.

"Against me? Why?"

"For assault."

Martinsson scratched his head apologetically. "Do you remember that jogger in the nature reserve? Nils Hagroth?"

"He was trespassing."

"Well, he filed the charges anyway. Thurnberg's got wind of it and seems to take it seriously."

Wallander was speechless.

"I just wanted to tell you," Martinsson said. "That's all."

It was raining harder now. Martinsson left.

A police spotlight illuminated the place where, a few hours earlier, a couple of newly-weds had been murdered. It was 10.30 p.m.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It stopped raining shortly after midnight. Wallander walked down to the sea to think. It was what he most needed to do at this point. A fresh smell was rising up from the ground after the rain. There were no more wafts of rotting seaweed. The hot weather had lasted for two weeks. Now that the rain had passed, it was warming up again and there was still no wind. The waves against the shore were almost imperceptible.

Wallander pissed into the water. In his mind's eye he could see the little white grains of sugar congealing in his veins. He was constantly dry-mouthed, had trouble keeping his eyes focused on an object, and feared that his blood-sugar levels were increasing.

As he walked along the dark beach, his thoughts returned to the latest events. He was convinced that the lone swimmer, the man with the striped towel, was the one they were looking for. There was no other plausible suspect. He was the one who had been in the nature reserve, probably hidden behind the tree that Wallander had pinpointed. Later he had been in Svedberg's flat. And now he had emerged from the ocean. His weapon was concealed in the sand, his car parked on a nearby road.

The swimmer had been to this place more than once. He must have gone to the same spot and dug a hole in the sand. It could even have been in the middle of the night. Wallander felt he was getting closer to unlocking the secret now, but he wasn't quite there yet. The answer is quite simple, he thought. It's like looking for the pair of glasses on your nose.

He began walking slowly back. The spotlights shone in the distance. Now he tried following in Svedberg's footsteps. Who was the person he had let into his flat? Who was Louise? Who had sent those postcards from all over Europe? What was it you knew, Svedberg? Why didn't you want to tell me, even though Ylva Brink says I was your closest friend?

He stopped. The question he'd posed suddenly seemed more important than before. If Svedberg hadn't wanted to tell anyone what he was up to, it could only have been because he was hoping he was wrong. There was simply no other reason for it. But Svedberg had been right, and that was why he was killed.

Wallander had almost reached the police barricades. There was still a little group of people gathered around the perimeter, trying to see something of the sombre tragedy that had taken place. When Wallander came over the sand dunes, Nyberg had just finished making some notes.

"We have some footprints," Nyberg said. "I mean that quite literally, since the killer was barefoot."

"Have you pieced together what happened?"

Nyberg put the notebook away. "The photographer was hit first," he said. "There's no doubt about that. The bullet entered his neck at an angle, so he may have had his back partially turned. If the first shot had been aimed at the couple, he would have turned around and been shot from the front."

"And next?"

"It's hard to say. I think the groom was probably the next to go. A man is more of a threat, physically. Then the girl last."