Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,10

tried to wave her over. She continued to stand motionless. Even though she was still quite far from him and the billowing rape hid her face every so often, he had the impression that she was rather beautiful. He shouted to her to come towards him. When she still didn’t move he took a step into the field. At once she vanished. It happened so fast that she seemed like a frightened animal. He could feel himself getting angry. He went on walking out into the field, looking in every direction. When he caught sight of her again she had moved to the eastern corner of the field. So that she wouldn’t get away, he started running. She moved swiftly, and Wallander was soon out of breath. When he got as close as 20 metres or so from her, they were out in the middle of the field. He shouted to her.

“Police!” he yelled. “Stop where you are!”

He started walking towards her. Then he pulled up short. Everything happened very fast. She raised a plastic container over her head and started pouring a colourless liquid over her hair, her face, and her body. He thought fleetingly that she must have been carrying it the whole time. He could see that she was terrified. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring straight at him.

“Police!” he shouted again. “I just want to talk to you.”

At the same moment a smell of petrol wafted towards him. Suddenly she had a flickering cigarette lighter in one hand, which she touched to her hair. Wallander cried out as she burst into flame. Paralysed, he watched her lurch around the field as the fire sizzled and blazed over her body. Wallander could hear himself screaming. But the woman on fire was silent. Afterwards he couldn’t remember hearing her scream at all.

When he tried to run up to her the field exploded in flames. He was suddenly surrounded by smoke and fire. He held his hands in front of his face and ran, without knowing which direction he was heading. When he reached the edge of the field he tripped and tumbled into the ditch. He turned around and saw her one last time before she fell over and disappeared from his sight. She was holding her arms up as if appealing for mercy. The entire field was aflame.

Somewhere behind him he could hear Salomonsson wailing. Wallander got to his feet. His legs were shaking. Then he turned away and threw up.

CHAPTER 3

Afterwards Wallander would remember the burning girl in the rape field the way you remember, with the greatest reluctance, a distant nightmare sooner forgotten. If he appeared to maintain at least an outward sense of calm for the rest of that evening and far into the night, later he could recall nothing but trivial details. Martinsson, Hansson and especially Ann-Britt Höglund had been astonished by his calm. But they couldn’t see through the shield he had set up to protect himself. Inside him there was devastation, like a house that had collapsed.

He got back to his flat just after 2 a.m. Only then, when he sat down on his sofa, still in his filthy clothes and muddy boots, did the shield crumble. He poured himself a glass of whisky. The doors of his balcony stood open and let in the balmy night, and he cried like a baby.

The girl had been a child. She reminded him of his own daughter Linda. During his years as a policeman he had learned to be prepared for whatever might await him when he arrived at a place where someone had met a violent or sudden death. He had seen people who had hanged themselves, stuck a shotgun in their mouth, or blown themselves to bits. Somehow he had learned to endure what he saw and push it aside. But he couldn’t when there were children or young people involved. Then he was as vulnerable as when he was first a policeman. He knew that many of his colleagues reacted the same way. When children or young people died violently, for no reason, the defences erected out of habit collapsed. And that’s how it would be for Wallander as long as he continued working as a policeman.

He had completed the initial phase of the investigation in an exemplary manner. With traces of vomit still clinging to his mouth he had run up to Salomonsson, who was watching his crop burn with astonishment, and asked where the telephone