Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,108

forth on the swing.

“It’s rare that a solution comes clean out of the blue,” he said when the silence had lasted too long. “I was walking back and forth between the benches in the park, and I wondered whether I had already had the idea that would give me the solution. I might have got something right without being aware of it.”

She was thinking about what he had said. Now and then she glanced over at the neighbour’s garden.

“We didn’t learn anything at the police academy about a man who takes scalps and pours acid into the eyes of his victims,” she said. “Life really turns out to be as unpredictable as I imagined.”

Wallander nodded without replying. Then he started, unsure whether he could pull it off, and went over what he had been thinking about by the sea. He knew that telling someone else would shed a different light on it. But even though Ann-Britt listened intently, almost like a student at her master’s feet, she didn’t stop him to say that he had made a mistake or drawn a wrong conclusion. All she said when he had finished was that she was bowled over by his ability to dissect and then summarise the whole investigation, which seemed so overwhelming. But she had nothing to add. Even if Wallander’s equations were correct, they lacked the crucial components. Höglund couldn’t help him, no-one could.

She went inside and brought out some cups and a thermos of coffee. Her youngest girl came and crept onto the porch swing next to Wallander. She didn’t resemble her mother, so he assumed she took after her father, who was in Saudi Arabia. Wallander realised he still hadn’t met him.

“Your husband is a puzzle,” he said. “I’m starting to wonder if he really exists. Or if he’s just someone you dreamed up.”

“I sometimes ask myself the same question,” she answered, laughing.

The girl went inside.

“What about Carlman’s daughter?” asked Wallander, watching the girl. “How is she?”

“Svedberg called the hospital yesterday,” she said. “The crisis isn’t over. But I had the feeling that the doctors were more hopeful.”

“She didn’t leave a note?”

“Nothing.”

“It matters most that she’s a well human being,” said Wallander. “But I can’t help thinking of her as a witness.”

“To what?”

“To something that might have a bearing on her father’s death. I don’t believe that the timing of the suicide attempt was coincidental.”

“What makes me think that you’re not convinced of what you’re saying?”

“I’m not,” said Wallander. “I’m groping and fumbling my way along. There’s only one incontrovertible fact in this investigation, and that is that we have no concrete evidence to go on.”

“So we have no way of knowing if we’re on the right track?”

“Or if we’re going in circles.”

She hesitated before she asked the next question.

“Do you think that maybe there aren’t enough of us?”

“Until now I’ve dug my heels in on that issue,” said Wallander. “But I’m beginning to have my doubts. The question will come up tomorrow.”

“With Per Åkeson?”

Wallander nodded.

“What have we got to lose?”

“Small units move more easily than large ones, but you could also argue that more heads do better thinking. Åkeson’s argument is that we can work on a broader front. The infantry is spread out and covers more ground.”

“As if we were all sweeping the area.”

Wallander nodded. Her image was telling. What was missing was that the sweep they were doing was happening in a terrain where they were only barely able to take their bearings. And they had no idea of whom they were looking for.

“There’s something we’re all missing,” said Wallander. “I’m still searching for something someone said right after Wetterstedt was murdered. I can’t remember who said it. I only know that it was important, but it was too soon for me to recognise the significance.”

“You like to say that police work is most often a question of patience.”

“And it is. But patience has its limits. Someone else could get killed. We can never escape the fact that our investigation is not just a matter of solving crimes that have already been committed. Right now it feels as though our job is to prevent more murders.”

“We can’t do any more than we’re doing already.”

“How do we know that?” asked Wallander. “How do we know we’re using our resources to their best effect?”

She had no answer.

He sat there for a while longer. At 4.30 p.m. he turned down an invitation to stay and have dinner with them.

“Thanks for coming,” she said as she followed him to