Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,123
looked at him gravely.
“You most of all should be aware of this,” he said. “I was thinking of talking to you about it anyway.”
“Why me?”
“You’re the most visible one of us. The search for the man who committed these four murders involves a lot of people. But the name and face that are most regularly seen are yours.”
Wallander grimaced. “You can’t expect me to take this seriously?”
“That’s for you to decide.”
When Ekholm had left, Wallander stayed behind, trying to gauge his true reaction to Ekholm’s warning. It was like a cold wind blowing through the room, he thought. But nothing more.
That afternoon Wallander drove back to Ystad with the others. It was decided that the investigation would continue to be directed from Ystad. Wallander sat in silence for the whole trip, giving only terse replies when Hansson asked him something. When they arrived they held a short briefing with Svedberg, Martinsson and Åkeson. Svedberg told them that it was now possible to speak with Carlman’s daughter. They decided that Wallander and Höglund would pay a visit to the hospital the next morning. When the meeting was over, Wallander called his father. Gertrud answered. All was back to normal. His father had no recollection of what had happened.
Wallander also called home. No answer. Linda wasn’t there. On his way out of the station he asked Ebba whether there was any word on his keys. Nothing. He drove down to the harbour and walked along the pier, then sat down in the harbour café and had a beer. He sat and watched the people passing by. Depressed, he got up and went back out on the pier, and sat on a bench next to the sea rescue hut.
It was a warm, windless evening. Someone was playing a concertina on a boat. One of the ferries from Poland was coming in. Without actually being conscious of it, he started to make a connection in his mind. He sat perfectly still and let his thoughts work. He was beginning to discern the contours of the drama. There were a lot of gaps still, but he could see where they should concentrate their investigation.
He didn’t think that the way they had been working so far was to blame. The problem was with the conclusions he had made. He drove home and wrote down a summary at his kitchen table. Linda arrived back just before midnight. She had seen the papers.
“Who is doing this? What is someone like this made of?” she asked.
Wallander thought for a while before he replied.
“He’s like you and me,” he said at last. “By and large, just like you and me.”
CHAPTER 31
Wallander woke with a start.
His eyes flew open and he lay completely still. The light of the summer night was grey. Someone was moving around in the flat. He glanced quickly at the clock on the bedside table. It was 2.15 a.m. His terror was instantaneous. He knew it wasn’t Linda. Once she fell asleep, she didn’t get up again until morning. He held his breath and listened. The sound was very faint.
The person moving around was barefoot.
Wallander got out of bed noiselessly. He looked for something to defend himself with. He had locked his service revolver in his desk at the station. The only thing in the bedroom he could use was the broken arm of a chair. He picked it up and listened again. The sound seemed to be coming from the kitchen. He came out of the bedroom and looked towards the living-room. He passed the door to Linda’s room. It was closed. She was asleep. Now he was very scared. The sounds were coming from the kitchen. He stood in the doorway of the living-room and listened. Ekholm was right after all. He prepared himself to meet someone who was very strong. The chair arm wouldn’t be much help. He remembered that he had a replica of a pair of old-fashioned brass knuckles in one of the drawers in the bookshelf. They had been the prize in a police lottery. He decided that his fists were better protection than the chair arm. He could still hear sounds in the kitchen. He moved cautiously across the parquet floor and opened the drawer. The brass knuckles were underneath a copy of his tax return. He put them on his right hand. At the same instant he realised that the sounds in the kitchen had stopped. He spun round and raised his arms.