Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,137

drove to Sjösten’s flat. Wallander knew he had to call Baiba. There was no escaping it. She would be packing. He couldn’t postpone telling her the news any longer.

“I have to make a phone call to Latvia,” he said. “Just a couple of minutes.”

Sjösten showed him where the phone was. Wallander waited until Sjösten had gone into the bathroom before he dialled the number. When it rang the first time he hung up. He had no idea what to say. He didn’t dare tell her. He would wait until tomorrow night and then make up a story: that the whole thing had come up suddenly and now he wanted her to come to Ystad instead. He couldn’t think of a better solution. At least for himself.

They talked for another half hour over a glass of whisky. Sjösten made a call to check that Elisabeth Carlén was still under surveillance.

“She’s asleep,” he said. “Maybe we ought to go to bed too.”

Sjösten gave him sheets and Wallander made up a bed for himself in a room with children’s drawings on the walls. He turned off the light and was asleep immediately.

He woke drenched in sweat. He must have had a nightmare, although he remembered nothing. He had only slept for a couple of hours. He wondered why he’d woken, and turned over to go back to sleep. But he was wide awake. Where the feeling came from he had no idea. He was gripped with panic.

He had left Linda alone in Ystad. She shouldn’t be there by herself. He had to go home. Without another thought he got up, dressed, and quickly scribbled a note to Sjösten. He drove out of town. Perhaps he should call her. But what would he say? She’d just be frightened. He drove as fast as he could through the light summer night. He didn’t understand where the panic had come from. But it was definitely there, and it wouldn’t let go.

It was light when he parked on Mariagatan. He unlocked the door carefully. The terror had not abated. Not until he pushed open Linda’s door gently, saw her head on the pillow and heard her breathing, did he calm down.

He sat on the sofa. Now fear had been replaced by embarrassment. He wrote a note to her, which he left on the coffee table in case she got up, saying that his plans had changed and that he’d come home. He set the alarm clock for 5 a.m, knowing that Sjösten got up early to work on his boat. He had no idea how he was going to explain his departure in the middle of the night. He lay in bed and wondered what lay behind his panic, but he couldn’t find an answer. It took a long time before he fell asleep.

CHAPTER 34

When the doorbell rang he knew at once that it had to be Baiba. Oddly, he wasn’t nervous at all, even though it wasn’t going to be much fun explaining to her why he hadn’t told her that their holiday had to be postponed. Then he started and sat up in bed. Of course she wasn’t there. It was only the alarm clock ringing, the hands positioned like a gaping mouth at 5.03 a.m. The confusion passed, he put his hand over the alarm button and then sat motionless. Reality slowly dawned. The town was quiet. Few sounds other than birdsong penetrated his room. He couldn’t remember whether he’d dreamed about Baiba or not. The flight from the child’s room in Sjösten’s flat now seemed wildly irrational. Not like him at all.

With a yawn he got up and went into the kitchen. On the table he found a note from Linda. I communicate with my daughter through a series of notes, he thought. When she makes one of her occasional stops in Ystad. He read over what she had written and realised that the dream about Baiba, waking up and believing that she was standing outside his door, had contained a warning. Linda’s note said that Baiba had called and would he call right away. Baiba’s irritation was recognisable from the note.

He couldn’t call her, not now. He’d call her tonight, or maybe tomorrow. Or should he have Martinsson do it? He could give her the unfortunate news that the man she was intending to go to Skagen with, the man she assumed would be standing at Kastrup Airport to meet her, was up to his neck in a hunt for a maniac