Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,32
that Wetterstedt was murdered by a burglar, but of course that can’t be excluded yet. It wasn’t a murder of convenience either, unless it was committed by someone insane. The killer took the time to hide the body. So the revenge motive remains. Who would want to take revenge on Gustaf Wetterstedt, to see him dead?”
Wallander put down his pen and read through the page with dissatisfaction. It’s too soon to draw conclusions, he thought. I have to know more. He got up and left the room. When he walked out of the station it had stopped raining. The meteorologist at Sturup was right. Wallander drove straight to Wetterstedt’s villa.
The cordon on the beach was still there. Nyberg was already at work. Along with his crew he was busy removing the tarpaulins over a section of the beach. There were a lot of spectators standing at the edge of the cordon this morning.
Wallander unlocked the front door with Wetterstedt’s key and then went straight to the study. Methodically he continued the search that Höglund had begun the night before. It took him almost half an hour to find the name of the woman Wetterstedt had called the “char-woman”. Her name was Sara Björklund. She lived on Styrbordsgången, which Wallander knew lay just past the big warehouses at the west end of town. He picked up the telephone on the desk and dialled the number. Eventually a harsh male voice answered.
“I’m looking for Sara Björklund,” said Wallander.
“She’s not home,” said the man.
“Where can I get in touch with her?”
“Who’s asking?” said the man evasively.
“Inspector Kurt Wallander from the Ystad police.”
There was a long silence at the other end.
“Are you still there?” said Wallander, not bothering to conceal his impatience.
“Does this have something to do with Wetterstedt?” asked the man. “Sara Björklund is my wife.”
“I have to speak with her.”
“She’s in Malmö. She won’t be back till this afternoon.”
“When can I get hold of her? What time? Try to be exact!”
“I’m sure she’ll be home by 5 p.m.”
“I’ll come by your house then,” said Wallander and hung up.
He left the house and went down to Nyberg on the beach.
“Find anything?” he asked.
Nyberg was standing with a bucket of sand in one hand.
“Nothing,” he said. “But if he was killed here and fell into the sand, there has to be some blood. Maybe not from his back. But from his head. It must have spurted blood. There are some big veins in the scalp.”
Wallander nodded.
“Where did you find the spray can?” he asked.
Nyberg pointed to a spot beyond the cordon.
“I doubt it has anything to do with this,” said Wallander.
“Me neither,” said Nyberg.
Wallander was just about to go back to his car when he remembered that he had one more question for Nyberg.
“The light by the gate to the garden is out,” he said. “Can you take a look at it?”
“What do you want me to do?” Nyberg wondered. “Change the bulb?”
“I just want to know why it’s not working,” said Wallander. “That’s all.”
He drove back to the station. The sky was grey, but it wasn’t raining.
“Reporters are calling constantly,” said Ebba as he passed the reception desk.
“They’re welcome to come to the press conference at one o’clock,” said Wallander. “Where’s Ann-Britt?”
“She left a while ago. She didn’t say where she was going.”
“What about Hansson?”
“I think he’s in Per Åkeson’s office. Should I find him for you?”
“We have to get ready for the press conference. Get someone to bring more chairs into the conference room. There are going to be lots of people.”
Wallander went to his office and started to prepare what he was going to say to the press. After about half an hour Höglund knocked on the door.
“I was at Salomonsson’s farm,” she said. “I think I know where that girl got the petrol from.”
“Salomonsson had petrol in his barn?”
She nodded.
“Well, that’s something,” said Wallander. “That means that she actually could have walked to the farm. She wouldn’t have had to come by car or bicycle.”
“Could Salomonsson have known her?” she asked.
Wallander thought for a moment before he answered.
“No, Salomonsson wasn’t lying. He’d never seen her before.”
“So the girl walks to the farm from somewhere. She goes into Salomonsson’s barn and finds a number of containers of petrol. She takes five of them with her out into the rape. Then she sets herself on fire.”
“That’s about it,” said Wallander. “Even if we manage to find out who she was, we’ll probably never know the whole story.”