Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,33

they were going to say at the press conference. It was mid-morning when Hansson joined them.

“I talked to Per Åkeson,” he said. “He told me he would contact the chief public prosecutor.”

Wallander looked up from his papers in surprise.

“Why?”

“Wetterstedt was an important person. Ten years ago the prime minister of this country was murdered. Now we have a minister of justice murdered. I assume that he wants to know whether the investigation should be handled in any special way.”

“If he were still in office I could understand it,” said Wallander. “But he was an old man who had left his public duties behind a long time ago.”

“You’ll have to talk to Åkeson yourself,” said Hansson. “I’m just telling you what he said.”

At 1 p.m. they took their seats on the little dais at one end of the conference room. They had agreed to keep the meeting with the press as brief as possible. The main thing was to head off too many wild, unfounded speculations. So they decided to be vague when it came to answering how Wetterstedt had actually been killed. They wouldn’t say anything at all about his having been scalped.

The room was crowded with reporters. Just as Wallander had imagined, the national newspapers were regarding Wetterstedt’s murder as a major event. Wallander counted cameras from three different TV stations when he looked in the crowd.

It went unusually well. They were as terse as possible with their answers, citing the requirements of the investigation for limiting candour and withholding detail. Eventually the press realised they weren’t going to get anything more. When the newspaper reporters had gone, Wallander allowed himself to be interviewed by the local radio station while Höglund answered questions for one of the TV stations. He looked at her and was relieved that for once he didn’t have to be the one on camera.

At the end of the press conference Åkeson had slipped in unnoticed to the back of the room. Now he stood waiting for Wallander.

“I heard you were going to call up the chief public prosecutor,” said Wallander. “Did he give you any directives?”

“He wants to be kept informed,” said Åkeson. “The same way you keep me informed.”

“You’ll get a daily summary,” said Wallander. “And hear as soon as we make a breakthrough.”

“Nothing conclusive yet?”

“No.”

The investigative team had a quick meeting at 4 p.m. Wallander knew that this was the time for work, not reports. He went rapidly around the table before asking everyone to go back to their tasks. They agreed to meet again at 8 a.m. the next morning, provided nothing crucial happened before then.

Just before 5 p.m. Wallander left the station and drove to Styrbordsgången, where Sara Björklund lived. It was a part of town that Wallander almost never visited. He parked and went in through the gate. The door was opened before he reached the house. The woman standing there was younger than he had expected. He guessed her to be around 30. And to Wetterstedt she had been a “charwoman”. He wondered fleetingly whether she knew what Wetterstedt had called her.

“Good afternoon,” said Wallander. “I called earlier today. Are you Sara Björklund?”

“I recognised you,” she said, nodding.

She invited him in. She had set out a tray of buns and coffee in a thermos in the living-room. Wallander could hear a man upstairs scolding some children for making a racket. Wallander sat down in an armchair and looked around. He half expected one of his father’s paintings to be hanging on the wall. That’s all that’s missing, he thought. Here’s the old fisherman, the gypsy woman, and the crying child. My father’s landscape is all that’s needed. With or without the grouse.

“Would you like coffee, sir?” she asked.

“No need to call me sir,” said Wallander. “Yes, please.”

“You had to be formal with Wetterstedt,” she said suddenly. “You had to call him Mr Wetterstedt. He gave strict instructions about that when I started working there.”

Wallander was thankful to start right away on the matter in hand. He took out a notebook and pen.

“So you know that Gustaf Wetterstedt has been murdered,” he began.

“It’s terrible,” she said. “Who could have done it?”

“We’re wondering the same thing,” said Wallander.

“Was he really lying on the beach? Under that ugly boat? The one you could see from upstairs?”

“Yes, he was,” said Wallander. “But let’s begin at the beginning. You cleaned the house for Mr Wetterstedt?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been with him?”

“Almost three years. I wasn’t working. This house costs money so I was forced