Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,77

towards the ferry terminal. The ticket agent flicked away his cigarette butt and walked over to the pit. He stared down at a bloody head for a moment, then dropped the tarpaulin as if it had burned him. He ran into the station, tripping over a couple of suitcases left in the middle of the floor, and grabbed one of the phones inside the stationmaster’s office.

The call arrived at the Ystad station on the 90–000 line just after 7 a.m. Svedberg, who was in unusually early that morning, was summoned to take the call. When he heard the agent talking about a bloody head he froze. His hand shook as he wrote down a single word, station, and hung up. He dialled the wrong number twice before managing to get hold of Wallander.

“I think it’s happened again,” said Svedberg.

For a few brief seconds Wallander didn’t understand what Svedberg meant, even though every time the phone rang he feared that very thing. But now he experienced a moment of shock, or perhaps a desperate attempt at denial.

He knew he would never forget this moment. Fleetingly he thought that it was like having a premonition of his own death, a moment when denial and escape were impossible. I think it’s happened again. He felt as if he were a wind-up toy. Svedberg’s stammered words were like hands twisting the key attached to his back. He was wrenched out of his sleep and his bed, out of dreams he couldn’t remember but which might have been pleasant. He got dressed in a desperate frenzy, buttons popping off, and his shoelaces flopped untied as he raced down the stairs and outside.

When he came screeching to a stop in his car, which still needed its M.O.T., Svedberg was already there. Directed by Norén, some officers were busy rolling out the striped crime-scene tape. Svedberg was awkwardly patting the weeping ticket agent on the shoulder, while some men in blue overalls stared into the pit, now transformed into a nightmare. Wallander left his door open and ran over to Svedberg. Why he ran he didn’t really know. Maybe his internal police mechanism had started to speed up. Or maybe he was so afraid of what he was going to see that he simply didn’t dare approach it slowly.

Svedberg was white in the face. He nodded towards the pit. Wallander walked slowly over and took several deep breaths before looking into the hole.

It was worse than he could have imagined. He was looking straight into a dead man’s brain. Ann-Britt Höglund arrived next to Wallander. She flinched and turned away. Her reaction made him start to think clearly.

“No doubt about it,” he said to Höglund, turning back to the pit. “It’s him again.”

She was very pale. Wallander was afraid she was going to faint. He put his arm around her shoulders.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

She nodded.

Martinsson arrived with Hansson. Wallander saw them both give a start when they looked in the hole. He was overcome with rage. The man who had done this had to be stopped.

“It must be the same killer,” said Hansson in an unsteady voice. “Isn’t it ever going to end? I can’t take responsibility for this any more. Did Björk know about this before he left? I’m going to ask for reinforcements from the National Criminal Bureau.”

“Do that,” said Wallander. “But first let’s get him out of there and see whether we can solve this ourselves.”

Hansson stared in disbelief at Wallander, who realised that Hansson thought they were going to have to lift the dead man out themselves.

A large crowd had gathered outside the cordon. Wallander remembered what he had sensed in connection with Carlman’s murder. He took Norén aside and asked him to borrow a camera from Nyberg and take pictures, as discreetly as possible, of the people standing outside the cordon. Meanwhile the emergency van from the fire department had arrived on the scene. Nyberg was directing his crew around the pit. Wallander went over to him, trying to avoid looking at the corpse.

“Once again,” said Nyberg. He wasn’t being cynical. Their eyes met.

“We’ve got to catch him,” said Wallander.

“As soon as possible, I hope,” said Nyberg. He lay down on his stomach so he could study the dead man’s face. When he straightened up again he called to Wallander, who was just heading off to talk to Svedberg. He came back.

“Did you see his eyes?” asked Nyberg.

Wallander shook his head.

“What about them?”

Nyberg grimaced.

“Apparently the murderer wasn’t content with taking a