Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,8

have an incredible number of branches.”

“Can we punch a hole in it?” she asked.

“We’ll crack it,” replied Wallander. “Sooner or later. There’ll be a lull for a few months. Then it’ll start up again.”

“But it’ll never end?”

“No, it’ll never end. Because of Ystad’s location. Just 200 kilometres from here, across the Baltic, there’s an unlimited number of people who want what we’ve got. The only problem is they don’t have the money to pay for it.”

“I wonder how much stolen property is shipped with every ferry,” she mused.

“You don’t want to know,” said Wallander.

Together they went and got some coffee. Höglund was supposed to go on holiday that week. Wallander knew that she was going to spend it in Ystad, since her husband, a machinery installer with the whole world as his market, was currently in Saudi Arabia.

“What are you going to do?” she asked when they started talking about their upcoming breaks.

“I’m going to Denmark, to Skagen,” said Wallander.

“With the woman from Riga?” Höglund wondered with a smile.

Wallander was taken aback.

“How do you know about her?”

“Oh, everybody does,” she said. “Didn’t you realise? You might call it the result of an ongoing internal investigation.”

Wallander had never told anyone about Baiba, whom he had met during a criminal investigation. She was the widow of a murdered Latvian policeman. She had been in Ystad over Christmas almost six months ago. During the Easter holiday Wallander had visited her in Riga. But he had never spoken about her or introduced her to any of his colleagues. Now he wondered why not. Even though their relationship was new, she had pulled him out of the melancholy that had marked his life since his divorce from Mona.

“All right,” he said. “Yes, we’ll be in Denmark together. Then I’m going to spend the rest of the summer with my father.”

“And Linda?”

“She called a week ago and said she was taking a theatre class in Visby.”

“I thought she was going to be a furniture upholsterer?”

“So did I. But now she’s got it into her head that she’s going to do some sort of stage performance with a girlfriend of hers.”

“That sounds exciting, don’t you think?”

Wallander nodded dubiously.

“I hope she comes here in July,” he said. “I haven’t seen her in a long time.” They parted outside Wallander’s door.

“Drop in and say hello this summer,” she said. “With or without the woman from Riga. With or without your daughter.”

“Her name is Baiba,” said Wallander.

He promised he’d come by and visit.

After Ann-Britt left he worked on the file for a good hour. Twice he called the police in Göteborg, trying without success to reach a detective who was working on the same investigation. At 5.45 p.m. he decided to go out to eat. He pinched his stomach and noted that he was still losing weight. Baiba had complained that he was too fat. After that, he had no problem eating less. He had even squeezed into a tracksuit a few times and gone jogging, boring though he found it.

He put on his jacket. He would write to Baiba that evening. The telephone rang just as he was about to leave the office. For a moment he wondered whether to let it ring. But he went back to his desk and picked up the receiver.

It was Martinsson.

“Nice speech you made,” said Martinsson. “Björk seemed genuinely moved.”

“You said that already,” said Wallander. “What is it? I’m on my way home.”

“I just got a call that was a little odd,” said Martinsson. “I thought I ought to check with you.”

Wallander waited impatiently for him to go on.

“It was a farmer calling from out near Marsvinsholm. He claimed that there was a woman acting strangely in his rape field.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“A woman acting strangely out in a rape field? What was she doing?”

“If I understood him correctly, she wasn’t doing anything. The peculiar thing was that she was out in the field.”

Wallander thought for a moment before he replied.

“Send out a squad car. It sounds like something for them.”

“The problem is that all the units seem to be busy right now. There were two car accidents almost simultaneously. One by the road into Svarte, the other outside the Hotel Continental.”

“Serious?”

“No major injuries. But there seems to be quite a mess.”

“They can drive out to Marsvinsholm when they have time, can’t they?”

“That farmer seemed pretty upset. I can’t quite explain it. If I didn’t have to pick up my children, I’d go myself.”

“All right, I can do it,” said Wallander. “I’ll meet you