Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,92

was on his way back upstairs did he realise that the woman reminded him of the female vicar he had met at Smedstorp. At first it surprised him, and then he felt a little ashamed. Later, when he got back to his flat, it dissolved into what it actually was, something beyond his control.

He sat at the kitchen table and drank coffee, the heat already coming through the half-open window. Maybe Ann-Britt’s grandmother was right: they were in for a truly beautiful summer. He thought of his father. Often, especially in the morning, his thoughts would wander back in time, to the era of the “silk knights”, when he woke each morning knowing he was a child loved by his father. Now, more than 40 years later, he found it hard to remember what his father had been like as a young man. His paintings were just the same even then: he had painted that landscape with or without the grouse with total determination not to change a thing from one painting to the next. His father had only painted one single picture in his whole life. He never tried to improve on it. The result had been perfect from the first attempt.

He drank the last of his coffee and tried to imagine a world without his father. He wondered what he would do when his constant feelings of guilt were gone. The trip to Italy would probably be their last chance to understand each other, maybe even to reconcile. He didn’t want his good memories to end at the time when he had helped his father to cart out the paintings and place them in a huge American car, and then stood by his side, both of them waving to the silk knight driving off in a cloud of dust, on his way to sell them for three or four times what he had just paid for them.

At 6.30 a.m. he became a policeman again, sweeping the memories aside. As he dressed he tried to decide how he’d go about all the tasks he had set himself that day. At 7 a.m. he walked through the door of the station, exchanging a few words with Norén, who arrived at the same time. Norén was actually supposed to be on holiday, but he had postponed it, just as many of the others had.

“No doubt it’ll start raining as soon as we catch the killer,” he said. “What does a weather god care about a simple policeman when there’s a serial killer on the loose?”

Wallander muttered something in reply, but he did not discount the possibility that there might be some grim truth in Norén’s words.

He went in to see Hansson, who seemed now to spend all his time at the station, weighed down by anxiety. His face was as grey as concrete. He was shaving with an ancient electric razor. His shirt was wrinkled and his eyes bloodshot.

“You’ve got to try and get a few hours’ sleep once in a while,” said Wallander. “Your responsibility isn’t any greater than anyone else’s.”

Hansson turned off the shaver and gloomily observed the result in a pocket mirror.

“I took a sleeping pill yesterday,” he said. “But I still didn’t get any sleep. All I got was a headache.”

Wallander looked at Hansson in silence. He felt sorry for him. Being chief had never been one of Hansson’s dreams.

“I’m going back to Malmö,” he said. “I want to talk to the members of Fredman’s family again. Especially the ones who weren’t there yesterday.”

Hansson gave him a quizzical look.

“Are you going to interrogate a four-year-old boy? That’s not legally permitted.”

“I was thinking of the daughter,” said Wallander. “She’s 17. And I don’t intend to ‘interrogate’ anyone.”

Hansson nodded and got up slowly. He pointed to a book lying open on the desk.

“I got this from Ekholm,” he said. “Behavioural science based on a number of case studies of serial killers. It’s unbelievable the things people will do if they’re sufficiently deranged.”

“Is there anything about scalping?” asked Wallander.

“That’s one of the milder forms of trophy collecting. If you only knew the things that have been found in people’s homes, it would make you sick.”

“I feel sick enough already,” said Wallander. “I’ll leave the rest to my imagination.”

“Ordinary human beings,” said Hansson in dismay. “Completely normal on the surface. Underneath, mentally ill beasts of prey. A man in France, the foreman of a coal depot, used to cut open the stomachs of his victims and stick his head inside to