One Step Behind

by Henning Mankell

  "Tell them to put all units on red alert."

  There was a phone on a table in the hall, but no answerphone. Martinsson nodded and was about to pick up the receiver when Wallander stopped him.

  "Wait," he said. "We need time to think."

  But what was there really to think about? Maybe he was hoping for a miracle, that Svedberg would suddenly appear behind them and that nothing they had seen would turn out to be real.

  "Do you know Lisa Holgersson's number?" he asked. He knew from experience that Martinsson had a good head for addresses and numbers. There used to be two with this particular gift: Martinsson and Svedberg. Now only one was left.

  Martinsson recited the number, stammering. Wallander dialled and Lisa Holgersson picked up on the second ring. Her phone must be right beside her bed, he thought.

  "This is Wallander. I'm sorry to wake you up."

  She seemed awake at once.

  "You should come down here right away," he said. "I'm in Svedberg's flat on Lilla Norregatan. Martinsson is also here. Svedberg is dead."

  He heard her groan. "What happened?"

  "I don't know. He's been shot."

  "That's terrible. Is it murder?"

  Wallander thought about the shotgun on the floor.

  "I don't know," he said. "Murder or suicide, I don't know which."

  "Have you been in touch with Nyberg?"

  "I wanted to call you first."

  "I'll be right over, I just have to get dressed."

  "We'll contact Nyberg in the meantime."

  Wallander handed the phone to Martinsson. "Start with Nyberg," he said.

  The living room was accessible from two directions. While Martinsson used the phone, Wallander walked out through the kitchen. A kitchen drawer lay on the floor. The door to a cupboard was ajar. Papers and receipts lay strewn all over the room.

  Wallander made a mental note of everything he saw. He could hear Martinsson explaining to Nyberg, the head of forensics in Ystad, what had happened. Wallander kept walking. He looked carefully where he was going before putting his feet down. He came to Svedberg's bedroom. All three drawers in a chest of drawers were pulled out. The bed was unmade and the blanket lay on the ground. With a feeling of boundless sorrow he noted that Svedberg had slept in flowery sheets. His bed was a meadow of wildflowers. Wallander kept going, arriving at a little study between the bedroom and living room. There were some bookcases and a desk. Svedberg was a neat person. His desk at the police station was kept meticulously free of clutter. But here his books had been pulled from their shelves, and the contents of the desk lay on the floor. There was paper everywhere.

  Wallander entered the living room again, this time from the other side. Now he was closer to the shotgun, with Svedberg's twisted body at the far end. He stood completely still and took in the whole scene, every detail, everything that had been frozen and left behind as a marker of the drama that had taken place. The questions raced through his mind. Had someone heard the shot or shots? The scene suggested that a burglary had taken place. But when did it happen? And what else happened here?

  Martinsson appeared in the doorway on the other side of the living room.

  "They're on their way," he said.

  Wallander slowly retraced his steps. When he was back in the kitchen he heard the bark of a German shepherd and then Martinsson's agitated voice. He hurried out to the hall and bumped into a dog patrol. Some people in bathrobes were huddled in the background. The patrol officer with the dog was called Edmundsson and had recently moved to Ystad.

  "We received a call about a possible burglary," he said uncertainly when he saw Wallander. "At the flat of someone called Svedberg."

  Wallander realised that Edmundsson had no idea which Svedberg the caller had been talking about.

  "Good. There has been an incident here. By the way, it's Officer Svedberg's flat."

  Edmundsson went pale. "I didn't know."

  "How could you? But you can go back to the station. Back-up is on its way."

  Edmundsson looked inquiringly at him. "What's happened?"

  "Svedberg is dead," Wallander answered. "That's all we know."

  He immediately regretted having said even that much. The neighbours were listening. Someone could take it into their heads to call the press. What Wallander wanted least of all was to have reporters hanging about. A policeman dying in mysterious circumstances was always news.

  As Edmundsson disappeared down the stairs, Wallander thought fuzzily that he didn't know what the dog was called.

  "Can you take care of the neighbours?" he said to Martinsson. "If nothing else, they must have heard the shots. Maybe we can establish a time of death."

  "Was there more than one shot?"

  "I don't know, but someone must have heard something."

  The front door slammed below them and they heard approaching footsteps. Martinsson started rounding up the sleepy and anxious people and herded them into the flat next door. Lisa Holgersson came rushing up the stairs.

  "I want you to prepare yourself," Wallander said.

  "Is it that bad?"

  "Svedberg was shot in the head with a shotgun at close range."

  She made a face, then steeled herself. Wallander followed her into the hall and pointed to the living room. She went up to the doorway then quickly turned away and swayed as if she were about to faint. Wallander took her by the arm and helped her into the kitchen. She sank down on a blue kitchen chair, and looked up at Wallander with wide eyes.

  "Who did this?" she asked.

  "I don't know."

  Wallander took a glass and gave her some water.

  "Svedberg was away yesterday," he said. "Without telling anyone."

  "That's unusual," said Holgersson.

  "Very unusual. I woke up in the middle of the night with a feeling that things weren't quite right, so I drove over."

  "So you don't think it happened yesterday?"

  "No. Martinsson is talking to the neighbours to see if anyone heard anything unusual, which they probably did. A shotgun is loud. But we'll have to wait for the autopsy report."

  Wallander heard his factual statement echo inside his head. He felt nauseated.

  "I know he wasn't married," said Holgersson. "Did he have any family?"

  Wallander thought back. He knew that Svedberg's mother had died a couple of years earlier. He didn't know anything about his father. The only relative Wallander knew about for sure was one he had met a few years earlier during a murder investigation.

  "He has a cousin called Ylva Brink. She's an obstetric nurse. I can't think of anyone else."

  They heard Nyberg's voice out in the hall.

  "I'll stay here for a few minutes," said Holgersson.

  Wallander went out to talk to Nyberg, who was kicking off his shoes.

  "What the hell happened here?"

  Nyberg was a brilliant forensic specialist, but he was moody and could be hard to work with. He seemed not to have understood that this emergency concerned a colleague. A dead colleague. Maybe Martinsson had forgotten to tell him.

  "Do you know where you are?" Wallander asked carefully.

  Nyberg shot him an angry look.

  "Some flat on Lilla Norregatan," he answered. "But Martinsson was unusually muddled on the phone. What's going on?"

  Wallander looked at him steadily. Nyberg noticed his demeanour and became quiet.

  "It's Svedberg," Wallander said. "He's dead. It looks like he's been murdered."

  "You mean Kalle?" Nyberg said incredulously.

  Wallander nodded and felt a lump in his throat. Nyberg was one of the few who called Svedberg by his first name. His name was actually Karl Evert. Nyberg used his nickname, Kalle.

  "He's in there," Wallander said. "Shot in the face with a shotgun."

  Nyberg grimaced.

  "I don't have to tell you what that looks like," Wallander said.

  "No," Nyberg said. "You don't have to do that."

  Nyberg went in. H
e turned away like the others when he reached the doorway. Wallander waited briefly, to give Nyberg a moment to comprehend what he saw in front of him. Then he walked over.

  "I already have a question for you," he said. "One of the most important. As you see, the gun is at least two metres away from the body. My question is, could it have ended up over there if Svedberg committed suicide?"

  Nyberg thought about it, then shook his head. "No," he said. "That's impossible. A shotgun aimed by himself wouldn't be thrown that far."

  For a moment Wallander felt strangely relieved. Svedberg didn't kill himself, he thought.

  People were beginning to congregate in the hall. The doctor arrived, as did Hansson. A technician was unpacking his bag.

  "Please listen, everybody," Wallander said. "The person lying in there is your colleague, Officer Svedberg. He's dead, probably murdered. I want to prepare you for the fact that it's a terrible sight. We knew him and we grieve for him. He was our friend as well as our colleague and that makes our job much harder."

  Wallander stopped. He felt he should say more but couldn't think of anything. He lacked the words. He returned to the kitchen while Nyberg and his assistants got to work. Holgersson was still sitting at the table.

  "I have to call his cousin," she said. "If she's the closest living relative."

  "I can do it," Wallander said. "After all, I already know her."

  "Give me an overview of the events. What happened here?"

  "I'll need Martinsson for that. I'll get him."

  Wallander went out onto the stairs. The door to the next flat was slightly ajar. He knocked and went in. Martinsson was in the living room with four people. One of them was fully dressed, the others were still in their dressing gowns. There were two women and two men. He signalled for Martinsson to come with him.

  "Please remain here for now," he told the others.

  They went into the kitchen. Martinsson was very pale.

  "Let's start from the beginning," Wallander said. "When was the last time anyone saw Svedberg?"

  "I don't know if I was the last one," Martinsson said. "But I caught a glimpse of him in the canteen on Wednesday morning at around 11 a.m."

  "How did he seem?"

  "Since I didn't think about it, I suppose he must have been like he always was."

  "You called me that afternoon. We decided to have a meeting on Thursday morning."

  "I went into Svedberg's office straight after our conversation, but he wasn't there. At the front desk they told me he'd gone home for the day."

  "What time did he leave?"

  "I didn't ask."

  "What did you do then?"

  "I called him at home and left a message about the meeting. Then I called back a couple of times but I didn't get an answer."

  Wallander thought hard. "Sometime on Wednesday, Svedberg leaves the police station. Everything seems normal. On Thursday he doesn't show up, which is unusual, regardless of whether he heard your message. Svedberg never stayed away without letting someone know."

  "That means it could have happened as early as Wednesday," Lisa Holgersson said.

  Wallander nodded. At what point does the normal suddenly become the abnormal? he thought. That's the moment we have to find.

  Another thought struck him – Martinsson's remark about his own answerphone not working.

  "Wait here a minute," he said and left the kitchen.

  He walked into Svedberg's study. His answerphone was on the desk. Wallander went into the living room where Nyberg was kneeling beside the shotgun, and took him back into the study.

  "I'd like to listen to the answerphone, but I don't want to destroy any clues."

  "We can get the tape to return to the same place," Nyberg said. He was wearing plastic gloves. Wallander nodded and Nyberg pressed the play button. There were three messages from Martinsson. Each time he stated the time of day. There were no other messages.

  "I'd also like to hear Svedberg's greeting," Wallander said.

  Nyberg pressed another button.

  Wallander flinched when he heard Svedberg's voice. Nyberg also seemed upset by it.

  I'm not here, but please leave a message. That was all.

  Wallander went back into the kitchen. "Your messages are still on the machine," he said. "But we can't tell if anyone listened to them or not."

  The room was quiet. Everyone was thinking about what Wallander had said.

  "What do the neighbours say?" he asked.

  "No one heard anything," Martinsson answered. "It's quite strange. No one heard a shot and almost everyone was at home."

  Wallander frowned. "It's not possible that no one heard anything."

  "I'll keep talking to them."

  Martinsson left. A police officer came into the kitchen.

  "There's a reporter outside," he said.

  Goddamn it, Wallander thought. Someone had already contacted the press. He looked at Holgersson.

  "We have to notify his relatives first," she said.

  "We can't put it off any longer than midday," Wallander said.

  He turned to the waiting police officer. "No comment right now," he said. "But we'll issue a statement later this morning."

  "At 11 a.m.," Holgersson said.

  The officer disappeared. Nyberg shouted at someone in the living room. Then everything was quiet again. Nyberg had a bad temper but his outbursts were always brief. Wallander went out into the study and picked up a phone book off the floor. He looked up Ylva Brink's number at the kitchen table and looked questioningly at Holgersson.

  "You make the call," she said.

  Nothing was as difficult as notifying a relative of a sudden death. Whenever possible, Wallander tried to make sure he was accompanied by a police minister. Although he had gone through this many times, he never became accustomed to it. And even if Ylva Brink was only Svedberg's cousin, it would be hard enough. He heard the first ring and noticed himself start to tense up.

  Her answerphone came on with a message saying that she was working the night shift at the hospital. Wallander put the receiver back down. He suddenly remembered visiting her at the hospital with Svedberg two years ago. And now Svedberg was dead. He still couldn't comprehend it.

  "She's at the hospital," he said. "I'll have to go and see her in person."

  "It really can't wait," Lisa Holgersson said. "Svedberg might have had other relatives that we don't know about."

  Wallander nodded. She was right.

  "Do you want me to come with you?" she asked.

  "That's not necessary."

  It occurred to Wallander that he would have liked to have Ann-Britt Höglund with him, and then he realised that no one had contacted her.

  She should be here working on this with the others, he thought.

  Holgersson got up and left the kitchen. Wallander sat down in her chair and dialled Höglund's number. A man's sleepy voice came on the line.

  "I need to speak to Ann-Britt. This is Wallander."

  "Who?"

  "Kurt. From the police."

  The man was still sleepy but now he sounded angry as well.

  "What the hell is going on?"

  "Isn't this Ann-Britt Höglund's number?"

  "There's no bitch by that name around here," the man grunted and slammed down the phone. Wallander could almost feel the impact. He had dialled the wrong number. He tried again slowly and Höglund picked up after the second ring, as quickly as Holgersson had.

  "It's Kurt."

  She didn't sound particularly sleepy. Maybe she had been awake? Maybe her problems were keeping her awake. Now she'll have one more to add to the list, Wallander thought.

  "What's happened?"

  "Svedberg has been killed, probably murdered."

  "That can't be true."

  "Unfortunately it is. It happened in his home, the flat on Lilla Norregatan."

  "I know where it is."

  "Can you come down here?"

  "I'm on my way."

  Wa
llander hung up and remained at the kitchen table. One of the technicians looked in, but Wallander waved him away. He needed to think, if only for a minute. There was something strange about all this, he realised. Something that didn't add up. The crime technician came back into the kitchen.

  "Nyberg wants to talk to you."

  Wallander got up and went out into the living room, where the discomfort and distress of the people at work was palpable. Svedberg hadn't been a colourful personality, but he was well liked. And now he was dead.

  The doctor was kneeling by the body. Now and then a flash went off in the room. Nyberg was making notes. He came over to Wallander, who stopped in the doorway.

  "Did Svedberg have any weapons?"

  "You mean the shotgun?"

  "Yes."

  "I don't know, but I can't imagine he did."

  "It's just strange that the killer would leave his weapon behind."

  Wallander nodded. That had been one of his first thoughts.

  "Have you noticed anything else strange around here?" he asked.

  Nyberg narrowed his eyes. "Isn't everything about a colleague having his head blown off strange?"

  "You know what I mean."

  But Wallander didn't wait for an answer. He turned and walked away, bumping into Martinsson in the hall.

  "How did it go? Have you established a time?"

  "No one heard anything, and if I'm right in my calculations there has been someone in the building continuously since Monday. Either on this level or in the flat below."

  "And no one heard anything? That's impossible."

  "There was a retired high school teacher who seemed a little hard of hearing, but the others were fine."

  Wallander didn't understand it. Someone must have heard the shot or shots.

  "You'll have to keep working on this," he said. "I have to drop by the hospital. Do you remember Svedberg's cousin, Ylva Brink? The midwife?"

  Martinsson nodded.

  "She's probably his nearest relative."

  "Didn't he have an aunt somewhere in Västergötland?"

  "I'll ask Ylva."

  Wallander went down the stairs. He needed to get some air. A reporter was waiting outside the front door. Wallander recognised him as a reporter from Ystad's daily paper.

  "What's going on? All units called out in the middle of the night to the home of a police officer by the name of Karl Evert Svedberg."