One Step Behind

by Henning Mankell

  "We don't have to go through the events in detail," he said. "I just want to know one thing: why do you think Svedberg acted the way he did?"

  "He said we had no evidence, but that was bullshit."

  "We know that. We don't have to go into it. What I want to know is why you think he acted like this."

  "Because he was an idiot."

  Wallander was prepared for the answers to anger him, and he knew that Stig had good reasons for his hostility. Svedberg's behaviour had been incomprehensible.

  "Svedberg was no idiot," Wallander said. "There must be another explanation. Had you ever met him before?"

  "When would that have been?"

  "Just answer my questions," Wallander said shortly.

  "I'd never met him before."

  "Have you had any run-ins with the law yourself?"

  "No."

  That answer came a little too fast, Wallander thought. It isn't true.

  "Stick to the truth, Stridh. If you tell me lies I'll have you hauled straight down to the station in the blink of an eye."

  It worked. "Well, I did a little car-dealing in the 1960s," he said. "There was some trouble once about a car that was supposed to be stolen, but that's all."

  Wallander decided to take him at his word.

  "How about your brother?"

  "He probably did all kinds of things, but he never did any time for anything except his drinking."

  Again, Wallander felt that Stridh was telling the truth. The man didn't know of a connection between his brother and Svedberg. It's hopeless, he thought. I'm banging my head against the wall. Wallander ended the conversation, having decided to talk to Rut Lundin, the "widow".

  He left the flat and walked to the station.

  Shortly after 11 a.m., as he went to get another cup of coffee, he realised that most of his colleagues were around, including the officers from Malmö, and took the opportunity to call a meeting in the conference room. He started by going through his own attempts to shed light on the events surrounding the complaint filed against Svedberg eleven years ago. Martinsson told him that Hugo Andersson, the policeman who'd answered Stridh's call that night, now worked as a janitor at a school in Värnamo. The officer who'd been his partner was a policeman by the name of Holmström, who now worked in Malmö.

  Martinsson promised to check up on both of them. Wallander told them he was driving out to meet Isa Edengren's parents. After the meeting, Wallander shared a pizza with Hansson. All day he had been trying to keep track of how much water he had drunk and how many times he'd relieved himself, but he had already lost track. He called Rut Lundin. Once she understood why he was calling, she answered most of his questions – but she had nothing useful to add. He asked her specifically about Nisse's drinking buddies, and she said she remembered a few. When he pressed her for names, she said she needed time to think. He told her he would drop by later that afternoon.

  At 4 p.m. he called Björk, their former chief of police, who now lived in Malmö. They started by catching up on the latest gossip, and Björk expressed deep sympathy at their having to deal with the case at hand. They talked at length about Svedberg. Björk said he was planning to attend the funeral, which surprised Wallander, although he didn't know why. Björk had nothing to say about the complaint filed against Svedberg. He couldn't remember any more why Svedberg had dismissed the investigation, but since the department of justice hadn't intervened, he was sure the whole thing was above board.

  Wallander left the station at 4.30 p.m., on his way to Skårby. First he stopped by Rut Lundin's flat to pick up the list of names she had promised him. When he rang her doorbell she opened the door at once, as if she had been waiting for him in the hall. He could see that she was drunk. She thrust a piece of paper in his hand and said it was all she could remember. Wallander saw she didn't want him to come in, so he thanked her and left.

  Back out on the footpath, he stopped under the shade of a tree and read through what she had written. He immediately saw a name he recognised about halfway down the list. Bror Sundelius. Wallander caught his breath. A pattern was finally starting to emerge. Svedberg, Bror Sundelius, Nisse Stridh. He didn't get any further. The phone in his pocket rang.

  It was Martinsson, and his voice was shaking.

  "He's done it again," he said. "He's done it again."

  It was 4.55 p.m. on Saturday, 17 August 1996.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  He knew he was taking a risk. He hadn't done that before, since taking risks was beneath him and he had devoted his whole life to learning how to escape. But he was attracted by the challenge, and the situation was much too tempting.

  He had almost lost control when he came by to pick up their invitations. Their joy was so great that it felt like a physical blow, an act specifically aimed at humiliating him, which of course it was.

  Then, when he read the letter, he made up his mind. Between the ceremony at the church and the reception, they were going to stop off at a nearby beach to have their wedding portraits taken. The photographer was very clear in his directions and had even drawn a little map for them. The couple agreed. They would meet him there at 4 p.m., weather permitting.

  He went there to scout it out. The photographer's directions were so clear that he had no problem in locating the exact spot. The beach was big, with a camping ground at one end. At first, he wasn't sure that he'd be able to carry out his plans, but then he saw that they would be quite sheltered in their spot among the sand dunes. There would be others on the beach, but they would keep their distance while the photographs were being taken. The challenge was figuring out which direction to approach them from. Disappearing afterwards would be relatively easy, since it was only about 200 metres to the car. If anything went wrong and he was chased, he had his gun. Someone might notice what kind of car he was driving, but he would have three different cars standing by so he could switch them.

  He didn't solve the question of his approach on the first visit. But on the second visit, he saw what he had overlooked on the first. He saw the dramatic solution that would enable him to transform the comedy into tragedy.

  Suddenly everything was planned and he was running out of time. Cars had to be stolen and parked in their various locations. A small revolver wrapped in plastic had to be buried in the sand. He also put a towel in with it.

  The only thing he couldn't count on was the weather, but August had been beautiful this year.

  They were married in the church where she had been confirmed nine years earlier. The minister who had officiated then had died, but she had a relative who was a minister and he agreed to step in. Everything went according to plan. The church was bursting with family and friends, and once the photo session was over they would have a big reception. The photographer was at the church with them taking pictures. He had already planned out the pictures he wanted to take at the beach. He had used the spot before and it worked well. He had never been as lucky with the weather as today.

  They arrived at the beach just before 4 p.m. The camping ground was full of people, and a number of children were playing on the beach. A lone swimmer was out in the water. It took the photographer only a few minutes to set up his gear, which included the tripod and the light reflectors. They were completely undisturbed.

  Everything was ready. The photographer paused behind the camera while the bridegroom helped his bride check her make-up in a small mirror. The swimmer was on his way up out of the water. His towel lay on the beach. He sat down on it, with his back to them. The bride thought it looked like he was digging a hole in the sand. They were ready. The photographer told them what he had planned for the first photo. They debated whether they should be serious or smiling, and the photographer suggested trying it both ways. It was 4.09 p.m. They had plenty of time.

  They had just taken the first picture when the man on the beach below them got up and started walking. The photographer was getting ready to take the next picture but at that moment the bride saw that the man had
changed his course and was heading towards them. She held up her hand to stop the photographer from taking the picture, thinking it best to wait until he had passed. He was almost upon them now, carrying his towel like a shield in front of his body. The photographer smiled at him and turned back to the couple. The man smiled in return, unwrapped the towel from his gun, and shot the photographer in the neck. He quickly advanced a couple of steps and shot the bride and groom in turn. All that was heard were some dry crackles. He looked all around. No one had noticed anything.

  He continued on over the sand dunes and waited until he was out of sight of the camping ground. Then he started running. He reached the car safely, unlocked it, and jumped in. The whole thing had taken less than two minutes.

  He realised that he was cold. It was another risk he had taken, as he could have caught cold. But the temptation had simply been too great. It was wonderful to emerge from the water like that, like the invincible person he really was.

  At the edge of Ystad he stopped the car and pulled on the tracksuit he had laid out on the back seat. Then he settled in to wait.

  It took a little longer than he expected. Was it one of the children playing on the beach, or someone at the camping ground taking a walk? He would read about it in the papers soon enough.

  Finally he heard the noise of the sirens. It was just before 5 p.m. The vehicles drove past him at high speed, among them an ambulance. He felt like waving at them, but controlled himself. He drove home. He had again achieved what he had set out to do. And escaped again, with dignity.

  Wallander was picked up outside Rut Lundin's building. The officers assigned to get him didn't know anything other than that they were to take him to Nybrostrand. From the information on the police radio, he gathered that several people were dead. He hadn't managed to get anything more out of Martinsson. Wallander leaned back in his seat. Martinsson's words still echoed in his head. "He's done it again."

  He opened the door before the car had even come to a halt. A woman stood there crying, her hands in front of her face. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt with a slogan supporting Sweden joining NATO.

  "What happened?" Wallander asked.

  People from the camping ground were rushing around, waving and gesturing. They were running all over the sand dunes. Wallander made it out there before the rest. He stopped dead. The nightmare was repeating itself. At first he couldn't take in what he was seeing, and then he understood that three bodies lay before him. There was a camera on a tripod.

  "They had just been married," he heard Höglund say, somewhere nearby. Wallander walked closer and crouched down. All three of them had been shot. The shots had struck the bride and groom in the forehead. The bride's white veil was stained with blood. He touched her arm very carefully. It was still warm. He stood up again and hoped he wouldn't get dizzy. Hansson arrived, as well as Nyberg. He walked over to them.

  "It's him again. This happened minutes ago. Are there any tracks? Has anyone seen anything? Who found them?"

  Everyone around him seemed dumbstruck, as if they had been looking to him to supply them with the answers.

  "Don't just stand there – move!" he shouted. "It just happened! This time we've got to get him!"

  Their paralysis lifted, and after a couple of minutes Wallander was able to get a clearer idea of what had happened. The couple had come here to have their wedding pictures taken. They had gone into the sand dunes. A child playing on the beach had left his friends because he needed to pee. He had discovered the dead bodies and run screaming to the camping ground. No one had heard shots, and no one had noticed anything unusual. Several witnesses confirmed that the photographer and the couple had arrived alone.

  "Some of the children saw a man swimming in the water," Hansson said. "According to their accounts, he came up out of the sea, sat down in the sand, and then disappeared."

  "What do you mean, 'disappeared'?" Wallander was having trouble concealing his impatience.

  "A woman who was hanging up her laundry when the couple arrived said the same thing," Höglund said. "She thought she saw a swimmer, but when she looked again he was gone."

  Wallander shook his head. "What does that mean? That he drowned? Buried himself in the sand?"

  Hansson pointed to the stretch of beach that lay directly below the crime scene.

  "The place he sat down was right there," he said. "At least according to one child who seems believable. He had his eyes open."

  They walked down on the beach. Hansson ran over to a dark-haired boy and his father. Wallander made them all walk in a wide circle to avoid ruining the tracks in the sand and making it harder for the dog to pick up a scent. They could see the marks of someone sitting in the sand, the remains of a little hole and a piece of plastic sheeting.

  Wallander shouted for Edmundsson and Nyberg to join him.

  "This plastic reminds me of something," he said, and Nyberg nodded. "Maybe it matches the plastic sheeting we found in the nature reserve."

  Wallander turned to Edmundsson. "Let her smell this and see what she finds."

  They walked off to the side and watched the dog, who immediately took off into the sand dunes. Then she veered to the left. Wallander and Martinsson followed at a distance. The dog was still excited. They arrived at a small road, and there the scent ended. Edmundsson shook his head.

  "A car," Martinsson said.

  "Someone may have seen it," Wallander said. "Get every police officer out here to work on this: we're looking for a man in a bathing suit. He left about an hour ago in a car that was parked here."

  Wallander ran back to the crime scene. One of the forensic technicians was making a mould of a footprint in the sand. Edmundsson's dog was searching the area.

  Hansson was just ending a conversation with a woman from the camping ground. Wallander waved him over.

  "More people saw him," Hansson said.

  "The swimmer?"

  "He was down in the water when the couple arrived. Then he walked up onto the beach. Someone said it looked as though he started to build a sand castle, then got up and disappeared."

  "No one's seen anyone else in the area?"

  "One man, who is clearly under the influence, claimed two masked men were riding down the beach on bicycles, but I think we can safely disregard this."

  "Then we'll stick with the swimmer for now," Wallander said. "Do we know who the victims are?"

  "The photographer had this invitation in his pocket," Höglund said and handed it over to Wallander. He was overcome by such a wave of despair that he wanted to scream.

  "Malin Skander and Torbjörn Werner," he read out loud. "They were married at 2 p.m. this afternoon."

  Hansson had tears in his eyes. Höglund was staring at the ground.

  "They were man and wife for two whole hours," he said. "They came down here to have their pictures taken. Who was the photographer?"

  "We found his name on the inside of the camera bag," Hansson said. "His name was Rolf Haag and he had a studio in Malmö."

  "We have to notify the next of kin," Wallander said. "The press will be all over this place before we know it."

  "Shouldn't we put up roadblocks?" Martinsson asked. He had just joined them.

  "Why? We have no idea what the car looked like. Even though we know when this happened, it's already too late."

  "I just want to nail the bastard," Martinsson said.

  "We all do," Wallander said. "So let's go through everything we know at this point. The one lead we have is a lone swimmer. We have to assume he's our man. We know two things about him: he's well informed and plans his crimes meticulously."

  "You think he was out there swimming in the ocean while he waited for them?" Hansson asked hesitantly.

  Wallander tried to imagine the chain of events. "He knew the newly-weds were having their wedding pictures taken here," he said. "On the invitation it said the reception was starting at 5 p.m. He knew the photo session would be around 4 p.m. He waited out in the water, having p
arked his car nearby in a spot where he could get down to the beach without walking through the camping ground."

  "He had his gun with him the whole time he was out in the water?" Hansson was clearly sceptical, but Wallander was starting to see how it hung together.

  "Remember that this is a well-informed and meticulous killer," he said. "He's waiting for his victims out in the water. That means he's only wearing a bathing suit, and with his hair wet his whole appearance is altered. No one pays any attention to a swimmer. Everyone saw him and knew he was there, but no one could describe him."

  He looked around and they nodded in agreement. None of the witnesses had managed to describe him yet.

  "The newly-weds arrive with their photographer," Wallander said. "That's his cue to come up out of the water and sit down on the beach."

  "He has a towel," Höglund added. "A striped one. Several people recalled that detail."

  "That's good," Wallander said. "The more detail the better. He sits down on his striped towel, and what does he do?"

  "He starts to dig in the sand," Hansson said.

  The pieces were starting to fit together. The killer followed his own rules, and often varied them, but Wallander was starting to see a pattern.

  "He's not building a sand castle," he said. "He's uncovering a gun that he's buried in the sand under a piece of plastic sheeting."

  Now they followed his train of thought. Wallander continued slowly. "He planted the gun there at some earlier point," he said. "He just has to wait for the right moment, when no one happens to be walking by. He gets up, probably shielding the gun from view with his towel. He fires the gun three times. The victims die immediately. He must have had a silencer on the gun. He continues past the sand dunes, gets to the road where his car is parked, and escapes. The whole thing doesn't take longer than a minute. But we don't know where he went."