Sidetracked Read online

  Martinsson took a piece of paper out of his pocket.

  “As you know, the World Cup has started. Sweden was 2–2 in the game against Cameroon. You bet 5–0 in favour of Cameroon. With this score, you came in last.”

  “How could I come in last? Either I bet right or wrong, didn’t I?”

  “We run statistics that show where we are in relation to everyone else.”

  “Good Lord! What’s the point of that?”

  “An officer was the only one who picked 2–2,” said Martinsson, ignoring Wallander’s question. “Now for the next match. Sweden against Russia.”

  Wallander was totally uninterested in football, although he had occasionally gone to watch Ystad’s handball team, which had several times been ranked as one of the best in Sweden. But lately the entire country seemed to be obsessed by the World Cup. He couldn’t turn on the TV or open a newspaper without being bombarded with speculation as to how the Swedish team would fare. He knew that he had no choice but to take part in the football pool. If he didn’t, his colleagues would think he was arrogant. He took his wallet out of his back pocket.

  “How much?”

  “A hundred kronor. Same as last time.”

  He handed the note to Martinsson, who checked him off on his list.

  “Don’t I have to guess the score?”

  “Sweden against Russia. What do you think?”

  “4–4,” said Wallander.

  “It’s pretty rare to have that many goals scored in football,” Martinsson said, surprised. “That sounds more like ice hockey.”

  “All right, let’s say 3–1 to Russia,” said Wallander. “Will that do?”

  Martinsson wrote it down.

  “Maybe we can take the Brazil match while we’re at it,” Martinsson went on.

  “3–0 to Brazil,” said Wallander quickly.

  “You don’t have very high expectations for Sweden,” said Martinsson.

  “Not when it comes to football, anyway,” replied Wallander, handing him another 100-krona note.

  Martinsson left and Wallander began to mull over what he had been told, but then he dismissed the rumours with irritation. He would find out soon enough what was true and what wasn’t. It was already 4.30 p.m. He pulled over a folder of material about an organised crime ring exporting stolen cars to the former Eastern-bloc countries. He had been working on the investigation for several months. So far the police had only succeeded in tracking down parts of the operation. He knew that this case would haunt him for many more months yet. During his leave, Svedberg would take over, but he suspected that very little would happen while he was gone.

  There was a knock on the door, and Ann-Britt Höglund walked in. She had a black baseball cap on her head.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  “Like a tourist,” replied Wallander.

  “This is what the new caps are going to look like,” she said. “Just imagine the word POLICE above the peak. I’ve seen pictures of it.”

  “They’ll never get one of those on my head,” said Wallander. “I suppose that I should be glad I’m not in uniform any more.”

  “Someday we might discover that Björk was a really good chief,” she said. “I think what you said in there was great.”

  “I know the speech wasn’t any good,” said Wallander, starting to feel annoyed. “But you are all responsible for having picked me.”

  Höglund stood up and looked out of the window. She had managed to live up to the reputation that preceded her when she came to Ystad the year before. At the police academy she had shown great aptitude for police work, and had developed even more since. She had filled part of the void left by Rydberg’s death a few years ago. Rydberg was the detective who had taught Wallander most of what he knew, and sometimes Wallander felt that it was his task to guide Höglund in the same way.

  “How’s it going with the cars?” she asked.

  “They keep on being stolen,” said Wallander. “The organisation seems to 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 in the hall and get the name and directions.”

  A few minutes later Wallander drove off from the station. He turned left at the roundabout and took the road towards Malmö. On the seat next to him was a note Martinsson had written. The farmer’s name was Salomonsson, and Wallander knew the road to take. When he got out onto the E65 he rolled down the window. The yellow rape fields stretched out on both sides of the road. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt as good as he did now. He stuck in a cassette of The Marriage of Figaro with Barbara Hendricks singing Susanna, and he thought about meeting Baiba in Copenhagen. When he reached the side road to Marsvinsholm he turned left, past the castle and the castle church, and turned left again. He glanced at Martinsson’s directions and swung onto a narrow road that led across the fields. In the distance he caught a glimpse of the sea.

  Salomonsson’s house was an old, well-preserved Skåne farmhouse. Wallander got out of the car and looked around. Everywhere he looked were yellow rape fields. The man standing on the front steps was very old. He had a pair of binoculars in his hand. Wallander thought that he must have been imagining the whole thing. All too often, lonely old people out in the country let their imaginations run riot. He walked over to the steps and nodded.

  “Kurt Wallander from the Ystad police,” he said.

  The man on the steps was unshaven and his feet were stuck into a pair of worn clogs.

  “Edvin Salomonsson,” said the man, stretching out a skinny hand.

  “Tell me what happened,” said Wallander.

  The man pointed out at the rape field that lay to the right of the house. “I discovered her this morning,” he began. “I get up early. She was already there at five. At first I thought it was a deer. Then I looked through the binoculars and saw that it was a woman.”

  “What was she doing?” asked Wallander.

  “She was standing there.”

  “That’s all?”

  “She was standing and staring.”

  “Staring at what?”

  “How should I know?”

  Wallander sighed. Probably the old man had seen a deer. Then his imagination had taken over.

  “Do you know who she is?” he asked.

  “I’ve never seen her before,” replied the man. “If I knew who she was, why would I call the police?”

  “You saw her the first time early this morning,” he went on, “but you didn’t call the police until late this afternoon?”

  “I wouldn’t want to put you out for no reason,” the man answered simply. “I assume the police have plenty to do.”

  “You saw her through your binoculars,” said Wallander. “She was out in the field and you had never seen her before. What did you do?”

  “I got dressed and went out to tell her to leave. She was trampling down the rape.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “She ran.”

  “Ran?”

  “She hid in the field. Crouched down so I couldn’t see her. First I thought she was gone. Then I discovered her again through the binoculars. It happened over and over. Finally I got tired of it and called you.”

  “When did you see her last?”

  “Just before I called.”

  “What was she doing then?”

  “Standing there staring.”

  Wallander glanced out at the field. All he could see was the billowing rape.

  “The officer you spoke with said that you seemed uneasy,” said Wallander.

  “Well, what’s somebody doing standing in a rape field? There’s got to be something odd about that.”

  Wallander decided he ought to end the conversation as rapidly as possible. It was clear to him now that the old man had imagined the whole thing. He would contact social services the next day.

  “There’s not really much I can do,” said Wallander. “She’s probably gone by now. And in that case, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “She’s not gone at all,” said Salomonsson. “I can see her right now.”

  Wallander spun around. He followed Salomonsson’s pointing finger.

  The woman was about 50 metres out in the rape field. Wallander could see that her hair was very dark. It stood out sharply against the yellow crop.

  “I’ll go and talk to her,” said Wallander. “Wait here.”

  He took a pair of boots from his car, and put them on. Then he walked towards the field, feeling as though he were caught in something surreal. The woman was standing completely still, watching him. When he got closer he saw that not only did she have long black hair, but her skin was dark too. He stopped when he reached the edge of the crop. He raised one hand and tried to wave her over. She continued to stand motionless. Even though she was still quite far from him and the billowing rape hid her face every so often, he had the impression that she was rather beautiful. He shouted to her to come towards him. When she still didn’t move he took a step into the field. At once she vanished. It happened so fast that she seemed like a frightened animal. He could feel himself getting angry. He went on walking out into the field, looking in every direction. When he caught sight of her again she had moved to the eastern corner of the field. So that she wouldn’t get away, he started running. She moved swiftly, and Wallander was soon out of breath. When he got as close as 20 metres or so from her, they were out in the middle of the field. He shouted to her.

  “Police!” he yelled. “Stop where you are!”

  He started walking towards her. Then he pulled up short. Everything happened very fast. She raised a plastic container over her head and started pouring a colourless liquid over her hair, her face, and her body. He thought fleetingly that she must have been carrying it the whole time. He could see that she was terrified. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring straight at him.

  “Police!” he shouted again. “I just want to talk to you.”

  At the same moment a smell of petrol wafted towards him. Suddenly she had a flickering cigarette lighter in one hand, which she touched to her hair. Wallander cried out as she burst into flame. Paralysed, he watched her lurch around the field as the fire sizzled and blazed over her body. Wallander could hear himself screaming. But the woman on fire was silent. Afterwards he couldn’t remember hearing her scream at all.

  When he tried to run up to her the field exploded in flames. He was suddenly surrounded by smoke and fire. He held his hands in front of his face and ran, without knowing which direction he was heading. When he reached the edge of the field he tripped and tumbled into the ditch. He turned around and saw her one last time before she fell over and disappeared from his sight. She was holding her arms up as if appealing for mercy. The entire field was aflame.

  Somewhere behind him he could hear Salomonsson wailing. Wallander got to his feet. His legs were shaking. Then he turned away and threw up.

  CHAPTER 3

  Afterwards Wallander would remember the burning girl in the rape field the way you remember, with the greatest reluctance, a distant nightmare sooner forgotten. If he appeared to maintain at least an outward sense of calm for the rest of that evening and far into the night,
later he could recall nothing but trivial details. Martinsson, Hansson and especially Ann-Britt Höglund had been astonished by his calm. But they couldn’t see through the shield he had set up to protect himself. Inside him there was devastation, like a house that had collapsed.

  He got back to his flat just after 2 a.m. Only then, when he sat down on his sofa, still in his filthy clothes and muddy boots, did the shield crumble. He poured himself a glass of whisky. The doors of his balcony stood open and let in the balmy night, and he cried like a baby.

  The girl had been a child. She reminded him of his own daughter Linda. During his years as a policeman he had learned to be prepared for whatever might await him when he arrived at a place where someone had met a violent or sudden death. He had seen people who had hanged themselves, stuck a shotgun in their mouth, or blown themselves to bits. Somehow he had learned to endure what he saw and push it aside. But he couldn’t when there were children or young people involved. Then he was as vulnerable as when he was first a policeman. He knew that many of his colleagues reacted the same way. When children or young people died violently, for no reason, the defences erected out of habit collapsed. And that’s how it would be for Wallander as long as he continued working as a policeman.

  He had completed the initial phase of the investigation in an exemplary manner. With traces of vomit still clinging to his mouth he had run up to Salomonsson, who was watching his crop burn with astonishment, and asked where the telephone was. Since Salomonsson didn’t seem to understand the question, maybe didn’t even hear it, he dashed past him into the house. He was assailed by the acrid smell of the unwashed old man. In the hall he found the telephone. He dialled 90–000, and the operator said later that Wallander had sounded quite calm when he described what had happened and asked for a full team to be sent out.

  The flames from the field were shining through the windows like floodlights lighting up the summer evening. He called Martinsson at home, talking first with his daughter and then his wife before Martinsson was called in from the back yard. As succinctly as possible he described what had happened and asked Martinsson to call Hansson and Höglund too. Then he went out to the kitchen and washed his face under the tap. When he came back outside, Salomonsson was still rooted to the same spot, as if mesmerised. A car arrived with some of his closest neighbours in it. But Wallander shouted to them to stay back, not allowing them to approach Salomonsson. In the distance he heard sirens from the fire engines, which almost always arrived first. Soon afterwards, two squad cars of uniformed officers and an ambulance arrived. Peter Edler was directing the firefighting, a man in whom Wallander had total confidence.