One Step Behind

by Henning Mankell

  Around midnight he sat down at the kitchen table with a stack of letters in front of him. It was time for him to start thinking of the future. He opened the first letter carefully and started to read.

  Shortly before 1.30 p.m. on Saturday, 10 August, Wallander left the Hillströms' villa on Körlingsväg. He decided to drive straight to Skårby, where Isa Edengren, the girl whom Eva Hillström claimed should have been with the others on Midsummer's Eve, lived. Wallander had asked Hillström why she hadn't told him about this earlier, but inside he felt a growing sense of guilt over the fact that he had taken so long to realise that something might be seriously wrong.

  He stopped at a cafe by the bus station and ordered a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He realised too late that he should have ordered his sandwich without butter. Now he was forced to try and scrape it off with his knife. A man at the next table was watching him, and Wallander guessed that he had recognised him from the papers. Probably this would lead to rumours about how the police frittered their time away scraping butter off sandwiches instead of searching for their colleague's killer. Wallander sighed. He had never been able to get used to the rumour mill.

  He finished his coffee, went to the lavatory, and left the café. He chose to follow the smaller road that went through Bjäresjö. Just as he left the main road his mobile phone rang. It was Höglund.

  "I just spoke to Lena Norman's parents," she said. "I think I've found out something important."

  Wallander held the phone more closely to his ear.

  "There was supposed to be a fourth person at that Midsummer party," she said.

  "I know. I'm on my way to her house right now."

  "Isa Edengren?"

  "Yes, Eva Hillström picked her out from Svedberg's picture. It turns out that she had the original. Astrid took it last summer with the self-timer on her camera."

  "It feels like Svedberg is always one step ahead of us," she said.

  "We'll catch up with him soon," Wallander said. "Anything else?"

  "Some people have called in with leads, but nothing looks promising."

  "Do me a favour and give Ylva Brink a call," Wallander said. "Ask her how big Svedberg's telescope was, and if it was heavy. I can't figure out where it's gone."

  "Have we already ruled out the possibility of a burglary?"

  "We haven't ruled anything out yet, but if someone made off with a telescope, you would think they would've been seen."

  "Do you want me to do it right away, or can it wait? I'm on my way to see one of the boys from the photograph who lives in Trelleborg."

  "It can wait. Who's going to talk to the other one?"

  "Martinsson and Hansson are going together. I gave them his name. Right now they're in Simrishamn with the Boge family."

  Wallander nodded with satisfaction. "I'm glad we're getting hold of everyone today," he said. "I think we'll know a lot more about the case by this evening."

  They hung up and Wallander continued to Skårby. He followed the directions Eva Hillström had given him. She had told him that Isa Edengren's father had a big piece of property with several full-time landscapers working on it. A private road lined with big trees led up to a two-storey house. A BMW was parked in front. Wallander got out of his car and rang the bell. No one answered. He banged on the door and rang the bell again. It was 2 p.m. He was sweating. He rang the bell once more, then walked around to the back of the house. The garden was large and old-fashioned, with a variety of well-pruned fruit trees. There was a pool and a set of sun loungers that Wallander thought looked expensive. At the bottom of the garden there was a glassed-in gazebo, surrounded and almost completely hidden by bushes and overhanging branches. Wallander walked towards it. The green door was slightly ajar. He knocked but there was no answer. He pushed the door open. The curtains in the windows were pulled shut and it took a while for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.

  He saw that there was a person inside. Someone was sleeping on a divan. He could see black hair sticking up over a blanket, but the person's back was turned towards him. Wallander closed the door and knocked again. Still no answer. Wallander walked in and flicked on the light switch. Light flooded the room. He grabbed the sleeper by the shoulder and gave a couple of shakes. When there was still no reaction Wallander knew that something was wrong. He turned the person over and saw that it was Isa Edengren. He spoke to her, and shook her again. Her breathing was slow and laboured. He shook her hard and sat her up but she didn't show any signs of waking. After fumbling in his pocket for his mobile phone, he remembered he had left it on the car seat after talking to Höglund. He ran back to the car and made an emergency call to the hospital on his way back to the gazebo, giving careful directions to the house.

  "I think it's either a suicide attempt or serious illness," he said. "What do I do?"

  "Make sure she doesn't stop breathing," he was told. "You're a police officer, you should be familiar with the procedure."

  The ambulance arrived after 15 minutes. Wallander had managed to get hold of Höglund, who had not yet left for Trelleborg, and asked her to meet the ambulance when it arrived at the hospital. He was going to stay in Skårby for a while. After the ambulance left, he tried the doors of the main house, but they were locked. Then he heard an approaching car. A man wearing rubber boots and overalls got out of a little Fiat.

  "I saw the ambulance," he said.

  Wallander saw the look of worry in his eyes. After telling him who he was, Wallander said that Isa Edengren was ill. That was all he could say for the moment.

  "Where are her parents?" he asked.

  "Away."

  The answer seemed deliberately vague.

  "Can you be more specific? We'll have to notify them."

  "They may be in Spain," the man said. "But they could also be in France. They own houses in both countries."

  Wallander thought about the locked doors.

  "Does Isa live here even when they're away?"

  The man shook his head.

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "It's really none of my business," the man said and started backing towards his car.

  "You've already made it your business," Wallander said firmly. "What's your name?"

  "Erik Lundberg."

  "Do you live close by?"

  Lundberg pointed to a farm that lay south of where they were.

  "Now I want you to answer my question: did Isa live here while her parents were away?"

  "No, she wasn't allowed to."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "She had to sleep in the gazebo."

  "Why wasn't she allowed in the main house?"

  "There had been trouble in the past. Some parties where things had either been broken or stolen."

  "How do you know this?"

  The answer came as a surprise.

  "They don't treat her very well," Lundberg said. "Last winter when it was ten degrees below zero, they went away and locked up the house. But there's no heating in the gazebo. She came down to our place completely frozen and told us about it. Not me directly, that is, but my wife."

  "Then we'll go back to your place," Wallander said. "I'd like to hear what she told your wife."

  He asked Lundberg to go ahead of him. Wallander wanted to check the gazebo before he left. He found no trace of sleeping pills or letter, and nothing else of consequence. He looked around one more time then headed back to the car. His phone rang.

  "She's just been admitted," Höglund said.

  "What are the doctors saying?"

  "Not very much for now."

  She promised to call as soon as she heard anything. Wallander relieved himself next to the car before he went down to Lundberg's farm. A wary dog met him on the front porch. Lundberg came out and chased it away, and invited Wallander into a cosy kitchen. Lundberg's wife was making coffee. Her name was Barbro and she spoke in a Gothenburg dialect.

  "How is she?"

  "My colleague will let me know as soon as she hears anythin
g."

  "Did she try to kill herself?"

  "It's too soon to know," Wallander said. "But I wasn't able to wake her up."

  He sat down at the table and put the phone beside him.

  "I take it she's attempted suicide before, since you immediately assumed that was the case," he said.

  "It's a suicidal family," Lundberg said with distaste.

  Then he stopped talking, as if he regretted his remark.

  Barbro Lundberg put the coffee pot on the table. "Isa's brother passed away two years ago," she said. "He was only 19 years old. Isa and Jörgen were only one year apart."

  "How did he do it?"

  "In the bathtub," Lundberg said. "He wrote a note to his parents telling them to go to hell. Then he plugged a toaster into the wall and dropped it in the water."

  Wallander felt sick to his stomach. He had a vague recollection of the incident. It came to him that Svedberg had been the one in charge of the investigation. A newspaper lay on an old sofa under the window. Wallander caught sight of a photo of Svedberg on the front page. He reached out for it and showed them the photograph.

  "You may have heard about the policeman who was killed," he said. He got his answer before he even asked the question.

  "He was here about a month ago."

  "Did he come to see you or the Edengrens?"

  "First to see them. Then he came here, just like you did."

  "Were her parents gone that time as well?"

  "No."

  "So he met Isa's parents?"

  "We don't know exactly who he spoke to," Lundberg said. "But her parents weren't gone then."

  "Why did he come down here? What did he ask you about?"

  Barbro Lundberg sat down at the table.

  "He asked us about the parties they had when Isa's parents were gone, before they started locking her out," she said.

  "That was the only thing that interested him," Lundberg said.

  Wallander grew more attentive. He realised that this might give him an insight into the way Svedberg had spent his summer.

  "I want both of you to try to remember exactly what he said."

  "A month is a long time," she said.

  "But you sat here at the kitchen table?"

  "Yes."

  "And you had coffee?"

  Barbro Lundberg smiled. "He liked my bundt cake."

  Wallander proceeded carefully. "It must have been right after Midsummer."

  The couple exchanged looks. Wallander saw that they were trying to help each other remember.

  "It must have been right at the beginning of July. I'm sure of it," she said.

  "So he came here at the end of June. First to see the Edengrens and then to see you."

  "Isa came with him. But she was sick with some kind of stomach bug."

  "Did Isa stay here the whole time?"

  "No, she only came down with him to show him the way. Then she left."

  "And he asked you about the parties?"

  "Yes."

  "What exactly did he ask?"

  "If we knew the people who used to come. But of course we didn't."

  "Why do you say 'of course'?"

  "They were just young people who came in cars and then left the same way."

  "What else did he ask?"

  "If any of these parties were masquerades," Lundberg said.

  "Did he use that word?"

  "Yes."

  His wife shook her head. "No, he didn't. He just asked if the people who attended the parties used to dress up."

  "Did they?"

  They both looked at Wallander with surprise.

  "How on earth would we know?" Lundberg asked. "We weren't there, and we don't go around peeking through the curtains."

  "But didn't you see something?"

  "The parties were sometimes in the autumn, and it was usually dark. We couldn't see how people were dressed."

  Wallander sat quietly and thought for a moment. "Did he ask anything else?"

  "No. He sat for a while scratching his forehead with his pen. He was only here for about half an hour. Then he left."

  Wallander's mobile phone rang. It was Höglund.

  "They're pumping her stomach."

  "So it was a suicide attempt?"

  "I don't think people can ingest this many sleeping pills by accident."

  "Are the doctors saying anything at this stage?"

  "The fact that she's unconscious suggests she may already be poisoned."

  "Will she make it?"

  "I haven't heard anything to the contrary."

  "Then why don't you go on to Trelleborg?"

  "That's what I was thinking. I'll see you later back at the station."

  They hung up, and the couple looked at Wallander with anxious eyes.

  "She'll make it," he said. "But I will need to contact her parents."

  "We have a couple of phone numbers," Lundberg said, and got up.

  "They wanted us to call if anything happened to the house," his wife explained. "They didn't say anything about this kind of situation."

  "You mean what to do if anything happened to Isa?"

  She nodded. Lundberg gave Wallander a piece of paper with the phone numbers.

  "Can we visit her in the hospital?" Barbro Lundberg asked.

  "I'm sure you can," Wallander answered. "But I think it would be best if you waited until tomorrow."

  Erik Lundberg saw him out.

  "Do you have any keys to the house?" Wallander asked.

  "They would never entrust them to us," the man said.

  Wallander said goodbye, returned to the Edengren house, and walked over to the gazebo. He searched it again thoroughly for about half an hour, unsure as to what exactly he was looking for. He ended up sitting on Isa's bed.

  Something's repeating itself, he thought. Svedberg came to talk to the girl who didn't make it to the Midsummer celebration and did not go missing. Svedberg asked about parties, and about young people dressing up in costumes. Now Isa Edengren has tried to kill herself and Svedberg has been murdered.

  Wallander got up and left the gazebo. He was worried. He wasn't finding anything reliable to point him in the right direction. There seemed to be clues pointing in many directions, but none of them seemed to lead anywhere. He got into his car and headed back to Ystad.

  His next aim was to have another talk with Sture Björklund. It was almost 4 p.m. when he pulled into Björklund's yard. He knocked on the door and waited, but no one answered. Björklund had probably gone to Copenhagen, or else he was in Hollywood discussing his latest ideas for a monster. Wallander banged hard on the door but didn't wait for anyone to open it. Instead he walked around to the back. The garden was neglected. Some half-rotting pieces of furniture were scattered in the long grass. Wallander peered in through one of the windows of the house, then continued down to a little shed. Wallander felt the door. It was unlocked. He opened it wide and pushed a piece of wood underneath it to keep it in place. It was a mess inside. He was about to leave when his attention was caught by a tarpaulin folded over something in the corner. There seemed to be some kind of equipment under it. He carefully pulled off part of the cover. It was a machine all right; or more precisely, an instrument. Wallander had never seen one like it before, but he still knew immediately what it was. A telescope.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When Wallander walked back outside he noticed the wind had picked up. He turned his back to it and tried to collect his thoughts. How many people owned telescopes? Not many. The telescope had to be Svedberg's. He couldn't think of any other possible explanation. That brought up other questions: why hadn't Sture Björklund said anything?

  Did he have something to hide, or didn't he know that the telescope was on his property? Could Sture Björklund have killed his own cousin? He doubted it.

  He returned to his car and made some calls, but neither Martinsson nor Hansson was in his office. He asked the officer on duty to send a car out to Hedeskoga.

  "What's
happened?" he asked.

  "I need some people to keep this place under surveillance," Wallander said. "For now you can simply say that it has to do with Svedberg's case."

  "Do we know who shot him?"

  "No. This is a routine matter."

  Wallander asked for an unmarked car and described the intersection where he would meet it. When Wallander reached the intersection the car was already waiting for him. He explained to the patrol officers where they should wait, and that they should call him as soon as Sture Björklund turned up, then he started back to Ystad. He was very hungry and his mouth was dry. He stopped at a takeaway restaurant on Malmövägen and ordered a hamburger. While he was waiting for his food, he drank some soda water. After eating much too quickly he bought himself a litre of mineral water. He needed time to think, but knew he would inevitably be disturbed if he returned to the station, so he drove out of town and parked outside the Saltsjöbaden hotel. The wind was quite strong now but he walked on until he found a sheltered spot. For some reason there was an old toboggan there and he sat down on it and shut his eyes.

  There has to be a point of entry into this mess, he thought. A point of connection that I am overlooking. He went through everything that had happened so far as carefully and clearly as he could, but despite his efforts, the facts remained as muddled and obscure as before.

  What would Rydberg have done? When Rydberg had been alive, Wallander had always been able to ask him for advice. They would take a walk on the beach or sit in the station late into the night discussing the facts of a case until they arrived at something important. But Rydberg was gone now. Wallander strained to hear his voice in his head, but there was nothing there.

  Sometimes he thought Ann-Britt Höglund was on her way to becoming his new partner. She listened as well as Rydberg and didn't hesitate to change track if she felt it could help them break through a new wall.

  In time it may work out, he thought. Ann-Britt is a good police officer. But it takes time.

  He got up heavily and started walking back to the car. There's only one thing that really sets this investigation apart, he thought. People dressed up in costume. Svedberg wanted to know about parties where people dressed up in costume. We have a photograph of people at a party dressed up in costume. There are people in costume at every turn.