Henning Mankell - One step behind

Wallander glanced instinctively at his watch. It was 2.09 a.m. They stood in the doorway for a few more seconds, then walked back out into the hall. Wallander turned on the light. He saw that Martinsson was shaking. He wondered what he looked like himself.

"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.