Henning Mankell - One step behind

When he arrived at the far end of the pier, he made up his mind. He drove back to Ystad and parked at the back of the block of flats on Mariagatan. No one saw him slip in through the front door of the building. He rang the doorbell and listened carefully. No one was home. He unlocked the door, walked in, and sat down on the sofa in the living room. He put his gun down on the coffee table. It was a few minutes after 11 a.m.

Hansson and the Malmo officer were still so shaken that they had to be sent home. This meant that the team shrank by two people, and Wallander detected a new level of tension among members of the group when they gathered after the chaotic events at Lilla Norregatan.

Holgersson took him aside to ask if it was time to send for more reinforcements. Wallander wavered, exhausted and starting to doubt his judgment, but then answered with an emphatic no. They didn't need reinforcements, they just needed to focus.

"Do you really think we can find him?" she asked. "Or are you just hoping there will be another breakthrough?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

They sat back down at the conference table. Martinsson had still not been able to find anything on Larstam in the police registers, so he turned the matter over to a subordinate who would search the files in the basement. Hoglund hadn't yet managed to find anything on the two sisters. Now that Hansson was out of the game, Wallander asked her to hold off on that. He needed to have her close by; the sisters would have to wait. They had to concentrate on finding Larstam before he turned to victim number nine.

"We have to ask ourselves what we know," Wallander said, for the umpteenth time.

"He's still in town," Martinsson said. "That must mean he's preparing to strike somewhere close by."

"He's not unaffected by us," Thurnberg said, who rarely commented on the action. "He knows we're on his heels."

"It's also possible he likes it this way," Wallander said.

Kjell Albinsson, who was sitting silently in a corner of the room, now indicated that he wanted to speak. Wallander nodded to him and he got up and approached the table.

"I don't know if this is anything," he said. "But I just remembered that last summer someone at work claimed to have seen Larstam down at the marina. That might mean he owns a boat."

Wallander hit the table with the flat of his hand. "How seriously can we take this?"

"It was one of the other postmen who saw him. He was sure it was him."

"Did he ever actually see Larstam climb onto one of the boats?"

"No, but he said he was carrying a container of petrol."

"Then it can't be a sailing boat," said one of the Malmo officers. But this comment met with a storm of protests.

"Sailing boats often have engines as well," Martinsson said. "We can't rule anything out, even a little sea plane."

Martinsson's last suggestion met with even more protests. Wallander silenced them.

"A boat is a good hiding place," he said. "The question is how much stock we put in this."

He turned to Albinsson again. "Are you sure you're right?"

"Yes."

Wallander looked over at Thurnberg, who nodded.

"Get some plainclothes officers to look around the marina," Wallander said. "Make the whole thing as discreet as possible. If there's even a hint of a suspicion that Larstam is there, they should turn back. We'll have to decide how to proceed at that point."

"There are probably a lot of people down there," Hoglund said, "with this weather we've been having."

Martinsson and one of the Malmo officers headed down to the marina. Wallander asked Albinsson to sit at the table.

"If you have any more of these boat stories up your sleeve, I'd love to hear them."

"I've been trying to think of everything I can, but it's just making me realise how little I knew about him," Albinsson said.

Wallander checked his watch. It was 11.30 a.m. We're not going to get him in time, he thought. At any moment the phone will ring with the news of another murder.

Hoglund started talking about Larstam's motive.

"It must be some kind of revenge," Wallander said.

"For what?" she asked. "Because he was fired from his job? What would the newly-weds have to do with that?"

Wallander got up to get some coffee and Hoglund came along.

"You're right. There's another motive here," Wallander said, as they were nursing their mugs of coffee in the canteen. "There may be an element of revenge at the bottom of it, but Larstam kills people who are happy. Nyberg was struck by this thought in Nybrostrand. Albinsson confirmed it. Ake Larstam doesn't like it when people laugh."

"Then he's more disturbed than we realised. You don't kill people just because they're happy. What kind of world is this?"

"Good question," Wallander said. "We ask ourselves what kind of world we live in, but it's too painful to face the truth. Maybe our worst fears have already been realised – maybe the justice system has collapsed. More and more people are feeling overlooked and superfluous, and that feeds the escalation of senseless violence we're seeing. Violence has become part of our daily reality. We complain about the way things are, but sometimes I think things are even worse than we're admitting."

Wallander was about to continue with this line of thought when he was told that Martinsson was on the phone. He spilled coffee on his shirt as he ran back to the conference room.

"We haven't found anything," Martinsson said. "There isn't a boat registered under Larstam's name."

Wallander thought for a moment. "He may have registered his boat under someone else's name," he said.

"These marinas are so small that people generally know each other," Martinsson said. "I doubt he would have felt safe using an assumed name."

But Wallander wasn't prepared to let go of the idea just yet. "Did you check under Svedberg's name?"

"I did, actually. But there wasn't anything."

"I want you to check the register one more time. Try anyone's name who's been associated with this investigation, either centrally or otherwise."

"You're thinking of names like Hillstrom and Skander?"

"Exactly."

"I see what you're saying, but do you really think it's a reasonable assumption?"

"Nothing is reasonable. Just do it. Call me if you find anything."

Wallander hung up, and looked down at the large coffee stain on his shirt. He was fairly sure he had at least one clean shirt in his cupboard, and it would take him only 20 minutes to go home and change. But he decided to wait until he heard from Martinsson again.

Thurnberg came over. "I'd like to send Albinsson home," he said. "I don't think he has anything to add at this point."

Wallander got up, walked over to Albinsson, and shook his hand. "You've been a great help to us."

"I still don't understand any of this."

"None of us do."

"Nothing should go further than this room," Thurnberg said.

Albinsson promised to keep quiet.

"Does anyone know where Nyberg is?" Wallander asked.

"He's using the phone in Hansson's office."

"That's where I'll be if Martinsson calls."

Wallander went to Hansson's office, where Nyberg sat with the telephone receiver pressed to his ear. He was writing something on a pad. He looked up when Wallander came in.

"We'll know whether or not it's Larstam's thumb before the end of the day," Nyberg said when he'd hung up.

"It is his thumb," Wallander said. "We just need confirmation."

"What will you do if it isn't his thumb?"

"Resign from this investigation."

Nyberg pondered these words. Wallander sat down in Hansson's chair.

"Do you remember the telescope?" Wallander asked. "Why was it over at Bjorklund's house? Who put it there?"

"You don't think it was someone other than Larstam, do you?"