“I’ve dropped the radio,” Martinsson said. “I can’t find it in this shit.”
The man in the field was quickly disappearing. Wallander saw him trip and almost fall. Wallander knew he had to make a quick decision. He got to his feet.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“We have to take him,” Wallander said.
“We have to surround him first.”
“Before we do that, he’ll get away.”
Wallander looked at Martinsson, who shook his head. Then he started running. The mud immediately started caking up under his shoes. The man was beyond the reach of the light now. Wallander stopped and made sure his gun was cocked. Behind him he heard Martinsson shouting to El Sayed and Elofsson. Wallander stayed slightly outside the light from the remaining headlight and sped up. Then one of his shoes sank down in the mud and came off. Wallander angrily ripped off the other. His feet immediately became cold and wet, but it was easier to walk over the mud. He suddenly caught sight of the man, who was also having trouble crossing the plowed mud.
The distance between them was still so great that Wallander did not dare try to immobilize him by shooting at his legs. In the distance he heard a helicopter, but it did not come closer. It seemed to be awaiting further orders. They were out in the middle of the field now and the light from the car was very weak. Wallander knew he had to do something, he just didn’t know what. He was a mediocre shot. The man in front of him had missed his mark twice in a row, but Wallander still sensed he was better with his weapon than Wallander was with his. He had hit the headlight from very far away. Wallander frantically tried to think of something that would work. He didn’t understand why neither Hansson nor Martinsson ordered the helicopter to advance.
Suddenly the man tripped and fell. Wallander stopped. Then he saw that the man was looking for something. It took Wallander a split second to understand that he had dropped his gun and was looking for it. They were about thirty meters apart. I don’t have enough time, he thought, but then he was running and jumping across the stiff furrows. A few times he almost lost his balance. Then the man saw him. Even though it was dark, Wallander could tell he looked Asian.
Wallander’s left foot slipped out from under him as if he were on an ice floe. He didn’t manage to recover and ended up falling headfirst into the mud. At that moment his opponent found his gun. Wallander had one knee up and saw that the gun was aimed straight at him. Wallander pulled his own trigger. The gun didn’t work. He tried again with the same result. In a last desperate attempt to survive, Wallander threw himself to the side and tried to sink down into the mud. That was when the shot was fired. Wallander flinched, but he had not been hit. He lay motionless and waited for his opponent to fire again. But nothing happened. Wallander had no sense of how long he lay there. He felt as if he were watching himself from a distance, observing the situation. So this was how it would end: a meaningless death in a muddy field. This is where he had brought his dreams and intentions. Now nothing would come of them. He would disappear into the final darkness with his face pressed down into the cold wet clay, and he wasn’t even wearing any shoes.
It was only when he heard the sound of a rapidly approaching helicopter that he dared to think he might survive. He carefully looked up.
The man lay on his back with his arms spread. Wallander got up and slowly walked closer. He could see the floodlights on the helicopter starting to search the far end of the field. Some dogs were barking and somewhere far away he heard Martinsson’s voice.
The man was dead. The shot Wallander had heard had not been meant for him after all. The man lying in the mud had shot himself in the temple. Wallander was overcome by a sudden onset of nausea and dizziness and had to sit down. His clothes were cold and wet and now he finally started shaking.
Wallander looked at the body in front of him. He didn’t know who this man was or why he had come to Ystad, but his death was a relief. This was the man who had entered Falk’s apartment when Wallander was there waiting for Marianne Falk. He had tried to shoot Wallander on two separate occasions. Most likely he had also dragged Sonja Hökberg to the power substation, and thrown Jonas Landahl into the propeller axle on the Polish ferry. There were many question marks, but as Wallander sat there on the muddy field he felt that at least something had come to an end.
Now Wallander no longer had to fear for his colleagues’ or Robert Modin’s safety.
There was no way for him to know that he was wrong about this assumption. It was something he would only come to understand in time.
Martinsson was the first person to reach Wallander. The latter stood up. Elofsson was also nearby. Wallander asked him to find his shoes and bring them over.
“Did you shoot him?” Martinsson asked in disbelief.
Wallander shook his head.
“No, he shot himself. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
Lisa Holgersson suddenly appeared, as if out of thin air. Wallander let Martinsson do the explainaing. Elofsson turned up with Wallander’s shoes, which were covered in thick clay. Wallander wanted to get away as soon as possible. Not only to be able to change his clothes, but to get away from the memory of what it was like to lie there in the mud expecting the end. The depressingly pathetic end.
Somewhere deep inside there was probably a flicker of happiness, but for the moment a feeling of emptiness dominated.
The helicopter was gone now. Hansson had dismissed it, and the large operation was now being dismantled. The only people left were the team who were going to do the investigation surrounding the suspect’s death.
Hansson made his way through the mud. He was wearing bright orange boots.
“You should go home,” he said, looking at Wallander.
Wallander nodded and started walking the same way he had come. All around him he saw the flickering of flashlights. Several times he almost tripped.
Shortly before he got to the road, Holgersson caught up with him.
“I think I have a fairly complete picture of what happened,” she said. “But tomorrow we’ll have to have a thorough debriefing. It’s lucky things turned out as well as they did.”
“Soon we should be able to determine if this is the individual who was responsible for Sonja Hokberg’s and Jonas Landahl’s deaths.”
“But why did all of this happen?”
“We don’t know why, but Falk is in the center of it all. Or rather, whatever is in his computer.”
“This hypothesis still seems unfounded to me,” Holgersson said.
“There’s no alternative, as far as I see.”
Wallander had no more energy for this discussion.
“I have to get into some dry clothes,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m heading home now.”
“One more thing,” she said. “I have to say this to you. It was completely irresponsible of you to have gone after this man alone. You should have taken Martinsson along as backup.”
“Everything happened so fast.”
“But you should not have ordered him to stay behind.”
Wallander had been brushing clay from his clothes. Now he looked up.
“Ordered him?”
“Yes, ordered him to stand back while you went in. You know as well as I do that one of the most basic rules of police work is never to act alone.”
Wallander had forgotten all about the mud now.
“Who says I ordered him to stay behind?”
“It has emerged from various reports.”
Wallander knew there was only one possible explanation for this version of the events. Martinsson must have said this to her. Elofsson and El Sayed had been too far back to be able to hear anything.