“People have their own troubles,” replied Wallander, and at the same time it occurred to him that Svedberg was quite right. The public was prepared to bend over backwards to save their police stations.
Svedberg stood up. “That’s about it,” he said.
“Set up a meeting,” Wallander said. “I promise I’ll come. But wait until summer’s over.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Svedberg and left the room with the files under his arm.
It was late afternoon. Through the window Wallander could see that it was about to rain. He decided to have a pizza before he drove out to see his father in Loderup. On the way out he stopped in on Martinsson.
“Don’t stay there too long,” he said.
“I haven’t found anything yet,” said Martinsson.
“See you tomorrow.”
Wallander went out to his car, which was already spattered with raindrops. He was just about to drive away when Martinsson ran out waving his arms. We’ve got her, he thought, and felt a knot in his stomach. He rolled down the window.
“Did you find her?” he asked.
“No,” said Martinsson.
Wallander realised something serious had happened. He got out of the car.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Someone phoned in,” said Martinsson. “A body has been found on the beach out past Sandskogen.”
Damn, thought Wallander. Not now. Not that.
“It sounds like a murder,” Martinsson went on. “It was a man that called. He was unusually lucid, even though I think he was in shock.”
“Get your jacket,” said Wallander. “It’s raining.”
Martinsson didn’t move.
“The man who called seemed to know who the victim was.”
Wallander could tell by Martinsson’s face that he ought to dread what would come next.
“He said it was Wetterstedt. The former minister of justice.”
Wallander stared at Martinsson.
“What?”
“Gustaf Wetterstedt. The minister of justice. And he said it looked as if he’d been scalped.”
It was Wednesday, 22 June.
CHAPTER 6
The rain was coming down harder by the time they got to the beach. On the way there they had spoken very little. Martinsson gave directions. They turned off onto a narrow road past the tennis courts. Wallander tried to picture what awaited them. What he wanted least of all had happened. If the man who called the station turned out to be right, his leave was in danger. Hansson would appeal to him to postpone it, and eventually he would have to give in. What he had been hoping for — that his desk would be cleared of pressing matters at the end of June — was not going to happen.
They saw the dunes ahead of them and stopped. A man came forward to meet them. To Wallander’s surprise, he didn’t seem older than 30. If it was Wetterstedt who had died, this man couldn’t have been more than ten when the minister of justice had retired and vanished from public view. Wallander had been a young detective at the time. In the car he had tried to remember Wetterstedt’s face. He wore his hair cropped short, and glasses without frames. Wallander vaguely recalled his voice: blaring, invariably self-confident, never willing to admit a mistake.
The young man introduced himself as Goran Lindgren. He was dressed in shorts and a thin sweater, and he seemed very agitated. They followed him down to the beach, deserted now that it had started to rain. Lindgren led them over to a big rowing boat turned upside down. On the far side there was a wide gap between the sand and the boat’s gunwale.
“He’s under there,” said Lindgren in an unsteady voice.
Wallander and Martinsson looked at each other, still hoping the man had imagined it. They knelt down and peered in under the boat. In the dim light they could see a body lying there.
“We’ll have to turn the boat over,” said Martinsson in a low voice, as if afraid the dead man would hear him.
“No,” said Wallander, “we’re not turning anything over.” He got up quickly and turned to Goran Lindgren.
“I assume you have a torch,” he said. “Otherwise you couldn’t have described the body in such detail.”
The man nodded in surprise and pulled a torch out of a plastic bag near the boat. Wallander bent down again and shone the light inside.
“Holy shit,” said Martinsson at his side.
The dead man’s face was covered with blood. But they could see that the skin from the forehead up over his skull was torn off, and Lindgren had been right. It was Wetterstedt under the boat. They stood up. Wallander handed back the torch.
“How did you know it was Wetterstedt?” he asked.
“He lives here,” said Lindgren, pointing up towards a villa to the left of the boat. “Besides, everyone knows him. You don’t forget a politician who was on TV all the time.”
Wallander nodded doubtfully.
“We’ll need a full team out here,” he said to Martinsson. “Go and call. I’ll wait here.”
Martinsson hurried off. It was raining harder now.
“When did you find him?” asked Wallander.
“I don’t have a watch on me,” said Lindgren. “But it couldn’t have been more than half an hour ago.”
“Where did you call from?”
Lindgren pointed to the plastic bag.
“I have a mobile phone.”
Wallander regarded him with interest.
“He’s lying under an overturned boat,” he said. “He’s invisible from outside. You must have bent down to be able to see him?”
“It’s my boat,” said Lindgren simply. “Or my father’s, to be exact. I usually walk here on the beach when I finish work. Since it was starting to rain, I thought I’d put my things under the boat. When I felt the bag bump into something I bent down. At first I thought it was a plank, but then I saw him.”
“It’s really none of my business,” said Wallander, “but I wonder why you had a torch with you?”
“We have a summer cottage in the woods at Sandskogen,” replied Lindgren. “Over by Myrgangen. We’re in the process of rewiring it, so it has no lights. My father and I are electricians.”
Wallander nodded. “You’ll have to wait here,” he said. “We’ll have to ask you these questions again in a while. Have you touched anything?”
Lindgren shook his head.
“Has anyone other than you seen him?”
“No.”
“When did you or your father last turn over this boat?”
Lindgren thought for a moment.
“It was over a week ago,” he said.
Wallander had no more questions. He stood there thinking for a moment and then left the boat and walked in a wide arc up towards the villa where Wetterstedt lived. He tried the gate. It was locked. He waved Lindgren over.
“Do you live nearby?” he asked.
“No,” he said. “I live in Akesholm. My car is parked on the road.”
“But you knew that Wetterstedt lived in this house?”
“He used to walk along the beach here. Sometimes he stopped to watch while we were working on the boat, Dad and I. But he never spoke to us. He was rather arrogant.”
“Was he married?”
“Dad said that he’d read in a magazine that he was divorced.”
Wallander nodded.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Don’t you have a raincoat in that bag?”
“It’s up in the car.”
“Go ahead and get it,” Wallander said. “Did you call anyone besides the police and tell them about this?”
“I think I ought to call Dad. It’s his boat, after all.”
“Hold off for the time being,” said Wallander. “Leave the phone here, and go and get your raincoat.”
Lindgren did as he was told. Wallander went back to the boat. He stood looking at it and tried to imagine what had happened. He knew that the first impression of a crime scene was often crucial. During an investigation that was long and difficult, he would return to that first moment.
Some things he was already sure of. It was out of the question that Wetterstedt had been murdered underneath the boat. Someone had wanted to hide him. Since Wetterstedt’s villa was so close, there was a good chance that he had died there. Besides, Wallander had a hunch that the killer couldn’t have acted alone. The boat must have been lifted to get the body underneath. And it was the old-fashioned kind, clinker-built and heavy.