“What the hell is going on?” Sjosten asked.
“We have to get some back-up from Helsingborg,” Wallander said. “As fast as we can.”
He knelt down, and Sjosten did the same. Wallander tried to talk to the frightened girls in English. But they didn’t seem to understand the language, or at least not the way he spoke it. Some of them couldn’t be much older than Dolores Maria Santana.
“Do you know any Spanish?” he asked Sjosten. “I don’t know a word.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Do you know Spanish or not?”
“I can’t speak Spanish! Shit! I know a few words. What do you want me to say?”
“Anything! Just tell them to be calm.”
“Should I say I’m a policeman?”
“No! Whatever you do, don’t say that!”
“Buenas dias,” Sjosten said hesitantly.
“Smile,” Wallander said. “Can’t you see how scared they are?”
“I’m doing the best I can,” complained Sjosten.
“Say it again,” said Wallander. “Friendly this time.”
“Buenas dias,” Sjosten repeated.
One of the girls answered. Her voice was unsteady. Wallander felt as if he was now getting the answer he’d been looking for, ever since that day when the girl stood in the field and stared at him with her terrified eyes.
At the same moment they heard a sound behind them in the house, perhaps a door opening. The girls heard it too, and huddled together again.
“It must be the security guards,” Sjosten said. “We’d better go and meet them. Otherwise they’ll wonder what’s going on here and start making a fuss.”
Wallander gestured to the girls to stay put. Then the two of them went back down the narrow hall, this time with Sjosten in the lead.
It almost cost him his life. When they stepped into the open room, several shots rang out. They came in such rapid succession that they must have been fired from a semi-automatic weapon. The first bullet slammed into Sjosten’s left shoulder, smashing his collarbone. He was thrown backwards by the impact and rammed into Wallander. The second, third and maybe fourth shots landed somewhere above their heads.
“Don’t shoot! Police!” Wallander shouted.
Whoever was shooting fired off another burst. Sjosten was hit again, this time in the right ear. Wallander threw himself behind one of the walls. He pulled Sjosten with him, who screamed and passed out. Wallander found Sjosten’s revolver and fired it into the room. He knew there must only be two or three shots left.
There was no answer. He waited with his heart pounding, revolver raised and ready to shoot. Then he heard the sound of a car starting. He let Sjosten go and crouching low, ran over to a window. He saw the back end of a black Mercedes disappearing down the farm road, vanishing into the beech woods. He went back to Sjosten, who was bleeding and unconscious. He found a pulse. It was fast. This was good. Better than too slow. Still holding the revolver in his hand, he picked up the phone and dialled 90-000.
“Officer down,” he shouted when they answered. Then he managed to calm down, tell them who he was, what had happened, and where they were. He went back to Sjosten, who had regained consciousness.
“It’ll be all right,” Wallander said, over and over again. “Help is on the way.”
“What happened?” Sjosten asked.
“Don’t talk,” Wallander said. “Everything will be fine.”
He searched feverishly for wounds. He’d thought Sjosten had been hit by at least three bullets, finally realised that it was only two. He made two simple pressure bandages, wondering what had happened to the security company and why it was taking so long for help to arrive. He also thought about the Mercedes and knew he wouldn’t rest until he caught the man who had shot Sjosten.
Eventually he heard the sirens. He got up and went outside to meet the cars from Helsingborg. First came the ambulance, then Birgersson and two other squad cars and last the fire department. All of them were shocked when they saw Wallander. He hadn’t noticed how covered in blood he was. And he still had Sjosten’s revolver in his hand.
“How is he?” Birgersson asked.
“He’s inside. I think he’ll be OK.”
“What the hell happened?”
“There are four girls locked up here,” said Wallander. “They’re probably some of the ones being taken through Helsingborg to brothels in southern Europe.”
“Who shot at you?”
“I never saw him. But I assume it was Logard. This house belongs to him.”
“A Mercedes crashed into a car from the security company down by the main road,” Birgersson said. “No injuries, but the driver of the Mercedes stole the security guards’ car.”
“Then they saw him,” said Wallander. “It must be him. The guards were on their way here. The alarm went off when we broke in.”
“You broke in?”
“Never mind that now. Put out the word on that security company car. And get the technicians out here right away. I want them to check for prints. They’ll have to be compared to the ones we found at the other murder scenes. Wetterstedt, Carlman, all of them.”
Birgersson turned pale. The connection seemed to dawn on him for the first time.
“You mean it was him?”
“It could have been, but we don’t know that. Now get going. And don’t forget the girls. Take them all in. Treat them nicely. And find some Spanish interpreters.”
“It’s amazing how much you know already,” Birgersson said.
Wallander stared at him. “I don’t know a thing,” he said. “Now get moving.”
Sjosten was carried out. Wallander went into town with him in the ambulance. One of the ambulance drivers gave him a towel. He wiped himself clean with it as best he could. Then he checked in with Ystad. It was just after 7 p.m. He got hold of Svedberg and explained what had happened.
“Who is this Logard?” Svedberg asked.
“That’s what we have to find out. Is Louise Fredman still missing?”
“Yes.”
Wallander felt the need to think. What had seemed so clear in his mind a while before was no longer making sense.
“I’ll be in touch later,” he said. “But you’ll have to pass all of this on to the investigative team.”
“Ludwigsson and Hamren have found an interesting witness at Sturup,” Svedberg said. “A night watchman. He saw a man on a moped. The timetable fits.”
“A moped?”
“Yep.”
“You don’t think our killer is riding around on a moped, do you? Those are for children, for God’s sake.”
Wallander felt himself starting to lose his cool. He didn’t want to, least of all at Svedberg. He said goodbye quickly and hung up.
Sjosten looked up at him from the stretcher.
Wallander smiled. “It’s going to be fine,” he said.
“It was like getting kicked by a horse,” moaned Sjosten. “Twice.”
“Don’t talk,” said Wallander. “We’ll be at the hospital soon.”
The night of 7 July was one of the most chaotic Wallander had ever experienced. There was an air of unreality about everything that happened.
He would never forget it. Sjosten was admitted to hospital, and the doctors confirmed that his life was not in danger. Wallander was driven to the station in a squad car.
Sergeant Birgersson had proven to be a good organiser, and he’d understood everything Wallander had said at the farmhouse. He had the presence of mind to establish an area past which all the reporters who had started gathering weren’t permitted. Inside, where the actual police were working, no reporters were allowed.
It was 10 p.m. when Wallander arrived from the hospital. Someone had lent him a clean shirt and pair of trousers. They were so tight around the waist that he couldn’t zip them up. Birgersson, noticing the problem, called the owners of Helsingborg’s most elegant tailor and put Wallander on the line. It was a strange experience to stand in the middle of the chaos and try to remember his waist size, but in an astonishingly swift time, several pairs of trousers were delivered to the station, and one of them fitted.