Wallander sat down next to Nyberg, who hadn’t left the table.
“It looked like you wanted to say something.”
“It’s just a small detail,” he said. “Do you remember that I found a false nail out in the woods at Marsvinsholm?”
Wallander remembered.
“The one you thought had been there a long time?”
“I didn’t think anything of it then, but now I think we can say for certain that it hadn’t been there very long.”
Wallander nodded. He motioned Hoglund over.
“Do you use false nails?” he asked.
“Not often,” she replied. “But I have tried them.”
“Do they stick on pretty well?”
“They break off easily.”
Wallander nodded.
“I thought you should know,” Nyberg said.
Svedberg came into the room.
“Thanks for returning the note,” he said. “But you could have thrown it out.”
“Rydberg used to say that it was an inexcusable sin to throw out a colleague’s notes.”
“Rydberg said a lot of things.”
“They often proved to be right.”
Wallander knew that Svedberg hadn’t got on with his older colleague. What surprised him was that he still felt that way, even now that Rydberg had been dead for several years.
They reassigned various tasks so that Hamren and the two detectives from Malmo could get involved in the investigation straight away. At 10.45 a.m., Wallander decided that it was time to adjourn. A phone rang. Martinsson, sitting closest, picked it up. Wallander was thinking that maybe he’d have time to go out to Loderup and see Gertrud later that afternoon after all. Martinsson raised his hand. Everyone stopped talking. Martinsson glanced at Wallander. Not again, he thought. We can’t handle this.
Martinsson hung up.
“A body has been found in Krageholm Lake,” Martinsson said.
Wallander’s first thought was that this didn’t have to mean a third murder. Drowning accidents were common enough.
“Where?” he asked.
“There’s a small camping ground on the eastern shore. The body was just off the end of a jetty.”
Wallander could tell that his feeling of relief was premature.
“The body of a man. Inside a sack,” he said.
It has happened again, Wallander thought. The knot in his stomach tightened.
“Who was that on the phone?” Svedberg asked.
“A camper. He was calling on his mobile phone. He was upset. It sounded like he was throwing up in my ear.”
“Nobody would be camping now, would they?” Svedberg asked.
“There are trailers for rent there all year round,” Hansson said. “I know where it is.”
Wallander felt suddenly incapable of dealing with the situation. Maybe Hoglund felt the same way. She helped him out by getting to her feet.
“I guess we’d better go,” she said.
“Yes,” Wallander said. “We’d probably better leave right now.”
Since Hansson knew where they were going, Wallander got into his car. The others followed. Hansson drove recklessly and fast. Wallander braked with his feet. The car phone rang. It was Per Akeson wanting to talk to Wallander.
“What’s this I hear?” he asked. “Is this another one?”
“It’s too early to tell. But it may be so. If it was just a body in the water, it might have been a drowning accident or a suicide, but a body in a sack is a murder.”
“God damn it to hell,” Akeson said.
“You might say that.”
“Keep me posted. Where are you?”
“On our way to Krageholm Lake. We should be there in about 20 minutes.”
Wallander hung up. It occurred to him that they were headed towards the place where they had found the suitcase. Hansson seemed to be thinking the same thing.
“The lake is halfway between Lodinge and Marsvinsholm,” he said. “It’s no great distance.”
Wallander grabbed the phone and dialled Martinsson’s number. His car was right behind them.
“What else did the man who called say? What’s his name?”
“I don’t think I got his name, but he had a Skane accent.”
“A body in a sack. How did he know there was a body in the sack? Did he open it?”
“There was a foot with a man’s shoe sticking out.”
Even though it was a bad connection, Wallander could hear Martinsson’s distress. He hung up.
They reached Sovestad and turned left. Wallander thought about Gosta Runfeldt’s client. Everywhere there were connections to the events. If there was a geographical centre, then Sovestad was it.
The lake was visible through the trees. Wallander tried to prepare himself for what awaited them. As they drove down towards the camping ground, a man came running towards them. Wallander climbed out of the car before Hansson had even stopped.
“Down there,” the man stammered.
Wallander walked slowly down the slope that led to the water. Even at this distance he could make out something in the water, to one side of the jetty. Martinsson came up beside him but stopped at the shore. The others waited in the background. Wallander walked cautiously out onto the jetty. It wobbled under his weight. The water was brown and looked cold. He shivered.
The sack was only partially visible above the water’s surface. A foot was indeed sticking out. The shoe was brown and had laces. White skin could be seen through a hole in the trouser leg.
Wallander looked back and motioned to Nyberg to join him. Hansson was talking to the man. Martinsson was waiting further up, and Hoglund stood off to one side. It looked like a photograph, Wallander thought. Reality frozen, suspended. Nothing more would ever happen.
The mood was broken by Nyberg stepping onto the jetty. Reality returned. Wallander squatted down and Nyberg did the same.
“A sack made of jute,” Nyberg said. “They’re usually strong. But this one has a hole in it. It must be old.”
Wallander wished Nyberg were right, but he knew he wasn’t. The hole in the sack was new. It looked as though the man had kicked his way through it. The fibres had been pushed out and then ripped apart. Wallander knew what this meant. The man had been alive when he was put in the sack and thrown into the lake. Wallander took a deep breath. He felt sick and dizzy.
Nyberg gave him an inquiring look, but didn’t say anything. He waited. Wallander kept on taking deep breaths, one after another.
“He kicked a hole in the sack,” Wallander said when he felt able to speak. “He was alive when he was thrown into the lake.”
“An execution?” Nyberg asked. “A war between two crime gangs?”
“We could hope for that,” Wallander said. “But I don’t think so.”
“The same killer?”
“It looks like it.”
Wallander got to his feet with difficulty. His knees were stiff. He walked back to the shore. Nyberg remained out on the jetty. The forensic technicians had just arrived. Wallander went over to Hoglund. She was standing with Chief Holgersson. The others followed. Finally they were all assembled. The man who had discovered the sack was sitting nearby.
“It could be the same killer,” Wallander said. “If that’s the case, then this time he’s drowned a man in a sack.”
Disgust passed like a ripple through the team.
“We have to stop this madman,” Lisa Holgersson said. “What’s become of this country?”
“A pungee pit,” Wallander said. “A man tied to a tree and strangled. And now a man tied up in a sack and drowned.”
“Do you still think a woman could have done something like this?” Hansson asked aggressively.
Wallander asked himself the same question. What did he really think? In a matter of a few seconds all the events passed through his mind.
“I don’t want to believe it, but yes a woman could have done this, or at least be involved.”
He looked at Hansson.
“You’re asking the wrong question,” he said. “It’s not about what I think.”