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“Do you know your way around Helsingborg?” she said.

“No.”

“We could call our colleagues in Helsingborg and ask.”

“Best to keep them out of it for the time being,” Wallander said.

“Why?”

“When police officers intrude into others’ territory there are always problems,” Wallander said. “No point in making things difficult for ourselves unnecessarily.”

They drove on in silence. Wallander thought reluctantly about the conversation he would have to have with Björk. When they came to the road for Sturup Airport, Wallander turned. A few kilometers further on he turned again, toward Lund.

“Tell me why you became a police officer,” Wallander said.

“Not yet,” she said. “Another time.”

There was not much traffic. The wind seemed to be getting worse all the time. They passed the rotary outside Staffanstorp and saw the lights from Lund. It was 9:25.

“That’s odd,” she said suddenly.

Wallander immediately noticed there was something different about her voice. He glanced at her face, which was lit up by the glow from the dashboard. He could see she was staring intently into the mirror on her side. He looked in his rearview mirror. There were headlights some way behind.

“What’s odd?” he asked.

“I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.

“What?”

“Being chased,” she said. “Or, at least, being followed.”

Wallander could see that she was serious. He looked again at the lights in his mirror.

“How can you be so sure the car is following us?” he said.

“That’s easy. It’s been behind us ever since we started driving.”

Wallander looked at her doubtfully.

“I’m positive,” she said. “That car has been following us ever since we left Ystad.”

Chapter 7

Fear was like a beast of prey.

Afterward, Wallander remembered it as being like a claw clamped around his neck—an image that seemed even to him childish and inadequate, but it was the comparison he eventually used even so. Who would he describe the fear to? His daughter Linda, and perhaps also Baiba, in one of the letters he sent regularly to Riga. But hardly to anyone else. He never discussed with Höglund what he had felt in that car; she never asked, and he was never sure whether she had noticed he was frightened. Nevertheless, he had been so terrified that he was shaking, and was convinced he would lose control of the car and plunge into the ditch at high speed, perhaps even hurtle to his death. He remembered with crystal clarity that he wished he had been alone in the car. That would have made everything much simpler for him. A large part of his fear, the weight of the giant beast, was the worry that something might happen to her, the woman in the passenger seat. Superficially, he had played the role of the experienced police officer who was unmoved by a minor matter like discovering that he was being followed from Staffanstorp to Lund, but he had been scared out of his wits until they reached the outskirts of the city. Shortly after crossing the boundary, when she had announced that the car was still following them, he had pulled into one of the big gas stations that had twenty-four-hour service. They had seen the car drive past, a dark blue Mercedes, but had been unable to catch the registration number or make out how many people were inside. Wallander had stopped by one of the pumps.

“I think you’re wrong,” he said.

She shook her head. “The car was following us,” she said. “I can’t swear that it was waiting for us outside the police station, but I noticed it early on. It was there when we passed the rotary on the E65. It was just a car then, any old car. But when we’d turned a couple of times and it still hadn’t passed us, it started to be something else.”

Wallander got out and unscrewed the gas cap. She stood by his side, watching him. He was thinking as hard as he could.

“Who would want to follow us?” he asked as he replaced the nozzle.

She remained standing by the car while he went to pay. She couldn’t possibly be right, he thought. His fear had started to wear off.

They continued through the town. The streets were deserted, and the traffic lights seemed very reluctant to change. Once they had left Lund behind them and Wallander increased speed along the motorway heading north, they started to check the traffic behind them once again. But the Mercedes had gone, and it didn’t reappear. When they took the exit for Helsingborg south, Wallander slowed down. A dirty truck overtook them, then a dark red Volvo. Wallander pulled up at the side of the road, released his seat belt, and got out. He walked around to the back of the car and crouched down, as if he were inspecting one of the back wheels. He knew she would keep an eye on every car that passed. He counted four cars overtaking them, and a bus which had something wrong one of its cylinders, judging by the sound of its engine. He got back into the car and turned to her.

“No Mercedes?”

“A white Audi,” she said. “Two men in front, maybe another in the back.”

“Why pick on that one?”

“They were the only ones who didn’t look at us. They also picked up speed.”

Wallander pointed to the car phone. “Call Martinsson,” he said. “I take it you made a note of the registration number. Not just the Audi, the others as well. Give them to him. Tell him it’s urgent.”

He gave her Martinsson’s home number and drove on, keeping his eye open for a phone booth where he hoped he might find a phone book with a map of the area. He heard her speaking to one of Martinsson’s children, probably his little daughter. After a short pause Martinsson came on the line and she gave him the registration numbers. Then she handed the phone to Wallander.

“He wants to speak to you,” she said.

Wallander braked and pulled over before taking the phone.

“What’s going on?” Martinsson asked. “Can’t these cars wait until tomorrow?”

“If Ann-Britt calls you and says it’s urgent, then it’s urgent,” he said.

“What have they done, these cars?”

“It would take too long now. I’ll tell you tomorrow. When you’ve got the information you can call us here in the car.”

He brought the call to an end, so as to give Martinsson no chance to ask any more questions. He saw that Höglund had been offended.

“Why can’t he trust me? Why does he have to check with you?”

Her voice had become shrill. Wallander wondered if she could not control her disappointment, or did not want to.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “It takes time to get used to changes. You are the most shattering thing that’s happened to the police station in Ystad for years. You’re surrounded by a pack of old dogs who haven’t the slightest desire to learn new tricks.”

“Does that include you?”

“Of course it does,” Wallander said.

Wallander failed to find a phone booth before they had reached the ferry terminal. There was no sign of the white Audi. Wallander parked outside the railway station, and found a dirty map on the wall inside showing Gjutargatan on the eastern edge of the town. He memorized the route, and returned to the car.

“Who could it be that’s following us?” she said as they turned left and passed the white theater building.

“I don’t know,” Wallander said. “There’s too much about Gustaf and Sten Torstensson that’s odd. I get the feeling we’re always going off in the wrong direction.”

“I have the feeling we’re standing still,” she said.

“Or that we’re going around in circles,” Wallander said. “And we don’t see that we’re walking in our own footsteps.”