“Drop your guns!” yelled Martinson. “It’s us, can’t you see!”
Wallander knew Konovalenko was about to escape yet again. There was no time for explanations.
“Stay where you are,” he yelled. “Don’t follow me!”
Then he started backing away, still pointing his guns. Martinson and Svedberg did not move a muscle. Then he disappeared into the fog.
Martinson and Svedberg looked at each other in horror.
“Was that really Kurt?” wondered Svedberg.
“Yeah,” said Martinson. “But he seemed out of his mind.”
“He’s alive,” said Svedberg. “He’s still alive despite everything.”
They cautiously approached the slope down to the beach where Wallander had disappeared. They could not detect any movements in the fog, but could hear the gentle lapping of the sea on the sand.
Martinson contacted Bjork while Svedberg started to examine the two men lying on the ground. Martinson gave Bjork precise directions, and called for ambulances.
“What about Wallander?” asked Bjork.
“He’s still alive,” replied Martinson. “But I can’t tell you where he is just now.”
Then he switched off his walkie-talkie, before Bjork could ask any more questions.
He went over to Svedberg and looked at the man Wallander had killed. Two bullets had gone in just above Rykoff’s navel.
“We’ll have to tell Bjork,” said Martinson. “Wallander seemed completely out of his mind.”
Svedberg nodded. He could see they had no choice.
They went over to the other body.
“The man without a finger,” said Martinson. “Now he’s also dead.” He bent down and pointed to the bullet hole in his forehead.
Both of them were thinking the same thing. Louise Akerblom.
Then the police cars arrived, followed by two ambulances. As the examination of the two bodies got under way, Svedberg and Martinson took Bjork aside and led him over to one of the squad cars. They told him what they had seen. Bjork looked at them doubtfully.
“This all sounds very strange,” he said. “Even if Kurt can be strange at times, I find it hard to imagine him going crazy.”
“You should have seen what he looked like,” said Svedberg. “He seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown. He pointed guns at us. He had one in each hand.”
Bjork shook his head.
“And then he disappeared along the beach?”
“He was following Konovalenko,” said Martinson.
“Along the beach?”
“That’s where he disappeared.”
Bjork said nothing, trying to let what he had heard sink in.
“We’d better send in dog patrols,” he said after a few moments. “Set up roadblocks, and call in helicopters as soon as it gets light and the fog lifts.”
As they got out of the car, a single shot rang out in the fog. It came from the beach, somewhere to the east of where they were standing. Everything got very quiet. Police, ambulance men and dogs all waited to see what would happen next.
Finally a sheep bleated. The desolate sound made Martinson shudder.
“We’ve got to help Kurt,” he said eventually. “He’s on his own out there in the fog. He’s up against a guy who won’t hesitate to shoot. We’ve got to help Kurt. Now, Otto.”
Svedberg had never heard Martinson call Bjork by his first name before. Even Bjork was startled, as if he did not realize at first who Martinson meant.
“Dog handlers with bulletproof vests,” he said.
Within a short space of time the hunt was on. The dogs picked up the scent immediately, and started straining at their leashes. Martinson and Svedberg followed close on the heels of the dog handlers.
About two hundred meters from the murder scene the dogs discovered a patch of blood in the sand. They searched around in circles without finding anything else. Suddenly one of the dogs set off in a northerly direction. They were on the perimeter of the training ground, following the fence. The trail the dogs found led over the road and then toward Sandhammaren.
After a couple of kilometers the trail fizzled out. Disappeared into thin air.
The dogs whimpered and started backtracking the way they had just come.
“What’s going on?” Martinson asked one of the dog handlers.
He shook his head.
“The trail’s gone cold,” he said.
Martinson looked uncomprehending.
“Wallander can’t just have gone up in smoke?”
“It looks like it,” said the dog handler.
They kept on searching as dawn came. Roadblocks were erected. The whole southern Swedish police force was involved one way or another in the hunt for Konovalenko and Wallander. When the fog lifted, helicopters joined the search.
But they found nothing. The two men had disappeared.
By nine o’clock in the morning Svedberg and Martinson were sitting with Bjork in the conference room. Everybody was tired and soaked through from the fog. Martinson was also displaying the first symptoms of a cold coming on.
“What am I going to tell the Commissioner of Police?” asked Bjork.
“Sometimes it’s best to tell it like it is,” said Martinson softly.
Bjork shook his head.
“Can’t you just see the headlines?” he asked. “‘Crazy cop is Swedish police secret weapon in hunt for police killer.’ ”
“A headline has to be short,” Svedberg objected.
Bjork stood up.
“Go home and get something to eat,” he said. “Get changed. Then we have to get going again.”
Martinson raised his hand, as if in a classroom.
“I think I’ll drive out to his father’s place at Loderup,” he said. “His daughter’s there. She might be able to tell us something useful.”
“Do that,” said Bjork. “But get moving.”
Then he went into his office and called the commissioner.
When he eventually managed to end the conversation, his face was red with anger.
He had received the negative criticism he was expecting.
Martinson was sitting in the kitchen of the house in Osterlen. Wallander’s daughter was making coffee as they talked. When he arrived, he went straight out to the studio to say hello to Wallander’s father. He said nothing to him about what had happened during the night, however. He wanted to talk to the daughter first.
He could see she was shocked. There were tears in her eyes.
“I should really have been sleeping at the apartment on Mariagatan last night, too,” she said.
She served him coffee. He noticed her hands were shaking.
“I don’t understand it all,” she said. “That he’s dead. Victor Mabasha. I just don’t understand it.”
Martinson mumbled something vague in reply.
He suspected she could tell him quite a lot about what had been going on between her father and the dead African. He realized it was not her Kenyan boyfriend in Wallander’s car a few days earlier. But why had he lied?
“You’ve got to find Dad before something happens,” she said, interrupting his train of thought.
“We’ll do what we can,” said Martinson.
“That’s not good enough,” she said. “Do more.”
Martinson nodded.
