Citroen?'
'No. But he claimed that your father was walking around out in the fields in his pyjamas. With a suitcase in his hand.'
Wallander was stunned. 'What the hell are you talking about?'
'The farmer sounds lucid enough. It was you he actually wanted to talk to. But the switchboard put it through to me by mistake. I thought you ought to decide what to do.'Wallander sat quite still, his expression blank.
Then he stood up. 'Where?' he asked.
'It sounded like your father was walking down by the main highway.'
'I'll handle this myself. I'll be back as soon as I can. Call me if anything happens.''Do you want me or somebody else to go along?'
Wallander shook his head.
'My father is senile,' he said. 'I have to see about getting him into a home somewhere.'
Just as Wallander was going out the main doors, he noticed a man standing in the shadows outside. He recognised him as a reporter from one of the afternoon papers.'I don't want him following me,' he told Svedberg.
Svedberg nodded. 'Wait till you see me back out and stall in front of his car. Then you can get away.'
Wallander waited. He saw the reporter making rapidly for his car. Seconds later, Svedberg drove up and turned off his ignition, blocking the reporter's way. Wallander drove away.
He drove fast. Much too fast. He ignored the speed limit through Sandskogen. He was alone. Hares fled terrified across the rain-slicked road.
When he reached the village where his father lived, he didn't even have to look for him. He caught the old man in his headlights, in his blue-trimmed pyjamas, squishing barefoot through a field. He was wearing his old hat and carrying a big suitcase. When the headlights blinded him, his father held his hand in front of his eyes in annoyance. Then he kept on walking. Energetically, as if on his way to some specific destination.
Wallander turned off his engine but left the headlights on and walked out into the field.'Dad!' he yelled. 'What the hell are you doing?'
His father didn't answer but kept going. Wallander followed him. He tripped and fell and got wet up to his waist'Dad!' he shouted again. 'Stop! Where are you going?'
No answer. His father seemed to pick up speed. Soon they would be down by the main highway. Wallander ran and stumbled to catch up with him, grabbing him by the arm. But his father pulled away and kept going.
Wallander got angry. 'Police,' he yelled. 'If you don't stop, we'll fire a warning shot.'
His father stopped and turned around. Wallander saw him blinking in the glare of the headlights.
'What did I tell you?' the old man screamed. 'You want to kill me!'
Then he flung his suitcase at Wallander. The lid flew open and revealed the contents: dirty underwear, tubes of paint, and brushes. Wallander felt a huge sadness well up inside him. His father had tramped out into the night with the bewildered notion that he was on his way to Italy.
'Calm down, Dad,' he said. 'I just thought I'd drive you down to the railway station. Then you won't have to walk.'
His father gave him a sceptical look. 'I don't believe you,' he said.
'Of course I'd drive my own father to the station if he's going on a journey.'
Wallander picked up the suitcase, closed the lid, and started for the car. He put the bag in the boot and stood waiting. His father looked like a wild beast caught in the headlights. An animal chased to exhaustion, waiting for the fetal shot.
He started to walk towards the car. Wallander couldn't decide whether what he saw was an expression of dignity or humiliation. He opened the rear door and his father crawled in. Wallander had taken a blanket from the boot, and now he wrapped it around his father's shoulders.
He gave a start when a man stepped out of the shadows. An old man, dressed in dirty overalls.
'I'm the one who telephoned,' said the man. 'How's it going?'
'Everything's fine,' replied Wallander. 'And thanks for the call.''It was pure chance that I saw him.' 'I understand. Thanks again.'
He got behind the wheel. When he turned his head he could see that his father was so cold he was shaking beneath the blanket.
'Now I'll drive you to the station, Dad,' he said. 'It won't take long.'
He drove straight to the emergency entrance of the hospital. He was lucky enough to run into the young doctor he had met at Maria Lovgren's deathbed. He explained what had happened.
'We'll admit him overnight for observation,' said the doctor. 'He may be suffering from exposure. Tomorrow the social worker will try to find a place for him.''Thank you,' said Wallander. ‘I’ll stay with him a while.'His father had been dried off and was lying on a stretcher.'Sleeping car to Italy,' he said. 'I'm finally on my way.'Wallander sat on a chair next to the stretcher.'That's right,' he said. 'Now you'll get to Italy.'
It was past 2 a.m. when he left the hospital. He drove the short distance to the station. Everyone except Hansson had gone home. Hansson was watching the taped discussion programme with the chief of the national police.'Anything going on?' asked Wallander.
'Not a thing,' said Hansson. 'A few tip-offs, of course. But nothing earthshaking. I took the liberty of sending people home to get a few hours' sleep.''That's good. Funny mat nobody has called about the car.'
'I was just thinking that. Maybe he just drove out on the E65 a littie way and then took off on one of the back roads.
I've looked at the maps. There's a whole maze of little roads in that area. Plus a big nature reserve, where no-one goes in the winter. The patrols that check the camps are running a fine-tooth comb over those roads tonight.' Wallander nodded.
'We'll send in a helicopter when it gets light,' he said. 'The car might be hidden somewhere in that nature reserve.' He poured a cup of coffee.
'Svedberg told me about your father,' said Hansson. 'How did it go?'
'It went all right. The old boy is going senile. He's at the hospital. But it was OK.''Go home and sleep for a few hours. You look exhausted.''I've got some things to write up.'Hansson turned off the video.'I'll stretch out on the sofa for a while,' he said.
Wallander went into his office and sat down at the typewriter. His eyes stung with fatigue. And yet the weariness brought with it an unexpected clarity. A double murder is committed, he thought. And the manhunt triggers another murder. Which we have to solve fast, so as to prevent more murders. All this has happened in less than a week.
He wrote his memo to Bjork, deciding to make sure that it was delivered to him by hand at the airport. He yawned. It was 3.45 a.m. He was too tired to think about his father. He was only afraid that the social worker at the hospital wouldn't be able to come up with a good solution.
The note with his sister's name on it was still sticking to the telephone. In a few hours, when it was morning, he would have to call her.
He yawned again and sniffed his armpits. He stank. Just then Hansson appeared in the half-open door. Wallander saw at once that something had happened.
'We've got something,' said Hansson. 'What?'
'A guy from Malmo just called and said his car has been stolen.' 'A Citroen?' Hansson nodded.
'How come he discovers it at four o'clock in the morning?''He said he was leaving to go to a trade fair in
