evening they had had dinner together.
Everything started to move very fast. Hansson was wrenched out of his Sunday peace and told to collect the Romanian woman and an interpreter.
'Our colleagues don't sound happy,' Bjork said with concern. 'It's never anyone's idea of fun to bring in someone from your own force. It's going to be a wretched winter because of this.''What do you mean by wretched?' asked Wallander.'Fresh attacks on the police force.''He'd retired early, hadn't he?'
'Even so. The papers will be screaming about the fact that the murderer was a policeman. There will be new persecution of the force.'
Shortly before 10 a.m. Wallander arrived at the building that was covered in scaffolding and sacking. He had four plain clothes policemen from Lund with him.
'He has guns,' said Wallander while they were still sitting in the car. 'And he has committed a cold-blooded execution. Still, I think we can take it easy. He's certainly not anticipating us. Two guns drawn should be enough.'
Wallander had brought along his revolver. On the way to Lund he tried to remember when he had last taken it out. He'd realised that it was more than three years earlier, in the course of the capture of an escaped convict from Kumla prison who had barricaded himself in a summer-house near Mossby beach.
Now they were sitting in a car outside the building in Lund. Wallander realised that he had climbed much higher than he had thought. If he had fallen all the way to the ground, he would have crushed his spine.
That morning the police in Lund had sent out an inspector pretending to do the paper round to case the flat.
'Let's review the situation,' said Wallander. 'No back stairs?'The officer sitting next to him shook his head. 'No scaffolding on the rear side?' 'Nothing.'
According to the officer, the flat was occupied by a man named Valfrid Strom. He wasn't listed in any police files. Nor did anyone know how he made his living.
At 10 a.m. on the dot they got out of the car and crossed the street. One officer stayed at the main door of the building. There was an intercom system, but it wasn't working. Wallander jemmied the door open with a screwdriver.
'One man should stay in the stairwell,' he said. 'You and I will go upstairs. What's your name?''Enberg.''You've got a first name, haven't you?' 'Kalle.''OK, Kalle, let's go.'
They listened in the dark outside the door. Wallander drew his revolver and nodded to Enberg to do the same. Then he rang the doorbell.
The door was opened by a woman wearing a dressing gown. Wallander recognised her. It was the same woman who had been asleep in the double bed. He hid his revolver behind his back.
'We're with the police,' he said. 'We're looking for your husband, Valfrid Strom.'
The woman, who was in her 40s and had a harried expression, looked scared. She stepped aside and let the policemen in.
Suddenly Valfrid Strom was standing in front of them. He was dressed in a green tracksuit.
'Police,' said Wallander. 'We need to ask you to come with us.'
The man with the half-moon-shaped bald patch looked at him tensely. 'Why?' 'For questioning.' 'About what?''You'll find out at the station.'
Wallander turned to the woman. 'You'd better come along too. Put on some clothes.'
The man seemed completely calm. 'I'm not going anywhere if you don't tell me why,' he said. 'Perhaps you could start by showing me some identification.'
When Wallander put his right hand in his inside pocket, he couldn't hide the fact that he was carrying a gun. He switched it over to his left hand and fumbled for his wallet, where he kept his identity card.
In the same instant Strom leapt straight at him. He butted Wallander right in the forehead, smack in the middle of his wound. Wallander went sailing backwards, and the revolver flew out of his hand. Enberg didn't have time to react before the man in the green tracksuit had disappeared out the door. The woman shrieked, and Wallander fumbled for his revolver. He dashed down the stairs after the man, yelling a warning to the two officers posted below.
Strom was fast. He gave the policeman standing inside the door an elbow to the chin. The man outside was rammed by the front door when Strom flung himself out into the street. Wallander, who could hardly see for the blood streaming into his eyes, stumbled over the unconscious policeman in the stairwell. He pulled at the safety catch on his revolver, which was stuck.
Then he was out on the street.
'Which way did he go?' he called to the bewildered policeman who was entangled in the sacking. 'Left.'
Wallander ran. He caught sight of Strom's tracksuit just as he disappeared into an underpass. He tore off his cap and wiped his face. Several elderly women, who looked as though they were on their way to church, jumped aside in fright. He ran into the underpass just as a train rumbled overhead.
When he reached street level again, he just had time to see Strom stop a car, drag the driver out, and drive off.
The only vehicle nearby was a large horsebox. The driver was pulling a pack of condoms from a vending machine on a shop wall. When Wallander came racing up, his gun drawn and blood streaming down his face, the man dropped the condoms and ran for his life.
Wallander climbed into the driver's seat. He heard a horse whinny behind him. The engine was still running, and he threw it into first gear.
He thought he had lost sight of Strom, but then he saw the car again. It drove through a red light and continued down a narrow street straight towards the cathedral. Wallander was changing gears fast, trying not to lose sight of the car. Horses were whinnying behind him, and he smelled the odour of warm manure.
In a tight curve he almost lost control. He bounced off two parked cars, but finally managed to straighten up.
The chase proceeded towards the hospital and then through an industrial area. Wallander saw that the horsebox was equipped with a phone. He tried dialling the emergency number with one hand while struggling to keep the heavy vehicle on the road.
Just as the emergency operator answered, he had to negotiate a curve. The phone fell from his grasp, and he realised that he wouldn't be able to recover it without stopping.
This is crazy, he thought in desperation. Stark raving mad. And then he remembered his sister. He was supposed to be meeting her at Sturup airport right now.
In the roundabout by the entrance to Staffanstorp the chase ended.
Strom was forced to brake hard to avoid a bus that was heading across his path. He lost control, and the car ran straight into a concrete pillar. Wallander, about 100 metres behind him, saw flames shooting out of the car. He braked so hard that the horsebox slid into the ditch and toppled over. The back doors flew open and two horses disentangled themselves and galloped away across the fields.
Strom had been flung out of the car on impact. One foot was sliced off. His face had been gashed by shards of glass. Even before he reached him Wallander could tell that he was dead.
People came running from the nearby houses. Cars pulled over to the side of the road. Too late he realised that he had his gun in his hand. A few minutes later the first squad car arrived. Then an ambulance. Wallander showed his identity card and made a call from the squad car. He asked to be put through to Bjork.
'Did it go all right?' asked Bjork. 'Bergman has been picked up and is on the way here. Everything went without a hitch. And the Yugoslav woman is waiting here with her interpreter.'
'Send them over to the morgue at Lund General Hospital,' said Wallander. 'She'll have to identify a corpse. By the way, she's Romanian.'
'What the hell do you mean by that?' said Bjork.
