rafts. Everything.'
He nodded towards Martinsson.
'That's your job.'
'Shouldn't we begin by running a computer search to see if the men are listed anywhere as missing?' Martinsson asked.
'You can start by doing that,' Wallander said. 'Get in touch with the coastguards, contact all their stations along the south coast. And see what Bjork has to say about bringing in Interpol straight away. It's obvious that if we're going to trace who they are, we'll have to cast our nets wide from the very beginning.'
Martinsson nodded and made a note on a sheet of paper. Svedberg chewed thoughtfully on his pencil.
'The forensic team will give the men's clothes a thorough going over,' Wallander continued. 'They must find some clues.'
There was a knock on the door and Noren came in, carrying a rolled-up nautical chart.
'I thought you might need this,' he said.
They spread it out over his desk and pored over it, as if planning a naval battle.
'How fast does a life-raft drift?' Svedberg asked. 'Currents and winds can slow it down as well as speed it up.'
They contemplated the chart in silence. Then Wallander rolled it up again and stood it in the corner behind his chair. Nobody had anything to say.
'Let's get going, then,' he said. 'We can meet here again at 6 p.m. and see how far we've got.'
As Svedberg and Noren left the room, Wallander asked Martinsson to stay behind.
'What did the woman have to say?' he asked.
Martinsson shrugged.
'Mrs Forsell,' he said. 'A widow. Lives in Mossby. She's a retired teacher from the grammar school in Angelholm. Lives here all the year round with her dog, TegneY. Fancy naming a dog after a poet! Every day they go out for some fresh air on the beach. When she walked along the cliffs last night, there was no sign of a life-raft; but it was there this morning. She saw it at about 10.15 a.m., and called us straight away.'
'10.15 a.m.,' Wallander said thoughtfully. 'Isn't that a bit late to be walking a dog?'
Martinsson nodded.
'That occurred to me as well, but it turned out she'd been out at seven o'clock too, but they walked along the beach in the other direction.'
Wallander changed the subject. 'The man who rang yesterday,' he asked, 'what did he sound like?'
'Like I said. Convincing.'
'Did he have an accent? Could you tell how old he was?'
'He had a local accent. Like Svedberg's. His voice was hoarse; I wouldn't be surprised to find he's a smoker. In his 40s or 50s, I'd say. He spoke simply and clearly. He could be anything from a bank clerk to a farmer.'
Wallander had one more question.
'Why did he ring?'
'I've been wondering that,' Martinsson answered. 'He might have known the boat would drift ashore because he'd been mixed up in it himself. He might have been the one who did the shooting. He might have seen something, or heard something. There are several possibilities.'
'What's the logical explanation?'
'The last one,' Martinsson answered without hesitation. 'He saw or heard something. This doesn't seem to be the type of murder where the killer would choose to set the police on his trail.'
Wallander had come to the same conclusion.
'Let's go a step further,' he said. 'Seen or heard something? Two men dead in a life-raft? If he isn't involved, he can hardly have seen the murder or murders. That means he must have seen the raft.'
'A life-raft drifting at sea,' Martinsson said. 'How do you see something like that? Only by being in a boat yourself.'
'Exactly,' Wallander said. 'Precisely. But if he didn't do it, why does he want to remain anonymous?'
'Some people prefer not to get involved in things,' Martinsson said. 'You know how it is.'
'Could be. But there might be another explanation. He might have quite a different reason for not wanting to get mixed up with the police.'
'Isn't that a bit far-fetched?'
'I'm only thinking aloud,' Wallander said. 'Somehow or other we have to trace that man.'
'Shall we send out an appeal for him to get in touch with us again?'
'Yes,' Wallander said. 'Not today, though. I want to find out more about the dead men first.'
Wallander drove to the hospital. He'd been there many times, but he still had trouble finding the newly built complex. He paused in the cafeteria on the ground floor and bought a banana, then went upstairs to the pathology department. The pathologist, whose name was Morth, hadn't yet started the detailed examination of the corpses. Even so, he was able to answer Wallander's first question.
'Both men were shot,' he stated. 'At close range, through the heart. I assume that is the cause of death.'
'I'd like to see your report as soon as possible,' Wallander said. 'Is there anything you can say now about the time of death?'
Morth shook his head.
'No,' he said. 'Mind you, that's an answer in a way.' 'Meaning what?'
'That they've probably been dead for quite a long time. That makes it more difficult to pin down the precise time of death.'
'Two days? Three? A week?'
'I can't answer that,' Morth said, 'and I don't want to guess.'
He disappeared into the lab. Wallander took off his jacket, put on a pair of rubber gloves, and started to go through the men's clothes, which were laid out on what looked like an old-fashioned kitchen sink.
One of the suits was made in England, the other in Belgium. The shoes were Italian, and it seemed to Wallander that they were expensive. Shirts, ties and underwear told the same story: they were good quality, certainly not cheap. When Wallander had finished examining the clothes twice, he realised he was unlikely to get any further. All he knew was that in all probability, the two men were not short of money. But where were the wallets? Wedding rings? Watches? Even more bewildering was the fact that the men had not been wearing their jackets when they were shot. There were no holes or powder burns on them.
Wallander tried to conjure up the scene. Somebody shoots two men straight through the heart. When they're dead, whoever did it then puts their jackets on before dumping the bodies into a life-raft. Why?
He went through the clothes one more time. There's something I'm not seeing, he thought. Rydberg, help me.
But Rydberg had nothing to say.
Wallander went back to the police station. He knew the post-mortems would take several hours, and that he wouldn't get a preliminary report until the next day at the earliest. Back in his office, he found a note on his desk from Bjork, saying they should wait another day or so before calling in Interpol. Wallander felt himself getting annoyed: he often found it hard to sympathise with Bjork's cautious approach.
The meeting at 6 p.m. was brief. Martinsson reported that there was no record of any missing persons who could possibly be the men in the life-raft. Svedberg had had a long discussion with someone at the meteorological office in Norrkoping who had promised to help the moment he received a formal request from the Ystad police.
Wallander told them that as expected, the pathologist had confirmed that both men had been murdered. He asked Svedberg and Martinsson to consider why someone would have shot two men and then put their jackets back on the bodies.
'Let's keep going for a few more hours,' Wallander said. 'If you're involved in other cases, either put them on ice for the time being or pass them on to somebody else. This is going to be a tough nut to crack. I'll see to it that we get some more men first thing tomorrow.'
When Wallander was alone in his office, he unrolled the chart on his desk again. With his finger, he traced the coastline as far as Mossby Strand. The raft could have drifted a long way, he thought. Or no distance at all. It might have been drifting backwards and forwards on the tide.
