Sidetracked by Henning Mankell

“That’s why he retired.”
    “He didn’t retire,” said Wallander. “He was promoted. Besides, seeing into the future was definitely not one of his talents. He worried enough about what was happening around him from day to day.”
    But Wallander knew that the responsibility for organising the hunt for Wetterstedt’s killer would fall to him. The big difficulty was the fact that they would be short of staff all summer. He was grateful that Ann-Britt Höglund had agreed to postpone her holiday. But what was going to happen to his? He had counted on being on his way to Skagen with Baiba in two weeks.
    He sat down at the table and took stock of the exhausted faces around him. It was still raining, but it was easing off. In front of him on the table he had a pile of messages that he had picked up at the reception desk. He pushed them aside and tapped on the table with a pencil.
    “We have to get started,” he said. “The worst thing possible has happened. We’ve had a murder during the summer holiday. We’ll have to organise ourselves as best we can. We also have the Midsummer holiday coming up that will keep the uniformed officers busy. We’ll have to plan our investigation with this in mind.”
    No-one spoke. Wallander turned to Nyberg and asked how the forensic investigation was going.
    “If only it would stop raining for a few hours,” said Nyberg. “To find the murder site we’ll have to dig through the surface layer of the sand. That’s almost impossible to do until it’s dry. Otherwise we’ll just end up with lumps of wet sand.”
    “I called the meteorologist at Sturup Airport a while ago,” said Martinsson. “He’s predicting that the rain will stop here just after 8 a.m. But a new storm will come in this afternoon, and we’ll get more rain. After that it’ll clear up.”
    “If it’s not one thing it’s another,” said Wallander. “Usually it’s easier for us if the weather’s bad on Midsummer Eve.”
    “For once it looks like the football game will be a help,” said Nyberg. “I don’t think people will drink as much. They’ll be glued to their TVs.”
    “What’ll happen if Sweden loses to Russia?” asked Wallander.
    “They won’t,” Nyberg proclaimed. “We’re going to win.”
    Wallander hadn’t realised that Nyberg was a football fan.
    “I hope you’re right,” he said.
    “Anyway, we haven’t found anything of interest around the boat,” Nyberg continued. “We also went over the part of the beach between Wetterstedt’s gate, the boat, and down to the water. We picked up a number of items. But nothing that is likely to be of interest to us. With one possible exception.”
    Nyberg put one of his plastic bags on the table.
    “One of the officers found this. It’s a mace spray. The kind that women carry in their handbags to defend themselves if they’re attacked.”
    “Aren’t those illegal in Sweden?” asked Höglund.
    “Yes, they are,” said Nyberg. “But there it was, in the sand just outside the cordon. We’re going to check it for prints. Maybe it’ll turn up something.”
    Nyberg put the plastic bag back in his case.
    “Could one man turn that boat over by himself?” asked Wallander.
    “Not unless he’s incredibly strong,” said Nyberg.
    “That means there were two of them,” Wallander replied.
    “The murderer could have dug out the sand under the boat,” said Nyberg hesitantly. “And then pushed it back in after he shoved Wetterstedt underneath.”
    “That’s a possibility,” said Wallander. “But does it sound plausible?”
    No-one at the table answered.
    “There’s nothing to indicate that the murder was committed inside the house,” Nyberg continued. “We found no traces of blood or other signs of a crime. No-one broke in. We can’t say whether anything was stolen, but it doesn’t appear so.”
    “Did you find anything else that seemed unusual?” asked Wallander.
    “I think the entire house is unusual,” said Nyberg.