Mossby Strand was deserted. As he clambered out of his car, the icy wind met him head-on. The beach shop was boarded up, and the shutters were creaking and groaning in the wind. High up on the path that sloped down to the beach was a woman waving her arms about agitatedly, the dog beside her tugging at its lead. Wallander strode out, fearful as usual about what was in store for him – he would never be able to reconcile himself to the sight of dead bodies. Dead people were just like the living. Always different.

"Over there" screeched the woman hysterically. Wallander looked in the direction she was pointing. A red life-raft was bobbing up and down at the water's edge, where it had become stuck among some rocks by the bathing jetty.

"Wait here," Wallander told the woman.

He scrambled down the slope and ran over the sand, then walked out along the jetty and looked down into the rubber boat. There were two men, lying with their arms wrapped round each other, their faces ashen. He tried to capture what he saw in a mental photograph. His many years as a police officer had taught him that the first impression was always important. A dead body was generally the end of a long and complicated chain of events, and sometimes it was possible to get an idea of that chain right from the start.

Martinsson waded out into the water to pull the life-raft ashore, wearing gumboots. Wallander squatted down to examine the bodies. He could see Peters trying to calm the woman. It struck him how fortunate they were that the boat hadn't come ashore in the summer, when there would have been hundreds of children playing and swimming on the beach. What he was looking at was not a pretty sight, and there was the unmistakable stench of rotting flesh despite the fierce wind.

He took a pair of rubber gloves from his jacket and searched the men's pockets carefully. He found nothing at all. When he opened the jacket of one of the men he could see a liver-coloured stain on the chest of the white shirt. He looked at Martinsson.