"Yes," Wallander said. "I'm still here. I'm just letting what you said sink in."
"I'm quite sure about it."
"I don't doubt that for a moment. This is a bit out of the ordinary, though."
"That's precisely why I thought it was important to phone you."
"You did the right thing," Wallander said.
"You'll get my full report tomorrow," Mörth said. "Apart from the results of laboratory tests that will take a bit longer."
He hung up. Wallander went out to the canteen. The room was deserted. He poured out the last drops from the coffee machine, and sat down at one of the tables.
Russians? Men from the Eastern bloc, tortured? Even
Rydberg would have thought that this looked like being a difficult and lengthy investigation. It was 7.30 p.m. when he went to his car and drove home. The wind had died down, and it had suddenly become colder.
CHAPTER 3
Shortly after 2 a.m. Wallander woke with terrible chest pains. He was convinced that he was about to die. The constant stress and strain of police work was having its effect. He was paying the price. He was motionless in the dark, filled with despair and shame. He had left things too late; he was never going to make anything of his life. His anxiety and pain seemed to grow more and more intense. Afterwards he wasn't sure how long he'd lain there; unable to control his mounting fear, but slowly he had managed to reassert his self-control.
He got carefully out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and went down to his car. The pain seemed less intense now; it came and went in waves, moving out into his arms, losing something of its initial force. He got into his car, tried to make himself breathe calmly and then drove through the deserted streets to the hospital's emergency entrance. He encountered a nurse with friendly eyes, who listened to him, and didn't seem to regard him as a hysterical, rather overweight hypochondriac.