An Event in Autumn: A Kurt Wallander Mystery

Chapter 4

Wallander returned to the back of the house. At first he couldn’t be sure exactly where he had stumbled, nor could he understand why he seemed to think it was so important to find out what it was that had nearly tripped him up.

He looked around, and before long found what he was looking for. He stared long and hard at the object that was sticking up out of the ground. At first he just stood there motionless, but then he walked slowly around it. When he returned to his starting point Wallander squatted down. His knees felt stiff.

There was no question about what was lying there, half buried in the soil. It was not the remains of an old rake. Nor was it a tree root.

It was a hand. The bones were brown, but there was no doubt in his mind. It was the remains of a human hand, sticking up out of the brown clay soil.

Wallander straightened up. The alarm bell that had started ringing when he had stood there with his hand on the handle of the car door had delivered him a serious warning.

There was no sign of other bones. Just that hand sticking up out of the ground. He bent down again and poked cautiously into the earth. Was there a whole skeleton under there, or was it just the hand? He was unable to decide for sure.

The clouds had disappeared. The October sun was giving a suggestion of warmth. The crows were still cawing away in the tall chestnut tree. The whole situation seemed to Wallander to be unreal. He’d driven out on a Sunday to take a look at a house he might decide to move into. And, purely by chance, he had happened upon human remains in the garden.

Wallander shook his head in disbelief. Then he phoned the police station. Martinson was in no hurry to answer.

“I’m not going to reduce the price any further. My wife thinks I’ve gone too far already.”

“It’s got nothing to do with the price.”

“What’s it about, then?”

“Come here and see.”

“Has something happened?”

“Come here. Just do that. Come here.”

Martinson realized that something important must have happened. He asked no more questions. Wallander continued walking around the garden, scrutinizing the ground while he waited for the police car to turn up. It took nineteen minutes. Martinson had driven fast. Wallander met him in front of the house. Martinson seemed worried.

“What’s happened?”

“I stumbled.”

Martinson looked at him in surprise.

“Did you ring me just to say that you’d stumbled over something?”

“In a way, yes. I want you to see what it was that I stumbled over.”

They walked around to the back of the house. Wallander pointed. Martinson stepped back in surprise.

“What the hell is that?”

“It looks like a hand. Obviously I can’t tell if there’s a whole skeleton.”

Martinson continued to stare at the hand in astonishment.

“I don’t understand a thing.”

“A hand is a hand. A dead hand is a dead person’s hand. As this isn’t a cemetery, there’s something odd here.”

They stood there, staring at the hand. Wallander wondered what Martinson was thinking. Then he wondered what he was thinking himself.

The desire to buy this house had deserted him altogether.