Series 1, episode 3
“One Step Behind”
Three young friends are shot in a wood during an elaborate Midsummer’s Eve picnic. Then one of Inspector Wallander’s colleagues is also found murdered. Is this the same killer, and what could the connection be?
It is Midsummer’s Eve. In the woods a party of three young adults, in period fancy dress, enjoy a picnic. Through the trees a lone assassin, armed with a gun, approaches…
A mother, slightly hysterical, arrives at the police station. She has received a postcard – her daughter has gone to Europe with two friends, on a whim. The three were last seen heading off to the woods for a Midsummer’s Eve picnic. Inspector Kurt Wallander wonders what the problem is; presumably the handwriting is the daughter’s?
Wallander’s colleague, Svedberg, is murdered at home, shot at close range. As details about Svedberg’s personal life emerge, Wallander wonders how well he really knew him. He seems to have been involved with the missing youths from the picnic, but it’s not clear how.
Back in the woods, the bodies of the three friends are discovered, all shot at close range. A fourth girl who was meant to attend the picnic is assassinated while in Wallander’s care and, shortly afterwards, a newlywed couple falls prey to the assassin’s gun.
The assassin plans his murders with meticulous precision, relying on knowledge that is secret to everyone except his victims. How is he privy to this information? Wallander must track a killer who always seems to be one step ahead – and who seems to be following Wallander as much as Wallander is following him.