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 IT'S LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION IN THE MURDEROUS TOWN OF YSTAD, SWEDEN
Words by David Wiles { Illustration by Geoff Grandfield
IT'S NOT THE BEACHES, the "half-timbered houses" that the tourist office seems so excited about, nor the fact that it was voted Town Centre of the Year last year that brings people to Ystad today. It's murder. Cold-blooded murder. And gosh, there's a lot of it about. You could be forgiven for thinking that the only place in Europe statistically less safe to live than this seaside town, 45 minutes by train from Malmö, was DCI Barnaby's Midsomer.
After 10 books by Henning Mankell featuring Detective Inspector Kurt Wallander, averaging roughly four murders in each, Ystad is the undisputed murder capital of Scandinavia. And crime pays. With 25 million books sold in 37 languages, Wallander tourism is now a big earner for the town. And it's about to get bigger, with the BBC recently announcing it is to shoot three films in the town starring arch-thesp Kenneth Branagh.
 Ystad has been quick to cater to the Wallander tourists, but without overkill, if you'll excuse the pun. So don't expect any novelty T-shirts proclaiming: "My girlfriend went to Ystad and all I got was this bloodstained T-shirt", or action figures of the detective sitting hunched at his kitchen table with an open-face sandwich. But there are guided tours of key locations - for some reason aboard a vintage fire engine - and maps from the local tourist office enabling you to follow "in Wallander's footsteps".
I'd recommend the latter; it gives you the opportunity to explore this pleasant town at your own pace and cast your mind back to the relevant grisly scene, while avoiding bumping along with a load of other self-conscious tourists on the fire engine looking like unwilling participants in a town carnival. As good a place as any to start your own personal tour is the train station. Walk a couple of dozen metres to your left along the road after disembarking the train from Malmö and you will be at the very location where a scalped body was hidden under a tarpaulin in a hole in the road in Sidetracked.
Don't look for a blue plaque or anything commemorating the dreadful deed; you'll just have to use your imagination for its exact location. My guess puts it somewhere between the traffic lights and the bike racks. Retrace your steps, and just across the small square from the train station is the tourist office. Here you can pick up your map and also ponder the fact that it was precisely here that ex-KGB baddie Rykoff rented the remote house where the African would-be assassin is hidden in The White Lioness. No corpses here, I'm afraid, but a Wallander location just the same.
 Moving along, a compulsory stop on any itinerary is Wallander's flat, at 10 Mariagatan. It is here that our hero struggles to sleep, listens to opera, ingests industrial amounts of coffee and sulks about his wife leaving him. The keen-eyed will note that there is in fact no streetlight outside the first-floor flat window to be buffeted by the wind, which is a recurring image in any Wallander book. But you can be reassured that a middle-aged German woman has already brought this to the attention of the tourist office in no uncertain terms.
Up on the hill, just on the north side of the old water tower, you'll find Ystad Police Station, nerve centre for the investigations into the non-stop procession of murders that curse the residents of this poor town. Unfortunately the famous cafeteria, with its constantly-on-the-blink coffee machine, and the offices of Wallander and his overworked colleagues cannot be visited, but I'm led to believe that they fit the standard international cop-office template of jumbled desk, filing cabinets and magnolia walls, so you're missing nothing.
 It is often in the countryside surrounding Ystad that Mankell's psychopaths, mercenaries and other assorted murderers get busy, and this gives you the chance to explore the joys of the Skane landscape. Don't let the books fool you that the only weather you get here is rain, sleet, rain, fog and rain. But any of the above will certainly add a measure of authenticity to your visit. Out near the former summer home of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld (who died in a plane crash in mysterious circumstances in Zaire in 1961 - for real, not in a Wallander book) to the east of the town, you have Hagestad Wildlife Protection Area. Here we had the cold-blooded murder of three teenagers celebrating midsummer dressed in period costume in One Step Behind. Why not bring some friends and recreate the slaughter? Or do as another Wallander tourist did, and spend the night in the deserted car park, reading the book by torchlight to soak up the real terror of the place?
Over to the west of Ystad, near the stately home at Marsvinsholm with its twin towers, is where the murders that kicked off the whole Wallander phenomenon took place - the brutal slaying of an elderly couple in Faceless Killers, threatening to inflame attitudes towards local immigrants. The village of Lenarp named in the book does not actually exist, but this general location also gives you the chance to view the field where Dolores Maria Santana memorably poured petrol over her head and torched herself while Wallander looked on horrified in Sidetracked.
 Back in town, there are another 50 or so locations from the books and the original movies (made in Swedish a few years back) for the enthusiast to take in. In fact, there is little in this town that has not featured in some way. To wind up your Wallander tour, maybe grab a coffee and a pastry in Wallander's favourite café, Fridolfs, back at the square by the station. Then, with a nervous glance over your shoulder and your heart pounding in your chest, jump back on the train to Malmö and consider yourself lucky to have made it out alive.
Modern saga
Aside from cold-blooded murder, Sweden is the setting for other popular works of fiction, most notably Popular Music from Vittula, by Mikael Niemi. Set in a remote town in northern Sweden in the 1960s, it follows the fortunes of young Matti, who discovers the wonders of the Beatles and decides to impress his peers (especially the girls) with renditions of "Ollyu Nidis Lav" and "Owatter Shayd Ovpail".
Dziesięć książek Henninga Mankella o inspektorze Kurcie Wallanderze, zawierających średnio po cztery morderstwa każda, wystarczyło, żeby rozsławić nadmorskie miasteczko Ystad, 45 minut pociągiem z Malmö. A zbrodnia popłaca. Do tej pory sprzedano 25 miliów książek, przetłumaczonych na 37 języków.
Ystad można zwiedzać z przewodnikiem, ale w ofercie lokalnego biura turystycznego są również mapki, które umożliwią ci podążanie "śladami Wallandera" we własnym tempie.
Możesz zacząć od dworca kolejowego. Przejdź wzdłuż drogi kilkadziesiąt metrów na lewo - znajdziesz się na wysokości dziury w drodze, w której ukryto oskalpowane ciało (Fałszywy trop). Kiedy zawrócisz, po przeciwnej stronie skweru zobaczysz biuro turystyczne,w którym będziesz mógł zaopatrzyć się w mapę. Stoi tu też wynajęty przez eksagenta KGB - Rykofa - dom, w którym ukrywał się niedoszły czarnoskóry morderca (Biała lwica).
Dalej, przy Mariagatan 10, znajduje się obowiązkowy punkt wycieczki - mieszkanie Wallandera. To tutaj nasz bohater walczy z bezsennością, słucha opery, wypija hektolitry kawy i dąsa się na odchodzącą od niego żonę.
Wspinając się na wzgórze na północ od starej wieży ciśnień dotrzesz do Komisariatu Policji, pełniącego kluczową rolę w procesie wyjaśniania ciągu morderstw, nękających mieszkańców tego biednego miasteczka.
Często to właśnie na terenach wokół Ystad działają psychopaci i mordercy, co daje ci szansę na poznanie uroków szwedzkiego pejzażu. Na wschód od miasteczka znajduje się Strefa Ochrony Dzikiej Przyrody. To tu w O krok mieliśmy do czynienia z zabójstwem trzech nastolatków. Na zachód od Ystad , w pobliżu rezydencji w Marsvinsholm, znajduje się miejsce, w którym w Mordercy bez twarzy brutalnie zamordowano parę starszych ludzi.
Przed powrotem do Malmö wejdź na kawę do Fridolfs, ulubionej kawiarni Wallandera. A kiedy już znajdziesz się w pociągu, możesz odetchnąć z ulgą - w końcu nie każdemu dane jest wyjedżać stąd w jednym kawalku.
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