Firewall

by Henning Mankell

  "I'm glad you called," he said. "Please call me again if you think of anything else. I'll probably call you myself tomorrow."

  "I'm doing some programming for a restaurant chain. I'll be in the office all day."

  "What will happen with your other projects now?"

  "I don't know. I just hope I have enough of a reputation now to survive without Tynnes. If not, I'll have to think of something else."

  "Like what?"

  She laughed. "Do you need to know for the case?"

  "No, I was just curious."

  "I might take off and see the world."

  Everyone goes away, Wallander thought. In the end it will just be me and all the trash left.

  "I've had thoughts like that myself," he said. "But I'm locked in, like most people."

  "I'm not locked in," she said cheerfully. "I'm my own woman."

  When the conversation was over, Wallander thought about what she had said. "I'm my own woman." She had a point. Just as Åkeson and Widén had done, in their way.

  Suddenly he felt very pleased with himself for having sent in the ad to the dating agency. Even though he wasn't expecting an answer, he had done something.

  He put on his coat and went to the nearest video shop, on Stora Östergatan. It turned out the shop closed at 9 p.m. on Sundays. He walked on towards Stortorget, the main square, stopping from time to time to look in shop windows.

  Where the feeling came from he couldn't say, but suddenly he turned around. No-one was there, apart from a group of teenagers and a security guard. He thought about what Höglund had said, about being careful.

  I'm imagining things, he thought. No-one is stupid enough to attack the same police officer twice in a row.

  When he got to Stortorget, he turned down Hamngatan and then took Österleden home. The air was crisp. It felt good to be out.

  He was back in his flat at 10.15 a.m. He found one can of beer in the fridge and made some sandwiches. Then he sat in front of the television and watched a discussion about the Swedish economy. The only thing he got out of the programme was that the economy was both good and faltering. He nodded off and looked forward to finally getting an undisturbed night's sleep. The case was going to have to get along without him for a few hours.

  He went to bed at 11.30 a.m.

  He had just fallen asleep when the phone rang.

  He counted nine rings before they stopped. Then he pulled the cord out of the socket and waited. If it was one of his colleagues they would try his mobile. He hoped that wouldn't happen.

  The mobile on his bedside table rang. It was the patrol officer stationed outside Falk's flat on Apelbergsgatan. His name was Elofsson.

  "I don't know how important this is," he said, "but a car has driven past here several times in the last hour."

  "Did you get a good look at the driver?"

  "That's why I'm telephoning, actually. You remember the orders you gave us." Wallander waited impatiently. "I think he looked Asian," Elofsson said. "But I can't be 100 per cent sure."

  Wallander didn't hesitate. The peaceful night he had been looking forward to was already ruined.

  "I'll be there."

  He hung up and looked at the time. It was one minute past midnight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Wallander drove past Apelbergsgatan and parked on Jörgen Krabbes Väg. It took him about 5 minutes to walk from there to Falk's building. The wind had died down. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was gradually getting chillier. October in Ystad was always a month that had trouble making up its mind.

  The undercover car with Elofsson and his colleague was parked on the other side of the street and about half a block down. When Wallander reached the car, the back door was opened for him and he climbed in. There was a pleasant smell of coffee inside. Wallander thought of all the nights he had spent in cars like this one, fighting the desire to sleep, fighting the cold.

  They exchanged some casual remarks. Elofsson's colleague had only been in Ystad for about six months. His name was El Sayed and he came originally from Tunisia. He was the first policeman with an immigrant background to have worked in Ystad. Wallander had been worried that El Sayed would meet with hostility and prejudice. He had no illusions about what his colleagues thought of getting a non-white recruit. As it turned out his fears had been justified. El Sayed had to put up with his share of off-colour jokes and mean-spirited comments. How much of it he noticed and had been expecting, Wallander was still not sure. Sometimes he felt badly that he had never taken the time to invite him over for a meal. No-one else had either. But after a while the young man and his easygoing personality had grown on them and he was becoming part of the group.

  "He came from a northerly direction," Elofsson said. "From the Malmö road. At least three times."

  "When was he here last?"

  "Just before I called you. I tried your regular phone first. You must be a deep sleeper."

  Wallander ignored this. "Tell me again, every detail," he said.

  "You know how it is. It's only when they go past the second time that you really take notice."

  "What was the car?"

  "A navy blue Mazda saloon."

  "Did he slow down as he went past?"

  "I don't know if he did the first time, but he definitely did the second."

  El Sayed broke in for the first time. "He slowed down the first time."

  This comment clearly irritated Elofsson.

  "But he never stopped?"

  "No."

  "Did he see you?"

  "Not the first time. But possibly on his second time around."

  "What happened after that?"

  "He came back the third time after about 20 minutes, but didn't slow down."

  "He may just have been checking that you were still here. Could you see if there was more than one person in the car?"

  "We talked about that. We think it was just one person."

  "Did you tell your colleagues at Runnerströms Torg?"

  "They haven't seen it."

  Wallander found that puzzling. If someone was keeping a check on Falk's flat, he would also be interested in his office. He thought about it. The only explanation he could think of was that whoever the person in the car was he didn't know of the existence of the office. Unless the officers on duty there had been sleeping. Wallander didn't want to rule out that possibility at this point.

  Elofsson turned and passed Wallander a note with the registration number written on it.

  "I take it you've had this number checked out?"

  "We tried, but the computer system was down."

  Wallander held the note up so that he could read it with the help of the street light. MLR 331. He memorised the number.

  "When did they think they'd be back up and running?"

  "They couldn't be sure. Maybe by tomorrow morning."

  Wallander shook his head. "We need this as soon as humanly possible. When does your shift end?"

  "At 6 a.m."

  "Before you go home I want you to write up a report on this and give it to Hansson or Martinsson. They'll take care of it."

  "What do we do if he comes back?"

  "He won't," Wallander said. "Not as long as he knows you're here."

  "Should we get involved in any way, if he does come back?"

  "No. He hasn't committed a crime, so far as we know. But call me. Use my mobile number."

  He wished them luck, then walked back to Törgen Krabbes Väg. He drove down to Runnerströms Torg. Only one of the officers was asleep. They hadn't been aware of any navy blue Mazdas.

  "Keep a close watch," Wallander said, and gave them the registration number.

  As he was walking back to his car, he remembered that he still had Setterkvist's keys. He entered the building and walked to the top floor. Before unlocking the door he pressed his ear to it and listened. He walked in and turned on the light, looking around the room in the same way as he had the first time he was there. Was there anything he had
n't noticed that time? Something that he and Nyberg could have overlooked? He found nothing. He sat at the computer and stared at the dark screen.

  Modin had talked about the number 20. Wallander had sensed intuitively that the boy was on to something. In the stream of numbers that were a nonsensical jumble to him, and perhaps even to Martinsson, Modin had been able to see a pattern. The only thing Wallander could think of was that October 20 was approaching, and that the number 20 was the first part of the year 2000. But what did it mean? And did whatever it meant have anything to do with the investigation?

  Suddenly the phone rang.

  Wallander jumped. The sound rang out eerily in the empty room. He stared at the black phone and on the seventh ring he finally lifted the receiver.

  He heard static as if it were a long-distance call and he strained to hear something on the other end. Someone was there. Wallander said hello once, then a second time. All he heard was the sound of breathing somewhere inside the buzz of static. Then there was a click and the connection was lost. Wallander hung up. His heart was racing. He had heard that sound before, when he had listened to Falk's messages.

  There was someone there, he thought. Someone calling to talk to Falk. But Falk is gone. He's dead.

  He thought of another possibility. Someone could be calling to talk to him. Someone who had seen him enter the building and walk up to Falk's flat?

  He remembered how he had stopped and turned on the pavement earlier in the evening. As if he was expecting there to be someone behind him, watching him.

  His anxiety flared up. Until now he had been able to repress the memory that only a few days ago someone had tried to kill him. Höglund's words came back to him: he should take care.

  He got up from the chair and walked to the door. He could hear nothing.

  He walked back to the desk. Without thinking, he lifted the keyboard. There was a postcard lying underneath it. He directed the lamp at it and put on his glasses. The card was old and the colours had faded. It was a picture of a tropical bay. There were palm trees, a pier, fishing boats in the water. Behind the shoreline a row of tall buildings. He turned the card over and saw that it was addressed to Tynnes Falk at the Apelbergsgatan address. So much for Eriksson receiving all his mail. Had she lied to him, or did she not know about this other mail? There was no message on the card, just the letter "C". Wallander studied the postmark. The stamp was partly torn off, but he could make out the letters "1" and "d". The other letters probably would be vowels, but he couldn't guess what they were, nor could he decipher a date. There was nothing printed on the card to say where the picture had been taken. Wallander was reminded of an unhappy and chaotic trip he had once taken to the West Indies. The palm trees were the same, but the cityscape didn't look familiar.

  He studied the "C" again. The same as the C in Falk's diary. Falk had known who it was, or what it was and had saved the postcard. In this bare room that contained nothing beyond the computer and a blueprint of a power substation, there had been this postcard. Wallander tucked it into his jacket pocket. Then he lifted the computer monitor but there was nothing there. He lifted the phone. Nothing. He looked around for another minute before he turned out the light and left.

  He was exhausted when he got back to Mariagatan, but before going to bed he couldn't resist getting out his magnifying glass and studying the postcard again. It didn't tell him anything more.

  He went to bed shortly before 2 a.m. and fell asleep at once.

  Monday morning Wallander made only a brief stop at the station. He handed the flat keys over to Martinsson and asked him about the car that had been seen the night before. Martinsson already had the report on his desk. Wallander didn't say anything about the postcard. It wasn't that he wanted to keep it to himself, but because he was in a hurry. He didn't want to get bogged down in a long discussion.

  Before leaving the station he made two calls. One was to Siv Eriksson. He asked her about the number 20 and about the letter C. She couldn't think of anything, but she said she would be in touch if anything came to her. He told her about the postcard he had found in Falk's office. Her exclamation of surprise was so spontaneous that he didn't doubt it was genuine. Wallander told her what the postcard depicted, but she couldn't shed any light on its provenance.

  "Maybe he had even more addresses," she said.

  Wallander sensed a note of disappointment in her voice, as if she felt betrayed by Falk.

  "We'll look into it," he said. "You could be right about his having other houses."

  Wallander realised that the very sound of her voice had cheered him up, but he didn't let himself dwell on it. He made the next call, which was to Marianne Falk. He told her that he would be with her in half an hour.

  The next few hours he sat in Mrs Falk's living room and listened to her talk about the man she had been married to. Wallander started at the beginning. When had they met? How had he been in those days? Mrs Falk turned out to have an excellent memory. She rarely faltered or had to pause to gather her thoughts. Wallander had brought his notebook, but he didn't take any notes. He wasn't planning to research what she told him, he was simply trying to get some understanding of the man Falk had been.

  Falk had grown up on a farm outside Linköping, she said. He was an only child. On leaving school he had done his military service and then started his studies in Uppsala. He had not been able to decide on any one subject and had taken courses in everything from law to literature. After a year he had moved to Stockholm, to the business school.

  That was when they had met. It was in 1972. She was training to be a nurse and had gone to a big party held by a student organisation.

  "Tynnes didn't dance," she said, "but he was there. Somehow or other we were introduced. I remember thinking that he seemed boring. It certainly wasn't love at first sight, not from my side. He called a few days after that. I don't know how he got my number. He wanted to see me again, but not for the usual walk or movie. What he suggested surprised me."

  "And what was that?"

  "He wanted to take me to Bromma, to watch the aeroplanes taking off."

  "Did he say why?"

  "He liked aeroplanes. We went, and he could tell me everything about the planes that were parked there. I thought he was a little strange. He certainly wasn't how I had imagined the man in my life."

  Falk had been persistent according to Marianne, although she had had her doubts.

  "He wasn't pushy – physically," she said. "It took him about three months to kiss me. If he hadn't, by that point, I would probably have tired of the whole thing. He was very shy, or at least he pretended to be."

  "Why would he pretend?"

  "Tynnes was very self-confident when it came down to it. He had a reserved manner, but I think he looked down on most of the rest of humanity, for all that he often claimed the opposite."

  A turning point in the relationship came one day in April or May about six months after they had met. They had had no plans to meet that day since Falk had said he had an important lecture at school and she was running errands for her mother. On her way to the railway station, she was forced to stop on the side of the road since a mass of demonstrators was passing by. It was a march to raise awareness of Third World issues. The signs and banners had various aggressive messages about the World Bank and Portuguese colonial oppression. Marianne had come from a stable home with solid Social Democratic values. She had not been caught up by the growing wave of left-wing radicals, nor had she ever detected any such interest in Falk, though he always seemed to have the answer whenever they discussed political issues, and he had clearly enjoyed showing off his political knowledge and superior understanding of political theory. When she caught sight of him that day among the demonstrators she couldn't believe her eyes. She had involuntarily taken a few steps back as he passed her on the street and he never saw her.