Firewall

by Mankell Henning

  Wallander put the phone down and wondered if she would ever get a real job and think of settling in Ystad. She's got something on her mind, he thought. But for some reason she won't tell me what it is.

  It was pointless trying to guess what she was up to. He looked at the time. It was 8.20 a.m. Martinsson would soon be picking up Alfredsson, the computer specialist from Stockholm. Wallander thought about how Modin had turned up so unexpectedly at the restaurant the night before. He had seemed very sure of his discovery. Wallander should let Martinsson know, but something inside him stopped him from having more contact with Martinsson than absolutely necessary. He had lingering doubts about what Höglund had told him, doubts which were caused mainly because he wanted it to be untrue. To lose Martinsson as a trusted friend would create an impossible work environment. The betrayal would be too hard to bear. He believed he had trained Martinsson the way Rydberg had trained him, but Wallander had never been tempted to or had any wish to overthrow Rydberg's authority.

  The force is a wasp's nest, he thought angrily. Nothing but envy, gossip and intrigue. I've always liked to imagine that I remained above it all, but now it seems I've been pulled into the very maelstrom. I'm a leader whose successor is getting impatient.

  Overcoming his reluctance, he called Martinsson on his mobile. After all, Modin had forced his father to drive him in all the way from Löderup the night before. They had to take him seriously. He may have already been in touch with Martinsson, but if not, Wallander's call could be important. Martinsson had just parked and was on his way to the terminal. Modin had not yet contacted him. Wallander briefly explained the situation.

  "It seems a little strange," Martinsson said. "How could he have thought of this when he didn't have access to the computer any more?"

  "You'll have to ask him that."

  "He's wily," Martinsson said. "I wouldn't put it past him to have copied some of that material onto his own computer."

  Martinsson said he would call Modin, and they agreed to be in touch again in the afternoon.

  Wallander felt that Martinsson sounded absolutely normal. Either he's much better at this game of deception than I could have imagined, he thought, or else what Höglund told me isn't right.

  Wallander got to the station at 8.45 a.m. When he reached his office there was a message on his desk. Something has come up he read in Hansson's jerky handwriting. Wallander sighed over his colleague's inability to communicate more effectively. "Something" was his trademark. The question was always what this "something" referred to.

  The coffee machine in the canteen had been fixed. Nyberg was eating his breakfast. Wallander sat across from him.

  "If you ask me about my vertigo, I'm leaving," Nyberg said.

  "I'll pass then."

  "I feel fine," Nyberg said. "I just wish retirement would hurry up and get here. Even though the money will be wretched."

  Wallander knew it wasn't true. Nyberg was tired and worn out, but he was probably just afraid of being retired.

  "Is there any word from the coroner's office on Landahl?"

  "He died around 3 hours before the ferry arrived in Ystad. I guess that means whoever killed him was still aboard. Unless he jumped ship, of course."

  "That was a mistake on my part," Wallander admitted. "We should have checked the passengers before allowing them to disembark."

  "What we all should have done was choose a different career," Nyberg said.

  Wallander decided it was best to leave him alone. This was an easy choice since he never had to direct him in any way. Nyberg was thorough and well organised and could always judge which aspects of a case were most urgent and which could wait. He got up.

  "I've been thinking," Nyberg said.

  Wallander waited, all ears. Nyberg had an uncanny ability to come up with crucial observations. More than once he had helped to turn a case completely around.

  "What have you been thinking?"

  "About that relay in the morgue. About the handbag by the fence. And the body with the missing two fingers put back at the cash machine. We've been trying to find a meaning in all of this, to get the bits to fit into a pattern. Isn't that right?"

  Wallander nodded.

  "We've been trying. But it's not going very well. At least not so far."

  Nyberg scraped up the rest of his muesli from his bowl before going on.

  "I talked to Höglund yesterday. She filled me in on what you talked about at the meeting. Apparently you had stressed the double meaning in the events of this case. You said there was both something deliberate and accidental about the events. Is that right?"

  "Something like that."

  "Well, what happens if we take this a stage further and assume that there is both planning and coincidence at work here?"

  Wallander had nothing to say and waited for Nyberg to go on.

  "So I had an idea. What if we are overinterpreting what's happened? First, we suppose that the murder of the taxi driver is much less significant than we thought. What if that is true about the other things as well? What if much of what has happened is meant to lead us astray, as it were?"

  "What are you thinking of specifically?"

  "For a start, this relay."

  "Are you saying that Falk had nothing to do with Hökberg's murder?"

  "No. But I believe that someone wants us to think that Falk had more to do with it than he did."

  Wallander was getting very interested.

  "Or his body turning up again. What if we assume that it doesn't mean anything? Where does that get us?"

  Wallander thought about it. "It leaves us in a swamp. We don't know where to put our feet to reach solid ground."

  "A good image," Nyberg said approvingly. "I didn't think anyone would ever be able to top Rydberg as far as apt analogies went, but I wonder if you aren't even sharper than he was. We're wading our way through a swamp, exactly where someone wants us to be."

  "And we need to find our way back to solid ground?"

  "Take the business of the fence. We've been driving ourselves nuts trying to work out why the outer gate was forced and the inner door was unlocked."

  Wallander could see what Nyberg was driving at, and it irritated him that he hadn't picked up on this himself. "So whoever unlocked the door later damaged the outer gate simply to confuse us. Is that what you mean?"

  "It looks like the best explanation to me."

  "I'm embarrassed I haven't seen this myself until now," Wallander said.

  "You can't think of everything yourself."

  "Are there any other aspects we should ignore?"

  "No. We only need to proceed cautiously and weigh up each development. Decide if it's important or not."

  Nyberg stood up, signalling the end of the conversation. He walked over to the sink to wash his plate. The last thing Wallander heard before leaving the canteen was Nyberg complaining about the worn-out bristles on the brush.

  Wallander paused at Hansson's office. His door was open and he was filling in his betting slips. Wallander knocked to give him a moment to put them away before he walked in.

  "I saw your note," he said.

  "The Mercedes van has turned up," he said.

  Wallander leaned against the doorpost while Hansson searched through his ever-increasing piles of paper.

  "I did as you said and went through the records again yesterday. A small car-rental company in Malmö finally reported a stolen vehicle. A dark blue Mercedes van which should have been returned on Wednesday."

  "What was the name it was rented under?"

  "You'll like this," Hansson said. "It was a man named Fu Cheng."

  "Who paid with American Express?"

  "Exactly."

  Wallander nodded grimly. "He must have given them a local address."

  "Hotel St Jörgen, but the company checked and they have no guest of that name."

  Wallander frowned. "That's strange. You wouldn't think this Fu Cheng would risk being shown up like that."

&nbs
p; "There's a possible explanation," Hansson said. "There was a man of Asian appearance staying at the St Jörgen, name of Andersen and he came from Denmark. The car company checked his description with the hotel staff and are convinced it was the same man."

  "How did he pay for his room?"

  "Cash."

  "He would have to have given them a home address."

  Hansson searched for another piece of paper in his pile. A betting slip fell to the ground without his noticing and Wallander kindly ignored it.

  "Here we are. An address in Vedbaek."

  "Has anyone checked it out?"

  "The car company has been extremely persistent. No doubt the van was a valuable asset. The street he wrote down doesn't exist."

  "And that's where the tracks stop," Wallander said.

  "Do we keep looking for the van?"

  Wallander didn't take long to make up his mind. "Hold off on that for now. You have more important things to do. We'll get back to it."

  Hansson gestured towards the heaps of paper. "I don't know how we're to get all this other stuff done at the same time."

  Wallander didn't have the energy for yet another discussion of chronic police understaffing.

  "We'll talk later," he said and left. He cast a quick eye over the latest papers to have landed on his desk, then took his coat and prepared to go to check on Alfredsson. He was curious as to how the meeting with Robert Modin would go. But after he got behind the wheel he did not immediately start the engine. His thoughts turned to his dinner with Elvira. It was a long time since he had felt so good. It was hard to believe it was true. But Elvira was real. She was no mirage.

  He couldn't resist the impulse to call her up. He took out his mobile and dialled the number he had already memorised. She answered after the third ring. She said she was happy to hear from him, but Wallander felt sure he had interrupted her. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something there. A wave of unexpected jealousy came over him, but he kept it out of his voice.

  "I wanted to thank you again for coming over here last night."

  "Oh, there's no need, but it's sweet of you."

  "Was the drive home all right?"

  "I almost ran over a rabbit, but apart from that it was fine."

  "I'm in my office and I was trying to imagine what you do on Saturday mornings. But I must be disturbing you."

  "Not at all. I was cleaning my flat."

  "This is probably not a good time, so I won't keep you. But I wonder if you have any time to get together this weekend?"

  "Tomorrow would be best for me. Could you call back this afternoon?"

  Wallander promised to do so.

  Afterwards he sat and stared at the phone. He had disturbed her, he could hear it in her voice. I'm imagining things, he thought. I once made that mistake with Baiba. I even went to Riga without warning her, to see if my suspicions were justified. But there wasn't another man in her life. I was wrong.

  He would have to take her at her word. She was busy cleaning up, nothing more. When he called in the afternoon she would be back to normal.

  Wallander drove to Runnerströms Torg. He sat in the car, lost in thought, until someone knocked on the window. He jumped. It was Martinsson, smiling and holding up a bag of pastries. Wallander felt almost happy to see him. Normally he would have discussed the events of the day, but he said nothing as he got out of the car.

  "Were you napping?"

  "I was thinking," Wallander said, curtly. "Is Alfredsson here?"

  Martinsson laughed. "The funny thing is that he actually looks like his namesake. But that's just the surface. I don't think he's much of a comedian at heart."

  "Is Modin here too?"

  "I've arranged to pick him up at 1 p.m."

  They crossed the street and climbed the stairs. There they paused.

  "Alfredsson is a thorough sort," Martinsson said. "I'm sure he's good. He's still working his way through what we've done so far. His wife keeps calling every so often and chastising him for not being at home."

  "I'm just going to say hello," Wallander said. "Then I'll leave you two alone until Modin gets here."

  "What was it he claimed to have done, by the way?"

  "I don't know exactly, but I think he said he had broken the rest of the codes."

  They walked in. Martinsson was right. Alfredsson bore an uncanny resemblance to the comedian. Wallander couldn't help smiling. It lifted his mood.

  "We're grateful you could come down here at such short notice," Wallander said.

  "I wasn't aware I had a choice," Alfredsson said, sourly.

  "I've bought some pastries," Martinsson said. "That may help a little."

  Wallander decided to leave immediately. It was only when Modin was in place that it would be worth his while.

  "Call me when Modin gets here," he said to Martinsson. "I'll come back then."

  Alfredsson exclaimed from his chair in front of the computer. "There's a message for Falk," he said.

  Wallander and Martinsson went over to take a look. A small icon indicated that there was mail. Alfredsson retrieved it.

  "It's for you," he said, surprised, and looked at Wallander.

  Wallander put on his glasses and read the message. It was from Modin: They have traced me. I need help. Robert.

  "Damn," Martinsson said. "He said he always covered his tracks!"

  Not another one, Wallander thought helplessly. I can't cope with another one. He was already on his way down the stairs with Martinsson at his heels.

  It was pouring with rain. Martinsson's car was closer. Wallander put the police light on the roof.

  They sped out of Ystad. It was 10.30 a.m.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  After the hair-raising drive to Löderup, Wallander finally met Robert's mother. She was overweight and seemed very nervous. She had plugs of cotton wool in her nostrils and was lying on the sofa with a damp towel on her forehead.

  Modin's father had opened the front door as they pulled into the driveway. Wallander searched in vain for his first name. He looked over at Martinsson.

  "Axel Modin."

  They ran across the yard to get out of the heavy rain and the first thing Axel Modin said was that Robert had taken the car. He said this over and over again.

  "The boy took the car. He doesn't even have a licence."

  "Does he know how to drive?" Martinsson said.

  "Hardly. I've tried to teach him. I have no idea how I got such an impractical son."