Хеннинг Манкелль - Firewall

Wallander and Höglund started walking back toward the parking lot together.

“Have you talked with him?” she asked.

“Not yet. It’s more important to focus on finding Modin and the reasons for all of this.”

“You’ve just been shot at for the second time this week. I can’t understand how you can take it so well.”

Wallander stopped and looked at her.

“Who says I’m taking it well?”

“You give that impression.”

“Well, it’s not true.”

They kept walking.

“Tell me how you see the case now,” he asked her. “Take your time. How would you explain it to someone? What can we expect in the near future?”

She swept her coat tightly around her.

“I can’t tell you any more than you already know.”

“But you’ll tell me in your own way. And if I hear your voice, at least I won’t be hearing my own thoughts for a while.”

“Sonja Hökberg was definitely raped,” she began. “I see no other reason for her crime. I think if we were to keep digging into her life we would find a young woman consumed by hatred. Sonja Hökberg is not the stone that is thrown into the water, she’s one of the outer rings. I think perhaps timing is the most important factor in her case.”

“Tell me what you mean.”

“What would have happened if Falk hadn’t died so close to the time she was arrested? Let’s say a few weeks had gone by, and say it wasn’t so close to the twentieth of October.”

Wallander nodded. So far her thinking was right on track.

“The fact that it’s close to some important event in time leads to hasty and unplanned actions on the part of our perpetrator? Is that what you mean?”

“There are no margins. Sonja Hökberg is being held by the police. Someone is afraid of what she can tell us. Specifically, something she may have heard from her friends, first and foremost Jonas Landahl, who is later also killed. All of these events are an attempt to keep something inside a computer a secret. The nocturnals, as Modin apparently calls them, want to keep doing their work in the dark. If one disregards some loose details, I think this about sums it up. It then also makes sense that Modin was threatened. And that you were attacked.”

“Why me? Why not any other police officer?”

“You were in the apartment when they came the first time. You have consistently been on the frontlines of this investigation.”

They kept walking in silence. The wind was gusty now. Höglund hunched her shoulders against it.

“There’s one more thing,” she said, “that we know, but that they don’t know.”

“What’s that?”

“That Sonja Hökberg never told us anything. In that sense, she actually died for nothing.”

Wallander nodded. She was right.

“I keep wondering what could be in that computer,” he said after a while. “The only thing that Martinsson and I have come up with is that it has something to do with money.”

“Perhaps there’s a big heist in the works? Isn’t that the way it’s done nowadays? A bank computer goes haywire and starts transferring money into the wrong account.”

“Maybe. We just don’t know.”

They had reached the parking lot. Höglund opened her mouth to say something when they both saw Hansson running toward them.

“We’ve found him!” Hansson shouted.

“Modin or the man who shot at me?”

“Modin. He’s in Ystad. One of the patrol cars spotted him when they drove back to change shifts.”

“Where was he?”

“He had parked at the corner of Surbrunnsvagen and Aulingatan. By the People’s Park.”

“Where is he now?”

“At the station.”

Wallander saw the relief in Hansson’s face.

“He’s okay,” Hansson said. “We got to him first.”

“Yes, it seems like it.”

It was a quarter to four.

The phone call that Carter had been waiting for came at five o’clock. It was a bad connection, and it was difficult to interpret Cheng’s broken English. Carter thought that it was like being transported back to the 1980s, when communications between Africa and the rest of the world was still very poor. He remembered a time when it was still a challenge to do something as simple as send or receive a fax.

But in spite of the time difference and the static, Carter had still managed to understand Cheng’s message. When the phone call ended, Carter had walked out into the garden to think. He had trouble controlling his irritation. Cheng had not lived up to his expectations, and nothing was more infuriating to him than when people were not able to handle the tasks that he asked them to carry out. The latest news report was unsettling, and he knew he had to make an important decision.

The heat, after he’d left the cool and air-conditioned house, was oppressive. Lizards ran to and fro around his feet. The sweat was already trickling down inside his shirt, but it was not from the heat. It was from the anxiety he felt. Carter had to think clearly and calmly. Cheng had failed him, but his female watchdog was doing a better job. Nonetheless, she had her limits. He knew he had no real choice now. But it was not too late. There was a plane leaving for Lisbon at eleven o’clock in the evening. That was in six hours. I can’t take any more chances, he thought. Therefore, I have to go.

The decision was made. He went back inside and sent the necessary e-mails.

Then he called the airport to book his flight.

He ate the dinner that Celine had prepared. Then he showered and packed his bag. He shivered at the thought of having to travel to the cold.

At ten minutes past eleven, the TAP Portuguese Airlines plane headed for Lisbon took off from Luanda airport. It was only ten minutes late.

They arrived at the station shortly after four o’clock. For some reason Modin had been set up in Svedberg’s old office that was now mainly used by police officers on temporary assignments. Modin was drinking a cup of coffee when Wallander came in. He smiled uncertainly when he saw Wallander, but Wallander could still see the fear underneath.

“Let’s go into my office,” he said.

Modin took his cup of coffee and followed him. When he sat down in the chair across from Wallander’s desk, the armrest fell off. He jumped.

“That happens all the time,” Wallander said. “Leave it.”

He sat down in his chair and cleared all his paperwork from the middle of his desk.

“I’m going to present you with a hypothesis I’m working on. I think that when we weren’t looking, you copied a bunch of material from Falk’s computer and transferred it to your own. What do you think of that?”

“I want to speak to a lawyer,” Modin said firmly.

“We don’t need lawyers,” Wallander said. “You haven’t actually broken any laws. At least not as far as I know. But I need to know exactly what you did.”

Modin didn’t believe him.

“You’re here now so that we can protect you,” Wallander continued.

“Not for any other reason. You are not being held here on charges. We don’t suspect you of anything.”

Modin still seemed to weighing Wallander’s words. He waited.

“Can I have that in writing?” he asked finally.

Wallander reached out for a pad of paper and wrote a guarantee for him. He signed it and wrote the date.

“I don’t have a stamp,” he said. “But this ought to work.”

“It’s not good enough,” Modin said.

“It will have to do,” Wallander said. “This is between you and me. I would accept it if I were you. If you don’t, there’s always the chance I’m going to change my mind.”

Modin realized he meant business.

“Tell me what happened,” Wallander said. “You received a threatening e-mail in your computer. I’ve read it myself. Then you looked up and saw that there was a car parked on that little road that goes between the fields behind your house. Is that right?”