Firewall (39 page)

At 3 p.m. he couldn't stand it any longer and drove to Runnerströms Torg, walking in on an intense debate about how best to interpret a new combination of numbers. Modin tried to involve Wallander, but he shook his head.

At 5 p.m. he went out and bought himself a hamburger. When he came back to the station he called Elvira, but there was no answer, not even an answerphone. He was immediately jealous, but too tired and distracted to dwell on it.

At 6.30 p.m. Ebba turned up unexpectedly. She had brought some food for Modin. Wallander asked Hansson to drive her to Runnerströms Torg. Afterwards he realised that he hadn't thanked her enough.

At 7 p.m. he called the team at Runnerströms Torg and Martinsson answered. Their conversation was brief. They were not yet able to answer a single one of Wallander's questions. He put down the phone and went to find Hansson who was sitting in front of the computer with bloodshot eyes. Wallander asked if there had been any response from overseas. Hansson had only one word in reply: nothing.

At that moment Wallander was overcome by rage. He grabbed one of the chairs in Hansson's office and threw it against the wall. Then he left the room.

At 8 p.m. he was back in Hansson's office.

"Let's go to Runnerströms Torg," he said. "We can't go on like this. We have to get some idea of where we stand."

They stopped at Höglund's office on the way. She was half asleep at her desk. They drove in silence. When they reached the flat they saw Modin sitting on the floor against the wall, Martinsson on his folding chair and Alfredsson lying flat on the floor. Wallander wondered if he had ever led a more exhausted and dispirited team. He knew that the physical tiredness was due more to their lack of progress than to the events of the night before. If only they had come a few steps closer to the truth, if only they could break down the wall, they could each summon sufficient energy to see it through. But for now the dominant mood was one of hopelessness.

Wallander sat in front of the computer. The others gathered round him, except Martinsson who positioned himself in the background.

"Let's have a résumé of where we are," he said. "What is the situation right now?"

"There are several indications that the date in question is October 20," Alfredsson said. "But we have no indications of a precise time for the event, so we cannot know if it will begin on the stroke of midnight or at any point after that. Quite possibly, the intended event is a form of computer virus that targets all of these financial institutions we have identified. Since they are mostly large and powerful financial institutions we imagine the event has something to do with money, but whether we are talking about a form of electronic bank robbery or not we don't know."

"What would be the worst thing that could happen?" Wallander said.

"The collapse of the world financial markets."

"But is that even possible?"

"We've been through this point before. If there were a significant enough disruption of the markets or a severe fluctuation in the dollar, for example, it might incite a panic in the public which would be hard to control."

"That's what is going to happen," Modin said.

Everyone stared at him. He was sitting with his legs crossed next to Wallander.

"Why do you say that? Do you know it for a fact?"

"No, not for a fact. But I think this is going to be so big we can't even imagine it. We're not going to be able to deduce what is going to happen before it's too late."

"How does the whole thing start? Isn't there a starting point, some kind of button that needs to be pressed?"

"I imagine it will be started by some action so ordinary we would have trouble recognising it as a threat."

"The hypothetical coffee machine," Hansson said.

"The only thing we can do right now is keep going," Wallander said. "We don't have a choice."

"I left some diskettes in Malmö," Modin said. "I need them to keep working."

"I'll send out a car to get them for you."

"I'll go too," Modin said. "I need to get out. And I know of a store in Malmö that stays open late and has the kind of food I like."

Wallander nodded and got up. Hansson called for a patrol car that would take Modin to Malmö. Wallander called Elvira. The line was busy. He tried again. Now she answered. He told her what had happened, that Modin needed to come and pick up the diskettes he had left behind. She said it was no problem. Her voice sounded normal now.

"Can I expect to see you as well?" she said.

"Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now."

"I won't ask you why."

"Thank you. It would take too long to explain."

Alfredsson and Martinsson were leaning over Falk's computer again. Wallander, Hansson and Höglund returned to the station. When Wallander reached his office the phone rang. It was the reception desk, telling him he had a visitor.

"Who is it and what is it about?" Wallander asked. "I'm extremely busy."

"It's someone who says she's your neighbour. A Mrs Hartman."

Wallander worried that something had happened in his flat. A few years ago there had been a bad leak. Mrs Hartman was a widow who lived in the flat beneath his. That time, too, she had called him at the station.

"I'll come straight away," Wallander said.

When he reached the waiting area, Mrs Hartman was able to assuage his fears. There was no leak, just a letter for him that had been put through her letter box.

"It must be the post," she complained. "It probably came on Friday, but I've been away and only came back today. I thought it might be important, that's all."

"You shouldn't have gone to the trouble, coming down here," Wallander said. "I rarely get post that is so important it can't wait."

After Mrs Hartman had left, Wallander went back to his room and opened the letter. There was no return address on the envelope. To his surprise, it was a notice from the dating agency, thanking him for his subscription and saying that they would forward responses as they arrived.

Wallander crumpled the letter and threw it into the waste-paper basket. The next couple of seconds his mind was a total blank. He frowned, retrieved the letter, smoothed it out and read it again. Then he looked for the envelope, still without knowing exactly why. He stared at the postmark for a long time. The letter had been posted on Thursday.

His mind was still empty.

Thursday. It was the dating agency telling him that his information was now entered in their records. But by then he had already received a reply from Elvira Lindfeldt. Her letter had arrived in an envelope that had been brought directly to his door. A letter with no postmark.

His thoughts were swirling in his head.

He turned and looked at his computer. Was he going crazy? He forced himself to think logically. As he kept staring at his computer a picture was starting to emerge. A plausible sequence of events. It was horrifying.

He ran out into the corridor and into Hansson's office.

"Call the patrol car!" he shouted.

Hansson jerked back and stared at him. "Which patrol car?"

"The one that took Modin to Malmö."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Hansson grabbed the phone. He got through to them in less than two minutes.

"They're on their way back," he said, putting the phone down.

Wallander breathed a sigh of relief.

"But they left Modin at the house."

Wallander felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. "Why did they do that?"

"Apparently he told them that he was going to keep working from there."

Wallander didn't move. His heart was beating very hard. He had trouble believing that it was true, but he himself had suggested the risk of someone breaking into their computers. These break-ins weren't necessarily limited to the investigation material. Someone could just as easily access other files – such as a letter that someone sent to a dating agency.

"Bring your gun with you," he said. "We're leaving."

"Where to?"

"Malmö." Wallander checked his own gun and ammunition. It had been cleaned and tested for him only this morning.

Wallander tried to explain the situation along the way, but Hansson seemed to have trouble understanding the story. Wallander kept asking him to try Elvira's number, but there was no answer. Wallander put the police siren on the roof and drove faster. He prayed silently to all the gods he could think of to spare Modin's life. But already he feared the worst.

They drew up outside the house shortly after 10 p.m. There were no lights. The house was dark. They got out. Wallander asked Hansson to wait in the shadows by the gate. Then he turned off his safety catch and walked up the path. When he reached the front door he stopped and listened. Then he rang the bell. There was no answer. He rang again. Then he felt the doorknob. It was unlocked. He gestured for Hansson to join him.

"We should send for reinforcements," Hansson said in a whisper.

"There's no time."

Wallander slowly opened the door. He listened. He didn't know what was waiting for them in the dark. He remembered that the light switch was on the wall to the left of the door and, after fumbling for a while, he found it. Before he switched on the light he took a step to one side and crouched down.

The hall was empty.

Some light fell into the living room. He could see Elvira on the sofa. She was looking at him. Wallander took a deep breath. She didn't move. He knew she was dead. He called out to Hansson. Step by careful step they went into the living room. She had been shot in the neck. The pale yellow sofa was stained with her blood.

Then they searched the house, but didn't find anything. Modin was gone. Wallander knew that could only mean one thing. Someone had been waiting for him in the house. The man in the field had not been working alone.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

He had no idea what kept him going that night. He supposed it was half rage and half self-reproach. But the overriding emotion was his fear for what might have happened to Modin. His first terrified thought when he realised that Elvira was dead was that Modin had also been killed. But they had searched the house and established that it was empty, and Wallander realised that Modin might still be alive. Everything up to this point in the case seemed to have been about concealment and secrets and that must be the reason for Modin's abduction. Wallander did not have to remind himself of Hökberg's and Landahl's fate. But this was not the same situation. Then the police had not known what was going to happen. Now that they knew more, they had a better starting point, even though they did not yet know what had happened to Modin.

Wallander also had to acknowledge that part of what was fuelling him that night was his sense of having been betrayed, and his bitterness that life had once more cheated him of the prospect of companionship. He could not claim to miss Elvira herself. Her death had mainly frightened him. She had accessed his letter to the dating agency and had got on to him solely with the intention of tricking and manipulating him. And he had been thoroughly taken in. It had been a masterful performance. The shame was excruciating. The rage that coursed through him came from many different sources at once. Nevertheless, Hansson would later tell him how collected and calm he had seemed. His evaluation of the situation and his suggested course of action had been impressively swift.

Wallander needed to get back to Ystad just as soon as possible. That was where the heart of the case still was. Hansson would stay in the house, alert the Malmö police and fill them in as necessary. Hansson was also to do something else. Wallander had been very firm on this point. Even though it was the middle of the night, he wanted Hansson to find out more about Elvira Lindfeldt's background. Was there anything that linked her to Angola? Who did she know in Malmö?

"Who was she anyway?" Hansson said. "Why was Modin here? How did you know her?"

Wallander didn't answer and Hansson never asked him the question again. Afterwards he would sometimes ask people about it when Wallander was not present. The fact was that Wallander must have known her since he placed Modin in her care. But no-one knew anything about this mysterious woman. Despite the investigations that they conducted there was always the sense that her relationship to Wallander was not a matter to be delved into. No-one ever found out exactly what had happened between them.

Wallander left Hansson and returned to Ystad. He concentrated on a single question: what had happened to Modin? As he drove through the night he had a feeling that the impending catastrophe was very close. How he was going to prevent it or what it was exactly that needed to be prevented or stopped, he could not say. The important thing was saving Modin's life. Wallander drove at a ridiculous speed. He had asked Hansson to let the others know he was on his way. Hansson had asked if he should call and wake up Chief Holgersson and Wallander had lost his temper and shouted at him. He did
not
want him to call her.

At 1.30 a.m. Wallander slowed down and turned into the station car park. He shivered from the cold as he ran to the front doors.

The others were waiting for him in the conference room. Martinsson, Höglund and Alfredsson were already there, with Nyberg on his way. Höglund handed him a cup of coffee that he almost immediately managed to spill down the front of his trousers.

Then he got down to business. Modin had disappeared and the woman he had been staying with had been found murdered.

"The first conclusion we can draw," Wallander said, "is that the man in the field was not working alone. It was a fatal mistake to assume that that was the case. I should have realised it earlier."

Höglund was the one who asked the inevitable question. "Who was she?"

"Her name was Elvira Lindfeldt," Wallander said. "She was an acquaintance of mine."

"How did she know Modin would be coming to her house tonight?"

"We'll have to tackle that question later."

Did they believe him? Wallander thought he had lied convincingly, but he couldn't tell. He knew he should have told them the truth about the ad to the dating agency and that someone must have broken into his computer and read the letter. But he didn't say any of these things. In his defence, at least what he tried to tell himself, the most important thing was finding Modin.

At this point the door opened and Nyberg came in. His pyjama top peeked out from under his anorak.

"What the hell happened?" he said. "Hansson called from Malmö and seemed to be out of his mind. Impossible to understand a single word he was saying."

"Sit down," Wallander said. "It's going to be a long night."

Then he nodded to Höglund, who summarised the situation for Nyberg.

"Don't the Malmö police have their own forensic team?" Nyberg said.

"I want you to go there," Wallander said. "Not only in case anything else turns up, but also because I need to hear what you think."

Nyberg nodded without saying anything. Then he took out a comb and started pulling it through his unruly, thinning hair.

Wallander continued. "There is one more conclusion we can draw from all this and it is quite simple: something else is going to happen. And this something is somehow rooted here in Ystad." He looked at Martinsson.

"I take it someone is still stationed outside Runnerströms Torg?"

"No, the surveillance has been called off."

"On whose instructions?"

"Viktorsson thought it was a waste of our resources."

"Well, I want a car put back there immediately. I cancelled the surveillance of Apelbergsgatan, which was maybe a mistake. I think I want a car there too from now on."

Martinsson left the room and Wallander knew that he would see that the patrol cars were dispatched immediately. They waited in silence for his return. Höglund offered Nyberg, who was still combing his hair, her make-up mirror so that he could see what he was doing, but he simply growled at her.

Martinsson came back. "Done," he said.

"What we're looking for is the catalyst," Wallander said. "It could be something as simple as Falk's death. At least, that's how I see it. As long as he was alive everything was in control. But then he died, and everything threatened to unravel."

Höglund raised her hand. "Do we know for sure that Falk died from natural causes?"

"I think it must have been natural causes. I believe that because Falk's death was unexpected. He was in excellent health. But he died, and that's what started the chain reaction. If Falk had lived, Hökberg would be tried and convicted of Lundberg's death. Neither she nor Landahl would have been killed. Landahl would have gone on running errands for Falk. And we would have had no idea of whatever it is that Falk and his associates were planning."

"So it's only on account of his dying that we know something is going to happen, something that might affect the whole world?" Höglund said.

"That's how I see it, yes. If someone else has a better hypothesis I would like to hear it."

No-one had.

Alfredsson opened his briefcase and tipped out a number of loose papers, some torn, some folded in half. "These are Modin's notes," he said. "They were lying in a corner. Do you think it's worth our while going through them?"

"That's up to you and Martinsson," Wallander said. "You are the only two who would understand what he's talking about."

The phone rang. Höglund answered it and handed the receiver to Wallander, saying it was Hansson.

"A neighbour claims she heard a car drive away with squealing tyres at about 9.30 p.m.," he said. "But that's all we have been able to establish. No-one seems to have seen or heard anything else. Not even the shots."

"There was more than one?"

"The doctor says she was shot in the head twice. There are two entry wounds."

Wallander felt sick to his stomach. He forced himself to swallow hard.

"Are you still there?" Hansson said.

"I'm here. No-one heard the shots?"

"Not the immediate neighbours anyway, and they're the only ones we've had time to wake up so far."

"Who is in charge down there?"

"An officer called Forsman. I've never met him before."

Wallander couldn't recall hearing the name either. "What does he say?"

"He says he has trouble getting a coherent picture from what I tell him, there's no motive."

"Placate him as best you can. We don't have time to brief him right now."

"There was one more thing," Hansson said. "Didn't Modin say he was on his way here to collect some diskettes?"

"That was what he said."

"I think I know what room he was staying in, but there are no diskettes there."

"He must have taken them with him. Have you found anything else that belongs to him?"

"Nothing."

"Any sign that anyone else was in the house?"

"One neighbour said that a taxi stopped at the house earlier in the day. A man got out."

"Try to find that taxi. It could be important. Make sure Forsman makes that a priority."

"You know I have no control over what police from another district choose to do or not to do."

"Then you'll have to do this yourself. Did the witness give a description?"

"All he said was that the man looked lightly dressed for the time of year."

It's the man from Luanda, Wallander thought. The one whose name starts with C.

"This is very important," Wallander repeated. "The taxi probably came from one of the ferry terminals, or from Sturup."

"I'll do what I can."

Wallander told the others. "I think the reinforcements have arrived," he said. "Probably from as far away as Angola."

"I haven't been able to get one single answer to any of my inquiries," Martinsson said. "I've been researching sabotage and terrorist groups that go for financial targets. No-one seems to have any data on them."

"You think people like that would be here in Ystad?" Nyberg put his comb down and stared disapprovingly at Wallander, who thought that Nyberg suddenly looked very old. Do the others see me in this way too?

"A man originating somewhere from the Far East turns up dead in a field outside Sandhammaren," Wallander said. "He was claiming to be from Hong Kong, but we know this identity was forged. This is not the kind of thing that ought to be happening around here, but it does. There really are no longer any remote regions left. If I understand anything about the new technology, it is that it enables you to be at the centre of things from anywhere in the world."

The phone rang. It was Hansson. "Forsman is actually pretty good," he said. "Things are moving right along. He's found the taxi."

"Where did it come from?"

"Sturup. You were right."

"Has anyone spoken to the driver?"

"He's right here. His shifts seem to be very long. Forsman says hello by the way. Apparently you met at a conference last spring."

"Then give him my regards as well," Wallander said. "Let me talk to this driver."

"His name is Stig Lunne. Here he is."

Wallander signalled to the others to pass him a piece of paper and a pen. He told him who he was and what he wanted to know. The driver spoke with such a thick Skåne dialect that it was almost impossible, even with Wallander's experience, to understand him. But his answers were impressively concise. He picked his passenger up at 12.02 p.m. from Sturup. The job had not been booked in advance.

"Can you describe your passenger?"

"Tall."

"Anything else?"

"Thin."

"Is that all? Is there anything else you might have noticed?"

"Tan."

"So this man was tall, thin and suntanned?"

"Yes."

"Did he speak Swedish?"

"No."

"What language did he speak?"

"I don't know. He showed me a piece of paper with the address."

Wallander sighed. He persevered and gathered that the man had been wearing a summer suit. He thanked the driver and asked him to be in touch if he thought of anything else.

It was 3 a.m. Wallander passed on to the others Lunne's description. Martinsson and Alfredsson had some time ago left to go and read Modin's notes. Now they returned.

"It's hard to get anything from Modin's notes," Alfredsson said. "He writes things like 'What we need to find is a coffee machine that's right under our noses'."

"He's referring to the process that triggers the planned event," Wallander said. "We have talked about it, and it's probably something most of us do every day without thinking twice about it. When the right button is pushed at the right time and place, then something is set in motion."