Firewall

by Henning Mankell

  It took him longer than expected to open the door. The pass keys felt strange in his hands and he had started to sweat. When the door finally opened he thought he heard breathing coming at him from out of the darkness. But then it was gone. He stepped into the hall and shut the door noiselessly behind him.

  The first thing he always noticed about a flat was the smell. But here there wasn't one, as if the flat were new and no-one had moved in yet. He made a mental note of it and started to walk through the flat with the torch in his hand, expecting at any moment to find someone there. Only when he had assured himself that he was alone did he take off his shoes, shut the curtains, put on a pair of rubber gloves, and turn on a lamp.

  Wallander was in the hall when the phone rang. He flinched and held his breath. The answering machine in the living room cut in and he hurried over to it. But the caller didn't leave a message. Who would have called a dead person's number in the middle of the night?

  Wallander walked to one of the windows overlooking the street. He peered through a tiny slit in the curtains. The street was empty. He tried to penetrate the shadows with his gaze, but he saw no-one.

  He started his search in the living room after turning on the desk lamp. Then he stood in the middle of the room and looked around. This is where Tynnes Falk lived, he thought. His story starts with a clean and well-ordered living room that is the very opposite of everyday chaos. There is leather furniture, a collection of maritime art on the walls. There's a big bookcase along one wall.

  He walked to the desk. There was an old brass compass beside a green writing pad. Pens lay neatly in line next to an antique oil lamp made of clay.

  Wallander continued out into the kitchen. There was a coffee cup on the counter, and a notepad on the kitchen table. Wallander turned on the light and looked at it. "Door to balcony," he read. Maybe Tynnes Falk and I have a lot in common, he thought. We both keep notepads in our kitchens. He walked back into the living room and tried the balcony door. It was too stiff to open. He walked into the bedroom. The double bed was made. Wallander kneeled and looked under it. He saw a pair of slippers.

  He opened the wardrobe and pulled out all the drawers. Everything was neatly arranged. He went back to the living room. The instructions for the answering machine had been tucked in underneath it. When he was sure he could listen to the messages without erasing anything, he pressed the button.

  First there was a message from someone called Jan who asked him how he was doing. He didn't say when he was calling. Then there were two calls from someone who only breathed at the other end. Wallander had the feeling it was the same person. The fourth call was from a tailor in Malmö, to let him know that his trousers were ready. Wallander made a note of the name. Then the most recent call, from the person who only breathed. Wallander listened to the sequence again and wondered if Nyberg could determine whether the mystery calls were from the same person.

  He put the instruction manual back in its place. There were three framed, postcard-sized photographs on the desk, two of them probably of Falk's children. There was a boy and a girl. The boy was sitting on a rock in a tropical setting, smiling at the camera. He was around 18 years old. Wallander turned it over. "Jan, 1996, Amazonas". That must have been the boy who left the message on the answering machine. The girl was younger. She sat on a bench surrounded by pigeons. Wallander turned that picture over and read "Ina, Venice, 1995". The third photograph was of a group of men in front of a white stone wall. It was slightly out of focus. Wallander turned it over, but there was no legend. He studied the men's faces. They were of varying ages. To the far left there was a man who looked Asian. Wallander put the frame down and tried to think. Then he slipped the photograph into his pocket.

  He lifted the green writing pad and found a newspaper clipping. "To make fish fondue". He went through the drawers, which were in the same meticulous order. In the third drawer he found a thick diary. Wallander opened it at the last entry. Sunday, October 5, Falk had noted that the wind had died down and that it was 3°C. The sky was clear and he had cleaned the flat. It had taken him 3 hours and 25 minutes, 10 minutes longer than last time.

  Wallander frowned. The notes about the house cleaning perplexed him. Then he read the last line: "A short walk in the evening?" Did that mean he had already been for a walk, or was he about to go?

  Wallander glanced at the entry for the previous day: Saturday, October 4, 1997. Gusty winds, 8–10 metres per second according to the Meteorological Office. Broken cloud formations. Temperature at 6 a.m. 7°C Temperature at 2 p.m. 8°C. No activity in C-space today. No messages. C doesn't reply when prompted. All is calm.

  Wallander read the last lines without being able to make sense of them. He flipped through the diary and saw that all the entries were similar, giving information about the weather as well as "C-space". Sometimes all was quiet, sometimes there were messages, but what kind of messages they were Wallander could not guess. Finally he closed the book and put it back.

  It was strange that Falk had not written a single name anywhere, not even those of his children. He wondered if Falk was crazy. The diary entries could easily have been those of a manic or confused person.

  Wallander walked to the window again. The street was still empty. It was already past 1 a.m.

  He made one last search of the desk and found some business material. It seemed that Falk was a consultant who helped corporate clients choose and install the right computer system for their business. Wallander couldn't tell exactly what that involved, but he noted that a number of prominent companies, including several banks and Sydkraft Power, had been his clients. There was nothing really surprising anywhere. Wallander closed the last drawer.

  Tynnes Falk is a person who doesn't leave any traces, he thought. Everything is impersonal, well ordered and impenetrable. I can't find him.

  Somehow Hökberg's murder was connected to Falk's death, and also to the fact that his body had now disappeared. And there was perhaps a link to Johan Lundberg.

  Wallander took the photograph frame from his pocket. He put it back. He wanted to make sure no-one found out about his visit. In case Mrs Falk let them in, he didn't want anything to be missing.

  Wallander walked around the flat and turned out all the lights, then he opened all the curtains. He listened for sounds before opening the door. He checked the outside of the door, but the pass keys had left no mark.

  Once he was back out on the street he paused and looked around. No-one was in sight, the town was quiet. He began walking home. It was 1.25 a.m. He never saw the shadow following him at a distance.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Wallander woke to the phone ringing. He sprang out of bed as if he had been lying in wait for the call rather than deeply asleep. As he put the receiver to his ear he glanced at the time. It was 5.15 a.m.

  "Kurt Wallander?"

  He did not recognise the voice on the line.

  "Speaking."

  "Excuse me for calling so early. I wanted to ask you one or two questions regarding the alleged assault."

  Wallander was instantly alert. The man gave his name and the name of his newspaper. Wallander thought that he should have foreseen this. Any of his colleagues would have rung his mobile. At least that number was still totally private.

  But it was too late now. He had to say something. "As I've already explained, it wasn't assault."

  "So the photograph is a lie?"

  "It doesn't tell the whole truth."

  "Would you care to tell it now?"

  "Not so long as I'm involved in the investigation."

  "But you must be able to say something?"

  "I already have. It wasn't assault."

  Wallander hung up and unplugged the phone. He could already see the headlines: DEFENSIVE SILENCE FROM POLICE. OFFICER HANGS UP ON REPORTER. He sank back on to his pillows. The street light outside his window was swaying in the wind. The light flickered across the wall.

  He had been dreaming something when the phone had
rung. The images slowly re-emerged from his subconscious. They were images from last autumn, when he had taken a trip to the Östergötland archipelago. He had been invited by the postman who delivered post on the islands. He had accepted the invitation somewhat hesitantly. They had met during one of the worst cases Wallander had ever been involved in. One early morning the postman had taken him to explore one of the remote islands on the edge of the archipelago, where craggy rocks poked out of the sea like fossilised creatures from the ice age. As he had wandered around the small island on his own he had experienced a remarkable feeling of clarity. He had often returned to this moment in his thoughts, and longed to experience this feeling again. The dream is trying to tell me something, he thought. I just don't know what.

  He stayed in bed until 5.45 a.m. when he got up and plugged the phone back in. He drank a cup of coffee as he tried to go through everything that had happened in his head, trying to make sense of the new connection drawn between Hökberg's death and the man whose flat he had searched last night.

  By 7 a.m., he gave up trying to make sense of it and went in to the station. It was colder than he had anticipated. He wasn't yet accustomed to the fact that it was autumn. He wished he had put on a warmer sweater. As he walked he felt his left foot getting damp. He stopped and discovered a hole in the sole. It made him unaccountably furious. It was as much as he could do not to tear off both his shoes and continue in his stockinged feet.

  As he passed through reception, he asked Irene who was in already. She told him that Martinsson and Hansson had arrived. Wallander asked her to send them in to see him. Then he changed his mind and decided to meet in one of the conference rooms. He asked her to send Höglund to join them when she arrived.

  Martinsson and Hansson came in together.

  "How did the lecture go?" Hansson asked.

  "Let's not waste our time on that," Wallander said irritably, then felt bad that he should have taken his mood out on Hansson.

  "I'm tired," he said.

  "Who isn't?" Hansson said.

  Höglund opened the door and came in.

  "That's some wind," she said, taking off her jacket.

  "Autumn is here," Wallander said. "All right, let's start. Something happened last night that dramatically alters the investigation."

  He nodded to Martinsson, who told the others about the disappearance of Falk's body.

  "At least this is something new," Hansson said when Martinsson had finished. "I don't think we've ever had a stolen body before. I know there was that rubber raft. But not a dead body."

  Wallander made a face. He remembered the rubber raft that had floated ashore on Mossbystrand, and how afterwards the raft had mysteriously and by means still unclear disappeared from the station.

  Höglund looked at him. "So are we to accept a connection between the man who died at the cash machine and Lundberg's murder? That seems ludicrous."

  "Yes," Wallander said. "But I don't think we can avoid working with this assumption for now. I think we should also be prepared for the fact that this will be a difficult case. We thought we were dealing with an unusually brutal but clear-cut case of murder. We saw this scenario dissolve when Hökberg escaped and was later found dead at the power substation. We knew that a man had been found dead close to a cash machine, but we had already declared that case closed for lack of evidence that any crime had been committed. This conclusion still cannot be ruled out. Then the body disappears, and someone puts an electrical relay in its place."

  Wallander paused and thought back to the questions he had regarding Hökberg and Persson's visit to the restaurant and the identity of the Asian man. He saw that they would have to start from a quite different angle.

  "Someone breaks into a morgue and steals a body. We can't be sure of the motive, but it seems that someone wants to conceal something. At the same time the relay is left, as a kind of message, for us to find. Obviously it wasn't left by accident."

  "Which can only mean one thing," Höglund said. "That someone wants us to see a connection between Hökberg and Falk."

  "Couldn't it be a red herring?" Hansson said. "Put there by someone who's read about the girl being burned to death?"

  "Malmö have assured me the relay is large and heavy," Martinsson said. "It's hardly the kind of thing you would carry around with you."

  "We'll take it step by step," Wallander said. "Nyberg will examine the relay and determine whether it originates from our substation. If it does, then we're home and dry."

  "Not necessarily," Höglund said. "It could still be partly symbolic."

  Wallander shook his head. "I don't get that feeling in this case."

  Martinsson telephoned Nyberg while the others went to get coffee. Wallander told them about the reporter who had woken him up that morning.

  "It'll soon blow over," Höglund said.

  "I hope you're right."

  They returned to the conference room.

  "Listen," Wallander said. "We have to get serious with Persson. It doesn't matter any more that she's a juvenile. We've got to throw away the kid gloves and start getting some real answers. That will be up to you, Ann-Britt. You know what questions to ask and I don't want you to give up until she starts telling the truth."

  They planned the next stages of the investigation. Wallander realised that his cold had gone and that his strength was returning. They finished around 9.30. a.m. Hansson and Höglund disappeared down the corridor to their appointed tasks. Wallander and Martinsson were going to examine Falk's flat together. Wallander was tempted to tell him about his visit the night before, but decided against it. It was one of his faults, this tendency not to advise his colleagues of all the avenues he was exploring in a case, but he had long ago given up hope that he would be able to mend this trait.

  While Martinsson arranged to get keys to the flat, Wallander went to his office with a newspaper that Hansson had earlier thrown on the table. He flipped through it. There was a small item about a police officer suspected of the use of excessive force against a juvenile offender. He was not named, but his sense of outrage revived.

  He was about to put the paper aside when his gaze fell on the personal ads. He started reading. There was an ad from a divorced 50-year-old woman who said she felt lonely now that her children were grown up. She listed her interests as travel and classical music. Wallander tried to imagine what she looked like, but he kept seeing the face of a woman called Erika whom he had met at a roadside café in Västervik a year ago. He had thought about her from time to time. He threw the paper into the waste-paper basket, but just before Martinsson appeared he fished it out, tore off the page with the ad and slipped it into a drawer.

  "His wife will meet us there with the keys," Martinsson said. "Do you want to walk or take the car?"

  "The car," Wallander said. "I have a hole in my shoe."

  Martinsson gave him an amused look. "What would the national chief of police say about that?"

  "We've already put in train his community policing ideas," Wallander said. "Why not expand them to include barefoot policing?"

  They left the station in Martinsson's car.

  "How are things with you?" Martinsson said.

  "I'm fed up," Wallander said. "You'd think you get used to all this, but you don't. During my years in the force I've been accused of almost everything, with the possible exception of being lazy. You'd think you'd develop a thick skin, but you don't. At least not in the way you'd hope."

  "Did you mean what you said yesterday?"