Firewall

  That evening he measured the distance from his shirtsleeve to where he thought his heart was. Nine centimetres. He reflected, as he was pouring himself a glass of whisky, that the rug had saved him. It reminded him of the time, long ago, when he had been a young officer in Malmö. He had been stabbed and the blade had come within 10 centimetres of his heart. He had created a kind of mantra for himself – "There is a time for living, a time for dying." He was struck by the worrying fact that his margin of survival during the past 30 years had decreased by exactly 1 centimetre.

  Wallander did not know who had fired the shot. He had not been able to glimpse more than a rapidly moving shadow beyond the door, a figure that seemed to dissolve the moment the echo of the gunshot had bounced across the flat and he had found himself on the floor of the hall cupboard under Falk's coats.

  He thought he had been hit. He thought the cry he heard as the deafening roar of the shot echoed in his ears must be his own. But it came from Mrs Falk, who had been knocked down on the stairs by the fleeing shadow. She had not got a good look at him either. She heard the shot, but she had thought it came from below her. She had stopped and turned to look down. Then, when she heard someone running from above her, she turned but, as she did so, she was hit in the face and tumbled backwards, clutching the banister.

  Most extraordinary perhaps was that neither of the officers in the patrol car outside saw anything. Wallander's assailant can only have left the building by the front entrance, since the door to the cellar was locked, but the officers noticed no-one leave the building. They had seen Mrs Falk go in, then they had heard the shot without realising immediately what it was, but they had not seen anyone come out of the building.

  Martinsson reluctantly accepted this, after having the building searched from top to bottom. He obliged all the nervous senior citizens and the somewhat more controlled therapist to have their flats scoured by policemen. They peered into every cupboard and under every bed, but there was no trace of the assailant. But for the bullet buried in the wall, Wallander would have started to wonder if it had been a figment of his imagination. But he knew it was real enough, and he knew something else that he didn't yet want to admit to himself. He knew that the rug had been more of a blessing than he first thought. Not only because tripping on it saved his life, but because his fall had persuaded the assailant that he had hit his mark. The bullet that Nyberg extracted from the wall behind him was the kind that made a crater-like wound in its victim. When Nyberg showed him the bullet, Wallander understood why the marksman had fired only one shot. One hit would have been fatal.

  A regional alert had gone out, but no-one thought it would bear fruit, because they didn't know who they were looking for. Neither Mrs Falk nor Wallander could give a description. Wallander and Martinsson sat in the kitchen, while Nyberg's team worked on the bullet. Wallander had handed them his jacket as well. His ears still hurt from the explosion. Holgersson arrived with Höglund, and Wallander had to explain what had happened all over again.

  "The question is why did he fire?" Martinsson said. "There's already been a break-in here. Now an armed assailant."

  "We can speculate that it was the same person," Wallander said. "But why did he come back? I can't see any other explanation than that he's looking for something – something he didn't manage to get the first time."

  "Aren't we forgetting something else?" Höglund said. "Who was he trying to kill?"

  Wallander had asked himself the same question from the outset. Did this have anything to do with the night he had come here to search the flat? Had it been a mistake to look out of the window? Had someone been watching him? He should tell his colleagues about it, but something kept him from doing so.

  "Why would anyone want to shoot me?" Wallander said. "I think it was just plain bad luck that I was here when he returned. What we should ask ourselves is what was he here for, which in turn means that Mrs Falk should be brought back as soon as possible."

  She had gone home to change.

  Martinsson left the flat with Holgersson. The forensic team was tidying up. Höglund stayed with Wallander in the kitchen. Mrs Falk called to say she was on her way.

  "How does it feel?" Höglund said.

  "Not too good. You know what it's like."

  A year or so ago, Höglund had been shot and wounded in a field outside Ystad. It had been partly Wallander's fault, since he had ordered her to advance without realising that the suspect had the gun that Hansson had dropped earlier. She had been badly hurt and it had taken her a long time to mend. When she returned to her post she was a changed person. She had told Wallander about the fear that surfaced in her dreams.

  "At least I wasn't hit," Wallander said. "I was stabbed once, but so far I have never stopped a bullet."

  "You should talk to someone. There are support groups."

  Wallander shook his head impatiently. "No need," he said. "And I don't want to go on talking about it now."

  "Why do you always have to be so pig-headed about these things? You're a fine police officer, but you are no less human than the rest of us, whatever you like to think."

  Wallander was surprised by the anger boiling over in her. And she was right. When he put on his role as a policeman he tended to forget about the person inside.

  "I think you should go home."

  "What good would that do?"

  At the same moment Mrs Falk walked into the flat. Wallander saw an opportunity to be rid of Höglund and her annoying questions.

  "I'd prefer to talk to her alone," he said. "Thanks for your help."

  "What help?" Höglund said, and left.

  Wallander felt dizzy when he stood up.

  "What on earth happened?" Mrs Falk said.

  Wallander could see a big bruise starting on the left side of her jaw.

  "I was here, waiting for you. I heard someone at the door. I thought it was you."

  "Who was it?"

  "I don't know, and apparently you don't either."

  "I didn't have a chance to look at him."

  "But it was a man?"

  She was surprised by the question and took a moment to answer.

  "Yes," she said finally. "It was a man."

  Wallander had no way of proving it, but he was sure she was right. "Let's start in the living room," he said. "I want you to look everywhere, take stock of everything. Let me know if you think anything's missing. Then check the bedroom, and so on. Take your time, open drawers and look behind curtains."

  "Tynnes would never have allowed such a thing. He was so secretive."

  "We'll talk later," Wallander interrupted her. "Start with the living room."

  He stood in the doorway and watched her as she went around the room. She was trying her best to do as he said. The longer he looked the more beautiful she seemed to him. He wondered what kind of an ad he would have to compose to get her to answer. She continued into the bedroom. He was alert for signs of hesitation. When she had finished with the kitchen, half an hour had passed.

  "Did anything seem to be gone?"

  "Nothing that I could see."

  "How well did you know the flat?"

  "We never lived here together. This was where he moved after the divorce. He called from time to time and we had dinner together. But even the children probably saw more of him than I did."

  Wallander tried to remember the facts that Martinsson had laid out for him when they first discussed Falk's case.

  "Does your daughter live in Paris?"

  "Yes. Ina is only 17. She's working as a nanny at the Danish Embassy. She's learning French."

  "And your son?"

  "Jan? He's a student in Stockholm. He's 19."

  Wallander turned the conversation back to the flat.

  "Do you think you would have noticed if anything had been stolen?"

  "Only if it was something I'd been aware of before."

  Wallander excused himself, he went into the living room and took away one of three china cockerels from the wi
ndow ledge. When he came back to the kitchen he asked her to go through the living room one more time. She spotted the missing rooster almost at once. They weren't going to get any further, Wallander realised. She had a good eye, even if she didn't know what Falk kept in his cupboards.

  They sat in the kitchen. It was almost 5 p.m. and the autumn darkness was blanketing the city.

  "Tell me what you know about his work," Wallander said. "He was self-employed, I know, and worked with computer systems."

  "He was a consultant."

  "What does that actually mean?"

  She looked at him with surprise. "The whole country is run by consultants nowadays. Soon even party leaders will be replaced by consultants. Consultants are highly paid outsiders who fly around to various companies and come up with solutions for their problems. If things go badly, they get the blame, but they're well rewarded for their suffering."

  "And your husband was a consultant who specialised in computer systems?"

  "I would appreciate it if you wouldn't refer to Tynnes as my husband."

  Her comment made Wallander impatient.

  "What more can you tell me of what he did?"

  "He was expert at designing systems for companies."

  "What does that mean?"

  She smiled for the first time. "I don't think I can explain it to you if you don't have even a basic grasp of how computers work."

  She was right. He didn't.

  "Who were his clients?"

  "As far as I know, he worked a lot for banks."

  "Which banks?"

  "I wouldn't know."

  "Who would know?"

  "He had an accountant."

  Wallander felt in his pockets for something to write the name on. All he found was the receipt for the work on the car.

  "His name is Rolf Stenius and his office is in Malmö. I don't have an address or phone number."

  Wallander put his pen down. He thought that he had overlooked something and he tried to catch hold of it. Mrs Falk took a packet of cigarettes from her bag.

  "Do you mind if I smoke?"

  "Not at all."

  She got a saucer from under the sideboard and lit up.

  "Tynnes would be spinning in his grave if he could see this. He hated cigarettes. All the time we were married he chased me out to the street to smoke. I guess this is my chance for revenge."

  Wallander took the opportunity to shift the conversation.

  "When we talked the first time, you said he had enemies and that he was anxious."

  "Yes, he gave that impression."

  "It's possible to see if a person is anxious or not. But you can't tell from observing them that a person has enemies. He must have said something that gave you that idea."

  She paused before answering. She smoked and looked out of the window. It was dark now.

  "It started a couple of years ago," she said. "I could see that he was anxious, but also that he was excited. As if he were in a kind of manic state. He started making strange comments. For example, if I were here having coffee with him he could say something like, 'If people knew what I was doing, they would do away with me' or 'You can never know how close your pursuers are.'"

  "He actually said those things?"

  "Yes."

  "But he never gave you an explanation?"

  "No."

  "Did you ask him?"

  "He would get upset and tell me to be quiet."

  Wallander thought carefully before continuing.

  "Do you think either of your children experienced these things that you describe? The anxiety or the talk about enemies?"

  "I doubt it. They didn't have that much contact with him. They lived with me, and Tynnes wasn't always that eager to have them over. I don't say these things to be mean. I think Jan and Ina would agree with me."

  "He must have had some friends."

  "Very few. I realised soon after our wedding that I had married a hermit."

  "Who knew him well besides you?"

  "He used to have regular contact with a woman who was also a computer consultant. Her name is Siv Eriksson. I don't have her number, but she has an office in Skansgränd, next to Sjömansgatan. They worked on some assignments together."

  Wallander made a note of the name. Mrs Falk put out her cigarette.

  "One last question," Wallander said. "At least for now. A couple of years ago Tynnes was caught on a mink farm by the police. He was letting minks out of their cages. He was charged and fined for this."

  She looked at him, genuinely startled. "I never heard a word about that."

  "Does it fit any sort of pattern?"

  "To be letting minks out of their cages? Why on earth would it?"

  "So you don't know of his being in contact with organisations who get into this kind of thing?"

  "What organisations would those be?"

  "Militant environmental groups. Animal rights activists."

  "I'm not sure I can get my head round all this," she said.

  Wallander knew she was telling the truth. She got up.

  "I will need to speak to you again," Wallander said.

  As he was showing her out, she stopped by the hole left in the wall.

  "Do you carry a weapon in self-defence?"

  "No."

  She shook her head, stretched out her hand and said goodbye.

  "One more thing," Wallander said. "Did Tynnes have any interest in outer space?"

  "What sort of thing?"

  "Spaceships, astronomy . . ."

  "You asked me that already, and I'll give you the same answer. As far as I know, not. If he ever did look at the stars, it would have been to make sure they were still there. He was pragmatic rather than romantic by nature."

  She went down the stairs and Wallander went back into the flat and sat again in the kitchen. That was where he first had the feeling he was missing something. It was Rydberg who had taught him to listen to his inner alarm system. Even in the high-tech and necessarily rational world of police work, intuition remained crucially important.

  He sat without moving for a few minutes. Then he caught hold of it. Marianne Falk had not been able to find anything that was missing. Could it be that the man who broke in and later fired the shot at Wallander was coming to put something back? Wallander shook his head at the idea. He was about to get up when he jumped. There was a knock at the door. Wallander's heart was racing. It was only when the knocking stopped that he realised it could hardly be someone announcing their intention to take another shot at him. He went into the hall and opened the door. There was an old man on the landing, holding a cane.

  "I want to talk to Mr Falk," he said in a stern voice. "I have a complaint."

  "May I ask who you are?" Wallander said.