Firewall

  "That nothing apart from the head wound points to a crime. He probably had a heart attack."

  "Perhaps he had been expecting to see a higher figure than the one he found on the printout," Wallander said, thoughtfully.

  "Why do you say that?"

  Wallander wondered too. He stood up. "Let's wait for the autopsy report. Until then we'll assume no crime has been committed, so put it aside for now."

  Martinsson gathered up his papers. "I'll contact the lawyer who was assigned to Hökberg. I'll let you know when he can be expected here so you can talk to her."

  "Not that I want to," Wallander said. "But I suppose I should."

  Martinsson left and Wallander walked to the toilets. He should be grateful at least that his days of constantly urinating due to elevated blood sugar were over.

  For an hour he kept working on the contraband cigarettes case, while the thought of the favour he had agreed to do for Höglund nagged at the back of his mind.

  At 4.02 p.m. Martinsson telephoned to say that Hökberg and her lawyer were ready.

  "Who is he?" Wallander said.

  "Herman Lötberg."

  Wallander knew him. He was one of the older ones, and easy to work with. "I'll be there in five minutes," Wallander said, and hung up.

  He walked back to the window. The wind had picked up and the blackbirds were gone. He thought about Mrs Fredman and the boy, playing quietly on the floor. He thought about his frightened eyes. He shook his head and thought instead of the questions he was going to ask the Hökberg girl. Martinsson's notes told him that she was the one in the back seat who had hit Lundberg on the head with a hammer. Many blows, not just one. As if she had been in a blind rage.

  Wallander picked up a notebook and pen and left. Halfway there he realised that he had left his glasses behind. He went back.

  There's really only one question, he thought as he returned to the conference room. Why did they do it? Their saying they needed money isn't enough. There's another answer somewhere, a deeper answer that I have to find.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sonja Hökberg did not look as Wallander had expected her to look. Afterwards he couldn't recall exactly what he had been expecting, but he knew it wasn't the person he had met in that room. Sonja Hökberg was sitting down when he came in. She was small and thin, almost to the point of transparency. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She could have been a model on a poster for innocence and purity. Nothing indicated that she was a crazed hammer-wielding murderess.

  Wallander had been met by her lawyer and Martinsson outside the room.

  "She's very much in control of herself," Lötberg said to Wallander. "I'm not sure she understands the gravity of the charges she's facing."

  "It's not a matter of accusation. She's guilty," Martinsson said, firmly.

  "What about the hammer?" Wallander said. "Have we found it?"

  "She put it under her bed. She hadn't even tried to wipe off the blood. The other girl got rid of her knife. We're still searching for it," Martinsson said, and left.

  Wallander walked into the room with the lawyer. The girl looked at them expectantly. She didn't seem at all nervous. Wallander nodded in acknowledgement and sat down. There was a tape recorder on the table. Wallander looked at her for a long time. She looked back at him.

  "Do you have any gum?" she said, at last.

  Wallander shook his head and looked at Lötberg, who also shook his head.

  "We'll see if we can't get you some later," Wallander said, and turned on the tape recorder. "First we're going to have a little chat."

  "I've already said what happened. Why can't I have some gum? I can pay for it," she said, and held up a black handbag with an oak-leaf clasp. Wallander was surprised it hadn't been confiscated. "I won't talk until I get my gum."

  Wallander reached over for the phone and called the reception desk. Ebba will take care of this, he thought. Only when an unfamiliar voice came on the line did he remember that Ebba was retired now. She had been gone for six months, but Wallander had still not grown used to the new receptionist. She was a woman in her thirties, named Irene. She had been an administrative assistant in a doctor's office, and was already well liked at the police station. But Wallander missed Ebba.

  "I need some gum," Wallander said. "Do you know anyone who would have any?"

  "Yes," Irene said. "Me."

  Wallander hung up and walked out to the reception.

  "Is it for the girl?" Irene said.

  "Fast thinker."

  He returned to the examination room, gave Sonja Hökberg the stick of gum and realised he had forgotten to turn off the tape recorder through all of this.

  "Let's begin," he said. "It's 4.15 p.m. on October 6, 1997. Kurt Wallander is questioning Sonja Hökberg."

  "So do I have to tell you everything all over again?" she said.

  "Yes, try to speak clearly and direct your words at the microphone."

  "What about the fact that I've said it all already?"

  "I may have some more questions."

  "I don't feel like going over it again."

  For a moment Wallander was thrown by her total lack of anxiety.

  "Unfortunately you'll just have to cooperate," he said. "You have been accused of a very serious crime, and what's more you have confessed. Right now you stand accused of assault in the third degree, but this serious charge may be upgraded if the taxi driver's condition deteriorates any further."

  Lötberg gave Wallander a disapproving look but said nothing.

  Wallander started at the beginning. "Your name is Sonja Hökberg, and you were born on February 2, 1978."

  "That makes me an Aquarius. What's your sign?"

  "That doesn't concern us at present. You're here to answer my questions and that is all. Understand?"

  "Do I look stupid?"

  "You live with your parents on 12 Trastvägen, here in Ystad."

  "Yes."

  "You have a younger brother Emil, born in 1982."

  "He's the one who should be sitting in this chair, not me."

  Wallander raised his eyebrows. "Why do you say that?"

  "He never leaves my things alone. He's always looking through my stuff. We fight a lot."

  "I'm sure it can be trying to have a younger brother, but let's leave it for now."

  She's still so composed, Wallander thought. Her nonchalance was beginning to irritate him.

  "Can you describe the events of last Tuesday evening?"

  "It's such a drag to have to go over the same thing twice."

  "That can't be helped. You and Eva Persson went out that evening?"

  "There's nothing to do around here. I wish I lived in Moscow."

  Wallander regarded her with surprise. Even Lötberg seemed startled.

  "Why Moscow?"

  "I just saw somewhere that exciting things often happen there. Have you ever been to Moscow?"

  "No. Just answer my questions. So, you went out that night."

  "You already know that."

  "Were you and Eva good friends?"

  "Why else would we have gone out together? Do I look like the kind of person who would go out with people I didn't like?"

  For the first time Wallander thought he could detect a note of emotion in her voice. Impatience.

  "How long have you known each other?"

  "Not very long."

  "How long?"

  "A few years."

  "She's five years younger than you."

  "She looks up to me."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "She's told me so herself. She looks up to me."

  "Why is that?"

  "You'll have to ask her yourself."

  I will, Wallander thought. I have a lot of things to ask her. "Can you tell me what happened that night?"

  "Jesus Christ!"

  "You must, whether you want to or not. We can stay here all night if we have to."

  "We had a beer."

  "Even though
Eva Persson is only 14?"

  "She looks older."

  "Then what happened?"

  "We ordered another beer."

  "And after that?"

  "We called a taxi. But you know all this. Why do you keep asking?"

  "Had you already decided to attack this taxi driver?"

  "We needed the money."

  "For what?"

  "Nothing in particular."

  "Let me see if I have this straight: you needed money, but not for anything in particular."

  "Right."

  No, that's not right, Wallander thought. He had detected a shade of insecurity in her answer. He grew more attentive.

  "Normally, when you need money it is for something in particular."

  "Not in our case."

  Oh yes, it was, Wallander thought. But he decided to leave the matter for now.

  "How did you come up with the idea of robbing a taxi driver?"

  "We talked about it."

  "At the restaurant?"

  "Yes."

  "So you hadn't talked about it earlier?"

  "Why would we have done that?"

  Lötberg was staring down at his hands.

  "Would it be correct to say that you had no intention of assaulting the taxi driver before you went to the restaurant? Whose idea was it?"

  "It was mine."

  "Eva had no objections?"

  "No."

  This doesn't hang together, Wallander thought. She's lying, but she's remarkably calm.

  "You ordered the taxi from the restaurant, then waited until it arrived. Is that correct?"

  "Yes."

  "But where did the hammer and knife come from? If you hadn't planned the attack in advance, I mean."

  The girl looked steadily into Wallander's eyes. "I always carry a hammer with me," she said. "And Eva always has a knife."

  "Why?"

  "You never know what's going to happen."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "The streets are full of crazy people. You have to be able to defend yourself."

  "So you always go out with this hammer in your hand-bag?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you ever used it before?"

  Lötberg looked up. "That question has no relevance to this case," he said.

  "What does that mean?" Sonja Hökberg said.

  "Relevance? That he has no business asking that question."

  "I can answer anyway. I had never used the hammer before. But Eva cut someone once. Some creep who was trying to feel her up."

  Wallander was struck by a thought and veered away from his earlier line of questioning. "Did you meet anyone at that restaurant? Had you made a date with anyone?"

  "No."

  "You don't have a boyfriend?"

  "No."

  That answer came a little too quickly, Wallander thought. He made a mental note of it.

  "The taxi came and you left."

  "Yes."

  "What did you do then?"

  "What do you think? We told him where we wanted to go"

  "And you said you wanted to be driven to Rydsgård. Why?"

  "I don't know. We had to say something and that was the first thing that came to mind."

  "Eva sat up front with the driver, and you sat in the back. Did you decide on that beforehand?"

  "That was the plan."

  "What plan?"

  "That we would get the driver to stop because Eva wanted to get in the back seat with me. And that's when we were going to get him."

  "So you had already decided to use your weapons?"

  "Not if he had been younger."

  "What would you have done then?"

  "Then we would have got him to stop by pulling up our skirts and being suggestive."

  Wallander felt that he had started to sweat. Her insouciance was getting on his nerves.

  "Suggesting what exactly?"

  "What do you think?"

  "You would entice him into thinking he could have sex with you?"

  "You dirty old fuck."

  Lötberg leaned forward. "You should watch your language."

  Hökberg looked at him. "I'll use whatever language I please."

  Lötberg sat back again. Wallander decided to move on.

  "But, as it happened, the taxi driver was an older man. You got him to stop. Then what?"

  "I hit him in the head. Eva stabbed him with the knife."

  "How many times did you strike him?"

  "I don't know. A couple of times. I wasn't counting."

  "You weren't afraid of killing him?"

  "We needed the money."

  "That wasn't what I was asking. What I want to know is, were you aware that the wounds you were inflicting could have been mortal?"

  Sonja Hökberg shrugged. Wallander waited, but she didn't say anything. He didn't feel he had the energy to repeat the last question.

  "You say you needed money. For what?"

  "Nothing special. I told you."

  "Then what happened?"

  "We took his wallet and the mobile phone and walked home."

  "What happened to the wallet?"

  "We divided up the cash, then Eva threw it away somewhere."

  Wallander looked swiftly through Martinsson's notes. Lundberg had been carrying around 600 kronor. They had found the wallet in a waste-paper basket, after getting directions from Persson. Hökberg had taken the mobile phone. The police had found it in her bedroom.

  Wallander gave the time and that he was concluding the interview and turned off the tape recorder. Hökberg followed his movements with her eyes.

  "Can I go home now?"