“How does it feel?” Hoglund asked.
“Not too good. You know what it’s like.”
A couple of years ago Hoglund had been shot down on a field outside of Ystad. That had partly been Wallander’s fault, since he had commanded her to advance without realizing that the suspect had picked up a gun Hansson had dropped a little earlier. Höglund had been seriously injured and it had taken her a long time to recover. When she returned to her post, she was a changed person. She had told Wallander about the fear that now surfaced in her dreams.
“At least I wasn’t hit,” Wallander said. “I was stabbed once. But so far I’ve 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 keep talking about it now.”
“I don’t understand why you always have to be so bullheaded about these things. You’re a good police officer, but you’re only human like the rest of us. You can think what you like. But you’re wrong.”
Wallander was surprised by her eruption. She was right. When he stepped into his role as a policeman, he tended to forget about the person inside.
“I think at the very least you should go home.”
“What good would that do?”
At the same moment, Marianne Falk returned to the apartment. Wallander saw an opportunity to get rid of Höglund and her annoying questions.
“I’d prefer to talk to her alone,” he said. “Thanks for your help.”
“What help?”
Höglund left. Wallander felt dizzy when he stood up.
“What happened back there?” Marianne Falk asked.
Wallander saw a big bruise starting on the left side of her jaw.
“I arrived shortly before three o’clock. I heard someone at the door. I thought it was you, but that wasn’t the case.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. Apparently you don’t, either.”
“I never had a chance to get a look at him.”
“But you’re sure 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 knew she was right, without being able to prove it.
“Let’s start in the living room,” he said. “I want you to walk around and make a note of everything. Tell me if you think something’s gone. Then go on to the next room. Take your time and feel free to open drawers and look behind curtains.”
“Tynnes would never have allowed that. He was so secretive.”
“We’ll talk later,” Wallander interrupted her. “Start with the living room.
He could see she was trying her utmost to do as he said. He stood in the doorway and looked at her as she walked around the room. The longer he looked at her, the more beautiful she seemed to him. He wondered what kind of a personal ad he would have to write in order to get her to answer. She continued into the bedroom. He watched for signs of hesitation. When they returned to the kitchen, thirty minutes had gone by.
“Did anything seem to be gone?”
“No, nothing that I could see.”
“How well did you know the apartment?”
“We never lived here together. He moved here after the divorce. He called sometimes and we had dinner together. But the kids saw him a lot more 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?”
“Ina is only seventeen years old. She’s working as a nanny at the Danish Embassy. She wants to learn French.”
“What about your son?”
“Jan? He’s a student in Stockholm. He’s nineteen.”
Wallander turned the conversation back to the apartment.
“Do you think you would have noticed something being missing?”
“Only if it had been something I had seen before.”
Wallander nodded, then excused himself. He went into the living room and removed one of the three china roosters sitting on a window ledge. When he came back into the kitchen he asked her to go through the living room one more time.
She discovered that the rooster was missing almost at once. Wallander realized they weren’t going to get any further. She had a good memory, even if she didn’t know what Falk kept in his closets.
They sat down in the kitchen. It was almost five o’clock and the fall darkness was blanketing the city.
“Tell me more about his work,” Wallander said. “I know he was self-employed and worked with computer systems.”
“He was a consultant.”
“So what does that mean?”
She looked at him with surprise.
“Our whole country is run by consultants these days. Soon, even party leaders will be replaced by consultants. Consultants are highly paid executives who fly around to various companies and come up with solutions for their problems. If things go badly, they take the blame. But they’re highly paid for their suffering.”
“And your husband was a consultant who specialized in computer systems?”
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t refer to Tynnes as my husband.”
Her comment made Wallander impatient.
“Can you give me some more details of what he did?”
“He was very good at designing internal computer 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 even have the most basic understanding of how computers work.”
She was right.
“Who were his clients?”
“As far as I know, he did a lot of work for banks.”
“Any particular bank?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who would know?”
“He had an accountant.”
Wallander felt around in his pockets for a piece of paper to write the name on. All he found was the receipt for the work on the car.
“His name is Rolf Stenius and he has an office in Malmö. I don’t know his address or phone number.”
Wallander put his pen down. He had a feeling that he had overlooked something and he tried to catch a hold of the thought. Marianne Falk pulled out a packet of cigarettes.
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Not at all.”
She got a saucer from a cupboard and lit up.
“Tynnes would be turning in his grave right now if he knew about this. He hated cigarettes. The whole time we were married he always chased me out onto the street to smoke. I guess this is my chance for revenge.”
Wallander took the opportunity to change the topic of 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 just observe that a person has enemies. He must have said something to you.
She paused before giving her answer. She smoked and looked out the window. It was dark outside.
“It started a couple of years ago,” she said. “I noticed that he was anxious, but also 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 kill 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 what he meant?”
“He would get upset and tell me to be quiet.”
Wallander thought carefully before continuing.
“Let’s talk a little about your two children. Do you think either one of them has experienced these things that you describe? The anxiety or the talk about enemies?”