Modin came back.
“He’s on his way,” he said. “They’re in Skillinge, so it’ll be a little while.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Not to worry, but that the police needed his help with something.”
Modin sat down again. His pipe had gone out.
“It must be important, since you’re here in the middle of the night.”
“Some things can’t wait.”
Modin understood that Wallander didn’t want to say anything more about it.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Some coffee would be nice.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“I’m planning to put in a couple more hours of work. But I’m fine without it.”
“Of course you should have some coffee,” Modin said.
They were sitting in the kitchen when a car pulled up outside the house. The front door opened and Robert Modin came in.
Wallander thought he looked like he was thirteen years old. He had short hair, round glasses, and a slight build. He was probably going to look more and more like his father as he got older. He was wearing jeans, a dress shirt, and a leather jacket. Wallander got up and shook his hand.
“I’m sorry I bothered you in the middle of a party.”
“We were about to leave anyway.”
Modin was standing in the doorway to the living room.
“I’ll leave you two to talk,” he said and left.
“Are you tired?” Wallander asked.
“Not particularly.”
“Good. There’s something I want you to take a look at. I’ll explain while we drive.”
The boy was on his guard. Wallander tried to smile.
“Don’t worry.”
“I just have to change my glasses,” Robert Modin said.
He walked upstairs to his room. Wallander walked out into the living room and thanked Modin for the coffee.
“I’ll make sure he gets home safely. But I have to take him with me to Ystad right now.”
Modin looked worried again.
“Are you sure he’s not involved with anything?”
“I promise. It’s like I told you — there’s just something I want him to look at.”
Robert Modin came back and they left the house. It was twenty minutes past one. The boy got in on the passenger side and moved Wallander’s phone.
“Someone called you,” Robert said.
Wallander checked his voice mail. It was Hansson. I should have brought the phone in with me, Wallander thought.
He dialed Hansson’s number. It took a while before anyone answered.
“Were you sleeping?”
“Of course I was sleeping. What do you think? It’s half past one in the morning. I was there until half past twelve. At that point I was so tired I thought I was going to pass out.”
“You tried to call.”
“I think we actually got something.”
Wallander sat up.
“Someone saw something?”
“There was a woman with a German shepherd. She said she saw Tynnes Falk the night he died.”
“Good. Did she see anything else?”
“Very observant woman. Her name is Alma Högström. She’s a retired dentist. She said she often used to see Tynnes Falk in the evenings. He also used to take walks, apparently.”
“What about the night the body was put back?”
“She said she thought she saw a van that night. Around half past eleven. It was parked in front of the cash machine. She noticed it because it wasn’t parked in the parking lot.”
“Did she see the driver?”
“She said she thought she saw a man.”
“Thought?”
“She wasn’t sure.”
“Can she identify the van?”
“I’ve asked her to come into the station tomorrow.”
“Good,” Wallander said. “This may actually give us something.”
“Where are you? At home?”
“Not exactly,” Wallander answered. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It was two o’clock by the time Wallander pulled up outside the building in Runnerström Square. Wallander looked around. If anything dangerous were to happen, Robert Modin would also be at risk. But there was no one around. The rain had stopped.
Wallander had tried to explain the situation on the way from Löderup. He simply wanted Robert to access the information on Falk’s computer.
“I know you’re very good at this sort of thing,” Wallander said. “I don’t care about your business with the Pentagon. What I care about is what you know about computers.”
“I should never have been caught,” Robert suddenly said in the dark. “It was my own fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was sloppy about cleaning up after myself.”
“Cleaning up?”
“If you break into a secured area, you always leave a trace. It’s like cutting a fence. When you leave you have to try to fix it so no one can see you were there. But I didn’t do that well enough, and that’s why I was caught.”
“So there were people in the Pentagon who could see that a young man in Löderup had paid them a visit?”
“They couldn’t see who I was or what my name was. But they knew it was my computer.”
They went into the building and walked up the stairs. Wallander realized he was tensed up in anticipation of something. Before unlocking the door to the apartment, he listened for noise. Robert Modin watched him closely, but said nothing.
Once inside, Wallander turned on the light and pointed to the computer. He gestured for Robert to sit in the chair. Robert sat down and turned on the machine without hesitation. The usual succession of numbers and symbols started flickering across the screen. Wallander hung back. Robert’s fingers were hovering above the keyboard as if he were about to launch into a piano concert. He kept his face very close to the screen, as if he were searching for something Wallander couldn’t see.
Then he started tapping on the keyboard.
He kept at it for about a minute, then turned off the computer without warning and turned to face Wallander.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said simply. “I’m not going to be able to get through this.”
Wallander sensed the disappointment, both in himself and in the boy.
“Are you sure?”
The boy shook his head.
“At the very least I need to sleep first,” he said. “And I’ll need a lot of time. Without being rushed.”
Wallander realized the futility of bringing him out here in the middle of the night. Martinsson had been right. He grudgingly admitted to himself that it was Martinsson’s hesitation that had spurred on his actions.
“Do you have anything else planned for tomorrow?”
“I can be here all day.”
Wallander turned off the light and locked the door. Then he followed the boy out to the patrol car and asked the officer on duty to drive him home. Someone would be by to pick him up around noon the following day, when he had had a chance to sleep.
Wallander drove back to Mariagatan. It was almost three by the time he crawled into bed. He fell asleep quickly, after deciding he would not go in to the office before eleven the next morning.
The woman had been by the police station on Friday, shortly before one o’clock.
She had asked for a map of Ystad, and the receptionist had told her to try either the local Tourist Information office or the bookstore. The woman had thanked her politely, then asked to use the bathroom. The receptionist pointed it out to her. The woman had locked the door and opened the window. Then she closed it again, but only after covering the fasteners with tape. The cleaner who had been there Friday evening didn’t notice anything.
Early Monday morning, around four o’clock, the shadow of a man ascended the wall of the station and disappeared through the bathroom window. The corridors were deserted. Only the faint sound of a radio came from the control room. The man had a map in his hand that had been obtained by breaking into a computer at an architectural firm. He knew exactly where to go.