He pulled the phone toward him and called Höglund. No answer. Hansson wasn’t in his office, either. Martinsson was of course still busy with Robert Modin.
Wallander tried to think of what Rydberg would have done. This time it was easier to imagine his voice. Rydberg would have taken time to think. That was the most important thing a policeman could do besides gathering facts. Wallander put his feet up on the desk and shut his eyes. He went through all the points of the case in his head once more, trying all the time to keep looking back toward the events that had taken place in Angola twenty years ago. He tried various scenarios and thought them through. Lundberg’s death. Then Sonja Hökberg’s. The large power outage.
When he opened his eyes it was with the feeling of being very close to the explanation. But he couldn’t grasp it.
He was interrupted by the phone. Siv Eriksson was waiting for him in the reception area. He jumped up from his chair, ran his fingers through his hair, and went out to see her. She really was an extremely attractive woman. He asked her if she wanted to come back to his office, but she had no time. She handed him an envelope.
“Here is the list of clients you asked for.”
“I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”
“It took a little time, but it was no trouble.”
She declined his offer of a cup of coffee.
“Tynnes left some loose threads behind,” she said. “I have to attend to them.”
“But you can’t be sure he didn’t have any other projects underway as well?”
“I don’t think so. Just lately he was saying no to most new prospective clients. I know that because he asked me to deal with most of them.”
“What did you make of that at the time?”
“I thought he needed time to rest.”
“Had that ever happened before? That he turned down so many new jobs?”
“Now that you mention it, I think this was probably the only time.”
“But he offered you no explanation?”
“No.”
Wallander had no more questions. Siv Eriksson walked out the front doors to a taxi that was waiting for her. When the driver got out to open the door for her, Wallander noticed that he was wearing a black band of mourning around his arm.
He walked back to his office and opened the envelope she had given him. Inside was a long list of names of companies. Most were unknown to him — he recognized a couple of banks — but all, with one exception, were in Scania. The exception was a company in Denmark. It seemed to Wallander that the business involved the manufacture of loading cranes. Neither Sydkraft nor any utility companies were on the list, however.
After a few moments, Wallander called the Ystad branch of the North Bank. He had taken out several car loans with them on the few occasions when he had traded in his old cars for new models. He had gotten to know a man there named Winberg. He asked to speak with him, but when the telephone receptionist said his line was busy he decided to try again later. He left the station and went down to the bank in person. Winberg was busy with a client. He nodded at Wallander, who sat down and waited.
After five minutes Winberg was free.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Winberg said. “Is it time for a new car?”
Wallander was always surprised by the fact that the bank employees were so young. The first time he had applied for a loan here Winberg had personally approved it even though he didn’t look old enough to have a driver’s license.
“I’ve come about something else, actually. Something work-related. The new car will have to wait.”
Winberg’s smile waned. He looked suddenly worried.
“Has anything happened here at the bank?”
“In that case I would have spoken to your boss. What I actually need is information about your automatic teller machines.”
“I’m glad to be of assistance, though there’s some information I can’t disclose for security purposes.”
Winberg was sounding as bureaucratic as Wallander sometimes did.
“The information I’m after is of a technical nature. The first thing is very simple. How often does a machine make a mistake on a withdrawal or with an account balance?”
“Very rarely, I think, though I have no exact figures to give you.”
“Do I take it your phrase ‘very rarely’ means it almost never happens?”
Winberg nodded.
“And is there any chance that the date and time on a printed slip would be incorrect?”
“I’ve never heard of it. I imagine it must happen on occasion, but it certainly can’t be very often. Security at financial institutions has to be very high.”
“So one can usually rely on information from these machines?”
“Have you had an experience to the contrary?”
“No, but I need answers to these questions.”
Winberg opened a drawer in his desk and looked for something. Then he pulled out a comic strip that showed a man being slowly being swallowed up by an ATM.
“It never gets quite this bad,” he said smiling. “But it’s a funny image. And when it comes down to it the bank computers are of course as vulnerable as all other computerized systems.”
There it is again, Wallander said. This talk of vulnerability. He looked at the sketch and agreed it was good.
“North Bank has a client by the name of Tynnes Falk,” Wallander said. “I need printouts of his activities for the past year. That includes his cash machine withdrawals.”
“In that case you’ll have to speak to someone higher up,” Winberg said. “I’m not in charge of matters involving client privacy.”
“Who should I speak to?”
“Martin Olsson is probably the best one. He’s in an office on the second floor.”
“Can you see if he’s available?”
Winberg left his desk. Wallander feared a drawn-out bureaucratic process to get access to Olsson, but Winberg escorted him directly to the bank manager. Olsson was also surprisingly young. He promised to help Wallander. He said all he needed was an official police request. Once he found out that the request involved a deceased client, he said the widow could sign in his stead.
“He was divorced,” Wallander said.
“A paper from the police is all we need then,” Martin Olsson said.
“I promise to see to it that this is taken care of quickly on our end.”
Wallander thanked him and returned to Winberg. He had one more question.
“Can you check in your files to see if Falk kept a security box here?”
“I don’t know if that’s allowed,” Winberg said doubtfully.
“Your boss has already cleared it,” Wallander lied.
Winberg disappeared for a few minutes.
“There’s no such box registered in his name,” he said when he returned.
Wallander got up to leave, when it suddenly occurred to him he might as well take care of all his business at once.
“Let’s do the paperwork for the new car while we’re at it,” he said. “You’re right about it being time for me to get a new car.”
“How much do you want?”
Wallander thought quickly. He had no other debt right now.
“One hundred thousand should do it. If I qualify for that much.”
“No problem,” Winberg said and reached for the right form.
They were done at half past one. Wallander left the bank with the feeling of being rich. When he walked past the bookstore by the main square, he remembered the book on refinishing furniture that he should have picked up a couple of days ago. He also remembered he had no cash on him. He turned around and walked to the cash machine next to the post office. There were four people ahead of him in line: a woman with a baby carriage, two teenage girls, and an older man. Wallander watched absently as the woman put in her card, then took out the cash and the printed slip. Then he started thinking about Tynnes Falk. The two girls took out a hundred crowns, then discussed the amount printed on the slip with great energy. The older man looked around before putting in his card and punching in his secret code. He took out five hundred crowns and put the printed slip in his pocket without looking at it.