“In some cases.”
“What about Sonja?”
“I think we can assume Eva sometimes shared her gum with Sonja.” Wallander smacked his lips.
“Why in God’s name is this so important?”
“I’ll let you know when you get down here.”
“Everything is such a mess over here,” she sighed. “For some reason Tuesday mornings are the worst.”
Wallander hung up. Every morning is the worst, he thought. Without fail. At least all those mornings that you wake up at five in the morning and can’t fall back to sleep.
He walked over to Martinsson’s office. There was no one there. He was probably with Modin over at Runnerström Square. Hansson wasn’t in either. Maybe he wasn’t back yet from what was probably a completely unnecessary trip to Växjö.
Wallander sat down at his desk and tried to go through the latest findings on his own. They were now almost completely sure that the blue car over at Snappehanegatan was the same vehicle that had taken Sonja Hökberg to the power substation. Jonas Landahl had probably been the driver, letting her off to be killed, then preparing to take the ferry to Poland.
There were many gaps. Jonas Landahl may not have been the driver and he may not have been Sonja’s killer, but he was definitely under suspicion. They needed to speak to him as soon as possible.
The computer was an even bigger mystery. If Jonas Landahl had not erased what was on it, then someone else had. And how could they account for the hidden diskette?
Wallander tried to come up with a plausible theory. After a few minutes he came up with a third alternative. Jonas Landahl did erase everything on his computer, but someone else also came in later to make sure he had done so.
Wallander turned to a fresh page on his pad of paper and wrote a list of names.
Lundberg, Sonja and Eva.
Tynnes Falk.
Jonas Landahl.
There was a connection among all of these people. But there was still no good motive for any of the crimes. We’re still looking for common ground, Wallander thought. We haven’t found it yet.
He was interrupted in his thoughts by Martinsson.
“Robert Modin has already started his day,” he said. “He demanded to be picked up at six o’clock. He’s a strange bird. He brought his own food with him today. Some funny-looking herbal teas and even funnier rusks. Made from organic ingredients in Bornholm. He also brought a Walkman with him, claiming he works best when he listens to music. I looked at his tapes. Here are the names.”
Martinsson took a slip of paper out of his pocket.
“Handel’s Messiah, Verdi’s Requiem. What does that tell you?”
“That Modin has good taste in music.”
Wallander told Martinsson about the phone calls with Nyberg and Höglund and the fact that they could now be fairly sure that Sonja had been driven in Landahl’s car.
“It may not have been her last car ride, though,” Martinsson said.
“I think for now we’ll assume it was. We’ll also assume that that’s why Landahl decided to get away.”
“So we put out an alert for him?”
“Yes. Can you arrange it with the DA’s office?”
Martinsson made a face.
“Can’t Hansson take care of it?”
“He’s not in yet.”
“Where the hell is he?”
“Someone claimed he went up to Växjö.”
“Why?”
“That’s where Eva Persson’s alcoholic father is supposed to be.”
“And is that really a priority? Speaking to her father?”
Wallander shrugged.
“I can’t be the only authority on what to prioritize.”
Martinsson got up.
“I’ll talk to Viktorsson, and I’ll also see what I can dig up on Landahl. As long as the computers are up.”
Wallander detained him for a moment.
“What do we know about these groups?” he asked. “These — what do you call them — eco-terrorists?”
“Hansson compares them to motorcycle gangs, since they break into labs and sabotage animal experiments.”
“Is that fair?”
“When was Hansson ever fair?”
“I thought most of these groups espoused nonviolence. Isn’t it called civil disobedience? Has that gone out of style?”
“I think most of the time they’re nonviolent,” Martinsson said.
“And Falk was involved in this.”
“Don’t forget that he may not have been murdered at all.”
“But Sonja Hökberg was, and so was Lundberg,” Wallander said.
“Doesn’t that just tell us that we don’t have a clue about what’s going on?”
“What about Robert Modin — do you think he’s going to get anywhere?”
“It’s hard to say. I hope so.”
“And he claims the number twenty is important?”
“Yes. He’s sure of that now. I only understand about half of what he says, but he’s very convincing.”
Wallander looked over at his calendar.
“It’s the fourteenth of October today. That means we have a week left.”
“If the number twenty refers to a date. We don’t know that.”
Wallander thought of something else.
“Have Sydkraft come up with anything else? They must have finished their internal investigation by now. How could the break-in occur? Why was the gate broken and not the inner door?”
“Hansson is in charge of that. He said that Sydkraft have taken the whole thing very seriously and he expects to see a number of heads roll.”
“I wonder if we have taken it seriously enough,” Wallander said thoughtfully. “How did Falk manage to get hold of the blueprint? And why?”
“Everything is so complicated,” Martinsson complained. “Naturally we can’t dismiss the idea of sabotage. The step from releasing minks to cutting power is perhaps not so great. Not if someone is a fanatic.”
Wallander felt his anxiety tighten its grip.
“This thing with the number twenty worries me,” he said. “What if it really does stand for the twentieth of October? What will happen then?”
“It worries me, too,” Martinsson said. “But I don’t have any answers for you.”
Neither had anything more to say.
Martinsson left the room, and Wallander devoted the next couple of hours to catching up on paperwork and trying to make a dent in the piles that had built up on his desk. The whole time, he was searching for a clue that he might have overlooked. But he didn’t think of anything new.
Later that afternoon they had a meeting. Martinsson had talked to Viktorsson, and Jonas Landahl was now officially wanted by the police. The alert had gone out internationally as well. The Polish authorities had responded very quickly and confirmed that Jonas Landahl had entered the country on the day that his neighbor saw him leave Snappehanegatan in a taxi. They had no confirmation as yet of any departure, but something told Wallander he wasn’t in Poland anymore.
Nyberg had gone over the car again and sent a number of plastic bags with fiber and hair samples to the lab for further analysis. They would not be able to confirm the fact that Sonja had been in the car until the results came back. The question of the car sparked a heated discussion between Martinsson and Höglund. She maintained that if the tests came back positive Landahl must have been the person who drove Sonja to the power substation. But Martinsson argued that if Sonja Hökberg and Jonas Landahl had been dating, it would have been natural for her to have been in his car, so that wouldn’t prove anything.
Wallander waited while they argued back and forth. Neither one of them was right. Both were tired. Finally the discussion died down on its own. Hansson talked about his trip to Växjö, which had been as meaningless as Wallander had suspected. He had also taken a wrong turn on the highway that had delayed him even further. When he finally located Eva Persson’s father, the man turned out to be heavily intoxicated and had not been able to give Hansson any interesting information. He had burst into tears each time he said his daughter’s name, and had talked despondently of her future. Hansson had tried to get away as quickly as he could.