“They won’t hold anything against us for asking about Vesuvius,” Wallander continued. “Make it clear that we’re asking on Robert’s behalf. While you do that, I’m going to start looking for him.”
“What does this message mean, anyway?” Martinsson said. “He didn’t manage to clean up after himself. Is that it?”
“You’re the one who knows about these things,” Wallander said. “Not me. But I have a feeling that has only been growing stronger. You’ll have to correct me if I’m wrong, and this feeling has nothing to do with my intuition, only with facts. But I feel as if the people we’re dealing with are supremely well informed of our activities.”
“We know someone has been observing our activities at Apelbergsgatan and Runnerström Square. You almost ran into him, in fact, when he took a shot at you.”
“That’s not it. I’m not talking about this person, who may or may not be called Fu Cheng. What I’m getting at is that it almost seems as if we have a leak inside the station.”
Martinsson burst out laughing. Wallander couldn’t tell if it was derisive or not.
“You’re not serious! You don’t think one of us is mixed up in this, do you?”
“No, I don’t. But I’m wondering if there might be another kind of leak.”
Wallander pointed at the computer.
“What I’m wondering is if someone has been doing the same thing we were doing with Falk’s computer. Breaking in to get secret information.”
“The national registers are extremely secure.”
“But what about our personal computers? Are they so watertight that someone with the right amount of expertise and drive couldn’t break into them? You and Höglund write all your reports on them. I don’t know about Hansson. I do it some of the time. Nyberg tussles with his machine. The coroner’s report comes both in a hard copy and electronically. What would happen if someone had a way in and was watching everything that came in to our computers? Without us being aware of it?”
“It isn’t plausible,” Martinsson said. “Our security is very good.”
“It’s just a thought,” Wallander said. “One of many.” He felt around in his pocket for his cell phone, then remembered he had left it in Martinsson’s car.
He left Martinsson and walked down the stairs. Through the half open door to the living room he could see Axel Modin put an arm around his giant wife, who still had cotton balls in her nostrils. It was an image that filled him with pity and, mysteriously, with joy. Which feeling dominated he wasn’t sure. He knocked carefully on the door.
Axel Modin came out into the kitchen.
“I need to use your phone,” Wallander said.
“Do you know what happened? Why is Robert so afraid?”
“We’re still trying to determine that. But don’t worry.” Wallander said a silent prayer that his words would turn out to be true. He sat down by the phone in the hall. Before lifting the receiver, he reflected on what needed to be done. The first thing he had to address was whether or not there was real cause for worry. But the e-mail message addressed to Robert was real. There was someone out there who had sent it. And the case so far was characterized by secrecy and silence, and by people who did not hesitate to kill.
Wallander decided the threat to Robert was real. He couldn’t take the chance of being wrong. He lifted the receiver and called the station. He was lucky enough to reach Höglund right away. He told her what was going on and asked her to send patrol cars to search the area around Löderup. Since Robert was an inexperienced driver, he had probably not managed to get very far. There was also the chance that he had already caused or been in an accident. Wallander called out to Axel Modin to give him the license plate number as well as a description of the car. Höglund wrote it down and promised to take care of it. Wallander put the phone down and walked back up the stairs. Martinsson still hadn’t heard anything from Modin’s hacker friends.
“I need to use your car,” Wallander said.
“The keys are in the ignition,” Martinsson said without taking his eyes off the screen.
Wallander decided to take a look at the little road that ran through the fields and that Robert could see through his window. There was probably nothing there, but Wallander wanted to be sure. He drove out onto the road and started looking for the turnoff. He drove much too fast down the muddy road between the fields, but since it was Martinsson’s car it was a way to take another small revenge. He stopped when he got to the point he had found through the binoculars. He got out of the car and looked around. The rain was almost completely gone now. If Martinsson looked up, he would be able to see his car and its driver. Wallander looked down at the road and saw that another car had been there. He thought he could tell that it had stopped nearby, but the tracks were not easy to see. The rain had almost washed them away. But someone probably stopped here, he thought.
Wallander felt uneasy. If someone had been keeping an eye on the house from here, he would easily have seen Robert dash out and leave in the car.
He felt the sweat start to break out over his body. It’s my responsibility, he thought. I should never have gotten him mixed up in this. It was too dangerous and irresponsible.
He had to force himself to stay calm. Robert had panicked and wanted a gun. Then he had decided to leave in the car. The question he had to answer was where the boy had gone.
Wallander looked around one more time, then drove back to the house, remembering to bring his cell phone with him this time. Axel Modin met him at the door and raised his eyebrows.
“I haven’t found Robert,” Wallander said. “But we are looking for him, and there’s no need to be concerned.”
Axel Modin did not believe him. Wallander could see it in his face, but Modin didn’t say anything. He looked away, as if he found Wallander’s concern insulting. There was no sound from the living room.
“Do you have any idea where he may have gone?” Wallander asked.
Axel Modin shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“But he had friends. When I came here that first night he had been at a party.”
“I’ve called all his friends. No one has seen him. They promised to let me know if they did.”
“You have to think hard,” Wallander said. “He’s your son. He’s scared and he fled in your car. What could he be thinking of as a safe hiding place?”
“He likes to walk on the beach,” Modin said doubtfully. “Down by Sandhammaren or on the fields around Backåkra. I don’t know of any other place.”
Wallander was also doubtful. A beach was too open, just like a field. Of course, there was the fog. A better hiding place than the Scanian fog was hard to imagine.
“Keep thinking,” Wallander said. “You may be able to think of something else, some hiding place from his childhood.”
He went to the phone and called Höglund. The patrol cars had already been dispatched. The police in Simrishamn had been alerted and were helping them. Wallander told her about Sandhammaren and Backakra.
“I’m going up to Backåkra,” he said. “Get another car to Sandhammaren.”
Höglund told him she’d handle it and said she was going out to Löderup.
Wallander hung up as Martinsson came dashing down the stairs.
“Rättvik got back to me,” he said. “You were right. The server ‘Vesuvius’ is registered in Luanda.”
Wallander nodded. He was not surprised.
But it increased his fear.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Wallander stood there in the hallway staring at Martinsson as the seconds ticked by. The only thing he was sure of was that they had to find Robert before it was too late. Images of Sonja Hökberg’s scorched body and Jonas Landahl’s butchered remains swept through his mind. Wallander wanted to dash out into the fog and start to look. But the situation was still unclear. Robert was out there somewhere, terrified. He had fled just as Jonas Landahl had fled. But someone had caught up with Landahl.