“How’s Alfredsson doing?”
“I last spoke to him over two hours ago. At that point he could only tell us what Modin told us — that there is some kind of ticking time bomb built into the program. Something is going to happen. He was going to apply various probability calculations and reduction programs to see if he could isolate some kind of pattern. He is also in contact with Interpol cybercrime experts to see if any other countries have experience with this kind of thing. I have the impression that he’s thorough and knows what he’s doing.”
“Then we’ll leave it in his hands,” Wallander said.
“But what if something is really going to happen on the twentieth? That’s on Monday. It’s less than thirty-four hours away,” Höglund said.
“Quite honestly, I don’t know what to tell you,” Wallander said. “But we know it must be something important, since these people are prepared to commit murder.”
“Could it be anything other than an act of terrorism?” Hansson asked. “Shouldn’t we have contacted the National Guards a long time ago?”
Hansson’s suggestion was met with hearty laughter. Neither Wallander nor any of his colleagues had the slightest confidence in the Swedish National Guards. But Hansson had a point, and Wallander should already have thought of it, since he was leading the investigation. His head was the one on the block, and it would roll if a situation developed in which the National Guards could have played a role in preventing what happened.
“Call them,” Wallander told Hansson. “If they actually stay open for business during the weekend.”
“What about the blackout?” Martinsson said. “It seems that whoever is behind this has developed a sophisticated knowledge of power stations. Could there be a plot to knock out the power grid?”
“We can’t rule anything out,” Wallander answered. “But that makes me think of the blueprint we found in Falk’s office. Do we know how it got there?”
“According to Sydkraft, the original was in Falk’s office and a copy had been left in its place in their files,” Höglund said. “They gave me a list of people who would have had access to these files. I gave it to Martinsson.”
Martinsson made an embarrassed gesture.
“I haven’t had time,” he said. “I’ll feed it through our registers as soon as I get a chance.”
“That is now a priority,” Wallander said. “It may give us something.”
A soft wind had started blowing cold air over the fields. They talked a moment longer about the most important tasks at hand, and then Wallander delegated them. Martinsson was the first to leave. He was going to bring Modin’s computers to the station, as well as cross-check the names that Sydkraft had sent them. Wallander put Hansson in charge of the search for Modin. Wallander felt a need to talk through the situation with someone, in this case Höglund. Ordinarily he would have chosen Martinsson, but now that was unthinkable.
Wallander and Höglund started walking back toward the parking lot together.
“Have you talked with him?” she asked.
“Not yet. It’s more important to focus on finding Modin and the reasons for all of this.”
“You’ve just been shot at for the second time this week. I can’t understand how you can take it so well.”
Wallander stopped and looked at her.
“Who says I’m taking it well?”
“You give that impression.”
“Well, it’s not true.”
They kept walking.
“Tell me how you see the case now,” he asked her. “Take your time. How would you explain it to someone? What can we expect in the near future?”
She swept her coat tightly around her.
“I can’t tell you any more than you already know.”
“But you’ll tell me in your own way. And if I hear your voice, at least I won’t be hearing my own thoughts for a while.”
“Sonja Hökberg was definitely raped,” she began. “I see no other reason for her crime. I think if we were to keep digging into her life we would find a young woman consumed by hatred. Sonja Hökberg is not the stone that is thrown into the water, she’s one of the outer rings. I think perhaps timing is the most important factor in her case.”
“Tell me what you mean.”
“What would have happened if Falk hadn’t died so close to the time she was arrested? Let’s say a few weeks had gone by, and say it wasn’t so close to the twentieth of October.”
Wallander nodded. So far her thinking was right on track.
“The fact that it’s close to some important event in time leads to hasty and unplanned actions on the part of our perpetrator? Is that what you mean?”
“There are no margins. Sonja Hökberg is being held by the police. Someone is afraid of what she can tell us. Specifically, something she may have heard from her friends, first and foremost Jonas Landahl, who is later also killed. All of these events are an attempt to keep something inside a computer a secret. The nocturnals, as Modin apparently calls them, want to keep doing their work in the dark. If one disregards some loose details, I think this about sums it up. It then also makes sense that Modin was threatened. And that you were attacked.”
“Why me? Why not any other police officer?”
“You were in the apartment when they came the first time. You have consistently been on the frontlines of this investigation.”
They kept walking in silence. The wind was gusty now. Höglund hunched her shoulders against it.
“There’s one more thing,” she said, “that we know, but that they don’t know.”
“What’s that?”
“That Sonja Hökberg never told us anything. In that sense, she actually died for nothing.”
Wallander nodded. She was right.
“I keep wondering what could be in that computer,” he said after a while. “The only thing that Martinsson and I have come up with is that it has something to do with money.”
“Perhaps there’s a big heist in the works? Isn’t that the way it’s done nowadays? A bank computer goes haywire and starts transferring money into the wrong account.”
“Maybe. We just don’t know.”
They had reached the parking lot. Höglund opened her mouth to say something when they both saw Hansson running toward them.
“We’ve found him!” Hansson shouted.
“Modin or the man who shot at me?”
“Modin. He’s in Ystad. One of the patrol cars spotted him when they drove back to change shifts.”
“Where was he?”
“He had parked at the corner of Surbrunnsvagen and Aulingatan. By the People’s Park.”
“Where is he now?”
“At the station.”
Wallander saw the relief in Hansson’s face.
“He’s okay,” Hansson said. “We got to him first.”
“Yes, it seems like it.”
It was a quarter to four.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The phone call that Carter had been waiting for came at five o’clock. It was a bad connection, and it was difficult to interpret Cheng’s broken English. Carter thought that it was like being transported back to the 1980s, when communications between Africa and the rest of the world was still very poor. He remembered a time when it was still a challenge to do something as simple as send or receive a fax.
But in spite of the time difference and the static, Carter had still managed to understand Cheng’s message. When the phone call ended, Carter had walked out into the garden to think. He had trouble controlling his irritation. Cheng had not lived up to his expectations, and nothing was more infuriating to him than when people were not able to handle the tasks that he asked them to carry out. The latest news report was unsettling, and he knew he had to make an important decision.