“But I wasn’t even there.”
“You don’t need to say anything. I just want you there so you can hear what Holgersson says. Especially if she happens to say something stupid.”
There was a stunned silence in the room after his last comment. No one had heard him openly criticize Holgersson before. It was not premeditated on his part; it had just slipped out. He felt another wave of exhaustion, of being burned out, maybe even old. Of course, his age gave him an excuse for speaking plainly.
He moved on to the most pressing matter.
“We have to concentrate our efforts on Falk’s computer. Whatever is programmed into it is going to take effect on the twentieth of October. We therefore have less than sixteen hours to figure out what that is.”
“Where is Modin?” Hansson asked.
Wallander drained the last of his coffee and got up.
“I’m going to pick him up. Let’s get going, everybody.”
As they filed out of the lunchroom Höglund grabbed his arm, but he tried to shake her off.
“Not now. I have to get Modin.”
“Where is he?”
“With a friend of mine.”
“Can nobody else get him?”
“Sure they could. But I need the time to collect my thoughts. We need to figure out how to use the short amount of time we have most effectively. What does it mean that Cheng is dead?”
“That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Wallander stopped.
“All right,” he said. “You have exactly five minutes.”
“It seems as if we haven’t posed the most important question.”
“And what might that be?”
“Why he shot himself and not you.”
Wallander was getting irritated. He was irritated at everything and everyone and made no attempt to hide it.
“And what’s your opinion?”
“I wasn’t there. I don’t know how things looked out there or exactly what happened. But I know that it takes a lot, even for a person like that, to actually pull the trigger on himself.”
“And how do you know this?”
“You have to admit I have some experience after all these years.”
Wallander knew he was lecturing her as he answered. He couldn’t help it.
“The question is what your experience is really worth in this case. This person killed at least two people before he died, and he wouldn’t have hesitated one moment to kill me. We don’t know what was driving him, but he must have been a completely ruthless person. What happened was that he heard the helicopter approaching and he knew he wasn’t going to get away in time. We know the people involved in this case are fanatical in some way. In this instance that fanaticism was turned on himself.”
Höglund wanted to say something, but Wallander was already on his way out the front doors.
“I have to get Modin,” he said. “We can talk more later. If our world still exists, that is.”
Wallander left the station. It was a quarter to nine and he was in a hurry. He drove at a very high speed and inadvertently ran over a hare. He tried to swerve but one of his back wheels hit the animal. He could see its legs jerking when he looked back in the rearview mirror. But he didn’t stop.
He reached the house in Jagersro at twenty minutes to ten. Elvira opened the door very quickly after he rang the bell. She was already fully dressed, but Wallander sensed that she was very tired. In some way she seemed different than when he had seen her last. But her smile was the same. She asked if he wanted a cup of coffee. Wallander looked past her and saw Robert Modin drinking a cup of tea in the kitchen. Wallander wanted nothing more than to drink a cup of coffee with her but declined her offer. They had so little time. She insisted, took his arm, and almost pushed him into the kitchen. Wallander also saw her cast a quick glance at her watch. That made him suspicious. She wants me to stay, he thought. But not too long. She’s expecting someone else later. He declined the coffee again and told Modin to get ready.
“People who are always in a hurry make me nervous,” she complained after Modin had left the kitchen.
“Then you’ve found my first flaw,” Wallander said. “I’m sorry about this, but it can’t be helped. We need Modin in Ystad right away.”
“What is it that is so urgent?”
“I haven’t got time to explain,” Wallander said. “Let me just say that we’re a bit worried about the twentieth of October. And that’s tomorrow.”
Even though Wallander was tired, he noticed the slight cloud of worry that appeared in her face. Then she smiled again. Wallander wondered if she was afraid, but then he dismissed the whole thing as imagination.
Modin came down the stairs. He carried a small computer under each arm.
“And when will I be seeing you again?” she asked.
“I’ll call you,” Wallander said. “I don’t know yet.”
Wallander drove Modin back to Ystad. He stuck to a slightly slower speed.
“I woke up early,” Modin said. “I had some new ideas that I’d like to try out.”
Wallander wondered if he should tell him what had happened during the night, but he decided to wait. Right now it was important for Modin to stay focused. They kept driving in silence. Wallander realized that it was pointless for him to ask Modin about his ideas, since he wouldn’t understand the explanations.
They drove past the place where Wallander had run over the hare. A flock of crows took off as they approached. The hare was already dismembered to the point of unrecognizability. Wallander told Modin that he was one who had run it over.
“You always see hundreds of run-over hares along this road,” Wallander remarked. “But it’s only once you kill one yourself that you really see it.”
Modin suddenly looked at him.
“Could you say that last part again? About the hare?”
Wallander repeated what he had said.
“Exactly,” Modin said thoughtfully. “That’s it. Of course.”
Wallander looked inquiringly at him.
“I’m thinking about what we’re looking for in Falk’s computer,” Modin explained. “The way to think about it may be to look for something we’ve seen a hundred times without really noticing.”
Then Modin sunk back into thought. Wallander was still not sure he had understood this insight.
At eleven o’clock he stopped the car by Runnerstrom Square. Wallander knew that from here on out he was dependent on what Alfredsson and Modin were able to accomplish, with Martinsson’s assistance. The best he could do would be to try to maintain the larger perspective and not think he would be able to dive into the electronic world with the others. He hoped Martinsson and Alfredsson had the good sense not to tell Modin about what had happened last night. He should really have taken Martinsson aside and told him that Modin knew nothing about the events, but he couldn’t stand talking to him any more than absolutely necessary.
“It’s eleven o’clock,” he said when they had gathered around the desk. “That means we have thirteen hours left until it is officially the twentieth of October. Time is of the essence, in other words.”
“Nyberg called,” Martinsson said, interrupting him.
“What did he have to say for himself?”
“Not much. The weapon was a Makarov, nine millimeter. He thought it would turn out to be the same weapon used in the apartment on Apelbergsgatan.”