Wallander also had to acknowledge that part of what was fueling him that night was his sense of betrayal, and his bitter disappointment that life had once more cheated him out of the promise of companionship. He could not claim to miss Elvira herself. Her death had mainly frightened him. She had accessed his letter to the dating service and approached him with the intention of tricking and manipulating him. And he had been thoroughly taken in. It had been a masterful performance. The humiliation was intense. The rage that coursed through him came from many different sources at once.
But Hansson would later tell him how collected and calm he had seemed. His evaluation of the situation and his suggested course of action had been quick and impressive.
Wallander had realized he needed to return to Ystad as soon as possible. That was where the heart of the case still was. Hansson would stay in the house, alert the Malmö police, and fill them in as necessary.
But Hansson was also to do something else. Wallander had been very firm on this matter. Even though it was the middle of the night, he wanted Hansson to try to find out more about Elvira Lindfeldt’s background. Was there anything that linked her to Angola? Who did she know in Malmö?
“Who was she, anyway?” Hansson asked. “Why was Modin here? How did you know her?”
Wallander didn’t answer, and Hansson never repeated the question. Afterward he would sometimes ask people about it when Wallander was not present. He discussed the fact that Wallander must have known her since he placed Modin in her care. But no one knew anything about this mysterious woman. Despite the intensive investigations that they conducted, there was always the sense that her relationship to Wallander was not a matter to be delved into. No one ever found out exactly what had happened.
Wallander left Hansson and returned to Ystad. He concentrated on a single question in his mind: What had happened to Modin?
As Wallander drove through the night he had a feeling that the impending catastrophe was very close. What it was exactly that needed to be stopped, and how he was going to prevent it, he was not sure. The most important thing was saving Modin’s life. Wallander drove at a ridiculous speed. He had asked Hansson to call ahead and let the others know he was on his way. Hansson had asked if he should call and wake up Chief Holgersson, and Wallander had lost his temper and screamed at him. He did not want him to call her. It was the first time he showed some of the intense strain that he was under.
At half past one, Wallander slowed down and turned into the station parking lot. He shivered from the cold as he ran toward the front doors.
The others were waiting for him in the conference room. Martinsson, Höglund, and Alfredsson were already there, with Nyberg on his way. Höglund handed him a cup of coffee that he almost immediately managed to spill down the front of his trousers.
Then he got down to business. Robert Modin had disappeared without a trace, and the woman he had been staying with had been found murdered.
“The first conclusion we can draw,” Wallander said, “is that the man in the field was not working alone. It was a fatal mistake to assume that this was the case. I should have realized it earlier.”
Höglund was the one who asked the inevitable question.
“Who was she?”
“Her name was Elvira Lindfeldt,” Wallander said. “She was an acquaintance of mine.”
“But how did she know Modin was coming by tonight?”
“We’ll have to tackle that question later.”
Did they believe him? Wallander thought he had lied convincingly but he couldn’t tell. He knew he should have told them about sending in the ad to the dating service, and that someone must have broken into his computer and read the letter. But he didn’t say any of these things. He tried to tell himself, in his own defense, that the most important thing was finding Modin.
At this point the door opened and Nyberg came in. His pajama top peeked out from under his sport coat.
“What the hell happened?” he asked. “Hansson called from Malmö and seemed out of his mind. It was impossible to understand a word he was saying.”
“Sit down,” Wallander said. “It’s going to be a long night.”
Then he nodded to Höglund, who summarized the current situation for Nyberg.
“Don’t the Malmö police have their own forensic team?” Nyberg asked.
“I want you to go out there,” Wallander said. “Not only in case anything else turns up but also just so I can hear what you think.”
Nyberg nodded without saying anything. Then he took out a comb and started pulling it through his unruly thinning hair.
Wallander continued.
“There is one more conclusion we can draw here, and it is simply this: something else is going to happen. And this something is somehow based here in Ystad.”
He looked over at Martinsson.
“I take it someone is still stationed outside Runnerström Square?”
“No, the surveillance has been canceled.”
“Who the hell made that call?”
“Viktorsson thought it was a waste of our resources.”
“Well, I want a car reposted there immediately. I canceled the surveillance of Apelbergsgatan, which maybe was a mistake. I think I want a car there, too, from now on.”
Martinsson left the room, and Wallander knew he would see to it that the patrol cars were dispatched immediately.
They waited in silence for his return. Höglund offered Nyberg, who was still combing his hair, her make-up mirror so he could see what he was doing but he simply growled at her. Martinsson came back.
“Done.”
“What we’re looking for is the catalyst,” Wallander said. “It could be something as simple as Falk’s death. At least that’s how I see it. As long as he was alive, everything was in control. But then he died, and everything threatened to unravel.”
Höglund raised her hand.
“Do we know for sure that Falk died from natural causes?”
“I think it must have been natural causes. My conclusion is based on the fact that Falk’s death was unexpected. Falk was in excellent health. But he died, and that’s what started the chain reaction. If Falk had continued to live, Sonja Hökberg would have been tried and convicted of Lundberg’s death. Neither she nor Jonas Landahl would have been killed. Landahl would have kept running errands for Falk. And we would have had no idea of whatever it is that Falk and his companions were planning.”
“So it’s only thanks to his death that we know something is going to happen, something that might affect the whole world?”
“That’s how I see it, yes. If someone else has a better hypothesis, I’d like to hear it.”
No one had anything to say.
Alfredsson took out his briefcase and poured out a number of loose papers, some torn, some folded in half.
“These are Modin’s notes,” he said. “They were lying in a corner and I gathered them up. Do you think it’s worth our time to go through them?”
“That will be up to you and Martinsson,” Wallander said. “You are the only two who will understand what he’s talking about.”
The phone rang and Höglund answered. She handed the receiver to Wallander, saying it was Hansson.
“A neighbor claims she heard a car drive away with squealing tires at about nine-thirty,” he said. “But that’s all we have been able to establish. No one seems to have seen or heard anything else. Not even the shots.”