They had reached the hallway. She looked at him with surprise.
“You’re going home?”
“I give you permission to lay your hand on my brow, if you like. I’m sick. I have a temperature. There are other officers here who are more than capable of finding Hökberg, and of answering all these damned questions from the media.”
He left without waiting for a response. What I’m doing is wrong, he thought. I should stay and try to sort out this chaotic situation. But I just don’t have the energy.
He reached his office and put on his coat. A note left on the desk caught his attention. It was in Martinsson’s handwriting.
“According to pathologist’s report, Tynnes Falk died from natural causes. No crime. Shelve it for now.”
It took Wallander a couple of seconds to remember that this was in reference to the man who was found dead by the cash machine.
One less thing to worry about, he thought.
He left the station by slipping out through the garage in order to avoid reporters. The wind was very strong now. He had to hunch over and run straight into it to get to his car. When he turned the key, nothing happened. He tried several times, but the engine was completely dead.
He took off the seat belt and left the car without bothering to lock the door. On his way back to Mariagatan he remembered the book he was supposed to pick up. But that would have to wait. Everything would have to wait. Right now all he wanted to do was sleep.
When he woke up, it was as if he had come running out of a dream at full speed.
He had been in the middle of a press conference, but this one had been held at Sonja Hökberg’s house. Wallander had not been able to answer a single question. Then he had suddenly spotted his father sitting in the very back of the room. His father seemed completely undisturbed by the TV cameras in the room and was calmly painting his favorite fall landscape.
That was the point when Wallander woke up. He lay awake for a moment, listening for sounds. The wind blew against the window. He turned his head. The clock on his bedside table read half past six. He had been sleeping for almost four hours. He tried to swallow. His throat was still swollen and sore, but his temperature seemed to have gone down. He knew that Sonja Hökberg was still on the loose. Someone would have called him otherwise. He got up and went out into the kitchen. There was the reminder to buy soap. He added the book he had to pick up to the list. Then he made some tea. He looked for a lemon but didn’t find one. There were just some old tomatoes and a half-rotten cucumber in the vegetable bin. He threw out the cucumber. When the tea was ready he brought the cup with him out into the living room.
He reached for the phone and called the station. The only person he managed to get hold of was Hansson.
“How’s it going?”
Hansson sounded tired when he answered.
“She’s disappeared without a trace.”
“No one’s seen her?”
“No one, nothing. The National Chief of Police has called and expressed his displeasure.”
“I don’t doubt it. But I suggest we ignore him for the moment.”
“I heard you’re sick.”
“I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
Hansson told him how the investigation was proceeding. Wallander had no objections to the way things were being handled. They had declared a regional search for Hökberg and had alerted the rest of the force in case they had to operate nationally. Hansson promised to call if anything new developed.
Wallander put the phone down and put on a compact disc with Verdi’s La Traviata. He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. He thought about Eva Persson and her mother, the girl’s violent outburst and her puzzlingly indifferent gaze. Then the phone rang. Wallander sat up and turned the music down.
“Kurt?”
He recognized the voice immediately. It was Sten Widen, one of Wallander’s few close friends and probably the oldest.
“It’s been a while.”
“It’s always been a while when we talk to each other. How are you doing? When I tried to reach you at the station someone said you were sick.”
“I have a sore throat. It’s nothing.”
“I thought it would be nice to see you.”
“Now is not the best time. Have you seen the news?”
“I never watch the news or read the paper. Apart from the results of the latest horse race, of course.”
“Someone managed to escape from custody. I have to find her. Then we can meet.”
“I wanted to say goodbye.”
Wallander felt something constrict in his stomach. Was Sten sick? Had his alcohol abuse finally managed to ruin his liver?
“Why? Why do you need to say goodbye?”
“I’m selling my place and taking off.”
The last few years Sten Widen had talked about leaving. The horse ranch he had inherited from his father had stopped being profitable many years ago. Wallander had listened to his dreams of starting a new life on countless occasions, but he had never taken Widen seriously, just as he never took his own dreams seriously. That had apparently been a mistake. When Sten was drunk, as he often was, he tended to exaggerate. But right now he seemed sober and full of energy. The normal slowness of his speech was gone.
“Is this for real?”
“Yes. I’m going.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll make up my mind soon.”
Wallander was no longer tensing up his stomach, but now he felt envy instead. Sten Widén’s dreams had turned out to have more life in them than his own.
“I’ll come by as soon as I can. Maybe in a few days.”
“I’ll be home.”
When the conversation was over, Wallander sat deep in thought for a long time. He couldn’t hide from his own envy. His own dreams of leaving his work as a police officer behind felt extremely remote. What Sten was doing right now, Wallander could never do.
He drank the rest of his tea and then carried the cup into the kitchen. The thermometer outside the window read one degree above freezing. It was cold for the beginning of October.
He walked back to the sofa. The music was still playing softly. He reached for the remote control and directed it at the stereo.
At the same time the power went out.
At first he thought it was a blown fuse, but after feeling his way over to the window he saw that even the street lamps had gone out.
He returned to the sofa in the dark and waited.
What he didn’t know was that a large part of Scania lay in darkness.
Chapter Seven
Olle Andersson was sleeping when the phone rang.
He tried to turn on the bedside lamp but it wouldn’t go on. That told him what the phone call was about. He turned on the strong flashlight he always kept beside his bed and lifted the receiver. As he had guessed, the call was from the Sydkraft main office, staffed around the clock. It was Rune Ågren. Olle Andersson had already known that Ågren was the one on duty that night, the eighth of October. He was from Malmö and had worked for various utility companies for over thirty years. He was due to retire next year. He got straight to the point.
“Twenty-five percent of Scania is without power.”
Olle Andersson was surprised. Even though there had been gusty winds the past few days, there had been nothing close to a storm.
“The devil only knows what happened,” Ågren continued. “But it’s the Ystad power substation that’s been affected. You’d better get dressed and go down there to take a look.”
Olle Andersson knew it was urgent. In the complicated network that conveyed electricity to cities and houses across the countryside, the Ystad power substation was one of the central points of connection. If anything happened to it, most of Scania would be affected one way or the other. Someone was always in charge of making sure that didn’t happen. This week Olle Andersson was on call for the Ystad area.