When the conversation was over, Wallander immediately called the car shop. After a few minutes, the clerk he had spoken with came on the line and quoted him a price that made him speechless. He was told the car would be ready the following day. It was the replacement parts that were expensive, not the labor. Wallander agreed to come and pick up the car at twelve.
He remained idle for a while after putting the receiver down. In his thoughts he was in the interrogation room with Höglund. It bothered him that he couldn’t be there. Höglund could be a bit soft when it came to applying real pressure. Moreover, he had been unfairly treated by Holgersson. She had not given him the benefit of the doubt, something he couldn’t forgive her for.
To get the time to pass, he dialed the number for Tynnes Falk’s ex-wife. She picked up almost immediately.
“This is Wallander. Am I speaking with Marianne Falk?”
“I’m so glad you called. I’ve been waiting for you.”
She had a high-pitched, pleasant-sounding voice. It occurred to Wallander that she sounded like Mona. He felt a distant, brief pull of emotion. Was it sadness?
“Has Dr. Enander been in touch with you?” she asked.
“I’ve talked to him.”
“Then you know Tynnes didn’t die of a heart attack.”
“I’m not sure we can rule out that possibility.”
“Why not? He was attacked.”
She sounded very firm. Wallander’s curiosity was piqued.
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’m not. Tynnes had many enemies.”
Wallander pulled a pen and some paper toward him.
“What kind of enemies?”
“I don’t know. But he was constantly on guard.”
Wallander searched his memory for the information that had been in Martinsson’s report.
“He was some kind of computer consultant, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t sound so dangerous.”
“I think it depends on what you do.”
“And what did he do, exactly?”
“I don’t know.”
“And yet you’re convinced he was attacked?”
“I knew him well, although we didn’t live together. This past year he was especially anxious.”
“But he never told you why?”
She hesitated before answering.
“I know it sounds very strange that I can’t be more specific,” she said, “even though we lived together for a long time and had two children.”
“‘Enemy’ is a strong word to throw around in casual conversation.”
“Tynnes traveled extensively. He had always done so. I have no idea what people he must have met, but sometimes he came home very excited. At other times when I met him at Sturup airport he was clearly worried.”
“But he must have said something, like why he had enemies, or who they were?”
“He was a quiet man. But I could read the deep-seated anxiety in his face.”
Wallander started wondering if the woman he was speaking to wasn’t a bit high-strung.
“Was there anything else?”
“It wasn’t a heart attack. I want the police to find out what really happened.”
Wallander thought for a moment before answering.
“I’ve made a note of what you’ve said. We’ll be in touch if we need to ask you anything else.”
“I’m expecting you to find out what happened. We were divorced, Tynnes and I, but I still loved him.”
The conversation was over. Wallander wondered briefly if Mona would also say she still loved him, though they were divorced and she was now married to another man. He doubted it. Then he wondered if she had ever really loved him. He brushed these thoughts aside angrily and went through in his head what Marianne Falk had told him. Her sense of anxiety seemed genuine. But she had not really been able to say anything concrete. He still didn’t have a clear sense of who Tynnes Falk had been. Wallander looked for Martinsson’s report, then called the coroner’s office in Lund. The whole time, he was listening for Höglund’s footsteps outside his door. It was the conversation with Eva Persson that was his primary interest right now. Tynnes Falk had died of a heart attack, and that fact wasn’t altered by an ex-wife who was convinced he had been surrounded by enemies. Wallander spoke once more with the pathologist who had conducted the autopsy on Tynnes Falk. He told him about his conversation with Marianne Falk.
“It’s not unheard of that heart attacks come seemingly from out of nowhere,” the pathologist said. “The autopsy clearly revealed this as the cause of death. Neither Falk’s wife’s words nor what his doctor said changes my view in any way.”
“And the head wound?”
“That was caused by hitting the asphalt.”
Wallander thanked him and hung up. As he closed Martinsson’s report, he had the nagging feeling that he had overlooked something, but he decided to ignore it. He couldn’t spend time worrying about the products of other people’s imagination.
He poured himself another cup of coffee in the lunchroom. It was almost half past eleven. Martinsson and Hansson were still out. No one knew where they were. Wallander returned to his office, impatient and irritated. Widen’s decision to get out was needling him. It was as if he had ended up in a race he never thought he could win, but one in which he also didn’t want to end up last. It was an unclear thought, but he knew what was bothering him. He felt that time was rushing away from him.
“I can’t live like this,” he said out loud to himself. “Something has to change.”
“Who are you talking to?”
Wallander turned around. Martinsson stood in the doorway. Wallander hadn’t heard him come in. No one at the station moved as quietly as Martinsson.
“I was speaking to myself,” Wallander said firmly. “Don’t you ever do that?”
“I talk in my sleep, according to my wife. Maybe that’s the same thing.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ve checked everyone who had access to the substation keys. No one has a previous record with us.”
“Not that we expected them to,” Wallander said.
“I’ve been trying to figure out why the gates were forced,” Martinsson said. “I can only think of two possibilities: one, that the key to the gates was missing. Two, someone’s trying to confuse us and throw us off the track.”
“For what reason?”
“Vandalism, destruction for its own sake, I don’t know.”
Wallander shook his head.
“The steel door was unlocked. As I far as I can tell, there’s also the possibility that the person who forced the gates was not the same person who unlocked the door.”
Martinsson wrinkled his brow.
“And how would you explain that?”
“I can’t explain it. I’m only presenting you with another alternative.”
The conversation died away and Martinsson left. It was twelve o’clock. Wallander continued to wait. Höglund turned up at twenty-five minutes past twelve.
“One thing you can’t accuse that girl of is talking too fast,” she said.
“I’ve never heard a young person who talked so slowly.”
“Maybe she was afraid of saying the wrong thing,” Wallander said. Höglund sat down in his visitor’s chair.
“I asked her about what you told me,” she began. “But she never saw a Chinese person.”
“I didn’t say Chinese, I said Asian.”
“Well, she never saw anyone like that. They changed seats because Sonja complained about a cold draft from the window.”
“How did she react when you asked her that question?” Höglund looked worried.
“Just as you would expect. The question took her by surprise and her answer was a pure lie.”
Wallander hit the table.
“Then we know,” he said. “There’s a connection here to the man who came into the restaurant.”