Firewall - By Henning Mankell & Ebba Segerberg Page 0,15

still have an area of several hundred cubic metres to comb. She threw it 'somewhere in the Old Cemetery', was what she said."

"Why don't you have someone bring her down?"

"If it's here we'll find it," Nyberg said.

They ended the conversation.

"I didn't sleep well myself last night," Martinsson said. "My daughter Terese knows Eva Persson. They're almost the same age. And Persson has parents too. What are they going through right now? As far as I know, she is their only child."

They both thought about what he had said. Then Wallander began to sneeze. He beat a hasty retreat. The conversation was left hanging.

They gathered in one of the conference rooms at 8 a.m. Wallander sat in his usual spot at the end of the table. Hansson and Höglund were there. Martinsson was standing by the window and talking to someone on the phone, probably his wife. Wallander had always wondered how they could have so much to say to one another after presumably having had breakfast together hardly an hour earlier. The main feeling in the room was despondency. Lisa Holgersson walked in and Martinsson finished his conversation.

Hansson got up and shut the door. "Isn't Nyberg supposed to be here?" he said.

"He's in the Old Cemetery, looking for the knife," Wallander said. "I think we can assume he'll find it."

He looked at Holgersson. She nodded to him to start the meeting. He asked himself how many times he had found himself in exactly this situation. Up early in the morning, facing his colleagues across the conference table with a crime to solve.

They were waiting for him to begin.

"Johan Lundberg has died," he said. "In case anyone hasn't heard."

He pointed to a copy of the local newspaper, the Ystad Allehanda, on the table. The taxi driver's death was reported under a huge headline on the front page.

"This means that the two girls, Hökberg and Persson, have committed murder. We can't call it by any other name, since Hökberg in particular was so precise in her explanations. They planned this and they were carrying weapons. They were going to attack whichever taxi driver came their way. We have recovered the hammer, as well as Lundberg's empty wallet and his mobile phone. We have yet to find the knife. Neither girl has denied the charges, nor shifted the blame to the other. I'm assuming we can hand the matter over to the prosecutor tomorrow at the latest. Since Persson is so young, her case will be passed to the juvenile courts. The autopsy result isn't in yet, but I think we can say that our role in this unfortunate case is as good as concluded."

Wallander waited to see if anyone had anything to say.

"Why did they do it?" Holgersson finally asked. "It seems so pointless."

Wallander had hoped that someone would ask this question, so he wouldn't have to find a way to frame it himself.

"Hökberg was very firm on this point," he said. "In both her sessions, first with Martinsson and later with me. She said, 'We needed the money.' Nothing else."

"What for?" Hansson asked.

"We don't know what for. They won't tell us. If Hökberg is to be believed, they didn't even know themselves. They just wanted money." Wallander looked around the table before he continued. "I don't think they're telling the truth. I am certain Hökberg is lying. I haven't spoken with Persson yet, but still I'm convinced of it. They needed that money for some particular purpose. I also suspect that Persson was doing what Hökberg told her to do. That doesn't make her any less guilty, but it gives an appropriate picture of their relation to each other."

"Does it even matter?" Höglund said. "Whether they needed the money for clothes or something else?"

"I suppose not, at this point. The prosecutor certainly has enough evidence to convict Hökberg."

"They've never been in trouble with us before," Martinsson said. "I made a quick search of our database. And they were both doing well at school."

Wallander again sensed that they were taking the wrong approach to the case. Or at the least that they had been too hasty in writing off other explanations for the murder. But since he couldn't put this hunch into words, he said nothing. The motive for the murder could very well have been to do with money. They simply had to keep their eyes open for other possibilities.

The phone rang and Hansson answered. After a while he put the receiver down. "That was Nyberg," he said. "They found the