feed it through our records as soon as I get a chance."
"That is now a priority," Wallander said. "It could give us something."
A soft wind had started blowing cold air across the fields. They talked about the priorities at hand, then Wallander delegated them. Martinsson was the first to leave. He was going to take Modin's computers to the station, as well as cross-check the names that Sydkraft had sent them. Wallander put Hansson in charge of the search for Modin. Wallander felt the need to talk through the situation with someone, in this case H枚glund. Ordinarily he would have chosen Martinsson, but now that was unthinkable.
Wallander and H枚glund started back towards the car park together.
"Have you talked to him yet?" she said.
"No. It's more important to concentrate on finding Modin and the cause of all this."
"You've just been shot at for the second time this week. I don't understand how you can take it so well."
Wallander stopped and looked at her. "Who says I'm taking it well?"
"You give that impression."
"Well, it is false."
They kept walking.
"Tell me how you see the case now. Take your time. How would you describe it to someone? What can we expect next?"
She swept her coat tightly around her. She was freezing.
"I can't tell you any more than you already know."
"But you'll tell me in your way. And if I hear your voice at least I won't be hearing my own thoughts for a while."
"H枚kberg was definitely raped," she said. "I see no other reason for what she did. If we were to keep digging into her life, we would find a young woman consumed by hatred. But she is not the stone that is thrown into the water, she is one of the outer rings. I think perhaps timing is the most important factor in her case."
"What do you mean by that?"
"What would have happened if Falk had not died so close to the time she was arrested? Let's say a few weeks had gone by, and say it wasn't so close to October 20."
Wallander nodded. So far her thinking was right on track. "The fact that it is close to some important event in time leads to hasty and unplanned actions. Is that what you mean?"
"The perpetrators have no margins for error. H枚kberg is being held by the police. Someone is afraid of what she can tell us. Specifically, something she may have heard from her friends, first and foremost Jonas Landahl, who is later also killed. All of these events are part of an attempt to keep secret something that is inside a computer. The nocturnals, as Modin apparently called them, want to keep doing their work in the dark. If one disregards some loose details, I think this about sums it up. It then also makes sense that Modin was threatened. And that you were attacked."
"Why me? Why not any other police officer?"
"You were in the flat when they came the first time. You have all the time been out in front leading this investigation."
They kept walking in silence. The wind was gusting now. H枚glund hunched her shoulders against it.
"There's one more thing," she said, "that we know, but that they don't know."
"What's that?"
"That H枚kberg never told us anything. In that sense she died a pointless death."
Wallander nodded. She was right.
"I keep wondering what could be in that computer," he said after a while. "The only thing that Martinsson and I have come up with is that it has something to do with money."
"Perhaps there's a big bug in the works? Isn't that the way it's done nowadays? A bank computer goes haywire and starts transferring money into the wrong account."
"Maybe. We just don't know."
They had reached the car park. H枚glund opened her mouth to say something when they both saw Hansson running towards them.
"We've found him!" Hansson shouted.
"Modin or the man who shot at me?"
"Modin. He's in Ystad. One of the patrol cars spotted him as they were driving back to change shifts."
"Where was he?"
"Parked at the corner of Surbrunnsv盲gen and Aulingatan. By the People's Park."
"Where is he now?"
"At the station."
Wallander saw the relief in Hansson's face.
"He's OK," Hansson said. "We got to him first."
"Yes, it seems like it."
It was 3.55 p.m.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The call that Carter had been waiting for came at 5 p.m. It was a bad connection and it was difficult to understand Cheng's broken English. Carter thought that it was like being transported back to the 1980s when communications between Africa and the rest of the world