been thoroughly taken in. It had been a masterful performance. The shame was excruciating. The rage that coursed through him came from many different sources at once. Nevertheless, 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 impressively swift.
Wallander needed to get back to Ystad just as soon as possible. That was where the heart of the case still was. Hansson would stay in the house, alert the Malm枚 police and fill them in as necessary. Hansson was also to do something else. Wallander had been very firm on this point. Even though it was the middle of the night, he wanted Hansson to find out more about Elvira Lindfeldt's background. Was there anything that linked her to Angola? Who did she know in Malm枚?
"Who was she anyway?" Hansson said. "Why was Modin here? How did you know her?"
Wallander didn't answer and Hansson never asked him the question again. Afterwards he would sometimes ask people about it when Wallander was not present. The fact was that Wallander must have known her since he placed Modin in her care. But no-one knew anything about this mysterious woman. Despite the 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 between them.
Wallander left Hansson and returned to Ystad. He concentrated on a single question: what had happened to Modin? As he drove through the night he had a feeling that the impending catastrophe was very close. How he was going to prevent it or what it was exactly that needed to be prevented or stopped, he could not say. The important thing was saving Modin's life. Wallander drove at a ridiculous speed. He had asked Hansson to 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 shouted at him. He did not want him to call her.
At 1.30 a.m. Wallander slowed down and turned into the station car park. He shivered from the cold as he ran to the front doors.
The others were waiting for him in the conference room. Martinsson, H枚glund and Alfredsson were already there, with Nyberg on his way. H枚glund 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. Modin had disappeared 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 that was the case. I should have realised it earlier."
H枚glund was the one who asked the inevitable question. "Who was she?"
"Her name was Elvira Lindfeldt," Wallander said. "She was an acquaintance of mine."
"How did she know Modin would be coming to her house 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 the truth about the ad to the dating agency and that someone must have broken into his computer and read the letter. But he didn't say any of these things. In his defence, at least what he tried to tell himself, the most important thing was finding Modin.
At this point the door opened and Nyberg came in. His pyjama top peeked out from under his anorak.
"What the hell happened?" he said. "Hansson called from Malm枚 and seemed to be out of his mind. Impossible to understand a single word he was saying."
"Sit down," Wallander said. "It's going to be a long night."
Then he nodded to H枚glund, who summarised the situation for Nyberg.
"Don't the Malm枚 police have their own forensic team?" Nyberg said.
"I want you to go there," Wallander said. "Not only in case anything else turns up, but also because I need to 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 from all this and it is quite simple: something else is going to happen. And this something is somehow rooted here in Ystad." He looked at Martinsson.
"I take it someone is still stationed outside Runnerstr枚ms Torg?"
"No, the surveillance has been called off."
"On whose instructions?"
"Viktorsson