Firewall - By Henning Mankell & Ebba Segerberg Page 0,178

do anything to get where you want to go."

Martinsson was calm. Wallander thought that his words seemed well rehearsed. "I can only tell you how it is. You have lost your grip and the only thing I'm guilty of is that I didn't say this earlier."

"Why didn't you tell me to my face?"

"I tried to, but you don't listen."

"I do listen."

"You think you do, but that's not the same thing as really listening."

"Why did you tell Holgersson that I had ordered you not to follow me into the field that time?"

"She must have misunderstood what I said."

Wallander looked at Martinsson. The urge to punch him in the face was still there, but he knew he wouldn't do anything of the sort. He didn't have the energy. He was not going to be able to shake Martinsson. The man seemed to believe his own lies. At the very least he would not be able to get him to change his official line.

"Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"No," Wallander said. "I have nothing else to say."

Martinsson got up and left. Wallander felt as if the walls had come tumbling down around him. Martinsson had made his choice and their friendship was gone, broken off. Wallander wondered with growing despondency if it had ever really been there in the first place. Or had Martinsson always been waiting for his opportunity to strike?

Waves of grief washed over him. And then there came a wave of rage. He was not going to give up. For the next few years at least he would remain in charge of the most complicated investigations in Ystad. But the feeling of having lost something was stronger than his rage. He asked himself again how he would have the energy to carry on.

Wallander left the station directly after his conversation with Martinsson. He left his mobile in his office and didn't tell Irene anything about where he was going or when he would be back. He got into his car and took the road to Malm枚. As he was approaching the exit for Stj盲rnsund he decided to take it. He didn't know why. Perhaps the thought of two broken friendships was too much to bear.

Wallander's thoughts often returned to Elvira. She had entered his life under false pretences and in the final analysis he suspected she would even have been prepared to kill him. But he could not stop himself from thinking about her the way he himself had actually experienced her. A woman at a dinner table who had listened to what he had to say. A woman with beautiful legs who had dispelled his loneliness for a brief time.

When he turned into Sten Wid茅n's ranch it looked abandoned. Wid茅n had put up a "For Sale" sign some time ago, but now there was on top of it a "Sold" sign. The house was empty. Wallander walked to the stables. The horses had gone. A lone cat sat in a pile of hay and looked at him suspiciously.

Wallander found it upsetting. Sten Wid茅n had left already and he had not even bothered to say goodbye.

Wallander drove away from the stables as fast as he could.

The following day, he did not go into the office. He drove in circles on the small roads around Ystad all afternoon. From time to time he got out and stared over the barren fields. At dusk he started driving back. He stopped at the grocer's on the way back and paid his bill. That evening he listened to the whole score of Verdi's La Traviata twice in a row. He also spoke to Gertrud over the phone and they arranged that he would stop by in the morning.

The phone rang shortly before midnight. Wallander jumped. Oh God, not again, he thought. Don't let anything have happened. Not now, not yet. None of us can handle it.

It was Baiba calling from Riga. It had been about a year since they had spoken last. "I just wanted to see how you were doing," she said.

"I'm fine. How about you?"

"Fine."

The silence bounced from Ystad to Riga and back again.

"Do you ever think about me?" he asked.

"Of course. Why would I have called otherwise?"

"I was just wondering."

"And you?"

"I think about you all the time."

Wallander knew she would see through him. He was lying, or at least exaggerating. He didn't know why exactly. Baiba was something that was over, that was fading. But he could not altogether let go of the thought of her, or of