Firewall - By Henning Mankell & Ebba Segerberg Page 0,18

on the glass table.

"Do you mind if I tear off a piece?"

"Can't the police afford office supplies any more?"

"That's a good question. As it happens I've forgotten my notebook."

Wallander used a magazine as a pad. He saw that it was an English-language financial magazine.

"Do you mind if I ask you what you do for a living?"

The answer was a surprise.

"I play the stock market."

"I see. What does that entail?"

"I trade stocks, options, foreign currency. I also place some bets, mainly English cricket games. Sometimes American baseball."

"So you mean you gamble?"

"Not the usual kind. I never place bets on horses. But I suppose you can call trading stocks a form of gambling."

"And you do all this from home?"

Hökberg got up and gestured for Wallander to follow him. When he walked into the adjoining room Wallander paused in the doorway. There was not simply one television in this room, there were three. Various numbers flashed past in a dark ribbon on the bottom of the screens. On one wall there was a series of clocks showing the time in various parts of the world. It was like walking into an air-traffic control tower.

"People always say technology has made the world smaller," Hökberg said. "I think that's debatable. But the fact that it's made my world bigger is beyond dispute. From this flimsy townhouse at the edge of Ystad, I can reach all the markets in the whole world. I can connect to betting centres in London or Rome. I can buy options on the Hong Kong market and sell American dollars in Jakarta."

"Is it really so simple?"

"Not altogether. You need permits, good contacts and knowledge. But when I step into this room I'm in the middle of the world. Whenever I choose. Strength and vulnerability go hand in hand."

They returned to the living room.

"I would like to see Sonja's room," Wallander said.

Hökberg accompanied him up the stairs. They walked past a room that Wallander assumed belonged to their boy, Emil. Hökberg pointed to a door.

"I'll wait downstairs," he said. "If you don't need me, that is."

"No, I'll be fine."

Wallander heard Hökberg's heavy steps going down the stairs. He pushed open the door. There was a sloping ceiling in the room and one of the windows was ajar. A thin curtain wafted in the draught. Wallander knew from long experience that the first impression was often the most valuable. A closer examination could reveal dramatic details that were not immediately visible, but the first impression was something he always came back to.

A person lived here in this room. She was the one he was looking for. The bed was made, heaped with pink and flowery cushions. On one of the walls there was a shelf full of teddy bears. There was a mirror on the wardrobe door and a thick rug on the floor. There was a desk by the window, but there was nothing on its top. Wallander stood in the doorway for a long time and looked into the room. This was where Sonja Hökberg lived. He entered the room, kneeled by the bed and looked underneath it. There was a thin covering of dust everywhere except in one spot where an object had left an outline of itself. Wallander shivered. He suspected it was the spot where the hammer had been found. He got up and opened the drawers of the desk. None of them was locked. There weren't even any locks. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for. Maybe a diary or some photographs. But there was nothing in the desk that caught his attention. He sat down on the bed and thought about his meeting with the girl.

There was something that had struck him as soon as he saw her room from the doorway.

Something which didn't add up. Hökberg and her room didn't go together. He couldn't imagine her here among all the pink cushions and the teddy bears. But it was her room. He tried to work out what it could mean. Which was closer to the truth – the indifferent girl he had met at the police station, or the room where she had lived and hidden a hammer under her bed?

Many years ago Rydberg had taught him how to listen: each room has its own life and breath. You have to listen for it. A room can tell you many secrets about the person who lives there.

At first Wallander had been sceptical about Rydberg's advice, but in time he had come to realise