Firewall - By Henning Mankell & Ebba Segerberg Page 0,25

short-circuited the entire region."

"Are you serious?"

"You heard me. Something must have gone wrong with the relay safety."

"We'll call the police. You stay where you are. We'll try to reconnect the power grid to bypass you."

The radio went dead. Andersson realised he was shaking. He couldn't believe what had happened. What could drive a person to go down to a power substation and kill themselves with high-voltage electrical current? It was like choosing execution by the electric chair. He felt sick to his stomach and tried to keep himself from throwing up by walking back to the car.

The wind was still gusting and it had started to rain.

The police in Ystad were alerted shortly after midnight. The officer who took the call from Sydkraft wrote down the information and made a quick decision. Since a death was involved he called Hansson, the senior officer on duty. He said he'd drive out right away. He had a candle by the phone. He knew Martinsson's number by heart. It took Martinsson a while to answer. He was sound asleep and had no idea that the power was off. He listened to what Hansson had to say and knew it was a serious matter. When the conversation was over he called Wallander.

Wallander had fallen asleep on the sofa while he had been waiting for the power to come back on. When the phone rang and woke him up it was still dark. He knocked the phone down on the floor as he was reaching for the receiver.

"It's Martinsson. Hansson just called me."

Wallander sensed that something serious had happened. He held his breath.

"A body has been found on one of Sydkraft's stations outside Ystad."

"Is that why there's no power?"

"I don't know. But I thought you should be notified, even if you are sick."

Wallander swallowed. His throat was still sore, but his temperature was normal.

"My car has broken down," he said. "You'll have to pick me up."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

"Make that five," Wallander said. "If it's true, the whole region is without power."

He got dressed in the dark and went down to wait on the street. It was raining. Martinsson was there in seven minutes. They drove through the dark city. Hansson was waiting by one of the roundabouts on the outskirts of town.

"It's one of the substations north of the waste-management plant," Martinsson said.

Wallander knew where it was. He had been on a walk once in a forest close by, when Baiba had been visiting.

"What happened exactly?"

"I don't know any details. Sydkraft made an emergency call claiming to have found a dead body out there when they were investigating the power cut."

"Is it affecting a large area?"

"According to Hansson a quarter of Skåne is without power."

Wallander looked at him in disbelief. Blackouts were rarely so extensive. It happened occasionally after a big winter storm. It had happened after the hurricane in the autumn of 1996. But not when the weather was like this.

They turned off the main road. It was raining more heavily now. Martinsson's windscreen wipers were on full. Wallander regretted not having brought his raincoat or the boots that he kept in the back of the car now stuck down at the station.

Hansson stopped his car. Flashlights were on in the dark. Wallander saw a man in overalls who was gesturing for them to follow him.

"This is a high-voltage station," Martinsson said. "It won't be a pretty sight."

They stepped out into the rain. The wind was stronger here in the open fields. The man who came towards them was clearly shaken. Wallander no longer had any doubts that something serious had occurred.

"In there," the man said and pointed behind him.

Wallander went ahead. The rain whipped him in the face and made it hard to see. Martinsson and Hansson were somewhere behind him. Their shaken guide was walking to one side.

"In there," he repeated, when they stopped in front of the transformer building.

"Is anything still live in there?" Wallander asked. "I mean the power lines."

"Nothing. Not any more."

Wallander took Martinsson's torch and went in. He could smell it now, the stench of scorched human flesh. It was a smell he had never been able to get used to, although he had been exposed to it on frequent occasions when houses burned down and people were trapped inside. Hansson will probably be sick, Wallander thought, vaguely. He can't take the smell of burned bodies.

The corpse was completely blackened and sooty. The face was gone. It was trapped in a mess of lines, switches