Firewall - By Henning Mankell & Ebba Segerberg Page 0,37
whisky back in the plastic bag.
"Could you call a taxi for me?"
"Are you going already?"
"I think I am."
A wave of disappointment ran over Widén's face. Wallander felt the same. Their friendship had come to an end. Or rather: they had finally discovered that it had ended a long time ago.
"I'll take you home."
"No," Wallander said. "You've been drinking yourself."
Widén didn't argue. He went over to the phone and called the taxi company.
"It'll be here in ten minutes."
They went out. It was a clear autumn evening with no wind.
"What did we expect?" Widén said suddenly. "When we were young, I mean."
"I've forgotten. But I'm not the kind to look back very often. I have enough on my plate with the present, and my worries for the future."
In time the taxi arrived.
"Make sure you write and tell me what happens," Wallander said.
"Will do."
Wallander climbed into the back seat. The car drove through the darkness of Ystad.
Wallander had just stepped into his flat when the phone rang. It was Höglund.
"Are you home now? I've tried to call you a million times. Why isn't your mobile turned on?"
"What's happened?"
"I tried the coroner's office in Lund again. I spoke to the pathologist. He didn't want to be held to this, but he's found something. Hökberg had a skull fracture in the back of the head."
"Was she dead when she hit the power lines?"
"Maybe not, but probably unconscious."
"Could she have somehow hurt herself?"
"He was pretty sure it could not have been self-inflicted."
"That settles it," Wallander said. "She was murdered."
"Haven't we known that all along?"
"No," Wallander said. "We suspected it, but we haven't known it until now."
Somewhere in the background a child started crying. Höglund was in a hurry to get off the phone. They arranged to meet at 8 a.m. the next day.
Wallander sat at the kitchen table. He thought about Widén and Hökberg, but above all about Persson.
She must know, he thought. She does know who killed Sonja Hökberg.
CHAPTER TEN
Wallander was catapulted from sleep at around 5 a.m. on Thursday. As soon as he opened his eyes in the dark he knew what had awakened him. It was something that had slipped his mind: his promise to Höglund. Today was the day he was supposed to give a talk at the Ystad women's literary society about life as a police officer.
He lay paralysed in the darkness. How could he have forgotten about it so completely? He had nothing prepared, not even scribbled notes. He felt the anxiety settle in his stomach. The women he was going to address would almost certainly have seen the pictures of Eva Persson. And Höglund must have called them by now to tell them he was speaking in her place.
I can't do it, he thought. All they are going to see is a brutal man who assaulted a little girl. Not the person I actually am. Whoever that is.
As he lay in bed he tried to plot a way out of his dilemma, but he soon realised there was no escaping this time. He got up at 5.30 a.m. and sat down at the kitchen table with a pad of paper in front of him. He wrote the word Lecture at the top of the page. He asked himself what Rydberg would have told a group of women about his work. But in the back of his mind he suspected that Rydberg would never have allowed himself to be roped into something like this in the first place.
By 6 a.m., he had still only written this one word. He was about to give up when he had a sudden thought. He could tell them about what they were involved in right now: the investigation of the taxi driver's death. He could even start by telling them about Stefan Fredman's funeral. A few days in a policeman's life – the way it really was, without any editing. He made a few notes. He wouldn't be able to avoid the incident with the photographer and so his speech could seem like a defence. But in a way of course it was. It was a chance for him to tell it the way it had happened.
He put down his pen at 6.15 a.m. He was still anxious about the evening, but no longer felt quite so helpless. He called the garage and asked about his car. The conversation was depressing. Apparently they were considering taking the engine apart. The clerk promised to call him with a quote later in the day.