Backåkra Shootout and Hua Gang’s Suicide

The Backåkra shootout brings Kurt Wallander face to face with the gunman behind several killings and turns a search in the fog into a near-fatal confrontation. The attacker’s suicide ends the immediate pursuit, but does not resolve why the crimes occurred or fully explain the organization surrounding Tynnes Falk.

The Search in the Fog

Wallander goes to Backåkra looking for Robert Modin while Ann-Britt Höglund searches near Sandhammaren. Carrying a shotgun borrowed from Axel Modin, he finds the grounds deserted and secured; fog makes the small meditation garden difficult to approach and the distances around it hard to judge. When Höglund reports that Modin’s car is nowhere near her, Wallander remains convinced the young man is still in the area. A different car’s engine draws him away from the path, and he circles back cautiously rather than approach it directly.

At the car park he recognizes a dark blue Mercedes van: the vehicle connected to the return of Tynnes Falk’s body to the cash machine. Its driver’s door is open, but Wallander sees no one. He considers that the occupants may be looking for Modin—or may have followed him. At that moment Elvira Lindfeldt calls to arrange a date for the next day. Wallander cannot speak freely and switches off his phone, then briefly wonders whether the timing is more than coincidence. The suspicion passes as a product of exhaustion and his growing sense that colleagues are conspiring against him. As the phone slips from his hand, he bends to catch it; a shot explodes above and behind him. That movement saves his life.

The Shot and the Police Response

The first shot comes from behind and above Wallander, but the fog conceals the shooter. He drops and crawls away, then forces himself to stop, kneel with the shotgun ready, and listen. Unsure where the attacker is—or where he has left his phone and car—he fires into the air and moves toward the fence. The shot brings sirens closer. Fear gives way to anger: this is the second time in a few days that someone has tried to shoot him. Still, he thinks tactically. The Mercedes van is at the car park entrance, and the gunman has only one way out by vehicle; a man fleeing on foot will be harder to catch.

Hansson arrives with the first patrol car, and Wallander gives a brief account before warning that no one should enter the grounds without proper protection. The officers put on vests and helmets and erect a barrier; Ann-Britt Höglund and Martinsson join them. At one o’clock on Saturday, October 18, Martinsson reports that the fog should soon lift. While the group waits, Wallander borrows Hansson’s phone and begins to call Elvira, but hangs up before she answers. The fog finally disperses at half past one, revealing Martinsson’s car and the van, but no driver. Wallander retrieves his mobile and concludes that the gunman escaped on foot. A search of the van yields no clue to the driver’s identity, while two dog units begin following a scent toward the water.

The Pursuit and the Gunman’s Death

That evening, a dog walker’s report led the police to a man hiding in a small patch of woods north of Sandhammaren. He wore what appeared to be a black raincoat. Wallander had left Modin in Elvira Lindfeldt’s care and hurried to the search area, where Martinsson, Hansson, and several officers in protective gear were trying to contain the suspect. A radio message placed the man near a patrol car; then two shots rang out, followed by an officer’s report that the suspect was shooting at them. Wallander and Hansson reached the car to find El Sayed and Elofsson shaken but unharmed. The gunman was among trees across the road, beyond which a path led down to the sea.

The search became more perilous as the officers tried to surround him in the dark. Wallander called for a helicopter with powerful spotlights, but the team had to take position before it could approach. Another shot came from the left. Then Wallander thought he saw a shadow cross the road and run into a field. He judged that if the man reached the larger stretch of forest, he would be much harder to corner. Taking Martinsson’s car, Wallander swung its headlights across the field. The beam caught the fleeing figure, who turned and raised an arm. Wallander ducked as a bullet shattered the windscreen; a second shot destroyed a headlight, leaving the field darker. When the man kept running, Wallander set off after him rather than wait for the perimeter to close. Mud swallowed one shoe, and he tore off the other to move more easily over the ploughed ground.

About thirty-five metres from the gunman, Wallander saw him stumble and search the mud for his weapon. Wallander ran toward him, but slipped and fell face-first. The man recovered the gun and aimed. Wallander squeezed his trigger twice, but his own weapon failed to fire. He threw himself into the mud as a shot went off. For a moment, lying in the cold clay without his shoes, he believed he was about to die and saw his ambitions ending in what seemed a pointless death. The approaching helicopter gave him reason to look up. The gunman lay on his back, arms spread; he had shot himself in the temple. The shot that Wallander had feared was meant for him had not struck him. Wallander was overcome by nausea and dizziness, then began to shake in his wet clothes.

The dead man was the intruder Wallander had encountered in Tynnes Falk’s flat, and the person who had twice tried to kill him. Wallander believed he was also responsible for dragging Sonja Hökberg to the power substation and throwing Jonas Landahl into the Polish ferry’s propeller shaft. Those conclusions made the man’s death a relief, but did not settle the unanswered questions about his identity or the crimes. Wallander thought the immediate danger to his colleagues and Modin had passed; the narration makes clear that this confidence was mistaken. When Holgersson later asked why the events had happened, Wallander could offer no motive: he said that Falk, or what was in Falk’s computer, lay at the centre of the case.

Identification and Limits of the Resolution

The gunman’s identity was established only afterward. Police in Hong Kong identified him as Hua Gang, the real name of Fu Cheng, whose fingerprints Interpol had linked to crimes including bank robberies in Frankfurt and Marseilles. Wallander suspected that money from those robberies had financed parts of the operation, though he could not prove it. Hua Gang had long been involved in organized crime and had been suspected in murder cases in Europe and Asia without ever being convicted.

The investigation confirmed that Hua Gang had killed Sonja Hökberg and Jonas Landahl: fingerprints and witness reports supported both conclusions. But the Backåkra confrontation did not explain why Hökberg had been taken to the power substation, nor did it settle the full structure of the crimes. Hua Gang had acted under Carter’s direction and perhaps Falk’s, leaving the gunman’s death as the end of the immediate pursuit rather than a complete account of the conspiracy. With Carter and Falk out of the picture, the organization was judged essentially defunct, even as its reach and workings remained to be mapped.