The ransacking of Tynnes Falk’s flat at 10 Apelbergsgatan makes the unexplained death of the computer consultant look less like a closed matter and more like a deliberate concealment. When Kurt Wallander and Martinsson arrive with Marianne Falk, they find the door forced and the rooms violently disturbed. The intruders have taken at least two items Wallander had seen during an earlier visit: Falk’s diary and a photograph of a group of men. Their disappearance suggests that the search was not indiscriminate—and that someone may have been watching Wallander.

Discovery and Entry

Marianne Falk is waiting outside the building when Wallander and Martinsson arrive. She has been told that Tynnes Falk’s body is missing, and her anger at the police’s failure is immediate. As she leads them upstairs, Wallander stops Martinsson before they reach the flat: the door stands wide open, and the locks Wallander had carefully tried not to disturb on his previous visit have been broken, apparently with a crowbar.

The possibility that someone is still inside changes the approach. Wallander sends Marianne to wait in her car while Martinsson calls for backup. They remain still on the stairs until Hansson arrives with three other officers. Wallander takes a gun from one of them; his hand shakes slightly as he and Hansson call into the flat. An old woman opens a door behind them, startling Wallander, but the officers eventually enter without meeting an intruder. The flat is empty.

The Ransacked Flat and Missing Items

The disorder is unmistakable. Drawers have been pulled out and emptied onto the floor, paintings hang askew, and a record collection lies broken across the room. Wallander asks that the scene be disturbed as little as possible and calls for Nyberg’s forensic team. He also orders the flat videotaped and examined in detail, including its answering machine, while Martinsson goes to speak with the neighbours.

At first Wallander senses only that something has changed. Looking again at the desk, he realizes what is missing: the photograph of a group of men standing against a white stone wall. He searches among the papers scattered on the floor but cannot find it. The diary is gone as well. These are not merely signs of a flat searched; they are objects Wallander knows were there, and whose absence links the break-in to his own earlier visit.

An Intruder’s Knowledge and the Investigation

Wallander concludes that someone knew he had been in the flat. He remembers looking out of the windows during his previous visit, although he had seen no one. The ransacking therefore raises a question beyond what the intruders wanted from Falk: had they observed Wallander entering and leaving, and did they return because they knew he had found something?

The neighbours initially offer no answer. A woman across the street, a widow named Håkansson, has seen or heard nothing unusual. Wallander nevertheless insists that Martinsson speak to everyone in the building, emphasizing that the investigation must be done carefully. He also asks the forensic officer to examine the answering machine and the whole flat, not just the conspicuous damage. The search is still open-ended, but the missing objects give it a specific focus.

Falk’s Secrets and the Case’s Wider Pattern

Marianne Falk’s account deepens the uncertainty. She and Tynnes had remained on good terms after their divorce, and she had visited the flat, but she says he changed and that she no longer knew what he thought or did. She believes she could identify an obviously missing lamp or painting, yet admits that Tynnes had many secrets. Asked about a diary, she says he never kept one. Wallander, however, has already seen the diary that is now missing: her certainty and his direct knowledge do not agree.

The break-in follows a chain of unexplained events surrounding Falk. He was found dead beside a cash machine with his wallet and money still present; the blood-spattered receipt in his hand recorded a balance inquiry at 12:02 a.m., not a withdrawal. The police initially treated the death as probably natural, pending further findings. Later, his body was removed from the morgue and an electrical relay from the Ystad power substation was left in its place. Against that background, the removal of the diary and group photograph makes the flat another point in a developing pattern of concealment. The intruders’ precise purpose remains unconfirmed, but their choice of objects and apparent awareness of Wallander’s visit turn the ransacked rooms into evidence of a case reaching beyond Falk’s death.