Original blueprint of the Ystad power substation

The Original blueprint of the Ystad power substation is the most consequential object found in Tynnes Falk’s concealed attic office: an apparently authentic technical plan of the site where Sonja Hökberg was killed. Its presence beside Falk’s computer redirects the investigation toward his work and the security of the power company, but does not settle whether he obtained the document himself, why he possessed it, or what he planned to do with it.

Description and Identification

The blueprint is a sheet of paper lying on a desk next to Falk’s large computer. Kurt Wallander first recognizes it under the desk lamp, after initially needing a moment to make out what the plan represents. It shows the power substation where Sonja Hökberg was killed. The identification gives the otherwise technical-looking document an immediate connection to a murder scene, and makes its location beside Falk’s computer difficult to dismiss as incidental.

Nyberg examines the sheet with a magnifying glass and judges it to be an original, while qualifying that assessment: he is not completely certain, but considers it almost certainly genuine. That distinction matters. The document’s importance rests not merely on its subject but on its possible status as an original rather than an ordinary copy. At this stage, however, the examination establishes a strong probability, not conclusive proof of authenticity.

Discovery in Falk’s Office

Wallander finds the blueprint in a nearly empty room on the attic floor of a turn-of-the-century building on Runnerströms Torg. The room has a reinforced steel door and contains a desk, chair, computer, lamp, and telephone. Wallander notices the conspicuous absences as well: no shelves, binders, books, or even a pen. In this sparse space, the substation plan stands out as one of very few physical traces of Falk’s work.

The discovery follows Wallander’s entry into the room and his recognition that it is where Falk worked. A large computer and an unusual security door suggest a protected working space, but the blueprint supplies the more specific clue. Wallander carefully lays it back beside the computer rather than disturbing the scene, then considers calling Martinsson or Höglund. He hesitates because he wants to understand how the evidence fits together before involving them, and because he does not dare start the computer himself.

The object does not arrive as an isolated clue in a fully understood case. Wallander is already confronting a series of unsettled facts: Falk died beside an ATM, his body disappeared from the morgue, and now a plan of the murder location has surfaced in a room apparently used for Falk’s work. The blueprint gives those facts a possible point of connection, but Wallander cannot yet see a pattern. Its placement creates an investigative question rather than answering one.

Examination and Provenance

Nyberg comes to the attic room that evening, despite having worked for several days with little sleep. He is asked to look for fingerprints and secret compartments; photography and videotaping can wait until morning. His initial close inspection identifies the plan as almost certainly an original. The scene therefore shifts from Wallander’s first, intuitive recognition to a preliminary forensic assessment, while leaving formal documentation for later.

Nyberg explains why the document’s provenance may matter. He has discussed security procedures at the power company with Andersson and understands that making a copy should have been virtually impossible; stealing the original should have been even harder. If the blueprint came from inside the company, its presence could open a new avenue of investigation. That is a conditional inference, not a finding that anyone stole it from the company. The source remains unknown, and the account supplies no definitive record of when or how the plan reached Falk’s desk.

Falk’s Work and the Unanswered Questions

Wallander tests the discovery against what he can learn from Siv Eriksson, Falk’s colleague and fellow consultant. When he shows her the blueprint, she says she does not think she would know what a power substation was. Wallander explains that the structure lies outside Ystad and belongs to Sydkraft Power. Eriksson recalls that Falk had worked for Sydkraft Power some years earlier, but says she was not involved in that work. Her recollection establishes a possible professional connection between Falk and the utility, not an explanation for his possession of the document.

Eriksson’s limited knowledge also fits the wider uncertainty around Falk’s working life. She says that she learned only after about a year of working with him that he had a family, and that he used her address for post, though letters addressed to him never arrived there; she received only junk mail for him. She did not know of the substation work and cannot account for the blueprint. Wallander asks her to list Falk’s clients and projects over the previous two years, including work undertaken alone and work they shared, while noting that Falk may have had projects she did not know about. The plan consequently becomes part of a broader effort to reconstruct a professional life that was only partly visible to his colleague.

Investigative Significance

The blueprint’s evidentiary force is real but bounded. It links Falk’s hidden office to the substation where Sonja Hökberg was killed, and Nyberg’s assessment raises the possibility that Falk possessed a difficult-to-obtain original. Yet the document alone does not show that Falk entered the substation, stole the plan, or had any role in Hökberg’s death. Nyberg explicitly notes that Falk died before she was murdered, a chronological fact that prevents the plan’s discovery from being treated as proof that Falk killed her.

The object thus changes the direction of inquiry without closing it. Its apparent authenticity raises questions about access and security; its location beside the computer associates it with Falk’s concealed work; Eriksson’s account offers a past connection to Sydkraft Power but no direct knowledge of the project. The blueprint makes Falk’s secretive professional world materially present on the desk, while leaving the central questions of provenance, purpose, and connection unresolved.