Skåne is the regional setting for a power blackout that turns an otherwise ordinary cash-machine queue into a vivid demonstration of how dependent daily life is on electrical infrastructure. The outage also becomes a central investigative clue: Kurt Wallander suspects that the attack was deliberate and that the region’s vulnerabilities may connect the deaths of Sonja Hökberg and Tynnes Falk to a larger plan.

A Region Exposed by the Blackout

Wallander recalls that the blackout cut power to most of Skåne. Its scale suggests that whoever caused it knew where to strike for the widest effect. The outage is not presented as an isolated technical failure but as evidence of a weakness in systems on which many places and services depend.

The regional crisis takes on a concrete, everyday dimension at a cash machine. After withdrawing money and reading the printed account balance, Wallander watches other customers carry out the same routine. He realizes that the machine, like the wider electrical network, depends on power that could be disrupted by a targeted attack. His thoughts widen from the cash machine to air traffic, trains, water supplies, and electricity: services that could all be brought to a halt if an attacker found the right point of vulnerability.

The Substation and the Sabotage Hypothesis

The Ystad power substation provides a specific focus for Wallander’s growing suspicion. He connects the blackout to the blueprint in Falk’s office and to an electrical relay found in the morgue, concluding that these details are unlikely to be coincidences. In this emerging interpretation, Skåne’s outage is part of a planned act of sabotage rather than an event separate from the murders.

Wallander considers whether Hökberg was killed to keep her quiet and whether Falk’s fingers were cut off to prevent information from coming to light. He also wonders whether the release of minks, in which Falk had been involved, foreshadowed a more consequential action against essential infrastructure. These are investigative hypotheses, not settled explanations: he continues to recognize that Lundberg’s murder may fall outside the larger pattern and that the case may not yet hold together.

Regional Stakes and Unresolved Questions

The blackout changes the scale of the investigation. Wallander’s concern is no longer limited to identifying who killed particular individuals; he begins to consider how knowledge of a vulnerable point in the power network could put an entire region and its connected services at risk. The image of a black hood drawn over Skåne captures the breadth of the interruption, while the ordinary cash machine shows how such a crisis reaches into routine transactions.

The regional threat remains unresolved as the investigation proceeds. Wallander asks how Falk obtained the substation blueprint and why he wanted it, while Martinsson agrees that sabotage cannot be ruled out. Their concern is sharpened by the recurring importance of the number 20, which might refer to October 20, though they have no confirmation. Skåne thus functions both as the site of a demonstrated infrastructure failure and as the uncertain scope of a possible attack whose intended reach has yet to be established.