The Man Who Smiled

Chapter 12

The hurricane-force gusts that had hit Skåne slowly moved away.

Kurt Wallander had spent another sleepless night in his apartment. By dawn the storm seemed to be over. Several times during the night he had stood at his kitchen window, watching the light hanging over the street writhing around in the wind like a snake.

Wallander had returned from the strange stage-set world of Farnholm Castle with the sense of having been put down. The smiling Dr. Harderberg had made him play the same obsequious role his father had performed before the Silk Knights when he was a child. As he watched the storm raging outside, he thought about how Farnholm Castle was but a variation of the sleek American cars that had swayed to a halt outside the house in Malmö where he had grown up. The loud-voiced Pole in his silk suit was a distant relation of the man in the castle with the soundproof library. Wallander had sat in Harderberg’s leather armchair, invisible cap in hand, and afterward he had the feeling of having been vanquished.

OK, that was an exaggeration. He had done what he set out to do, asked his questions, met the man with so much power whom so few people had ever seen, and he had put Harderberg’s fears at rest, he was sure of that. Harderberg had no reason to think that he was considered anything but a prominent citizen beyond suspicion.

At the same time Wallander was convinced now that they were on the right track, that they had overturned the stone which hid the secret of why the two lawyers had been murdered, and under that stone he had seen Alfred Harderberg’s image. What he would have to do now was not merely wipe that smile off the man’s face, he also had to slay a giant.

Over and over through that sleepless night he had replayed his conversation with Harderberg. He had pictured his face and tried to interpret the slight shifts in that silent smile, the way one tries to crack a secret code. Once he had hovered on the brink of an abyss, he was certain of that. This was when he had asked Harderberg who had recommended Gustaf Torstensson to him. The smile had shown signs of cracking, if only for a second, no doubt about it. So there were moments when Harderberg could not avoid being human, vulnerable, exposed. But there again, it did not necessarily mean much. It might just have been the momentary and irresistible weariness of the ever-busy world traveler, the barely discernible weakness of a man who no longer had the strength to put on a polite front while allowing himself to be questioned by this insignificant police officer from Ystad.

Wallander believed that this was where he would make the first move if he was going to slay the giant, wipe that smile off his face, and discover the truth behind the death of the two lawyers. He had no doubt that the skillful and persistent officers in the fraud squad would uncover information that would be useful to them in the investigation. But as the night wore on Wallander had become increasingly convinced that it was Harderberg himself who would put them on the right track. Somewhere, sometime, the man with the smile would leave a trail which would enable them to hunt him down and use what they found to finish him off.

Wallander knew that it had not been Harderberg himself who had committed the murders. Nor had he planted the mine in Mrs. Dunér’s garden. Or been in the car that had followed Wallander and Höglund to Helsingborg. Nor put the explosives in the gas tank. Wallander had noticed that Harderberg had repeatedly said we and us. Like a king, or a crown prince. But also like a man who knew the importance of surrounding himself with loyal colleagues who never questioned the instructions they were given.

It seemed to Wallander that this trait also applied to Gustaf Torstensson, and he could understand why Harderberg had chosen to include him among his staff. He could expect total loyalty from Torstensson. Torstensson would always understand that his place at table was below the salt. Harderberg had presented him with an opportunity he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams.

Maybe it’s as simple as that, Wallander thought as he watched the swaying street light. Maybe Gustaf Torstensson had discovered something he would not or could not accept? Had he also discovered a crack in that smile? A crack which gave him occasion to confront himself with the unpleasant role he had in fact been playing?

From time to time Wallander had left the window and sat at his kitchen table. Written his thoughts on a notepad and tried to make sense of them.

At 5 a.m. he had made himself a cup of coffee. Then he had gone to bed and dozed until 6:30. Got up again, showered, and had another cup of coffee. Then he had made his way to the police station at 7:30. The storm had given way to a clear blue sky, and it felt distinctly colder. Although he had hardly slept, he felt full of energy as he stepped into his office. Second wind, he had thought on his way to the station. We’re no longer feeling our way into an investigation, we’re in the thick of it. He flung his jacket over the back of the visitor’s chair, got a cup of coffee, phoned Ebba in reception, and asked her to get hold of Nyberg for him. While he was waiting he read through his summary of the conversation with Harderberg. Svedberg stuck his head in the door and asked how it had gone.

“You’ll hear all about it shortly,” Wallander said. “But I do think the murders and all the rest of it originate from Farnholm Castle.”

“Ann-Britt phoned to say she would be going straight to Ängelholm,” Svedberg said. “To meet Lars Borman’s widow and children.”

“How’s her progress with Harderberg’s jet?”

“She didn’t mention that,” Svedberg said. “I suppose it will take a while.”

“I feel so impatient,” Wallander said. “I wonder why?”

“You always have been. And you’re the only one who doesn’t seem to be aware of it,” Svedberg said as he left.

As soon as Nyberg came in, Wallander could see that something was up. He asked him to close the door behind him.

“You were right,” Nyberg said. “The plastic container we were examining the other night is hardly the sort of thing that belongs in a lawyer’s car.”

Wallander waited expectantly.

“You were also right in thinking it was a sort of cooler. But it’s not for medicine or blood. It’s for body organs intended for transplants. A kidney, for instance.”

Wallander looked at him thoughtfully. “Are you sure?”

“If I’m not sure, I’ll tell you,” Nyberg said.

“I know,” Wallander said, brushing Nyberg’s annoyance aside.

“This is a very advanced kind of plastic container. There aren’t a lot of them around, so it should be possible to track it down. If what I’ve managed to find out so far is correct, the sole importers into Sweden are a company based in Södertälje called Avanca. I’m about to investigate further.”

“Good,” Wallander said. “One other thing—don’t forget to find out who owns the company.”

“I take it you want to know whether Avanca is a part of Harderberg’s empire?”

“That would be a start,” Wallander said.

Nyberg paused in the doorway. “What do you know about organ transplants?”

“Not a lot,” Wallander said. “I know they happen, that they’re getting more common, and that more organs are being transplanted. For myself, I hope I never have to have one. It must be very strange to have somebody else’s heart in your body.”

“I spoke to a Dr. Strömberg in Lund,” Nyberg said. “He gave me some significant insights. He says there’s a side to transplants that’s murky, to say the least. It’s not just that poor people in the Third World sell their own organs out of desperation to survive—obviously that’s a business with lots of gray areas, from a moral point of view anyway. He also hinted at something much worse.”

Wallander looked questioningly at Nyberg.

“Go on,” he said, “I’ve got time.”

“It was beyond me,” Nyberg said, “but Strömberg persuaded me that there’s no limit to what some people are prepared to do to earn money.”

“Surely you know that already?” Wallander said.

Nyberg sat down on Wallander’s visitor’s chair.

“Like so much else, there’s no proof,” he said, “but Strömberg maintains that there are gangs in South America and Asia who take orders for particular organs, then go out and commit murder to get them.”

Wallander said nothing.

“He said this practice is more widespread than anybody suspects. There are even rumors that it goes on in Eastern Europe and in the U.S. A kidney doesn’t have a face, it doesn’t have an individual identity. Somebody kills a child in South America and extends the life of someone in the West whose parents can afford to pay and don’t want to wait in line. The murderers earn serious money.”

“It can’t be easy to extract an organ,” Wallander said. “That means there must be doctors involved.”

“Who’s to say that doctors are any different from the rest of us when it comes to morals?”

“I find it difficult to believe,” Wallander said.

“I expect everybody does,” Nyberg said. “That’s why the gangs can continue to operate in peace and quiet.”

He took a notebook out of his pocket and thumbed through the pages.

“The doctor gave me the name of a journalist who’s digging into this,” he said. “A woman. Her name’s Lisbeth Norin. She lives in Gothenburg and writes for several popular-science magazines.”

Wallander made a note. “Let’s think an outrageous thought,” he said, looking Nyberg in the eye. “Let’s suppose that Alfred Harderberg goes around killing people and selling their kidneys or whatever on the black market that apparently exists. And let’s suppose that Gustaf Torstensson somehow or other discovered that. And took the cooler with him as proof. Let’s think that outrageous thought.”

Nyberg stared at Wallander, eyebrows raised. “Are you serious?”

“Of course not,” Wallander said. “I’m just posing an outrageous thought.”

Nyberg stood up to leave. “I’ll see if I can trace that container,” he said. “I’ll make that the number-one priority.”

When he had gone Wallander went to the window and thought over what Nyberg had said. He told himself that it really was an outrageous thought. Harderberg was a man who donated money for research. Especially for illnesses affecting children. Wallander also recalled that he had given money to support health care in several African and South American countries.

The cooler in Torstensson’s car must have some other significance, he concluded. Or no significance at all.

Even so, he could not resist calling directory assistance and getting Lisbeth Norin’s number. When he called her, he found himself talking to an answering machine. He left his name and number.

Wallander spent the rest of the day waiting for things to happen. No matter what he did, what he was waiting for—reports from Höglund and Nyberg—was more important. He phoned his father and discovered that the studio had somehow survived the gales. Then he turned his wavering attention to everything he could find about Harderberg. He could not help but be fascinated by the brilliant career that had started inauspiciously in Vimmerby. Wallander appreciated that Harderberg’s commercial genius had manifested very early on. At nine he had sold Christmas cards. He had also used his savings to buy previous years’ leftovers. These he had snapped up for next to nothing. The boy had sold cards for a number of years, adjusting his prices to whatever the market would stand. Clearly, Harderberg had always been a trader. He bought and sold what other people made. He created nothing himself, but he bought cheap and sold less cheap. He discovered value where nobody else had found it. At fourteen he had recognized that there was a demand for antique cars. He got on his bike, bicycled around the Vimmerby area, poked his nose into sheds and backyards, and bought up any junked vehicle he thought he might be able to sell. Very often he got them for nothing, as people were too high-minded to think that they should exploit an inexperienced young boy who bicycled around the country districts and seemed to be interested in old wrecks. All the while he had saved the money he did not need to plow back into the business. To celebrate his seventeenth birthday, he had traveled to Stockholm. He had been accompanied by an older friend from a village near Vimmerby, an amazing ventriloquist. Harderberg paid all their expenses, and appointed himself the ventriloquist’s manager. It seemed that Harderberg had established himself early on as an efficient and unfailingly smiling aide who could further the careers of the up-and-coming. Wallander read several reports about Harderberg and the ventriloquist. They were often featured in Picture Parade, a magazine Wallander thought he could remember; and the articles kept referring to how well bred, how well dressed, and how capable of a friendly smile the young manager was. There were photographs of the ventriloquist, but not—even then—of his manager. It seemed he had shed his Småland dialect and adopted the way Stockholmers spoke. He paid for lessons from a speech therapist. After a while the ventriloquist was sent back to Vimmerby and anonymity, and Harderberg turned to new commercial projects. By the end of the 1960s his tax returns showed him to be a millionaire, but his big breakthrough came in the mid-1970s. He had spent time in Zimbabwe, or Southern Rhodesia as it was called then, and made some profitable investments in copper and gold mines together with a businessman called Tiny Rowland. Wallander assumed that this was when he had acquired the tea plantation.

At the beginning of the 1980s Harderberg was married to a Brazilian woman, Carmen Dulce da Silva, but they divorced without having any children. All the time Harderberg had remained as invisible as possible. He never put in an appearance when the hospitals he had helped finance opened, nor did he ever send anybody to represent him. But he did write letters and telex messages in which he was modesty itself, expressing his thanks for all the kindness that had been extended to him. He was never present at the ceremony when he was awarded an honorary doctorate.

His life is one long absence, Wallander thought. Until out of the blue he turned up in Skåne and installed himself behind the walls of Farnholm Castle, nobody had any idea where he was. He was constantly moving from one house to another, being driven in curtained cars, and from the early 1980s on he owned a jet.

But there were a few exceptions. One of them seemed to be more surprising and even stranger than the rest. According to something Mrs. Dunér had said in a conversation with Höglund, Harderberg and Gustaf Torstensson had met for the first time over lunch at the Continental Hotel in Ystad. Torstensson had described Harderberg afterward as likable, suntanned, and strikingly well dressed.

Why had he chosen to meet Torstensson at a restaurant so openly? Wallander wondered. Well-known journalists specializing in international commerce have to wait for years before getting a glimpse of the man. Could that be significant? Does he sometimes change tack to create even more confusion? Uncertainty can be a hiding place, Wallander thought. The world is allowed to know he exists, but never where he is.

Around midday Wallander went home for lunch. He was back by 1:30. He had just settled down to look through his files when Höglund knocked and came in.

“Back so soon?” Wallander said in surprise. “I thought you were supposed to be in Ängelholm?”

“It didn’t take long to talk to Borman’s family,” she said. “Unfortunately.”

Wallander could hear she was unhappy with the trip, and her mood immediately rubbed off on him. It’s useless, he thought gloomily. Nothing here to help us break down the walls of Farnholm Castle.

She had sat down on his visitor’s chair and was leafing through her notebook.

“How’s the sick child?” Wallander said.

“Children don’t stay sick for long nowadays,” she said. “I’ve found out quite a lot about Harderberg’s jet, by the way. I’m glad Svedberg phoned and gave me that to keep me occupied. Women always have a guilty conscience when they can’t work.”

“The Bormans first,” Wallander said. “Let’s start with them.”

“There really isn’t much to say,” she said. “There’s no doubt they think he committed suicide. I don’t think the widow has gotten over it, nor the son or daughter. I think it’s the first time I’ve realized what it must mean to a family when somebody takes his own life, and for no reason.”

“He really hadn’t left anything? No letter?”

“Not a thing.”

“That doesn’t fit with the picture we have of Borman. He wouldn’t just drop his bike on the ground, and he wouldn’t have taken his life without leaving some kind of explanation, or an apology.”

“I went over everything I thought was important. He wasn’t in debt, he didn’t gamble, and he hadn’t been involved in any kind of scam.”

“You mean you asked about that?” Wallander said, astonished.

“Indirect questions can produce direct answers,” she said.

Wallander thought he understood what she meant. “People who know the police are coming make preparations,” he said. “Is that it?”

“All three of them had decided to defend his reputation,” she said. “They listed all his good qualities without my needing to ask if he had any weaknesses.”

“The only question is whether what they said is true.”

“They weren’t lying. I don’t know what he might have done in private, but he does not seem to have been the kind of man who leads a double life.”

“Go on,” Wallander said.

“It came as a total shock to them,” she said. “And they haven’t come to terms with it yet. I think they spend every day and night worrying about why he would have taken his own life. Without being able to find an answer.”

“Did you give any indication that it might not have been suicide?”

“No.”

“Good. Go on.”

“The only thing of any interest to us is that Borman was in touch with Gustaf Torstensson. They were able to confirm that. They could also tell me why. Torstensson and Borman were members of a society for the study of icons. Gustaf Torstensson occasionally used to visit the Bormans. And Borman visited Torstensson in Ystad now and then.”

“You mean they were friends?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I don’t think they were that close. And that’s what’s interesting, it seems to me.”

“I don’t follow you,” Wallander said.

“What I mean is this,” she said. “Torstensson and Borman were both loners. One was married, the other a widower, but they were loners even so. They didn’t meet very often, and when they did, it was to talk about icons. But don’t you think that these two solitary men, caught up in a difficult situation, might confide in each other? They didn’t have any real friends, but they did have each other.”

“It’s conceivable,” Wallander said. “But it doesn’t explain Borman’s threatening letters to the whole law firm.”

“The filing clerk, Lundin, wasn’t threatened,” she objected. “That might be more significant than we think.”

Wallander leaned back in his chair and looked intently at her. “You think you’re onto something.”

“It’s only speculation,” she said. “Probably far-fetched.”

“We have nothing to lose by thinking,” Wallander said. “I’m all ears.”

“Let’s suppose that Borman told Torstensson what had happened at the county council. Fraud. I mean, they can’t have talked about nothing but icons all the time. We know that Borman was disappointed and offended because there was no proper police investigation into what happened. Let’s suppose, too, that Torstensson knew there was a link between Harderberg and that swindling company STRUFAB. He might have mentioned that he worked for Harderberg. Let’s go a step further and suppose that Borman saw in Torstensson a lawyer with the same feelings about justice as he had himself, a sort of guardian angel. He asked for help. But Torstensson did nothing. You can interpret threatening letters in different ways.”

“Can you?” Wallander said. “Threatening letters are threatening letters.”

“Some are more serious than others,” she said. “Perhaps we should not have overlooked that Torstensson did not in fact take them seriously. He did not record them, he did not turn to the police or to the Bar Council. He just hid them away. The most dramatic discovery can sometimes be finding that an incident wasn’t really very dramatic. The fact that Lundin wasn’t mentioned might be because Borman did not know she existed.”

“Good thinking,” Wallander said. “Your speculations are no worse than any others. On the contrary. But there’s just one thing you don’t explain. The most important detail of all. Borman’s murder. A carbon copy of Gustaf Torstensson’s death. Executions disguised as something else.”

“I think you might have given the answer yourself,” she said. “Their deaths were similar.”

Wallander thought for a moment. “You could be right,” he said. “If we suppose that Gustaf Torstensson was already suspect in Alfred Harderberg’s eyes. If he was being watched. Then what happened to Lars Borman could be a copy of what nearly happened to Mrs. Dunér.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she said.

Wallander stood up. “We can’t prove any of this,” he said.

“Not yet,” she said.

“We don’t have much time,” Wallander said. “I suspect Per Åkeson will demand that we broaden the investigation if nothing happens. Let’s say we have a month in which to concentrate on our so-called prime suspect, Alfred Harderberg.”

“That might be long enough,” she said.

“I’m having a bad day today,” Wallander said. “I think the whole investigation’s going off the rails. That’s why it’s good to hear what you have to say. Detectives whose resolve starts to falter have no business being in the force.”

They went to get some coffee, but paused in the corridor.

“The private jet,” Wallander said. “What do we know about that?”

“Not very much,” she said. “It’s a Grumman Gulfstream dating from 1974. Its Swedish base is at Sturup. It gets serviced in Germany, in Bremen. Harderberg employs two pilots. One’s from Austria and is called Karl Heider. He’s been with Harderberg for many years and lives in Svedala. The other pilot has only had the job for a couple of years. His name is Luiz Manshino, originally from Mauritius. He has an apartment in Malmö.”

“Where did you get all that information from?”

“I pretended to be from a newspaper running a feature on the private jets of Swedish business executives. I spoke to somebody in charge of PR at the airport. I don’t think Harderberg will be suspicious, even if he does hear about it. Obviously, though, I couldn’t start asking if there were logbooks that recorded his travels.”

“The pilots interest me,” Wallander said. “People who travel that often with each other and spend so much time together must have a special relationship. They know a lot about each other. Don’t they have to have some kind of stewardess with them? For safety reasons?”

“Apparently not,” she said.

“We’ll have to try to make contact with the pilots,” Wallander said. “Hit on some way of finding out about the flight documentation.”

“I’d be happy to continue with that,” she said. “I promise to be discreet.”

“Go ahead,” Wallander said. “But get a move on. Time’s at a premium.”

That same afternoon Wallander called a meeting of his investigative team, without Björk being there. They crammed into Wallander’s office because the conference room was occupied by a meeting of police chiefs from all over the district, chaired by Björk. After they had heard what Höglund had to report about her meeting with the Bormans, Wallander informed them about his meeting with Harderberg at Farnholm Castle. Everybody listened intently, trying to find a lead, something he might himself have overlooked.

“My feeling that these murders and all the other incidents are linked to Harderberg is stronger now than it was before,” Wallander said in conclusion. “If you agree with me, we’ll go on following this line. But we can’t rely on my feelings, we must acknowledge that we haven’t solved anything yet. We could be wrong.”

“What else do we have to go on?” Svedberg said.

“We can always go looking for a madman,” Martinsson said. “A madman who doesn’t exist.”

“It’s too cold-blooded for that,” Höglund said. “It all seems to be so well planned. There’s nothing to suggest a madman at work.”

“We must continue to take every precaution,” Wallander said. “Somebody is keeping an eye on us, whether it’s Harderberg or somebody else.”

“It’s a pity we can’t count on Kurt Ström,” Svedberg said. “What we need is a contact inside the castle. Somebody who can move around among all those secretaries without drawing attention to himself.”

“I agree,” Wallander said. “It would be even better if we could find somebody who worked for Harderberg until recently. Especially somebody with a grudge.”

“The fraud squad people maintain that there are only a handful of people who are close to Harderberg,” Martinsson said. “And they’ve all been with him for many years. The secretaries are not very important. I don’t think they know much about what goes on.”

“Even so, we should have somebody there,” Svedberg insisted. “Somebody who could tell us about daily routines.”

The meeting was drifting toward stalemate.

“I have a proposal,” Wallander said. “Let’s shut ourselves away somewhere different tomorrow. We need peace and quiet to work our way through all the material. We have to define where we stand one more time. We need to use our time efficiently.”

“At this time of year the Continental Hotel is practically empty,” Martinsson said. “I’d have thought they would have a conference room we could rent for next to nothing.”

“I like it,” Wallander said. “The symbolism is attractive. That’s where Gustaf Torstensson met Harderberg for the first time.”

They met on the first floor of the Continental Hotel. Discussions continued through lunch and every coffee break. By that evening, they agreed to continue the next day as well. Somebody phoned Björk, who gave his blessing. They shut out the outside world and worked their way through all the material yet again. They were well aware that time was running out. It was Friday, November 19.

It was late afternoon when they finally broke up. Wallander thought that Höglund had summed up the state of the investigation best.

“I get the feeling everything is here,” she said, “but we can’t see how it hangs together. If it is Harderberg pulling the strings, he’s doing it very skillfully. Whichever way we turn he moves the goalposts and we have to start all over.”

They were all exhausted when they left the hotel. But this was no vanquished army beating a retreat. Wallander knew something important had happened. Everybody had shared all they knew with everybody else. Nobody needed to be unsure about what ideas or doubts their colleagues had.

“Let’s take a break this weekend,” Wallander said. “We need some rest. We need to be raring to go again by Monday.”

Wallander spent Saturday with his father in Löderup. He managed to repair the roof, then sat for hours with his father in the kitchen, playing cards. Over dinner Wallander could see quite clearly that Gertrud was genuinely enjoying life with his father. Before he left, Wallander asked her if she was familiar with Farnholm Castle.

“They used to say it was haunted,” she said. “But perhaps they say that about all castles?”

It was midnight when Wallander set off for home. The temperature was below freezing, and he was not looking forward to winter.

He slept in on Sunday morning. Then he went for a walk, and inspected the boats in the harbor. He spent the afternoon cleaning his apartment. Yet another Sunday wasted on unproductive matters.

When Wallander woke up on the morning of Monday, November 22, he had a headache. He was surprised, since he hadn’t had a drop to drink the previous night. Then he realized he hadn’t slept well. He had had one horrific nightmare after the other. His father had died suddenly, but when he went to see him in his dream coffin, he hadn’t dared to look because he knew it was really Linda lying there.

He got up reluctantly and dissolved two painkillers in half a glass of water. It was still below freezing. As he waited for the coffee water to boil, he thought that his nightmares were a prologue to the meeting he and Björk were due to have with Åkeson that morning. Wallander knew it was going to be tricky. Although he had no doubt Åkeson would give them the green light to continue concentrating on Harderberg, he knew that their results had been unsatisfactory so far. They had not been able to get their material to point in any one particular direction. The investigation was drifting. Åkeson would, with good reason, want to know how much longer the investigators could go on just standing on one leg, as it were.

He scrutinized his wall calendar, coffee mug in hand. Just over a month to go before Christmas. He would say they needed as long as that. If they were no nearer to cracking the case by then, he would have to accept that they would need to start investigating other leads in the new year.

A month, he thought. Something needs to happen pretty fast.

He was interrupted by the phone ringing.

“I hope I didn’t wake you up,” Höglund said.

“I’m drinking coffee.”

“Do you get the Ystad Allehanda?” she said.

“Of course.”

“Have you read it today?” she said.

“I haven’t even picked it up from the hallway.”

“Go get it,” she said. “Turn to the job listings.”

Wondering what was going on, he went out into the hall and fetched his paper. Telephone in hand, he started turning to the ads.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?” he asked.

“You’ll see,” she said. “See you later.”

She hung up. He saw it at once. An advertisement for a stable girl at Farnholm Castle. To start immediately. That’s why she had worded her call the way she did. She had not wanted to mention Farnholm Castle on the telephone.

This could be their chance. As soon as he finished the meeting with Åkeson he would phone his friend Sten Widén.

As Wallander and Björk settled down in Åkeson’s office, Åkeson told the switchboard they were not to be disturbed. He had a bad cold, and blew his nose frequently.

“I really ought to be at home in bed,” he said, “but let’s get through this meeting as arranged.” He pointed to the heap of files before going on. “You won’t be surprised to hear that even with the best will in the world, I can’t say the results you’ve achieved so far are satisfactory. A few extremely vague pointers in the direction of Alfred Harderberg is all we’ve got.”

“We need more time,” Wallander said. “This is a particularly complicated investigation. We knew it would be from the outset. This is the best lead we’ve got.”

“If we can call it a lead,” Åkeson interrupted. “You made a case for concentrating on Harderberg, but we haven’t really gotten any further since then. Looking through the material, I’m forced to conclude that we’re only marking time. The fraud squad haven’t come up with any financial irregularities either. Harderberg seems to be a remarkably honorable gentleman. We have nothing to link him or his businesses directly or indirectly with the murder of Gustaf Torstensson and his son.”

“Time,” Wallander said again. “That’s what we need. We could also turn the whole thing upside down and say that the moment we can definitely exclude Harderberg from our deliberations, we’ll be in a better position to approach the case from a different angle.”

Björk said nothing. Åkeson looked hard at Wallander.

“I really should call an end to it at this point,” he said. “You know that. Convince me that we should carry on a little longer concentrating all our efforts on Harderberg.”

“The justification is in the paperwork,” Wallander said. “I’m still sure we’re on the right track. The whole team agrees with me, for what it’s worth.”

“I still think we ought to consider splitting the team and setting some of them to work from another angle,” Åkeson said.

“We don’t have another angle,” Wallander said. “Who fakes an accident to cover up a murder, and why? Why is a lawyer shot in his office? Who plants a mine in an elderly lady’s garden? Who blows up my car? Are we supposed to think it could be a madman who’s decided for no reason at all that it would be fun to kill off everybody employed by a law firm in Ystad, and why not a police officer as well while we’re at it?”

“You still haven’t sifted through all the files of the lawyers’ clients,” Åkeson said. “There’s a lot we don’t know yet.”

“I still think we need more time,” Wallander said. “Not unlimited time. But more time.”

“I’ll give you two weeks,” Åkeson said. “If you haven’t come up with anything more convincing by then, we’ll take a new approach.”

“That’s not enough,” Wallander said.

“I could stretch it to three,” Åkeson said with a sigh.

“Let’s make Christmas the deadline,” Wallander said. “If anything comes up before then to suggest that we ought to change course, we can do that immediately. But let’s keep going as we are until Christmas.”

Åkeson turned to Björk. “What do you think?”

“I’m worried,” Björk said. “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere either. It’s no secret that I’ve never really believed that Dr. Harderberg has anything to do with all this.”

Wallander felt the urge to protest, but resisted the temptation. If need be he would have to accept three weeks.

Åkeson turned to the pile of papers on his desk. “What’s this about organ transplants?” he said. “I read that you found a cooler for transporting human organs in Gustaf Torstensson’s car. Is that true?”

Wallander told them what Nyberg had discovered, and what they had subsequently managed to find out.

“Avanca,” Åkeson said. “Is that a company quoted on the stock exchange? I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a small company,” Wallander said. “Owned by a family called Roman. They started in the 1930s, importing wheelchairs.”

“In other words, it’s not owned by Harderberg,” Åkeson said.

“We don’t know that yet.”

Åkeson eyed Wallander up and down. “How can a company owned by a family called Roman also be owned by Harderberg? You’ll have to explain that to me.”

“I’ll explain when I can,” Wallander said. “But what I do know on the basis of what I’ve learned this last month is that the real owner of a company can be someone quite different from what it says on the company logo.”

Åkeson shook his head. “You’re a hard nut to crack,” he said. He consulted his desk diary. “Let’s say Monday, December 20. Unless we’ve made a breakthrough before then. But I’m not going to allow you a single day more if the investigation hasn’t produced significant results by then.”

“We’ll make the most of the time,” Wallander said. “I trust you realize that we’re busting our asses here.”

“I know,” Åkeson said. “But the bottom line is that I’m the prosecutor, and I have to do my duty.”

The meeting was over. Björk and Wallander went back to their offices.

“It was good of him to give you that much time,” Björk said as they parted in the hallway.

“Give me time?” Wallander said. “You mean us, don’t you?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” Björk said. “Let’s not waste time discussing it.”

“I entirely agree,” Wallander said.

When he had got back to his office and closed the door, he felt at loose ends. Somebody had put a photograph of Harderberg’s jet parked at Sturup on his desk. Wallander glanced at it, then pushed it aside.

I’ve lost my touch, he thought. The whole investigation’s gone down the drain. I ought to pass it on to somebody else. I can’t handle this.

He sat there in his chair, inert. His mind went back to Riga and Baiba. When he could no longer cope with doing nothing he penned her a letter, inviting her to Ystad for Christmas and New Year’s. To make sure that the letter would not just lie there or get torn to pieces, he put it in an envelope and without further ado handed it to Ebba in reception.

“Could you mail that for me today?” he said. “It’s really urgent.”

“I’ll take care of it myself,” she said, with a smile. “Incidentally, you look shattered. Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Not as much as I need,” Wallander said.

“Who’s going to thank you if you work yourself to death?” she said. “Not me, that’s for sure.”

Wallander went back to his office.

A month, he thought. A month in which to wipe the smile off Harderberg’s face. He doubted if it would be possible.

He forced himself to work, despite everything.

Then he phoned Widén.

He also made up his mind to buy some cassettes of opera recordings. He missed his music.