The Man Who Smiled

Chapter 17

The first call came after half an hour. She could hear his voice clearly, with no interference, as if he had not gone far from the car but was standing close by in the shadows.

“Where are you?” she said.

“I’m inside the grounds,” he said. “Stand by for the next call in an hour from now.”

“What’s happening?”

But there was no answer. She thought there had been a temporary loss of contact and waited for him to call back, but then she realized that Wallander had switched off without replying to her question. There was no sound from the radio.

It seemed to Wallander that he was walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Nevertheless, getting in had been easier than he had ever dared to hope. He had sneaked swiftly to the narrow patch of shadow behind the bunker and been surprised to discover a small window. By standing on tiptoe he could see inside. There was only one person in the bunker, sitting in front of a bank of computer screens and telephones. Only one person, and a woman at that. She seemed to be knitting a child’s sweater. Wallander could hardly believe his eyes. The contrast with what was happening within the gates was too great, almost impossible to grasp. Obviously she could not possibly suspect that there would be an armed man just outside, so he walked calmly around the bunker and tapped on the door, trying to make it as friendly a knock as possible. Just as he had thought, she opened the door wide, not anticipating any threat. She had her knitting in her hand, and looked at Wallander in surprise. It had not occurred to him to draw his pistol. He explained who he was, Inspector Wallander from the Ystad police, and even apologized for disturbing her. He ushered her gently back inside the bunker and closed the door behind them. He looked to see whether there was a security camera inside the bunker as well, but there was no sign of one, and invited her to sit down. At that point it dawned on her what was happening, and she started screaming. Wallander drew his pistol. Holding the gun in his hand worried him so much that he felt sick. He avoided aiming at her, but ordered her to be quiet. She looked scared to death, and Wallander wished he had been able to calm her down, saying she could continue knitting the sweater, which was no doubt meant for one of her grandchildren. But he thought about Ström and Sofia, he thought about Sten Torstensson and the mine in Mrs. Dunér’s garden. He asked if she had to keep reporting back to the castle, but she said she did not.

His next question was crucial. “Kurt Ström really should have been on duty tonight,” he said.

“They called down from the castle and said I had to do his shift because he was sick.”

“Who called?”

“One of the secretaries.”

“Tell me exactly what she said, word for word.”

“‘Kurt Ström is sick.’ That’s all.”

As far as Wallander was concerned, he now had confirmation that everything had gone wrong. Ström had been unmasked, and Wallander had no illusions about the ability of the men around Harderberg to extract the truth from him.

He looked at the terrified woman. She was clinging to her knitting.

“There’s a man just outside,” he said, pointing to the window. “He’s armed just like me. If you sound the alarm after I’ve gone, you will not finish knitting that sweater.”

He could see that she believed him.

“Whenever the gates open it’s recorded up at the castle, is that right?” he said.

She nodded.

“What happens if there’s a power outage?”

“A big generator cuts in automatically.”

“Is it possible to open the gates by hand? Without it being registered by the computers?”

She nodded again.

“OK. Switch off the power supply to the gates,” he said. “Open the gates for me, then close them behind me. Then switch the electricity back on.”

He was sure she would do as he said. He opened the bunker door and shouted to the man who did not exist that he was coming out, that the gates were going to be opened and closed, and that everything was under control. She unlocked a box at the side of the gate to reveal a winch. When the gap was wide enough Wallander slipped through.

“Do exactly as I said. As long as you do so, nothing will happen to you,” he said.

Then he ran through the grounds toward the stables, picturing the route in his mind’s eye from the map he had studied. All was very quiet, and when he was close enough to see the lights from the stables he paused and made the first call to Höglund. When she started asking questions he switched off. He went on walking cautiously toward the stables. The apartment where Sofia lived was in an annex built onto the main building. He stood for a considerable time in the shadow of a little thicket, observing the stables and the area around them. Occasionally he heard scrapes and thuds from the stalls. A light was on in the annex. He made himself think completely calmly. The fact that Ström had been shot did not necessarily mean that they had realized there was a connection between him and the new stable girl. Nor was it certain that the call she had made to Widén had been tapped. The uncertainty was the best Wallander could hope for. He wondered if they would have contingency plans to deal with a man having broken into the castle grounds.

He stayed in the shadows under the trees for several more minutes, then crouched and ran as fast as he could to the door of the annex. He expected at any moment to be hit by a bullet. He knocked on the door, trying the handle at the same time. It was locked. Then he heard Sofia’s voice, sounding very frightened, and he said who he was: Roger. Sten’s friend Roger. He couldn’t remember the surname he’d come up with. But she opened the door and he noted the expression of surprise mixed with relief on her face. The apartment comprised a small kitchen and a living room with an alcove for a bedroom. He indicated with a finger to his lips that she should be quiet. They sat in the kitchen, facing each other across the table. He could hear the thuds from the stalls very clearly now.

Wallander said: “I don’t have a lot of time and I can’t explain why I’m here. So just answer my questions, please, nothing else.”

He unfolded the map and laid it on the table.

“There was a man lying on a path,” he said. “Can you point to where?”

She leaned across and drew a little circle with her index finger on a track marked to the south of the stables.

“About there,” she said.

“I have to ask you if you had seen the man before.”

“No.”

“What was he wearing?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was it a uniform?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. My mind’s a blank.”

There was no point in pressing her further. Her terror had affected her memory.

“Has anything else happened today, anything out of the ordinary?”

“No.”

“Nobody’s been here to talk to you?”

“No.”

Wallander tried to figure out what that meant. But the image of Ström lying there in the darkness forced all other thoughts from his mind.

“I’m going now,” he said. “If anybody comes, don’t tell them I’ve been.”

“Will you come back?” she said.

“I don’t know. But you don’t need to worry, nothing’s going to happen.”

He peered out through a crack in the curtains, hoping the assurance he had just given her really would turn out to be true. Then he opened the door quickly and ran to the back of the building. He did not stop until he was in the shadows again. A slight breeze had started blowing. Beyond the trees he could see the powerful beams lighting up the dark red facade of the castle. He could also see lights in several of the windows on all floors.

He was shivering.

After thinking hard once more about the map he had lodged in his memory, he set off again, flashlight in hand. He passed the site of an artificial lake that had been drained of water. Then he turned left and began looking for the path. He glanced at his watch and saw that he had forty minutes before he was due to contact Höglund again.

Just as he was beginning to think he was lost, he found the path. It was about a meter wide, and he could see the tracks of horses’ hooves. He stood still, listening. But it was silent everywhere, although the wind seemed to be getting stronger. He continued along the path, expecting to be grabbed at any moment.

After about five minutes he stopped. If she had indicated correctly on the map, he had walked too far. Was he on the wrong path? He went on, more slowly. After another hundred meters he was sure he must have passed the point she had marked by now.

He stood still, feeling uneasy.

There was no sign of Ström. The body must have been taken away. He turned and began to retrace his steps, wondering what to do next. He stopped again, this time because he needed to urinate. He stepped into the bushes by the side of the path. When he had finished he took the map from his pocket and checked again, just to be certain that he had not mistaken the spot Sofia had circled, or taken the wrong path.

As he turned on the flashlight he caught sight of a naked foot. He gave a start and dropped the flashlight, which went out when it landed on the ground. He must have imagined it. He bent down to retrieve the flashlight. He turned it on again and found himself looking straight at Kurt Ström’s dead face. It was ashen, the lips tightly clenched. Blood had drained away and coagulated on his cheeks. He had an entry wound in the middle of his forehead. Wallander thought about what had happened to Sten Torstensson. He stood up and hurried away. Leaned against a tree and threw up. Then he ran. He got as far as the empty lake and sank to his knees at its edge. Somewhere in the background a bird flew, clattering, from the top of a tree. He jumped down into the lake bed and crept to a corner. It was like being in a burial vault. He thought he could hear footsteps approaching and drew his pistol, but nobody appeared. He took a few deep breaths and forced himself to think. He was close to panic and felt that he would lose his self-control at any moment. Another fourteen minutes and he was due to contact Höglund. But he did not have to wait, he could call her now and ask her to phone Björk. Ström was dead, shot through the head, and nothing was going to bring him back to life. They should call a full-scale emergency, Wallander would be waiting for them at the gates, and what would happen after that he had no idea.

But he did not make the call. He waited for fourteen minutes and then reached for the radio. She answered at once. “What’s happening?” she said.

“Nothing yet,” he said. “I’ll call again in an hour.”

“Have you found Ström?”

He switched off. Once again he was alone in the darkness. He had committed himself to do something, but did not know what. He had given himself an hour to fill without knowing how. Slowly he rose to his feet. He was freezing. He clambered up out of the lake bed and walked toward the light glimmering through the trees. He stopped where the trees came to an end and he found himself at the edge of the big lawn sloping up to the castle.

It was an impenetrable fortress, but somehow Wallander would have to force his way in. Ström was dead, but he could not be blamed for that. Nor could he be held responsible for the murder of Sten Torstensson. Wallander’s guilt was different in kind, a feeling that he was going to let his side down once again, and when he could very well be on the brink of solving the case.

There had to be a limit to what they were capable of doing, in spite of everything. They could not simply shoot him, a Ystad detective who was only doing his job. Then again, perhaps these people did not recognize any limits at all. He tried to unravel that conundrum, but he could not. Instead, he started making his way around to the back of the castle, a side of the building he had never seen. It took him ten whole minutes, despite walking briskly—not only because he was afraid, but also because he was so cold. He could not stop shivering. At the back of the castle was a half-moon-shaped terrace jutting out into the grounds. The left side of the terrace was in shadow: some of the hidden spotlights must have stopped working. There were stone steps from the terrace down onto the lawn. He ran as fast as he could until he was in the shadows again. He crept up the steps, his flashlight in one hand and his radio in the other. The pistol was in his pants pocket.

Suddenly he stopped dead and listened. What had he heard? It was one of his internal alarms going off. Something’s wrong, he thought. But what? He pricked up his ears, but he could hear nothing apart from the wind coming and going. Something to do with the light, he thought. I’m being drawn toward the shadows, and they are lying in wait for me.

When the penny dropped and he realized he had been tricked, it was too late. He turned to go back down the steps, but was blinded by a dazzling white light shining straight into his face. He had been lured into the shadowy trap, and now it had sprung. He held the hand holding the radio over his eyes to keep out the light, but at the same time he felt himself being grabbed from behind. He tried to fight his way free, but it was too late. His head exploded and everything went black.

A part of his mind was conscious of what was happening all the time. Arms lifted him up and carried him, he could hear a voice speaking, somebody laughed. A door opened and the sound of footsteps on the stone terrace ceased. He was indoors, perhaps being carried up a staircase, and then he was set down on something soft. Whether it was the pain in the back of his head or the feeling of being in a room with the lights out, or at least dimmed, he did not know; but he came around, opened his eyes, and found himself lying on a sofa in a very large room. The floor was tiled, possibly with marble. Several computers with flickering screens stood on an oblong table. He could hear the sound of air-conditioning fans and somewhere, out of his field of vision, a telex machine was clicking away. He tried not to move his head, the pain behind his right ear was too great. Then somebody started speaking to him, a voice he recognized, close by his side.

“A moment of madness,” Harderberg said. “When a man does something that can only end with him being injured, or killed.”

Wallander turned gingerly and looked at him. He was smiling. Further back, where the light barely penetrated, he could just make out the outlines of two men, motionless.

Harderberg walked around the sofa and handed him the radio. His suit was immaculate, his shoes highly polished.

“It’s three minutes past midnight,” Harderberg said. “A few minutes ago somebody tried to contact you. I have no idea who it was, of course, and I don’t care. But I assume somebody is waiting for you to get in touch. You’d better do that. I don’t need to tell you, I am sure, that you shouldn’t attempt to raise the alarm. We’ve had enough madness for one day.”

Wallander called her up and she answered immediately.

“Everything’s OK,” he said. “I’ll report again an hour from now.”

“Have you found Ström?” she said.

He hesitated, unsure of what to say. Then he noticed that Harderberg was nodding at him encouragingly.

“Yes, I’ve found him,” Wallander said. “I’ll call again at one.”

Wallander put the radio on the sofa beside him.

“The woman police officer,” Harderberg said. “I take it that she’s in the vicinity. We could find her if we wanted to, of course. But we don’t.”

Wallander gritted his teeth and stood up.

“I have come in order to inform you,” he said, “that you are suspected of being an accessory to a number of serious crimes.”

Harderberg observed him thoughtfully. “I waive my right to have a lawyer present. Please go on, Inspector Wallander.”

“You are suspected of being an accessory to the deaths of Gustaf Torstensson and his son Sten Torstensson. Furthermore, you are now also suspected of being implicated in the death of your own chief of security, Kurt Ström. In addition, there is the attempted murder of the solicitors’ secretary, Mrs. Dunér, and of myself and Officer Höglund. There are a number of other possible charges, including ones connected to the fate of the accountant Borman. The public prosecutor will have to work out the details.”

Harderberg sat down slowly in an armchair. “Are you saying that I am under arrest, Inspector Wallander?” he said.

Wallander felt on the point of fainting, and sat again on the sofa. “I don’t have the necessary papers,” he said. “But that doesn’t affect the basic circumstances.”

Harderberg leaned forward in his armchair, chin resting on one hand. Then he leaned back again and nodded. “I’ll make things easy for you,” he said. “I confess.”

Wallander stared at him, unable to believe his ears.

“You’re absolutely right,” Harderberg said. “I admit to being guilty on all counts.”

“Including Borman?”

“Including Borman, of course.”

Wallander could feel his fear creeping up on him again, but this time colder, more threatening than before. The whole situation was off-kilter. He was going to have to get out of the castle.

Harderberg watched him attentively, as if trying to read Wallander’s thoughts. To give himself time to work out how he could get an SOS to Höglund without Harderberg realizing, Wallander started asking questions, as if they were in an interrogation room. But he still could not tell what Harderberg was up to. Had he known Wallander was on the grounds from the moment he passed through the gate? What had Ström given away before he was killed?

“The truth,” Harderberg said, interrupting Wallander’s train of thought. “Does it exist for a Swedish police officer?”

“Establishing the line between a lie and a fact, the real truth, is the basis of all police work,” Wallander said.

“A correct answer,” Harderberg said approvingly. “But it’s wrong all the same. Because there’s no such thing as an absolute truth or an absolute lie. There are just agreements. Agreements that can be entered into, kept or broken.”

“If somebody uses a gun to kill another human being, that can hardly be anything but a factual happening,” Wallander said.

He could hear a faint note of irritation in Harderberg’s voice when he answered. “We don’t need to discuss what’s self-evident,” he said. “I’m looking for a truth that goes deeper than that.”

“Death is deep enough for me,” Wallander said. “Gustaf Torstensson was your lawyer. You had him killed. The attempt to disguise the murder as a car accident failed.”

“I’d be interested to know how you reached that conclusion.”

“A chair leg was left lying in the mud. The rest of the chair was in the car trunk. The trunk was locked.”

“So simple! Pure carelessness.”

Harderberg made no attempt to conceal the look he gave the two men skulking in the shadows.

“What happened?” Wallander said.

“Torstensson’s loyalty began to waver. He saw things he shouldn’t have seen. We were forced to ensure his loyalty, once and for all. Occasionally we amuse ourselves here at the castle with shooting practice. We use mannequins, tailors’ dummies, as targets. We put a dummy in the road. He stopped. He died.”

“And thus his loyalty was ensured.”

Harderberg nodded but seemed to be miles away. He jumped to his feet and stared at rows of figures that had appeared on one of the flickering computer screens. Wallander guessed they were stock prices from some part of the world where it was already daytime. But then, did stock exchanges open on Sundays? Perhaps the figures he was checking had to do with quite different financial activities.

Harderberg returned to his armchair.

“We couldn’t be sure how much his son knew,” he said, as if he had never paused. “We kept him under observation. He went to visit you in Jutland. We couldn’t be sure how much he had told you. Or Mrs. Dunér, for that matter. I think you have analyzed the circumstances very skillfully, Inspector Wallander. But of course, we saw right away that you wanted us to think you had another lead you were following. I’m hurt to think that you underestimated us.”

Wallander was beginning to feel sick. The cold-blooded indifference that oozed from the man in the armchair was something he had never encountered before. Nevertheless, his curiosity led him to ask more questions.

“We found a plastic container in the car,” he said. “I suspect it was substituted for another one when you killed him.”

“Why would we want to substitute it?”

“Our technicians could prove that it had never contained anything. We assumed that the container itself was of no significance: what was important was what it was meant to be used for.”

“And what was that, pray?”

“Now you’re asking the questions,” Wallander said. “And I’m expected to answer them.”

“It’s getting late,” Harderberg said. “Why can’t we give this conversation a touch of playfulness? It’s quite meaningless, after all.”

“We’re talking about murder,” Wallander said. “I suspect that plastic container was used to preserve and carry transplant organs, cut out of murdered people.”

Just for a moment Harderberg stiffened. It was gone in a flash, but Wallander noticed it even so. That clinched it. He was right.

“I look for business deals wherever I can find them,” Harderberg said. “If there’s a market for kidneys, I buy and sell kidneys, just to give one example.”

“Where do they come from?”

“From deceased persons.”

“People you’ve killed.”

“All I have ever done is buy and sell,” Harderberg said patiently. “What happens before the goods come into my hands is no concern of mine. I don’t even know about it.”

Wallander was appalled. “I didn’t know people like you existed,” he said in the end.

Harderberg leaned quickly forward in his armchair. “That was a lie,” he said. “You know perfectly well such people exist. I’d go as far as to say that, deep down, you envy me.”

“You’re crazy,” Wallander said, making no attempt to conceal his disgust.

“Crazy with happiness, crazy with rage, yes, OK. But not plain crazy, Inspector. You have to understand that I’m a passionate human being. I love doing business, conquering a rival competitor, increasing my fortune, and never needing to deny myself anything. It’s possible that I’m a restless Flying Dutchman, always seeking something new. But more than anything else I’m a heathen in the correct sense of the word. Perhaps Inspector Wallander is familiar with the works of Machiavelli?”

Wallander shook his head.

“Christians, according to this Italian thinker, say the highest level of happiness is to be attained through humility, self-denial, and contempt for everything human. Heathens, on the other hand, see the highest level of goodness in mental greatness, bodily strength, and all the qualities that make human beings frightening. Wise words that I always do my best to live up to.”

Wallander said nothing. Harderberg looked at the two-way radio and then at his watch. It was 1 a.m. Wallander called Höglund, thinking that now he really had to work out how to convey his SOS. But yet again he told her that all was well, everything under control. She could expect him to be in touch again at 2 a.m.

Wallander made calls each hour through the night, but he could not get her to see that what he really wanted was for her to sound the alarm and send as many officers as possible to Farnholm. He had realized that they were alone in the castle, and that Harderberg was only waiting until dawn before leaving not just his castle but also his country, along with the still shadows in the background, the men who did his bidding and killed whomever he pointed a finger at. The only staff left were Sofia and the woman at the entrance gate. The secretaries had gone, all the ones Wallander had never seen. Perhaps they were already in another castle elsewhere, waiting for Harderberg?

The pain in Wallander’s head had eased, but he was very tired. He had come so far and now he knew the truth, but he felt that that was not enough. They would leave him at the castle, possibly tied up, and when eventually he was discovered or managed to free himself, they would be up in the clouds and away. What had been said during the night would be denied by the lawyers Harderberg employed to defend him. The men who had actually pointed the guns, the ones who had never crossed Sweden’s borders, would be no more than shadows against whom no prosecutor would be able to bring charges. They would never be able to prove anything, the investigation would crumble away through their fingers, and Harderberg would in the eyes of the world go on being a respectable citizen.

Wallander had the truth in his possession, he had even been told that Borman had been killed because he had discovered the link between Harderberg and the county council fraud. And thereafter they had not dared to take the risk that Gustaf Torstensson would start seeing things he should not see. He had, despite all their efforts to prevent it; but there again, it did not really matter. The truth would eventually consume itself, because the authorities would never be able to arrest anybody for this series of appalling crimes.

What Wallander would recall in the future, what would stay in his mind for a very long time to come as a horrifying reminder of what Harderberg was like, was something he said shortly before 5:00 that morning, when for some reason or another they had started talking about the plastic container again, and the people who were killed so that their body parts could be sold.

“You have to understand that it’s but a tiny part of my activities. It’s negligible, marginal. But it’s what I do, Inspector Wallander. I buy and sell. I’m an actor on the stage governed by market forces. I never miss an opportunity, no matter how small and insignificant it is.”

Human life is insignificant, then, Wallander had thought. That’s the premise on which Harderberg’s whole existence is based.

Then their discussions were over. Harderberg had turned off the computers, one after another, and disposed of some documents in a shredder. Wallander had considered running away, but the motionless shadows in the background had never left. He had to admit defeat.

Harderberg stroked the tips of his fingers over his lips, as if to check that his smile was intact. Then he looked at Wallander one last time.

“We all have to die,” he said, making it sound as if there were one exception: himself. “Even the span of a detective inspector has a limit. In this case, at my deciding.” He checked his watch before continuing. “It will shortly be dawn, even though it is still dark. Then a helicopter will land. My two assistants will board it, and so will you. But you will only be in it for a short time. Then you will have an opportunity to see if you can fly without mechanical aids.”

He never took his eyes off Wallander as he spoke. He wants me to beg for my life, Wallander thought. Well, he’s going to be disappointed. Once fear reaches a certain point, it is transformed and becomes its opposite. That’s one thing I’ve learned.

“Investigating the innate ability of human beings to fly was thoroughly researched during the unfortunate war in Vietnam,” Harderberg said. “Prisoners were dropped, but at a great height, for a brief moment, they recovered their freedom to move, until they crashed into the ground and became a part of the greatest freedom of all.” He stood up and buttoned his jacket. “My helicopter pilots are very skillful,” he said. “I think they’ll manage to drop you so that you land in Stortorget in Ystad. It will be an event recorded forever in the annals of the town’s history.”

He’s gone completely insane, Wallander thought.

“We must now go our different ways,” Harderberg said. “We have met twice. I think I shall remember you. There were moments when you came close to displaying acumen. In other circumstances I might have been able to find a place for you.”

“The postcard,” Wallander said. “The postcard Sten Torstensson somehow sent from Finland when he was actually with me in Denmark.”

“It amuses me to copy handwriting,” Harderberg said. “It could be said that I’m rather good at it. I spent a few hours in Helsinki the day young Torstensson was with you in Jutland. I had a meeting—not a successful one, I’m afraid—with senior people at Nokia. It was like a game, like sticking a twig into an anthill. A game where the aim is to cause confusion. That’s all.”

Harderberg held out his hand to Wallander, who was so amazed that he shook it.

Then he turned on his heel and was gone.

Harderberg dominated the whole room whenever he was present. Now that the door had closed behind him there was nothing left. Wallander thought he left a sort of vacuum behind him.

Tolpin was leaning against a pillar, watching Wallander. Obadia was sitting, staring straight ahead.

Wallander refused to believe that Harderberg had given orders for him to be thrown out of a helicopter above the center of Ystad. But he knew he would have to do something.

The minutes passed. Neither of the men moved.

So he was to be thrown out, alive, to plummet onto the rooftops, or possibly onto the pavement in Stortorget. Having to accept that led immediately to panic. It paralyzed him, spreading through his body like poison. He could hardly breathe. He tried desperately to think.

Obadia slowly raised his head. Wallander could hear the faint noise of an engine rapidly coming closer. The helicopter was on its way. Tolpin gestured that it was time to go.

By the time they had emerged from the castle, there was still no hint of dawn light, but the helicopter was standing on the pad, its rotors unhurriedly spinning. The pilot was ready to take off the moment they climbed aboard. Wallander was still trying desperately to fashion a way of escaping. Tolpin was walking in front of him, Obadia a few paces behind with a pistol in his hand. They had almost reached the helicopter. Its rotor blades were still slicing the chilly night air. Wallander saw a pile of old broken-up concrete at one corner they had to pass to get to the helipad: somebody had been repairing cracks but had not yet cleared away the debris. Wallander slowed down so that Obadia came momentarily between him and Tolpin. Wallander bent down and used his hands as shovels to scoop up as much of the concrete chunks as he could and hurled it up at the rotors. He heard loud, cracking bangs as fragments of concrete flew all around them. For just a moment Tolpin and Obadia thought that somebody was shooting at them and lost sight of what was happening behind them. Wallander flung himself with all his strength at Obadia and succeeded in wrestling his pistol from his grasp. He took a few steps backward, stumbled and fell. Tolpin stared wide-eyed at what was going on without it fully sinking in, but now he reached into his jacket for his weapon. Wallander fired and hit him in the hip. Obadia hurled himself at Wallander, who fired again. He did not see where he had hit him, but Obadia fell, screaming with pain.

Wallander scrambled to his feet. The pilots might also be armed. But when he pointed the pistol at the open door of the helicopter, he could see only one young man there, and he had his hands above his head. Wallander examined the men he had shot. Both were alive but unlikely to go far. He pocketed Tolpin’s pistol, then he walked up to the helicopter. The pilot still had his hands up. Wallander shouted that he should fly away. He took a few paces backward and watched the helicopter take off, then disappear over the roof of the castle, its searchlights probing the dark sky.

He seemed to be seeing everything through a fog. When he rubbed his cheek with his hand, it was covered in blood. A concrete chip had hit him in the face without his noticing it.

Then he ran toward the stables. Sofia screamed when she saw him. He tried to smile, but his face was stiff from his wound.

“Everything’s all right,” he said, trying to get his breath back. “But I’ve got to ask you to do something. Call for an ambulance. There are two men with bullet wounds lying on the helipad. Once you’ve done that, I won’t ask you to do anything more for me. You can go back to Sten and take him up on his promise. It’s all over here now.”

Then he remembered Harderberg. Time was very short.

As he ran from the stables he slipped in the mud churned up by the horses’ hooves and fell. He struggled to his feet and ran toward the gates. He wondered if he would get there in time.

She had gotten out of the car to stretch her legs, and looked up to see him coming toward her. He saw the horrified expression on her face and realized how alarming he must look. He was covered in blood and mud, his clothes torn. But he had no time to explain. Only one thing mattered, and that was preventing Harderberg from leaving the airport. He shouted to her to get back into the car. Before she had closed her door he had reversed on to the road. He forced the car through the gears, slamming the accelerator hard, and ignored the red light as he swung onto the main road.

“What’s the fastest way to Sturup?” he said.

She found a map in the glove compartment and told him the route. We won’t make it, he thought. It’s too far, we don’t have enough time.

“Call Björk,” he said, pointing at the car phone.

“I don’t know his home number,” she said.

“Then ring the goddamn police station and find out, for God’s sake!” he yelled. “Use your head!”

She did as she was told. When the officer on duty wondered if it could not wait until Björk had come in for work, she too started shouting. The moment she had it, she dialed the number. “What shall I say?” she said.

“Tell him Harderberg’s about to leave the country in his airplane, and for good,” Wallander said. “Björk has to arrange to have him stopped. He has half an hour maximum to do it.”

When Björk answered, Wallander listened as Höglund repeated word for word what he had said. She listened to the response in silence then handed the phone to Wallander.

“He wants to speak to you.”

Wallander took the phone in his right hand and eased the pressure on the accelerator.

“What do you mean, I have to stop Harderberg’s jet?” Björk’s voice rasped over the phone.

“He arranged the murders of Gustaf and Sten Torstensson. Ström is dead too.”

“Are you absolutely sure about what you’re saying? Where are you right now? Why is the sound so bad?”

“I’m on my way from Farnholm Castle. I don’t have time to explain. Harderberg is on his way to the airport now. He must be stopped immediately. If that plane takes off and he leaves Swedish airspace, we’ve lost him.”

“I have to say this all sounds very unusual,” Björk said. “What have you been doing at Farnholm Castle till this time in the morning?”

Wallander realized that Björk’s questions were perfectly reasonable from his point of view. He wondered how he would have reacted if he had been in Björk’s place.

“I know it sounds outlandish,” he said, “but this time you have to take the risk of believing me.”

“I shall have to consult Åkeson,” Björk said.

Wallander groaned. “There really is no time for that. You’ve heard what I said. There are police officers at Sturup. They have to be told to stop Harderberg.”

“Call me back in a quarter of an hour,” Björk said. “I’ll get in touch with Åkeson right away.”

Wallander was so furious that he almost lost control of the car.

“Roll down that goddamn window!” he said.

She did as he said. Wallander threw out the telephone.

“Now you can close it again. We’ll have to figure this out by ourselves.”

“Are you certain it’s Harderberg?” she said. “What’s happened? Are you wounded?”

Wallander ignored the last two questions.

“I’m certain,” he said. “I also know we will never ever get him if he leaves the country.”

“What are you going to do?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “In fact, I don’t have the slightest goddamn idea. I’ll have to think of something.”

But as they approached Sturup forty minutes later, he still had no idea what he was going to do. With tires screeching, he pulled up at the gates to the right of the airport building. The better to see, he clambered onto the roof of the car. All around passengers arriving for early flights paused to see what was going on. A catering truck inside the gates blocked his view. Wallander waved his arms and cursed in an attempt to attract the driver’s attention and get him to move the truck. But the man behind the wheel had his head buried in a newspaper and was oblivious to the man on the roof of the car, ranting and raving. Then Wallander drew his pistol and shot straight up into the air. There was immediate panic among the watching crowd. People ran off in all directions, abandoning suitcases on the pavement. The driver of the truck had reacted to the shot and grasped that Wallander wanted him to move out of the way.

Harderberg’s Grumman Gulfstream was still there. The pale yellow light from the spotlights was reflected on the body of the jet.

The two pilots, on their way to the aircraft, had heard the shot and stopped in their tracks. Wallander jumped off the car roof so that they would not be able to see him. He fell, hitting his left shoulder hard against the road. The pain made him even more furious. He knew Harderberg was somewhere inside the yellow airport building and he had no intention of letting him get away. He raced toward the entrance doors, stumbling over suitcases and carts, Höglund a few paces behind him. He still had his pistol in his hand as he ran through the glass doors and headed for the airport police offices. Since it was early on a Sunday morning there were not many people in the terminal. Only one line had formed at a check-in desk, for a charter flight to Spain. As Wallander came charging up, covered in blood and mud, all hell broke loose. Höglund tried to reassure people, but her voice was drowned in the uproar. One of the police officers on duty had gone out to buy a newspaper, and saw Wallander approaching. The pistol in his hand was the first thing he had seen. The officer dropped the paper and started feverishly keying in the door code, but Wallander grabbed him by the arm before he had finished.

“Inspector Wallander, Ystad police,” he shouted. “There’s a plane we have to stop. Dr. Alfred Harderberg’s Gulfstream. There’s no goddamn time to lose!”

“Don’t shoot,” gasped the terrified police officer.

“For heaven’s sake!” Wallander said. “I’m a police officer myself. Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Don’t shoot,” the man said again. Then he fainted.

Wallander stared in exasperation at the wretched man lying in front of him on the ground. Then he started pounding on the door with his fists. Höglund had caught up.

“Let me try,” she said.

Wallander looked around, as if expecting to see Harderberg at any moment. He ran over to the big windows overlooking the runways.

Harderberg was walking up the steps to the airplane. He ducked ever so slightly, then disappeared inside. The door closed immediately.

“We’re not going to make it!” Wallander yelled to Höglund.

He raced out of the terminal again. She was at his side all the way. He noticed that a car belonging to the airport was on its way in through the gates. He made one final effort and managed to squeeze through the gap before the gates closed. He banged on the trunk and shouted for the car to stop, but the driver was obviously scared out of his mind and accelerated away. Höglund was still outside the gates. She had not quite made it before they closed. Wallander flung out his arms in resignation. The Gulfstream was taxiing toward the runway. There were only a hundred meters left before it would turn, accelerate, and take off.

Right next to where Wallander was standing stood a tractor for towing baggage carts. He had no choice. He climbed up, switched on the engine, and steered toward the runway. He could see in his side mirror a long snake of trailers being towed along behind. He had not seen that they were connected to the tractor, but it was too late to stop now. The Gulfstream was just arriving at the runway and its engines were screaming. The baggage carts started tipping over as he cut across the grass between the apron and the runway.

Now he had reached the runway, where the black tire marks made from the braking airplanes looked like wide cracks in the asphalt. He drove straight toward the Gulfstream, which was pointing its nose at him. When there were two hundred meters still to go, he saw the plane begin to roll toward him. By then he knew he had managed it. Before the jet had reached enough speed to take off, the pilots would have to stop in order not to smash into the tractor.

Wallander applied the brakes, but something was wrong with the tractor. He pushed and pulled and slammed down his foot, but nothing happened. He was not moving fast, but the momentum was such that the nose wheel would be wrecked when the airplane collided with the tractor. Wallander jumped off as the last carts spilled loose, colliding with one another.

The pilots had switched off the engines to avoid an inferno. Wallander was struck on the head by one of the carts, and rose unsteadily to his feet. He could scarcely see through the blood trickling into his eyes. Strangely, he was still holding the pistol in his hand.

As the door of the airplane opened and the steps were lowered, he could hear an armada of sirens approaching.

Wallander waited.

Then Harderberg emerged from the plane and walked down the steps onto the runway. It seemed to Wallander that he looked different. He saw what it was. The smile had disappeared.

Höglund jumped out of the first of the police cars to reach the airplane steps. Wallander was busy wiping the blood out of his eyes with his torn shirt.

“Have you been hit?” she said.

Wallander shook his head. He had bitten his tongue, and found it hard to speak.

“You’d better phone Björk,” she said.

Wallander stared at her. “No,” he said. “You can do that. And deal with Dr. Harderberg.”

Then he started to walk away. She hurried to catch up.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going home to bed,” Wallander said. “I’m feeling a bit tired. And rather sad. Even if it turned out all right in the end.”

Something in his voice discouraged her from saying more.

Wallander continued to walk away. For some reason, nobody tried to stop him.