The Man Who Smiled

by Henning Mankell

  He went to bed, but could not sleep despite being so tired. He wondered vaguely about what had happened to make Ann-Britt Höglund decide to become a police officer.

  The last time he looked at the clock it was 2:30 A.M.

  He woke up shortly after 6:00, still feeling tired; but he got up, with a sense that he had slept in. It was almost 7:30 by the time he walked through the police-station door and was pleased to see that Ebba was in her usual chair in the lobby. When she saw him she came to greet him. He could see that she was moved, and a lump came into his throat.

  “I couldn’t believe it!” she said. “Are you really back?”

  “Afraid so,” Wallander said.

  “I think I’m going to cry,” she said.

  “Don’t do that,” Wallander said. “We can have a chat later.”

  He got away as quickly as he could and hurried down the corridor. When he got to his office he noticed that it had been thoroughly cleaned. There was also a note on his desk asking him to phone his father. Judging by the obscure handwriting, it was Svedberg who had taken the message the previous evening. He reached for the telephone, then changed his mind. He took out the summary he had prepared and read through it. The feeling he had had of being able to detect an obscure but nevertheless definite pattern linking the various incidents would not resurrect itself. He pushed the papers to one side. It’s too soon, he decided. I come back after eighteen months in the cold, and I’ve got less patience than ever. Annoyed, he reached for his notepad and found an empty page.

  It was clear that he would have to start again from the beginning. Apparently nobody could say with any certainty where the beginning was, so they would have to approach the investigation with no preconceived ideas. He spent half an hour sketching out what needed to be done, but all the time he was nagged by the idea that it was really Martinsson who ought to be leading the investigation. He himself had returned to duty, but he did not want to take on the whole responsibility right away.

  The telephone rang. He hesitated before answering.

  “I hear we’ve had some great news.” It was Per Åkeson. “I have to say I’m delighted.” Åkeson was the public prosecutor with whom Wallander had, over the years, established the best working relationship. They had often had heated discussions about the best way of interpreting case data, and Wallander had many times been angry because Åkeson had refused to accept one of his submissions as sufficient grounds for an arrest. But they had more or less always seen eye to eye. And they shared a particular impatience at cases being carelessly handled.

  “I have to admit it all seems a bit strange,” Wallander said.

  “Rumor had it that you were about to retire for health reasons,” Åkeson said. “Somebody should tell Björk to put a stop to all these rumors that keep flying around.”

  “It wasn’t just a rumor,” Wallander said. “I had made my mind up to throw in the towel.”

  “Might one ask why you changed your mind?”

  “Something happened,” Wallander said evasively. He could tell that Åkeson was waiting for him to continue, but he did not oblige.

  “Anyway, I’m pleased you’ve come back,” Åkeson said, after an appropriately long silence. “I’m also certain that I’m expressing the sentiments of my colleagues in saying that.”

  Wallander began to feel uncomfortable about all the goodwill that was flowing in his direction but which he found hard to believe. We go through life with one foot in a rose garden and the other in quick-sand, he thought.

  “I assume you’ll be taking over the Torstensson case,” Åkeson said. “Maybe we should get together later today and work out where we stand.”

  “I don’t know about ‘taking over,’” Wallander said. “I’ll be involved, I asked to be. But I suppose that one of the others will be leading the investigation.”

  “Hmm, none of my business,” Åkeson said. “I’m just pleased you’re back. Have you had time to get into the details of the case?”

  “Not really.”

  “Judging by what I’ve heard so far, there doesn’t seem to have been any significant development.”

  “Björk thinks it’s going to be a long haul.”

  “What do you think?”

  Wallander hesitated before replying. “Nothing at all yet.”

  “Insecurity seems to be on the increase,” Åkeson said. “Threats, often in the form of anonymous letters, are more common. Public buildings which used to be open to the public are now barricading themselves like fortresses. No question, you’ll have to go through his clients with a fine-tooth comb. You might find a clue there. Someone among them might have a grudge.”

  “We’ve already started on that,” Wallander said.

  They agreed to meet in Åkeson’s office that afternoon.

  Wallander forced himself to return to the investigation plan he had started to sketch out, but his concentration wandered. He put his pen down in irritation and went to fetch a cup of coffee. He hurried back to his office, not wanting to meet anybody. It was 8:15 by now. He drank his coffee and wondered how long it would be before he lost his fear of being with people. At 8:30 he gathered his papers together and went to the conference room. On the way there it struck him that unusually little had been achieved during the five or six days that had passed since Sten Torstensson had been found murdered. All murder investigations are different, but there always used to be a mood of intense urgency among the officers involved. Something had changed while he had been away. What?

  They were all present by 8:40, and Björk tapped the table as a sign that work was about to commence. He turned at once to Wallander.

  “Kurt,” he said, “you’ve just come into this case and can view it with fresh eyes. What do you think we should do now?”

  “I hardly think I’m the one to decide that,” Wallander said. “I haven’t had time to get into it fully.”

  “On the other hand, you’re the only one who’s so far come up with anything useful,” Martinsson said. “If I know you, you stayed up last night and sketched out an investigation plan. Am I right?”

  Wallander nodded. He realized that in fact he had no objection to taking over the case.

  “I have tried to write a summary,” he began. “But first let me tell you about something that happened just over a week ago, when I was in Denmark. I should have mentioned it yesterday, but it was all a bit hectic for me, to say the least.”

  Wallander told his astonished colleagues about Sten Torstensson’s trip to Skagen. He tried hard to leave out no detail. When he finished, there was silence. Björk eventually spoke, making no attempt to conceal the fact that he was annoyed.

  “Very odd,” he said. “I don’t know why it is that you always seem to find yourself in situations that are out of normal procedures.”

  “I did refer him to you,” Wallander objected, and could feel his anger rising.

  “It’s nothing for us to get excited about now,” Björk said impassively. “But it is a bit strange, you must agree. What is of course clear is that we have to reopen the investigation into Gustaf Torstensson’s accident.”

  “It seems to me both natural and necessary that we advance on two fronts,” Wallander said. “The assumption being that two people have been murdered, not one. It’s a father and a son, moreover. We have to think two thoughts at the same time. There may be a solution to be found in their private lives, but it might also be something to do with their work, two lawyers working for the same law firm. The fact that Sten came to see me to talk about his father being on edge might suggest that the key concerns Gustaf Torstensson. But that is not a foregone conclusion—for one thing, there’s the postcard Sten sent to Mrs. Dunér from Finland when at the time he was in Denmark.”

  “That tells us something else as well,” Höglund said.

  Wallander nodded. “That Sten also thought that he was in danger. Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes,” Höglund said. “Why else would he have laid a false trail?”<
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  Martinsson raised his hand, indicating he wanted to say something. “It would be simplest if we split into two groups,” he said. “One to concentrate on the father, and the other on the son. Then let’s see if we come up with anything that points in the same direction.”

  “I agree with that,” Wallander said. “At the same time I can’t help thinking there’s something odd about all this. Something we should have discovered already.”

  “All murder cases are odd, surely,” Svedberg said.

  “Yes, but there’s something more,” Wallander said. “And I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Björk indicated it was time to conclude the meeting.

  “Since I’ve already started delving into what happened to Gustaf Torstensson, I might as well go on,” Wallander said. “If nobody has any objections.”

  “The rest of us can devote ourselves to Sten Torstensson, then,” Martinsson said. “Can I assume that you’ll want to work on your own to start with, as usual?”

  “Not necessarily. But if I understand it rightly, the Sten case is much more complicated. His father didn’t have so many clients. His life seems to be more transparent.”

  “Let’s do that then,” Björk said, shutting his diary with a thud. “We’ll meet every day at 4:00, as usual, to see how far we’ve gotten. Oh, and I need help with a press conference later today.”

  “Not me,” Wallander said. “I haven’t got the strength.”

  “I thought Ann-Britt might do it,” Björk said. “It won’t do any harm for people to know she’s here with us now.”

  “That’s fine by me,” she said, to the others’ surprise. “I need to learn about such things.”

  After the meeting Wallander asked Martinsson to stay behind. When the others had left, he closed the door.

  “We need to have a few words,” Wallander said. “I feel as though I’m barging in and taking over, when what I was really supposed to be doing was confirming my resignation.”

  “We’re all a bit surprised, certainly,” Martinsson said. “You must accept that. You’re not the only one who’s a bit unsure of what’s going on.”

  “I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes.”

  Martinsson burst out laughing. Then blew his nose. “The Swedish police force is full of officers suffering from sore toes and heels,” he said. “The more bureaucratic the force becomes, the more people get obsessed about their careers. All the regulations and the paperwork—it gets worse every day—result in misunderstandings and a lack of clarity, so it’s no wonder people step on each other’s toes and kick their heels. Sometimes I think I understand why Björk is worried about the way things are going. What’s happening to ordinary straightforward police work?”

  “The police force has always reflected society at large,” Wallander said. “But I know what you mean. Rydberg used to say the same thing. What’s Höglund going to say?”

  “She’s good,” Martinsson said. “Hanson and Svedberg are both frightened of her precisely because she’s so good. Hanson especially is worried that he might get left behind. That’s why he spends most of his time taking courses nowadays, picking up extra qualifications.”

  “The new-age police officer,” Wallander said, getting to his feet. “That’s what she is.” He paused in the doorway. “You said something yesterday that rang a bell. Something about Sten Torstensson. I’m not sure what, but I have the feeling it was more important than it sounded.”

  “I was reading aloud from my notes,” Martinsson said. “You can have a copy.”

  “I daresay I’m imagining things,” Wallander said.

  When he got back to his office and had closed the door, he knew that he had experienced something he had almost forgotten existed. It was as if he had rediscovered his drive. Not everything, it seemed, had been lost during the time he had been away.

  He sat at his desk, feeling that he could now examine himself at arm’s length: the man staggering around in the West Indies, the miserable trip to Thailand, all those days and nights when everything seemed to have ground to a halt apart from his automatic bodily functions. He was looking at himself, but he realized that that person was somebody he no longer knew. He had been somebody else.

  He shuddered to contemplate the catastrophic consequences that some of his actions could have had. He thought hard about his daughter Linda. It was only when Martinsson knocked on the door and delivered a photocopy of his notes from the previous day that Wallander succeeded in banishing all the memories. Everybody had within himself a secret room, it seemed to him, where memories and recollections were all jumbled up together. Now he had bolted the door, and attached a strong padlock. Then he went to the bathroom and flushed away the antidepressants he had been carrying around in a tube in his pocket.

  He returned to his office and started work. It was 10 A.M. He read carefully through Martinsson’s notes without identifying what it was that had caught his attention. It’s too soon, he thought. Rydberg would have advised patience. Now I have to remember to advise myself.

  He wondered briefly where to begin. Then he looked up Gustaf Torstensson’s home address in the file for the car accident. Timmermansgatan 12. That was in one of Ystad’s oldest and most affluent residential districts, beyond the army barracks, near Sandskogen. He telephoned the law firm and spoke to Sonia Lundin, who told him that the house keys were in the office. He left the station and noted that the rain clouds had dispersed, the sky was clear. He had the feeling he was breathing in the first of the cold winter air that was slowly advancing. As he drew up outside the office building, Lundin came out and handed him the keys.

  He took two wrong turns before he reached the correct address. The big, brown-painted wooden house was a long way back in the middle of a large garden. He swung open the creaking gate and started down the gravel drive. It was quiet, and the town seemed a long way away. A world inside a world, he thought. The Torstensson law firm must have been a very profitable business. He doubted if there were many houses in Ystad more expensive than this one. The garden was well-tended but strangely lifeless. A few deciduous trees, some neatly clipped bushes, some dull flower beds. Perhaps an elderly lawyer needed to surround himself with straight lines, a traditional garden with no surprises or improvisations. Someone had told him that as a lawyer Torstensson had a reputation for dragging out court proceedings to an unprecedented level of boredom. One spiteful opponent claimed that Torstensson could get a client off by driving the prosecutor to distraction with his plodding, colorless presentation of the case for the defense. He should ask Per Åkeson what he thought of Gustaf Torstensson. They must have dealt with each other many times over the years.

  He went up the steps to the front door and found the right key. It was an advanced Chubb lock of a type he had not come across before. He let himself into a large hall with a broad staircase at the back leading to the upper floor. Heavy curtains were drawn across the windows. He opened one set and saw that the window was barred. An elderly man living alone, experiencing the fear that inevitably goes along with age. Was there something here he needed to protect, apart from himself? Or was his fear something that originated beyond these walls? He made his way through the house, starting on the ground floor with its library lined with somber portraits of family ancestors, and the large open-plan living room and dining room. Everything, from the furniture to the wallpaper, was dark, giving him a feeling of melancholy and silence. Not even a small patch of light color anywhere, no trace of a light touch that could raise a smile.

  He went upstairs. Guest rooms with neatly made beds, deserted like a hotel closed for the winter. The door to Torstensson’s own bedroom had a barred inner door. He went back downstairs, oppressed by the gloom. He sat at the kitchen table and rested his chin on his hands. All he could hear was a clock ticking.

  Torstensson was sixty-nine when he died. He had been living alone for the last fifteen years, since his wife died. Sten was their only child. Judging by one of the portraits in the lib
rary, the family was descended from Field Marshal Lennart Torstensson. Wallander’s vague memory from his schooldays was that during the Thirty Years’ War the man had a reputation for exceptional brutality toward the peasants wherever his army had set foot.

  Wallander stood up and went down the stairs to the basement. Here, too, everything was pedantically neat. Right at the back, behind the boiler room, Wallander discovered a steel door that was locked. He tried the various keys until he found the right one. Wallander had to feel his way until he located the light switch.

  The room was surprisingly big. The walls were lined with shelves laden with icons from Eastern Europe. Without touching them, Wallander scrutinized them from close up. He was no expert, nor had he ever been particularly interested in antiques, but he guessed that this collection was extremely valuable. That would explain the barred windows and the lock, if not the wrought-iron safety door to the bedroom. Wallander’s uneasiness grew. He felt he was intruding on the privacy of a rich old man whom happiness had abandoned, who had barricaded his house, and who was watched over by greed in the shape of all these Madonna figures.

  He pricked up his ears. There were footsteps upstairs, then a dog barking. He hurried out of the room, up the steps, and into the kitchen. He was astonished to be confronted by Peters, his colleague, who had drawn his pistol and was pointing it at him. Behind him was a security guard with a growling dog tugging at a lead. Peters lowered his gun. Wallander could feel his heart racing. The sight of the gun had momentarily revived the memories he had spent so long trying to banish.

  Then he was furious. “What the hell’s going on here?” he snarled.

  “The alarm went off at the security company, and they called the police,” Peters said, clearly worried. “So we came rushing here in a hurry. I had no idea it was you.”

  Peters’ partner Norén entered on cue, also wielding a pistol.