The Man Who Smiled

by Henning Mankell

  That was absolutely true. During that hectic week they had managed to build a bird’s-eye view of Harderberg’s empire that naturally was by no means comprehensive, but they could see that the gaps—indeed, the black holes—indicated quite clearly that the man who lived in Farnholm Castle should not be allowed out of their sight for one minute.

  When Åkeson and Wallander stood outside the police station that night, on November 14 to be exact, they had gotten far enough to be able to draw certain conclusions. The first phase was over, the beaters had done their work, and the hunters could prepare to move in. Nothing had leaked out, and they had begun to discern the shape and nature of the leviathan in which Lars Borman and more especially Gustaf Torstensson must have discovered something it would have been safer for them not to have seen.

  The question was: what?

  It had been a hectic time, but Wallander had organized his troops well and had not hesitated to take on the most boring work himself—which often proved to produce the most interesting information. They had gone through the story of Harderberg’s life, from the day he was born, the son of an alcoholic timber merchant in Vimmerby, when he was known as Hansson, to the present day when he was the driving force of an enterprise with a turnover of billions in Sweden and abroad. At one point during the laborious exercise, wading through company reports and accounts, tax returns and share brochures, Svedberg said: “It’s simply not possible for a man who owns as much as this to be honest.” In the end it was Sven Nyberg, the surly and irritable forensic specialist, who gave them the information they needed. As so often happens, it was pure coincidence that he stumbled upon the tiny crack in Harderberg’s immaculately rendered wall, the barely visible fault line they had craved. And if Wallander, despite his exhaustion, had not picked up on a remark Nyberg made as he was on his way out of Wallander’s office late one night, the opportunity might have slipped away.

  It was nearly midnight on Wednesday and Wallander was poring over a résumé Höglund had drawn up on Harderberg’s worldly possessions when Nyberg pounded on the door. Nyberg was not a discreet person; he stomped down hallways and he pounded on doors, as if he were about to make an arrest, when he visited his fellow officers. That night he had just completed the forensic lab’s preliminary report on the mine in Mrs. Dunér’s garden and the explosion of Wallander’s car.

  “I thought you would want the results right away,” he said after flopping down in one of Wallander’s visitors’ chairs.

  “What have you got?” Wallander said, peering at Nyberg with red-rimmed eyes.

  “Nothing,” Nyberg said.

  “Nothing?”

  “You heard.” Nyberg was irritated. “That’s also a result. It’s not possible to say for certain where the mine was manufactured. We think it might be from a factory in Belgium, a company called Poudreris Réunie de Belgique or however you pronounce it. The explosive used suggests that. And we didn’t find any splinters, which means that the force of the mine was upward. That also suggests Belgian in origin. But it could also have been from somewhere else entirely. As for your car, we can’t say definitely that there was explosive material in your gas tank. In other words we can’t say anything at all for sure. So the result is nothing.”

  “I believe you,” Wallander said, searching through his pile of papers for a note he had made about what he wanted to ask Nyberg.

  “And that Italian pistol, the Bernadelli, we don’t know any more about that either,” Nyberg said while Wallander made notes. “There’s no report of one having been stolen. All the people registered in Sweden as owning one have been able to produce it. Now it’s up to you and Per Åkeson to decide whether we should call them all in and give them a test firing.”

  “Do you think that would be worth it?”

  “Yes and no,” Nyberg said. “Personally, I think we ought to run a check on stolen Smith & Wessons first. That’ll take a few more days.”

  “We’ll do as you suggest, then,” Wallander said, making a note. Then they continued going through Nyberg’s points.

  “We didn’t find any fingerprints in the lawyers’ offices,” Nyberg said. “Whoever shot Sten Torstensson didn’t press his thumb helpfully on the windowpane. An inspection of the threatening letters from Lars Borman produced negative results as well. But we did establish that it was his handwriting. Svedberg has samples from both of his children.”

  “What did they say about the language?” Wallander asked. “I forgot to ask Svedberg.”

  “What do you mean, the language?”

  “The letters were very oddly phrased.”

  “I have a vague memory from one of our meetings that Svedberg said that Borman was aphasic.”

  “Aphasic?” Wallander frowned. “I don’t remember hearing that.”

  “Maybe you’d left the room to get more coffee?”

  “Could be. I’ll talk to Svedberg. Do you have anything else?”

  “I went to give Gustaf Torstensson’s car the once-over,” Nyberg said. “No fingerprints there either. I examined the ignition and the trunk, and I’ve spoken to the pathologist in Malmö. We’re almost certain that he didn’t get the fatal blow to the back of his head by hitting it against the car roof. There’s nothing anywhere in the bodywork that matches the wound. So it’s more probable that somebody hit him. He must have been outside the car when it happened. Unless there was somebody in the backseat.”

  “I thought about that,” Wallander said. “The likelihood is that he stopped on the road and got out of the car. Somebody came up behind him and hit him. Then the accident was faked. But why did he stop in the fog? Why did he get out?”

  “I couldn’t say,” Nyberg said.

  Wallander put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. His back ached, and he needed to go home and get some sleep.

  “The only thing of note we found in the car was a plastic container made in France,” Nyberg said.

  “What was in it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why is it interesting, then?”

  Nyberg shrugged and got up to leave. “I’ve seen a similar one before. Four years ago. When I was visiting the hospital in Lund.”

  “The hospital?”

  “I have a good memory. It was identical.”

  “What was it used for?”

  Nyberg was already at the door. “How should I know?” he said. “But the container we found in Torstensson’s car was chemically clean. Only a container that’s never contained anything could be as clean as that one.”

  Nyberg left. Wallander could hear him stomping down the hallway.

  Then he pushed the heap of paper to one side and stood up to go home. He put on his jacket, then paused. There was something Nyberg had said. Just before he left the room. Something about the plastic container.

  Then it came to him, and he sat down again.

  There’s something funny there, he thought. Why would there be a plastic container that has never been used in Torstensson’s car? An empty container, but evidently a very special one? There was only one possible answer.

  When Torstensson left Farnholm Castle, the container had not been empty. There had been something in it. Which meant that this was not the same container. It had been exchanged for the other one. On the road in the fog. When Torstensson stopped and got out of his car. And was killed.

  Wallander checked his watch. After midnight. He waited for a quarter of an hour, then he phoned Nyberg at home.

  “What the hell do you want now?” Nyberg said as soon as he recognized Wallander’s voice.

  “Get yourself over here,” Wallander said. “Now, right away.”

  He expected Nyberg to explode in fury, but he said nothing, just put down the receiver.

  At 12:40 A.M., Nyberg was back in Wallander’s office once again.

  11

  That conversation with Nyberg in the middle of the night was crucial. It seemed to Wallander that yet again he had confirmation of the fact that criminal investigations achi
eve a breakthrough when it is least expected. Many of Wallander’s colleagues thought this proved that even police officers needed a little luck now and again to find their way out of a cul-de-sac. Wallander said nothing, but he thought that what it really proved was that Rydberg was right to maintain that a good police officer must always listen to what his intuition tells him—without discarding his critical faculties, of course. He had known—without knowing why he knew—that the plastic container in Torstensson’s wrecked car was important. And although he was exhausted, he also knew that he could not wait until the next day to have his suspicions confirmed. That’s why he had phoned Nyberg, who had just walked into his office. He had anticipated an angry outburst from his temperamental colleague, but none was forthcoming. Nyberg had simply sat down in the visitor’s chair, and Wallander noted to his surprise that he was wearing pajamas under his overcoat. He had rubber boots on as well.

  “You must have gone straight to bed,” Wallander said. “If I’d known that I wouldn’t have phoned.”

  “Are you telling me you’ve called me out for nothing?”

  Wallander shook his head. “It’s the plastic container,” he said. “Tell me more about it.”

  “I don’t have more to say than I haven’t said already,” Nyberg said.

  Wallander sat down at his desk and looked hard at Nyberg. He knew that Nyberg was not only a good forensic officer, but that he had imagination too, and was blessed with an exceptional memory.

  “You said you’d seen a similar container before,” he said.

  “Not a similar one,” Nyberg said. “An identical one.”

  “That means it must be special,” Wallander said. “Can you describe it for me?”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if I went and got it?”

  “Let’s go and look at it together,” Wallander said, getting up.

  The police station was deserted as they walked down the hallway. A radio could be heard in the distance. Nyberg unlocked the room where the police kept objects material to ongoing investigations. The container was on a shelf. Nyberg took it down and handed it to Wallander. It was rectangular, and reminded Wallander of a cooler. He put it on a table and tried to open the lid.

  “It’s screwed shut,” Nyberg said. “Notice also that it’s perfectly airtight. There’s a window on this side. I don’t know what it’s for, but I suspect there’s probably a thermometer mounted on the inside.”

  “You saw a similar one at the hospital in Lund,” Wallander said, scrutinizing the container. “Can you remember where? Which ward?”

  “It was moving around,” Nyberg said. “It was in a corridor outside the operating rooms. A nurse came with it. I seem to remember she was in a hurry.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “It reminds me of a cooler,” Wallander said.

  “I think that’s what it is,” Nyberg said. “For blood, possibly.”

  “I need you to find out,” Wallander said. “I also want to know what that container was doing in Torstensson’s car the night he died.”

  When they were back in Wallander’s office, he remembered something Nyberg had said earlier in the evening.

  “You said you thought it was made in France.”

  “It said ‘Made in France’ on the handle.”

  “I didn’t notice that.”

  “The text on the one I saw in Lund was more obvious,” Nyberg said. “I think we can excuse you.”

  “I may be wrong,” Wallander said, “but I think the fact that this container was in Torstensson’s car is remarkable. What was it doing there? Are you sure it was unused?”

  “When I unscrewed the lid I could see that it was the first time it had been opened since it left the factory. Do you want me to explain how I knew?”

  “It’s enough to know that you’re sure,” Wallander said. “I wouldn’t understand anyway.”

  “I can see you believe this container is important,” Nyberg said, “but it’s not unusual to find unexpected items in car crashes.”

  “In this case we can’t overlook a single detail,” Wallander said.

  “But we’ve never done that.”

  Wallander stood up. “Thank you for coming back,” he said. “I’d like to know what the plastic container was used for sometime tomorrow.”

  They said good night outside the station. Wallander drove home and had a couple of sandwiches before going to bed. He couldn’t sleep, and after tossing and turning for some time he got up again and went into the kitchen. He sat at the table without switching on the light. He felt uneasy and impatient. This investigation had too many loose ends. Even though they had decided on a way forward, he was still not convinced it was the right way. Had they overlooked something vital? He thought back to the day when Sten Torstensson came to see him on the Jutland coast. He could recall their conversation word for word. Even so, he wondered if he had missed the real message, whether there had been some other significance behind Sten’s words.

  It was past 4:00 by the time he went back to bed. The wind had picked up outside, and the temperature had plummeted. He shivered when he slid between the sheets. He did not think he had gotten anywhere. Nor had he succeeded in convincing himself that he would have to be patient. What he demanded of his colleagues was something he could not manage himself on this occasion.

  When Wallander arrived at the station just before 8 A.M. there was a gale blowing. They told him in reception there were forecasts of hurricane-strength gusts before lunch. As he walked to his office he wondered if his father’s house in Löderup would survive the winds. His conscience had been nagging him for some time over his failure to have the roof repaired, and there was a real risk that one violent storm would blow it right off. He sat at his desk thinking that he had better call his father—he hadn’t spoken to him since the fight at the liquor store. He was about to pick up the receiver when the phone rang.

  “There’s a call for you,” Ebba said. “And have you noticed how strong the wind is?”

  “I can console you with the news that it’s going to get worse,” Wallander said. “Who is it?”

  “Farnholm Castle.”

  Wallander stretched out in his chair.

  “Put them on,” he said.

  “It’s a lady with a remarkable name,” Ebba said. “She introduced herself as Jenny Lind.”

  “It sounds normal enough to me.”

  “I didn’t say it was abnormal, I said it was remarkable. You must have heard of the Swedish Nightingale, the great singer Jenny Lind?”

  “Put her through,” Wallander said.

  The voice he heard was that of a young woman. Another one of those secretaries, Wallander thought.

  “Inspector Wallander?”

  “Speaking.”

  “You were here the other day and expressed a wish to have an audience with Dr. Harderberg.”

  “I don’t have audiences,” Wallander said in irritation. “I need to speak to him in connection with a murder investigation.”

  “I do realize that. We have received a telex this morning informing us that Dr. Harderberg will be back home this afternoon and will be able to receive you tomorrow.”

  “Where did the telex come from?”

  “Does that matter?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise,” Wallander lied.

  “Dr. Harderberg is at the moment in Barcelona.”

  “I don’t want to wait until tomorrow,” Wallander said. “I need to talk to him as soon as possible. If he gets back to Sweden this afternoon he should be able to see me this evening.”

  “He has nothing in his diary for this evening,” Lind said. “But I shall need to contact him in Barcelona before I can give you an answer.”

  “Do that if you wish,” Wallander said. “Tell him he’ll be receiving a visit from the Ystad police at seven P.M.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t agree to that. Dr. Harderberg always decides on the time of visits himself.”

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p; “Not in this case,” Wallander said. “We’ll be there at seven.”

  “There will be someone else with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could I ask for that person’s name?”

  “You may ask, but you won’t get it. There will be another police officer from Ystad.”

  “I’ll contact Dr. Harderberg,” Lind said. “You should be aware that he sometimes changes his plans at very short notice. He could be forced to go somewhere else before coming home.”

  “I can’t allow that,” Wallander said, fearing that he was far exceeding his authority in saying so.

  “I must say you surprise me,” Lind said. “Can a police officer really decide what Dr. Harderberg does or doesn’t do?”

  Wallander continued to exceed his authority. “I only have to speak to a prosecutor—he can issue demands,” Wallander said.

  He realized his mistake even as he spoke. They had decided to tread carefully. Harderberg would be asked some questions, but as important as his answers was convincing him that their interest in him was purely routine. He tried to tone down what he had said.

  “Dr. Harderberg is suspected of nothing illegal, let me make that clear,” he said. “It’s just that we need to speak to him at the earliest possible moment, for reasons to do with our investigation. No doubt a prominent citizen like Dr. Harderberg will be anxious to help the police solve a serious crime.”

  “I’ll contact him,” Lind repeated.

  “Thank you for calling,” Wallander said and replaced the receiver.

  A thought had struck him. With Ebba’s help he tracked down Martinsson and asked him to come to his office.

  “Harderberg has been in touch,” he said. “He’s in Barcelona, but on his way home. I thought of taking Ann-Britt with me and going to see him this evening.”