The Man Who Smiled

by Henning Mankell

  “She’s at home. Her kid’s not well,” Martinsson said. “She just phoned.”

  “You can come instead, in that case,” Wallander said.

  “That’s fine by me,” Martinsson said. “I want to see that aquarium with gold dust for sand.”

  “There’s another matter,” Wallander said. “What do you know about airplanes?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “I had a thought,” Wallander said. “Harderberg has a private jet. A Gulfstream, whatever that is. It must be registered somewhere. There must be flight logs showing when he’s out on his travels, and where he goes to.”

  “If nothing else he must have a few pilots,” Martinsson said. “I’ll look into it.”

  “Give that job to somebody else,” Wallander said. “You’ve got more important things to do.”

  “Ann-Britt can do it from her phone at home,” Martinsson said. “I think she’ll be pleased to be doing something useful.”

  “She could develop into a good police officer.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Martinsson said. “But to tell you the truth, we have no way of knowing. All we know is that she did well at the academy.”

  “You’re right,” Wallander said. “It’s awfully hard to imitate reality at school.”

  After Martinsson had left, Wallander sat down to prepare for the meeting at 9:00. When he had woken up that morning, all the thoughts he had had during the night about the loose ends of the investigation were still in the forefront of his mind. He had decided they would have to write off anything they judged to be of no immediate relevance to the investigation. If eventually they concluded that the route they had decided on was a cul-de-sac, they could always go back to the loose ends. But only then could the loose ends be allowed to occupy their attention.

  Wallander pushed aside all the papers piled up on his desk and put an empty sheet in front of him. Many years ago Rydberg had taught him a way of approaching an investigation in a new light. We have to keep moving from one lookout tower to another, Rydberg had said. If we don’t, our overviews become meaningless. No matter how complicated an investigation is, it has to be possible to describe it to a child. We have to see things simply, but without simplifying.

  Wallander wrote: “Once upon a time there was an old lawyer who paid a visit to a rich man in his castle. On the way back home somebody killed him and tried to make us believe it had been a car accident. Soon afterward his son was shot dead in his office. He had begun to suspect it hadn’t been a car accident after all, and so he went to see me to ask for help. He had made a secret trip to Denmark although his secretary was told he had gone to Finland. She also received a postcard from there. A few days later somebody planted a mine in the garden of the secretary. A wide-awake officer from Ystad noticed that I was being followed by a car as we drove to Helsingborg. The lawyers had received threatening letters from an accountant working for a county council. The accountant later committed suicide by hanging himself in a tree near Malmö, although the probability is that he, too, was murdered. Just as with the car accident, the suicide was contrived. All these incidents are linked, but there is no obvious thread. Nothing has been stolen and there is no sign of passions such as hatred or jealousy running high. All that was left behind was a strange plastic container. And now we start all over again. Once upon a time there was an old lawyer who paid a visit to a rich man in his castle.”

  Wallander put down his pen.

  Alfred Harderberg, he thought. A modern-day Silk Knight. Lurking in the background, everybody’s background. Flying all over the world and doing his business deals that are so difficult to penetrate, as if it were all a kind of ritual for which only the initiated know the rules.

  He read through what he had written. The words were transparent, but there was nothing in them to put the investigation in a new light. Least of all was there anything to suggest that Harderberg might be involved.

  This must be something very big, Wallander thought. If my suspicions are right and he really is behind all this, then Gustaf Torstensson—and Borman too—must have discovered something that threatened his whole empire. Presumably Sten did not know what it was or he would have told me. But he came to visit me and he suspected he was being watched, and that turned out to be true. They could not take the risk of him passing on what he knew. Nor could they risk Mrs. Dunér knowing anything.

  This must be something very big, he thought again. Something so big that might nevertheless fit into a plastic container that reminds you of a cooler.

  Wallander went to get another cup of coffee. Then he phoned his father.

  “It’s blowing a gale,” Wallander said. “There’s a risk your roof might get blown off.”

  “I’m looking forward to that,” his father said.

  “Looking forward to what?”

  “Seeing my roof flying off over the fields like a bird. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

  “I should have had it repaired years ago,” Wallander said, “but I’ll make sure it’s done before winter sets in.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” his father said. “It would mean you’d have to come here.”

  “I’ll make time. Have you thought about what happened in Simrishamn?”

  “What is there to think about?” his father said. “I just did what was right.”

  “You can’t just attack people at the drop of a hat,” Wallander said.

  “I’m not going to pay any fines,” his father said. “I’m not going to prison either.”

  “There’s no question of that,” Wallander said. “I’ll phone you tonight to find out what’s happened to the roof. There might be hurricane-strength gusts.”

  “Maybe I ought to climb up on the chimney.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “So that I can go flying myself.”

  “You’ll kill yourself. Isn’t Gertrud there?”

  “I’ll take her with me,” said his father, and put the receiver down.

  Wallander was left sitting there with the telephone in his hand. Björk came in at that very moment.

  “I can wait if you’re going to make a call,” Björk said.

  Wallander put the receiver down.

  “I heard from Martinsson that Dr. Harderberg has shown signs of life,” Björk said.

  “Was that a question?” he said. “If so, I can confirm that what Martinsson says is correct. Except that it wasn’t Harderberg who phoned. He’s in Barcelona and is expected back later today. I asked for a meeting this evening.”

  Wallander could see Björk was irritated.

  “Martinsson said that he would be going with you,” Björk said. “I wonder if that’s appropriate.”

  “Why shouldn’t it be?” Wallander said, surprised.

  “I don’t mean that Martinsson isn’t suitable,” Björk said. “I just thought perhaps I should go.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, after all, Harderberg isn’t just anybody.”

  “You’re not as familiar with the case as Martinsson is. We’re not going on a social call.”

  “If I went with you it might have a calming effect on the whole thing. We agreed we should be careful—Dr. Harderberg mustn’t be upset.”

  Although Wallander was annoyed that Björk wanted to go with him to make sure he did not behave in a way that Björk considered inappropriate, anything that might damage the force’s reputation, nevertheless Björk had a point: they did not want Harderberg worrying about the interest the police were showing in him.

  “I take your point,” Wallander said, “but it could also have the opposite effect. It could raise eyebrows if the chief of police is there for what’s supposed to be a routine inquiry.”

  “I merely wanted to suggest the idea to you,” Björk said.

  “It’ll be best if Martinsson goes,” Wallander said, getting to his feet. “I think our meeting is due to start.”

  On the way to the conference room Wallander told himself that one o
f these days he really would have to learn to be honest. He should have told Björk the truth, that he did not want him to come because he could not abide his subservient attitude toward Harderberg. There was something in Björk’s behavior that was typical of the peasant’s awe of those in power. He had barely thought about it before, even though he knew it to be true of society at large. There was always somebody at the top who dictated the terms, specifically or by implication, that those below had to accept. As a child he remembered seeing workers doffing their caps whenever one of those who decided their fate went by. He thought about how his father used to bow to the Silk Knights. Caps were still being doffed even today, albeit invisible ones.

  I, too, have a cap in my hand, Wallander thought. Sometimes I don’t notice it’s there.

  They gathered around the conference-room table. Svedberg glumly produced a proposal for a new police uniform that had been sent out to all police stations.

  “Do you want to see what we’ll look like in the future?” he said.

  “We never wear uniforms,” Wallander said as he sat down.

  “Ann-Britt’s not as negative as the rest of us,” Svedberg said. “She thinks it could look pretty nice.”

  Björk had sat down and dropped his hands on the table as a signal for the meeting to start.

  “Per isn’t here this morning,” he said. “He has to try to make sure those twins who robbed the bank last year are convicted.”

  “What twins?” Wallander said.

  “Can anybody have failed to be aware that Handelsbanken was robbed by two men who turned out to be twins?”

  “I was away last year,” Wallander said. “I haven’t heard a thing about it.”

  “We got them in the end,” Martinsson said. “They had gotten themselves a basic university qualification in economics and then needed some capital so that they could put their ideas into practice. They had visions of a floating pleasure palace called Summerland that would travel back and forth along the south coast.”

  “Not such a bad idea in fact,” Svedberg said, scratching his head ruminatively.

  Wallander looked around the room.

  “Alfred Harderberg has phoned,” he said. “I’m going to Farnholm Castle this evening and taking Martinsson with me. There’s a slight possibility that his travel plans may change, but I’ve made it clear that he cannot count on our unlimited patience.”

  “Couldn’t that make him suspicious?” Svedberg said.

  “I’ve stressed that it’s a routine inquiry,” Wallander said. “He was the one Gustaf Torstensson had been to see the night he died.”

  “It’s about time,” Martinsson said. “But we’d better think pretty carefully about what we’re going to say to him.”

  “We’ve got all day to do that,” Wallander said.

  “Where has he been this time?” Svedberg wanted to know.

  “Barcelona.”

  “He owns a lot of property in Barcelona,” Svedberg said. “He also has an interest in a holiday village under construction near Marbella. All through a company called Casaco. I’ve seen the share brochures somewhere. I tend to think the whole thing’s run by a bank in Macao. Wherever that is.”

  “I don’t know,” Wallander said, “but it’s not important just now.”

  “It’s south of Hong Kong,” Martinsson said. “Didn’t anybody take geography in school?”

  Wallander poured himself a glass of water and the meeting proceeded on its usual course. They took turns to report on what they had been doing since the last time they had met, each one concentrating on his allocated field. Martinsson passed on some messages he had received from Höglund, the most important of which was that she was going the following day to meet Borman’s children, and also his widow who was over from Spain on a visit. Wallander started by reporting on the plastic container. He soon saw that his colleagues could not understand why that particular detail should be so significant. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing, he thought. It might help me scale down my own expectations.

  After half an hour or so the discussion became more general. Everybody agreed with Wallander that loose ends not directly linked with Farnholm Castle should be left dangling for the time being.

  “We’re still waiting to hear what the fraud squads in Stockholm and Malmö have to say,” Wallander said as he drew the meeting to a close. “What we can say for now is that Gustaf and Sten Torstensson were killed for reasons we have not yet identified. I incline toward robbery rather than revenge. Obviously we have to be prepared to continue investigating all their clients if the Farnholm lead goes cold, but for the moment we have to concentrate on Harderberg and Borman. Let’s hope Ann-Britt can squeeze something important out of the widow and the children.”

  “Do you think she can handle it?” Svedberg said.

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Let’s face it, she’s not very experienced,” Svedberg said. “I was only asking.”

  “I have no doubt she will cope in exemplary fashion,” Wallander said. “If there’s nothing else, the meeting is over.”

  Wallander went back to his office. He stood for a while looking out of the window, his mind a blank. Then he sat at his desk yet again and went through the material he had on Harderberg and his business empire. He had read most of it before, but he went through it one more time with a fine-tooth comb. There was a lot he did not understand. The most complicated commercial transactions—the way in which a company melted away and became something different, and the complex business of shares and bonds—made him feel that he was entering a world he could not begin to comprehend. Occasionally he broke off to try to get hold of Nyberg, but he had no luck. He skipped lunch and did not leave the station until 3:30. There had been no word from Nyberg, and that was strange. Wallander began to accept that he would not know what that plastic container had been used for until after he had been to Farnholm Castle. He struggled through the gale as far as Stortorget and ordered a kebab. He was thinking all the time about Harderberg.

  When he got back to the police station there was a note on his desk saying that someone in the office at Farnholm Castle had phoned and Dr. Harderberg would expect him at 7:30 P.M. He went to look for Martinsson. They needed to prepare themselves, go through the questions they were going to ask, and which ones they would save for the time being. In the hallway he bumped into Svedberg, who was on his way out.

  “Martinsson wants you to call him at home,” Svedberg said. “He left some time ago. I don’t know why.”

  Wallander went back to his office and dialed Martinsson’s number.

  “I’m afraid I can’t make it,” Martinsson said. “My wife’s sick. I haven’t been able to find a babysitter. Can you take Svedberg instead?”

  “He just left,” Wallander said. “I have no idea where he’s going.”

  “I’m sorry about this,” Martinsson said.

  “Don’t worry, of course you have to stay at home,” Wallander said. “I’ll find a solution somehow.”

  “You could take Björk,” Martinsson said ironically.

  “You’re right, I could,” Wallander said in all seriousness. “I’ll think about it.”

  The moment he put down the phone he decided to go to Farnholm Castle by himself. He realized that was what he had really wanted to do all along. My biggest weakness as a police officer, he thought. I always prefer to go alone. Over the years he had begun to question whether it really was a weakness.

  In order to concentrate in peace and quiet, he left the police station without further ado, got into his car, and drove out of Ystad. The gale really was gusting up to hurricane strength. The car swayed and rattled. Ragged clouds raced across the sky. He wondered how his father’s roof was faring at Löderup. He felt a sudden need to listen to some opera, drove onto the hard shoulder, and switched on the interior light. But he couldn’t find any of his cassettes—and then it dawned on him that this wasn’t his own car. He continued toward Kristianstad. He tried to think through what
he was going to say to Harderberg, but discovered that what he was most looking forward to was the meeting itself. There had not been a single photograph of the man at Farnholm, or in any of the press reports he had read, and Höglund had said that he actively disliked being photographed. On the few occasions he appeared in public his staff ensured that there were no photographers around. An inquiry to Swedish Television revealed that they did not have a single clip of him in their archives.

  Wallander thought back to his first visit to the castle. What had struck him then was that very rich people are characterized by silence and remoteness. Now he could add another characteristic: they were invisible. Faceless people in beautiful surroundings.

  Just before he got to Tomelilla he ran over a hare that seemed hypnotized by his headlights. He stopped and got out into a wind that almost blew him over. The hare was lying on the verge, its hind legs kicking. Wallander searched for a big enough stone, but by the time he found one the hare was dead. He toed it into the ditch, and returned to his car with an ugly taste in his mouth. The gusts were so strong that they almost ripped the car door out of his grasp.

  He drove on to Tomelilla, where he stopped at a café and ordered a sandwich and a cup of coffee. It was 5:45. He took out his notebook and wrote down questions that he could use as a framework for his interview. He felt tense. What concerned him was that this must mean he hoped he was going to come face-to-face with the murderer.

  He stayed in the café for nearly an hour, refilling his cup and allowing his thoughts to wander. He found himself thinking about Rydberg. For a moment he had trouble conjuring up his face, and that worried him. If I lose Rydberg, he thought, I lose the only real friend I’ve got. Dead or alive.

  He paid and left. A sign outside the café had been toppled by the wind. Cars flashed past but he couldn’t see any people. A real November storm, he thought as he drove off. Winter is blowing open its portals.

  He arrived at the castle gates at 7:25. He expected Ström to come out and greet him, but nobody did. The bunker appeared to be deserted. Then the gates glided open without a sound. He drove toward the castle. Powerful spotlights lit up the facade and the grounds. It was like a stage set—an image of reality, not reality itself.