The Man Who Smiled

by Henning Mankell

  “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.”