The Man Who Smiled - Wallander 04

by Henning Mankell

  "He's been there all morning," Martinsson said. "But I reckon he'd rather be doing something else. He's not much of a one for reading papers."

  "Go and help him," Wallander said. "I have an idea that it's urgent."

  He went back into the house, hung up his jacket and went to the toilet in the hall. He gave a start when he saw his face in the mirror. He was unshaven and red-eyed, and his hair was on end. He wondered at the impression he must have made at Farnholm Castle. He rinsed his face in cold water, asking himself where he was going to start in order to get Mrs Dunér to understand that he knew she was holding back information - and he did not know why. I must be friendly, he decided. Otherwise she'll put up the shutters.

  He went to the kitchen where she was still slumped on a chair. The forensic team were busy in the garden. Occasionally Wallander heard Nyberg's agitated voice. He had the sense of having experienced exactly what he was now seeing, feeling, a moment before, the bewildering sensation of having gone round in a circle and returned to a point way in the distant past. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he sat at the kitchen table and looked at the woman facing him. Just for a moment he thought she reminded him of his long-dead mother. The grey hair, the thin body that seemed to have been compressed inside a tiny frame. He could not conjure up a picture of his mother's face, though: it had faded from his memory.

  "You're very upset, I know," he began, "but we have to have a talk."

  She nodded without replying.

  "Let's see, this morning you discovered that somebody had been in your garden during the night," Wallander said. "I could see it straight away," she said. "What did you do then?"

  She looked at him in surprise. "I've already told you," she said. "Do I have to go through everything again?"

  "Not everything," Wallander said, patiently. "You only need to answer the questions I ask you."

  "It was getting light," she said. "I'm an early riser. I looked out at the garden. Somebody had been there. I called the police."

  "Why did you call the police?" Wallander said, watching her carefully.

  "What else should I have done?"

  "You might have gone out to see what damage had been done, for instance."

  "I didn't dare."

  "Why not? Because you knew there was something out there that could be dangerous?"

  She didn't answer. Wallander waited. Nyberg shouted angrily in the garden.

  "I don't think you've been completely honest with me," Wallander said. "I think there is something that you ought to be telling me."

  She put a hand over her eyes, as if the light in the kitchen was affecting her. Wallander waited. The clock on the kitchen wall showed 11 a.m.

  "I've been frightened for so long," she said suddenly, peering up at Wallander as if it were his fault. He waited for more, but in vain.

  "People aren't usually frightened unless there is a cause," Wallander said. "If the police are going to be able to find out what happened to Gustaf and Sten Torstensson, you have got to help us."

  "I can't help you," she said.

  Wallander could see that she was liable to break down at any moment. But he pressed on nevertheless.

  "You can answer my questions," he said. "Start by telling me why you're frightened."

  "Do you know what's the most scary thing there is?" she said. "It's other people's fear. I'd worked 30 years for Gustaf Torstensson. I wasn't close to him, but I couldn't avoid noticing the change. There came to be a strange smell about him. His fear."

  "When did you first notice it?"

  "Three years ago."

  "Had anything specific happened?"

  "Everything was exactly as usual."

  "It's very important that you try to remember."

  "What do you think I've been trying to do all this time?"

  Wallander tried to think how best to keep Mrs Dunér going - despite everything she seemed willing to answer his questions now.

  "You never spoke to Mr Torstensson about it?"

  "Never."

  "Not to his son either?"

  "I don't think he'd noticed anything."

  She could be right, Wallander thought. She was Gustaf Torstensson's secretary, after all.

  "Have you really no explanation for what happened today? You realise that you could have been killed if you had gone into the garden. I think you suspected as much and that's why you phoned the police. You've been expecting something to happen. But you have no explanation?"

  "People started coming to the office during the night," she said. "Both Gustaf and I noticed. A pen lying differently on a desk, a chair somebody had been sitting on and put back nearly in its proper place but not quite."

  "You must have asked him about it," Wallander said.

  "I wasn't allowed to. He forbade me."

  "So he did speak about these nocturnal visits, then?"

  "You can see by looking at a person what you're not allowed to mention."

  The conversation was interrupted by Nyberg tapping on the window.

  "I'll be back in a moment," Wallander said. Nyberg was standing outside the kitchen door, holding out his hand. Wallander could see something badly burned, hardly half a centimetre across.

  "A plastic landmine," Nyberg said. "I can confirm that even at this stage. We might possibly be able to find out what type it is, even where it was made. But it'll take time."

  "Can you say anything about whoever it was who laid the mine?"

  "I might have been able to if you hadn't thrown a directory at it," Nyberg said.

  "It was easy to see," Wallander said.

  "A person who knows what he's doing can plant a mine so that it's invisible," Nyberg said. "Both you and that woman in the kitchen could see that somebody had been digging up the lawn. We're dealing with amateurs."

  Or somebody who wants us to think that, Wallander thought. But he didn't say so and went back to the kitchen. He only had one more question.

  "Yesterday afternoon you had a visit from an Asian woman," he said. "Who was she?"

  She looked at him in astonishment. "How do you know that?" "Never mind how," Wallander said. "Just answer the question." "She's a cleaner, she works at the Torstensson offices," Mrs Dunér said.

  So that was it! Wallander was disappointed.

  "What's her name?"

  "Kim Sung-Lee."

  "Where does she live?"

  "I have her address at the office."

  "What did she want?"

  "She was wondering if she'd keep her job."

  "I'd be grateful if you could let me have her address," Wallander said, standing up.

  "What will happen now?"

  "You don't need to be afraid any more," Wallander said. "I'll make sure there's a police officer at hand. For as long as it's necessary."

  He told Nyberg he was leaving and went back to the police station. On the way there he stopped at Fridolf's Cafe and bought some sandwiches. He shut himself in his office and prepared for his meeting with Björk. But when he went to his office, Björk was not there. The conversation would have to wait.

  It was 1 p.m. by the time Wallander knocked on the door of Åkeson's office at the other end of the long, narrow police station. Every time he was there he was surprised by the chaos that seemed to prevail. The desk was piled high with paper, files were strewn around the floor and on the visitors' chairs. Along one wall was a barbell and a hastily rolled-up mattress.

  "Have you started working out?"

  "Not only that," Åkeson replied with a self-satisfied grin, "I've also acquired the good habit of taking a nap after lunch. I've just woken up."

  "You mean you sleep here on the floor?"

  "A 30-minute nap," Åkeson confirmed. "Then I get back to work full of energy."

  "Maybe I should try that," Wallander said doubtfully.

  Åkeson made room for him on one of the chairs by tipping a heap of files on to the floor. Then he sat down and put his feet on the desk.

  "I'd almo
st given you up for lost," he said with a smile, "but deep down I always knew you'd be back."

  "It's been a hell of a time," Wallander said.

  Åkeson became serious. "I really can't imagine what it must be like killing a man. Never mind if it was self-defence. It must be the only human act from which there's no going back. I haven't enough imagination to conjure up anything except a vague image of the abyss."

  "You can never get away from it," Wallander said. "But maybe you can learn to live with it."

  They sat without speaking. Somebody in the corridor was complaining that the coffee machine had broken down.

  "We're the same age, you and me," Åkeson said. "Six months ago I woke up one morning and thought: Good God! Was that all it was, life? Was there no more to it than that? I felt panic-stricken. But now, looking back, I have to acknowledge that it was useful. It made me do something I ought to have done ages ago."

  He fished a sheet of paper out of one of the piles on his desk and handed it to Wallander. It was an advertisement from various UN organisations for legally qualified people to fill a variety of posts abroad, including refugee camps in Africa and Asia.

  "I sent in an application," Åkeson said. "Then I forgot all about it. But a month ago I was called for an interview in Copenhagen. There's a chance I might be offered a two-year contract in a big camp for Ugandan refugees who are going to be repatriated."

  "Jump at it if the offer comes," Wallander said. "What does your wife say?"

  "She doesn't know about it," Åkeson said. "I don't honestly know what will happen."

  "I need you to give me some information," Wallander said.

  Åkeson took his feet off the desk and cleared aside some of the papers from in front of him. Wallander told him about the explosion in Mrs Dunér's back garden. Åkeson shook his head incredulously.

  "That's not possible."

  "Nyberg was positive," Wallander said. "And he's usually right, as you know."

  "What do you think about the whole business?" Åkeson said. "I've spoken to Björk, and of course I go along with your tearing up the previous investigation into Gustaf Torstensson's accident. Do we really have nothing to go on?"

  Wallander thought before replying. "The one thing we can be completely sure about is that it's no strange coincidence that two solicitors are dead and a mine is planted in Mrs Dunér's garden. It's all planned. We don't know how it started, and we don't know how it will end."

  "You don't think what happened to Mrs Dunér was just meant to frighten her?"

  "Whoever put that mine in her garden intended to kill her," Wallander said. "I want her protected. Perhaps she ought to move out of the house."

  "I'll arrange for that," Åkeson said. "I'll have a word with Björk."

  "She's scared," Wallander said. "But I can see now, after talking to her again, that she doesn't know what she's scared of. I thought she was holding something back, but I now realise she knows as little as the rest of us. Anyway, I thought you might be able to help by telling me about Gustaf and Sten Torstensson. You must have had quite a bit to do with them over the years."

  "Gustaf was an odd bird," Åkeson said. "And his son was well on the way to becoming one."

  "Gustaf Torstensson," Wallander said. "I think that's the starting point. But don't ask me why."

  "I didn't have that much to do with him," Åkeson said. "It was before my time when he used to appear in court as a defence lawyer. These last few years he seems to have been busy exclusively with financial consultancy."

  "For Alfred Harderberg," Wallander said. "Of Farnholm Castle. Which also strikes me as odd. A run-of-the-mill lawyer from Ystad. And a businessman with a global business empire."

  "As I understand it, that's one of Harderberg's chief attributes," Åkeson said. "His knack of finding and surrounding himself with just the right associates. Perhaps he noticed something about Gustaf that nobody else had suspected."

  "Are there any skeletons in Harderberg's cupboard?"

  "Not as far as I know" Åkeson said. "Which in itself might seem odd. They say there's a crime behind every fortune. But Harderberg appears to be a model citizen. And he does his bit for Sweden as well."

  "Meaning what?"

  "He doesn't channel all his investments abroad. He's even set up businesses in other countries and moved the actual manufacturing to Sweden. That's pretty unusual nowadays."

  "No skeletons roaming the corridors at Farnholm Castle, then," Wallander said. "Were there any blots in Torstensson's copybook?"

  "None at all," Åkeson said. "Honest, pedantic, boring. Old-fashioned sense of honour. Not a genius, not an idiot. Discreet. Not the type ever to wake up one morning and ask himself where his life had disappeared to."

  "Yet he was murdered," Wallander said. "There must have been one blot somewhere. Maybe not in his copybook, but in somebody else's." "I'm not sure I follow you."

  "A solicitor must be a bit like a doctor," Wallander said. "He knows a lot of people's secrets."

  "You're no doubt right," Åkeson agreed. "The solution must be somewhere in his relations with his clients. Something that involves everybody working for the firm. Including the secretary, Mrs Dunér."

  "We're searching."

  "I haven't much more to say about Sten Torstensson," Åkeson said. "A bachelor, a bit old-fashioned as well. I've heard the odd rumour to the effect that he was interested in persons of the same sex, but that's a rumour that circulates about all bachelors who are getting on in years. Thirty years ago, we could have guessed it might be blackmail."

  "That might be worth bearing in mind," Wallander said. "Anything else?"

  "Not really. Very occasionally he would come out with a joke, but he wasn't exactly the type you wanted to invite for dinner. He was said to be a good sailor, though."

  The phone rang. Åkeson answered, then handed the receiver to Wallander.

  Wallander recognised Martinsson's voice, and could hear straight away that it was important. Martinsson's voice was loud and shrill.

  ‘I’m at the solicitors' offices," he said. "We've found something that might be what we've been looking for." "What?"

  "Threatening letters." "Who to?" "To all three." "Mrs Dunér as well?" "Her as well." "I'm on my way."

  Wallander handed the receiver back to Åkeson and rose to his feet.

  "Martinsson's found some threatening letters," he said. "It looks as if you might have been right."

  "Phone me here or at home the moment you've got anything to tell me," Åkeson said.

  Wallander went out to his car without going back to his office for his jacket. He exceeded the speed limit all the way to the solicitors' offices. Lundin was in reception as he hurried through the door.

  "Where are they?" he said.

  She pointed at the conference room. Wallander went straight in before he remembered that there were people from the Bar Council there as well. Three solemn men, each one in his sixties, who clearly resented his barging in. He thought of the unshaven face he had seen in the mirror earlier - he did not look exactly presentable.

  Martinsson and Svedberg were at the table, waiting for him.

  "This is Inspector Wallander," Svedberg said.

  "A police officer with a national reputation," said one of the men, stiffly, shaking hands. Wallander shook hands with the other two as well, and sat down.

  "Fill me in," Wallander said, looking at Martinsson. But the reply came from one of the lawyers from Stockholm.

  "Perhaps I should start by informing Inspector Wallander of the procedure undertaken when a firm of solicitors is liquidated," said the man whose name Wallander had gathered was Wrede.

  "We can do that later," Wallander intervened. "Let's get straight down to business. You've found some threatening letters, I understand?"

  Wrede looked at him disapprovingly, but said no more. Martinsson pushed a brown envelope across the table to Wallander, and Svedberg handed him a pair of plastic gloves.

  "They were at the back of
a drawer in a filing cabinet," Martinsson said. "They weren't listed in any diary or ledger. They were hidden away."

  Wallander put on the gloves and opened the large brown envelope. Inside were two smaller envelopes. He tried without success to decipher the postmark. On one of the envelopes was a patch of ink, suggesting that some of the text had been crossed out. He took out the two letters, written on white paper, and put them on the desk in front of him. They were handwritten, and the text was short: The injustice is not forgotten, none of you shall be allowed to live unpunished, you shall die, Gustaf Torstensson, your son and also Dunér.

  The second letter was even shorter, the handwriting the same: The injustice will soon be punished.

  The first letter was dated June 19,1992, and the second August 26 of the same year. Both letters were signed Lars Borman.

  Wallander slid the letters carefully to one side and took off the gloves.

  "We've searched the ledgers," Martinsson said, "but neither Gustaf nor Sten Torstensson had a client by the name of Lars Borman."

  "That's correct," Wrede confirmed.

  "The man writes about an injustice," Martinsson said. "It must have been something major, or he wouldn't have had cause to threaten the lives of all three."

  "I'm sure you're right," Wallander said, his thoughts miles away.

  Once again he had the feeling there was something he ought to understand, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

  "Show me where you found the envelope," he said, standing up.

  Svedberg led him to a big filing cabinet in the office where Mrs Dunér had her desk. Svedberg pointed to one of the lower drawers. Wallander opened it. It was filled with suspension files.

  "Fetch Miss Lundin," he said.

  When Svedberg came back with her, Wallander could see she was very nervous. Even so, without being able to say why, he was convinced that she had nothing to do with the mysterious events at the solicitors' offices.

  "Who had a key to this filing cabinet?" he said. "Mrs Dunér," Lundin replied, almost inaudibly.

  "Please speak a bit louder" Wallander said. "Mrs Dunér" she repeated. "Only her?"

  "The solicitors had their own keys." "Was it kept locked?"