The Man Who Smiled - Wallander 04

by Henning Mankell

  "Mrs Dunér used to open it in the morning and lock it again when she went home."

  Wrede interrupted the conversation. "We have signed for a key from Mrs Dunér" he said. "Sten Torstensson's key. We opened the cabinet today."

  Wallander nodded. There was something else he ought to ask Lundin, he was sure, but he couldn't think what it was. Instead he turned to Wrede.

  "What do you think about these threatening letters?" he said.

  "The man must obviously be arrested at once," Wrede said.

  "That's not what I asked," Wallander said. "I asked for your opinion."

  "Solicitors are often placed in an exposed situation."

  "I take it all solicitors receive this kind of letter sooner or later?"

  "The Bar Council might be able to supply the statistics."

  Wallander looked at him for some time before asking his final question.

  "Have you ever received a threatening letter?"

  "It has happened."

  "Why?"

  "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to reveal that. It would break my oath of confidentiality as a lawyer."

  Wallander could see his point. He replaced the letters in the brown envelope.

  "We'll take these with us," he said to the men from the Bar Council.

  "It's not quite so straightforward as that," Wrede said. He seemed always to be the one speaking on behalf of the others. Wallander felt like he was in a court facing a judge.

  "It's possible that just at this moment our interests are not identical," Wallander interrupted him, irritated by his way of speaking. "You're here to work out what to do with the firm's property, if that's what you can call it. We are here to identify one or more murderers. The brown envelope is going with me."

  "We cannot allow any documents to be removed from these premises until we have discussed the matter with the prosecutor in charge of the investigation," Wrede said.

  "Phone Per Åkeson," Wallander said, "and send him my regards."

  Then he picked up the envelope and marched out of the room. Martinsson and Svedberg hastened after him.

  "Now there'll be trouble," Martinsson said as they left the building. Wallander could tell that Martinsson was not altogether displeased at the prospect.

  Wallander felt cold. The wind was gusting and seemed to be getting stronger.

  "What now?" he said. "What's Höglund up to?"

  "Looking after her sick child," Svedberg said. "Hanson would be pleased to know that. He has always said women police officers are no good when it comes to investigations."

  "Hanson has always said all kinds of things," Martinsson said. "Police officers who are forever absent on further-education courses are not much good at investigations either."

  "The letters are a year old," Wallander said. "We have a name, Lars Borman. He threatens the lives of Gustaf and Sten Torstensson. And Mrs Dunér. He writes a letter, and then another one two months later. One was posted in some form of company envelope. Nyberg is good. I think he'll be able to tell us what it says under the ink on that envelope. And where they were postmarked, of course. In fact, I don't know what we're waiting for."

  They returned to the police station. While Martinsson phoned Nyberg, who was still at Mrs Dunér's house, Wallander sat down and tried to puzzle out the postmarks.

  Svedberg had gone to look for the name Lars Borman in various police registers. When Nyberg came to Wallander's office a quarter of an hour later he was blue with cold and had dark grass stains on the knees of his overalls.

  "How's it going?" Wallander said.

  "Slowly," Nyberg said. "What did you expect? A mine exploded into millions of tiny particles."

  Wallander pointed to the two letters and the brown envelope on the desk in front of him.

  "These have to be thoroughly examined," he said. "First of all I'd like to know where the letters were postmarked. And what it says under the ink stain on one of the envelopes. Everything else can wait."

  Nyberg put on his glasses, switched on Wallander's desk lamp, found a clean pair of plastic gloves and examined the letters.

  "We'll be able to decipher the postmarks using a microscope," he said. "Whatever is written on the envelope has been painted over with Indian ink. I can try a bit of scraping. I think I should be able to sort that out without having to send it to Linkoping."

  "It's urgent."

  Nyberg took off his glasses in irritation. "It's always urgent," he said. "I need an hour. Is that too much?"

  "Take as long as you need," Wallander said. "I know you work as fast as you can."

  Nyberg picked up the letters and left. Martinsson and Svedberg appeared almost immediately.

  "There is no Borman in any of the registers," Svedberg said. "I've found four Bromans and one Borrman. I thought maybe it could have been misspelled. Evert Borrman wandered around the Ostersund area at the end of the 1960s cashing false cheques. If he's still alive he must be about 85 by now."

  Wallander shook his head. "We'd better wait for Nyberg," he said. "At the same time, I think we'd be wise not to expect too much of this. The threat is brutal alright. But vague. I'll give you a shout when Nyberg reports back."

  When Wallander was on his own he took out the leather file he had been given at Farnholm Castle. He spent almost an hour acquainting himself with the extent of Harderberg's business empire. He had still not finished when there was a knock on the door and Nyberg came in. Wallander noticed to his surprise that he was still in his dirty overalls.

  "Here are the answers to your questions," he said, flopping down on Wallander's visitor's chair. "The letters are postmarked in Helsingborg, and on one of the envelopes it says 'The Linden Hotel'."

  Wallander pulled over a pad and made a note.

  "Linden Hotel," Nyberg said. "Gjutargatan 12. It even gave the phone number."

  "Where?"

  "I thought you'd grasped that," Nyberg said. "The letters were postmarked in Helsingborg. That's where the Linden Hotel is as well." "Well done," Wallander said.

  "I just do as I'm told," Nyberg said. "But as this went so quickly, I did something else as well. I think you're going to have problems." Wallander looked questioningly at him.

  "I rang that number in Helsingborg," Nyberg said. "I got the 'number unobtainable' tone. It no longer exists. I asked Ebba to look into it. It took her ten minutes to establish that the Linden Hotel went out of business a year ago."

  Nyberg stood up and brushed down the seat of the chair. "Now I'm off for lunch," he said.

  "Do that," Wallander said. "And thanks for your help."

  When Nyberg had left, Wallander thought over what he had heard. Then he summoned Svedberg and Martinsson. A few minutes later they had collected a cup of coffee and were in Wallander's office.

  "There must be some kind of hotel register," Wallander said. "I mean, a hotel is a business enterprise. It has an owner. It can't go out of business without it being recorded somewhere."

  "What happens to old hotel ledgers?" Svedberg said. "Are they discarded? Or are they kept?"

  "That's something we'll have to find out," Wallander said. "Now, right away. Most important is to get hold of the Linden Hotel's owner. If we divide the task up between us, it shouldn't take us more than an hour or so. We'll meet again when we're ready."

  Wallander called Ebba and asked her to look for the name Borman in the directories for Skåne and Halland first. He had only just put down the receiver when the phone rang. It was his father.

  "Don't forget you're coming to see me this evening," his father said.

  "I'll be there," Wallander said, thinking that in fact he was too tired to drive out to Loderup. But he knew he could not say no, he could not change the arrangement.

  "I'll be there at about 7.00," he said.

  "We'll see," his father said.

  "What do you mean by that?" Wallander asked, and could hear the anger in his voice.

  "I just mean we'll see if that is in fact when you come," his father said.


  Wallander forced himself not to start arguing.

  "I'll be there," he said, and put down the phone.

  His office suddenly seemed stifling. He went out into the corridor, and kept going as far as reception.

  "There is nobody called Borman in the directories," Ebba said. "Do you want me to keep looking?"

  "Not yet," Wallander said.

  "I'd like to ask you round for dinner," Ebba said. "You must tell me how you are."

  Wallander nodded, but he said nothing.

  He went back to his office and opened the window. The wind was getting stronger still, and he felt very cold. He closed the window and sat at his desk. The file from Farnholm Castle was lying open, but he pushed it aside. He thought about Baiba Liepa in Riga.

  Twenty minutes later he was still there, thinking, when Svedberg knocked on the door and came in.

  "Now I know all there is to know about Swedish hotels," he said. "Martinsson will be here in a minute."

  When Martinsson had closed the door behind him, Svedberg sat at one corner of the desk and started reading from a pad in which he had made his notes.

  "The Linden Hotel was owned and run by a man called Bertil Forsdahl," he began. "I got that information from the County Offices. It was a little family hotel that was no longer viable. And Forsdahl is getting on a bit, he's 70. I've got his number here. He lives in Helsingborg."

  Wallander dialled the number as Svedberg read out the digits. The telephone rang for a considerable time before it was answered. It was a woman.

  "I'm trying to reach Bertil Forsdahl," Wallander said. "He's gone out," the woman said. "He'll be back late this evening. Who shall I tell him called?"

  Wallander thought for a moment before replying.

  "My name's Kurt Wallander," he said. "I'm calling from the police station in Ystad. I have some questions to ask your husband about the hotel he used to run a year or so ago. No cause for concern, it's just some routine questions."

  "My husband's an honest man," the woman said.

  "I've no doubt about that," Wallander said. "This is just a routine inquiry. When exactly do you expect him back?"

  "He's on a senior citizens' excursion to Ven," the woman said. "They're due to have dinner in Landskrona, but he's bound to be home by ten. He never goes to bed before midnight. That's a habit he got into when he ran the hotel."

  "Tell him I'll get back to him," Wallander said. "And there's absolutely nothing to be worried about."

  "I'm not worried," the woman said. "My husband's an honest man."

  Wallander hung up. "I'll drive out and visit him tonight," Wallander said.

  "Can't it wait until tomorrow?" Martinsson asked.

  "I'm sure it can," Wallander said. "But I've nothing else on tonight."

  An hour later they met to assess the situation. Björk had left a message to say he could not be there as he had been summoned to an urgent meeting with the District Police Chief. Höglund suddenly put in an appearance. Her husband had come home and was looking after the sick child.

  Everybody agreed they should concentrate on the threatening letters. Wallander could not escape the nagging thought that there was something odd about the dead solicitors, something he ought to have cottoned on to. He remembered that Höglund had had the same feeling the previous day.

  After the meeting they bumped into each other in the corridor.

  "If you're going to Helsingborg tonight, I'll go with you " she said. "If I may."

  "It's not necessary," he said.

  "But I'd like to, even so."

  He nodded. They agreed to meet at the police station at 9.00.

  Wallander drove to his father's house at Löderup shortly before 7 p.m. He stopped on the way to buy some buns to eat with the coffee. When he got there his father was in his studio, painting the same old picture: an autumn landscape, with or without a grouse in the foreground.

  My father's what people call a "kitsch" artist, Wallander thought. I sometimes feel like a kitschy police officer.

  His father's wife, who used to be his home help, was visiting her parents. Wallander expected his father to be cross when he heard that his son could only stay an hour, but to his surprise, he simply nodded. They played cards for a short while and Wallander told him in detail why he returned to work. His father did not seem interested in his reasons. It was an evening when, just for once, they did not quarrel. As Wallander drove back to Ystad, he racked his brains to remember when that had last happened.

  At 8.55 they were in Wallander's car, heading for the Malmö road. It was still windy, and Wallander could feel a draught from the ill-fitting rubber strip round the windscreen. He could smell the faint aroma of Höglund's discreet perfume. When they emerged on to the E65 he speeded up.

  "Do you know your way around Helsingborg?" she said. "No."

  "We could call our colleagues in Helsingborg and ask."

  "Best to keep them out of it for the time being," Wallander said.

  "Why?"

  "When police officers intrude into others' territory there are always problems," Wallander said. "No point in making things difficult for ourselves unnecessarily."

  They drove on in silence. Wallander thought reluctantly about the conversation he would have to have with Björk. When they came to the road for Sturup airport, Wallander turned off. A few kilometres further on he turned off again, towards Lund.

  "Tell me why you became a police officer," Wallander said.

  "Not yet," she said. "Another time."

  There was not much traffic. The wind seemed to be getting worse all the time. They passed the roundabout outside Staffanstorp and saw the lights from Lund. It was 9.25.

  "That's odd," she said suddenly.

  Wallander noticed straight away there was something different about her voice. He glanced at her face, which was lit up by the glow from the dashboard. He could see she was staring intently into the mirror on her side. He looked in his rear-view mirror. There were headlights some way behind.

  "What's odd?" he asked.

  "I've never experienced this before," she said.

  "What?"

  "Being chased," she said. "Or, at least, being followed." Wallander could see that she was serious. He looked again at the lights in his mirror.

  "How can you be so sure the car is following us?" he said. "That's easy. It's been behind us ever since we set off." Wallander looked at her doubtfully.

  "I'm positive," she said. "That car has been following us ever since we left Ystad."

  CHAPTER 7

  Fear was like a beast of prey.

  Afterwards, Wallander remembered it as being like a claw clamped round his neck - an image that seemed even to him childish and inadequate, but it was the comparison he eventually used even so. Who would he describe the fear to? His daughter Linda, and perhaps also Baiba, in one of the letters he sent regularly to Riga. But hardly to anyone else. He never discussed with Höglund what he had felt in that car; she never asked, and he was never sure whether she had noticed he was frightened. Nevertheless, he had been so terrified that he was shaking, and was convinced he would lose control of the car and plunge into the ditch at high speed, perhaps even hurtle to his death. He remembered with crystal clarity that he wished he had been alone in the car. That would have made everything much simpler for him. A large part of his fear, the weight of the giant beast, was the worry that something might happen to her, the woman in the passenger seat. Superficially, he had played the role of the experienced police officer who was unmoved by a minor matter like discovering that he was being followed from Staffanstorp to Lund, but he had been scared out of his wits until they reached the outskirts of the city. Shortly after crossing the boundary, when she had announced that the car was still following them, he had pulled in to one of the big petrol stations that had 24-hour service. They had seen the car drive past, a dark blue Mercedes, but had been unable to catch the registration number or make out how many people were inside. Wallander had stopped
by one of the pumps.

  "I think you're wrong," he said.

  She shook her head. "The car was following us," she said. "I can't swear that it was waiting for us outside the police station, but I noticed it early on. It was there when we passed the roundabout on the E65. It was just a car then, any old car. But when we'd turned off a couple

  of times and it still hadn't overtaken us, it started to be something else."

  Wallander got out and unscrewed the petrol cap. She stood by his side, watching him. He was thinking as hard as he could.

  "Who would want to follow us?" he asked as he replaced the pipe.

  She remained standing by the car while he went to pay. She couldn't possibly be right, he thought. His fear had started to wear off.

  They continued through the town. The streets were deserted, and the traffic lights seemed very reluctant to change. Once they had left Lund behind them and Wallander increased speed along the motorway heading north, they started to check the traffic behind them once again. But the Mercedes had gone, and it didn't reappear. When they took the exit for Helsingborg south, Wallander slowed down. A dirty lorry overtook them, then a dark red Volvo. Wallander pulled up at the side of the road, released his safety belt and got out. He walked round to the back of the car and crouched down, as if he were inspecting one of the back wheels. He knew she would keep an eye on every car that passed. He counted four cars overtaking them, and a bus which had a fault in one of its cylinders, to judge by the sound of its engine. He got back into the car and turned to her.

  "No Mercedes?"

  "A white Audi," she said. "Two men in front, maybe another in the back."

  "Why pick on that one?"

  "They were the only ones who didn't look at us. They also picked up speed."

  Wallander pointed to the car phone. "Phone Martinsson," he said. "I take it you made a note of the registration number. Not just the Audi, the others as well. Give them to him. Tell him it's urgent."

  He gave her Martinsson's home number and drove on, keeping his eye open for a telephone box where he hoped he might find a phone book with a map of the area. He heard her speaking to one of Martinsson's children, probably his little daughter. After a short pause Martinsson came on the line and she gave him the registration numbers. Then she handed the phone to Wallander.