The Man Who Smiled Read online

  Wallander stood up, stretched his back and stood at the window. It was 6 P.M., and it had grown dark. Noises could be heard from the corridor, footsteps approaching and then fading away. He remembered something Rydberg had said during the last year of his life: “A police station is essentially like a prison. Police officers and criminals live their lives as mirror images of each other. It’s not really possible to decide who’s incarcerated and who isn’t.”

  Wallander suddenly felt listless and lonely. He resorted to his only consolation: an imagined conversation with Baiba Liepa in Riga, as though she were standing there in front of him, and as if his office were a room in a gray building with dilapidated facades in Riga, in that apartment with the dimmed lighting and the thick curtains permanently drawn. But the image became blurred, faded like the weaker of two wrestlers. Instead, Wallander pictured himself crawling on his muddy hands and knees through the Scanian fog with a shotgun in one hand and a pistol in the other, like a pathetic copy of some unlikely film idol, and then suddenly the illusion was ripped to shreds and reality imposed itself through the slits, and death and killing were not rabbits plucked out of a magician’s hat. He watches himself witnessing a man being shot by a bullet through the head, and then he also shoots, and the only thing he can be sure of is that his only hope is for the man he’s aiming at to die.

  I’m a man who doesn’t laugh enough, he thought. Without my noticing, middle age has marooned me on a coast with too many dangerous submerged rocks.

  He left all his papers on his desk. At the reception desk, Ebba was busy on the telephone. When she signaled to him to wait, he shook his head and waved to indicate he was in a hurry.

  He drove home and cooked a meal he would have been incapable of describing afterward. He watered the five plants he had on his window ledges, filled the washing machine with clothes that had been strewn around the apartment, discovered he had no laundry detergent, then sat on the sofa and cut his toenails. Occasionally he looked around the room, as if he expected to find that he wasn’t alone after all. Shortly after 10:00 he went to bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

  Outside the rain had eased off and become a light drizzle.

  When Wallander woke up the next morning it was still dark. The alarm clock with the luminous hands indicated that it was barely 5:00. He turned over and tried to go back to sleep, but found it impossible. His long stay out in the cold was still making itself felt. Whatever has changed, whatever is still the same, I will spend the rest of my life in two timescales, “before” and “after.” Kurt Wallander exists and doesn’t exist.

  He got up at 5:30, made coffee, waited for the newspaper to arrive and saw from the outside thermometer that it was 4° Celsius outside. Driven by a feeling of unrest he did not have the strength to analyze or fight, he left the apartment at 6 A.M. He got into his car and started the engine, thinking he might just as well pay a visit to Farnholm Castle. He could stop somewhere on the way, have a cup of coffee, and telephone to warn them he was coming. He drove east out of Ystad, averting his gaze as he passed the military training ground on his right where two years earlier he had fought the old Wallander’s last battle. Out there in the fog he had discovered that there are people who would not shrink from any form of violence, who would not hesitate to commit murders in cold blood. Out there, on his knees in the mud, he had fought desperately for his own life and somehow, thanks to an incredibly accurate shot, he had killed a man. It was a point of no return, a birth and a burial at the same time.

  He drove along the road to Kristianstad and slowed down as he passed the place where Gustaf Torstensson had died. When he came to Skåne-Tranås he stopped at the café and went in. It was getting windy: he should have put on a thicker jacket. In fact, he should have given more thought to his clothes in general: the worn Dacron pants and dirty windbreaker he had on were perhaps not ideal for visiting a lord of the manor. As he entered the café he wondered what Björk would have worn for a visit to a castle, supposing it had been on business.

  He was the only customer. He ordered coffee and a sandwich. It was 6:45, and he leafed through a well-thumbed magazine on a shelf. He soon tired of that, and tried to think instead about what he was going to say to Alfred Harderberg, or whoever might be able to tell him about Gustaf Torstensson’s last visit to his client. He waited until 7:30, then asked to use the telephone on the counter next to the old-fashioned cash register, and first called the police station in Ystad. The only one of his colleagues there that early was Martinsson. He explained where he was, and said that he expected the visit to take an hour or two.

  “Do you know the first thing that entered my head when I woke up this morning?” Martinsson said.

  “No.”

  “That it was Sten Torstensson who killed his father.”

  “How do you explain what then happened to the son?” Wallander said.

  “I don’t,” Martinsson said. “But what seems to me to be clearer and clearer is that the explanation has to do with their professional rather than their private lives.”

  “Or a combination of the two.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just something I dreamed last night,” Wallander said, ducking the question. “Anyway, I’ll be back at the station in due course.”

  He hung up, lifted the receiver again, and dialed the number of Farnholm Castle. It was answered on the very first ring. “Farnholm Castle,” said a woman’s voice. She had a slight foreign accent.

  “This is Detective Chief Inspector Wallander of the Ystad police. I’d like to speak to Mr. Harderberg.”

  “He’s in Geneva,” the voice said.

  Wallander should have foreseen the possibility that an international businessman might be abroad.

  “When will he be back?”

  “He hasn’t said.”

  “Do you expect him tomorrow or next week?”

  “I can’t give you that information over the telephone. His schedule is strictly confidential.”

  “Maybe so, but I am a police officer,” Wallander said, his anger rising.

  “How can I know that?” the woman said. “You could be anybody.”

  “I’ll be at Farnholm Castle in half an hour,” Wallander said. “Who shall I ask for?”

  “That’s for the guards at the main gate to decide,” the woman said. “I hope you have some acceptable form of identification with you.”

  “What do you mean by ‘acceptable’?” Wallander shouted, but she had hung up.

  Wallander slammed down the receiver. The powerfully built waitress was putting buns out on a plate, and looked up at him with displeasure. He put some coins on the counter and left without a word.

  Fifteen kilometers further north he turned to the west and was soon swallowed up by the dense forest to the south of Linderöd Ridge. He braked when he came to the turnoff for Farnholm Castle, and a granite plaque with gold lettering told him he was on the right path. Wallander thought the plaque looked like an expensive gravestone.

  The castle road was asphalted and in good condition. Tucked discreetly into the trees was a high fence. He stopped and rolled down his window to get a better view. It was a double fence with about a meter-wide gap. He drove on. Another kilometer or so and the road swung sharply to the right. Just beyond the turnoff were the gates. Next to them was a gray building with a flat roof looking more like a pillbox than anything else. He drove forward and waited. Nothing happened. He sounded his horn. Still no reaction. He got out of the car; he was getting annoyed. He had a vague feeling of being humiliated by all these fences and closed gates. Just then a man emerged through one of the steel doors in the pillbox. He was wearing a dark red uniform Wallander had never seen before. He still had not familiarized himself with these new security companies that were popping up all over the country.

  The man in the uniform came up to him. He was about the same age as Wallander.

  Then he recognized him.

  “Kurt Wallander,” said the guard. “Lon
g time no see.”

  “Indeed,” Wallander said. “How long ago was it when we last met? Fifteen years?”

  “Twenty,” the guard said. “Maybe more.”

  Wallander had dug out the man’s name from his memory. Kurt Ström. They had been colleagues on the Malmö police force. Wallander was young then and inexperienced, and Ström was a year or so older. They had never had more than professional contact with each other, but Wallander had moved to Ystad and many years later he had heard that Ström had left the force. He had a vague memory that Ström had been fired, something had been hushed up, possibly excessive force used on a prisoner, or stolen goods vanishing from a police storeroom. He didn’t know for sure.

  “I was warned you were on your way,” Ström said.

  “Lucky for me,” Wallander said. “I was told I’d have to produce an ‘acceptable form of identification.’ What do you find acceptable?”

  “We have a high level of security at Farnholm Castle,” Ström said. “We’re pretty careful about who we let in.”

  “What kind of treasure do you have hidden away here?”

  “No treasure, but there’s a man with very big business interests.”

  “Harderberg?”

  “That’s the one. He has something a lot of people would like to get their hands on.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Knowledge, know-how. Worth more than owning your own mint.”

  Wallander had no patience with the servile manner Ström was displaying as he spoke of the great man.

  “Once upon a time you were a police officer,” Wallander said. “I still am. Perhaps you understand why I’m here?”

  “I read the papers,” Ström said. “I suppose it has something to do with that lawyer.”

  “Two lawyers have died, not just one,” Wallander said. “But if I understand it right, only the elder one worked with Harderberg.”

  “He came here a lot,” Ström said. “A nice man. Very discreet.”

  “He was last here on October 11, in the evening,” Wallander said. “Were you on duty then?”

  Ström nodded.

  “I take it you take notes on all the cars and people that come in and out?”

  Ström laughed out loud. “We stopped that a long time ago,” he said. “It’s all done by computer nowadays.”

  “I’d like to see a printout for the evening of October 11,” Wallander said.

  “You’ll have to ask them up at the castle,” Ström said. “I’m not allowed to do things like that.”

  “But I daresay you’re allowed to remember,” Wallander said.

  “I know he was here that evening,” Ström said. “But I can’t remember when he arrived and when he left.”

  “Was he by himself in the car?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Because you’re not allowed to say?”

  Ström nodded again.

  “I’ve sometimes thought about applying for a job with a security company,” Wallander said, “but I think I’d find it hard to get used to not being allowed to answer questions.”

  “Everything has its price,” Ström said.

  Wallander thought he could say “hear, hear” to that. He watched Ström for a few moments. “Harderberg,” he said eventually. “What’s he like as a person?”

  The reply surprised him.

  “I don’t know,” Ström said.

  “You must have some sort of an opinion, surely? Or aren’t you allowed to comment on that either?”

  “I’ve never met him,” Ström said.

  “And you have been working for him how long?”

  “Nearly five years.”

  “You’ve never once seen him?”

  “Never.”

  “He’s never passed through these gates?”

  “His car has one-way glass in the windows.”

  “I take it that’s part of the security system?” Wallander thought for a moment. “In other words, you are never completely sure whether he’s here or not. You don’t know if he’s in the car when it passes in or out through the gates?”

  “No. It’s all part of the security,” Ström said.

  Wallander went back to his car. Ström disappeared through the steel door, and shortly afterward the gates opened without a sound. It’s like entering a different world, Wallander thought.

  After about a kilometer the forest opened up. The castle stood on a hill, surrounded by extensive and well-tended grounds. The large main building, like the freestanding outbuildings surrounding it, was in dark red brick. The castle had towers and steeples, balustrades and balconies. The only thing to break the mood of another world, another age, was a helicopter on a concrete pad. Wallander had the impression of a large insect with its wings half-folded, a wild beast at rest but liable to come back to life with a jerk.

  He drove slowly up to the main entrance. Peacocks strolled leisurely around on the road in front of the car. He parked behind a black BMW and got out. It was very quiet all around. The tranquillity reminded him of the previous day when he’d walked up the gravel drive to Gustaf Torstensson’s house. Perhaps tranquillity is what distinguishes the environment in which wealthy people live, he thought. It’s not the orchestral fanfares, but the tranquillity.

  Just then one of the double doors at the main entrance to the castle opened. A woman in her thirties, dressed in well-fitting and, Wallander guessed, expensive clothes emerged on to the steps.

  “Please come in,” she said with a ready smile, a smile that seemed to Wallander just as cold and unwelcoming as it was correct.

  “I don’t know if I have any identification papers you would regard as acceptable,” he said, “but the guard who goes by the name of Ström recognized me.”

  “I know,” said the woman.

  It was not the woman who’d answered the phone when he rang from the café. He went up the steps, held out his hand, and introduced himself. She ignored his hand but simply reproduced the same distant smile. He followed her inside through the doors. They walked across a large entrance hall. Modernistic sculptures on stone pedestals were dotted around, illuminated by invisible spotlights. In the background, by the wide staircase leading to the upper floor, he detected two men lurking in the shadows. Wallander could sense their presence, but could not make out their faces. Tranquillity and shadows, he thought. The world of Harderberg, as I know it so far. He followed her through a door on the left, leading into a large oval room that was also decorated with sculptures. But as a reminder of the fact that they were in a castle with a history going back deep into the Middle Ages, there were also some suits of armor keeping watch over him. In the center of the highly polished oak parquet floor was a desk and a single visitor’s chair. There was no paper on the desk, only a computer and an advanced telephone exchange that was hardly any bigger than an ordinary telephone. The woman invited him to sit down, then keyed a command into the computer. She handed him a sheet from a printer invisible somewhere under the desk.

  “I gather you wanted a printout of the gate-control data for the evening of October 11,” the woman said. “You can see from this when Mr. Torstensson arrived, and when he left Farnholm.”

  Wallander took the printout and put it on the floor beside him.

  “That’s not the only reason why I’ve come,” he said. “I have several other questions.”

  “Fire away.”

  The woman was sitting behind the desk. She pressed various buttons on the telephone exchange. Wallander assumed she was switching all incoming calls to another exchange somewhere in the huge building.

  “The information I’ve received informs me that Gustaf Torstensson had Alfred Harderberg as a client,” Wallander said. “If I understand correctly, he’s out of the country at the moment.”

  “He’s in Dubai,” the woman said.

  Wallander frowned. “An hour ago he was in Geneva,” he said.

  “That’s right,” the woman said without batting an eyelid. “But he’s now left for Dub
ai.”

  Wallander took a notebook and pencil from his jacket pocket.

  “May I ask your name and what you do here?”

  “I’m one of Alfred Harderberg’s secretaries,” she said. “My name’s Anita Karlén.”

  “Does Mr. Harderberg have many secretaries?” Wallander wondered.

  “That depends on how you look at it,” Anita Karlén replied. “Is that really relevant?”

  Once again Wallander started to get annoyed at the way in which he was being treated. He decided he would have to change his approach if the whole visit to Farnholm were not to be a waste of time.

  “I shall decide if the question is relevant or not,” he said. “Farnholm Castle is a private property and you have a legal right to surround it with as many fences as you like, as high as you like. Provided you have planning permits and are not contravening any laws or regulations. You also have the right to deny entry to whomever you like. With one exception: the police. Is that understood?”

  “We haven’t denied you entry, Mr. Wallander,” she said, still without batting an eyelid.

  “Let me express myself more clearly,” Wallander said, noting that the woman’s indifference was making him feel insecure. Perhaps he was also distracted by the fact that she was strikingly beautiful.

  Just as he opened his mouth to continue, a door opened and a woman came in with a tray. To his surprise Wallander saw that she was black. Without saying a word she put the tray down on the desk, then disappeared again just as noiselessly as she’d appeared.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. Wallander?”

  He said he would. She poured and then handed him the cup and saucer. He examined the china.

  “Let me ask you a question that’s relevant,” he said. “What will happen if I drop this cup on the floor? How much will I owe you?”

  For the first time her smile seemed genuine.