"But it's not true. I said exactly the opposite. I told him you'd already proved yourself to be a good police officer." "He sounded very convincing."

Wallander was furious. "That b.l.o.o.d.y Hanson!" he almost shouted. "If you like I'll phone him and tell him to get himself in here this minute. Surely you accept that not a word of what he said is true?"

"Why did he say it then?"

"Because he's nervous."

"Of me?"

"Why do you think he's away on courses all the time? Because he's afraid you'll overtake him. He hates to think that you are going to prove to be a better police officer than he is."

He could tell that she was beginning to believe him. "It's true," he said. "Tomorrow you and I are going to have a little talk with Mr Hanson. And it's not going to be a pleasant little talk as far as he's concerned, I can promise you that."

She looked up at him. "In that case, I apologise," she said.

"He's the one who needs to apologise," Wallander said. "Not you."

But the following day, Friday, November 26, the frost white on the trees outside the police station, Hoglund asked Wallander not to say anything to Hanson. After sleeping on it, she had decided that she would prefer to speak to him herself, at some stage in the future, when she had had a chance to distance herself from it. Wallander was persuaded that she believed him now, so he raised no objection. Which did not mean that he would forget what Hanson had done. Later in the morning, with everybody seeming to be frozen stiff" and out of sorts, apart from keson who was fighting fit again, Wallander called a meeting. He told the team about his meeting with Sofia in Simrishamn, but it did not seem to improve the mood of his colleagues. On the other hand, Svedberg produced a map of the Farnholm Castle estate. It was very big. Svedberg told them that the extensive grounds had been acquired in the late nineteenth century when the castle belonged to a family with the strikingly unn.o.ble name of Mrtensson. The head of the household had made a fortune building houses in Stockholm and then he had built what some would call a folly. Apparently, he was not only obsessed with grandeur, but may even have been close to actual lunacy. When Svedberg had exhausted all he had discovered about the castle, they continued to cross off their list aspects of the investigation that either had proved to be insignificant, or at the least could be put to one side for the present, being of little importance. Hoglund had finally managed to have a detailed conversation with Kim Sung-Lee, the cleaner at the Torstensson offices. As antic.i.p.ated, she had nothing of significance to say, and her papers had proved to be in order and her presence in Sweden totally legal. Hoglund had also on her own initiative talked to the clerk, Sonia Lundin. Wallander could not help being pleased to note that Hanson was unable to conceal his disapproval of the way she had acted on her own initiative. Unfortunately, Sonia Lundin had nothing helpful to say either. One more possible lead could be crossed off. Eventually, when everybody appeared to be still more out of sorts and inert, and a grey fog seemed to have settled over the conference table, Wallander tried to bring them back to life by urging them to concentrate on the flight plans of Harderberg's Gulfstream. He also suggested that Hanson should make discreet enquiries about the two pilots. But he failed to blow away the fog, the inertia that had started to worry him, and it now seemed to him that their only hope was that the financial experts with all their computer expertise might be able to breathe new life into the investigation. They had undertaken a thorough investigation into the Harderberg empire, but they had been forced to ask for an extension of the deadline, and the meeting had been postponed until the following Monday, November 29. Harderberg's Gulfstream. He also suggested that Hanson should make discreet enquiries about the two pilots. But he failed to blow away the fog, the inertia that had started to worry him, and it now seemed to him that their only hope was that the financial experts with all their computer expertise might be able to breathe new life into the investigation. They had undertaken a thorough investigation into the Harderberg empire, but they had been forced to ask for an extension of the deadline, and the meeting had been postponed until the following Monday, November 29.

Wallander had just decided to declare the meeting closed when keson put his hand up. "We must talk about the state of play in the investigation," he said. "I've allowed you to concentrate on Alfred Harderberg for another month, but at the same time I can't ignore the fact that we have only extremely thin evidence to justify it. It's as if we're drifting further from something crucial with every day that pa.s.ses. I think we'd all benefit from making one more clear and simple summary of where we've got to, based exclusively on the facts. Nothing else." put his hand up. "We must talk about the state of play in the investigation," he said. "I've allowed you to concentrate on Alfred Harderberg for another month, but at the same time I can't ignore the fact that we have only extremely thin evidence to justify it. It's as if we're drifting further from something crucial with every day that pa.s.ses. I think we'd all benefit from making one more clear and simple summary of where we've got to, based exclusively on the facts. Nothing else."

Everybody looked at Wallander. keson's comments came as no surprise, even if Wallander would have rather not been confronted by them.

"You're right," he said. "We need to see where we are. Even without any results from the fraud squads' a.n.a.lyses."

"Unravelling a financial empire doesn't necessarily identify a murderer, let alone several," keson said. said.

"I know that," Wallander said, "but nevertheless, the picture is not complete without their information."

"There is no complete picture," Martinsson said glumly. "There's no picture at all."

Wallander could see he would need to get a grip on the situation before it slid out of control. To give himself time to gather his thoughts he suggested they should have a short break and air the room. When they rea.s.sembled, he was firm and decisive.

"I can see a possible pattern," he began, "just as you all can. But let's approach it from a different angle and begin by taking a look at what this case isn't. isn't. There's nothing to convince us that we're dealing with a madman. It's true, of course, that a clever psychopath could have planned a murder disguised as a car accident, but there are no apparent motives, and what happened to Sten Torstensson doesn't seem to hang together with what happened to his father, from a psychopathic point of view. Nor do the attempts to blow up Mrs Duner and me. I say me rather than Hoglund because I think that's the way it was. Which brings me to the pattern that revolves around Farnholm Castle and Alfred Harderberg. Let's go back in time. Let's start with the day about five years ago when Gustaf Torstensson was first approached by Alfred Harderberg." There's nothing to convince us that we're dealing with a madman. It's true, of course, that a clever psychopath could have planned a murder disguised as a car accident, but there are no apparent motives, and what happened to Sten Torstensson doesn't seem to hang together with what happened to his father, from a psychopathic point of view. Nor do the attempts to blow up Mrs Duner and me. I say me rather than Hoglund because I think that's the way it was. Which brings me to the pattern that revolves around Farnholm Castle and Alfred Harderberg. Let's go back in time. Let's start with the day about five years ago when Gustaf Torstensson was first approached by Alfred Harderberg."

At that moment Bjork came into the conference room and sat at the table. Wallander suspected that keson had spoken to him during the short pause and asked him to be there for the rest of the meeting.

"Gustaf Torstensson starts working for Harderberg," Wallander began again. "It's an unusual arrangement - one wonders how on earth a provincial solicitor can be of use to an international industrial magnate. One might suspect that Harderberg intended to use Torstensson's shortcomings for his own advantage, expecting that he would be able to manipulate him if necessary. We don't know that, it's guesswork on my part. But somewhere along the line something unexpected happens. Torstensson starts to appear uneasy, or maybe I should say he appears to be depressed. His son notices, and so does his secretary. She even talks about him seeming to be afraid. Something else happens at about the same time. Torstensson and Lars Borman have got to know each other through a society devoted to the study of icons. Their relationship suddenly becomes strained, and we may a.s.sume that this has a connection with Harderberg because he's somehow in the background of the fraud executed on the Malmohus County Council. But the key question is: why did old man Torstensson start behaving in unexpected ways?

"I suspect that he discovered in the work he was doing for Harderberg something that upset him. Perhaps it was the same thing that upset Borman. We don't know what it was. Then Torstensson is killed in a stage-managed accident. Thanks to what Kurt Strom has told us, we can picture roughly what happened. Sten Torstensson comes to see me at Skagen. A few days later, he too is dead. He, no doubt, felt that he was in danger because he tries to set a false trail in Finland when in fact he's gone to Denmark. I'm convinced that somebody followed him to Denmark. Somebody watched our meeting on the beach. The people who killed Gustaf Torstensson were snapping at the heels of Sten Torstensson. They could not have known whether the father had discussed his discoveries with his son. Nor could they know what Sten said to me. Or what Mrs Duner knew. That's why Sten dies, that's why they try to kill Mrs Duner and why my car is torched. It's also the reason why I am being watched and not the rest of you. But everything leads us back to the question of what old man Torstensson had discovered. We are trying to establish whether it has anything to do with the plastic container we found on the back seat of his car. It could also be something else that the financial a.n.a.lysts will be able to tell us. Come what may, there is a pattern here that starts with the cold-blooded killing of Gustaf Torstensson. Sten Torstensson sealed his fate when he came to see me in Skagen. In the background of the pattern all we have is Alfred Harderberg and his empire. Nothing else - not that we can see, at least."

When Wallander had finished, no-one had a question.

"You paint a very plausible picture," keson said when the silence began to feel oppressive. "You could conceivably be plum right. The only problem is that we don't have a shred of proof, no forensic evidence at all."

"That's why we must speed up the work that's being done on the plastic container," Wallander said. "We have to take the lid off Avanca and see what's underneath. There must be a thread we can start to pull somewhere inside there."

"I wonder if we ought to have a down-to-earth chat with Kurt Strom," keson said. "Those men hanging around Harderberg all the time - who are they?"

"That thought had occurred to me too," Wallander said. "Strom might be able to throw a bit of light on matters. But the moment we contact Farnholm Castle and ask to speak to Strom, Harderberg will realise we suspect him of being directly involved. And once that happens, I doubt that we will ever solve these murders. With the resources he has at his disposal he can sweep the ground clean all around him. On the other hand, I think I'll pay him one more visit to lay our own false trail."

"You'll have to be very convincing," keson said, "or he'll see through you immediately." He put his briefcase on the table and began packing away his files. "Kurt has described where we stand. It's plausible, but it's vague. However, let's see what the fraud squads have to say for themselves on Monday."

The meeting broke up. Wallander felt uneasy. His own words were resounding inside his head. Perhaps keson was right. Wallander's summary had sounded plausible, but nevertheless would the course they were on end up by leaving them unable to prove anything?

Something's got to happen, he thought. Something's got to happen very soon.

When Wallander looked back on the weeks that followed, he would think of them as among the worst he had ever experienced in all his years as a police officer. Contrary to his expectations, nothing at all happened. The financial experts went through everything over and over again, but all they had to say was that they needed more time. Wallander managed to curb his impatience - or perhaps what really happened was that he managed to suppress his disappointment, because he could see that the fraud squads were working as hard as they could. When Wallander tried to contact Strom again, he found that he had left for Vasteras to bury his mother. Rather than chase him up there, Wallander elected to wait. He never managed to make contact with the two Gulfstream pilots since they were always out and about with Harderberg. The only thing the team did achieve during this grim period was to get access to the flight plans of the private jet. Alfred Harderberg had an astonishing itinerary. Svedberg calculated that the fuel bill alone would come to many millions of kronor per year. The financial a.n.a.lysts copied the flight plans and tried to fit them in with Harderberg's hectic programme of business deals.

Wallander met Sofia twice, on both occasions at the cafe in Simrishamn; but she had nothing more to report.

It was December, and it seemed to Wallander that the investigation was close to collapse. Perhaps it had collapsed already.

Nothing of any use to them happened. Nothing at all.

On Sat.u.r.day, December 4, Hoglund invited him for dinner. Her husband was at home, a brief pause between his unending trips round the globe looking for faulty water pumps. Wallander had much too much to drink. The investigation was not mentioned once during the evening. It was very late by the time Wallander realised he should go home. He decided to walk. When he got to the post office in Kyrkogrdsgatan, he had to lean against a wall and throw up. When eventually he got home to Mariagatan, he sat with his hand on the telephone, meaning to call Baiba in Riga. But common sense prevailed and he called Linda in Stockholm instead. When she gathered who it was she was annoyed, and told him to ring back the next morning. It was only after the brisk exchange was over that Wallander realised that probably she was not alone. That thought worried him, and he felt guilty as a result, but when he telephoned her the next day he did not refer to the matter. She told him about her work as an apprentice at an upholstery factory, and he could hear that she was happy in what she was doing. But he was disappointed that she made no mention of coming to visit him in Skne for Christmas. She and a few friends had rented a cottage in the Vasterbotten mountains. Eventually she asked him what he was up to.

"I'm chasing a Silk Knight," he said.

"A Silk Knight?"

"One of these days I'll explain to you what a Silk Knight is." "It sounds very attractive."

"But it isn't. I'm a police officer. We seldom chase anybody or anything attractive."

Still nothing happened. On Thursday, December 9, Wallander was well on the way to giving up. The next day he would suggest to keson that they should start looking at some other leads.

But on Friday, December 10, something actually did happen. He did not know it at the time, but the wilderness days were over. When Wallander got to his office, there was a note on his desk asking him to phone Kurt Strom without delay. He hung up his jacket, sat at his desk and dialled the number. Strom answered immediately.

"I want to see you," he said.

"Here or at your home?" Wallander asked.

"Neither," Strom said. "I've got a cottage in Svartavgen in Sandskogen. Number 12. Can you be there in an hour?" "I'll be there."

Wallander put down the receiver and looked out of the window. Then he stood up, put on his jacket and hurried out of the police station.

CHAPTER 16 16.

Rain clouds scudded across the sky.

Wallander was nervous. Leaving the police station he had headed east, turned right down Jaktpaviljongsvagen and stopped when he came to the youth hostel. Despite the cold and the wind he walked down to the deserted beach. He felt as if he had been transported back a few months in time. The beach was Jutland and Skagen, and he was once more on patrol, pacing up and down his territory.

But that feeling pa.s.sed just as quickly as it had come. He had no time for unnecessary daydreams. He tried to work out why Strom had made contact with him. His restlessness was due to the hope that Strom might be able to give him something that would lead to the breakthrough they so badly needed. But he knew that was wishful thinking. Strom not only hated him personally, he had no time at all for the force that had cast him out. They could not count on receiving help from Strom. Wallander had no idea what the man wanted.

It started raining. The raging wind sent him retreating to his car. He started the engine and turned up the heat. A woman walked past with her dog, heading for the beach. Wallander recalled the woman he kept seeing on the beach at Skagen. There was still almost half an hour to go before he was due to meet Strom in Svartavagen. He drove slowly back towards town and inspected the summer cottages at Sandskogen. He had no difficulty in identifying the red house Strom had described. He parked and walked into the little garden. The house looked like a magnified doll's house. It was in a poor state of repair. As there was no car outside, Wallander thought he must have got there first. But the front door opened and Strom was standing there.

"I didn't see a car," Wallander said. "I thought you hadn't come yet." "But I had. You can forget about my car."

Wallander went in as bidden. He was met by a faint smell of apples.

The curtains were drawn and the furniture was covered by white dust sheets.

"A nice house you have here," Wallander said.

"Who said it was mine?" Strom said, taking off two of the sheets.

"I have no coffee," he said. "You'll have to do without."

Wallander sat down in one of the chairs. The house felt raw and damp. Strom sat down opposite him. He was wearing a crumpled suit and a long, heavy overcoat.

"You wanted to see me," Wallander said. "Well, here I am."

"I thought we could strike a deal, you and me," Strom said. "Let's say that I have something you want."

"I don't do deals," Wallander said.

"You're too quick off the mark," Strom said. "If I were you I'd at least listen to what I have to say."

Wallander conceded the point. He should have waited before rejecting the offer. He gestured to Strom to continue.

"I've been off work for a couple of weeks, burying my mother," he said. "That gave me a lot of time to think. Not least about why the police were interested in Farnholm Castle. After you'd been to my place I could see of course that you suspected the murder of those two solicitors had something to do with the castle. The problem is simply that I can't understand why. I mean, the son had never been there. It was the old man who was dealing with Harderberg. The one we thought had died in a car accident."

He looked at Wallander, as if he were waiting for a reaction.

"Go on," Wallander said.

"When I came back and started work again, I suppose I'd forgotten all about your visit," he said. "But then something happened to put it in a new light."

Strom produced a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from an overcoat pocket. He offered the packet to Wallander, who shook his head.

"If there's one thing I've learned in this life," Strom said, "it's that you should keep your friends at arm's length. But you can let your enemies get as close to you as they can."

"I take it that's why I'm here," Wallander said.

"Could be," Strom said. "You should know that I don't like you, Wallander. As far as I'm concerned you represent the worst kind of upright bourgeois values the Swedish police force is stuffed so full of. But you can do deals with your enemies, or people you don't like. Pretty good deals, even."

Strom disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a saucer to use as an ashtray. Wallander waited.

"A new light," Strom said again. "I came back to find that I was being made redundant as from Christmas. I hadn't expected anything like that. But it was obvious that Harderberg had decided to leave Farnholm."

It used to be Dr Harderberg, Wallander noted. Now it's plain Harderberg, and he has trouble spitting even that out.

"Needless to say I was shattered," Strom said. "When I accepted the job of security chief, I was a.s.sured that it was permanent. n.o.body mentioned the possibility of Harderberg leaving the place. The wages were good, and I'd bought a house. Now I was going to be out of work again. I didn't like it."

Wallander had been wrong. It was only possible that Strom had something important to tell him.

"n.o.body likes being made redundant," Wallander said.

"What would you know about that?"

"Not as much as you do, obviously."

Strom stubbed out his cigarette. "Let's spell it out," he said. "You need inside information about the castle. Information you can't get without advertising the fact that you're interested. And you don't want to do that. If you did you'd have just driven up and demanded an interview with Harderberg. I don't care why you want information without anybody knowing about it. What is important, though, is that I'm the only one who can supply you with it. In exchange for something I want from you."

Wallander wondered if this was a trap. Was Harderberg pulling Strom's strings? He decided not. Too risky, too easy for Wallander to see through it.

"You're right," he said. "There are things I want to know, and without it being noticed. What do you want in return?" "Very little," Strom said. "A piece of paper." "A piece of paper?"

"I have to think about my future," Strom said. "If I have one, it's not going to be in the private sector security service. When I got the job at Farnholm Castle, I had the impression that it was an advantage to be on bad terms with the Swedish police force. But, unfortunately, that can be a disadvantage in other circ.u.mstances."

"What do you want on this piece of paper?"

"A positive reference," Strom said. "On police headed paper. Signed by Bjork."

"That's not on," Wallander said. "It would obviously be a fake. You've never worked in Ystad. A check with National Headquarters and anyone could discover that you'd been kicked out of the force."

"You can perfectly well fix a reference, if you want to," Strom said. "I can deal with whatever they have in the National Police Archives myself, one way or another."

"How?"

"That's my problem. I don't want you to help in any way." "How do you think I'm going to get Bjork to sign a cooked-up refer-ence?

"That's your problem. It could never be traced to you anyway. The world is full of forged doc.u.ments."

"In that case you can fix it with no input from me. Bjork's signature could be forged."

"Of course it could," Strom said. "But the certificate would have to be a part of the system. In the computer database. That's where you come in."

Wallander knew Strom was right. He had once forged a pa.s.sport himself. But still he found the idea objectionable.

"Let's say that I'll think about it," Wallander said. "Let me ask you a few more questions. We can regard your answers as sample goods. When I've heard what they are I can tell you whether I'll go along with you or not."

"I'm the one who'll decide whether enough questions have been asked," Strom said. "And we're going to sort this out here and now. Before you leave."

"I'll go along with that."

Strom lit another cigarette, then faced up to Wallander. "Why is Harderberg doing a runner?" "I don't know."

"Where's he going?"

"I don't know that either. Probably overseas." "What makes you think that?"