The Man Who Smiled Part 6

He went up the steps to the front door and found the right key. It was an advanced Chubb lock of a type he had not come across before. He let himself into a large hall with a broad staircase at the back leading to the upper floor. Heavy curtains were drawn across the windows. He opened one set and saw that the window was barred. An elderly man living alone, experiencing the fear that inevitably goes with age. Was there something here he needed to protect, apart from himself? Or was his fear something that originated beyond these walls? He made his way round the house, starting on the ground floor with its library lined with sombre portraits of family ancestors, and the large open-plan living room and dining room. Everything, from furniture to wallpaper, was dark, giving him a feeling of melancholy and silence. Nowhere even a small patch of light colour, no trace of a light touch that could raise a smile.

He went upstairs. Guest rooms with neatly made beds, deserted like a hotel closed for the winter. The door to Torstensson's own bedroom had a barred inner door. He went back downstairs, oppressed by the gloom. He sat at the kitchen table and rested his chin on his hands. All he could hear was a clock ticking.

Torstensson was 69 when he died. He had been living alone for the last 15 years, since his wife died. Sten was their only child. Judging by one of the portraits in the library, the family was descended from Field Marshal Lennart Torstensson. Wallander's vague memory from his schooldays was that during the Thirty Years' War the man had a reputation for exceptional brutality towards the peasants wherever his army had set foot.

Wallander stood up and went down the stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Here, too, everything was pedantically neat. Right at the back, behind the boiler room, Wallander discovered a steel door that was locked. He tried the various keys until he found the right one. Wallander had to feel his way until he located the light switch.

The room was surprisingly big. The walls were lined with shelves laden with icons from Eastern Europe. Without touching them, Wallander scrutinised them from close up. He was no expert, nor had he ever been particularly interested in antiques, but he reckoned that this collection was extremely valuable. That would explain the barred windows and the lock, if not the wrought-iron safety door to the bedroom. Wallander's uneasiness grew. He felt he was intruding on the privacy of a rich old man whom happiness had abandoned, who had barricaded his house, and who was watched over by greed in the shape of all these Madonna figures.

He p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. There were footsteps upstairs, then a dog barking. He hurried out of the room, up the steps and into the kitchen.

He was astonished to be confronted by Peters, his colleague, who had drawn his pistol and was pointing it at him. Behind him was a security guard with a growling dog tugging at a lead. Peters lowered his gun. Wallander could feel his heart racing. The sight of the gun had momentarily revived the memories he had spent so long trying to banish.

Then he was furious. "What the h.e.l.l's going on here?" he snarled.

"The alarm went off at the security company, and they called the police," Peters said, clearly worried. "So we came rus.h.i.+ng here in a hurry. I had no idea it was you."

Peters' partner Noren entered on cue, also wielding a pistol.

"There's a police investigation going on here," Wallander said, noting that his anger had subsided as quickly as it had broken out. "Torstensson, the solicitor who died in the car accident, lived here."

"If the alarm goes off, we turn out," the man from the security company said, bluntly.

"Turn it off," Wallander said. "You can turn it on again in a few hours' time. But let's all work our way through the house first."

"This is Chief Inspector Wallander," Peters explained. "I expect you recognise him."

The security man was very young. He nodded, but Wallander could tell that he had not recognised him.

"We don't need you any more. And get that dog out of here," Wallander said.

The guard withdrew, taking the reluctant Alsatian with him. Wallander shook Peters and Noren by the hand.

"I'd heard you were back," Noren said. "It's good to see you again." "Thank you."

"Things haven't been the same since you were on sick leave," Peters said.

"Well, I'm in harness again now," Wallander said, hoping to steer the conversation back to the investigation.

"The information we get isn't exactly reliable," Noren said. "We'd been told you were going to retire. After that we didn't expect to find you in a house when the alarm went off."

"Life is full of surprises," Wallander said.

"Anyway, welcome back," Peters said.

Wallander had the feeling for the first time that the friendliness was genuine. There was nothing artificial about Peters: his words were straightforward and clear.

"It's been a difficult time," Wallander said. "But it's over now. I think so, at least."

He walked down to the car with them and waved as they drove off. He wandered around the garden, trying to sort out his thoughts. His personal feelings were intertwined with thoughts about what had happened to the two lawyers. In the end he decided to go and talk again to Mrs Duner. Now he had a few questions to put to her which needed answering.

It was almost noon when he rang her doorbell and was let in. This time he accepted her offer of a cup of tea.

"I'm sorry to disturb you again so soon," he began, "but I do need help in building up a picture of both of them, father and son. Who were they? You worked with the older man for 30 years."

"And 19 years with Sten Torstensson," she said.

"That's a long time," Wallander said. "You get to know people as time goes by. Let's start with the father. Tell me what he was like."

"I can't," she said.

"And why not?"

"I didn't know him."

Her reply astonished him, but it sounded genuine. Wallander decided to feel his way forward, to take all the time his impatience told him he did not have.

"You will not mind my saying that your response is a bit odd," Wallander said. "I mean, you worked with him for a very long time."

"Not with with him," she said. "For him. There's a big difference." him," she said. "For him. There's a big difference."

Wallander nodded. "Even if you didn't know the man, you must know a lot about him. Please, tell me what you can. If you don't I'm afraid we may never be able to solve the murder of his son."

"You're not being honest with me, Inspector Wallander," she said. "You haven't told me what really happened when he died in that car crash."

She was evidently going to go on surprising him. He made his mind up on the spot to be straight with her.

"We don't know yet," he said. "But we suspect it was more than just an accident. Something might have caused it, or happened afterwards."

"He'd driven along that road lots of times," she said. "He knew it inside out. And he never drove fast."

"If I understand it rightly, he'd been to see one of his clients," Wallander said.

"The man at Farnholm," was all she said. "The man at Farnholm?"

"Alfred Harderberg. The man at Farnholm Castle."

Wallander knew that Farnholm Castle was in a remote area to the south of the Linderod Ridge. He had often driven past the turning, but had never been there.

"He was our biggest client," Mrs Duner went on. "For the last few years he'd been in effect Gustaf Torstensson's only client."

Wallander wrote the name on a sc.r.a.p of paper he found in his pocket.

"I've never heard of him," he said. "Is he a farmer?"

"He's the man who owns the castle," Mrs Duner said. "But he's a businessman. Big business, international."

"I'll be in touch with him, obviously," Wallander said. "He must be one of the last people to see Mr Torstensson alive."

A packet of mail suddenly dropped through the letter box. Wallander noticed that Mrs Duner gave a start.

Three scared people, he thought. Scared of what?

"Gustaf Torstensson," he started again. "Let's try again. Tell me what he was like."

"He was the most private person I have ever met," she said, and Wallander detected a hint of aggression. "He never allowed anybody to get close to him. He was a pedant, never varied his routine. He was one of those people folk say you could set your watch by. That was absolutely true in Gustaf Torstensson's case. He was a sort of bloodless, cut-out silhouette, neither nice nor nasty. Just boring."

"According to Sten Torstensson, he was also cheerful," Wallander said.

"You could have fooled me," Mrs Duner said. "How did the two of them get on?"

She did not hesitate, she answered directly to the point. "Gustaf Torstensson was annoyed that his son was trying to modernise the business," she said. "And naturally enough, Sten Torstensson thought his father was a millstone round his neck. But neither of them revealed their true feelings to the other. They were both afraid of fighting."

"Before Sten Torstensson died he said something had been upsetting and worrying his father for several months," Wallander said. "Can you comment on that?"

This time she paused before answering.

"Maybe," she said. "Now that you mention it, there was something distant about him in the last months of his life." "Have you any explanation for that?" "No."

"Nothing unusual that happened?" "No, nothing."

"Please think carefully. This could be very important." She poured another cup of tea while she was thinking. Wallander waited. Then she looked up at him.

"I can't say," she said. "I can't explain it."

Wallander knew she was not telling the truth, but he decided not to press her. Everything was still too vague and uncertain. The time wasn't ripe.

He pushed his cup to one side and rose to his feet. "I won't disturb you any longer," he said. "But I'll be back, I'm afraid." "Of course," Mrs Duner said.

"If you think of anything you'd like to say, just give me a ring," Wallander said as he left. "Don't hesitate. The slightest detail could be significant."

"I'll bear that in mind," she said as she closed the door behind him.

Wallander sat in his car without starting the engine. He felt very uneasy. Without being able to say exactly why, he had the feeling there was something very serious and disturbing behind the deaths of the two lawyers. They were still only scratching the surface.

Something is pointing us in the wrong direction, he thought. The postcard from Finland might not be a red herring, might be the thing we really ought to be looking into. But why?

He was about to start the engine and drive off when he noticed that somebody was standing on the opposite pavement, watching him.

It was a young woman, hardly more than 20, of some Asiatic origin. When she saw that Wallander had noticed her, she hurried away. Wallander could see in his rear-view mirror that she had turned right into Hamngatan without looking back.

He was certain he had never seen her before.

That didn't mean she had not recognised him. Over the years as a police officer he had often come up against refugees and asylum seekers in various contexts.

He drove back to the police station. The wind was still squally, and clouds were building up from the east. He had just turned into Kristianstadvagen when he slammed his foot on the brake. A lorry behind him sounded its horn.

I'm reacting far too slowly, he thought. I'm not seeing the wood for the trees.

He made an illegal U-turn, parked outside the post office in Hamngatan and made his way swiftly into the side street that led into Stickgatan from the north. He positioned himself so that he could see the pink building where Mrs Duner lived.

It was getting chilly, and he started walking up and down while keeping an eye on the building. After an hour he wondered whether he ought to give up. But he was sure he was right. He kept on watching the building. By now keson was waiting for him, but he would wait in vain.

At 3.43 p.m. the door to the pink building suddenly opened. Wallander hid behind a wall. He was was right. He watched that woman with the vaguely Asiatic appearance leave Berta Duner's house. Then she turned the corner and was gone. right. He watched that woman with the vaguely Asiatic appearance leave Berta Duner's house. Then she turned the corner and was gone.

It had started raining.

CHAPTER 5 5.

The meeting of the investigation team started at 4 p.m. and finished exactly seven minutes later. Wallander was the last to arrive and flopped down on his chair. He was out of breath, and sweating. His colleagues around the table observed him in surprise, but no-one made any comment.

It took Bjork a few minutes to establish that no-one had any significant progress to report or matters to discuss. They had reached a point in the investigation where they had become "tunnel diggers", as they used to say. They were all trying to break through the surface layer to find what might be concealed underneath. It was a familiar phase in criminal investigations, and no discussion was needed. The only one who came up with a question at the end of the meeting was Wallander.

"Who is Alfred Harderberg?" he asked, after consulting a sc.r.a.p of paper on which he'd written down the name.

"I thought everybody knew that," Bjork said. "He's one of Sweden's most successful businessmen just now. Lives here in Skne. When he's not flying all over the world in his private jet, that is."

"He owns Farnholm Castle," Svedberg said. "It's said that he has an aquarium with genuine gold dust at the bottom instead of sand."

"He was a client of Gustaf Torstensson's," Wallander said. "His princ.i.p.al client, in fact. And his last. Torstensson had been to see him the night he met his death in the field."

"He organises collections for the needy in parts of the Balkans ravaged by war," Martinsson said. "But maybe that's not so extraordinary when you have the limitless amounts of money he does."

"Alfred Harderberg is a man worthy of our respect," Bjork said.

Wallander could see he was getting annoyed. "Who isn't?" he wondered aloud. "I intend to pay him a visit even so."

"Phone first," Bjork said, getting to his feet.

The meeting was at an end. Wallander fetched a cup of coffee and repaired to his office. He needed time on his own to think over the significance of Mrs Duner being visited by a young Asian woman. Maybe there was nothing to it at all, but Wallander's instinct told him otherwise. He put his feet on his desk and leaned back in his chair, balancing his coffee cup between his knees.

The telephone rang. Wallander stretched to answer it, lost his grip on the cup, and coffee spilled all over his trouser leg as the cup fell to the floor.

"s.h.i.+t!" he shouted, the receiver halfway to his ear.

"No need to be rude," said his father. "I only wanted to ask why you never get in touch."

Wallander was instantly a.s.sailed by his bad conscience, and that in turn made him angry. He wondered if there would ever be a time when dealings with his father could be conducted on a less tense footing.

"I spilled a cup of coffee," he said, "and scalded my leg."

His father seemed not to have heard what he said. "Why are you in your office?" he asked. "You're supposed to be on sick leave."