The front doorbell rang and in marched Nyberg ahead of two men in uniform carrying an implement that reminded Wallander of a vacuum cleaner. It took the soldiers a quarter of an hour to go over the little garden with the mine detector. The police officers stood at the window watching intently as the men worked. Then they announced that it was all clear, and prepared to leave. Wallander accompanied them out into the street where their car was waiting for them.
"What can you say about the mine?" he asked them. "Size, explosive power? Can you guess where it might have been made? Anything at all could be of use to us."
LUNDQVIST, CAPTAIN, it said on the identity disc attached to the tunic of the older of the two soldiers. He was also the one who replied to Wallander's question.
"Not a particularly powerful mine," he said. "A few hundred grams of explosive at most. Enough to kill a man, though. We usually call this kind of mine a Four."
"Meaning what?" Wallander said.
"Somebody treads on a mine," Captain Lundqvist said. "You need three men to carry him out of battle. Four people removed from active duty."
"And the origin?"
"Mines aren't made the same way as other weapons," Lundqvist said. "Bofors makes them, as do all the other major arms manufacturers. But nearly every industrialised country has a factory making mines. Either they're manufactured openly under licence, or they're pirated. Terrorist groups have their own models. Before you can say anything about where the mine comes from, you have to have a fragment of the explosive and preferably also a bit of the material the casing was made from. It could be iron or plastic. Even wood."
"We'll see what we can find," Wallander said. "Then we'll get back to you."
"Not a nice weapon," Captain Lundqvist said. "They say it's the world's cheapest and most reliable soldier. You put him somewhere and he never moves from the spot, not for a hundred years if that's how you want it. He doesn't require food or drink or wages. He just exists, and waits. Until somebody comes and treads on him. Then he strikes."
"How long can a mine remain active?" Wallander asked.
"Nobody knows. Landmines that were laid in the First World War are still going off now and then."
Wallander went back into the house. Nyberg was in the garden and had already started his meticulous investigation of the crater.
"The explosive and if possible also a piece of the casing," Wallander said.
"What else do you suppose we're looking for?" Nyberg snarled. "Bits of bone?"
Wallander wondered whether he should let Mrs Duner calm down for a few more hours before talking to her, but he was getting impatient again. Impatient at never seeming to be able to see any sign of a breakthrough, or finding any clear starting point for this investigation.
"You two had better go and put Bjork in the picture," he said to Martinsson and Hoglund. "This afternoon we'll go through the whole case in detail, to see where we've got to."
"Have we got anywhere at all?" Martinsson said.
"We've always got somewhere," Wallander said, "but we don't always know exactly where. Has Svedberg been talking to the lawyers going through the Torstensson archives?"
"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 Duner 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 Duner 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."