Strom shouted at the dogs and at once they fell silent.
"Let's go inside," he said.
"No need," Wallander said. "We can stay here. It'll only take a minute." He looked around the little garden. "A nice place you've got here. A bit different from a flat in the middle of Malmo."
"It was OK there as well, but this is closer to work."
"It looks as though you live on your own here. I thought you were married?"
Strom glared at him with eyes of steel. "What's my private life got to do with you?"
Wallander opened wide his arms in apology. "Nothing," he said. "But you know how it is with former colleagues. You ask after the family."
"I'm not your colleague," Strom said.
"But you used to be, didn't you?"
Wallander had changed his tone. He was looking for a confrontation. He knew that toughness was the only thing Strom had any respect for.
"I don't suppose you've come here to discuss my family."
Wallander smiled at him. "Quite right," he said. "I haven't. I only reminded you that we used to be colleagues out of politeness."
Strom had turned ashen. For a brief moment Wallander thought he had gone too far, and that Strom would take a swing at him.
"Let's forget it," Wallander said. "Let's talk about something else. October 11. A Monday evening. Six weeks ago. You know the evening I mean?"
Strom nodded, but said nothing.
"I really only have one question," Wallander said. "But let's get an important thing out of the way first. I'm not going to let you get away with not answering on the grounds that you'd be breaking the security rules of Farnholm Castle. If you try that, I'll make life so hellish for you, you'll wonder what hit you."
"You can't do anything to me," Strom said.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Wallander said. "I could arrest you and take you to Ystad with me, or I could phone the castle ten times a day and ask to speak to Kurt Strom. They would soon get the feeling that the police were far too interested in their head of security. I wonder if they know about your past? That could be embarrassing for them. I doubt if Dr Harderberg would be pleased if the peace and quiet of Farnholm Castle were to be disturbed."
"Go to hell!" Strom said. "Get to the other side of that gate before I throw you out."
"I only want the answer to one question, about the night of October 11," Wallander said, unconcerned. "And I can assure you it won't go any further. Is it really worth risking the new life you lead? As I recall, when we met at the castle gates you said you were very happy with it."
Wallander could see that Strom was wavering. His eyes were still full of hatred, but Wallander knew he would get an answer.
"One question," he said. "One answer. But a truthful one. Then I'll be off. You can get on with your repairs and forget I was ever here. And you can carry on guarding the gates of Farnholm Castle till the day you die. Just one question and one answer."
An aeroplane flew past high above their heads. Wallander wondered if it was Alfred Harderberg's Gulfstream on its way back from New York already.
"What do you want to know?"
"That evening of October 11," Wallander said. "Gustaf Torstensson left the castle at 8.14 p.m. according to the printout of the gate checks I've seen. That could be forged, of course, but let's assume it's correct. We do know he did leave Farnholm Castle, after all. My question to you, Kurt Strom, is very simple. Did a car leave Farnholm Castle after Mr Torstensson arrived but before he left?"
Strom said nothing, but then he nodded slowly.
"That was the first part of the question," Wallander said. "Now comes the second part of the same question. Who was it who left the castle?"
"I don't know."
"But you saw a car?"
"I've already answered more than one question."
"Stop this shit, Strom. It's the same question. What make of car was it? And who was in it?"
"It was one of the cars that belong to the castle. A BMW."
"Who was in it?"
"I don't know."
"Your life will turn extremely unpleasant if you don't answer!"
Wallander discovered that he did not need to pretend to be furious. He was already furious.
"I honestly don't know who was in the car."
Wallander could see that Strom was telling the truth. He ought to have realised.
"Because the windows were fitted with dark glass," Wallander said. "So you can't see who's inside. Is that right?"
Strom nodded. "You've got your answer," he said. "Now get the hell out of here."
"Always a pleasure to bump into former colleagues," Wallander said. "And you're quite right, it is time I was off. Nice to talk to you."
The dogs started barking as soon as he turned his back. As he drove off Strom was still standing in the doorway, watching him go. Wallander could feel the sweat inside his shirt. He remembered that Strom could be violent.
But he had got a plausible answer to a question that had been troubling him. The starting point for what happened that October night when Gustaf Torstensson died, alone in his car. He had a good idea now how it had occurred. While Torstensson sat back in one of the sumptuous leather armchairs chatting to Harderberg and the Italian bankers, a car had left Farnholm Castle to lie in wait for the old man as he drove home. Somehow or other, by a display of force or cunning or convincing friendliness, they had got him to stop his car on that remote, carefully chosen stretch of road. Wallander had no idea if the decision to prevent Torstensson reaching home had been made that same night, or earlier; but at least he could now see the makings of an explanation.
He thought about the men lurking in the shadows in the entrance hall. Then he shuddered as he thought about what had happened the previous night.
Without realising it, he pressed harder on the accelerator. By the time he came to Sandskogen he was going so fast that if he had been stopped he would have had his licence suspended on the spot. He slowed down. When he reached Ystad he called at Fridolf's cafe and had a cup of coffee. He knew what advice Rydberg would have given him.
Patience, he would have said. When stones start rolling down a slope, it's important not to start running after them right away. Stay where you are and watch them rolling, see where they come to a stop. That's what he would have said.
And he would have been right, Wallander thought. That's how we're going to proceed.
*
In the days to come Wallander had evidence once more of how he was surrounded by colleagues who did not stint on effort when it was really needed. They had already been working intensively, but nobody protested when Wallander announced that they were going to have to work even harder. It had started that Wednesday afternoon when Wallander called the team to the conference room, and Akeson attended despite his diarrhoea and high temperature. They all agreed that Harderberg's business empire should be unravelled and mapped out with the greatest possible speed. While the meeting was in progress Akeson phoned the fraud squads in Malmo and Stockholm. The others present listened in admiration as he described how the need for them to work harder and give the job the highest priority was more or less essential if the country were to survive. When he hung up, the meeting burst into spontaneous applause.
On Akeson's advice they had decided that they themselves would continue to concentrate on Avanca without worrying about running into conflict with the work being carried out by the fraud squads. Wallander also established that Hoglund was the best qualified officer for this task. Nobody objected, and from that moment on she was no longer a raw recruit but a fully fledged member of the investigative team. Svedberg took over some of the work she had been doing before, including the efforts to obtain the flight plans of Harderberg's aircraft. There was some discussion between Wallander and Akeson as to whether this was a sufficiently valuable source of information to warrant the effort. Wallander argued that sooner or later they would have to establish Harderberg's movements, not least on the day Sten Torstensson died. Akeson maintained that if it really did now seem likely that Harderberg was behind what had happened, he would have access to state-of-the-art resources and could be in contact with Farnholm Castle even if he were crossing the Atlantic in his Gulfstream, or in the Australian outback, where the financial experts claimed he had substantial mining interests. Wallander could see Akeson's point and was just about to cave in when Akeson threw up his hands and said he had only been putting a personal point of view and did not want any obstacles in the way of work that was ongoing.