Wallander had just decided to declare the meeting closed when Akeson 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 passes. 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. Akeson'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' analyses."
"Unravelling a financial empire doesn't necessarily identify a murderer, let alone several," Akeson 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 reassembled, 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. 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 Akeson 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 assume 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 analysts 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," Akeson 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," Akeson 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," Akeson 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 Akeson 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 analysts copied the flight plans and tried to fit them in with Harderberg's hectic programme of business deals.