He drove along the road to Kristianstad and slowed down as he passed the place where Gustaf Torstensson had died. When he came to Skåne-Tranås he stopped at the café and went in. It was getting windy: he should have put on a thicker jacket. In fact, he should have given more thought to his clothes in generaclass="underline" the worn Dacron pants and dirty windbreaker he had on were perhaps not ideal for visiting a lord of the manor. As he entered the café he wondered what Björk would have worn for a visit to a castle, supposing it had been on business.
He was the only customer. He ordered coffee and a sandwich. It was 6:45, and he leafed through a well-thumbed magazine on a shelf. He soon tired of that, and tried to think instead about what he was going to say to Alfred Harderberg, or whoever might be able to tell him about Gustaf Torstensson’s last visit to his client. He waited until 7:30, then asked to use the telephone on the counter next to the old-fashioned cash register, and first called the police station in Ystad. The only one of his colleagues there that early was Martinsson. He explained where he was, and said that he expected the visit to take an hour or two.
“Do you know the first thing that entered my head when I woke up this morning?” Martinsson said.
“No.”
“That it was Sten Torstensson who killed his father.”
“How do you explain what then happened to the son?” Wallander said.
“I don’t,” Martinsson said. “But what seems to me to be clearer and clearer is that the explanation has to do with their professional rather than their private lives.”
“Or a combination of the two.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just something I dreamed last night,” Wallander said, ducking the question. “Anyway, I’ll be back at the station in due course.”
He hung up, lifted the receiver again, and dialed the number of Farnholm Castle. It was answered on the very first ring. “Farnholm Castle,” said a woman’s voice. She had a slight foreign accent.
“This is Detective Chief Inspector Wallander of the Ystad police. I’d like to speak to Mr. Harderberg.”
“He’s in Geneva,” the voice said.
Wallander should have foreseen the possibility that an international businessman might be abroad.
“When will he be back?”
“He hasn’t said.”
“Do you expect him tomorrow or next week?”
“I can’t give you that information over the telephone. His schedule is strictly confidential.”
“Maybe so, but I am a police officer,” Wallander said, his anger rising.
“How can I know that?” the woman said. “You could be anybody.”
“I’ll be at Farnholm Castle in half an hour,” Wallander said. “Who shall I ask for?”
“That’s for the guards at the main gate to decide,” the woman said. “I hope you have some acceptable form of identification with you.”
“What do you mean by ‘acceptable’?” Wallander shouted, but she had hung up.
Wallander slammed down the receiver. The powerfully built waitress was putting buns out on a plate, and looked up at him with displeasure. He put some coins on the counter and left without a word.
Fifteen kilometers further north he turned to the west and was soon swallowed up by the dense forest to the south of Linderöd Ridge. He braked when he came to the turnoff for Farnholm Castle, and a granite plaque with gold lettering told him he was on the right path. Wallander thought the plaque looked like an expensive gravestone.
The castle road was asphalted and in good condition. Tucked discreetly into the trees was a high fence. He stopped and rolled down his window to get a better view. It was a double fence with about a meter-wide gap. He drove on. Another kilometer or so and the road swung sharply to the right. Just beyond the turnoff were the gates. Next to them was a gray building with a flat roof looking more like a pillbox than anything else. He drove forward and waited. Nothing happened. He sounded his horn. Still no reaction. He got out of the car; he was getting annoyed. He had a vague feeling of being humiliated by all these fences and closed gates. Just then a man emerged through one of the steel doors in the pillbox. He was wearing a dark red uniform Wallander had never seen before. He still had not familiarized himself with these new security companies that were popping up all over the country.
The man in the uniform came up to him. He was about the same age as Wallander.
Then he recognized him.
“Kurt Wallander,” said the guard. “Long time no see.”
“Indeed,” Wallander said. “How long ago was it when we last met? Fifteen years?”
“Twenty,” the guard said. “Maybe more.”
Wallander had dug out the man’s name from his memory. Kurt Ström. They had been colleagues on the Malmö police force. Wallander was young then and inexperienced, and Ström was a year or so older. They had never had more than professional contact with each other, but Wallander had moved to Ystad and many years later he had heard that Ström had left the force. He had a vague memory that Ström had been fired, something had been hushed up, possibly excessive force used on a prisoner, or stolen goods vanishing from a police storeroom. He didn’t know for sure.
“I was warned you were on your way,” Ström said.
“Lucky for me,” Wallander said. “I was told I’d have to produce an ‘acceptable form of identification.’ What do you find acceptable?”
“We have a high level of security at Farnholm Castle,” Ström said. “We’re pretty careful about who we let in.”
“What kind of treasure do you have hidden away here?”
“No treasure, but there’s a man with very big business interests.”
“Harderberg?”
“That’s the one. He has something a lot of people would like to get their hands on.”
“What’s that?”
“Knowledge, know-how. Worth more than owning your own mint.”
Wallander had no patience with the servile manner Ström was displaying as he spoke of the great man.
“Once upon a time you were a police officer,” Wallander said. “I still am. Perhaps you understand why I’m here?”
“I read the papers,” Ström said. “I suppose it has something to do with that lawyer.”
“Two lawyers have died, not just one,” Wallander said. “But if I understand it right, only the elder one worked with Harderberg.”
“He came here a lot,” Ström said. “A nice man. Very discreet.”
“He was last here on October 11, in the evening,” Wallander said. “Were you on duty then?”
Ström nodded.
“I take it you take notes on all the cars and people that come in and out?”
Ström laughed out loud. “We stopped that a long time ago,” he said. “It’s all done by computer nowadays.”
“I’d like to see a printout for the evening of October 11,” Wallander said.
“You’ll have to ask them up at the castle,” Ström said. “I’m not allowed to do things like that.”
“But I daresay you’re allowed to remember,” Wallander said.
“I know he was here that evening,” Ström said. “But I can’t remember when he arrived and when he left.”
“Was he by himself in the car?”
“I can’t say.”
“Because you’re not allowed to say?”
Ström nodded again.