“You can never get away from it,” Wallander said. “But maybe you can learn to live with it.”
They sat without speaking. Somebody in the corridor was complaining that the coffee machine had broken down.
“We’re the same age, you and me,” Åkeson said. “Six months ago I woke up one morning and thought: Good God! Was that all it was, life? Was there no more to it than that? I felt panic-stricken. But now, looking back, I have to acknowledge that it was useful. It made me do something I ought to have done ages ago.”
He fished a sheet of paper out of one of the piles on his desk and handed it to Wallander. It was an advertisement from various UN organizations for legally qualified people to fill a variety of posts abroad, including refugee camps in Africa and Asia.
“I sent in an application,” Åkeson said. “Then I forgot all about it. But a month ago I was called for an interview in Copenhagen. There’s a chance I might be offered a two-year contract in a big camp for Ugandan refugees who are going to be repatriated.”
“Jump at it if the offer comes,” Wallander said. “What does your wife say?”
“She doesn’t know about it,” Åkeson said. “I don’t honestly know what will happen.”
“I need you to give me some information,” Wallander said.
Åkeson took his feet off the desk and cleared aside some of the papers in front of him. Wallander told him about the explosion in Mrs. Dunér’s back garden. Åkeson shook his head incredulously.
“That’s not possible.”
“Nyberg was positive,” Wallander said. “And he’s usually right, as you know.”
“What do you think about the whole business?” Åkeson said. “I’ve spoken to Björk, and of course I go along with you tearing up the previous investigation into Gustaf Torstensson’s accident. Do we really have nothing to go on?”
Wallander thought before replying. “The one thing we can be completely sure about is that it’s no strange coincidence that two lawyers are dead and a mine is planted in Mrs. Dunér’s garden. It was all planned. We don’t know how it started, and we don’t know how it will end.”
“You don’t think what happened to Mrs. Dunér was just meant to frighten her?”
“Whoever put that mine in her garden intended to kill her,” Wallander said. “I want her protected. Perhaps she needs to move out of the house.”
“I’ll arrange for that,” Åkeson said. “I’ll have a word with Björk.”
“She’s scared,” Wallander said. “But I can see now, after talking to her again, that she doesn’t know what she’s scared of. I thought she was holding something back, but I now realize she knows as little as the rest of us. Anyway, I thought you might be able to help by telling me about Gustaf and Sten Torstensson. You must have run into them a lot over the years.”
“Gustaf was an odd duck,” Åkeson said. “And his son was well on the way to becoming one too.”
“Gustaf Torstensson,” Wallander said. “I think that’s the starting point. But don’t ask me why.”
“I didn’t have that much to do with him,” Åkeson said. “It was before my time when he used to appear in court as a defense lawyer. These last few years he seems to have been busy exclusively with financial consultancy.”
“For Alfred Harderberg,” Wallander said. “Of Farnholm Castle. Which also strikes me as odd. A run-of-the-mill lawyer from Ystad. And a businessman with a global business empire.”
“As I understand it, that’s one of Harderberg’s chief attributes,” Åkeson said. “His knack of finding and surrounding himself with just the right associates. Perhaps he noticed something about Gustaf that nobody else had suspected.”
“Are there any skeletons in Harderberg’s closet?”
“Not as far as I know,” Åkeson said. “Which in itself might seem odd. They say there’s a crime behind every fortune. But Harderberg appears to be a model citizen. And he does his part for Sweden as well.”
“Meaning what?”
“He doesn’t channel all his investments abroad. He’s even set up businesses in other countries and moved the actual manufacturing to Sweden. That’s pretty unusual nowadays.”
“No skeletons roaming the corridors of Farnholm Castle, then,” Wallander said. “Were there any blots on Torstensson’s permanent record?”
“None at all,” Åkeson said. “Honest, pedantic, boring. Old-fashioned sense of honor. Not a genius, not an idiot. Discreet. Not the type ever to wake up one morning and ask himself where his life had disappeared to.”
“Yet he was murdered,” Wallander said. “There must have been one blot somewhere. Maybe not in his record, but in somebody else’s.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“A lawyer must be a little like a doctor,” Wallander said. “He knows a lot of people’s secrets.”
“You’re no doubt right,” Åkeson agreed. “The solution must be somewhere in his relations with his clients. Something that involves everybody working for the firm. Including the secretary, Mrs. Dunér.”
“We’re searching.”
“I don’t have much more to say about Sten Torstensson,” Åkeson said. “A bachelor, a bit old-fashioned as well. I’ve heard the odd rumor to the effect that he was interested in persons of the same sex, but that’s a rumor that circulates about all aging bachelors. Thirty years ago, we could have guessed it might be blackmail.”
“That might be worth bearing in mind,” Wallander said. “Anything else?”
“Not really. Very occasionally he would make a joke, but he wasn’t exactly the type you wanted to invite for dinner. He was said to be a good sailor, though.”
The phone rang. Åkeson answered, then handed the receiver to Wallander.
Wallander recognized Martinsson’s voice, and could tell right away that it was important. Martinsson’s voice was loud and shrill.
“I’m at the lawyers’ offices,” he said. “We’ve found something that might be what we’ve been looking for.”
“What?”
“Threatening letters.”
“Who to?”
“To all three.”
“Mrs. Dunér as well?”
“Her as well.”
“I’m on my way.”
Wallander handed the receiver back to Åkeson and rose to his feet.
“Martinsson’s found some threatening letters,” he said. “It looks as if you might have been right.”
“Call me here or at home the minute you’ve got anything to tell me,” Åkeson said.
Wallander went out to his car without going back to his office for his jacket. He exceeded the speed limit all the way to the lawyers’ offices. Lundin was in the reception area as he hurried through the door.
“Where are they?” he said.
She pointed at the conference room. Wallander went straight in before he remembered that there were people from the Bar Council there as well. Three solemn men, each one in his sixties, who clearly resented his barging in. He thought of the unshaven face he had seen in the mirror earlier—he did not exactly look presentable.
Martinsson and Svedberg were at the table, waiting for him.
“This is Inspector Wallander,” Svedberg said.
“A police officer with a national reputation,” said one of the men, stiffly, shaking hands. Wallander shook hands with the other two as well, and sat down.
“Fill me in,” Wallander said, looking at Martinsson. But the reply came from one of the lawyers from Stockholm.
“Perhaps I should start by informing Inspector Wallander of the procedure undertaken when a law firm is liquidated,” said the man whose name Wallander had gathered was Wrede.
“We can do that later,” Wallander intervened. “Let’s get down to business right away. You’ve found some threatening letters, I understand?”
Wrede looked at him disapprovingly, but said no more. Martinsson pushed a brown envelope across the table to Wallander, and Svedberg handed him a pair of plastic gloves.