The question was: what?
It had been a hectic time, but Wallander had organized his troops well and had not hesitated to take on the most boring work himself—which often proved to produce the most interesting information. They had gone through the story of Harderberg’s life, from the day he was born, the son of an alcoholic timber merchant in Vimmerby, when he was known as Hansson, to the present day when he was the driving force of an enterprise with a turnover of billions in Sweden and abroad. At one point during the laborious exercise, wading through company reports and accounts, tax returns and share brochures, Svedberg said: “It’s simply not possible for a man who owns as much as this to be honest.” In the end it was Sven Nyberg, the surly and irritable forensic specialist, who gave them the information they needed. As so often happens, it was pure coincidence that he stumbled upon the tiny crack in Harderberg’s immaculately rendered wall, the barely visible fault line they had craved. And if Wallander, despite his exhaustion, had not picked up on a remark Nyberg made as he was on his way out of Wallander’s office late one night, the opportunity might have slipped away.
It was nearly midnight on Wednesday and Wallander was poring over a résumé Höglund had drawn up on Harderberg’s worldly possessions when Nyberg pounded on the door. Nyberg was not a discreet person; he stomped down hallways and he pounded on doors, as if he were about to make an arrest, when he visited his fellow officers. That night he had just completed the forensic lab’s preliminary report on the mine in Mrs. Dunér’s garden and the explosion of Wallander’s car.
“I thought you would want the results right away,” he said after flopping down in one of Wallander’s visitors’ chairs.
“What have you got?” Wallander said, peering at Nyberg with red-rimmed eyes.
“Nothing,” Nyberg said.
“Nothing?”
“You heard.” Nyberg was irritated. “That’s also a result. It’s not possible to say for certain where the mine was manufactured. We think it might be from a factory in Belgium, a company called Poudreris Réunie de Belgique or however you pronounce it. The explosive used suggests that. And we didn’t find any splinters, which means that the force of the mine was upward. That also suggests Belgian in origin. But it could also have been from somewhere else entirely. As for your car, we can’t say definitely that there was explosive material in your gas tank. In other words we can’t say anything at all for sure. So the result is nothing.”
“I believe you,” Wallander said, searching through his pile of papers for a note he had made about what he wanted to ask Nyberg.
“And that Italian pistol, the Bernadelli, we don’t know any more about that either,” Nyberg said while Wallander made notes. “There’s no report of one having been stolen. All the people registered in Sweden as owning one have been able to produce it. Now it’s up to you and Per Åkeson to decide whether we should call them all in and give them a test firing.”
“Do you think that would be worth it?”
“Yes and no,” Nyberg said. “Personally, I think we ought to run a check on stolen Smith & Wessons first. That’ll take a few more days.”
“We’ll do as you suggest, then,” Wallander said, making a note. Then they continued going through Nyberg’s points.
“We didn’t find any fingerprints in the lawyers’ offices,” Nyberg said. “Whoever shot Sten Torstensson didn’t press his thumb helpfully on the windowpane. An inspection of the threatening letters from Lars Borman produced negative results as well. But we did establish that it was his handwriting. Svedberg has samples from both of his children.”
“What did they say about the language?” Wallander asked. “I forgot to ask Svedberg.”
“What do you mean, the language?”
“The letters were very oddly phrased.”
“I have a vague memory from one of our meetings that Svedberg said that Borman was aphasic.”
“Aphasic?” Wallander frowned. “I don’t remember hearing that.”
“Maybe you’d left the room to get more coffee?”
“Could be. I’ll talk to Svedberg. Do you have anything else?”
“I went to give Gustaf Torstensson’s car the once-over,” Nyberg said. “No fingerprints there either. I examined the ignition and the trunk, and I’ve spoken to the pathologist in Malmö. We’re almost certain that he didn’t get the fatal blow to the back of his head by hitting it against the car roof. There’s nothing anywhere in the bodywork that matches the wound. So it’s more probable that somebody hit him. He must have been outside the car when it happened. Unless there was somebody in the backseat.”
“I thought about that,” Wallander said. “The likelihood is that he stopped on the road and got out of the car. Somebody came up behind him and hit him. Then the accident was faked. But why did he stop in the fog? Why did he get out?”
“I couldn’t say,” Nyberg said.
Wallander put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. His back ached, and he needed to go home and get some sleep.
“The only thing of note we found in the car was a plastic container made in France,” Nyberg said.
“What was in it?”
“Nothing.”
“Why is it interesting, then?”
Nyberg shrugged and got up to leave. “I’ve seen a similar one before. Four years ago. When I was visiting the hospital in Lund.”
“The hospital?”
“I have a good memory. It was identical.”
“What was it used for?”
Nyberg was already at the door. “How should I know?” he said. “But the container we found in Torstensson’s car was chemically clean. Only a container that’s never contained anything could be as clean as that one.”
Nyberg left. Wallander could hear him stomping down the hallway.
Then he pushed the heap of paper to one side and stood up to go home. He put on his jacket, then paused. There was something Nyberg had said. Just before he left the room. Something about the plastic container.
Then it came to him, and he sat down again.
There’s something funny there, he thought. Why would there be a plastic container that has never been used in Torstensson’s car? An empty container, but evidently a very special one? There was only one possible answer.
When Torstensson left Farnholm Castle, the container had not been empty. There had been something in it. Which meant that this was not the same container. It had been exchanged for the other one. On the road in the fog. When Torstensson stopped and got out of his car. And was killed.
Wallander checked his watch. After midnight. He waited for a quarter of an hour, then he phoned Nyberg at home.
“What the hell do you want now?” Nyberg said as soon as he recognized Wallander’s voice.
“Get yourself over here,” Wallander said. “Now, right away.”
He expected Nyberg to explode in fury, but he said nothing, just put down the receiver.
At 12:40 a.m., Nyberg was back in Wallander’s office once again.
Chapter 11
That conversation with Nyberg in the middle of the night was crucial. It seemed to Wallander that yet again he had confirmation of the fact that criminal investigations achieve a breakthrough when it is least expected. Many of Wallander’s colleagues thought this proved that even police officers needed a little luck now and again to find their way out of a cul-de-sac. Wallander said nothing, but he thought that what it really proved was that Rydberg was right to maintain that a good police officer must always listen to what his intuition tells him—without discarding his critical faculties, of course. He had known—without knowing why he knew—that the plastic container in Torstensson’s wrecked car was important. And although he was exhausted, he also knew that he could not wait until the next day to have his suspicions confirmed. That’s why he had phoned Nyberg, who had just walked into his office. He had anticipated an angry outburst from his temperamental colleague, but none was forthcoming. Nyberg had simply sat down in the visitor’s chair, and Wallander noted to his surprise that he was wearing pajamas under his overcoat. He had rubber boots on as well.