“You shouldn’t be doing this, you know,” she said.
“All my life I’ve been doing things I shouldn’t be doing,” Wallander said. “Why stop now?”
They tuned their radios.
“Why did you become a police officer and not a vicar?” he said, looking into her eyes reflected in the dim light of the radios.
“I was raped,” she said. “That changed my whole life. All I wanted to do after that was join the police force.”
Wallander sat for a while in silence. Then he opened the door, got out, and closed it quietly behind him. It was like entering another world. Höglund was nowhere to be found any longer.
The night was very calm. For some reason he was struck by the thought that in two days it would be Lucia, and all of Sweden would be occupied with blond girls wearing a crown of burning candles on their heads, singing “Santa Lucia” and celebrating what used to be thought of as the winter solstice. He positioned himself behind a tree trunk and unfolded his map. He shone his flashlight on it and tried to memorize the key elements. Then he switched off the flashlight, put the map into his pocket, and ran down the road leading to the castle gates. It would be impossible to climb the double fence of barbed wire. There was only one way in, and that was through the gates.
After ten minutes he paused to get his breath back. Then he made his way cautiously along the road until he could see the bright lights at the gates, and the bunker that guarded them.
I must do what they least expect, he thought. The last thing they’ll be waiting for is an armed man trying to get into the castle grounds on his own.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He took his pistol out of his pocket. Behind the bunker was a narrow patch of shadow. He glanced at his watch: 9:57.
Then he made his move.
Chapter 17
The first call came after half an hour. She could hear his voice clearly, with no interference, as if he had not gone far from the car but was standing close by in the shadows.
“Where are you?” she said.
“I’m inside the grounds,” he said. “Stand by for the next call in an hour from now.”
“What’s happening?”
But there was no answer. She thought there had been a temporary loss of contact and waited for him to call back, but then she realized that Wallander had switched off without replying to her question. There was no sound from the radio.
It seemed to Wallander that he was walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Nevertheless, getting in had been easier than he had ever dared to hope. He had sneaked swiftly to the narrow patch of shadow behind the bunker and been surprised to discover a small window. By standing on tiptoe he could see inside. There was only one person in the bunker, sitting in front of a bank of computer screens and telephones. Only one person, and a woman at that. She seemed to be knitting a child’s sweater. Wallander could hardly believe his eyes. The contrast with what was happening within the gates was too great, almost impossible to grasp. Obviously she could not possibly suspect that there would be an armed man just outside, so he walked calmly around the bunker and tapped on the door, trying to make it as friendly a knock as possible. Just as he had thought, she opened the door wide, not anticipating any threat. She had her knitting in her hand, and looked at Wallander in surprise. It had not occurred to him to draw his pistol. He explained who he was, Inspector Wallander from the Ystad police, and even apologized for disturbing her. He ushered her gently back inside the bunker and closed the door behind them. He looked to see whether there was a security camera inside the bunker as well, but there was no sign of one, and invited her to sit down. At that point it dawned on her what was happening, and she started screaming. Wallander drew his pistol. Holding the gun in his hand worried him so much that he felt sick. He avoided aiming at her, but ordered her to be quiet. She looked scared to death, and Wallander wished he had been able to calm her down, saying she could continue knitting the sweater, which was no doubt meant for one of her grandchildren. But he thought about Ström and Sofia, he thought about Sten Torstensson and the mine in Mrs. Dunér’s garden. He asked if she had to keep reporting back to the castle, but she said she did not.
His next question was crucial. “Kurt Ström really should have been on duty tonight,” he said.
“They called down from the castle and said I had to do his shift because he was sick.”
“Who called?”
“One of the secretaries.”
“Tell me exactly what she said, word for word.”
“‘Kurt Ström is sick.’ That’s all.”
As far as Wallander was concerned, he now had confirmation that everything had gone wrong. Ström had been unmasked, and Wallander had no illusions about the ability of the men around Harderberg to extract the truth from him.
He looked at the terrified woman. She was clinging to her knitting.
“There’s a man just outside,” he said, pointing to the window. “He’s armed just like me. If you sound the alarm after I’ve gone, you will not finish knitting that sweater.”
He could see that she believed him.
“Whenever the gates open it’s recorded up at the castle, is that right?” he said.
She nodded.
“What happens if there’s a power outage?”
“A big generator cuts in automatically.”
“Is it possible to open the gates by hand? Without it being registered by the computers?”
She nodded again.
“OK. Switch off the power supply to the gates,” he said. “Open the gates for me, then close them behind me. Then switch the electricity back on.”
He was sure she would do as he said. He opened the bunker door and shouted to the man who did not exist that he was coming out, that the gates were going to be opened and closed, and that everything was under control. She unlocked a box at the side of the gate to reveal a winch. When the gap was wide enough Wallander slipped through.
“Do exactly as I said. As long as you do so, nothing will happen to you,” he said.
Then he ran through the grounds toward the stables, picturing the route in his mind’s eye from the map he had studied. All was very quiet, and when he was close enough to see the lights from the stables he paused and made the first call to Höglund. When she started asking questions he switched off. He went on walking cautiously toward the stables. The apartment where Sofia lived was in an annex built onto the main building. He stood for a considerable time in the shadow of a little thicket, observing the stables and the area around them. Occasionally he heard scrapes and thuds from the stalls. A light was on in the annex. He made himself think completely calmly. The fact that Ström had been shot did not necessarily mean that they had realized there was a connection between him and the new stable girl. Nor was it certain that the call she had made to Widén had been tapped. The uncertainty was the best Wallander could hope for. He wondered if they would have contingency plans to deal with a man having broken into the castle grounds.
He stayed in the shadows under the trees for several more minutes, then crouched and ran as fast as he could to the door of the annex. He expected at any moment to be hit by a bullet. He knocked on the door, trying the handle at the same time. It was locked. Then he heard Sofia’s voice, sounding very frightened, and he said who he was: Roger. Sten’s friend Roger. He couldn’t remember the surname he’d come up with. But she opened the door and he noted the expression of surprise mixed with relief on her face. The apartment comprised a small kitchen and a living room with an alcove for a bedroom. He indicated with a finger to his lips that she should be quiet. They sat in the kitchen, facing each other across the table. He could hear the thuds from the stalls very clearly now.