“I’ve sometimes thought about applying for a job with a security company,” Wallander said, “but I think I’d find it hard to get used to not being allowed to answer questions.”
“Everything has its price,” Ström said.
Wallander thought he could say “hear, hear” to that. He watched Ström for a few moments. “Harderberg,” he said eventually. “What’s he like as a person?”
The reply surprised him.
“I don’t know,” Ström said.
“You must have some sort of an opinion, surely? Or aren’t you allowed to comment on that either?”
“I’ve never met him,” Ström said.
“And you have been working for him how long?”
“Nearly five years.”
“You’ve never once seen him?”
“Never.”
“He’s never passed through these gates?”
“His car has one-way glass in the windows.”
“I take it that’s part of the security system?” Wallander thought for a moment. “In other words, you are never completely sure whether he’s here or not. You don’t know if he’s in the car when it passes in or out through the gates?”
“No. It’s all part of the security,” Ström said.
Wallander went back to his car. Ström disappeared through the steel door, and shortly afterward the gates opened without a sound. It’s like entering a different world, Wallander thought.
After about a kilometer the forest opened up. The castle stood on a hill, surrounded by extensive and well-tended grounds. The large main building, like the freestanding outbuildings surrounding it, was in dark red brick. The castle had towers and steeples, balustrades and balconies. The only thing to break the mood of another world, another age, was a helicopter on a concrete pad. Wallander had the impression of a large insect with its wings half-folded, a wild beast at rest but liable to come back to life with a jerk.
He drove slowly up to the main entrance. Peacocks strolled leisurely around on the road in front of the car. He parked behind a black BMW and got out. It was very quiet all around. The tranquillity reminded him of the previous day when he’d walked up the gravel drive to Gustaf Torstensson’s house. Perhaps tranquillity is what distinguishes the environment in which wealthy people live, he thought. It’s not the orchestral fanfares, but the tranquillity.
Just then one of the double doors at the main entrance to the castle opened. A woman in her thirties, dressed in well-fitting and, Wallander guessed, expensive clothes emerged on to the steps.
“Please come in,” she said with a ready smile, a smile that seemed to Wallander just as cold and unwelcoming as it was correct.
“I don’t know if I have any identification papers you would regard as acceptable,” he said, “but the guard who goes by the name of Ström recognized me.”
“I know,” said the woman.
It was not the woman who’d answered the phone when he rang from the café. He went up the steps, held out his hand, and introduced himself. She ignored his hand but simply reproduced the same distant smile. He followed her inside through the doors. They walked across a large entrance hall. Modernistic sculptures on stone pedestals were dotted around, illuminated by invisible spotlights. In the background, by the wide staircase leading to the upper floor, he detected two men lurking in the shadows. Wallander could sense their presence, but could not make out their faces. Tranquillity and shadows, he thought. The world of Harderberg, as I know it so far. He followed her through a door on the left, leading into a large oval room that was also decorated with sculptures. But as a reminder of the fact that they were in a castle with a history going back deep into the Middle Ages, there were also some suits of armor keeping watch over him. In the center of the highly polished oak parquet floor was a desk and a single visitor’s chair. There was no paper on the desk, only a computer and an advanced telephone exchange that was hardly any bigger than an ordinary telephone. The woman invited him to sit down, then keyed a command into the computer. She handed him a sheet from a printer invisible somewhere under the desk.
“I gather you wanted a printout of the gate-control data for the evening of October 11,” the woman said. “You can see from this when Mr. Torstensson arrived, and when he left Farnholm.”
Wallander took the printout and put it on the floor beside him.
“That’s not the only reason why I’ve come,” he said. “I have several other questions.”
“Fire away.”
The woman was sitting behind the desk. She pressed various buttons on the telephone exchange. Wallander assumed she was switching all incoming calls to another exchange somewhere in the huge building.
“The information I’ve received informs me that Gustaf Torstensson had Alfred Harderberg as a client,” Wallander said. “If I understand correctly, he’s out of the country at the moment.”
“He’s in Dubai,” the woman said.
Wallander frowned. “An hour ago he was in Geneva,” he said.
“That’s right,” the woman said without batting an eyelid. “But he’s now left for Dubai.”
Wallander took a notebook and pencil from his jacket pocket.
“May I ask your name and what you do here?”
“I’m one of Alfred Harderberg’s secretaries,” she said. “My name’s Anita Karlén.”
“Does Mr. Harderberg have many secretaries?” Wallander wondered.
“That depends on how you look at it,” Anita Karlén replied. “Is that really relevant?”
Once again Wallander started to get annoyed at the way in which he was being treated. He decided he would have to change his approach if the whole visit to Farnholm were not to be a waste of time.
“I shall decide if the question is relevant or not,” he said. “Farnholm Castle is a private property and you have a legal right to surround it with as many fences as you like, as high as you like. Provided you have planning permits and are not contravening any laws or regulations. You also have the right to deny entry to whomever you like. With one exception: the police. Is that understood?”
“We haven’t denied you entry, Mr. Wallander,” she said, still without batting an eyelid.
“Let me express myself more clearly,” Wallander said, noting that the woman’s indifference was making him feel insecure. Perhaps he was also distracted by the fact that she was strikingly beautiful.
Just as he opened his mouth to continue, a door opened and a woman came in with a tray. To his surprise Wallander saw that she was black. Without saying a word she put the tray down on the desk, then disappeared again just as noiselessly as she’d appeared.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. Wallander?”
He said he would. She poured and then handed him the cup and saucer. He examined the china.
“Let me ask you a question that’s relevant,” he said. “What will happen if I drop this cup on the floor? How much will I owe you?”
For the first time her smile seemed genuine.
“Everything’s insured, of course,” she said. “But that’s a classic Rörstrand special edition.”
Wallander put the cup and saucer gingerly down by the side of the printout on the oak parquet floor, and started again.
“I’ll express myself very precisely,” he said. “That same evening, October 11, barely an hour after Mr. Torstensson had been here, he died in a car accident.”
“We sent flowers to the funeral,” she said. “One of my colleagues attended the service.”
“But not Alfred Harderberg, of course?”
“My employer avoids appearing in public whenever possible.”
“I’ve gathered that,” Wallander said. “But the fact is that we have reason to believe this wasn’t in fact a car accident. Many things suggest Mr. Torstensson was murdered. And to make matters worse, his son was shot dead in his office a few weeks later. Perhaps you sent flowers to his funeral as well?”