“They used to say that concealed behind every fortune was a major crime,” she said. “Why just ‘used to’? Whenever you open your newspaper nowadays it looks more like the rule than the exception.”
“You can find a quotation for every situation,” Wallander said. “The Japanese say that business is a form of warfare. But that doesn’t justify somebody in Sweden killing people to put a few accounts in the clear. If that’s what they were trying to do.”
“This country is also awash with sacred cows,” Höglund said. “Such as the idea that we don’t need to chase criminals with names that tell us they come from noble families, and who belong to some ancient line in Skåne with a family castle to maintain. We would rather not haul them into the courts when they’ve been caught red-handed.”
“I’ve never thought like that,” Wallander said, realizing at once that he was not telling the truth. And what was it he was trying to defend? Or was it just that he could not allow Höglund to be right, not when she was so much younger than he was and a woman?
“I think that’s how everybody thinks,” she insisted. “Police officers are no different. Or prosecutors. Sacred cows must graze in peace.”
They had been sailing around hidden rocks without finding a clear channel. It seemed to Wallander that their differing views indicated something he had been thinking for a long time, that the police force was being split by a generation gap. It wasn’t so much that Höglund was a woman, but rather that she brought with her quite different experiences. We are both police officers, but we do not have the same worldview, Wallander thought. We may live in the same world, but we see it differently.
Another thought occurred to him, and he did not like it one bit. What he had been saying to Höglund could just as easily have been said by Martinsson. Or Svedberg. Even Hanson, for all his nonstop continuing education courses. He sat there on the Friday night talking not just with his own voice, but with that of the others. He was speaking for a whole generation. The thought annoyed him, and he blamed Höglund, who was too self-confident, too definite in her views. He did not enjoy being reminded of his own laziness, his own very vague views about the world and the age he was living in.
It was as if she were describing an unknown land to him. A Sweden that she was not making up, unfortunately, but one which really existed just outside the confines of the police station, filled with real people.
But the discussion petered out in the end, when Wallander had poured enough water on the fire. They went out to fetch more coffee and were offered a sandwich by a patrolman who seemed to be worn out, or just bored stiff, and was sitting in the canteen staring into space. They went back to Wallander’s office, and, to avoid further discussion about sacred cows, Wallander asserted himself and proposed a session of constructive thinking.
“I had an elegant leather folder in my car when it went up in flames,” he said. “An overview I was given when I went to Farnholm Castle. I had begun reading it. It was a summary of Harderberg’s empire and of the man himself, his various honorary doctorates, all his good deeds: Harderberg the patron of the arts, Harderberg the humanist, Harderberg the young people’s friend, Harderberg the sports fan, Harderberg the sponsor of our cultural heritage, Harderberg the enthusiastic restorer of old Öland fishing boats, Harderberg the honorary doctor of archaeology who provides generous funding for digs at what might be Iron Age dwellings in Medelpad, Harderberg the patron of music who sponsors two violinists and a bassoonist in the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Founder of the Harderberg Prize for the most gifted young opera singer in the country. Generous donor to peace research in Scandinavia. And all the other things I can’t remember. It was as if he were being portrayed as a one-man Swedish Academy. Without a drop of blood on his hands.
“I’ve asked Ebba to get hold of another copy of the file. It must be studied and investigated. As discreetly as possible we must obtain access to reports and balance sheets for all his companies. We have to find out how many companies he in fact owns. Where they are located. What they do. What they sell. What they buy. We have to examine his tax returns and his tax status. In that respect I accept what you say about Al Capone. We have to find out where Gustaf Torstensson was allowed to poke his nose in. We have to ask ourselves: why him of all people? We have to take a look into every secret room we can find. We have to wriggle our way into Harderberg’s mind, not just his bank accounts. We have to talk to eleven secretaries without his noticing. Because if he does notice, a tremor will run through the whole enterprise. A tremor that will result in every door closing simultaneously. We must never forget that no matter how many resources we put into this, he will be able to send yet more troops into battle. It’s always easier to close a door than it is to open it again. It’s always easier to maintain a cleverly constructed lie than it is to find an unclear truth.”
She listened to what he had to say with what looked to him to be genuine interest. He had set it all out for her as much to clarify things in his own mind, but he could not deny having made some small effort to squash her. He was still the senior officer around here, and she could consider herself just a snot-nosed kid, albeit a talented one.
“We have to do all that,” he said. “It could be that we end up once more with the magnificent reward of having discovered absolutely nothing. But the most important thing for the moment, and the most difficult thing, is how we are going to do all this without attracting attention. If what we suspect is true, and it’s on Harderberg’s orders that we’re being watched, that efforts are being made to blow us up, and that it was an extension of his hand that planted the mine in Mrs. Dunér’s garden, then we must keep reminding ourselves all the time that he sees things and hears things. He must not notice that we are repositioning our troops. We must camouflage everything we do in thick fog. And in that fog we have to make sure that we follow the right road and that he goes astray. Where’s the investigation going? That is the question we have to keep asking ourselves, and then we have to provide a very good answer.”
“We have to do the opposite of what we seem to be doing, then,” she said.
“Exactly,” Wallander said. “We have to send out signals that say: we’re not remotely interested in Alfred Harderberg.”
“What happens if it’s too obvious?” she said.
“It mustn’t be,” Wallander said. “We have to send out another signal. We have to tell the world that yes, naturally, Dr. Harderberg is involved in our routine inquiries. He even attracts our special interest in certain respects.”
“How can we be sure that he takes the bait?”
“We can’t. But we can send a third signal. We can say that we have a lead that we believe in. That it points in a certain direction. And that it seems to be reliable. So reliable that Harderberg can be convinced that we really are following a false trail.”
“He’s bound to take out a few insurance policies even so.”
“Yes. We shall have to make sure we find out what they are,” he said. “And we mustn’t show him that we know. We must not give the impression we are stupid, a bunch of blind and deaf police officers who are leading one another in the wrong direction. We must identify his insurance tactics, but appear to misinterpret them. We must hold up a mirror to our own strategy, and then interpret the mirror image.”
She eyed him thoughtfully. “Are we really going to be able to manage this? Will Björk go along with it? What will Mr. Åkeson have to say?”
“That will be our first big problem,” Wallander said. “Convincing ourselves that we’ve got the right strategy. Our chief of police possesses an attribute that makes up for a lot of his weaker points: he sees through us if we don’t believe in what we say or suggest as the starting point for our investigation. In such circumstances he puts his foot down, and rightly so.”