'Can you say anything about whoever it was who laid the mine?'
'I might have been able to if you hadn't thrown a directory at it,' Nyberg said.
'It was easy to see,' Wallander said.
'A person who knows what he's doing can plant a mine so that it's invisible,' Nyberg said. 'Both you and that woman in the kitchen could see that somebody had been digging up the lawn. We're dealing with amateurs.'
Or somebody who wants us to think that, Wallander thought. But he didn't say so and went back to the kitchen. He only had one more question.
'Yesterday afternoon you had a visit from an Asian woman,' he said. 'Who was she?'
She looked at him in astonishment. 'How do you know that?'
'Never mind how,' Wallander said. 'Just answer the question.'
'She's a cleaner, she works at the Torstensson offices,' Mrs Duner said.
So that was it! Wallander was disappointed.
'What's her name?'
'Kim Sung-Lee.'
'Where does she live?'
'I have her address at the office.'
'What did she want?'
'She was wondering if she'd keep her job.'
'I'd be grateful if you could let me have her address,' Wallander said, standing up.
'What will happen now?'
'You don't need to be afraid any more,' Wallander said. 'I'll make sure there's a police officer at hand. For as long as it's necessary.'
He told Nyberg he was leaving and went back to the police station. On the way there he stopped at Fridolf's cafe and bought some sandwiches. He shut himself in his office and prepared for his meeting with Bjork. But when he went to his office, Bjork was not there. The conversation would have to wait.
It was 1 p.m. by the time Wallander knocked on the door of Akeson's office at the other end of the long, narrow police station. Every time he was there he was surprised by the chaos that seemed to prevail. The desk was piled high with paper, files were strewn around the floor and on the visitors' chairs. Along one wall was a barbell and a hastily rolled-up mattress.
'Have you started working out?'
'Not only that,' Akeson replied with a self-satisfied grin, 'I've also acquired the good habit of taking a nap after lunch. I've just woken up.'
'You mean you sleep here on the floor?'
'A 30-minute nap,' Akeson confirmed. 'Then I get back to work full of energy.'
'Maybe I should try that,' Wallander said doubtfully.
Akeson made room for him on one of the chairs by tipping a heap of files on to the floor. Then he sat down and put his feet on the desk.
'I'd almost given you up for lost,' he said with a smile, 'but deep down I always knew you'd be back.'
'It's been a hell of a time,' Wallander said.
Akeson became serious. 'I really can't imagine what it must be like killing a man. Never mind if it was self- defence. It must be the only human act from which there's no going back. I haven't enough imagination to conjure up anything except a vague image of the abyss.'
'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,' Akeson 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 organisations for legally qualified people to fill a variety of posts abroad, including refugee camps in Africa and Asia.
'I sent in an application,' Akeson 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,' Akeson said. 'I don't honestly know what will happen.'
'I need you to give me some information,' Wallander said.
Akeson took his feet off the desk and cleared aside some of the papers from in front of him. Wallander told him about the explosion in Mrs Duner's back garden. Akeson 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?' Akeson said. 'I've spoken to Bjork, and of course I go along with your 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 solicitors are dead and a mine is planted in Mrs Duner's garden. It's 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 Duner 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 ought to move out of the house.'
'I'll arrange for that,' Akeson said. 'I'll have a word with Bjork.'
'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 realise 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 had quite a bit to do with them over the years.'
'Gustaf was an odd bird,' Akeson said. 'And his son was well on the way to becoming one.'
'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,' Akeson said. 'It was before my time when he used to appear in court as a defence 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,' Akeson 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 cupboard?'
'Not as far as I know,' Akeson 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 bit 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 at Farnholm Castle, then,' Wallander said. 'Were there any blots in Torstensson's copybook?'
'None at all,' Akeson said. 'Honest, pedantic, boring. Old-fashioned sense of honour. 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
'I'm not sure I follow you.'
'A solicitor must be a bit like a doctor,' Wallander said. 'He knows a lot of people's secrets.'
