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, the enthusiastic restorer of old Oland 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 snotty-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 Duner'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 swallows our 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 Bjork go along with it? What will Mr Akeson 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 has an attribute which 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.'
'And when we've convinced ourselves? Where do we start?'
'We have to make sure we do not fail in too much of what we set ourselves to do. We have to lose our way so cleverly in the fog that Harderberg believes it. We have to lose our way and be following the right road at the same time.'
She went back to her office to fetch a notepad. Meanwhile, Wallander sat listening to a dog barking somewhere inside the station. When she came back, it struck him again that she was an attractive woman, despite the fact that she was very pale, and had blotchy skin and dark rings under her eyes.
They went through Wallander's pronouncements once again. All the time Hoglund kept coming up with relevant comments, finding flaws in Wallander's reasoning, homing in on contradictions. He noticed, however reluctantly, that he was inspired by her, and that she was very clear-headed. It struck him - at 2 a.m. - that he had not had a conversation like this since Rydberg died. He imagined Rydberg coming back to life and putting his vast experience at the disposal of this pale young woman.
They left the station together. It was cold, the sky was full of stars, the ground was covered in frost.
'We'll have a long meeting tomorrow,' Wallander said. 'There'll be any number of objections, but I'll talk to Bjork and Akeson ahead of time. I'll ask Per to sit in on the meeting. If we don't get them on our side, we'll lose too much time trying to dig up new facts just in order to convince them.'
She seemed surprised. 'Surely they must see we're right?'
'We can't be sure of that.'
'It sometimes seems to me that the Swedish police force is very slow to catch on to things.'
'You don't need to be a recent graduate of Police Training College to reach that conclusion,' Wallander said. 'Bjork has calculated that given the current increase in administrators and others who don't actually do work in the field, as investigators or on traffic duties, that kind of thing, all normal police work will grind to a halt around 2010. By which time every police officer will just sit around all day passing bits of paper to other police officers.'
She laughed. 'Maybe we're in the wrong job,' she said.
'Not the wrong job,' Wallander said, 'but maybe we're living at the wrong time.'
They said goodnight and drove home in their own cars. Wallander kept an eye on the rear-view mirror, but could not see anybody following him. He was very tired, but at the same time inspired by the fact that a door had opened up into the current investigation. The coming days were going to be very strenuous.
On the morning of Saturday, November 6, Wallander phoned Bjork at 7.00. His wife answered, and asked Wallander to try again a few minutes later as her husband was in the bath. Wallander used the time to phone Akeson, who he knew was an early riser and generally up and about by 5.00. Akeson picked up the phone immediately. Wallander summarised briefly what had happened, and why Harderberg had become relevant to the investigation in quite a new light. Akeson listened without interruption. When Wallander had finished, he made just one comment.
'Are you convinced you can make this stick?'
Wallander replied without a moment's hesitation: 'Yes,' he said. 'I think this can solve the problem for us.'
'In that case, of course, I've no objection to our concentrating on digging deeper. But make sure it's all discreet. Say nothing to the media without consulting me first. What we need least of all is a Palme situation here in Ystad.'
