'It's too cold-blooded for that,' Hoglund said. 'It all seems to be so well planned. There's nothing to suggest a madman at work.'
'We must continue to take every precaution,' Wallander said. 'Somebody is keeping an eye on us, whether it's Harderberg or somebody else.'
'It's a pity we can't count on Kurt Strom,' Svedberg said. 'What we need is a contact inside the castle. Somebody who can move around among all those secretaries without drawing attention to himself.'
'I agree,' Wallander said. 'It would be even better if we could find somebody who worked for Harderberg until recently. Especially somebody with a grudge.'
'The fraud squad people maintain that there are only a handful of people who are close to Harderberg,' Martinsson said. 'And they've all been with him for many years. The secretaries are not very important. I don't think they know much about what goes on.'
'Even so, we ought to have somebody there,' Svedberg insisted. 'Somebody who could tell us about daily routines.'
The meeting was drifting towards stalemate.
'I have a proposal,' Wallander said. 'Let's shut ourselves away somewhere different tomorrow. We need peace and quiet to work our way through all the material. We have to define where we stand one more time. We need to use our time efficiently.'
'At this time of year the Continental Hotel is practically empty,' Martinsson said. 'I'd have thought they'd have a conference room we could rent for next to nothing.'
'I like it,' Wallander said. 'The symbolism is attractive. That's where Gustaf Torstensson met Harderberg for the first time.'
They met on the first floor of the Continental Hotel. Discussions continued through lunch and every coffee break. Come evening, they agreed to go on the next day as well. Somebody phoned Bjork, who gave his blessing. They shut out the outside world and worked their way through all the material yet again. They were well aware that time was running out. It was Friday, November 19.
It was late afternoon when they finally broke up. Wallander thought that Hoglund had summed up the state of the investigation best.
'I get the feeling everything is here,' she said, 'but we can't see how it hangs together. If it is Harderberg pulling the strings, he's doing it very skilfully. Whichever way we turn he moves the goalposts and we have to start all over.'
They were all exhausted when they left the hotel. But this was no vanquished army beating a retreat. Wallander knew something important had happened. Everybody had shared all they knew with everybody else. Nobody needed to be unsure about what ideas or doubts their colleagues had.
'Let's have a break this weekend,' Wallander said. 'We need some rest. We need to be fit and raring to go again by Monday.'
Wallander spent Saturday with his father in Loderup. He managed to repair the roof, then sat for hours with his father in the kitchen, playing cards. Over dinner Wallander could see quite clearly that Gertrud was genuinely enjoying life with his father. Before he left, Wallander asked her if she was familiar with Farnholm Castle.
'They used to say it was haunted,' she said. 'But perhaps they say that about all castles?'
It was midnight when Wallander set off for home. The temperature was below freezing, and he was not looking forward to winter.
He slept in on Sunday morning. Then he went for a walk, and inspected the boats in the harbour. He spent the afternoon cleaning his flat. Yet another Sunday wasted on unproductive matters.
When Wallander woke up on the morning of Monday, November 22, he had a headache. He was surprised, as he hadn't had a drop to drink the previous night. Then he realised he hadn't slept well. He had had one horrific nightmare after the other. His father had died suddenly, but when he went to see him in his dream coffin, he hadn't dared to look as he knew it was really Linda lying there.
He got up reluctantly and dissolved two painkillers in half a glass of water. It was still below freezing. As he waited for the coffee water to boil, he thought that his nightmares were a prologue to the meeting he and Bjork were due to have with Akeson that morning. Wallander knew it was going to be tricky. Although he had no doubt Akeson would give them the green light to continue concentrating on Harderberg, he knew that their results had been unsatisfactory so far. They had not been able to get their material to point in any one particular direction. The investigation was drifting. Akeson would, with good reason, want to know how much longer the investigators could go on standing on one leg, as it were.
He scrutinised his wall calendar, coffee mug in hand. Just over a month to go before Christmas. He would say they needed as long as that. If they were no nearer to cracking the case by then, he would have to accept that they would need to start investigating other leads in the new year.
A month, he thought. Something needs to happen pretty fast.
He was interrupted by the phone ringing.
'I hope I didn't wake you up,' Hoglund said.
'I'm drinking coffee.'
'Do you take
'Of course.'
'Have you read it today?' she said.
'I haven't even collected it from the letter box.'
'Do,' she said. 'Turn to the job adverts.'
Wondering what was going on, he went out into the hall and fetched his paper. Telephone in hand, he started turning to the adverts.
'What am I supposed to be looking for?' he asked.
'You'll see,' she said. 'See you later.'
She hung up. He saw it at once. An advertisement for a stablegirl at Farnholm Castle. To start immediately. That's why she had worded her call the way she did. She had not wanted to mention Farnholm Castle on the telephone.
This could be their chance. As soon as he had got through the meeting with Akeson he would phone his friend Sten Widen.
As Wallander and Bjork settled down in Akeson's office, Akeson told the switchboard they were not to be disturbed. He had a bad cold, and blew his nose frequently.
'I really ought to be at home in bed,' he said, 'but let's get through this meeting as arranged.' He pointed to the heap of files before going on. 'You won't be surprised to hear that with the best will in the world, I can't say the results you've achieved so far are satisfactory. A few extremely vague pointers in the direction of Alfred Harderberg is all we've got.'
'We need more time,' Wallander said. 'This is a particularly complicated investigation. We knew it would be from the outset. This is the best lead we've got.'
'If we can call it a lead,' Akeson interrupted. 'You made a case for concentrating on Harderberg, but we haven't really got any further since then. Looking through the material, I'm forced to conclude that we're only marking time. The fraud squad haven't come up with any financial irregularities either. Harderberg seems to be a remarkably honourable gentleman. We have nothing to link him or his businesses directly or indirectly with the murder of Gustaf Torstensson and his son.'
'Time,' Wallander said again. 'That's what we need. We could also stand the whole thing on its head and say that the moment we can definitely exclude Harderberg from our deliberations, we'll be in a better position to approach the case from a different angle.'
Bjork said nothing. Akeson looked hard at Wallander.
'I really ought to call a halt to it at this point,' he said. 'You know that. Convince me that we ought to carry on a little longer concentrating all our efforts on Harderberg.'
'The justification is in the paperwork,' Wallander said. 'I'm still sure we're on the right track. The whole team agrees with me, come to that.'
'I still think we ought to consider splitting the team and setting some of them to work from another angle,' Akeson said.
'We don't have another angle,' Wallander said. 'Who fakes an accident to cover up a murder, and why? Why
