cold.
I am witnessing my own death, he thought.
He pressed himself tightly against the drainpipe and waited. At 2.03 the door opened without a sound and the man emerged again into the street. He looked round, and Wallander drew back behind the corner. Then he heard the car take off in a racing start.
He's going to report to Harderberg, Wallander thought. But he's not going to tell him the truth because he would not be able to explain how I could be in the flat one minute, switch off the light and go to bed, and have disappeared the next.
Wallander could not exclude the possibility that the man had left some device in the flat, so he got into his car and drove to the police station. The officers on duty greeted him in surprise when he appeared in reception. He collected a mattress he knew was stored in the basement, then lay on the floor of his office. It was gone 3.00, and he was worn out. He had to get some sleep if he was going to be able to think clearly, but the man in the dark clothes followed him into his dreams.
Wallander woke up covered in sweat after a series of chaotic nightmares. It was shortly after 5 a.m. He spent a while thinking about what Norin had told him, then he got up and went to fetch some coffee. It tasted bitter after standing all night. He did not want to go back to his flat yet. He took a shower in the changing room downstairs. By 7.00 he was back at his desk. It was Wednesday, November 24.
He recalled what Hoglund had said a few days earlier: 'We seem to have all the data, but we can't see how it hangs together.' That's what we must start doing now, Wallander thought. Make everything fit together. He phoned Nyberg at home. 'We have to meet,' Wallander said.
'I tried to find you yesterday,' Nyberg said. 'Nobody knew where you were. We have some news.'
'We? Who's we?'
'Ann-Britt Hoglund and I.'
'About Avanca?'
'I got her to help me. I'm a technician, not a detective.'
'I'll see you in my office as soon as you can get here. I'll phone Hoglund.'
Half an hour later Nyberg and Hoglund were sitting in Wallander's office. Svedberg put his head round the door. 'Do you need me?' he said.
'FHC 803. I haven't got round to looking it up. Could you do that for me, please?'
Svedberg nodded and closed the door.
'Avanca,' Wallander said.
'Don't expect too much,' Hoglund said. 'We've only had a day in which to look into the company and who owns it, but we've already established that it's no longer a family business run by the Romans. The family let the company use their name - and their reputation - and they still have some shares, possibly quite big holdings. But for several years now Avanca has been part of a consortium comprising several different firms associated in some way or other with pharmaceuticals, health care and hospital equipment. It's incredibly complicated, and the firms all seem to be intertwined. The umbrella for the consortium is a holding company in Liechtenstein called Medicom. It is divided up in turn among several owning groups. They include a Brazilian company concerned mainly with producing and exporting coffee. But what's much more interesting is that Medicom has direct financial links with Bayerische Hypotheken-und-Wechsel-Bank.'
'Why is that interesting?' Wallander said. He had already lost track of Avanca.
'Because Harderberg owns a plastics factory in Genoa,' she said. 'They make speedboats.'
'I'm lost,' Wallander said.
'Here comes the punchline,' Hoglund said. 'The factory in Genoa is called CFP, whatever that stands for, and helps its customers to arrange funding by way of a sort of leasing contract.'
'Avanca, please,' Wallander said. 'I couldn't care less about Italian plastic boats just now.'
'Perhaps you should,' Hoglund said. 'CFP's leasing contracts are drawn up in cooperation with Bayerische Hypotheken-und-Wechsel-Bank. In other words, there is a link with the Harderberg empire. The first one we've found since the investigation began.'
'I can't make head nor tail of it,' Wallander said.
'There could be even closer links,' she said. 'We'll have to ask the fraud squad to help us with this. I hardly know what I'm doing myself.'
'This is impressive.' Nyberg had not said a word until now. 'Maybe we should find out if that plastics factory in Genoa makes other things besides speedboats.'
'Such as cool boxes for transplant organs?' Wallander said.
'For instance.'
'If this turns out to be true,' Wallander said, 'it means that Harderberg is in some degree involved in the manufacturing and importing of these plastic containers. He might even have control, even if at first glance it looks to be a maze of different but interconnected companies. Can it really be possible that a Brazilian coffee producer has links with a tiny firm in Sodertalje?'
'That would be no more odd than the fact that American car manufacturers also make wheelchairs,' Hoglund said. 'Cars cause car accidents, which in turn creates a demand for wheelchairs.'
Wallander clapped his hands and stood up. 'Right, let's turn up the pressure on this investigation,' he said. 'Ann-Britt, can you get the financial experts to draw up some kind of large-scale wall map showing what Harderberg's holdings really look like? I want everything on it - speedboats in Genoa, cobs at Farnholm Castle, everything we've found out so far. And Nyberg, can you devote yourself to this plastic container? Where it comes from, how it got into Gustaf Torstensson's car.'
'That would mean that we blow the plan we've been working to so far,' Hoglund objected. 'Harderberg's bound to find out that we're digging into his companies.'
'Not at all,' Wallander said. 'It's all a matter of routine questions. Nothing dramatic. Besides, I'll talk to Bjork and Akeson and suggest it's high time we had a press conference. It will be the first time in my life I've ever taken
'I heard that Akeson is still in bed with flu,' Hoglund said.
'I'll call him,' Wallander said. 'We're turning up the pressure, so he'll have to come whether he's got a cold or not. Tell Martinsson and Svedberg we're meeting at 2.00 today.'
Wallander had decided to wait until everybody was there before he said anything about what had happened the previous night.
'Right, let's get going,' he said.
Nyberg went out, but Wallander asked Hoglund to stay behind. He told her that he and Widen had managed to place a stablegirl at Farnholm Castle.
'Your idea was an excellent one,' he said. 'We'll see if it produces the goods.'
'Let's hope she comes to no harm.'
'She'll just be looking after some horses,' Wallander said. 'And keeping her eyes open. Let's not get hysterical. Harderberg can't suspect everybody on his staff to be police officers in disguise.'
'I hope you're right,' she said.
'How's it going with the flight log?'
'I'm working at it,' she said, 'but Avanca took all my time yesterday.'
'You've done well,' Wallander said.
She was pleased to be told that, he noticed. We're far too reluctant to praise our colleagues, Wallander thought. Especially when there's no end to the amount of criticism and tittle-tattle we bandy about.
'That's all,' he said.
She left, and Wallander went to stand at the window and ask himself what Rydberg would have done in this situation. But for once he felt that he had no time to wait for his old friend's answer. He just had to believe that the way he was running the investigation was right.
He used up a huge amount of energy over the rest of the morning. He convinced Bjork of the importance of holding a press conference the next day, and he promised him that he would himself take care of the journalists once he had agreed with Akeson what they were going to say.
'It's not like you to call in the mass media off your own bat,' Bjork said.
