'So simple! Pure carelessness.'
Harderberg made no attempt to conceal the look he gave the two men skulking in the shadows.
'What happened?' Wallander said.
'Torstensson's loyalty began to waver. He saw things he shouldn't have seen. We were forced to ensure his loyalty, once and for all. Occasionally we amuse ourselves here at the castle with shooting practice. We use mannequins, tailors' dummies, as targets. We put a dummy in the road. He stopped. He died.'
'And thus his loyalty was ensured.'
Harderberg nodded, but seemed to be miles away. He jumped to his feet and stared at rows of figures that had appeared on one of the flickering computer screens. Wallander guessed they were share prices from some part of the world where it was already daytime. But then, did stock exchanges open on Sundays? Perhaps the figures he was checking were to do with quite different financial activities.
Harderberg returned to his armchair.
'We couldn't be sure how much his son knew,' he said, as if he had never paused. 'We kept him under observation. He went to visit you in Jutland. We couldn't be sure how much he had told you. Or Mrs Duner, come to that. I think you have analysed the circumstances very skilfully, Inspector Wallander. But of course, we saw right away that you wanted us to think you had another lead you were following. I'm hurt to think that you underestimated us.'
Wallander was beginning to feel sick. The coldblooded indifference that oozed from the man in the armchair was something he had never encountered before. Nevertheless, his curiosity led him to ask more questions.
'We found a plastic container in the car,' he said. 'I suspect it was substituted for another one when you killed him.'
'Why would we want to substitute it?'
'Our technicians could prove that it had never contained anything. We assumed that the container itself was of no significance: what was important was what it was meant to be used for.'
'And what was that, pray?'
'Now you're asking the questions,' Wallander said. 'And I'm expected to answer them.'
'It's getting late,' Harderberg said. 'Why can't we give this conversation a touch of playfulness? It's quite meaningless, after all.'
'We're talking about murder,' Wallander said. 'I suspect that plastic container was used to preserve and carry transplant organs, cut out of murdered people.'
Just for a moment Harderberg stiffened. It was gone in a flash, but Wallander noticed it even so. That clinched it. He was right.
'I look for business deals wherever I can find them,' Harderberg said. 'If there's a market for kidneys, I buy and sell kidneys, just to give one example.'
'Where do they come from?'
'From deceased persons.'
'People you've killed.'
'All I have ever done is buy and sell,' Harderberg said patiently. 'What happens before the goods come into my hands is no concern of mine. I don't even know about it.'
Wallander was appalled. 'I didn't know people like you existed,' he said in the end.
Harderberg leaned quickly forward in his armchair. 'That was a lie,' he said. 'You know perfectly well such people exist. I'd go as far as to say that, deep down, you envy me.'
'You're mad,' Wallander said, making no attempt to conceal his disgust.
'Mad with happiness, mad with rage, yes, OK. But not plain mad, Inspector. You have to understand that I'm a passionate human being. I love doing business, conquering a rival competitor, increasing my fortune and never needing to deny myself anything. It's possible that I'm a restless Flying Dutchman, always seeking something new. But more than anything else I'm a heathen in the correct sense of the word. Perhaps Inspector Wallander is familiar with the works of Machiavelli?'
Wallander shook his head.
'Christians, according to this Italian thinker, say the highest level of happiness is to be attained through humility, self-denial and contempt for everything human. Heathens, on the other hand, see the highest level of goodness in mental greatness, bodily strength and all the qualities that make human beings frightening. Wise words that I always do my best to live up to.'
Wallander said nothing. Harderberg looked at the two-way radio and then at his watch. It was 1 a.m. Wallander called Hoglund, thinking that now he really had to work out how to convey to her his SOS. But yet again he told her that all was well, everything under control. She could expect him to be in touch again at 2 a.m.
Wallander made calls each hour through the night, but he could not get her to see that what he really wanted was for her to sound the alarm and send as many officers as possible to Farnholm. He had realised that they were alone in the castle, and that Harderberg was only waiting until dawn before leaving not just his castle but also his country, along with the still shadows in the background, the men who did his bidding and killed whoever he pointed a finger at. The only staff left were Sofia and the woman at the entrance gate. The secretaries had gone, all the ones Wallander had never seen. Perhaps they were already in another castle elsewhere, waiting for Harderberg?
The pain in Wallander's head had eased, but he was very tired. He had come so far and now he knew the truth, but he felt that that was not enough. They would leave him at the castle, possibly tied up, and when eventually he was discovered or managed to free himself, they would be up in the clouds and away. What had been said during the night would be denied by the lawyers Harderberg employed to defend him. The men who had actually pointed the guns, the ones who had never crossed Sweden's borders, would be no more than shadows against whom no prosecutor would be able to bring charges. They would never be able to prove anything, the investigation would crumble away through their fingers, and Harderberg would in the eyes of the world go on being a respectable citizen.
Wallander had the truth in his possession, he had even been told that Borman had been killed because he had discovered the link between Harderberg and the County Council fraud. And thereafter they had not dared to take the risk that Gustaf Torstensson would start seeing things he should not see. He had done, despite all their efforts to prevent it; but there again, it did not really matter. The truth would eventually consume itself, because the authorities would never be able to arrest anybody for this series of appalling crimes.
What Wallander would recall in the future, what would stay in his mind for a very long time to come as a horrifying reminder of what Harderberg was like, was something he said shortly before 5.00 that morning, when for some reason or other they had started talking about the plastic container again, and the people who were killed so that their body parts could be sold.
'You have to understand that it's but a tiny part of my activities. It's negligible, marginal. But it's what I do, Inspector Wallander. I buy and sell. I'm an actor on the stage governed by market forces. I never miss an opportunity, no matter how small and insignificant it is.'
Human life is insignificant, then, Wallander had thought. That's the premise on which Harderberg's whole existence is based.
Then their discussions were over. Harderberg had switched off the computers, one after the other, and disposed of some documents in a shredder. Wallander had considered running away, but the motionless shadows in the background had never left. He had to admit defeat.
Harderberg stroked the tips of his fingers over his lips, as if to check that his smile was intact. Then he looked at Wallander one last time.
'We all have to die,' he said, making it sound as if there were one exception: himself. 'Even the span of a detective inspector has a limit. In this case, at my deciding.' He checked his watch before continuing. 'It will shortly be dawn, even though it is still dark. Then a helicopter will land. My two assistants will board it, and so will you. But you will only be in it for a short time. Then you will have an opportunity to see if you can fly without mechanical aids.'
He never took his eyes off Wallander as he spoke. He wants me to beg for my life, Wallander thought. Well, he's going to be disappointed. Once fear reaches a certain point, it is transformed and becomes its opposite. That's one thing I've learned.
'Investigating the innate ability of human beings to fly was thoroughly researched during the unfortunate war
