Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man Who Smiled

As the door of the airplane opened and the steps were lowered, he could hear an armada of sirens approaching.

Wallander waited.

Then Harderberg emerged from the plane and walked down the steps onto the runway. It seemed to Wallander that he looked different. He saw what it was. The smile had disappeared.

Höglund jumped out of the first of the police cars to reach the airplane steps. Wallander was busy wiping the blood out of his eyes with his torn shirt.

“Have you been hit?” she said.

Wallander shook his head. He had bitten his tongue, and found it hard to speak.

“You’d better phone Björk,” she said.

Wallander stared at her. “No,” he said. “You can do that. And deal with Dr. Harderberg.”

Then he started to walk away. She hurried to catch up.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going home to bed,” Wallander said. “I’m feeling a bit tired. And rather sad. Even if it turned out all right in the end.”

Something in his voice discouraged her from saying more.

Wallander continued to walk away. For some reason, nobody tried to stop him.

On the morning of Thursday, December 23, Wallander went rather reluctantly to Österportstorg in Ystad and bought a Christmas tree. It was distinctly misty—there was not going to be a white Christmas in Skåne in 1993. He spent a considerable amount of time examining the trees, not at all sure what he really wanted, but in the end he picked one just about small enough to put on his table. He took it home and then spent a long time searching in vain for a stand he distinctly remembered having; probably it disappeared when he and Mona had divided up their possessions after the divorce. He made a list of things he needed to buy for Christmas. It was obvious that for the last few years he had been living in a state of increasing squalor. Every cupboard was bare. The list he made filled a whole sheet of paper. When he turned it over to continue on the next page, he found there was something written there already. Sten Torstensson .

He recalled that this was the very first note he had made in the case, that morning at the beginning of November, almost two months ago, when he had decided to go back to work. He remembered sitting at this table and being intrigued by the obituaries in Ystad Allehanda . Now, everything had changed. That November morning seemed an age away.

Alfred Harderberg and his two shadows had been arrested. Once the Christmas holiday was over Wallander would get down to the investigation that seemed likely to keep going on for a very long time.

He wondered what would happen to Farnholm Castle.

He also thought he should phone Widén and find out how Sofia was faring, after all she had been through.

He stood up, went to the bathroom, and examined himself in the mirror. His face looked thinner. But he had also aged. No one could now avoid seeing that he was approaching fifty. He opened his mouth wide and peered gloomily at his teeth. Despondent or annoyed, he couldn’t make up his mind which, he decided he would have to make an appointment with the dentist in the new year. Then he returned to his list in the kitchen, crossed out the name Sten Torstensson, and noted that he would have to buy a new toothbrush.

It took him three hours, in the pouring rain, to buy all the things on his list. He twice had to resort to hole-in-the-wall machines to withdraw more money, and he was outraged that everything was so expensive. He slunk home shortly before 1 p.m. with all his shopping bags, and sat down at the kitchen table to check his list. Needless to say, he had forgotten something: a stand for his Christmas tree.

The phone rang. He was supposed to be on vacation over Christmas, so he did not expect it to be from the police station. But when he picked up the receiver, it was Ann-Britt Höglund’s voice he heard.

“I know you’re on vacation,” she said. “I wouldn’t have phoned if it wasn’t important.”

“When I joined the force many years ago, one of the first things I learned was that a police officer is never on vacation,” he said. “What do they have to say about that at the police academy nowadays?”

“Professor Persson did talk about it once,” she said. “But to tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue what he said.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m calling from Svedberg’s office. Mrs. Dunér is in my room at the moment. She’s very anxious to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“She won’t say. She won’t talk to anybody but you.”

Wallander did not hesitate.

“Tell her I’ll be there,” he said. “She can wait in my office.”

“Aside from that, there’s nothing much happening here at the moment,” Ann-Britt Höglund said. “There’s only Martinsson and me here. The traffic boys are getting ready for Christmas. The population of Skåne is going to spend Christmas blowing into balloons.”

“Good,” he said. “There’s too much drunk driving. We have to stamp it out.”

“You sometimes sound like Björk,” she said, laughing.

“I hope not,” he said, horrified.

“Can you tell me any kind of crime for which the figures are improving?” she said.

He thought for a moment. “The theft of black-and-white televisions,” he said. “But that’s about all.”

He hung up, wondering what Mrs. Dunér would have to say. He really could not imagine what it might be.

It was 1:15 when Wallander arrived at the police station. The Christmas tree was glittering away in reception, and he remembered that he hadn’t yet bought the usual bunch of flowers for Ebba. On his way to his office he stopped at the canteen and wished everybody a merry Christmas. He knocked on Ann-Britt Höglund’s door, but there was no reply.

Mrs. Dunér was sitting on his visitor’s chair, waiting for him. The left arm looked as if it would fall off the chair at any moment. She stood up when he came in, they shook hands, and he hung up his jacket before sitting down. Wallander thought she looked tired.

“You wanted to speak to me,” he said, trying to sound friendly.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said. “It’s easy to forget that the police have so much to do.”

“I have time for you,” Wallander said. “What is it you want?”

She took a package out of the plastic shopping bag at the side of her chair, and handed it to him over his desk.

“It’s a present,” she said. ”You can open it now, or wait until tomorrow.”

“Why on earth would you want to give me a Christmas present?” Wallander asked in surprise.

“Because I now know what happened to my gentlemen,” she said. “It’s thanks to you that the perpetrators were caught.”

Wallander shook his head and stretched out his arms in protest. “That’s not true,” he said. “It was teamwork, with lots of people involved. You shouldn’t just thank me.”

Her reply surprised him. “This is no time for false modesty,” she said. “Everybody knows that you’re the one we have to thank.”

Wallander did not know what to say, and began to open the package. It contained one of the icons he had found in Gustaf Torstensson’s basement.

“I can’t possibly accept this,” he said. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, it’s from Mr. Torstensson’s collection.”

“Not any more it isn’t,” Mrs. Dunér replied. “He left them all to me in his will. And I’m only too happy to pass one of them on to you.”

“It must be very valuable,” Wallander said. “I’m a police officer, and I can’t accept such gifts. At the very least I’d have to talk to my boss first.”

She surprised him yet again. “I’ve already done that. He said it was OK.”