The Man Who Smiled by Henning Mankell Read Free Book Online Page A

are said to earn huge amounts of money. But would anybody really expect to find the money piled up in their office?"
    "There's only one or perhaps two persons who could answer that question," Martinsson said.
    "We'll catch them," Wallander said. "I think I'll go there and have a look around."
    "Mrs Dunér is pretty shaken, naturally," Martinsson said. "In less than a month the whole fabric of her life has collapsed. First old man Torstensson dies. Hardly has she got over sorting out the funeral arrangements than his son is murdered. She's in shock, but even so it's surprisingly easy to talk to her. Her address is on the transcript of the conversation Svedberg had with her."
    "Stickgatan 26," Wallander read. "That's just behind the Continental Hotel. I sometimes park there."
    "Isn't that an offence?" Martinsson said.
    Wallander collected his jacket and left the station. He had never seen the girl in reception before. He thought that perhaps he ought to have introduced himself. Not least to find out whether Ebba, who had been there for years, had stopped working evenings. But he let it pass. The time he had spent in the station so far today had seemed on the face of it to be nothing dramatic, but that did not reflect the tension inside him. He felt he needed to be on his own. For some considerable time now he had spent most of his days alone. He needed time to make the transformation. He drove down the hill towards the hospital, and just for a moment felt a vague yearning for the solitariness of Skagen, for his isolated sentry duty and his beach patrols that were guaranteed not to be disturbed.
    But that was all in the past. He was back at work now.
    I'm not used to it, he thought. It'll pass, even if it takes time.
    The solicitors' offices were in a yellow-painted stone building in Sjömansgatan, not far from the old theatre that had been getting a facelift. A patrol car was parked outside, and on the opposite pavement a handful of onlookers were discussing what had happened. The wind was gusting in from the sea, and Wallander shuddered as he clambered out of his car. He opened the heavy front door and almost collided with Svedberg on his way out.
    "I thought I'd get a bite to eat," he said.
    "Go ahead," Wallander said. "I expect to be here for a while."
    A young clerk was sitting in the front office with nothing to do. She looked anxious. Wallander remembered from the reports that her name was Sonia Lundin, and that she had been working there only a few months. She had not been able to provide the investigation with any useful information.
    Wallander shook hands with her and introduced himself.
    "I'm just going to take a look around," he said. "Mrs Dunér's not here, I suppose?"
    "She's at home, crying," the girl said.
    Wallander had no idea what to say.
    "She'll never survive all this," Lundin said. "She'll die too."
    "Oh, I don't think so," Wallander said, conscious of how hollow his response sounded.
    The Torstensson legal practice had been a workplace for solitary people, he thought. Gustaf Torstensson had been a widower for more than 15 years and so his son Sten had been without a mother all that time and was a bachelor to boot. Mrs Dunér had been divorced since the early '70s. Three solitary people who came into contact with each other day after day. And now two of them were gone, leaving the third more alone than ever.
    Wallander had no difficulty in understanding why Mrs Dunér was at home crying.
    The door to the meeting room was closed. Wallander could hear murmuring from inside. The lawyers' nameplates were on the doors on either side of the meeting room, fancily printed on highly polished brass plates.
    On the spur of the moment he opened first the door to Gustaf Torstensson's office. The curtains were drawn and the room was in darkness. There was a faint aroma of cigar smoke. Wallander looked around and had the feeling that he had gone back to an earlier age. Heavy leather sofas, a marble table, paintings on the