The Man From Beijing

by Henning Mankell

  When they were alone, Vivi Sundberg closed the door and came straight to the point.

  ‘I’m surprised you’re still involving yourself in this investigation. Obviously, what you’ve discovered is remarkable. We will investigate further. But I think you’ve already gathered that we have other priorities at the moment.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything?’

  Sundberg shook her head.

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Do you have a suspect?’

  ‘As I’ve said, we’ll make an announcement at the press conference. I wanted you to stay behind for an entirely different reason.’

  She stood up and left the room. When she came back she was carrying the diaries Roslin had been forced to hand over a couple of days earlier.

  ‘We’ve been through them,’ said Vivi Sundberg. ‘I have decided that they’re irrelevant to the investigation. And so I thought I would demonstrate my goodwill by allowing you to borrow them. You’ll have to sign for them. The only condition is that you return them when we ask for them back.’

  Roslin wondered for a moment if she was about to fall into a trap. What Sundberg was doing was not permissible, even if it wasn’t criminal. Birgitta Roslin had nothing to do with the investigation. What might happen if she accepted the diaries?

  Vivi Sundberg noticed that she was hesitating.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Robertsson,’ she said. ‘He had nothing against it provided you sign a receipt.’

  ‘From what I’ve read so far they contain information about the Chinese working on the transcontinental railway line in the United States.’

  ‘In the 1860s? That’s nearly a hundred and fifty years ago.’

  Sundberg put the diaries into a plastic bag on the table. In her pocket she had a receipt that Roslin duly signed.

  Sundberg accompanied her to the reception area. They shook hands at the glass door. Roslin asked when the press conference was scheduled.

  ‘Two o’clock. Four hours from now. If you have a press pass you can come in. It will be packed. This is too big a crime for a little town like ours.’

  ‘I hope you’ve made a breakthrough.’

  Vivi Sundberg paused before replying.

  ‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘I think we’re on the way towards a result.’

  She nodded slowly as if to emphasise what she was saying.

  ‘We now know that all the people in the village were related,’ she said. ‘All the dead, that is. There’s a family connection.’

  ‘Everybody except the boy?’

  ‘He was related as well. But he was just visiting.’

  Birgitta Roslin left the police station, thinking hard about what was going to be announced a few hours later.

  A man caught up with her on the snow-covered pavement.

  Lars Emanuelsson smiled. Birgitta Roslin felt an urge to hit him. At the same time, she couldn’t help being impressed by the man’s persistence.

  ‘We meet again,’ he said. ‘Over and over you visit the police. The judge from Helsingborg hovers indefatigably on the periphery of the investigation. You must understand why I’m curious.’

  ‘Put your questions to the police, not to me.’

  Lars Emanuelsson turned serious.

  ‘Rest assured, I already have. But I still haven’t got any answers, which is annoying. I’m forced to speculate. What is a judge from Helsingborg doing in Hudiksvall? How is she involved in the horrific things that have been happening here?’

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  ‘Just tell me why you’re so unpleasant and dismissive.’

  ‘Because you won’t leave me in peace.’

  Lars Emanuelsson nodded in the direction of the plastic bag.

  ‘I noticed that you were empty-handed when you went in the station earlier this morning. And now you’re coming out with a heavy plastic bag. What’s in there? Documents? Files? Something else?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘Never talk to a journalist like that. Everything is my business. What’s in the bag, what isn’t. Why don’t you want to answer?’

  As Birgitta Roslin started to walk away, she slipped and fell down in the snow. One of the old diaries tumbled out of the bag. Lars Emanuels-son rushed to help, but she pushed away his hand as she put the book back. Her face was red with anger as she hurried away.

  ‘Old books,’ Emanuelsson shouted after her. ‘Sooner or later I’ll find out what they mean.’

  She didn’t stopto brush off the snow until she reached her car. She started the engine and switched on the heater. When she came out onto the main road, she startedtocalm down. She put Lars Emanuelsson and Vivi Sundberg out of her mind, took the inland route, stopped in Borlänge for a meal, then turned into a car park just outside Ludvika shortly before two o’clock.

  The radio news bulletin was short. The press conference had just begun. According to what they had heard, the police had arrested a man on suspicion of mass murder in Hesjövallen. More information was promised in the next bulletin.

  Birgitta Roslin resumed her journey, then stopped again an hour later. She turned off cautiously onto a timber track, afraid that the snow would be so deep that her car might get stuck. She switched on the radio. The first thing she heard was Robertsson’s voice. A suspect was being interrogated. Robertsson expected him to be charged that afternoon or evening. That was all he could say at the moment.

  A hubbub of sound filled the radio when he had finished speaking, but Robertsson declined to comment further.

  When the news bulletin was over, she turned off the radio. Some heavy chunks of snow fell from a fir tree next to the car. She unbuckled her seat belt and got out. The temperature was still falling. She shuddered. What had Robertsson said? A male suspect. Nothing more. But he had sounded confident, just as Sundberg had given the impression of being confident that a breakthrough had been achieved.

  This is not the Chinese man, she thought.

  She restarted the engine and continued her journey. She forgot about the next news bulletin.

  She stopped in Örebro and took a room for the night. She left the bag of diaries in the car.

  Before falling asleep, she felt an almost irresistible longing for another human being. Staffan. But he wasn’t there. She could hardly remember what his hands felt like.

  The following day, at about three in the afternoon, she arrived back home in Helsingborg. She put the plastic bag of diaries in her study.

  By then she knew that a man in his forties, as yet unnamed, had been charged by Prosecutor Robertsson. But there were no details – the media ranted on about the lack of information.

  Nobody knew who he was. Everybody was waiting.

  19

  That evening Birgitta Roslin watched the television news with her husband. Prosecutor Robertsson talked about a breakthrough in the investigation. Vivi Sundberg was hovering in the background. The press conference was chaotic. Tobias Ludwig failed to keep the reporters under control, and they almost tipped over the lectern at which Robertsson was standing. He was the only one who remained calm. Eventually he was interviewed alone on camera and explained what had happened. A man aged about forty-five had been arrested in his home outside Hudiksvall. There had been no drama, but to be on the safe side they had called in reinforcements. The man had been charged on suspicion of involvement in the Hesjövallen massacre. For technical reasons Robertsson was not prepared to reveal his identity.

  ‘Why won’t he do that?’ wondered Staffan.

  ‘Any other people involved could be warned, evidence could be destroyed,’ said Birgitta, hushing him.

  Robertsson released no details, but the breakthrough had come as a result of several tips from the general public. They were checking various leads and had already held a preliminary interrogation.

  The interviewer pressured Robertsson with more questions.

  Has he confessed?

  No.

  Has he
admitted to anything at all?

  I can’t comment on that.

  Why not?

  We are at a crucial stage in the investigation.

  Was he surprised when he was arrested?

  No comment.

  Does he have a family?

  No comment.

  But he lives near Hudiksvall.

  Yes.

  What’s his job?

  No comment.

  In what way is he connected to all the people who have been killed?

  You must realise that I can’t comment on that.

  But you must also understand that our viewers are interested in what has happened. This is the second most serious outbreak of violence that has ever taken place in Sweden.

  Robertsson raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  What was worse?

  The Stockholm Bloodbath.

  Robertsson couldn’t help laughing out loud. Birgitta Roslin groaned at the sheer cheek of the interviewer.

  The two incidents can hardly be compared. But I’m not going to argue with you.

  What happens next?

  We will interrogate the suspect again.

  Who is his defending counsel?

  He’s asked for Tomas Bodström, but he probably won’t get him.

  Are you sure you have arrested the right man?

  It’s too early to say. But for the moment I’m happy with the fact that he’s been charged.

  The interview ended. Birgitta turned down the sound. Staffan looked at her.

  ‘Well, what does the judge have to say about this?’

  ‘They obviously have some evidence, or they would never have been allowed to charge him. But he’s been locked up on grounds of suspicion. Either Robertsson is being cautious, or he doesn’t have anything more concrete.’

  ‘Did just one man do all this?’

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily follow that he was alone just because he’s the only one who’s been arrested.’

  ‘Can it really be anything but an act of madness?’

  Birgitta sat in silence for a moment before replying.

  ‘Can an act of madness be meticulously planned? Your answer is as good as mine.’

  ‘So we’ll have to wait and see.’

  They drank tea and went to bed early. He stretched out his hand and stroked her cheek.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ he said.

  ‘I was thinking about what a lot of forest there is in Sweden.’

  ‘I thought perhaps you might be thinking it was good to get away from everything.’

  ‘From what? You?’

  ‘Me. And all the trials. A little midlife crisis.’

  She snuggled up closer.

  ‘Sometimes I think: What’s going on? It’s unfair, I know. You, the children, my job, what else can I ask for? But there are other things. What used to make us tick when we were younger. Not only understanding, but making a difference. If you take a look around, the world has only got worse.’

  ‘Not in every way. We smoke less, we have computers, mobile phones.’

  ‘It’s as if the whole world is falling apart. And our courts are pretty useless when it comes to preserving any kind of moral decency in this country.’

  ‘Is this what you were thinking about when you were up there in the north?’

  ‘I suppose so. I’m a little depressed. But perhaps you need to be a little depressed sometimes.’

  They lay there without speaking. She expected him to reach for her, but nothing happened.

  We’re not there yet, she thought, disappointed. But at the same time she couldn’t understand why she didn’t feel able to make the move herself.

  ‘We should go away for a while,’ he said eventually. ‘Some conversations are better during daylight hours rather than right before going to sleep.’

  ‘Maybe we should go on a pilgrimage,’ she said. ‘Do what tradition tells us to do, take the route to Santiago de Compostela. Put rocks in our backpacks, every one representing a problem we’re wrestling with. Then, when we’ve found solutions, we take the rocks out and lay them by the roadside, one by one.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Of course. But I don’t know if my knees are up to it.’

  ‘If you carry things that are too heavy, you might get heel spurs.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Something nasty in your heels. A good friend of mine’s had it. Ture, the vet. He’s been through hell.’

  ‘We should become pilgrims,’ she mumbled. ‘But not just yet. I need to get some sleep. So do you.’

  The next day Birgitta Roslin contacted her doctor to confirm her follow-up appointment in five days. Then she gave the house a thorough clean, no more than glancing at the plastic bag with the diaries. She spoke to her children about arranging a surprise party for Staffan’s birthday. Everybody agreed it was an excellent idea, and she called to invite their friends. She listened to the occasional news bulletins from Hudiksvall. Information seeping out from the embattled police HQ was scanty, to say the least.

  It was not until late afternoon that she sat down at her desk and took out the diaries. Now that a man had been charged with the murders, her own theories seemed less important. She thumbed through until she came to the last page she had read.

  The telephone rang. It was Karin Wiman. They set up a time for Birgitta to visit the following day.

  In his diary notes JA continued complaining about nearly everybody he had to work with and was responsible for. The Irish are idle drunkards, the few black men the railway company employs are strong but unwilling to make an effort. JA longs for slaves from the Caribbean islands that he’s heard about. Only lashes of the whip can induce these strong men to really make use of their strength. He wishes he were able to whip them like one could whip oxen or donkeys. Birgitta Roslin was unable to establish which race he disliked most. Perhaps the ‘Red Indians’, the Native Americans for whom he had so much contempt. Their reluctance to work, their two-faced cunning, were worse than anything he’d come across among the scum he was forced to kick and beat into submission to ensure the eastern advancement of the railway. He also wrote regularly about the Chinese: he would be only too pleased to drive them into the Pacific Ocean and make them choose between drowning and swimming back to China. But he can’t deny that the Chinese are good workers. They don’t drink hard liquor, they keep themselves clean and they obey the rules. Their only weakness is their predilection for gambling and strange religious ceremonies. JA continually tries to justify his reasons for disliking these people who in fact are making his job easier. Some lines were almost impossible to make out, but Birgitta Roslin thought he must be suggesting that the industrious Chinese were cut out for this work, and nothing else. They had reached a level that would never be raised, no matter what was done to help them.

  The people JA holds in highest esteem are the ones from Scandinavia. The army of workers building the railway contains a little colony of Nordic labourers: a few Norwegians and Danes, but more Swedes and Finns. I trust these people. They don’t try to fool me, as long as I keep an eye on them. And they’re not afraid of hard work. But if I turn my back on them, they’re transformed into the same gang of thugs as all the rest of them.

  Birgitta Roslin pushed the diary aside and stood up. Whoever this railway foreman had been, she found him more and more repulsive. A man from a simple background who had emigrated to America. And then he suddenly found himself with enormous power over other people. A brutal person who had become a little tyrant. She got dressed to go out and went for a long walk through the city in order to shake off the disgust she felt.

  It was six o’clock when she switched on the radio in the kitchen. The news bulletin began with Robertsson’s statement. She stood as if transfixed, listening. In the background was the noise of flashbulbs and scraping chairs.

  As on earlier occasions, he was clear and precise. The man who had been charged the day before had now confessed that he, and he alone, had committe
d all the murders at Hesjövallen. At eleven o’clock in the morning he had requested, through his lawyer, to speak again to the female police officer who had first interrogated him. He had also asked for the prosecutor to be present. His motive, he said, was revenge. There would have to be several more interrogations before it could be established just what he had been taking revenge for.

  Robertsson concluded with the details that everybody had been waiting for.

  ‘The man charged is Lars-Erik Valfridsson. He is a bachelor, employed by a firm that carries out excavation and rock-blasting operations. He has been sentenced several times in the past for assault and battery.’

  The flashbulbs continued to pop. Robertsson began answering questions from the barrage fired at him by the mass of journalists. The female broadcaster faded out Robertsson’s voice and embarked on a summary of what had happened so far. Roslin left the radio on but turned her attention to teletext. There was nothing new, only a summary of what Roberts-son had said. She switched off both the television and the radio and sat down on the sofa. Robertsson’s voice had convinced her that he was sure they had found the murderer. She had listened to enough prosecutors to be able to draw conclusions about the sincerity of what he had said. He was convinced he was right. And honest prosecutors never based their indictments on revelations or guesses, but on facts.

  It was too soon to draw conclusions. But she did so nevertheless. The man who had been arrested and charged was certainly not Chinese. She went back to her study and replaced the diaries in the plastic bag. There was no longer any need for her to study these unpleasantly racist and misanthropic jottings from more than a hundred years ago.

  In the evening she and Staffan had a late dinner. They only referred in passing to what had happened. The evening papers he had brought home from the train had nothing to add to what she already knew. In one of the photographs from the press conference she noticed Lars Emanuelsson with his hand raised, wanting to ask a question. She shuddered at the thought of their meetings. She mentioned that she would be going to visit Karin Wiman the following day and would probably stay overnight. Staffan knew Karin and had known her late husband.

  ‘Go,’hesaid. ‘It’lldoyou good. When doyou haveto see the doctor again?’