The Man From Beijing

by Henning Mankell

  ‘Write it down and send it to me,’ said Vivi Sundberg again. ‘Thank you for getting in touch.’

  ‘What about the diaries?’

  ‘I suppose you’d better send them back to us now.’

  When the call was finished, Birgitta felt relieved. Despite everything, her efforts had not been in vain. Now she could hand everything over to somebody else. With luck the police would be able to track down the true murderer, whether he had acted alone or had accomplices. She would not be surprised in the least if a man from China had been involved.

  The following day Birgitta Roslin went to see her doctor. It was a windy winter’s day with gusts blowing in from the sound. She felt impatient, couldn’t wait to get back to work.

  She only had to wait for a few minutes before it was her turn. The doctor asked how she was, and she said she felt fully restored. A nurse took a blood sample, and Birgitta sat down in the waiting room once more.

  When she was called into the examination room, the doctor took her blood pressure and came straight to the point.

  ‘You seem to be in good form, but your blood pressure is still way too high. We’ll have to keep on trying to pin down the cause. I’m going to put you on sick leave for two more weeks. And I’m also going to refer you to a specialist.’

  It was only when she was back out on the street and hit by the freezing cold wind that the results really sunk in. She was very worried about the possibility of being seriously ill, despite her doctor’s assurances that this was not the case.

  She stood in the middle of the square with the wind behind her. For the first time in many years, she felt helpless. While she was standing motionless, she felt her mobile phone vibrating in her overcoat pocket. It was Karin, who wanted to thank Birgitta for having visited her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m standing in a square,’ said Birgitta. ‘And at this very moment I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.’

  She told Karin about her visit to the doctor. It was a frozen telephone call. She promised to call back before Karin left for China.

  When she got home and opened her garden gate, it started snowing, and the wind increased.

  21

  That same day she went to the district court and spoke to Hans Mattsson, She could see that he was worried and dejected when she told him that she was still on sick leave.

  He peered pensively at her over his glasses.

  ‘That doesn’t sound good. I’m starting to worry about you.’

  ‘You don’t need to, according to my doctor. The blood counts aren’t what they should be, and my blood pressure needs to be reduced. I’m being referred to a specialist. But I don’t feel ill, just a bit tired.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ said Hans Mattsson. ‘I’ve been feeling tired for the last thirty years. The biggest pleasure I have to look forward to nowadays is when I can sleep in.’

  ‘I’ll be off for another two weeks. Then we’ll just have to hope that it’s sorted itself out.’

  ‘Take as long as you need. I’ll speak to the National Courts Administration and see what they can do to help us out. As you know, you’re not the only one who’s away. Klas Hansson has leave of absence to chair an inquiry for the EU in Brussels. I doubt if he’ll ever come back. I’ve always suspected that he’s been tempted by grander things than presiding over a court of law.’

  ‘I’m sorry to cause you problems.’

  ‘You’re not causing me problems. It’s your blood pressure that’s doing that. Have a rest. Look after your roses and come back when you are healthy again.’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘I don’t grow roses. I certainly don’t have a green thumb.’

  ‘That’s what my grandmother used to say. When you were told not to work so much, she thought you should concentrate on growing your imaginary roses. I think it’s a nice image. My grandmother was born in 1879. The same year as Strindberg published The Red Room. An odd thought. The only thing she ever did in her life, apart from giving birth to children, was darn socks.’

  ‘OK, I’ll do that,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘I’ll go home and look after my roses.’

  The next day she posted the diaries and her notes to Hudiksvall. When she handed over the parcel and was given the receipt, she had the feeling she was closing a door on the happenings in Hesjövallen. She felt relieved, and committed herself to the preparations for Staffan’s birthday party.

  Most of the family plus several friends were assembled when Staffan Roslin came home after being in charge of an afternoon train from Alvesta to Malmö and then travelling off-duty to Helsingborg. He stood in the doorway in his uniform plus a shaggy old fur hat, struck dumb, while the welcoming party sang ‘Happy Birthday to You’. It was a relief for Birgitta to see everyone sitting around the table. What had happened in Hälsingland, as well as her high blood pressure, seemed less important when she was able to drink in the feeling of calm that only her family could give her. Naturally, she wished Anna had been able to come home from Asia, but she had declined the invitation when Birgitta finally reached her via a noisy mobile phone connection in Thailand. It was very late by the time the guests had left and only family members remained. She had talkative children who loved to spend time together. She and her husband sat on the sofa, listening with amused interest to the conversations. She occasionally topped up everybody’s glass. The twins, Siv and Louise, were goingto sleep in the spare room, but David had booked himself into a hotel, despite Birgitta’s protests. It was four in the morning when the party broke up. Only the parents were left to clean up, fill the dishwasher and put the empty bottles in the garage.

  ‘That really was a lovely surprise,’ said Staffan when they eventually sat down at the kitchen table. ‘I’ll never forget it. I feel so positive. Earlier on I was feeling utterly fed up with wandering back and forth through train carriages. I spend all my time travelling, but I never arrive anywhere. That’s the curse of train drivers and conductors. We spend all our time in our glass bubbles.’

  ‘We should do this more often. Let’s face it, it’s at moments like this that life takes on a different meaning. Not just duty and doing what needs to be done.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re going to be off work for another two weeks. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Hans Mattsson talks passionately about his longing to sleep in. Maybe that’s what I should do for a few days.’

  ‘Go somewhere warm for a week. Take one of your friends with you.’

  She shook her head doubtfully. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. But who?’

  ‘Karin Wiman?’

  ‘She’s going to China, to work.’

  ‘Isn’t there anybody else you could ask? Maybe you could go away with one of the twins?’

  That was a very tempting thought. ‘I’ll see what they have to say. But first I need to find out if I really can go off somewhere. Don’t forget that I need to see a specialist.’

  He stretched out a hand and placed it on her arm. ‘I hope you’re telling me the whole story. Do I need to be worried?’

  ‘No. Not unless my doctor is lying to me. But I don’t think he is.’

  They sat up for a bit longer before going to bed. When she woke up later that morning Staffan had already left. So had the twins. She had slept until half past eleven. A Hans Mattsson morning, she thought.

  She spoke on the telephone to Siv and Louise after lunch, but neither of them had time to go away, although they would both have loved to take a holiday with their mother. She also received a call informing her that due to a cancellation, she would be able to see the specialist the following day.

  At about four there was a ring at the door. She wondered if she was about to receive another free Chinese meal. But when she opened it, she found Detective Chief Inspector Hugo Malmberg standing there with snow in his hair and old-fashioned overshoes on his feet.

&nb
sp; ‘I happened to bump into Hans Mattsson. He mentioned that you were unwell – in confidence, as he knows we’re old friends.’

  She let him in. Despite his huge size, he had no problem bending down to take off his overshoes.

  They sat in the kitchen and drank coffee. She told him about her high blood pressure and blood counts, and that it was not unusual for women of her age.

  ‘My high blood pressure is ticking away like a time bomb inside me,’ said Malmberg glumly. ‘I take medication, and my doctor says the readings are OK; but I’m worried even so. Nobody in my family has ever died of a tumour. Everybody, women as well as men, has been floored by strokes and heart attacks. Every day I have to make an effort to overcome my worries.’

  ‘I’ve been in Hudiksvall,’ said Roslin. ‘You were the one who gave me Vivi Sundberg’s name. Did you know I went there?’

  ‘It comes as a surprise, I have to admit.’

  ‘Do you remember the circumstances? I discovered that I was related to one of the families murdered in Hesjövallen. Since then it’s become clear that all the murder victims were related through marriage. Do you have time?’

  ‘My answering machine says I’m out on police business for the rest of the day. As I’m not on standby, I can sit here all night if need be.’

  ‘Until the cows come home? Isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘Or until the riders of the Apocalypse thunder past and annihilate us all. Anyway, entertain me with all the horrors I don’t need to get involved in.’

  ‘Are you being cynical?’

  He frowned, and growled. ‘Don’t you know me better than that? After all these years? I’m offended.’

  ‘That wasn’t the intention.’

  ‘Fire away. I’m listening.’

  As he seemed to be genuinely interested, Birgitta told him in detail what had happened. He listened carefully, interpolated the occasional question, but seemed convinced that she was being meticulous. When she had finished he sat for a while without speaking, staring at his hands. Birgitta knew that Hugo Malmberg was regarded as an exceptionally competent police officer. He combined patience with speed, a methodical approach with intuition. She had heard that Malmberg was one of the most sought after teachers in the Swedish police academy. Although his day job was in Helsingborg, he was often called in by the national CID to assist in especially difficult cases elsewhere in the country.

  It suddenly occurred to her that it was odd he hadn’t been summoned to help out with the investigation into the Hesjövallen murders.

  She put it to him point-blank, and he smiled.

  ‘They have in fact asked. But nobody told me that you had been involved and made some remarkable discoveries.’

  ‘I don’t think they like me,’ Birgitta Roslin said.

  ‘Police officers tend to be very keen on protecting their own feeding bowls. They were eager for me to travel up there and advise, but they lost interest once Valfridsson had been arrested.’

  ‘He’s dead now.’

  ‘But the investigation continues.’ Malmberg sighed.

  ‘Nevertheless, you know now that he didn’t do it.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You’ve heard what I had to say.’ She looked at him in earnest.

  ‘Remarkable goings-on, plausible facts. Things that obviously ought to be fully investigated. But the main line of investigation, Valfridsson, doesn’t get any worse simply because the man happens to commit suicide.’

  ‘He didn’t do it. What happened that night between the twelfth and thirteenth of January was much bigger than anything a man with a few assault convictions and an ancient homicide would be capable of.’

  ‘You may be right. But you could also be wrong. Over and over again it turns out that the biggest fishes swim around in the most placid of pools. Bicycle thieves become bank robbers; rowdies turn into professional hit men willing to kill anybody for a sum of money. So why shouldn’t a guy who gets drunk and beats up a few people and maybe even kills the odd one simply go to pieces and commit a horrific crime like the one in Hesjövallen?’

  ‘But there was no motive,’ she insisted.

  ‘The prosecutor talks about revenge.’

  ‘For what? What could justify revenge on a whole village? It just doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘If the crime doesn’t make sense, the motive doesn’t need to either,’ Malmberg said.

  ‘Whatever, I think Valfridsson was a red herring.’

  ‘Is a red herring. What did I say? The investigation continues even if he’s dead. Let me ask you a question. Is your idea of a mysterious Chinese man being responsible much more plausible? How in God’s name can you link a little village in the north of Sweden with a Chinese motive?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We shall have to wait and see. And you must make sure to get better soon.’

  It was snowing even more as he prepared to leave.

  ‘Why don’t you take a holiday? Go somewhere warm?’

  ‘Everybody keeps saying that. I’ll have to clear it with my doctor first.’

  She watched him disappear into the swirling snow. She was touched to think that he’d taken the time to visit her.

  By the following day the snow had moved on. She kept her appointment with the specialist, had blood samples taken, and was informed that it would be a week or more before all the test results were available.

  ‘Are there things I’m not allowed to do?’ she asked her new doctor.

  ‘Avoid unnecessary exertions.’

  ‘Am I allowed to go on holiday?’

  ‘That would do you good.’

  ‘I have another question. Should I be afraid?’

  ‘No. As you don’t have any other symptoms, you’ve no reason to worry.’

  ‘So I’m not going to die?’

  ‘Of course you are. Eventually. So am I. But you’ll be OK as long as we can get your blood pressure down to reasonable levels.’

  When she emerged into the street, she recognised that she had been anxious, not to say afraid. Now she felt relieved. She decided to go for a long walk. But she hadn’t gone far before she paused.

  The thought struck her from out of the blue. Or maybe she had already reached a decision without knowing it. She went into a cafe and phoned Karin Wiman. The line was busy. She waited impatiently, ordered a coffee, leafed through a newspaper. Tried again. Still busy. She didn’t get an answer until her fifth attempt.

  ‘I’m going with you to Beijing.’

  Birgitta couldn’t get the same flight – she would arrive a day later. Staffan was fine with the idea, even pleased for her.

  The evening before she left, Birgitta rummaged through a cardboard box in the garage. Down at the very bottom she found what she was looking for: her old well-thumbed copy of Mao’s Little Red Book. On the inside of the red plastic cover she had written a date: 19 April 1966.

  I was a little girl then, she thought. Innocent in almost every way. I’d only once been with a young man, Tore, from Borstahusen, who dreamed of becoming an existentialist and regretted not having much of a beard. I lost my virginity to him in a freezing cold garden shed smelling of mould. All I remember is that he was almost unbearably awkward. Afterwards, all the sticky goo on our bodies became such an embarrassment that we parted as quickly as possible and never again looked each other in the eye. I still wonder what he told his friends. And then came the political storm that carried me away. But I never managed to live up to the knowledge of the world that I acquired. After some time with the Rebels, I hid myself away. I never managed to work out why I’d allowed myself to be lured into what was almost a religious cult. Karin joined the Communist Party. I became linked with Amnesty International, and now I have no political connections at all.

  She sat on a pile of old car tyres and skimmed the Little Red Book. She came across a photograph between two of the pages: it was of her and Karin Wiman. She remembered the occasion. They had squeezed into a photo booth at Lund railway stat
ion – it was Karin’s idea as usual. She laughed out loud when she saw the photo, but was also scared by the thought of how long ago it was.

  The cold wind, she thought. Old age comes creeping up behind me. She put the book of quotations in her pocket and left the garage. Staffan had just come home. She sat down opposite him in the kitchen as he ate the evening meal she had prepared for him.

  ‘So, is my Red Guard wife ready to go?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve just fetched my Little Red Book.’

  ‘Spices,’ he said. ‘If you want to give a present, bring back some spices. I always maintain there are smells and tastes in China that you don’t find anywhere else.’

  ‘What else do you want?’

  ‘You, healthy and happy

  ‘I think I can deliver that.’

  He offered to drive her to Copenhagen the next day, but she thought it would be enough if he took her to the station.

  It was a beautiful, clear winter’s day when Staffan Roslin drove his wife to the railway station and waved as her train left the platform. At Kastrup airport she checked in without difficulty and got the aisle seats she wanted on both flights, to Helsinki and Beijing. As the plane took off, and she had the feeling that she was emerging from a locked room, she smiled at the elderly Finn sitting beside her. She closed her eyes, declined anything to eat or drink before reaching Helsinki, and thought back to the time when China had been her paradise, both on earth and in her dreams.

  She woke up as the plane began its descent into Helsinki. The wheels came into contact with the concrete of the runway, and she had two hours to fill before her flight to Beijing was due to depart. She sat down on a bench underneath an old aeroplane hanging from the ceiling of the departure hall. It was cold. Through the large picture windows facing the runways, she could see the breath of the ground staff as they worked. She thought about the latest conversation she’d had with Vivi Sundberg a couple of days earlier. Birgitta had asked if they had made any stills from the film in the home-made surveillance camera. They had, and Sundberg didn’t even ask why when Birgitta had asked for a copy of the picture of the Chinese man. The following day an enlargement of the photograph arrived in the post. Now it was in her bag. She took the picture out of the envelope.