The Dogs of Riga - Wallander 02

by Henning Mankell

  Sergeant Zids came back from the archives. "Did Major Liepa have any family apart from his wife?" Wallander asked him.

  "I don't know," he replied, "but no doubt Mrs Liepa will."

  Wallander didn't want to ask Baiba Liepa that question just yet. He thought that from now on, he had no alternative but to follow what seemed to be the normal procedure here, and not to pass on any unnecessary information or confidences, but act on his own according to a private agenda.

  "There must be a personal dossier on Major Liepa," he said. "I'd like to see it."

  "I don't have access to that," Sergeant Zids said. "Only a few people can access the personal archives."

  Wallander pointed to the telephone. "Call somebody who does have that access," he said. "Tell them that the Swedish police officer wants to see Major Liepa's personal dossier."

  Sergeant Zids finally managed to contact Colonel Murniers, who promised that Major Liepa's dossier would be produced immediately. Three quarters of an hour later it was on Wallander's desk. It was in a red file, and the first thing he saw on opening it was the major's face. It was an old photograph, and he was surprised to see that the major's appearance had hardly changed in over ten years.

  "Translate!" he told Zids.

  The sergeant shook his head. "I don't have the authority to see the contents of red files," he said.

  "If you're allowed to collect the file, surely you're allowed to translate the contents for me?"

  Sergeant Zids shook his head sadly. "I don't have the authority," he said.

  "I'm giving you the authority. All you need to do is to tell me if Major Liepa had any other family besides his wife. Then I'll order you to forget everything."

  Reluctantly, Sergeant Zids sat down and leafed through the papers. Wallander had the impression that Zids was handling the papers with as much distaste as if they had been dead bodies.

  Major Liepa had a father. According to the dossier he had the same first name as his son, Karlis, and was a retired postmaster with an address in Ventspils. Wallander recalled the brochure the red-lipped lady at the hotel had shown him: it contained details of an excursion to the coast and the town of Ventspils. Major Liepa's father was 74, and a widower. Wallander studied the major's face one more time, and pushed the file to one side. At that moment Murniers entered the room. Sergeant Zids hurriedly got to his feet and tried to put as much distance as possible between himself and the red file.

  "Have you found anything interesting?" Murniers asked. "Anything we've overlooked?"

  "Nothing. I was just going to send the dossier back to the archive."

  The sergeant took the file and left the room.

  "How is the interrogation of the man you've arrested?" Wallander asked.

  "We'll break him," Murniers said coldly. "I'm sure we've got the right man, even if Colonel Putnis seems to have his doubts."

  I also have my doubts, Wallander thought. Maybe I can talk to Putnis about it when we meet tonight? Try to find out what grounds we have for our doubts?

  He decided there and then that it was the time to set off on a lonely march out of his confusion. There was no reason any longer to keep his thoughts to himself. In the realm of lies, perhaps the half-truth is king, he told himself. Why stick to the facts when all about one the truth is being twisted every which way?

  that’ "I've been very puzzled by something Major Liepa said to me during his stay in Sweden," he said. "It wasn't clear what he meant. He had drunk a good deal of whisky, but he seemed to be suggesting he was worried that some of his colleagues might not be totally reliable."

  Murniers showed no sign of surprise at what Wallander said.

  "He was a bit drunk, of course," Wallander went on, feeling a litde uneasy about slandering a dead colleague, "but I think he suspected that one of his superiors was in collusion with various criminal networks here in Latvia."

  "An interesting claim, even if it did come from a drunk man," Murniers said thoughtfully. "If he used the word 'superiors', he could only have been referring to Colonel Putnis and myself."

  "He didn't name any names," Wallander said.

  "Did he give any reasons for his suspicions?"

  "He spoke about drug smuggling. About new routes through Eastern Europe. He thought it would be impossible to exploit these trafficking routes without some highly-placed person protecting the activity."

  "That's interesting" Murniers said. "I always regarded Major Liepa as an unusually rational person. A man with a very special conscience."

  He's unconcerned, Wallander thought. Would that be possible if Major Liepa was right?

  "What conclusions do you draw yourself?" Murniers asked.

  "None at all. I just thought I'd mention it."

  "You were right to," Murniers said. "Perhaps you should mention it to my colleague Colonel Putnis as well."

  Murniers left. Wallander put on his jacket and found Sergeant Zids in the corridor. When he got back to the hotel he lay on the bed and slept for an hour. He forced himself to take a quick, cold shower and put on the dark blue suit he had brought with him from Sweden. Shortly after 7 p.m. he went down to the foyer where Sergeant Zids was leaning on the reception desk, waiting for him.

  Colonel Putnis lived in the country, quite a way south of Riga. It occurred to Wallander during the journey that he was always being driven through Latvia at night. He was moving in the dark, and thinking in the dark. Sitting in the back of the car, he suddenly felt pangs of homesickness. He realised that what caused it was the vagueness of his mission. He stared out into the darkness, and decided he had better phone his father the next day. His father was bound to ask when he was coming home. Soon, he'd say. Very soon.

  Sergeant Zids turned off the main road and drove through tall, iron gates. Colonel Putnis's driveway was the best-cared-for stretch of carriageway Wallander had encountered during his stay in Latvia. Sergeant Zids pulled up alongside a terrace lit by spotlights. Wallander had a strong sense of finding himself in a different land. When he got out of the car and everything round about him was no longer dark and decrepit, he had left Latvia behind.

  Colonel Putnis was on the terrace to welcome them. He had discarded his police uniform in favour of a well-cut suit that reminded Wallander of the clothes worn by the dead men in the life-raft. Standing by his side was his wife, a woman much younger than her husband. Wallander guessed she was not yet 30. When they were introduced it emerged that she spoke excellent English, and Wallander strode into the handsome mansion with that special kind of well-being one only gets on completing a long and strenuous journey. Colonel Putnis, crystal whisky glass in hand, showed him round the house, and the colonel made no attempt to conceal his pride. Wallander could see that the rooms were furnished with pieces imported from the West, giving the house a luxurious, yet restrained air.

  No doubt I'd have been just like this couple if I lived in a country where everything seems nearly to be on the point of running out or breaking down, he thought. But the house must have cost a great deal of money, and he was surprised that a police colonel could earn as much. Bribes, he thought. Bribes and corruption. But then he quashed the thought immediately. He didn't know Colonel Putnis and his wife Ausma. Perhaps there were still such things as family fortunes in Latvia, despite the fact that those in government had had nearly 50 years in which to change all the financial norms? What did he know about it? Nothing.

  They dined by the light of a tall candelabra. Wallander gathered from the conversation that Ausma also worked for the police, but in a different sector. He had the impression that her work was top secret, and it occurred to him that she might belong to the local section of the Latvian KGB. She asked him a lot of questions about Sweden, and the wine encouraged him to be expansive, despite his efforts to control himself.

  After dinner Ausma disappeared into the kitchen to make coffee. Putnis served cognac in a living room where attractive leather armchairs stood in various groups. Wallander would never be able to afford furniture l
ike that no matter how long he worked, and the thought made him aggressive. He felt a vague personal responsibility. It was as if - by not protesting - he would have contributed to the bribes that made Colonel Putnis's home affordable.

  "Latvia is a land of enormous contrasts," he said, stumbling over the English words. "Isn't Sweden as well?"

  "Of course - but not as obviously as here. It would be unthinkable for a Swedish police officer to live in a house like yours."

  Colonel Putnis stretched out his hands as if to excuse himself.

  "My wife and I are not rich," he said, "but we have lived frugally for many years. I'm 55 now, and would like to live in comfort in my old age. Is there anything wrong with that?"

  "I'm not talking about rights and wrongs," Wallander said, "I'm talking about differences. When I met Major Liepa, it was the first time I'd come across anybody from one of the Baltic states. I had the impression he came from a country with much poverty."

  "There are a lot of poor people here, I'm not denying that."

  "I'd like to know how things really stand."

  Colonel Putnis's gaze was penetrating. "I don't think I understand your question."

  "With regard to bribes. Corruption. Links between criminal organisations and politicians. I'd like to know the answer to something Major Liepa said when he came round to my flat in Sweden. Something he said when he was about as drunk as I am now."

  Colonel Putnis observed him with a smile. "Of course," he said. "Of course I shall explain if I can - but first I need to know what Major Liepa actually said."

  Wallander repeated the invented quotation he'd presented to Colonel Murniers a few hours earlier.

  "Irregularities do occur, even in the Latvian police force,"

  Putnis said. "Many police officers receive low wages, and the temptation to accept bribes can be great. At the same time, though, I have to say that Major Liepa had a tendency to exaggerate the prevailing circumstances. His honesty and industry were admirable, of course, but occasionally he may have been guilty of confusing facts with emotional misconceptions."

  "You mean he was exaggerating?"

  "Unfortunately I think he was."

  "Even when he claimed that a high-ranking police officer was deeply embroiled in criminal activity?"

  Colonel Putnis warmed his cognac glass in his hands. "He must have been referring to either Colonel Murniers or myself," he said. "That surprises me. His accusation was both inaccurate and irrational."

  "But there must have been some explanation?"

  "Perhaps Major Liepa thought Murniers and I were getting old too slowly," Putnis said with a smile. "Perhaps he was dissatisfied by the fact that we stood between him and his own promotion?"

  "Major Liepa didn't give me the impression of being especially concerned with his own career."

  Putnis nodded sagely. "Let me suggest a plausible explanation," he said, "but I must stress it is strictly between ourselves."

  "I do not normally betray confidences."

  "About ten years ago Colonel Murniers succumbed to an unfortunate weakness," Putnis said. "He was caught taking a bribe from a director of one of our textile factories who had been arrested on suspicion of embezzlement. The money taken by Murniers was seen as compensation for his turning a blind eye to the fact that some of the arrested man's fellow-criminals had been given the opportunity to conceal certain documents that could have provided crucial proof." "What happened next?"

  "The matter was hushed up. The businessman was given a symbolic sentence, and within a year he was appointed head of one of the country's biggest sawmills."

  "What happened to Murniers?"

  "Nothing. He was full of remorse. He had been overworked at the time, and had gone through a painful and lengthy divorce. The tribunal assigned the task of judging the case decided that the offence should be forgiven. Perhaps Major Liepa had assumed, wrongly, that a temporary weakness was in fact a chronic character defect? That's the only explanation I can give you. Can I pour you some more cognac?"

  Wallander held out his glass. Something Colonel Putnis had said, and also Murniers earlier, nagged at him, although he couldn't put his finger on it. Just then Ausma came in with the coffee tray, and began to tell Wallander with great enthusiasm about all the sights he must see before leaving Riga. As he listened to her, his anxiety nagged away in the back of his mind. Something crucial had been said, something barely noticeable: but it had caught his attention even so.

  "The Swedish Gate," Ausma said. "You haven't even seen our monument from the time when Sweden was one of the great powers of Europe?"

  "I must have missed it."

  "Sweden is still a great power even today," Colonel Putnis said. "A small country, but much envied on account of its great riches."

  Afraid of losing the thread of the vague suspicion he had intuitively registered, Wallander excused himself and went to the lavatory. He locked the door and sat down.

  Many years ago, Rydberg had taught him the importance of immediately following up on a clue that seemed to dangle so close to his eyes that it was difficult to see. It dawned on him. Something Murniers had said, that had been contradicted by Colonel Putnis only moments ago, using almost the same words.

  Murniers had spoken of Major Liepa's rationality, and Colonel Putnis about his irrationality. In view of what Putnis had vouchsafed about Murniers, perhaps that wasn't difficult to understand; but as Wallander sat there on the lavatory lid, he realised that he would have expected the pair to have precisely the opposite views.

  "We suspect Murniers," Baiba Liepa had said. "We suspect he was betrayed."

  Maybe I've got it all wrong, Wallander thought. Maybe I'm seeing in Murniers what I ought to be looking for in Colonel Putnis? The one who spoke of Major Liepa as rational was the one I'd have expected to think the opposite. He tried to recall Murniers's voice, and it came to him that the colonel had possibly implied something more. Major Liepa is a rational person, a rational police officer: that would suggest his suspicions are correct.

  He considered that proposition, and realised he had been far too ready to accept suspicions and information passed on to him at second and third hand. He flushed the lavatory and returned to his coffee and cognac.

  "Our daughters," Ausma said, holding out two framed portraits. "Alda and Lija."

  "I have a daughter too," Wallander said. "She's called Linda."

  For the rest of the evening the conversation meandered aimlessly back and forth, and Wallander wished he could make a move to leave without appearing impolite.

  Nevertheless, it was almost 1 a.m. by the time Zids pulled up outside the Latvia Hotel. Wallander had dozed in the back seat, and he realised he had drunk more than he should have. The next day he would be exhausted, and he'd have a hangover into the bargain.

  He lay in bed staring out into the darkness for a long time before falling asleep. The two colonels melted into a single image. He would never be able to reconcile himself to going home until he'd done everything in his power to shed some light on Major Liepa's death. There are links, he thought. Major Liepa, the dead men in the life-raft, the arrest of Upitis. It's all connected. It's just that I can't see the chain yet. And behind my head, on the other side of that thin wall, there are invisible people registering every breath I take. Perhaps they will note down and report the fact that I'm lying here wide awake for hours before falling asleep? Maybe they think that enables them to read my thoughts? A solitary lorry trundled past in the street below. Just before he dozed off it occurred to him that he'd been in Riga for six days already.

  CHAPTER 13

  When Wallander woke the next morning he was just as tired and hungover as he had feared. His temples were throbbing, and when he brushed his teeth he thought he was going to be sick. He dissolved two headache tablets in a glass of water, and bemoaned the fact that his capacity for drinking strong liquor in the evening was a thing of the past.

  He examined his face in the mirror and saw that he was getting m
ore and more like his father. His hangover was not only making him feel miserable, that something was now lost forever, but he was also noticing the first vestiges of age in his pale, puffy face. He went down to the dining room at 7.30 a.m., had a cup of coffee and forced down a fried egg. He felt rather better once he had some coffee inside him. He had half an hour to himself before Sergeant Zids was due to collect him, and he rehearsed once more the facts in this complicated chain of events that had begun when two well-dressed, dead men drifted ashore at Mossby Strand. He tried to digest the discovery he had made the previous night, the possibility that it might well be Putnis and not Murniers who was pulling the strings in the background, but this thought merely led him back to square one. Nothing was clear. He had gathered that an investigation in Latvia was conducted in circumstances entirely different from those applying in Sweden. The amassing of facts and the establishing of a chain of proof was so very much more complicated against the shadowy backdrop of a totalitarian state.

  Perhaps the first thing that had to be decided here was whether a crime should be investigated at all, he thought, or whether it might come into the category of "non-crimes". It seemed to him that he should redouble his efforts to extract explanations from the two colonels. As things stood at the moment, he couldn't know whether they were opening or closing invisible doors in front of him.