The Dogs of Riga - Wallander 02

by Henning Mankell

  Eventually he got up and went out to find Sergeant Zids. As they drove through Riga, the combination of decrepit buildings and dreadful, grim squares filled him once more with a special kind of melancholy he had never before experienced. He imagined that the people he saw standing at bus stops or scurrying along the pavements felt the same desolation, and he shuddered at the thought. He felt homesick again, although he was not sure what there was about home that filled him with longing.

  The phone rang as he opened the door of his office. He had sent Sergeant Zids to fetch some coffee.

  "Good morning," Murniers said, and Wallander could tell that the gloomy colonel was in a good mood. "Did you have a pleasant evening?"

  "I enjoyed the best food I've had since coming to Riga," Wallander replied, "but I'm afraid I had too much to drink."

  "Moderation is a virtue unknown in this country," Murniers said. "As I understand it, the success of Sweden is based on an ability to live with restraint."

  Before Wallander could think of a suitable response, Murniers continued. "I have a most interesting document on my desk here in front of me," he said. "I think it will

  help you to forget drinking too much of Colonel Putnis's excellent cognac."

  "What kind of document?"

  "Upitis's confession. Written and signed during the night." Wallander said nothing.

  "Are you still there?" Murniers asked. "Perhaps you ought to call in at my office straight away."

  In the corridor Wallander bumped into Sergeant Zids and cup in hand, he entered Murniers's office. The colonel was sitting at his desk, wearing that weary smile of his, and he picked up a file from his desk as Wallander sat down.

  "So, here we have a confession from the criminal, Upitis," he said. "It will be a real pleasure for me to translate it for you. You seem surprised?"

  "I am," Wallander said. "Was it you who interrogated him?"

  "No. Colonel Putnis had ordered Captain Emmanuelis to take charge of the interrogation. He has done even better than we had expected. Emmanuelis is clearly a police officer with a bright future."

  Did Wallander detect a note of irony in Murniers's voice? Or was it just the normal tone of voice of a tired, disillusioned police officer?

  "So, Upitis, the drunken butterfly collector and poet, has decided to make a full confession," Murniers continued. "Together with two others, Messrs Bergklaus and Lapin, he admits to having murdered Major Liepa in the early hours of 23 February. The three men had undertaken to carry out a contract placed on the life of Major Liepa. Upitis claims he doesn't know who was behind the contract, and that is probably true. The contract passed through many hands before ending up at the right address. Since it was placed on the life of a senior police officer, the sum involved was considerable. Upitis and the other two gentlemen shared the reward, which corresponds to about a hundred years' wages for a worker here in Latvia. The contract was placed rather more than two months ago - long before Major Liepa left for Sweden. The person commissioning the murder did not lay down a deadline: the key thing was that Upitis and his accomplices didn't fail. Then, suddenly, that changed. Three days before the murder, when Major Liepa was still in Sweden, that is, Upitis was contacted by an intermediary and instructed that he must be disposed of immediately upon his return to Riga. No reason for this urgency was given, but the sum of money involved was increased and a car was put at Upitis's disposal. Upitis was to visit a cinema in the city, the Spartak to be exact, every day, in the morning and in the evening. On one of the black columns supporting the roof of the building someone would place an inscription - the kind of thing you in the West call graffiti - and when it appeared Major Liepa was to be liquidated straight away. That inscription appeared in the morning of the day Major Liepa was due back. Upitis immediately contacted Bergklaus and Lapin. The intermediary had told them that Major Liepa would be lured out of his flat late that evening. What happened next was up to them. This evidently caused the three murderers considerable problems. They assumed Major Liepa would be armed, that he would be on the alert, and that he would probably resist. This meant they would have to strike the moment he left the building. Naturally, there was every chance that they would make a mess of it."

  Murniers broke off abruptly and looked at Wallander.

  "Am I going too fast?" he asked.

  "No. I think I can follow."

  "They drove to the street where Major Liepa lived," Murniers went on. "They had taken out the bulb of the lamp by the front door, and they hid in the shadows, armed with various weapons. Earlier, they had been to a bar and fortified themselves with large amounts of strong liquor. When Major Liepa stepped through the door, they attacked. Upitis maintains it was Lapin who struck him on the back of the head. When we bring in Lapin and Bergklaus, no doubt they will all blame each other. Unlike Swedish law, ours permits us to condemn more than one man if it proves not to be possible to decide which of them was the actual killer. Major Liepa slumped down on to the pavement, the car drove up, and the body was crammed onto the back seat. On the way to the harbour he came round, whereupon Lapin is said to have struck him on the head again. Upitis claims Major Liepa was dead when they carried him out to the quayside. The intention was to give the impression that Major Liepa had been the victim of some kind of accident - that was doomed to failure, but it seems that Upitis and his accomplices didn't make much of an effort to mislead the police."

  Murniers tossed the report back on to his desk.

  Wallander thought back to the evening he had spent at the hunting lodge, Upitis and all his questions, the strip of light from the door where somebody had been listening.

  "We think Major Liepa was betrayed, we suspect Colonel Murniers"

  "How could they know Major Liepa would come back home on that day?" he asked.

  "Possibly somebody working for Aeroflot had been bribed. There are passenger lists, after all. Certainly we shall be looking into that."

  "Why was the major murdered?"

  "Rumours spread quickly in a society like ours. Perhaps Major Liepa was being too awkward for certain powerful criminals to tolerate."

  Wallander thought for a moment before putting his next question. He had listened to Murniers's account of Upitis's confession, and realised that something was wrong - terribly wrong. Even though he knew it was a fabrication, he couldn't guess at the truth. The lies complemented each other, and what had really happened and the reasons for it were impossible to see.

  He realised he didn't have any questions to ask. There were no more questions, just vague, helpless statements.

  "You must know that not a word of Upitis's confession is true," he said.

  Murniers gave him a searching look. "Why shouldn't it be true?"

  "For the simple reason that Upitis didn't kill Major Liepa, of course. The whole confession is made up. He must have been forced to make it. Unless he's gone mad."

  "Why couldn't a criminal like Upitis have murdered Major Liepa?"

  "Because I've met him," Wallander said. "I've spoken to him. I'm convinced that if anybody in this country can be excluded from suspicion of having murdered Major Liepa, it's Upitis."

  Murniers's astonishment couldn't possibly have been an act. So, it wasn't him standing in the shadows at the hunting lodge, listening, Wallander registered. Who was it, then? Baiba Liepa? Or Colonel Putnis?

  "You say you've met Upitis?"

  Wallander made a snap decision to go once again for a half-truth. He had no choice, he had to protect Baiba Liepa.

  "He came to my hotel room, and introduced himself. I recognised him when Colonel Putnis pointed him out through the two-way mirror in the interrogation room. When he came to see me, he said he was a friend of Major Liepa's."

  Murniers was sitting tense and erect in his chair, all his attention concentrated on what Wallander had just said.

  "Strange," he said. "Very strange."

  "He came to see me because he wanted to tell me he thought Major Liepa had been murdered by one of
his colleagues."

  "By the police?"

  "Yes. Upitis hoped I would be able to help him to work out what had happened. How he knew there was a Swedish police officer in Riga I have no idea."

  "What else did he say?"

  "That Major Liepa's friends didn't have any proof, but that the major had said that he felt under threat." "Threatened by whom?"

  "By somebody in the police. Perhaps also by the KGB."

  "Why should he feel threatened?"

  "For the same reason that Upitis believes criminals in Riga had decided the major should be liquidated. There is an obvious link."

  "What link?"

  "The fact that Upitis was right on two counts, although he must have lied on one occasion."

  Murniers leapt to his feet. Wallander wondered whether he, the police officer from Sweden, had overstepped the mark, pushed his luck too far, but the way Murniers looked at him suggested he was almost pleading with him.

  "Colonel Putnis must hear this," Murniers said.

  "Indeed," Wallander said. "He must."

  Ten minutes later Putnis strode through the door. Wallander had no opportunity to thank him for the dinner before Murniers, speaking excitedly and forcefully in Latvian, recounted what Wallander had just told him about his meeting with Upitis. Wallander was certain that Putnis's expression would reveal whether he had been the one in the shadows that night in the hunting lodge, but he gave nothing away. Wallander tried to think of a plausible explanation for Upitis having made a false confession, but everything was so confused and obscure that he gave up the attempt.

  Putnis's reaction was very different from that of Murniers.

  "Why didn't you tell anybody before that you had met this criminal Upitis?" he asked.

  Wallander didn't know what to say. He could tell that he had broken the bond of trust between them, but at the same time he wondered whether it was a coincidence that he had been having dinner with the Putnises the night Upitis made his alleged confession. Was there any such thing as a coincidence in a totalitarian society? Hadn't Putnis also said he always preferred to interrogate his prisoners alone?

  Putnis's indignation subsided as quickly as it flared up. He was smiling again, and put his arm on Wallander's shoulder.

  "Upitis, the butterfly collector and poet, is a crafty fellow," he said. "One has to admit it is a very clever move to divert suspicion from himself by going to see a Swedish police officer who happens to be visiting Riga, but there is nothing false about his confession. I've been expecting him to cave in. The murder of Major Liepa is solved. That means there is no longer any reason why you should stay in Riga.

  I'll see about arranging for your journey home straight away. We will express our thanks to the Swedish foreign ministry through the official channels."

  It was then that it dawned on Wallander just how the whole of this gigantic conspiracy must be organised. He could see not just the scope of it, and the ingenious mixture of truth and lies, false trails and genuine chains of cause and effect, but it was also clear to him that Major Liepa had been the skilful and honourable police officer he had thought him to be. He understood Baiba Liepa's fear just as well as he understood her defiance. Although he was now going to be forced to go home, he knew he would have to see her again. He owed her that, just as he knew he had an obligation to the dead major.

  "Of course I'll go home," he said, "but I'll stay until tomorrow. I've had far too little time to see the beautiful city I've been staying in - that's something I realised last night, talking to your wife."

  He had been addressing both the colonels, apart from this last bit, which was directed at Putnis.

  "Sergeant Zids is an excellent guide," he continued. "I trust I can make use of his services for the rest of today, even though my work here is now finished."

  "Of course," Murniers said. "Perhaps we ought to celebrate the fact that this peculiar business is about to be solved. It would be impolite of us to allow you to fly back home without our presenting you with a souvenir, or drinking one another's health."

  Wallander thought about the coming evening. Inese would be waiting for him in the hotel nightclub and pretending to be his mistress, to take him to his appointment with Baiba Liepa.

  "Let's keep it low key," he said. "We're police officers after all, not actors celebrating a successful first night. Besides, I've already got something arranged for tonight. A young lady has agreed to keep me company."

  Murniers smiled and produced a bottle of vodka from one of his desk drawers.

  "That's something we wouldn't want to spoil," he said. "Let's drink a toast here and now!"

  They're in a hurry, Wallander thought. They can't get me out of the country quickly enough.

  They drank one another's health. Wallander raised his glass to the two colonels, and wondered if he would ever discover which one had signed the order leading to the murder of the major. That was the only thing he was still doubtful about, the only thing he couldn't know. Putnis or Murniers? What was quite certain now was that Major Liepa had been right. His secret investigations had led him to a truth he had taken with him to the grave, unless he had left a record. That is what Baiba Liepa would have to find if she wanted to know who had killed her husband, if it was Murniers or Putnis. Only then would she discover why Upitis had made a false confession in a desperate attempt to find out which of the colonels was responsible for the major's death.

  Here I am drinking with one of the worst criminals I've ever come across, Wallander thought. The only thing is, I don't know which one it is.

  "We shall accompany you to the airport in the morning, of course," Putnis said when the toasts were over.

  Wallander left police headquarters feeling like a newly released prisoner, marching a few paces behind Sergeant Zids. They drove through the streets with the sergeant pointing out various places of interest. Wallander looked and nodded, muttering "yes" and "very pretty" when it seemed appropriate. But his thoughts were miles away. He was thinking about Upitis, and the choice he'd obviously been given. What had Murniers or Putnis whispered in his ear? What had they produced from their store of threats, the scope of which Wallander hardly dared imagine? Perhaps Upitis had a Baiba Liepa of his own, perhaps he had children. Did they still shoot children in Latvia? Or was it sufficient just to threaten that every door would be closed to them in future, that their future would be over before it had even started? Was that how a totalitarian state functioned? What choice did Upitis have? Had he saved his own life, his family, Baiba Liepa, by pretending to be the murderer? Wallander tried to recall the little he knew about the show trials that had led to a series of appalling injustices throughout the history of communism. Upitis fitted into that pattern somewhere or other. Wallander knew he would never be able to comprehend how people could be forced to admit to crimes they could never have committed, admit to murdering their best friend deliberately and in cold blood.

  I'll never know, he thought. I'll never know what happened, and that's just as well because I'd never be able to understand it anyway. But Baiba Liepa would understand, and she has got to know. Someone is in possession of the major's last will and testimony, his investigation is not dead, it's still alive but it is outlawed and hiding somewhere where not only the major's soul is keeping watch over it.

  What I'm looking for is the "Guardian", and that's something Baiba Liepa must know. She must know that somewhere, there is a secret that mustn't be lost. It's so cleverly hidden that nobody but her will be able to find it and interpret it. She was the person he trusted, she was the major's angel in a world where all the other angels had fallen.

  Sergeant Zids stopped before a gate in the ancient city wall of Riga, and Wallander got out of the car, realising it must be the Swedish Gate that Mrs Putnis had spoken about. He shivered. It had grown cold again. He inspected the cracked brick wall absent-mindedly, and tried to decipher some ancient symbols carved into it. He gave up more or less straight away, and went back to the car.

&n
bsp; "Shall we go on?" the sergeant asked.

  "Yes," said Wallander. "I want to see all there is to see."

  He had realised that Zids liked driving, and all alone in the back seat, despite the cold, despite the sergeant's constant glances in the rear-view mirror, he preferred the car to his hotel room. He was thinking about the evening, about how essential it was that nothing should prevent his meeting with Baiba Liepa. For a moment he considered contacting her at the university, and telling her what he knew in a deserted corridor. But he had no idea what subject she taught, and he didn't even know if there was more than one university in Riga.

  There was also something else that had begun to form in his mind. The brief meetings he had had with Baiba Liepa, although fleeting and overshadowed by the grim point of departure, had been more than mere conversations about a sudden death. They had an emotional content far beyond what he was used to. Deep down he could hear his father's tetchy voice bewailing his son who had gone astray and not only become a police officer but had also been stupid enough to fall for the widow of a dead Latvian police officer.

  Is that the way it was? Had he really fallen in love with Baiba Liepa?

  As if Sergeant Zids could read his thoughts, he stuck out his arm and pointed to a long, ugly building, telling him that it was a part of Riga University. Wallander contemplated the grim brick edifice through the misted-up car window. Somewhere in there was Baiba Liepa. All official buildings in this country looked like prisons, and it seemed to Wallander their occupants were really prisoners. Not the major, and not Upitis, although he was now a real prisoner and not just one trapped in an endless nightmare.

  He suddenly felt tired of driving round with the sergeant, and requested him to return to the hotel. Without knowing why, he asked him to come back at 2 p.m.

  He spotted one of the men in grey immediately, and it occurred to him that the colonels no longer needed to pretend. He went into the dining room and deliberately sat down at a different table, ignoring the anxious face of the waiter who came to attend to him. I can really stir things up by refusing to co-operate with the government department that takes care of table placing, he thought, feeling furious. He slammed himself into the chair, ordered a beer and schnapps, and then noticed that the boil he got on his buttock from time to time had reappeared, making him even angrier. He stayed in the dining room for more than two hours, and whenever his glass was empty he beckoned the waiter and ordered a refill. As he grew more and more drunk, he staggered around in his mind and, in a burst of sentimentality, he imagined taking Baiba Liepa back to Sweden with him. As he left the dining room, he couldn't help waving to the man in grey who was keeping watch from one of the sofas. He took the lift to his room, lay down on the bed and fell asleep. Much later somebody started knocking on a door somewhere inside his head. It took him a while to realise that it was the sergeant knocking on his door. Wallander jumped out of bed, yelled at him to wait, and doused his face with cold water. He asked the sergeant to take him out of town to a forest where he could go for a walk and prepare for his meeting with the lover who would take him to Baiba Liepa.