The Dogs of Riga - Wallander 02

by Henning Mankell

  This is Sweden, he'd thought. Everything is bright and cheerful on the surface, our airports are built so that no dust or shadows could ever intrude. Everything is visible, nothing is any different from what it seems to be. Our national aspiration, our religion, is that security written into the Swedish constitution, which informs the whole world that starving to death is a crime. But we don't talk to strangers unless we have to, because anything unfamiliar can cause us harm, dirty our floors and dim our neon lights. We never built an empire and so we've never had to watch one collapse, but we persuaded ourselves that we'd created the best of all possible worlds, and that even if small, we were the privileged keepers of paradise. Now that the party's over we take our revenge by having the least friendly immigration control officers in the world.

  His feeling of relief was replaced almost immediately by depression. In Kurt Wallander's world, this worn-out or at least partially demolished paradise, there was no place for Baiba Liepa. He couldn't imagine her here, in all this light, under all these neon strips that never failed. Nevertheless, he was already beginning to pine for her, and when he'd lugged his suitcase down the long, prison-like corridor to the domestic terminal where he would wait for his connection to Malmö, he was already starting to dream of his return to Riga, to the city where the invisible dogs had been spying on him. The Malmö flight was delayed, and he had been issued with a coupon that entitled him to a sandwich. He had sat for ages in the cafe, watching aircraft taking off and landing in the light snow. All around him men in smart suits were chattering away into mobile phones, and to his astonishment he actually heard an overweight washing-machine salesman jabbering into his monstrous plaything, telling the story of Hansel and Gretel to a child. He found a call box and dialled his daughter's number. To his amazement he got through to her, and felt immediate pleasure on hearing her voice. He toyed briefly with the idea of staying on for a few days in Stockholm, but realised that she was very busy and he didn't raise the subject. Instead, he thought of Baiba, about her fear and her defiance, and he wondered if she really dared to believe that the Swedish police officer wouldn't let her down. What could he possibly do, though? If he were to go back the dogs would pick up his scent, and he would never be able to shake them off.

  It was late in the evening by the time he landed at Sturup. There was nobody there to meet him, so he took a taxi into Ystad and from the dark back seat chatted about the weather to the driver, who was going far too fast. When there was nothing more to say about the fog and the snowflakes dancing in the headlights, he suddenly imagined he could smell Baiba Liepa's perfume in the car, and felt anguish at the thought of not seeing her again.

  *

  The next day he drove out to see his father at Loderup. The home help had cut his hair for him, and it seemed to Wallander that he was looking healthier than he'd done for years. He'd brought him a bottle of cognac, and his father nodded approvingly when he saw the label.

  To his surprise, he'd told his father about Baiba Liepa. They'd been sitting in the old shed his father used as a studio. There was an unfinished canvas on the easel, the unchanging landscape. Wallander could see that it was going to be one with a grouse in the bottom left-hand corner. When he'd arrived with his bottle of cognac, his father had been colouring the grouse's beak, but he'd put down his brush and wiped his hands on a rag smelling of turpentine. Wallander told him about his trip to Riga and then, without really understanding why, he stopped describing the city and told him about the meeting with Baiba Liepa. He didn't mention that she was the widow of a police officer who had been murdered, he only told him her name, said he'd met her and that he missed her.

  "Does she have any children?" his father asked.

  Wallander shook his head.

  "Can she have children?"

  "I suppose so. How on earth should I know?"

  "You must know how old she is, surely?"

  "Younger than I am. About 33, perhaps."

  "Then she can have children."

  "Why do you want to know if she can have children?" "Because I think that's what you need." "I've got Linda."

  "One's not enough. A person has to have at least two children in order to understand what it's all about. Bring her over to Sweden. Marry her!"

  "It's not as easy as that."

  "Do you have to make everything so damned complicated just because you're a police officer?"

  Here we go, Wallander thought. He's off again. The moment you start having a conversation with him he finds some excuse for getting at me because I joined the police force.

  "Can you keep a secret?" he asked the old man.

  His father eyed him suspiciously. "How could I avoid being able to?" he asked. "Who is there I could tell it to?"

  "I'm thinking of packing it in as a police officer," Wallander said. "I might apply for a different job. As a security officer at the rubber factory in Trelleborg. I only said I might."

  His father stared at him for some time before replying.

  "It's never too late to see sense," he said eventually. "The only thing you'll regret is that it took you so long to make your mind up."

  "I only said I might. I didn't say it was definite."

  But his father wasn't listening. He'd gone back to the easel and was finishing the grouse's beak. Wallander sat on an old sledge and watched him for a while in silence. Then he went home, thinking how he had nobody to talk to. He was 43 years old, and missed having somebody to confide in. When Rydberg died, he'd become lonelier than he could ever have imagined. The only person he had was Linda. He couldn't talk to Mona, his ex-wife. She'd become a stranger to him, and he knew next to nothing about her life in Malmö.

  As he drove past the turning to Kåseberga, he thought of going to Kristianstad to pay a visit to Goran Boman in the police there. Maybe he could talk to him about everything that had happened. But he didn't. He returned to duty after writing a report for Björk. Martinsson and his other colleagues asked him a few questions over coffee in the canteen, but it was soon clear they weren't really interested in anything he had to say. He posted his application to the factory in Trelleborg and rearranged the furniture in his office in an attempt to revive some enthusiasm for work. Björk seemed to have noticed his heart wasn't really in it, and made a well-meaning but vain effort to cheer him up by asking him to stand in for him and give a lecture to the Rotary Club. He agreed to do it, and gave an unsuccessful talk on technology in police work over lunch at the Continental Hotel. He forgot every word he'd said the moment he sat down.

  One morning he woke up and was convinced he was ill. He went to the police doctor and was given a thorough examination. The doctor could find nothing wrong with him, but advised him to continue to keep an eye on his weight. He had returned from Riga on the Wednesday, and on the Saturday evening he drove to a restaurant in Ahus where there was a dance band. After a couple of dances a physiotherapist from Kristianstad called Ellen invited him to join her at her table, but he couldn't get Baiba Liepa's face out of his mind, she was following him around like a shadow, and he made his excuses and left early. He took the coast road from Ahus and stopped at the deserted field where the flea markets are held every summer - the previous year he had set off there like a madman, gun in hand, in pursuit of a murderer. The field was lightiy covered in snow, the full moon was shining over the sea, and he could see Baiba Liepa standing before him. He drove back to his flat in Ystad and drank himself into a stupor. He turned his stereo up so loudly that the neighbours started thumping on the walls.

  He woke on the Sunday morning with palpitations, and

  that’

  the day developed into a long drawn-out wait for something unidentifiable, something unreachable.

  The letter arrived on the Monday. He sat at his kitchen table, reading the neat handwriting. It was signed by somebody calling himself Joseph Lippman.

  You are a friend of our country, wrote Joseph Lippman. We have been informed from Riga of your marvellous work there. You will sh
ortly be hearing from us with more details of your return journey. Joseph Lippman.

  Wallander wondered what his "marvellous work" consisted of. And who were the "us" who were going to get in touch again?

  He was annoyed by the brevity of the message, and the tone that sounded almost like an order. Did he have no say in the matter? He had certainly not agreed to enter any secret service run by invisible people. His anguish and doubt were stronger than his resolve and willpower. He wanted to see Baiba Liepa again, that was true; but he didn't trust his motives, and knew he was behaving like a lovelorn teenager.

  Nevertheless, when he woke up on Tuesday morning he suspected that deep down, he had made up his mind. He drove to the station, took part in a dismal union meeting, and then went in to see Björk.

  "I was wondering if I might take some of the leave I'm due for," he said.

  Björk stared at him with a mixture of envy and deep sympathy.

  "I wish I could do the same," he said gloomily. "I've just been reading a long memo from the national police board. I've imagined all my colleagues up and down the country doing exactly the same thing, every man jack of them hunched over his desk. I read it through, then sat there thinking that I haven't a clue what it's all about. We are expected to pass comment on various earlier documents about some big reorganisation plan, but I've no idea which of all those documents this memo is referring to."

  "Go on leave," Wallander suggested.

  Björk petulantly shoved aside a paper lying on the desk in front of him.

  "Out of the question," he said. "I'll be able to go on leave when I retire. If I live that long. Mind you, it would be very stupid to die in harness. You want to go on leave, did you say?"

  "I'm thinking of having a week's skiing in the Alps. If I do it could help solve some of your problems regarding work over midsummer - I can work then and wait until the end of July before going on holiday."

  Björk nodded. "Have you really managed to find a package trip at this time of year? I thought they were all fully booked by now."

  "No."

  Björk raised an eyebrow. "That sounds a bit dodgy, doesn't it?"

  "I'll take the car down to the Alps. I don't like package holidays." "Who does?"

  Björk suddenly assumed the formal expression he wore when he considered it necessary to remind everyone who was the boss.

  "What cases have you got on your desk at the moment?"

  "Surprisingly few. That assault business out at Svarte is the most pressing of them, but that's something any of the others can take over."

  "When are you thinking of leaving? Today?"

  "Thursday will do."

  "How long had you thought of staying away?"

  "I have ten days owing to me."

  Björk nodded and made a note.

  "I think it's a good idea for you to take some leave. You've been looking a bit out of sorts."

  "You can say that again," Wallander said, as he made his escape.

  He spent the rest of the day working on the assault case. He made several telephone calls and also managed to reply to an inquiry from the bank about some muddle with his salary payments. All the time he was expecting something to happen. He looked up the Stockholm telephone directory and found several people called Lippman, but there was nothing in the Yellow Pages about "Lippman's Flowers".

  Shortly after 5 p.m. he cleared his desk and went home. He made a little detour and pulled up outside the new furniture store, went inside and found a leather armchair he rather fancied for his flat, but was horrified by the price. He stopped at the grocer's in Hamngatan to buy some potatoes and bacon. The young girl at the checkout smiled and seemed to recognise him, and he recalled that a year or so previously he'd spent a day trying to track down a man who'd robbed the shop. He drove home, made the dinner, and then plonked himself down in front of the television.

  They contacted him shortly after 9 p.m.

  The telephone rang, and a man speaking broken Swedish asked him to come to the pizzeria across the road from the Continental Hotel. Wallander suddenly felt sick and tired of all this secrecy business, and asked for the man's name.

  "I have every reason to be suspicious," he explained. "I want to know what I'm letting myself in for." "My name is Joseph Lippman. I wrote to you." "Who are you?" "I run a little business." "A nursery?"

  "I suppose you could call it that."

  "What do you want from me?"

  "I think I expressed myself quite clearly in the letter."

  Wallander hung up. He wasn't getting any answers anyway. He was infuriated at being constantly surrounded by invisible faces who expected him to be interested and prepared to co-operate. What evidence was there to prove that this Lippman wasn't one of the Latvian colonels' henchmen?

  He didn't take the car but walked down Regementsgatan to the centre of town. It was 9.30 p.m. by the time he reached the pizzeria. There were people at about ten of the tables, but he couldn't see a man who could possibly be Lippman. He remembered something Rydberg had once taught him. You should always decide whether it would be better to be the first or the last person to arrive at a predetermined meeting place. He didn't know if it was of any importance in this case. He sat at a table in the corner, ordered a glass of beer, and waited.

  Joseph Lippman turned up just before 10 p.m. By then Wallander had begun to wonder whether the intention had been to lure him away from his flat, but the moment the door opened and the man entered, Wallander had no doubt the new arrival was Joseph Lippman. He was in his 60s, and wearing an overcoat far too big for him. He moved slowly and cautiously among the tables, as if he were afraid of falling or treading on a mine. He smiled at Wallander, took off his overcoat and sat down opposite him. He was nervous, and kept glancing round the room. At one of the tables sat a couple of men who being terribly rude about a third, who wasn't with them.

  Wallander guessed that Joseph Lippman was Jewish. At least, he looked like what Wallander thought of as a typical Jew. His cheeks were covered in tough grey stubble, and his eyes were dark behind rimless spectacles. But then, what did Wallander know about what Jews looked like? Nothing.

  The waitress approached, and Lippman ordered a cup of tea. He was so excessively polite that Wallander suspected he had endured many humiliations in his life.

  "I'm most grateful that you came," Lippman said quietly. Wallander had to lean forward in order to hear what he was saying.

  "You didn't give me any choice," he said. "First a letter, then a telephone call. Maybe you should start by telling me who you are."

  Lippman shook his head. "Who I am is of no significance. You are the important one, Mr Wallander."

  "No," Wallander said, feeling himself getting annoyed again. "You must understand that I've no intention of listening to what you've got to say if you're not even prepared to confide in me who you are."

  The waitress arrived with the tea, and they waited until they were alone again.

  "My role is merely that of organiser and messenger," Lippman said. "Who wants to know the name of the messenger? It doesn't matter. We are meeting here tonight, and then I shall disappear. We will probably never meet again. The important thing, therefore, is not confiding in you, but practical decisions. Security is always a practical matter. In my view the business of trust is also a practical matter."

  "In that case we might just as well conclude the conversation straight away" Wallander said.

  "I've got a message for you from Baiba Liepa," Lippman said hastily. "Don't you even want to hear that?"

  Wallander relaxed. He observed the man sitting opposite him, strangely hunched up, as if his health were so fragile he might collapse any moment.

  "I don't want to hear anything until I know who you are," he said eventually. "It's as simple as that."

  Lippman took off his glasses and carefully poured some milk into his tea.

  "I'm merely thinking of your own best interests, Mr Wallander," Lippman said. "In this day and age it's often best to kn
ow as little as possible."

  "I've been to Latvia," Wallander said. "I've been there, and I think I know what it is to be constantly under observation, forever being checked. But we're in Sweden now, not Riga."

  Lippman nodded pensively. "You may be right," he said, "Perhaps I am an old man who can no longer discern how reality is changing."

  "A nursery," Wallander said, in an attempt to help him out. "I don't suppose they have always been like they are now?"

  "I came to Sweden in the autumn of 1941," Lippman said, stirring his tea. "I was a young man then, and I had the naive ambition of becoming an artist, a great artist. It was freezing cold as dawn broke and we caught sight of the Gotland coast. That was the moment we knew we'd made it, despite the fact that the boat had sprung a leak and several of my companions on board were seriously ill.

  We were undernourished, we had tuberculosis. Nevertheless, I have a clear memory of that freezing cold dawn. It was the beginning of March, and I made up my mind I was going to paint a picture of the Swedish coast that would symbolise freedom. That's what it might look like, the gates of paradise. Cold and frozen, a few black cliffs barely visible through the mist. But I never did paint that picture. I became a gardener instead. Now I make a living by suggesting appropriate decorative plants for various Swedish firms. I've noticed how people, and especially people working for the new information technology companies, have an insatiable need to hide their machines among green plants. I shall never paint that picture of paradise. I'll just have to make do with the fact that I've seen it. I know paradise has many gates, just as hell does. One has to learn to distinguish between them, or one is lost."