The Troubled Man

by Henning Mankell

  ‘This is the first time a police officer has visited us,’ she said. ‘And you’ve come from so far away! But I’m afraid I can’t give you any names. Everybody living here has a right to privacy.’

  ‘I understand that, of course,’ said Wallander. ‘But if necessary I will get a warrant that will give me the right to go through every single room you have here and all your records, for every single patient. I would rather not do that. It would be sufficient for you to simply nod or shake your head. Then I promise to go away and never come back.’

  She thought for a moment before answering. Wallander was still taken by how beautiful she was.

  ‘Ask your question,’ she said eventually. ‘I see your point.’

  ‘Is there somebody living here named Signe von Enke? She’s about forty years old and handicapped from birth.’

  She nodded. Just once, but that was enough. Now Wallander knew where Signe was. Before going any further he must talk to Ytterberg.

  He had managed to tear his eyes away from the woman and turn away, when it occurred to him that there was another question she might be prepared to answer. He looked at her again.

  ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘When did Signe last have a visitor?’

  She thought for a moment before answering. With words this time, not a movement of the head.

  ‘That was a few months ago,’ she said. ‘Sometime in April. I can check if it’s important.’

  ‘It’s extremely important,’ Wallander said. ‘It would be a great help.’

  She disappeared into the room she had emerged from earlier. A few minutes later she came back with a sheet of paper in her hand.

  ‘Tenth of April’ she said. ‘That was her latest visit. Nobody has been here since then. She has become a very lonely person.’

  Wallander thought for a moment. The tenth of April. The day before Håkan von Enke set out on his walk. And never came back.

  ‘I assume it was her father who visited her on that occasion,’ he said slowly.

  She nodded.

  Wallander left Niklasgården and drove to Stockholm. He parked outside the building in Grevgatan and unlocked the apartment with the keys Linda had given him.

  He realised he would have to go back to the beginning. But the beginning of what?

  He stood in the middle of the living room for a long time, trying to understand. But he couldn’t think of anything that would further his understanding of the case.

  He was surrounded by silence. At submarine depth, where the restless movement of the ocean was undetectable.

  12

  Wallander spent the night in the empty apartment.

  Because it was warm, almost oppressively so, he left some windows ajar and watched the thin curtains swaying gently. He could occasionally hear people shouting in the street below. Wallander had the feeling that he was listening to phantoms, as you always do in recently vacated houses or apartments. But it wasn’t to save the cost of a hotel room that he had asked Linda for the keys to the apartment. Wallander knew from experience that first impressions are often the most important ones in a criminal investigation. A return visit rarely produces anything new. But this time he knew what he was looking for.

  Wallander tiptoed around in his socks to avoid making the neighbours suspicious. He went through Håkan’s study and Louise’s two chests of drawers. He also searched the big bookcase in the living room, and any cupboards and shelves he could find. By about ten o’clock, when he slipped cautiously out of the apartment to find somewhere to eat, he was as sure as he could be. All trace of the handicapped daughter had been carefully removed.

  Wallander ate at what claimed to be a Hungarian restaurant, despite the fact that all the waiters and other staff in the open-plan kitchen spoke Italian. As he returned to the second-floor apartment in the slow-moving lift, he wondered where he should sleep. There was a sofa in Håkan’s study, but he eventually lay down under a tartan blanket on a couch in the living room, where he had drunk tea with Louise.

  He was woken up at about one by a particularly noisy group of merrymakers, and as he lay in the dark room, he was suddenly wide awake. It was absurd for there to be absolutely nothing at all in the apartment to mark the existence of the woman who was now living at Niklasgården. It almost made him physically ill not to find any pictures or even documents, the bureaucratic identification indicators that surround all Swedes from birth. He got up and tiptoed around once more. He was carrying a penlight, and he occasionally used it to illuminate the darkest corners. He avoided turning on more than a single lamp here and there in case someone in the apartment building across the street might react, but at the same time he also thought of the lamps that Håkan von Enke always used to leave burning all night. Wasn’t the invisible line between reality and lies in the von Enke family unusually easy to cross? He stood in the middle of the kitchen and thought it over yet again. Then he carried on indefatigably, becoming the bloodhound he could sometimes arouse within himself, and resolved not to allow it to rest until it picked up the trail of Signe; it had to be here somewhere.

  He succeeded at about four in the morning. In the bookcase, hidden behind some big art books, he found a photo album. It did not contain many pictures, but they were carefully mounted, most of them in faded colour, a few in black and white. There was no written commentary, only pictures. There was no picture of the two siblings together, but then he hadn’t expected to find one. When Hans was born, Signe had already vanished, been whisked away, rubbed out. Wallander counted less than fifty photos. Signe was alone in most of them, lying in various positions. But in the last picture Louise was holding her, looking away from the camera. Wallander felt sad to note that the picture made it clear that Louise would have preferred not to have to sit there, holding the child in her arms. The photograph exuded an atmosphere of intense desolation. Wallander shook his head, feeling very uncomfortable.

  He lay down on the sofa again. He was exhausted but also relieved, and he fell asleep immediately. He woke up with a start at about eight o’clock when a car in the street below sounded its horn loudly. He had been dreaming about horses. A herd had come galloping over the sand dunes at Mossby and raced straight into the water. He tried to figure out what the dream meant, but he failed. It hardly ever worked; he had no idea how to do it. He ran a bath, drank some coffee and called Ytterberg at about nine. He was in a meeting. Wallander asked the receptionist to pass on a message and received a text in response saying that Ytterberg could meet him at ten thirty at city hall, on the side overlooking the water. Wallander was waiting there when Ytterberg arrived on his bicycle. There was a cafe nearby, and before long they were sitting at a table, each with a cup of coffee.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Ytterberg. ‘I thought you preferred little towns or rural areas.’

  ‘I do. But sometimes you have no choice.’

  Wallander told him about Signe. Ytterberg listened intently without interrupting. Wallander finished by mentioning the photo album he had discovered during the night. He had brought it with him in a plastic bag, and he placed it on the table. Ytterberg slid his coffee cup to one side, wiped his hands on a paper napkin and leafed carefully through the album.

  ‘How old is she now?’ he asked. ‘About forty?’

  ‘Yes, if I understood Atkins correctly.’

  ‘There aren’t any pictures of her in here after the age of two, or three at the most.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Wallander. ‘Unless there’s another album. But I don’t think so. After the age of two she’s been expunged.’

  Ytterberg pulled a face and carefully slid the album back into the plastic bag. A white-painted passenger boat chugged past along Riddarfjärden. Wallander moved his chair into the shade.

  ‘I thought of going back to Niklasgården,’ Wallander said. ‘After all, I’m now a member of this girl’s family. But I need the go-ahead from you. You should be aware of what I’m doing.’

  ‘What good do you think it would d
o, meeting her?’

  ‘I don’t know. But her father visited her the day before he disappeared. And she hasn’t had any visitors since then.’

  Ytterberg thought for a while before replying.

  ‘It’s remarkable that Louise hasn’t been to see her the entire time since he disappeared. What do you make of that?’

  ‘I don’t make anything of it. But I wonder just as much as you do. Maybe we should go there together?’

  ‘No, you go on your own. I’ll give them a call and tell them you have the right to see her.’

  Wallander walked down to the edge of the quay and gazed out over the water while Ytterberg made his call. The sun was high in the clear blue sky. It’s full summer now, he thought. After a while Ytterberg came and stood beside him.

  ‘All set,’ he said. ‘But there’s something you should know. The woman I spoke to said that Signe von Enke doesn’t speak. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because she can’t. I don’t know if I understood everything correctly, but she seems to have been born without vocal cords. Among other things.’

  Wallander turned to look at him.

  ‘Among other things?’

  ‘She’s evidently extremely handicapped. Lots of essential parts are missing. I have to say I’m glad it’s not me going there. Especially not today.’

  ‘What’s special about today?’

  ‘It’s such lovely weather,’ said Ytterberg. ‘One of the first summer days this year. I’d rather not be upset if I can avoid it.’

  ‘Did she speak with a foreign accent?’ Wallander asked as they walked away from the quay. ‘The woman at Niklasgården, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, she did. She had a lovely voice. She said her name was Fatima. I would guess she’s from Iraq or Iran.’

  Wallander promised to get in touch later that day. He had parked outside the main entrance to city hall, and he just managed to drive off before an alert parking attendant turned up. He drove out of town and pulled up outside Niklasgården about an hour later. When he entered the reception area he was received by an elderly man who introduced himself as Artur Källberg – he was on duty in the afternoons until midnight.

  ‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ Wallander said. ‘Tell me about Signe’s condition.’

  ‘She’s one of our most severely affected patients,’ Artur Källberg informed him. ‘When she was born, nobody thought she would live very long. But some people have a will to live that few ordinary mortals can begin to comprehend.’

  ‘Can you be more precise?’ Wallander asked. ‘What exactly is wrong with her?’

  Källberg hesitated before answering, as if weighing whether Wallander would be able to cope with hearing all the facts; or possibly if he was worthy of hearing the full truth. Wallander became impatient.

  ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

  ‘She’s missing both arms. And there’s something wrong with her vocal cords, which means that she can’t talk, plus congenital brain damage. She also has a malformation of the spine. That means her movements are incredibly limited.’

  ‘Meaning what, exactly?’

  ‘She has a small amount of mobility in her neck and head. For instance, she can blink.’

  Wallander tried to envisage the horrific possibility that Linda might have given birth to a child with such severe disabilities. How would he have reacted? Could he imagine what this tragedy must have meant for Håkan and Louise? Wallander was unable to decide how he would have coped with it.

  ‘How long has she been here?’ he asked.

  ‘During the early years of her life she was cared for in a home for severely handicapped children,’ said Källberg. ‘It was on Lidingö, but it closed in 1972.’

  Wallander raised his hand.

  ‘Let’s be exact,’ he said. ‘Assume that the only thing I know about this girl is her name.’

  ‘Then perhaps we should stop calling her a girl,’ said Källberg. ‘She’s about to turn forty-one years old. Guess when.’

  ‘How on earth should I know?’

  ‘It’s her birthday today. Under normal circumstances, her father would have come and spent the afternoon here with us. But as things stand, no one is coming.’

  Källberg seemed troubled by the thought that Signe von Enke might be forced to endure a birthday without a visit.

  One question was more important than any other, but Wallander decided to wait and do everything in order. He took his battered notebook out of his pocket.

  ‘So,’ said Wallander, ‘she was born on 6 June 1967, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Did she ever spend any time at home with her parents?’

  ‘According to the case notes I’ve been through, she was taken directly from the hospital to the Nyhaga home on Lidingö. When it became necessary to expand the home, the neighbours were scared that their properties would go down in value. I don’t know exactly what they did in order to put a wrench in the works, but they not only prevented the expansion, they managed to get the home closed down completely.’

  ‘So where was she transferred?’

  ‘She ended up on a sort of nursing-home merry-go-round. She went from one place to another, and spent a year in a home on Gotland, just outside Hemse. But she came here twenty-nine years ago, and she’s been here ever since.’

  Wallander noted it all down. The image of Klara without any arms kept cropping up in his mind’s eye with macabre obstinacy.

  ‘Tell me about her capabilities,’ Wallander said. ‘You’ve done that already to an extent, but I’m thinking about how much she understands. Just how much is she aware of?’

  ‘We don’t know. She only expresses herself by means of basic reactions, and even that is done via body language that can be hard to interpret for anyone who isn’t used to her. We regard her as a sort of infant with a long experience of life.’

  ‘Is it possible to figure out what she’s thinking?’

  ‘No. But nothing suggests that she’s aware of how great her suffering is. She never gives any indication of pain or despair. And if that is a reflection of the facts, it’s obviously something we can be grateful for.’

  Wallander nodded. He thought he understood. But now he was ready to ask the most important question.

  ‘Her father came to visit her,’ he said. ‘How often?’

  ‘At least once a month. Sometimes more. They weren’t short visits – he never stayed for less than several hours.’

  ‘What did he do? If they couldn’t talk?’

  ‘She can’t talk. He sat there and talked to her. It was very moving. He would sit there and tell her about everything, about everyday things, about life in their own little world and also in the world at large. He spoke to her just as you would speak to another adult, without ever tiring.’

  ‘What about when he was at sea? For many years he was in charge of submarines and other naval vessels.’

  ‘He would always explain that he was going to be away. It was touching to hear him telling her all about it.’

  ‘And who came to visit Signe when he was away? Her mother?’

  Källberg’s answer was clear and cold, and it came without hesitation.

  ‘She has never been here. I’ve been working at Niklasgården since 1994. She has never been to visit her daughter during that time. The only visitor Signe ever had was her father.’

  ‘Are you saying that Louise never came here to see her daughter?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Surely that must be unusual?’

  Källberg shrugged.

  ‘Not necessarily. Some people simply can’t cope with the sight of suffering.’

  Wallander put his notebook back in his pocket. He wondered if he would be able to interpret what he had scribbled down.

  ‘I’d like to see her,’ he said. ‘Assuming that wouldn’t upset her, of course.’

  ‘There’s something I forgot to mention,’ said Källberg. ‘She sees very badly. She perceives people as a sort
of blur against a grey background. At least, that’s what the doctors say.’

  ‘So she recognised her father by his voice?’ Wallander wondered.

  ‘Presumably, yes. That seemed to be the case, judging by her body language.’

  Wallander stood up, but Källberg remained seated.

  ‘Are you absolutely certain you want to see her?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wallander. ‘I’m absolutely certain.’

  That wasn’t true, of course. What he really wanted to see was her room.

  They went out through the glass doors, which closed silently behind them. Källberg opened the door to a room at the end of a hallway. It was a bright room with a plastic mat on the floor. It held a couple of chairs, a bookcase and a bed, on which Signe von Enke lay hunched up.

  ‘Leave me alone with her,’ Wallander requested. ‘Wait outside.’