The Dogs of Riga: A Kurt Wallendar Mystery

by Henning Mankell

  Just as he was inserting his key into the lock, he heard the telephone ring. Cursing aloud, he flung open the door and grabbed the receiver. Can I speak to Mr. Eckers? It was a man speaking, and his English was very poor. Wallander responded as he was supposed to do, saying there was no Mr. Eckers here. Oh, I must have made a mistake. The man apologized, and hung up. Use the back door. Please, please.

  He put on his overcoat and his knitted cap—then changed his mind and put it in his pocket. When he reached the foyer he made sure he couldn’t be seen from reception. The party of Germans was just leaving the dining room as he approached the revolving doors. He hastened down the stairs to the hotel sauna and a corridor leading to the restaurant’s service entrance. The gray steel door was exactly as Baiba Liepa had described it. He opened it carefully, feeling the wind in his face, then made his way down the loading ramp and soon found himself at the rear of the hotel.

  The street was lit by only a few lamps, and he glided into the shadows. The only person he saw was an old man walking his dog. He stood motionless in the darkness, waiting. Nobody came. The man stood patiently by a trash can while his dog cocked its leg, then as the man walked past he told Wallander to follow him once they’d turned the corner. A streetcar clattered somewhere in the distance as Wallander waited. He put on his knitted cap: it had stopped snowing and was growing colder. The man disappeared around the corner, and Wallander walked slowly after him. When he turned the corner, he found himself in another alley; there was no sign of the man and his dog. Without a sound, a car door opened right beside him. Mr. Eckers, said a voice from the darkness inside, we ought to be going right away. As Wallander climbed into the backseat, it struck him that what he was doing was all wrong. He remembered the feeling he’d had that very morning, when he was in another car being driven by Zids. He could remember the fear. Now it had returned.

  CHAPTER 9

  The pungent smell of damp wool.

  That was how Kurt Wallander would remember his nighttime drive through Riga. He had crouched down and clambered into the backseat, and before his eyes had grown used to the dark, unknown hands had pulled a hood over his head. It smelled of wool, and when he began to sweat he could feel his skin start to itch. Nevertheless, his fear, the intense conviction that everything was wrong, as wrong as could be, had disappeared the moment he got into the car. A voice he assumed belonged to the hands that had pulled the hood over his head had tried to calm him down. We are not terrorists. We just have to be cautious. He recognized the voice from the telephone, the voice that had inquired about Mr. Eckers and then apologized for getting the wrong room. The soothing voice had been absolutely convincing, and afterwards it occurred to him that perhaps this was something people in the chaotic, broken-down Eastern-bloc countries had to learn: how to sound convincing in claiming there was no threat, when really everything was threatening.

  The car was uncomfortable. The sound of the engine told him it was Russian—presumably a Lada. He couldn’t work out how many people there were in the car, just that there were at least two: in front of him was the driver, who kept coughing, and the man beside him who had spoken so soothingly. Now and again his face was hit by a draft of cold air as somebody rolled down a window to let the cigarette smoke out. For a moment he thought he could detect a faint trace of perfume in the car, Baiba Liepa’s perfume, but he realized it was only his imagination, or perhaps a hope. It was impossible to judge how fast they were going, but when there was a sudden change of road surface he assumed they had left the city behind them. The car occasionally slowed down and turned left or right, and once they negotiated a rotary. He tried to keep a check on the time, but soon gave up. Finally, the car took one last turn and started bumping and jumping about in a way that suggested they had left the road altogether, and the journey came to an end. The driver switched off the engine, the doors were opened, and he was helped out of the car.

  It was bitterly cold, and he thought he could smell conifers. Someone was holding him by the arm to prevent him from falling. He was led up some steps, a door creaked, he entered a warm room, there was a smell of kerosene, then the hood was removed. He gave a start. He could see again—and the shock was greater than when the hood had first been pulled over his head. The room was oblong, with rough wooden walls, and his immediate impression was that he was in some kind of hunting lodge. There was a stag’s head mounted over an open fireplace, all the furniture was made of pale wood, and the only light came from a couple of kerosene lamps.

  The man with the soothing voice began to speak. He face was nothing like Wallander had imagined—insofar as he had imagined him at all. He was short, and astonishingly thin, as if he had endured terrible hardship or been on a hunger strike. His face was pale, his horn-rimmed glasses seemed far too big and heavy for his cheekbones, and Wallander thought he could be anything from 25 to 50. He smiled, indicated a chair, and Wallander sat down. Without a sound another man emerged from the shadows with a thermos flask and some cups. Maybe it’s the driver, Wallander thought. He was older, swarthy, and definitely the kind of person who rarely smiled. Wallander was poured a cup of tea, the two men sat down on the opposite side of the table, and the driver turned up a kerosene lamp with a white porcelain globe that stood on the table. An almost inaudible sound came from the shadows beyond the light of the kerosene lamp, and Wallander realized there were other people present. Somebody’s been waiting for me, and made the tea.

  “We can only offer you tea, Mr. Wallander,” the man said. “But you had dinner shortly before we collected you, and we shan’t keep you long.”

  There was something about what the man said that annoyed Wallander. As long as he’d been Mr. Eckers, he’d felt it was nothing to do with him personally; but now he was Mr. Wallander, and they had been watching him from some invisible spy-hole, observed him having dinner, and the only mistake they’d made was to phone his room a few seconds too early, before he’d managed to open the door.

  “I have every reason to distrust you,” he said. “I don’t even know who you are. Where’s Baiba Liepa, the major’s widow?”

  “Please excuse my impoliteness. My name is Upitis. You can be completely calm. The moment our conversation is over, you can return to your hotel, I promise you.”

  Upitis, thought Wallander. It’s like Mr. Eckers. Whatever his name is, you can be sure it’s not that.

  “A promise from an unknown person is worthless,” Wallander said. “You drove me off with a hood over my head. (Is hood really the right word?) I agreed to meet Mrs. Liepa on her terms, because I knew her husband. I assumed she might be able to tell me something that could help the police to throw light on why Major Liepa was killed. I’ve no idea who you are. In other words, I have every reason to distrust you.”

  Upitis thought for a moment, and nodded in agreement.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Please don’t think we are being so cautious without good reason. I’m afraid it’s essential. Mrs. Liepa was unable to be with us tonight, but I’m speaking on her behalf.”

  “How can I be sure of that? What is it that you want, in fact?”

  “We want your help.”

  “Why do you have to give me a false identity? Why this secluded meeting place?”

  “As I’ve already said, I’m afraid it is necessary. You haven’t been in Latvia very long yet, Mr. Wallander—you’ll understand eventually.”

  “How do you think I could help you?”

  Once again he heard an almost imperceptible noise from the shadows beyond the faint light of the kerosene lamp: Baiba Liepa, he thought. She’s not coming out, but she’s there all right, very close to me.

  “You must be patient for a few minutes,” Upitis said. “Let me begin by explaining what Latvia really is.”

  “Is that necessary? Latvia’s a country like any other country, though I have to admit I don’t know what your flag looks like.”

  “I think it is necessary for me to explain. The very fact that you say our country
is just like all the others means that there are certain things you really do have to understand.”

  Wallander took a sip of tea. He tried to penetrate the shadows with his gaze: maybe there was a hint of a beam of light he could see from the corner of his eye, as if from a door that wasn’t properly closed.

  The driver was warming his hands around his mug. His eyes were closed, and it was clear to Wallander that the conversation was to be between himself and Upitis.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “Tell me that at least.”

  “We’re Latvians,” Upitis answered. “We happened to be born in this stricken country at a very unfortunate time, our paths have crossed, and we have realized that both we and you are involved in a mission that simply must be carried out.”

  “Major Liepa?” Wallander asked, but left his question unfinished.

  “Let me start at the beginning,” Upitis said. “You have to understand that our country is on the verge of total collapse. Just as in the other two Baltic states, not to mention the other countries that were treated as colonies by the Soviet Union, people are trying to recover the freedom they lost after the Second World War. But freedom is born of chaos, Mr. Wallander, and monsters bent on achieving ghastly aims are lurking in the shadows. Assuming that one can be either for or against freedom is a catastrophic error. Freedom has many faces. The large number of Russians who were moved here in order to dilute the Latvian population and bring about our ultimate demise are not only worried about their presence being questioned, but naturally enough they’re also frightened of losing all their privileges. There is no historical precedent of people voluntarily surrendering their privileges, and so they are arming themselves to defend their position, and doing so in secret. That’s why what happened here last autumn came about: the Soviet army seized control and declared a state of emergency. It is an illusion to suppose that one can emerge as a unified nation from a brutal dictatorship, and proceed easily to something like democracy. As far as we are concerned, freedom is alluring, like a beautiful woman one cannot resist. But others regard freedom as a threat that must be opposed at all costs.”

  Upitis fell silent, as if what he had said was a revelation that shook even him.

  “A threat?” Wallander said.

  “We could be faced with civil war,” Upitis said. “Political dialogue might be replaced with a situation in which people bent only on revenge run amok. The desire for freedom could turn into a horrific state of affairs that no one can foresee. Monsters are hovering in the wings, knives are being sharpened in the night. It’s just as difficult to say how the showdown will turn out as it is to predict the future.”

  A mission that simply must be carried out. Wallander tried to decide exactly what Upitis meant by that, but he knew in advance that he was wasting his time. His ability to grasp what was happening in Europe was practically nonexistent: political goings-on had never had any place in his police officer’s world. He usually voted when elections came around, but haphazardly, without any committed interest. Changes which had no immediate effect on his own life left him unmoved.

  “Chasing after monsters is hardly the kind of thing police officers get up to,” he said tentatively, trying to excuse his ignorance. “I investigate real crimes that have been committed by real people. I agreed to become Mr. Eckers because I assumed Baiba Liepa wanted to see me with nobody else present. The Latvian police have asked me to help them to track down Major Liepa’s murderer, primarily by trying to find out if there is any link with the two Latvian citizens whose bodies were washed ashore on the Swedish coast in a life raft. And now, all of a sudden, you seem to be the ones asking me for help—is that right? If so, it must be possible to put the request more simply, without making long speeches about social problems I can’t understand.”

  “That is correct,” Upitis said. “But let’s say we shall be helping each other.”

  Wallander couldn’t remember the English word for “riddle,” and had to express himself in a roundabout way.

  “It’s not clear enough,” he said. “Can’t you say exactly what it is you want, come straight to the point?”

  Upitis slid over his notebook, which had been hidden behind the kerosene lamp, and produced a pen from the pocket of his shabby jacket.

  “The bodies of two Latvian citizens drifted ashore on the Swedish coast,” he said. “Major Liepa went over to Sweden. Did you work with him?”

  “Yes. He was a good police officer.”

  “But he was only in Sweden for a few days?”

  “Yes.”

  “How could you know he was a skillful investigator after such a short time?”

  “Thoroughness and experience are almost always immediately evident.”

  It was clear to Wallander that the questions seemed innocent enough, but that Upitis was quite sure of what he was after. The questions were a way of spinning an invisible web. He was like a skillful investigator himself, heading for a specific goal right from the start. The simplicity of the questions was an illusion. Perhaps he’s a police officer, Wallander thought. Maybe it isn’t Baiba Liepa hiding in the shadows? Maybe it’s Colonel Putnis? Or Colonel Murniers?

  “So you thought highly of Major Liepa’s work?”

  “Of course. Isn’t that what I said?”

  “If you discount Major Liepa’s experience and thoroughness as a police officer?”

  “How can one discount that?”

  “What impression did you have of him as a man?”

  “The same as I had of him as a police officer. He was calm, thorough, very patient, knowledgable, intelligent.”

  “Major Liepa had the same opinion of you, Mr. Wallander. He thought you were a good police officer.”

  Alarm bells rang in Wallander’s mind. It was only a vague feeling, but he suspected Upitis was coming around to his important questions. At the same time he realized something was wrong. Major Liepa had only been home for a few hours before he was murdered, but even so here was this Upitis, obviously knowing details of the major’s trip to Sweden. Only the major could have passed on that kind of information, either directly or via his wife.

  “That was nice of him,” Wallander said.

  “Were you very busy during the time Major Liepa spent in Sweden?”

  “There’s always a lot to do when you’re investigating a murder.”

  “So you didn’t have time to socialize?”

  “I beg your pardon? I don’t understand the question.”

  “Socialize. Relax. Laugh and sing. I’ve heard the Swedes like singing.”

  “Major Liepa and I didn’t start a choir, if that’s what you mean. I invited him to my home one evening, but that was all. We emptied a bottle of whisky and listened to music. It was snowing heavily that night. He went back to his hotel afterwards.”

  “Major Liepa was very fond of music. He sometimes complained at how rarely he had time to go to concerts.”

  The alarm bells rang louder. What the hell is he trying to find out, he wondered. Who is this Upitis? And where’s Baiba Liepa?

  “May I ask what the music was you listened to?” Upitis asked.

  “Maria Callas. I don’t remember which opera. Turandot, I think.”

  “I’m not familiar with it.”

  “It’s one of Puccini’s most beautiful operas.”

  “And you drank whisky?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it was snowing hard?”

  “Yes.”

  He’s coming to the point now, Wallander thought feverishly. What does he want me to say without my realizing I’ve said it?

  “What brand of whisky were you drinking?”

  “JB, I think.”

  “Major Liepa was very moderate when it came to strong liquor. Mind you, he did occasionally like to relax over a drink.”

  “Really?”

  “He was moderate in all respects.”

  “I think I was probably more affected by the drink than he was. If that’s what you want to kno
w.”

  “Nevertheless, you seem to have a clear memory of the evening.”

  “We listened to music. Sat there with glasses in our hands. Chatted. Sat quietly. Why shouldn’t I remember that?”

  “No doubt you continued discussing the bodies in the life raft?”

  “Not as far as I remember. Major Liepa probably did most of the talking, about Latvia. It was only then that I discovered he was married, by the way.”

  Wallander noticed a sudden change in atmosphere. Upitis was observing him intently, and the driver changed his position on his chair almost imperceptibly. Wallander was so sure his intuition was reliable that he had no doubt they had just passed the point in the conversation that Upitis had been working towards all the time. But what was it, exactly? In his mind’s eye he could see the major sitting on his sofa, resting the glass of whisky on one knee, listening to the music. There must have been something more to it, something that justified the creation of Mr. Eckers as a secret identity for a Swedish police officer.

  “You presented Major Liepa with a book as he was leaving, is that right?”

  “I bought him a book of photographs of Skåne. Not very imaginative, perhaps, but I couldn’t think of anything better.”

  “Major Liepa much appreciated the gift.”