His fear was now coupled with violent hatred. If he had a weapon in his hand, he would not have hesitated to use it. For the first time in his life he was prepared to kill another human being, without even trying to excuse it as self-defense.
There’s a time to live, and a time to die, he thought. That was the mantra he had repeated to himself when he’d been stabbed by a drunk in Pildamm Park in Malmö. Now it had acquired extra meaning.
He came upon a dirty bathroom with a dripping tap. He rinsed his face and quenched his thirst, then found a part of the warehouse that was cut off from the rest, unscrewed the light bulb, and sat down in the dark to wait for nightfall. It would have to come eventually.
To keep his fear under control, he tried to concentrate on working out a plan of escape. Somehow or other he must reach the city center and find the Swedish embassy. He would have to count on every single police officer, every single “Black Beret,” knowing what he looked like and having orders to watch out for him. Without help from the Swedish embassy, he would be lost. He figured that remaining undetected for more than a very short time was out of the question. He must also assume the Swedish embassy would be under observation.
The colonels must suppose that I already know the major’s secret, he thought, or they wouldn’t have reacted as they did. I say the colonels, because I still don’t know which of them is behind everything that has happened.
He dozed off for a few hours, only to wake up with a start when he heard a car drawing up outside the warehouse. Occasionally, he went back to the dirty window. The soldiers were still there, on the alert. Wallander felt sick the whole of that never-ending day. He couldn’t get over the evil of it all. He forced himself to his feet and searched the whole building, looking for a way out. The main door was out of the question. Eventually, he found a grille in a wall close to the ground, covering a hole that may once have contained some kind of ventilator. He pressed his ear to the cold brick wall to discover whether he could hear any sign of soldiers on this side of the building as well, but he could hear nothing. What he would do if he did eventually get out of the warehouse, he had no idea. He tried to rest as much as he could, but was unable to sleep. Inese’s crumpled body, her blood-covered face, wouldn’t go away. Dusk fell, and with it a sharper cold.
Shortly before 7 p.m. he decided he would have to leave. With great care, he started to ease off the rusty grill. At any moment he expected a searchlight to be switched on, excited voices to shout out commands, and a hail of bullets to smash into the wall. Eventually he managed to detach the grill, slide it carefully to one side and scramble through. There was a faint yellow light from an adjacent factory illuminating the wasteland outside the warehouse, and he tried to get his eyes used to the near-darkness. There was no sign of the soldiers. About ten meters away was a row of rusting trucks, and he decided to start by trying to get as far as that without being noticed. He took a deep breath, crouched down, and ran as fast as he could to the old wrecks. As he came to the first of them, he stumbled over an old tire and hit his knee against a broken bumper. The pain was excruciating, and he thought the noise would immediately attract the attention of the soldiers on the other side of the warehouse. But he lay still and nothing happened. The pain in his knee was unbearable, and he could feel blood running down his leg.
What next? He thought of the Swedish embassy, but then he realized he neither could nor wanted to give up. He had to contact Baiba Liepa, and it was no good sending up a private distress signal. Now that he had escaped the warehouse where Inese and the cross-eyed man had met their deaths, he had enough strength to think differently. He had come here for Baiba Liepa, and she was the person he should try to find, even if it was the last thing he did in this life.
He crept through the shadows, following a fence around the factory and eventually coming to the street. He still didn’t know where he was, but he could hear the muffled drone that sounded like a highway in the distance, and he headed for the noise. He occasionally passed other people, and he sent a silent “thank you” to Joseph Lippman who had been far-sighted enough to insist that Wallander should put on the clothes Preuss had brought with him in a shabby suitcase. He walked for over half an hour, cowering in the shadows to avoid police cars, and all the while trying to work out what to do. He had to accept that there was only one person he could turn to. It would involve a major risk, but he had no choice. It also meant he would have to spend another night in hiding. It was chilly, and he would have to find something to eat if he were going to survive the night.
He realized that he would never have the strength to walk all the way to the center of Riga. His knee was hurting badly, and he was so tired he couldn’t think straight. He would have to steal a car. The very thought of the risks involved horrified him, but it was his only chance. He had noticed a Lada parked in a street he had just passed—it hadn’t been standing outside a house, but seemed strangely deserted. He retraced his steps. He tried to recall how to open locked car doors and short-circuit engines. But what did he know about a Lada? Maybe it wasn’t possible to start one of those using the methods perfected by Swedish car thieves.
The car was gray and its bumpers were dented. Wallander stood in the shadows, observing the car and the surroundings. All he could see were factories with all the lights out. He went over to a broken-down fence around a loading bay in the ruins of what had once been a factory. His fingers were frozen stiff, but he managed to break off a length of wire about two feet long. He made a loop at one end, then hastened over to the car.
Sliding the wire in through the car window and manipulating the door handle was easier than he had expected. He scrambled into the driver’s seat and hunted for the ignition lock and the cables. He cursed the fact that he didn’t have any matches. Sweat was pouring down the inside of his shirt, but he was so cold that he was shivering. Eventually, out of sheer desperation, he ripped the whole bundle of wires out from behind the ignition, pulled the lock away, and connected up the loose ends. The car was in gear, and leapt forward when the ignition produced a spark. He shifted into neutral, then connected the loose ends again. The engine started, he fumbled for the handbrake without finding it, pressed all the buttons in sight on the dashboard in an attempt to find the lights, then engaged first gear.
This is a nightmare, he thought. I’m a Swedish police officer, not a madman with a German passport stealing cars in the Latvian capital of Riga. He drove in the direction he’d been heading on foot, working out which gear was which, wondering why there was such a stench of fish in the car.
After a short while he reached the highway he’d previously heard the noise from. The engine almost stopped as he turned onto it, but he managed to keep it going. He could see the lights of Riga. He had already made up his mind to try to find his way to the district around the Latvia Hotel and go to one of the little restaurants he’d seen there. Once again he sent a silent “thank you” to Joseph Lippman, who had made sure Preuss provided him with some Latvian currency. He had no idea how much money he had, but hoped it would be enough for a meal. He crossed the river and turned left onto the riverside boulevard. There was not a lot of traffic, and he got stuck behind a streetcar and was immediately subjected to some furious honking from a taxi just behind him that had been forced to brake suddenly. He was getting nervous, stripping the gears, and only managed to get away from the streetcars by turning onto a side street. He discovered too late that he had driven onto a one-way street. A bus was coming towards him, the street was very narrow, and no matter how hard he tried and fiddled with the gear lever, he couldn’t find reverse. He was on the brink of abandoning the car in the middle of the street and running away when he finally managed to engage reverse gear and back out of the way. He turned into one of the streets near the Latvia Hotel and parked in a legal parking spot. He was soaked in sweat and knew that he ran the risk of pneumonia if he couldn’t soon have a hot bath and change his clothes.
A church clock tolled 8:45 p.m. He crossed t
he street and went into a smoke-filled café. He was lucky and found an empty table. The men deep in conversation over their beer glasses didn’t seem to notice him, there was no sign of anybody in uniform, and he was now able to assume the role of Gottfried Hegel, traveling salesman. Once, when he and Preuss had stopped for a meal in Germany, he had noticed that the German for menu was Speisekarte so that was what he asked for. Unfortunately, it was all in incomprehensible Latvian, and so he just pointed to one of the dishes. He was served a plate of beef stew, and ordered a glass of beer to help wash it down. For a short while, his mind was completely blank.
He felt better when he’d eaten. He ordered coffee and felt his mind working again. He realized how he should spend the night. All he needed to do was to take advantage of what he had discovered about this country—that is, that everything has its price. While he was here before he had noticed that just behind the Latvia Hotel were several guesthouses and scruffy hotels. He would go to one of them, brandish his German passport, then put a few Swedish hundred-krona notes on the desk, thus buying some peace and quiet and avoiding unnecessary questions. There was a risk that the police had instructed every hotel in Riga to look out for him, but that was a risk he would just have to take. His German identity should get him through one night at least. With a bit of luck he might manage to find a receptionist whose first instinct wasn’t to go running off to the police.
He drank his coffee and thought about the two colonels. And Sergeant Zids, who might have been personally responsible for murdering Inese. Somewhere out there in this awful darkness was Baiba Liepa, and she was waiting for him. “Baiba Liepa will be very pleased.” Those were just about the last words Inese had spoken in her short life.
He looked at the clock over the bar counter. Nearly 10:30 p.m. He paid his bill and calculated that he had more than enough money to pay for a hotel room. He left the café and stopped outside the Hermes Hotel not far away. The outside door was open, and he tramped up a creaking staircase to the upper floor. A curtain was drawn aside, and he found an old, hunchbacked woman peering at him from behind thick glasses. He smiled the friendliest smile he could conjure up, said “Zimmer,” and put his passport on the desk. The old woman nodded, said something in Latvian, and gave him a card to fill in. As she hadn’t even bothered to look at his passport, he made up his mind on the spot to change his plans and signed himself in under an invented name. He was so flustered that the only name he could think of was Preuss. He gave himself the first name Martin, claimed he was 37 years old, from Hamburg. The woman gave him a friendly smile, handed over the key, and pointed to a corridor behind his back. Unless the colonels are so desperate to find me that they organize raids on every single hotel in Riga tonight, I’ll be able to spend a quiet night here, Wallander thought. Needless to say, they will eventually realize that Martin Preuss is in fact Kurt Wallander, but by then I should be miles away. He unlocked his door, was delighted to find there was a bathroom, and could hardly believe his luck when the water gradually became warm. He undressed and slumped into the bath. The heat seeping into his body made him feel drowsy, and he nodded off.
When he woke, the water was stone cold. He got out of the bath, dried himself and went to bed. A streetcar clattered by in the street. He stared into the darkness and felt his fear returning. He must stick to his plan. If he lost control over his own judgment, the dogs on his trail would soon catch his scent. Then he would be sunk. He knew what he had to do. He would look for the only person in Riga who might possibly be able to put him in touch with Baiba Liepa. He had no idea what her name was, but he did remember that she had red lips.
CHAPTER 16
Inese returned just before dawn.
She came to him in a nightmare in which both colonels were keeping watch over him from somewhere in the shadows, though he couldn’t see them. She was still alive, and he tried to warn her, but she didn’t hear what he said and he knew he wouldn’t be able to help her. He woke with a start and found himself in his room in the Hermes Hotel.
He’d put his wristwatch on the bedside table. It was just after 6 a.m. A streetcar clattered past in the street below. He stretched out in bed, feeling thoroughly rested for the first time since he’d left Sweden.
He lay in bed and relived with agonizing clarity the events of the previous day. His mind was now fully alert, and the horrific massacre seemed unreal. The indiscriminate killing was incomprehensible. He was filled with despair at the death of Inese and didn’t know how he would be able to cope with the knowledge that he had been unable to help her, or the cross-eyed man and the others, the people who had been waiting for him but whose names he didn’t even know. His agitation drove him out of bed. He left his room shortly before 6:30 a.m., went out to reception and paid his bill. The old woman took his money, and a quick check revealed that he had enough left to spend another few nights in a hotel, should it prove necessary.
It was a cold morning. He turned up the collar of his jacket and decided to get some breakfast before putting his plan into operation. After wandering the streets for 20 minutes or so, he found a café. It was half empty, but he went in and ordered coffee and some sandwiches, then sat down at a corner table that was hidden from the entrance. By 7:30 a.m. he knew he could wait no longer. Now it was make or break time.
Half an hour later he was standing outside the Latvia Hotel, exactly where Sergeant Zids had waited for him in his car. He hesitated. Maybe he was too early. Maybe the woman with the red lips hadn’t arrived yet? He went in, glanced over at reception, where several early birds were paying their bills, passed the sofa where his shadows had sat buried in their newspapers, and discovered that the woman actually was there, standing at her counter, carefully setting out various newspapers in front of her. What if she doesn’t recognize me, he wondered. Perhaps she’s just a messenger who doesn’t know anything about the errands she is running?
At that very moment she saw him, standing next to one of the big columns in the foyer. He could tell that she recognized him immediately, knew who he was, and wasn’t frightened to see him again. He went over to her table, reached out his hand, and explained loudly in English that he wanted to buy postcards. In order to give her time to get used to his sudden appearance, he kept on talking. Did she happen to have any postcards of old Riga? There was nobody nearby, and when he thought he’d been talking for long enough he leaned forward, as if to ask her to explain some detail or other on one of the postcards.
“You recognize me,” he said. “You gave me a ticket for the organ concert where I met Baiba Liepa. Now you must help me to see her again. You’re the only person who can help me. It’s very important for me to meet Baiba, but at the same time, you ought to be clear that it is very dangerous, as she’s being watched. I don’t know if you are aware of what happened yesterday. Show me something in one of your brochures, pretend you are explaining it to me, but answer my question.”
Her bottom lip started trembling, and he could see her eyes filling with tears. As he couldn’t risk her crying and drawing attention to them, he quickly explained how he was very interested in postcards not only of Riga, but also of the whole of Latvia. A good friend of his had said there was always an excellent selection of cards at the Latvia Hotel.
She pulled herself together, and he told her he realized she must know what had happened. But did she also know he had returned to Latvia? She shook her head.
“I have nowhere to go,” he said. “I need somewhere to hide while you arrange for me to meet Baiba.”
He didn’t even know her name. Did he have any right to ask her to do this for him? Wouldn’t it be better if he gave up and went looking for the Swedish embassy? Where do you draw the line on what is reasonable and decent in a country where innocent people are gunned down indiscriminately?
“I don’t know if I can arrange for you to meet Baiba,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve no idea if it’s still possible. But I can hide you in my home. I’m much too insignificant a person for the police
to be interested in me. Come back in an hour. Wait at the bus stop on the other side of the street. Go now.”
He stood up again, thanked her like the satisfied customer he was pretending to be, put a brochure in his pocket, and left the hotel. He spent the next hour among the crowd of customers at one of the big department stores, and bought himself a new hat in an attempt to change his appearance. After an hour he went to stand at the bus stop. He saw her emerge from the hotel, and when she came to stand beside him, she pretended he was a total stranger. A bus came after a few minutes, they got on, and Wallander sat a couple of rows behind her. For over half an hour the bus circled around the city before heading off in the direction of the suburbs. He tried to make a note of the route, but the only landmark he recognized was the enormous Kirov Park. They came to a huge, drab housing estate, and when she pressed the bell to stop the bus he was taken by surprise, and almost didn’t get off in time. They walked through a frosty playground where some children were climbing on a rusty frame. Wallander trod on the swollen body of a cat lying dead on the ground. He followed the woman into a dark, echoing entrance. They emerged into an open atrium where the cold wind bit into their faces. She turned to face him.
“My apartment is very small,” she said. “My father lives with me; he’s very old. I’ll just tell him you’re a homeless friend. Our country is full of homeless people, and it’s only natural for us to help each other. Later on my two children will come home from school. I’ll leave them a note to say they should make you some tea. It’s very cramped, but it’s all I can offer you. I must go straight back to the hotel.”
The Dogs of Riga: A Kurt Wallendar Mystery Page 24