The Troubled Man (2011)

by Henning Mankell

  ‘Is she still drinking?’

  ‘I don’t know. Right now I don’t think I can take on responsibility for another child. I have enough on my plate with this one.’

  A low-flying plane came roaring overhead, descending into Sturup Airport. When the noise had subsided, Wallander told Linda about his visit to Hermann Eber. He repeated their conversation in detail, and the thoughts that had occurred to him as a result. While he was becoming more convinced than ever that Louise had been murdered, he was at a complete loss as to why anyone would want to kill her. Could this quiet, retiring woman have had some sort of link with East Germany? A country that was dead and buried now?

  Wallander paused. Klara was crawling around her mother’s legs. Linda shook her head slowly.

  ‘I don’t doubt any of what you’ve told me - but what does it mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. Right now I have only one question: Who was Louise von Enke? What is there about her that I don’t know?’

  ‘What does anybody ever know about another person? Isn’t that what you’re always reminding me of? Telling me never to be surprised? Anyway, there is a connection with the former East Germany,’ Linda said thoughtfully. ‘Haven’t I mentioned it?’

  ‘You’ve only said that she was interested in classical German culture, and taught German.’

  ‘What I’m thinking of goes further back than that,’ Linda said. ‘Nearly fifty years. Before Hans was born, before Signe. You really should speak to Hans about this.’

  ‘Let’s start with what you know,’ said Wallander.

  ‘It’s not a lot. But Louise was in East Germany at the beginning of the 1960s with a group of promising young Swedish swimmers and divers. It was some kind of sporting exchange. Louise used to coach up-and-coming young girls. Apparently she was a diver herself in her younger days, but I don’t know much about that. I think she went to East Berlin and Leipzig several times over a few years. Then it suddenly stopped. Hans thinks there’s a reason why.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Hakan simply made it clear to her that the trips to East Germany had to stop. It wasn’t good for his military career to have a wife who kept visiting a country regarded as an enemy. You can well imagine that the Swedish top brass and politicians regarded East Germany as one of Russia’s nastiest vassals.’

  ‘But you say you don’t know this for sure?’

  ‘Louise always did what her husband told her to do. I think the situation in the early sixties simply became untenable. Hakan was on his way to the very top in the navy.’

  ‘Do you know anything about how she reacted?’

  ‘No, not a thing.’

  Klara scratched herself on something lying on the ground and started screaming. Wallander couldn’t stand the sound of children screeching and went over to the dog kennel to stroke Jussi. He stayed there until Klara had quietened down.

  ‘What did you used to do when I started crying?’ Linda asked.

  ‘My ears were more tolerant in those days.’

  They sat in silence watching Klara investigate a dandelion growing in the middle of some stones.

  ‘I’ve obviously been doing some thinking during the time the von Enkes have been missing,’ Linda said then. ‘I’ve been ransacking my memory, trying to recall details of conversations and how they treated each other. I’ve tried to wheedle out of Hans everything he knows, everything he assumed I knew as well. Only a few days ago I had the impression that something didn’t add up, that he hadn’t told me the whole truth.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The money.’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘There is presumably a lot more money hidden away than I know about. Hakan and Louise led a good life without any ostentatious luxury or excesses. But they could have lived in grand style if they’d wanted to.’

  ‘What kind of sums are we talking about?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt me,’ she snapped. ‘I’m coming to that, but I’ll do it at my own speed. The problem is that Hans hasn’t told me everything he should have. That annoys me, and I know I’ll have to have it out with him sooner or later.’

  ‘Does this mean you think the money has become vitally important in some new way?’

  ‘No, but I don’t like Hans not telling me things. We don’t need to discuss it right now.’

  Wallander raised his hands to signal an apology and asked no more questions. Linda suddenly discovered that Klara was trying to eat the dandelion and wiped her mouth clean, which set the baby off crying again. Wallander gritted his teeth and stayed where he was. Jussi paced up and down in his kennel, keeping an eye on things and looking as if he felt he’d been abandoned. My family, Wallander thought. We’re all here, apart from my sister, Kristina, and my former wife, who’s drinking herself to death.

  The commotion was soon over, and Klara went back to crawling around on the grass. Linda was rocking back and forth on her chair.

  ‘I can’t guarantee that it won’t collapse,’ Wallander said.

  ‘Grandad’s old furniture,’ she said. ‘If the chair breaks, I’ll survive. I’ll just fall into your overgrown and untended flower bed.’

  Wallander said nothing. He could feel himself getting annoyed at the way she was always scrutinising what he did and pointing out his shortcomings.

  ‘When I woke up this morning there was one question I couldn’t get out of my head,’ she said. ‘It can’t wait, no matter how important this business of Louise and Hakan is. I don’t understand how I could have avoided asking it all these years. Not asking either you or Mum. Maybe I was scared of what the answer might be. Nobody wants to be conceived by accident.’

  Wallander was on his guard immediately. Linda very rarely used the word ‘Mum’ in connection with Mona. Nor could he remember the last time she had called him ‘Dad’, apart from when she was angry or being ironic.

  ‘You don’t need to be frightened,’ Linda went on. ‘I can see that I’ve worried you already. I only want to know how you met. The very first time my parents met. I simply don’t know.’

  ‘My memory’s bad,’ said Wallander, ‘but not that bad. We met in 1968 on a boat between Copenhagen and Malmo. One of the slow ferries, not a hovercraft, late one evening.’

  ‘Forty years ago?’

  ‘We were both very young. She was sitting at a table. The ferry was crowded, and I asked if I might join her, and she said yes. I’d be happy to tell you more another time. I’m not in the mood to root around in my past. Let’s get back to that money. What kind of sums are we talking about?’

  ‘A few million. But you’re not going to avoid telling me about what happened when the ferry docked in Malmo.’

  ‘Nothing happened then. I promise to tell you, later. Are you saying they had put aside a million or more? Where did they get it from?’

  ‘They saved it.’

  He frowned. That was a lot of money to put aside. He could never dream of saving such an amount.

  ‘Could there be tax evasion or some other fraud?’

  ‘Not according to Hans, no.’

  ‘But you say he hasn’t been open with you about this money?’

  ‘There’s no reason why he should have been. Until a couple of months ago it was up to his parents to decide what to do with their savings.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘They asked Hans to invest it for them. Cautiously, no risky ventures.’

  Wallander thought for a moment. Something told him that what he had just heard could be of considerable significance. Throughout his life as a police officer he had been reminded over and over again that money was the cause of the worst and most serious crimes people could commit. No other motive cropped up so often.

  ‘Who oversaw their financial affairs? Both of them, or just Hakan?’

  ‘Hans will know.’

  ‘Then we must talk to him.’

  ‘Not we. I. If I discover anything, I’ll let you know.’

  Klara was yawning. Linda nodde
d to Wallander. He picked her up and laid her carefully on the garden hammock. She smiled at him.

  ‘I try to picture myself in your arms,’ said Linda. ‘But it’s hard.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I don’t mean it negatively.’

  A pair of swans came flying over the fields towards them. Father and daughter followed their progress and listened to the swishing sound they made.

  ‘Is it really possible that Louise was murdered?’ Linda wondered.

  ‘The investigation will have to continue, of course. But I think there’s a lot of evidence now that suggests it is true.’

  ‘But why? By whom? All that stuff about her having Russian secrets in her bag surely must be nonsense.’

  ‘She had Swedish secrets in her purse. Intended for Russia. Listen properly to what I say.’

  He expected her to be angry, but she merely nodded, acknowledging that he was right.

  ‘There’s still an unanswered question,’ said Wallander. ‘Where’s Hakan?’

  ‘Dead or alive?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, Hakan has become more alive now that Louise has been found dead. It’s not logical, I know; there’s no plausible explanation for my thinking that. Possibly my considerable experience as a police officer. But the indications are not clear, not even in that context. Nevertheless, I believe he’s alive.’

  ‘Is he the one who killed Louise?’

  ‘There’s nothing to suggest that.’

  ‘But nothing to suggest that he didn’t, either?’

  Wallander nodded. That was exactly what he had been thinking. She was following his train of thought.

  Linda drove off with Klara half an hour later.

  Wallander felt that one thing at least had become crystal clear. No matter what had happened, it had all begun with Hakan von Enke. And it was with him that everything would eventually come to a conclusion. Louise was a side issue.

  But what it all meant, he had no idea. The only thing that struck him right now as being an incontestable fact was that Hakan von Enke had stood face to face with him in a side room during a birthday party on Djursholm, and seemed to be deeply troubled.

  That’s where it all began, Wallander thought. It began with the troubled man.

  24

  One night in July.

  Wallander sat there, pen in hand. The first line of the letter he had begun writing sounded like a bad film from the 1950s. Or perhaps a much better novel from a few decades earlier. The kind he recalled from his childhood home. From the library that had belonged to his maternal grandfather, who had died long before he was born.

  Otherwise, the description was correct. It was now July, and it was night-time. Wallander had gone to bed, then suddenly remembered that it would be his sister Kristina’s birthday in a few days’ time. It had become his custom to enclose with the birthday card the one letter he sent her every year. So he got out of bed - he wasn’t tired, after all, and this was a good excuse to avoid tossing and turning. He sat down at the kitchen table with stationery and a fountain pen, the latter a present from Linda for his fiftieth birthday. The opening words could stay as they were - ‘One night in July’ - he wasn’t going to change a thing. It was a short letter. Once he had described his delight at Klara’s birth, he didn’t think he had much else to write about. His letters became shorter and shorter every year, he noticed grimly. It wasn’t much of a letter, but it was the best he could do. His contact with Kristina had culminated during the last few years of their father’s life. Since then they had never met, apart from once when he was in Stockholm and remembered to call her. They were totally different people, and had totally different memories of their childhood. After a short time the conversation would dry up and they’d stare at each other uncomprehendingly: did they really have nothing more to say to each other?

  Wallander sealed the envelope and went back to bed. The window was ajar. In the distance he could hear the faint sound of music and a party in progress. There was a rustling sound from the grass outside the window. He had done the right thing in leaving Mariagatan, he thought. Out here in the countryside he could hear sounds he had never heard before. And smell country smells, even more of a novelty.

  He lay awake, thinking about his visit to the police station earlier that evening. He hadn’t planned to go in, but since his computer wasn’t working he drove into Ystad at about nine o’clock. In the hope of avoiding on-duty colleagues, he used the basement entrance. He tapped in the entry code and reached his office without bumping into anybody. Voices could be heard from one of the offices he sneaked past. One of the speakers sounded very drunk. Wallander was glad he wasn’t the officer doing the interrogating.

  Just before going on holiday he had made a big effort and reduced the piles of paper on his desk. It now looked almost inviting. He threw his jacket onto the guest chair and switched on the computer. While he waited for it to boot up he took out two folders he’d locked away in one of the desk drawers. One was labelled ‘Louise’, the other ‘Hakan’. The pen he’d used was faulty, and the names were smudged and unclear. He slid the first file to one side and concentrated on the second. He also thought about the conversation he’d had with Linda a few hours earlier. She had called while Klara was asleep and Hans had gone out to buy some nappies. Without going into unnecessary detail she had reported on what Hans had said when she asked him about his parents’ money, about his mother’s links with East Germany, and whether there was anything else he hadn’t told her about. He had been offended at first, thinking she didn’t trust him. She eventually succeeded in convincing him that all she was interested in was trying to find out what had happened to his parents. After all, it was looking very much as if murder might be involved. Hans had calmed down, understood her motivation and answered as best he could.

  Wallander took a folded sheet of paper out of his back pocket and smoothed it out to look over his notes.

  It was only when Hans had started his present job that his parents had asked him to oversee their financial affairs. The amount of money involved was a bit less than 2 million kronor, which had now grown to more than 2.5 million. He was told that the money was their savings plus an inheritance from one of Louise’s relatives. He didn’t know how much was inherited and how much was saved. The relative in question was Hanna Edling, who had died in 1976 and had owned a chain of ladies’ clothing shops in the west of Sweden. There were no tax irregularities, even though Hakan had moaned and groaned about what he considered to be the Social Democrats’ outrageous capital gains tax. Now that it had been abolished, Hans regretted that he hadn’t been able to tell Hakan that a few more kronor had been saved.

  ‘Hans said his parents had a philosophy about money,’ Linda had explained. ‘“You shouldn’t talk about money, it should simply be there.”’

  ‘If only,’ Wallander had said. ‘That sounds like something well-heeled upper-class folk would say.’

  ‘They are upper class,’ said Linda. ‘You know that. We don’t need to waste time discussing it.’

  Hans used to give them an investment report twice a year, informing them about gains and any losses. Occasionally Hakan would read something in the newspapers about attractive investment options, and he’d call Hans to pass on the tip. But he never checked on whether Hans had followed up. Louise displayed even less interest in what Hans was doing with their money - but on one occasion the previous year she had asked to withdraw 200,000 kronor from the invested capital. Hans was surprised, since it was very unusual for them to take out such a large sum. And it was mostly Hakan who wanted to withdraw money, for such things as a cruise, or a trip to the French Riviera for a few weeks. Hans asked what she wanted the money for, but she didn’t tell him, merely insisted that he do what she had requested.

  ‘She also told Hans not to say anything about it to Hakan,’ Linda added. ‘That was the strangest part. I mean, he’d have been bound to notice it sooner or later.’

  ‘But there might
not necessarily have been anything sinister about it,’ Wallander suggested. ‘Maybe she wanted to surprise him?’

  ‘Could be. But Hans also said it was the only time she ever spoke to him in a threatening tone of voice.’

  ‘Is that the word he used? “Threatening”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit odd? Such a strong word?’

  ‘I have no doubt that he chose the word carefully.’

  Wallander made a note: threatening. If it was true, it threw new light on the woman who was always smiling.

  ‘What did Hans have to say about East Germany?’

  Linda stressed that she had tried in several ways to jog his memory, but without success. He vaguely remembered that when he was very young his mother had brought him some wooden toys from East Berlin. Nothing else. He couldn’t recall how long she had been away, nor why she had gone abroad. In those days they had a housekeeper, Katarina, and he often spent a lot more time with her than he did with his parents. Hakan had been at sea, and Louise had been teaching German at the French School and at one of Stockholm’s grammar schools - he couldn’t remember which one. It could well have been that they had occasionally been guests at a dinner party in a home where German was the first language. He had a vague memory of a man in uniform singing drinking songs in a foreign language at the dinner table.

  ‘He really doesn’t remember anything else,’ Linda said. ‘Which either means that there was nothing else for him to remember, or that Louise went out of her way to hide her East German adventures from him. But why would she want to do that?’

  ‘Why indeed,’ said Wallander. ‘It was never against the law for Swedes to visit East Germany. We did business with them just as we did with every other country. But on the other hand, it was much harder for East German citizens to visit Sweden. The Berlin Wall was built to prevent defections.’

  ‘That was before my time. I can remember the Wall being pulled down, but not when it was built.’