The Troubled Man (2011)

by Henning Mankell

  ‘There’s no point in worrying about it - we’ll never know for certain. But there were no skid marks on the road. A motorist behind her said that she wasn’t driving unusually fast, but that the car was wobbling all over the road.’

  Wallander tried to picture the last moments of Baiba’s life. He couldn’t be sure about what had happened, whether it was an accident or suicide. But another thought struck him. Could Louise von Enke’s death also have been an accident, and not murder or suicide after all?

  He never followed that thought through because Lilja stubbed out her cigarette and announced that it was time to set off. Wallander excused himself, paid a visit to the men’s room in reception, and took another swig of the vodka. He examined himself in the mirror. What he saw was a man on his way into old age, worried about what was in store for him in life.

  They came to the chapel. The darkness inside was all the more intense because the sunshine had been so bright. It was some time before Wallander’s eyes adjusted.

  When they did, he had the feeling that Baiba Liepa’s funeral was a sort of rehearsal for his own. It scared him, and almost made him stand up and leave. He should never have gone to Riga; he had nothing to do there.

  But he remained seated nevertheless, and thanks mainly to the vodka, he didn’t even start crying, not even when he saw how upset Lilja Blooms was by his side. The coffin was like a desert island, washed up in the sea - the last resting place for a person he had once been in love with, Wallander thought.

  For some unknown reason, he suddenly saw Hakan von Enke in his mind’s eye. He felt annoyed, and he brushed aside the thought.

  He was beginning to feel drunk. It was as if the funeral had nothing to do with him. When it ended, and Lilja Blooms hastened over to express her condolences to Baiba’s mother, Wallander took the opportunity to slip out of the chapel. He didn’t give a backward glance, but went straight to the hotel and asked the receptionist to help him change his flight. He had planned to stay until the next day, but now he wanted to leave as soon as possible. There were seats available on an afternoon flight to Copenhagen. He packed his suitcase, kept his funeral suit on, and left the hotel in a taxi, afraid that Lilja Blooms might come looking for him. He sat outside the terminal building for nearly three hours before it was time for him to pass through security.

  He continued drinking on the plane. When he came to Ystad, he took a taxi home and almost fell out of the car. As usual, Jussi was being looked after by the neighbours, and he decided to leave him there until the next day.

  He collapsed into bed and slept soundly. When he woke up shortly before nine the next morning, he regretted having fled from the chapel without even having said goodbye to Lilja. He would have to call her soon and try to make a plausible excuse. But what on earth would he say?

  Although he had slept well, Wallander felt ill. He couldn’t find any aspirin, despite searching through the bathroom and all the drawers in the kitchen. Since he couldn’t face driving to Ystad, he asked his neighbour if she had any. She did, and he dissolved one in a glass of water and drank it in her kitchen. She gave him a few extra to take home with him.

  When he got back, he put Jussi in his kennel. The light on the answering machine was blinking when he entered the house. Sten Nordlander had called again. Wallander got his mobile phone and called him. He could hear the wind howling around Nordlander when he answered.

  ‘I’ll call you back,’ he said. ‘I have to find a spot sheltered from the wind.’

  ‘I’m at home.’

  ‘Give me ten minutes. Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  Wallander sat down at the kitchen table to wait. Jussi wandered around his kennel, sniffing to see if he had been visited by any mice or birds. He occasionally glanced at the kitchen window. Wallander raised his hand and waved to him, but Jussi didn’t react; he couldn’t see anything, but he knew that Wallander was in the house somewhere. Wallander opened the window. Jussi immediately started wagging his tail and stood up on his hind legs, resting his front paws on the bars.

  The phone rang. It was Sten Nordlander. He had found a sheltered spot; there was no sound of any wind.

  ‘I’m on a little island, not much more than a bare rock, not far from Moja,’ he said. ‘Do you know where that is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘At the outer edge of the Stockholm archipelago. It’s very beautiful.’

  ‘I’m glad you called,’ said Wallander. ‘Something has happened. I should have contacted you. Hakan has turned up.’

  Wallander summarised what had happened.

  ‘Amazing!’ said Nordlander. ‘I thought about him when I stepped ashore here on the skerry.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘He liked islands. He once told me about an ambition he’d had when he was young: he wanted to visit every island in the world.’

  ‘Did he ever try to achieve it?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Louise wasn’t keen on sea voyages.’

  ‘Did that cause any problems?’

  ‘Not that I know of. He was very fond of her, and she of him. But dreams can be of value even if you don’t have an opportunity to turn them into reality.’

  The connection was poor; the skerry was at the very limit of the coverage area. They agreed that he would call Wallander again once he was back on the mainland.

  Wallander slowly put the phone down on the table and sat motionless. He suddenly had the feeling that he knew where Hakan von Enke was. Sten Nordlander had shown him the direction he should be following.

  He couldn’t be sure, and he had no proof. Nevertheless, he knew.

  He thought about a book he’d seen in Signe von Enke’s bookcase, along with the books about Babar. The Sleeping Beauty. I’ve been lost in a deep sleep, Wallander thought. I should have realised long ago where he was. I’ve only just woken up.

  Jussi started barking. Wallander went out and gave him some food.

  The following day, early in the morning, he got into his car. The farmer’s wife looked surprised when he turned up with Jussi yet again.

  She asked how long he was going to be away. He told her the truth.

  He didn’t know. He had absolutely no idea.

  30

  The boat he hired was an open plastic craft, barely eighteen feet long, with an Evinrude outboard motor, seven horsepower. The proprietor had also lent him a sea chart. He had chosen that particular boat because it was not so big that it would be difficult to row, which he suspected he would need to do. When he signed the contract he produced his police ID. The man gave a start.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Wallander said. ‘But I need a spare can of diesel. I might be able to return the boat tomorrow, but then again, I might need it for a few more days. Anyway, you have my credit card number. You know you’ll be paid.’

  ‘A police officer,’ said the man. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, it’s just that I’m going to surprise a good friend on his fiftieth birthday.’

  Wallander hadn’t prepared his lie in advance. But he was used to inventing excuses, and they came automatically now.

  The boat was jammed between two big motor cruisers, one of them a Storo. There was no electric ignition, but it started the moment Wallander pulled the cord. The boat owner, who spoke with a Finnish accent, guaranteed that the engine was reliable.

  ‘I use it myself when I go fishing,’ he said. ‘The problem is, there are hardly any fish. But I go fishing even so.’

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Wallander had arrived at Valdemarsvik an hour earlier. He’d eaten at what appeared to be the only restaurant in the village, then found his way to the boat-hire establishment just a couple of hundred yards away, on one side of the long inlet known as Valdemarsviken. Wallander had packed a backpack containing, among other things, two torches and some food. He’d also taken warm clothes, despite the fact that it was a warm afternoon.

  On the way up to Ostergotland he had dr
iven through several downpours of rain. One of them, just outside Ronneby, was so heavy that he’d been forced to pull into a lay-by and wait until it passed. As he listened to the pattering on the car roof and watched the water cascading down his windscreen, he began to wonder if he really had judged the situation correctly. Had his instinct let him down, or - as it had so often before - would it turn out to be right after all?

  He stayed in the lay-by, lost in thought, for almost half an hour before the rain stopped. He set off again and eventually came to Valdemarsvik. It was clear now, and there was hardly any wind. The water in the inlet was ruffled only occasionally by a light breeze.

  There was a smell of mud. He remembered it from the last time he was here.

  Wallander started the outboard motor and set out. The man who had rented him the boat stood for some time, watching him, before returning to his office. Wallander decided to leave the long inlet before darkness fell. Then he would moor somewhere and enjoy the summer twilight. He had tried to work out the current phase of the moon, without success. He could have called Linda, but since he didn’t want to reveal where he was going or why he was making this trip, he didn’t. Once he had left the inlet he would call Martinsson instead. If he decided to call anyone, that is. The task he had set himself wasn’t dependent on whether the night was dark or moonlit, but he wanted to know exactly what was in store for him.

  When he glimpsed the open sea between the islands ahead of him, he let the engine turn over while he studied the sea chart in its plastic cover. Once he had established precisely where he was, he selected a place not too far from his final destination where he could moor and wait for dusk to fall. But it was already occupied by several boats. He continued and eventually found a small island, not much more than a rock with a few trees, where he could row to the beach, having first detached the outboard motor. He put on his jacket, leaned against one of the trees and took a drink of coffee from his Thermos. Then he called Martinsson. Once again it was a child who answered, possibly the same one as last time. Martinsson took the phone from her.

  ‘You’re a lucky man,’ he said. ‘My little granddaughter has become your secretary.’

  ‘The moon,’ said Wallander.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘You’re asking too quickly. I haven’t finished yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But I can’t take my eyes off the grandchildren; they need watching all the time.’

  ‘I understand that, and I wouldn’t disturb you unless it was necessary. Do you have a calendar? What phase is the moon in right now?’

  ‘The moon? Is that what you’re asking about? Are you out on some sort of astronomical adventure?’

  ‘I could be. But can you answer my question?’

  ‘Hang on a minute.’

  Martinsson put down the receiver. It was obvious from Wallander’s voice that he wasn’t going to get any sort of explanation.

  ‘It’s a new moon,’ he said when he returned to the phone. ‘A thin little crescent. Assuming you’re still in Sweden and not some other part of the world.’

  ‘I’m still in Sweden. Thank you for your help,’ said Wallander. ‘I’ll explain it all one of these days.’

  ‘I’m used to waiting.’

  ‘Waiting for what?’

  ‘For explanations. Including from my children when they don’t do as I tell them. But that was mainly when they were younger.’

  ‘Linda was just the same,’ said Wallander, in an attempt to appear interested. He thanked Martinsson again for his help regarding the moon, and hung up. He ate a couple of sandwiches, then lay down with a stone as a pillow.

  The pains came from nowhere. He was lying there, looking up at the sky and listening to seagulls screeching in the distance, when he felt a stab of pain in his left arm, which then spread to his chest and stomach. At first he thought he must be lying on a sharp edge of stone, but then he realised that the pains were coming from inside his body, and he suspected that what he had always dreaded had now come to pass. He’d had a heart attack.

  He lay completely motionless, stiff and terrified, and held his breath, afraid that if he tried to breathe he would use up the rest of his heart’s ability to beat.

  The memory of his mother’s death suddenly came vividly into his mind. It was as if her last moments were being played out by his side. She had been only fifty years old. His mother had never worked outside the home, but had always struggled to maintain her marriage to her temperamental husband, whose income could never be relied on, and look after their two children, Kurt and Kristina. They had been living in Limhamn at the time, sharing a house with a family that Wallander’s father couldn’t stand. The father was a train conductor who never hurt a fly, but once, in the friendliest possible way, he asked Wallander’s father if it might be relaxing to paint some other motif rather than the same old landscape over and over again. Wallander had overheard the conversation. The conductor, whose name was Nils Persson, had used his own working life as an example. After a long period driving back and forth between Malmo and Alvesta, he was very pleased when he was transferred to an express route that went to Gothenburg, and sometimes even as far as Oslo. Wallander’s father had naturally reacted furiously. After that it had been Wallander’s mother who tried to smooth things over and make living alongside the other family not completely intolerable.

  Her death had come suddenly one afternoon in the early autumn of 1962. She had been in their little garden, hanging up laundry. Wallander had just come home from school and was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a sandwich. He had looked out of the window and seen her hanging up sheets with some clothes pegs in her hand. He had returned to his sandwich. The next time he looked out, she was on her knees, clutching at her chest. At first he thought she had dropped something, but then he watched her fall over onto her side, slowly, as if she were trying hard not to. He ran outside, shouting her name, but she was beyond help. The doctor who performed the autopsy said she had suffered a massive heart attack. Even if she had been in a hospital when it happened, they wouldn’t have been able to save her.

  Now he could see her in his mind’s eye, a series of blurred, jerky images as he tried to keep his own pains at arm’s length. He didn’t want his life to end early like hers had, and least of all now, all alone on a little island in the Baltic Sea.

  He said silent, agitated prayers - not really to any god, but more to himself, urging himself to resist, not to allow himself to be dragged down into eternal silence. And he eventually realised that the pains were not getting any worse; his heart was still beating. He forced himself to remain calm, to act sensibly, not to sink into a desperate and blind panic. He sat up gingerly and felt for his mobile phone, which he had left next to his backpack. He started to dial Linda’s number but changed his mind. What would she be able to do? If he really had suffered a heart attack, he should be calling the emergency number.

  But something held him back. Perhaps it was the feeling that the pain was receding? He carefully moved his left arm and found a position in which the pain was less, as well as other positions where it was worse. That was not in accordance with the symptoms of a serious heart attack. He sat up slowly and took his pulse. It was seventy-four beats per minute. His normal rate was somewhere between sixty-six and seventy-eight. Everything was as it should be. It’s stress, he thought. My body is simulating something that can afflict me if I don’t take it easy.

  He lay down again. The pain faded away even more, even if it was still present, nagging away, a sort of background threat.

  An hour later he was convinced that he hadn’t in fact suffered a heart attack. It had been a warning. He thought, I should stop fooling myself that I’m an irreplaceable police officer and take a proper holiday. Perhaps he should go home, call Ytterberg and tell him what conclusions he had drawn. But he decided to stay on. He had come a long way, and he was keen to establish if his suspicions were justified or not. No matter what the outcome, he could then hand the matter over
to Ytterberg and not bother with it any more.

  He felt very relieved. It was a sort of positive affirmation of life that he hadn’t experienced for years. He had an urge to stand up and roar in the direction of the open sea. But he remained seated, leaning against the tree trunk, watching the boats passing and relishing the smell of the sea. It was still warm. He lay down with his jacket draped over him and fell asleep. He woke up after about ten minutes. The pains had almost gone altogether now. He stood up and started walking around the little island. On one side, facing south, the rock formed an almost vertical cliff. It was strenuous, skirting it at the very edge of the water.

  He suddenly stopped dead. There was a small, narrow creek about twenty yards ahead. A boat had anchored at its entrance, and a dinghy had been beached on the rocks. A couple was lying at the edge of the water, making love. He pressed himself against the cliff, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to watch. They were young - barely twenty years old, he guessed. He stared as if bewitched at their naked bodies before gathering the strength to drag himself away and retrace his steps as quietly as possible. A few hours later, as twilight was at last beginning to creep up on the island, he saw the motor cruiser with the dinghy bobbing along behind it sailing past. He stood up and waved. The couple on board waved back.

  In a way he was jealous of them. But his thoughts were far from gloomy. His own earliest erotic experiences had been just like most other people’s - uncertain, disappointing, bordering on the embarrassing. He had never really believed his friends’ descriptions of their escapades and conquests. It was only after he met Mona that sex had become a serious pleasure as far as he was concerned. During their early years together their sex life was beyond his wildest dreams. He had achieved considerable satisfaction with a handful of other women, but nothing like what he and Mona experienced at the beginning of their relationship. The big exception in his life was, of course, Baiba.