The Troubled Man (2011)

by Henning Mankell

  ‘Not always.’

  ‘I’m not going. I don’t want to.’

  ‘But I want you to. And I think Mum wants you to. You can’t just cut her out of your life.’

  Wallander said nothing. There was no point in protesting any more. If he didn’t do as Linda wished it would make both his and her existence impossible for a long time. He didn’t want that.

  ‘I don’t even know where the clinic is,’ he said in the end.

  ‘You’ll find out tomorrow. It’ll be a surprise.’

  An area of low pressure drifted in over Skane during the night. As they sat in the car driving east shortly after eight in the morning, it had started raining and a wind was blowing up. Wallander felt groggy. He had slept badly and was tired and irritable when Linda came to pick him up. She immediately sent him back indoors to change his old, worn-out trousers.

  ‘You don’t need to be in your best suit to visit her, but you can’t show up looking as scruffy as that.’

  They turned off onto the road leading to an old castle, Glimmingehus. Linda looked at him.

  ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Of course I remember.’

  ‘We have plenty of time. We can stop and take a look.’

  Linda drove into the car park outside the high castle walls. They left the car and walked over the drawbridge into the castle yard.

  ‘This is among my earliest memories,’ said Linda. ‘When you and I came here. And you scared me to death with all your ghost stories. How old was I then?’

  ‘The first time we came I suppose you must have been four or thereabouts. But that’s not when I told you the ghost stories. I did that when you were seven, I think. Maybe it was the summer when you were about to start school.’

  ‘I remember being so proud of you,’ said Linda. ‘My big, imposing dad. I like to think back on moments like that, when I felt so safe and secure, and so happy to be alive.’

  ‘I have similar memories,’ said Wallander genuinely. ‘They were the best years of my life, when you were a little girl.’

  ‘Where does the time go?’ Linda wondered. ‘Do you think like that too? Now that you’re sixty?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A few years ago I noticed that I’ve started reading the obituaries in Ystads Allehanda. If I came across another daily newspaper, I’d read them there as well. I wondered more and more about what had become of my old school friends from Limhamn. How had their lives turned out, compared to mine? I started looking into that, half-heartedly.’

  They sat down on the stone steps leading into the castle itself.

  ‘Those of us who started school in 1955 really have lived all kinds of different lives. I think I know what happened to most of my friends now. Things didn’t go well for a lot of them. Several are dead; one shot himself after emigrating to Canada. A few were successful, such as Solve Hagberg, who won Double or Quits. Most of them have led quiet lives. Good for them. And this is how my life has turned out. When you reach sixty, most of your life is behind you. You just have to accept that, hard though it is. There are very few important decisions still to be made.’

  ‘Do you feel like your life is coming to a close?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘What do you think at times like that?’

  He hesitated before replying, then gave her an honest answer.

  ‘I mourn the fact that Baiba is dead. That we never managed to get together.’

  ‘There are other women,’ said Linda. ‘You don’t have to be on your own.’

  Wallander stood up.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There aren’t any others. Baiba was irreplaceable.’

  They went back to the car and drove the remaining couple of miles to the clinic. It was in a mansion with four wings, and the old inner courtyard had been preserved. Mona was sitting on a bench smoking as they approached her over the cobblestones.

  ‘Has she started smoking?’ Wallander asked. ‘She never used to.’

  ‘She says she smokes to console herself. And that she’ll stop once this is over.’

  ‘When will it be over?’

  ‘She’ll be here for another month.’

  ‘And Hans is paying for it all?’

  She didn’t reply to that question because the answer was obvious. Mona stood up as they approached. Wallander noticed with distaste the pale grey colour of her face, and the heavy bags under her eyes. He thought she was ugly, something that had never struck him before.

  ‘It was nice of you to come,’ she said, taking his hand.

  ‘I wanted to see how you were,’ he mumbled.

  They all sat down on the bench, with Mona in the middle. Wallander immediately felt the urge to leave. The fact that Mona was struggling with withdrawal symptoms and anxiety was not sufficient reason for him to be there. Why did Linda want him to see Mona in such a state? Was it an attempt to make him acknowledge his share of the guilt? What was he guilty of? He could feel himself growing increasingly irritated while Linda and Mona talked to each other. Then Mona asked if they wanted to see her room. Wallander declined, but Linda went into the house with her.

  Wallander wandered around the grounds while he was waiting. His mobile phone rang in his jacket pocket. It was Ytterberg.

  ‘Are you on duty?’ he asked. ‘Or are you still on holiday?’

  ‘I’m still on holiday,’ said Wallander. ‘At least, that’s what I try to convince myself.’

  ‘I’m in my office. I have in front of me a report from our secret service people in the armed forces. Do you want to know what they have to say?’

  ‘We might be interrupted.’

  ‘I think a few minutes will be enough. It’s an extremely thin report. Which means that most of it isn’t considered suitable for me or other ordinary police officers to see. “Parts of the report are classified as secret,” it says. Which no doubt means that nearly all of it is classified. They’ve tossed us a few grains of sand. If there are any pearls, they’re keeping them for themselves.’

  Ytterberg was suddenly struck by a fit of sneezing.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m allergic. They use some kind of cleaning substance in the police station that I can’t tolerate. I think I’ll start scrubbing my office myself.’

  ‘That sounds like a good idea,’ said Wallander impatiently.

  ‘I’ll read you a section of the report: “The material, including microfilm and photographic negatives, and some encrypted text, found in Louise von Enke’s handbag contains military material classified as secret. Most of it is particularly sensitive, and was classified as secret precisely so as to avoid it coming into the wrong hands.” End of quote. In other words, there’s no doubt about it.’

  ‘That the material is genuine, you mean?’

  ‘Exactly. And it also says in the report that similar material has come into Russian hands in the past, as they have used Swedish elimination processes to establish that the Russians are in possession of knowledge they should not have had access to. Do you understand what they mean? Much of the report is written in opaque military jargon.’

  ‘That’s the way our own secret colleagues tend to write - why should the military types be any different? But I think I understand.’

  ‘It’s not possible to avoid the conclusion that Louise von Enke had been sticking her fingers into the military honeypot. She sold intelligence material. God only knows how she came by it.’

  ‘There are still a lot of unanswered questions,’ Wallander said. ‘What happened out there at Varmdo? Why was she murdered? Who was she supposed to meet? Why didn’t that person or those persons take the set of documents she had in her bag?’

  ‘Perhaps they didn’t know it was there?’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t actually have it with her,’ said Wallander.

  ‘We’re looking into that possibility. That it might have been planted.’

  ‘As far as I can see, that’s not impossible.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘To make sure she’d
be suspected of spying.’

  ‘But she is a spy, isn’t she?’

  ‘It feels like we’re in a labyrinth,’ said Wallander. ‘I can’t find my way out. But let me think about what you’ve told me. How high a priority are you giving this murder just now?’

  ‘Very high. The rumour is that it will feature in some television show about current criminal investigations. The bosses are always nervous when the media turn up with microphones.’

  ‘Send them to me,’ said Wallander. ‘I’m not afraid.’

  ‘Who’s afraid? I’m just worried I’ll turn nasty if they ask me silly questions.’

  Wallander sat down on the bench again and thought about what Ytterberg had said. He tried to find things that didn’t add up, without succeeding. He was finding it hard to concentrate.

  Mona’s eyes seemed glazed over when she and Linda returned. Wallander realised that she’d been crying. He didn’t want to know what they had been talking about, but he did feel sorry for Mona. He would like to ask her his question as well: How did your life turn out? She was standing in front of him, grey and dejected, shaking, oppressed by forces stronger than she was.

  ‘It’s time for my treatment,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming. What I’m going through isn’t easy.’

  ‘What does your treatment entail?’ Wallander asked in a brave attempt to appear interested.

  ‘Right now I’m meeting a doctor. His name is Torsten Rosen. He’s had alcohol problems himself. I have to hurry or I’ll be late.’

  They said their goodbyes in the courtyard. Linda and Wallander drove home in silence. He thought she was no doubt more troubled than he was. Her relationship with her mother had grown stronger once the stormy teenage years were past.

  ‘I’m glad you came with me,’ Linda said when she dropped him off.

  ‘You didn’t give me much choice,’ he said. ‘But of course, it was important for me to see how she’s doing, what she’s going through. The question is, will she get better?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can only hope so.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wallander. ‘There’s only one possibility left: to hope.’

  He thrust his hand in through the open window and stroked her hair. She turned the car round and drove off. Wallander watched the car disappearing.

  He felt heavy-hearted. He let Jussi out of his kennel and tickled him behind his ears before unlocking the front door. He noticed right away that somebody had been in the house. One of the traps he had set had produced a result. On the windowsill next to the front door he had placed a candlestick directly in front of the window’s handle. Now it was standing closer to the pane, to the left of the handle. He paused and held his breath. Could he be mistaken? No, he was quite sure. When he examined the window more closely, he saw that it had been opened from the outside with a narrow, sharp instrument, probably something similar to the tool used by car thieves to open door locks.

  He lifted up the candlestick and examined it carefully: it was made of wood, with a copper ring where the candle was inserted. He put it down again just as carefully, then worked his way slowly through the house. He found no other traces of a break-in. They are careful, he thought. Careful and skilful. The candlestick was an uncharacteristic slip.

  He sat down at the kitchen table, contemplating the candlestick. There was only one explanation for unknown people breaking into his house.

  Somebody was convinced that he knew something he didn’t know he knew. Something based on his notes, or even some object in his possession.

  He sat motionless on his chair. I’m getting closer, he thought. Or somebody is getting closer to me.

  38

  The next morning he was hustled out of his sleep by dreams that he couldn’t remember. The candlestick on the windowsill reminded him that somebody had been close to where he was now. He went out into the garden naked, first to pee, and then to let Jussi out of his kennel. An early autumn mist was drifting in over the fields. He shuddered and hurried back indoors. He dressed, made coffee, then sat down at the kitchen table, determined yet again to try to clarify what had happened to Louise von Enke. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to establish anything but a highly provisional explanation. But he needed to go through everything once more, very carefully, mainly in the hope of finding a reason for the nagging feeling that there was something he’d overlooked. The feeling was even stronger now that, yet again, somebody had been rummaging around in his house. In brief, he had no intention of washing his hands of it all.

  But he found it hard to concentrate. After a few hours he gave up, gathered his papers and went to the police station. Once again he chose to enter via the basement garage, and he came to his office without bumping into anybody. After half an hour spent hunched over his papers, he checked that the hallway was empty and went to the coffee machine. He had just filled his mug when Lennart Mattson appeared. Wallander hadn’t seen his boss for a while, and he hadn’t missed him. Mattson was tanned and had lost weight, something that immediately made Wallander jealous and annoyed.

  ‘Here already?’ Mattson asked. ‘Can’t keep away, huh? Can’t wait to get back to work? That’s how it should be, you can’t be a good police officer if you’re not passionate about your work. But I thought you weren’t due back until Monday.’

  ‘I was just on my way home,’ said Wallander. ‘I needed to get some papers from my office.’

  ‘Do you have a moment? I have some good news that I’d like to share with somebody.’

  ‘I have all the time in the world,’ said Wallander, making no attempt to conceal the irony that he knew would pass over Mattson’s head.

  They went to the chief of police’s office. Wallander sat down on one of the guest chairs. Mattson opened a folder lying on his neat and tidy desk.

  ‘Good news, as I said. Here in Skane we have one of the best closure rates in the country. We solve more crimes than almost everybody else. We’ve also improved the most from the previous year. That’s just what we need to inspire us to even greater things.’

  Wallander listened to what his boss had to say. There was no reason to doubt the report. But Wallander knew that interpreting statistics was like pulling rabbits out of a hat. You could always present a statistic as fact even if it was an illusion. Wallander and his colleagues were painfully aware that the closure rate in Sweden was among the lowest in the world. And none of them believed they’d hit rock bottom yet. Things would continue to get worse. Constant bureaucratic upheavals meant an equally constant increase in the negative flow of unsolved crimes. Competent police officers were fired, or diverted into other duties until they were no longer able to make a meaningful contribution. It was more important to check boxes and meet targets than to really get down to investigating crimes and taking crooks to court. Moreover, Wallander and most of his colleagues thought that the priorities were all wrong. The day that police chiefs decreed ‘minor crimes’ must be tolerated, the rug had been pulled out from under the remains of a trusting relationship between the police and the general public. The man in the street was not prepared to shrug his shoulders and merely accept that somebody had broken into his car or his garage or his summer cottage. He wanted these crimes to be solved, or at least investigated.

  But that wasn’t something Wallander felt like discussing with Lennart Mattson right now. There would be plenty of opportunities for that during the autumn.

  Mattson slid the report to one side and looked at his visitor with a troubled expression on his face. Wallander could see that he had sweat on his brow.

  ‘How are you feeling? You look pale. Why haven’t you been getting some sun?’

  ‘What sun?’

  ‘The summer hasn’t been all that bad. I made a trip to Crete, so we’d be sure to have some decent weather. Have you ever visited the palace at Knossos? There are fantastic dolphins on the walls there.’

  Wallander stood up.

  ‘I feel fine,’ he said. ‘But since it’s sunny today, I’ll take your advice
and make the most of it.’

  ‘No forgotten guns anywhere, I hope?’

  Wallander stared at Lennart Mattson. He came very close to punching him in the nose.

  *

  Wallander returned to his office, sat down on his chair, put his feet on his desk and closed his eyes. He thought about Baiba. And Mona shivering away in her rehabilitation clinic. While his boss gloated over a statistic that was no doubt economical with the truth.

  He took down his feet. I’ll make another attempt, he thought. Another attempt to understand why I’m always doubtful about the conclusions I reach. I wish I had more insight into political goings-on; then I would probably be less confused than I am now.

  He suddenly recalled something he’d never thought about as an adult. It must have been 1962 or 1963, sometime in the autumn. Wallander had a Saturday job as an errand boy for a flower shop in central Malmo. He had been instructed to deliver a bouquet of flowers as quickly as possible to the People’s Park. The prime minister, Tage Erlander, was giving a lecture, and when he had finished a little girl was supposed to hand him the flowers. The problem was that somebody in the local Social Democratic Party office had forgotten to order the flowers. So now there was an emergency. Wallander pedalled away for all he was worth. The flower shop had warned the People’s Park officials that he was on his way, and he was allowed in without delay. The little girl designated to present the flowers received them in time and Wallander received a tip of no less than five kronor. He was offered a glass of soda, and stood with a straw in his mouth, listening to the tall man at the lectern speaking in his strange nasal voice. He used a lot of big words - or at least words that Wallander was unfamiliar with. He spoke about detente, the rights of small countries, the neutrality of Sweden, with its freedom from all kinds of pacts and treaties. Wallander thought he’d understood that, at least, from what the great man had said.

  When Wallander came home that evening he went to the room his father used as a studio. He could still remember even now that his father was busy painting in the forest background he used in all his pictures. When he was a teenager Wallander had a good relationship with his father - that might have been the best time in their shared existence. It would be another three, perhaps four years before Wallander came home and announced that he was going to become a police officer. His father had gone through the roof and come close to throwing him out - in any case, he refused to talk to him for quite some time.