The Dogs of Riga: A Kurt Wallendar Mystery

by Henning Mankell

  “Björk.”

  “Wallander here. I’m with Martinsson and Svedberg. We wonder if you’ve had any more instructions from the foreign ministry.”

  “Not yet. I expect they’ll be in touch soon.”

  “I’m going to Malmö later this morning.”

  “Go. I’ll let you know when the call comes. Have you been pestered by any journalists, by the way?”

  “No, why?”

  “I was woken up at 5 a.m. by the Express. The telephone hasn’t stopped ringing since then. I have to admit I’m a bit worried.”

  “It’s not worth getting upset about. They’ll write whatever they want, no matter what happens.”

  “That’s precisely why I’m worried. It will make a mess of the investigation if all kinds of rumors start appearing in the press.”

  “If we’re lucky, that will encourage someone who has useful information or has seen something to get in touch with us.”

  “I very much doubt that. And I don’t like being woken up at 5 a.m. Who knows what one might say when one’s half asleep?”

  Wallander hung up.

  “Let’s keep calm,” he said. “Continue with your own investigation for the moment. There’s something I have to sort out in Malmö. Let’s meet again in my office after lunch.”

  Svedberg and Martinsson left. Wallander felt vaguely uneasy at having given them the impression that he was going to Malmö on work business. He knew that police officers, just like everyone else, spent some of their working time on private matters when they had the opportunity, but he still felt uncomfortable about it. I’m old-fashioned, he thought. Even though I’m just over 40.

  He told reception that he was going out and could be contacted after lunch. Then he drove down out through Sandskogen and turned off towards Kåseberga. The drizzle had stopped, but a stiff wind was starting up.

  He stopped in Kåseberga to fill up his gas tank. As he was early, he drove down to the harbor, where he parked the car and got out to brave the wind. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The kiosk and smokehouses were all boarded up. We live in strange times, he thought. Parts of this country are open only in the summer. Whole villages hang up “closed” signs for most of the year.

  He walked out to the stone jetty, in spite of the cold. There wasn’t a ship in sight. His mind turned to the men in the life raft. Who were they? Why had they been tortured and murdered? Who had put their jackets back on?

  He checked his watch, then returned to the car and drove straight out to his father’s house, which looked as though it had been flung down in a field just south of Löderup. As usual, his father was painting out in the shed. Wallander was hit by the pungent smell of turpentine and oil paint. It was like returning to his childhood. One of Wallander’s earliest memories was the remarkable smell that surrounded his father as he stood at his easel. Nothing had changed over the years. His father always painted the same picture, a melancholy sunset. Now and then, if whoever commissioned the painting wanted one, he would add a grouse in the foreground.

  Wallander’s father was a drawing-room artist. He’d honed his skill to such a level of perfection that he needed never to change his motif. It was only when he’d reached adulthood that Wallander realized that this had nothing to do with laziness or a lack of ability, but that this continuity gave his father the sense of security he needed in order to live his life.

  The old man put down his brush and wiped his hands on a dirty rag. He was dressed as he always was, in overalls and cut-off gum boots.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “Aren’t you going to get changed?” Wallander asked.

  His father looked at him in bewilderment.

  “Why should I get changed? Do you have to wear a suit in order to go shopping nowadays?”

  Wallander could see that there was no point arguing. His father’s obstinacy was inexhaustible. And the old man might get angry, making the trip to Malmö intolerable.

  “Do as you like,” he shrugged.

  “Yes,” his father answered. “I’ll do as I like.”

  They drove to Malmö. His father gazed out at the scenery.

  “It’s ugly,” he said suddenly.

  “What is?”

  “Skåne is ugly in the winter. Gray mud, gray trees, gray sky. Grayest of all are the people.”

  “You might be right.”

  “Of course I’m right. No question. Skåne is ugly in the winter.”

  The art shop was in the center of town, and Wallander was lucky enough to find a parking space right outside. His father knew exactly what he wanted: canvases, paint, brushes, some palette knives. When it came to paying, he produced a crumpled wad of bills from one of his pockets. Wallander kept in the background and wasn’t even allowed to help his father carry his purchases out to the car.

  “That’s that,” his father said. “We can go home now.”

  It occurred to Wallander that they might stop somewhere and have a meal. To his astonishment, his father found that a splendid idea. They stopped at the Svedala motel and went into the cafeteria.

  “Tell the head waiter we want a good table,” his father told him.

  “This is a self-service cafeteria,” Wallander said. “I rather doubt if there’s a head waiter here.”

  “In that case we’ll go somewhere else,” his father said abruptly. “If we’re going to eat out, I want my meal served to me.”

  Wallander eyed his father’s filthy overalls uneasily, but then remembered a rather seedy pizzeria in Skurup, and they drove there and ordered the lunch of the day, poached cod. Wallander watched the old man as they ate, and it occurred to him that he would probably never get to know his father before it was too late. In the past he’d thought of them as quite different people, but now he wasn’t so sure. His wife, Mona, who’d left him the previous year, had often accused him of the same obstinacy, the same pedantic self-absorption. Perhaps I just don’t want to recognize the similarities, he thought. Maybe I’m frightened of getting like him. Pig-headed, incapable of seeing anything he doesn’t want to see.

  At the same time he could see that being pig-headed was an advantage for a police officer. If he hadn’t been what some outsiders would no doubt have categorized as overly stubborn, a great many cases that he’d been responsible for wouldn’t have been solved. Obstinacy wasn’t so much an occupational disease; rather it was an essential requirement.

  “Have you been struck dumb?” His father interrupted his train of thought crossly.

  “Sorry. I was thinking.”

  “I don’t want to go out for a meal with you if you haven’t got anything to say.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “You can tell me how you’re doing. How your daughter’s doing. You can even tell me if you’ve found yourself a new woman.”

  “A new woman?”

  “Are you still sulking about Mona?”

  “No, I’m not sulking, but no, I haven’t found a new woman, as you put it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not all that easy.”

  “What do you do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is that really such a difficult question? I’m simply asking how you go about finding yourself a new woman.”

  “I don’t go dancing, if that’s what you think.”

  “I don’t think anything. I just wonder. You get odder and odder as the years go by.”

  “Odder?”

  “You should have done like I said. You should never have gone in for the police.”

  So, we’re back where we started are we? Wallander thought. Plus ça change. . . . The smell of turpentine. A freezing cold spring day in 1967. They were still living in the converted smithy outside Limhalm, but soon he would escape. He’s been expecting the letter; he runs out to the mailbox as soon as he sees the mailman’s van; tears open the envelope and reads what he’s been waiting for. He has been accepted by the police academy and will enroll in the autumn. He races back,
throws open the door to the cramped studio where his father is painting.

  “I’ve been accepted by the police academy!” he cries. But his father doesn’t congratulate him. He doesn’t even put down his brush, just carries on painting. Wallander can still remember that he was busy tinting the clouds red from the setting sun, and how it dawned on him that he was a disappointment as a son. He was going to become a police officer.

  The waiter came with their coffee.

  “I’ve never understood why you didn’t want me to become a police officer,” Wallander said.

  “You did what you wanted to do.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  “I never thought a son of mine would sit down at the dinner table with maggots from dead bodies crawling out of his shirtsleeves.”

  Wallander was stunned by the reply. Maggots from dead bodies crawling out of his shirtsleeves?

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  But his father didn’t respond. He just drank up the last drop of the tepid coffee.

  “I’ve finished,” he said. “We can go now.”

  Wallander asked for the bill, and paid. I’ll never get an answer, he thought. I’ll never know why he was so against my joining the police.

  They drove back to Löderup. The wind was kicking up. His father took the canvases and paints into his studio.

  “When are we going to have a game of cards?” he asked.

  “I’ll come by in a few days,” Wallander replied.

  He drove back to Ystad. He couldn’t make up his mind whether he was angry or shocked. Maggots from dead bodies crawling out of his shirtsleeves? What on earth did he mean?

  It was 12:45 p.m. when he returned to his office. By then he had decided to demand a proper answer from his father the next time he saw him. He resolved to put the conversation out of his mind in the meantime, forcing himself to be a police officer again. The first thing he had to do was to contact Björk, but before he got around to dialling his number, the phone rang. He picked up the receiver.

  “Wallander.”

  There was a scratching and scraping noise. He repeated his name.

  “Are you the one who’s dealing with that life raft?”

  Wallander didn’t recognize the voice. It was a man speaking quickly and under pressure.

  “Who am I speaking to?”

  “That’s irrelevant. This is about that life raft.”

  Wallander reached for his notebook.

  “Did you phone us the other day?”

  “Phone you?” The man seemed genuinely surprised.

  “It wasn’t you who phoned and warned us that a life raft would be washed ashore somewhere not far from Ystad?”

  There was a long silence. Wallander waited.

  “Forget it,” the man said, and hung up.

  Wallander wrote down details of the conversation. He knew that he had made a mistake. The man had called because he wanted to talk about the bodies in the life raft, but when he heard there had already been a call, he was surprised, perhaps frightened, and decided to hang up. It was obviously not the same man Martinsson had spoken to. So there was more than one person with information. Martinsson was right: whoever had seen something must have been onboard a ship. They must have been crew, since nobody went out alone in a boat during the winter. But which ship? It could have been a ferry, or a fishing boat, or perhaps a freighter or one of the oil tankers that were forever traversing the Baltic.

  Martinsson appeared in the doorway.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  Wallander decided not to mention the phone call just yet. He’d tell his colleagues when he’d had time to think the whole thing through.

  “I haven’t spoken to Björk,” was all he said. “We can meet in half an hour.”

  Martinsson disappeared, and he rang Björk’s number.

  “Björk.”

  “Wallander. How’s it going?”

  “Come by and I’ll fill you in.”

  Wallander was surprised by what Björk had to say.

  “We’re going to have a visitor,” Björk told him. “The foreign ministry is going to send us someone who will assist us in our investigation.”

  “Someone from the foreign ministry? What will they know about a murder investigation?”

  “I have no idea, but he’ll be arriving this afternoon. I thought it would be good if you picked him up. His flight is due at Sturup at 5:20.”

  “For God’s sake!” Wallander said. “Is he coming to help us, or to keep an eye on us?”

  “I have no idea,” Björk said again. “Besides, that’s just the beginning. Guess who else has been in touch.”

  “The national police commissioner?”

  Björk gave a start. “How did you know that?”

  “My guesses are sometimes right. What does he want?”

  “To be kept informed. And to send us a couple of officers, one from serious crime and one from narcotics.”

  “Do they need to be met at the airport too?”

  “No. They can look after themselves.”

  Wallander thought for a moment.

  “This seems odd,” he said. “Not least the official from the foreign ministry. Why is he coming? Have they been in touch with the Soviet police? And the Eastern bloc?”

  “Everything is according to the book, or so the foreign ministry people tell me—whatever that means.” Björk flung out his arms. “I’ve been chief of police long enough to know how things are done in this country. Sometimes I’m the one who’s kept in the dark. Other times it’s the minister of justice. Mostly, though, it’s the Swedish people who aren’t told what’s really going on.”

  Wallander was well aware of the many scandals involving justice in recent years, which had exposed the network of tunnels linking the basements of state organizations. Tunnels linking ministries and institutions. What had been thought to be mere suspicions, or accusations dismissed as the fantasies of the lunatic fringe, had now been confirmed. A large proportion of the real power was practiced in dimly lit secret corridors, far beyond the control regarded as essential in a state governed by the rule of law.

  There was a knock on the door, and Björk shouted “Come in!” It was Svedberg, with an evening paper in his hand.

  “I thought you might like to see this,” he said.

  Wallander gave a start when he saw the front page. Bold headlines announced the sensational discovery of bodies on the Scanian coast. Björk jumped up from his chair and grabbed the newspaper, and they all read it over each other’s shoulders. To his surprise, Wallander recognized his own anxious face in a blurred photograph. It must have been taken at the time of the Lenarp murder, he thought quickly.

  “The investigation is being led by criminal inspector Knut Wallman.”

  Björk flung the paper down. He had the red patch on his brow that foreshadowed a furious outburst. Svedberg sidled towards the door.

  “It’s all there,” Björk snarled. “Just as if it had been written by you, Wallander, or you, Svedberg. The paper knows the foreign ministry is involved, and that the national police commissioner is keeping an eye on developments. They even say that the life raft was made in Yugoslavia, which is more than anyone has told me. Is this true?”

  “It’s true,” Wallander said. “Martinsson told me this morning.”

  “This morning? For Christ’s sake! When is this damned paper printed?”

  Björk was pacing up and down. Wallander and Svedberg looked at each other. When Björk lost his temper he could go on and on forever.

  Björk grabbed hold of the newspaper again and read aloud, “‘Soviet death patrols. The new Europe has exposed Sweden to crime with a political slant.’ What do they mean by that? Can anybody explain? Wallander?”

  “I have no idea. I figure the best policy is to take no notice of what they say in the press.”

  “How can anybody take no notice? We’ll be besieged by the media after this.”

  As if he had just uttere
d a prophecy, the phone rang. It was a Daily News reporter asking for a comment. Björk put his hand over the receiver.

  “We’d better call another press conference. Or shall we issue a statement? What’s best? What do you think?”

  “Both,” Wallander answered. “But wait until tomorrow for the press conference. That man from the foreign ministry might have something to say.”

  Björk informed the journalist and hung up without answering any questions. Svedberg left the room while Björk and Wallander put together a short press release. When Wallander stood up to go, Björk asked him to stay.

  “We’ll have to do something about these leaks,” he said. “I’ve obviously been far too naïve. I remember you complaining about it last year, when you were busy with that murder in Lenarp, but I dismissed it as an overreaction. What can I do about it now?”

  “I wonder whether it’s possible to do anything,” Wallander said. “That’s a lesson I learned last year. I think we’re just going to have to put up with this sort of thing from now on.”

  “You know, it’ll be a great relief to retire,” Björk said after a moment’s thought. “I sometimes get the feeling the world is leaving me behind.”

  “We all feel like that,” Wallander said. “I’ll go and get that man from the foreign ministry. What’s his name?”

  “Törn.”

  “First name?”

  “Nobody mentioned one.”

  Wallander found Martinsson and Svedberg waiting for him in his office. Svedberg was describing Björk’s outburst. Wallander decided to keep the meeting brief. He told them about the telephone call and his conclusion that more than one person had seen the life raft.

  “Was he a local?” Martinsson asked.

  Wallander nodded.

  “We ought to be able to trace them in that case,” Martinsson said. “We can eliminate oil tankers and freighters. What does that leave?”

  “Fishing boats,” Wallander said. “How many fishing boats are working off the south coast of Skåne?”

  “A lot,” Martinsson said. “Of course, it’s February and quite a few will be docked in the harbor. Tracking them down will be a lot of work, but I think it can be done.”

  “We can decide on that tomorrow,” Wallander said. “Things may have changed altogether by then.”