The Dogs of Riga: A Kurt Wallendar Mystery

by Henning Mankell

  Wallander waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. Putnis strode over to a man in faded blue overalls and a fur hat leaning against a wall. The man stood to attention when Putnis addressed him, and disappeared through one of the doors leading out into the airport.

  “It’s taking an awfully long time,” Putnis said with a smile. “Do you have the same problem in Sweden?”

  “Sometimes,” Wallander said. “Yes, occasionally we do have to wait.”

  Colonel Putnis was the polar opposite of Major Liepa. He was very tall, decisive and energetic in his movements, and his direct gaze seemed to go straight through Wallander. He was clean-cut, with gray eyes that appeared to take in everything that was going on around him. He reminded Wallander of an animal—a lynx, perhaps, or a leopard, in a gray-blue uniform. He tried to guess his age: 50 perhaps? Possibly older.

  A luggage trailer came clattering up, pulled by a tractor belching exhaust fumes. Wallander recognized his suitcase immediately and failed to prevent Colonel Putnis from carrying it for him. A black Volga police car was waiting for them alongside the taxi ramp, and a chauffeur saluted as he opened the door. Wallander was astonished, but managed a hesitant salute in return. Pity Björk couldn’t have seen that, he thought. I wonder what Major Liepa made of the police officers in jeans, none of whom saluted him, when he landed in the insignificant little Swedish town of Ystad.

  “We’ve booked you into the Latvia Hotel,” Colonel Putnis said as they drove away from the airport. “It’s the best hotel in town. It has more than 25 floors.”

  “I have no doubt it’s excellent,” Wallander said. “I’d like to pass on greetings and sympathy from my colleagues in Ystad. Major Liepa was only with us for a few days, but he was very well liked.”

  “Thank you,” Colonel Putnis said. “The major’s death is a great loss for all of us.”

  Why doesn’t he say more, Wallander wondered. Why doesn’t he describe what happened? Why was the major murdered? By whom? How? Why have they asked me to come here? Is there some suspicion that the major’s death might be connected with his visit to Sweden?

  He looked out over the countryside: deserted fields with irregular patches of snow; here and there an isolated gray dwelling surrounded by an unpainted fence; here and there a pig rooting in a dunghill. He had the impression of endless misery, making him think of the trip he’d recently made to Malmö with his father. Skåne might look inhospitable in winter, but what he was seeing here suggested a desolation that was beyond anything he’d ever imagined.

  As he contemplated the countryside, Wallander was overcome by sadness. It was as if the country’s painful history had covered the fields in gray paint. He felt an impulse to act: he hadn’t come to Riga just to be depressed by a grim winter landscape.

  “I’d like to see a report as soon as possible,” he said. “What actually happened? All I know is that Major Liepa was murdered the day he got back to Riga.”

  “Once you’ve settled into your room I’ll come and collect you,” Colonel Putnis said. “We’ve planned a meeting for this evening.”

  “All I need to do is to dump my suitcase,” Wallander said. “I’ll only need a couple of minutes.”

  “The meeting is arranged for 7:30 p.m.,” Colonel Putnis said. It was clear to Wallander that his eagerness would make no difference. The plan had already been decided on.

  It was starting to get dark as they drove through Riga’s suburbs towards the center of town. Wallander took in the dreary housing estates stretching away on both sides of the road. He couldn’t make up his mind how he felt about what might lie in store for him.

  The hotel was in the city center, at the end of a wide esplanade. Wallander caught sight of a statue and realized it must be of Lenin. The Latvia Hotel stuck up into the night sky like a dark-blue column. Colonel Putnis led him through a deserted foyer to reception. Wallander felt as though he was on the ground floor of a multi-storied car park that had been turned into a hotel entrance hall as an emergency measure. A row of elevators lined one of the narrow walls, and overhead were staircases leading in all directions.

  To his astonishment he found he didn’t need to register. Colonel Putnis collected his room key from the female receptionist, then escorted him into one of the cramped elevators and up to the 15th floor. Wallander’s room was number 1506, with a view over the city’s rooftops. He wondered if he’d be able to see the Gulf of Riga in daylight.

  Colonel Putnis left after establishing that Wallander was satisfied with the room, and telling him he would collect him in two hours’ time and take him to the meeting at police headquarters.

  Wallander stood at the window gazing out over the rooftops. A truck clattered past in the street below. Cold air was seeping in through the drafty windows, and when he felt the radiator he found that it was barely lukewarm. Somewhere in the background a telephone rang unanswered.

  Long johns, he thought. That’s the first thing I’ll buy tomorrow morning.

  He unpacked his case and placed his toiletries in the spacious bathroom. He’d bought a bottle of whisky at the airport and, after a few moments’ hesitation, poured a good measure into his toothbrush mug. There was a Russian-made radio on the bedside table, and he switched it on. A man was speaking very quickly, sounding excited, as if he were commenting on some sports event in which the action was very fast and unpredictable. He turned down the bedcover and lay down on the bed.

  Well, here I am in Riga, he thought. I still have no idea what happened to Major Liepa. All I know is that he’s dead. Most importantly of all, I don’t know what this Colonel Putnis expects me to be able to do.

  It was too cold to lie on the bed, so he decided to go down to reception and change some money. Perhaps the hotel would have a café where he could get a cup of coffee.

  When he got to reception he was surprised to see the two Danish businessmen he’d been annoyed by at the airport. The older one was standing at the desk waving a map angrily. It looked as though he was trying to show the girl how to make a paper kite or perhaps a glider, and Wallander couldn’t stop himself from laughing. He saw a sign announcing that he was welcome to change some money. An elderly lady nodded at him in a friendly way as he handed over two hundred-krona bills, and received an enormous pile of Latvian bills in return. When he got back to reception the two Danes had left. He asked the receptionist where he could get a cup of coffee, and was pointed in the direction of the big dining room where a waiter escorted him to a table by a window and gave him a menu. He decided on an omelette and a cup of coffee. Clanking streetcars and people dressed in fur coats flitted past the high window, and the heavy curtains swayed in the draft from the ill-fitting frames.

  He looked around the deserted dining room. At one table an elderly couple were having dinner in total silence; at another a man in a gray suit was drinking tea by himself. That was all.

  Wallander thought back to the previous evening when he’d arrived in Stockholm on an afternoon flight from Sturup. His daughter Linda was waiting for him when the airport bus pulled up at Central Station, and they walked to the Central Hotel nearby. She was staying in Bromma, close to the college, so he’d booked her a room in his hotel. That evening he’d taken her to dinner at a restaurant in the Old Town. It was a long time since they’d seen each other, and the conversation seemed to him stilted, with lots of changes of subject. Again, he wondered if what Linda had put in her letters was the truth. She’d written that she was enjoying college life, but when he asked her about it her replies were very terse. He couldn’t hide his irritation when he asked if she had any plans for the future, and she replied that she had no idea what she was going to do.

  “Isn’t it about time you had?” he asked.

  “What’s that got to do with you?” she said.

  Then they’d argued, without raising their voices. He insisted that she couldn’t just carry on vaguely wandering from one educational establishment to another, and she’d said she was old enough to do whatever she
liked.

  It had dawned on him that Linda was very much like her father. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he had the feeling he could hear his own voice as he listened to her. History was repeating itself: he recognized his own complicated relationship with his father echoed in his conversation with his daughter.

  The meal dragged on and they drank their wine; gradually the tension and the friction faded away. Wallander told her about the journey he was about to make, and for a brief moment toyed with the idea of inviting her to come with him. Time started to race by, and it was after midnight when he paid the bill. It was cold outside, but they walked back to the hotel even so, then sat talking in his room until after 3 a.m. When she finally went to bed, Wallander felt that it had been a successful evening despite the awkward start, but he couldn’t quite shake off the nagging worry caused by not being clear about the way his daughter was leading her life.

  When he checked out in the morning, Linda was still asleep. He paid for her room and left her a note that the receptionist promised to pass on.

  He was roused from his reveries by the departure of the silent elderly couple. There were no new diners, and the only other person in the room was the man drinking tea. He glanced at his watch: nearly an hour to go before Colonel Putnis was due to pick him up.

  He paid his bill, did some rapid sums in his head and registered that the meal had been extremely cheap. When he got back to his room he went through the papers he had brought with him. He was slowly beginning to get back into the case—the case he had thought he’d consigned to the oblivion of the archives. He could even smell the acrid tang of the major’s strong cigarettes in his nostrils again.

  Colonel Putnis knocked on his door at 7:17 p.m. The car was waiting in front of the hotel, and they drove through the dark streets to police headquarters. It had grown much colder during the evening, and the city was almost deserted. The streets and squares were poorly lit, and Wallander had the impression of a town built up of silhouettes and stage sets. They drove through an archway and drew up in what looked like a walled courtyard. Colonel Putnis hadn’t spoken during the journey, and Wallander was still waiting to hear why he’d been called over to Riga. They walked along empty, echoing corridors, down a staircase and then along another corridor, and eventually came to a door which Colonel Putnis opened without knocking.

  Wallander entered a large, warm but poorly lit room dominated by an oval conference table covered in a green felt cloth. There were twelve chairs at the table, and a jug of water and some glasses in the center. A man was waiting deep in the shadows, and he turned and approached as Wallander came in.

  “Welcome to Riga,” the man said. “My name’s Juris Murniers.”

  “Colonel Murniers and I have joint responsibility for solving the murder of Major Liepa,” Putnis said.

  Wallander sensed right away that there was tension between the two men. Something in Putnis’s tone of voice gave it away. There was also something hidden in the brief exchange.

  Colonel Murniers was in his 50s, with closely cropped gray hair. His face was pale and bloated, as if he was diabetic. He was short, and Wallander observed that he moved around without the slightest sound. Another cat-creature. Two colonels, two cats, both in gray uniforms.

  Wallander and Putnis hung up their overcoats and sat at the table. The waiting time is over, Wallander thought. What happened to Major Liepa? Now I’m going to find out. Murniers did the talking. Wallander noticed he had positioned himself so that his face was almost all in shadow, and when he spoke in fluent, well-formulated English, his voice seemed to come from an endless darkness. Colonel Putnis sat staring straight ahead, as if he couldn’t really be bothered to listen.

  “It’s very mysterious,” Murniers said. “The very day Major Liepa returned from Stockholm, he gave his report to Colonel Putnis and me. We sat in this room and discussed the case. He was going to be responsible for continuing the investigation here in Latvia. We broke up at about 5 p.m., and we later learned that Major Liepa went straight home to his wife. They live in a house behind the cathedral. She has said that he seemed perfectly normal, although of course he was pleased to be home. They had dinner, and he told her about his experiences in Sweden. Incidentally, you seem to have made a very good impression on him, Inspector Wallander. Shortly before 11 p.m. the phone rang—Major Liepa was just getting ready for bed. His wife didn’t know who called, but the major got dressed again and told her that he would have to go back to police headquarters immediately. There was nothing unusual about that, although she may have been disappointed that he had been called out the same night he’d returned from abroad. He didn’t give any reason for his having to go on duty.”

  Murniers fell silent and reached for the water jug. Wallander glanced at Putnis, who was staring straight ahead.

  “After that, everything is very confused,” Murniers continued. “Early the next morning some dockers found Major Liepa’s body at Daugavgriva—that’s at the far end of the big harbor here in Riga. The major was lying on the wharf, dead. We were able to establish that the back of his skull had been smashed in with a heavy implement, perhaps an iron bar or a wooden club. The postmortem revealed that he had been murdered an hour or two hours at the most after leaving home. That’s really all we know. We have no witnesses who saw him leaving home, nor out at the harbor. It’s all very mysterious. It’s very rare for a police officer to be killed in this country. Least of all one of Major Liepa’s rank. Naturally, we’re very keen for the murderer to be found as soon as possible.”

  That was all Murniers had to say, and he sank back into the shadows.

  “So in fact, nobody had telephoned and summoned him here,” Wallander said.

  “No,” Putnis said quickly. “We’ve looked into that. The duty officer, a Captain Kozlov, has confirmed that no one was in contact with Major Liepa that evening.”

  “That leaves only two possibilities, then,” Wallander said.

  Putnis nodded. “Either he lied to his wife, or he was tricked.”

  “In the latter case, he must have recognized the voice,” Wallander said. “Either that, or whoever called expressed himself in a way that didn’t arouse suspicion.”

  “We have also come to those conclusions,” Putnis said.

  “Of course, we can’t exclude the possibility that there is a connection between his work in Sweden and his murder,” Murniers said from the shadows. “We can’t exclude anything, and that’s why we’ve asked for assistance from the Swedish police. From you, Inspector Wallander. We are grateful for any thoughts, any ideas you might have that can help us. You will receive all the assistance you require.”

  Murniers got to his feet.

  “I suggest we leave it at that for tonight,” he said. “I imagine you’re tired after your journey.”

  Wallander didn’t feel the slightest bit tired. He’d been prepared to work all night if necessary, but as Putnis had also stood up, he had to accept that the meeting was closed.

  Murniers pressed a bell fixed to the edge of the table, and almost immediately the door opened and a young police officer in uniform appeared.

  “This is Sergeant Zids,” Murniers said. “He speaks excellent English, and will be your chauffeur while you are in Riga.”

  Zids clicked his heels and saluted, but Wallander couldn’t bring himself to do more than nod in return. As neither Putnis nor Murniers had invited him to dinner, he realized that he would have the evening to himself. He followed Zids out into the courtyard, and after the well-heated conference room the dry cold struck him with full force. Zids opened the back door of a black car for him, and Wallander clambered in.

  “It’s cold,” Wallander said as they drove out through the archway.

  “Yes, Colonel,” Sergeant Zids said. “It is very cold in Riga just now.”

  Colonel, thought Wallander. He can’t imagine that the Swedish police officer could have a lower rank than Putnis and Murniers. The thought amused him, but at the same time he co
uld see that there was nothing so easy to get used to as privileges. Your own car, your own driver, plenty of attention.

  Sergeant Zids drove fast through the empty streets. Wallander didn’t feel tired at all, and the thought of the chilly hotel room scared him.

  “I’m hungry,” he said to the sergeant. “Take me to a good restaurant that isn’t too expensive.”

  “The dining room at the Latvia Hotel is best,” Zids said.

  “I’ve already been there,” Wallander said.

  “There’s no other restaurant in Riga where the food is as good,” Zids said, braking sharply as a streetcar came clattering around a corner.

  “There must be more than one good restaurant in a city with a million inhabitants,” Wallander said.

  “The food isn’t good,” the sergeant said, “but it is at the Latvia Hotel.”

  That’s obviously where I’m supposed to go, Wallander thought, settling back in his seat. Maybe he’s been ordered not to let me loose in the town? In certain circumstances having your own driver can mean the opposite of freedom.

  Zids pulled up at the hotel entrance, and before Wallander had managed to reach for the door handle, the sergeant had opened it for him.

  “What time would you like me to collect you tomorrow morning, Colonel?” he asked.

  “Eight o’clock will be fine,” Wallander replied.

  The foyer was even more deserted now. He could hear music somewhere in the background. He collected his key from the receptionist and asked if the dining room was open. The man, who had heavy eyelids and pale features reminiscent of Colonel Murniers, nodded. Wallander asked where the music was coming from.

  “We have a nightclub,” the receptionist said glumly.

  As Wallander left reception, he thought he recognized the man who’d been drinking tea in the dining room earlier: now he was sitting in a worn leather sofa, reading a newspaper. Wallander was certain it was the same man.

  I’m being watched, he thought. Just like the worst of those Cold-War novels, there’s a man in a gray suit pretending to be invisible. What on earth do Putnis and Murniers think I’m going to do?