The Troubled Man (2011)

by Henning Mankell

  The memory made him feel sad. But it was in the past, impossible to resurrect.

  There were no seat belts in the car. Nordlander saw that Wallander was looking for one.

  ‘This is a classic car,’ he said. ‘It’s excused from the obligatory seat belts.’

  They eventually came to somewhere or other on Varmdo - Wallander had lost his sense of distance and direction long ago. Nordlander pulled up outside a brown-painted building containing a cafe.

  The woman who owns the cafe used to be married to one of Hakan’s and my mutual friends,’ said Nordlander. ‘She’s a widow now. Her name’s Matilda. Her husband, Claes Hornvig, was first officer on a Snake that both Hakan and I worked on.’

  Wallander nodded. He recalled that Hakan von Enke had referred to that class of submarine.

  ‘We try to give her business whenever we can. She needs the money. And besides, she serves pretty good coffee.’

  The first thing Wallander noticed when he entered the cafe was a periscope standing in the middle of the floor. Nordlander explained which decommissioned submarine it had come from, and it dawned on Wallander that he was in a private museum for submarines.

  ‘It’s become a habit,’ explained Nordlander. ‘Anyone who ever served on a Swedish submarine makes at least one pilgrimage to Matilda’s cafe. And they always bring something with them - it’s unthinkable not to. Some stolen china, perhaps, or a blanket, or even items from the controls. Bonanza time of course was when submarines were being decommissioned and sent to the scrapyard. Lots of ex-servicemen turned up to collect souvenirs, and there was always somebody determined to find something to grace Matilda’s collection. The money didn’t matter; it was a question of salvaging something from the dead submarine.’

  A woman in her twenties emerged from the swinging doors leading into the kitchen.

  ‘Matilda and Claes’s granddaughter Marie,’ said Nordlander. ‘Matilda still puts in an appearance now and again, but she’s over ninety now. She claims that her mother lived to be a hundred and one and her grandmother a hundred and three.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the girl. ‘My mum’s fifty. She says she’s only lived half her life.’

  They were served a tray of coffee and pastries. Nordlander also helped himself to a slice of cheesecake. There were a few other customers at other tables, most of them elderly.

  ‘Former submarine crew?’ Wallander wondered as they made their way to the room furthest away from the street, which was empty.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Nordlander. ‘But I do recognise some of them.’

  This room in the heart of the cafe had old uniforms and signal flags hanging from the walls. Wallander had the feeling that he was in a props store for military films. They sat down at a table in the corner. On the wall beside them was a framed black-and-white photograph. Sten Nordlander pointed it out.

  ‘There you have one of our Sea Snakes. Number two in the second row is me. Number four is Hakan. Claes Hornvig wasn’t with us on that occasion.’

  Wallander leaned forward in order to get a better view. It wasn’t easy to distinguish the various faces. Nordlander informed him that the picture had been taken in Karlskrona, just before they had set off on a long trip.

  ‘I suppose it wasn’t exactly our ideal voyage,’ he said. ‘We were due to go from Karlskrona up to the Kvarken straits, then on to Kalix and back home again. It was November, freezing cold. If I remember correctly there was a storm blowing the whole time. The ship was tossing and turning something awful - the Baltic Sea is so shallow, we could never get down deep enough. The Baltic Sea is nothing more than a pool.’

  Nordlander attacked the pastries with eager intent. It didn’t seem to matter what they tasted like. But suddenly he laid down his fork.

  ‘What happened?’ he said.

  ‘I know no more than you or Louise.’

  Nordlander pushed his coffee cup violently to one side. Wallander could see that he was just as tired as Louise. Someone else who can’t get to sleep, he thought.

  ‘You know him,’ Wallander said, ‘better than most. Louise said you and Hakan were very close. If that’s the case, then your view of events is more important than most others.’

  ‘You sound just like the police officer I spoke to in Bergsgatan.’

  ‘But I am a police officer!’

  Sten Nordlander nodded. He was very tense. You could tell how worried he was from his fixed expression and his tight lips.

  ‘How come you weren’t at his seventy-fifth birthday party?’ Wallander asked.

  ‘I have a sister who lives in Bergen, in Norway. Her husband died unexpectedly. She needed my help. Besides, I’m not exactly a fan of big dos like that. Hakan and I had our own celebration. A week earlier.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. With coffee and biscuits.’

  Nordlander pointed to a naval cap hanging on the wall.

  ‘That’s Hakan’s. He made a present of it when we had our little celebration.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘What we always talk about. What happened in October 1982. I was serving on the destroyer Halland. It was about to be decommissioned. It’s now a museum piece in Gothenburg.’

  ‘So you weren’t only a chief engineer on submarines?’

  ‘I started out on a torpedo boat, then it was a corvette, then a destroyer, then a submarine, and in the end back to a destroyer. We were deployed to the west coast when the submarines started appearing in the Baltic Sea. At about noon on 2 October, Commander Nyman announced that we should head for the Stockholm archipelago at full speed because we were needed as backup.’

  ‘Were you in contact with Hakan during those hectic days?’

  ‘He called me.’

  ‘At home or on board?’

  ‘On the destroyer. I was never at home then. All leave was cancelled. We were on red alert, you could say. Bear in mind that this was the blissful time before mobile phones had become common currency. The sailors manning the destroyer’s telephone exchange would come down and inform us that we had a call. Hakan usually called at night. He wanted me to receive his call in my cabin.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I suppose he didn’t want anybody else to hear what we were talking about.’

  There was something surly and reluctant in the way Sten Nordlander answered questions. He sat there mashing the remains of the pastry with his fork.

  ‘We spoke to each other practically every night between the first and the fifteenth of October. I don’t think he was supposed to talk to me the way he did, but we trusted each other. His responsibility weighed heavily on his shoulders. A depth charge can go off course and sink a submarine instead of forcing it up to the surface.’

  By now Nordlander had turned the remains of his pastry into an unappetising mess. He put down his fork and dropped a paper napkin over his plate.

  ‘He called me three times that last night. Very late - or rather, early: it was dawn when he called the last time.’

  ‘And you were still on board the destroyer?’

  ‘We were less than a nautical mile south-east of Harsfjarden. It was windy, but not too bad. We were on full alert. The officers were informed about what was happening, of course, but the rest of the crew knew only that we were ready for action, not why.’

  ‘Were you really going to be ordered to start hunting down the submarine?’

  ‘We couldn’t know what the Russians would do if we forced one of their submarines to surface. Perhaps they might try to rescue it? There were Russian vessels north of Gotland, and they were moving slowly in our direction. One of our radio officers said he’d never experienced so much Russian radio traffic before, not even during their major manoeuvres along the Baltic coast. They were agitated, that was obvious.’

  He paused when Marie came in and asked if they wanted any more coffee. Both said no.

  ‘Let’s consider the most important thing,’ said Wallander. ‘How did you react to the ord
er to let the trapped submarine go?’

  ‘I couldn’t believe my ears.’

  ‘How did you hear about it?’

  ‘Nyman suddenly received an order to back off, proceed to Landsort and wait there. No explanation was given, and Nyman wasn’t the type to ask unnecessary questions. I was in the engine room when I was told there was a phone call for me. I ran up to my cabin. It was Hakan. He asked if I was alone.’

  ‘Did he usually do that?’

  ‘Not usually, no. I said I was. He insisted it was important that I speak the truth. I remember feeling angry about that. Then I realised he had left the operations room and was calling from a phone booth.’

  ‘How could you know that? Did he say so?’

  ‘I heard him inserting coins. There was a phone booth in the officers’ mess. Since he couldn’t be away from the command centre for more than a couple of minutes, only as long as it would take to go to the toilet, he must have run there.’

  ‘Did he say so?’

  Nordlander looked searchingly at him.

  ‘Is it you or me who’s the policeman here? I could hear that he was out of breath!’

  Wallander didn’t allow himself to be provoked. He merely nodded, indicating that Nordlander should continue.

  ‘He was agitated, both furious and scared, I think you could say. He insisted that it was treason, and that he was going to disobey orders and bomb that damned submarine up to the surface no matter what they said. Then his money ran out. It was as if somebody had cut through a tape.’

  Wallander stared at him, waiting for a continuation that never came.

  ‘That’s a strong word to use. Treason?’

  ‘But that’s exactly what it was! They released a submarine that had invaded our territorial waters.’

  ‘Who was responsible?’

  ‘Somebody in the high command, possibly more than one person, who got extremely cold feet. They didn’t want to force a Russian submarine up to the surface.’

  A man carrying a cup of coffee came into the room, but Nordlander glared so aggressively at him that he turned immediately and went to look for a table in another room.

  ‘I don’t know who was responsible. It might be easier to answer the question “Why?” but even so it would only be speculation. What you don’t know, you don’t know.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s necessary to think aloud. Even for police officers.’

  ‘Let’s suppose there was something on board that submarine that the Swedish authorities couldn’t be allowed to get their hands on.’

  ‘What might that be?’

  Sten Nordlander lowered his voice - not much, but sufficiently for Wallander to notice.

  ‘Maybe you could extend that assumption and suggest that it wasn’t “something” but “someone”. How would it have looked if it turned out there was a Swedish officer on board? For example.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea. It was one of Hakan’s theories. He had lots of them.’

  Wallander thought for a moment before continuing. He realised that he should have noted down everything Nordlander said.

  ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘After what?’

  Nordlander was starting to get cross. But whether it was because of all the questions or due to worry in connection with his friend’s disappearance, Wallander couldn’t decide.

  ‘Hakan told me that he started to ask questions,’ Wallander said.

  ‘He tried to find out what had happened. But nearly everything was top secret, of course. Some documents were even classified as ultra-secret so that they would remain under lock and key for seventy years. That’s the longest time anything can be kept secret in Sweden. The normal limit is forty years. But in this case some of the papers were embargoed for seventy years. In all probability not even that nice little Marie who served us coffee and pastries will live long enough to be able to read them.’

  ‘But then again, she belongs to a family with good genes,’ said Wallander.

  Sten Nordlander didn’t react.

  ‘Hakan could be difficult if he’d set his mind on something,’ Nordlander continued. ‘He felt just as violated as the Swedish territorial waters had been. Someone had failed in their duty, and failed in spades. A lot of journalists started digging into the submarines incident, but that wasn’t good enough for Hakan. He really wanted to know the truth. He staked his career on it.’

  ‘Who did he speak to?’

  Nordlander’s reply came quickly, like a crack of the whip in order to buck up an invisible horse.

  ‘Everybody. He asked everybody you can think of. Perhaps not the king, but you never know. He asked for an interview with the prime minister, that’s definite. He called Thage G. Peterson, that fine old Social Democrat in the cabinet office, and asked for a meeting with Palme. Peterson said the PM’s diary was full, but Hakan wouldn’t be put off. “Get out the reserve diary then,” he insisted. “The one in which urgent meetings can always be fitted in.” And he actually did get an interview. A few days before Christmas 1983.’

  ‘Did he tell you about it?’

  ‘I was with him.’

  ‘When he met Palme?’

  ‘I was his chauffeur that day, you could say. I sat in the car outside, waiting for him, after watching him, in his dress uniform and a dark overcoat, vanish through the entrance door to the most exalted dwelling in the land after the royal palace. The visit lasted about half an hour. After ten minutes a traffic cop knocked on the window and said that drop-offs were allowed but parking was forbidden. I rolled down the window and informed him that I was waiting for somebody currently discussing very important business with the prime minister and had no intention of moving. After that I was left in peace. When Hakan eventually came back, there were beads of sweat on his forehead.’

  They had driven off in silence.

  ‘We came here,’ said Sten Nordlander. ‘And we sat at this very table. As we got out of the car it started snowing. We had a white Christmas in Stockholm that year. It stayed white until New Year’s Eve. Then it rained.’

  Marie returned with her coffee pot. This time they both had their cups refilled. When Sten Nordlander complied with Swedish tradition and popped a cube of sugar into his mouth before taking a sip of coffee, Wallander noticed that he had false teeth. The discovery made him feel sick for a few moments. Perhaps because it reminded him that he should visit the dentist far more often than he did.

  According to Sten Nordlander, von Enke gave a detailed account of his meeting with Olof Palme. He had been well received. Palme asked a few questions about his military career, and spoke ironically about his own status as a reserve officer. Palme listened attentively to what von Enke had to say. And what he had to say was unambiguous. When it came to his relationship with his employer, the Swedish defence forces, von Enke had violated every convention there was. By approaching the prime minister on his own initiative he had burned all bridges with the supreme commander and his staff. There was no going back now. He felt obliged to say exactly what he thought about the whole business. He spoke for over ten minutes before coming to the main point. And Palme listened, he said. With his mouth half open, and looking him in the eye from start to finish. Afterwards, when von Enke had reached the end of his diatribe, Palme thought for a while before asking questions. He wanted to know first of all if the military had been certain about the nationality of the submarine, and if it definitely was from one of the Warsaw Pact countries. Hakan responded by asking a different question, Nordlander said. He wondered where else it could have come from. Palme didn’t reply, merely pulled a face and shook his head. When Hakan started to speak about treason and a military and political scandal, Palme interrupted and said this was a discussion that should take place in a different context, not during a private interview with the prime minister. That was as far as they got. A secretary peered discreetly round the door and reminded Palme of another meeting that was scheduled to begin.
When Hakan came out he was sweating, but also relieved. Palme had listened to him, he said. He was full of optimism and convinced that things would now start moving. The prime minister doubtless understood what Hakan had said about treason. He would corner his minister of defence and his supreme commander and demand an explanation. Who had opened the cage and let the submarine escape? And above all, why?

  Sten Nordlander glanced at his watch.

  ‘What happened next?’ Wallander asked after a short pause.

  ‘It was Christmas. Everything stood still for a few days, but just before the new year, Hakan was summoned to the supreme commander. He was given a stern reprimand for going behind his superior’s back and meeting Olof Palme. But Hakan was bright enough to realise that the main criticism was aimed at the prime minister, who should never have agreed to meet a naval officer who had gone astray.’

  ‘But Hakan must have continued to ferret away? Surely he didn’t give up, despite having been reprimanded.’

  ‘He’s continued ferreting away ever since. For twenty-five years.’

  ‘You are his closest friend. He must have spoken to you about the threats he received.’

  Nordlander nodded, but said nothing.

  ‘And now he’s disappeared.’

  ‘He’s dead. Somebody killed him.’

  The response came promptly and firmly. Nordlander talked about Hakan’s death as if it were obvious.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘What is there to be doubtful about?’

  ‘Who killed him? And why?’

  ‘I don’t know. But perhaps he knew something that eventually became too dangerous.’

  ‘It’s been twenty-five years since those submarines entered Swedish waters. What could be dangerous after all these years? Good Lord, the Soviet Union no longer exists. The Berlin Wall has come down. And East Germany? All that belongs to a bygone era. What spectres could suddenly emerge now?’

  ‘We think it’s all over and done with, that the final curtain has fallen. But it could be that somebody merely stepped into the wings and changed costume. The repertoire may be different, but everything is being acted out on the same stage.’