The Troubled Man (45 page)

He clambered out of the taxi and carried his little suitcase into the reception area at the Hotel Latvia. He noted right away that the cafe where Lilja Blooms had seen him and Baiba together was no longer there. He checked in and was given room 1516. When he got out of the lift and stood in front of the door, he had the feeling that this was the very room he’d stayed in the first time he went to Riga. He was quite sure that the figures
5
and
6
had been part of the room number then as well. He unlocked the door and went in. It didn’t look at all like what he remembered. But the view from the window was the same, a beautiful church whose name he had forgotten. He unpacked his bag and hung up his new suit. The thought that it was in this hotel, and possibly even in this very room, that he first met Baiba filled him with almost unbearable pain.

He went to the bathroom and rinsed his face. It was only twelve thirty. He had no plans, but thought he might take a walk. He wanted to mourn Baiba by remembering her as she was when he met her for the first time.

A thought suddenly struck him, a thought he had never dared to confront before. Had his love for Baiba been stronger than the love he had once felt for Mona? Despite the fact that Mona was Linda’s mother? He didn’t know, and would never be sure.

He went out and strolled through the town, had a meal in a restaurant even though he wasn’t especially hungry. That evening he sat in one of the hotel bars. A girl in her twenties came up and asked him if he wanted company. He didn’t even answer, merely shook his head. Shortly before the hotel restaurant closed, he had another meal, a spaghetti dish that he hardly touched. He drank red wine, and felt tipsy when he stood up to leave the table.

It had been raining while he ate, but it was clear now. He retrieved his jacket and went out into the damp summer evening. He found his way to the Freedom Monument, where he and Baiba had once had their photograph taken. A few youths on skateboards were practising their skills on the flagstones in front. He continued his walk, and didn’t arrive back at the hotel until very late. He fell asleep on top of the bed without taking off anything but his shoes.

The next morning he put on his funeral suit and went down to the dining room for breakfast, despite the fact that he wasn’t hungry.

He had bought two half-bottles of vodka at Kastrup Airport. He had one of them in his inside pocket. As the lift conveyed him down to the dining room, he unscrewed the top and took a swig.

When Lilja Blooms came in through the glass doors, Wallander was already in the reception area, waiting for her. She went over to him right away. Baiba must have shown her pictures of him, he thought.

Lilja was short and plump, and her hair was cropped. She didn’t look anything like what he had imagined. He thought she would look more like Baiba. When they shook hands, Wallander felt embarrassed, without knowing why.

‘The chapel isn’t far from here,’ she said. ‘It’s only a ten-minute walk. I have time for a cigarette. You can wait here.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Wallander.

They stood in the sun outside the hotel, Lilja wearing sunglasses and holding a cigarette in her hand.

‘She was drunk,’ she said.

It was a moment before Wallander realised what she was referring to.

‘Baiba?’

‘She was drunk when she died. The autopsy made that clear. She had a lot of alcohol in her blood when she crashed her car.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘So do I. All her friends are astonished. But then, what do we know about the thoughts of a person who is going to die?’

‘Are you saying that she committed suicide? That she crashed the car on purpose? Drove into that stone wall?’

‘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.

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 driven 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.