The Troubled Man

31

It was a long night. Several times it seemed to Wallander that it was a direct continuation of the conversation he and von Enke had had nearly six months previously, in a windowless room off a banquet hall just outside Stockholm. What he was now beginning to understand surprised him, but it was a more than sufficient explanation of why von Enke had been so worried on that occasion.

Wallander felt nothing like a Stanley who had now found his Livingstone. He had guessed right, that was all. Once again, his intuition had shown him the path to follow. If von Enke was surprised at his hideaway being discovered, he didn’t show it. Wallander thought the old submarine commander was displaying his cold-blooded nature. He didn’t allow himself to be surprised, no matter what happened.

The hunting lodge that seemed so primitive from the outside gave quite a different impression once Wallander had crossed the threshold. There were no inside walls, just one large room with an open kitchenette. A small extension containing a bathroom was the only space with a door. In one corner of the room was a bed. It’s on the small side, Wallander observed, more like a hammock, or the little bunk that even a commander has to make do with on board a submarine. In the middle of the room was a large table covered in books, files, and documents. On one of the short walls was a shelf containing a radio, and there was a television set and a record player on a little table. Next to it was a dark red old-fashioned armchair.

“I didn’t think you’d have electricity here,” said Wallander.

“There’s a generator sunk in a little basement blasted out of the rock. You can’t hear the engine even when the water is dead calm.”

Von Enke stood by the stove, making coffee. Neither of them spoke, and Wallander tried to prepare himself for the conversation that would follow. But now that he’d found the man he’d spent so much time looking for, he didn’t know what to ask him. All his previous thoughts seemed to be a blurred jumble of unfinished conclusions.

“If I remember correctly,” said von Enke, interrupting Wallander’s thoughts, “you take neither milk nor sugar?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any bread or cookies to offer you. Are you hungry?”

“No.”

Von Enke cleared off part of the big table. Wallander noted that most of the books were about modern warfare and contemporary politics. One that seemed to have been read more than any of the others was titled simply The Submarine Threat.

The coffee was strong. Von Enke was drinking tea. Wallander regretted not having chosen the same.

It was ten minutes to one.

“Naturally I understand that you have a lot of questions you want answers to,” said von Enke. “I may not be able or willing to answer all of them, but before we come to that I must ask you a few questions. First and foremost: Did you come here alone?”

“Yes.”

“Who else knows where you are?”

“Nobody.”

Wallander could see that von Enke wasn’t sure whether to believe him. “Nobody,” he repeated. “This trip was entirely my own idea. Nobody else has been involved.”

“Not even Linda?”

“Not even Linda.”

“How did you get here?”

“In a little boat with an outboard motor. If you want I can give you the name of the firm I rented it from. But the man had no idea where I was going. I told him I was going to surprise an old friend for his birthday. I’m sure he believed me.”

“Where is the boat?”

Wallander pointed over his shoulder.

“On the other side of the island. Beached, and tied up to some alder trees.”

Von Enke sat there silently, staring at his teacup. Wallander waited.

“How did you find me?”

Von Enke seemed tired when he asked the question. Wallander could understand that being on the run was strenuous, even if you weren’t on the move all the time.

“When I visited Bokö, Eskil Lundberg mentioned in passing that this cottage was perfect for anybody who wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. We were on the way to the mainland when we sailed past. You know I’ve been to see him, of course. What he said stayed at the back of my mind, nagging away at me. And then when I heard that you were particularly fond of islands, I realized that this might be where you were.”

“Who told you about me and my islands?”

Wallander decided on the spot not to say anything about Sten Nordlander for the time being. He could give von Enke an answer that would be impossible to check.

“Louise.”

Von Enke nodded, silently. Then he straightened his back, as if steeling himself for battle.

“We can do this in two ways,” Wallander said. “Either you tell me all about it, or I ask questions and you answer them.”

“Am I accused of anything?”

“No. But your wife is dead, so you are automatically a suspect.”

“I can understand that completely.”

Suicide or murder, Wallander thought. You seem to be well aware of the score. Wallander knew he had to proceed cautiously. After all, the man he was talking to was somebody he knew very little about.

“Let’s hear it, then,” said Wallander. “I’ll interrupt you if anything is unclear. You can start at Djursholm, when you had your birthday party.”

Von Enke shook his head demonstratively. His tiredness seemed to have evaporated. He walked over to the stove, refilled his cup with hot water, and added a new tea bag. He remained standing, cup in hand.

“I need to begin earlier than that. There can be only one starting point,” he said. “It’s simple, but absolutely true. I loved my wife, Louise, more than anything else in the world. God forgive me for saying it, but I loved her more than I did my son. Louise embodied the happiness in my life — seeing her come into a room, seeing her smile, hearing her moving around in the next room.”

He fell silent and gave Wallander a look that was both piercing and challenging. He demanded an answer, or at least a reaction from Wallander’s side.

“Yes,” said Wallander. “I believe you.”

Von Enke began his story.

“We need to go back a long way. There’s no need for me to go into detail. It would take too much time, and it isn’t necessary. But we have to go back to the 1960s and ’70s. I was still active on board naval vessels then, often in command of one of our most modern minesweepers. Louise was working as a teacher. She spent her free time coaching young divers, and once in a while visited Eastern Europe, mainly East Germany, which in those days was very successful in producing champions. Nowadays we know that this was due to a combination of fanatical, almost slavish training techniques and an advanced use of various drugs. At the end of the 1970s I was transferred to staff duties and promoted to the top operations command of the Swedish navy. That involved a lot of work, much of it done at home. Several evenings every week I used to take home secret documents. I had a gun closet because I occasionally used to go hunting, mainly for deer, but sometimes I used to take part in the annual elk hunt. I had my rifles and ammunition locked away in that closet, and I also used to put my secret documents in there overnight, or when Louise and I went out, either to the theater or to some dinner party.”

He paused, carefully removed the tea bag from his cup and put it on a saucer, then continued.

“When exactly do you notice that something is not as it should be? The almost invisible signs that suggest something has been changed, or moved? You are a police officer — I assume you must often find yourself in situations where you catch on to these vague signals. One morning, when I opened the gun closet, I noticed that something was wrong. I can still recall how I felt. I was just going to take out my briefcase when I paused. Had I really left it the way it was now? There was something about the lock, and the position of the handle. My doubts bothered me for about five seconds, no more. Then I dismissed them. I always used to check that all the documents were where they should be, and that morning was no exception. I didn’t think any more about it. I think I’m pretty observant and have a good memory. Or at least, that was the case when I was younger. As you grow older, all your faculties deteriorate bit by bit, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You are considerably younger than I am, but maybe you’ve noticed this?”

“Eyesight,” Wallander said. “I have to buy new reading glasses every couple of years. And I don’t think I hear as well as I used to.”

“It’s your sense of smell that lasts best as you grow older. That’s the only one of my senses that I think is unaffected. The smell of flowers is just as clear and subtle as it ever was.”

They sat there in silence. Wallander noticed a rustling sound in the wall behind him.

“Mice,” said von Enke. “It was still cold when I first came here. At times there was a hellish rustling and rattling inside the walls. But one of these days I’ll no longer be able to hear the mice scampering around under the floorboards.”

“I don’t want to interrupt your story,” Wallander said. “But when you vanished that morning, did you come straight here?”

“I was picked up.”

“By whom?”

Von Enke shook his head, didn’t want to answer. Wallander didn’t press him.

“Let me go back to the gun closet,” von Enke continued. “A few months later I had the impression yet again that my briefcase had been moved. I decided I was imagining it. The documents inside the briefcase hadn’t been jumbled up or interfered with in any other way. But since this was the second occasion, I was worried. The keys to the gun closet were underneath some letter scales on my desk. The only person who knew where the keys were was Louise. So I did what you have to do when there’s something worrying you.”

“What?”

“I asked her outright. She was in the kitchen, having breakfast.”

“What did she say?”

“She said no. And asked the obvious question: why on earth would she be interested in what was in my gun closet? I don’t think she ever liked the idea of my keeping guns in the apartment, even if she never said anything about it. I remember feeling ashamed when I walked down the stairs to the car waiting to take me to general staff headquarters. The job I had then gave me the right to have a chauffeur.”

“What happened next?”

Wallander noticed that his questions were disturbing von Enke, who wanted to dictate the pace of his revelations himself. He raised his hands as a sort of apology, indicating that he wouldn’t interrupt anymore.

“I’m convinced that Louise told me the truth. But even after that I still had the feeling that my briefcase and my documents had been interfered with. I started to set little traps: I purposely put some of the papers in the wrong order, I left a strand of hair over the lock of my briefcase, a blob of grease on the handle. What was hardest to grasp was why Louise would be interested in my papers. I couldn’t believe it had to do with pure curiosity or jealousy. She knew there was no reason at all to suspect anything like that. It was at least a year before I first began to wonder if the unthinkable really was a possibility.”

Von Enke paused briefly before continuing.

“Could Louise be in touch with a foreign power? It seemed highly improbable for a very simple reason. The documents I took home with me were rarely anything that could be of the slightest interest to a foreign intelligence service. But I couldn’t help feeling worried. I was starting to distrust my wife, to suspect her of treachery for no reason other than a strand of hair that had been disturbed. In the end — and by then it was the late 1970s — I decided to establish once and for all whether or not my suspicions of Louise were justified.”

He stood up and rummaged around in a corner of the room full of maps. He came back with a scroll, which he spread out over the table — a sea chart of the central area of the Baltic Sea. He placed pebbles on the corners to weigh it down.

“Fall 1979,” he said. “To be more precise, August and September. We were due for our usual fall maneuvers involving nearly all our naval vessels. There was nothing special about this particular exercise. It was while I was attached to the general staff, and my role was to be an observer. About a month before the maneuvers were to take place, when all the plans and timetables were already drawn up, the navigation routes established, and the vessels assigned to specific areas, I made my own plan. I created a document and labeled it Secret. It was even signed by the supreme commander — although he knew nothing about it, of course. I introduced into the exercise a top secret element featuring one of our submarines being refueled in very advanced fashion by a remotely controlled tanker. It was all a complete fabrication, but something that could just about be regarded as possible. I noted the exact location and the precise time when the exercise would take place. I knew that the destroyer Småland, with the observers on board, would be close to that location at that time. I took the document home with me, locked it in the gun closet overnight, then hid it in my desk when I went to staff headquarters the following day. I repeated the same procedure for several days. The next week I placed the document in a secure bank vault I had rented for this very purpose. I considered tearing it up, but I knew I might need it someday as proof. The month that passed before the maneuvers took place was the worst I have ever endured. I had to make sure that Louise didn’t suspect anything, but I had set a trap for her that would shatter both of us if my suspicions turned out to be well founded.”

He pointed to a spot on the sea chart. Wallander leaned forward and saw that it was a point just northeast of Gotska Sandön.

“This is where the alleged meeting between the submarine and the nonexistent tanker was supposed to happen. It was on the periphery of the area where the maneuvers would be held. There was nothing unusual about the fact that Russian vessels were keeping track of us. We did the same when Warsaw Pact countries’ maneuvers were under way. We used to keep at a discreet distance, avoiding provocation. I chose this location for the fictitious meeting because the supreme commander was due to be dropped off at Berga that same morning, so the destroyer would be in the right place, on its way to where the exercises were in full swing, when my fictional refueling operation was to happen.”

“I don’t want to interrupt,” said Wallander, “but was it really possible to stick to such a tight schedule when so many vessels were involved?”

“That was part of the point of the whole maneuver. What you need in wartime is not just a lot of money, but also a high degree of punctuality.”

Wallander gave a start when there was a loud thud on the roof of the lodge. Von Enke didn’t seem to react at all.

“A branch,” he said. “They sometimes fall down and hit the roof with quite a bang. I’ve offered to saw down the dried-out, dead oak tree, but nobody around here seems to have a chain saw. The trunk is enormous. I would guess that the oak dates from the middle of the nineteenth century or thereabouts.”

He reverted to his account of what happened at the end of August 1979.

“The fall maneuvers acquired some added spice that nobody had foreseen. The Baltic Sea south of Stockholm was hit by a severe southwesterly gale that the forecasters had failed to predict. One of our submarines, commanded by one of our best young captains, Hans-Olov Fredhäll, suffered rudder damage and had to be towed into Bråviken to wait there until we could take it back to Muskö. Those on board no doubt had a less than enjoyable time during the storm — submarines can roll like nobody’s business. And in addition, a corvette sprang a leak off Hävringe. The crew had to be taken off and transferred to another ship, but the corvette didn’t sink. Anyway, large parts of the exercise couldn’t be carried out as planned. The winds had slackened somewhat by the time we were ready for the last phase of the maneuvers. I must admit, I could hardly sleep for days before the imaginary meeting of the submarine and the tanker, but nobody seemed to notice that I was behaving any differently from usual. We dropped off the supreme commander, who was pleased with what he had seen. The captain on board the Småland suddenly and unexpectedly ordered full steam ahead, to check that his vessel was in tip-top condition. I was worried at first that we would pass the spot too soon, but the high waves prevented the destroyer from exceeding the speed I had based my calculations on. I spent the whole morning on the bridge. Nobody thought there was anything odd about that — I was a commander myself, after all. The captain had handed over responsibility for the ship to his deputy, Jörgen Mattsson. At a quarter to ten he handed me his telescope and pointed. It was raining, and very misty, but there was no doubt about what he had detected. There were two fishing boats ahead of us to port, sporting all the aerials and security equipment we were familiar with on Russian naval patrol boats. No doubt they didn’t have a single fish in their holds, but we could be certain that there were Russian technicians on board, listening to our radio communications. I should perhaps mention that we were in international waters; they had every right to be where they were.”

“So they were waiting for a submarine and a tanker?”

“Mattsson didn’t know that, of course. ‘What do they think they’re doing?’ he asked. ‘Way outside the area where our maneuvers are taking place?’ I still recall what I said in reply. Perhaps they really are ordinary fishing boats. But he wasn’t convinced. He called down to the captain, who came onto the bridge. The destroyer paused while we reported the presence of the fishing boats. A helicopter came and hovered around for a while before we moved on and left them alone. By then I had left the bridge and gone down to the cabin I used during the maneuvers.”

“So now you knew what you didn’t want to know?”

“It was an experience that made me feel sick, in a way that no bout of seasickness in the world could have achieved. I threw up when I came to my cabin. Then I lay down, thinking about how nothing could ever be like it had been before. There was no other possibility: the document I had forged had come into the hands of the Warsaw Pact countries. Louise could have had an accomplice, of course; that was what I hoped. I didn’t want her to be the direct link to the foreign intelligence services, but rather an assistant to a spy who had all the important contacts. But I couldn’t even bring myself to believe that. I had investigated her life in the tiniest detail and knew there was nobody she met regularly. I still had no idea how she operated. I didn’t even know how she had copied my forged document. Had she taken a photograph, or written it out? Had she simply memorized it? And how had she passed on the information? Even more important, of course, was where she got all her other secret documents. The sparse contents of my gun closet couldn’t be enough. Who was she cooperating with? I didn’t know, although I spent all my spare time for more than a year trying to work out what had happened. But I was forced to believe the evidence of my own eyes. I lay there in the cabin, and felt the vibrations from the powerful engines. There was no longer any escape. I had to acknowledge that I was married to a woman I didn’t know. Which meant that I didn’t know myself either. How could I have misunderstood her so fundamentally?”

Håkan von Enke stood up and rolled up the sea chart. When he had put it back on its shelf, he opened the door and went outside. What Wallander had heard still hadn’t sunk in. It was too big. And there were too many unanswered questions.

Von Enke came back in, closed the door, and checked that his fly was closed.

“You’re telling me about things that happened almost thirty years ago,” Wallander said. “That’s a long time. What about what’s happening now?”

Von Enke suddenly seemed reluctant, sullen, when he replied.

“What did I say when we began this conversation? Have you forgotten? I said that I loved my wife. I couldn’t do anything to change that, no matter what she had done.”

“Surely you must have confronted her with what you knew.”

“Must I?”

“It was one thing for her to commit an offense against our country, but she had also let you down. Stolen your secrets. You couldn’t possibly have kept on living with her without telling her what you knew.”

“Couldn’t I?”

Wallander could hardly believe what he’d heard. But the man rolling the empty teacup between his hands seemed convincing.

“Are you telling me you didn’t say anything to her?”

“Never.”

“Never? That sounds implausible.”

“But it’s true. I stopped taking secret documents home with me. It wasn’t anything sudden or unexplained. When my duties changed, there was every reason for my briefcase to be empty in the evenings.”

“She must have noticed something. It’s impossible to believe she didn’t.”

“I never said anything to her. She was exactly the same as before. After a few years I began to think it had all been a bad dream. But of course, I might have been wrong. She might have realized that I’d seen through her. So we carried on sharing a secret without being sure what the other one knew or didn’t know. It went on like that until one day, everything changed.”

Wallander sensed rather than knew what he was referring to.

“You mean the submarines?”

“Yes. By then there was a rumor going around that the supreme commander suspected there was a spy in the Swedish defense forces. The first warning had come when a Russian defector spoke out in London. There was a spy in the Swedish military that the Russians valued extremely highly. Somebody a cut above the norm who knew how to get at the really significant information.”

Wallander shook his head slowly.

“This is difficult to understand,” he said. “A spy in the Swedish military. Your wife was a schoolteacher; she coached gifted young divers in her spare time. How could she have access to military secrets if your briefcase was empty?”

“I seem to recall that the Russian defector was called Ragulin. He was one of many defectors at that time; we sometimes found it difficult to tell them apart. Obviously, he didn’t know the name of or any details about the person the Russians more or less worshipped. But there was one thing he did know, and it changed the whole picture dramatically. For me as well.”

“What?”

Von Enke put down the empty cup. It was as if he were bracing himself. As he did so, Wallander remembered that he had heard Hermann Eber talking about another Russian defector, by the name of Kirov.

“It was a woman,” he said. “Ragulin had heard that the Swedish spy was a woman.”

Wallander said nothing.

The mice were nibbling away quietly in the walls of the hunting lodge.

32

On one of the windowsills was a half-finished ship in a bottle. Wallander noticed it when von Enke left the table and went outside for the second time. It seemed that he was too distraught to continue, having been forced to admit to somebody else that his wife had been a spy. Wallander saw the tears in his eyes when he suddenly excused himself and left the room. He left the door open. Daylight was beginning to break outside, so there was no longer any risk that anybody might notice lights switched on in the lodge. When von Enke came back, Wallander was still engrossed in imagining the delicate work involved in making the tiny ship.

“The Santa Maria,” said von Enke. “Columbus’s ship. It helps me to keep unwanted thoughts at bay. I learned the art from a sailor — an old naval engineer with alcohol problems. It wasn’t possible to allow him on board anymore. Instead he used to wander around Karlskrona, criticizing everybody and everything. But remarkably enough, he was a master of making ships in bottles, despite the fact that you’d have thought his hands shook far too much for that. I’ve never had the time to attempt anything of the sort until I came here to the island.”

“A nameless island,” said Wallander.

“I call it Blue Island. It has to be called something. Blue Moon and Blue Ridge are already taken.”

They sat down at the table again. By means of some kind of unspoken agreement they had each made it clear to the other that sleep could wait. They had begun a conversation that needed to be continued. Wallander realized that it was his turn now. Håkan von Enke was waiting for his questions. He started with what he considered the beginning.

“When you celebrated your seventy-fifth birthday,” Wallander began, “you wanted to talk to me. But I’m still not clear about why you chose to talk about those events with me rather than somebody else. And we never really got to the point. There was a lot I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand it.”

“I thought you should know. My son and your daughter, our only children, will spend the rest of their lives together, we hope.”

“No,” said Wallander. “There was some other reason, I’m sure. And I have to say that I was very upset to discover you haven’t been telling me the whole truth.”

Von Enke looked at him in incomprehension.

“You and Louise have a daughter,” Wallander said. “Signe, who leads a sort of life at Niklasgården. So you see, I even know where she is. You’ve never said anything about her. Not even to your son.”

Håkan von Enke was staring at him. He had stiffened in his armchair. This is a man who is not often caught off guard, Wallander thought. But right now he is really on the spot.

“I’ve been there,” Wallander went on. “I’ve seen her. I also know that you visited her regularly. You were even there the day before you disappeared. We can choose to keep on not telling the truth, to turn this conversation into something that doesn’t clarify but merely makes what is unclear even more obscure. It’s our choice. Or rather, your choice. I’ve already made mine.”

Wallander eyed von Enke, wondering why he seemed to be hesitating.

“You’re right, of course,” said von Enke eventually. “It’s just that I’m so used to denying Signe’s existence.”

“Why?”

“It was for Louise’s sake. She always felt strangely guilty about Signe. Despite the fact that Signe’s handicaps weren’t caused by something that went wrong during childbirth, or by something Louise had done or eaten or drunk while she was pregnant. We never spoke about Signe. As far as Louise was concerned, she simply didn’t exist. But she existed for me. I was always tormented by not being able to say anything to Hans.”

Wallander said nothing. It suddenly dawned on von Enke why.

“You told him? Was that necessary?”

“I would have regarded it as shameful if I hadn’t told him he had a sister.”

“How did he take it?”

“He was upset, which is understandable. He felt cheated.”

Von Enke shook his head slowly.

“I’d made a promise to Louise, and I couldn’t break that promise.”

“That’s something you have to talk to him about yourself. Or not. Which leads me to an entirely different question. What were you doing in Copenhagen a few days ago?”

Von Enke’s surprise was genuine. Wallander felt that he now had the upper hand; the key was how to exploit that in order to make the man on the other side of the table tell the truth. There were still a lot of questions to be asked.

“How do you know I’ve been in Copenhagen?”

“I’m not going to answer that question at the moment.”

“Why not?”

“Because the answer is of no significance. Besides, I’m the one asking the questions now.”

“Am I suppose to interpret that to mean I’m now being subjected to a police interrogation?”

“No. But don’t forget that you have subjected your son and my daughter to incredible stress and strain since you went missing. To tell you the truth, I’m furious when I think about how you’ve behaved. The only way you can keep me calm is to give honest answers to my questions.”

“I’ll try.”

“Did you make contact with Hans?”

“No.”

“Did you intend to?”

“No.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I went to withdraw some money.”

“But you said just now that you hadn’t been in touch with Hans. As far as I’m aware, he oversaw your and Louise’s savings.”

“We had an account with Danske Bank that we kept control of ourselves. After I retired I did some consultancy work for the manufacturers of a weapons system for naval vessels. They paid in U.S. dollars. Obviously, some tax evasion was involved.”

“What kind of sums are we talking about?”

“I can’t see how that could be of any relevance. Unless you intend to report me for tax evasion?”

“You’re suspected of more important things. But answer the question!”

“About half a million Swedish kronor.”

“Why did you choose to have an account in a Danish bank?”

“The Danish krone seemed stable.”

“And there was no other reason for going to Copenhagen?”

“No.”

“How did you get there?”

“By train from Norrköping. I went there by taxi. Eskil, whom you’ve met, took me to Fyrudden. And he picked me up when I came back.”

Wallander found no reason to doubt what he had heard, at least for the time being.

“And Louise knew all about your undeclared money?”

“She had the same access to the account as I did. Neither of us had a bad conscience. We both thought that Swedish taxation rates were disgracefully high.”

“Why did you need the money now?”

“Because I’d run out of cash. Even if you live frugally, you’re always spending money.”

Wallander left Copenhagen for the time being and returned to Djursholm.

“There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about that only you can answer. When we were standing in the conservatory, you noticed a man in the street, behind my back. I’ll admit that I’ve spent ages wondering about this. Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you seemed worried when you noticed him.”

“I was scared.”

The admission came out like a roar. Wallander was on his guard. Perhaps being on the run for such a long time had, after all, taken its toll on the man sitting opposite him. He decided to tread carefully.

“Who do you think it was?”

“I’ve already said I don’t know. And it’s not important. He was there to remind me. That’s what I think, at least.”

“Remind you of what? Don’t make me drag every answer out of you.”

“Somehow or other Louise’s contacts must have realized that I suspected her. Maybe it was she herself who told them I’d discovered her. It wasn’t the first time I’d had the feeling I was being watched. But the other occasions were not as clear-cut as that one at Djursholm.”

“Are you saying that somebody was shadowing you?”

“Not all the time. But I sometimes noticed that I was being followed.”

“How long had that been going on?”

“I don’t know. It might have been happening for a long time without my noticing. For many years.”

“Let’s move on from that conservatory to the windowless room,” Wallander said. “You wanted us to be away from the rest of the guests so that we could talk. But I don’t know why you picked me to be your confessor.”

“It wasn’t planned at all; I acted on the spur of the moment. I sometimes surprise myself with the sudden decisions I make. I expect that happens to you as well. I thought the whole celebration was unpleasant. It was my seventy-fifth birthday, and I was throwing a party that I didn’t really want. I was pretty close to panic.”

“It seemed to me afterward that there was a hidden message in what you told me. Was I right to suspect that?”

“No. I simply wanted to talk. I suppose I might have wanted to see if I could confide my secret in you later on — the probability that I was married to a traitor.”

“Wasn’t there anybody else you could talk to? Sten Nordlander, for instance? Your best friend?”

“I was ashamed at the mere thought of revealing my misery to him.”

“What about Steven Atkins? You had told him about your daughter, after all.”

“I was drunk at the time. We had drunk lots of whiskey. I regretted saying anything afterward. I thought he had forgotten about it. But evidently not.”

“He assumed that I knew about her.”

“What do my friends say about my disappearance?”

“They’re worried. Shaken. The day they discover you’ve been hiding away, they will be very upset. I suspect you will lose them. Which leads me to the question of why you disappeared.”

“I felt I was under threat. The man on the other side of that fence was just a sort of prologue. I suddenly began noticing shadows everywhere, no matter where I went. It wasn’t like that before. I received strange phone calls. It was as if they always knew where I was. One day when I was visiting the National Maritime Museum a guard came to tell me there was a phone call for me. A man speaking broken Swedish issued a warning. He didn’t say precisely what for, just that I should watch my step. It started to become intolerable. I had never been so scared in all my life. I came very close to approaching the police and reporting Louise. I considered sending an anonymous letter. In the end I couldn’t keep going any longer. I made arrangements to rent this hunting lodge. Eskil drove to Stockholm and picked me up when I was outside the stadium on my morning walk. Since then I’ve been here the whole time, apart from that trip to Copenhagen.”

“It’s still incomprehensible to me that you never confronted Louise with your suspicions, which had become convictions. How could you live with somebody who was a spy?”

“I did confront her. Twice. The first time was the year Palme was killed. That had nothing to do with it, of course, but they were unsettled times. I was sitting with my colleagues, drinking coffee and talking about my suspicions that there was a spy in our ranks. It was a terrible situation, nibbling on a cookie and talking about a possible spy who I thought might well be my wife.”

Wallander had a sudden attack of sneezing. Von Enke waited until it had passed.

“I confronted her in the summer of 1986,” he said. “We had gone to the Riviera with some friends of ours, a Commander Friis and his wife — we used to play bridge with them. We were staying at a hotel in Menton. One evening Louise and I went for a walk through the town. Suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks and asked her outright. I hadn’t planned to; I suppose you could say that something snapped inside me. I stood in front of her and asked her. Was she a spy or wasn’t she? She was upset, refused to answer at first, and raised a hand as if to hit me. Then she recovered her self-control and replied calmly that of course she wasn’t a spy. How on earth could such a ridiculous thought have entered my head? What did she have to say that could be of any interest to a foreign power? I remember her smiling. She didn’t take me seriously, and as a result I couldn’t do so either. I simply couldn’t believe that she was so convincing as a dissembler. I apologized, and made the excuse that I was tired. For the rest of that summer I was convinced I’d been wrong. But in the fall my suspicions returned.”

“What happened?”

“The same thing again. Papers in the gun closet, a feeling that somebody had disturbed my briefcase.”

“Did you notice any changes in her after you revealed your suspicions in Menton?”

He thought before answering.

“I’ve asked myself the same question. I sometimes thought she was acting differently, but at other times not. I’m still not sure.”

“What happened the second time you put her on the spot?”

“It was the winter of 1996, exactly ten years later. We were at home. We were having breakfast, and it was snowing outside. She suddenly asked me about something I’d shouted at her during the night, while I was asleep. She claimed that I’d accused her of being a spy.”

“Had you?”

“I don’t know. I do sometimes talk in my sleep, but I never remember anything about it.”

“What did you say?”

“I turned her question on its head. I asked her if what I’d been dreaming was true.”

“What did she say?”

“She threw her napkin at me and stormed out of the kitchen. It was ten minutes before she came back. I remember checking the clock. Nine minutes and forty-five seconds, to be exact. She apologized and insisted, once and for all, as she put it, that she didn’t want to hear any more talk about my suspicions. They were absurd. If I ever repeated the accusations, she would be forced to conclude that I was either out of my mind or going senile.”

“What happened then?”

“Nothing. But my misgivings were not allayed. And rumors were still circulating about a spy in the Swedish military. Two years later things came to a point when I really did begin to think that I was going out of my mind.”

“What happened?”

“I was summoned to an interrogation by the military security services. They didn’t make any direct accusations, but it seems that for a while I was one of those suspected of being a spy. It was a grotesque situation. But I recall thinking that if Louise had sold military secrets to the Russians, she had found a perfect cover.”

“You?”

“Exactly. Me.”

“So then what happened?”

“Nothing. The rumors kept circulating, sometimes stronger than at others. Many of us were interrogated, even after we had retired. And as I said, I had the feeling I was being watched.”

Von Enke stood up, switched off the lamps that were still on, and opened some of the curtains. A gray dawn and an equally gray sea could be glimpsed through the trees. Wallander went over to one of the windows. A storm was brewing. He was worried about the boat. Von Enke accompanied him when he went to check that the painter was secure. A few eiders bobbed up and down on the choppy waves. The sun was beginning to disperse the night mist. The boat seemed safe enough, but the two men used their combined strength to drag it farther up the pebbly beach.

“Who killed Louise?” Wallander asked when they had finished with the boat.

Von Enke turned to face him. It occurred to Wallander that he must have confronted Louise in Menton in more or less the same way.

“Who killed her? You’re asking me? All I know is that it wasn’t me. But what do the police think? What do you think?”

“The man in Stockholm who’s in charge of the case seems to be good. But he doesn’t know. Not yet, perhaps I should say. We tend not to jump to conclusions.”

They returned to the hunting lodge in silence, sat down at the kitchen table again, and continued their conversation.

“We must begin at the beginning,” said Wallander. “Why did she go missing? The obvious conclusion for third-party observers like me was that the two of you had a pact of some sort.”

“That wasn’t the case. The first I knew of her disappearance was when I read about it in the papers. It was a shock.”

“So she didn’t know where you were?”

“No.”

“How long did you intend to remain in hiding?”

“I needed to be left in peace, to think. And I’d received death threats. I needed to find a way out.”

“I met Louise on several occasions. She was genuinely and deeply concerned about what might have happened to you.”

“She fooled you just as she’d fooled me.”

“I’m not sure. Could she not have loved you just as much as you loved her?”

Von Enke said nothing, merely shook his head.

“Did you do it?” Wallander asked. “Was that the escape route you hit upon?”

“No.”

“You must have spent hours thinking, brooding, lying sleepless in this hunting lodge. I believe you when you say you loved Louise. Nevertheless, you didn’t leave your hideaway when she died. One would have thought that the danger to your life was over now that she was dead. But you still stayed in hiding. I can’t make sense of that.”

“I’ve lost twenty pounds since she died. I can’t eat; I can hardly sleep. I try to understand what has happened, but I can’t make heads or tails of it. It’s as if Louise has become a stranger to me. I don’t know who she used to meet, or what led to her death. I don’t have any answers.”

“Did she ever give you the impression that she was afraid?”

“Never.”

“I can tell you something that hasn’t appeared in the newspapers, something the police haven’t yet released for public consumption.”

Wallander told him about the suspicions that Louise had been killed by a poison that had previously been used in East Germany.

“It seems likely that you’ve been right all along,” Wallander concluded. “Somewhere along the way your wife, Louise, became an agent for the Russian intelligence service. She was who you suspected she was. She was the spy the Russians talked about.”

Von Enke stood up and stormed out of the house. Wallander waited. After a while he began to worry, and he went out to investigate. He eventually found von Enke lying in a gully on the side of the island facing the open sea. Wallander sat down on a rock by his side.

“You must come back,” he said. “Nothing will ever be solved if you continue to hide here.”

“Perhaps the same poison is lying in wait for me. What will be gained if I die as well?”

“Nothing. But the police have resources to protect you.”

“I have to get used to the idea. That I was right after all. I have to try to understand why and how she did what she did. I can’t return until I’ve done that.”

“You’d better not take too long,” said Wallander, standing up.

He returned to the hunting lodge. Now he was the one making the coffee. He was feeling the strain of the long night. When von Enke returned, he had already emptied his second cup.

“Let’s talk about Signe,” Wallander said. “I went to see her, and I discovered a folder you’d hidden among her books.”

“I loved my daughter. But I made my visits in secret. Louise never knew I’d been there.”

“So you’re the only one who ever visited her?”

“Yes.”

“You’re wrong. Since you went missing, somebody else has been there at least once. He claimed to be your brother.”

Håkan von Enke shook his head in disbelief.

“I don’t have a brother. I have a relative who lives in England, but that’s all.”

“I believe you,” said Wallander. “We don’t know who visited your daughter. Which might suggest that everything is even more complicated than either you or I could have foreseen.”

Wallander could see that Håkan von Enke’s demeanor had suddenly changed. Nothing they had talked about had worried him as much as the news that somebody else had visited Signe at Niklasgården.

It was nearly six o’clock. Their long nocturnal conversation was over. Neither of them had the strength to continue.

“I will leave now,” said Wallander. “At the moment, I’m the only one who knows you are here. But you can’t wait forever before returning to civilization. Besides, I’ll keep on pestering you with questions. Think about who it might have been who visited Niklasgården. Someone must have been on your trail. Who? Why? We must keep this conversation going.”

“Tell Hans and Linda that I’m okay. I don’t want them to worry. Tell them I sent you a letter.”

“I’ll say you called. The first thing Linda would do would be to demand to see the letter.”

They went to the boat and together shoved it out onto the water. Before leaving the house, Wallander had made a note of von Enke’s phone number. But he also established that communications links to Blue Island could be bad. The wind was getting stronger. Wallander was starting to worry about the journey back. He clambered onto the boat and lowered the outboard motor.

“I have to know what happened to Louise,” said von Enke. “I must know who killed her. I need to know why she chose to lead the life of a traitor.”

The engine started at the first pull. Wallander waved good-bye and headed for the mainland. Just before rounding the Blue Island promontory he looked back. Håkan von Enke was still standing on the beach.

At that moment Wallander had a premonition that something was wrong. He didn’t know what, or why. But the feeling was very strong.

He returned the boat and set off on the long drive back to Skåne. He stopped at a rest stop near Gamleby and slept for a few hours.

When he woke up, feeling stiff, the premonition was still there. After that long night with Håkan von Enke, one thing still nagged away at him.

It was a sort of warning. Something didn’t add up, something he had overlooked.

When he pulled into the parking area outside his house many hours later, he still didn’t know what it was that he’d missed.

But he thought: Nothing is what it seems to be.

33

The following day, Wallander wrote a summary of his conversation with Håkan von Enke. Once again he went through all the material he had gathered. Louise was still a mystery to him. If it was true that she had sold information to the Russians, she had cleverly hidden herself behind a mask of insignificance. Who was she, really? Wallander asked himself. Perhaps she was one of those people who become comprehensible only after they are dead.

It was a windy, rainy day in Skåne. Wallander observed the dreary weather through his windows, and concluded that this summer promised to be one of the worst he could remember. Nevertheless, he forced himself to go for a long walk with Jussi. He needed to get his blood moving and clear his head. He longed for calm, sunny days when he could lie down in his garden without needing to trouble his brain with the problems that were occupying him now.

When he had returned after the walk and taken off his wet clothes, he sat down by the phone in his shabby old robe and began leafing through his address book. It was full of crossed-out phone numbers, changes, and additions. In the car the day before, he had remembered an old school friend, Sölve Hagberg, who might be able to help him. It was his phone number he was looking for. He’d made a note of it when they bumped into each other by pure chance in a Malmö street a few years ago.

Sölve Hagberg was an odd person even as a child. Wallander recalled with a sense of guilt that he had been one of the students who bullied Sölve, because of his nearsightedness and his determination to actually learn something at school. But all attempts to undermine Sölve’s self-confidence had failed. All the scornful abuse, all the punches and kicks had been shaken off, like water off a duck’s back.

After leaving school they had not been in contact until one day Wallander was amazed to discover that Sölve Hagberg was going to take part in a TV show called Double or Quits. Even more astonishing was that his chosen subject was going to be the history of the Swedish navy. He had been overweight as a child, another reason why he had been bullied. But if he’d been overweight then, he was positively fat now. He seemed to roll up to the microphone on invisible wheels. He was bald, wore rimless glasses, and spoke with the same broad Scanian accent that Wallander remembered from school. Mona had commented disparagingly on his appearance and gone into the kitchen to make coffee, but Wallander stayed to watch him answer all the questions correctly. He won, thanks to precise and detailed replies delivered with complete self-confidence. As far as Wallander could recall, he hadn’t hesitated for a moment. He really did know everything about the long, complicated history of the Swedish navy. It had been Hagberg’s big ambition to become a naval officer. But thanks to his ungainliness he had been turned down as a recruit and sent back home to his books and model ships. Now he had taken his revenge.

For a short while the newspapers showed an interest in this strange man, who still lived in Limhamn and made a living writing articles for journals and books published by various military institutions. The press wrote about Hagberg’s comprehensive archive. He had detailed information about Swedish naval officers from the seventeenth century to the present day, constantly updated. Perhaps Wallander might be able to find something in this archive to tell him more about who Håkan von Enke really was.

He finally found Hagberg’s number scribbled in the greasy margin of the letter H. He picked up the phone and dialed. A woman answered. Wallander gave his name and asked to speak to Sölve.

“He’s dead.”

Wallander was dumbstruck. After a few seconds of silence the woman asked if he was still there.

“Yes, I’m still here. I had no idea he was dead.”

“He died two years ago. He had a heart attack. He was in Ronneby, addressing a group of retired naval engineers. He collapsed during the dinner following his lecture.”

“I take it you are his wife?”

“Asta Hagberg. We were married for twenty-six years. I told him he should lose weight, but all he did was put three sugars in his coffee instead of four. Who are you?”

Wallander explained, and decided to end the call as quickly as possible.

“You were one of the kids who used to torment him,” she surprised him by saying. “I remember your name now. One of the bullies at school. He had a list of your names, and kept tabs on how you led your lives. He wasn’t ashamed to feel pleased when things went badly for anyone on the list. Why are you calling? What do you want?”

“I’d hoped to be allowed access to his archive.”

“I might be able to help you, but I don’t know if I should. Why couldn’t you leave him alone?”

“I don’t think any of us really understood what we were doing. Children can be cruel. I was no exception.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Of course.”

“Come by, then. Sölve suspected that he wouldn’t live much longer, so he taught me all about the archive and how to use it. What will happen to it when I’m gone, I don’t know. But I’m always at home. Sölve left a fair amount of money, so I don’t need to work.”

She laughed.

“Do you know how he made his money?”

“I expect he was much sought-after as a lecturer.”

“He never asked to be paid for that. Try again!”

“Then I don’t know.”

“He played poker. He went to illegal gaming clubs. I suppose that’s something you deal with in your work?”

“I thought people turned to the Internet these days for gambling.”

“He couldn’t be bothered with that. He went to his clubs, and was away for several weeks sometimes. Once in a while he lost a large amount of money, but usually he came home with a suitcase full of cash. He told me to count it and put it in the bank. He would then go to bed and sleep, often for days on end. The police were here now and then, and he was sometimes arrested when they raided a club, but he was never charged. I think he had an understanding with the police.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Can I mean anything but that he sometimes tipped them off? Maybe some wanted persons turned up at the clubs with money they’d stolen? Nobody would ever imagine that nice old Fatman Sölve could be a cop’s narc, would they? Anyway, are you coming or aren’t you?”

When Wallander wrote down the address he realized that Sölve had always lived on the same street in Limhamn. Wallander and Asta agreed that he would go there at five o’clock that same afternoon. Next he called Linda. He got her answering machine and left a message saying that he was at home. Then he went through the contents of the refrigerator and threw away all the food that had passed its use-by date and wrote a shopping list. The fridge was almost completely empty now. He was just about to leave the house when Linda called.

“I just got back from the drugstore. Klara’s not well.”

“Is it serious?”

“You don’t need to sound as if she were at death’s door every time. She has a temperature and a sore throat. That’s all.”

“Has the doctor seen her?”

“I called the health center. I think I have everything under control. As long as you don’t get all excited and irritate me. Where have you been?”

“I’m not saying at the moment.”

“Aha, a woman, in other words. Good.”

“Not a woman. But I have an important piece of news. I received a phone call not long ago. From Håkan.”

At first she didn’t seem to understand. Then she shouted into the receiver.

“What? Håkan called you? What the hell are you saying? Where is he? How is he? What’s happened?”

“Stop shouting at me! I don’t know where he is. He didn’t want to tell me. He just said that he was well. It didn’t sound as if there was anything wrong with him.”

Wallander could hear her heavy breathing. He felt very uncomfortable lying to her. He regretted having made that promise before he left the island. I’ll tell her the facts, he thought. I can’t deceive my own daughter.

“It seems so unlikely. Did he say anything about why he ran away?”

“No. But he did say that he had nothing to do with Louise’s death. He was just as shocked as the rest of us. He hadn’t had any contact with her after he left.”

“Were Hans’s parents both crazy?”

“I can’t comment on that. But in any case, we can be glad that he’s still alive. That was the only message he wanted me to pass on to you. That he was well. But he couldn’t say when he would return, or why he was in hiding.”

“Did he say that? That he was in hiding?”

Wallander realized that he had revealed too much. But it was too late for him to retract.

“I don’t remember exactly what words he used. Don’t forget that I was astonished by the call as well.”

“I have to speak to Hans. He’s in Copenhagen.”

“I’ll be out all afternoon. Call me this evening. Then we can talk more. I want to know how Hans reacts.”

“He can hardly be anything but happy.”

Wallander replaced the receiver in disgust. When Linda discovered the truth he would have to deal with her fury.

He left for Limhamn. He didn’t really know what to expect, but when he arrived he experienced the usual mixture of discomfort and loss that always affected him when he returned to the place where he grew up. He parked the car not far from Asta Hagberg’s house, then strolled to the apartment building where he had lived as a child. The façade had been renovated and a new fence had been put up, but nevertheless he remembered everything. The sandbox he used to play in was bigger now than it was in those days, and the two birch trees he used to climb were no longer there. He paused on the sidewalk and watched some children playing. They were dark-skinned, no doubt from the Middle East or North Africa. A woman wearing a hijab was sitting by the entrance door, knitting and keeping an eye on the children. He could hear Arabic music wafting through an open window. This is where I used to live, he thought. In another world, another time.

A man came out of the building and approached the gate. He was also dark-skinned. He smiled at Wallander.

“You looking for someone?” he asked in uncertain Swedish.

“No,” said Wallander. “I used to live here many years ago.”

He pointed up at a window on the second floor, which in the old days had belonged to their living room.

“This is a nice house,” said the man. “We like it here; the children like it. We don’t have to feel afraid.”

“Good. People shouldn’t be afraid.”

Wallander nodded and left. The feeling of growing old was oppressive. He quickened his pace, in order to get away from himself.

The garden surrounding the house where Asta Hagberg lived was well tended, but the woman who answered the door was just as fat as he remembered Sölve Hagberg being on the TV show. She was sweaty; her hair was tousled and her skirt much too short. At first he thought she was wearing strong perfume, but then he realized that the whole house reeked of unusual aromas. Does she go around spraying the furniture with perfume? he wondered. Does she drench the potted plants in musk?

She offered him coffee, but he declined. He was already feeling sick, thanks to the overpowering smells streaming into his nose from all over the house. When they went into the living room, Wallander had the feeling that he was entering the bridge of a large ship. Wherever he looked there were ships’ wheels, compasses with beautifully polished brass fittings, votive ships hanging from the ceiling, and an old-fashioned hammock attached to one of the walls. Asta Hagberg crammed herself into a captain’s chair that Wallander presumed had also come from a seagoing vessel. He sat down on what at first looked like a perfectly normal sofa — but a brass plate proclaimed that it had once belonged to the Swedish American Line’s Kungsholm.

“How can I help you?” she asked, lighting a cigarette that she had put in a holder.

“Håkan von Enke,” Wallander said. “An old submarine commander, now retired.”

Asta Hagberg was suddenly stricken by a violent coughing fit. Wallander hoped that this overweight smoker wouldn’t collapse and die before his very eyes. He guessed she was his own age, about sixty.

She kept on coughing until tears came to her eyes. Then she continued smoking serenely.

“The Håkan von Enke who’s gone missing,” she said. “And his dead wife, Louise? Am I right?”

“I know that Sölve had a unique archive. I wonder if there might be something in it that can help me understand why Håkan von Enke has disappeared.”

“He’s dead, of course.”

“In which case it’s the cause of his death that I’m looking for,” Wallander said noncomittally.

“His wife committed suicide. That suggests the family was struggling with major problems. Doesn’t it?”

She went to a table and removed a cloth that had been draped over a computer. Wallander was surprised by how agile her fat fingers were as she tapped away at the keyboard. After a few minutes she leaned back and squinted at the screen.

“Håkan von Enke’s career was as normal as can be. He progressed about as far as you might have expected. If Sweden had been dragged into the war, he might have achieved a rank or two higher, but that’s doubtful.”

Wallander stood up and joined her in front of the computer. The stench of perfume was so strong that he tried to breathe through his mouth. He read what it said on the screen, and looked at the photograph that must have been taken when von Enke was about forty.

“Is there anything at all that’s unusual?”

“No. As a young cadet he won a few prizes in Nordic athletics competitions. A good shot, very fit, first place in a few cross-country races. If you consider that unusual.”

“Is there anything about his wife?”

Her fat fingers began dancing again. The coughing fit returned, but she carried on until a photograph of Louise appeared on the screen. Wallander guessed that she was about thirty-five, possibly forty. Smiling. Her hair was permed, and she was wearing a pearl necklace. Wallander studied the text. There was nothing that seemed unusual or surprising at first glance. Hagberg tapped away again and produced a new page. Wallander discovered that Louise’s mother came from Kiev. “In 1905 Angela Stefanovich married the Swedish coal exporter Hjalmar Sundblad. She moved to Sweden and became a Swedish citizen. She had four children with Hjalmar, and Louise was the youngest.”

“As you can see, everything is normal,” said Hagberg.

“Apart from the fact that her roots are in Russia?”

“Ukraine, we would say nowadays, I suppose. Most Swedes have roots outside our borders. We are a mixture of Finns, Dutchmen, Germans, Russians, Frenchmen. Sölve’s great-grandfather came from Scotland, and my grandmother had links to Turkey. What about you?”

“My ancestors were farmers in Småland.”

“Have you looked into your ancestry? Properly, I mean?”

“No.”

“When you do, you may find something unexpected. Mark my words. It’s always exciting, but not always pleasant. I have a good friend who’s a vicar in the Swedish church. When he retired he decided to do some research into his family roots. He soon discovered two people, direct ancestors, who had been executed within the space of fifty years. One was at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He had been convicted of robbery and murder, and was beheaded. His grandson was conscripted into one of the German armies marching around Europe in the middle of the seventeenth century. He deserted, and was hanged. After that my friend the vicar gave up delving into his roots.”

She stood up with considerable difficulty and gestured to Wallander to follow her into an adjacent room. There were rows of file cabinets along the walls. She unlocked one of the drawers.

“You never know what you might find,” she said as she started searching through the files.

She took one out and placed it on a table. It was full of photos. Wallander didn’t know if she was searching for something specific or just looking through them at random. She stopped when she came to a black-and-white photo and held it up to the light.

“I had a vague memory of having seen this picture. It’s not without interest.”

She handed it to Wallander, who was surprised by what it depicted. A tall, slim man in an immaculate suit and a bow tie, smiling merrily: Stig Wennerström. He was holding a glass in his hand and talking to none other than Håkan von Enke.

“When was this taken?”

“It says on the back. Sölve was meticulous when it came to recording dates and locations.”

Wallander read what was typed on a slip of paper taped to the back of the photograph. October 1959, Swedish naval delegation visiting Washington, D.C., reception hosted by Military Attaché Wennerström. Wallander tried to work out what it implied. If it had been Louise standing there it would have been easier to guess a connection, but she wasn’t present. All he could see in the background was a group of men and a waitress dressed in white.

“Did the wives usually accompany their husbands on such trips?” he asked.

“Only when the top brass were out and about. Wennerström often took his wife with him on trips and to receptions, but at that time von Enke was well short of top brass. He presumably traveled alone. If Louise had been with him, he would have needed to pay for her himself. And in any case, she certainly wouldn’t have been present at a reception given by the Swedish military attaché.”

“I’d be interested in knowing if she did make that trip.”

Hagberg suffered another coughing fit. Wallander moved to a window and opened it slightly. The smell of perfume was bothering him.

“It will take a while,” she said when the fit was over. “I need to do some searching. But obviously, Sölve recorded the details of this and all other journeys made by Swedish military delegations.”

Wallander returned to the sofa from the Kungsholm. He could hear Hagberg humming to herself in a side room as she hunted for the list of those present on various trips to America at the end of the 1950s. It took her almost forty minutes, with Wallander growing increasingly impatient, before she returned with a look of triumph in her eyes, brandishing a sheet of paper.

“Mrs. von Enke was there,” she said. “She is specifically classified as ‘accompanying,’ with some abbreviations that probably indicate that the armed forces were not paying her fare. If it’s important, I can look up the precise meaning of the abbreviations.”

Wallander took the sheet of paper. The delegation, led by Commander Karlén, comprised eight people. Among those “accompanying” were Louise von Enke and Märta Auren, the wife of Lieutenant Commander Karl-Axel Auren.

“Can one copy this?” Wallander asked.

“I don’t know what ‘one’ can do, but I have a photocopier in the basement. How many copies do you need?”

“One.”

“I usually charge two kronor per copy.”

She headed for the basement. So the von Enkes had been in Washington for eight days. That meant that Louise could have been contacted by somebody. But was that really credible? he asked himself. So soon? Mind you, the Cold War was becoming more intense at the end of the fifties. It was a time when Americans saw Russian spies on every street corner. Did something significant happen during this journey?

Asta Hagberg returned with a copy of the document. Wallander placed two one-krona coins on the table.

“I suppose I haven’t been as much help as you’d hoped,” said Hagberg.

“Looking for missing persons is usually a tedious and very slow process. You progress one step at a time.”

She accompanied him to the gate. He was relieved to breathe in unperfumed air.

“Feel free to get in touch again,” she said. “I’m always here, if I can be of any help to you.”

Wallander nodded, and walked to his car. He was just about to leave Limhamn when he decided to make one more visit. He had often thought about investigating whether a mark he had made nearly fifty years ago was still there. He parked outside the churchyard, made his way to the western corner of the surrounding wall, and bent down. Had he been ten or eleven at the time? He couldn’t remember, but he’d been old enough to have discovered one of life’s great secrets: that he was who he was, a person with an identity all his own. That discovery had sparked a temptation inside him. He would make his mark in a place where it would never disappear. The low churchyard wall topped by iron railings was the sacred place he had chosen. He had sneaked out one fall evening, with a strong nail and a hammer hidden under his jacket. Limhamn was deserted. He had selected the spot earlier: the stones in the section of wall close to the western corner were unusually smooth. Cold rain had started to fall as he carved his initials, KW, into the churchyard wall.

Wallander found those initials without difficulty. The letters had faded and were not as clear now, after all those years. But he had dug deep into the stone, and his mark was still there. I’ll bring Klara here sometime, he thought. I’ll tell her about the day when I decided to change the world. Even if it was only by carving my initials into a stone wall.

He went into the churchyard and sat down on a bench in the shade of a tree. He closed his eyes and thought he could hear his own childhood voice echoing inside his head, sounding like it did when it was cracking and he was troubled by everything the adult world stood for. Maybe this is where I should be buried when the time comes, he thought. Return to the beginning, be laid to rest in this same soil. I’ve already carved my epitaph into the wall.

He left the churchyard and went back to his car. Before starting the engine he thought about his meeting with Asta Hagberg. What had it accomplished?

The answer was simple. He had not progressed a single step forward. Louise was just as big a mystery as she had been before. The wife of an officer, not present in any photographs.

But the unease he had felt ever since meeting Håkan von Enke on his island was still there.

I can’t see it, he thought. Whatever it is that I should have discovered by now.

34

Wallander drove home. He could cope with the fact that his visit to Asta Hagberg had not produced results, but his sorrow following the death of Baiba weighed heavily on him. It came in waves, the memory of her sudden visit and then her equally sudden departure. But there was nothing he could do about it; in her death he also envisaged his own.

When he had parked the car, released Jussi and allowed him to run off, he poured himself a large glass of vodka and drank it in one swig, standing by the kitchen table. He filled his glass again and took it with him into the bedroom. He pulled down the blinds on the two windows, undressed, and lay down naked on top of the bed. He balanced the glass on his wobbly stomach. I can take one more step, he thought. If that doesn’t lead me anywhere, I’ll drop the whole thing. I’ll inform Håkan that I’m going to tell Linda and Hans where he is. If that means he chooses to remain missing and find himself a new hideout, that’s up to him. I’ll talk to Ytterberg, Nordlander, and Atkins. Then it’s no longer my business — not that it ever was. Summer is almost over, my vacation has been ruined, and I’ll find myself wondering yet again where all the time has gone.

He emptied the glass and felt the warmth and the sensation of being pleasantly drunk kick in. One more step, he thought again. But what would it be? He put the glass on the bedside table and soon fell asleep. When he woke up an hour later, he knew what he was going to do. While he was asleep, his brain had formulated an answer. He could see it clearly, the only thing that was important now. Who other than Hans could provide him with information? He was an intelligent young man, if not especially sensitive. But people always know more than they think they know, observations they’ve made in their subconscious.

He gathered his dirty laundry and started the washing machine. Then he went out and shouted for Jussi. There was a sound of barking from far away, in one of the neighbors’ newly mown fields. Jussi eventually came bounding up. He had been rolling in something that smelled foul. Wallander shut him in his kennel, got the garden hose, and washed him off. Jussi stood there with his tail between his legs, looking pleadingly at Wallander.

“You smell like shit,” Wallander told him. “I’m not having a stinky dog in my house.”

Wallander went into the kitchen and sat at the table. He wrote down the most important questions he could think of, then looked up Hans’s phone number at work in Copenhagen. When he was told that Hans was busy for the rest of the day with important meetings, he became impatient. He told the girl on the switchboard to inform Hans that he should call Detective Chief Inspector Wallander in Ystad within the next hour. Wallander had just opened the washing machine and realized that he’d forgotten to put in any detergent when the phone rang. He made no attempt to conceal his irritation.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’m working. Why do you sound so angry?”

“It’s nothing. When do you have time to see me?”

“It’ll have to be in the evening. I have meetings and appointments all day.”

“Reschedule them. I’ll be arriving in Copenhagen at two o’clock. I need an hour. No more, but no less.”

“Did something happen?”

“Something’s happening all the time. If it was important, I’d have told you already. I just want answers to a few questions. Some new ones, a few old ones.”

“I’d be grateful if it could wait until the evening. The financial markets are in turmoil.”

“I’ll be there at two,” said Wallander.

He replaced the receiver and restarted the washing machine after putting in far too much detergent, though he knew it was childish to punish the washing machine for his own forgetfulness.

He mowed the lawn, raked the gravel paths, lay down in the garden hammock, and read a book about Verdi that he’d bought for himself as a Christmas present. When he emptied the washing machine he discovered that a red handkerchief had been lying unnoticed among the white items, and the color had run, turning everything pink. He started the machine yet again. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed, pricked a fingertip and measured his blood sugar. That was another thing he kept forgetting. But the result was just about acceptable at 146.

While the washing machine was doing its job for the third time, he lay down on the sofa and listened to a newly bought recording of Rigoletto. He thought about Baiba; his eyes filled with tears and he imagined her restored to life. But she was gone, and would never return. When the music had finished he heated a fish stew he had taken out of the freezer and washed it down with a glass of water. He eyed a bottle of wine standing on the counter but didn’t open it. The vodka he had drunk earlier was enough. He spent the evening watching Some Like It Hot, a favorite of his and Mona’s, on television. He had seen the film many times before, but it still made him laugh.

He slept well that night, to his surprise.

Linda called the next morning as he was having breakfast. The window was wide open; it was a lovely warm day. Wallander was sitting naked on his kitchen chair.

“What did Ytterberg have to say about Håkan getting in touch?”

“I haven’t spoken to him yet.”

She was shocked.

“Why not? If anybody should know that Håkan isn’t dead, surely it’s him.”

“Håkan asked me not to say anything.”

“You didn’t tell me that yesterday.”

“I must have forgotten.”

She realized immediately that his reply was both hesitant and evasive.

“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

“No.”

“Then I think you should call Ytterberg the moment we finish this conversation.”

Wallander could hear the anger in her voice.

“If I ask you a straightforward, honest question, will you give me a straightforward, honest answer?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s behind all this? If I know you, you have an opinion.”

“Not in this case I don’t. I’m just as bewildered as you are.”

“But the suggestion that Louise was a spy is just ridiculous.”

“Whether it’s plausible or not is not something I can judge. The police found those items in her purse.”

“Somebody must have planted them there. That’s the only possible explanation. She certainly wasn’t a spy,” Linda asserted once more.

She paused. Perhaps she was waiting for him to agree. He heard Klara screaming in the background.

“What’s she doing?”

“She’s in bed. But she doesn’t want to stay there. Incidentally, that’s something I’ve been wondering: What was I like at her age? Did I cry a lot? Have I asked you that before?”

“All babies cry a lot.”

“I was just wondering. I think you see yourself in your children. Anyway, you’re going to call Ytterberg today, I hope?”

“Tomorrow. But you were a well-behaved child.”

“Things got worse later, when I was a teenager.”

“Oh yes,” Wallander said. “Much worse.”

When they hung up, Wallander remained seated. That was one of his worst memories, something he rarely allowed to bubble up to the surface. When she was fifteen, Linda had tried to take her own life. It probably wasn’t all that serious, more of a classic cry for help, a desire to attract attention. But it could have ended very badly if Wallander hadn’t forgotten his wallet and returned home. He had found her, slurring her words, with an empty jar of pills by her side. The panic he felt at that moment was something he had never experienced again. It was also the biggest failure of his life — not having realized how bad she felt as a vulnerable teenager.

He shook off the painful memory. He was convinced that if she had died, he would have taken his own life as well.

He thought back to their conversation. Her absolute certainty that Louise couldn’t have been a spy made him think. It wasn’t a matter of proof, but of conviction. But if she’s right, Wallander thought, what is the explanation? Despite everything, was it possible that Louise and Håkan were somehow working together? Or was Håkan von Enke such a cold-blooded liar that he talked about his great love for Louise in order to ensure that nobody would think what he said wasn’t true? Was he behind her death and now trying to send investigators in the wrong direction?

Wallander scribbled a sentence in his notebook: Linda is convinced that Louise is innocent. But deep down he didn’t believe it. Louise was responsible for her own death. That had to be the case.

Shortly before two Wallander rang the bell outside the glass front door of the exclusive offices at Rundetårn in Copenhagen. A busty young lady let him in through the whispering doors. She called for Hans, who appeared in reception without delay. He looked pale and tired. They passed by a conference room where an argument was taking place between a middle-aged man speaking English and two fair-haired young men speaking Icelandic. Their interpreter was a woman dressed entirely in black.

“Hard words,” Wallander said as they passed by. “I thought finance people had pretty discreet conversations?”

“We sometimes say that we work in the slaughterhouse industry,” Hans said. “It sounds worse than it is. But when you work with money, your hands get covered in blood — symbolically speaking, of course.”

“Why are they arguing so vehemently?”

Hans shook his head.

“Business. I can’t say what exactly, not even to you.”

Wallander asked no more questions. Hans took him to a small conference room made entirely of glass — even the floor — and apparently hanging on the outside wall of the office building. Wallander had the feeling of being in an aquarium. A woman, just as young as the receptionist, came in with a tray of coffee and Danish pastries. Wallander placed his notebook and pencil by the side of his cup as Hans served the coffee. Wallander noticed that his hands were shaking.

“I thought the days of the notebook were past,” said Hans when he had filled both cups. “Aren’t police nowadays only issued cassette recorders, or perhaps video cameras?”

“Television series are not always a true reflection of our work. I do use a tape recorder sometimes, of course. But this isn’t an interrogation; it’s a conversation.”

“Where do you want to start? I really do have just this one hour. It was extremely difficult to rearrange things.”

“It’s about your mother,” Wallander said firmly. “No work can be more important than finding out what happened to her. I take it you agree with me on that?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Okay, let’s discuss what this is all about. Not what you meant or didn’t mean.”

Hans stared hard at Wallander.

“Let me say from the start that my mother couldn’t possibly have been a spy. Even if she could act a bit secretive at times.”

Wallander raised his eyebrows.

“That’s something you never said before when we talked about her. That she could be secretive.”

“I’ve been thinking since we last spoke. I do find her increasingly puzzling. Mainly because of Signe. Can you imagine a more outrageous deceit than concealing from a child that he has a sister? I sometimes regretted being an only child. Especially when I was very young, before I’d started school. But there was never anything evasive in her answers. Now it seems to me that she answered my childish longing with ice-cold indifference.”

“And your father?”

“He was never at home in those days. At least, I remember him as being mostly absent. Every time he came through the door, I knew he would soon be leaving again. He always brought me presents. But I didn’t dare enjoy being with him. When his uniform was taken out to be aired and brushed, I knew what was going to happen. The following morning he would leave.”

“Can you tell me more about what you regard as secretive behavior on your mother’s part?”

“It’s hard to pinpoint. Sometimes she seemed preoccupied, sunk so deep in her own thoughts that she grew angry if I happened to disturb her. It was almost as if I’d caused her pain, as if I’d stuck a pin in her. I don’t know if that makes sense to you, but that’s how I remember it. Sometimes she would close her notebooks, or quickly slide something over the paper she was working on when I came into the room.”

“Was there anything your mother did only when your father wasn’t at home? Any routines that suddenly changed?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“You’re answering too quickly. Think about it.”

Hans stood up and gazed out the windows. Through the floor Wallander could see a street musician down below strumming away at a guitar with a hat in front of him on the sidewalk. No sound of music penetrated the glass. Hans returned to his chair.

“What I’m about to say now is nothing I could swear to,” he said. “It could be my imagination, my memory playing tricks. But now that I think about it, when Håkan was away she often talked on the phone, always with the door closed. She didn’t do that when he was at home.”

“Didn’t talk on the phone or didn’t close the door?”

“Neither.”

“Go on.”

“There were often papers lying around that she worked on. I have the feeling that when Håkan came home the papers were no longer there — there were flowers on the tables instead.”

“What kind of papers?”

“I don’t know. But sometimes there were drawings as well.”

Wallander gave a start.

“Drawings of what?”

“Divers. My mother was very good at drawing.”

“Divers?”

“Various dives, different phases of individual dives. ‘German leap with full twist’ or whatever they say, that sort of thing.”

“Can you remember any other kind of drawings?”

“She sometimes drew me. I don’t know where those drawings are, but they were good.”

Wallander broke a Danish pastry in two and dunked one half in his coffee. He looked at his watch. The musician under his feet was still playing his silent music.

“I’m not quite finished yet,” said Wallander. “Let’s talk about your mother’s views. Political, social, economic. What did she think about Sweden?”

“Politics were not a topic of conversation in my home.”

“Never?”

“One of them might say, ‘The Swedish armed forces are no longer capable of defending our country’ or something of the sort. The other might reply to the effect that it was the fault of the Communists. And that would be it. Either of them could have said either of those things. They were conservative, of course — we’ve spoken about that already. There was no question of voting for any party other than the Moderates. Taxes were too high. Sweden was allowing in too many immigrants who went on to cause chaos in the streets. I think you could say they thought exactly as you would expect them to.”

“There was never any exception to that, then?”

“Never, not that I can recall.”

Wallander nodded and ate the other half of the Danish.

“Let’s talk about your parents’ relationship with each other,” he said when he’d finished chewing. “What was that like?”

“It was good.”

“Did they ever argue?”

“No. I think they really loved each other. That’s something I thought about afterward — that as a child I never had the slightest fear that they would divorce. That thought never even occurred to me.”

“But surely no couple ever lives together without the occasional conflict?”

“They did. Unless they argued when I was asleep and I didn’t hear them. But I find that hard to believe.”

Wallander had no more questions. But he wasn’t ready to give up.

“Is there anything else you could say about your mother? She was kind and she was secretive, perhaps mysterious, we know that now. But to be perfectly honest, you seem to know surprisingly little about her.”

“I’ve come to see that,” said Hans, with something that Wallander interpreted as painful honesty. “There were hardly ever any moments of real intimacy between us. She always kept me at a certain distance. She comforted me if I hurt myself, of course. But with hindsight I can see now that she found that almost troublesome.”

“Was there any other man in her life?”

That was not a question Wallander had prepared in advance. But now that he’d asked it, it seemed an obvious one.

“Never. I don’t think there was any disloyalty between my parents. On either side.”

“What about before they got married? What do you know about that time?”

“I have the feeling that because they met so early in their lives, neither of them ever had anybody else. Not anyone serious. But of course, I can’t be certain.”

Wallander put his notebook in his jacket pocket. He hadn’t written down a single word. There was nothing to write. He knew as little now as he had before he’d arrived.

He stood up. But Hans remained seated.

“My father,” he said. “I gather he’s called you. So he’s alive, but he doesn’t want to put in an appearance, is that it?”

Wallander sat down again. The guitar player under his feet had moved on.

“There’s no doubt that he was the one who called. He said he was well. He gave no explanation of his behavior. He just wanted you to know that he was alive.”

“He really said nothing about where he was?”

“Nothing.”

“What impression did you get? Was he far away? Did he call from a landline or a cell phone?”

“I can’t say.”

“Because you don’t want to, or because you can’t?”

“Because I can’t.”

Wallander stood up again. They left the room made of glass. When they passed by the conference room, the door was closed but the people inside were still arguing loudly. They said their good-byes in reception.

“Did I help at all?” Hans asked.

“You were honest,” Wallander said. “That’s the only thing I can ask for.”

“A diplomatic answer. So I wasn’t able to give you what you were hoping for.”

Wallander made a resigned gesture. The glass door opened, and he waved as he left. The elevator took him silently down to the lobby. He had parked his car in a side street off Kongens Nytorv. Since it was very hot, he took off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt.

Suddenly he had the feeling he was being watched. He turned around. The street was full of people, but he didn’t recognize any of the faces. After a hundred yards he stopped in front of a shopwindow and contemplated some expensive ladies’ shoes. He sneaked a look back along the section of street he’d just come from. A man was standing, looking at his wristwatch. Then he moved his overcoat from his right arm to his left. Wallander thought he remembered him from the first time he’d looked around. He turned back to the ladies’ shoes. The man passed behind his back. Wallander recalled something Rydberg had said. You don’t always need to be behind the person you’re shadowing. You can just as well be in front of him. Wallander set off and counted a hundred steps. Then he stopped again and turned around. Now there was nobody who attracted his attention. The man with the overcoat had vanished. When Wallander reached his car he looked around one last time. The people he could see, coming and going, were totally new to him. He shook his head. He must have been imagining things.

He drove back over the long bridge, paused at the Father’s Hat roadside café, then headed for home.

When he got out of the car, his mind suddenly went blank. He stood there with the keys in his hand, totally confused. The hood was warm. Once again he was panic-stricken. Where had he been? Jussi was barking and jumping up and down in his kennel. Wallander stared at the dog and tried hard to remember. He looked at the car keys, then at the car, hoping they would give him a clue. Almost ten horrifying minutes passed before the blockage crumbled and he remembered what he had been doing. He was drenched in sweat. It’s getting worse, he thought. I have to find out what’s happening to me.

He collected the mail and sat down at the garden table. He was still shaken by the attack of forgetfulness.

It was only later, after he had fed Jussi, that he discovered the letter lying among the newspapers he had collected from the mailbox. There was no return address, and he didn’t recognize the handwriting.

When he opened the letter he saw that it was handwritten, and from Håkan von Enke.

35

The letter had been mailed in Norrköping:

Wallander put the letter down on the kitchen table. It was good, of course, that von Enke had put Wallander in touch with a potentially useful contact. But even so, he didn’t like the letter. Once again he had the impression that there was something going on he hadn’t detected. He read the letter one more time, slowly, as if he were picking his way gingerly through a minefield. Letters need to be deciphered, Rydberg once said. You have to know what you’re doing, especially if the letter might be of significance for a crime investigation. But what was there to decipher? The contents were plain enough.

He measured his blood sugar and this time was less pleased with the result: 184. That was too high. He had forgotten to take his Metformin pills and his insulin. He checked in the refrigerator and saw that within the next few days he would need to replenish his insulin.

Every day he took no fewer than seven different pills, for his diabetes, his blood pressure, and his cholesterol. He didn’t like doing so; it felt like a sort of defeat. Many of his colleagues didn’t take a single pill — or at least, they said they didn’t. In the old days, Rydberg had been scornful of all chemical preparations. He didn’t even take anything for the headaches that plagued him. Every day my body is filled with goodness knows how many chemicals that I don’t really know anything about, Wallander thought. I trust my doctors and the pharmaceutical companies, without questioning the things they prescribe.

He hadn’t even told Linda about all the pills. Nor did she know that he was now injecting himself with insulin. To be on the safe side, he had hidden it behind some jars of mango chutney that he knew she wouldn’t touch.

He read the letter a few more times without discovering anything between the lines. Håkan von Enke was not sending him any hidden messages. He was looking in vain for something that wasn’t there.

That night he dreamed about his father.

He had just woken up, shortly after seven, when the phone rang. He assumed it was Linda at this hour, especially since she knew he was on vacation. He picked up the receiver.

“Is that Knut Wallander?”

It was a man’s voice. His Swedish was perfect, although Wallander could hear a slight foreign accent.

“I take it I’m talking to Mr. Talboth,” he said. “I’ve been expecting to hear from you.”

“Call me George. I’ll call you Knut.”

“Not Knut. Kurt.”

“Kurt. Kurt Wallander. I’m always getting names wrong. When are you coming to visit?”

Wallander was surprised by the question. What had Håkan von Enke written to Talboth?

“I wasn’t planning on going to Berlin. I didn’t even know you existed until I received a letter yesterday.”

“Håkan wrote in a letter to me that you would definitely want to come here and talk to me.”

“Why can’t you come to Skåne?”

“I don’t have a driver’s license. And I hate traveling by train or flying.”

An American without a driver’s license, Wallander thought. He must be an extremely unusual person.

“Maybe I can help you,” Talboth said. “I used to know Louise. Just as well as I knew Håkan. And she was a good friend of my wife, Marilyn. They often used to go out together for tea. Afterward, Marilyn would tell me what they had been talking about.”

“And what was that?”

“Louise nearly always talked politics. Marilyn wasn’t as interested, but she listened politely.”

Wallander frowned. Wasn’t that the opposite of what Hans had said? That his mother never talked about politics, apart from a few brief comments in conversations with her husband?

He was suddenly attracted by the thought of visiting George Talboth in Berlin. He hadn’t been there since the collapse of East Germany. He had been to East Berlin twice in the mid-1980s with Linda, when she had been obsessed by the theater and had insisted on seeing performances by the Berliner Ensemble. He could still recall his annoyance when the East German border police burst into their sleeping car in the middle of the night and demanded to see his passport. On both occasions they had stayed in a hotel at Alexanderplatz. Wallander had felt uneasy the whole time.

“I might be able to come see you,” he said. “I could take my car.”

“You can stay at my place,” said Talboth. “I have an apartment in Schöneberg. When should I expect you?”

“When would it suit you?”

“I’m a widower. You’re welcome whenever is good for you.”

“The day after tomorrow?”

“I’ll give you my phone number. Call me when you’re approaching Berlin, and I’ll guide you through the city. Do you eat fish or meat?”

“Both.”

“Wine?”

“Red.”

“That’s all I need to know. Do you have a pencil handy?”

Wallander wrote down the number in the margin of von Enke’s letter.

“I look forward to meeting you,” said Talboth. “If I understand correctly, your daughter is married to young Hans von Enke?”

“Not quite. They have a daughter, Klara. But they’re not married yet.”

“Please bring a photo of your granddaughter.”

Wallander ended the call. He had pictures of Klara pinned up all over the house. He took down two photos from the kitchen wall and put them on the table next to his passport. He ate his breakfast while studying a road atlas to establish how far it was to Berlin from the ferry terminal at Sassnitz. A phone call to the ferry company in Trelleborg provided him with the timetable. He noted down the times and found himself looking forward to the impending journey. I will remember this summer for all the car trips I’ve taken, he thought. It reminds me of when Linda was a little girl and we used to go to Denmark on vacation, sometimes to Gotland, and once even as far as Hammarfest in the north of Norway.

On July 23 he drove along the coast road to Trelleborg to catch a ferry to the Continent. He had told Linda that he planned to spend a few days in Berlin. She hadn’t asked any suspicious questions, merely said that she envied him. He saw on the television that high temperatures in Berlin and central Europe were breaking records.

He decided not to try to do the driving nonstop. He would leave the highway at some point and stay overnight in a little hotel. He wasn’t in a hurry.

He had a meal on board the ferry, sharing a table with a talkative truck driver who told Wallander he was on the way to Dresden with several tons of dog food.

“Why would German dogs want to eat food from Sweden?” Wallander wondered.

“A good question. But isn’t that what they call the free market?”

Wallander went out on deck. He could understand why a lot of people chose to work on board a ship. Like Håkan von Enke, even if he had spent long periods of his life underwater. Why would anyone want to become a submarine captain? he asked himself. But then again, there are doubtless lots of people who wonder why anyone would want to become a police officer. My own father did.

Shortly after driving out of Sassnitz he pulled into a rest stop, changed his shirt, and put on shorts and sandals. Just for a moment he enjoyed the thought of being able to go wherever he wanted, spend the night wherever he wanted, eat wherever he wanted. That’s what freedom looks like, he thought, and smiled at how pathetic the observation was. An elderly policeman on the run, having escaped from himself.

He drove as far as Oranienburg, on the outskirts of Berlin, before deciding to stop for the night. He spent some time looking for a suitable hotel and eventually chose the Kronhof.

He was given a corner room on the third floor. It was big, with too much heavy, dreary-looking furniture. But Wallander was satisfied. He was on the top floor, so nobody would be walking around over his head during the night. He put on a pair of pants, then strolled around town for a couple of hours, had a coffee, browsed in an antiques shop, and went back to the Kronhof. It was five o’clock. He was hungry, but he decided to eat later. He lay down on the bed with a crossword puzzle. After solving a few clues he fell asleep. It was seven-thirty when he woke up. He went down to the restaurant and took a seat at a corner table. It was still early, and there weren’t many diners. He was given a menu by a waitress who reminded him of Fanny Klarström. He chose Wiener schnitzel and ordered a glass of wine. The restaurant began to fill up; most of the guests seemed to know one another. He had chocolate pudding for dessert, despite knowing that he shouldn’t eat anything that sweet. He drank another glass of wine and noticed that he was beginning to feel tipsy. But Martinsson wouldn’t be coming here to tell him off.

He asked for the bill at nine o’clock, went up to his room, undressed, and got in bed. But he couldn’t sleep. He suddenly felt restless, harassed. The good feeling he’d enjoyed during his solitary meal had gone. In the end he gave up, dressed again, and went back down to the restaurant, which had a separate bar. He went there and ordered a glass of wine. A group of elderly men were standing, drinking beer. All the tables were empty, apart from one almost next to him. A woman in her forties was sitting there, drinking a glass of white wine and keying a text into her cell phone. She smiled at Wallander. He smiled back. They raised their glasses and drank to each other. She continued texting. Wallander ordered another glass of wine, and offered one to the woman. She thanked him with a smile, put her phone away, and moved over to his table. He explained in bad English that he was a Swede, on his way to Berlin. He was uncertain about how to pronounce Kurt in English, so he told her his name was James.

“Is that a Swedish name?” she asked.

“My mother came from Ireland,” he told her.

He smiled at his lie, and asked her name. Isabel, she told him. She explained that within the next few years Oranienburg would be swallowed up by Berlin. Wallander was studying her face, which was excessively made up. She gave the impression of being ravaged, worn out. He wondered if she was a woman on the prowl, using this bar as her hunting grounds. But she wasn’t provocatively dressed, he thought. Besides, I’m not looking for a prostitute.

Who was this Isabel he was now sitting with? She said she was a florist, single, with grown-up children who had flown the nest. She lived in an apartment — sehr schön, she insisted it was — in a building overlooking a park that she tried to describe the way to. But Wallander wasn’t interested in a park or ways to get there; he had become entranced by her, could already picture her naked in his hotel room, and that was where he intended to lure her. He could see that she was drunk, and he felt he shouldn’t have anything more to drink either. It was almost midnight, and the barman announced last call. Wallander asked for the bill, and offered her a glass of wine in his room — that was the first time he’d mentioned that he was staying at the hotel. She didn’t seem surprised; perhaps she knew already. Could there be some kind of communications link between reception and the bar? But he didn’t worry about that. He paid the bill, adding far too big a tip, and ushered her past the unattended reception desk and up to his room. It was only after he had closed the door that he admitted the sad truth: he had no drinks to offer her. There was no minibar — the hotel didn’t have luxuries like that — nor was there any room service. But she knew what was expected of her and suddenly embraced him. He was overcome by a desire that he couldn’t control, and they ended up in his bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept with a woman, and he tried to imagine that Isabel’s body belonged to Baiba or Mona, or to other women he had forgotten about long ago. It all happened very quickly, and she was already asleep when Wallander felt desire welling up inside him once more. It was impossible to wake her. Making love to a woman fast asleep was something he couldn’t bring himself to contemplate. He had no option but to go to sleep himself, which he duly did, with one hand between her sweaty thighs.

It was still there when he woke up at dawn. He had a headache, his tongue seemed to be glued to his palate, and he made up his mind on the spot to escape as quickly as possible from the room, and from Isabel, who was still fast asleep by his side. He dressed as quietly as he could; he realized that he wasn’t fit to drive, but he couldn’t entertain the possibility of staying put. He took his suitcase and went down to reception, where a young man was lying fast asleep on a bunk underneath the old-fashioned key rack. He woke up when Wallander shouted for service, presented the bill, and handed over the change. Wallander put the keys on the counter alongside a ten-euro note.

“There’s a woman asleep in my room. I assume that this will cover her as well?”

“Alles klar,” said the young man, and yawned.

Wallander hurried to his car and set off for Berlin. But he drove only as far as the first rest stop. He pulled in and moved to the backseat to sleep. He regretted the previous night very much. He tried to convince himself that it was no big deal. After all, she hadn’t asked him for money. She couldn’t have found him totally repulsive.

He woke up at nine o’clock and continued his journey to Berlin. He stopped at a motel just off the highway and called George Talboth, who had a road atlas handy and soon worked out where Wallander was.

“I’ll be there in an hour or so,” he said. “Sit out and enjoy the lovely weather.”

“How will you get here? I thought you said you didn’t have a driver’s license.”

“We’ll get around that.”

Wallander bought a coffee served in a cardboard cup and sat down in the shade outside the motel’s restaurant. He wondered if Isabel had woken up yet and asked herself where Wallander had disappeared to. He could recall next to nothing of their awkward and uninspired lovemaking. Had it really happened? He could only remember vague fragments, which just embarrassed him.

He topped up his cup of coffee, and bought a pre-made sandwich. It feels like chewing a sponge, he thought. After having forced half of it down, he threw the rest to some pigeons pecking at the ground not far from where he was sitting.

Time passed, but still nobody appeared looking for a Swedish detective. After another fifteen minutes, a black Mercedes pulled up to the motel. It had diplomatic plates. George Talboth had arrived. A man in a white suit wearing sunglasses stepped out of the car, looked around and homed in on Wallander. He came over and removed his sunglasses.

“Kurt Wallander?”

“That’s me.”

George Talboth was over six feet tall, powerfully built, and his handshake would have throttled Wallander if it had been applied to his neck.

“Sorry I’m late. The traffic was worse than expected.”

“I did as you suggested and made the most of the good weather. I haven’t even looked at my watch.”

Talboth raised his hand and signaled to the Mercedes with the invisible chauffeur. It drove off.

“Shall we go?”

They sat in Wallander’s Peugeot. Talboth turned out to be a living GPS and guided Wallander confidently through the increasingly busy traffic. After not much more than an hour they came to an attractive apartment building in the Schöneberg district. It occurred to Wallander that this must be one of the few buildings that had survived World War II, when Hitler shot himself in his bunker and the Red Army fought its way through the city, street by street. Talboth lived on the top floor, in an apartment with six rooms. The bedroom he gave to Wallander was large, with a view over a little park.

“I’ll have to leave you to your own devices for an hour or two,” Talboth said. “I have a few things to deal with.”

“I’ll manage.”

“When I get back we’ll have all the time in the world. There’s an Italian restaurant just down the road that serves excellent food, where we can have a leisurely conversation. How long are you planning to stay?”

“Not all that long. I thought I’d go home tomorrow, in fact.”

Talboth shook his head vigorously.

“Out of the question. You can’t possibly do justice to Berlin in such a short time. It would be an insult to this city, which has been at the center of so much of the world’s tragic history.”

“We can discuss that later,” said Wallander. “But as I’m sure you understand, old men also have jobs to do.”

Talboth accepted that response, showed Wallander the bathroom, kitchen, and extensive balcony, then left. Wallander watched through a window as Talboth once again clambered into the black Mercedes. He took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and swigged it back while standing on the balcony. As far as he was concerned, that was a way of saying good-bye to the woman from the previous evening. She no longer existed, except perhaps as a persistent memory in his dreams. That was the way it usually was. He never dreamed about the women he had really been in love with. But the ones with whom he had engaged in more or less unpleasant experiences frequently turned up.

He thought about remembering what he would prefer to forget, and forgetting what he should remember. There was something fundamentally wrong with his way of life. He didn’t know if it was the same for everyone. What did Linda dream about? What did Martinsson dream about? What did his interfering boss, Lennart Mattson, dream about?

He drank another beer, started to feel tipsy, and ran a bath. After a good soak, he felt much better.

George Talboth came back a couple of hours later. They sat out on the balcony and started talking.

That was when Wallander noticed a little stone on the balcony table. A stone he was certain he recognized.

36

There was a question nagging at Wallander during the time he spent with George Talboth. Did he realize that Wallander had noticed the stone? Or didn’t he? Wallander still wasn’t sure when he left for home the following day. But he had no doubt that Talboth was a sharp-eyed man. Things happen at top speed behind those eyes of his, Wallander thought. He has a brain that doesn’t leak, or decline. He may seem uninterested or even apathetic at times, but he is always wide awake.

The only thing Wallander could be sure about was the fact that the stone that had disappeared from Håkan von Enke’s desk was now on a table on the balcony of George Talboth’s apartment. Either that, or an exact copy of it.

The idea of a copy also applied to the man himself. Even at the motel, Wallander had been struck by the feeling that Talboth was very much like somebody else, that he had a doppelgänger. Not necessarily somebody Wallander knew personally, rather somebody he had seen before, but he couldn’t remember who.

It wasn’t until the evening that the penny dropped. Talboth looked exactly like the film actor Humphrey Bogart. He was taller, and didn’t have the cigarette constantly glued to his lips; but it wasn’t only his appearance, there was something about his voice that Wallander seemed to recognize from films like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen. He wondered if Talboth was aware of the similarity, and assumed that he was.

Before they sat down that afternoon Talboth also demonstrated that he had surprises up his sleeve. He opened one of the doors in his apartment that had been kept closed and revealed an enormous aquarium with a whole shoal of red and blue fish swimming silently behind the thick glass. The room was filled with glass tanks and plastic piping, but what astounded Wallander most was that the bottom of the aquarium was criss-crossed by cleverly constructed tunnels through which miniature electric trains were racing around and around. The tunnels were completely transparent, apparently made of glass, and not a drop of water seeped through into them. The fish seemed to be unaware of this railway line at the bottom of their artificially made seabed.

“The tunnels are almost an exact copy of the one between Dover and Calais,” said Talboth. “I used the original plans and certain constructional details when I made this model.”

Wallander thought of Håkan von Enke sitting in the remote hunting lodge with his ship in a bottle. There’s some kind of affinity between them, in addition to their friendship, he thought. But what that implies, I can’t say.

“I enjoy working with my hands,” Talboth went on. “Using only your brain isn’t good for you. Do you find that too?”

“Hardly. My father was pretty handy, but I inherited none of that.”

“What did your father do?”

“He produced paintings.”

“You mean he was an artist? Why did you use the word ‘produced’?”

“My father really only painted one motif throughout his life,” Wallander said. “It’s not much to talk about.”

Talboth noted Wallander’s unwillingness to elaborate, and he asked no more questions. They watched the fish swimming slowly to and fro, and the trains rushing through their tunnels. Wallander noticed that they didn’t pass at exactly the same point every time; there was a delay that was hardly noticeable at first. He also noted that at one part of the circuit they used the same stretch of line. He hesitated but eventually asked about what he had observed. Talboth nodded.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’ve built a short delay into the system.”

He reached up to a shelf and took down an hourglass that Wallander hadn’t registered when he entered the room.

“This contains sand from West Africa,” said Talboth. “To be more precise, from the beaches of the islands in the little archipelago called Buback. It’s just off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, a country most people have never heard of. It was an old English admiral who decided that this was the perfect sand for the English navy in the days when hourglasses were used for telling the time. If I’d turned the glass at the same moment as I switched on the trains, you’d have discovered that one of the trains catches up with the other one after exactly fifty-nine minutes. I make that happen now and then, to check that the sand in the hourglass isn’t running more slowly, or that the transformer doesn’t need adjusting.”

As a child Wallander had always dreamed of owning a model train set, but his father was never able to afford it. Trains like the ones in front of him now still seemed an unattainable luxury.

They sat down on the balcony. It was a hot summer’s day. Talboth had brought out a jug of ice water and two glasses. Wallander decided that there was no reason to beat around the bush. His first question formulated itself.

“What did you think when you heard that Louise had disappeared?”

Talboth’s bright eyes were firmly fixed on Wallander.

“I suppose I wasn’t all that surprised,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t need to tell you what you already know. Håkan’s increasingly intolerable suspicions — I suppose we can call it a certainty now — that he was married to a traitor. Is that what you say? My Swedish isn’t always perfect.”

“That’s correct,” said Wallander. “If you’re a spy, you are usually a traitor. Unless you deal in more specific things, such as industrial espionage.”

“Håkan ran away because he couldn’t put up with it anymore,” Talboth said. “He needed time to think. Before Louise disappeared he had more or less made a decision. He was going to hand over the proof he had to the military intelligence services. Everything would be done according to the rule book. He didn’t intend to spare himself or his own reputation. He realized that Hans would also be affected, but that couldn’t be helped. It boiled down to a question of honor. When she disappeared, he was dumbfounded. He became increasingly scared. I began to worry after some of the phone conversations I had with him. He almost seemed to be suffering from paranoia. The only explanation he could think of for Louise’s disappearance was that she had managed to read his thoughts. He was afraid she would find out where he was. If not her, one of her employers in the Russian intelligence service. Håkan was convinced that Louise had been and still was so important that they wouldn’t hesitate to kill her in order to prevent any revelations. Even if she was too old now to be an active spy, it was important that she not be unmasked. Naturally, the Russians didn’t want to reveal what they knew. Or didn’t know.”

“What did you think when you heard that she had committed suicide?”

“I never believed that. I thought it was obvious she had been murdered.”

“Why?”

“Let me answer by asking a question. Why would she commit suicide?”

“Perhaps she was overwhelmed by guilt. Perhaps she realized the torture she had inflicted on her husband. There are lots of possible reasons. In my police work I’ve come across a lot of people who committed suicide for much less serious reasons.”

Talboth considered what Wallander had said.

“You may be right. But I haven’t told you my overall impression of Louise. I knew her well. Even though she concealed large parts of her identity, I got to know her intimately. She wasn’t the kind of person who commits suicide.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Certain people simply don’t commit suicide. It’s as straightforward as that.”

Wallander shook his head.

“That’s not my experience,” he said. “My feeling is that, under unfortunate circumstances, anybody at all can take their own life.”

“I’m not going to start arguing with you. You can interpret my view however you like. I’m convinced that your experience as a police officer is important. But you shouldn’t just shrug off the experience I have from working for many years in the American security services.”

“We know now that she was in fact murdered. And we also know that there was incriminating evidence in her purse.”

Talboth had raised his glass of water. He frowned and put it down again without having drunk. Wallander thought he detected a different kind of alertness in him.

“I didn’t know that. I had no idea they’d confiscated secret material.”

“You’re not supposed to know. I shouldn’t have told you. But I did so for Håkan’s sake. I trust it will go no further.”

“I won’t say anything to anybody. You learn how to do that when you work in the intelligence service. The day you resign, nothing is left in your head. You clear out your memory just as other employees clear out their lockers or desks.”

“What would you say if I were to tell you that Louise was probably poisoned using methods patented by the East Germans in the good old days? In order to conceal executions and make them look like suicides?”

Talboth nodded slowly. Once again he raised his glass of ice water to his mouth; this time he drank some.

“That also happens in the CIA,” he said. “Needless to say, we have often found ourselves in a position that made it necessary to liquidate somebody. In such a way that convinced everybody it was suicide.”

Wallander wasn’t surprised by Talboth’s unwillingness to talk about things not directly connected to Håkan or Louise von Enke; but he’d made up his mind to take this as far as possible.

“Anyway, we can assume that Louise was murdered,” Wallander said.

“Could it be the Swedish secret service that liquidated her?”

“That’s not the way things work in Sweden. Besides, there’s no reason to assume she’d been unmasked. In other words, we don’t have a potential perpetrator with a plausible motive.”

Talboth moved his wicker chair into the shade. He said nothing for a while, chewing his bottom lip.

“It’s tempting to think that it’s a sort of crime of passion,” he said eventually.

He sat upright on his chair.

“Working in Sweden was naturally never the same as being behind the iron curtain, for as long as it existed,” he said. “Anybody who was caught there was almost always executed. Assuming you weren’t so important that you could be used in exchange deals. One traitor swapped for another. Spies can get careless when they’ve been out in the field, always in danger of being exposed. The pressure can become too much. That’s why spies sometimes turn against one another. The violence turns in on itself. Somebody’s success can give rise to jealousy, and the competitive urge replaces cooperation and loyalty. That is a distinct possibility in Louise’s case. For a very special reason.”

Now it was Wallander’s turn to move his chair into the shade. He leaned forward to pick up his glass of water. The ice had melted.

“As Håkan has already told you, rumors about a Swedish spy had been circulating for a while,” said Talboth. “The CIA had known about it for ages. When I worked at the Stockholm embassy, we put a lot of resources into trying to solve this problem. The fact that somebody was selling Swedish military secrets to the Russians was a problem for us and for NATO. Sweden’s arms industry was at the cutting edge when it came to technical innovations. We used to have regular meetings with our Swedish colleagues about this worrying situation. And with colleagues from England, France, and Norway, among others. We were faced with an incredibly skillful agent. We also realized that there must be an intermediary, an ‘informer,’ in Sweden. Somebody passing on information to the agent, who in turn sent it on to Russia. We were surprised that we — or rather, our Swedish colleagues — could never find any clues as to who it was. The Swedes had a short list of twenty names, all of them officers in one service or another. But the Swedish investigators got nowhere. And we didn’t manage to help them either. It was as if we were hunting a phantom. Some genius hit on the idea of calling the person we were looking for ‘Diana.’ Like the Phantom’s girlfriend. I thought it was idiotic. Mainly because there was nothing to suggest that a woman was involved. But it would eventually transpire that the nitwit responsible had unknowingly but devastatingly stumbled onto something very relevant. In any case, that was the situation until late March 1987. The eighteenth, to be precise. Something happened on that day that changed the whole situation, sent several Swedish intelligence officers out into the cold, and forced us all to start thinking differently. Has Håkan told you about this?”

“No.”

“It began outside Amsterdam at Schipol, the big airport, early in the morning. A man appeared outside the airport police’s office. He was wearing a baggy suit, a white shirt, and a tie. He was carrying a small suitcase in one hand and had an overcoat over his arm and a hat in his other hand. He must have given the impression of coming from another age, as if he had climbed out of a black-and-white film with somber background music. He spoke to a police officer who was really far too young for the job, but there was a flu epidemic and he was filling in. The man spoke bad English and announced that he was seeking political asylum in the Netherlands. He produced a Russian passport in the name of Oleg Linde. An unusual surname for a Russian, you might think, but it was correct. He was in his forties, with thinning hair and a scar along one side of his nose. The young police officer, who had never set eyes on a defector from the East before, called in an older colleague who took over. I think his name was Geert, but before he had a chance to ask his first question, Linde began talking. I’ve listened to the interrogation so many times that I know the most important parts almost by heart. He was a colonel in the KGB, the division dealing with espionage in the West, and was seeking political asylum because he no longer wanted to do work that was propping up the crumbling Soviet empire. Those were his first words. Then he came out with the bait he had prepared in advance. He knew about many of the Soviet spies working in the West, especially a number of very competent agents based in the Netherlands. After that he was handed over to the security services. They took him to an apartment in The Hague, ironically enough not far from the International Court of Justice, where he was interrogated. It didn’t take long for Säpo to realize that Oleg Linde was completely genuine. They kept his identity secret, but they immediately began informing colleagues all over the world that they had come across a marvelous ‘antique,’ which was now standing on a table in front of them. Would they like to come and take a look? To examine it? Reports came in from Moscow to the effect that the KGB was in an uproar; everybody was scuttling around like ants in an anthill poked with a walking stick. Oleg Linde was one of those people who simply couldn’t be allowed to go missing. But missing he was. He’d disappeared without a trace, and they feared the worst. Moscow figured out that he must be in the Netherlands when their spy network there collapsed. He had begun his big ‘clearance sale,’ as we called it. And he was cheap. All he wanted was a new name and a new identity. According to what I’ve heard, he moved to Mauritius and settled in a town with the wonderful name of Pamplemousse, where he earned a living as a cabinetmaker. Evidently Linde had a background as a joiner before he joined the KGB, but I’m not sure about that part of the story.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“He’s sleeping the eternal sleep. He died in 2006. Cancer. He met a young lady in Mauritius and married her, and they had several children. But I don’t know anything about their lives. His story is reminiscent of that of another defector, an agent known as ‘Boris.’ ”

“I’ve heard of him,” said Wallander. “There must have been a constant procession of Russian defectors at that time.”

Talboth stood up and went indoors. Down in the street below, several fire engines raced past, sirens wailing. Talboth came back with the jug full to the brim with ice water.

“He was the one who informed us that the spy we’d been looking for in Sweden was a woman,” he said when he had sat down again. “He didn’t know her name; she was overseen by a group within the KGB that worked independently of the other officers — that was normal practice with especially valuable agents. But he was certain that it was a woman. She didn’t work in the military or in the arms industry, which meant that she had at least one, possibly several, informers who provided her with information that she sold. It was never clear whether she was a spy for ideological reasons or if she did it purely as a business venture. The intelligence services always prefer spies who operate as a business. If there is too much idealism involved, the operation can easily go off the rails. We always think that agents with great faith in the cause are never entirely reliable. We are a cynical bunch, and we have to be in order to do our job properly. We repeat the mantra that we might not make the world any better, but at least we don’t make it any worse. We justify our existence by claiming that we maintain a sort of balance of terror, which we probably do.”

Talboth stirred the ice cubes in the jug with a spoon.

“Future wars,” he said thoughtfully, “will be over staples such as water. Our soldiers will fight to the death over pools of water.”

He filled his glass, being careful not to spill any water. Wallander waited.

“We never found her,” Talboth continued. “We helped the Swedes as much as we could, but she was never identified, never exposed and arrested. We started talking about the possibility that she didn’t exist. But the Russians were constantly finding out about things they shouldn’t have. If Bofors made some technical advance in a weapons system, the Russians soon knew all about it. We set endless traps, but we never caught anybody.”

“And Louise?”

“She was above suspicion, of course. Who would have suspected her of anything?”

Talboth excused himself, saying he had to attend to his aquarium. Wallander remained on the balcony. He started writing a summary of what Talboth had said, but then decided he didn’t need notes; he would remember. He went to the room he’d been given and lay down on the bed with his arms under his head. When he woke up, he saw that he’d been asleep for two hours. He jumped up, as if he had slept far longer. Talboth was on the balcony, smoking a cigarette. Wallander returned to his chair.

“I think you’ve been dreaming,” Talboth said. “You kept shouting in your sleep.”

“My dreams are pretty violent at times,” said Wallander. “It comes and goes.”

“I’m lucky,” said Talboth. “I never remember my dreams. I’m very grateful for that.”

They walked to the Italian restaurant Talboth had mentioned earlier. They drank red wine with their food, and spoke about everything under the sun — except for Louise von Enke. After the meal Talboth insisted they try various kinds of grappa, before insisting just as strongly on paying for everything. Wallander felt distinctly tipsy when they left Il Trovatore. Talboth lit a cigarette, being careful to turn his head away when he blew out the smoke.

“So,” said Wallander, “many years have passed since Oleg Linde talked about a female Swedish spy. It seems implausible to me that she should still be operating.”

“If she is,” said Talboth. “Don’t forget what we talked about on the balcony.”

“But if the spying was in fact still going on, that would exonerate Louise,” said Wallander.

“Not necessarily. Somebody else could have picked up the baton. There are no simple explanations in this world. The truth is often the opposite of what you expect.”

They continued walking slowly down the street. Talboth lit another cigarette.

“The middleman,” Wallander said, “the person you called the intermediary. Do you have just as little information about him?”

“He has never been exposed.”

“Which means, of course, that ‘he’ could just as well be a woman too.”

Talboth shook his head.

“Women seldom have such influential positions in the military or the arms industry. I’d bet my paltry pension it’s a man.”

It was a very warm evening, oppressively so. Wallander could feel a headache coming on.

“Is there anything in what I’ve told you that you find particularly surprising?” Talboth asked halfheartedly, mostly to keep the conversation going.

“No.”

“Is there any conclusion you’ve drawn that doesn’t fit in with what I’ve said?”

“No. Not that I can think of.”

“What do the police investigating Louise’s death have to say?”

“They don’t have any leads. There’s no murderer, no motive. The only clues are the microfilm and documents hidden in a secret pocket in her purse.”

“But surely that’s proof enough to show that she’s the spy everybody has been looking for? Perhaps something went wrong when she was due to hand over her material?”

“That’s a plausible explanation. I assume that’s the basis on which the police are proceeding. But what went wrong? Who was it that met her? And why did it happen just now?”

Talboth stopped and stamped on his cigarette butt.

“It’s a big step forward in any case,” he said. “She’s obviously guilty. The investigation can concentrate on Louise now. They’ll probably find the middleman sooner or later.”

They continued walking and came to the entrance door. Talboth tapped in the code.

“I need more fresh air,” Wallander said. “I’m a dyed-in-the-wool night owl. I’ll stay out for a bit longer.”

Talboth nodded, gave him the entry code, and went inside. Wallander watched the door closing silently. Then he stared walking along the deserted street. The feeling that something was fundamentally wrong struck him once more. The same feeling he’d had after leaving the island following the night he’d spent with Håkan von Enke. He thought about what Talboth had said, about the truth often being the opposite of what you’d expected. Sometimes you needed to turn reality upside down in order to make it stand up.

Wallander paused and turned around. The street was still deserted. He could hear music coming from an open window. A German hit song. He heard the words leben, eben, and neben. He continued walking until he came to a little square. Some young people were making out on a bench. Maybe I should stand here and shout out into the night, he thought. I don’t know what’s going on. That’s what I could shout. The only thing I’m sure about is that there’s something I’m not getting. Am I coming closer to the truth, or drifting further away from it?

He strolled around the square for a while, growing more and more tired. When he returned to the apartment, Talboth seemed to have gone to bed. The door to the balcony was locked. Wallander undressed and fell asleep almost immediately.

In his dreams the horses started running again. But when he woke up the next morning, he could remember nothing about them.

37

When Wallander opened his eyes, he didn’t know where he was at first. He glanced at his watch: six o’clock. He stayed in bed. He could hear through the wall what he assumed was the noise of the machines adjusting the oxygen level of the water in the gigantic aquarium, but he couldn’t hear whether the trains were running. They lived a silent life in their well-insulated tunnels. Like moles, he thought. But also like the people who wormed their way into the places where decisions were made, decisions they then stole and passed on to the other side, which was supposed to be kept in ignorance.

He got out of bed and felt an urge to leave. He didn’t bother to take a shower, but simply dressed and emerged into the large, well-lit apartment. The balcony door was open, the thin curtains flapping gently in the breeze. Talboth was sitting there, cigarette in hand. A cup of coffee was on the table in front of him. He turned slowly to face Wallander, who had the impression that Talboth had heard him coming. He smiled. It suddenly seemed to Wallander that he didn’t trust that smile.

“I hope you slept well.”

“The bed was very comfortable,” said Wallander. “The room was dark and quiet. But I think I should thank you for your hospitality now and take my leave.”

“So you’re not going to give Berlin another day to impress you? There’s an awful lot I could show you.”

“I’d love to stay on, but I think it’s best I set off for home now.”

“I take it your dog needs somebody to look after it?”

How does he know I have a dog? Wallander thought. I’ve never mentioned it. He had a vague impression that Talboth realized immediately he’d said something he shouldn’t have.

“Yes,” said Wallander. “You’re right. I mustn’t take too much advantage of my neighbors’ willingness to keep an eye on Jussi. I’ve spent all summer heading off to first one place, then another. And of course I have a grandchild I want to see as often as possible.”

“I’m glad that Louise had time to enjoy her,” said Talboth. “Children are one thing, but grandchildren are even more meaningful; they are the ultimate fulfillment. Children give us the feeling that our existence has been meaningful, but grandchildren are the confirmation of that. Do you have a photo of her?”

Wallander showed him the two photographs he had brought.

“A lovely little girl,” said Talboth, getting to his feet. “But you must have some breakfast before you leave.”

“Just a cup of coffee,” said Wallander. “I never have anything to eat in the morning.”

Talboth shook his head in disapproval. But he came back out onto the balcony with a cup of coffee — black, the way Wallander always drank it.

“You said something yesterday that I’ve been wondering about,” Wallander said.

“No doubt I said all kinds of things that you’ve been wondering about.”

“You said that sometimes one needed to look for explanations in places diametrically opposed to where one was looking at the time. Did you mean that as a general principle, or were you referring to something specific?”

Talboth thought for a moment.

“I don’t recall saying what you say I did,” he said. “But if I did, it was no doubt meant as a general principle.”

Wallander nodded. He didn’t believe a word of what Talboth said. He had meant something specific. It was just that Wallander hadn’t caught on to what it was.

Talboth seemed on edge, not as calm and relaxed as he had been the previous day.

“I’d like to take a photo of the two of us together,” he said. “I’ll get my camera. I don’t have a guest book, but I always take photographs when I have visitors.”

He came back with a camera, which he balanced on the arm of one of the chairs. He set the timer and came to sit down beside Wallander. When the picture was taken, he took another one himself, this time of Wallander alone. They said their good-byes shortly afterward. Wallander had his jacket in one hand and his car keys in the other.

“Will you manage to find your way out of the city without help?” Talboth asked.

“My sense of direction isn’t all that good, but I’ll no doubt find the right road sooner or later. Besides, there’s a logic in the German road network that puts all the others to shame.”

They shook hands. Wallander took the elevator down to street level and waved to Talboth, who was leaning over his balcony railing. As he left the building, Wallander noticed that Talboth’s name didn’t appear on the nameplate listing all the tenants; it said instead “USG Enterprises.” Wallander memorized the name, then got in his car and drove off.

It took him several hours to find his way out of the city. When he finally emerged onto the highway, he realized too late that he had missed an exit and was now heading for the Polish border. With considerable difficulty he eventually managed to turn and set off in the right direction. When he passed Oranienburg, he shuddered at the memory of what had happened there.

He arrived back home without any problems. Linda came to visit him that evening. Klara had a cold, and Hans was taking care of her. The following day he was due to leave for New York.

It was a warm evening, so they sat out in the garden, and Linda drank tea.

“How’s business going for him?” Wallander asked as they swung slowly back and forth in the hammock.

“I don’t know,” said Linda. “But I sometimes wonder what’s going on. He always used to come home and tell me about the fantastic deals he’d closed during the day. Now he doesn’t say anything at all.”

A skein of geese flew past. They watched the birds flying south.

“Are they migrating already?” Linda wondered. “Isn’t it too early?”

“Maybe they’re practicing,” said Wallander.

Linda burst out laughing.

“That’s exactly the kind of comment Granddad would have made. Do you realize that you’re getting more and more like him?”

Wallander dismissed the thought.

“We both know he had a sense of humor. But he could be much more malicious than I ever allow myself to be.”

“I don’t think he was malicious,” Linda said firmly. “I think he was scared.”

“Of what?”

“Maybe of growing old. Of dying. I think he used to hide that fear behind his malevolence, which was often just a front.”

Wallander didn’t reply. He wondered if that was what she meant when she said they were so similar. That he was also beginning to make it obvious that he was afraid of dying?

“Tomorrow you and I are going to visit Mona,” Linda said out of the blue.

“Why?”

“Because she’s my mother, and you and I are her next of kin.”

“Doesn’t she have her psychopath of a businessman-cum-husband to look after her?”

“Haven’t you figured out that it’s all over?”

“No, I’m not coming with you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want anything more to do with Mona. Now that Baiba’s dead, I can’t forgive Mona for what she said about her.”

“Jealous people come out with jealous stupidities. Mona’s told me the kind of things you used to say when you were jealous.”

“She’s lying.”

“Not always.”

“I’m not going. I don’t want to.”

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

Wallander said nothing. There was no point in protesting anymore. 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 Skåne 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 pants.

“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 parking lot 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 classmates from Limhamn. How had their lives turned out, compared to mine? I started looking into that, halfheartedly.”

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 classmates 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 Sölve 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 gray color 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 cell phone rang in his jacket pocket. It was Ytterberg.

“Are you on duty?” he asked. “Or are you still on vacation?”

“I’m still on vacation,” 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 purse 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 Värmdö? 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 purse?”

“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 rumor 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 realized 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, gray 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 with a doctor. His name is Torsten Rosén. He’s had alcohol problems himself. I have to hurry or I’ll be late.”

They said their good-byes 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 around and drove off. Wallander watched the car disappearing.

He felt heavyhearted. 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 skillful. 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 fall 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 Skåne 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 fall.

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 fall. Wallander had a Saturday job as an errand boy for a flower shop in central Malmö. 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 pedaled 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 détente, 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.

Wallander had sat on a stool next to his father and told him about his visit to the People’s Park. His father often muttered that he wasn’t interested in politics, but Wallander eventually realized that this wasn’t the case. His father always voted faithfully for the Social Democrats, was angrily skeptical about the Communists, and always criticized the non-socialist parties for favoring citizens who were already leading a comfortable life.

The conversation with his father that day came back to him now, almost word for word. Earlier, his father had always spoken positively about Erlander, maintaining that he was an honest man you could trust, unlike many other politicians.

“He said that Russia is our enemy,” Wallander said.

“That’s not completely true. It wouldn’t do any harm if our politicians devoted a thought or two to the role America plays nowadays.”

Wallander was surprised by what he said. Surely America represented the good guys? After all, they were the ones who had defeated Hitler and the Nazis’ Thousand-Year Reich. America produced movies, music, clothes. As far as Wallander was concerned, Elvis Presley was the King, and there was nothing to beat “Blue Suede Shoes.” He had stopped collecting everything he could find about Hollywood stars, but still there was nobody to beat Alan Ladd. Now his father was implying that you had to be on your guard where America was concerned. Was there something Wallander didn’t know?

Wallander repeated the prime minister’s words: the neutrality of Sweden, with its freedom from all kinds of pacts and treaties. “Is that what he said?” his father had commented. “The fact is, American jets fly through Swedish air space. We pretend to be neutral, but at the same time we play along with NATO and more specifically with America.”

Wallander pressed his father on what he meant, but he didn’t get an answer, only some inaudible mumbling and then a request to be left in peace.

“You ask too many questions.”

“But you’ve always said that I shouldn’t be afraid to ask you if there was something I wondered about.”

“There has to be a limit.”

“Where is it?”

“Right here. I’m making mistakes when I paint.”

“How is that possible? You’ve been painting the same picture every day since long before I was born.”

“Go away! Leave me in peace!”

And then, as he stood in the doorway, Wallander said:

“I got a five-kronor tip for getting the flowers to Elander in time.”

“Erlander. Learn people’s names.”

And at that precise moment, as if the memory had opened a door for him, Wallander saw that he was totally on the wrong track. He’d been deceived, and he’d allowed himself to be deceived. He’d been following the path dictated by his assumptions instead of reality. He sat motionless at his desk, his hands clenched, and allowed his thoughts to lead him to a new and unexpected explanation of what had happened. It was so mind-boggling that at first he couldn’t believe he could be right. The only thing that kept him focused was that his instincts had warned him. He really had overlooked something. He had mixed up the truth and the lies and assumed that the cause was the effect and vice versa.

He went to the bathroom and took off his shirt, which was soaked in sweat. When he had given himself a good wash, he went down to his locker in the basement and put on a clean shirt. He recalled in passing having received it from Linda for his birthday a few years earlier.

When he returned to his office he searched through his papers until he found the photograph he had been given by Asta Hagberg, the one of Colonel Stig Wennerström in Washington talking to a young Håkan von Enke. He studied the faces of the two men. Wennerström was smiling coolly, martini glass in hand, facing Håkan von Enke, who looked serious listening to what Wennerström had to say.

He lined up his Lego pieces in his mind’s eye once more. They were all there: Louise and Håkan von Enke, Hans, Signe in her bed, Sten Nordlander, Hermann Eber, Steven Atkins in America, George Talboth in Berlin. He added Fanny Klarström, and then another piece — but he didn’t yet know whom it represented. Then he slowly removed piece after piece until there were only two left. Louise and Håkan. It was Louise who fell over. That’s how her life came to an end; she was knocked over somewhere on Värmdö. But Håkan, her husband, was still standing.

Wallander recorded his thoughts. Then he put the photograph from Washington in his jacket pocket and left the police station. This time he left through the main entrance, greeted the girl in reception, spoke to a few traffic officers who had just come in, then walked down the hill into town. Anybody watching him might have wondered why he was walking so erratically — now fast, now slow. Occasionally he held out one hand, as if he were talking to somebody and needed to emphasize what he was saying with various gestures.

He stopped at the hot dog stand opposite the hospital and stood there for ages wondering what to order; but then he kept on walking without having eaten anything at all.

The whole time, the same thoughts were running through his mind. Could what he now envisaged really be true? Could he have misinterpreted what had happened so fundamentally?

He wandered around town and eventually went to the marina, walked to the end of the pier, and sat down on his usual bench. He took the photo out of his pocket and examined it yet again, then put it back.

The penny had dropped. Baiba had been right, his beloved Baiba whom he was now longing for more than ever.

Behind every person there’s always somebody else. The mistake he had made was to confuse those in the foreground with those lurking in the background.

Everything added up at last. He could see the pattern that had eluded him thus far. And he could see it very clearly.

A fishing boat was on its way out of the harbor. The man at the helm raised a hand and waved to Wallander. He waved back. Thunderclouds were building up on the horizon. At this moment he missed his father. That didn’t happen often. For a short while after his father’s death, Wallander had been aware of a frightening vacuum, but at the same time it was a relief that he had passed away. But at this moment neither the vacuum nor the relief was still there; he simply missed his father and longed to relive the good times they’d had together, despite everything.

Perhaps I never saw him as he really was, didn’t know who he really was, nor what he meant for me and for others. Just as little as I understood until now about Håkan von Enke’s disappearance and Louise’s death. At last I feel I’m getting closer to a solution, rather than drifting farther and farther away from it.

He realized that he would have to make another journey this summer, which had already involved so much traveling. But he had no choice. He knew now what he needed to do.

Once again he took the photo out of his jacket pocket. He held it in front of him, then tore it in two, right down the middle. Once there had been a world that brought Stig Wennerström and Håkan von Enke together, but now he had torn them apart.

“Was that the case even in those days?” he said out loud to himself. “Or was it something that came about much later?”

He didn’t know. But he intended to find out.

Nobody heard him as he sat there, at the very end of the pier, speaking aloud to himself.

39

Looking back, he had only vague and disjointed memories of that day. He eventually left the pier and went back into town, stopped outside a newly opened café in Hamngatan, peered in through the door, then left immediately. He made another tour of the streets before stopping at the Chinese restaurant near Stora Torget that he usually frequented. He sat down at an empty table — there were not many customers at this time in the afternoon — and somewhat absentmindedly chose a dish from the menu.

If anybody had asked him afterward what he had eaten, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell them. His thoughts were elsewhere. He was formulating a plan to confirm his suspicions. He now held different cards in his hand; everything he had believed earlier had been proved wrong.

He sat there for ages, poking at his food with his chopsticks, then suddenly devoured everything, far too quickly, paid the bill, and left the restaurant. He returned to the police station. On the way to his office he was stopped by Kristina Magnusson, who invited him to join her family for dinner that weekend. He could pick the day, Saturday or Sunday. Since he couldn’t think of an excuse to turn her down, he told her he’d be delighted to join her on Sunday. He hung his homemade “Do Not Disturb” sign on the handle of his office door, switched off his cell phone, and closed his eyes. After a while he straightened his back, scribbled a few notes in his notepad, and knew that he had now made up his mind. For better or worse, he needed to determine whether things really were as he now thought. To make sure he wasn’t mistaken, hadn’t allowed himself to be fooled again. In a sudden outburst of anger he hurled his pen at the wall and cursed loudly. Just once, no more. Then he called Sten Nordlander. The connection was poor. When Wallander insisted that it was absolutely vital that they talk, Nordlander promised to call him back. Wallander hung up, and wondered why it was so difficult to call certain parts of the archipelago. Or was Nordlander actually somewhere else?

He waited. He spent the time going over all the thoughts filling his head. His brain was like a tank full to the brim. He was worried that it might start to overflow.

Sten Nordlander called forty minutes later. Wallander had placed his watch on the desk in front of him and noted that the hands pointed to ten minutes past six. The connection was now perfect.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I’m moored at Utö now.”

“Not far from Muskö, then,” said Wallander. “Or am I wrong?”

“Not at all. You could say without fear of contradiction that I’m in classic waters. Submarine waters, that is.”

“We need to meet,” said Wallander. “I want to talk to you.”

“Did something happen?”

“Something’s always happening. But I want to talk to you about a thought that’s occurred to me.”

“So nothing’s happened?”

“Nothing. But I don’t want to discuss this on the phone. What are you doing for the next few days?”

“It must be important if you’re thinking of coming here.”

“There’s something else I need to take care of in Stockholm,” said Wallander, as calmly as he could.

“When were you thinking of coming?”

“Tomorrow. I know it’s short notice.”

Nordlander thought for a moment. Wallander could hear his heavy breathing.

“I’m on my way home,” he said. “We could meet in town.”

“If you tell me how to get to wherever you’ll be, I can make my way there.”

“I think that would be best. Shall we meet in the lobby of the Mariners’ Hotel? What time?”

“Four o’clock,” said Wallander. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”

Nordlander laughed.

“Do you give me any choice?”

“Do I sound that strict?”

“Like an old schoolmaster. You’re sure that nothing’s happened?”

“Not as far as I know,” said Wallander evasively. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Wallander sat down at his computer and with some effort eventually managed to buy a train ticket and book a room at the Mariners’ Hotel. Since the train was due to leave early the following day, he drove home and took Jussi to his neighbors’. The husband was in the farmyard, tinkering with his tractor. He raised his eyebrows at Wallander when he saw him approaching with the dog.

“Are you sure you don’t want to sell him?”

“Completely sure. But I have to go away again. To Stockholm.”

“I seem to recall that only the other day you were sitting in my kitchen and telling me how much you hated big towns.”

“I do. But I have to go for work reasons.”

“Don’t you have enough crooks to deal with down here?”

“I certainly do. But I’m afraid I do have to go to Stockholm.”

Wallander stroked Jussi and handed over the leash. Jussi was used to this by now, and didn’t react.

But before leaving, Wallander had a question for his neighbor. It was only polite to ask at this time of year, as fall was approaching.

“How’s the harvest looking?”

“Not too bad.”

Very good, in other words, Wallander thought as he made his way back home. He’s usually pretty gloomy when it comes to forecasting crop yields.

Wallander called Linda when he got in. He didn’t tell her the real reason for his journey; he simply said he’d been called to an important meeting in Stockholm. She didn’t question that, merely asked how long he was going to be away.

“A couple of days. Maybe three.”

“Where will you be staying?”

“At the Mariners’ Hotel. For the first night, at least. I might stay with Sten Nordlander after that.”

It was seven-thirty by the time he had packed a few clothes into a bag, locked up the house, and settled in his car to drive to Malmö. After much hesitation he had also packed his — or rather, his father’s — old shotgun and a few cartridges, as well as his service revolver. He was going to travel by train and wouldn’t need to pass through security checks. He didn’t like the idea of taking weapons, but on the other hand, he didn’t dare travel without them.

He checked into a cheap hotel on the outskirts of Malmö, had dinner at a restaurant not far from Jägersro, and then went for a long walk to tire himself out. He was up and dressed by five the next morning. When he paid his bill, he made arrangements for his car to stay in the hotel parking lot until he returned, then ordered a taxi to take him to the train station. He could feel it was going to be a hot day.

Wallander usually felt at his most alert in the mornings. That had been the case for as long as he could remember. As he stood outside the hotel, waiting for his taxi, he had no doubts. He was doing the right thing. At long last he felt he was approaching a solution to everything that had happened.

He spent the train journey to Stockholm sleeping, leafing through various newspapers, half-solving a few crossword puzzles, and simply sitting back and letting his mind wander. His thoughts returned over and over again to that evening in Djursholm. He recalled all the photos he had at home of that occasion. How Håkan von Enke seemed worried. And just one picture of Louise when she wasn’t smiling. The only picture in which she was serious.

He ate a couple of sandwiches and drank coffee in the restaurant car, surprised by the prices, then sat with his head in his hands, gazing absentmindedly out the window at the countryside hurrying past.

Shortly after Nässjö, what he always dreaded nowadays happened. He suddenly had no idea where he was going. He had to check his ticket in order to remember. His shirt was soaked in sweat after this attack of forgetfulness. Yet again he had been shaken.

He checked into the Mariners’ Hotel at about noon. Sten Nordlander arrived shortly after four. He was tanned, and his hair had been cut short. He also seemed to have lost weight. His face lit up when he saw Wallander.

“You look tired,” Nordlander said. “Haven’t you made the most of your vacation?”

“Apparently not,” Wallander replied.

“It’s lovely weather — shall we go out, or would you prefer to stay here?”

“Let’s go out. How about Mosebacke? It’s warm enough to sit out in the sun.”

As they walked up the hill to the square, Wallander said nothing about why he had come to Stockholm. And Sten Nordlander didn’t ask any questions. The walk winded Wallander, but Nordlander seemed to be in good shape. They sat out on the terrace, where nearly all the tables were occupied. It would soon be fall, with its chilly evenings. Stockholmers were taking advantage of the opportunity to sit outside for as long as possible.

Wallander ordered tea — he had a stomachache from drinking too much coffee. Nordlander decided on a beer and a sandwich.

Wallander braced himself.

“I wasn’t really telling you the truth when I said that nothing had happened. But I didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.”

He was observing Nordlander carefully as he spoke. The expression of surprise on his face seemed to be completely genuine.

“Håkan?” he asked.

“Yes. I know where he is.”

Nordlander’s eyes never left Wallander’s face. He doesn’t know, Wallander thought, and felt relieved. He hasn’t the slightest idea. Right now I need somebody I can rely on.

Nordlander said nothing, waited. There was a buzz of conversation on all sides.

“Tell me what happened!”

“I will. But first, let me ask you a few questions. I want to make sure my interpretation of how all these events are connected is correct. Let’s discuss politics. What did Håkan stand for, during his time as an active officer? What were his political views? Regarding Olof Palme, for example? It’s well known that a lot of military men hated him and didn’t hesitate to spread absurd rumors about him being mentally ill and being treated in a hospital, or that he was a spy for the Soviet Union. How does Håkan fit in with that?”

“Not at all. As I’ve told you. Håkan was never one of the main antagonists of Olof Palme and the Social Democratic government. As you no doubt recall, he actually met Palme on one occasion. I think he thought that the criticism of Palme was unfair, and that there was an overestimation of the Soviet Union’s capacity for waging war and their desire to attack Sweden.

“Have you ever had reason to believe that he wasn’t being honest?”

“Why would I? Håkan is a patriot, but he is very analytical. I think he was turned off by all the extreme hatred of Russia that surrounded him.”

“What were his views on the U.S.A.?”

“Critical in many ways. I remember him saying once that the U.S.A. is in fact the only country in the world that has used a nuclear weapon to attack another country. Obviously, you can talk about the special circumstances that applied at the end of the Second World War, but the fact remains: America has used an atomic bomb on people. Nobody else has done that. Not yet.”

Wallander had no more questions for the moment. Nothing of what Nordlander said was surprising or unexpected. Wallander received the answers he thought he would get. He poured himself some tea and decided that the time was now ripe.

“We spoke earlier about there being a spy in the Swedish military. Somebody who was never exposed.”

“Rumors like that are always flying around. If you don’t have anything else to talk about, you can speculate about moles digging their tunnels.”

“If I’ve understood those rumors correctly they suggested there was a spy who was in many ways more dangerous than Wennerström.”

“I don’t know about that, but I suppose a spy you don’t catch is always going to be a bigger threat than any other.”

Wallander nodded.

“There was also another rumor,” he continued. “Or rather, there is a rumor that still persists. That this unknown spy is in fact a woman.”

“I don’t think anybody believed that. Not in my circles, at any rate. There are so few women in the armed forces with access to classified documents, it’s just not credible.”

“Did you ever speak to Håkan about this?”

“A woman spy? No, never.”

“Louise was a spy,” Wallander said slowly. “She spied for the Soviet Union.”

At first Sten Nordlander didn’t seem to grasp what Wallander had said. Then he realized the significance of what he had just heard.

“It can’t be possible.”

“It not only can be, it is possible.”

“Well, I don’t believe it. What proof do you have?”

“The police found microfilms of classified documents, and also several photographic negatives hidden in Louise’s purse. I don’t know exactly what they were, but I’ve become convinced that they prove she was participating in high-level espionage. Against Sweden, for Russia, and before that for the Soviet Union. In other words, she was active for a very long time.”

Sten Nordlander eyed him incredulously.

“Do you really expect me to believe this?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Questions are welling up inside me, arguments protesting that what you say can’t be true.”

“But can you know beyond question that I’m wrong?”

Nordlander froze, beer glass in hand.

“Is Håkan involved in this as well? Did they operate as a pair?”

“That’s hardly credible.”

Nordlander slammed his glass down on the table.

“Do you know or don’t you? Why don’t you tell me straight?”

“There’s nothing to suggest that Håkan cooperated with Louise.”

“Then why is he hiding himself away?”

“Because he suspected her. He was on her trail for many years. In the end he began to fear for his own life. He thought Louise realized that he suspected her, and that meant there was a significant risk that he might be murdered.”

“But Louise is the one who’s dead.”

“Don’t forget that when her body was found, Håkan had already been missing for a long time.”

Wallander watched a new Sten Nordlander emerging. He was normally energetic and straightforward, but now he seemed to be shrinking. The confusion he felt was changing him.

There was a minor commotion at a neighboring table: a drunken man fell over and knocked down several bottles and glasses. A security officer came hurrying up, and calm was soon restored. Wallander drank his tea. Sten Nordlander had stood up and walked over to the fence. He gazed down at the city stretching out before him. When he returned, Wallander said, “I need your help to persuade Håkan to return.”

“What can I do?”

“You’re his best friend. I want you to come with me on a trip. I’ll tell you where tomorrow. Can we use your car? Can you leave your boat for twenty-four hours or so?”

“No problem.”

“Pick me up at three o’clock tomorrow outside the hotel. Dress for rain. I have to go now.”

He didn’t let Nordlander ask any questions. He didn’t look around as he walked back to the hotel. He still wasn’t absolutely certain that he could rely on Sten Nordlander, but he had made his choice and there was no going back now.

That night he lay awake for hours, tossing and turning between the damp sheets. In his dream he saw Baiba hovering over the ground, her face completely transparent.

He left the hotel early the next morning and took a taxi out to Djurgården, where he lay down under a tree and slept for a while. He used his bag containing the shotgun as a pillow. When he woke up, he strolled back through town to the hotel. He was waiting there when Sten Nordlander drove up to the entrance. Wallander put his bag in the backseat.

“Where are we going?”

“South.”

“Far?”

“A hundred and twenty miles or so, maybe a bit more. But there’s no hurry.”

They drove out of Stockholm and set out on the highway.

“What’s in store for us?” Nordlander asked.

“You’ll just have to listen to a conversation, that’s all.”

Nordlander asked no questions. Does he know where we’re going? Wallander wondered. Is he only pretending to be surprised? Wallander wasn’t sure. Deep down, of course, there was a reason why he had taken his guns with him. I brought them because I can’t be sure that I won’t have to defend myself, he thought. I just hope it won’t be necessary.

They reached the harbor at about ten o’clock. Wallander had insisted on a long stop in Söderköping, where they ate dinner. They sat in silence, contemplating the river that flowed through the town and admiring all the plants and bushes coming into bloom on its banks. The boat Wallander had reserved was waiting for them in the inner dock.

By about eleven they were approaching their destination. Wallander switched off the engine and allowed the boat to drift in to land. He listened. Not a sound to be heard. Sten Nordlander’s face was almost invisible in the darkness.

Then they stepped ashore.

40

They moved cautiously through the late-summer darkness. Wallander had whispered to Nordlander that he should stay close to him, without giving any explanation. The moment they arrived at the island, Wallander felt quite certain that Sten Nordlander didn’t know anything about Håkan von Enke’s hideaway. It would have been impossible for anybody to conceal so skillfully any knowledge about where they might find the man they were looking for.

Wallander paused when he saw the light from one of the windows in the hunting lodge. He could also hear the sound of music above the sighing of the waves. It took several seconds before he realized that a window was open. He turned to Sten Nordlander and whispered, “You find it hard to believe that Louise von Enke was a spy?”

“Do you find that odd?”

“Not at all.”

“I hear what you’re saying, but I refuse to believe that it’s true.”

“You’re absolutely right,” said Wallander slowly. “What I’m telling you is what they want us to believe.”

Nordlander shook his head.

“Now you’ve lost me.”

“There were items in Louise’s purse indicating that she was a spy. But those things could have been planted there after she was dead. Whoever killed her also tried to make it look like a suicide. When I met Håkan here on the island he told me in minute detail how he had suspected for many years that Louise was a spy. It sounded very convincing. But then I began to understand what I had overlooked earlier. You might say that I held up a mirror and observed all the events in reverse.”

“And what did you see?”

“Something that turned everything upside down. What is it they say? You have to stand things on their head in order to see them the right way up? That’s how it was for me, in any case.”

“Are you saying that Louise wasn’t a spy after all, then? If not, what are you saying?”

Wallander didn’t answer his question.

“I want you to sneak up to the house wall,” he said. “Stand there, and listen in.”

“To what?”

“To the conversation I’m going to have with Håkan von Enke.”

“But why all this pussyfooting around in the darkness?”

“If he knows you’re here, he may not tell the truth.”

Nordlander shook his head. But he made no further comment and edged his way toward the house. Wallander stayed still. Thanks to his alarm system, von Enke would know that somebody was moving around on the island. The hope was that he wouldn’t realize there was more than one person outside his hunting lodge.

Nordlander reached the house wall. Wallander would never have noticed him if he hadn’t known he was there. But he continued to wait, not moving a muscle. He felt a strange mixture of calm and uneasiness. The end of the story is nigh, he thought. Am I right, or have I made a huge mistake?

He regretted not having explained to Nordlander that the mission might take some time.

A night bird fluttered past, then vanished. Wallander listened into the darkness for any noise that would tell him Håkan von Enke was on his way. Nordlander was standing motionless by the house wall. The music was still oozing out through the open window.

He gave a start when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and found himself looking into Håkan von Enke’s face.

“Are you here again?” said von Enke in a low voice. “We didn’t arrange this. I could have mistaken you for an intruder. What do you want?”

“I want to speak to you.”

“Did something happen?”

“All kinds of things have happened. As I’m sure you know, I went to Berlin and talked to your old friend George Talboth. I must say that he behaved exactly as I had expected a high-ranking CIA officer to act.”

Wallander had prepared himself as best he could. He knew he couldn’t afford to exaggerate. He had to speak loudly enough for Nordlander to hear what was being said, but not so loudly that von Enke would suspect there was somebody else in the vicinity, listening in.

“George said you seemed to be a good man.”

“I’ve never seen an aquarium like the one he showed me.”

“It’s remarkable. Especially the trains traveling through their little tunnels.”

A gust of wind whooshed past, then all was quiet again.

“How did you get here?” von Enke asked.

“With the same boat as last time.”

“And you came on your own?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Questions in answer to questions always make me suspicious.”

Von Enke suddenly switched on a flashlight that he’d been hiding next to his body. He aimed it at Wallander’s face. Third degree, Wallander thought. As long as he doesn’t shine the light at the house and discover Sten Nordlander. That would ruin everything.

The flashlight was switched off.

“We don’t need to mess around out here.”

Wallander followed in von Enke’s footsteps. When they entered the house he switched off the radio. Nothing in the room had changed since Wallander’s earlier visit.

Von Enke was on his guard. Wallander couldn’t work out if that was due to his instinct, warning him of danger, or if it was just natural suspicion following Wallander’s sudden appearance on the island.

“You must have a motive,” said von Enke, slowly. “A sudden visit like this, in the middle of the night?”

“I just wanted to talk to you.”

“About your visit to Berlin?”

“No, not about that.”

“Then explain yourself.”

Wallander hoped that Nordlander could hear this conversation, standing outside the window. What if von Enke suddenly decided to close it? I have no time to spare, Wallander concluded. I have to come straight to the point.

“Explain yourself,” von Enke said again.

“It’s about Louise,” Wallander said. “The truth about her.”

“Isn’t that what we talked about last time we were sitting here?”

“It is. But you didn’t tell me the truth.”

Von Enke looked at him with the same noncommittal expression as before.

“Something didn’t add up,” said Wallander. “It was as if I were looking up in the air when I should have been examining the ground at my feet. That happened when I visited Berlin. It suddenly became clear to me that George Talboth wasn’t just answering my questions. He was also investigating, very discreetly and skillfully, how much I knew. Once I realized that, I discovered something else as well. Something horrific, shameful, a betrayal so despicable and misanthropic that I didn’t want to believe it at first. What I believed, what Ytterberg thought, what you said and George Talboth maintained, was not the truth at all. I was being used, exploited. I had stumbled obediently straight into all the traps that had been set for me. But that also opened my eyes to another person.”

“Who?”

“The person we can call the real Louise. She was never a spy. She wasn’t false in any way; she was the most genuine person imaginable. The first time I met her I was struck by her lovely smile. I thought about that again when we met in Djursholm. I was convinced later that she had been using that smile to conceal her big secret — until I realized that her smile was absolutely genuine.”

“Have you come here to talk about my dead wife’s smile?”

Wallander shook his head in resignation. The whole situation had become so repugnant that he didn’t know how he was going to handle it. He should have been infuriated, but he didn’t have the strength.

“I’ve come here because I’ve discovered the truth I’ve been searching for. Louise has never been remotely close to being a spy and betraying her country. I should have understood that much sooner. But I allowed myself to be deceived.”

“Who deceived you?”

“I did. I was just as misled as everybody else into believing that the enemy always came from the east. But the one who deceived me most was you. The real spy.”

Still the same expressionless face, Wallander thought. But how long can he keep it up?

“Are you suggesting that I am a spy?”

“Yes!”

“You’re alleging that I spied for the Soviet Union or Russia? You’re crazy!”

“I said nothing about the former Soviet Union or the new Russia. I said that you are a spy. For the U.S.A. You have been for many years, Håkan. For exactly how long and how it all started are questions only you can answer. Nor do I know what your motives are. It wasn’t you who suspected Louise; she was the one who suspected you of being an American agent. That was what killed her.”

“I didn’t kill Louise!”

The first crack, Wallander thought. Håkan’s voice is starting to sound shrill. He’s beginning to defend himself.

“I don’t think you did. No doubt others did that. Maybe you received assistance from George Talboth. But she died to prevent you from being exposed.”

“You can’t prove your absurd allegations.”

“You’re absolutely right,” said Wallander. “I can’t. But there are others who can. I know enough to make the police and the armed forces start looking at what’s happened from a different perspective. The spy they’ve long suspected was operating in the Swedish armed forces was not a woman. It was a man. A man who didn’t hesitate to hide behind his own wife as a way of providing himself with a perfect disguise. Everybody was looking for a Russian spy, a woman. When they should have been looking for a man spying for the U.S.A. Nobody thought of that possibility, everybody was preoccupied with searching for enemies in the east. That has been the case for the whole of my life: the threat comes from the east. Nobody wanted to believe that an individual might even consider the possibility of betraying his country in the other direction, to the U.S.A. Anyone who did warn of anything like that was a lone voice crying in the wilderness. You could maintain, of course, that the U.S.A. already had access to everything they wanted to know about our defense services, but that wasn’t the case. NATO, and above all the U.S.A., needed help obtaining accurate information about the Swedish armed forces and also about how much we knew about various Russian military plans.”

Wallander paused. Von Enke continued to look at him with the same lack of expression in his face.

“You provided yourself with a perfect shield when you made yourself unpopular in the navy,” Wallander went on. “You protested about the Russian submarines trapped inside Swedish territorial waters being set free. You asked so many questions that you were regarded as an extreme, fanatical enemy of Russia. At the same time, you could also criticize the U.S.A. when it suited you. But you knew of course that in fact it was NATO submarines hiding in our territorial waters. You were playing a game, and you won. You beat everybody. With the possible exception of your wife, who began to suspect that everything wasn’t what it seemed. I don’t know why you came to hide here. Maybe because your employers ordered you to? Was it one of them who appeared on the other side of the fence in Djursholm, smoking, when you were celebrating your seventy-fifth birthday? Was that an agreed way of passing a message to you? This hunting lodge was designated as a place for you to withdraw to a long time ago. You knew about it from Eskil Lundberg’s father, who was more than willing to help you after you made sure he was compensated for battered jetties and damaged nets. He was also the man who helped you by never saying anything about the bugging device the Americans failed to attach to the Russian underwater cable. I suspect the arrangement was probably that you would be picked up from here by some ship if it should become necessary to evacuate you. They probably said nothing about the fact that Louise would have to die. But it was your friends who killed her. And you knew the price you would have to pay for what you were doing. You couldn’t do anything to prevent what happened. Isn’t that right? The only thing I still wonder about is what drove you to sacrifice your wife on top of everything else.”

Håkan von Enke was staring at his hand. He seemed somehow uninterested in what Wallander had said. Possibly because he had to face up to the fact that what he had done had resulted in Louise’s death, Wallander thought, and now there was nothing he could do about it.

“It was never the intention that she should die,” von Enke said, without taking his eyes off his hand.

“What did you think when you heard she was dead?”

Von Enke’s reply was matter-of-fact, almost dry.

“I came very close to putting an end to it all. The only thing that stopped me was the thought of my grandchild. But now I don’t know anymore.”

They fell silent again. Wallander thought it would soon be time for Sten Nordlander to come into the room. But there was another question he wanted answered first.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

“How did what happen?”

“What was it that made you into a spy?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have plenty of time. And you don’t need to give me an exhaustive answer; just tell me enough to help me understand.”

Von Enke leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Wallander suddenly realized that he was facing a very old man.

“It started a long time ago,” von Enke said without opening his eyes. “I was contacted by the Americans as early as the beginning of the 1960s. I was soon convinced of how important it was for the U.S.A. and NATO to have access to information that would enable them to defend us. We would never be able to survive on our own. Without the U.S.A. we were lost from the very start.”

“Who contacted you?”

“You have to keep in mind what it was like in those days. There was a group of mainly young people who spent all their time protesting against the U.S.A.’s war in Vietnam. But most of us knew that we needed America’s support in order to survive when the balloon went up in Europe. I was upset by all those naïve and romantic left-wingers. I felt that I needed to do something. I went in with my eyes wide open. I suppose you could say it was ideology. It’s the same today. Without the U.S.A., the world would be at the mercy of forces whose only aim is to deprive Europe of power. What do you think China’s ambitions are? What will the Russians do once they’ve solved their internal problems?”

“But money must have come into it somehow?”

Von Enke didn’t reply. He turned away, lost in his own thoughts again. Wallander asked a few more questions, to which he received no answers. Von Enke had simply brought the conversation to a close.

He suddenly stood up and walked toward the kitchenette. He took a bottle of beer out of the refrigerator, then opened one of the drawers in the kitchen cabinet. Wallander was watching him carefully.

When von Enke turned to face him, he had a pistol in his hand. Wallander stood up quickly. The gun was pointed at him. Von Enke slowly put the bottle down on the work surface.

He raised the gun. Wallander could see that it was pointing straight at his head. He shouted, roared at von Enke. Then he saw the pistol move.

“I can’t go on any longer,” said von Enke. “I have absolutely no future anymore.”

He placed the barrel against his chin and pulled the trigger. The sound echoed around the room. As he collapsed, his face covered in blood, Sten Nordlander came storming into the room.

“Are you hurt?” he screamed. “Did he shoot you?”

“No. He shot himself.”

They stared at the man lying on the floor, his body in an unnatural position. The blood covering his face made it impossible to make out his eyes, to see if they were closed or not.

Wallander was the first to realize that von Enke was still alive. He grabbed a sweater hanging over the arm of a chair and pressed it against von Enke’s chin. He shouted to Nordlander, telling him to get some towels. The bullet had exited through von Enke’s cheek. He had failed to send the bullet through his brain.

“He missed,” Wallander said as Nordlander handed him a sheet he had pulled off the bed.

Håkan von Enke’s eyes were open; they had not glazed over.

“Press hard,” said Wallander, showing Nordlander what to do.

He took out his cell phone and dialed the emergency number. But there was no signal. He ran outside and scrambled up the rocky slope behind the house. But there was no signal there either. He went back inside.

“He’ll bleed to death,” said Nordlander.

“You have to press hard,” said Wallander. “My phone isn’t working. I’ll have to go get help. Telephone coverage is sometimes pretty bad here.”

“I don’t think he’ll make it.”

Sten Nordlander was kneeling beside the bleeding man. He looked up at Wallander with horror in his eyes.

“Is it true?”

“You heard what we said?”

“Every word. Is it true?”

“It’s true. Everything I said and everything he said. He was a spy for the U.S.A. for about forty years. He sold our military secrets, and he must have made a good job of it if the Americans considered him so valuable that they didn’t even hesitate to murder his wife.”

“I find this impossible to understand.”

“Then we have another reason to try to keep him alive. He’s the only one who can tell us the truth. I’m going to get help. It will take time. But if you can stop the bleeding, we might be able to save him.”

“So there’s no doubt?”

“None at all.”

“That means he has been deceiving me for years.”

“He deceived everybody.”

Wallander ran down to the boat. He stumbled and fell several times. When he reached the water he noticed that the wind was blowing stronger now. He untied the painter, pushed the boat out, and jumped in. The engine started on the first pull. It was so dark now that he wondered if he’d be able to see clearly enough to maneuver his way to the dock.

He had just turned the boat around and was about to accelerate away when he heard a shot. There was no doubt about it, it was a gunshot. Coming from the hunting lodge. He returned to neutral and listened carefully. Could he have been mistaken? He turned the boat around once more and headed for land. When he jumped ashore, he landed short and felt the water flowing into his shoes. The whole time, he was listening for any more sounds. The wind was getting stronger and stronger. He took the shotgun out of his bag and loaded it. Could there be people on the island he knew nothing about? He returned to the hunting lodge, his shotgun at the ready, trying to proceed as quietly as possible, and stopped when he saw the faint light through the gaps in the curtains. There wasn’t a sound, apart from the sighing of the wind in the treetops and the swishing of the waves.

He had just began to advance toward the door of the hunting lodge when another shot rang out. He flung himself down onto the ground, his face pressed against the damp soil. He dropped the shotgun and protected his head with his hands. He expected to be shot dead at any moment.

But nothing happened. Eventually he dared to sit up and pick up his shotgun. He checked to make sure there was no soil in the two barrels. He stood up slowly, then ducked down and headed for the front door. Still nothing happened. He shouted, but Sten Nordlander didn’t respond. Two shots, he thought frantically, and tried to work out what that implied.

He could still see Sten Nordlander’s face when he asked his question. So there’s no doubt?

Wallander opened the door and went in.

Håkan von Enke was dead. Sten Nordlander had shot him in the forehead. He had then turned the gun on himself, and was lying dead on the floor next to the man who had been his friend and colleague. Wallander was upset; he should have foreseen this. Sten Nordlander had been standing out there in the darkness and heard how Håkan von Enke had betrayed everyone — perhaps most of all the ones who had trusted him and seen him not so much as a fellow officer, but as a friend.

Wallander avoided treading in the blood that had run all over the floor. He flopped down onto the chair where he had been sitting not so long ago, listening to what von Enke had to say. Weariness seemed to explode inside him. The older he became, the more difficult it seemed to be for him to cope with the truth. Nevertheless, that is what he always strove for.

How far had they come since that birthday party in Djursholm? he wondered. If I assume that his conversation with me was part of a plan to persuade me to believe that his wife was a spy, and thus divert any possible suspicions away from himself, it follows that the most important decisions had already been made. Perhaps it was Håkan von Enke himself who had the idea of exploiting me. Making the most of the fact that his son was living with a woman whose father was a stupid provincial police officer.

He felt both sorrow and anger as he sat there with the two dead men in front of him. But what upset him most was the thought that Klara would never get to know her paternal grandparents. She would have to make do with a grandmother on her mother’s side who was fighting a losing battle with alcohol, and a grandfather who was becoming older and more decrepit by the day.

He sat there for half an hour, possibly longer, before forcing himself to become a police officer again. He worked out a simple idea based on leaving everything untouched. He took the car keys out of Sten Nordlander’s pocket, then left the hunting lodge and headed for the boat.

But before pushing it into the water again, he paused on the beach and closed his eyes. It was as if the past had come rushing toward him. The big wide world that he had always known so little about. Now he had become a minor player on the big stage. What did he know now that he hadn’t known before? Not much at all, he thought. I’m still that same bewildered character on the periphery of all the major political and military developments. I’m still the same unhappy and insecure individual on the sidelines, just as I’ve always been.

He pushed the boat out and despite the darkness managed to steer it in to the dock. He left the boat where he had picked it up. The harbor was deserted. It was 2:00 a.m. by the time he sat in Sten Nordlander’s car and drove off. He parked it outside the railway station, having carefully wiped clean the steering wheel and stick shift and door handle. Then he waited for the first early-morning train south. He spent several hours on a park bench. He thought how odd it was, sitting on a bench in this unfamiliar town with his father’s old shotgun in his bag.

It had started drizzling as dawn broke, and he found a café that was already open. He ordered coffee and leafed through some old newspapers before returning to the railway station and catching a train. He would never go to Blue Island again.

He looked out of the train window and saw Sten Nordlander’s car in the station’s parking lot. Sooner or later somebody would start to take an interest in it. One thing would lead to another. One question would be how he had gotten to the docks and then sailed out to Blue Island. But the man who rented the boat would not necessarily associate Wallander with the tragedy that had taken place in that isolated hunting lodge. Besides, all details would no doubt be classified.

Wallander arrived in Malmö shortly after midday, picked up his car, and headed for Ystad. As he came to the exit, he found himself at a police checkpoint. He showed his ID and blew into the Breathalyzer.

“How’s it going?” he asked, in an attempt to cheer up his colleague. “Are people sober?”

“On the whole, yes. But we just started. No doubt we’ll nail one or two victims. How are things in Ystad?”

“Pretty quiet at the moment. But August usually produces more work than July.”

Wallander wished him good luck, then rolled up his window and drove on. Only a few hours ago I was sitting with two dead men at my feet, he thought. But that’s not something that anybody else can see. Our memories don’t pop up next to us in Technicolor.

He went to the store to buy a few groceries, collected Jussi, and eventually pulled into the parking area outside his house.

After putting his purchases in the fridge, he sat down at his kitchen table. Everything was quiet and calm.

He tried to figure out what he would tell Linda.

But he didn’t call her that day, not even in the evening.

He simply had no idea what to say to her.