The Dogs of Riga

CHAPTER 14

Six days after he returned he received a letter.

He found it on the floor in the hall when he returned home after a long and difficult day at the station. Sleet had been falling all afternoon, and he spent some time on the landing shaking his clothes and stamping his feet before opening the door.

He thought later that it was as if he'd been steeling himself for the moment when they contacted him. Deep down he'd known all along that they would, but he still didn't feel ready for it.

The envelope on his doormat was an ordinary brown one – at first he thought it was some kind of advertising material as there was a company name printed on the front. He put it on the hall table and forgot all about it. It wasn't until he'd finished his dinner, a fish gratin that had been in the freezer too long, that he remembered the letter and went to fetch it. It was from "Lippman's Flowers", and it struck him that this was an odd time of year for a garden centre to be sending a catalogue. He very nearly put it straight into the dustbin, but he could never resist taking a look at even the most uninteresting junk mail before binning it. It was a bad habit picked up from his job: there might be something hidden in among the colourful brochures. It sometimes seemed to him that he lived the life of a man compelled to turn over every stone he found. He always needed to know what was underneath it.

He opened the envelope and saw that it contained a handwritten letter, he realised they had contacted him. He left the letter on the kitchen table while he made a cup of coffee. He needed to give himself a bit of time before reading it. When he'd left the plane at Arlanda a week ago, he had felt vaguely uneasy, but relieved to no longer be in a country where he was being watched all the time, and in a flash of unaccustomed spontaneity he'd tried to start a conversation with the woman at immigration control when he handed his passport in through the window. "It's good to be home," he'd said, but she had glanced dismissively at him and shoved the passport back without even opening it.

This is Sweden, he'd thought. Everything is bright and cheerful on the surface, our airports are built so that no dust or shadows could ever intrude. Everything is visible, nothing is any different from what it seems to be. Our national aspiration, our religion, is that security written into the Swedish constitution, which informs the whole world that starving to death is a crime. But we don't talk to strangers unless we have to, because anything unfamiliar can cause us harm, dirty our floors and dim our neon lights. We never built an empire and so we've never had to watch one collapse, but we persuaded ourselves that we'd created the best of all possible worlds, and that even if small, we were the privileged keepers of paradise. Now that the party's over we take our revenge by having the least friendly immigration control officers in the world.

His feeling of relief was replaced almost immediately by depression. In Kurt Wallander's world, this worn-out or at least partially demolished paradise, there was no place for Baiba Liepa. He couldn't imagine her here, in all this light, under all these neon strips that never failed. Nevertheless, he was already beginning to pine for her, and when he'd lugged his suitcase down the long, prison-like corridor to the domestic terminal where he would wait for his connection to Malmö, he was already starting to dream of his return to Riga, to the city where the invisible dogs had been spying on him. The Malmö flight was delayed, and he had been issued with a coupon that entitled him to a sandwich. He had sat for ages in the cafe, watching aircraft taking off and landing in the light snow. All around him men in smart suits were chattering away into mobile phones, and to his astonishment he actually heard an overweight washing-machine salesman jabbering into his monstrous plaything, telling the story of Hansel and Gretel to a child. He found a call box and dialled his daughter's number. To his amazement he got through to her, and felt immediate pleasure on hearing her voice. He toyed briefly with the idea of staying on for a few days in Stockholm, but realised that she was very busy and he didn't raise the subject. Instead, he thought of Baiba, about her fear and her defiance, and he wondered if she really dared to believe that the Swedish police officer wouldn't let her down. What could he possibly do, though? If he were to go back the dogs would pick up his scent, and he would never be able to shake them off.

It was late in the evening by the time he landed at Sturup. There was nobody there to meet him, so he took a taxi into Ystad and from the dark back seat chatted about the weather to the driver, who was going far too fast. When there was nothing more to say about the fog and the snowflakes dancing in the headlights, he suddenly imagined he could smell Baiba Liepa's perfume in the car, and felt anguish at the thought of not seeing her again.

The next day he drove out to see his father at Loderup. The home help had cut his hair for him, and it seemed to Wallander that he was looking healthier than he'd done for years. He'd brought him a bottle of cognac, and his father nodded approvingly when he saw the label.

To his surprise, he'd told his father about Baiba Liepa. They'd been sitting in the old shed his father used as a studio. There was an unfinished canvas on the easel, the unchanging landscape. Wallander could see that it was going to be one with a grouse in the bottom left-hand corner. When he'd arrived with his bottle of cognac, his father had been colouring the grouse's beak, but he'd put down his brush and wiped his hands on a rag smelling of turpentine. Wallander told him about his trip to Riga and then, without really understanding why, he stopped describing the city and told him about the meeting with Baiba Liepa. He didn't mention that she was the widow of a police officer who had been murdered, he only told him her name, said he'd met her and that he missed her.

"Does she have any children?" his father asked.

Wallander shook his head.

"Can she have children?"

"I suppose so. How on earth should I know?"

"You must know how old she is, surely?"

"Younger than I am. About 33, perhaps."

"Then she can have children."

"Why do you want to know if she can have children?" "Because I think that's what you need." "I've got Linda."

"One's not enough. A person has to have at least two children in order to understand what it's all about. Bring her over to Sweden. Marry her!"

"It's not as easy as that."

"Do you have to make everything so damned complicated just because you're a police officer?"

Here we go, Wallander thought. He's off again. The moment you start having a conversation with him he finds some excuse for getting at me because I joined the police force.

"Can you keep a secret?" he asked the old man.

His father eyed him suspiciously. "How could I avoid being able to?" he asked. "Who is there I could tell it to?"

"I'm thinking of packing it in as a police officer," Wallander said. "I might apply for a different job. As a security officer at the rubber factory in Trelleborg. I only said I might."

His father stared at him for some time before replying.

"It's never too late to see sense," he said eventually. "The only thing you'll regret is that it took you so long to make your mind up."

"I only said I might. I didn't say it was definite."

But his father wasn't listening. He'd gone back to the easel and was finishing the grouse's beak. Wallander sat on an old sledge and watched him for a while in silence. Then he went home, thinking how he had nobody to talk to. He was 43 years old, and missed having somebody to confide in. When Rydberg died, he'd become lonelier than he could ever have imagined. The only person he had was Linda. He couldn't talk to Mona, his ex-wife. She'd become a stranger to him, and he knew next to nothing about her life in Malmö.

As he drove past the turning to Kåseberga, he thought of going to Kristianstad to pay a visit to Goran Boman in the police there. Maybe he could talk to him about everything that had happened. But he didn't. He returned to duty after writing a report for Björk. Martinsson and his other colleagues asked him a few questions over coffee in the canteen, but it was soon clear they weren't really interested in anything he had to say. He posted his application to the factory in Trelleborg and rearranged the furniture in his office in an attempt to revive some enthusiasm for work. Björk seemed to have noticed his heart wasn't really in it, and made a well-meaning but vain effort to cheer him up by asking him to stand in for him and give a lecture to the Rotary Club. He agreed to do it, and gave an unsuccessful talk on technology in police work over lunch at the Continental Hotel. He forgot every word he'd said the moment he sat down.

One morning he woke up and was convinced he was ill. He went to the police doctor and was given a thorough examination. The doctor could find nothing wrong with him, but advised him to continue to keep an eye on his weight. He had returned from Riga on the Wednesday, and on the Saturday evening he drove to a restaurant in Ahus where there was a dance band. After a couple of dances a physiotherapist from Kristianstad called Ellen invited him to join her at her table, but he couldn't get Baiba Liepa's face out of his mind, she was following him around like a shadow, and he made his excuses and left early. He took the coast road from Ahus and stopped at the deserted field where the flea markets are held every summer – the previous year he had set off there like a madman, gun in hand, in pursuit of a murderer. The field was lightiy covered in snow, the full moon was shining over the sea, and he could see Baiba Liepa standing before him. He drove back to his flat in Ystad and drank himself into a stupor. He turned his stereo up so loudly that the neighbours started thumping on the walls.

He woke on the Sunday morning with palpitations, and that’

the day developed into a long drawn-out wait for something unidentifiable, something unreachable.

The letter arrived on the Monday. He sat at his kitchen table, reading the neat handwriting. It was signed by somebody calling himself Joseph Lippman.

You are a friend of our country, wrote Joseph Lippman. We have been informed from Riga of your marvellous work there. You will shortly be hearing from us with more details of your return journey. Joseph Lippman.

Wallander wondered what his "marvellous work" consisted of. And who were the "us" who were going to get in touch again?

He was annoyed by the brevity of the message, and the tone that sounded almost like an order. Did he have no say in the matter? He had certainly not agreed to enter any secret service run by invisible people. His anguish and doubt were stronger than his resolve and willpower. He wanted to see Baiba Liepa again, that was true; but he didn't trust his motives, and knew he was behaving like a lovelorn teenager.

Nevertheless, when he woke up on Tuesday morning he suspected that deep down, he had made up his mind. He drove to the station, took part in a dismal union meeting, and then went in to see Björk.

"I was wondering if I might take some of the leave I'm due for," he said.

Björk stared at him with a mixture of envy and deep sympathy.

"I wish I could do the same," he said gloomily. "I've just been reading a long memo from the national police board. I've imagined all my colleagues up and down the country doing exactly the same thing, every man jack of them hunched over his desk. I read it through, then sat there thinking that I haven't a clue what it's all about. We are expected to pass comment on various earlier documents about some big reorganisation plan, but I've no idea which of all those documents this memo is referring to."

"Go on leave," Wallander suggested.

Björk petulantly shoved aside a paper lying on the desk in front of him.

"Out of the question," he said. "I'll be able to go on leave when I retire. If I live that long. Mind you, it would be very stupid to die in harness. You want to go on leave, did you say?"

"I'm thinking of having a week's skiing in the Alps. If I do it could help solve some of your problems regarding work over midsummer – I can work then and wait until the end of July before going on holiday."

Björk nodded. "Have you really managed to find a package trip at this time of year? I thought they were all fully booked by now."

"No."

Björk raised an eyebrow. "That sounds a bit dodgy, doesn't it?"

"I'll take the car down to the Alps. I don't like package holidays." "Who does?"

Björk suddenly assumed the formal expression he wore when he considered it necessary to remind everyone who was the boss.

"What cases have you got on your desk at the moment?"

"Surprisingly few. That assault business out at Svarte is the most pressing of them, but that's something any of the others can take over."

"When are you thinking of leaving? Today?"

"Thursday will do."

"How long had you thought of staying away?"

"I have ten days owing to me."

Björk nodded and made a note.

"I think it's a good idea for you to take some leave. You've been looking a bit out of sorts."

"You can say that again," Wallander said, as he made his escape.

He spent the rest of the day working on the assault case. He made several telephone calls and also managed to reply to an inquiry from the bank about some muddle with his salary payments. All the time he was expecting something to happen. He looked up the Stockholm telephone directory and found several people called Lippman, but there was nothing in the Yellow Pages about "Lippman's Flowers".

Shortly after 5 p.m. he cleared his desk and went home. He made a little detour and pulled up outside the new furniture store, went inside and found a leather armchair he rather fancied for his flat, but was horrified by the price. He stopped at the grocer's in Hamngatan to buy some potatoes and bacon. The young girl at the checkout smiled and seemed to recognise him, and he recalled that a year or so previously he'd spent a day trying to track down a man who'd robbed the shop. He drove home, made the dinner, and then plonked himself down in front of the television.

They contacted him shortly after 9 p.m.

The telephone rang, and a man speaking broken Swedish asked him to come to the pizzeria across the road from the Continental Hotel. Wallander suddenly felt sick and tired of all this secrecy business, and asked for the man's name.

"I have every reason to be suspicious," he explained. "I want to know what I'm letting myself in for." "My name is Joseph Lippman. I wrote to you." "Who are you?" "I run a little business." "A nursery?"

"I suppose you could call it that."

"What do you want from me?"

"I think I expressed myself quite clearly in the letter."

Wallander hung up. He wasn't getting any answers anyway. He was infuriated at being constantly surrounded by invisible faces who expected him to be interested and prepared to co-operate. What evidence was there to prove that this Lippman wasn't one of the Latvian colonels' henchmen?

He didn't take the car but walked down Regementsgatan to the centre of town. It was 9.30 p.m. by the time he reached the pizzeria. There were people at about ten of the tables, but he couldn't see a man who could possibly be Lippman. He remembered something Rydberg had once taught him. You should always decide whether it would be better to be the first or the last person to arrive at a predetermined meeting place. He didn't know if it was of any importance in this case. He sat at a table in the corner, ordered a glass of beer, and waited.

Joseph Lippman turned up just before 10 p.m. By then Wallander had begun to wonder whether the intention had been to lure him away from his flat, but the moment the door opened and the man entered, Wallander had no doubt the new arrival was Joseph Lippman. He was in his 60s, and wearing an overcoat far too big for him. He moved slowly and cautiously among the tables, as if he were afraid of falling or treading on a mine. He smiled at Wallander, took off his overcoat and sat down opposite him. He was nervous, and kept glancing round the room. At one of the tables sat a couple of men who being terribly rude about a third, who wasn't with them.

Wallander guessed that Joseph Lippman was Jewish. At least, he looked like what Wallander thought of as a typical Jew. His cheeks were covered in tough grey stubble, and his eyes were dark behind rimless spectacles. But then, what did Wallander know about what Jews looked like? Nothing.

The waitress approached, and Lippman ordered a cup of tea. He was so excessively polite that Wallander suspected he had endured many humiliations in his life.

"I'm most grateful that you came," Lippman said quietly. Wallander had to lean forward in order to hear what he was saying.

"You didn't give me any choice," he said. "First a letter, then a telephone call. Maybe you should start by telling me who you are."

Lippman shook his head. "Who I am is of no significance. You are the important one, Mr Wallander."

"No," Wallander said, feeling himself getting annoyed again. "You must understand that I've no intention of listening to what you've got to say if you're not even prepared to confide in me who you are."

The waitress arrived with the tea, and they waited until they were alone again.

"My role is merely that of organiser and messenger," Lippman said. "Who wants to know the name of the messenger? It doesn't matter. We are meeting here tonight, and then I shall disappear. We will probably never meet again. The important thing, therefore, is not confiding in you, but practical decisions. Security is always a practical matter. In my view the business of trust is also a practical matter."

"In that case we might just as well conclude the conversation straight away" Wallander said.

"I've got a message for you from Baiba Liepa," Lippman said hastily. "Don't you even want to hear that?"

Wallander relaxed. He observed the man sitting opposite him, strangely hunched up, as if his health were so fragile he might collapse any moment.

"I don't want to hear anything until I know who you are," he said eventually. "It's as simple as that."

Lippman took off his glasses and carefully poured some milk into his tea.

"I'm merely thinking of your own best interests, Mr Wallander," Lippman said. "In this day and age it's often best to know as little as possible."

"I've been to Latvia," Wallander said. "I've been there, and I think I know what it is to be constantly under observation, forever being checked. But we're in Sweden now, not Riga."

Lippman nodded pensively. "You may be right," he said, "Perhaps I am an old man who can no longer discern how reality is changing."

"A nursery," Wallander said, in an attempt to help him out. "I don't suppose they have always been like they are now?"

"I came to Sweden in the autumn of 1941," Lippman said, stirring his tea. "I was a young man then, and I had the naive ambition of becoming an artist, a great artist. It was freezing cold as dawn broke and we caught sight of the Gotland coast. That was the moment we knew we'd made it, despite the fact that the boat had sprung a leak and several of my companions on board were seriously ill.

We were undernourished, we had tuberculosis. Nevertheless, I have a clear memory of that freezing cold dawn. It was the beginning of March, and I made up my mind I was going to paint a picture of the Swedish coast that would symbolise freedom. That's what it might look like, the gates of paradise. Cold and frozen, a few black cliffs barely visible through the mist. But I never did paint that picture. I became a gardener instead. Now I make a living by suggesting appropriate decorative plants for various Swedish firms. I've noticed how people, and especially people working for the new information technology companies, have an insatiable need to hide their machines among green plants. I shall never paint that picture of paradise. I'll just have to make do with the fact that I've seen it. I know paradise has many gates, just as hell does. One has to learn to distinguish between them, or one is lost."

"And that is something Major Liepa could do?" Lippman did not react to Wallander's mention of the major.

"Major Liepa knew what the gates looked like," he said, "but that's not why he had to die. He died because he had seen who was going in and out through those gates. People who are afraid of the light, because the light makes them visible to people like Major Liepa."

Wallander had the impression that Lippman was a deeply religious man. He expressed himself like a priest standing before a congregation.

"I have lived the whole of my life in exile," Lippman continued. "For the first ten years, until the middle of the 1950s, I believed I would one day be able to return to my home country. Then came the interminable 1960s and 70s, when I'd completely given up hope. Only very ancient

Latvians living in exile, only the really old and the really young and the really mad Latvians believed the world would change so that we might one day be able to return to our homeland. They believed in a dramatic turning point, while I was expecting a long drawn-out conclusion to the tragedy that even then seemed to be complete. But very suddenly things began to happen. We received mysterious reports from our homeland, optimistic reports. We saw the gigantic Soviet Union beginning to tremble, as if some latent fever had at last begun to take hold. Could it really be that what we had never dared to believe might actually happen? We still don't know the answer to that question. We realise that we might yet again be tricked out of our freedom. The Soviet Union is weakened, but that could be a temporary condition. We do not have much time at our disposal. Major Liepa knew that, and that is what drove him on."

"We?" Wallander said. "Who are we?"

"All Latvians in Sweden belong to an organisation," Lippman answered. "We have joined various organisations as a substitute for our lost homeland. We have tried to help people retain their culture, we have constructed various lifelines, we have established foundations. We have listened to cries for help and we have attempted to respond to them. We have fought constantiy to avoid being forgotten. Our exile organisations have been our way of replacing the cities and villages we have lost."

The glass door opened and a man entered. Lippman reacted immediately. Wallander recognised the man – his name was Elmberg and he was the manager of one of the local petrol stations.

"There's no cause for alarm," he said. "That man hasn't hurt a fly since the day he was born. I doubt if he's ever given a thought to the existence of Latvia. He's the manager of a petrol station."

"Baiba Liepa has sent a cry for help," Lippman said. "She is asking that you to come. She needs your assistance."

He took an envelope from his inside pocket. "From Baiba Liepa," he said. "For you."

Wallander took the envelope. It was not sealed, and he carefully extracted the thin writing paper. Her message was brief, and written in pencil, as if in a hurry.

There is a testimony and a guardian, she had written, but I’m afraid I shall be unable to discover the right place on my own. Trust the messenger as you once trusted my husband, Baiba.

"We can supply everything you need in order to get to Riga," Lippman said when Wallander put the letter down. "You can hardly make me invisible!" "Invisible?"

"If I go to Riga I must become somebody new. How will you manage that? How can you guarantee my safety?"

"You will have to trust us, Mr Wallander. But we don't have much time."

Wallander could see that Lippman was anxious. He tried to convince himself that none of what was happening all around him was real. But he knew that this was what the world was like. Baiba Liepa had made one of the thousands of cries for help that are constantly sent across continents. This one was meant for him, and he was obliged to answer.

"I've requested leave from Thursday onwards," he said. "Officially I'm going skiing in the Alps. I can be away for just over a week."

Lippman slid his cup to one side. His weak, melancholy expression had been replaced by fierce determination.

"That's an excellent idea," he said. "Naturally, a Swedish police officer goes to the Alps every winter to try his luck on the piste. What route are you travelling?"

"Via Sassnitz, then by car through the old East Germany."

"What's the name of your hotel?"

"I've no idea. I've never been to the Alps before."

"But you can ski?"

"Yes."

Lippman was deep in thought. Wallander beckoned the waitress and ordered a cup of coffee. Lippman shook his head absent-mindedly when Wallander asked him if he wanted any more tea. Eventually he removed his glasses and rubbed them carefully against the sleeve of his jacket.

"Going to the Alps is an excellent idea," he repeated. "But I need a bit of time to make the necessary arrangements. Tomorrow evening somebody will phone you and inform you which of the morning ferries you should take from Trelleborg. Whatever else you do, don't forget to put your skis on the roof rack. Pack everything as if you really were going to the Alps."

"How do you think I'm going to be able to enter Latvia?"

"You'll find out all you need to know on the ferry. Somebody will make contact with you. You will have to trust us."

"I can't guarantee that I'll accept your plan."

"There's no such thing as a guarantee in this world of ours, Mr Wallander. All I can do is promise that we shall do our best to excel ourselves. Perhaps we ought to pay and go now?"

They took leave of each other outside the pizzeria. The wind had come up and was squalling. Joseph Lippman bade him a hasty farewell before disappearing in the direction of the railway station. Wallander walked home through the deserted town, thinking over what Baiba Liepa had written.

The dogs are on her trail, he thought. She's scared and worried. The colonels have also caught on to the fact that the major must have left a testimony somewhere. It dawned on him that there was no time to lose. There was no longer any place for fear or second thoughts. He had to respond to her cry for help.

The next day he prepared for the journey.

Shordy after 6 p.m. a woman rang to say he'd been booked on to the ferry leaving Trelleborg at 5.30 a.m. the next morning. To Wallander's astonishment, she announced herself as a representative for "Lippman's Travel Agency".

He went to bed at midnight. His last thought before going to sleep was how crazy the whole scheme was. He was on the point of getting involved voluntarily in something that was doomed to fail. At the same time, Baiba's cry for help was real, and he felt bound to answer it.

Early the next morning he drove onto the ferry in Trelleborg harbour. One of the passport officials waved to him and asked where he was going.

"To the Alps," Wallander told him.

"Sounds great."

"Does you good to get away occasionally." "That's what we all need to do." "I couldn't have kept going a single day longer." "Well, you can forget all about being a police officer for a few days."

"I will," Wallander said, but knew that was definitely not true. He was about to embark on his toughest assignment. An assignment that didn't even exist.

The dawn skies were grey. He went up on deck as the ferry pulled away. He shivered as he watched the open sea slowly grow as the ship moved further from land and the Swedish coast disappeared from view.

He was in the cafeteria having a bite to eat when a man in his 50s, with a ruddy face and shifty eyes, approached him and introduced himself as Preuss. Preuss had written instructions from Joseph Lippman, and a brand new identity that Wallander was to use from now on.

"Let's take a walk up on deck," Preuss suggested.

There was thick fog over the Baltic the day Wallander went back to Riga.