The Dogs of Riga

EPILOGUE

Early one morning at the beginning of May, Wallander was in his office carefully but unenthusiastically filling in his football pools coupon when Martinsson knocked on the door and came it. It was still chilly – spring hadn't yet reached Skåne – but even so Wallander had his window open, as if he needed to give his brain a thorough airing. He had been absent-mindedly weighing up the chances of the various teams beating each other while listening to a chaffinch singing away in a tree. When Martinsson appeared in the doorway, Wallander put the pools coupon away, got up from his chair and closed the window. He knew Martinsson was always worrying about catching a cold.

"Am I disturbing you?" Martinsson asked.

Since his return from Riga Wallander had been off-hand and brusque with his colleagues. Some of them had wondered, strictly between themselves, how he could have grown so out of sorts just because he'd broken his hand skiing in the Alps. Nobody wanted to ask him about it straight out, however, and they all thought his bad mood would gradually die away of its own accord.

Wallander was aware that he was behaving badly towards his colleagues. He had no business making their work more difficult, but he didn't know how he should go about becoming the Wallander of old again, the firm but good-humoured officer of the Ystad police. It was as if that person no longer existed. Nor did he know whether he really missed him. There was very little he did know about himself. The supposed trip to the Alps had exposed how little genuine truth there was in his life. He knew that he was not the kind of man who consciously surrounded himself with lies, but he had begun to ask himself whether his ignorance of what the world really looked like was in itself a sort of lie, even though it was founded in naivety rather than a conscious effort to cut himself off.

Every time someone came into his office, he felt a twinge of guilt, but he could think of nothing better to do than to pretend that there was nothing wrong.

"No, you're not disturbing me," he said, trying hard to sound friendly. "Sit down."

Martinsson sat down in the visitor's chair that sagged and was most uncomfortable. "I thought I'd tell you a strange story," he said. "Or rather, I've two stories to tell you. It looks as if we've been visited by ghosts from the past."

Wallander didn't like Martinsson's way of expressing things. The grim reality they had to deal with as police officers always seemed to him unsuitable for dressing up in poetic terms. But he said nothing and waited.

"Do you remember that man who phoned to tell us that a life-raft was going to be washed up near here," Martinsson continued, "the chap we never caught up with, and who never identified himself?"

"There were two men," Wallander interrupted.

Martinsson nodded. "Let's start with the first one," he said. "A few weeks ago Anette Brolin was wondering whether to charge a man accused of a particularly nasty GBH, but since he had a clean record, she let him go."

Wallander's ears had pricked up.

"His name's Holmgren," said Martinsson. "I just happened to see the papers about that GBH case lying on Svedberg's desk. I noticed he was down as the owner of a fishing boat called Byron, and bells started ringing in my head. It became even more interesting when I saw that this Holmgren had beaten up one of his closest friends, a bloke called Jakobson who used to work as a crewman on the boat."

Wallander recalled that night in Brantevik harbour. Martinsson was right. They had been visited by ghosts from the past. He realised how keen he was to hear what was coming next.

"The funny thing was that Jakobson hadn't reported the incident, even though it was very brutal and seemed to have been unprovoked," Martinsson said.

"Who did report it, then?"

"Holmgren attacked Jakobson with a crank handle out at Brantevik harbour, and someone saw him and phoned the police. Jakobson was in hospital for three weeks. He was pretty badly beaten, but he didn't want to report Holmgren. Svedberg never did manage to find out what was behind the violence, but I started to wonder if it might have something to do with that life-raft. Remember how neither of them wanted the other one to know that they'd both contacted us? Or at least, that's what we thought."

"I remember," Wallander said.

"I thought I'd have a word with Mr Holmgren," Martinsson continued. "He used to live in the same street as you, by the way, Mariagatan."

"Used to live?"

"Exactly. When I went to see him, he'd moved. A long way away, as well. He'd gone off to Portugal. He'd sent in various documents that classified him as an emigrant, and given his new address as somewhere in the Azores. He'd sold Byron to some Danish fisherman or other for a real bargain basement price."

Martinsson paused, and Wallander watched him thoughtfully.

"You have to agree that it's a pretty strange story," Martinsson said. "Do you reckon we ought to pass this information on to the police in Riga?"

"No," Wallander said. "I don't think that's necessary. But thanks for telling me."

"I haven't finished yet," Martinsson said. "Here comes part two of the story. Did you read the papers yesterday?"

Wallander had stopped buying newspapers ages ago, unless he was involved in a case the press was displaying more than routine interest in. He shook his head, and Martinsson continued.

"You should have done. There were reports on how the customs in Goteborg fished up a life-raft that later proved to have come from a Russian trawler. They'd found it drifting off Vinga, which seemed odd because there was no wind at all that day. The skipper of the trawler maintained they'd had to put in to dock for some repairs to a damaged propeller. They'd been fishing at Dogger Bank, and he claimed they'd lost the life-raft without noticing. By pure coincidence a sniffer dog happened to pass the life-raft, and it got very interested. They found a few kilos of top grade amphetamine hidden inside the life-raft, and traced it to some laboratories in Poland. That could well give us the explanation we were looking for – the raft that was nicked from our basement probably had something hidden in it that we ought to have found."

It seemed to Wallander that this was a reference to his fatal mistake. Martinsson was right, of course. It had been inexcusable carelessness. All the same, he felt tempted to confide in Martinsson, to tell somebody what had really happened instead of that holiday in the Alps that had only been an excuse. But he said nothing. He didn't think he had the strength.

"I expect you're right," he said. "But I don't suppose we'll ever find out why those men were murdered."

"Don't say that," Martinsson said, getting to his feet. "You never know what tomorrow might have in store to astonish us. In spite of everything, it looks as though we might have got a little bit closer to winding up that particular story, don't you think?"

Wallander nodded. But he didn't say anything.

Martinsson paused in the doorway and turned round.

"Do you know what I think?" he asked. "It's only my own opinion, of course, but I reckon Holmgren and Jakobson were involved in some kind of smuggling, and they just happened to see that life-raft. They had a pretty good reason for not getting too closely involved with the police, though."

"That doesn't explain the GBH," Wallander said.

"Maybe they'd agreed not to contact us? Maybe Holmgren thought Jakobson had been telling tales out of school?"

"You could be right. But we'll never know."

Martinsson left. Wallander opened the window again, then went back to his football coupon. He thought of the letter he had found on his return from Riga, thanking him for his application and inviting him to an interview at the Trelleborg Rubber Company. He had told them he was not able to consider the job for the time being, but he kept the letter in his drawer.

Later that day he drove out to a new cafe close to the harbour. He ordered a cup of coffee and started to write a letter to Baiba Liepa. Half an hour later he read through what he'd written and tore it up. He left the cafe and went out on to the pier. He scattered the pieces of paper over the water like breadcrumbs. He still didn't know what to write to her. But his longing was very strong.