The Dogs of Riga

CHAPTER 5

The harbour at Brantevik was deserted. Only a few, isolated lights were reflected in the dark, stagnant waters of the basin. Wallander wondered whether the lights had been broken, or if as part of its cuts the local government wasn't replacing spent bulbs. The future of our society gets gloomier and gloomier, he thought. A symbolic image is becoming more and more real.

The lights of the car ahead of him went out. Wallander switched off his own, and sat there in the darkness. The clock on the dashboard marked off time in a series of electronic jerks – 1.25 a.m. A torch suddenly illuminated the darkness, dancing around like a glow worm. Wallander opened his car door and clambered out, shivering as the cold night air struck him. The man with the torch stopped a few yards short of him. Wallander still couldn't make out his features.

"Let's go out onto the quay," the man said.

He spoke in a broad Scanian dialect. It was impossible to sound threatening with an accent like that, Wallander thought. He knew of no other dialect with so much gentleness built into it. Even so, he was hesitant.

"Why?" he asked. "Why do we have to go out onto the quay?

"Are you scared?" the man said. "We're going out onto the quay because there's a boat moored there."

He turned round and set off, with Wallander following him. A gust of wind clawed at his face. They stopped beside the dark silhouette of a fishing boat. The smell of sea and oil was very strong. The man handed Wallander the torch.

"Aim it at the mooring ropes," he said.

Wallander caught sight of him for the first time. A man in his 40s, possibly slightly older. A weather-beaten face with the rough skin of somebody who leads an outdoor life. He was dressed in dark blue overalls and a grey jacket, with a black knitted cap pulled down over his eyes. The man took hold of a mooring rope and clambered on board. He melted into the darkness in the direction of the wheel-house, and Wallander waited. A gas lantern was lit, and the man returned over the creaking deck to the prow.

"Welcome aboard," he said.

Wallander fumbled for the frozen rail and heaved himself aboard. He followed the man across the sloping deck, stumbling over a coiled hawser.

"Don't fall in," the man said. "The water's cold."

Wallander followed him into the cramped wheelhouse and then down into the engine room. The place stank of diesel and lubricating oil. The man hung the lantern on a hook in the ceiling and turned down the light.

Wallander realised that the man was scared to death. He was all fingers and thumbs, and in a hurry. Wallander sat down on the uncomfortable bunk covered with a dirty blanket.

"You keep your promises, I trust," the man said. "I always keep my promises," Wallander replied. "Nobody does that," the man said. "I'm thinking about what will happen to me." "What is your name?" "That's irrelevant."

"But you did see the life-raft with two dead bodies?"

"Could be."

"You wouldn't have phoned us otherwise." The man reached for a grimy chart beside him on the bunk.

"Here," he said, pointing. "That's where I saw it. It was just before 2 p.m. when I noticed it, the twelfth. Last Tuesday, that is. I've been trying to guess where on earth it could have come from."

Wallander searched through his pockets for a pencil and something to write on, but of course he found nothing.

"Let's take it slowly," Wallander said. "Start at the beginning. Where were you when you noticed the raft?"

"I've written it down," the man answered. "Just over 6 nautical miles off Ystad, in a straight line to the south. The raft was drifting towards the north-west. I've written down the exact position."

He handed Wallander a crumpled scrap of paper. Wallander had the impression the location was exact, even though the figures meant nothing to him.

"The life-raft was drifting," he said. "I'd not have noticed it if it had been snowing."

We'd never have noticed it, thought Wallander. Every time he says I, he hesitates almost imperceptibly, as if he had to keep reminding himself to tell only part of the truth.

"It was drifting to port," the man continued. "I towed it towards the Swedish coast, and let it go when I could see land."

That explains the severed rope, Wallander thought. They were in a hurry, and they were nervous. They didn't hesitate to sacrifice a bit of rope.

"Are you a fisherman?" he asked.

"Yes."

No, thought Wallander. You lied again, you're a bad liar, and I wonder what you're afraid of.

"I was coming home," the man said.

"You must have a radio on board," Wallander said. "Why didn't you alert the coastguards?"

"I have my reasons."

Wallander could see that he would have to break down the man's fear, or he would never get anywhere. Confidence, he thought. He must feel he really can trust me.

"I have to know more," Wallander said. "Obviously I'll be making use of whatever is said here in the investigation, but nobody will know it was you who said it."

"Nobody has said anything. Nobody has telephoned."

It dawned on Wallander that there was a perfectly simple explanation for the man's anxious determination to be anonymous. He'd realised before, during his conversation with Martinsson that the man he was talking to had not been alone on the boat; but now he knew exactly how many crewmen there had been. Two. Not three, not more, just two. And it was this second man that he was afraid of.

"Nobody's telephoned," Wallander said. "Is it your boat?"

"What difference does that make?"

Wallander started all over again. He was certain now the man had nothing to do with the men's death, but had only been on board the vessel that discovered the life-raft and towed it towards the shore. That made things simpler, although he couldn't understand why the witness was quite so scared. Who was the other man?

Then the penny dropped. Smugglers. Trafficking in refugees or booze. This boat is being used for smuggling. That's why there's no smell of fish.

"Did you notice any other vessels nearby when you saw the life-raft?"

"No."

"Are you absolutely sure?" "I only say what I know." "But you said you'd been guessing?" The answer Wallander received was definite. "The raft had been in the water for a long time. It couldn't have been cast off recently." "Why not?"

"It had already started to collect algae."

Wallander couldn't remember seeing any algae when he'd inspected the raft himself.

"There was no sign of any algae when we found it."

The man thought for a moment.

"It must have been washed off when I towed it towards theshore. The raft was bobbing up and down in my wash."

"How long do you think it had been in the water?"

"Maybe a week. Hard to say."

Wallander sat watching the man. He was restless and seemed to be straining to hear any sound as they spoke.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?" Wallander asked him. "Every little thing could be significant."

"I think the raft had drifted from one of the Baltic countries."

"Why do you think that? Why not Germany?"

"I know these waters. I reckon that raft had come from the Baltic states."

Wallander tried to picture a map of the region.

"That's a long way," he said. "Past the whole of the Polish coast, and right into German waters. I find that hard to believe."

"During the Second World War mines could drift a very long way in a short time. The winds we've had lately would make it quite possible."

The light from the lantern suddenly started to die down.

"I've got nothing more to say," the man said, folding up the chart. "You remember what you promised?"

"I know exactly what I promised. I have one more question, though. What are you frightened of? Why did we have to meet in the middle of the night?"

"I'm not frightened," the man said, as he put the chart away. "And if I was, that would be my business."

Wallander tried to think of any other questions he should ask before it was too late.

Neither of them noticed the slight movement of the boat. It was a gentle dip, so gentle it was no wonder that it passed unnoticed, like a faint swell that only just reached land.

Wallander climbed up from the engine room, and shone his torch quickly over the walls of the wheelhouse. He couldn't see anything that would make it easy to identify the boat again later.

"Where can I get in touch with you if I need to?" he asked when they were back on the quay.

"You can't," the man said. "And in any case, you won't need to. There's nothing more I can tell you."

Wallander counted his paces as he walked along the quay. When he put his foot down for the 73rd time he felt the gravel of the harbour square. The man had been swallowed up by the shadows: he'd taken his torch and disappeared without another word. Wallander sat in his car without switching on the engine. For a moment he thought he saw a shadow moving in the darkness, but then decided he'd imagined it. It dawned on him that he was meant to drive away first. When he came out onto the main road he slowed down, but no headlights appeared in his rear-view mirror.

It was 2.45 a.m. when he reached home. He sat at his kitchen table and noted down the details of the conversation he had had in the fishing boat. The Baltic states, he thought. Can the life-raft really have drifted all that way? He went to the living room and found his tattered school atlas in a cupboard among piles of old magazines and opera programmes. Southern Sweden and the Baltic Sea. The Baltic states seemed quite close and yet far away at the same time. I know nothing about the sea, he thought, about currents and winds. Perhaps the man was right? And why would he have told me something he knew was untrue? Once again, he thought of the man's fear, and the other crew member, the unknown man, of whom he was so afraid.

It was 4 a.m. by the time he went back to bed. He lay awake for a long time before he managed to fall asleep.

He awoke with a start. The clock on his bedside table said 7.46 a.m. He cursed, jumped out of bed and dressed. He stuffed his toothbrush and toothpaste in his jacket pocket, and parked outside the station just before 8 a.m. In reception, Ebba beckoned to him.

"Björk wants to see you," she said. "You look a sight! Did you oversleep?"

"And how," Wallander said, darting into the lavatory to brush his teeth. At the same time he tried to gather his thoughts in preparation for the meeting. How on earth was he to deal with his nocturnal excursion to a fishing boat in Brantevik harbour?

When he got to Björk's office, there was nobody there. He made his way to the largest of the station's conference rooms, and knocked on the door, feeling like a schoolboy turning up late for classes.

There were six people sitting round the oval table, and they all stared at him.

"I'm a few minutes late, I'm afraid," he said, sitting down on the nearest empty chair. Björk was looking at him sternly, but Martinsson and Svedberg grinned and looked as if they wondered where he'd been. He thought Svedberg might even be sneering at him. Birgitta Törn was on Björk's left, inscrutable as ever. Next to her were two other people who Wallander didn't know. He stood up and went to greet them. Both men were in their 50s, surprisingly alike, well-built and with friendly faces. The first one introduced himself as Sture Rönnlund, the other was Bertil Lovén.

"I'm from serious crime," Lovén said. "Sture's from narcotics."

"Kurt is our most experienced officer," Björk said. "Please help yourselves to coffee."

When everybody had fetched a cup, Björk started the meeting.

"Needless to say, we're grateful for all the help we can get," he began. "None of you can have failed to notice the stir caused in the media by the discovery of these bodies. That is why we need to conduct this investigation with extra vigour and commitment. Birgitta Törn has joined us primarily as an observer and to be of assistance when it comes to making contacts with countries where Interpol has no influence, but that doesn't prevent us from taking advantage of her expertise."

Then it was Wallander's turn. Everybody had copies of the case documents, so he didn't bother to go into detail, but simply summarised what had happened. He spent some time on the results of the forensic examination. When he'd finished, Lovén asked for clarification on a few points. That was all. Björk looked round the room.

"Well," he said, "what next?"

Wallander could feel himself getting annoyed at the way

Björk was deferring to the woman from the foreign ministry and the two Stockholm detectives. He couldn't resist firing a shot across their bows, and indicated to Björk that he wanted to speak.

"Too much of this is unclear," he said, "and I don't just mean the case itself. I don't understand why the foreign ministry has considered it necessary to send Birgitta Törn to Ystad. I can't believe the ministry simply wants to help us in establishing contacts with the Russian police. It seems to me that the foreign ministry has decided to keep an eye on our investigation, and if so, I'd like to know just what is going to be watched. And most of all, of course, why the ministry has reached such a decision. For obvious reasons I can't help feeling that Stockholm knows something we don't. Or perhaps it isn't the foreign ministry that has reached this conclusion – maybe it's somebody else?"

There was a deathly silence when Wallander had finished. Björk was staring at him in horror.

Finally Birgitta Törn spoke.

"There's no reason to doubt the explanation we've given for our coming to Ystad," she said. "The unstable situation in Eastern Europe requires us to keep a very close eye on developments there."

"We don't even know for sure that the men are from an Eastern bloc country," Wallander said, interrupting her. "Or do you know something we don't? In that case, I'd like to be put in the picture."

"I think perhaps we should calm down a bit," Björk said.

"I want an answer to my questions," Wallander said. "I'm not going to be fobbed off with waffle about the unstable political situation."

The inscrutable mask was suddenly gone from Birgitta Tom's face. She glared at Wallander, her expression indicating an increasing contempt and a wish to keep him at bay. Hmm, I'm awkward, Wallander thought, one of those ever-so-troublesome peasants.

"The situation is as I've described it," Törn said. "If you had any sense, you would realise there was no need to go on like this."

Wallander shook his head, and turned to Lovén and Rönnlund.

"What about your instructions?" he asked. "Stockholm doesn't usually send out people unless there's been a formal request for assistance, and we haven't made such a request, so far as I know. Or have we?"

Björk shook his head.

"OK, so Stockholm has decided this on its own initiative. I'd like to know why, if we're going to be working together. I'm assuming the ability of our force to conduct its business efficiently hasn't been impugned before we've even started."

Lov£n was shuffling uneasily, but it was Rönnlund who answered. Wallander detected a note of sympathy in his voice.

"The commissioner thought you might need a bit of help," he said. "Our remit is to place ourselves at your disposal. That's all. You're in charge of the investigation, and if we can be of assistance, so much the better. Neither Bertil nor I have any doubts about your ability to conduct this case on your own, and for myself, I think you've acted speedily and decisively over the last few days."

Wallander nodded in appreciation. Martinsson was grinning, and Svedberg was picking thoughtfully at his teeth with a splinter he'd broken from the conference table.

"Well, perhaps we can consider where to go from here," Björk said.

"Indeed," Wallander said. "I have a few theories I'd like to test out on you, but first I'd like to tell you about a little adventure I had during the night."

He felt calm again. He'd pitted himself against Birgitta Törn and not been vanquished. He'd find out what she was really doing here soon enough. Rönnlund's support had made him feel better. He told them about his telephone call and his visit to the fishing boat in Brantevik. He stressed that the man had been certain the life-raft could have drifted from as far as one of the Baltic states. Björk was inspired to take unexpected initiatives, and asked reception to arrange for charts of the whole area to be sent up immediately. Wallander imagined Ebba collaring the next officer that sauntered through reception, instructing him to produce the maps without delay. He poured himself another cup of coffee, and started to explain his theories.

"The evidence points to the men having been murdered on board a ship," he said. "You would expect the bodies to have been disposed of in the ocean, but I suspect that the killers wanted the bodies to be found. I find it difficult to explain why that should be so, not least because it must have been very uncertain where and when the life-raft would wash ashore. Anyway, the men were shot at close range after being tortured. People are tortured as punishment, or to extract information. The next thing to bear in mind is that both men were under the influence of drugs, amphetamines to be precise. Somehow or other, drugs are involved in this case. I have the distinct impression these men were not short of money – their clothes make that clear. By Eastern European standards they must have been pretty well off if they could afford to buy the shoes and clothes they were wearing. I'd never be able to afford their clothes."

Lovén burst out laughing at his final remark, but Birgitta Törn continued staring doggedly down at the table.

"We know quite a lot, even if we can't fit the bits of the jigsaw together to produce a picture that gives us the sequence of events and the reason the men were murdered. There's one thing we need to establish immediately: who were these men? That's what we must concentrate on. And we must also get a ballistic report on the bullets that killed them without delay. I want a check on all missing or wanted persons in Sweden and Denmark. Fingerprints, photos and descriptions of the men must be sent immediately to Interpol. Maybe we'll find something in our criminal records. And we need to contact the police in the Soviet Union and the Baltic states, assuming that hasn't happened already. Perhaps Birgitta Törn can fill us in on this?"

"That will happen later today," she said. "We'll be contacting the international division of the Moscow police."

"The police in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania must be contacted as well."

"That will happen via Moscow."

Wallander looked questioningly at her, then turned to Björk. "Didn't we have a visit from the Lithuanian police last autumn?"

"What Birgitta Törn says is no doubt correct," Björk said. "The Baltic states have their own national police forces, but it's still the Soviet police that makes the formal decisions."

"I wonder," Wallander said. "Still, I dare say that the foreign ministry knows more about this than I do."

"Yes," Törn said, "no doubt we do."

Björk brought the meeting to a close, and immediately disappeared with Birgitta Törn. A press conference had been arranged for 2 p.m. Wallander stayed behind in the conference room and went over the various tasks with the others. Svedberg fetched the plastic bag containing the bullets, and Lovén undertook to make sure that the ballistic examination happened quickly. The others split the enormous job of going through the lists of missing and wanted persons. Martinsson had contacts in the Copenhagen police, and undertook to get in touch with them.

"You don't need to bother about the press conference," Wallander said. "That'll be a headache for Björk and myself."

"Are they as unpleasant here as they are in Stockholm?" Rönnlund asked.

"I don't know what press conferences are like in Stockholm," Wallander told him, "but they're not exactly fun here."

The rest of the day was spent sending descriptions of the dead men to all police districts in Sweden and the Scandinavian countries, and working their way through various records and registers. It was soon clear that the men's fingerprints weren't in the Swedish or Danish records, but Interpol would take longer to give an answer. Wallander and Lovén weren't sure whether the East German police records had been incorporated into Interpol. Had their criminal records been transferred to a central database covering the whole of unified Germany? Come to that, had there actually been any normal criminal records in the GDR? Had there been a distinction between the vast archives of the security services and criminal records? Lovén agreed to find the answers to these questions, while Wallander prepared himself for the press conference.

When he and Björk met before the briefing was due to begin, Wallander noticed that his boss was very quiet. Why doesn't he say anything, he wondered. Did he think I was rude to that elegant lady from the foreign ministry?

A large number of journalists and television reporters gathered in the room where the press conference was going to take place. Wallander looked for the young reporter from the Express, but couldn't see him.

Björk started proceedings, as usual, launching an unexpected attack on the "incomprehensibly irresponsible" reports published by the press. Wallander's thoughts wandered to his night-time meeting with the frightened man at Brantevik harbour. When it was his turn to speak, he began by repeating his appeal for the public to contact the police if they had any information that might be relevant. A reporter asked if there had been any response so far, and Wallander said there had not. The press conference was surprisingly low key, and Björk expressed his satisfaction as they left the room.

"What's the lady from the foreign ministry doing?" Wallander asked as they walked down the corridor.

"She's on the phone nearly all the time," Björk said. "No doubt you think we ought to bug her calls."

"It wouldn't be a bad idea," Wallander muttered.

The day passed without significant developments. It was a question of being patient, of seeing whether any fish would swim into the nets they'd put out.

Shortly before 6 p.m. Martinsson popped his head round Wallander's door and asked if he'd like to come round for dinner at his place that evening. He'd already invited Lovén and Rönnlund, who seemed to be feeling homesick.

"Svedberg's busy," he said. "Birgitta Törn told me she was going to Malmö tonight. What about you?"

"Sorry, I can't," Wallander said. "I've got an appointment, I'm afraid."

It was partly true. He hadn't absolutely made up his mind whether to drive again to Brantevik and take a closer look at the fishing boat.

At 6.30 p.m. he phoned his father as usual, and was instructed to buy a new pack of cards and bring it with him the next time he came. As soon as he'd hung up, he left the station. The wind had dropped, and the sky was clear. He stopped on the way home to buy some food. By 8.30 p.m., when he'd finished eating and was waiting for the coffee to brew, he still hadn't made up his mind. No doubt it could wait until tomorrow. Besides, he was exhausted from the previous night's exertions.

He sat for ages at his kitchen table over his coffee, trying to imagine Rydberg opposite him, discussing the day's events. He went through what had happened step by step with his invisible visitor. It was three days since the life-raft had beached at Mossby Strand. They weren't going to get any further until they established who the dead men were, but even if they did that, the riddle might remain unsolved.

He put his cup in the sink. He noticed a drooping plant on his windowsill, and watered it before going to the living room and choosing a Maria Callas recording of La Traviata. He had made up his mind to postpone the visit to the fishing boat.

Later that evening he tried to ring his daughter at her college near Stockholm, but nobody answered. At 10.30 p.m. he went to bed and fell asleep almost at once.

The following day, the fourth day of the investigation, just before 2 p.m., what everybody had been expecting finally came to pass. Birgitta Törn went to Wallander's office with a telex. The police in Riga had informed the Swedish foreign ministry, via their superiors in Moscow, that it was likely that the men were Latvian citizens. In order to facilitate further investigations, Major Litvinov of the Moscow police suggested that his Swedish colleagues might like to establish direct contact with the serious crimes unit in Riga.

"So, they do exist after all," Wallander said. "The Latvian police, I mean."

"Who said they didn't?" she answered. "If you'd got in touch with Riga directly, though, there could have been diplomatic repercussions. I'm not sure we'd have received a response at all. I take it you are aware that the situation in Latvia is rather tense."

Wallander knew that. It was barely a month since the Soviet elite troops had attacked the Ministry of the Interior in central Riga and killed many innocent people. Wallander had seen newspaper pictures of barricades made of stone blocks and iron poles. All the same, he wasn't quite clear what was going on. As usual, he felt he didn't know enough about what was happening around him.

"What do we do now, then?" he asked tentatively.

"We establish contact with the police in Riga. The main thing is to make sure we really are dealing with the people indicated in the telex."

Wallander read the message again. The man in the fishing boat had been right: the life-raft had indeed drifted the whole way from the Baltic coast.

"We still don't know who they were," he said.

But he did know three hours later. A call from Riga had been announced, and the investigation team gathered in the conference room. Björk was so on edge that he spilled coffee down his jacket.

"Is there anybody here who speaks Latvian?" Wallander asked. "I don't."

"The call will be in English," Birgitta Törn said. "We asked for this."

"You take it," Björk said to Wallander.

"My English isn't all that good."

"No doubt his won't be either," Rönnlund said. "What was his name? Major Litvinov? It'll even itself out, I reckon."

"Major Litvinov is stationed in Moscow," Birgitta Törn pointed out. "We'll be talking to the police in Riga, in Latvia."

The call came at 5.19 p.m. The line was surprisingly clear. A man introduced himself as Major Liepa from the Riga police. Wallander made notes as he listened, occasionally answering a question. Major Liepa spoke very bad English, and Wallander was not at all confident that he understood everything he said. Nevertheless, when the call was over he felt he had the most important information jotted down in his notebook.

Two names, two identities: Janis Leja and Juris Kalns.

"Riga had their fingerprints," Wallander said. "According to Major Liepa there was no doubt that the bodies we found are these two."

"Excellent," Björk said. "What sort of men were they?"

Wallander read from his notes.

"Notorious criminals," he said.

"Did he have any idea why they might have been murdered?" Björk asked.

"No, but he didn't seem particularly surprised. If I understood him, he said that he'll be sending over some documentation. He also wondered if we were interested in inviting over any Latvian police officers to assist with the investigation."

"That would be an excellent idea" Björk said. "The quicker we can get this case out of the way, the better."

"The foreign ministry will support any such move, of course," Birgitta Törn said.

So it was agreed. The next day Major Liepa sent a telex announcing that he personally would be flying to Arlanda the following afternoon, and would get the first connection to Sturup.

"A major," Wallander said. "What does that mean?"

"I've no idea," Martinsson said. "I generally feel like a corporal in this business myself."

Birgitta Törn went back to Stockholm. Now she was gone, Wallander had difficulty recalling the sound of her voice, or even what she looked like. That's the last I'll see of her, he thought, and I don't suppose I'll ever discover why she came here in the first place.

Björk had taken it upon himself to meet the Latvian major at the airport, which meant that Wallander could spend the evening playing canasta with his father. As he drove out to Loderup, he thought to himself that the case would soon be solved. The Latvian police would presumably supply a plausible motive, and then the whole investigation could be transferred to Riga. That was no doubt where the murderer would be found. The life-raft had been washed up on the Swedish coast, but the origins of it all, of the murders, were on the other side of the sea. The bodies of the dead men would be sent back to Latvia and there the case would be resolved.

In this judgement, Wallander was completely wrong. The case had scarcely begun. What had begun in Skåne, and in earnest, was winter.