The Dogs of Riga

CHAPTER 8

Shortly before 8.30 a.m., Wallander discovered that Colonel Murniers smoked the same extra-strong cigarettes as Major Liepa. He recognised the packet, with the brand name "PRIMA" that the colonel took out of his uniform pocket and placed on the table in front of him.

Wallander felt as though he was in the middle of a labyrinth. Sergeant Zids had led him up and down stairs around the apparently endless police headquarters before stopping at a door that turned out to be to Murniers's office. It seemed to Wallander that there must surely be a shorter and more straightforward way to Murniers's office, but he was not allowed to know it.

The office was sparsely furnished, not especially big, and what immediately caught Wallander's interest was the fact that it had three telephones. On one wall was a dented filing cabinet, with locks. Besides the telephones there was a large cast-iron ashtray on his desk, decorated with an elaborate motif that Wallander thought at first was a pair of swans, then realised was a man with bulging muscles carrying a flag into a headwind.

Ashtray, telephones, but no papers. The Venetian blinds for the two high windows behind Murniers's back were either half-lowered, or broken, Wallander couldn't make up his mind which. He stared at the blinds as he digested the important news Murniers had just imparted.

"We've arrested a suspect," the colonel had said. "Our investigations during the night have produced the result we'd been hoping for."

At first Wallander thought he was referring to the major's murderer, but then it came to him that Murniers meant the dead men in the life-raft.

"It was a gang," Murniers said. "A gang with branches in both Tallinn and Warsaw. A loose collection of criminals who make a living out of smuggling, robbery, burglary, anything that makes money. We suspect that they've recently started to profit from the drug-dealing that has unfortunately penetrated Latvia. Colonel Putnis is interrogating the man at this very moment. We shall soon know quite a lot more."

The last few sentences were delivered as a calm, factual and measured statement. Wallander could see Putnis in his mind's eye, slowly extracting the truth from a man who'd been tortured. What did he know about the Latvian police? Was there any limit to what was permitted in a dictatorship? Come to that, was Latvia a dictatorship? He thought of Baiba Liepa's face. Fear, but also the opposite of fear. When somebody telephones and asks for Mr Eckers, you must come.

Murniers smiled at him, as if it was obvious he could read the Swedish police officer's thoughts. Wallander tried to hide his secret by saying something quite untrue.

"Major Liepa led me to understand that he was worried about his personal safety," he said, "but he gave no reason for his anxiety. That's one of the questions Colonel Putnis ought to try and find an answer to – whether there's a direct connection between the men found dead in the life-raft and the murder of Major Liepa."

Wallander thought he could detect an almost invisible shift in Murniers's expression. So, he'd said something unexpected. But was it his insight that was unexpected, or that Major Liepa really had been worried and Murniers already knew?

"You must have asked the key questions," Wallander said. "Who could have enticed Major Liepa out in the middle of the night? Who would have had a reason to murder him? Even when a controversial politician is murdered one has to ask whether there might have been a private motive. That's what happened when Kennedy was assassinated, and the same was the case when the Swedish prime minister was shot down in the street some years ago. You must have thought of all this, I take it? You must also have concluded that there was no credible private motive, or you wouldn't have asked me to come to Riga."

"That is correct," Murniers said. "You are an experienced police officer and your analysis is accurate. Major Liepa was happily married. He was not in financial difficulties. He didn't gamble, he didn't have a mistress. He was a conscientious police officer who was convinced that the work he did was helping our country to develop. We think his death must be connected with his work. As he was working on no other case apart from the death of the men found in the life-raft, we asked for help from Sweden. Perhaps he said something to you that didn't appear in the report he handed in the day he died? We need to know, and we hope you can help us."

"Major Liepa talked about drugs," Wallander said. "He referred to the spread of amphetamine factories in Eastern Europe. He was convinced that the two men died as a result of an internal dispute within a syndicate involved in drug smuggling. He devoted much energy to trying to discover whether the men had been killed for revenge, or because they had refused to reveal something. Furthermore, there were good reasons to believe the life-raft itself had been carrying a cargo of drugs, as it was stolen from our police station. What we never managed to work out was how these various things might be linked."

"Let's hope Colonel Putnis gets an answer to that," Murniers said. "He's a very skilled interrogator. In the meantime I thought I might suggest that I should show you the place where Major Liepa was murdered. Colonel Putnis takes his time over an interrogation, if he thinks it's worth it."

"Is the place where he was found the actual place where he was killed?"

"There's no reason to suppose otherwise. It's a remote spot. There are not many people around the docks at night."

That's not true, Wallander thought. The major would have put up a struggle. It can't have been easy to drag him out on to a quay in the middle of the night. Saying the place is remote isn't a good enough explanation.

"I would like to meet the major's widow," he said. "A conversation with her could be important for me as well. I assume you've spoken to her several times?"

"We've had a very detailed conversation with Baiba Liepa," Murniers said. "Of course we can arrange for you to meet her."

They drove along by the river in the grey light of the winter morning. Sergeant Zids was instructed to track down Baiba Liepa while Wallander and Colonel Murniers drove out to where the body had been found, the place Murniers also claimed was the scene of the murder.

"What's your theory?" Wallander asked as they lounged in the back seat of Murniers's car, which was bigger and plusher than the one Wallander had been allocated. "You must have one, you and Colonel Putnis."

"Drugs," Murniers answered without hesitation. "We know the big bosses in the drugs business surround themselves with bodyguards, men who are nearly always addicts themselves, prepared to do anything in order to get their daily fix. Maybe those bosses reckoned Major Liepa was getting a bit close for comfort?"

"Was he?"

"No. If that theory were correct, at least a dozen officers here in the Riga police force would have come before Major Liepa on a death list. The odd thing about this is that Major Liepa had never been involved in investigating drugs crimes before. It was pure coincidence that he seemed to be the most appropriate officer to send to Sweden."

"What kind of cases had Major Liepa been dealing with?"

Murniers gazed vacantly out of the car window. "He was a very skilled all-round detective. We had some robberies in Riga recently that involved murder as well: Major Liepa handled the case brilliantly and arrested those responsible. When other investigators, at least as experienced as he was, had run up against a brick wall, Major Liepa was often the officer we turned to."

They sat in silence as the police car stopped at some traffic lights. Wallander watched a group of people hunched against the cold at a bus stop, and had the distinct impression no bus would ever come and open its doors for them.

"Drugs," he said. "That's old hat for us in the West, but it's something new for you."

"Not completely new," Murniers said, "but we've never seen it before on the scale that is normal today. Opening up our borders has produced opportunities and a market on a completely different scale. I don't mind admitting that we've sometimes felt helpless. We'll need to develop co-operation with police forces in the West because a lot of the drugs that pass through Latvia are actually destined for Sweden. Hard currency is the bait. It's quite clear to us that Sweden is one of the markets that the gangs here in Latvia are most interested in. For obvious reasons. It's not far from Ventspils to the Swedish coast, and moreover, that coast is long and difficult to patrol. You could say that they've taken over classical smuggling routes – they used to transport barrels of vodka the same way."

"Tell me more," Wallander said. "Where are the drugs manufactured? Who's behind it all?"

"You must understand that we are living in an impoverished country," Murniers said. "Just as impoverished and decrepit as our neighbours. For many years we've been forced to live as if we were shut in a cage. We've only been able to observe the riches of the West from a distance. Now, all of a sudden, everything is obtainable. But there's one condition: you need money. For someone who's prepared to go to any lengths, who's totally lacking in scruples, the quickest way to get that money is through drugs. When you helped us to dismantle our walls and open the gates to the countries that had been shut away, you also opened up the sluices for all manner of appetites that need satisfying. Hunger for all those things we'd been forced to observe from a distance, but been forbidden or prevented from touching. Needless to say, we've still no idea how things are going to work out."

Murniers leaned forward and said something to the driver, who immediately braked and came to a halt by the kerb.

Murniers pointed at the facade of the building opposite them.

"Bullet holes," he said. "About a year old."

Wallander leaned forward to look. The wall really was riddled with bullet holes.

"What is this building?" he asked.

"One of our ministries" Murniers said. "I'm showing you this to help you to understand. To understand why we still don't know what's going to happen. Will we get more freedom? Or will the freedom we have be restricted? Or disappear altogether? We still don't know. You have to understand, Inspector Wallander, that you are in a country where nothing is yet decided."

They drove on until they came to a vast area of dockland. Wallander tried to digest what Murniers had said. He'd started to sympathise with the pale man with the bloated features, to feel that everything he said involved Wallander as well – indeed, maybe involved him more than anybody else.

"We know there are laboratories making amphetamines and maybe other drugs like morphine and ephedrine," Murniers said. "We also suspect that Asian and South American cocaine cartels are trying to establish new networks in the former Eastern bloc. The idea is that they should replace the previous routes that went straight to Western Europe. Many of these have been closed down by the European police, but the cartels believe that in the virginal East European territories they might be able to evade keen-eyed police officers. Let's say they find us easier to corrupt and bribe."

"Officers like Major Liepa?"

"He would never have stooped to accepting a bribe." "I mean that he was a keen-eyed police officer." "If his eyes were too keen, if that's what sent him to his death, I trust Colonel Putnis will establish this shortly." "Who is this man that you've arrested?"

"Someone we've often come across in circumstances in which the two dead men were involved. A former butcher from Riga who has been one of the leaders of the organised crime we've been fighting against constantly. Remarkably enough, he's always managed to avoid going to prison – but maybe we can nail him this time."

The car slowed down and stopped by a wharf with piles of scrap iron and abandoned cranes. They got out of the car and walked to the water's edge.

"That's where Major Liepa was found."

Wallander looked round, trying to establish basic facts.

How had the murderers and the major got here? Why just here? It wasn't good enough to say that this part of the docks was remote. Wallarider inspected the remains of what had once been a crane. Please, Baiba Liepa had written. Murniers had lit a cigarette, and was stamping his feet rhythmically to keep warm.

Why doesn't he want to tell me about where the crime actually took place? Wallander thought. Why does Baiba Liepa want to meet me in secret? When somebody telephones and asks for Mr Eckers… What am I really doing here in Riga?

The anxiety he'd felt that morning had returned. He wondered whether it had to do with the fact that he was a stranger in an unknown country. The job of a police officer was to deal with circumstances of which oneself was a part. Here, he was an outsider. Perhaps he could penetrate this foreign environment in the guise of Mr Eckers? Kurt Wallander was a Swedish police officer, and he felt helpless in these alien circumstances. He went back to the car.

"I'd like to study your documentation," he said. "The post-mortem, forensic reports, photos."

"We shall have all the papers translated," Murniers said.

"It might be quicker if I have an interpreter," Wallander suggested. "Sergeant Zids speaks excellent English."

Murniers smiled wryly, and lit another cigarette.

"You are in a hurry," he said. "You're impatient. Of course Sergeant Zids can translate the reports for you."

When they got back to police headquarters, they'd gone behind a curtain and watched Colonel Putnis and the man he was interrogating through a two-way mirror. The interrogation room was cold and furnished with only a small wooden table and two chairs. Colonel Putnis had taken off his tunic. The man sitting opposite him was unshaven and looked exhausted. His answers to Putnis's questions were very slow.

"This will take some time," Murniers said pensively, "but we'll get to the truth sooner or later."

"What truth?"

"Whether or not we're right."

They returned to the inner sanctum of the labyrinth, and Wallander was shown to a small office in the same corridor as Murniers's. Sergeant Zids arrived with a file on the investigation into the major's death. Before Murniers left them to get on with it, he and the sergeant exchanged a few words in Latvian.

"Baiba Liepa will be brought here for an interrogation at 2 p.m. this afternoon," said Murniers.

Wallander was horrified. You have betrayed me, MrEckers. Why did you do that?

"What I had in mind was a conversation," Wallander said. "Not an interrogation."

"I shouldn't have used the word 'interrogation'," Murniers said. "Allow me to explain that she indicated she would be delighted to see you."

Murniers left, and two hours later Zids had translated all the documents in the file. Wallander had examined the blurred photographs of Liepa's body, and his feeling that something vital was missing was reinforced. Since he knew he could think more clearly when he was doing something else, he asked the sergeant to drive him to a shop where he could buy long Johns. The sergeant didn't appear surprised at his request. Wallander was struck by the absurdity of the whole situation as he marched into the outfitters selected by the sergeant: it was as if he were buying underpants with a police escort. Zids did the talking for him, and insisted that Wallander should try on the long Johns before paying for them. He bought two pairs, and they were duly wrapped up in brown paper and tied with string. When they emerged into the street, he suggested they should have lunch.

"Not at the Latvia Hotel, though," he said. "Anywhere else, but not there."

Sergeant Zids turned off the main street and drove into the old town. It seemed to Wallander that he was entering a new labyrinth he would never be able to find his way out of alone.

They stopped at the Sigulda restaurant. Wallander had an omelette, and the sergeant a bowl of soup. The atmosphere was stifling and heavy with cigarette smoke. The place was full when they arrived, and Wallander had noted that the sergeant had demanded a table.

"This would have been impossible in Sweden," he said as they were eating. "I mean, a police officer marching into a crowded restaurant and demanding a table."

"It's different here," Sergeant Zids said, unconcerned. "People prefer to keep well in with the police."

Wallander could feel himself getting annoyed. Sergeant Zids was too young for such arrogance.

"I don't want to jump any queues in future," he said.

The sergeant stared at him in astonishment.

"Then we won't get any food," he said.

"The dining room at the Latvia Hotel is always empty," Wallander replied curtly.

They were back at police headquarters just before 2 p.m. During the meal Wallander had sat there without speaking, trying to establish in his mind just what was wrong with the report Zids had translated. He had concluded that what worried him was the very perfection of the whole thing – it was as if it had been written in such a way as to make questions unnecessary. That was as far as he had got, and he wasn't sure he was right. Maybe he was seeing ghosts where there weren't any?

Murniers wasn't in his office and Colonel Putnis was still busy with his interrogation. The sergeant went to fetch Baiba Liepa, leaving Wallander alone in his office. He wondered if it was bugged, if someone was observing him through a two-way mirror. As if to assert his innocence, he took off his trousers and put on his long Johns. He had just noticed how his legs were starting to itch when there was a knock on the door. He shouted, "Come in," and the sergeant ushered in Baiba Liepa. I'm not Mr Eckers. There's no such person as Mr Eckers. That's exactly why I want to talk to you.

"Does Major Liepa's widow speak English?" he asked the sergeant. Zids nodded.

"Then you can leave us alone."

He had tried to prepare himself. I must remember that everything I say and do can be monitored. We can't even put our fingers over our lips, let alone write notes. But Baiba Liepa has to understand that Mr Eckers still exists.

She was dressed in a dark overcoat and a fur hat. Unlike earlier in the day, she was wearing glasses. She took off her hat, and shook out her dark hair.

"Please sit down, Mrs Liepa," Wallander said. She immediately smiled, a quick smile, as if he'd sent her a secret signal with a torch. He noted that she accepted it with no trace of surprise, but rather as if she'd expected nothing different. He knew he had to put to her all the questions he already had answers to. Perhaps she could send him a message through her responses, some insight into what was being held back for the eyes of Mr Eckers only?

He expressed his sympathy – formally, but sincerely even so. Then he asked the questions that were natural in the circumstances, bearing in mind all the time that some unknown person would be monitoring them.

"How long were you married to Major Liepa?"

"For eight years."

"If I understand correctly, you didn't have any children."

"We wanted to wait. I have my career."

"What is your career, Mrs Liepa?"

"I'm an engineer. But these last few years I've spent most of my time translating scientific papers. Some of them for our technical university."

How did you fix serving me breakfast? he wondered. Who is your contact at the Latvia Hotel? The thought distracted him. He asked his next question.

"And you thought you couldn't combine that with having children?"

He regretted asking that question straight away. That was a private matter, irrelevant. He apologised by not waiting for an answer, but just pressing on.

"Mrs Liepa," he said. "You must have thought, worried, wondered about what really happened to your husband. I've had the interrogations you had with the police translated. You say you don't know anything, don't understand anything, have no idea about anything. I'm sure that's the case. Nobody wants your husband's murderer to be caught and punished more than you do. Nevertheless, I'd like you to think back one more time, to the day when your husband got back from Sweden. There might be something you overlooked because of the shock of hearing that your husband had been murdered."

Her reply gave him the first coded signal for him to interpret.

"No," she said. "I haven't forgotten anything. Nothing at all." Herr Eckers, I wasn't shocked by something unexpected. What happened was what we'd feared.

"Maybe a bit earlier, then," Wallander said. He would have to tread very carefully now, so as not to make it too difficult for her.

"My husband didn't speak about his work," she said. "He would never break the oath of silence he'd taken when he became a police officer. I was married to a man whose morals were of a very high standard."

Absolutely, Wallander thought. It was the very high standard of his morals that killed him. "I had exactly the same impression of Major Liepa," he said, "despite the fact that we only met for a couple of days in Sweden."

Did she understand now that he was on her side? That he'd asked her to come and see him for that very reason? So that he could lay out a smokescreen of questions that didn't mean anything?

He repeated his request for her to search again through her recollections. They batted questions and answers to and fro for a while until Wallander reckoned it was time to stop. He rang a bell, assuming that Sergeant Zids would be listening for it, then stood up and shook her by the hand.

How did you know I'd come to Riga, he wondered. Somebody must have told you. Somebody who wanted us to meet. But why? What is it you think a police officer from an insignificant little Swedish town will be able to do to help you?

The sergeant appeared to escort Baiba Liepa to some distant exit. Wallander stood at the draughty window and looked into the courtyard. Sleet was falling over the city, and beyond the high wall he could see church steeples and the occasional high-rise building. He suddenly had the feeling that he'd let himself get carried away without allowing his reason to come up with objections, that it was all in his imagination. He was suspecting conspiracies where there weren't any, he'd swallowed the unfounded myth about the Eastern bloc dictatorships being based on the pitting of one citizen against another. What justification had he for mistrusting Murniers and Putnis? The fact that Baiba Liepa had turned up at his hotel disguised as a chambermaid could have an explanation that proved to be much less dramatic than he'd imagined.

His train of thought was broken by a knock on the door. It was Colonel Putnis. He seemed tired, and his smile was strained.

"The interrogation of the suspect has been temporarily adjourned," he said. "Unfortunately the suspect has not made the confessions we had hoped for. We are now checking various pieces of information he has given us, and then I'll resume the cross-examination."

"What are you basing your suspicions on?" Wallander asked.

"In the past he often used Leja and Kalns as couriers and henchmen," Putnis said. "We hope to be able to prove that they've been drug smuggling this last year. Hagelman, as he's called, is the type who wouldn't hesitate to torture or murder his colleagues if he thought it necessary. He hasn't been acting alone, of course: we're looking for other members of his gang at present. Many of them are Soviet citizens, so they might well be in their own country now, unfortunately. But we're not going to give up. We've also found several weapons Hagelman had access to, and we're looking into whether the bullets that killed Leja and Kalns came from any of them."

"What about the connection with Major Liepa's murder," Wallander asked. "Where does that fit in?"

"We don't know," Putnis replied, "but it was a planned killing, an execution. He wasn't even robbed. We have to conclude that it had something to do with his work."

"Could Major Liepa have been leading a double life?" Wallander asked.

Putnis smiled wearily.

"We live in a country where awareness of what our fellow-citizens get up to has become an art form," he said. "That is no less true in the case of fellow police officers. If Major Liepa had been leading a double life, we'd have known about it."

"Unless somebody was protecting him," Wallander said.

Putnis stared at him in astonishment. "Who could have been protecting him?" "I don't know," Wallander said. "Just thinking aloud. Not a particularly well-founded thought, I'm afraid." Putnis got up to leave.

"I had intended inviting you to our house for dinner this evening," he said, "but unfortunately that won't be possible as I have to go on with the interrogation. Perhaps Colonel Murniers had the same idea? It would be most impolite of us to leave you to your own devices in a strange town."

"The Latvia Hotel is splendid," Wallander said. "Besides, I'd planned to summarise the thoughts I've had about the death of Major Liepa. That will take all evening."

Putnis nodded.

"Tomorrow evening, then," he said. "I'd like you to come round and meet my family. Ausma, my wife, is an excellent cook."

"I'd like that," Wallander said. "That would be very nice."

Putnis left, and Wallander rang the bell. He wanted to get out of the police headquarters before Murniers had a chance to invite him home, or maybe to some restaurant or other.

"I'd like to go back to the hotel now," Wallander said when Zids appeared in the doorway. "I have quite a lot of notes to write up in my room this evening. You can come and collect me at 8 a.m. tomorrow."

When the sergeant had left him at his hotel, Wallander bought some postcards and stamps in reception. He also asked for a map of the city, but as the map the hotel had was not detailed enough, he was directed to a bookshop not far away.

Wallander looked around in the foyer, but couldn't see anyone drinking tea or reading a newspaper. That means they're still here, he thought. One day they'll be obvious, the next they'll be invisible. I'm supposed to doubt whether the shadows exist.

He left the hotel and went in search of the bookshop.

It was already dark, and the pavement was wet from sleet. There were a lot of people about, and Wallander stopped now and then to look in shop windows. The goods on display were limited, and much of a muchness. When he got to the bookshop, he glanced back over his shoulder: there was no sign of anybody hesitating mid-stride.

An elderly gentleman who didn't speak a word of English sold him a map of Riga. He went on and on in Latvian, as if he took it for granted that Wallander could understand every word. He returned to his hotel. Somewhere in front of him was a shadow he couldn't see. He made up his mind to ask one of the colonels the next day why he was being watched. He thought he'd broach the subject in a friendly fashion, without sarcasm or aggression.

He asked at reception if anybody had tried to contact him. "No calls, Mr Wallander, no calls at all," was the answer.

He went up to his room and sat down to write his postcards, moving the desk away from the window, to avoid the draught. He chose a card with a picture of Riga Cathedral to send to Björk. Somewhere not far from there Baiba Liepa lived; late one evening the major had taken a telephone call and been summoned. Who made that call, Baiba? Mr Eckers is in his room, waiting for an answer to that question.

He wrote cards to Björk, Linda and his father. He hesitated about the last of his cards, then decided to send greetings to his sister, Kristina.

It was 7 p.m. now. He filled his bath with lukewarm water, and balanced a glass of whisky on the edge of the tub. Then he closed his eyes and started to go through the whole thing, from the very beginning. The life-raft, the dead men, the peculiar embrace they were in. He tried to find something he'd missed earlier. Rydberg used to talk about the ability to see what was invisible. Observing what was odd in what seemed to be natural. He went methodically through the whole case. Where were the clues he just couldn't see?

When he'd finished his bath he sat at his desk and started to make more notes. He felt sure the two Latvian police colonels were on the right track. There was nothing to contradict the theory that the men in the life-raft had been punished for an internal indiscretion. It didn't really matter that they had been shot in their shirtsleeves, and then flung into a life-raft. He didn't believe any more that whoever did this intended the bodies to be found.

Why was the life-raft stolen? he wrote. By whom? How was it possible for Latvian criminals to get to Sweden so easily? Was the theft carried out by Swedes, or by Latvians in Sweden with Swedish contacts? Major Liepa had been murdered the very night he got back from Sweden. There was plenty to suggest he'd been silenced. What did Major Liepa know. he wrote. And why am I being given a thoroughly unsatisfactory account of the case which avoids establishing where the murder took place? Baiba Liepa, he wrote. What does she know, but doesn't want to tell the police?

He slid his notes to one side and poured himself another glass of whisky. It was nearly 9 p.m., and he was hungry. He picked up the telephone receiver to check that it was working, then went down to reception and informed them he was in the dining room if anybody called. When he got to the dining room, he was shown to the same table as before. Maybe there's a microphone in the ashtray, he thought ironically. Maybe there's somebody under the table, taking my pulse? He drank half a bottle of Armenian wine with his roast chicken and potatoes. Every time the swing doors opened, he thought it might be the receptionist coming to tell him somebody had phoned. He took a glass of brandy with his coffee, and looked round the dining room. Quite a few of the tables were occupied tonight. There were some Russians in one corner, and a party of Germans at a long table together with their Latvian hosts. It was nearly 10.30 p.m. when he paid his incredibly low bill, and he wondered for just a moment whether he ought to look in at the nightclub. Then he thought better of it, and walked up the stairs to the 15th floor.

Just as he was inserting his key into the lock, he heard the telephone ring. Cursing aloud, he flung open the door and grabbed the receiver. Can I speak to Mr Eckers? It was a man speaking, and his English was very poor. Wallander responded as he was supposed to do, saying there was no Mr Eckers here. Oh, I must have made a mistake. The man apologised, and hung up. Use the back door. Please, please.

He put on his overcoat, and his knitted cap – then changed his mind and put it in his pocket. When he reached the foyer he made sure he couldn't be seen from reception. The party of Germans was just leaving the dining room as he approached the revolving doors. He hastened down the stairs to the hotel sauna and a corridor leading to the restaurant goods entrance. The grey, steel door was exactly as Baiba Liepa had described it. He opened it carefully, feeling the wind in his face, then made his way down the loading ramp and soon found himself at the rear of the hotel.

The street was lit by only a few lamps, and he glided into the shadows. The only person he saw was an old man walking his dog. He stood motionless in the darkness, waiting. Nobody came. The man stood patiently by a dustbin while his dog cocked its leg, then as the man walked past he told Wallander to follow him once they'd turned the corner. A tram clattered somewhere in the distance as Wallander waited. He put on his knitted cap: it had stopped snowing, and was growing colder. The man disappeared round the corner and Wallander walked slowly after him. When he turned the corner, he found himself in another alley; there was no sign of the man and his dog. Without a sound, a car door opened right beside him. Mr Eckers, said a voice from the darkness inside, we ought to be setting off straight away. As Wallander climbed into the back seat, it struck him that what he was doing was all wrong. He remembered the feeling he'd had that very morning, when he was in another car being driven by Zids. He could remember the fear. Now it had returned.