The Troubled Man

‘And Louise?’

‘She was above suspicion, of course. Who would have suspected her of anything?’

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

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

‘My dreams are pretty violent at times,’ said Wallander. ‘It comes and goes.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘He has never been exposed.’

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

Talboth shook his head.

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

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

‘Is there anything in what I’ve told you that you find particularly surprising?’ Talboth asked half-heartedly, mostly to keep the conversation going.

‘No.’

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

‘No. Not that I can think of.’

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

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

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

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

Talboth stopped and stamped on his cigarette butt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

37

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

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

‘I hope you slept well.’

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

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

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

‘I take it your dog needs somebody to look after it?’

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

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

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

Wallander showed him the two photographs he had brought.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Talboth thought for a moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Maybe they’re practising,’ said Wallander.

Linda burst out laughing.

‘That’s exactly the kind of comment Grandad would have made. Do you realise that you’re getting more and more like him?’

Wallander dismissed the thought.

‘We both know he had a sense of humour. But he could be much more malicious than I ever allow myself to be.’

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

‘Of what?’

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

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

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

‘Why?’

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

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

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

‘No, I’m not coming with you.’

‘Why not?’

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

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

‘She’s lying.’

‘Not always.’

‘I’m not going. I don’t want to.’

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

Wallander said nothing. There was no point in protesting any more. If he didn’t do as Linda wished it would make both his and her existence impossible for a long time. He didn’t want that.

‘I don’t even know where the clinic is,’ he said in the end.

‘You’ll find out tomorrow. It’ll be a surprise.’

An area of low pressure drifted in over Skane during the night. As they sat in the car driving east shortly after eight in the morning, it had started raining and a wind was blowing up. Wallander felt groggy. He had slept badly and was tired and irritable when Linda came to pick him up. She immediately sent him back indoors to change his old, worn-out trousers.

‘You don’t need to be in your best suit to visit her, but you can’t show up looking as scruffy as that.’

They turned off onto the road leading to an old castle, Glimmingehus. Linda looked at him.

‘Do you remember?’

‘Of course I remember.’

‘We have plenty of time. We can stop and take a look.’

Linda drove into the car park outside the high castle walls. They left the car and walked over the drawbridge into the castle yard.

‘This is among my earliest memories,’ said Linda. ‘When you and I came here. And you scared me to death with all your ghost stories. How old was I then?’

‘The first time we came I suppose you must have been four or thereabouts. But that’s not when I told you the ghost stories. I did that when you were seven, I think. Maybe it was the summer when you were about to start school.’

‘I remember being so proud of you,’ said Linda. ‘My big, imposing dad. I like to think back on moments like that, when I felt so safe and secure, and so happy to be alive.’

‘I have similar memories,’ said Wallander genuinely. ‘They were the best years of my life, when you were a little girl.’

‘Where does the time go?’ Linda wondered. ‘Do you think like that too? Now that you’re sixty?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A few years ago I noticed that I’ve started reading the obituaries in Ystads Allehanda. If I came across another daily newspaper, I’d read them there as well. I wondered more and more about what had become of my old school friends from Limhamn. How had their lives turned out, compared to mine? I started looking into that, half-heartedly.’

They sat down on the stone steps leading into the castle itself.

‘Those of us who started school in 1955 really have lived all kinds of different lives. I think I know what happened to most of my friends now. Things didn’t go well for a lot of them. Several are dead; one shot himself after emigrating to Canada. A few were successful, such as Solve Hagberg, who won Double or Quits. Most of them have led quiet lives. Good for them. And this is how my life has turned out. When you reach sixty, most of your life is behind you. You just have to accept that, hard though it is. There are very few important decisions still to be made.’

‘Do you feel like your life is coming to a close?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘What do you think at times like that?’

He hesitated before replying, then gave her an honest answer.

‘I mourn the fact that Baiba is dead. That we never managed to get together.’

‘There are other women,’ said Linda. ‘You don’t have to be on your own.’

Wallander stood up.

‘No,’ he said. ‘There aren’t any others. Baiba was irreplaceable.’

They went back to the car and drove the remaining couple of miles to the clinic. It was in a mansion with four wings, and the old inner courtyard had been preserved. Mona was sitting on a bench smoking as they approached her over the cobblestones.

‘Has she started smoking?’ Wallander asked. ‘She never used to.’

‘She says she smokes to console herself. And that she’ll stop once this is over.’

‘When will it be over?’

‘She’ll be here for another month.’

‘And Hans is paying for it all?’

She didn’t reply to that question because the answer was obvious. Mona stood up as they approached. Wallander noticed with distaste the pale grey colour of her face, and the heavy bags under her eyes. He thought she was ugly, something that had never struck him before.

‘It was nice of you to come,’ she said, taking his hand.

‘I wanted to see how you were,’ he mumbled.

They all sat down on the bench, with Mona in the middle. Wallander immediately felt the urge to leave. The fact that Mona was struggling with withdrawal symptoms and anxiety was not sufficient reason for him to be there. Why did Linda want him to see Mona in such a state? Was it an attempt to make him acknowledge his share of the guilt? What was he guilty of? He could feel himself growing increasingly irritated while Linda and Mona talked to each other. Then Mona asked if they wanted to see her room. Wallander declined, but Linda went into the house with her.

Wallander wandered around the grounds while he was waiting. His mobile phone rang in his jacket pocket. It was Ytterberg.

‘Are you on duty?’ he asked. ‘Or are you still on holiday?’

‘I’m still on holiday,’ said Wallander. ‘At least, that’s what I try to convince myself.’

‘I’m in my office. I have in front of me a report from our secret service people in the armed forces. Do you want to know what they have to say?’

‘We might be interrupted.’

‘I think a few minutes will be enough. It’s an extremely thin report. Which means that most of it isn’t considered suitable for me or other ordinary police officers to see. “Parts of the report are classified as secret,” it says. Which no doubt means that nearly all of it is classified. They’ve tossed us a few grains of sand. If there are any pearls, they’re keeping them for themselves.’

Ytterberg was suddenly struck by a fit of sneezing.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m allergic. They use some kind of cleaning substance in the police station that I can’t tolerate. I think I’ll start scrubbing my office myself.’

‘That sounds like a good idea,’ said Wallander impatiently.

‘I’ll read you a section of the report: “The material, including microfilm and photographic negatives, and some encrypted text, found in Louise von Enke’s handbag contains military material classified as secret. Most of it is particularly sensitive, and was classified as secret precisely so as to avoid it coming into the wrong hands.” End of quote. In other words, there’s no doubt about it.’

‘That the material is genuine, you mean?’

‘Exactly. And it also says in the report that similar material has come into Russian hands in the past, as they have used Swedish elimination processes to establish that the Russians are in possession of knowledge they should not have had access to. Do you understand what they mean? Much of the report is written in opaque military jargon.’

‘That’s the way our own secret colleagues tend to write - why should the military types be any different? But I think I understand.’

‘It’s not possible to avoid the conclusion that Louise von Enke had been sticking her fingers into the military honeypot. She sold intelligence material. God only knows how she came by it.’

‘There are still a lot of unanswered questions,’ Wallander said. ‘What happened out there at Varmdo? Why was she murdered? Who was she supposed to meet? Why didn’t that person or those persons take the set of documents she had in her bag?’

‘Perhaps they didn’t know it was there?’

‘Maybe she didn’t actually have it with her,’ said Wallander.

‘We’re looking into that possibility. That it might have been planted.’

‘As far as I can see, that’s not impossible.’

‘But why?’

‘To make sure she’d be suspected of spying.’

‘But she is a spy, isn’t she?’

‘It feels like we’re in a labyrinth,’ said Wallander. ‘I can’t find my way out. But let me think about what you’ve told me. How high a priority are you giving this murder just now?’

‘Very high. The rumour is that it will feature in some television show about current criminal investigations. The bosses are always nervous when the media turn up with microphones.’

‘Send them to me,’ said Wallander. ‘I’m not afraid.’

‘Who’s afraid? I’m just worried I’ll turn nasty if they ask me silly questions.’

Wallander sat down on the bench again and thought about what Ytterberg had said. He tried to find things that didn’t add up, without succeeding. He was finding it hard to concentrate.

Mona’s eyes seemed glazed over when she and Linda returned. Wallander realised that she’d been crying. He didn’t want to know what they had been talking about, but he did feel sorry for Mona. He would like to ask her his question as well: How did your life turn out? She was standing in front of him, grey and dejected, shaking, oppressed by forces stronger than she was.

‘It’s time for my treatment,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming. What I’m going through isn’t easy.’

‘What does your treatment entail?’ Wallander asked in a brave attempt to appear interested.

‘Right now I’m meeting a doctor. His name is Torsten Rosen. He’s had alcohol problems himself. I have to hurry or I’ll be late.’

They said their goodbyes in the courtyard. Linda and Wallander drove home in silence. He thought she was no doubt more troubled than he was. Her relationship with her mother had grown stronger once the stormy teenage years were past.

‘I’m glad you came with me,’ Linda said when she dropped him off.

‘You didn’t give me much choice,’ he said. ‘But of course, it was important for me to see how she’s doing, what she’s going through. The question is, will she get better?’

‘I don’t know. I can only hope so.’

‘Yes,’ said Wallander. ‘There’s only one possibility left: to hope.’

He thrust his hand in through the open window and stroked her hair. She turned the car round and drove off. Wallander watched the car disappearing.

He felt heavy-hearted. He let Jussi out of his kennel and tickled him behind his ears before unlocking the front door. He noticed right away that somebody had been in the house. One of the traps he had set had produced a result. On the windowsill next to the front door he had placed a candlestick directly in front of the window’s handle. Now it was standing closer to the pane, to the left of the handle. He paused and held his breath. Could he be mistaken? No, he was quite sure. When he examined the window more closely, he saw that it had been opened from the outside with a narrow, sharp instrument, probably something similar to the tool used by car thieves to open door locks.

He lifted up the candlestick and examined it carefully: it was made of wood, with a copper ring where the candle was inserted. He put it down again just as carefully, then worked his way slowly through the house. He found no other traces of a break-in. They are careful, he thought. Careful and skilful. The candlestick was an uncharacteristic slip.

He sat down at the kitchen table, contemplating the candlestick. There was only one explanation for unknown people breaking into his house.

Somebody was convinced that he knew something he didn’t know he knew. Something based on his notes, or even some object in his possession.

He sat motionless on his chair. I’m getting closer, he thought. Or somebody is getting closer to me.

38

The next morning he was hustled out of his sleep by dreams that he couldn’t remember. The candlestick on the windowsill reminded him that somebody had been close to where he was now. He went out into the garden naked, first to pee, and then to let Jussi out of his kennel. An early autumn mist was drifting in over the fields. He shuddered and hurried back indoors. He dressed, made coffee, then sat down at the kitchen table, determined yet again to try to clarify what had happened to Louise von Enke. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to establish anything but a highly provisional explanation. But he needed to go through everything once more, very carefully, mainly in the hope of finding a reason for the nagging feeling that there was something he’d overlooked. The feeling was even stronger now that, yet again, somebody had been rummaging around in his house. In brief, he had no intention of washing his hands of it all.

But he found it hard to concentrate. After a few hours he gave up, gathered his papers and went to the police station. Once again he chose to enter via the basement garage, and he came to his office without bumping into anybody. After half an hour spent hunched over his papers, he checked that the hallway was empty and went to the coffee machine. He had just filled his mug when Lennart Mattson appeared. Wallander hadn’t seen his boss for a while, and he hadn’t missed him. Mattson was tanned and had lost weight, something that immediately made Wallander jealous and annoyed.

‘Here already?’ Mattson asked. ‘Can’t keep away, huh? Can’t wait to get back to work? That’s how it should be, you can’t be a good police officer if you’re not passionate about your work. But I thought you weren’t due back until Monday.’

‘I was just on my way home,’ said Wallander. ‘I needed to get some papers from my office.’

‘Do you have a moment? I have some good news that I’d like to share with somebody.’

‘I have all the time in the world,’ said Wallander, making no attempt to conceal the irony that he knew would pass over Mattson’s head.

They went to the chief of police’s office. Wallander sat down on one of the guest chairs. Mattson opened a folder lying on his neat and tidy desk.

‘Good news, as I said. Here in Skane we have one of the best closure rates in the country. We solve more crimes than almost everybody else. We’ve also improved the most from the previous year. That’s just what we need to inspire us to even greater things.’

Wallander listened to what his boss had to say. There was no reason to doubt the report. But Wallander knew that interpreting statistics was like pulling rabbits out of a hat. You could always present a statistic as fact even if it was an illusion. Wallander and his colleagues were painfully aware that the closure rate in Sweden was among the lowest in the world. And none of them believed they’d hit rock bottom yet. Things would continue to get worse. Constant bureaucratic upheavals meant an equally constant increase in the negative flow of unsolved crimes. Competent police officers were fired, or diverted into other duties until they were no longer able to make a meaningful contribution. It was more important to check boxes and meet targets than to really get down to investigating crimes and taking crooks to court. Moreover, Wallander and most of his colleagues thought that the priorities were all wrong. The day that police chiefs decreed ‘minor crimes’ must be tolerated, the rug had been pulled out from under the remains of a trusting relationship between the police and the general public. The man in the street was not prepared to shrug his shoulders and merely accept that somebody had broken into his car or his garage or his summer cottage. He wanted these crimes to be solved, or at least investigated.

But that wasn’t something Wallander felt like discussing with Lennart Mattson right now. There would be plenty of opportunities for that during the autumn.

Mattson slid the report to one side and looked at his visitor with a troubled expression on his face. Wallander could see that he had sweat on his brow.

‘How are you feeling? You look pale. Why haven’t you been getting some sun?’

‘What sun?’

‘The summer hasn’t been all that bad. I made a trip to Crete, so we’d be sure to have some decent weather. Have you ever visited the palace at Knossos? There are fantastic dolphins on the walls there.’

Wallander stood up.

‘I feel fine,’ he said. ‘But since it’s sunny today, I’ll take your advice and make the most of it.’

‘No forgotten guns anywhere, I hope?’

Wallander stared at Lennart Mattson. He came very close to punching him in the nose.

*

Wallander returned to his office, sat down on his chair, put his feet on his desk and closed his eyes. He thought about Baiba. And Mona shivering away in her rehabilitation clinic. While his boss gloated over a statistic that was no doubt economical with the truth.

He took down his feet. I’ll make another attempt, he thought. Another attempt to understand why I’m always doubtful about the conclusions I reach. I wish I had more insight into political goings-on; then I would probably be less confused than I am now.

He suddenly recalled something he’d never thought about as an adult. It must have been 1962 or 1963, sometime in the autumn. Wallander had a Saturday job as an errand boy for a flower shop in central Malmo. He had been instructed to deliver a bouquet of flowers as quickly as possible to the People’s Park. The prime minister, Tage Erlander, was giving a lecture, and when he had finished a little girl was supposed to hand him the flowers. The problem was that somebody in the local Social Democratic Party office had forgotten to order the flowers. So now there was an emergency. Wallander pedalled away for all he was worth. The flower shop had warned the People’s Park officials that he was on his way, and he was allowed in without delay. The little girl designated to present the flowers received them in time and Wallander received a tip of no less than five kronor. He was offered a glass of soda, and stood with a straw in his mouth, listening to the tall man at the lectern speaking in his strange nasal voice. He used a lot of big words - or at least words that Wallander was unfamiliar with. He spoke about detente, the rights of small countries, the neutrality of Sweden, with its freedom from all kinds of pacts and treaties. Wallander thought he’d understood that, at least, from what the great man had said.

When Wallander came home that evening he went to the room his father used as a studio. He could still remember even now that his father was busy painting in the forest background he used in all his pictures. When he was a teenager Wallander had a good relationship with his father - that might have been the best time in their shared existence. It would be another three, perhaps four years before Wallander came home and announced that he was going to become a police officer. His father had gone through the roof and come close to throwing him out - in any case, he refused to talk to him for quite some time.

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

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

‘He said that Russia is our enemy,’ Wallander said.

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

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

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

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

‘You ask too many questions.’

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

‘There has to be a limit.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Right here. I’m making mistakes when I paint.’

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

‘Go away! Leave me in peace!’

And then, as he stood in the doorway, Wallander said: ‘I got a five-krona tip for getting the flowers to Elander in time.’

‘Erlander. Learn people’s names.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

39

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

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

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

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

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

‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I’m moored at Uto now.’

‘Not far from Musko, then,’ said Wallander. ‘Or am I wrong?’

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

‘We need to meet,’ said Wallander. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Did something happen?’

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

‘So nothing’s happened?’

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

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

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

‘When were you thinking of coming?’

‘Tomorrow. I know it’s short notice.’

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

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

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

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

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

Nordlander laughed.

‘Do you give me any choice?’

‘Do I sound that strict?’

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

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

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

‘Are you sure you don’t want to sell him?’

‘Completely sure. But I have to go away again. To Stockholm.’

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

‘I do. But I have to go for work reasons.’

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

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

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

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

‘How’s the harvest looking?’

‘Not too bad.’

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

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

‘A couple of days. Maybe three.’

‘Where will you be staying?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘You look tired,’ Nordlander said. ‘Haven’t you made the most of your holiday?’

‘Apparently not,’ Wallander replied.

‘It’s lovely weather - shall we go out, or would you prefer to stay here?’

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

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

Wallander ordered tea - he had a stomach ache from drinking too much coffee. Nordlander decided on a beer and a sandwich.

Wallander braced himself.

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

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

‘Hakan?’he asked.

‘Yes. I know where he is.’

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

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

‘Tell me what happened!’

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

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

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

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

‘What were his views on the USA?’

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

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

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

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

‘If I’ve understood those rumours correctly they suggested there was a spy who was in many ways more dangerous than Wennerstrom.’

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

Wallander nodded.

‘There was also another rumour,’ he continued. ‘Or rather, there is a rumour that still persists. That this unknown spy is in fact a woman.’

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

‘Did you ever speak to Hakan about this?’

‘A woman spy? No, never.’

‘Louise was a spy,’ Wallander said slowly. ‘She spied for the Soviet Union.’

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

‘It can’t be possible.’

‘It not only can be, it is possible.’

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

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

Sten Nordlander eyed him incredulously.

‘Do you really expect me to believe this?’

‘Yes, I do.’

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

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

Nordlander froze, beer glass in hand.

‘Is Hakan involved in this as well? Did they operate as a pair?’

‘That’s hardly credible.’

Nordlander slammed his glass down on the table.

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

‘There’s nothing to suggest that Hakan cooperated with Louise.’

‘Then why is he hiding himself away?’

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

‘But Louise is the one who’s dead.’

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

*

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

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

‘What can I do?’

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

‘No problem.’

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

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

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

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

‘Where are we going?’

‘South.’

‘Far?’

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

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

‘What’s in store for us?’ Nordlander asked.

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

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

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

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

Then they stepped ashore.

40

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

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

‘Do you find that odd?’

‘Not at all.’

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

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

Nordlander shook his head.

‘Now you’ve lost me.’

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

‘And what did you see?’

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

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

Wallander didn’t answer his question.

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

‘To what?’

‘To the conversation I’m going to have with Hakan von Enke.’

‘But why all this pussyfooting around in the darkness?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I want to speak to you.’

‘Did something happen?’

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

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

‘George said you seemed to be a good man.’

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

‘It’s remarkable. Especially the trains travelling through their little tunnels.’

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

‘How did you get here?’ von Enke asked.

‘With the same boat as last time.’

‘And you came on your own?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Questions in answer to questions always make me suspicious.’

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

The torch was switched off.

‘We don’t need to mess around out here.’

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

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

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

‘I just wanted to talk to you.’

‘About your visit to Berlin?’

‘No, not about that.’

‘Then explain yourself.’

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

‘Explain yourself,’ von Enke said again.

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

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

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

Von Enke looked at him with the same non-committal expression as before.

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

‘Who?’

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

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

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

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

‘Who deceived you?’

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

*

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

‘Are you suggesting that I am a spy?’

‘Yes!’

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

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

‘I didn’t kill Louise!’

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

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

‘You can’t prove your absurd allegations.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘What did you think when you heard she was dead?’

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

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

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

‘How did it happen?’ he asked.

‘How did what happen?’

‘What was it that made you into a spy?’

‘It’s a long story.’

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

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

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

‘Who contacted you?’

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

‘But money must have come into it somehow?’

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

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

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

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

‘I can’t go on any longer,’ said von Enke. ‘I have absolutely no future any more.’

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

‘Are you hurt?’ he screamed.’ Did he shoot you?’

‘No. He shot himself.’

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

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

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

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

‘Press hard,’ said Wallander, showing Nordlander what to do.

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

‘He’ll bleed to death,’ said Nordlander.

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

‘I don’t think he’ll make it.’

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

‘Is it true?’

‘You heard what we said?’

‘Every word. Is it true?’

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

‘I find this impossible to understand.’

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

‘So there’s no doubt?’

‘None at all.’

‘That means he has been deceiving me for years.’

‘He deceived everybody.’

*

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

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

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

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

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

Wallander opened the door and went in.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Pretty quiet at the moment. But August usually produces more work than July.’

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

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

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

He tried to figure out what he would tell Linda.

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

He simply had no idea what to say to her.

Epilogue

One night in May 2009 Wallander woke up from a dream. That was happening more and more often. All the memories of the night lived on when he opened his eyes. Until recently he rarely remembered his dreams. Jussi, who had been ill, was asleep on the floor by his bed. The clock on the bedside table said four fifteen. Perhaps it wasn’t just the dream that had woken him up. Perhaps the calling of an owl had drifted in through the open window and into his consciousness - it wouldn’t be the first time.

But now there was no owl calling. He had dreamed about Linda and the conversation they should have had the day he returned from Blue Island. In his dream he had in fact called her and told her what had happened. She had listened without saying anything. And that was all. The dream had broken off abruptly, like a rotten branch.

He woke up feeling very uncomfortable. He hadn’t called her at all, in fact. He hadn’t had the strength to do it. His excuse was simple. He hadn’t played a part in the tragedy, and calling her would only have led to an unbearable situation as far as he was concerned; if he gave her an exact version of events, he would be suspected of having been involved. Only when the tragedy became public knowledge would she and Hans discover what had happened. And with a bit of luck, he would be able to stay out of it.

Wallander thought that this case was among the worst experiences of his life. The only thing he could compare it to was the incident many years ago when he killed a man for the first time in the line of duty, and seriously wondered if he could continue as a police officer. He considered doing what Martinsson had now done: throw in the towel as a policeman and devote himself to something entirely different.

Wallander leaned carefully over the side of the bed and checked on his dog. Jussi was asleep. He was also dreaming, scratching in the air with his front paws. Wallander leaned back in bed again. The air drifting in through the window was refreshing. He kicked off the duvet. His thoughts wandered to the bundle of papers lying on the kitchen table. He had started writing a report last September, noting down everything that had happened and culminating in the tragedy in the hunting lodge on Blue Island.

*

It was Eskil Lundberg who found the dead bodies. Ytterberg had immediately called in the CID in Norrkoping to assist. Since it was a matter for the security police and the military intelligence service, an embargo had been immediately imposed on all aspects of the investigation, and everything was shrouded in secrecy. Wallander was informed by Ytterberg of whatever he was allowed to pass on, in strict confidence. The whole time, Wallander worried about the possibility of his own presence at the scene being discovered. What concerned him most was whether Nordlander had told his wife about the trip he was going to make, but evidently he hadn’t. With great reluctance Wallander read in the newspapers about Mrs Nordlander’s despair over her husband’s death and her refusal to believe that he had killed his old friend and then shot himself.

Ytterberg occasionally complained to Wallander about the fact that not even he, the man in charge of the police investigation, knew what was going on behind the scenes. But there was no doubt that Sten Nordlander had killed Hakan von Enke using two shots to the head, and had then shot himself. What was mysterious and what nobody could explain was how Sten Nordlander had come to Blue Island. Ytterberg said on several occasions that he suspected a third party had been involved, but who that could have been and what role he or she played he had no idea. The real motive for the tragedy was also something that nobody could work out.

The newspapers and other media were full of speculation. They wallowed in the bloody drama played out in the hunting lodge. Linda and Hans and Klara had almost been forced to move in order to avoid all the inquisitive journalists and their intrusive questions. The wildest of the conspiracy theorists maintained that Hakan von Enke and Sten Nordlander had taken to their graves a secret linked to the death of Olof Palme.

Occasionally during his conversations with Ytterberg, Wallander had asked cautiously, almost out of politeness, how things were going with regard to the suspicions that Louise von Enke could have been a Russian spy. Ytterberg had only extremely meagre information to give him.

‘I have the impression that everything is at a standstill as far as she is concerned,’ he said. ‘What facts the security police are looking for, or trying to suppress, I have no idea. We might have to wait until some investigative journalist goes to town on that.’

Wallander never heard a word about the possibility of Hakan von Enke’s being a spy for the USA. There were no suspicions, no rumours, no speculations that this might be the cause of what had happened. Wallander once asked Ytterberg point-blank if there were any such theories. Ytterberg had been totally incredulous.

‘Why in God’s name should he have been a US spy?’

‘I’m just trying to think of any possible explanation for what happened,’ Wallander said. ‘Given there have been suspicions that Louise was spying for the Russians, why not try a different possibility?’

‘I think I’d have heard if the security police or military intelligence had any suspicions of that sort.’

‘I was only thinking aloud,’ said Wallander.

‘Do you know something I don’t?’ Ytterberg suddenly asked with an unexpected edge to his voice.

‘No,’ said Wallander. ‘I don’t know anything you don’t.’

It was after that conversation that Wallander began writing. He collected all his thoughts, all his notes, and invented a system of Post-its that he stuck up on one of the living-room walls. But every time Linda came to visit him, with or without Hans and Klara, he took them down. He wanted to write his story without the involvement of anybody else, and without anyone’s even suspecting what he was doing.

He began by trying to tie up the remaining loose ends. It wasn’t difficult to check that ‘USG Enterprises’, whose name he had seen in the entrance hall of the building where George Talboth lived, was the name of a consultancy firm. There was no indication that it wasn’t above-board. But he couldn’t work out who had broken into his house while he was away, nor who could have visited Niklasgarden. It was obvious that they were people who had assisted Hakan von Enke in some way, but Wallander never established why they did it. Even if the most likely explanation was that they were looking for what Wallander called Signe’s book. It was lying on the kitchen table as he wrote, but otherwise he continued to hide it in Jussi’s kennel.

It wasn’t long before it dawned on him what he was really doing. He was writing about himself and his own life just as much as about Hakan von Enke. When he returned in his thoughts to everything he had heard about the Cold War, the divided attitude of the Swedish armed forces to neutrality and not joining alliances or the necessity of being an integrated part of NATO, he realised how little he actually knew about the world he had lived in. It was impossible to catch up on the knowledge he hadn’t bothered to acquire earlier. What he could learn now about that world obviously had to be from the perspective of somebody in the present looking back in time. He wondered grimly if that might be typical of his generation. An unwillingness to care about the real world they lived in, the political circumstances that were shifting all the time. Or had his generation been split? Between those who cared, and those who didn’t?

His father had often been better informed than Wallander on all kinds of events, he could see that now. It wasn’t only the episode with Tage Erlander and his speech in the People’s Park in Malmo. He also recalled a time in the early 1970s when his father had told him off for not bothering to vote in the election that had taken place a few days earlier. Wallander could still remember his father’s fury, how he had called him ‘an idle idiot when it comes to politics’ before throwing a paintbrush at him and telling him to get out of his sight. Which he had done, of course. At the time he just thought his father was weird. Why should Wallander care about the way Swedish politicians were always arguing with one another? The only things that were of any interest to him were lower taxes and higher wages, nothing else.

He often sat at his kitchen table and wondered if his closest friends thought the same way. Not interested in politics, only worried about their own circumstances. On the few occasions he ever talked about politics it was mainly a matter of attacking individual politicians, complaining about their idiotic shenanigans without moving on to the next stage and wondering what the alternatives were.

There had been only one short period when he thought seriously about the political situation in Sweden, Europe and perhaps even the world. That was nearly twenty years ago, in connection with the brutal double murder of an elderly farming couple in Lenarp. Fingers were pointed at illegal immigrants or asylum seekers, and Wallander had been forced to face up to his own opinions on the massive immigration into Sweden. He realised that behind his usual peaceful and tolerant exterior lurked dark, even racist, views. The realisation had surprised and scared him. He had eliminated all such thoughts. But after that investigation, which had come to its remarkable conclusion in the market square at Kivik, where the two murderers had been arrested, he sank back into his political apathy.

He visited the Ystad library several times during the autumn and borrowed books about Swedish post-war history. He read about all the discussions concerning whether or not Sweden should acquire nuclear weapons or join NATO. Despite the fact that he was reaching adulthood when some of these debates were taking place, he had no recollection of reacting to what the politicians were talking about. It was as if he had been living in a glass bubble.

On one occasion he told Linda about how he had started to examine his past. It turned out that she had much more interest in political matters than he did. He was surprised - he’d never noticed it before. She merely commented that a person’s political awareness wasn’t something that necessarily showed on the surface.

‘When did you ever ask me a political question?’ she asked. ‘Why would I discuss politics with you when I know you’re not interested?’

‘What does Hans say?’

‘He knows a lot about the world. But we don’t always agree.’

Wallander often thought about Hans. In the late autumn of 2008, in the middle of October, Linda had called him, obviously upset, and told him that the Danish police had raided Hans’s office in Copenhagen. Some of the brokers, including two Icelanders, had rigged the increase in value of certain stocks and shares in order to secure their own commissions and bonuses. When the financial crisis hit, the bubble burst. For a while, all employees, including Hans, were under suspicion of having been involved in the scam. It was as recently as March that Hans had been informed that he was no longer suspected of shady dealings. It had been a heavy burden for him to bear when he was also mourning the death of another parent. He had frequently visited Wallander and asked him to explain what had actually happened. Wallander told him as much as he could, but was careful not even to imply what really lay behind it all.

Wallander was particularly concerned about how to make sure that the summary of his thoughts and the knowledge he had acquired would become public. Should he send his text anonymously to the authorities? Would anybody take it seriously? Who wanted to destroy the good relationship between Sweden and the USA? Perhaps the silence surrounding Hakan von Enke’s espionage was best for everybody involved?

He had started writing at the end of September, and now he had been going for more than eight months. He didn’t want what had happened to be buried in silence. That possibility made him feel indignant.

While writing he also continued his work as a police officer. Two depressing investigations into cases of aggravated assault occupied him throughout the autumn. Then in April 2009 he started looking into a series of arson attacks in the Ystad area.

What worried Wallander more than anything else during this period was that his sudden losses of memory kept recurring. The worst incident was during the Christmas break. It had snowed during the night. He had dressed and gone out to shovel the driveway and the parking area. When he had finished, he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t even recognise Jussi. It was quite a while before it dawned on him whose house he was standing in front of. He never did what he should have done. He didn’t see a doctor, because he was simply too scared.

He tried to convince himself that he was working too hard, that he was burning himself out. Sometimes he succeeded. But he was constantly afraid that his forgetfulness would get worse. He was terrified of succumbing to dementia, that he might be suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Wallander stayed in bed. It was Sunday morning; he wasn’t on duty. Linda was due to visit him after lunch, with Klara. Hans might come too, if he felt up to it.

He got up, let Jussi out and made breakfast. He devoted the rest of the morning to his papers. For the first time, this very morning, he believed that what he was writing was in fact a sort of ‘life story’, a testament. This is what his life had been like. Even if he lived for another ten or fifteen years, nothing would change very much. But he did wonder, with an empty feeling deep inside himself, what he would do after retiring as a police officer.

There was only one answer, and that was Klara. Her presence always cheered him up. She would be there for him when everything else was over.

He finished his story that morning in May. He had nothing more to say. A printout was lying on the table in front of him. Laboriously, one word at a time, he had reconstructed the story of the man who had tricked him into thinking that his wife was a spy. Wallander too was a part of the story, not just the person who had written it down.

He had never found explanations for some of the loose ends. What he had perhaps spent most time thinking about was the question of Louise’s shoes. Why were they standing neatly next to her body on Varmdo? Wallander eventually came to believe that she had been killed somewhere else and didn’t have her shoes on at the time. Whoever placed them by her side hadn’t really thought about what he was doing. Wallander also didn’t have an answer to where Louise had been during the time she was missing. She had presumably been held prisoner until somebody decided she had to die for the sake of Hakan von Enke.

The other continuing mystery as far as Wallander was concerned was the question of the stones. The stone he had seen on Hakan von Enke’s desk, the stone he had been given by Atkins, and the one he had noticed on George Talboth’s balcony table. He gathered they were some sort of souvenirs, taken from the Swedish archipelago by people who shouldn’t have been there among the little islands and rocks. But he couldn’t explain why von Enke’s had eventually disappeared from his desk. There were several possibilities, but he was reluctant to choose any of them.

He had occasionally spoken to Atkins on the phone. Listened to him crying when he talked about his lost friend. Or rather, friends, as he always corrected himself. He didn’t forget Louise. Atkins had said he would come to the funeral, but when it actually took place, in the middle of August, he never showed up. And he never contacted Wallander again after that. Wallander sometimes wondered what Atkins and Hakan von Enke had talked about the many times they’d met. But he would never know.

There was another question he would have liked to ask Hakan and Louise. Why had one of his desk drawers been such a mess? Did he intend to go to Cambodia if he was forced to flee? Nor did he know why Louise had withdrawn 200,000 kronor from the bank. He didn’t find the money when the Stockholm apartment was cleaned out. It had simply disappeared, without a trace.

And why had Sten Nordlander decided to kill Hakan von Enke and then himself?

The dead had taken their secrets with them.

At the end of November, when Wallander was at a conference in Stockholm, he rented a car and drove out to Niklasgarden. He was accompanied by Hans, who still hadn’t been able to bring himself to visit his unknown sister. It was a moving moment for Wallander, watching Hans at the side of Signe’s bed. He also thought about the fact that Hakan von Enke had always visited his daughter regularly. He could rely on her, Wallander thought. He had dared to trust her with his most secret documents.

He spent a long time wondering whether he should give a name to what he had written. In the end he left the title page blank. The manuscript amounted to 212 pages in all. He leafed through it one last time, stopping occasionally to check that he hadn’t got something wrong. He decided that despite everything, he had come as close to the truth as possible.

He decided to send the material to Ytterberg. He wouldn’t sign it but would post it to his sister, Kristina, and ask her to forward it to Stockholm. Ytterberg would naturally know that it must have been Wallander who had sent it, but he would never be able to prove it.

Ytterberg is an intelligent man, Wallander thought. He will make the best possible use of what I have written. He’ll also be able to work out why I chose to send it to him anonymously.

But Wallander was aware that even Ytterberg might not be able to convince a higher authority to investigate further. The USA was still the Great Redeemer as far as many Swedes were concerned. A Europe without the USA would be more or less defenceless. It could be that nobody would want to face up to the truth that Wallander was convinced he had established.

Wallander thought about the Swedish soldiers who had been sent to Afghanistan. That would never have happened if the Americans hadn’t asked for them. Not openly, but behind the scenes, just as their submarines had hidden themselves in Swedish territorial waters in the early 1980s with the approval of the Swedish navy and Swedish politicians. Or as CIA operatives were allowed to capture two suspected Egyptian terrorists on Swedish territory on 18 December 2001, and have them returned in humiliating circumstances to their home country, where they were imprisoned and tortured. Wallander could imagine that if Hakan von Enke were to be unmasked, he would be hailed as a hero, not as a despicable traitor.

Nothing, he thought, is certain. Not the way in which these events are interpreted, nor what the rest of my life will be like.

The May morning was fine but chilly. Around noon he went for a long walk with Jussi, who seemed to be back in good health. When Linda arrived, without Hans but with Klara, Wallander had finished straightening up the house and checking that there weren’t any papers lying around that he didn’t want her to see. Klara had fallen asleep in the car. Wallander carefully carried her indoors and laid her down on the sofa. Holding her in his arms always gave him the feeling that Linda had returned in another guise.

They sat down at the kitchen table to drink coffee.

‘Did you clean?’ Linda asked.

‘I’ve done nothing else all day.’

She laughed and shook her head. Then she turned serious again. Wallander knew that all the problems Hans had been forced to cope with had been shattering for her as well.

‘I want to start work again,’ she said. ‘I can’t go on much longer just being a mum.’

‘But there are only four more months of your maternity leave -‘

‘Four months can be a very long time. I’m getting very impatient.’

‘With Klara?’

‘With myself.’

‘That’s something you inherited from me. Impatience.’

‘I thought you always said that patience was the most important virtue for a police officer.’

‘But that doesn’t mean that patience is something you’re born with - you have to learn it.’

She took a sip of coffee and thought over what he had said.

‘I feel old,’ Wallander said. ‘I wake up every day feeling that everything is going so incredibly fast. I don’t know if I’m running after something or away from something. I just run. To be completely honest, I’m scared stiff of growing old.’

‘Think of Grandad! He just kept on going as usual and never worried about the fact that he was growing old.’

‘That’s not true. He was scared of dying.’

‘Sometimes, maybe. But not all the time.’

‘He was a strange man. I don’t think anyone can compare themselves to him.’

‘I do.’

‘You had a relationship with him that I lost when I was very young. I sometimes think about the fact that he always had a better relationship with Kristina. Maybe it’s just that he found it easier to get along with women? I was born the wrong sex. He never wanted a son.’

‘That’s ridiculous, and you know it.’

‘Ridiculous or not, that’s what I keep thinking. I’m scared of old age.’

She reached across the table and stroked his arm.

‘I’ve noticed that you get worried. But deep down you know there’s no point. You can’t do anything about your age.’

‘I know,’ said Wallander. ‘But sometimes it feels like complaining is all you can do.’

Linda stayed for several hours. They talked until Klara woke up, and with a broad smile on her face she ran over to Wallander.

Wallander suddenly felt terrified. His memory had deserted him again. He didn’t know who the girl running towards him was. He knew he’d seen her before, but what her name was or what she was doing in his house he had no idea.

It was as if everything had fallen silent. As if all colours had faded away, and all he was left with was black and white.

The shadow grew more intense. And Kurt Wallander slowly descended into a darkness that some years later transported him into the empty universe known as Alzheimer’s disease.

After that there is nothing more. The story of Kurt Wallander is finished, once and for all. The years - ten, perhaps more - he has left to live are his own. His and Linda’s, his and Klara’s; nobody else’s.

Afterword

In the world of fiction it is possible to take many liberties. For instance, it is not unusual for me to change a landscape slightly so that nobody can say: ‘It was exactly there! That’s precisely where the action took place!’

The thought behind this is of course to stress the difference between fact and fiction. What I write could have taken place as I narrate it. But it didn’t necessarily do so.

There are many shifts of that type in this book, between what actually happened and what might conceivably have happened.

Like most other authors, I write in order to try to make the world more understandable. In that respect, fiction can be superior to factual realism.

So it doesn’t matter whether or not there is a nursing home somewhere in central Sweden called Niklasgarden. Nor does it matter if there is a banqueting hall on Ostermalm in Stockholm where naval officers congregate. Or a cafe just outside Stockholm that serves the same purpose, where a submarine officer by the name of Hans-Olov Fredhall might turn up. And Madonna didn’t give a concert in Copenhagen in 2008.

But the most important things in this book are built on the solid foundation of reality.

Many people have helped me in doing the necessary research. I thank them all most gratefully.

However, the responsibility for the contents right up to the final period lies with me. Completely, and with no exceptions.

Henning Mankell

Gothenburg, June 2009