The Dogs Of Riga Part 2

Wallander lay there quite peacefully, listening to the hum of an invisible air conditioning fan. He could hear voices in the corridor.

All pain has a cause, he thought. If it isn't my heart, what is it? The guilt I have at failing to devote enough time and energy to my father? Worry because I suspect the letters my daughter sends me from university in Stockholm don't tell the full story? That things are not at all as she describes them, when she says she likes it there, and is working, and feels that at last she's doing something she wants to be doing? Could it be that although I'm not conscious of it, I'm constantly afraid she's going to try to take her own life again, as she did when she was 15? Or is the pain due to the jealousy I still feel at Mona leaving me, even though that was a year ago now?

The light in the room seemed very bright. He felt that his whole life was characterised by a sense of desolation that he simply couldn't shake off. How could the kind of pain he'd just been feeling be caused by loneliness? He couldn't come up with any solution that didn't immediately fill him with doubt.

"I can't go on living like this," he said out loud. "I've got to get my life sorted out. Soon. Now."

He woke up with a start at 6 a.m. The doctor was standing by his bed, watching him. "No more pain?" he asked.

"Everything feels OK," Wallander said. "What can it have been?"

"Tension," the doctor said. "Stress. You know best yourself."

"Yes," Wallander said. "I suppose I do."

"I think you should have a thorough examination," the doctor said. "If nothing else, we need to be sure there's nothing physically wrong with you. It will make it easier for you to look inside your own head and see what kind of shadows are lurking there."

Wallander drove home, took a shower, and had a cup of coffee. The thermometer read -3 -3C. The sky had cleared, and the wind had dropped. He sat there for a long time, thinking about the previous night. The pains and his stay in the hospital had taken on an air of unreality. But he knew he couldn't just ignore what had happened. His life was his own responsibility.

It was 8.15 a.m. before he felt he could face work.

As soon as he got to the station, he became embroiled in an argument with Bjork, who was insisting that the forensic squad in Stockholm should have been brought in at once to make a thorough investigation at the scene of the crime.

"There was no scene of the crime," Wallander said. "If there's one thing we can be sure about, it's that the men were not murdered in that life-raft."

"Now we don't have Rydberg to rely on, we need outside help," Bjork said. "We don't have the expertise. Why didn't you close off the beach where the life-raft was found?"

"The beach wasn't where the crime was committed. The raft had been drifting at sea. Are you suggesting that we should have fixed a plastic ribbon round the waves?"

Wallander was getting angry. True, neither he nor any other of the officers in Ystad had Rydberg's experience, but that didn't mean he was incapable of deciding when to call in a.s.sistance from Stockholm.

"Either you let me make the decisions," he said, "or you run the case yourself."

"There's no question of that," Bjork said, "but I still think it was an error of judgement not to consult Stockholm."

"Well, I don't."

That was as far as they could go.

"I'll come and see you shortly," said Wallander. "I've got some stuff I'd like your opinion on." Bjork looked surprised.

"Have we got something to go on?" he asked. "I thought we were up against a brick wall."

"Not quite. I'll be with you in 10 minutes."

He went back to his office, rang the hospital, and was astonished to get straight through to Morth.

"Anything new?" he asked the pathologist.

"I'm just writing my report," Morth answered. "Can't you wait another couple of hours?"

"I have to put Bjork in the picture. Can you at least say how long they've been dead?"

"No. We have to wait for the results of the lab tests. Stomach content, extent of cell tissue decay. I can only guess."

"Do it."

"I don't like guessing, you know that. What good will it do you?"

"You're experienced. You know what you're doing. The test results will only confirm what you suspect already, they won't contradict them. I only want you to whisper in my ear. I won't pa.s.s it on."

Wallander waited.

"A week," Morth said finally. "At least a week. But don't tell anybody I said that."

"I've forgotten it already. You're still certain they're Russian or East European?"

"Yes."

"Did you find anything you didn't expect?" "I don't know anything about ammunition, of course, but I've never come across this type of bullet before." "Anything else?"

"Yes. One of the men has a tattoo on his upper arm. It's a sort of sabre. Some kind of Turkish scimitar, or whatever they're called."

"A what?"

"It's a sword. You can't expect a pathologist to be an expert on obsolete weaponry." "Does it say anything?" "What do you mean?"

"Tattoos usually have some inscription. A woman's name, or a place."

"There's no inscription."

"Nothing else?"

"Not at the moment."

"OK, thanks for all this anyway."

"It wasn't very much."

Wallander hung up, fetched himself a cup of coffee and went to see Bjork. The doors of Martinsson's and Svedberg's offices were open, but neither of them was there. He sat down and drank his coffee, listening absentmindedly as Bjork finished a phone conversation, which seemed to be getting rather heated. He jumped as Bjork slammed down the phone.

"That was the d.a.m.nedest thing I've ever heard," Bjork said. "What's the point of carrying on?"

"A good question," Wallander said, "but I'm not sure what you're referring to."

Bjork was shaking with anger. Wallander couldn't remember ever having seen him like this.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

Bjork looked at him. "I don't know if I'm supposed to say anything about it," he said, "but I really have to. One of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who murdered the old couple in Lenarp, the one we called Lucia, was let out on leave the other day.

Needless to say, he never went back. Presumably he's fled the country. We'll never catch him again."

Wallander couldn't believe his ears.

"Leave? He hasn't even been inside for a year yet, and that was one of the most brutal killings we've seen in this country. How the h.e.l.l could they let him out on leave?"

"He was going to his mother's funeral."

Wallander's jaw dropped.

"But his mother's been dead for ten years! I remember that from the report the Czech police sent us."

"A woman claiming to be his sister turned up at Hall Prison, pleading for him to be let out to attend the funeral. n.o.body seems to have checked anything. She had a printed card saying there was going to be a funeral in a church at angelholm - obviously a forgery. There still seems to be some souls in this country naive enough to believe that no one would forge a funeral invitation. They let him go with a warder. That was the day before yesterday. There was no funeral, nor was there a dead mother, no sister. They overpowered the guard, tied him up and dumped him in some woods near Jonkoping. They even drove the prison commissioner's car to Kastrup Airport via Limhamn. It's still there, but they aren't."

"This just isn't true," Wallander said. "Who in h.e.l.l's name could give a crook like that leave?"

"Like the adverts say: Sweden is fantastic," Bjork said. "It makes me sick."

"Whose responsibility is it? Whoever gave him leave should be locked up in the cell he's left empty. How is a thing like that possible?"

"I'll look into it," Bjork said. "But that's the way it is. The bird has flown."

Wallander's mind went back to the unimaginably savage murder of the old couple in Lenarp. He looked up at Bjork in resignation.

"What's the point?" he wondered. "Why do we bust ourselves to catch criminals if all the prison service does is let them go again?"

Bjork didn't answer. Wallander stood up and went over to the window.

"How much longer can we keep going?" he asked.

"We have to," said Bjork. "Are you going to tell me now what you know about those two men in the rubber boat?"

Wallander told him what he knew. He felt depressed, tired and disappointed. Bjork made a few notes as he was speaking.

"Russians," he said when Wallander had finished. "Or from an Eastern bloc country. Morth was certain of that."

"I'd better contact the foreign ministry," said Bjork. "It's their job to get in touch with the Russian police. Or Polish. The Eastern bloc."

"They could be Russians living in Sweden," Wallander said. "Or Germany. Or why not Denmark?"

"Even so, most Russians are still in the Soviet Union," Bjork said. "I'll contact the foreign ministry straight away. They know what to do in a situation like this."

"We could put the bodies back into the life-raft and ask the coastguards to have it towed out into international waters," Wallander answered. "Then we could wash our hands of the case."

Bjork seemed not to hear.

"We'll have to get some help in identifying them," he said. "Photographs, fingerprints, clothes." "And a tattoo. A scimitar." "A scimitar?"

"Yes, a scimitar."

Bjork shook his head and reached for the phone. "Just a minute," Wallander said. Bjork withdrew his hand.

"I'm thinking about the man who telephoned," Wallander said. "According to Martinsson, he had a local accent. We should try to trace him."

"Have we any clues?"

"None. That's precisely why I suggest we put out an appeal. We can keep it general. We can appeal for anybody who's seen a red rubber boat drifting around, and ask them to get in touch with the police."

Bjork nodded. "I'll have to speak to the press in any case. Reporters started ringing ages ago. How they can find out so quickly about what happens on a deserted stretch of beach is beyond me. It took them precisely half an hour yesterday."

"You know we have leaks," Wallander said, reminded once again of the double murder at Lenarp.

"What do you mean, we?"

"The police. The Ystad police."

"Who does the leaking?"

"How am I supposed to know that? It ought to be your job to remind all staff to be discreet and observe professional secrecy."

Bjork slammed his fist down on his desk, as if administering a box on the ears. But he didn't answer Wallander directly.

"We'll make an appeal," was all he said. "At midday, before the news on the radio. I want you to be at the press conference. Right now I must call Stockholm and get some instructions."

Wallander got to his feet. "It would be great if we didn't have to," he said.

"Didn't have to do what?" "Find whoever shot the men in the life-raft." "1*11 find out what Stockholm has to say," Bjork said, shaking his head.

Wallander left the room. Martinsson's and Svedberg's offices were still empty. He glanced at his watch: nearly 9.30 a.m. He went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt of the police station where the life-raft had been placed on wooden trestles. He used a strong torch to examine it thoroughly, looking for the name of a firm or country of manufacture, but he found nothing, which surprised him. He couldn't come up with a satisfactory explanation for why that should be. He went round the rubber boat once more, and this time noticed a short piece of rope. It was different from the rope holding the wooden floor in place. It had been cut off with a knife. He tried to imagine what conclusions Rydberg would have drawn, but his mind was a complete blank.

He was back in his office by 10 a.m. Neither Martinsson nor Svedberg answered when he phoned their rooms. He pulled over a notebook and started to write out a summary of the little they knew about the two dead men. People from the Eastern bloc, shot through the heart at close range, then dressed in their jackets and dumped in a life-raft that still hadn't been identified. Plus, the men had been tortured. He pushed the notebook away: a thought had suddenly struck him. Men who've been tortured and murdered, he thought: you hide the bodies away, dig graves for them, or send them to the bottom of the sea with iron weights attached to their legs. If you load them into a life-raft, the likelihood is that they will be found.

Can that have been the intention? That they would be found? Doesn't the life-raft suggest the murder took place on board a ship? He crumpled up the top page of the notebook and threw it into the wastepaper basket. I don't know enough, he thought. Rydberg would have told me not to be impatient.

The phone rang. It was 10.45 a.m. The moment he heard his father's voice, he remembered that he was supposed to go and see him. He should have been in Loderup by 10 a.m. so they could drive to a shop in Malmo to buy canvases and paints.

"Why haven't you come?" his father asked angrily.

Wallander decided to be perfectly straight with him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'd forgotten all about it."

There was a long pause.

"At least that's an honest answer," his father said finally.

"I can come tomorrow," Wallander said.