Part 25 (1/2)

Wallander's mouth was dry. He sat up gingerly on the edge of the treatment table.

”Coffee,” he said. ”Can you get a cup of coffee here?”

Murniers burst out laughing.

”I've never known a man drink as much coffee as you do,” he said. ”Of course you can have some coffee. If you are feeling up to it, I suggest you come to my office so that we can wind up the whole business. Then I expect you and Baiba Liepa will have plenty to talk about. A police surgeon will give you an injection of painkillers if your hand starts hurting again. The doctor who put it in plaster said that could well happen.”

They drove across the city. It was already quite late in the day, and it was starting to get dark. When they drove through the arch into the courtyard of the police headquarters, it seemed to Wallander that this must surely be for the last time. On the way up to his office, Murniers paused to unlock a safe and take out the blue file. An armed guard was sitting beside the imposing safe.

”I suppose it's a good idea to keep it locked up,” Wallander said.

Murniers looked at him in surprise. ”A good idea?” he echoed. ”It's necessary, Inspector Wallander. Even if Putnis is now out of the way, it doesn't mean that all our problems are solved. We are still living in the same world as before. We are living in a country torn apart by conflicting forces, and we shan't get rid of those simply by putting three bullets into the chest of a police colonel.”

Wallander reflected on Murniers's words as they continued to his office. A man with a coffee tray was standing to attention outside the door. Wallander recalled his first visit to that dingy room. It seemed like a distant memory. Would he ever be able to grasp everything that had happened in between?

Murniers took a bottle out of a desk drawer and filled two gla.s.ses.

”It's not pleasant to drink a celebratory toast when so many people have died,” he said, ”but nevertheless, I think we deserve it. Especially you, Inspector Wallander.”

”I've done practically nothing except make mistakes,” Wallander said. ”I've been on the wrong track, and didn't catch on to how various things fitted together until it was too late.”

”On the contrary,” Murniers said. ”I am very impressed by what you've done, and not least by your courage.”

Wallander shook his head. ”I'm not a brave man,” he said. ”I'm amazed that I'm still alive.”

They emptied their gla.s.ses, and sat down at the table with the major's testimony between them.

”I suppose I really only have one question,” Wallander said. ”Upitis?”

Murniers nodded thoughtfully. ”There was no limit to Putnis's cunning and brutality. He needed a scapegoat, a plausible murderer. And he also needed an excuse to send you home. I could see right from the start that he was uneasy about your competence, and scared. He had his men kidnap two small children, Inspector Wallander. Two small children whose mother is Upitis's sister. If Upitis didn't confess to the murder of Major Liepa, those children were to die. Upitis didn't really have any choice. I often wonder what I would have done in the same situation. He's been released now, of course. Baiba Liepa already knows he was not a traitor. We've also found the children who were being held hostage.”

”It all started with a life-raft being washed ash.o.r.e on the Swedish coast,” Wallander said, after a few moments' thought.

”Colonel Putnis and his fellow-conspirators had just commenced the large-scale operation involving the smuggling of drugs into various countries, including Sweden,” Murniers said. ”Putnis had placed a number of agents in Sweden. They had tracked down various groups of Latvian emigres and were about to start distributing the drugs that would lead to the discrediting of the Latvian freedom organisation. But something happened on one of the vessels smuggling the drugs from Ventspils. It seems that some of the colonel's men had improvised a sort of palace revolution and intended to commandeer a large amount of amphetamines for their own profit. They were found out, shot, and set adrift in a life-raft. In the confusion n.o.body remembered the drugs stashed away inside the raft. As I understand it they spent a whole day searching for the raft, but failed to find it. We can now consider ourselves lucky that it was washed ash.o.r.e in Sweden - if it hadn't been, it is very likely that Colonel Putnis would have succeeded in his intentions. It was also Putnis's agents who were cunning enough to retrieve the drugs from your police station once they had realised n.o.body had discovered what was hidden in the life-raft.”

”Something else must have happened,” Wallander said thoughtfully. ”Why did Putnis decide to kill Major Liepa the moment he got back home?”

”Putnis lost his nerve. He didn't know what Major Liepa was up to in Sweden, and he couldn't risk letting him stay alive without being able to check what he was doing all the time. As long as Major Liepa was in Latvia, it was possible to keep an eye on him, or at least to be aware of the people he met. Colonel Putnis simply got nervous. Sergeant Zids was given the order to kill Major Liepa. And he did.”

They sank into a long silence. Wallander could see Murniers was tired and worried.

”What happens now?” asked Wallander at last.

”I shall study Major Liepa's papers thoroughly, of course,” Murniers replied. ”Then we shall see.”

The reply made Wallander uneasy. ”They must be published, of course,” he said.

Murniers didn't respond, and Wallander suddenly realised that was not definite so far as Murniers was concerned. His interests were not necessarily the same as those of Baiba Liepa and her friends. For him it could well be enough to have unmasked Putnis. Murniers might have an entirely different view of the appropriateness of giving the story wider circulation. Wallander was upset at the thought that Major Liepa's testimony might be swept under the carpet.

”I'd like a copy of the major's report,” he said.

Murniers saw through his request immediately. ”I didn't know you could read Latvian,” he said.

”One can't know everything,” Wallander replied.

Murniers stared at him for a long time, without speaking. Wallander looked him in the eye, and knew he must not give way. This was the last time he would be involved with Murniers in a trial of strength, and it was absolutely essential that he was not defeated. He owed that to the short-sighted little major.

All at once, Murniers made up his mind. He pressed the b.u.t.ton fixed to the underside of the table, and a man appeared to fetch the blue folder. A little later Wallander received a copy, the existence of which would never be recorded. Murniers would disclaim any responsibility for it. A copy the Swedish police officer Inspector Wallander had appropriated for himself, without permission and against all the laws and regulations governing practices between friendly nations, and which he had then pa.s.sed onto people who had no right to these secret doc.u.ments. By doing this the Swedish police officer Kurt Wallander had displayed exceptionally poor judgement and should be condemned out of hand.

That is what would happen, that is what would pa.s.s for the truth. If anybody should ever ask, which was unlikely. Wallander would never know why Murniers allowed it to happen. Was it for the major's sake? For the country's? Or did he just think Wallander deserved an appropriate farewell present?

That was the end of the conversation. There was nothing more to say.

”The pa.s.sport you are currently holding is of very doubtful validity,” Murniers said, ”but I'll make sure you get back home to Sweden without any problems. When are you thinking of going?”

”Maybe not tomorrow,” Wallander said, ”but the day after, perhaps.”

Colonel Murniers accompanied him down to the car that was waiting in the yard. Wallander suddenly remembered his Peugeot that was parked in a barn somewhere in Germany, not far from the Polish border.

”I wonder how on earth I'm going to get my car back home,” he said.

Murniers stared at him in bewilderment. Wallander realised he would never discover how close Murniers was to the people who considered themselves to be a guarantee for a better future in Latvia. He had only sc.r.a.ped the surface of what he had been allowed to come into contact with. That was a stone he would never turn. Murniers simply had no idea how Wallander had got into Latvia.

”It doesn't matter,” Wallander said.

That d.a.m.ned Lippman, he thought angrily. I wonder if the Latvian organisations in exile have funds with which to compensate Swedish police officers for lost cars.

He felt hard done by, without being fully able to explain why. Perhaps he was still hampered by his overwhelming exhaustion. His judgement would continue to be unreliable until he'd had an opportunity to rest properly.

They bade each other farewell when they got to the car waiting to take Wallander to Baiba Liepa.

”I'll go to the airport with you,” Murniers said. ”You'll receive two tickets, one for the flight to Helsinki, and one for Helsinki to Stockholm. As there are no pa.s.sport controls within the Nordic countries, no one will ever know you have been in Riga.”

The car drove out of the courtyard. A gla.s.s panel separated the back seat from the driver. Wallander sat in the dark, thinking about what Murniers had said. n.o.body would ever know he had been in Riga. It dawned on him that he would never be able to talk to anybody about it, not even to his father. One very good reason for it remaining a secret was that it had all been so improbable, so incredible. Who would ever believe him?

He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. The important thing now was his meeting with Baiba Liepa. What would happen when he got back to Sweden was something he could think about when it happened.

He spent two nights and a day in Baiba Liepa's flat. All the time he was waiting for what, not being able to think of anything better, he called ”the right moment”, but it never occurred. He didn't utter a word about the conflicting feelings he had for her. The closest he came to her was when they sat next to each other on the sofa the second evening, looking at photographs. When he got out of the car that had taken him from Murniers to her house, her greeting had been muted, as if he had become a stranger to her again. He was put out, without even being sure what it was he was put out about. What had he expected, after all? She cooked a meal for him, a ca.s.serole with some tough chicken as the main ingredient, and he got the impression that Baiba wasn't exactly an inspired cook. I mustn't forget that she's an intellectual, he thought. She's the kind of person who is probably better qualified to dream about a better society than to cook a meal. Both types are needed, even if presumably they can't always live happily alongside each other.

Wallander was weighed down by feelings of melancholy that, luckily, he had no trouble in keeping to himself. He no doubt belonged to the good cooks of this world. He wasn't one of the dreamers. A police officer could hardly be preoccupied with dreams, he had to stick his nose into the dirt rather than point it heavenwards. But he knew that he had begun to fall in love with her, and that was the real cause of his melancholy. He would be forced to retain this sadness in his heart as he concluded the strangest and most dangerous mission he had ever undertaken. It hurt him deeply. When she told him his car would be waiting for him in Stockholm when he got back there, he barely reacted. He had started feeling sorry for himself.

She made a bed up for him on the sofa. He could hear her calm breathing from the bedroom. He couldn't sleep, despite his exhaustion. He kept getting up, walking across the cold floorboards and looking down on to the deserted street where the major had been murdered. The shadows were no longer there, they had been buried alongside Putnis. All that was left was the gaping void, repulsive and painful.

The day before he left they went to visit the unmarked grave where Colonel Putnis had buried Inese and her friends. They wept openly. Wallander sobbed like an abandoned child, and he felt as if he had seen for the first time what an awful world he lived in. Baiba had taken some flowers, some frail-looking roses, frozen stiff, and she laid them on the heap of soil.