Authors: Henning Mankell
“Tell Hans and Linda that I’m okay. I don’t want them to worry. Tell them I sent you a letter.”
“I’ll say you called. The first thing Linda would do would be to demand to see the letter.”
They went to the boat and together shoved it out onto the water. Before leaving the house, Wallander had made a note of von Enke’s phone number. But he also established that communications links to Blue Island could be bad. The wind was getting stronger. Wallander was starting to worry about the journey back. He clambered onto the boat and lowered the outboard motor.
“I have to know what happened to Louise,” said von Enke. “I must know who killed her. I need to know why she chose to lead the life of a traitor.”
The engine started at the first pull. Wallander waved good-bye and headed for the mainland. Just before rounding the Blue Island promontory he looked back. Håkan von Enke was still standing on the beach.
At that moment Wallander had a premonition that something was wrong. He didn’t know what, or why. But the feeling was very strong.
He returned the boat and set off on the long drive back to Skåne. He stopped at a rest stop near Gamleby and slept for a few hours.
When he woke up, feeling stiff, the premonition was still there. After that long night with Håkan von Enke, one thing still nagged away at him.
It was a sort of warning. Something didn’t add up, something he had overlooked.
When he pulled into the parking area outside his house many hours later, he still didn’t know what it was that he’d missed.
But he thought: Nothing is what it seems to be.
The following day, Wallander wrote a summary of his conversation with Håkan von Enke. Once again he went through all the material he had gathered. Louise was still a mystery to him. If it was true that she had sold information to the Russians, she had cleverly hidden herself behind a mask of insignificance. Who was she, really? Wallander asked himself. Perhaps she
was one of those people who become comprehensible only after they are dead.
It was a windy, rainy day in Skåne. Wallander observed the dreary weather through his windows, and concluded that this summer promised to be one of the worst he could remember. Nevertheless, he forced himself to go for a long walk with Jussi. He needed to get his blood moving and clear his head. He longed for calm, sunny days when he could lie down in his garden without needing to trouble his brain with the problems that were occupying him now.
When he had returned after the walk and taken off his wet clothes, he sat down by the phone in his shabby old robe and began leafing through his address book. It was full of crossed-out phone numbers, changes, and additions. In the car the day before, he had remembered an old school friend, Sölve Hagberg, who might be able to help him. It was his phone number he was looking for. He’d made a note of it when they bumped into each other by pure chance in a Malmö street a few years ago.
Sölve Hagberg was an odd person even as a child. Wallander recalled with a sense of guilt that he had been one of the students who bullied Sölve, because of his nearsightedness and his determination to actually learn something at school. But all attempts to undermine Sölve’s self-confidence had failed. All the scornful abuse, all the punches and kicks had been shaken off, like water off a duck’s back.
After leaving school they had not been in contact until one day Wallander was amazed to discover that Sölve Hagberg was going to take part in a TV show called
Double or Quits
. Even more astonishing was that his chosen subject was going to be the history of the Swedish navy. He had been overweight as a child, another reason why he had been bullied. But if he’d been overweight then, he was positively fat now. He seemed to roll up to the microphone on invisible wheels. He was bald, wore rimless glasses, and spoke with the same broad Scanian accent that Wallander remembered from school. Mona had commented disparagingly on his appearance and gone into the kitchen to make coffee, but Wallander stayed to watch him answer all the questions correctly. He won, thanks to precise and detailed replies delivered with complete self-confidence. As far as Wallander could recall, he hadn’t hesitated for a moment. He really did know everything about the long, complicated history of the Swedish navy. It had been Hagberg’s big ambition to become a naval officer. But thanks to his ungainliness he had been turned down as a recruit and sent back home to his books and model ships. Now he had taken his revenge.
For a short while the newspapers showed an interest in this strange man,
who still lived in Limhamn and made a living writing articles for journals and books published by various military institutions. The press wrote about Hagberg’s comprehensive archive. He had detailed information about Swedish naval officers from the seventeenth century to the present day, constantly updated. Perhaps Wallander might be able to find something in this archive to tell him more about who Håkan von Enke really was.
He finally found Hagberg’s number scribbled in the greasy margin of the letter
H
. He picked up the phone and dialed. A woman answered. Wallander gave his name and asked to speak to Sölve.
“He’s dead.”
Wallander was dumbstruck. After a few seconds of silence the woman asked if he was still there.
“Yes, I’m still here. I had no idea he was dead.”
“He died two years ago. He had a heart attack. He was in Ronneby, addressing a group of retired naval engineers. He collapsed during the dinner following his lecture.”
“I take it you are his wife?”
“Asta Hagberg. We were married for twenty-six years. I told him he should lose weight, but all he did was put three sugars in his coffee instead of four. Who are you?”
Wallander explained, and decided to end the call as quickly as possible.
“You were one of the kids who used to torment him,” she surprised him by saying. “I remember your name now. One of the bullies at school. He had a list of your names, and kept tabs on how you led your lives. He wasn’t ashamed to feel pleased when things went badly for anyone on the list. Why are you calling? What do you want?”
“I’d hoped to be allowed access to his archive.”
“I might be able to help you, but I don’t know if I should. Why couldn’t you leave him alone?”
“I don’t think any of us really understood what we were doing. Children can be cruel. I was no exception.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Of course.”
“Come by, then. Sölve suspected that he wouldn’t live much longer, so he taught me all about the archive and how to use it. What will happen to it when I’m gone, I don’t know. But I’m always at home. Sölve left a fair amount of money, so I don’t need to work.”
She laughed.
“Do you know how he made his money?”
“I expect he was much sought-after as a lecturer.”
“He never asked to be paid for that. Try again!”
“Then I don’t know.”
“He played poker. He went to illegal gaming clubs. I suppose that’s something you deal with in your work?”
“I thought people turned to the Internet these days for gambling.”
“He couldn’t be bothered with that. He went to his clubs, and was away for several weeks sometimes. Once in a while he lost a large amount of money, but usually he came home with a suitcase full of cash. He told me to count it and put it in the bank. He would then go to bed and sleep, often for days on end. The police were here now and then, and he was sometimes arrested when they raided a club, but he was never charged. I think he had an understanding with the police.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Can I mean anything but that he sometimes tipped them off? Maybe some wanted persons turned up at the clubs with money they’d stolen? Nobody would ever imagine that nice old Fatman Sölve could be a cop’s narc, would they? Anyway, are you coming or aren’t you?”
When Wallander wrote down the address he realized that Sölve had always lived on the same street in Limhamn. Wallander and Asta agreed that he would go there at five o’clock that same afternoon. Next he called Linda. He got her answering machine and left a message saying that he was at home. Then he went through the contents of the refrigerator and threw away all the food that had passed its use-by date and wrote a shopping list. The fridge was almost completely empty now. He was just about to leave the house when Linda called.
“I just got back from the drugstore. Klara’s not well.”
“Is it serious?”
“You don’t need to sound as if she were at death’s door every time. She has a temperature and a sore throat. That’s all.”
“Has the doctor seen her?”
“I called the health center. I think I have everything under control. As long as you don’t get all excited and irritate me. Where have you been?”
“I’m not saying at the moment.”
“Aha, a woman, in other words. Good.”
“Not a woman. But I have an important piece of news. I received a phone call not long ago. From Håkan.”
At first she didn’t seem to understand. Then she shouted into the receiver.
“What? Håkan called you? What the hell are you saying? Where is he? How is he? What’s happened?”
“Stop shouting at me! I don’t know where he is. He didn’t want to tell me. He just said that he was well. It didn’t sound as if there was anything wrong with him.”
Wallander could hear her heavy breathing. He felt very uncomfortable lying to her. He regretted having made that promise before he left the island. I’ll tell her the facts, he thought. I can’t deceive my own daughter.
“It seems so unlikely. Did he say anything about why he ran away?”
“No. But he did say that he had nothing to do with Louise’s death. He was just as shocked as the rest of us. He hadn’t had any contact with her after he left.”
“Were Hans’s parents both crazy?”
“I can’t comment on that. But in any case, we can be glad that he’s still alive. That was the only message he wanted me to pass on to you. That he was well. But he couldn’t say when he would return, or why he was in hiding.”
“Did he say that? That he was in hiding?”
Wallander realized that he had revealed too much. But it was too late for him to retract.
“I don’t remember exactly what words he used. Don’t forget that I was astonished by the call as well.”
“I have to speak to Hans. He’s in Copenhagen.”
“I’ll be out all afternoon. Call me this evening. Then we can talk more. I want to know how Hans reacts.”
“He can hardly be anything but happy.”
Wallander replaced the receiver in disgust. When Linda discovered the truth he would have to deal with her fury.
He left for Limhamn. He didn’t really know what to expect, but when he arrived he experienced the usual mixture of discomfort and loss that always affected him when he returned to the place where he grew up. He parked the car not far from Asta Hagberg’s house, then strolled to the apartment building where he had lived as a child. The façade had been renovated and a new fence had been put up, but nevertheless he remembered everything. The sandbox he used to play in was bigger now than it was in those days, and the two birch trees he used to climb were no longer there. He paused on the sidewalk and watched some children playing. They were dark-skinned, no doubt from the Middle East or North Africa. A woman wearing a hijab was sitting
by the entrance door, knitting and keeping an eye on the children. He could hear Arabic music wafting through an open window. This is where I used to live, he thought. In another world, another time.
A man came out of the building and approached the gate. He was also dark-skinned. He smiled at Wallander.
“You looking for someone?” he asked in uncertain Swedish.
“No,” said Wallander. “I used to live here many years ago.”
He pointed up at a window on the second floor, which in the old days had belonged to their living room.
“This is a nice house,” said the man. “We like it here; the children like it. We don’t have to feel afraid.”
“Good. People shouldn’t be afraid.”
Wallander nodded and left. The feeling of growing old was oppressive. He quickened his pace, in order to get away from himself.
The garden surrounding the house where Asta Hagberg lived was well tended, but the woman who answered the door was just as fat as he remembered Sölve Hagberg being on the TV show. She was sweaty; her hair was tousled and her skirt much too short. At first he thought she was wearing strong perfume, but then he realized that the whole house reeked of unusual aromas. Does she go around spraying the furniture with perfume? he wondered. Does she drench the potted plants in musk?
She offered him coffee, but he declined. He was already feeling sick, thanks to the overpowering smells streaming into his nose from all over the house. When they went into the living room, Wallander had the feeling that he was entering the bridge of a large ship. Wherever he looked there were ships’ wheels, compasses with beautifully polished brass fittings, votive ships hanging from the ceiling, and an old-fashioned hammock attached to one of the walls. Asta Hagberg crammed herself into a captain’s chair that Wallander presumed had also come from a seagoing vessel. He sat down on what at first looked like a perfectly normal sofa—but a brass plate proclaimed that it had once belonged to the Swedish American Line’s
Kungsholm
.
“How can I help you?” she asked, lighting a cigarette that she had put in a holder.
“Håkan von Enke,” Wallander said. “An old submarine commander, now retired.”
Asta Hagberg was suddenly stricken by a violent coughing fit. Wallander hoped that this overweight smoker wouldn’t collapse and die before his very eyes. He guessed she was his own age, about sixty.
She kept on coughing until tears came to her eyes. Then she continued smoking serenely.
“The Håkan von Enke who’s gone missing,” she said. “And his dead wife, Louise? Am I right?”
“I know that Sölve had a unique archive. I wonder if there might be something in it that can help me understand why Håkan von Enke has disappeared.”
“He’s dead, of course.”
“In which case it’s the cause of his death that I’m looking for,” Wallander said noncomittally.