The Troubled Man (37 page)

‘Hans said his parents had a philosophy about money,’ Linda had explained. ‘“You shouldn’t talk about money, it should simply be there.”’

‘If only,’ Wallander had said. ‘That sounds like something well-heeled upper-class folk would say.’

‘They
are
upper class,’ said Linda. ‘You know that. We don’t need to waste time discussing it.’

Hans used to give them an investment report twice a year, informing them about gains and any losses. Occasionally Hakan would read something in the newspapers about attractive investment options, and he’d call Hans to pass on the tip. But he never checked on whether Hans had followed up. Louise displayed even less interest in what Hans was doing with their money - but on one occasion the previous year she had asked to withdraw 200,000 kronor from the invested capital. Hans was surprised, since it was very unusual for them to take out such a large sum. And it was mostly Hakan who wanted to withdraw money, for such things as a cruise, or a trip to the French Riviera for a few weeks. Hans asked what she wanted the money for, but she didn’t tell him, merely insisted that he do what she had requested.

‘She also told Hans not to say anything about it to Hakan,’ Linda added. ‘That was the strangest part. I mean, he’d have been bound to notice it sooner or later.’

‘But there might not necessarily have been anything sinister about it,’ Wallander suggested. ‘Maybe she wanted to surprise him?’

‘Could be. But Hans also said it was the only time she ever spoke to him in a threatening tone of voice.’

‘Is that the word he used? “Threatening”?’

‘Yes.’

‘Isn’t that a bit odd? Such a strong word?’

‘I have no doubt that he chose the word carefully.’

Wallander made a note:
threatening
. If it was true, it threw new light on the woman who was always smiling.

‘What did Hans have to say about East Germany?’

Linda stressed that she had tried in several ways to jog his memory, but without success. He vaguely remembered that when he was very young his mother had brought him some wooden toys from East Berlin. Nothing else. He couldn’t recall how long she had been away, nor why she had gone abroad. In those days they had a housekeeper, Katarina, and he often spent a lot more time with her than he did with his parents. Hakan had been at sea, and Louise had been teaching German at the French School and at one of Stockholm’s grammar schools - he couldn’t remember which one. It could well have been that they had occasionally been guests at a dinner party in a home where German was the first language. He had a vague memory of a man in uniform singing drinking songs in a foreign language at the dinner table.

‘He really doesn’t remember anything else,’ Linda said. ‘Which either means that there was nothing else for him to remember, or that Louise went out of her way to hide her East German adventures from him. But why would she want to do that?’

‘Why indeed,’ said Wallander. ‘It was never against the law for Swedes to visit East Germany. We did business with them just as we did with every other country. But on the other hand, it was much harder for East German citizens to visit Sweden. The Berlin Wall was built to prevent defections.’

‘That was before my time. I can remember the Wall being pulled down, but not when it was built.’

That was the end of the call. Wallander heard a door opening and closing somewhere in the background. He began working his way methodically through the material he had gathered concerning the disappearance of Hakan von Enke, and it seemed to him there was one conclusion. Experience indicated that von Enke had been missing for so long that in all probability he was dead, like his wife. But Wallander decided nevertheless to regard him as still alive, at least for the time being.

After a while Wallander slid the file to one side and leaned back in his chair. Perhaps when we were talking in that windowless room in Djursholm he already knew that he would soon go missing. Did he hope that I would read between the lines of what he said?

Wallander sat up straight. Everything was standing still. He was impatient; he wanted to move forward. He opened an Internet browser and began searching. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for. He scrolled through all the information on the navy website. Step by step he followed Hakan von Enke’s career. He had climbed the ladder steadily, but more slowly than many of his contemporaries. After about an hour of surfing, Wallander came across a photograph taken at a reception at the office for foreign military attaches. There were a number of young officers in the picture, including Hakan. He was smiling directly at the camera. A confident, open smile. Wallander contemplated the old picture, trying to see something that would tell him who the troubled man he had met in Djursholm really was.

He stood up and opened the window slightly, then resumed his Internet research. He tried to use his imagination to find unexpected ways of getting information about Hakan von Enke’s life: he read about East Germany, and their naval manoeuvres in the southern Baltic Sea that both Sten Nordlander and Hakan von Enke had talked about. He spent the most time on submarine incidents in the early 1980s. He occasionally noted down a name, an event, a thought; but he was unable to find any blots on Hakan von Enke’s record. Nor did he find anything out of the ordinary about Louise when he visited the website of the French School in Stockholm. Linda had chosen a man whose parents were prime examples of bourgeois decency and uprightness. On the surface, at least.

It was almost eleven thirty when he started yawning. His surfing had taken him to the very limits of what might be interesting. But he suddenly paused and leaned towards the screen. There was an article from one of the evening papers, dating from early 1987. A journalist had dug up information about a private location in Stockholm where parties and receptions often took place, frequented by high-ranking naval officers. The parties were evidently shrouded in secrecy; only a few people were allowed to attend, and none of the officers the journalist had contacted was prepared to comment. But one of the waitresses, Fanny Klarstrom, had. She talked about the unpleasant, hate-filled conversations about Olof Palme that had taken place, and about the arrogance of the officers, and said that she had stopped working there because she was not prepared to put up with it any longer. Among those who used to attend the gatherings was Hakan von Enke.

Wallander printed out the two newspaper pages. There was also a photograph of Fanny Klarstrom. Wallander judged her to be about sixty at the time, which meant that she could still be alive. He also wrote down the name of the journalist, and noted that this was the second banqueting hall he had come across in connection with Hakan von Enke. He folded the article and put it in his pocket.

There were occasionally rumours in circulation about secret associations and parties in certain police circles. Wallander had never been invited to anything of the sort, however. The nearest he could think of was an occasion a long time ago when Rydberg proposed that they meet once a month for good food and drink in the restaurant at Svaneholm Castle; but nothing had come of it.

Wallander switched off the computer and left the room. Halfway down the hall he turned, went back and turned off the light. He left the police station the same way he had arrived, through the basement. He collected some dirty towels and shirts from his locker and took them home to wash.

He paused in the car park and breathed in the summer night. He was going to live for a long time yet. His will to live was still strong.

*

He drove home, slept, dreamed uneasily about Mona, but woke up refreshed. He got out of bed immediately, eager to make use of the unexpected energy he seemed to be filled with. It was barely eight o’clock by the time he picked up the telephone to try to track down the journalist who had written about the naval officers’ secret meetings over twenty years ago. After several failed attempts via directory assistance, he glanced ruefully at his broken computer and wondered whom to disturb, Linda or Martinsson. He chose the latter. One of the grandchildren answered. Wallander didn’t have much sensible conversation with the little girl before Martinsson took the phone.

‘You’ve just been speaking to Astrid,’ he said. ‘She’s three years old, has blazing red hair and likes nothing better than to pull at the remaining few tufts of hair that I possess.’

‘My computer has broken down. Can I ask you to look something up for me, please?’

‘I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes.’

Five minutes later the phone rang. It was Martinsson. Wallander gave him the journalist’s name, Torbjorn Setterwall. It didn’t take Martinsson long to trace him.

‘Three years too late,’ said Martinsson.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘That Torbjorn Setterwall has died. In some strange kind of accident in a lift, it seems. He was fifty-four years old, and left a wife and three children. How can you die in a lift?’

‘Maybe it dropped down to the bottom of the shaft? Or he could have been squashed?’

‘I wasn’t able to be of much assistance, I’m afraid.’

‘I have another name,’ said Wallander. ‘This one could be more difficult. And there’s a chance she could be dead as well.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Fanny Klarstrom.’

‘Another journalist?’

‘A waitress.’

‘Hmm. As you say, it could be more difficult. But her name isn’t among the most common, neither Fanny nor Klarstrom.’

Wallander waited while Martinsson began the search. He could hear him humming a tune as he tapped away at the keyboard. Martinsson was usually on the melancholy side, but he was obviously in a good mood. Let’s hope he stays that way, Wallander thought.

‘I’ll get back to you,’ Martinsson said. ‘This is going to take a while.’

In fact it took Martinsson less than twenty minutes. When he called back he was able to inform Wallander that eighty-four-year-old Fanny Klarstrom lived in Markaryd in Smaland. She had an apartment of her own in a retirement home called Lillgarden.

‘How did you do it?’ Wallander asked. ‘Are you sure it’s the right person?’

‘Absolutely certain.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘I’ve spoken to her,’ said Martinsson, to Wallander’s astonishment. ‘I called her, and she told me she’d been a waitress for nearly fifty years.’

‘Amazing. One of these days you must explain what you do that I can’t do.’

Wallander wrote down Fanny Klarstrom’s address and phone number. According to Martinsson, her voice had sounded old and rough, but she was clear in the head.

After the call he went out. The sun was blazing down from a clear blue sky. Kites were soaring in the upwinds, searching for prey at the edge of the fields. Wallander wondered what he wanted, apart from what he had already. Nothing, he thought. Perhaps to be able to afford to travel south when winter was at its coldest. A little apartment in Spain. But he dismissed that thought immediately. He would never feel comfortable there, surrounded by people he didn’t know speaking a language he would never be able to learn properly. In one way or another, Skane would be his terminus. He would stay in his house for as long as possible. When he couldn’t manage that any more, he hoped the end would come quickly. What scared him more than anything else was an old age spent simply waiting to die, a time when nothing of what had been his life was still possible.

He made a decision. He would drive to Markaryd and pay a visit to the waitress. He didn’t know what good a conversation might do, but he couldn’t shake off the curiosity that had been aroused by that newspaper article. He took out his old school atlas. Markaryd was only a few hours’ drive away.

He set off the next day, after speaking to Linda on the phone. She listened carefully to what he had to say. When he finished, she announced that she would like to go with him. He was annoyed and asked how she thought Klara would be able to cope with a car journey on what seemed set to become one of the summer’s hottest days.

‘Hans is at home today,’ she said. ‘He can look after his daughter. But you don’t want me to come. I can hear it.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘The fact that it’s true.’

It
was
true. Wallander had been looking forward to a drive all on his own, heading north towards the Smaland forests. It was one of his simple pleasures, going for drives without company. He liked the freedom it gave him, being alone in the car, without the radio on, and with the possibility of stopping whenever it suited him.

He accepted that Linda had seen through him.

‘Are we still on speaking terms?’ he asked.

‘Of course we are,’ she said. ‘But sometimes you’re a bit weird for my taste.’

‘You don’t choose your parents. If I’m weird, it’s because I inherited it from your grandfather, who really was a strange person.’

‘Good luck. Let me know how it went. I must say, in all honesty, that you never give up.’

‘Do you?’

She laughed softly.

‘Never. I don’t even know how to spell those words.’

It was eleven o’clock when Wallander set off. By one he had got as far as Almhult, where he had lunch in a crowded Ikea restaurant. The long line at the counter made him nervous and irritated. He ate far too quickly, and afterwards took a wrong turn, so that he reached Markaryd an hour later than planned. The attendant at a petrol station explained the best route to the sheltered accommodation at Lillgarden. When he got out of the car, he was struck by how similar it looked to Niklasgarden. The thought made him wonder if the man who had claimed to be Signe’s uncle had made another visit. He would find out about that as soon as he had time.