On Wednesday, June 10, Kurt Wallander was given sick leave, effective immediately. According to the doctor, who regarded Wallander as taciturn and very uptight, he was vague and not sure exactly what was pestering him. He talked about nightmares, insomnia, stomach pains, nocturnal panic attacks when he thought his heart was about to stop beating-in other words, all the well-known symptoms of stress that could easily lead to a breakdown. At this point, Wallander was seeing the doctor every other day. His symptoms varied, and on every visit he had a different opinion as to which ones were worst. He had also started having sudden bouts of violent sobbing. The doctor who finally ordered him to take sick leave on grounds of acute depression, and prescribed anti-depressants for him, had no reason to doubt the seriousness of the situation. Within a short space of time he had killed one human being and actively contributed to another being burned alive. Nor could he wash his hands of responsibility for the woman who died while helping his daughter to escape. But most of all he felt guilty about the death of Victor Mabasha. It was natural that the reaction should set in with the death of Konovalenko. There was no longer anyone to chase, and no one hunting him. Paradoxically, the onset of depression indicated that the pressure on Wallander had eased. Now he would have the time to set his own house in order, and so his melancholy broke through all the barriers he had managed to erect thus far. After a few months, many of his colleagues began to doubt whether he would ever return. Occasionally, when news reached the police station of his peculiar journeys to places near and far, to Denmark and the Caribbean islands, there were some who thought he ought to be granted early retirement. The very thought caused much gloom. But in fact, it did not happen. He did come back, even though it took a very long time.
Nevertheless, the day after he had been ordered to take sick leave was a hot, windless summer day in southern Skane, and Wallander was sitting in his office. He still had some paperwork to attend to before he could clear his desk and go off in search of a cure for his depression. He felt a nagging sense of uncertainty, and wondered when he would be able to go back to work.
He had arrived at the office at six in the morning, after a sleepless night in his apartment. During the silent hours of the morning he had at last completed his comprehensive report on the murder of Louise Akerblom and everything that followed in its wake. He read through what he had written, and it was like descending into the underworld yet again, repeating the journey he wished he had never needed to undertake. Moreover, he was about to submit a report that was in some respects untruthful. It was still a mystery to him why some parts of his strange disappearance and his secret collaboration with Victor Mabasha had not been exposed. His extremely weak and in some parts contradictory explanations of some of his remarkable behavior had not, as he expected, aroused widespread skepticism. He could only think it was because he was surrounded by sympathy mixed with a rather vague esprit de corps, because he had killed a fellow human being.
He put the fat report on his desk and opened the window. Somewhere out there he could hear a child laughing.
What about my own summary, he thought. I found myself in a situation where I had no control over what happened. I made every mistake a cop can make, and the worst of all was that I put my own daughter’s life at risk. She has assured me she doesn’t blame me for those horrific days when she was chained up in a cellar. But do I really have any right to believe her? Have I not caused her suffering which might only come to the surface sometime in the future, in the form of angst, nightmares, a ruined life? That’s where my report has to begin, the one I’ll never write. The one which ends today with me being so shattered that a doctor has put me on sick leave indefinitely.
He went back to his desk and flopped down onto his chair. He had not slept a wink all night, it was true, but his weariness came from somewhere else, from the depths of his depression. Could it be that his fatigue was in fact depression? He thought about what would happen to him now. The doctor had suggested he should immediately start confronting his experiences through counseling. Wallander had taken that as an order that had to be obeyed. But what would he actually be able to say?
In front of him was an invitation to his father’s wedding. He did not know how many times he had read it since it came in the mail a few days before. His father was going to marry his home aide the day before Midsummer Eve. That was in ten days. He had talked several times to his sister, Kristina, who had come on a short visit some weeks earlier, when the chaos had been at its worst, and thought she had managed to put an end to the whole idea. Now Wallander had no more doubts about whether or not it would happen. Nor could he deny that his father was in a better mood now than he could ever remember, no matter how hard he tried. He had painted a gigantic backdrop in the studio, where the ceremony was to take place. To Wallander’s amazement it was exactly the same motif as he had been painting all his life, the static, romantic woodland landscape. The only difference was that he had now reproduced it giant-sized. Wallander had also talked with Gertrud, the woman he was going to marry. It was actually she who had wanted to speak with him, and he realized she had a genuine affection for his father. He had felt quite touched, and said he was happy about what was going to happen.
His daughter had returned to Stockholm over a week ago. She would come back for the wedding, and then go straight to Italy. That had brought home to Wallander the frightening realization of his own solitude. Wherever he turned, things seemed to be just as bleak. The night after Konovalenko’s death he visited Sten Widen and drank up nearly all his whiskey. He got very drunk, and started talking about the feeling of hopelessness that was getting him down. He thought it was something he shared with Sten Widen, even if his old friend had his stable girls to go to bed with occasionally, thus creating a superficial glimmer of what might be called companionship. Wallander hoped the renewed contact with Sten Widen would turn out to be lasting. He had no illusions about being able to return to the friendship they had shared in their youth. That was gone forever, and could not be resurrected.
His train of thought was interrupted by a knock at the door. He started. He had noticed last week at the police station that he was scared of being with people. The door opened and Svedberg looked in, hoping he wasn’t disturbing him.
“I hear you’re going away for a while,” he said.
Wallander immediately felt a lump in his throat.
“It seems to be necessary,” he said, blowing his nose.
Svedberg could see he was emotional. He changed the subject immediately.
“Do you remember those handcuffs you found in a drawer at Louise Akerblom’s house?” he asked. “You mentioned them once in passing. Do you remember?”
Wallander nodded. To him, the handcuffs had represented the mysterious side of everybody’s character. Only the day before he had been wondering what his own invisible handcuffs were.
“I was clearing out a closet at home yesterday,” said Svedberg. “There were lots of old magazines there I’d decided to get rid of. But you know how it is. I ended up sitting down and reading them. I happened to come across an article about variety artistes over the last thirty years. There was a picture of an escape artist, and he’d used the fanciful professional name of Houdini’s Son. His real name was Davidsson, and he eventually stopped wriggling out of chains and metal boxes and the like. Do you know why he stopped?”
Wallander shook his head.
“He saw the light. He became a born-again Christian. Guess which denomination he joined.”
“The Methodists,” said Wallander thoughtfully.
“Exactly. I read the whole article. At the end it said he was happily married and had several children. Among them a daughter called Louise. Nee Davidsson, later married to a man called Akerblom.”
“The handcuffs,” said Wallander pensively.
“A souvenir of her father,” said Svedberg. “It was as simple as that. I don’t know what you thought. I have to admit a few thoughts I wouldn’t repeat in front of children entered my head.”
“Mine, too,” said Wallander.
Svedberg got up. He paused in the doorway and turned round.
“There was one other thing,” he said. “Do you remember Peter Hanson?”
“The thief?”
“That’s the one. You may remember I asked him to keep his eyes open in case the things stolen from your apartment turned up on the market. He called me yesterday. Most of your stuff has no doubt been disposed of, I guess. You’ll never see it again. But oddly enough he managed to get hold of a CD he claims is yours.”
“Did he say which one it was?”
“I wrote it down.”
Svedberg searched through his pockets and eventually came across a crumpled scrap of paper.
“Rigoletto,” he read. “Verdi.”
Wallander smiled.
“I’ve missed that,” he said. “Send my regards to Peter Hanson, and thank him.”
“He’s a thief,” said Svedberg. “You don’t thank guys like that.”
Svedberg left the room with a laugh. Wallander started going through the remaining stacks of paper. It was nearly eleven by now, and he hoped to be finished by twelve.
The telephone rang. At first he thought he would ignore it. Then he picked it up.
“There’s a guy here who wants to talk with Chief Inspector Wallander,” said a female voice he did not recognize. He assumed it was the stand-in for Ebba, who was on vacation.
“Transfer him to somebody else,” said Wallander. “I’m not receiving visitors.”
“He’s very insistent,” said the receptionist. “He’s adamant he wants to talk with Chief Inspector Wallander. He says he has important information for you. He’s Danish.”
“Danish?” said Wallander in surprise. “What’s it about?”
“He says it has something to do with an African.”
Wallander thought for a moment.
“Send him in,” he said.
The man who came into Wallander’s office introduced himself as Paul Jorgensen, a fisherman from Dragor. He was very tall and powerfully built. When Wallander shook hands with him, it was like being gripped by an iron claw. He pointed to a chair. Jorgensen sat down and lit a cigar. Wallander was glad the window was open. He groped around in his drawers before finding an ashtray.
“I have something to tell you,” said Jorgensen. “But I haven’t yet made up my mind whether I’m going to or not.”
Wallander raised his eyebrows.
“You should have made your mind up before coming here,” he said.
In normal circumstances he would probably have been annoyed. Now he could hear that his voice was far from convincing.
“It depends whether you can overlook a minor breach of the law,” said Jorgensen.
Wallander began to wonder whether the man was making a fool of him. If so, he had chosen a most unfortunate moment. He could see he had better get a grip on the conversation, which looked like it was going off course almost before it had begun.
“I was told you had something important to tell me about an African,” he said. “If it really is important, I might be able to overlook any minor breach of the law. But I can’t promise anything. You must make up your own mind. I have to ask you to do so right now, though.”
Jorgensen screwed up he eyes and gazed at him from behind a cloud of smoke.
“I’ll risk it,” he said.
“I’m listening,” said Wallander.
“I’m a fisherman on Dragor,” Jorgensen began. “I make just about enough to pay for the boat, the house, and a beer in the evenings. But nobody turns down the chance for some extra income, if the opportunity arises. I take tourists out for little sea trips now and then, and that produces some pocket money. Sometimes I’m asked to take somebody over to Sweden. That doesn’t happen often, just once or twice a year. It could be some passengers who have missed a ferry, for instance. A few weeks ago I did a trip over to Limhamn one afternoon. I had just one passenger on board.”
He stopped abruptly, as if expecting a reaction from Wallander. But he had nothing to say. He nodded to Jorgensen, telling him to go on.
“It was a black guy,” said Jorgensen. “He only spoke English. Very polite. He stood in the wheelhouse with me all the way. Maybe I should mention there was something special about this trip. It had been booked in advance. There was this Englishman who spoke Danish, and he came down to the harbor one morning and asked if I could do a little trip over the sound, with a passenger. I thought it sounded a bit suspicious, so I asked a pretty high fee in order to get rid of him. I asked for five thousand kronor. The funny thing was he took out the money right away and paid in advance.”
Wallander was extremely interested by this. Just for a moment he forgot all about himself and concentrated exclusively on what Jorgensen had to say. He indicated he should continue.
“I went to sea as a young man,” said Jorgensen. “I learned quite a bit of English. I asked the guy what he was going to do in Sweden. He said he was going to visit some friends. I asked how long he’d be staying, and he said he’d probably be going back to Africa in a month, at the latest. I suspected there was something fishy going on. He was probably trying to get into Sweden illegally. Since it’s not possible to prove anything now that happened so long ago, I’m taking the risk of telling you.”
Wallander raised his hand.
“Let’s dig a little deeper,” he said. “What day was this?”
Jorgensen leaned forward and studied Wallander’s desk diary.
“Wednesday, May 13,” he said. “About six in the evening.”
That could fit, thought Wallander. It could have been Victor Mabasha’s replacement.
“He said he would stay for about a month?”
“I guess.”
“Guess?”
“I’m sure.”
“Go on,” said Wallander. “Don’t leave out any details.”
“We chatted about this and that,” said Jorgensen. “He was open and friendly. But all the time I somehow felt he was on his guard. I can’t really put it any better than that. We got to Limhamn. I docked, and he jumped ashore.
“Since I’d already been paid, I backed out again right away and turned back. I wouldn’t have given it another thought if I hadn’t happened to come across an old Swedish evening paper the other day. There was a photo on the front page of a guy I thought I recognized. A guy who got killed in a gun battle with the cops.”
He paused briefly.
“With you,” he said. “There was a picture of you as well.”
“When was the paper from?” asked Wallander, although he already knew the answer.
“I guess it was a Thursday paper,” said Jorgensen hesitantly. “It could have been the next day. May 14.”
“Go on,” said Wallander. “We can check up on that later if it’s important.”
“I recognized that photo,” said Jorgensen. “But I couldn’t place it. I didn’t catch on to who it was until the day before yesterday. When I dropped that African off in Limhamn, there was a giant of a guy waiting for him on the quayside. He stayed in the background, as if he didn’t want to be seen. But I have pretty good eyes. It was him. Then I started thinking about it all. I thought it might be important. So I took a day off and came here.”
“You did the right thing,” said Wallander. “I’m not going to pursue the fact that you were involved in illegal immigration into Sweden. But that assumes, of course, that you have nothing more to do with it.”
“I’ve already packed it in,” said Jorgensen.
“That African,” said Wallander. “Describe him to me.”
“About thirty,” said Jorgensen. “Powerfully built, strong and supple.”
“Nothing else?”
“Not that I can remember.”
Wallander put down his pen.
“You did the right thing, reporting this,” he said.
“Maybe it’s not important,” said Jorgensen.
“It’s extremely important,” said Wallander.
He stood up.
“Thanks for coming to tell me,” he said.
“That’s OK,” said Jorgensen, leaving.
Wallander looked for the copy he had kept of the letter he sent to Interpol in South Africa by telex. He pondered for a moment. Then he called Swedish Interpol in Stockholm.
“Chief Inspector Wallander, Ystad,” he said when they answered. “I sent a telex to Interpol in South Africa on Saturday, May 23. I wonder if there’s been any response.”
“If there had been, you’d have heard right away,” came the reply.
“Look into it, would you, just to be on the safe side,” Wallander requested.
He got an answer a few minutes later.
“A telex consisting of one page went to Interpol in Johannesburg in the evening of May 23. There has been no response beyond confirmation of receipt.”
Wallander frowned.
“One page?” he queried. “I sent two pages.”
“I have a copy in front of me right now. The thing does seem to stop in mid-air.”
Wallander looked at his own copy on the desk in front of him.
If only the first page had been transmitted, the South African police would not know Victor Mabasha was dead, and that a replacement had probably been sent.
In addition, it could be assumed the assassination attempt would be made on June 12, as Sikosi Tsiki had told Jorgensen the latest date he would be going home.
Wallander could see the implications right away.
The cops in South Africa had spent two weeks searching for a man who was dead.
Today was Thursday, June 11. The assassination attempt would probably be made on June 12.
Tomorrow.
“How the hell is this possible?” he roared. “How come you only sent half my telex?”
“I have no idea,” was the answer he received. “You’d better talk to whoever was in charge.”
“Some other time,” said Wallander. “I’ll be sending another telex shortly. And this one must go to Johannesburg without delay.”
“We send everything without delay.”
Wallander slammed down the receiver. He could not understand how the hell such incompetence was possible.
He did not bother to try and invent some kind of response. Instead he just put a new sheet of paper into his typewriter and composed a brief message. Victor Mabasha is no longer relevant. Look instead for a guy named Sikosi Tsiki. Thirty years of age, well-proportioned (he looked the phrase up in the dictionary, and rejected “powerfully built”), no other obvious peculiarities. This message replaces all previous ones. I repeat that Victor Mabasha is no longer relevant. Sikosi Tsiki is presumably his replacement. We have no photograph. Fingerprints will be investigated.
He signed the message and took it to reception.
“This must go to Interpol in Stockholm immediately,” he said. He did not recognize the receptionist.
He stood over her and watched her fax the message. Then he returned to his office. He thought it might be too late.
If he were not on sick leave, he would have demanded an immediate investigation into who was responsible for sending only half of his telex. But as things stood, he couldn’t be bothered.
He continued to attack the stacks of paper on his desk. It was nearly one o’clock by the time he was done. He had cleared his desk. Without a backward glance, he left his office and closed the door behind him. He saw nobody in the corridor, and managed to get away from the station without being seen by anybody apart from the receptionist.
There was just one more thing he had to do. Once that was done, he was finished.
He walked down the hill, passed the hospital, and turned left. All the time he thought everybody he met was staring at him. He tried to make himself as invisible as possible. When he got as far as the square, he stopped by the optician’s and bought a pair of sunglasses. Then he continued down Hamngatan, crossed over the Osterled highway, and found himself in the dock district. There was a cafe that opened for the summer. About a year ago he had sat there and written a letter to Baiba Liepa in Riga. But he had never mailed it. He walked out onto the pier, ripped it into pieces, and watched as the scraps floated away over the harbor. Now he intended to make another attempt to write to her, and this time he would send it. He had paper and a stamped envelope in his inside pocket. He sat down at a table in a sheltered corner, ordered coffee, and thought back to that occasion a year ago. He had felt pretty gloomy then, too. But that was nothing compared to the situation he found himself in now. He started writing whatever came into his head. He described the cafe he was sitting in, the weather, the white fishing boat with the light-green nets moored not far from where he sat. He tried to describe the sea air. Then he started writing about how he felt. He had trouble finding the right words in English, but he persevered. He told her how he was on sick leave for an indefinite period, and that he was not sure whether he would ever return to his post. I may well have concluded my last case, he wrote. And I solved it badly, or rather, not at all. I’m beginning to think I am unsuitable for the profession I have chosen. For a long time I thought the opposite was true. Now I’m not sure anymore.
He read through what he had written, and decided he was not up to rewriting it, even if he was very dissatisfied with his writing, which seemed to him vague and unclear. He folded up the sheet of paper, sealed the envelope, and asked for his check. There was a mailbox in the nearby marina. He walked over and mailed his letter. Then he continued walking out onto the jetty, and sat down on one of the stone piles. A ferry from Poland was on its way into the harbor. The sea was steel gray, blue and green in turn. He suddenly remembered the bicycle he had found there that foggy night. It was still hidden behind the shed at his father’s place. He decided to return it that same evening.
After half an hour he got to his feet and walked through the town to Mariagatan. He opened the door, then stood staring.
In the middle of the floor was a brand new stereo system. There was a card on top of the CD player.
Get well soon and hurry back. Your colleagues.
He remembered that Svedberg still had a spare key he had gotten so he could let in the workmen doing the repairs after the explosion. He sat down on the floor and gazed at the equipment. He was touched, and found it difficult to control himself. But he didn’t think he deserved it.
That same day, Thursday, June II, there was a fault in the telex lines between Sweden and southern Africa between noon and ten at night. Wallander’s message was therefore delayed. It was half past ten before the night operator transmitted it to his colleagues in South Africa. It was received, registered, and placed in a basket of messages to be distributed the next day. But somebody remembered a memo from some prosecutor by the name of Scheepers about sending all copies of telexes from Sweden to his office immediately. The cop in the telex room could not remember what they should do if messages arrived late in the evening or in the middle of the night. They could not find Scheepers’s memo either, although it ought to have been in the special file for running instructions. One of the men on duty thought it could wait until the next day, but the other was annoyed because the memo was missing. If only to keep himself awake, he started looking for it. Half an hour later, he found it-needless to say, filed away in the wrong place. Scheepers’s memo stated clearly and categorically that late messages should be conveyed to him immediately by telephone, regardless of the time. By then it was nearly midnight. The sum total of all these mishaps and delays, most of which were due to human error or sheer incompetence, was that Scheepers was not telephoned until three minutes past midnight on Friday, June 12. Even though he had made up his mind the assassination attempt would be in Durban, he had difficulty in getting to sleep. His wife Judith was asleep, but he was still awake, tossing and turning in bed. He thought it was a pity he hadn’t taken Borstlap with him to Cape Town after all. If nothing else it would have been an edifying experience. He was also worried that even Borstlap thought it was odd they had not received a single tip about where Victor Mabasha might be hiding, despite the big reward waiting to be collected. On several occasions Borstlap had said he thought there was something fishy about the total disappearance of Victor Mabasha. When Scheepers tried to pin him down, he just said it was a hunch, nothing based on fact. His wife groaned when the bedside telephone started ringing. Scheepers grabbed the receiver, as if he had been waiting for a call all the time. He listened to what the Interpol duty officer read out for him. He picked up a pen from the bedside table, asked to hear it one more time, then wrote two words on the back of his left hand.
Sikosi Tsiki.
He hung up and sat there motionless. Judith was awake by now, and wondered if anything had happened.
“Nothing of danger to us,” he said. “But it could be dangerous for somebody else.”
He dialed Borstlap’s number.
“A new telex from Sweden,” he said. “It’s not Victor Mabasha, but a guy called Sikosi Tsiki. The assassination attempt will probably take place tomorrow.”
“Goddammit!” said Borstlap.
They agreed to meet at Scheepers’ office without delay.
Judith could see her husband was scared.
“What’s happened?” she asked again.
“The worst that could possibly happen,” he replied.
Then he went out into the darkness.
It was nineteen minutes past midnight.