The morning was grey and windy. A snowstorm was expected over Skane towards evening, and since a particularly nasty flu virus had gained a foothold among the police, Bjork felt he had to release Svedberg from the case for the time being: there was an urgent list of other crimes awaiting immediate attention. Loven and Ronnlund had gone back to Stockholm, and as Bjork was not feeling too well, he left Martinsson and Wallander to get on with the investigation with Major Liepa. They were sitting around in the conference room, and Major Liepa was chain- smoking.
The major's smoking habits presented a serious problem at the station. Anti-smoking agitators protested to Bjork that Liepa smoked all the time, particularly in smoke-free areas of the station. Bjork urged his colleagues to display a degree of tolerance that guests had a right to expect, but he also asked Wallander to find a tactful way of explaining that the smoking ban must be observed. When Wallander summoned up his shaky English and explained how important it was for Swedish rules regarding smoking to be observed, Liepa shrugged and stubbed out his cigarette without further ado. From then on he made an effort to avoid smoking anywhere other than in Wallander's office and the conference room, but even Wallander was finding it hard to put up with the smoke, and he asked Bjork that Major Liepa be given an office of his own. In the end, Svedberg moved in with Martinsson, and Liepa was installed in Svedberg's office.
Major Liepa was very short-sighted. His rimless spectacles seemed to be much too weak, and when he was reading he held documents only a couple of inches in front of his eyes. He seemed to sniff the paper, rather than scrutinising it, and anyone watching found it hard not to laugh out loud. Wallander occasionally heard officers making disparaging remarks about the little hunchbacked Latvian major, but he had no hesitation in discouraging such condescending behaviour. He had found Liepa an extremely shrewd and perceptive police officer; not unlike Rydberg, not least in being passionate in his enthusiasm. Criminal cases might nearly always be subject to standard procedures, but Wallander knew that was no reason to let one's thoughts get into a rut. Major Liepa was an inspired detective, and his colourless appearance camouflaged a clever man and an experienced investigator.
The previous evening Wallander had played canasta with his father, and then set his alarm clock for 5 a.m. so he would have time to read a brochure about Latvia that a local bookseller had found for him. It had occurred to him that it would be a good idea to begin by informing each other as to how the police forces in their respective countries actually worked. The fact that the Latvian police used military ranks indicated big differences between the two forces. Over his morning coffee Wallander had tried to formulate some general principles in English concerning the working methods of the Swedish police, but it struck him that he didn't really know how the Swedish police force worked. Things weren't made any easier by the fact that the national police commissioner had recently introduced wide-ranging reforms, and Wallander seemed to be endlessly reading badly written memos describing the changes. When he asked Bjork what these changes really meant, he had been given vague, evasive replies. Now, sitting opposite the chain-smoking major, he reckoned he might as well forget all such matters – if any misunderstanding arose they would sort it out.
When Bjork had excused himself, coughing away heartily, Wallander decided that it was time to break the ice. He asked Major Liepa where he was staying in Ystad.
'In a hotel,' Liepa replied. 'I don't know what it's called.'
Wallander was disconcerted. Liepa seemed to have no interest in anything other than the case in hand.
Better leave the polite chit-chat until later, he thought. All we have in common is an investigation into a double murder, nothing else.
Major Liepa embarked on a long and detailed account of how the Latvian police had been able to establish the identity of the two dead men. His English was not good, and this obviously irritated him. During one of their breaks,
Wallander rang his bookseller friend and asked whether he had an English-Latvian dictionary in stock, but he didn't.
They were going to have to undertake a difficult journey together with very little of a common language.
After more than nine hours of intensive reading of reports – Martinsson and Wallander staring at their copies of an incomprehensible, stencilled document in Latvian while Major Liepa translated, pausing all the while to try and find the right word before continuing – Wallander thought he had more or less grasped what had happened. Despite their comparative youth, Leja and Kalns had made a name for themselves as a pair of volatile and predatory criminals. Wallander noted the contempt with which Major Liepa described them as members of the Russian minority in his country. He had known that the large group of ethnic Russians that had lived in Latvia since Russia annexed the Baltic states at the end of the Second World War were opposed to the campaign for national liberation, but he hadn't been aware of the extent of the problem. He simply didn't have the political insight, he told himself. Major Liepa made no attempt to conceal his disgust at this situation, making it plain on several occasions.
'These Russians were bandits,' he said, 'members of our eastern Mafia.'
Leja was 28 and Kalns barely 30, but they each had substantial criminal records: robbery, assault, smuggling and illegal currency transactions. The Riga police suspected that at least three murders could be attributed to the pair, but it had not been possible to bring charges.
When Major Liepa finished translating the reports and extracts from criminal records, Wallander asked a question that seemed to him crucial.
'These men have committed many big crimes,' he said. (Martinsson interjected, suggesting that a better word in English might be 'serious') 'What appears odd is the fact that they have only been in prison for very short periods.
I mean, they were convicted criminals and had been sentenced.'
Major Liepa's face broke into a broad smile, and he seemed keen to respond. That was a question he was hoping for, Wallander thought. It was worth more than all the polite exchanges he could have mustered.
'I have to explain the situation in my country,' Major Liepa said, lighting another cigarette. 'No more than 15 per cent of the population of Latvia are Russians, but even so, Russians have controlled our country in every way since the end of the war. The sending in of Russian nationals is one way used by Moscow to suppress us – it might be the most effective method used. You ask me why Leja and Kalns have spent so little time in prison when they should really have been there for life, even executed. Well I do not say that all public prosecutors and judges are corrupt: that would be an over-simplification, it would be a controversial and unethical claim. What I say is that Leja and Kalns had powerful protectors behind them.'
'The Russian Mafia,' Wallander said.
'Yes and no. The Mafia in our country also needs subtle protectors. I'm convinced that Leja and Kalns spent a lot of their time serving the KGB. The secret police never likes to see its own men in prison, unless they are traitors or defectors. The shadow of Stalin has always hovered over the heads of people like that.'
The same is true of Sweden, was Wallander's immediate reaction. We might not be able to refer to such a monster in our recent history, but a complicated network of interdependent individuals is not the exclusive preserve of a totalitarian state.
'The KGB,' Major Liepa said. 'And the Mafia. They're linked. Everything is connected by links only the initiated can see.'
'The Mafia,' Martinsson interrupted, who so far had remained silent, apart from helping Wallander with his English. 'That's something new for us in Sweden, the concept of well-organised Russian or East European crime syndicates. A few years ago the Swedish police became aware of gangs of Russian origin, in Stockholm especially, we still know very little about them. There have been isolated incidents of brutality warning us that something of this kind was appearing in Sweden, and we are aware that over the next few years this type of criminal will seek to infiltrate our own underworld, and establish themselves in key positions.'
Wallander was jealous of the fluent way that Martinsson could express himself in English. His pronunciation might be awful, but his vocabulary was much richer than Wallander's. Why didn't the national police board provide courses in English, instead of all those daft jamborees about staff development and internal democracy?
'I'm sure you're right,' Major Liepa said. 'As the Communist states start to disintegrate, they behave like shipwrecked sailing boats: the criminals are the rats, the first to leave the sinking ship. They have contacts; they have money; they also have access to advice. A lot of the refugees from the Eastern bloc are nothing but criminals. Not fleeing oppression, but seeking new territory. It's easy for them to forge a new past and identity.'
