When they emerged into the street again, he proposed without more ado that they should eat at the Latvia Hotel. The sergeant nodded his approval, as if to indicate that the point he'd been trying to make all along had got through at last.
Wallander went up to his room with his presents, took off his jacket, and washed his hands in the bathroom. He hoped in vain the phone would ring and somebody ask for Mr Eckers, but nobody did. He locked his room door behind him and took the lift down to the ground floor. Even though Sergeant Zids had been with him, he had asked if there were any messages when he collected his room key: the receptionist shook her head. He looked around in reception for any of the colonels' men, but saw no one. He had sent Sergeant Zids ahead to the dining room, in the hope that this might result in their being seated at a different table from the usual one.
A woman waved to him. She was at a counter that sold newspapers and postcards. He had to look round before being sure he was the one she was beckoning. He walked over to her.
'Would you like to buy some postcards, Mr Wallander?' she asked.
'Not just now,' Wallander said, wondering how she knew his name. The woman was wearing a grey dress and was probably in her 50s. She had made the mistake of painting her lips bright red, and it occurred to Wallander that what she needed was an honest girlfriend to tell her how awful it looked.
She held out some cards for him to look at. 'Beautiful, aren't they?' she said. 'Wouldn't you like to see a bit more of our country?'
'I don't think I have time, I'm afraid,' he said. 'Otherwise I'd love to make a tour of Latvia.'
'I'm sure you can find time for an organ concert, though,' said the woman. 'You're fond of classical music after all, Mr Wallander.'
He gave an almost imperceptible start. How could she know his taste in music?
'There's an organ concert tonight in St Gertrude's Church' she told him. 'It starts at 7 p.m. I've drawn a map for you, in case you want to go.'
She handed it over to him, and he noticed it said Mr Eckers in pencil on the back.
'The concert is free,' the woman said, when she saw him fumbling in his inside pocket for his wallet.
Wallander nodded and put the map in his pocket. He bought some of the postcards, then went into the dining room. This time he was certain he was going to meet Baiba Liepa.
Sergeant Zids was sitting at the same old table, signalling to him. The dining room was unusually full, and the waiters seemed to be at full stretch for once. Wallander sat down and showed Zids his postcards.
'We live in a very beautiful country,' the sergeant said.
An unhappy country, Wallander thought. Wounded, crippled, like an injured animal. This evening I'll meet one of those birds with injured wings. Baiba Liepa.
CHAPTER 11
Wallander left the hotel at 5.30 p.m. He reckoned that if he couldn't shake off the shadows during the next hour, then he never would. When he said goodbye to Sergeant Zids after their lunch together – he had excused himself by saying he had some paperwork to deal with and preferred to do it in his hotel room – he had spent the rest of the afternoon trying to resolve how to get rid of the men tailing him.
He had no experience of being shadowed, and only very rarely had he done any shadowing of a suspect himself. He ransacked his memory to try to recall any words of wisdom from Rydberg about the difficulties of tailing people, but was forced to conclude he had not expressed any views on the art of shadowing. Wallander also realised that he could not plan any surprise manoeuvres since he wasn't familiar with the streets of Riga. He would have to seize any opportunity that arose, and he was not confident of succeeding, but he felt bound to try. Baiba Liepa wouldn't have gone to such lengths to ensure that they met in secret unless she had good reason. Wallander couldn't imagine someone married to the major would be prone to overly dramatic gestures.
It was already dark when he left the hotel, and it had started to get windy. He left his key at reception without saying where he was going or when he would be back. St Gertrude's Church, where the concert was to take place, was not far from the Latvia Hotel. He had a vague hope of being able to lose himself among all the people hurrying home from work.
Out in the street, he buttoned up his jacket and glanced quickly round, but couldn't see anybody who looked as if they were following him. Perhaps there was more than one of them? He knew that experienced shadows never trailed their target, but always tried to position themselves ahead. He walked slowly, stopping frequently to look at shop windows. He hadn't been able to think of a better ploy than pretending to be a foreigner who was looking for suitable souvenirs to take back home with him. He crossed the broad Esplanade and walked down the street behind the government offices. He thought of hailing a taxi and asking to be taken to somewhere and then transferring to another one, but decided that would be far too easy a ruse for a pursuer to see through. No doubt whoever was following him. could very quickly establish who had used the city's taxis and where they had gone.
He stopped at a window display of drab-looking clothes for men. He didn't recognise any of the people passing by behind him, whose reflections he could see in the glass. What am I doing, he wondered. Baiba, you should have told Mr Eckers how he could find his way to the church without being followed. He set off again. His hands were cold, and he regretted not bringing any gloves with him.
On the spur of the moment he went into a cafe, and entered a smoke-filled room crammed with people, that smelt strongly of beer and tobacco and sweat, and looked round for a table. There wasn't an empty one, but he could see a vacant chair right at the back in a corner. Two old men, each with a glass of beer in front of him, were deep in conversation and merely nodded when Wallander pointed inquiringly at the chair. A waitress with damp patches under her arms shouted something at him, and he pointed at one of the beer glasses. All the time, he was keeping an eye on the entrance: would his shadow follow him in? The waitress came with his frothing glass. He gave her a note and she put his change on the sticky table. A man in a worn black leather jacket came in. Wallander watched him make his way to a group that seemed to have been waiting for him, and sit down. Wallander took a sip of beer and glanced at his wristwatch: 5.55 p.m. Now he would have to make up his mind how to proceed. The door to the lavatory was diagonally behind him – every time the door opened, he was assailed by the stench of urine. When he had half-emptied his glass, he got up and went to the lavatory. He found himself in a narrow corridor with cubicles on each side and a urinal at the end, lit by a single bulb. He thought there might be a back door he could use, but the corridor was closed off by a brick wall. That's no good, he thought: no point in even trying. How do you get away from something you can't even see? Unfortunately Mr Eckers will have unwelcome company when he goes to the concert. His inability to find a solution was irritating him. As he was standing at the urinal, the door opened and a man came in and locked himself in one of the cubicles.
Wallander knew immediately that it was somebody who'd arrived at the cafe***after him – he had a good memory for faces. He didn't hesitate, knowing he would just have to risk making a mistake. He hurried back through the smoky cafe***and out the door. Out in the street, he looked round, peering into doorways, but could see no one. Quickly he retraced his steps, turned into a narrow alley and ran as fast as he could until he emerged once more into the Esplanade. A bus was standing at a stop, and he managed to board it just before the doors closed. He got off at the next stop without having been asked for the fare, left the main road and went down one of the numerous alleys. He paused in the light from a street lamp to check the map. He still had some time, and he ducked into a dark entrance to wait. For the next 10 minutes nobody he judged to be a possible shadow went by. He knew he might still be being watched, but he reckoned he had now done all he could.
He reached the church just before 7 p.m. It was already quite full, but he found a space by one of the side aisles, and watched the people still streaming into the church. He couldn't see anyone who might be his shadow, and nor could he see Baiba Liepa.
The sound of the organ shocked him. It was as if the whole church was about to be shattered by the sheer power of the music. Wallander remembered an occasion when, as a child, his father had taken him to church. The organ music had frightened him so much that he'd burst into tears. Now, he recognised something soothing in the music. Bach has no homeland, he thought. His music belongs everywhere. Wallander let the music seep into his consciousness.
Murniers might have been the one who phoned Major Liepa. Something the major said when he got back from Sweden might have driven Murniers to silence him swiftly. Major Liepa might have been ordered to report for duty.
