Wallander did everything he could to discover the truth. His first reaction when he saw Upitis through the two-way mirror was that Upitis had been betrayed, but then he started to have doubts. Too much was still unclear. Baiba Liepa's description of living in a society where conspiracy was the highest common denominator echoed in his ears. Even if Major Liepa's suspicions had been correct and Murniers was a corrupt police officer, if he was the person behind the major's death, the whole case seemed to be descending into the unreal. Was Murniers prepared to risk sending an innocent man to court merely in order to get rid of him? Wasn't that an act of extraordinary arrogance?
'If he's found guilty,' he asked Putnis, 'what punishment will he get?'
'We are sufficiently old-fashioned to have retained the death penalty,' Putnis said. 'Murdering a high-ranking police officer is just about the worst crime you can commit. I would expect him to be shot. Personally, I think that would be an appropriate punishment – what is your view, Inspector Wallander?'
Wallander made no reply. That he was in a country where they executed criminals was so horrific that he was rendered temporarily speechless.
Putnis was playing a waiting game, and Wallander realised that the two colonels often went in different directions without telling each other. Putnis had not even been informed of Murniers's anonymous tip-off. In the course of one of Murniers's most frenzied moments of hyperactivity during the morning, Wallander had invited Putnis into his office, asked Sergeant Zids to fetch some coffee, and tried to get Putnis to explain to him what was actually going on. From the start he had observed a certain tension between the colonels, and now, when he was more confused than ever, he thought he had nothing to lose by putting his misgivings to Putnis.
'Is this really the right man?' he asked. 'What motive could he have? A wooden club with some bloodstains and strands of hair – how can that be proof before anybody has even carried out forensic tests? The hair could be from a cat, couldn't it?'
Putnis shrugged. 'We shall see,' he said. 'Murniers is pretty sure of what he's doing. He very seldom arrests the wrong man – he's much more efficient than I am. But you seem to have misgivings, Mr Wallander. Might I ask on what grounds?'
'I just wonder, that's all,' Wallander said. 'All too often I've arrested a criminal who seemed to be the most unlikely of suspects.'
They sat in silence, drinking their coffee.
'Of course, it would be marvellous if Major Liepa's murderer could be caught,' Wallander said, 'but this Upitis doesn't look like the leader of a criminal network that made up its mind to dispose of a police officer.'
'Possibly he's a drug addict,' Putnis said hesitantly. 'Drug addicts can be driven to do anything at all. Somebody in the background might have given him an order.'
'To kill a senior police officer with a wooden club? A knife or a pistol, OK – but a wooden club? And how did he manage to carry the body to the harbour?'
'I don't know. That's what Murniers is going to find out.'
'How's it going with that man you are interrogating?'
'Well. He hasn't admitted anything yet, but he will. I'm convinced he's been part of the drug smuggling that the men who drifted ashore in the life-raft were involved in. Just now I'm keeping him waiting, giving him time to think over the situation he's in.'
Putnis went back to his office and Wallander sat perfectly still in his chair, trying to get a fix on the situation. He wondered whether Baiba Liepa knew that her friend Upitis had been arrested for the murder of her husband. He returned in his mind's eye to the hunting lodge in the forest, and realised it was conceivable that Upitis might have been afraid that Wallander knew something which might also have forced him to smash a Swedish police officer's head with a wooden club. Wallander could see that all theories were crumbling, all the trails getting cold, one by one. He tried to reassemble the pieces to see if there was anything he could salvage.
After an hour of quiet contemplation, he concluded there was only one thing for him to do – go back to Sweden.
He had come to Riga because the Latvian police had asked for his assistance. He hadn't been able to give them any help, and now that a culprit seemed to have been arrested, there was no longer any reason for him to stay. He had no choice but to accept his own confusion, accept that he had actually been interrogated at night by a man who might turn out to be the person he'd been looking for. He had played the role of Mr Eckers without knowing anything about the play he assumed he was taking part in. The only sensible thing to do was to go home as soon as possible and forget the whole business. And yet, he was reluctant to do that. Beyond all the uneasiness and confusion there was something else: Baiba Liepa's fear and defiance, Upitis's weary eyes. It occurred to him that much about Latvian society was beyond his comprehension, it might also be that he could see things the others couldn't see.
He decided to give it a few more days. As he felt the need to do something practical, instead of just sitting and brooding in his office, he asked Sergeant Zids, who had been waiting patiently in the corridor, to fetch the documentation for all the cases Major Liepa had been concerned with over the past twelve months. He could see no obvious way forward, so he decided to go backwards for a while, into the major's recent past. Perhaps he might be able to find something in the archives that could provide a lead.
Sergeant Zids demonstrated his usual efficiency by returning after half an hour with a bundle of dusty files. Six hours later Sergeant Zids was hoarse and complaining of a headache. Wallander had allowed neither Zids nor himself a lunch break: they had gone through the files one by one, and Sergeant Zids had translated, explained, answered Wallander's questions, then gone on translating. Now they had come to the last page of the last report in the last file, and Wallander had to face his disappointment. He knew that during the last year of his life Major Liepa had arrested a rapist, a robber who had been terrorising one of Riga's suburbs for ages, solved two cases of postal forgery, and cracked three murders of which two had taken place in families where the murderer and the victim had known each other. He had found no trace of what Baiba Liepa had maintained was her husband's real task. There was no doubt that Major Liepa had been a conscientious and at times even pedantic investigator, but that was all Wallander had been able to glean from the day's work. As he sent Zids off to return the files, it occurred to him that the only remarkable thing about them was what wasn't there. Major Liepa must have saved his data from the covert investigation somewhere, Wallander was certain of it. He couldn't have carried it all in his head. He had no doubt there was a risk of being caught out, so how could he seriously contemplate conducting an investigation aimed at the future without leaving a testimony somewhere or other? He could have been run over by a bus, and there would be no record. There must be a written record somewhere, and somebody must know where it was. Did Baiba Liepa know? Or Upitis? Was there some other person in the major's background, somebody the major had even kept secret from his wife? 'Every secret we confide in another person can be a burden to them,' Baiba Liepa had said, and those were certainly her husband's words.
Sergeant Zids came back from the archives. 'Did Major Liepa have any family apart from his wife?' Wallander asked him.
'I don't know,' he replied, 'but no doubt Mrs Liepa will.'
Wallander didn't want to ask Baiba Liepa that question just yet. He thought that from now on, he had no alternative but to follow what seemed to be the normal procedure here, and not to pass on any unnecessary information or confidences, but act on his own according to a private agenda.
'There must be a personal dossier on Major Liepa,' he said. 'I'd like to see it.'
'I don't have access to that,' Sergeant Zids said. 'Only a few people can access the personal archives.'
Wallander pointed to the telephone. 'Call somebody who does have that access,' he said. 'Tell them that the Swedish police officer wants to see Major Liepa's personal dossier.'
Sergeant Zids finally managed to contact Colonel Murniers, who promised that Major Liepa's dossier would be produced immediately. Three quarters of an hour later it was on Wallander's desk. It was in a red file, and the first thing he saw on opening it was the major's face. It was an old photograph, and he was surprised to see that the major's appearance had hardly changed in over ten years.
'Translate!' he told Zids.
The sergeant shook his head. 'I don't have the authority to see the contents of red files,' he said.
'If you're allowed to collect the file, surely you're allowed to translate the contents for me?'
Sergeant Zids shook his head sadly. 'I don't have the authority,' he said.
'I'm giving you the authority. All you need to do is to tell me if Major Liepa had any other family besides his wife. Then I'll order you to forget everything.'
