'Even when he claimed that a high-ranking police officer was deeply embroiled in criminal activity?'
Colonel Putnis warmed his cognac glass in his hands. 'He must have been referring to either Colonel Murniers or myself,' he said. 'That surprises me. His accusation was both inaccurate and irrational.'
'But there must have been some explanation?'
'Perhaps Major Liepa thought Murniers and I were getting old too slowly,' Putnis said with a smile. 'Perhaps he was dissatisfied by the fact that we stood between him and his own promotion?'
'Major Liepa didn't give me the impression of being especially concerned with his own career.'
Putnis nodded sagely. 'Let me suggest a plausible explanation,' he said, 'but I must stress it is strictly between ourselves.'
'I do not normally betray confidences.'
'About ten years ago Colonel Murniers succumbed to an unfortunate weakness,' Putnis said. 'He was caught taking a bribe from a director of one of our textile factories who had been arrested on suspicion of embezzlement. The money taken by Murniers was seen as compensation for his turning a blind eye to the fact that some of the arrested man's fellow-criminals had been given the opportunity to conceal certain documents that could have provided crucial proof.' 'What happened next?'
'The matter was hushed up. The businessman was given a symbolic sentence, and within a year he was appointed head of one of the country's biggest sawmills.'
'What happened to Murniers?'
'Nothing. He was full of remorse. He had been overworked at the time, and had gone through a painful and lengthy divorce. The tribunal assigned the task of judging the case decided that the offence should be forgiven. Perhaps Major Liepa had assumed, wrongly, that a temporary weakness was in fact a chronic character defect? That's the only explanation I can give you. Can I pour you some more cognac?'
Wallander held out his glass. Something Colonel Putnis had said, and also Murniers earlier, nagged at him, although he couldn't put his finger on it. Just then Ausma came in with the coffee tray, and began to tell Wallander with great enthusiasm about all the sights he must see before leaving Riga. As he listened to her, his anxiety nagged away in the back of his mind. Something crucial had been said, something barely noticeable: but it had caught his attention even so.
'The Swedish Gate,' Ausma said. 'You haven't even seen our monument from the time when Sweden was one of the great powers of Europe?'
'I must have missed it.'
'Sweden is still a great power even today,' Colonel Putnis said. 'A small country, but much envied on account of its great riches.'
Afraid of losing the thread of the vague suspicion he had intuitively registered, Wallander excused himself and went to the lavatory. He locked the door and sat down.
Many years ago, Rydberg had taught him the importance of immediately following up on a clue that seemed to dangle so close to his eyes that it was difficult to see. It dawned on him. Something Murniers had said, that had been contradicted by Colonel Putnis only moments ago, using almost the same words.
Murniers had spoken of Major Liepa's rationality, and Colonel Putnis about his irrationality. In view of what Putnis had vouchsafed about Murniers, perhaps that wasn't difficult to understand; but as Wallander sat there on the lavatory lid, he realised that he would have expected the pair to have precisely the opposite views.
'We suspect Murniers,' Baiba Liepa had said. 'We suspect he was betrayed.'
Maybe I've got it all wrong, Wallander thought. Maybe I'm seeing in Murniers what I ought to be looking for in Colonel Putnis? The one who spoke of Major Liepa as rational was the one I'd have expected to think the opposite. He tried to recall Murniers's voice, and it came to him that the colonel had possibly implied something more. Major Liepa is a rational person, a rational police officer: that would suggest his suspicions are correct.
He considered that proposition, and realised he had been far too ready to accept suspicions and information passed on to him at second and third hand. He flushed the lavatory and returned to his coffee and cognac.
'Our daughters,' Ausma said, holding out two framed portraits. 'Alda and Lija.'
'I have a daughter too,' Wallander said. 'She's called Linda.'
For the rest of the evening the conversation meandered aimlessly back and forth, and Wallander wished he could make a move to leave without appearing impolite.
Nevertheless, it was almost 1 a.m. by the time Zids pulled up outside the Latvia Hotel. Wallander had dozed in the back seat, and he realised he had drunk more than he should have. The next day he would be exhausted, and he'd have a hangover into the bargain.
He lay in bed staring out into the darkness for a long time before falling asleep. The two colonels melted into a single image. He would never be able to reconcile himself to going home until he'd done everything in his power to shed some light on Major Liepa's death. There are links, he thought. Major Liepa, the dead men in the life-raft, the arrest of Upitis. It's all connected. It's just that I can't see the chain yet. And behind my head, on the other side of that thin wall, there are invisible people registering every breath I take. Perhaps they will note down and report the fact that I'm lying here wide awake for hours before falling asleep? Maybe they think that enables them to read my thoughts? A solitary lorry trundled past in the street below. Just before he dozed off it occurred to him that he'd been in Riga for six days already.
CHAPTER 13
When Wallander woke the next morning he was just as tired and hungover as he had feared. His temples were throbbing, and when he brushed his teeth he thought he was going to be sick. He dissolved two headache tablets in a glass of water, and bemoaned the fact that his capacity for drinking strong liquor in the evening was a thing of the past.
He examined his face in the mirror and saw that he was getting more and more like his father. His hangover was not only making him feel miserable, that something was now lost forever, but he was also noticing the first vestiges of age in his pale, puffy face. He went down to the dining room at 7.30 a.m., had a cup of coffee and forced down a fried egg. He felt rather better once he had some coffee inside him. He had half an hour to himself before Sergeant Zids was due to collect him, and he rehearsed once more the facts in this complicated chain of events that had begun when two well-dressed, dead men drifted ashore at Mossby Strand. He tried to digest the discovery he had made the previous night, the possibility that it might well be Putnis and not Murniers who was pulling the strings in the background, but this thought merely led him back to square one. Nothing was clear. He had gathered that an investigation in Latvia was conducted in circumstances entirely different from those applying in Sweden. The amassing of facts and the establishing of a chain of proof was so very much more complicated against the shadowy backdrop of a totalitarian state.
Perhaps the first thing that had to be decided here was whether a crime should be investigated at all, he thought, or whether it might come into the category of 'non-crimes'. It seemed to him that he should redouble his efforts to extract explanations from the two colonels. As things stood at the moment, he couldn't know whether they were opening or closing invisible doors in front of him.
Eventually he got up and went out to find Sergeant Zids. As they drove through Riga, the combination of decrepit buildings and dreadful, grim squares filled him once more with a special kind of melancholy he had never before experienced. He imagined that the people he saw standing at bus stops or scurrying along the pavements felt the same desolation, and he shuddered at the thought. He felt homesick again, although he was not sure what there was about home that filled him with longing.
The phone rang as he opened the door of his office. He had sent Sergeant Zids to fetch some coffee.
'Good morning,' Murniers said, and Wallander could tell that the gloomy colonel was in a good mood. 'Did you have a pleasant evening?'
'I enjoyed the best food I've had since coming to Riga,' Wallander replied, 'but I'm afraid I had too much to drink.'
'Moderation is a virtue unknown in this country,' Murniers said. 'As I understand it, the success of Sweden is based on an ability to live with restraint.'
Before Wallander could think of a suitable response, Murniers continued. 'I have a most interesting document
