'Gehen!' he whispered. 'Schnell, nun. Gehen!'
Twigs and branches poked and scratched at Wallander's face. I'm crossing the final border, he thought, but I have barbed wire in my stomach.
They came to a boundary line cut through the forest like a street. Preuss held Wallander back briefly while he listened attentively, then he dragged him across the empty space and into the cover of the dense forest on the other side. After about 10 minutes they came upon a muddy cart track and found a car waiting. Wallander could see the glow from a cigarette inside. Somebody got out and came towards him with a hooded torch. All of a sudden, he realised Inese was standing before him.
It would be a long time before he forgot the surge of joy and relief at seeing her, at encountering something familiar after all the unknown. She smiled at him in the faint light from the torch, but he couldn't think of anything to say. Preuss stretched out his skinny hand in farewell, then was swallowed up by the forest before Wallander even had time to say goodbye.
'It's a long way to Riga,' Inese said. 'We must get going.'
Occasionally they left the road so that Inese could have a rest, and they also had a puncture in one of the tyres, which Wallander had managed to change with enormous effort. He had suggested he might do some of the driving, but she had merely shaken her head, without giving any explanation.
He realised straight away that something had happened. There was something hardened and determined about Inese that couldn't simply be put down to exhaustion. He sat beside her in silence, unsure whether she'd have the strength to answer questions. He had been told that Baiba Liepa was expecting him, and that Upitis was still in prison, that his confession had been reported in the newspapers.
'My name's Gottfried Hegel this time,' he said when they'd been under way for two hours and had stopped to fill up with petrol from a spare can he'd got from the back seat.
'I know,' Inese answered. 'It's not a very attractive name.'
'Tell me why I'm here, Inese. How am I to help you?'
She didn't answer. Instead, she asked him if he was hungry and passed him a bottle of beer and two meat sandwiches in a paper bag. Then they continued their journey. At one point he dozed off, but shook himself awake, worried that she might fall asleep at the wheel.
They reached the outskirts of Riga shortly before dawn. It was 21 March, his sister's birthday. In an attempt to embellish his new identity, he decided that Gottfried Hegel had a large number of brothers and sisters, and that his youngest sister was called Kristina. He could see Mrs Hegel in his mind's eye, a rather masculine woman with the beginnings of a moustache, and their house in Schwabingen built of red brick with a well-kept but characterless back garden. The story Lippman had supplied as background to the passport had been sketchy in the extreme. Wallander reckoned it would take an experienced interrogator no more than a minute to demolish Gottfried Hegel, and expose the passport as fake.
'Where are we going?' he asked.
'We're nearly there,' she replied.
'How can I be at all useful if nobody tells me anything?' he asked. 'What are you keeping from me? What's happened?'
'I'm tired,' she said, 'but we're pleased you've come back. Baiba is happy. She'll burst into tears when she sees you.'
'Why won't you answer my questions? Something's happened, I can see you're scared to death. What is it?'
'Everything has become much more difficult these last two weeks, but it's better if Baiba tells you herself. Anyway, there's a lot I don't know either.'
They were driving through the endless suburbs. The silhouettes of factories were vaguely visible against the yellow, street-lamp sky. The deserted streets were shrouded in fog, and it occurred to Wallander that this was how he'd imagined the countries of Eastern Europe, countries that called themselves socialist and declared themselves to be paradise on earth.
Inese stopped outside an oblong warehouse, switched off the engine, and pointed to a low, iron door at one gable end.
'Go there,' she said. 'Knock, and they'll let you in. I must go.'
'Will I see you again?'
'I don't know. That's up to Baiba.'
'Aren't you forgetting you're my girlfriend?'
She smiled fleetingly before answering. 'I might have been Mr Eckers's girlfriend,' she said, 'but I'm not sure I'm as fond of Herr Hegel. I'm a good girl and I don't run off with just any man.'
Wallander got out and she drove off immediately. Just for a moment he considered trying to find a bus stop and travelling into the city centre, where he'd be able to look for a Swedish Consulate or Embassy and get help to return home. He didn't dare to imagine how a Swedish diplomat would react to the story the Swedish police officer would have to tell. He could only hope that handling acute mental derangement was one of the skills a diplomat possessed. But it was too late for that. He would have to go through with what he'd embarked on.
He marched over the crunchy gravel and knocked on the iron door. A bearded man Wallander had never seen before opened it. He was cross-eyed, but gave him a friendly nod, peered over Wallander's shoulder to make sure he hadn't been followed, then ushered him quickly in and closed the door.
Wallander found himself in a warehouse full of toys. Wherever he looked were wooden shelves piled high with dolls. It was as if he'd descended to an underground catacomb with dolls' faces grinning at him like evil skulls. It was like a dream. Maybe he was in bed at his Mariagatan flat in Ystad and nothing that surrounded him was real? All he needed to do was to breathe steadily and wait until he woke up. But there was no welcome awakening to look forward to. Three more men emerged from the shadows, followed by a woman. Wallander recognised the driver who had sat in silence in the shadows when he had spoken to Upitis.
'Mr Wallander,' the man who had opened the door for him said, 'we're so pleased you've come to assist us.'
'I've come because Baiba Liepa asked me to,' Wallander answered. 'Not for any other reason. She's the one I want to meet.'
'That's not possible just now,' said the woman, in faultless English. 'Baiba is being watched constantly, but we think we know how we can get you to her.'
Wallander sat down on a rickety wooden chair, and was handed a cup of tea. He had difficulty making out the men's faces in the dim light. The cross-eyed man, who seemed to be the leader of the welcoming committee, squatted down in front of Wallander.
'We are in a very difficult position,' he said. 'We're all under constant observation because the police know there is a risk that Major Liepa has hidden away some documents that could threaten their existence.'
'So Baiba hasn't found the papers?'
'Not yet.'
'Has she any idea at all of where he might have hidden them?'
'No. But she believes you will be able to help her.'
'How will I be able to do that?'
'You are on our side, Mr Wallander. You're a police officer and used to solving riddles.'
They're mad, Wallander thought indignantly. They're living in a dream world, and I'm the last straw they have to clutch at. All at once he could understand what oppression and fear did to people. They put their hope in some unknown saviour who would spring from nowhere and redeem them.
Major Liepa had not been like that. He trusted no one but himself and his close friends and confidants. For him the alpha and omega of all the injustices forced upon the Latvian nation was reality. He was religious, but had refrained from allowing his religious ideals to be obscured by a god. Now the major was gone, and they no longer had a central point from which to orientate themselves: Kurt Wallander, the Swedish police officer, would have to enter the arena and shoulder the fallen mande.
'I must see Baiba Liepa as soon as possible,' he insisted. 'That's the only thing that really matters.'
'That will happen during the course of today,' the crosseyed man said.
Wallander felt exhausted. What he would most like to do would be to have a bath and then climb into bed and sleep. He didn't trust his own judgement when he was overtired, and he was afraid that he would make a mistake
