It was a cold morning. He turned up the collar of his jacket and decided to get some breakfast before putting his plan into operation. After wandering the streets for 20 minutes or so, he found a cafe. It was half empty, but he went in and ordered coffee and some sandwiches, then sat down at a corner table that was hidden from the entrance. By 7.30 a.m. he knew he could wait no longer. Now it was make or break time.
Half an hour later he was standing outside the Latvia Hotel, exactly where Sergeant Zids had waited for him in his car. He hesitated. Maybe he was too early. Maybe the woman with the red lips hadn't arrived yet? He went in, glanced over at reception, where several early birds were paying their bills, passed the sofa where his shadows had sat buried in their newspapers, and discovered that the woman actually was there, standing at her counter, carefully setting out various newspapers in front of her. What if she doesn't recognise me, he wondered. Perhaps she's just a messenger who doesn't know anything about the errands she is running?
At that very moment she saw him, standing next to one of the big columns in the foyer. He could tell that she recognised him immediately, knew who he was, and wasn't frightened to see him again. He went over to her table, reached out his hand, and explained loudly in English that he wanted to buy postcards. In order to give her time to get used to his sudden appearance, he kept on talking. Did she happen to have any postcards of old Riga? There was nobody nearby, and when he thought he'd been talking for long enough he leaned forward, as if to ask her to explain some detail or other on one of the postcards.
'You recognise me,' he said. 'You gave me a ticket for the organ concert where I met Baiba Liepa. Now you must help me to see her again. You're the only person who can help me. It's very important for me to meet Baiba, but at the same time, you ought to be clear that it is very dangerous, as she's being watched. I don't know if you are aware of what happened yesterday. Show me something in one of your brochures, pretend you are explaining it to me, but answer my question.'
Her bottom lip started trembling, and he could see her eyes filling with tears. As he couldn't risk her crying and drawing attention to them, he quickly explained how he was very interested in postcards not only of Riga, but also of the whole of Latvia. A good friend of his had said there was always an excellent selection of cards at the Latvia Hotel.
She pulled herself together, and he told her he realised she must know what had happened. But did she also know he had returned to Latvia? She shook her head.
'I have nowhere to go,' he said. 'I need somewhere to hide while you arrange for me to meet Baiba.'
He didn't even know her name. Did he have any right to ask her to do this for him? Wouldn't it be better if he gave up and went looking for the Swedish Embassy? Where do you draw the line on what is reasonable and decent in a country where innocent people are gunned down indiscriminately?
'I don't know if I can arrange for you to meet Baiba,' she said in a low voice. 'I've no idea if it's still possible. But I can hide you in my home. I'm much too insignificant a person for the police to be interested in me. Come back in an hour. Wait at the bus stop on the other side of the street. Go now.'
He stood up again, thanked her like the satisfied customer he was pretending to be, put a brochure in his pocket, and left the hotel. He spent the next hour among the crowd of customers at one of the big department stores, and bought himself a new hat in an attempt to change his appearance. After an hour he went to stand at the bus stop. He saw her emerge from the hotel, and when she came to stand beside him, she pretended he was a total stranger. A bus came after a few minutes, they got on, and Wallander sat a couple of rows behind her. For over half an hour the bus circled around the city before heading off in the direction of the suburbs. He tried to make a note of the route, but the only landmark he recognised was the enormous Kirov Park. They came to a huge, drab housing estate, and when she pressed the bell to stop the bus he was taken by surprise, and almost didn't get off in time. They walked through a frosty playground where some children were climbing on a rusty frame. Wallander trod on the swollen body of a cat lying dead on the ground. He followed the woman into a dark, echoing entrance. They emerged into an open atrium where the cold wind bit into their faces. She turned to face him.
'My flat is very small,' she said. 'My father lives with me, he's very old. I'll just tell him you're a homeless friend. Our country is full of homeless people, and it's only natural for us to help each other. Later on my two children will come home from school. I'll leave them a note to say they should make you some tea. It's very cramped, but it's all I can offer you. I must go straight back to the hotel.'
The flat consisted of two small rooms, a kitchenette and a minuscule bathroom. An old man lay resting on a bed.
'I don't even know your name,' Wallander said, accepting the coat-hanger she held out for him.
'Vera,' she said. 'You're called Wallander.'
She said his surname as though it had been his first name, and it occurred to him that he barely knew what to call himself at the moment. The old man on the bed sat up, but when he was about to stand up with the aid of his walking stick and shake hands, Wallander protested. That wasn't necessary, he didn't want to cause any inconvenience. Vera produced some bread and cold meat in the little kitchen, and he protested again: what he was looking for was somewhere to hide, not a restaurant. He felt embarrassed at having to ask her to help him out like this, and guilty about the fact that his own flat in Mariagatan was three times the size of the space she had at her disposal. She showed him the other room where most of the space was taken up by a large bed.
'Close the door if you want some peace,' she said. 'You can rest here. I'll try to get back from the hotel as soon as I can.'
'I don't want to put you in any danger,' he said.
'When something is necessary, it has to be done,' she said. 'I'm glad you came to me.'
Then she left. Wallander slumped down on the edge of the bed. He'd got this far. Now all he needed to do was to wait for Baiba Liepa.
Vera got back from the hotel just before 5 p.m. By then Wallander had had tea with her two children, Sabine aged 12 and her elder sister Ieva, 14. He had learnt some Latvian words, they had giggled at his hopeless rendition of 'This little piggy went to market', and Vera's father had even sung an old soldier's ballad for them in a shaky voice. Wallander had managed to forget his mission and the image of Inese shot through the eye and the brutal massacre. He had discovered that normal life existed away from the clutches of the colonels, and that was precisely the world Major Liepa had been defending. People were meeting in remote hunting lodges and warehouses for the sake of Sabine and Ieva and Vera's ancient father.
When Vera got back she hugged her daughters, then shut herself in her bedroom with Wallander. They were sitting on her bed, and the situation suddenly seemed to embarrass her. He touched her arm in an effort to express his gratitude for what she had done, but she misunderstood the gesture and pulled away. He realised it would be a waste of time trying to explain, and instead asked whether she had managed to contact Baiba Liepa.
'Baiba is crying,' she said. 'She is mourning her friends. Most of all she is crying for Inese. She had warned them the police had stepped up their activities, and pleaded with them to be careful. Even so, what she most dreaded came to pass. Baiba is crying, but she is also possessed by fury, just like me. She wants to meet you tonight, Wallander, and we have a plan for how to proceed. But before we do anything else, we must have something to eat. If we don't eat, we have as good as given up all hope.'
They managed to fit themselves around a dining table that she folded down from one of the walls in the room where her father had his bed. It seemed to Wallander that it was as if Vera and her family lived in a caravan. In order to make room for everything, meticulous organisation was essential, and he wondered how it was possible to live a whole life in such cramped conditions. He thought of the evening he had spent in Colonel Putnis's mansion outside Riga. It was in order to protect their privileges that one of the colonels had instructed his subordinates to undertake an indiscriminate witch-hunt for people like the major and Inese. Now he could see how great the differences were in their lives. Every transaction between these people left blood on their hands.
The meal consisted of vegetable stew produced by Vera on her tiny stove. The girls set the table with a loaf of coarse bread and beer. Wallander could sense the tremendous tension in Vera, but she succeeded in concealing it from her family. Yet again he asked himself what right he had to expose her to such risks. How would he ever be able to live with himself if anything happened to her?
After the meal the girls cleared the table and did the washing up, while the old man went back to bed to rest.
'What's your father's name?' Wallander asked.
