worried. Inese's blood-covered face hovered in his mind's eye, and he tried to work out what might have gone wrong. Had the dogs and their handlers realised that Wallander had managed to slip out of the university building unseen, despite their best efforts? In which case, what would they have done with Baiba? He did not dare to even think about that. He left the park, not knowing where to go next. What made him keep walking along the dark, deserted streets was really the pain in his hand. A military jeep with sirens blaring forced him to leap headfirst into a dark entrance, and not long afterwards a police car came racing down the street he was walking along, forcing him once more to withdraw into the shadows. He had put the file containing the major's testimony down the front of his shirt, and the edges were scratching against his ribs. He wondered where he was going to spend the night. The temperature had dropped, and he was trembling with cold. The alternative rendezvous he and Baiba had agreed on was the fourth floor of the central department store, but that wasn't until 10 a.m. the next morning, so he had nine hours to fill and couldn't possibly spend them walking the streets. He was convinced he had broken his hand, and knew he should go to a doctor, he daren't go to a casualty department. Not now that he had the testimony with him. He wondered whether he ought to try and find shelter for the night at the Swedish Embassy, assuming there was one, but he didn't like that option either. What if the law said that a Swedish police officer who had entered the country illegally should be sent home immediately under guard? He daren't take the risk.
Uneasily, he decided to go to the car that had served him well for two whole days now, but when he got to where he'd left it, it had gone. He thought for a moment that he was so disorientated by the pain in his hand that he had remembered wrongly. Was this really the place where he'd parked the car? Yes, it definitely was – no doubt the car had been dismanded and quartered like a farm animal by now. Whichever one of the colonels was pursuing him had doubdess made certain the major's testimony wasn't hidden somewhere in the car.
Where was he going to spend the night? He suddenly felt totally helpless, deep inside enemy territory, at the mercy of a pack of dogs managed by somebody who wouldn't hesitate to butcher him and sling him into the frozen harbour or bury him in a remote wood. His homesickness was primitive but tangible. The reason why he was now stranded in Latvia in the middle of the night – a life-raft containing two dead men, washed up on the Swedish coast – seemed vague and distant, like it had never really happened.
For want of an alternative he made his way back through the empty streets to the hotel where he had earlier spent the night, but the door was locked and no lights went on upstairs when he rang the night bell. The pain in his hand was making him confused, and he was beginning to worry about whether he would lose his ability to think rationally altogether if he didn't get indoors soon, and thaw out. He went on to the next hotel, but once again he was unable to get any response when he rang the night bell. At the third hotel, though, which was even more decrepit and unappealing than the others, the outer door was not locked and he went in to find a man asleep behind the reception desk, his head resting on a table, a half-empty bottle of vodka at his feet. Wallander shook the man to wake him up, flourished the passport he'd been given by Preuss, and was handed a room key. He pointed at the vodka bottle, put a Swedish hundred-krona note on the desk, and took it with him.
The room was small, with an acrid smell of musty furniture and nicotine-stained wallpaper. He flopped down on to the edge of the bed, took a couple of long swigs from the bottle, and could feel his body warmth slowly starting to return. Then he took off his jacket, filled the basin with cold water, and immersed his swollen, throbbing hand. The pain began to ease, and he reconciled himself to having to sit like this all night. Occasionally he took another swig from the bottle, and wondered anxiously what could have happened to Baiba.
He took the blue file from inside his shirt and opened it with his free hand. It contained about 50 typewritten pages, plus some blurred photocopies, but no photographs, which was what he had hoped for. The major's text was in Latvian, and Wallander couldn't understand a word. He noted that from page nine onwards the names Murniers and Putnis kept recurring at regular intervals: sometimes they were together in the same sentence. He couldn't work out what that meant, whether both colonels were being accused or whether the major's accusing finger had been pointed at just one of them. He gave up the attempt to decipher the secret document, put the file down on the floor, refilled the hand basin with water, and leaned his head back against the edge of the table. It was 4 a.m., and he dozed off. When he woke up with a start, he found he'd been asleep for 10 minutes. His hand had started hurting again, and the cold water was no longer easing the pain. He finished off what was left in the vodka bottle, wrapped a damp towel round his hand, and lay down on the bed.
Wallander had no idea what to do if Baiba failed to keep their rendezvous at the department store. He was beginning to have the feeling he had been defeated. He lay awake until dawn.
CHAPTER 18
He sensed danger the moment he woke. It was nearly 7 a.m. He lay quite still in the darkness, listening. Eventually, he realised the danger was not a threat outside the door or somewhere in the room, but inside himself. It was a warning that he still hadn't turned over every stone to discover what was lying underneath it.
The pain seemed to have eased a little. Carefully, he tried to move his fingers although he still couldn't bear to look at his hand. The pain returned immediately. He wouldn't be able to last many hours more before seeing a doctor.
Wallander was exhausted. Before he'd dozed off, some hours earlier, he had felt defeated. The colonels' power was too great, and his own ability to handle the situation had been continually curtailed. Now, he could see that he was also being defeated by exhaustion. He didn't trust his own judgement, and he knew this was due to a lack of sleep over a long period.
He tried to analyse the nagging feeling he had experienced on waking. What had he overlooked? Where, in all his thoughts and his constant efforts to establish connections, had he drawn the wrong conclusions, or perhaps not thought things through properly? What had he still not managed to see? He couldn't ignore his instinct. Just now, in his dazed condition, it was his only chance of getting his bearings.
What had he still not managed to see? He sat up in bed carefully, still not having answered the question. He looked in disgust at his swollen hand for the first time, and filled the basin with cold water. He first dipped his face into it, then his injured hand. After a few minutes he went over to the window and opened the blind. There was a very strong smell of coal. Misty dawn was just breaking over the church towers of the city. He stayed at the window and watched all the people hurrying along the pavements, but he was still unable to answer his own question: what had he failed to see?
Then he left the room, paid, and allowed himself to be swallowed up by the city. It was as he walked through one of the city's many parks – he couldn't remember what it was called – that he noticed how many dogs there were in Riga. It wasn't just the invisible pack that was pursuing him. There were lots of other dogs, real ones, the kind people play with and take for walks. He paused to watch a pair of dogs involved in a violent fight. One was an Alsatian, the other a mongrel. The two owners were shouting at their dogs as they tried to separate them, and then began to shout at each other as well. The owner of the Alsatian was an elderly man, but the mongrel belonged to a woman in her 30s. Wallander had the feeling that what he was witnessing was symbolic of the opposing forces in Latvia. The dogs were fighting and the people as well, and there were no outcomes that could be predicted in advance.
He arrived at the central department store just as they were opening at 10 a.m. The blue folder was burning hot inside his shirt: his instinct told him he ought to get rid of it, to find a temporary hiding place.
While he'd been wandering around the streets that morning, he had monitored every movement behind and in front of him, and he was now certain that the colonels had encircled him again. There were more shadows than ever now, and the grim thought that a storm was brewing struck him. He stopped just inside the entrance and pretended to read an information board, but in fact he was observing a left luggage counter where customers could leave bags and parcels. The counter was L-shaped. He had remembered it all correctly. He went over to the bureau de change, handed over a Swedish note and received a bundle of Latvian notes in exchange. Then he went up to the floor where they sold records. He picked out two LPs of Verdi, and noted that the records were just about the same size as the file. When he paid and had the records put in a carrier bag, he saw the closest of the shadows pretending to study a shelf with jazz records. He then went back to the left luggage counter and waited for a few seconds until there were several people waiting to be served. He walked quickly to the farthest corner of the counter, pulled out the file and placed it between the records. He acted quickly, even though he could only use one hand properly. He handed in the carrier bag, was given a tag with a number, and walked away. The various
