The Troubled Man (2011)

It was a man who asked if he was talking to the right person: he was hoping to reach Kurt, Kurt Wallander.

‘That’s me,’ shouted Wallander in an attempt to make himself heard through all the background noise. ‘Who are you?’

It seemed as if contact had been lost. Wallander was just about to replace the receiver when the voice became audible again, more clearly now, nearer.

‘Wallander?’ he said. ‘Is that you, Kurt?’

‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘Steven Atkins here. Do you know who I am?’

‘Yes, I know,’ Wallander shouted. ‘Hakan’s friend.’

‘Has he been found yet?’

‘No.’

‘Did you say “no”?’

‘Yes, I said “no.”’

‘So he’s been missing for a week now?’

‘Yes, more or less.’

The line started crackling again. Wallander assumed Atkins was using a mobile phone.

‘I’m getting worried,’ Atkins shouted. ‘He’s not the kind of man who simply vanishes.’

‘When did you last speak to him?’

‘On Sunday last week. In the afternoon. Swedish time.’

The day before he disappeared, Wallander thought.

‘Was it you who called, or did he call you?’

‘He called me. He said he’d reached a conclusion.’

‘What about?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t say.’

‘Is that all? A conclusion? Surely he must have said something else?’

‘Not at all. He was always very careful when he spoke on the phone. Sometimes he called from a public phone.’

The line crackled and faded again. Wallander held his breath; he didn’t want to lose the call.

‘I want to know what’s going on,’ said Atkins. ‘I’m worried.’

‘Did he say anything about going away?’

‘He sounded happier than he had been in a while. Hakan could be very gloomy. He didn’t like growing old; he was afraid of running out of time. How old are you, Kurt?’

‘I’m sixty.’

‘That’s nothing. Do you have an email address, Kurt?’

Wallander spelled out his address with some difficulty, but he didn’t mention that he hardly ever used it.

‘I’ll send you a message, Kurt,’ Atkins shouted. ‘Why don’t you come over and visit? But find Hakan first!’

His voice grew fainter again, and then the connection was broken. Wallander stood there with the receiver in his hand. Why don’t you come over? He replaced the receiver and sat down at the kitchen table, notepad and pencil in hand. Steven Atkins had given him new information, straight into his ear, from distant California. He thought back through the conversation with Atkins, line by line, point by point. The day before he disappeared, Hakan von Enke called California - not Sten Nordlander or his son. Was that a conscious choice? Had that particular call come from a public phone? Had von Enke gone out into the streets of Stockholm in order to make that call? It was a question with no answer. He continued writing until he had worked his way meticulously through the whole conversation. Then he stood up, stood some six feet away from the table, and stared at his notebook, like a painter studying what was on his easel from a distance. It was Sten Nordlander, of course, who had given Steven Atkins Wallander’s phone number. That wasn’t especially surprising. Atkins was just as worried as everybody else. Or was he? Wallander suddenly had the feeling that Hakan von Enke had been standing next to Steven Atkins when he made that call to Sweden. Then he dismissed the thought.

Wallander was growing tired of this case. It wasn’t his job to track down the missing person or to speculate about the various circumstances. He was filling his inactivity with spectres. Perhaps this was a test run for all the misery he would be bound to endure once he had also gone into retirement?

He prepared a meal, did some cleaning, then tried to read a book he had been given by Linda - about the history of the police force in Sweden. He was dozing off over the book when the phone woke him.

It was Ytterberg.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ he began.

‘Not at all. I was reading.’

‘We’ve made a discovery,’ said Ytterberg. ‘I thought you should know.’

‘A dead body?’

‘Burned to a cinder. We found him a few hours ago in a burned-out boarding house on Lidingo. Not that far from Lill-Jansskogen. The age is about right, but there’s no firm evidence that it’s him. We’re not saying anything to his wife or to anybody else right now.’

‘What about the press?’

‘We’re saying nothing at all to them.’

Wallander slept badly again that night. He kept getting out of bed, starting to read his book then putting it down again almost immediately. Jussi was lying in front of the open fire, watching him. Wallander sometimes allowed him to sleep indoors.

Shortly after six the next morning Ytterberg called. The body they found wasn’t Hakan von Enke. A ring on a charred finger had led to the identification. Wallander felt relieved, and went back to sleep until nine. He was having his breakfast when Lennart Mattson called.

‘It’s all over,’ he said. ‘The Employee Administration Board has decided to dock you five days’ pay for forgetting your pistol.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Aren’t you pleased?’

‘I’m more than pleased. So I assume I can come back to work. On Monday.’

And he did. Early Monday morning Wallander was at his desk once more.

But there was still no trace of Hakan von Enke.

9

The missing person remained missing. Wallander went back to work and was surrounded by smiling faces as his colleagues realised how mild his punishment had been. It was even suggested that they should start a collection to cover his fine, but nothing came of that. Wallander suspected that one or two of those welcoming him back with open arms were in fact concealing considerable Schadenfreude, but he made up his mind to ignore that. He was not going to go around looking for potential hypocrites; he didn’t have the time. He would only sleep even worse at night if he lay in bed working himself up about colleagues sneering at him behind his back.

His first serious case was an assault that had taken place on a ferry between Ystad and Poland. It was an exceptionally brutal attack, and a classic situation: no reliable witnesses and everybody blaming everybody else. The assault had occurred in a cramped cabin; the victim was a young woman from Skurup who was making the unfortunate trip with her boyfriend, whom she knew was prone to jealousy and couldn’t hold his drink. During the crossing they had joined up with a group of young men from Malmo who had only one goal in mind: to drink themselves silly.

Wallander conducted the investigation on his own, with occasional help from Martinsson. He didn’t need much in the way of assistance; the perpetrator was no doubt among the men the young woman had met during the crossing - one or more of whom had beaten her up and almost ripped off her left ear.

There were no new developments in the Hakan von Enke case. Wallander spoke almost every day to Ytterberg, who still couldn’t believe that the commander had run away of his own accord. This belief was supported