The Troubled Man (2011)

him as a birthday present the previous year. It was a painting by Degas. He sorted the pieces methodically, and managed to complete the bottom left-hand corner of the puzzle.

The whole time, he continued to wonder what had happened to Hakan von Enke. But it was mainly his own fate he was thinking about.

He kept searching for the Berlin Wall that didn’t exist.

10

One afternoon at the beginning of June, Wallander drove to the marina in Ystad and walked to the bench furthest out on the jetty. It was one of his favourite retreats, a confessional without a priest, a place he often went when he wanted to be left alone to come to terms with something that was troubling him. It had been a cold spring, wet and windy, but now the first ridge of high pressure had drifted in over Skane. Wallander took off his jacket, looked up at the sun and closed his eyes. But he opened them again immediately. He was remembering the words of one of his father’s neighbours. You had a father who was very fond of you. He had often asked himself if that was true. The fact that he had become a police officer was something his father could never get over. But there must have been so much more to his life. Mona thought her father-in-law was awful and refused to accompany Wallander when he went to visit him. He and Linda ended up being the only ones in the car whenever he drove to Loderup. His father was always friendly towards his granddaughter. He displayed a degree of patience with Linda that neither Wallander nor his sister, Kristina, had experienced when they were young.

He was an elusive man, somebody you could never pin down, Wallander thought. Am I becoming like him?

A man about his own age was sitting on the rail of his little fishing boat, cleaning a net. He was concentrating, and humming to himself as he worked. As Wallander contemplated him, it occurred to him that he would love to change places - from the bench to the net, from the police station to a handsome boat made of varnished wood.

His father was an unsolved riddle as far as he was concerned. Was he himself just as much of a riddle to Linda? What would Wallander’s granddaughter say about her grandfather? Would he be no more than a shadowy and silent old police officer who sat alone in his house, visited less and less often by fewer and fewer people? That’s what I’m afraid of, Wallander thought. And I have every reason in the world to be afraid. I certainly haven’t cherished and taken good care of my friendships.

In many cases it was too late now. Some of the people who had been close to him were dead. Rydberg above all, but also his old friend the racehorse trainer Sven Widen. Wallander had never understood those who claimed you didn’t need to lose touch with people simply because they were dead, that you could keep on talking to them in their graves. He had never managed to do that. The dead were faces he barely remembered any more, and their voices no longer spoke to him.

Reluctantly he stood up from the bench. He would have to go back to the police station. The investigation into the assault on the ferry was closed and a man had been found guilty, although Wallander was convinced that there had been two men involved in the attack. It was half a victory: one person was found guilty, one got justice, if that was possible after having your face smashed in. But another person had slipped through the net.

It was three in the afternoon by the time Wallander returned from his excursion to the bench on the jetty. There was a note on his desk saying Ytterberg had called and wanted to speak to him. Whoever had taken the call had noted that it was urgent. Everything was always urgent in Wallander’s life as a policeman. He had never received a non-urgent message. So he didn’t return the call right away, but first read a memo from the National Police Board that Lennart Mattson had asked him to comment on. It was about one of the reorganisations that were constantly being imposed on various local police forces. This time it was about setting up a system to ensure a bigger police presence in the streets on holidays and weekends, not only in the big cities but also in towns like Ystad. Wallander read through the document and was annoyed by the pompous and bureaucratic language in which it was couched. When he finished he was aware that he didn’t really understand what it had said. He wrote a few meaningless comments and put it all in an envelope that he would deposit in the chief’s in-box when he left for the day.

Then he called Ytterberg, who answered immediately.

‘You called,’ said Wallander.

‘Now she’s disappeared too.’

‘Who?’

‘Louise. Louise von Enke. She’s vanished as well.’

Wallander held his breath. Were his ears deceiving him? He asked Ytterberg to repeat himself.

‘Louise von Enke has disappeared.’

‘What happened?’

Wallander could hear paper rustling. Ytterberg was searching through his notes. He wanted to give an exact report.

‘These last few years the von Enkes have had a cleaning woman from Bulgaria. She has a residence permit. Her name’s the same as the capital, Sofia. She works for them on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, three hours in the morning. She was there on Monday and everything seemed to be as usual. When she left the apartment at about twelve o’clock on Monday, Louise said she was looking forward to seeing her again on Wednesday. When Sofia turned up at nine o’clock on Wednesday the apartment was deserted, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Louise wasn’t always at home, and Sofia thought no more about it. But when she arrived this morning she realised something was wrong. She is certain that Louise has not been home since Wednesday. Everything was exactly as she left it. Louise has never before gone away for this long without giving advance warning. But there was no message, nothing, only the empty apartment. Sofia called the son in Copenhagen, who said he last spoke to his mother on Sunday - in other words, five days ago. So he called me next. Incidentally, do you know what line of business he’s in?’

‘Money,’ said Wallander. ‘He deals exclusively with money.’

‘That sounds like a fascinating job,’ said Ytterberg thoughtfully.

Then he returned to his notes.

‘Hans gave me Sofia’s number and we worked our way through the apartment together. The Bulgarian lady knew exactly what was in all the cabinets and drawers. And she said what I least wanted to hear. I assume you know what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ said Wallander. ‘That nothing was missing.’

‘Precisely. No suitcase, no clothes, no handbags, not even her passport. That was still in the drawer where Sofia knew she kept it.’

‘What about her mobile phone?’

‘That was charging in the kitchen. When I discovered that, I became really worried.’

Wallander thought it all over. He would never have thought that Hakan von Enke’s disappearance would be followed by another one.

‘It’s worrying,’ he said eventually. ‘Is there a plausible explanation?’

‘Not as far as I can see. I called all her closest friends, but nobody has seen or heard from her since Sunday, when she called a friend named Katarina Linden and asked about her experience at a mountain hotel in Norway where she’d stayed. According to Katarina Linden, she sounded exactly the same as she always does. Nobody’s spoken to her since then. We’ll consult the team dealing with her husband’s disappearance. I just wanted to call you first. To get your reaction, to be honest.’

‘My first thought is that she knows where Hakan is and went to join him. But of course the passport and the mobile phone tend to argue against that.’

‘I thought something similar myself. But I’m doubtful, just like you.’

‘Could there be a plausible explanation despite everything? Could she be ill? Could she have collapsed in the street?’

The hospitals were the first places I checked. According to what Sofia has told us, and we have no reason to doubt her, Louise always carried an ID in her jacket or overcoat. Since we haven’t found it in the apartment, there’s no reason to believe she didn’t have it with her when she went out, so the hospitals should be able to identify