The Troubled Man (2011)

door, the skies opened. He looked out of the window of his room and watched people scurrying to find shelter from the heavy rain. Can loneliness get any worse than this? he suddenly found himself thinking. Rain, a hotel room, me at sixty years old. If I turn round, there’s nobody else there. He wondered how things were going for Mona. She’s probably just as lonely as I am, he thought. Probably even more so, as she tries to conceal all the turmoil that’s bubbling away inside her.

When the rain stopped, Wallander went back to the Central Station and bought a map of Stockholm. Then he got on the phone and booked a car for the following day. Because it was summer, hire cars were in high demand, and the best deal he could find was much more expensive than he’d hoped for. He ate dinner in the Old Town. He drank red wine, and was reminded of a summer many years ago, shortly after his divorce from Mona, when he had met a woman. Her name was Monika, and she had been visiting friends in Ystad. Their first encounter was at a less than enjoyable dance, and they arranged to see each other again in Stockholm for dinner. Even before they’d finished their appetisers, he realised that it was a disaster. They had nothing to talk about; the silences became longer and longer, and he got very drunk. He now drank a toast to her memory, and hoped that she had achieved happiness in her life. He was tipsy when he left the restaurant and wandered through the alleys and cobbled streets before returning to his hotel. That night he dreamed once again about horses running into the sea. When he woke up the next morning he dug out his blood sugar meter and stuck the needle into his finger: 100. What it should be. The day had begun well.

Thick clouds covered the sky over Stockholm when he reached the place on Varmdo where Louise von Enke’s body had been found. It was ten o’clock. Police tape was still scattered around. The ground was waterlogged, but Wallander could see traces of the marks the police had made where the body had been lying.

He stood there motionless, held his breath, listened. The first impression was always the most important. He looked around in a slow circle. They had found Louise in a shallow depression, with outcrops of rock and low mounds on both sides. If she had lain down here so as not to be seen, she had chosen the right place.

Then he thought about the roses. Linda’s words, the first time she told him about her future mother-in-law. A woman who loves flowers, who always dreamed of having a beautiful garden, a woman with a green thumb. That’s what Linda had said. He remembered very clearly. But this was as far from a beautiful garden as you could get. Was that why she had chosen this place? Because death was not beautiful, had nothing to do with roses and a well-tended garden? He walked around the site, viewing it from different angles. She must have walked a short way, he thought. From the same direction as where my car is. But how did she get there? By bus? By taxi? Had somebody driven her?

He walked over to an old hunting stand in the middle of the cleared area. The steps were slippery. He climbed up cautiously. The floor was littered with a few cigarette butts and some empty beer cans. A dead mouse was lying in one corner. Wallander climbed down again and continued walking around. He tried to imagine himself as the person about to commit suicide. A lonely spot, ugly and covered in scrub, a bottle of sleeping pills. He stopped dead. A hundred sleeping pills. Ytterberg had said nothing about a bottle of water. Was it possible to swallow that many pills without anything to drink? He retraced his steps to see if there was something he’d missed. As he studied the ground, he tried to channel Louise. The silent woman who was always willing to listen to what other people had to say.

That was the moment Wallander really and truly began to comprehend that he was on the periphery of a world he knew nothing about. It was Hakan and Louise von Enke’s world, a world he had never thought about before. He didn’t know what he saw and felt during the time he spent in the clear-cut area; it wasn’t something tangible, nor was it a kind of revelation. It was more a feeling of being close to something he had no qualifications for understanding.

He left the place, drove back to town, parked in Grevgatan and walked up the stairs to the apartment. He wandered silently through the deserted rooms, collected the post lying on the floor next to the door, and picked out the bills Hans would need to pay. The post forwarding wasn’t yet working. He examined the letters to see if there was anything unexpected among them, but found nothing. The apartment was stuffy and stifling, and he had a headache, probably due to the poor-quality red wine he’d drunk the night before, so he carefully opened a window overlooking the street. He glanced at the answering machine. The red light was flashing, indicating new messages. He listened. Marta Hornelius wonders if Louise von Enke is interested in joining a book club that will start this autumn, to discuss works of classical German literature. That was all. Louise von Enke won’t be joining any book club, Wallander thought. She has closed her last book for good.

He made some coffee in the kitchen, checked that there was nothing in the fridge starting to smell, then went into the room where Louise had two large cupboards. He didn’t bother with the clothes but took out all the shoes, carried them into the kitchen and stood them on the table. By the time he had finished there were twenty- two pairs in total, plus two pairs of wellingtons, and he’d been forced to use a worktop and the draining board as well. He put on his glasses and started to work methodically through them all, one shoe at a time. He noticed that she had large feet and bought only exclusive brands. Even the rubber boots were an Italian make that Wallander suspected was expensive. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but both he and Linda had been surprised to hear that she had taken off her shoes before she died. She wanted everything to be neat and tidy, Wallander thought. But why?

It took him half an hour to go through the shoes. Then he called Linda and told her about his visit to Varmdo.

‘How many shoes do you have?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Louise has twenty-two pairs, in addition to the ones the police have. Is that a lot or a little?’

‘It seems about right. She cared what she looked like.’

‘That was all I wanted to know.’

‘Do you have anything else to tell me?’

‘Not now.’

Despite her protests, he hung up and called Ytterberg. To Wallander’s surprise a small child answered. Then came Ytterberg.

‘My granddaughter loves answering the phone. I have her with me in my office today.’

‘I don’t want to disturb you, but there’s something I’ve been wondering about.’

‘You’re not disturbing me. But aren’t you supposed to be on holiday? Or did I misunderstand?’

‘I am on holiday.’

‘What do you want to know? I don’t have any new information about Louise von Enke’s death. We’re waiting to see what the pathologist has to tell us.’

Wallander suddenly remembered his doubts about the water.

‘I have two questions, basically. The first one is simple. If she swallowed so many pills, surely she must have drunk something as well?’

‘There was a half-empty litre bottle of mineral water next to the body. Didn’t I mention that?’

‘No doubt you did. I probably wasn’t listening carefully enough. Was it Ramlosa?’

‘No, Loka, I think. But I’m not sure. Is it important?’

‘Not at all. Then there’s that matter of the shoes.’

‘They were standing by the side of the body, very neatly.’

‘Can you describe the shoes?’

‘Brown, low heels, new, I think.’

‘Does it seem reasonable that she would wear shoes like that in the woods?’

‘They weren’t exactly party shoes.’

‘But they were new?’

‘Yes. They looked new.’

‘I don’t think I have any more questions.’

‘I’ll be in touch as soon as the pathology report is in. But it might take some time, now that it’s summer.’

‘Do you have any idea how she got out to Varmdo?’

‘No,’ said Ytterberg. ‘We haven’t worked that out yet.’

‘I was just wondering. Many thanks yet again.’

Wallander sat in the silent apartment, gripping the phone tightly, as if it were the last thing he possessed in