impression of general well-being. No down-and-outs had come to celebrate Hakan von Enke’s birthday, he muttered to himself. These people can afford to look happy and contented.
Wallander slid the photos to one side and moved on to the two lists of guests. He counted 102. The names were in alphabetical order, and a lot of the guests were married couples.
The phone rang while he was studying the first list. It was Linda.
‘I’m curious,’ she said. ‘Have you found anything?’
‘Nothing that I didn’t know already. Louise is smiling. Hakan looks serious. Did he never smile?’
‘Not very often. But Louise’s smile is genuine. She never pretended to be something she wasn’t. And I think she was also pretty good at judging other people.’
‘I’ve just started looking at the guest lists. A hundred and two names. Nearly all of them unknown to me. Alven, Alm, Appelgren, Berntsius - ‘
‘I remember him,’ Linda said. ‘Sten Berntsius. A high-ranking naval officer. A couple of years ago, I went to an unpleasant dinner party at Hakan and Louise’s flat when he was a guest. He had his wife with him, a timid little creature who just sat there blushing, and she drank too much wine as well. But Berntsius was awful.’
‘How?’
‘Palme hatred.’
‘Are you seriously telling me that you attended a dinner party at which the guests said bad things about a Swedish prime minister who had been murdered twenty years earlier?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. Hatred lives on for a long time. Sten Berntsius started going on about how Palme was a spy for the Soviet Union, a cryptocommunist, a traitor and God only knows what else.’
‘What did Louise and Hakan have to say?’
‘I’m afraid Hakan at least tended to agree. Louise didn’t say much; she tried to smooth things over. But the atmosphere was unpleasant.’
Wallander tried to think back. For him, Olof Palme was above all else an example of the most dramatic failure of the Swedish police. He could hardly remember him as a politician. A man with a shrill voice and a smile that was occasionally far from friendly? He couldn’t recall which of the memories were genuine. He hadn’t been interested in politics in Palme’s day. That was when he was trying to get his own life in order, and also dealing with his intractable father.
‘Palme was prime minister when those submarines were snorkelling in Swedish waters,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s the context in which his name cropped up?’
‘Not really, no. If I remember correctly it was mostly about defence cuts that they claimed had begun during his time. He alone was responsible for the fact that Sweden was no longer capable of defending itself. Berntsius maintained it was a big mistake to believe that Russia would always be as peaceful as it is now.’
‘What were the political views of the von Enkes?’
‘They were both extremely conservative, of course. Louise always tried to give the impression that she was contemptuous about politics, but that wasn’t true.’
‘So she did have a mask, despite what you said earlier.’
‘Perhaps. Let us know if you find anything important.’
Wallander went out to feed Jussi. The dog was looking dishevelled and tired. Wallander wondered if it was true that dogs and their owners grew to look like each other. If so, old age really had got its claws into him. Was he already getting close to his devastating dotage, when he would become increasingly helpless? He shuddered at the thought and went back inside. But, about to sit down at the kitchen table again, he realised that it was pointless. There was nothing in either the guest lists or the photos that could throw light on the ones who went missing. There must be some other explanation for what had happened. He was wasting his time. He wasn’t looking for a needle, he was looking for a haystack.
Wallander picked up everything he’d spread out over the kitchen table and put it all on the table in the hall. He would give it back the next day and then try to stop thinking about the dead Louise and the missing Hakan. Soon enough they would all go to Kristberg Church, prettily located with a view over Lake Boren in Ostergotland. The von Enkes had a family grave there over a century old, and that is where Louise would be buried. Hans had told him that his parents had written a joint will in which they had stated that they did not wish to be cremated. Wallander sat in his armchair and closed his eyes. What did he want to happen to his own body? He didn’t have a family grave, no sepulchral rights. His mother was buried in a memorial grove in Malmo, his father in one of Ystad’s cemeteries. He didn’t know what his sister, Kristina, who lived in Stockholm, planned to do.
He fell asleep in the chair and woke up with a start. He had been dragged out of sleep by a dog barking. He stood up. His shirt was wet through; he must have been dreaming. Jussi didn’t usually bark for no reason. When he started moving, he discovered that his legs were numb. He shook them into life while continuing to listen for sounds out there in the darkness of the summer night. Jussi was quiet now. Wallander opened the door and stood on the threshold. Jussi immediately started jumping against the fence of his kennel, yelping. Wallander looked around. Perhaps there’s a fox on the prowl, he thought. He walked over to Jussi. There was a strong smell of grass. But no wind; everything was still. He tickled Jussi behind the ears. ‘What were you barking at?’ he asked quietly. ‘Can dogs also have nightmares?’ He gazed out over the field. Shadows everywhere, a faint hint of morning light in the east. He checked his watch. A quarter to two. He had been asleep for nearly four hours. His sweaty shirt was making him shiver. He went back inside and lay down in bed. But he couldn’t get to sleep. ‘Kurt Wallander is lying in his bed, thinking of death,’ he said aloud to himself. It was true. He really was thinking of death. But he often did that. Ever since he was a young police officer, death had always been present in his life. He saw it in the mirror every morning. But now, when he couldn’t sleep, it crept up very close to him. He was sixty years old, a diabetic, slightly overweight. He didn’t pay as much attention to his health as he should, didn’t exercise enough, drank too much, ate what he shouldn’t, and at irregular times. Sometimes he tried to discipline himself, but it never lasted long. He would lie there in the dark and become panic-stricken. There was no leeway left. Now he had no choice. Either he must change his lifestyle or die early. Either make an effort to reach at least seventy or assume that death would strike at any moment. Then Klara would be robbed of her maternal grandfather, just as she had been robbed of her paternal grandmother for reasons that were not yet clear.
He lay awake until four o’clock. Fear came and went in waves. When he finally fell asleep, his heart was full of sorrow at the thought that so much of his life was now over and could never be relived.
He had just woken up, shortly after seven, still feeling tired and with a headache, when the phone rang. At first he thought he would ignore it. Presumably it was Linda, who wanted to satisfy her curiosity. She could wait. If he didn’t answer, she would know that he was asleep. But after the fourth ring he got out of bed and reached for the receiver. It was Ytterberg, who sounded lively and full of energy.
‘Did I wake you up?’
‘Nearly,’ said Wallander. ‘I’m trying to be on holiday, but I’m not doing too well.’
‘I’ll keep it brief. But I suspect you’d like to know about what I’m holding in my hand. It’s a report from the pathologist - Dr Anahit Indoyan. She analysed the chemicals found in Louise von Enke’s body and discovered something she thinks is odd.’
Wallander held his breath and waited for what was coming next. He could hear Ytterberg sorting through his papers.
‘There’s no doubt that the pills Louise took could be classified as sleeping pills,’ said Ytterberg. ‘Dr Indoyan can identify some of the chemical ingredients. But there are some things she doesn’t recognise. Or rather, she’s not able to describe the substances in question. She has no intention of giving up, of course. She allows herself a very interesting comment at the end of her preliminary report. She thinks she has found similarities, more or less vague, with substances used during the DDR regime.’
‘DDR?’
‘Are you sure you’re awake?’
Wallander didn’t get the connection.
‘East Germany. All those athletic miracles - remember them? The outstanding swimmers and track athletes breaking all those records. We know now that they were drugged up to the eyeballs. There’s no doubt that everything was connected - what the Stasi did and what went on in the sports laboratories were two branches of the same tree. And so,’ concluded Ytterberg, ‘our friend Anahit suspects that she might have discovered substances that can be linked to the former East Germany.’
‘That no longer exists. And hasn’t existed for twenty years.’
