The Troubled Man (2011)

‘But you say he hasn’t been open with you about this money?’

‘There’s no reason why he should have been. Until a couple of months ago it was up to his parents to decide what to do with their savings.’

‘What did they do?’

‘They asked Hans to invest it for them. Cautiously, no risky ventures.’

Wallander thought for a moment. Something told him that what he had just heard could be of considerable significance. Throughout his life as a police officer he had been reminded over and over again that money was the cause of the worst and most serious crimes people could commit. No other motive cropped up so often.

‘Who oversaw their financial affairs? Both of them, or just Hakan?’

‘Hans will know.’

‘Then we must talk to him.’

‘Not we. I. If I discover anything, I’ll let you know.’

Klara was yawning. Linda nodded to Wallander. He picked her up and laid her carefully on the garden hammock. She smiled at him.

‘I try to picture myself in your arms,’ said Linda. ‘But it’s hard.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. But I don’t mean it negatively.’

A pair of swans came flying over the fields towards them. Father and daughter followed their progress and listened to the swishing sound they made.

‘Is it really possible that Louise was murdered?’ Linda wondered.

‘The investigation will have to continue, of course. But I think there’s a lot of evidence now that suggests it is true.’

‘But why? By whom? All that stuff about her having Russian secrets in her bag surely must be nonsense.’

‘She had Swedish secrets in her purse. Intended for Russia. Listen properly to what I say.’

He expected her to be angry, but she merely nodded, acknowledging that he was right.

‘There’s still an unanswered question,’ said Wallander. ‘Where’s Hakan?’

‘Dead or alive?’

‘As far as I’m concerned, Hakan has become more alive now that Louise has been found dead. It’s not logical, I know; there’s no plausible explanation for my thinking that. Possibly my considerable experience as a police officer. But the indications are not clear, not even in that context. Nevertheless, I believe he’s alive.’

‘Is he the one who killed Louise?’

‘There’s nothing to suggest that.’

‘But nothing to suggest that he didn’t, either?’

Wallander nodded. That was exactly what he had been thinking. She was following his train of thought.

Linda drove off with Klara half an hour later.

Wallander felt that one thing at least had become crystal clear. No matter what had happened, it had all begun with Hakan von Enke. And it was with him that everything would eventually come to a conclusion. Louise was a side issue.

But what it all meant, he had no idea. The only thing that struck him right now as being an incontestable fact was that Hakan von Enke had stood face to face with him in a side room during a birthday party on Djursholm, and seemed to be deeply troubled.

That’s where it all began, Wallander thought. It began with the troubled man.

24

One night in July.

Wallander sat there, pen in hand. The first line of the letter he had begun writing sounded like a bad film from the 1950s. Or perhaps a much better novel from a few decades earlier. The kind he recalled from his childhood home. From the library that had belonged to his maternal grandfather, who had died long before he was born.

Otherwise, the description was correct. It was now July, and it was night-time. Wallander had gone to bed, then suddenly remembered that it would be his sister Kristina’s birthday in a few days’ time. It had become his custom to enclose with the birthday card the one letter he sent her every year. So he got out of bed - he wasn’t tired, after all, and this was a good excuse to avoid tossing and turning. He sat down at the kitchen table with stationery and a fountain pen, the latter a present from Linda for his fiftieth birthday. The opening words could stay as they were - ‘One night in July’ - he wasn’t going to change a thing. It was a short letter. Once he had described his delight at Klara’s birth, he didn’t think he had much else to write about. His letters became shorter and shorter every year, he noticed grimly. It wasn’t much of a letter, but it was the best he could do. His contact with Kristina had culminated during the last few years of their father’s life. Since then they had never met, apart from once when he was in Stockholm and remembered to call her. They were totally different people, and had totally different memories of their childhood. After a short time the conversation would dry up and they’d stare at each other uncomprehendingly: did they really have nothing more to say to each other?

Wallander sealed the envelope and went back to bed. The window was ajar. In the distance he could hear the faint sound of music and a party in progress. There was a rustling sound from the grass outside the window. He had done the right thing in leaving Mariagatan, he thought. Out here in the countryside he could hear sounds he had never heard before. And smell country smells, even more of a novelty.

He lay awake, thinking about his visit to the police station earlier that evening. He hadn’t planned to go in, but since his computer wasn’t working he drove into Ystad at about nine o’clock. In the hope of avoiding on-duty colleagues, he used the basement entrance. He tapped in the entry code and reached his office without bumping into anybody. Voices could be heard from one of the offices he sneaked past. One of the speakers sounded very drunk. Wallander was glad he wasn’t the officer doing the interrogating.

Just before going on holiday he had made a big effort and reduced the piles of paper on his desk. It now looked almost inviting. He threw his jacket onto the guest chair and switched on the computer. While he waited for it to boot up he took out two folders he’d locked away in one of the desk drawers. One was labelled ‘Louise’, the other ‘Hakan’. The pen he’d used was faulty, and the names were smudged and unclear. He slid the first file to one side and concentrated on the second. He also thought about the conversation he’d had with Linda a few hours earlier. She had called while Klara was asleep and Hans had gone out to buy some nappies. Without going into unnecessary detail she had reported on what Hans had said when she asked him about his parents’ money, about his mother’s links with East Germany, and whether there was anything else he hadn’t told her about. He had been offended at first, thinking she didn’t trust him. She eventually succeeded in convincing him that all she was interested in was trying to find out what had happened to his parents. After all, it was looking very much as if murder might be involved. Hans had calmed down, understood her motivation and answered as best he could.

Wallander took a folded sheet of paper out of his back pocket and smoothed it out to look over his notes.

It was only when Hans had started his present job that his parents had asked him to oversee their financial affairs. The amount of money involved was a bit less than 2 million kronor, which had now grown to more than 2.5 million. He was told that the money was their savings plus an inheritance from one of Louise’s relatives. He didn’t know how much was inherited and how much was saved. The relative in question was Hanna Edling, who had died in 1976 and had owned a chain of ladies’ clothing shops in the west of Sweden. There were no tax irregularities, even though Hakan had moaned and groaned about what he considered to be the Social Democrats’ outrageous capital gains tax. Now that it had been abolished, Hans regretted that he hadn’t been able to tell Hakan that a few more kronor had been saved.

‘Hans said his parents had a philosophy about money,’ Linda had explained. ‘“You shouldn’t talk about money, it should simply be there.”’

‘If only,’ Wallander had said. ‘That sounds like something well-heeled upper-class folk would say.’

‘They are upper class,’ said Linda. ‘You know that. We don’t need to waste time discussing it.’

Hans used to give them an investment report twice a year, informing them about gains and any losses.