said.’
Wallander tried to assess the significance of what he had just heard.
‘Wasn’t there a risk that repeating what you had heard could be regarded as an impropriety?’
The tears had dried up now. She regarded him with some amusement.
‘“Impropriety”? Fanny Klarstrom has never been a spy, if that’s what you mean. I don’t understand why police officers always have to express themselves in such a complicated way. I spoke about it to my comrades in the party group, and that was all. Just as other people might talk about the attitudes of bus drivers or sales assistants. In the 1950s it wasn’t only the non-socialists who regarded us Communists as potential traitors. The Social Democrats thought so as well. But of course, we weren’t anything of the sort.’
‘Let’s forget that question, then. But I am a police officer, and justified in thinking along those lines.’
‘It was over fifty years ago. Whatever was said and happened in those days must surely be out of date and of no interest now.’
‘Not quite,’ Wallander said. ‘History isn’t just something that’s behind us, it’s also something that follows us.’
She made no comment. He wasn’t sure whether she had understood what he meant. Wallander steered the conversation back to the newspaper article. He realised that Fanny Klarstrom had a pent-up need to talk to somebody, which meant there was a serious risk that their conversation could go on for a very long time.
Was his own future going to be similar? An ageing, lonely old man who grabbed hold of anybody he happened to come across and held on to them for as long as possible?
*
Fanny the waitress had a good memory. She remembered most of the men in uniform with their various insignia, gathered together on the fuzzy printout. Her comments were needle-sharp, often malicious, and it was obvious to Wallander that she considered every word justified. There was, for instance, a Commander Sunesson who was always telling dirty jokes, which she described as ‘not funny, just coarse’. He had also been one of the most extreme Palme-haters, and the one who proposed quite openly various ways of liquidating the ‘Russian spy’.
‘I have a horrible memory of Commander Sunesson,’ she said. ‘Two days after Palme was shot down in a Stockholm street, these officers were booked for one of their dinners. Sunesson stood up and proposed a toast in gratitude for the fact that Olof Palme had finally had the sense to disappear from the land of the living and could no longer poison the air for all upright citizens. I recall his exact words, and I came close to pouring something over him. It was a terrible evening.’
Wallander pointed at Hakan von Enke.
‘What do you remember about him?’
‘He was one of the better ones. He didn’t drink too much, seldom said anything, just listened most of the time. He was also one of the most polite. He actually saw me, if I can put it like that.’
‘What about the hatred of Palme? The fear of Russia?’
‘They all shared that. They thought of course Sweden should be a member of NATO - it was a scandal that we steered clear of it. Many of them also thought that Sweden should acquire atomic weapons right away, that if only we could arm a few submarines with those weapons, it would be possible to defend the Swedish borders. All conversations were about the fight between God and the devil.’
‘The devil came from the East?’
‘And God the Father was also known as the USA. There was evidently some kind of secret agreement in the 1950s between the government and the top military brass that American planes could cross Swedish borders whenever they liked. Our air traffic controllers had certain codes that the Americans knew about and used. So all the Yanks needed to do was to take off from their bases in Norway and head for the Soviet Union. I recall discussing this with my friends and being upset about it.’
‘But what about the submarines?’
‘We talked about them all the time.’
‘Including the one trapped in the shallows off Karlskrona? And the ones in the Harsfjarden channel?’
Her reply surprised him.
‘They were two entirely separate incidents.’
‘How could that be?’
‘A Russian submarine had run aground off Karlskrona. But there was never any confirmation of what was lurking under the surface at Harsfjarden. That was no doubt intentional.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘They drank a few toasts to the poor captain - what was his name?’
‘Gushchin.’
‘Yes, that was it. Poor old Gus, they said. He was so drunk that his submarine got stuck on a Swedish rock. So at last they had the Russian submarine they’d always wanted to capture. Right? This proved beyond doubt that it was the Russians who were playing hide-and-seek inside Swedish territorial waters. But with regard to Harsfjarden, there was nobody there who wanted to drink a toast to any Russian captain - do you get my meaning?’
‘Are you suggesting that there weren’t any Russians lurking around under the surface at Harsfjarden?’
‘It was impossible to prove anything, one way or the other.’
Fanny Klarstrom continued talking enthusiastically about things Wallander didn’t know much about. He had never tried to conceal his extremely limited knowledge of history. Earlier in his life he simply hadn’t been all that interested. But now he was listening closely to what Fanny Klarstrom had to say.
‘So Russia was the enemy,’ Wallander said.
‘None of our military men thought otherwise. Whenever the officers met they would talk to each other as if we were already at war with the Russians. Nobody gave a thought to the possibility that the USA could be just as big a threat.’
‘What was the point of those dinners?’
‘To eat and drink well, and to criticise the politicians who “represented a threat to Swedish sovereignty”. Those were the precise words they always used. The main enemy was the Social Democrats. Even though everybody knew that Olof Palme was a staunch Democrat, he was always referred to in these circles as a “Communist”.’
Despite Wallander’s protests, Fanny went to make more coffee. He already had a stomach ache. When she came back he explained the real reason for his visit to Markaryd.
‘Wasn’t there something in the papers about that couple’s disappearance?’ she asked when he had finished his account.
‘The woman, Louise, was recently found dead just outside Stockholm.’
‘Poor woman. What happened?’
‘She was probably murdered.’
‘Why?’
‘We don’t have an answer to that yet.’
‘And the man is that officer in the picture there?’
‘Yes, Hakan von Enke. If you can remember anything else about him, I’d like to hear it.’
She thought hard, studying the photograph.
‘He’s difficult to remember,’ she said eventually. ‘I think I’ve already told you everything I can recall. Maybe that in itself says something about him? He hardly ever made a fuss, just sat there quietly. He wasn’t one of those who drank a lot and couldn’t stop talking. I remember him always having a smile on his face.’
Wallander frowned. Could her memory be completely wrong?
‘Are you sure he was always smiling? My impression is that he was a very serious man.’
‘I may be wrong. But I’m quite certain he wasn’t one of the awful warmongers. On the contrary, my memory is that he was one of the tiny minority who sometimes spoke up for peace. I no doubt remember that because it interested me.’
‘What did?’
‘Peace. I was one of those who demanded that Sweden renounce nuclear weapons as early as the 1950s.’
