The Troubled Man (2011)

Stockholm was hit by a severe south-westerly gale that the forecasters had failed to predict. One of our submarines, commanded by one of our best young captains, Hans-Olov Fredhall, suffered rudder damage and had to be towed into Braviken to wait there until we could take it back to Musko. Those on board no doubt had a less than enjoyable time during the storm - submarines can roll like nobody’s business. And in addition, a corvette sprang a leak off Havringe. The crew had to be taken off and transferred to another ship, but the corvette didn’t sink. Anyway, large parts of the exercise couldn’t be carried out as planned. The winds had slackened somewhat by the time we were ready for the last phase of the manoeuvres. I must admit, I could hardly sleep for days before the imaginary meeting of the submarine and the tanker, but nobody seemed to notice that I was behaving any differently from usual. We dropped off the supreme commander, who was pleased with what he had seen. The captain on board the Smaland suddenly and unexpectedly ordered full steam ahead, to check that his vessel was in tiptop condition. I was worried at first that we would pass the spot too soon, but the high waves prevented the destroyer from exceeding the speed I had based my calculations on. I spent the whole morning on the bridge. Nobody thought there was anything odd about that - I was a commander myself, after all. The captain had handed over responsibility for the ship to his deputy, Jorgen Mattsson. At a quarter to ten he handed me his telescope and pointed. It was raining, and very misty, but there was no doubt about what he had detected. There were two fishing boats ahead of us to port, sporting all the aerials and security equipment we were familiar with on Russian naval patrol boats. No doubt they didn’t have a single fish in their holds, but we could be certain that there were Russian technicians on board, listening to our radio communications. I should perhaps mention that we were in international waters; they had every right to be where they were.’

‘So they were waiting for a submarine and a tanker?’

‘Mattsson didn’t know that, of course. “What do they think they’re doing?” he asked. “Way outside the area where our manoeuvres are taking place?” I still recall what I said in reply. Perhaps they really are ordinary fishing boats. But he wasn’t convinced. He called down to the captain, who came onto the bridge. The destroyer paused while we reported the presence of the fishing boats. A helicopter came and hovered around for a while before we moved on and left them alone. By then I had left the bridge and gone down to the cabin I used during the manoeuvres.’

‘So now you knew what you didn’t want to know?’

‘It was an experience that made me feel sick, in a way that no bout of seasickness in the world could have achieved. I threw up when I came to my cabin. Then I lay down, thinking about how nothing could ever be like it had been before. There was no other possibility: the document I had forged had come into the hands of the Warsaw Pact countries. Louise could have had an accomplice, of course; that was what I hoped. I didn’t want her to be the direct link to the foreign intelligence services, but rather an assistant to a spy who had all the important contacts. But I couldn’t even bring myself to believe that. I had investigated her life in the tiniest detail and knew there was nobody she met regularly. I still had no idea how she operated. I didn’t even know how she had copied my forged document. Had she taken a photograph, or written it out? Had she simply memorised it? And how had she passed on the information? Even more important, of course, was where she got all her other secret documents. The sparse contents of my gun cupboard couldn’t be enough. Who was she cooperating with? I didn’t know, although I spent all my spare time for more than a year trying to work out what had happened. But I was forced to believe the evidence of my own eyes. I lay there in the cabin, and felt the vibrations from the powerful engines. There was no longer any escape. I had to acknowledge that I was married to a woman I didn’t know. Which meant that I didn’t know myself either. How could I have misunderstood her so fundamentally?’

Hakan von Enke stood up and rolled up the sea chart. When he had put it back on its shelf, he opened the door and went outside. What Wallander had heard still hadn’t sunk in. It was too big. And there were too many unanswered questions.

Von Enke came back in, closed the door and checked that his flies were closed.

‘You’re telling me about things that happened almost thirty years ago,’ Wallander said. ‘That’s a long time. What about what’s happening now?’

Von Enke suddenly seemed reluctant, sullen, when he replied.

‘What did I say when we began this conversation? Have you forgotten? I said that I loved my wife. I couldn’t do anything to change that, no matter what she had done.’

‘Surely you must have confronted her with what you knew.’

‘Must I?’

‘It was one thing for her to commit an offence against our country, but she had also let you down. Stolen your secrets. You couldn’t possibly have kept on living with her without telling her what you knew.’

‘Couldn’t I?’

Wallander could hardly believe what he’d heard. But the man rolling the empty teacup between his hands seemed convincing.

‘Are you telling me you didn’t say anything to her?’

‘Never.’

‘Never? That sounds implausible.’

‘But it’s true. I stopped taking secret documents home with me. It wasn’t anything sudden or unexplained. When my duties changed, there was every reason for my briefcase to be empty in the evenings.’

‘She must have noticed something. It’s impossible to believe she didn’t.’

‘I never said anything to her. She was exactly the same as before. After a few years I began to think it had all been a bad dream. But of course, I might have been wrong. She might have realised that I’d seen through her. So we carried on sharing a secret without being sure what the other one knew or didn’t know. It went on like that until one day, everything changed.’

Wallander sensed rather than knew what he was referring to.

‘You mean the submarines?’

‘Yes. By then there was a rumour going around that the supreme commander suspected there was a spy in the Swedish defence forces. The first warning had come when a Russian defector spoke out in London. There was a spy in the Swedish military that the Russians valued extremely highly. Somebody a cut above the norm who knew how to get at the really significant information.’

Wallander shook his head slowly.

‘This is difficult to understand,’ he said. ‘A spy in the Swedish military. Your wife was a schoolteacher; she coached gifted young divers in her spare time. How could she have access to military secrets if your briefcase was empty?’

‘I seem to recall that the Russian defector was called Ragulin. He was one of many defectors at that time; we sometimes found it difficult to tell them apart. Obviously, he didn’t know the name of or any details about the person the Russians more or less worshipped. But there was one thing he did know, and it changed the whole picture dramatically. For me as well.’

‘What?’

Von Enke put down the empty cup. It was as if he were bracing himself. As he did so, Wallander remembered that he had heard Hermann Eber talking about another Russian defector, by the name of Kirov.

‘It was a woman,’ he said. ‘Ragulin had heard that the Swedish spy was a woman.’

Wallander said nothing.

The mice were nibbling away quietly in the walls of the hunting lodge.

32

On one of the windowsills was a half-finished ship in a bottle. Wallander noticed it when von Enke left the table and went outside for the second time. It seemed that he was too distraught to continue, having been forced to admit to somebody else that his wife had been a spy. Wallander saw the tears in his eyes when he suddenly excused himself and left the room. He left the door open. Daylight was beginning to break outside, so there was no longer any risk that anybody might notice lights switched on in the lodge. When von Enke came back, Wallander was still engrossed in imagining the delicate work involved in making the tiny ship.

‘The Santa Maria,’ said von Enke. ‘Columbus’s ship. It helps me to keep unwanted thoughts at bay. I learned the art from a sailor - an old naval engineer with alcohol problems. It wasn’t possible to allow him on board any more. Instead he used to wander around Karlskrona, criticising everybody and everything.