The Troubled Man (2011)

your age.’

‘I know,’ said Wallander. ‘But sometimes it feels like complaining is all you can do.’

Linda stayed for several hours. They talked until Klara woke up, and with a broad smile on her face she ran over to Wallander.

Wallander suddenly felt terrified. His memory had deserted him again. He didn’t know who the girl running towards him was. He knew he’d seen her before, but what her name was or what she was doing in his house he had no idea.

It was as if everything had fallen silent. As if all colours had faded away, and all he was left with was black and white.

The shadow grew more intense. And Kurt Wallander slowly descended into a darkness that some years later transported him into the empty universe known as Alzheimer’s disease.

After that there is nothing more. The story of Kurt Wallander is finished, once and for all. The years - ten, perhaps more - he has left to live are his own. His and Linda’s, his and Klara’s; nobody else’s.

Afterword

In the world of fiction it is possible to take many liberties. For instance, it is not unusual for me to change a landscape slightly so that nobody can say: ‘It was exactly there! That’s precisely where the action took place!’

The thought behind this is of course to stress the difference between fact and fiction. What I write could have taken place as I narrate it. But it didn’t necessarily do so.

There are many shifts of that type in this book, between what actually happened and what might conceivably have happened.

Like most other authors, I write in order to try to make the world more understandable. In that respect, fiction can be superior to factual realism.

So it doesn’t matter whether or not there is a nursing home somewhere in central Sweden called Niklasgarden. Nor does it matter if there is a banqueting hall on Ostermalm in Stockholm where naval officers congregate. Or a cafe just outside Stockholm that serves the same purpose, where a submarine officer by the name of Hans-Olov Fredhall might turn up. And Madonna didn’t give a concert in Copenhagen in 2008.

But the most important things in this book are built on the solid foundation of reality.

Many people have helped me in doing the necessary research. I thank them all most gratefully.

However, the responsibility for the contents right up to the final period lies with me. Completely, and with no exceptions.

Henning Mankell

Gothenburg, June 2009