Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man from Beijing

That same feeling of freedom would often come over her when she sailed back and forth over the narrow strait between Sweden and Denmark. Today, all thoughts about the unfortunate judgement she would have to make disappeared from her mind.

I’m no longer even in the middle of my life, she thought. I’ve passed the point that one doesn’t even realise is being passed. There won’t be that many difficult decisions left for me to make. But I shall remain a judge until I retire. With luck I should be able to enjoy my grandchildren before it’s all over.

Her thoughts drifted to her husband, and her mood changed. Her marriage was beginning to shrivel and die. They were still good friends and could give each other the necessary feeling of security. But love, the sensual pleasure of being in each other’s vicinity, had completely vanished.

Four days from now it wouldbeawhole year since they had last caressed each other and made love before going to sleep. The closer that anniversary came, the more impotent she felt. And now it was almost upon her. Over and over again she had tried to speak to Staffan about how lonely she was. But he wasn’t prepared to talk, withdrew into his shell, tried to postpone the discussion he nevertheless knew was important. He insisted that he was not attracted to anybody else, they were just missing a particular feeling that would no doubt soon return. All they needed to do was be patient.

She regretted losing the feeling of togetherness she had shared with her husband, the imposing-looking chief conductor with the big hands and the propensity for blushing. But she had no intention of giving up. She didn’t yet want their relationship to be an intimate friendship and nothing more.

She went to the counter to refill her cup and moved to another, less sticky table. A group of young men who were already noticeably drunk despite the early hour were discussing whether it was Hamlet or Macbeth who had been imprisoned in Kronborg Castle, skulking on its cliff just outside Elsinore. She listened to the discussion with amused interest and felt tempted to join in.

A group of boys was sitting at another table. They couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen and were probably playing hooky. And why not, when nobody seemed to care whether or not they showed up at school? She had absolutely no nostalgic feelings about the authoritarian school she had attended. But she recalled an incident from the previous year. Something that had driven her crazy about the state of Swedish justice and made her long more than ever for the advice of her mentor Judge Anker, who had now been dead for thirty years.

On a housing estate outside Helsingborg an old woman just short of her eightieth birthday had suffered an acute heart attack and collapsed on a public footpath. A couple of young boys, one of them aged thirteen, the other fourteen, had come by. Instead of helping the old woman, without a second thought they had first stolen her bag and then tried to rape her. If it hadn’t been for a man walking his dog, they would probably have succeeded in their attempt. The police traced and arrested the two boys, but as they were underage, they were allowed to go free.

Birgitta Roslin heard about the incident from a public prosecutor, who had in turn been informed by a police officer. She had been furious and tried to find out why the crime hadn’t been reported to social services. It then dawned on her that maybe a hundred or so underage children committed crimes in the Helsingborg area every year with absolutely no follow-up. Nobody told their parents, nobody informed social services. It was not merely the occasional case of petty pilfering but also robbery and grievous bodily harm, which could easily have ended up as murder.

She began to despair over the Swedish judicial system. Whose servant was she in fact? Was she a servant of the law, or of indifference? And what would the consequences be if more and more children were allowed to commit crimes without anybody bothering to react? How had things been allowed to lapse to such an extent that the very basis of democracy was being threatened by a lame judicial system?

She drank her coffee and contemplated the fact that she would probably need to work for another ten years. Would she have the strength? Was it possible to be a good and fair judge if you began to doubt the country’s legal structure?

In order to shake off questions she couldn’t answer, she went back over the strait one more time. When she disembarked on the Swedish side, it was nine o’clock. She crossed the wide main street that carved its way through the centre of Helsingborg. As she turned off, she happened to notice a billboard with headlines from one of the national evening newspapers: they were just being posted. The large letters in bold print caught her attention. She paused and read: MASS MURDER IN HÄLSINGLAND. HORRIFIC CRIME. NO LEADS FOR POLICE. NUMBER OF DEAD UNKNOWN. MASS MURDER.

She continued walking to her car. She seldom if ever bought the evening papers. She was put off, and sometimes offended, by the papers’ frequent attacks on the police. Even if she agreed with quite a lot of what was alleged, she had little sympathy with the sensationalising. What reporters wrote often harmed genuine criticism, even if the intentions were honourable.

Birgitta Roslin lived in Kjellstorp, an upmarket residential area on the northern edge of Helsingborg. On the way home she stopped at a little shop. It was owned by a Pakistani immigrant who always greeted her with a broad smile. He knew she was a district judge and was very respectful towards her. She wondered if there were any female judges in Pakistan, but had never got around to asking him.

When she arrived home she had a bath before going to bed. She woke up at one o’clock and at last felt fully rested. After a couple of sandwiches and a cup of coffee, she returned to her work. A few hours later she printed out her judgement that acquitted the guilty man, drove back to court and left it on her secretary’s desk. Her secretary was evidently attending some kind of in-service training course: Birgitta Roslin hadn’t been informed or, more likely, had forgotten all about it. When she arrived back home she heated up some leftover chicken stew from yesterday’s dinner and left the rest in the fridge for Staffan.

She settled down on the sofa with a cup of coffee and switched on teletext. She was reminded of the headlines she had seen earlier in the day. The police had no clues to follow up and declined to reveal how many people had been killed or their names, since the next of kin had not yet been contacted.

A madman, she concluded, who either had a persecution complex or considered himself to have been badly treated by the world.

Her years as a judge had taught her that there were many different forms of madness that could drive people to commit horrendous crimes. But she had also learned that forensic psychiatrists did not always succeed in exposing criminals who merely pretended to be mentally ill.

She switched off the television and went down to the basement, where she had created a little cellar of red wines complete with several wine lists and order forms from a number of importers. Only a few years ago it had dawned on her that, thanks to her children moving out, the family finances had changed fundamentally. She now felt she could afford to spend money on something special and had decided to buy a few bottles of red wine every month. She enjoyed studying the lists and picking out new wines to try. Paying five hundred kronor or so for a bottle seemed to her an almost forbidden pleasure.

It was cool in the cellar. She checked that the temperature was fourteen degrees Celsius, then sat down on a stool between the racks. Down there, among all the bottles, she could feel at peace with the world. Given the alternative of soaking in a warm pool, she would have preferred to sit in her cellar surrounded on this particular day by one hundred and fourteen bottles lying in their racks.