Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man from Beijing

Wherever battles are waged there are casualties, and death is a common occurrence. But what is closest to our hearts is the best interests of the people and the suffering of the vast majority, and when we die for the people, it is an honourable death. Nevertheless we should do our best to avoid unnecessary casualties.

Birgitta Roslin found what she was looking for at the very back in a corner of the Chinese restaurant. One of the red ribbons was missing from the lamp hanging over the table.

She stood absolutely still and held her breath.

Somebody was sitting here, she thought. Then from here headed for Hesjövallen.

It must have been a man. Definitely a man.

She looked around the restaurant. The young waitress smiled. Loud Chinese voices were coming from the kitchen.

It struck her that neither she nor the police had begun to understand the scope of what had happened. It was bigger, more profound, more mysterious, than they could possibly have realised.

They knew nothing, in fact.

She sat at the table, poking absent-mindedly at the food from the buffet. She was still the only customer in the restaurant. She beckoned to the waitress and pointed at the lamp.

‘There’s a ribbon missing,’ she said.

At first the waitress didn’t seem to understand what she meant. She pointed again. The waitress nodded in surprise. She knew nothing about the missing ribbon. She bent down and looked under the table, in case it had fallen down there.

‘Gone,’ she said. ‘I no see.’

‘How long has it been missing?’ asked Roslin.

The waitress looked at her in confusion. Roslin repeated the question, as she thought the waitress hadn’t understood.

The waitress shook her head impatiently. ‘Don’t know. If this table is not good, please change.’

Before Roslin could answer, the waitress had gone off to attend to a group of customers who had just entered the restaurant. She guessed that they were local government officials. When she heard them talking, she realised that they were conference delegates discussing the high levels of unemployment in Hälsingland. Roslin continued poking and nibbling at her food as the restaurant began to fill up. There was far too much for the young waitress to cope with on her own. Eventually, a man emerged from the kitchen and helped her to clear away the dishes and wipe the tables.

After two hours, business began to slacken. Roslin was still playing with her food, but ordered a cup of green tea and passed the time by thinking through everything that had happened to her since she had arrived in Hälsingland.

The waitress came back to her and asked if there was anything else the lady wanted. Roslin said, ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions.’

There were still some customers eating. The waitress spoke to the man who had been helping her, then came back to Roslin’s table.

‘If you want to buy the lamp, I can fix it,’ she said with a smile.

Birgitta Roslin smiled back.

‘No lamp,’ she said. ‘Were you open on New Year’s Eve?’

‘We are always open,’ said the waitress. ‘Chinese working times. Always open when others are closed.’

‘Can you remember your customers?’ she asked, not expecting an answer.

‘You have been here before,’ said the waitress. ‘I remember customers.’

‘Can you remember if anybody was sitting at this table on New Year’s Eve?’

The waitress shook her head.

‘This is good table. There are always customers here. You are sitting here now. Tomorrow somebody else is sitting here.’

Birgitta Roslin could see that it was hopeless asking such vague questions. She must be more precise. After a short pause, it struck her how to proceed.

‘At New Year,’ she began, ‘was there a customer you had never seen before?’

‘Never?’

‘Never. Neither before nor after.’

She could see that the waitress was racking her brains.

The last of the lunch customers were leaving. The telephone on the counter rang. The waitress answered and noted down a takeaway order. Then she came back to Roslin’s table. In the meantime someone in the kitchen had started playing music.

‘Beautiful music,’ said the waitress with a smile. ‘Chinese music. You like it?’

‘Nice,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘Very nice.’

The waitress hesitated. Finally she nodded, hesitantly at first, but then more confidently.

‘Chinese man,’ she said.

‘Sitting here?’

‘On the same chair as you. He ate dinner.’

‘When was that?’

She thought for a moment.

‘In January. But not New Year. Later.’

‘How much later?’

‘Maybe nine, ten days?’

Roslin bit her lip. That could fit in. The violence at Hesjövallen took place during the night between 12 and 13 January.

‘Could it have been a couple of days later?’

The waitress fetched a diary in which all bookings were recorded.

‘Twelfth of January,’ she said. ‘He sat here then. He had not booked a table, but I remember other customers who were here.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Chinese. Thin.’

‘What did he say?’

The waitress’s answer was immediate and surprised her.

‘Nothing. He pointed at what he wanted.’

‘But he was definitely Chinese?’

‘I tried to speak Chinese with him, but he said only “silent”. And pointed. I think he wanted to be alone. He ate. Soup, spring rolls, nasi goring and dessert. He was very hungry.’

‘Did he have anything to drink?’

‘Water and tea.’

‘And he said nothing from start to finish?’

‘He wanted to be alone.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘He paid. Swedish money. Then he left.’

‘And he never came back?’

‘No.’

‘Was he the one who took the red ribbon?’

The waitress laughed. ‘Why he do that?’

‘Does that red ribbon have any special meaning?’

‘It’s a red ribbon. What can it mean?’

‘Did anything else happen?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘After he’d left?’

‘You ask many strange questions. Are you from Internal Revenue? He does not work here. We pay tax. All who work here have papers.’

‘I just wondered. Did you ever see him again?’

The waitress pointed to the window.

‘He went to right. It was snowing. Then he was gone. He never came back. Why do you ask?’

‘I might know him,’ said Birgitta Roslin.

She paid and left. She turned right outside the restaurant. She came to a crossroads and paused to look around. One side road contained several boutiques and a car park. The other one was a cul-de-sac. At the end was a little hotel with a sign behind a pane of glass that had cracked. She looked around in all directions once more, studied the hotel sign again.

She went back to the Chinese restaurant. The waitress was sitting down, smoking, and gave a start when the door opened. She stubbed out her cigarette immediately.

‘I have another question,’ said Roslin. ‘That man sitting at the table in the corner — was he wearing an overcoat, or some other kind of outdoor clothes?’

The waitress thought for a moment. ‘No, no coat,’ she said. ‘How you know that?’

‘I didn’t know. Finish your cigarette. Thank you for your help.’

The hotel door was broken. Somebody had tried to break it open, and the lock looked as if it had only been mended temporarily. She walked up a few steps to reception, which was simply a counter in front of a doorway. There was nobody there. She shouted. Nothing. She discovered a bell and was about to ring it when she suddenly realised there was somebody standing behind her. It was a man, so thin that he was almost transparent, as if he were seriously ill. He was wearing strong glasses and smelled of alcohol.