Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man from Beijing

‘My eyes are not too good,’ said Hermansson. ‘Is that the man you’re looking for?’

‘Was it the twelfth of January?’

‘I think so. But I can check with the ledger and see if he checked in after our Russian friends.’

He stood up and went to the reception counter. While he was away Birgitta Roslin managed to play through the pictures of the Chinese man several times. She froze the picture at the moment when he looked straight at the camera. He’s noticed it, she thought. Then he looks down and turns his face away. He even changes the way he is standing, so that his face can’t be seen. It all went very quickly. She rewound the tape and watched the sequence again. Now she could see that he was on his guard all the time, looking for the camera. She froze the picture again. A man with close-cropped hair, intense eyes, tightly closed lips. Quick movements, alert. Perhaps older than she’d first thought.

Hermansson came back.

‘It looks like we’re right,’ he said. ‘Two Russian ladies checked in, using false names as usual. And then came this man, Mr Wang Min Hao from Beijing.’

‘Would it be possible to make a copy of this film?’

Hermansson shrugged.

‘You can have it. What use is it to me? I installed this camera and video set-up for my own amusement. I wipe the cassettes every six months. Take it.’

He put the cassette in its case and handed it to her. They went back into the lobby. Natasha was cleaning the globes over the lights that illuminated the hotel entrance.

Sture Hermansson gave Birgitta Roslin’s arm a friendly squeeze.

‘Are you going to tell me now why you’re so interested in this Chinese man? Does he owe you money?’

‘Why on earth should he?’

‘Everybody owes everybody else something. If somebody starts asking about people, there’s usually money involved somewhere.’

‘I think this man can provide the answers to certain questions,’ said Roslin. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t tell you what they are.’

‘And you’re not a police officer?’

‘No.’

‘But you don’t come from these parts, do you?’

‘No, I don’t. My name is Birgitta Roslin, and I come from Helsingborg. I’d be grateful if you’d get in touch if he turns up again.’

She wrote her address and telephone number on a piece of paper and gave it to Sture Hermansson.

When she emerged into the street she noticed that she was sweating. The Chinese man’s eyes were still following her. She put the cassette into her bag and looked around, unsure of what to do next. She really should be on her way back to Helsingborg — it was already late afternoon. She went into a nearby church and sat down in a pew at the front. It was chilly. A man was kneeling by one of the thick walls, repairing a plaster joint. She tried to think straight. A red ribbon had been found in Hesjövallen. It had been lying in the snow. By coincidence she had succeeded in tracing it to a Chinese restaurant. A Chinese man had eaten there the evening of 12 January. Later that night or early the next morning, a large number of people had died in Hesjövallen.

She thought about the picture on Sture Hermansson’s videotape. Was it really feasible for one lone man to carry out all those murders? Were there others involved whom she didn’t know about yet? Or had the red ribbon ended up in the snow at Hesjövallen for an entirely different reason?

She found no answer. Instead she took out the brochure that had been left in the wastebasket. That also made her doubt whether there was any connection between Wang Min Hao and what had happened at Hesjövallen. Would a murderer really leave such obvious clues behind?

The light inside the church was dim. She put on her glasses and leafed through the brochure. One of the spreads was a picture of a skyscraper in Beijing and Chinese characters. On other pages were columns of figures and photographs of smiling Chinese men.

What interested her most was the Chinese writing on the back of the brochure. It brought Wang Min Hao very close to her. He was probably the one who had written it. As a reminder of something? Or for some other reason?

Who could read this stuff? The moment she asked the question, she knew the answer. Her distant and Red revolutionary youth suddenly came to mind. She left the church and stood in the churchyard with her mobile phone in her hand. Karin Wiman, a friend from her student days in Lund, was a Sinologist and worked at the university in Copenhagen. No one answered, but she left a message asking Karin to call her back. Then she returned to her car and found a large hotel in the centre of Hudiksvall with vacant rooms. Hers was spacious and on the top floor. She switched on the television and saw on teletext that snow was forecast for that night.

She lay on her bed and waited. She heard a man laughing in one of the neighbouring rooms.

The ringing phone woke her. It was Karin Wiman, who sounded somewhat baffled. When Birgitta Roslin explained what she wanted, her friend urged her to find a fax machine and send her the page with the Chinese characters.

She was able to use the fax at the front desk, then went back to her room to wait. It was dark outside now. She would soon call home and explain that, because the weather had taken a turn for the worse, she would be staying another night.

Karin Wiman called at half past seven.

‘The characters are carelessly drawn, but I think I can work out what they mean.’

Birgitta Roslin held her breath.

‘It’s the name of a hospital. I’ve tracked it down. It’s in Beijing. Called Longfu. It’s in the centre of town, on a street called Mei Shuguan Hutong. It’s not far from China’s biggest art gallery. I can send you a map if you like.’

‘Please do.’

‘OK, now you can tell me why you want to know all this. I’m very curious. Has your old interest in China been resurrected?’

‘Perhaps. I’ll tell you more later. Can you send the map to the fax machine I used?’

‘You’ll have it in a few minutes. But you’re being too secretive.’

‘Just be patient for a while. I’ll tell you everything.’

‘We should get together.’

‘I know. We see far too little of each other.’

Birgitta Roslin went down to the front desk and waited. The map of central Beijing arrived momentarily. Karin had marked it with an arrow.

Roslin noticed that she was hungry. Her hotel didn’t have a restaurant, so she grabbed her jacket and went out. She would study the map when she came back.

It was dark in town, few cars, hardly any pedestrians. The man at the front desk had recommended an Italian restaurant in the vicinity. She went there and ate in the sparsely occupied dining room.

By the time she left, it had started snowing. She headed back to her hotel.

She suddenly stopped. For some reason she had the feeling she was being watched. But when she looked round, she couldn’t see anybody.

She hurried back and locked her room door, securing it with the chain. Then she stood behind the curtains and looked down onto the street.

The same as before. Nobody to be seen. Just the snow falling, more and more densely.

Birgitta Roslin slept badly that night. She woke up several times and went to the window. It was still snowing. The wind was creating high drifts along house walls. The streets were deserted. At about seven she was woken up once and for all by snowploughs clattering past.

Before going to bed she had called home with the details of the hotel she had checked into. Staffan had listened but not said much.

That he didn’t express any surprise on hearing she wasn’t on her way back made her both angry and disappointed. There was a time when we learned not to dig too deeply into each other’s emotional lives, she thought. Everyone needs some private space. But that shouldn’t develop into indifference. Is that where we’re headed? Are we there already?