Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man from Beijing

There was an electric kettle in her room. She made a cup of tea and sat down with the map Karin Wiman had sent her. The room was in semi-darkness, the only light coming from a reading lamp and from the muted television. The map was difficult to read, but she found the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. It brought back memories.

Roslin put the map down and thought about her daughters and their generation. The conversation with Karin had reminded her of the person she had once been herself. So near and yet so far, she thought.

Those days were crucial. In the midst of all my naive chaos, I was convinced that the way to a better world was via solidarity and liberation. I’ve never forgotten that feeling of being at the very centre of the world, at a time when it was possible to change everything.

But I’ve never lived up to the insights I had at that time. In my worst moments I’ve felt like a traitor. Not least to my mother, who encouraged me to rebel. But I suppose, if I’m honest with myself, my political will was really no more than a sort of varnish I spread over my existence. The only thing that really penetrated was my determination to be an honest judge. That’s something nobody can take away from me, she concluded.

She drank her tea and made plans for the day. She would visit the police again and tell them what she’d discovered. This time they would have to listen. They hadn’t exactly achieved a breakthrough in the investigation so far. When she checked into her hotel she had heard some Germans in the lobby discussing what had happened in Hesjövallen. This was news abroad as well as at home. A blot on the copybook of innocent Sweden, she thought. Mass murder has no place in this country. Such things only happen in the United States, or occasionally in Russia, but not here, in a little remote and peaceful village in the depths of the Swedish forests.

It was still snowing when Birgitta Roslin went to the police station again. The temperature had fallen. The thermometer outside the hotel said minus seven degrees Celsius. The pavements had not yet been cleared. She walked carefully to avoid slipping.

It was quiet in the station’s reception area. A lone officer was reading messages on a noticeboard. The woman at the telephone switchboard was motionless, staring into space.

Roslin had the impression that the Hesjövallen massacre hadn’t occurred, that the whole thing was a fantasy someone had made up.

‘I’m looking for Vivi Sundberg.’

‘She’s in a meeting.’

‘Erik Huddén?’

‘He’s there as well.’

‘Is everybody in the meeting?’

‘Everybody. Apart from me.’

‘How long is it going to last?’

‘Impossible to say. Maybe all day.’

The woman in reception opened the door to let in the officer who had been reading the noticeboard.

‘I think there’s been a breakthrough,’ she said in a low voice, and left.

Birgitta Roslin sat down and leafed through a newspaper. Police officers occasionally came and went through the glass door. Journalists and a television team arrived. She half expected to see Lars Emanuelsson.

A quarter past nine. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. Then she gave a start on hearing a voice she recognised. Vivi Sundberg was standing in front of her. She looked very tired, with black shadows around her eyes.

‘You wanted to speak to me.’

‘If I’m not disturbing you.’

‘Of course you’re disturbing me. But I assume it’s important. You know the drill by now.’

Birgitta Roslin followed her through the glass door and into an empty office.

‘This isn’t my office,’ said Sundberg. ‘But we can talk here.’

Birgitta Roslin sat down on an uncomfortable visitor’s chair. Vivi Sundberg remained standing, leaning against a bookcase filled with red-backed files.

Roslin braced herself, thinking that the situation was preposterous. Sundberg had already decided that no matter what she had to say, it would be irrelevant to the investigation.

‘I think I’ve found something,’ she said. ‘A clue, I suppose you could call it.’

Sundberg’s face was expressionless. Roslin felt challenged.

‘What I have to say is so important you should ask someone else to be present.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m convinced of it.’

Vivi Sundberg left the room and returned swiftly with a man who introduced himself as District Prosecutor Robertsson.

‘I’m in charge of the preliminary investigation. Vivi tells me you have something to tell us. You are a judge in Helsingborg, is that right?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Is Prosecutor Halmberg still there?’

‘He’s retired.’

‘But he still lives in Helsingborg, doesn’t he?’

‘I think he’s moved to France. Antibes.’

‘Lucky man. He enjoyed a decent cigar, that one. Jurors often used to faint when he lit up in the back rooms during breaks in a trial. He started to lose cases when they introduced a smoking ban. He thought it was due to melancholy and cigar deprivation.’

‘I’ve heard stories about that.’

The prosecutor sat down at the desk. Sundberg had returned to her place by the bookcase. Birgitta Roslin described in detail what she had discovered. How she had recognised the red ribbon, traced it to the restaurant, then found out that a Chinese man had been visiting Hudiksvall. She put the video cassette on the desk together with the brochure in Chinese and explained what the roughly written characters on the back cover meant.

Robertsson was staring hard at her. Vivi Sundberg was examining her hands. Then Robertsson grabbed hold of the cassette and stood up.

‘Let’s take a look at this. Now, right away.’

They went to a conference room where an Asian lady was clearing away the coffee mugs and paper bags. Birgitta Roslin bristled at the brusque way in which Vivi Sundberg ordered the cleaning woman to leave the room. After a great deal of difficulty and a succession of curses Robertsson eventually managed to make the video recorder work.

Somebody knocked on the door. Robertsson raised his voice and said they couldn’t be disturbed. The Russian women appeared on the screen but soon left. The picture flickered. Wang Min Hao took centre stage, looked at the camera, then left. Robertsson rewound and paused the tape at the moment when Wang looked at the camera. Sundberg had also become interested now. She closed the blinds on the nearest window, and the picture became clearer.

‘Wang Min Hao,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘Assuming that’s his real name. He turns up here in Hudiksvall out of nowhere on the twelfth of January. He spends the night in a little hotel, having first plucked a red ribbon out of a lampshade hanging over a table in a restaurant. That ribbon is later found at the crime scene in Hesjövallen.’

Robertsson had been standing in front of the television screen, leaning over it. He sat down again. Vivi Sundberg opened a bottle of mineral water.

‘Strange,’ said Robertsson. ‘I take it you’ve checked that the red ribbon really did come from that restaurant?’

‘I’m sure it did.’

‘What’s going on?’ said Vivi Sundberg vehemently. ‘Are you conducting some kind of private investigation?’

‘I don’t want to get in your way,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘I know you’re very busy.’

Suddenly Sundberg left the room.

‘I’ve asked them to bring the lamp from that restaurant,’she said when she came back.

‘They don’t open until eleven o’clock,’ said Roslin.

‘This is a small town,’ said Sundberg. ‘We’ll get hold of the owner and order him to open up.’

‘Make sure the media mob doesn’t hear about this,’ warned Robertsson. ‘Just imagine the headlines if they do.“Chinaman behind the Hesjövallen Massacre”?’