Henning Mankell - The White Lioness

If only the first page had been transmitted, the South African police would not know Victor Mabasha was dead, and that a replacement had probably been sent.

In addition, it could be assumed the assassination attempt would be made on June 12, as Sikosi Tsiki had told Jorgensen the latest date he would be going home.

Wallander could see the implications right away.

The cops in South Africa had spent two weeks searching for a man who was dead.

Today was Thursday, June 11. The assassination attempt would probably be made on June 12.

Tomorrow.

“How the hell is this possible?” he roared. “How come you only sent half my telex?”

“I have no idea,” was the answer he received. “You’d better talk to whoever was in charge.”

“Some other time,” said Wallander. “I’ll be sending another telex shortly. And this one must go to Johannesburg without delay.”

“We send everything without delay.”

Wallander slammed down the receiver. He could not understand how the hell such incompetence was possible.

He did not bother to try and invent some kind of response. Instead he just put a new sheet of paper into his typewriter and composed a brief message. Victor Mabasha is no longer relevant. Look instead for a guy named Sikosi Tsiki. Thirty years of age, well-proportioned (he looked the phrase up in the dictionary, and rejected “powerfully built”), no other obvious peculiarities. This message replaces all previous ones. I repeat that Victor Mabasha is no longer relevant. Sikosi Tsiki is presumably his replacement. We have no photograph. Fingerprints will be investigated.

He signed the message and took it to reception.

“This must go to Interpol in Stockholm immediately,” he said. He did not recognize the receptionist.

He stood over her and watched her fax the message. Then he returned to his office. He thought it might be too late.

If he were not on sick leave, he would have demanded an immediate investigation into who was responsible for sending only half of his telex. But as things stood, he couldn’t be bothered.

He continued to attack the stacks of paper on his desk. It was nearly one o’clock by the time he was done. He had cleared his desk. Without a backward glance, he left his office and closed the door behind him. He saw nobody in the corridor, and managed to get away from the station without being seen by anybody apart from the receptionist.

There was just one more thing he had to do. Once that was done, he was finished.

He walked down the hill, passed the hospital, and turned left. All the time he thought everybody he met was staring at him. He tried to make himself as invisible as possible. When he got as far as the square, he stopped by the optician’s and bought a pair of sunglasses. Then he continued down Hamngatan, crossed over the Osterled highway, and found himself in the dock district. There was a cafe that opened for the summer. About a year ago he had sat there and written a letter to Baiba Liepa in Riga. But he had never mailed it. He walked out onto the pier, ripped it into pieces, and watched as the scraps floated away over the harbor. Now he intended to make another attempt to write to her, and this time he would send it. He had paper and a stamped envelope in his inside pocket. He sat down at a table in a sheltered corner, ordered coffee, and thought back to that occasion a year ago. He had felt pretty gloomy then, too. But that was nothing compared to the situation he found himself in now. He started writing whatever came into his head. He described the cafe he was sitting in, the weather, the white fishing boat with the light-green nets moored not far from where he sat. He tried to describe the sea air. Then he started writing about how he felt. He had trouble finding the right words in English, but he persevered. He told her how he was on sick leave for an indefinite period, and that he was not sure whether he would ever return to his post. I may well have concluded my last case, he wrote. And I solved it badly, or rather, not at all. I’m beginning to think I am unsuitable for the profession I have chosen. For a long time I thought the opposite was true. Now I’m not sure anymore.

He read through what he had written, and decided he was not up to rewriting it, even if he was very dissatisfied with his writing, which seemed to him vague and unclear. He folded up the sheet of paper, sealed the envelope, and asked for his check. There was a mailbox in the nearby marina. He walked over and mailed his letter. Then he continued walking out onto the jetty, and sat down on one of the stone piles. A ferry from Poland was on its way into the harbor. The sea was steel gray, blue and green in turn. He suddenly remembered the bicycle he had found there that foggy night. It was still hidden behind the shed at his father’s place. He decided to return it that same evening.

After half an hour he got to his feet and walked through the town to Mariagatan. He opened the door, then stood staring.

In the middle of the floor was a brand new stereo system. There was a card on top of the CD player.

Get well soon and hurry back. Your colleagues.

He remembered that Svedberg still had a spare key he had gotten so he could let in the workmen doing the repairs after the explosion. He sat down on the floor and gazed at the equipment. He was touched, and found it difficult to control himself. But he didn’t think he deserved it.

That same day, Thursday, June II, there was a fault in the telex lines between Sweden and southern Africa between noon and ten at night. Wallander’s message was therefore delayed. It was half past ten before the night operator transmitted it to his colleagues in South Africa. It was received, registered, and placed in a basket of messages to be distributed the next day. But somebody remembered a memo from some prosecutor by the name of Scheepers about sending all copies of telexes from Sweden to his office immediately. The cop in the telex room could not remember what they should do if messages arrived late in the evening or in the middle of the night. They could not find Scheepers’s memo either, although it ought to have been in the special file for running instructions. One of the men on duty thought it could wait until the next day, but the other was annoyed because the memo was missing. If only to keep himself awake, he started looking for it. Half an hour later, he found it-needless to say, filed away in the wrong place. Scheepers’s memo stated clearly and categorically that late messages should be conveyed to him immediately by telephone, regardless of the time. By then it was nearly midnight. The sum total of all these mishaps and delays, most of which were due to human error or sheer incompetence, was that Scheepers was not telephoned until three minutes past midnight on Friday, June 12. Even though he had made up his mind the assassination attempt would be in Durban, he had difficulty in getting to sleep. His wife Judith was asleep, but he was still awake, tossing and turning in bed. He thought it was a pity he hadn’t taken Borstlap with him to Cape Town after all. If nothing else it would have been an edifying experience. He was also worried that even Borstlap thought it was odd they had not received a single tip about where Victor Mabasha might be hiding, despite the big reward waiting to be collected. On several occasions Borstlap had said he thought there was something fishy about the total disappearance of Victor Mabasha. When Scheepers tried to pin him down, he just said it was a hunch, nothing based on fact. His wife groaned when the bedside telephone started ringing. Scheepers grabbed the receiver, as if he had been waiting for a call all the time. He listened to what the Interpol duty officer read out for him. He picked up a pen from the bedside table, asked to hear it one more time, then wrote two words on the back of his left hand.