Хеннинг Манкелль: Firewall

Then there was his father, who had died unexpectedly. He had collapsed from a stroke in his studio in Löderup. That was three years ago. Sometimes Wallander still had trouble grasping the fact that his father wasn’t still in the studio, surrounded by the smell of turpentine and oil paint. The house in Löderup had been sold after his death. Wallander had driven past it a couple of times since then and seen that new people were living there. He had never stopped the car and taken a closer look. From time to time he went to his father’s grave, always with an inexplicable feeling of guilt. These visits were getting less frequent. He had also noticed that it was getting harder for him to visualize his father’s face.

A person who died eventually became a person who had never existed.

Then there was Svedberg, his colleague who had been so brutally murdered only one year ago. That had made Wallander realize how little he knew about the people he worked with. During the investigation he had uncovered a more complicated network of relationships in Svedberg’s life than he would ever have been able to dream of.

And now he was on his way to funeral number four, the only one he didn’t really have to go to.

She had called on Wednesday, just as Wallander was about to leave the office. It was late afternoon and he had a bad headache from concentrating on a depressing case involving smuggled cigarettes. The tracks seemed to lead to northern Greece, then went up in smoke. Wallander had exchanged information with both German and Greek police. But they had still not managed to arrest the smugglers. Now he realized that the driver of the truck that contained the smuggled goods probably had no idea what had been in his load. But he would end up going to jail, at least for a couple of months. Nothing else would come of it. Wallander was certain that smuggled cigarettes arrived daily in Ystad. He doubted they would ever be able to put a stop to it.

His day had also been poisoned by an argument with the district attorney, the man who was filling in for Per Åkeson, who had gone to Sudan a couple of years ago and seemed to be in no hurry to return. Wallander was filled with envy whenever he got a letter from Åkeson. He had done what Wallander had only dreamed of: starting over. Now Wallander was about to turn fifty and he knew, though he had trouble admitting such a thing to himself, that the decisive events of his life were already behind him. He would never be anything but a police officer. The best he could do in the years leading up to retirement was try to become better at solving crimes, and pass on his knowledge to the younger generation of his colleagues. But there were no lifealtering decisions waiting for him, no Sudan.

He was just about to put his jacket on when she called.

At first he hadn’t known who she was.

Then he realized she was Stefan Fredman’s mother. Memories and isolated images from the events three years ago rushed back in the space of a few seconds. It was the case of the boy who had painted himself to look like a Native American warrior and set out to revenge himself on the men who had driven his sister insane and filled his younger brother with terror. One of the victims had been Stefan’s own father. Wallander flinched at one of the last, most disturbing images, of the boy kneeling by his sister’s dead body and crying. He didn’t know what had happened afterward, except that the boy had been sent to a locked psychiatric ward rather than prison.

Now Anette Fredman had called to say the boy was dead. He had committed suicide by throwing himself out the window. Wallander had expressed his condolences and they had been genuine, though perhaps what he felt was a sense of hopelessness and despair rather than grief. But he still had not understood why she had called him. He had stood there with the receiver in his hand and tried to recall her face. He had only met her on two or three occasions in her home in a suburb of Malmö, when he had been struggling with the idea that a fourteen-year-old boy had committed these heinous crimes. She had been shy and tense. She had always seemed to be cringing, as if expecting everything to turn out for the worst. In her case, they often did. Wallander remembered that he had wondered if she were addicted to alcohol or prescription medication. But he didn’t know. He could hardly remember her face. Her voice on the telephone sounded completely unfamiliar.

Then she told him why she was calling. She wanted Wallander to attend the funeral. There were so few people who were coming. She was the only one left now, except her youngest son, Jens. Wallander had, after all, been someone who wished them well.

He promised to be there. He changed his mind the moment he said the words, but by then it was too late.

Later he had tried to find out what happened to the boy after his admittance to the psychiatric ward. He spoke with one of Stefan’s doctors. He was told that Stefan had been almost completely silent during the past few years, closed off from the outside world. But the boy who came smashing down onto that slab of concrete on the hospital grounds had worn full-blown warrior paints. That disturbing mask of paint and blood held little clue as to who the young person locked inside had really been, but it spoke volumes about the violent and largely indifferent society in which he had been formed.

Wallander drove slowly along the road. He had been surprised when he put on his suit that morning and found that the pants fit. He must have lost weight. Ever since being diagnosed with diabetes the previous year he had been forced to modify his eating habits, start exercising, and lose weight. At first he had been too extreme and had jumped on the bathroom scale several times a day, until he finally threw it out in a rage.

But his doctor had not let up, insisting that Wallander do something about his unhealthy eating habits and his almost total absence of exercise. His nagging had finally produced results. Wallander had bought a sweatsuit and sneakers and started taking regular walks. But when his colleague Martinsson had suggested they start running together, Wallander had refused. He drew the line at jogging. Now he had established a regular route for his walks that took about an hour. It went from Mariagatan through the Sandskogen park, and back. He forced himself out on a walk at least four times a week, and had also forced himself to stay away from his favorite hamburger places. Accordingly, his blood sugar levels had dropped and Wallander had lost weight. One morning as he was shaving in front of the mirror he noticed that his cheeks were hollow again. It was like getting his old face back after having worn an artificial padding of fat and bad skin. His daughter, Linda, had been delighted with the change when she saw him last. But no one down at the station had made any comments about his appearance.

It’s as if we never really see each other , Wallander thought. We work together, but we don’t see each other.

Wallander drove by Mossby beach, which lay deserted now that it was fall. He remembered the time six years ago when a rubber raft carrying two dead men had drifted ashore here.

On a whim, he slammed on the brakes and turned the car around. He had plenty of time. He parked and got out of the car. There was no wind and it was perhaps a couple of degrees above freezing. He buttoned his coat and followed the small trail that snaked out between the sand dunes to the sea. The beach was deserted, but there were traces of people and dogs — and horses — in the sand. He looked out over the water. A flock of birds was flying south in formation.

He still remembered exactly where they had found the bodies. It had been a difficult investigation that had led Wallander to Latvia. He had met Baiba in Riga. She was the widow of a Latvian police officer, a man Wallander had known and liked.