Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man Who Smiled

“That possibility did occur to me, but I’m sure it can be discounted. I knew my father well.”

“The majority of suicides are unexpected,” Wallander said. “But, of course, you know best what you want to believe.”

“There’s another reason why I cannot accept the accident theory,” Torstensson said.

Wallander looked at him sharply.

“My father was a cheerful, outgoing man,” Torstensson said. “If I hadn’t known him so well, I might not have noticed the change. Little things, barely noticeable, but very definitely a change in his mood during the last six months.”

“Can you be more precise?”

Torstensson shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “It was just a feeling I had. Something was worrying him. Something he was very anxious to make sure I wouldn’t notice.”

“Did you ever speak to him about it?”

“Never.”

Wallander put his empty cup down. “I’d like to help you, but I can’t,” he said. “As your friend, I can listen to what you have to say. But I no longer exist as a police officer. I don’t even feel flattered by the fact that you’ve come all the way here to talk to me. I just feel numb and tired and depressed.”

Torstensson opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it.

They stood up and left the café.

“I respect what you say, of course,” Torstensson said as they stood outside the museum.

Wallander went with him to the car and recovered his bicycle.

“We never know how to handle death,” Wallander said in a clumsy attempt to convey his sympathy.

“I’m not asking you to,” Torstensson said. “I just want to know what happened. That was no ordinary car accident.”

“Have another talk with Martinsson,” Wallander said. “But it might be best if you don’t mention that I suggested that.”

They said good-bye, and Wallander watched the car drive off through the dunes.

He was struck by the feeling that matters were getting urgent. He couldn’t keep dragging things out any longer. That afternoon he telephoned his doctor and Björk and informed them that he had decided to resign from the police force.

He stayed at Skagen for five more days. The feeling that his soul was a devastated bomb site was as strong as ever. But he felt relieved nevertheless, having had the strength to make up his mind despite everything.

He came back to Ystad on Sunday, October 31, in order to sign the various forms that would draw the line under his police career.

On the Monday morning, November 1, he lay in bed with his eyes wide open after the alarm went off at 6:00. Apart from brief periods of restless dozing, he had been awake all night. Several times he had gotten out of bed and stood at the window overlooking Mariagatan, thinking that he had made yet another wrong decision. Perhaps there was no obvious path for him to follow for the rest of his life. Without finding any satisfactory answer to that, he had sat on the sofa in the living room listening to the radio. Eventually, just before the alarm rang, he had accepted that he had no choice. He was running away, no doubt about that; but everybody runs away sooner or later, he told himself. Invisible forces get the better of all of us in the end. Nobody escapes.

He got up, dressed, went out for the morning paper, came home, put on the water for coffee, and took a shower. It felt odd, going back to the old routine just for a day. As he dried himself down, he tried to recall his last working day almost eighteen months ago. It was summer when he cleared his desk and then went to the harbor café to write a gloomy letter to Baiba. He found it hard to decide whether it felt like an age ago, or just yesterday.

He sat at the kitchen table and stirred his coffee.

Then it had been his last day at work for who knew how long. Now it was his last day at work, ever.

He had been in the police force for more than twenty-five years. No matter what happened in the years to come, those years would be the backbone of his life, nothing could change that. Nobody can ask to have their life declared invalid, and demand that the dice be thrown afresh. There is no going back. The question was whether there was any way forward.

He tried to identify his emotions this cold morning, but all he felt was emptiness. It was as if the autumn mists had penetrated his consciousness.

He released a sigh, and turned to his newspaper. He leafed through it and had the distinct impression that he had seen all the photographs and read all the articles any number of times before.

He was about to put it down when an obituary caught his eye. Sten Torstensson, lawyer, born March 3, 1947, died October 26, 1993.

He stared hard at the notice. Surely it was the father, Gustaf Torstensson, who was dead? He had talked to Sten not a week ago, on the sands at Skagen.

He tried to work out what it meant. It must be somebody else. Or the names had got mixed up. He read it again. There was no mistake. Sten Torstensson, the man who had come to see him in Denmark five days ago, was dead.

He sat there, motionless.

Then he stood up, checked in the phone book, and dialed a number. The person he was calling was an early riser.

“Martinsson.”

Wallander resisted an urge to put the receiver down. “It’s me, Kurt,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

There was a long silence before Martinsson responded. “Is it really you?” he said. “Now there’s a surprise!”

“I can imagine,” Wallander said. “But there is something I need to ask you.”

“It can’t be true that you’re quitting.”

“That’s the way it goes,” Wallander said. “But that’s not why I’m calling. I want to know what happened to Sten Torstensson, the lawyer.”

“Haven’t you heard?”

“I only got back to Ystad yesterday. I haven’t heard anything.”

There was a pause. “He was murdered,” Martinsson said at last.

Wallander was not surprised. The moment he had seen the 0 in the paper, he had known it was not death by natural causes.

“He was shot in his office last Tuesday night,” Martinsson said. “It’s beyond belief. And tragic. It’s only a few weeks since his father was killed in a car accident. But maybe you didn’t know that either?”

“No,” Wallander lied.

“You’ve got to come back to work,” Martinsson said. “We need you to figure this out. And much more besides.”

“No. My mind’s made up. I’ll explain when we meet. Ystad’s a little town. You bump into everybody sooner or later.”

Then Wallander said good-bye and hung up.

As he did so, he realized that what he had just said to Martinsson was no longer true. In just a few seconds, everything had changed.

He stood by the phone for more than five minutes. Then he drank his coffee, dressed, and went down to his car. At 7:30 he walked through the police station door for the first time in eighteen months. He nodded to the security guard in the lobby, made a beeline for Björk’s office, and knocked on the door. Björk stood up as he came in, and Wallander noticed that he was thinner. He could see, too, that Björk was uncertain as to how to deal with the situation.

I’m going to make it easy for him, Wallander thought. He won’t understand a thing at first, but then, neither do I.

“Naturally we’re pleased to hear you seem to be better,” Björk began, hesitantly. “But, of course, we’d prefer for you to be coming back to work rather than leaving us. We need you.” He gestured toward his desk, piled high with papers. “Today I have to respond to important matters such as a proposed new design for police uniforms and yet another incomprehensible draft for a change in the system involving relations between the county constabulary and the county police chiefs. Have you kept up with this?”