Henning Mankell - The Troubled Man

“Let me put it this way: I don’t think she’s had any affairs. But obviously, I can’t be certain. Ask her!”

“I have no intention of doing any such thing! It would be a disgraceful move in the current circumstances.”

Wallander hesitated before asking the next question that came into his head.

“You and Hans must have discussed this over the last few days. He can’t have been glued to his computer all the time. What does he have to say? Was he surprised when Håkan vanished?”

“Why wouldn’t he have been surprised?”

“I don’t know. But when I was in Stockholm, I had the impression that Håkan was worried about something.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because I tried to banish the thought. I told myself I was imagining things.”

“Your intuition doesn’t usually let you down.”

“Thank you. But I’m becoming less and less sure about that — as I am about so many other things.”

Linda didn’t respond. Wallander studied her face. She’d put on a bit of weight after her pregnancy; her cheeks had become fuller. He could see from her eyes that she was tired. His thoughts turned to Mona, and how she was always angry because he never made any move to help her when Linda woke up crying during the night. I wonder how Linda is really feeling, he thought. When you have a child, it’s as if every heartstring is stretched to the limit. One or two are likely to snap.

“Something tells me you’re right,” she said eventually. “Now that I think about it, I can remember situations, barely noticeable at the time, when he seemed worried. He kept looking over his shoulder.”

“Literally or figuratively?”

“Literally. He kept turning around. I didn’t think about it before.”

“Can you remember anything else?”

“He was very careful about making sure the doors were locked. And he insisted that some lights be left on around the clock.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But the desk lamp in his study always had to be on, and the light in the hall next to the front door.”

An old naval officer, Wallander thought, making sure navigational channels were properly illuminated during the night by specific lighthouses.

At that point the baby woke up, and Wallander held her until she stopped crying.

On the train to Stockholm, he continued to think about those lights that had to be kept on. It was something he needed to investigate. Perhaps there was an innocent explanation. The same thing might apply to the disappearance of Håkan von Enke. So far he had no idea how to find that out. But he hoped that no matter what, there would be a plausible and undramatic explanation.

At the end of the 1970s he and Mona had gone on a trip to Stockholm. Wallander seemed to recall that they stayed at the Maritime Hotel in the Söder district, so he called and reserved a room for two nights. When he got off the train he wondered whether he should go to the hotel by subway or take a taxi. He ended up walking, his heavy bag slung over his shoulder. It was still cold, but it was sunny, and no rain clouds were gathering on the horizon.

As he walked through the Old Town he thought about that trip with Mona. It was her idea. She had suddenly realized that she’d never set foot in the country’s capital city and thought it was high time to remedy such a scandalous omission. They spent four days there. Mona had recently gone back to school and so had no income or paid vacation. They arranged for Linda to stay with a classmate for a few days — she was due to begin third grade in the fall. If his memory served him correctly, it was the beginning of August. Warm days, and the occasional thunderstorm followed by oppressive heat that encouraged them to go for walks through the parks, where they could enjoy the shade of the many trees. That was more than thirty years ago, he thought as he approached Slussen and started walking up the hill to the hotel. Thirty years, a whole generation; and now I’m back. But this time on my own.

When he entered the lobby he didn’t recognize it at all. Had it really been this hotel they’d stayed at? He shook off a sudden feeling of unease, dismissed all thought of the past, and took the elevator up to his room on the second floor. He turned down the bedspread and lay down. It had been a tiring journey — he had been surrounded by screeching children, and to make things worse, a party of drunk young men had joined the train at Alvesta. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. When he woke up with a start he checked the clock and found that he had dozed off for ten minutes at most. He stood up and walked over to the window. What had happened to Håkan von Enke? If he tried to fit together all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, what he had heard from Linda and what he knew from his own experience, what was the result? He didn’t have even the beginnings of a solution.

He had arranged to arrive at Louise’s place at seven o’clock that evening. Once again he decided to walk. As he passed the royal palace, he paused. He had been here with Mona, he was quite sure of that. They had stopped on the bridge where he was now and agreed that their feet hurt. The memory was so vivid that he could hear their conversation echoing in his ears. There were moments when he was overwhelmed by sadness thinking about how their marriage had collapsed. This was one of them. He looked down into the swirling water and thought about how his life was now centered increasingly on recalling things from the past that he now realized he missed.

Louise von Enke had made a pot of tea. She was visibly suffering from lack of sleep, but she was remarkably composed even so. The living room walls were adorned with paintings of the von Enke family and various battle scenes in muted colors. She saw him looking at the pictures.

“Håkan was the first naval officer in the family. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all army officers. One of his uncles was chamberlain to King Oscar — I don’t remember if it was Oscar the First or Second. The sword standing in the corner over there was awarded to another relative by Karl XIV for services rendered. Håkan always says that his job was to supply the king with suitable young ladies.”

She fell silent. Wallander listened to the ticking of a clock on the mantelpiece above an open fire and the distant hum of traffic in the street outside.

“What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

“The day he disappeared, was there anything that felt unusual? Did he behave any differently from the way he usually did?”

“No. Everything was the same as it always was. Håkan has his routines, even if he’s not a pedant.”

“What about the previous days? The week before?”

“He had a cold. One day he skipped his morning walk. That was all.”

“Did he have any mail? Did anyone call him? Did he have any visitors?”

“He spoke once or twice to Sten Nordlander, his closest friend.”

“Was he at the party in Djursholm?”

“No, he was away then. Håkan and Sten met when they worked in the same submarine — Håkan was in command and Sten was chief engineer. That must have been the end of the sixties.”

“What does he have to say about Håkan’s disappearance?”

“Sten is just as worried as everyone else. He can’t explain it either. He said he’d be pleased to talk to you while you’re here.”

She was sitting on a sofa opposite Wallander. The evening sun suddenly illuminated her face. She moved into the shade. Wallander thought she was one of those women who try to hide their beauty behind a mask of plainness. As if she had read his mind, she gave him a hesitant smile. Wallander took out his notebook and wrote down Sten Nordlander’s telephone number. He noticed that she knew it by heart, and his cell number as well.