Henning Mankell: The Dogs of Riga

"Everything feels OK," Wallander said. "What can it have been?"

"Tension," the doctor said. "Stress. You know best yourself."

"Yes," Wallander said. "I suppose I do."

"I think you should have a thorough examination," the doctor said. "If nothing else, we need to be sure there's nothing physically wrong with you. It will make it easier for you to look inside your own head and see what kind of shadows are lurking there."

Wallander drove home, took a shower, and had a cup of coffee. The thermometer read -3°C. The sky had cleared, and the wind had dropped. He sat there for a long time, thinking about the previous night. The pains and his stay in the hospital had taken on an air of unreality. But he knew he couldn't just ignore what had happened. His life was his own responsibility.

It was 8.15 a.m. before he felt he could face work.

As soon as he got to the station, he became embroiled in an argument with Björk, who was insisting that the forensic squad in Stockholm should have been brought in at once to make a thorough investigation at the scene of the crime.

"There was no scene of the crime," Wallander said. "If there's one thing we can be sure about, it's that the men were not murdered in that life-raft."

"Now we don't have Rydberg to rely on, we need outside help," Björk said. "We don't have the expertise. Why didn't you close off the beach where the life-raft was found?"

"The beach wasn't where the crime was committed. The raft had been drifting at sea. Are you suggesting that we should have fixed a plastic ribbon round the waves?"

Wallander was getting angry. True, neither he nor any other of the officers in Ystad had Rydberg's experience, but that didn't mean he was incapable of deciding when to call in assistance from Stockholm.

"Either you let me make the decisions," he said, "or you run the case yourself."

"There's no question of that," Björk said, "but I still think it was an error of judgement not to consult Stockholm."

"Well, I don't."

That was as far as they could go.

"I'll come and see you shortly," said Wallander. "I've got some stuff I'd like your opinion on." Björk looked surprised.

"Have we got something to go on?" he asked. "I thought we were up against a brick wall."

"Not quite. I'll be with you in 10 minutes."

He went back to his office, rang the hospital, and was astonished to get straight through to Mörth.

"Anything new?" he asked the pathologist.

"I'm just writing my report," Mörth answered. "Can't you wait another couple of hours?"

"I have to put Björk in the picture. Can you at least say how long they've been dead?"

"No. We have to wait for the results of the lab tests. Stomach content, extent of cell tissue decay. I can only guess."

"Do it."

"I don't like guessing, you know that. What good will it do you?"

"You're experienced. You know what you're doing. The test results will only confirm what you suspect already, they won't contradict them. I only want you to whisper in my ear. I won't pass it on."

Wallander waited.

"A week," Mörth said finally. "At least a week. But don't tell anybody I said that."

"I've forgotten it already. You're still certain they're Russian or East European?"

"Yes."

"Did you find anything you didn't expect?" "I don't know anything about ammunition, of course, but I've never come across this type of bullet before." "Anything else?"

"Yes. One of the men has a tattoo on his upper arm. It's a sort of sabre. Some kind of Turkish scimitar, or whatever they're called."

"A what?"

"It's a sword. You can't expect a pathologist to be an expert on obsolete weaponry." "Does it say anything?" "What do you mean?"

"Tattoos usually have some inscription. A woman's name, or a place."

"There's no inscription."

"Nothing else?"

"Not at the moment."

"OK, thanks for all this anyway."

"It wasn't very much."

Wallander hung up, fetched himself a cup of coffee and went to see Björk. The doors of Martinsson's and Svedberg's offices were open, but neither of them was there. He sat down and drank his coffee, listening absentmindedly as Björk finished a phone conversation, which seemed to be getting rather heated. He jumped as Björk slammed down the phone.

"That was the damnedest thing I've ever heard," Björk said. "What's the point of carrying on?"

"A good question," Wallander said, "but I'm not sure what you're referring to."

Björk was shaking with anger. Wallander couldn't remember ever having seen him like this.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

Björk looked at him. "I don't know if I'm supposed to say anything about it," he said, "but I really have to. One of those bastards who murdered the old couple in Lenarp, the one we called Lucia, was let out on leave the other day.

Needless to say, he never went back. Presumably he's fled the country. We'll never catch him again."

Wallander couldn't believe his ears.

"Leave? He hasn't even been inside for a year yet, and that was one of the most brutal killings we've seen in this country. How the hell could they let him out on leave?"

"He was going to his mother's funeral."

Wallander's jaw dropped.

"But his mother's been dead for ten years! I remember that from the report the Czech police sent us."

"A woman claiming to be his sister turned up at Hall Prison, pleading for him to be let out to attend the funeral. Nobody seems to have checked anything. She had a printed card saying there was going to be a funeral in a church at Ängelholm – obviously a forgery. There still seems to be some souls in this country naive enough to believe that no one would forge a funeral invitation. They let him go with a warder. That was the day before yesterday. There was no funeral, nor was there a dead mother, no sister. They overpowered the guard, tied him up and dumped him in some woods near Jönköping. They even drove the prison commissioner's car to Kastrup Airport via Limhamn. It's still there, but they aren't."

"This just isn't true," Wallander said. "Who in hell's name could give a crook like that leave?"

"Like the adverts say: Sweden is fantastic," Björk said. "It makes me sick."

"Whose responsibility is it? Whoever gave him leave should be locked up in the cell he's left empty. How is a thing like that possible?"

"I'll look into it," Björk said. "But that's the way it is. The bird has flown."

Wallander's mind went back to the unimaginably savage murder of the old couple in Lenarp. He looked up at Björk in resignation.

"What's the point?" he wondered. "Why do we bust ourselves to catch criminals if all the prison service does is let them go again?"

Björk didn't answer. Wallander stood up and went over to the window.

"How much longer can we keep going?" he asked.

"We have to," said Björk. "Are you going to tell me now what you know about those two men in the rubber boat?"

Wallander told him what he knew. He felt depressed, tired and disappointed. Björk made a few notes as he was speaking.

"Russians," he said when Wallander had finished. "Or from an Eastern bloc country. Mörth was certain of that."

"I'd better contact the foreign ministry," said Björk. "It's their job to get in touch with the Russian police. Or Polish. The Eastern bloc."

"They could be Russians living in Sweden," Wallander said. "Or Germany. Or why not Denmark?"

"Even so, most Russians are still in the Soviet Union," Björk said. "I'll contact the foreign ministry straight away. They know what to do in a situation like this."

"We could put the bodies back into the life-raft and ask the coastguards to have it towed out into international waters," Wallander answered. "Then we could wash our hands of the case."

Björk seemed not to hear.