“I probably just haven’t got used to it yet,” he said.
When the conversation petered out, they watched a movie on TV. Linda had to go back to Stockholm early the next morning. Wallander thought he had had a glimpse of how the future would be. They would meet whenever they both had time. From now on she would also say what she really thought.
Just before 1 a.m. they said goodnight in the hall. Afterwards Wallander lay in bed for a long time, trying to decide whether he had lost something or gained something. His child was gone. Linda had grown up.
They met for breakfast at 7 a.m., and then he walked her the short distance to the train station. As they stood on the platform, she started to cry. Wallander stood there bewildered. Only a moment ago she hadn’t shown any signs of being upset.
“What is it?” he asked. “Did something happen?”
“I miss Grandpa,” she replied. “I dream about him every night.”
Wallander gave her a hug. “I do too.”
The train arrived. He stood on the platform until it pulled away. The station seemed terribly desolate. For a moment he felt like someone who was lost or abandoned, utterly powerless.
He wondered how he could go on.
CHAPTER 22
When Wallander got back to the hotel, there was a message for him from Robert Melander. He went up to his room and dialled the number. Melander’s wife answered. Wallander introduced himself, careful to thank her for the nice lunch she had prepared the day before. Melander came to the phone.
“I couldn’t help thinking about things some more last night,” he said. “I called the old postman too. Ture Emmanuelsson is his name. He told me that Krista Haberman received postcards regularly from Skåne, a lot of them. From Falsterbo, he thought. I don’t know if this means anything, but I thought I’d tell you anyway. She had a lot of bird related post.”
“How did you find me?” Wallander asked.
“I called the police in Ystad and asked them. It wasn’t difficult.”
“Skanör and Falsterbo are well-known meeting places for bird-watchers,” Wallander said. “That’s the only reasonable explanation for why she got so many postcards from there. Thanks for taking the time to call me.”
“I just keep wondering,” Melander said, “why the car dealer should have left money to our church.”
“Sooner or later we’ll find out why. But it might take time. Anyway, thanks for calling.”
Wallander stayed where he was after he hung up. It wasn’t 8 a.m. yet. He thought about the feeling he had experienced at the train station, the feeling that something insurmountable stood before him. He also thought about the conversation with Linda. Most of all, he thought about what Melander had said and what he now faced. He was in Gävle because he had an assignment. It was six hours before his plane left and he had to turn in the rental car at Arlanda.
He got some papers out of his case. Höglund’s notes said that he should start by getting in touch with a police inspector named Sten Wenngren. He would be home all day Sunday and was expecting Wallander’s call. She had also written down the name of the man who had advertised in Terminator magazine: Johan Ekberg, who lived out in Brynäs. Wallander stood by the window. A cold autumn rain had started falling. Wallander wondered whether it would turn to sleet, and if there were snow tyres on the rental car. He thought again about what he had to do in Gävle. With each step he took he felt himself moving further and further away from the heart of the matter.
The feeling that there was something he hadn’t discovered; that he had misinterpreted something fundamental in the pattern of the crimes, came back as he stood by the window. Why the deliberate brutality? What is it the killer wants to tell us? The killer’s language was the code he hadn’t been able to crack.
He shook his head, yawned, and packed his suitcase. Since he didn’t know what he would talk to Sten Wenngren about, he decided to go straight to Johan Ekberg. If nothing else, he might be able to get a glimpse into the murky world where soldiers sold themselves to the highest bidder. He took his bag and left the room. At the front desk, he asked how to get to Södra Fältskärsgatan in Brynäs.
When he got into his car he was overcome by that feeling of weakness again. He sat there without starting the engine. Was he coming down with something? He didn’t feel sick – not even particularly tired. He realised it had to do with his father. It was a reaction to everything that had happened, to having to adjust to a new life that had been changed in a traumatic way. There was no other explanation. His father’s death was causing him to suffer recurrent attacks of powerlessness.
At last he started the engine and drove out of the garage. The desk clerk had given him clear directions, but Wallander got lost immediately. The city was deserted. He felt as though he was driving around in a labyrinth. It took him 20 minutes to find the right street. He stopped outside a block of flats in what he thought must be the old section of Brynäs. Vaguely he wondered whether mercenaries slept late on Sunday mornings. He also wondered if Johan Ekberg was a mercenary himself at all. Just because he advertised in Terminator didn’t mean he had done any military service.
Wallander sat in the car looking at the building. The rain was falling. October was the most disconsolate month. Everything turned to grey. The colours of autumn faded away.
For a moment he felt like giving up the whole thing and driving away. He might just as well go back to Skåne and ask one of the others to call this Johan Ekberg on the phone. Or he could do it himself. If he left Gävle now he might be able to catch an earlier flight to Sturup.
But of course he didn’t leave. Wallander had never been able to conquer the sergeant inside him who made sure he did what he was supposed to do. He hadn’t taken this trip at the taxpayer’s expense just to sit in his car and stare at the rain. He got out of the car and crossed the street.
Johan Ekberg lived on the top floor. There was no lift in the building. There was cheerful accordion music coming from one of the flats, and someone was singing. Wallander stopped on the stairs and listened. It was a schottische. He smiled to himself. Whoever was playing the accordion wasn’t sitting around staring at the miserable rain, he thought, as he continued up the stairs.
Ekberg’s door had a steel frame and two extra locks. Wallander rang the bell. He sensed someone looking at him through the peephole, and rang again, as if to announce that he wasn’t giving up. The door opened. It had a safety chain. The hall was dark. The man he glimpsed inside was very tall.
“I’m looking for Johan Ekberg,” Wallander said. “I’m a detective from Ystad. I need to talk to you, if you are Ekberg. You’re not suspected of anything, I just need some information.”
The voice that answered him was sharp, almost shrill.
“I don’t talk to policemen. Whether they’re from Gävle or anywhere else.”
Wallander’s earlier feeling of powerlessness was gone at once. He reacted instantly to the man’s stubborn attitude. He hadn’t come this far just to be turned away at the door. He took out his badge and held it up.
“I’m working on solving two murders in Skåne. You probably read about them in the paper. I didn’t come all the way up here to stand outside your door and argue. You are fully entitled to refuse me entry. But I’ll be back. And then you’ll have to come to the Gävle police station with me. Take your pick.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Either let me in or else come out into the hall,” Wallander answered. “I’m not going to talk to you through a crack in the door.”
The door closed, then opened. The safety chain was off now. A harsh lamp went on in the hall. It surprised Wallander. It was mounted so that it shined right into the eyes of a visitor. Wallander followed the man, whose face he had still not seen. They came to a living room. The curtains were drawn and the lights were on. Wallander stopped at the door. It was like walking into another era. The room was a relic from the 1950s. There was a Wurlitzer against one wall. Glittering neon colours dan
ced inside its plastic hood. There were movie posters on the walls; one was of James Dean, but the others were mostly war movies. Men in Action. American marines fighting the Japanese on the beach. There were weapons hanging on the walls too: bayonets, swords, old cavalry pistols. A black leather sofa and chairs stood against another wall.
Ekberg stood looking at him. He had a crewcut and could have stepped out of one of his posters. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a white T-shirt. He had tattoos on the bulging muscles of his arms. Wallander could see that he was dealing with a serious bodybuilder.
Ekberg’s eyes were wary.
“What do you want?”
Wallander pointed inquiringly at one of the chairs. The man nodded. Wallander sat down while Ekberg remained standing. He wondered if Ekberg was even born when Harald Berggren was fighting his despicable war in the Congo.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Did you come all the way from Skåne to ask me that?”
Wallander made no attempt to hide his irritation. “Among other things,” he replied. “If you don’t answer my questions we’ll stop right now and you can to come to the station.”
“Am I suspected of committing a crime?”
“Have you?” Wallander shot back. He knew he was breaking all the rules of police conduct.
“No,” said Ekberg.
“Then we’ll start again,” said Wallander. “How old are you?”
“I’m 32.”
So Ekberg wasn’t even born when Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane crashed outside Ndola.
“I came to talk to you about Swedish mercenaries. I’m here because you’ve openly advertised in Terminator.”
“There’s no law against that, is there? I advertise in Combat & Survival and Soldier of Fortune too.”
“I didn’t say there was. This interview will go a lot faster if you just answer my questions and don’t ask any of your own.”
Ekberg sat down and lit a cigarette. Wallander saw he smoked non-filters. He lit the cigarette with a Zippo lighter. He wondered whether Johan Ekberg was living in a different era altogether.
“Swedish mercenaries,” he repeated. “When did it all start? With the war in the Congo?”
“A little earlier,” said Ekberg.
“When?”
“Try the Thirty Years War, for instance.”
Wallander realised that he shouldn’t be misled by Ekberg’s appearance, or by the fact that he seemed to be obsessed with the 1950s. He could well be an expert on this subject, and Wallander had a vague recollection from school that the Thirty Years War was indeed fought by armies made up of mercenary soldiers.
“Let’s stick to the years after the Second World War,” he said.
“Then it started with the Second World War. There were Swedes who volunteered in all the armies fighting. There were Swedes in German uniforms, Russian uniforms, Japanese, American, British, and Italian.”
“I always thought that volunteering wasn’t the same as being a mercenary.”
“I’m talking about the will to fight,” Ekberg said. “There have always been Swedes ready to take up arms.”
Wallander sensed something of the hopeless enthusiasm that usually marked men with delusions of a Greater Sweden. He cast a quick glance along the walls to see if he had missed any Nazi insignia, but saw none.
“Forget about volunteers,” he said. “I’m talking about mercenaries. Men for hire.”
“The Foreign Legion,” Ekberg said. “It’s the classic starting point. There have always been Swedes enlisted in it. Many of them lie buried in the Sahara.”
“The Congo,” Wallander said. “Something else started there, right?”
“There weren’t many Swedes there, but there were some who fought the whole war on the side of Katanga province.”
“Who were they?”
Ekberg gave him a surprised look. “Are you after names?”
“Not yet. I want to know what kind of men they were.”
“Former military men. Men looking for adventure. Others convinced they were fighting for a just cause. Here and there, a policeman who’d been kicked off the force.”
“What cause?”
“The fight against communism.”
“They killed innocent Africans, didn’t they?”
Ekberg was instantly on his guard.
“I don’t have to answer questions about political views. I know my rights.”
“I’m not remotely interested in your views. I just want to know who they were. And why they became mercenaries.”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Let’s say it’s my only question. And I want an answer to it.” Ekberg watched him with his wary eyes.
Wallander had nothing to lose by going straight to the point.
“It’s possible that someone with connections to Swedish mercenaries had something to do with at least one of these murders. That’s why I’m here. That’s why your answers might be significant.”
Ekberg nodded. He understood now. “Would you like something to drink?” he asked.
“Such as?”
“Whisky? Beer?”
It was only 10 a.m. He shook his head, although he wouldn’t have minded a beer.
“I’ll pass.”
Ekberg got up and came back a moment later with a glass of whisky.
“What kind of work do you do?” Wallander asked.
Ekberg’s reply surprised him. He didn’t know what he expected. But certainly not what Ekberg told him.
“I own a consulting firm that specialises in human resources. I concentrate on developing methods for conflict resolution.”
“That sounds interesting.” Wallander still wasn’t sure if Ekberg was pulling his leg or not.
“I also have a stock portfolio that’s doing well. My liquidity is stable at the moment.”
Wallander decided that Ekberg was telling the truth. He returned to the topic of the mercenaries.
“How is it you’re so interested in mercenaries?”
“They stand for some of the best things in our culture, which unfortunately are disappearing.”
Wallander felt uneasy at Ekberg’s reply. His convictions seemed so unshakable. Wallander wondered how it could be possible. He also wondered whether there were many men playing the Swedish stock market who had tattoos like Ekberg’s. It didn’t seem likely that the financiers and businessmen of the future would be bodybuilders with vintage jukeboxes in their living rooms.
“How were these men who went to the Congo recruited?”
“There are certain bars in Brussels. In Paris, too. It was all handled very discreetly. It still is, for that matter. Especially after what happened in Angola in 1975.”
“What was that?”
“A number of mercenaries didn’t get out in time. They were captured at the end of the war. The new regime set up a court martial. Most of them were sentenced to death and shot. It was all very ruthless. And quite unnecessary.”
“Why were they sentenced to death?”
“Because they had been recruited. As if that made any difference. Soldiers are always recruited, one way or another.”
“But they had nothing to do with that war? They came from outside? They took part in it just to make money?”
Ekberg ignored Wallander’s interrruption.
“They were meant to get out of the theatre of combat in time, but they had lost two of their company commanders in the fighting. A plane that was supposed to pick them up landed at the wrong airstrip in the bush. There was a lot of bad luck involved. About 15 of them were captured. The majority managed to get out. Most of them continued on to Southern Rhodesia. On a big farm outside Johannesburg there’s a monument to the men who were executed in Angola. Mercenaries from all over the world went to the unveiling.”
“Were there any Swedes among the men who were executed?”
“It was mostly British and German soldiers. Their next of kin were given 48 hours to claim their bodies.
Almost no-one did.”
Wallander thought about the memorial outside Johannesburg.
“So there is a great sense of fellowship among mercenaries from various parts of the world?”
“Every man takes complete responsibility for himself. But yes, there is a sense of fellowship. There has to be.”
“So isn’t that a reason why many of them would become mercenaries? Because they’re looking for fellowship.”
“The money comes first. Then the adventure. Then the fellowship. In that order.”
“So the truth is that mercenaries kill for money?”
Ekberg nodded. “Of course. But mercenaries aren’t monsters. They’re human beings.”
Wallander felt his disgust rising, but he knew that Ekberg meant every word. It had been a long time since he had met a man with such firm convictions. There was nothing monstrous about these soldiers who would kill anyone for the right amount of money. On the contrary, it was a definition of their humanity. According to Johan Ekberg.
Wallander took out a copy of the photograph and put it on the glass table in front of Ekberg.
“This was taken in what was then called the Belgian Congo more than 30 years ago. Before you were born. Three mercenaries. And one of them is a Swede.”
Ekberg leaned forward and picked up the photograph. Wallander waited.
“Do you recognise any of those men?” he asked after a moment. He mentioned two of the names: Terry O’Banion and Simon Marchand.
Ekberg shook his head.
“Those aren’t necessarily their real names.”
“In that case, I do recognise those names,” said Ekberg.
“The man in the middle is Swedish,” Wallander went on. Ekberg stood up and went into an adjacent room. He came back with a magnifying glass in his hand. He studied the picture again.
“His name is Harald Berggren,” said Wallander. “And he’s the reason I came here.”
Ekberg said nothing. He kept looking at the picture.
“Harald Berggren,” Wallander said again. “He wrote a diary about that war. Do you recognise him? Do you know who he is?”