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Murniers broke off abruptly and looked at Wallander.
"Am I going too fast?" he asked.
"No. I think I can follow."
"They drove to the street where Major Liepa lived," Murniers went on. "They had taken out the bulb of the lamp by the front door, and they hid in the shadows, armed with various weapons. Earlier, they had been to a bar and fortified themselves with large amounts of strong liquor. When Major Liepa stepped through the door, they attacked. Upitis maintains it was Lapin who struck him on the back of the head. When we bring in Lapin and Bergklaus, no doubt they will all blame each other. Unlike Swedish law, ours permits us to condemn more than one man if it proves not to be possible to decide which of them was the actual killer. Major Liepa slumped down on to the pavement, the car drove up, and the body was crammed onto the back seat. On the way to the harbour he came round, whereupon Lapin is said to have struck him on the head again. Upitis claims Major Liepa was dead when they carried him out to the quayside. The intention was to give the impression that Major Liepa had been the victim of some kind of accident – that was doomed to failure, but it seems that Upitis and his accomplices didn't make much of an effort to mislead the police."
Murniers tossed the report back on to his desk.
Wallander thought back to the evening he had spent at the hunting lodge, Upitis and all his questions, the strip of light from the door where somebody had been listening.
"We think Major Liepa was betrayed, we suspect Colonel Murniers"
"How could they know Major Liepa would come back home on that day?" he asked.
"Possibly somebody working for Aeroflot had been bribed. There are passenger lists, after all. Certainly we shall be looking into that."
"Why was the major murdered?"
"Rumours spread quickly in a society like ours. Perhaps Major Liepa was being too awkward for certain powerful criminals to tolerate."
Wallander thought for a moment before putting his next question. He had listened to Murniers's account of Upitis's confession, and realised that something was wrong – terribly wrong. Even though he knew it was a fabrication, he couldn't guess at the truth. The lies complemented each other, and what had really happened and the reasons for it were impossible to see.
He realised he didn't have any questions to ask. There were no more questions, just vague, helpless statements.
"You must know that not a word of Upitis's confession is true," he said.
Murniers gave him a searching look. "Why shouldn't it be true?"
"For the simple reason that Upitis didn't kill Major Liepa, of course. The whole confession is made up. He must have been forced to make it. Unless he's gone mad."
"Why couldn't a criminal like Upitis have murdered Major Liepa?"
"Because I've met him," Wallander said. "I've spoken to him. I'm convinced that if anybody in this country can be excluded from suspicion of having murdered Major Liepa, it's Upitis."
Murniers's astonishment couldn't possibly have been an act. So, it wasn't him standing in the shadows at the hunting lodge, listening, Wallander registered. Who was it, then? Baiba Liepa? Or Colonel Putnis?
"You say you've met Upitis?"
Wallander made a snap decision to go once again for a half-truth. He had no choice, he had to protect Baiba Liepa.
"He came to my hotel room, and introduced himself. I recognised him when Colonel Putnis pointed him out through the two-way mirror in the interrogation room. When he came to see me, he said he was a friend of Major Liepa's."
Murniers was sitting tense and erect in his chair, all his attention concentrated on what Wallander had just said.
"Strange," he said. "Very strange."
"He came to see me because he wanted to tell me he thought Major Liepa had been murdered by one of his colleagues."
"By the police?"
"Yes. Upitis hoped I would be able to help him to work out what had happened. How he knew there was a Swedish police officer in Riga I have no idea."
"What else did he say?"
"That Major Liepa's friends didn't have any proof, but that the major had said that he felt under threat." "Threatened by whom?"
"By somebody in the police. Perhaps also by the KGB."
"Why should he feel threatened?"
"For the same reason that Upitis believes criminals in Riga had decided the major should be liquidated. There is an obvious link."
"What link?"
"The fact that Upitis was right on two counts, although he must have lied on one occasion."
Murniers leapt to his feet. Wallander wondered whether he, the police officer from Sweden, had overstepped the mark, pushed his luck too far, but the way Murniers looked at him suggested he was almost pleading with him.
"Colonel Putnis must hear this," Murniers said.
"Indeed," Wallander said. "He must."
Ten minutes later Putnis strode through the door. Wallander had no opportunity to thank him for the di
Putnis's reaction was very different from that of Murniers.
"Why didn't you tell anybody before that you had met this criminal Upitis?" he asked.
Wallander didn't know what to say. He could tell that he had broken the bond of trust between them, but at the same time he wondered whether it was a coincidence that he had been having di
Putnis's indignation subsided as quickly as it flared up. He was smiling again, and put his arm on Wallander's shoulder.
"Upitis, the butterfly collector and poet, is a crafty fellow," he said. "One has to admit it is a very clever move to divert suspicion from himself by going to see a Swedish police officer who happens to be visiting Riga, but there is nothing false about his confession. I've been expecting him to cave in. The murder of Major Liepa is solved. That means there is no longer any reason why you should stay in Riga.
I'll see about arranging for your journey home straight away. We will express our thanks to the Swedish foreign ministry through the official cha
It was then that it dawned on Wallander just how the whole of this gigantic conspiracy must be organised. He could see not just the scope of it, and the ingenious mixture of truth and lies, false trails and genuine chains of cause and effect, but it was also clear to him that Major Liepa had been the skilful and honourable police officer he had thought him to be. He understood Baiba Liepa's fear just as well as he understood her defiance. Although he was now going to be forced to go home, he knew he would have to see her again. He owed her that, just as he knew he had an obligation to the dead major.
"Of course I'll go home," he said, "but I'll stay until tomorrow. I've had far too little time to see the beautiful city I've been staying in – that's something I realised last night, talking to your wife."
He had been addressing both the colonels, apart from this last bit, which was directed at Putnis.
"Sergeant Zids is an excellent guide," he continued. "I trust I can make use of his services for the rest of today, even though my work here is now finished."
"Of course," Murniers said. "Perhaps we ought to celebrate the fact that this peculiar business is about to be solved. It would be impolite of us to allow you to fly back home without our presenting you with a souvenir, or drinking one another's health."