The Dogs of Riga

His fear was now coupled with violent hatred. If he had a weapon in his hand, he would not have hesitated to use it. For the first time in his life he was prepared to kill another human being, without even trying to excuse it as self-defence.

There's a time to live, and a time to die, he thought. That was the mantra he had repeated to himself when he'd been stabbed by a drunk in Pildamm Park in Malmö. Now it had acquired extra meaning.

He came upon a dirty lavatory with a dripping tap. He rinsed his face and quenched his thirst, then found a part of the warehouse that was cut off from the rest, unscrewed the light bulb, and sat down in the dark to wait for the darkness that would have to come eventually.

To keep his fear under control, he tried to concentrate on working out a plan of escape. Somehow or other he must reach the city centre and find the Swedish Embassy. He would have to reckon on every single police officer, every single "Black Beret", knowing what he looked like and having orders to watch out for him. Without help from the Swedish Embassy, he would be lost. He reckoned that remaining undetected for more than a very short time was out of the question. He must also assume the Swedish Embassy would be under observation.

The colonels must suppose that I already know the major's secret, he thought, or they wouldn't have reacted as they have done. I say the colonels, because I still don't know which of them it is behind everything that has happened.

He dozed off for a few hours, only to wake up with a start when he heard a car drawing up outside the warehouse. Occasionally, he went back to the dirty window. The soldiers were still there, on the alert. Wallander felt sick the whole of that never-ending day. He couldn't get over the evil of it all. He forced himself to his feet and searched the whole building, looking for a way out. The main door was out of the question. Eventually, he found a grill in a wall close to the ground, covering a hole that may once have contained some kind of ventilator. He pressed his ear to the cold brick wall to discover whether he could hear any sign of soldiers on this side of the building as well, but he could hear nothing. What he would do if he did eventually get out of the warehouse, he had no idea. He tried to rest as much as he could, but was unable to sleep. Inese's crumpled body, her blood-covered face, wouldn't go away. Dusk fell, and with it a sharper cold.

Shortly before 7 p.m. he decided he would have to leave. With great care, he started to ease off the rusty grill. At any moment he expected a searchlight to be switched on, excited voices to shout out commands, and a hail of bullets to smash into the wall. Eventually he managed to detach the grill, slide it carefully to one side and scramble through. There was a faint yellow light from an adjacent factory illuminating the wasteland outside the warehouse, and he tried to get his eyes used to the near-darkness. There was no sign of the soldiers. About ten metres away was a row of rusting lorries, and he decided to start by trying to get as far as that without being noticed. He took a deep breath, crouched down, and ran as fast as he could to the old wrecks. As he came to the first of them, he stumbled over an old tyre and hit his knee against a broken bumper. The pain was excruciating, and he thought the noise would immediately attract the attention of the soldiers on the other side of the warehouse. But he lay still and nothing happened. The pain in his knee was unbearable, and he could feel blood ru

What next? He thought of the Swedish Embassy, but then he realised he neither could nor wanted to give up. He had to contact Baiba Liepa, and it was no good sending up a private distress signal. Now that he had escaped the warehouse where Inese and the cross-eyed man had met their deaths, he had enough strength to think differently. He had come here for Baiba Liepa, and she was the person he should try to find, even if it was the last thing he did in this life.

He crept through the shadows, following a fence around the factory and eventually coming to the street. He still didn't know where he was, but he could hear the muffled drone that sounded like a motorway in the distance, and he headed for the noise. He occasionally passed other people, and he sent a silent "thank you" to Joseph Lippman who had been far-sighted enough to insist that Wallander should put on the clothes Preuss had brought with him in a shabby suitcase. He walked for over half an hour, cowering in the shadows to avoid police cars, and all the while trying to work out what to do. He had to accept that there was only one person he could turn to. It would involve a major risk, but he had no choice. It also meant he would have to spend another night in hiding. It was chilly, and he would have to find something to eat if he were going to survive the night.

He realised that he would never have the strength to walk all the way to the centre of Riga. His knee was hurting badly, and he was so tired he couldn't think straight.

He would have to steal a car. The very thought of the risks involved horrified him, but it was his only chance. He had noticed a Lada parked in a street he had just passed – it hadn't been standing outside a house, but seemed strangely deserted. He retraced his steps. He tried to recall how to open locked car doors and short-circuit engines. But what did he know about a Lada? Maybe it wasn't possible to start one of those using the methods perfected by Swedish car thieves.

The car was grey and its bumpers were dented. Wallander stood in the shadows, observing the car and the surroundings. All he could see were factories with all the lights out. He went over to a broken-down fence round a loading bay in the ruins of what had once been a factory. His fingers were frozen stiff, but he managed to break off a length of wire about two feet long. He made a loop at one end, then hastened over to the car.

Sliding the wire in through the car window and manipulating the door handle was easier than he had expected. He scrambled into the driver's seat and hunted for the ignition lock and the cables. He cursed the fact that he didn't have any matches. Sweat was pouring down the inside of his shirt, but he was so cold that he was shivering. Eventually, out of sheer desperation, he ripped the whole bundle of wires out from behind the ignition, pulled the lock away, and co

This is a nightmare, he thought. I'm a Swedish police officer, not a madman with a German passport stealing cars in the Latvian capital of Riga. He drove in the direction he'd been heading on foot, working out which gear was which, wondering why there was such a stench of fish in the car.

After a short while he reached the motorway he'd heard the noise from previously. The engine almost stopped as he turned onto it, but he managed to keep it going. He could see the lights of Riga. He had already made up his mind to try to find his way to the district around the Latvia Hotel and go to one of the little restaurants he'd seen there. Once again he sent a silent "thank you" to Joseph Lippman, who had made sure Preuss provided him with some Latvian currency. He had no idea how much money he had, but hoped it would be enough for a meal. He crossed the river and turned left onto the riverside boulevard. There was not a lot of traffic, and he got stuck behind a tram and was immediately subjected to some furious tooting from a taxi just behind him that had been forced to brake suddenly. He was getting nervous, crashing the gears, and only managed to get away from the tramlines by turning into a side street. He discovered too late that he had driven into a one-way street. A bus was coming towards him, the street was very narrow, and no matter how hard he tried and fiddled with the gear lever, he couldn't find reverse. He was on the brink of abandoning the car in the middle of the street and ru