Read Online The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell - Free Book Online
Authors: Henning Mankell
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always greeted her with a broad smile. He knew she was a district judge and was very respectful towards her. She wondered if there were any female judges in Pakistan, but had never got around to asking him.
When she arrived home she had a bath before going to bed. She woke up at one o’clock and at last felt fully rested. After a couple of sandwiches and a cup of coffee, she returned to her work. A few hours later she printed out her judgement that acquitted the guilty man, drove back to court and left it on her secretary’s desk. Her secretary was evidently attending some kind of in-service training course: Birgitta Roslin hadn’t been informed or, more likely, had forgotten all about it. When she arrived back home she heated up some leftover chicken stew from yesterday’s dinner and left the rest in the fridge for Staffan.
She settled down on the sofa with a cup of coffee and switched on teletext. She was reminded of the headlines she had seen earlier in the day. The police had no clues to follow up and declined to reveal how many people had been killed or their names, since the next of kin had not yet been contacted.
A madman, she concluded, who either had a persecution complex or considered himself to have been badly treated by the world.
Her years as a judge had taught her that there were many different forms of madness that could drive people to commit horrendous crimes. But she had also learned that forensic psychiatrists did not always succeed in exposing criminals who merely pretended to be mentally ill.
She switched off the television and went down to the basement, where she had created a little cellar of red wines complete with several wine lists and order forms from a number of importers. Only a few years ago it had dawned on her that, thanks to her children moving out, the family finances had changed fundamentally. She now felt she could afford to spend money on something special and had decided to buy a few bottles of red wine every month. She enjoyed studying the lists and picking out new wines to try. Paying five hundred kronor or so for a bottle seemed to her an almost forbidden pleasure.
It was cool in the cellar. She checked that the temperature was fourteen degrees Celsius, then sat down on a stool between the racks. Down there, among all the bottles, she could feel at peace with the world. Given the alternative of soaking in a warm pool, she would have preferred to sit in her cellar surrounded on this particular day by one hundred and fourteen bottles lying in their racks.
But then again, was the peace she could experience in her cellar really genuine? When she was a young woman, if anybody had suggested to her that one day she would become a wine collector, she would never have believed her ears. She wouldn’t merely have denied any such possibility, she would have been upset. As a student in Lund she had been in sympathy with the left-wing radicals who, in the late 1960s, had questioned the validity of university education and the very foundations of the society in which she would eventually work. In those days, collecting wine would have been regarded as a waste of time and effort, a typically middle-class and hence objectionable hobby.
She was still sitting there lost in thought when she heard Staffan moving around on the floor above. She put the wine lists away and went back upstairs. He had just taken the chicken stew out of the fridge. On the table were a couple of evening newspapers he had brought with him from the train.
‘Have you seen this?’
‘I gather something awful’s happened in Hälsingland.’
‘Nineteen people have been killed.’
‘Teletext said that the number of dead wasn’t yet known.’
‘These are the latest editions. They’ve killed practically the whole population of a hamlet up there. It’s incredible. How did it go with the judgement you were working on?’
‘It’s finished. I acquitted him. I didn’t have any choice.’
‘The papers are all
When she arrived home she had a bath before going to bed. She woke up at one o’clock and at last felt fully rested. After a couple of sandwiches and a cup of coffee, she returned to her work. A few hours later she printed out her judgement that acquitted the guilty man, drove back to court and left it on her secretary’s desk. Her secretary was evidently attending some kind of in-service training course: Birgitta Roslin hadn’t been informed or, more likely, had forgotten all about it. When she arrived back home she heated up some leftover chicken stew from yesterday’s dinner and left the rest in the fridge for Staffan.
She settled down on the sofa with a cup of coffee and switched on teletext. She was reminded of the headlines she had seen earlier in the day. The police had no clues to follow up and declined to reveal how many people had been killed or their names, since the next of kin had not yet been contacted.
A madman, she concluded, who either had a persecution complex or considered himself to have been badly treated by the world.
Her years as a judge had taught her that there were many different forms of madness that could drive people to commit horrendous crimes. But she had also learned that forensic psychiatrists did not always succeed in exposing criminals who merely pretended to be mentally ill.
She switched off the television and went down to the basement, where she had created a little cellar of red wines complete with several wine lists and order forms from a number of importers. Only a few years ago it had dawned on her that, thanks to her children moving out, the family finances had changed fundamentally. She now felt she could afford to spend money on something special and had decided to buy a few bottles of red wine every month. She enjoyed studying the lists and picking out new wines to try. Paying five hundred kronor or so for a bottle seemed to her an almost forbidden pleasure.
It was cool in the cellar. She checked that the temperature was fourteen degrees Celsius, then sat down on a stool between the racks. Down there, among all the bottles, she could feel at peace with the world. Given the alternative of soaking in a warm pool, she would have preferred to sit in her cellar surrounded on this particular day by one hundred and fourteen bottles lying in their racks.
But then again, was the peace she could experience in her cellar really genuine? When she was a young woman, if anybody had suggested to her that one day she would become a wine collector, she would never have believed her ears. She wouldn’t merely have denied any such possibility, she would have been upset. As a student in Lund she had been in sympathy with the left-wing radicals who, in the late 1960s, had questioned the validity of university education and the very foundations of the society in which she would eventually work. In those days, collecting wine would have been regarded as a waste of time and effort, a typically middle-class and hence objectionable hobby.
She was still sitting there lost in thought when she heard Staffan moving around on the floor above. She put the wine lists away and went back upstairs. He had just taken the chicken stew out of the fridge. On the table were a couple of evening newspapers he had brought with him from the train.
‘Have you seen this?’
‘I gather something awful’s happened in Hälsingland.’
‘Nineteen people have been killed.’
‘Teletext said that the number of dead wasn’t yet known.’
‘These are the latest editions. They’ve killed practically the whole population of a hamlet up there. It’s incredible. How did it go with the judgement you were working on?’
‘It’s finished. I acquitted him. I didn’t have any choice.’
‘The papers are all
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