Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

Lindman thought that over. “So you think that somebody was keeping watch and made his move when you weren’t around?”

“I don’t think anything. I’m just saying that it’s odd. I’m probably the only one who wanders around here. Apart from Herbert.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know. I have to go now.”

Lindman walked him to his car, which was parked at the bottom of the slope. He could see a violin case in the back seat.

“Where did you say you lived?” he said. “Dunkärret?”

“Just this side of Glöte. Keep going when you get there. About six kilometers. There’s a sign pointing to the left. Dunkärret. 2.”

Andersson got into the car. “You have to catch whoever did this,” he said. “Herbert was an oddball, but harmless. Whoever killed him must have been insane.”

Lindman watched the car drive off, standing there until the sound of the engine had died away. It struck him that sound travels a long way in a forest. Then he went back to the house and along the path that led to the lake. All the time he was pondering what Andersson had said. Nobody knew Molin. But somebody had paid him visits. Andersson hadn’t been prepared to say who, however. And the murder had taken place when Andersson wasn’t in the vicinity, always assuming that Dunkärret could be counted as in the vicinity. Lindman paused to think. That could only mean one thing. Andersson must suspect that whoever killed Molin knew that Andersson was away, and that in turn could mean only two things: either the murderer was local, or he’d been keeping watch on Molin for a considerable period of time — at least a month, possibly longer.

He came to the lake. It was bigger than he’d expected. The water was brown, with only a very few gentle ripples. He squatted down and dipped his hand in. It was cold. He stood up and suddenly saw Borås Hospital in his mind’s eye. It was several hours since he’d last thought about what was in store for him. He sat on a rock and gazed over the lake. Wooded ridges stretched away into the distance on the other side, and he could hear a power saw somewhere a long way off. I have no business being here, he thought. Molin might have had a reason for coming up north to the gigantic forests and the silence, but I haven’t. On the contrary, I should be preparing myself for what’s going to happen. My doctor has given me a good chance of surviving. I’m still young, and I’m strong, but the bottom line is that nobody can know for sure whether I’m going to make it or not.

He started along the shore. When he turned to look, he could no longer see the house. He was alone in the world now. He continued along the stony shore and eventually came to a rotting rowboat that had been beached. In the decaying remains was an anthill. He kept on walking, with no direction in mind, until he came to an opening in the trees, and sat down again, this time on a fallen tree trunk. The ground seemed to be well-trodden. He noticed some cuts on the trunk that could only have been made by a knife. Perhaps Molin used to come here, he thought vaguely. Between jigsaw puzzles. Maybe he brought his dog with him? What was its name? Shaka? An odd name for a dog.

His mind was a complete blank. The only thing he could see was the road ahead, the long road he’d driven from Borås to get here. Then something intruded, spoiling the image. Something he should give thought to. He knew what it was. Something that had just occurred to him: that perhaps Molin came here with his dog.

It could have been somebody else, he thought. Somebody else sitting here. He started to look around, more attentively this time. The site had been cleared. Somebody had removed the undergrowth and leveled the ground. He got up from his tree trunk and squatted in the middle of the leveled area. It wasn’t big, hardly more than twenty square meters, but pretty well shielded from view. Fallen trees and some large rocks made it more or less impossible to get there unless one came at it from the water’s edge. He looked hard at the ground. If he screwed up his eyes, he could just make out a faint shape in the moss. A square. He felt with his fingers in the four corners. There were holes there. He stood up. A tent, he thought. Unless I’m totally mistaken, there was a tent pitched here. No way of knowing how long ago, but it must have been this year, otherwise the snow would have obliterated all the marks.

He looked around again, more slowly, as if every detail he saw might be crucial. At the back of his mind he kept thinking that what he was doing was pointless. But then again, he had nothing else to do at the moment. Nothing else to distract him.

He could find no trace of a fire, but that was irrelevant. People nowadays used camping gas stoves when they were in the forest. He examined the ground around the tree trunk one more time, but found nothing.

Then he went back down to the water’s edge. There was a big stone on the waterline. He sat on it. Looked into the water, then felt at the back of the stone and the moss came loose. When he scraped it to one side he saw the remains of cigarette butts. The paper was brown, but they had certainly been cigarettes. They’d rotted away, but there were unmistakable flakes of tobacco. He explored further with his hands. There were cigarette butts everywhere. Whoever had sat here was a heavy smoker. He found a butt where the paper was discolored but still retained a bit of whiteness. He picked it up carefully and searched in his pockets for something to put it in. The only thing he could find was a receipt. The Hospital Cafeteria, Borås. He placed the cigarette butt carefully in the receipt, then folded it to form a parcel. He kept on searching and asked himself what he would have done if he’d pitched a tent here. You’d need a shithole, he thought. It was possible to clamber into the forest past the side of one of the biggest rocks. It looked as if the moss had been scraped from one side of the stone. He examined the ground behind the stone. Nothing. He worked his way into the forest, a meter at a time. He thought about the police dogs Andersson had told him about. If they hadn’t found any tracks, they could not have come this far.

He stopped short. Next to the trunk of a pine tree was a pile that had clearly been made by a human. Feces and paper. His heart started beating faster. He was right. Somebody had camped by the side of the lake. A person who smoked cigarettes and didn’t trouble to bury his excrement.

Even so, there was nothing to link the camper with Herbert Molin. He went back to where the tent must have been. There had to be some connection with the main road, or a forest road where the man in the tent might have left his car.

The shortcomings of his argument were immediately obvious to him. The camping site could well have been a meticulously arranged hiding place. The idea of a car parked near the main road didn’t fit in with that. What were the alternatives? A motorcycle or an ordinary bicycle would be easier to hide than a car. Or perhaps somebody else had driven the camper here.

He looked over the lake. There was another possibility, of course. The camper could have come that way. But where’s the boat?

Larsson, he thought, is the man I have to talk to. There’s no reason why I should be playing the private detective here. It’s the police in Jämtland and Härjedalen that have to figure this out. He sat on the fallen tree again. It was colder. The sun was setting. There was a flapping noise in the trees. When he turned to look, the bird had already disappeared. He started retracing his steps. A brooding silence prevailed around Molin’s house. The chill emanating from the events that had taken place here was getting to him.

He drove back to Sveg. He stopped at the store in Linsell and bought the local newspaper, Härjedalen , published every Thursday (except public holidays). The man behind the counter gave him a friendly smile. Lindman could see he was curious.