Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

That was the end of the conversation.

Lindman ran his tongue over his teeth. The lump was still there.

They ordered coffee. She asked if he minded if she smoked. He said that it was fine and she lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings towards the ceiling. Then she looked at him.

“Why did you come here, really?” she said.

Lindman gave her part of the truth. “I’m on sick leave. I had nothing else to do.”

“The policeman I spoke to in Östersund said you were helping with the investigation.”

“One gets upset when a colleague is murdered, naturally. But my visit here is of no significance. I’ve just spoken to a few people, that’s all.”

“Who?”

“Mainly the police officer you’ll be meeting in Östersund tomorrow. Giuseppe Larsson. And Abraham Andersson.”

“Who’s he?”

“Your father’s nearest neighbor, even if he does live quite a long way away.”

“Did he have anything interesting to say?”

“No. But if anybody was going to notice something, it would have been him. You can talk to him, if you like.”

She stubbed out her cigarette, crushing the butt as if it were an insect.

“Your father changed his name,” Lindman said. “From Mattson-Herzén to Molin. That was a few years before you were born. At about the same time he asked to be discharged from the army and moved to Stockholm. When you were two, there was another move, to Alingsås. You can hardly be expected to remember anything about the time in Stockholm. A two-year-old doesn’t have a conscious memory. But there’s one thing I wonder about. What did he do in Stockholm?”

“He had a music shop.” She could see that he was surprised. “As you say, I don’t recall anything about it. But I heard later. He tried running a shop and opened one in Solna. It went well in the early years. He opened a second one in Sollentuna. But things went rapidly downhill from there. My first memories are from Alingsås. We lived outside the town in an old house that never got sufficiently warm in the winter.” She paused and lit another cigarette. “I wonder why you want to know all this.”

“Your father is dead. That means that all questions are important.”

“Are you suggesting that somebody killed him because he once owned a music shop?”

Lindman didn’t answer and moved instead to the next question.

“Why did he change his name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would anybody want to change their name from Herzén to Molin?”

“I simply don’t know.”

Lindman suddenly had the feeling that he should be careful. He wasn’t sure where the feeling came from, but it was certainly there. He was asking questions and she was answering, but at the same time something quite different was going on. Veronica Molin was finding out how much he knew about her father.

He picked up the coffeepot and asked if she would like a refill. She said no.

“When we worked together I had the impression that your father was worried. In fact, that he was scared. What of, I’ve no idea, but I can remember his fear still, though it’s been more than ten years since he retired.”

She frowned. “What would he have been scared of?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I’m asking you.”

She shook her head. “My father wasn’t the frightened type. On the contrary, he was brave.”

“In what way?”

“He was never afraid of doing things. Never afraid of refusing to do things.”

Her cell phone rang. She apologized, and answered. The conversation took place in a foreign language. Lindman wasn’t sure if it was Spanish or French. When it was over she beckoned the receptionist and asked for her bill.

“Did you go out to see the house?” Lindman said.

She looked at him for a while before answering. “I have a good memory of my father. We were never close, but I’ve lived long enough to know what sort of a relationship some children can have with their parents. I don’t want to spoil the image of my father by seeing the place where he was killed.”

Lindman understood. Or at least, he thought he did.

“Your father must have been very fond of dancing,” he said.

“Why on earth should he have been?”

Her surprise seemed genuine.

“Somebody said so,” Lindman said.

The receptionist came with two bills. Lindman tried to take them both, but she insisted on taking hers.

“I prefer to pay my own way.”

The girl went to get some change.

“What exactly does a computer consultant do?” Lindman said.

She smiled but didn’t reply.

They went their separate ways in the lobby. Her room was on the ground floor.

“How are you going to get to Östersund?” he said.

“Sveg is only a little place,” she said, “but I managed to rent a car even so. Thanks for your company.”

He watched her walk away. Her clothes, her shoes, everything about her looked expensive. Their conversation had restored some of his lost energy. The question was: what should he do with it? He didn’t suppose there was much in the way of a nightlife in Sveg.

He decided to go for a walk. What Björn Wigren had told him made him think. There was a connection between Berggren and Molin that he wanted to know more about. The curtain had been moved. He was certain of it.

He fetched his jacket and left the hotel. It was chillier than the previous night.

He took the same road as he’d taken earlier in the day. Stopped on the bridge. Listened to the water flowing beneath him. He met a man walking his dog. It was like meeting a ship with no lights far out on a black sea. When he reached the house, he stood in the shadows, away from the glow of the street lights. There was a car on the drive now, but it was too dark to see what make it was. There was a light on upstairs, behind drawn curtains. He stood motionless. He didn’t know what he was waiting for. But he stood there nevertheless.

The man approaching moved very quietly. He’d been watching Lindman for some time before deciding that he’d seen enough. He came diagonally from behind, staying in the shadows all the time.

Johansson had no idea who the man was. He looked in good condition. He eyed him warily.

“Hello,” he said. “I was wondering what you’re doing here.”

Lindman was startled. The man had moved so quietly, he’d had no idea there was anybody there.

“Who are you, asking me these questions?”

“Erik Johansson. I’m a police officer. I am asking myself just what you are doing here.”

“I’m looking at a house,” said Lindman. “I’m in a public place, I’m sober, I’m not creating a disturbance, I’m not even urinating. Is it forbidden to stand and look at a pretty house?”

“Not at all. But the lady who lives there was made nervous and telephoned. When people get nervous, I’m the one they contact. I thought I’d find out who you were. People are not used to strangers standing in the street staring at them. Not at night, in any case.”

Lindman took out his wallet and produced his police ID. He’d moved a couple of meters so that he was in the glow from the streetlight. Johansson grinned.

“So it’s you,” he said, as if he’d known Lindman of old but only just remembered.

“Stefan Lindman.”

Johansson scratched his forehead. Lindman noticed that he was only wearing a thin T-shirt under his jacket.

“Both of us being police officers doesn’t improve matters. Larsson told me you were here. But I couldn’t know it was you outside Elsa’s house.”

“It was Elsa who bought Molin’s house for him,” Lindman said. “No doubt you knew that?”

“I didn’t know that at all.”

“I found that out from a real estate agent in Krokom. I thought Larsson might have mentioned that.”