Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

He poured himself another cup of tea from the pot, and examined the photographs.

“What you have uncovered makes for a very mysterious story,” he said. “So Molin belonged to the Nazi party and went to fight for Hitler. Unterscharführer? What on earth was that? Was he mixed up with the Gestapo? Concentration camps? What was it they put over the entrance to Auschwitz? ‘Arbeit macht frei.’ Horrific stuff.”

“I don’t know much about Nazism,” Lindman said. “but I imagine that if you were a Hitler supporter you didn’t shout it from the rooftops. Molin changed his name. This might tell us why. He was covering his tracks.”

Larsson had asked for his bill, and paid it. He took out a pen and wrote “Herbert Molin” on the back of it.

“I think better when I write things down,” he said. “August Mattson-Herzén becomes Herbert Molin. You’ve spoken of his fear. It could be that he was scared that something in his past would catch up with him. You talked to his daughter, I suppose?”

“She said nothing about her father having been a Nazi. But then I didn’t ask her about that, of course.”

“It’s like having a criminal in the family. You’d rather not talk about them.”

“That was my thinking. Do you wonder if Andersson was another person with a past?”

“Let’s see what we find in his house,” Larsson said, writing down “Abraham Andersson.” “The forensic unit were going to take a few hours’ rest, then continue through the night.”

Larsson drew a line with two arrows between the two names, Andersson and Molin. Then he drew a swastika followed by a question mark next to Andersson’s name.

“We’ll have a serious chat with Mrs. Berggren first thing tomorrow morning,” he said, writing her name and drawing an arrow between it and the other two. Then he crumpled the bill up and put it in the ashtray.

“We?”

“We can say that you are in attendance as my extremely private assistant, unauthorized.” Larsson laughed aloud, then turned serious again. “We have two horrific murders to deal with,” he said. “I couldn’t care less about Rundström. Nor do I care whether everything goes by the book. I want you to be there. Two people listen better than one.”

They left the dining room. The man was still sitting at his table. They parted in the lobby, agreeing to meet the next morning at 7:30.

That night Lindman slept like a log. When he woke he realized he’d been dreaming about his father. They had been looking for each other in the woods. When the young Stefan finally found him in his dream, he had felt boundlessly relieved and happy.

Larsson had slept badly, however. He’d got up as early as 4 A.M. and by the time he wished Lindman good morning in the lobby, he’d already been to Andersson’s house. Nothing had changed. They had no clues to point to who had killed Andersson, and perhaps also Molin.

As they were about to leave the hotel, Larsson turned to the girl at the reception desk and asked if she’d seen his bill from last night’s dinner. It was only when he’d gotten into bed that he’d realized he would need it for his expense report. She said she hadn’t seen it.

“Didn’t I leave it on the table?” Larsson said.

“You crumpled it up and put it in the ashtray,” Lindman said.

Larsson shrugged. They decided to walk to Berggren’s house. There wasn’t a breath of wind, and the clouds had melted away. It was still dark as they walked to the bridge that would take them over the river to Ulvkalla. Larsson pointed to the white-painted district courthouse.

“There was a nasty incident here a few years ago that wasn’t widely reported. A violent assault. Two of those found guilty boasted of being neo-Nazis. I can’t remember what they said their organization was called. ‘Keep Sweden Swedish,’ something like that. Maybe it doesn’t exist any longer?”

“Nowadays they call themselves ‘WAR,’” Lindman said.

“What does that stand for?”

“White Aryan Resistance.”

Larsson grimaced. “Very nasty stuff. I suppose we thought we’d buried Nazism once and for all, but apparently it’s alive and kicking, even if most of ’em are shaven-headed urchins running wild in the streets.”

They crossed over the bridge.

“There used to be trains here when I was little,” Larsson said. “The National Railway. You could get from Östersund to Orsa via Sveg. You transferred there. Or was it Mora? I did that trip with Grandma when I was little. Nowadays the train only runs in the summer. The Italian singer Mom saw in the People’s Park came here on that train. No planes or limousines in those days. She was at the station to wave goodbye to him. She even has a picture of it. Blurred and wobbly. Taken with a box camera. She guards it like the crown jewels. She must have been madly in love with him.”

They had reached Berggren’s house.

“Have you warned her that we were coming?” Lindman said.

“I thought we’d give her a surprise.”

They went through the gate. Larsson rang the bell. The door opened almost immediately, as if she’d been expecting them.

“Giuseppe Larsson, Östersund CID. I think you’ve already met Stefan. We have quite a few questions to ask you. It has to do with the investigation into the death of Herbert Molin. You knew him, I believe?”

“We” indeed, Lindman thought. I don’t intend to ask any questions. He looked at Larsson, who winked at him as they stepped into the hall.

“I suppose this must be important, since you’ve come so early in the morning?”

“It certainly is,” Larsson said. “Where can we sit down? This is going to take quite a while.”

Lindman noticed that Larsson was much more brusque than he’d expected. He wondered what his own approach would have been if he’d been the one asking the questions. They went into the living room. Berggren didn’t ask them if they’d like coffee. Larsson proved to be a man who didn’t beat around the bush.

“You have a Nazi uniform in one of your closets,” he said, as an opening gambit.

Berggren stiffened. Then she looked at Lindman. Her eyes were cold. Lindman could see that she immediately suspected him, without being able to understand how he’d managed to get into her bedroom.

“I don’t know if it’s against the law to possess a Nazi uniform,” Larsson said. “I am pretty sure it’s illegal to appear in public wearing it. Can you get it for us?”

“How do you know that I have a uniform in my closet?”

“That’s a question I have no intention of answering, but you must understand that it’s relevant to two current murder investigations.”

She looked at them in astonishment. It seemed to Lindman that her surprised expression was genuine. He could see that she knew nothing about the murder at Glöte. He was surprised by this. Almost two days had passed, but still she knew nothing about it. She can’t have been watching television, he thought. Or listening to the radio. Such people do exist, I suppose, although there aren’t many of them.

“Who else has been killed — besides Herbert Molin?”

“Abraham Andersson. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Yes, he lived not far from Herbert. What has happened?”

“All I can tell you so far is that he’s been murdered.”

She stood up and left the room.

“No harm in being direct,” Larsson said softly. “But she obviously didn’t know that Andersson was dead.”

“The news was released a while ago, surely?”

“I don’t think she’s making it up.”

She came back with the uniform and cap. She put them down on the sofa. Larsson leaned forward to examine them.

“Who do they belong to?”

“Me.”