Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

He rang the bell and silently counted to twenty. Then he rang again. He couldn’t hear any ringing noise inside the flat. He rang a third time. Still no reply. He knocked on the door, waited, then hammered on it really hard. The door behind him opened. In the doorway was an elderly man in a dressing gown.

“I’m looking for Mr. Wetterstedt,” Lindman said. “It seems he’s not at home.”

“He spends the autumn at his summer place. That’s when he takes his vacation.”

The man in the doorway looked at Lindman with an expression of utter contempt. As if it was the most natural thing in the world to take a vacation in November. And that an old man on a pension still had a job to take a vacation from.

“Where is his summer place?”

“Who are you? We like to keep an eye on people who come sauntering around this building. Are you going to commission a portrait?”

“I want to speak to him about an urgent matter.”

The man eyed Lindman up and down.

“Emil’s summer place is on Öland. In the south of the island. When you’ve gone past Alvaret you see a sign that says Lavender. And another sign informing you that it’s a private road. That’s where he lives.”

“Is that the name of the house? Lavender?”

“Emil talks about a shade of blue tending towards lavender. In his opinion it’s the most beautiful shade of blue there is. Impossible for a painter to reproduce. Only nature can create it.”

“Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome.”

Lindman started for the stairs, but stopped.

“Just one more thing. How old is Mr. Wetterstedt?”

“He’s eighty-eight, but he’s pretty spry.”

The man closed his door. Lindman walked slowly down the stairs. So I have a reason to cross over the bridge into the fog, he thought. I too am on a sort of involuntary vacation, with no aim other than filling in time until November 19.

He went back the way he’d come. The shop selling cell phones was open. A young man yawned and diffidently produced a battery that fitted Lindman’s cell phone. He paid, and even as he did so the phone beeped to indicate that he had messages. Before leaving Kalmar, he sat in his car and listened to them. Elena had called three times, sounding increasingly resigned and curt. There was a message from his dentist, reminding him it was time for his annual checkup. That was all. Larsson hadn’t phoned. Lindman hadn’t really expected him to, although he’d hoped he would. None of his colleagues had tried to contact him, but he hadn’t expected that either. He had virtually no close friends.

He put the phone on the passenger seat, drove out of the parking lot, and started looking for a road leading to the bridge. The fog was thick as he drove over the water. Perhaps this is what it’s like to die, he thought. In the old days people imagined a ferryman coming with a boat to row you over the river Styx. Now it might be a bridge you have to cross, into the fog, and then oblivion.

He came to Öland, turned right, passed some sort of zoo, and continued southwards. He drove slowly. Very few cars were coming in the opposite direction. He could see no countryside, only fog. At one point he stopped in a rest area and got out. He heard a foghorn sounding in the distance and what may have been the sound of waves. Apart from that, it was silent. It felt as if the fog had seeped into his head and blanketed his mind. He held one hand in front of his face. It too was white.

He drove on, and almost missed the sign for “Lavender 2.” It reminded him of another sign he’d been looking for recently, “Dunkärret 2.” Sweden is a country where people live two kilometers from the main road, he thought.

The dirt road he turned onto was full of potholes and evidently little-used. It was absolutely straight, and disappeared into the fog. Eventually he came to a closed gate. On the other side was an ancient Volvo 444 and a motorcycle. Lindman switched off his engine and clambered out. The bike was a Harley-Davidson. Lindman knew a little about motorcycles, thanks to the time he’d chauffeured the motocross buff around Sweden. This wasn’t one of the standard Harley-Davidson models. It was homemade and unique, a valuable specimen. But did a man aged eighty-eight really ride around on a Harley-Davidson? He’d have to be very fit to manage that. Lindman opened the gate and continued along the path. There was still no sign of a house. A figure emerged from the mist, walking towards him. A young man with close-cropped hair, nattily dressed in a leather jacket and a light-blue open-necked shirt. Obviously he had been working out.

“What are you doing here?” The voice was shrill, almost a shriek.

“I’m looking for Emil Wetterstedt.”

“Why?”

“I want to talk to him.”

“Who are you? What makes you think he wants to talk to you?”

Lindman bristled at the cross-examination. The youth’s voice was hurting his eardrums.

“I want to talk to him about Herbert Molin. Perhaps I should mention that I’m a police officer.”

The boy stared at him. His jaws worked away at a wad of chewing gum. “Wait here,” he said. “Don’t move from this spot.”

He was swallowed up by the fog. Lindman followed him, slowly. After only a few meters a house came into view. The boy disappeared through the front door. It was a whitewashed house, long and narrow, with a wing jutting out from one of the gable ends. Lindman waited. He wondered what the countryside was like here, how far it was from the sea. The door opened again and the boy approached.

“I thought I told you to stay put!” he shrieked in that shrill voice of his.

“You can’t always have what you want, sonny,” Lindman said. “Is he going to receive me or isn’t he?”

The boy gestured to Lindman that he should follow him. There was a smell of paint in the house. All the lights were on. Lindman had to bow his head when he entered through the door. The boy showed him into a room at the back of the house. One of the long walls was a picture window.

Emil Wetterstedt was sitting in an armchair in a corner. He had a blanket over his knees, and on a table next to his chair was a pile of books and a pair of glasses. The boy positioned himself behind the armchair. The old man had thin white hair and a wrinkled face, but the eyes he directed at Lindman were very bright.

“I don’t like being disturbed when I’m on vacation,” he said.

His voice was the very opposite of the boy’s. Wetterstedt spoke very softly.

“I won’t take much of your time.”

“I don’t accept commissions for portraits anymore. In any case, your face is too round to inspire me. I prefer longer, thinner faces.”

“I haven’t come here to ask you to paint my portrait.”

Wetterstedt shifted his position. The blanket over his legs fell to the floor. The boy darted forward to put it back.

“Why have you come, then?”

“My name’s Stefan Lindman. I’m a police officer. I spent some years working alongside Herbert Molin in Borås. I don’t know if you’ve been informed that he’s dead.”

“I have been told that he’s dead. Do you know who did it?”

“Not yet.”

Wetterstedt gestured towards a chair. Somewhat reluctantly, the boy moved it into place.

“Who told you that Molin was dead?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“Is this an interrogation?”

“No. Just a talk.”

“I’m too old for talks. I gave that up when I turned sixty. I’d done enough talking in my life by then. Nowadays I neither speak nor listen to what anybody else has to say. Apart from my doctor. And a few young people.”

He smiled and nodded at the boy standing guard behind his chair. Lindman started to wonder what was going on. Who was this boy whose assignment seemed to be to guard over the old man?