Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

He dialed the number. A woman answered, reciting the name of the firm.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Hans Jacobi.”

“Who’s speaking, please?”

“My name is Stefan Lindman.”

“Mr. Jacobi has retired.”

“He was a good friend of my father’s.”

“Yes, I remember. But Mr. Jacobi’s an old man now. He retired over five years ago.”

“I called mainly to find out if he is still alive.”

“He’s not well.”

“Does he still live in Kinna?”

“His daughter’s looking after him, at her home near Varberg.”

“I’d like to get in touch with him.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to tell you his address or telephone number. Mr. Jacobi has asked that callers be advised that he wishes to be left in peace. When he finished here, he did exactly what one should do.”

“Which was what?”

“He passed all his work on to his younger colleagues. Mainly to his nephew, Lennart Jacobi. He’s a partner.”

Lindman thanked the woman and hung up. It wouldn’t be difficult to track down the address in Varberg. But was he really justified in pestering an old, ailing man with questions about the past? He couldn’t make up his mind and decided to wait until tomorrow. Right now there was something else that needed doing. Something more important.

Shortly after 7 P.M. he parked outside the block of apartments in Norrby where Elena lived. He looked up at her window. Without Elena, I am nothing at the moment, he thought. Nothing at all.

Something had disturbed Silberstein during the night. At one point he’d been woken by the sound of the dog rubbing against the side of the tent. He’d hissed at it, and it stopped. Then he’d fallen asleep again and dreamed about La Cãbana and Höllner. It was still dark when he woke up next. He lay motionless, listening. The watch he’d hung from one of the tent poles said 4:45. He wondered what had disturbed him, if it was something inside himself, or whether there was something out there in the autumn night. Although there was a long time to go before dawn he couldn’t lie there in his sleeping bag any longer. The darkness was full of questions.

If things turned out badly for him and he was tried for the murder of Herbert Molin, he would be found guilty. He had no intention of denying what he had done. If all had gone according to his original plan, he would have returned to Buenos Aires and would never have been traced. The murder would have been filed away in the Swedish police archives and never solved.

Several times, especially while he was waiting for the right moment in his tent by the lake, he’d considered writing a confession that he would ask a lawyer to send to the Swedish police after his death. It would be a story going back to 1945, and would describe simply and clearly what had happened. If he were arrested now, though, he would also be accused of a murder he hadn’t committed.

He crawled out of the sleeping bag and dismantled the tent while it was still dark. The dog was wagging its tail and tugging at its leash. With the aid of his flashlight he made a thorough search of where the tent had been standing, making sure that he had left no trace. Then he drove off with the dog in the backseat. When he came to a crossroads with a sign pointing to Sörvattnet he stopped. He turned on the interior light and unfolded the map. What he wanted to do most of all was to go back south, leave all the darkness behind, call Maria and tell her he was on his way home. But he knew he couldn’t do that, his life would be intolerable if he didn’t find out what had happened to the man named Andersson. He took a road east to Rätmyren. He parked on one of the forestry roads he knew from before, and cautiously approached Molin’s house. The dog by his side was quiet. When he was sure the house was deserted, he put the dog inside the pen, closed the gate, hung the leash on the fence, and went back into the woods. That will give the police something to worry about, he thought, as he made his way back to where he’d parked the car. It was still dark.

The gravel crunched under the tires when he drove off the main road to study the map again. It wasn’t far to the Norwegian border, but that’s not where he was going. He set off again, heading north, and passed through Funäsdalen before turning onto a smaller road and driving into the darkness to see where it would take him. He was on a steep climb now; perhaps he was in the mountains already. He might well be, if he’d read the map correctly. He pulled up, switched off the engine, and sat back to wait for daylight.

When dawn began to break, he set off again, going uphill the whole time. He noticed several chalets tucked among the rocks and bushes. He must be in some kind of vacation spot. There were no lights anywhere. He kept on going until he came to a gate blocking the road. He got out of the car to open it, and continued along the road after closing the gate behind him. He realized that if they came after him, he’d be cornered. But he didn’t seem to care. All he wanted was to keep on going until the road petered out. Then he would have to make a decision.

Eventually the road came to an end and he could go no further. He got out of the car and filled his lungs with the chilly air. The light seemed to be gray. He looked around: mountaintops, in the distance a long valley, and beyond that more mountains. A path led into the trees. He followed it. After a few hundred meters he came upon an old wooden chalet. Nobody had been along that path for a long time, he could see that. He went up to the chalet and peered in through the windows. The front door was locked. He tried to imagine where he would have hidden a key if the chalet had been his. There was a broken pot in front of one of the flat stones forming part of the steps leading to the front door. He bent down and lifted the pot. No key. Then he felt underneath the stone, and there it was, fastened to a lump of wood by a piece of ribbon. He unlocked the door.

The chalet hadn’t been aired out for a considerable length of time. It comprised a big living room, two small bedrooms, and a kitchen. The furniture was made of light-colored wood. He ran his fingers over one of the chair arms, and thought how attractive some of this light-colored wooden furniture would look in his dingy home in Buenos Aires. Tapestries with embroidered texts that he couldn’t understand were hanging on the walls. He went into the kitchen. The chalet had electricity, and there was a telephone. He picked up the receiver and listened to the dial tone. He looked in the big freezer. It was full of food. What could that mean? Was the chalet only empty for a short time? He had no way of knowing. He took out some packages of frozen hamburgers and put them in the sink. Then he turned on the faucet over the sink, and water came gushing out.

He sat down by the telephone and dialed the long number to Maria in Buenos Aires. He’d never quite managed to work out the time difference. He could hear it ringing at the other end. He wondered who would be paying for this international call from his cottage in the mountains.

Maria answered. As usual, she sounded impatient, as if he’d interrupted her when she was doing something important, like cleaning or preparing food. If she had any time to herself, she used to play complicated games of patience. He’d tried in vain to work out the rules. He had the impression that she cheated. Not to solve the patience, but to make it last as long as possible.

“It’s me,” he said. “Can you hear me all right?”

She spoke loud and quickly, as she always did when she was nervous. I’ve been away for too long, he thought. She’s started to suspect that I’ve left her and will never come back home.