Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

“I don’t want to talk about that on the phone either. I want you to come here. I’ll be in touch again in a couple of hours.”

The phone went dead. Lindman drove home and went back to his apartment. He still hadn’t called Elena. He thought over what Veronica Molin had said. Why didn’t she want to talk to Larsson? And what could she possibly be frightened of?

He waited in his apartment. Two hours later, the phone rang again.

Lindman landed at Östersund Airport at 10:25 A.M. the following day. When Veronica Molin called him the second time he’d been determined to say no. He was not going to come back to Härjedalen and there was nothing he could do to help her. He was also going to inform her tersely and clearly that it was her obligation to talk to the local police, if not to Giuseppe Larsson then to someone else, Rundström perhaps.

When the call came, however, nothing went according to plan. She came straight to the point, asking him if he wanted to go or not. He said yes. Then when he’d started asking his various questions, she’d been evasive and said she didn’t want to discuss it over the telephone. She hung up after they had agreed to meet in Sveg the following day. He had asked her to book a room for him, preferably No. 3 as before.

He went to the window and looked out at the street. He wondered what was making him act the way he did. The fear digging at him, the illness he was trying to keep at bay? Or was it Elena that he couldn’t deal with? He didn’t know. The day he heard he had cancer, everything had been put out of joint. On top of everything else he was thinking about his father all the time. It’s not Molin’s past that I’m tracking down, he told himself. It’s my own past, the truth about something I didn’t know until I broke into Wetterstedt’s apartment in Kalmar.

He’d called Landvetter Airport, checked flight times, and booked a ticket. Then he’d called Elena, who was subdued and noncommittal. He went to her apartment at 7:15 and stayed until the next morning, when he’d been forced to go home, throw some clothes into a bag, and then drive the 40 kilometers to Landvetter. They had made love during the night, but it was as if he hadn’t really been there. Perhaps she had not noticed; she hadn’t said anything. Nor had she asked why he suddenly had to go back to Härjedalen. When they said goodbye in her hall, he could feel her trying to envelop him in her love. He’d tried to suppress his worries, but as he drove back to Allégatan through the deserted streets he didn’t feel that he’d succeeded. Something was happening inside him, like a cloud of mist creeping up on him and threatening to choke him. He was in a panic, afraid that he was losing Elena, forcing her to desert him for her own sake.

When he walked down the airplane steps at Frösön he felt the fierce cold. The ground was white with frost. He rented a car — Veronica Molin would pay for it. He had intended to go straight to Sveg, but changed his mind when he drove onto the bridge from Frösön to Östersund. It was unacceptable not to tell Larsson that he’d come back. What reason should he give? Veronica Molin had contacted him confidentially, but he didn’t want to keep it from Larsson. He had enough problems already.

He parked outside the National Rural Agency but stayed in the car. What should he say to Larsson? He couldn’t tell him the whole truth. On the other hand, he didn’t want to tell a complete lie, even if he had become quite good at it lately. He could come out with a half-truth. Say that he couldn’t handle being in Borås, that he preferred to be somewhere else until the radiation therapy actually started. Someone with his illness had the right to be restless and to change his mind.

He went to the reception desk and asked for Larsson. The girl recognized him from his earlier visit, smiled, and said that Larsson was in a meeting but it would be over soon. Lindman took a seat and thumbed through the local paper. The murder investigation was front-page news. Rundström had held a press conference the previous day. It was largely concerned with the weapon, and there was a new appeal for witnesses. No reference to what the police already knew. Nothing about certain makes of car or individuals moving around in the area. The articles implied that the police were marking time and had nothing to go on. Larsson appeared in reception at 11:30 A.M. He was unshaven and looked tired and worried.

“I should say that I’m surprised to see you, but nothing surprises me at the moment.” He looked more resigned than Lindman had ever seen him before. They went to his office, and he closed the door behind them. Lindman said what he’d made up his mind to say, that he’d come back because he couldn’t settle down in Borås. Larsson eyed him sternly.

“Do you go bowling?” Larsson said.

“Do I go bowling?”

“I do, when I feel restless. I sometimes find it difficult to cope too. Don’t underestimate bowling. It’s best to play with a few friends. The pins you knock over can either be your enemies, or problems you can’t solve that are getting you down.”

“I’ve never tried it.”

“Take it as a friendly suggestion. Nothing more.”

“How’s it going?”

“I saw you reading the local rag. We’ve just had a meeting of the investigative team. Wheels are turning, routines are being followed, everybody’s digging away for all they’re worth. Nevertheless, what Rundström told the reporter is true: we’re getting nowhere.”

“Are there two murderers?”

“Presumably. That’s what the evidence suggests.”

“That doesn’t have to mean that the crimes have different motives.”

Larsson agreed. “That’s what we thought. And then there is the business about the dog. I don’t think it’s a macabre joke: I think it’s a conscious effort to tell us something.”

“What, for example?”

“I don’t know. The fact that we realize that somebody is trying to tell us something has created a sort of constructive chaos. We’re forced to accept that there aren’t any simple answers — not that we ever thought there were.”

Someone laughed in the corridor outside. Then it was quiet again.

“There was a sort of fury about it all,” Larsson said. “About both murders. In Molin’s case an insane fury. Somebody drags him around in a bloodstained tango, lashes him to death, and leaves him in the forest. There was anger behind the death of Andersson as well. More controlled. No dead dogs. No bloodstained dance. But an ice-cold execution. I wonder if these two crimes, displaying such different temperaments, can possibly have been hatched in the same brain. Molin’s murder was meticulously planned. Not least your discovery of the campsite makes that clear. But Andersson’s is different. So far I can’t quite work out how.”

It was obvious that Larsson wanted to know Lindman’s opinion.

“If the murders are linked, and if it’s the same murderer, I suppose we have to assume that something happened subsequently that made it necessary for him to kill Andersson.”

“I agree. My colleagues don’t. Or it could be that I haven’t been able to express myself clearly enough. Anyway, I still think the most likely explanation is two different murderers.”

“It’s strange that nobody’s reported anything. The whole community must be as alert as they are fearful.”

“I’ve been playing this game for many years, but I can’t ever remember knocking on so many doors and making so many appeals without hearing so much as a squeak in response. Generally speaking, there’s always somebody peering out from behind their curtains and noticing something different from the usual village routine.”