Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

When he was woken by Larsson’s call, he felt fine. He examined his face in the bathroom mirror and was overcome by a feeling of unreality that he had no defense against. He burst into tears, threw a towel at the mirror, and staggered out of the bathroom. I’m dying, he thought. I have cancer. It’s incurable, and I’m going to die.

His cell phone was ringing in the jacket he’d dropped on the floor. Elena. He could hear the buzz of voices behind her.

“Where are you?” she said.

“In my room. And you?”

“At school. I had the feeling I should call you.”

“Everything’s okay here. I miss you.”

“You know where I am. When are you coming home?”

“I have to report to the hospital on the 19th. I’ll be back some time before then.”

“I dreamed last night that we went to England. Can’t we do that? I’ve always wanted to see London.”

“Do we have to schedule it now?”

“I’m just telling you about a dream I had. I thought it might be good to have something we could both look forward to.”

“Of course we’ll go to London. If I live that long.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired. I have to go to a meeting now.”

“I thought you were supposed to be on sick leave?”

“They asked me to stay.”

“There was something in the paper here yesterday about the murders. And a picture of Herbert Melin.”

“Molin. Herbert Molin.”

“I have to go now. Call me tonight.”

Lindman promised to call. He put the phone down. Where would I be without Elena? he thought. Nowhere.

When they met for the meeting Rundström surprised Lindman by giving him a friendly handshake. Johansson took off a pair of muddy rubber boots; a dog handler from Östersund asked angrily if somebody by the name of Anders had been in touch. Larsson tapped the table with his pen and started the meeting. He made a brisk and clear summary of what had happened the night before.

“Berggren has asked us to wait until this evening before questioning her in any more detail,” he said. “That seems reasonable. In any case, we have lots of other things that are just as pressing.”

“We have some footprints,” Johansson said. “From inside Elsa’s house, and from the garden. Whoever it was that broke in and then knocked Lindman on the head was rather careless. We have footprints from the Molin and Andersson murders. That will be a priority for the forensic boys now: establishing whether there’s a match. That and the tire tracks.”

Larsson agreed. “The dogs picked up a scent,” he said. “It went as far as the bridge. Then what happened?”

The dog handler answered. He was middle-aged, and had a scar across his left cheek. “It went cold.”

“No finds?”

“Nothing.”

“There’s a parking lot there,” Johansson said. “In fact, it’s just a grass shoulder that’s been concreted over. Anyway, the scent petered out. We can assume that his car was parked there. Especially if we bear in mind that it’s not easy to see anything there in the dark. The street lighting is pretty poor just there. It’s by no means unheard of, especially in summer, for people to park there and do some making out in the backseat.” Chuckles from all round the table. “Occasionally we find ourselves facing more intricate problems based on happenings there,” he said. “The kind of thing that used to take place off remote forest roads and kept the magistrates busy with paternity suits.”

“Somebody must have seen this man,” Larsson said. “The name on his credit card was Fernando Hereira.”

“I’ve just been talking to Östersund,” Rundström said, who’d been quiet until now and let Larsson chair the meeting. “They’ve triggered a computer search and come up with a Fernando Hereira in Västerås. He was arrested for VAT evasion some years ago — but he’s over seventy now, so we can probably take it that he’s not the man we’re after.”

“I don’t know any Spanish,” Larsson said, “but I have an idea that Fernando Hereira would be quite a common name.”

“Like mine,” Johansson said. “Every other bastard’s called Erik, up here in Norrland at least, and in my generation.”

“We don’t know if it’s his real name,” Larsson said.

“We can track him through Interpol,” Rundström said. “As soon as we have some fingerprints, that is.”

Several phones started ringing at once. Larsson proposed a ten-minute break and stood up. He also indicated to Lindman that they should go out into the corridor. They sat down in the reception area. Larsson eyed the stuffed bear up and down.

“I saw a bear once,” he said. “Not far from Krokom. I had been dealing with a few moonshiners and was driving back to Östersund. I remember I was thinking about my father. I had always thought it was that Italian crooner, but when I was twelve my mom told me it was some con man from Ange, who disappeared the moment he heard Mom was pregnant. All of a sudden, there was this bear by the side of the road. I slammed on the brakes, and thought, ‘For Christ’s sake! That can’t be a bear. It’s just a shadow. Or a big rock.’ But it was a bear all right. A female. Her fur was very shiny. I watched her for a minute or so, then she lumbered off. I remember thinking: ‘This simply doesn’t happen! And if it does, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event.’ Kind of like getting a royal flush in poker. They say Erik was dealt one twenty-five years ago. The rest of the deal was worthless, there were only five kronor in the pot and everybody else discarded.”

Larsson stretched and yawned. Then he was serious again.

“I’ve been thinking about our talk,” he said. “That stuff about having to think again. I have a problem with the fact that we might be looking for two different killers. It seems so unlikely. Such a metropolitan way of looking at things, if you get my meaning. Out here in the wild, things generally happen in accordance with a simpler pattern. Then again, I can see that a lot of the evidence suggests you might be right. I talked to Rundström about it before the meeting.”

“What did he say?”

“He’s a proper bastard with both feet on the ground, never believes anything, never guesses, always sticks to the facts. He shouldn’t be underestimated. He catches on fast, possibilities and pitfalls.”

Larsson watched a group of children.

“I’ve tried to map things out in my head,” he said when the last of the children had filed into the library. “A man speaking broken English shows up here and kills Molin. That nonsense his daughter goes on about — owing money to some woman in the UK — I don’t believe that for a moment. What you suggest could be right, especially if you read that awful diary — that the motive can have its source a long time ago, during the war. The brutality, the fury we’ve witnessed might suggest revenge. So far so good. That means we are after a killer who was very clear about what he was undertaking. But then he hangs around. That’s what I can’t work out. He should be running away as fast as he can.”

“Have you uncovered any links at all with Andersson?”

“Nothing. Our colleagues in Helsingborg have talked to his wife. She claims that Abraham told her everything. He had mentioned Molin now and then. They were worlds apart. One played classical music and wrote pop songs as a hobby. The other was a retired police officer. I don’t think we’re going to work out how all this fits together until we find the bastard who knocked you out. How’s your head, by the way?”

“It’s okay, thanks.”

Larsson stood up. “Andersson wrote a song called ‘Believe Me, I’m a Girl.’ Erik remembers it. That pseudonym, Siv Nilsson. He had a record by some dance band or other — Fabians, or something like that. All very odd. He played Mozart one day, made up pop music the next. Erik figures the pop songs were utter crap. I suppose that’s life. Mozart on Monday, drivel on Tuesday.”