Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

“I think we’ve got him,” he said slowly.

“Who?”

“Magnus Holmström. I met him on Öland. When I visited Wetterstedt.”

Larsson had barely touched on the visit to Wetterstedt when he told Johansson about what Lindman had said, but he remembered even so.

“Are you sure?”

Lindman stood up and held the paper under the lamp.

“He’s our man. I’m sure.”

“Are you saying he’s the one who tried to shoot the driver of the Golf?”

“All I’m saying is that I met Magnus Holmström on Öland, and that he’s a Nazi.”

Nobody spoke.

“Let’s bring Stockholm in now,” Larsson said. “They’ll have to go to the garage and produce a decent picture of this kid. But where is he now?”

The telephone rang. It was Pelle Niklasson, wanting to know if the faxes had come through all right.

“Yes, thank you, we’ve got them,” said Johansson. “So one of your staff is called Magnus Holmström.”

“Maggan.”

“ ‘Maggan’?”

“That’s what we call him.”

“Have you got his home address?”

“I don’t think so. He hasn’t been working here long.”

“You must know where your staff live, surely?”

“I can take a look. This isn’t part of my job.”

It was almost five minutes before he returned to the telephone.

“He’s given us the address of his mother in Bandhagen. Skeppstavagen 7A, c/o Holmström. But he hasn’t given a phone number.”

“What’s his mother’s first name?”

“I have no idea. Can I go home now? My wife was extremely pissed off when I left.”

“Call her and tell her you won’t be back for some time yet. You’re getting a call from the police in Stockholm soon.”

“What’s going on?”

“You said that Holmström was new?”

“He’s only been working here for a couple of months. Has he done something?”

“What kind of an impression of him do you have?”

“What do you mean by impression?”

“Is he a good worker? Does he have any special habits? Is he extreme in any way? When was he last at work?”

“He’s pretty discreet. Doesn’t say much. I don’t really have much of an impression of him. And he’s been off work since last Monday.”

“Good, thank you. Wait where you are until the Stockholm police call you.”

By the time Johansson hung up, Larsson had already called the Stockholm police. Lindman was trying to track down the telephone number, but directory assistance didn’t have a Holmström at that address. He tried to find out if there was a cell phone number corresponding to Holmström’s name and identity number, but he had no luck there either.

After another twenty minutes, all the telephones were silent. Johansson put on some coffee. It was still snowing, but less heavily. Lindman looked out of the window. The ground was white. Larsson had gone to the bathroom. It was a quarter of an hour before he came back.

“My stomach can’t handle this,” he said gloomily. “I’m completely blocked up. I haven’t had a bowel movement since the day before yesterday.”

They drank their coffee and waited. Shortly after 1 P.M. a duty officer called from Stockholm to say that they hadn’t found Magnus Holmström when they went to his mother’s house in Bandhagen. Her first name was Margot, and she told them that she hadn’t seen her son for several months. He used to visit occasionally when he was working, and to get his mail, but she didn’t know where he was living now. They would continue searching for him through the night.

Larsson called Lövander, the prosecutor, in Östersund. Johansson sat at his computer and started typing. Lindman’s mind drifted to Veronica Molin and the computer she said contained her entire life. He wondered if she and her brother had set off for Sveg through the snow, or if they’d decided to spend the night in Östersund. Larsson finished his call to the prosecutor.

“Things are starting to happen now,” he said. “Lövander grasped the situation and a new nationwide emergency call is going out. Everybody will be looking not only for a red Ford Escort, but also for a young man called Magnus Holmström who is probably armed and must be regarded as dangerous.”

“Somebody should ask his poor mother if she knows about his political beliefs,” Lindman said. “What kind of mail does he receive? Does he have a computer at her home, possibly with e-mail?”

“He must live somewhere,” Larsson said. “It’s very strange, of course, that he has his mail sent to his mother’s address, but lives somewhere else. I suppose this might be what young people do these days, moving around from one apartment belonging to a friend to another. If that’s it, he probably has a Hotmail address.”

“It suggests he’s purposely hiding his whereabouts,” said Johansson. “Does anybody know how to make the letters bigger on this screen?”

Larsson showed him what to do.

“Maybe they should go looking for him on Öland,” Lindman said. “That’s where I came across him, after all. And the car was filled up in Söderköping.”

Larsson slapped his forehead in irritation.

“I’m too tired,” he bellowed. “We should have thought of that from the beginning, of course.”

He grabbed a telephone and started calling again. It took him forever to find the officer in Stockholm he’d spoken to earlier. While he was waiting, Lindman gave him a description of how to find Wetterstedt’s house on Öland.

It was 1:30 by the time Larsson finished. Johansson was still tapping away at his keyboard. The snow had almost stopped. Larsson checked the thermometer.

“Minus three. That means it’ll stick. Until tomorrow, at least.”

He turned to Lindman. “I don’t think much more is going to happen tonight. Routine procedures are clicking into place now. A diver can start searching for the gun under the bridge tomorrow morning, but the best thing we can do until then is get some sleep. I’ll stay at Erik’s place. I can’t face a hotel room at the moment.”

Johansson turned off his computer.

“At least we’ve taken a big step forward,” he said. “Now we’re looking for two people. We’ve even got the name of one of them. That has to be regarded as an improvement.”

“Three,” Larsson said. “We’re probably looking for three people.”

Nobody contradicted him.

Lindman put on his jacket and left the community center. The snow felt soft under his feet. It muffled all sounds. Occasional flakes of snow were still drifting down. He kept stopping and turning around, but there was no sign that he was being followed. The whole town was asleep. No light in Veronica Molin’s window. The funeral was at 11 A.M. later that day. They would have plenty of time to get to Sveg if they decided to stay in Östersund. He unlocked the front door of the hotel. The two men from yesterday were playing cards again, despite the late hour. They nodded to him as he went past. It was too late to call Elena now. She’d be asleep. He undressed, showered, and went to bed, thinking about Holmström all the time. Discreet, Niklasson had called him. No doubt he could make that impression if he tried, but Lindman had also seen another side of him. Cold as ice and dangerous. He had no doubt at all that it was Holmström who had tried to kill Hereira. The question was, did he also kill Andersson? What was still unclear was why Berggren had confessed to that murder. It was possible that she was guilty, of course, but Lindman could not believe it. One could take it for granted that Holmström would have told her anything that wasn’t in the newspapers, like the clothesline.

The pattern, he thought, is clearer now. Not complete — there are still some gaps. Even so, it’s acquiring a third dimension. He turned off the light. Thought about the funeral. Then Veronica Molin would return to a world he knew nothing about.