Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

He crossed the bridge. There were two gas stations on the other side. Everything seemed calm. Some drivers were filling their tanks. Lindman paused and looked around. If somebody had produced a gun and tried to steal a car there would have been turmoil. He tried to put himself in her position. He still thought she would look for a car.

Then he heard an alarm bell in his mind. Was he on the wrong track? Behind her cool, calm exterior he’d seen a confused, fanatical person. Maybe she would react differently? He looked at the church to his left. What had she said? My father will be avenged before he is buried . He continued staring at the church. Was it possible? He didn’t know, but he had nothing to lose. He could hear sirens in the distance. He ran to the church. When he saw that the main door was ajar he was immediately on his guard. He only opened it wide enough for him to slip inside. It creaked slightly. He stood close to the wall of the porch. The sirens were no longer audible. The walls were thick. Slowly he opened one of the doors into the church. There was a coffin at the far end, in front of the altar. Molin’s coffin. He squatted down, aiming Larsson’s gun with both hands. There was nobody there. He crept inside, ducking down behind the back pew. Everything was quiet. He peered cautiously over the back of the pew. There was no sign of her. He must have been wrong, and thought he might as well leave the church when he heard a sound coming from the choir. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was somebody in the vestry, behind the altar. He listened. He heard nothing. Perhaps he was mistaken. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to leave until he was certain that the church was empty. He walked down the center aisle, still crouching, his gun at the ready. When he reached the coffin he stopped and listened. He looked up at the altarpiece. Jesus was on the cross, with a Roman soldier kneeling in the foreground. There was no sound from the vestry. At the altar rail he stopped again to listen. Still no sound. Then he raised his gun and entered the vestry. It was too late by the time he saw her. She was standing beside a tall cabinet, next to the wall at the side of the door. Motionless, with the gun pointing straight at his chest.

“Drop the gun,” she said.

Her voice was low, almost a whisper. He bent down and put Larsson’s pistol on the stone floor.

“You won’t even leave me in peace inside a church,” she said. “Not even on the day my father’s going to be buried. You should think about your own father. I never met him, but from what I’ve heard he was a good man. True to his ideals. It’s a pity he wasn’t able to pass them on to you.”

“Was it Emil Wetterstedt who told you that?”

“Perhaps, but that hardly matters now.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Kill you.”

For the second time that morning he heard her say it, that she was going to kill him. This time, though, he hadn’t the strength to feel afraid. He could only convince her that she should give up, or hope that circumstances would arise enabling him to disarm her. Then it occurred to him that there was a third possibility. He was still in the doorway. If she let her attention wander he would be able to throw himself backwards into the main part of the church. Once there, he could hide among the pews, and possibly even escape outside.

“How did you know I was here?”

She still spoke in the same low voice. Lindman could see that she was holding the gun just as steadily as before. It was aimed now at his legs, not his chest. She’s going to pieces, he thought. He shifted his weight onto his right leg.

“Why don’t you give up?” he said.

She didn’t answer, simply shook her head.

Then came the moment he was waiting for. The hand holding the gun dropped down as she turned to look out of the window. He threw himself backwards as fast as he could, then started running down the center aisle. He expected the shot to come from behind at any second and kill him.

All of a sudden he fell headfirst. He hadn’t seen a corner of the carpet sticking up. As he fell, he hit his shoulder against one of the pews.

Then came the shot. It smashed into the pew beside him. Another shot. The echo sounded like a thunderclap. Silence. He heard a thud behind him. When he looked around, he could see her, just in front of her father’s coffin. His heart was pounding. What had happened? Had she shot herself? Then he heard Johansson’s agitated, shrill voice from the organ loft.

“Lie still. Don’t move. Veronica Molin, can you hear me? Lie still.”

“She’s not moving,” Lindman shouted.

“Did she hit you?”

“No.”

Johansson shouted again. His voice echoed round the church. “Veronica Molin. Lie still. Keep your arms outstretched.”

Still she didn’t move. There was a clattering on the stairs from the organ loft and Johansson appeared in the center aisle. Lindman scrambled to his feet. They approached the motionless body with trepidation, Johansson with his pistol held in both hands before him. Lindman raised his hand.

“She’s dead.” He pointed. “You hit her in the eye.”

Johansson gulped and shook his head. “I aimed for her legs. I’m not that bad a shot.”

They walked up to her. Lindman was right. The bullet had entered her left eye. Right next to her, on the lower edge of the stone underhang of the pulpit, was an obvious bullet mark.

“A ricochet,” he said. “You simply missed her, but the bullet bounced off the pulpit and killed her.”

Johansson shook his head in bewilderment. Lindman understood. The man had never shot at a human being before. Now he had, and the woman he’d tried to hit in the leg was dead.

“It couldn’t be helped,” Lindman said. “That’s the way it goes sometimes. But it’s over now. It’s all over.”

The church door opened. A church official was staring at them in horror. Lindman patted Johansson on the shoulder, then went to the man to explain what had happened.

Half an hour later Lindman arrived at the Berggren house and found Rundström there. Larsson was on his way to hospital, but no Hereira. The ambulance man said Larsson had told him that Hereira had melted into thin air.

“We’ll get him,” Rundström said.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Lindman said. “We don’t know his real name, he might have several different passports. He’s been very good at hiding so far.”

“Wasn’t he wounded?”

“Just a scratch on his forehead.”

A man in coveralls appeared. He was carrying a dripping wet shotgun that he put on the table. “I found it right away. Was there a shootout in the church?”

Rundström brushed aside the question. “I’ll fill you in later,” he said. Rundström eyed the shotgun. “I wonder if the prosecutor will be able to nail Berggren for all the lies she’s told us,” he said. “Even if it was this Holmström who killed Andersson and threw the shotgun into the river. He’s obviously the arsonist as well. Molin’s house has been totally and truly torched.”

“Hereira told me he had started the fire. To confuse the police,” Lindman said.

“So much has happened that’s beyond me,” Rundström said. “Larsson’s in the hospital, and Erik’s in the church, having killed Molin’s daughter. It seems to me that you, Stefan Lindman, the police officer from Borås, are the only person who can fill me in on what’s been happening on my turf this morning.”

Lindman spent the rest of the day in Johansson’s office. The conversations he had with Rundström lasted for hours, thanks to the continual interruptions. At 1:45 Rundström received a call informing him that Holmström had been arrested in Arboga, still in the Ford Escort they had put a trace on. It was 5 P.M. by the time Rundström declared that he felt sufficiently informed. He accompanied Lindman to his hotel. They said their goodbyes in the lobby.