The Return of the Dancing Master

by Henning Mankell

  There was that business about her father. If she’d known he was a Nazi or not. She had only pretended to be surprised. She’d known, but tried to hide the fact. He couldn’t put his finger on how he knew she wasn’t telling the truth. And there was another question he couldn’t answer either: Had she known about Berggren, for all that she claimed she hadn’t?

  Lindman pulled up and got out of the car. This has nothing to do with me, he thought: I have my illness to worry about. I’ll go back to Borås and admit that I’ve been missing Elena all the time I’ve been away. Then, when I feel like it, I’ll phone Larsson and ask how the case is going. That’s all.

  Then he made up his mind to go to Kalmar. Where Molin had been born, under the name of Mattson-Herzén. That’s where it had all begun, in a family that had been adherents of Hitler and National Socialism. There should be a man there by the name of Wetterstedt. A portrait painter. Who knew Molin.

  He rummaged around in the boot and came up with a tattered map of Sweden. This is madness, he thought; even so, he worked out the best route to Kalmar. I’m supposed to be going to Borås. But he knew he couldn’t let go now. He wanted to know what had happened to Molin. And Andersson. Perhaps also what lay behind the disappearance of the dog.

  He reached Kalmar by evening. It was November 6. In two weeks’ time he would have started his radiotherapy. It had started raining a few miles north of Västervik. The water glistened in the beam from his headlights as he drove into the town and looked about for somewhere to stay.

  CHAPTER 18

  Early the following day Lindman walked down to the sea. He could just make out the Öland bridge through the fog that had settled over the Kalmarsund. He went to the water’s edge and stood contemplating the sea as it lapped against the shore. The long car journey was still taking its toll on his body. Twice he’d dreamt that big lorries were heading straight for him. He’d tried to get out of the way, but it had been too late and he’d woken up. His hotel was in the middle of town. The walls were like cardboard, and he’d been forced to listen to a woman nattering away on the phone. After an hour of that, he’d felt justified in thumping on the wall – soon afterwards the conversation came to an end. Before dropping off to sleep, he’d lain in bed and stared up at the ceiling, wondering why he’d come to Kalmar. Could it be that he was trying to put off his return to Borås for as long as possible? Had he grown tired of being with Elena but didn’t want to admit it? He didn’t know, but he was not sure that his detour to Kalmar was exclusively due to curiosity about Herbert Molin’s past.

  The forests of Härjedalen were already a part of his own past. All that mattered now was himself, his illness and the 13 days remaining until he was due to start his therapy. Nothing else had any importance. Stefan Lindman’s 13 days in November. How will I look back on them ten or 20 years from now, always assuming I live that long? He tried to avoid answering the question, and wandered back towards town, leaving the water and the fog behind him. He found a café, went in, ordered a cup of coffee and borrowed a telephone directory.

  There was only one Wetterstedt in the Kalmar district. Emil Wetterstedt, artist. He lived in Lagmansgatan. Lindman turned the pages until he found a map of the area: he located the street straightaway. In the centre of town, only a couple of blocks from the café. He took out his mobile phone – then he remembered that it didn’t work. If I can get hold of a new battery, I should be able to use it again, he thought. Or I could go to his flat. Ring the doorbell. But what would I say? That I was a friend of Herbert Molin’s? That would be a lie: we were never friends. We worked together at the same police station in the same police district. We once went looking for a murderer together. That’s all. He gave me some useful advice now and then, but whether that advice really was as good as I’m claiming it to be, I can’t possibly say. I can hardly arrive and announce that I’ve come to have my portrait painted. Another thing: Wetterstedt is no doubt an old man, about the same age as Molin. An old man who doesn’t much care about the world any longer.

  He kept sipping at his coffee. When he’d finished working his way through his ideas one by one, he’d ring Wetterstedt’s doorbell, say that he was a policeman and say that he would like to talk to him about Herbert Molin. What happened next would depend on how Wetterstedt reacted.

  He drained his cup and left the café. The air felt different from the air he’d been breathing in Härjedalen. It had felt dry up there, whereas the air he was breathing now was damp. All the shops were still closed, but as he walked to the house where Wetterstedt lived, he saw one that sold mobile phones. Perhaps the old portrait painter was a late riser.

  The block of flats in Lagmansgatan was three storeys high, with a grey façade. No balconies. The front door was unlocked. From the names next to the bells, he saw that Wetterstedt lived on the top floor. There was no lift. The old man must have strong legs, he thought. A door slammed somewhere. It echoed through the stairwell. By the time he reached the top of the three flights he was out of breath. He was surprised that his condition seemed to have so deteriorated.

  He rang the bell and counted silently to 20. Then he rang again. He couldn’t hear any ringing noise inside the flat. He rang a third time. Still no reply. He knocked on the door, waited, then hammered on it really hard. The door behind him opened. In the doorway was an elderly man in a dressing gown.

  “I’m looking for herr Wetterstedt,” Lindman said. “It seems he’s not at home.”

  “He spends the autumn at his summer place. That’s when he takes his holidays.”

  The man in the doorway looked at Lindman with an expression of utter contempt. As if it was the most natural thing in the world to take a holiday in November. And that a pensioner still had a job to take a holiday from.

  “Where is his summer place?”

  “Who are you? We like to keep an eye on people who come sauntering about this building. Are you going to commission a portrait?”

  “I want to speak to him about an urgent matter.”

  The man eyed Lindman up and down.

  “Emil’s summer place is on Öland. In the south of the island. When you’ve gone past Alvaret you see a sign that says Lavender. And another sign informing you that it’s a private road. That’s where he lives.”

  “Is that the name of the house? Lavender?”

  “Emil talks about a shade of blue tending towards lavender. In his opinion it’s the most beautiful shade of blue there is. Impossible for a painter to reproduce. Only nature can create it.”

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Lindman started for the stairs, but stopped.

  “Just one more thing. How old is herr Wetterstedt?”

  “He’s 88, but he’s pretty spry.”

  The man closed his door. Lindman walked slowly down the stairs. So, I have a reason to cross over the bridge, into the fog, he thought. I, too, am on a sort of involuntary holiday, with no aim other than filling in time until November 19.

  He went back the way he’d come. The shop selling mobile phones was open. A young man yawned and diffidently produced a battery that fitted Lindman’s mobile. He paid, and even as he did so the phone bleeped to indicate that he had messages. Before leaving Kalmar, he sat in his car and listened to them. Elena had called three times, sounding increasingly resigned and curt. There was a message from his dentist, reminding him it was time for his annual checkup. That was all. Larsson hadn’t phoned. Lindman hadn’t really expected him to, although he’d hoped he would. None of his colleagues had tried to contact him, but he hadn’t expected that either. He had virtually no close friends.

  He put the phone on the passenger seat, drove out of the car park and started looking for a road leading to the bridge. The fog was thick as he drove over the water. Perhaps this is what it’s like to die, he thought. In the old days people imagined a ferryman coming with a boat to row you over the River Styx. Now it might be a bridge you have to cross, into the fog, and then obli
vion.

  He came to Öland, turned right, passed some sort of zoo and continued southwards. He drove slowly. Very few cars were coming in the opposite direction. He could see no countryside, only fog. At one point he stopped in a lay-by and got out. He heard a foghorn sounding in the distance and what may have been the sound of waves. Apart from that, it was silent. It felt as if the fog had seeped into his head and blanketed his mind. He held one hand in front of his face. It, too, was white.

  He drove on, and almost missed the sign for “Lavender 2”. It reminded him of another sign he’d been looking for recently, “Dunkärret 2”. Sweden is a country where people live two kilometres from the main road, he thought.

  The dirt road he turned into was full of potholes and evidently little used. It was dead straight, and disappeared into the fog. Eventually he came to a closed gate. On the other side was an ancient Volvo 444 and a motorcycle. Lindman switched off his engine and clambered out. The bike was a Harley-Davidson. Lindman knew a bit about motorbikes, thanks to the time when he’d chauffeured the motocross buff around Sweden. This wasn’t one of the standard Harley-Davidson models. It was a home-made one-off, a valuable specimen. But did a man aged 88 really drive around on a Harley-Davidson? He’d have to be very fit to manage that. Lindman opened the gate and continued along the path. There was still no sign of a house. A figure emerged from the mist, walking towards him. A young man with close-cropped hair, nattily dressed in a leather jacket and a light-blue open-necked shirt. Obviously he had been working on his fitness.

  “What are you doing here?” The voice was shrill, almost a shriek.

  “I’m looking for Emil Wetterstedt.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “Who are you? What makes you think he wants to talk to you?”

  Lindman bristled at the cross-examination. The youth’s voice was hurting his eardrums.

  “I want to talk to him about Herbert Molin. Perhaps I should mention that I’m a police officer.”

  The boy stared at him. His jaws worked away at a wad of chewing gum. “Wait here,” he said. “Don’t shift from this spot.”

  He was swallowed up by the fog. Lindman followed him, slowly. After only a few metres a house came into view. The boy disappeared through the front door. It was a whitewashed house, long and narrow, with a wing jutting out from one of the gable ends. Lindman waited. He wondered what the countryside was like here, how far it was from the sea. The door opened again and the boy approached.

  “I thought I told you to stay put!” he shrieked in that shrill voice of his.

  “You can’t always have what you want, sonny,” Lindman said. “Is he going to receive me, or isn’t he?”

  The boy gestured to Lindman that he should follow him. There was a smell of paint in the house. All the lights were on. Lindman had to bow his head when he entered through the door. The boy showed him into a room at the back of the house. One of the long walls was a picture window.

  Emil Wetterstedt was sitting in an armchair in a corner. He had a blanket over his knees, and on a table next to his chair was a pile of books and a pair of glasses. The boy positioned himself behind the armchair. The old man had thin white hair and a wrinkled face, but the eyes he directed at Lindman were very bright.

  “I don’t like being disturbed when I’m on holiday,” he said.

  His voice was the very opposite of the boy’s. Wetterstedt spoke very softly.

  “I shan’t take much of your time.”

  “I don’t accept commissions for portraits any more. In any case, your face is too round to inspire me. I prefer longer, thinner faces.”

  “I haven’t come here to ask you to paint my portrait.”

  Wetterstedt shifted his position. The blanket over his legs fell to the floor. The boy darted forward to put it back.

  “Why have you come, then?”

  “My name’s Stefan Lindman. I’m a police officer. I spent some years working alongside Herbert Molin in Borås. I don’t know if you’ve been informed that he’s dead.”

  “I have been told that he’s dead. Do you know who did it?”

  “Not yet.”

  Wetterstedt gestured towards a chair. Somewhat reluctantly, the boy moved it into place.

  “Who told you that Molin was dead?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No.”

  “Is this an interrogation?”

  “No. Just a chat.”

  “I’m too old for chats. I gave that up when I reached 60. I’d done enough talking in my life by then. Nowadays I neither speak, nor listen to what anybody else has to say. Apart from my doctor. And a few young people.”

  He smiled, and nodded at the boy standing guard behind his chair. Lindman started to wonder what was going on. Who was this boy, whose assignment seemed to be to keep guard over the old man?

  “You say you’ve come here to talk to me about Herbert Molin. What do you want to know? And come to that, what really happened? Was Herbert murdered, can that be right?”

  Lindman decided to get straight to the point. As far as Wetterstedt was concerned, it didn’t matter that Lindman was not officially connected to the murder investigation.

  “We don’t have any specific clues pointing either to a motive or to a killer,” he said. “That means we have to dig deep. Who was Herbert Molin? Can we find a motive hidden in his past? Those are the sort of questions we’re asking ourselves, and others. People who knew him.”

  Wetterstedt did not react. The boy made no secret of his dislike of Lindman.

  “It was actually Herbert’s father I knew. I was younger than he was, but older than Herbert.”

  “And Axel Mattson-Herzén was a Captain in the Cavalry?”

  “An honourable rank that ran in the family. One of his ancestors fought in the battle of Narva. The Swedes won, but the forefather fell. That tragedy gave rise to a family tradition. Every year, they celebrated the victory at Narva. I remember the family had a big bust of King Karl XII on a table. There were always fresh flowers in a vase next to it. I still remember that clearly.”

  “You were not related?”

  “Not directly. But I did have a brother who also got into hot water because of all this.”

  “The Minister of Justice?”

  “Just so. I always advised him against going in for politics. Especially as his views were way out.”

  “He was a Social Democrat.”

  Wetterstedt looked Lindman in the eye. “I said his views were way out. Perhaps you know that he was murdered by a madman. They found his body on a beach somewhere near Ystad. I never had any truck with him. We had no contact at all for the last 20 years of his life.”

  “Was there any other bust on that table? Alongside the one of Karl XII?”

  “What do you mean? Who?”

  “Hitler.”

  The boy standing behind the chair came to life. It was a momentary reaction, but Lindman noticed. Wetterstedt remained calm.

  “What are you trying to suggest?”

  “Molin volunteered to fight in Hitler’s army during the war. We’ve also discovered that his family were Nazis. Is that right?”

  Wetterstedt responded without hesitation. “Of course it’s right. I, too, was a Nazi,” he said. “We don’t need to play games, herr Policeman. How much do you know about my past?”

  “Only that you were a portrait painter, and were in contact with Molin.”

  “I was very fond of him. He displayed great courage during the war. Everybody with a grain of common sense sided with Hitler. The choice was between watching the relentless advance of Communism, or putting up some resistance. We had a government in Sweden we could trust only so far. Everything was set up.”

  “Set up for what?”

  “For a German invasion.” It was the boy who answered. Lindman looked at him in astonishment.

  “But not everything was in vain,” Wetterstedt said. “I’ll soon have painted my last portrait and be go
ne, but there’s a younger generation that applies common sense to what is going on in Sweden, in Europe, indeed in the world at large. We can be happy that Eastern Europe has collapsed. Not a pretty sight, but uplifting even so. On the other hand, the situation here in Sweden is worse than ever. Everything going to the dogs. No discipline. We don’t have borders any more. Anybody can get in wherever they like, whenever they like, no matter what their motives. I fear the national character of Sweden has been lost for ever. Nevertheless, one has to keep plugging away.”

  Wetterstedt paused and turned to Lindman with a smile.

  “As you have seen, I stand up for my opinions. I’ve never attempted to conceal them, nor ever had any regrets. Obviously, there have been folk who’ve preferred not to acknowledge me in the street, and some who have even spat at me. But they were insignificant beings. My brother, for instance. I’ve never been short of commissions for portraits. Rather to the contrary, in fact.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That there has never been a shortage of people in this country of ours who have respected me for standing up for my opinions. People with the same views as mine, but who have preferred not to make their opinions public, for various reasons. I could understand them, at times. At others, I’ve thought they were cowards. But I’ve painted their portraits, even so.”

  Wetterstedt indicated that he wanted to stand up. The boy moved smartly to assist him, and gave him a walking stick. Lindman wondered how Wetterstedt coped with the stairs at his flat in Kalmar.

  “There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  They went out into the corridor, paved with stone flags. Wetterstedt paused and looked at Lindman.

  “Did you say your name was Lindman?”

  “Stefan Lindman.”

  “If I’m not much mistaken, your accent suggests you come from Västergötland?”

  “I was born in Kinna, not far from Borås.”

  Wetterstedt nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve never been to Kinna,” he said. “I’ve been through Borås. But I feel most at home on Öland or in Kalmar. I’ve never understood why folk want to travel around so much.” Wetterstedt tapped his walking stick hard on the floor.