The Return of the Dancing Master

by Henning Mankell

  “Did he speak Swedish?” Lindman said.

  Johansson growled. “I’m the one asking questions here. I thought Rundström had made that clear to you. But answer anyway. Did he speak Swedish?”

  “Broken English.”

  “Was it a Swede pretending to be a foreigner?”

  She thought before answering. “No,” she said. “Not Swedish. I think he might have been an Italian. Or a southern European, in any case.”

  “Can you describe what he looked like? How old was he?”

  “It all happened very quickly. But he was old, not what I had expected. Greying hair, going bald, brown eyes.”

  “And you’ve never seen him before?”

  Her fear was starting to turn to anger. “I don’t mix with that sort of person. You ought to know that.”

  “I do know that, Elsa, but I have to ask you. How tall was he? Was he thin or fat? What was he wearing, what did his hands look like?”

  “Dark jacket, dark trousers, I didn’t notice his shoes. No rings on his fingers.” She stood up and walked to the door. “I’d say he was about this height, neither fat nor thin.” She marked a place on the frame with her hand.

  “One eighty,” Johansson said, turning to Lindman. “What do you think?”

  “All I saw was a moving shadow.”

  Berggren sat down again.

  “He threatened you,” Johansson said. “How exactly?”

  “He asked questions about Abraham Andersson.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Only one, I suppose. Who killed Andersson?”

  “Nothing else? Nothing about Molin?”

  “No.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “‘Who killed herr Abraham?’ Or ‘Who killed herr Andersson?’”

  “You said he threatened you.”

  “He said he wanted the truth. Otherwise there’d be trouble. Who killed Abraham? That’s all. I told him I didn’t know.”

  Johansson shook his head and looked at Lindman. “What do you make of all this?”

  “I am surprised that he didn’t ask about the motive. Why was Abraham Andersson murdered?”

  “But he didn’t. He only asked who’d done it. He obviously thought I knew. Then I realised he was actually implying something different. That was when I got really scared. He thought that I had killed him.”

  Lindman felt his dizziness coming and going in waves. He tried to concentrate. He could see that Berggren’s account of the attack was crucial. The important thing was not what the man had asked her, but what he hadn’t asked her. There was only one explanation: he knew the answer. Lindman had broken into a sweat. The man in the shadows who’d tried to strangle him, either to kill him or just to render him unconscious, could be playing the central role in the drama that started with Molin’s murder.

  Johansson’s mobile rang. It was Larsson. Lindman could hear that he was worried in case Larsson was driving too fast.

  “He’s already through Brunflo,” Johansson said. “He wants us to wait here for him. Meanwhile I’m to write up what you’ve said. We must start searching for this man.”

  Lindman stood up.

  “I’m going out. I need some air.”

  Once outside, Lindman began searching his memory for something to do with what Berggren had said. He returned to the back of the house, avoiding any footprints there might be. He tried to picture the face she’d described. He knew he’d never seen the man before. Nevertheless, it was as if he recognised him. He hammered at his forehead in an attempt to stir his memory. It had something to do with Larsson.

  Dinner at the hotel. They’d sat there eating. The waitress had been to-ing and fro-ing between the kitchen and the dining room. There’d been another person there that evening. A man on his own. Lindman hadn’t noticed his face. But there was something else about him. It eventually dawned on him what it was. The man hadn’t said a single word to the waitress, despite the fact that he’d summoned her several times. That man had been in the dining room when first Lindman and then Larsson had arrived, and he was still there when they left.

  He racked his brains. Larsson had scribbled things on the back of the bill, then crumpled it up and dropped it in the ashtray as they left. There was something about that bit of paper. He couldn’t remember what. And the man on his own at the nearby table; he hadn’t said a word. And somehow he answered the description Berggren had given.

  He went back into the house. It was 1.20. Berggren was on the sofa, very pale.

  “He’s making coffee,” she said.

  Lindman went to the kitchen.

  “I can’t think straight without coffee,” Johansson said. “Would you like some? To be frank, you look awful. I wonder if you shouldn’t see a doctor, no matter what you say.”

  “I want to talk to Larsson first.”

  “I’m sorry if I sounded a bit brusque earlier on. The police here in Härjedalen sometimes feel they are being patronised and trampled all over. That goes for Giuseppe as well. Just so that you know.”

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t. But never mind.”

  He handed Lindman a cup of coffee. Lindman was trying to remember what Larsson had scribbled on that bit of paper.

  It wasn’t until about 5 a.m. that he had an opportunity of asking Larsson about what had happened that evening in the dining room. Larsson arrived at Berggren’s house at 1.50. Once he’d taken stock of the facts, he’d gone with Johansson and Lindman to the police station. An officer had been posted to keep watch over Berggren’s house. The description they had of the attacker was too imprecise to be sent out and trigger a nationwide alert. On the other hand, reinforcements would arrive from Östersund the next morning. They’d mount yet another house-to-house operation. Somebody must have seen something, was Larsson’s conviction. The man must have had a car. There can’t be all that many English-speaking southern Europeans in Sveg at this time of year. People occasionally came from Madrid or Milan to hunt elk, and the Italians are ardent mushroom pickers, of course. The only thing is, we’re not in the mushroom-picking or elk-hunting seasons. Somebody must have seen him. Or a car. Or something.

  At 5.30 Johansson left to cordon off Berggren’s garden. Larsson was tired and irritable. “He ought to have done that right away. How can we carry out correct police procedures if people don’t follow the routines?”

  Larsson had his feet on the desk.

  “Can you remember that dinner we had at the hotel?” Lindman said.

  “Very well.”

  “There was a man in the dining room as well. Do you remember him?”

  “Vaguely. Next to the kitchen door, if I remember rightly.”

  “To the left.”

  Larsson looked at him, his eyes weary. “Why do you ask?”

  “He said nothing. That could mean that he didn’t want to let us know that he was a foreigner.”

  “Why the hell shouldn’t he want to do that?”

  “Because we were police officers. We used the word ‘police’ again and again during dinner. The word is similar in most languages. What’s more, I think he looked a bit like the description Berggren tried to give us.”

  Larsson shook his head. “It’s too circumstantial, too farfetched.”

  “Possibly. But even so. You sat there doodling on a piece of paper when you’d finished eating.”

  “It was the bill. I asked about it the next day, but it had disappeared. The waitress said she hadn’t seen it.”

  “That’s the point. Where did it go?”

  Larsson stopped rocking back and forwards in his chair.

  “Are you saying that man took the bill after we’d left?”

  “I’m not saying anything. I’m just thinking aloud. One question is: what did you write?”

  Larsson tried to remember. “Names, I think. Yes, I’m sure. We were talking about the three of them: Molin, Andersson and Berggren. We were trying to find a link.” Larsson sat up with a star
t. “I wrote down their names, and I joined them with arrows. They made a triangle. I think I drew a swastika at the side of Andersson’s name.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “I might be wrong, of course,” Lindman said, “but I think I saw a big question mark after the swastika.”

  “You could be right.”

  Larsson stood up and leaned against the wall. “I’m listening,” he said. “I’m starting to catch on to the way you’re thinking.”

  “The man is in the hotel dining room. He hears that we are police officers. When we leave, he pinches the bill you left behind. Now a few assumptions. If he takes the bill, he does so because he has an interest. And if he has an interest it can only be because he’s involved.”

  Larsson raised a hand. “Involved? – How?”

  “That takes us on to the next assumption. If this is the man who came to see Berggren last night and tried to strangle me, we ought to ask ourselves at least one more important question.”

  “Which is?”

  “A question about the question he asked Berggren: ‘Who killed Andersson?’”

  Larsson shook his head in annoyance. “You’ve lost me.”

  “I’m suggesting that this question leads us to another question, the crucial one, the one he didn’t ask.”

  The penny dropped. It was as if Larsson started breathing again.

  “Who murdered Molin?”

  “Exactly. Shall I go on?”

  Larsson nodded.

  “You could draw various conclusions. The most likely is that he didn’t ask the question about Molin because he already knew the answer. It means that in all probability, he was the one who killed Molin.”

  Larsson raised both arms. “Hang on, you’re going far too fast. We need a bit of time to sort ourselves out up here in Jämtland. So, we’re looking for two murderers. We’ve already reached that conclusion. The question is: are we looking for two different motives?”

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s just that I find it difficult to take all this in. We’re in a place where crime of this kind is rare. Now we have two cases, one on top of the other, but not committed by the same man. You have to accept that all my experience rebels against such a conclusion.”

  “There always has to be a first time. I think it’s time you started thinking new thoughts.”

  “Let’s hear them!”

  “Somebody makes his way here to the forest and kills Molin. It’s carefully planned. A few days later Andersson dies as well. He’s killed by somebody else. For some reason we don’t know, the man who killed Molin wants to know what happened. He’d been camping beside the lake, but had gone away after dragging Molin’s dead body to the edge of the forest. He comes back, because he needs to know what happened to Andersson. Why was he murdered? He picks up a scrap of paper left on a restaurant table by a police officer. What does he find there? Not two names, but three.”

  “Berggren?”

  “It seems to him that she must know the answer, so he tries to put pressure on her. She attacks him when he gets threatening. He runs away, but I happen to be there. You know the rest.”

  Larsson opened a window and left it ajar.

  “Who is this man?”

  “I don’t know. But we can make another assumption. And it could prove that I’m right.”

  Larsson said nothing, but waited for what was coming next.

  “We think we know the murderer camped by the lake. Once he’s killed Molin, he goes away. But then he comes back again. He’s not going to put up his tent in the same place. So the question is: where’s he living?”

  Larsson looked doubtful.

  “You mean he might have booked into a hotel?”

  “That possibility could be worth following up.”

  Larsson checked his watch. “When’s breakfast?”

  “They start serving at 6.30.”

  “That means we might be in luck. Let’s go.”

  A few minutes later they were in the hotel reception. The girl at the desk looked at them in surprise.

  “Two early birds looking for breakfast?”

  “Breakfast can wait,” Larsson said. “Have you a guest list for last week? Do you have your customer records in a ledger, or on loose sheets of paper?”

  The girl looked worried. “Has something happened?”

  “This is a routine enquiry,” Lindman said. “Nothing to worry about. Have you had any foreigners staying here in the last week or so?”

  She thought for a moment. “There were four Finns here for two nights last week, Wednesday and Thursday.”

  “Nobody else?”

  “No.”

  “He might have booked in somewhere else, of course,” Larsson said. This isn’t the only place to stay in Sveg.”

  He turned to the girl. “When we had dinner here, quite late, you may remember another customer in the dining room. What language did he speak?”

  “English. But he came from Argentina.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He paid by credit card. He showed me his passport.”

  She went into a back room and eventually came back with a Visa counterfoil. They read the name. Fernando Hereira. Legible even in the signature.

  Larsson grunted with pleasure. “We’ve got him,” he said. “Always assuming it is him.”

  “Has he been here before?” Lindman said.

  “No.”

  “Did you see what make of car he had?”

  “No.”

  “Did he say where he’d come from? Or where he was going to?”

  “No. He didn’t say much at all. He was friendly, though.”

  “Could you describe him?”

  The girl thought for a moment. Lindman could see she was trying hard.

  “I’ve got such an awful memory for faces.”

  “But you must have seen something. Did he look like one of us?”

  “Not at all.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Sixty, perhaps.”

  “Hair?”

  “Grey hair.”

  “Eyes?”

  “I wouldn’t remember that.”

  “Was he fat or thin?”

  “I don’t think he was fat.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “A blue shirt, I think. And a blazer, I’m not sure.”

  “Can you remember anything else?”

  “No.”

  Larsson shook his head and sat down on one of the brown sofas in the reception area, with the Visa slip in his hand. Lindman joined him. By now it was 6.25 a.m. on November 11. Eight days to go before Lindman was due to report to the hospital in Borås. Larsson yawned and rubbed his eyes. Neither of them spoke.

  A door leading to the bedrooms opened. Lindman looked up and saw Veronica Molin.

  CHAPTER 25

  Silberstein watched the dawn approaching. For a while it was like being at home. The light was the same as he’d often seen as the sun rose over the horizon and spread its rays over the plains to the west of Buenos Aires, but after a few minutes, the feeling had gone. He was in the Swedish mountains, not far from the Norwegian border. He’d gone straight back to Frostengren’s chalet after the botched visit to the Berggren woman. The man he’d seen behind the house, and had no choice but to knock down and frighten with a pretended attempt to throttle him, was one of the police officers he’d seen at the hotel when he’d been having dinner. He couldn’t understand what the man was doing there at night. Was the woman’s house being guarded after all? He’d kept a careful watch on it before knocking on the door and pushing his way in.

  He forced himself to consider the possibility that he had squeezed too hard and that the policeman was dead.

  He’d driven fast through the night, not because he was afraid somebody might be chasing him, but because he could no longer control his craving for alcohol. He’d bought both wine and spirits in Sveg, as if he’d anticipated a disaster. Now he ac
cepted that he could no longer do without alcohol. The only restriction he would apply was that he would not open any of the bottles until he got back to the chalet.

  It was 3 a.m. by the time he drove the last difficult stretch up to Frostengren’s chalet. It was pitch dark on all sides as he made his way to the door. The moment he was inside, he opened a bottle of wine and downed half of it. Calm gradually settled in him. He sat at the table next to the window, without moving a muscle, without a thought in his head, and steadily drank. Then he drew the telephone towards him and dialled Maria’s number. There was a buzzing and scraping in the line, but her voice sounded very close even so. He could almost smell her breath through the receiver.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “I’m still here.”

  “What can you see through your window?”

  “Darkness.”

  “Is what I’m afraid of true?”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “That you’ll never come back?”

  The question worried him. He took another drink of wine before answering.

  “Why shouldn’t I come back?”

  “I don’t know. You are the only one who knows what you’re doing and why you aren’t here. You’re lying to me, Aron. You’re not telling me the truth.”

  “Why should I lie to you?”

  “You haven’t made this journey to look at furniture. There’s some other reason. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps you’ve met another woman. I don’t know. The only one who knows is you. And God.”

  He realised that what he’d told her before hadn’t sunk in – that he’d killed a man.