The Return of the Dancing Master

by Henning Mankell

  There was a knock on the half-open door. A boy came in with a pizza box. Larsson paid the bill and put it in his pocket. The boy left.

  “This time I’m not going to crumple it up and drop it in an ashtray. Do you still think it was Hereira who picked up the bill in the dining room that night?”

  “Could well have been.”

  “This is the most continental thing about Sveg,” he said. “They have a pizzeria. Not that they normally deliver, but they will if you have the right contacts. Would you like some? I didn’t get round to eating. I fell asleep.”

  Larsson cut the pizza in half with a ruler.

  “Police officers soon put on weight,” Larsson said. “Stress and careless eating habits. On the other hand, we don’t commit suicide all that often. Doctors are worse in that respect. There again, a lot of us die from heart problems. Which is probably not all that surprising.”

  “I’ve got cancer,” Lindman said. “Perhaps I’m an exception.”

  Larsson sat with a piece of pizza in his hand.

  “Bowling,” he said. “That would make you healthy again, no question.”

  Lindman couldn’t help laughing.

  “I only have to mention the word bowling and you start laughing. I don’t think being serious suits your face.”

  “What was it she called me? ‘That pale-looking policeman from Borås’?”

  “That was the only funny thing she said from start to finish. To be honest, I think Berggren is an awful woman. I’m glad she isn’t my mother.”

  They ate in silence. Larsson put the carton and the remains of his pizza on top of the waste-paper basket.

  “We’re getting the odd bit of information in,” he said, wiping his mouth. “The only problem is that it’s the wrong stuff. For instance, Interpol in Buenos Aires have sent a mysterious message telling us that there’s somebody called Fernando Hereira in jail for life, for something as old-fashioned as counterfeiting. They ask if he’s our man. What on earth do you say to that? Do we tell them that if they can prove the bloke has cloned himself, we’ll take them seriously?”

  “Is that really true?”

  “I’m afraid so. Maybe if we have a bit of patience we’ll get something more sensible from them. You never know.”

  “The red Ford?”

  “Disappeared into thin air. Like the driver. We still haven’t tracked down the owner, Harner. He seems to have emigrated to Portugal. Some might take that with a pinch of salt as he still has a car in Sweden. The national crime squad are looking into it. There’s a nationwide alert for the car. Something will happen, given time. Rundström’s a persistent bastard.”

  Lindman tried to make a summary in his head. His role in this investigation, in so far as he had one at all, had been to ask questions that could be of use to Larsson.

  “I take it that you’ll be telling the mass media as soon as possible that you have the person responsible for the murder of Abraham Andersson?”

  Larsson looked up in surprise. “Why on earth should I do that? If what we think is right, it could mean that Hereira will clear off. If it’s true that he came back up to the northern forests to find out about the murder of Andersson, that is. Don’t forget that he put Berggren under pressure on that score. I think she was telling the truth about that, at least. Obviously, we’ll have to dig into all this. Our first task tomorrow morning will be to look for the shotgun in the river.”

  “Somebody else could have killed Andersson, using a gun that either the murderer or Berggren threw into the river. Or dropped, as she said.”

  “Are you suggesting that she confessed to get our protection?”

  “I’m just asking questions.”

  Then he thought of something else that had been troubling him on and off.

  “Why isn’t there a prosecutor?” he said. “I haven’t heard a name, at any rate.”

  “Lövander,” Larsson said. “Albert Lövander. They say that in his younger days he was a pretty good high-jumper, only just below the elite standard. Now he devotes most of his time to his grandchildren. Of course there’s a prosecutor involved. We don’t work outside the legal system. Besides, Lövander and Rundström are old hands. They talk to each other every morning and every evening. And Lövander never interferes in what we’re doing.”

  “But surely he must have given some general instructions?”

  “Only to carry on as we are going.”

  It was now 9.15. Larsson phoned home. Lindman went out and stood next to the stuffed bear. Then he phoned Elena.

  “Where are you?”

  “Next to the bear.”

  “I consulted a map of Sweden today, large-scale. I’m trying to find out where you are exactly.”

  “We’ve had a confession. One of the murders might have been solved. It was a woman.”

  “Who’d done what?”

  “Killed a man who’d been blackmailing her. She shot him.”

  “Was that the man who was tied to a tree?”

  “Yes.”

  “No woman would ever do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Women defend themselves. They never attack.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite as straightforward as that.”

  “How straightforward is it, then?”

  He hadn’t the energy to try to explain.

  “When are you coming home?”

  “I’ve already said.”

  “Have you thought any more about our trip to London?”

  Lindman had forgotten all about it.

  “No,” he said. “But I shall. I think it sounds like an excellent idea.”

  “What are you doing just now?”

  “Talking to Larsson.”

  “Doesn’t he have a family to go home to?”

  “What makes you ask that? Right now he’s talking to his wife on the telephone.”

  “Can you give me an honest answer to a question?”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Does he know that I exist?”

  “I think so.”

  “Think?”

  “I’ve probably mentioned your name. Or he’ll have heard me talking to you on the telephone.”

  “Anyway, I’m glad you phoned. But don’t ring again until tomorrow. I’m going to bed early tonight.”

  Lindman went back to the office. Larsson had finished his call. He was picking at his fingernails with a straightened paper-clip.

  “That window standing ajar,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. It seems plausible that there was somebody there, listening to what we said. I’ve been trying to remember when it was open, and when it was closed. Impossible, of course.”

  “Maybe you should be thinking about what information came from this room, and nowhere else.”

  Larsson contemplated his hands. “We decided on the roadblocks here,” he said eventually. “We talked about a man on his way from Funäsdalen towards the south-west.”

  “I take it you’re thinking about the red Ford? The man who did the shooting?”

  “I’m thinking more about the suggestion that there might have been a leak from the police. It seems more likely that it was an open window.”

  Lindman hesitated.

  “This last day or so I’ve had the feeling that somebody has been following me,” he said. “I’ve felt it over and over again. A shadow somewhere behind me. Noises too. But I can’t be sure.”

  Larsson said nothing. Instead he stood up and went to the door.

  “Walk over to the wall,” he said. “Keep on talking. When I turn the light out, look out of the window.”

  Lindman did as he was told. Larsson started prattling on about grapes. Why red ones were much better than green ones. Lindman had got as far as the window. Larsson switched off the light. Lindman tried to see what was happening in the darkness outside, but everything was black. Larsson put the light back on, and went back to his desk.

  “Did you see anything?”

  “No.”
>
  “That doesn’t necessarily mean that there wasn’t somebody there. Or that there wasn’t somebody there not long ago. But I don’t see what we can do about it.”

  He pushed aside two small plastic bags lying on top of a file. One of them fell on the floor.

  “The forensic boys forgot a couple of plastic bags,” Larsson said. “Odds and ends they’d found on the road not far from the blue Golf.”

  Lindman bent down to look. One of them contained a receipt from a petrol station. Shell. It was dirty, hardly legible. Larsson watched him intently. Lindman studied the text. It seemed a bit clearer now. The petrol receipt was from a filling station near Söderköping. Slowly, he replaced the plastic bag on the desk and looked at Larsson. Thoughts were whirring around in his brain.

  “Berggren didn’t kill Andersson,” he said slowly. “We’re into something much bigger than that, Larsson. Berggren didn’t kill him.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Snow was falling again. Larsson went to the window to check the thermometer. Minus one. He sat down and looked at Lindman. Lindman would remember that moment, a clear and unmistakable image of a turning point. It was made up of the newly falling snow, Larsson with his bloodshot eyes and the story itself, what had happened in Kalmar, the discovery he had made when he broke into Wetterstedt’s flat. He remembered that only a few hours beforehand he had told the same story to Veronica Molin. Now it was Larsson listening with great interest. Was he surprised? Lindman couldn’t tell from the expression on his face.

  He was trying to create an overall picture. That dirty filling station receipt from a Shell garage in Söderköping was a key that fitted all doors, but in order to draw conclusions he must first tell the whole story, not just parts of it.

  What had he realised when he picked up the plastic bag that had fallen from the overladen desk? A sort of silent explosion, a wall being broken through, and something that had been limited all at once became very large. Although they were groping in the dark, looking for a murderer who might be called Fernando Hereira and might come from Argentina, the investigation had been local. They had been looking for the solution in Härjedalen. Now the artificial walls had collapsed. The petrol receipt shot like a rocket through everything they had built, and at last it was possible to see things clearly.

  Somebody had filled up with petrol in Söderköping, in a red Ford Escort belonging to a man by the name of Harner who had a P.O. box in Portugal. Then somebody had driven the car across much of Sweden and stopped on a country road west of Sveg, and started shooting at a car that was coming from the mountains. They scraped at the dirty receipt but were unable to read the date, although the time was clearly 20.12. Larsson thought the forensic people would be able to decipher the date, and they must do that as soon as possible.

  Somebody sets off from Kalmar for Härjedalen. On the way, in Söderköping, he stops to fill up with petrol. He continues his journey. He tries to kill the man who most probably was responsible for the murder of Molin. Neither Lindman nor Larsson were the type of police officer who believed in coincidences. Somewhere in the Nazi underworld, inhabited by the likes of Wetterstedt and the Strong Sweden foundation, Lindman’s visit had stirred up unrest. They couldn’t be certain that he was the one who’d broken into the flat. Or could they? Lindman remembered the front door shutting as he left the flat, the feeling that somebody was watching him, the same feeling he’d had these last few days. “Perhaps two invisible shadows make one visible shadow,” he said to Larsson. It could be that the shadow following him in Kalmar was the same as the one in Sveg. The conclusion that Lindman was trying to reach was that their thinking had been closer to the truth than they had dared to believe. It was all to do with the underworld where old Nazis had come across something new that enabled the old madness to join up with the new version. Somebody had broken into this shadow world and killed Molin. A shudder had run through the old Nazis. “The woodlice are starting to crawl out from under stones,” as Larsson put it afterwards. Who was the enemy of these Nazis? Was it the man who had killed Molin? Could it mean that Andersson had known about more than just the past of Molin and Berggren, that he’d known about the whole organisation, and had threatened to expose it and perhaps even something still bigger? They couldn’t know that. But a Ford Escort had been filled up with petrol and driven to Härjedalen by a man intent on killing somebody. And Berggren had decided to take responsibility for a murder she almost certainly hadn’t committed. The pattern was becoming clear, and conclusions possible to draw. There was an organisation, to which Lindman’s own father was continuing to give support long after his death. Molin had been a member, as was Berggren. But not Andersson. Nevertheless, somehow or other he had discovered its existence. On the surface he was a friendly man who played the violin in the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, was a paid-up member of the Centre Party and also wrote trivial pop songs under the pseudonym of Siv Nilsson. Beneath the surface he was a man with more than one string to his bow. A blackmailer who made threats and demands. And maybe, deep down, was upset at the very thought of living close to an unreformed Nazi.

  It took Lindman half an hour to work it all out.

  “The bolt hole,” he said. “Andersson’s bolt hole. What did he have hidden in there? How much did he know? We can’t tell. But whatever it was, it was too much.”

  Snow was falling more densely now. Larsson had angled his desk lamp so that it shone out into the darkness.

  “This has been threatening for the last week,” he said. “Snow. And now we’re getting plenty of it. It might melt away, but it could lie. Winters up here are not easy to predict, but they’re always long.”

  They drank coffee. The Community Centre was empty. The library had closed.

  “I think it’s time for me to go back to Östersund,” Larsson said. “All you’ve told me makes me more than ever convinced that the Special Branch must be brought in.”

  “What about the information you’ve had from me?” Lindman said.

  “We may have received an anonymous tip-off,” Larsson said. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to report you for breaking down the door of that Nazi’s flat.”

  It was 10.15. They examined the situation they were in from various angles. Shuffled the pieces around. A couple of hours ago Berggren had been playing a central role. Now she’d been sidelined, at least for the time being. At the front of stage were Fernando Hereira and the man who’d filled a Ford Escort with petrol in Söderköping.

  There was a clattering from the entrance to the Community Centre. Johansson eventually trudged in, snow in his thinning hair.

  “I very nearly came off the road,” he said, brushing the snow from his jacket. “I got in a skid. I was close to catastrophe.”

  “You drive too fast.”

  “Very possibly.”

  “What happened in Östersund?”

  “Lövander will sort out the remand procedures tomorrow morning. He came to the police station and listened to the tape, then phoned me in the car.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “She didn’t utter a word all the way to Östersund.”

  Larsson had vacated the desk chair, and Johansson sat down with a yawn. Larsson told him about the petrol receipt and the conclusions they’d drawn. He invented a story about Lindman receiving an anonymous call about the Strong Sweden foundation. Johansson was only half listening at first, but soon pricked up his ears.

  “I agree,” he said when Larsson had finished. “We have to bring in the Special Branch. If we have an organisation calling itself Nazi and killing people, then Stockholm needs to be in on the case. There’s been an awful lot of this kind of stuff in Sweden lately. Meanwhile I suppose we’d better keep on hunting for that red Escort.”

  “Isn’t Stockholm doing that?”

  Johansson had opened his briefcase and was taking out some faxes.

  “They’ve traced Anders Harner. He says the Escort is his all right, but it’s in a garage in Stockholm. A place
run by somebody called Mattias Sundelin. I’ve got his telephone number here.”

  He called the number and switched his telephone to loudspeaker mode. A woman answered.

  “I’m trying to get in touch with Mattias Sundelin.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Erik Johansson and I’m a police officer in Sveg.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “In Härjedalen, but that’s by the bye. Is Sundelin there?”

  “Just a minute, I’ll get him.”

  They waited.

  “Mattias here,” said a gravelly voice.

  “This is Inspector Johansson from the police in Sveg. It’s about a red Ford Escort, registration number ABB 003. The owner is Anders Harner. He tells us it’s in your garage. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “So you have the car?”

  “Not here at home. It’s in the garage in town. I rent out garage space.”

  “But you are certain that the car is there at this moment?”

  “I can’t be certain about every single car I’ve got parked there. I have about 90 of them. What’s this all about?”

  “We need to trace that car. Where is the garage?”

  “In Kungsholmen. I can take a look tomorrow.”

  “No,” Johansson said. “We need to know right now.”

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “I can’t go into that. Please drive in and check that the car is still there.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Now.”

  “I can’t do that. I’ve been drinking wine. I’d be over the limit if I was stopped.”

  “Is there somebody else who could check? If not, you’ll have to take a taxi.”

  “You can try Pelle Niklasson. I’ve got his number here.” Johansson wrote it down, thanked Sundelin and rang off. Then he called the new number. The man who answered said he was Pelle Niklasson. Johansson repeated the questions about the red Escort.

  “I can’t remember if I saw it today. We’ve got quite a few cars in the long-stay area.”

  “We need to have confirmation that it is there, and we need it now.”

  “I’m in Vällingby. Surely you’re not suggesting that I should drive all that way at this time of night.”