The Return of the Dancing Master

by Henning Mankell

  The last thing he felt was being dragged over the ground, into the house, and then being beaten on the soles of his feet. Everything went black. He was dead.

  He couldn’t know that the last thing that happened to him was being dragged naked to the edge of the forest and left with his face pressed into the cold earth.

  By then it was dawn.

  That was October 19, 1999. A few hours later it started raining, rain that barely perceptibly turned to wet snow.

  CHAPTER 2

  Stefan Lindman was a police officer. Once every year at least he had found himself in a situation where he experienced considerable fear. On one occasion he’d been attacked by a psychopath weighing over 100 kilos. He’d been on the floor with the man astride him, and in rising desperation had fought to prevent his head being torn off by the madman’s gigantic hands. If one of his colleagues hadn’t succeeded in stunning the man with a blow to the head, he would certainly have succumbed. Another time he’d been shot at approaching a house to deal with domestic violence. The shot was from a Mauser and narrowly missed one of his legs. But he had never been as frightened as he felt now, on the morning of October 25, 1999, as he lay in bed staring up at the ceiling.

  He had barely slept. He had dozed off now and again only to be woken with a start by nightmares the moment he lost consciousness. In desperation he’d finally got out of bed and sat in front of the television, zapping the channels until he found a pornographic film. But after a short while he’d switched off in disgust and gone back to bed.

  It was 7 a.m. when he got up. He’d devised a plan during the night. A plan that was also an invocation. He wouldn’t go directly up the hill to the hospital. He would make sure he had enough time not only to take a roundabout route, but also to circle the hospital twice. He would all the time search for signs that the news he was going to receive from the doctor would be positive. To give himself an extra dose of energy, he’d have a coffee in the hospital cafeteria, and force himself to calm down by reading the local paper.

  Without having thought about it in advance, he put on his best suit. Generally, when he wasn’t in uniform or other working clothes, he would be in jeans and a T-shirt. Today, though, he felt his best suit was called for. As he knotted his tie he contemplated his face in the bathroom mirror. It was obvious he hadn’t been sleeping or eating properly for weeks. His cheeks were hollow. And he could do with getting his hair cut. He didn’t like the way it was sticking out over his ears.

  He didn’t at all like what he saw in the mirror this morning. It was an unusual feeling. He was a vain man, and often checked his appearance in the mirror. Normally he liked what he saw. His reflection would generally raise his spirits, but this morning everything was different.

  When he’d finished dressing he made coffee. He prepared some open sandwiches, but didn’t feel like eating anything. His appointment with the doctor was for 8.45. It was 7.27. So he had exactly one hour and 18 minutes for his walk to the hospital.

  When he came onto the street it had started drizzling.

  Lindman lived in the centre of Borås, in Allégatan. Three years ago he lived in Sjömarken outside the town, but then he’d happened to hear about this three-roomed flat and hadn’t hesitated to sign a contract for it. Directly across the street was the Vävaren Hotel. He was within walking distance of the police station, and could even walk to the Ryavallen stadium when Elfsborg were playing at home. Football was his biggest interest, apart from his work. Although he didn’t tell anybody, he still collected pictures and press cuttings about his local team in a file. He had daydreams about being a professional footballer in Italy, instead of a police officer in Sweden. These dreams embarrassed him, but he couldn’t put them behind him.

  He walked up the steps taking him to Stengärdsgatan and kept on towards the City Theatre and the grammar school. A police car drove past. Whoever was in it didn’t notice him. His fear stabbed into him. It was as if he’d gone already, was already dead. He pulled his jacket more tightly around him. There was no real reason why he should be expecting a negative verdict. He increased his pace. His mind was buzzing. The raindrops falling into his face were reminders of a life, his life, that was ebbing away.

  He was 37. He’d worked in Borås ever since leaving Police College. It was where he wanted to be posted. He was born in Kinna and grew up in a family with three children; his father was a second-hand car salesman and his mother worked in a bakery. Stefan was the youngest. His two sisters were seven and nine years older than he was – you could almost say he was an afterthought.

  When Lindman thought back to his childhood, it sometimes seemed strangely uneventful and boring. Life had been secure and routine. His parents disliked travelling. The furthest they could bring themselves to go was Borås or Varberg. Even Göteborg was too big, too far and too scary. His sisters had rebelled against this life and moved away early, one to Stockholm and the other to Helsinki. His parents had taken that as a failure on their part, and Lindman had realised he was almost bound to stay in Kinna, or at least to go back there when he’d decided what to do with his life. He’d been restless as a teenager, and had no idea what he wanted to do when he grew up.

  Then, purely by chance, he’d got to know a young man devoted to motocross. He’d become this man’s assistant and spent a few years travelling around race-tracks the length and breadth of central Sweden. But he tired of that eventually and returned to Kinna, where his parents welcomed him with open arms, the return of the prodigal son. He still didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, but then he happened to meet a policeman from Malmö who was visiting some mutual friends in Kinna. And the thought struck Lindman: maybe I ought to become a police officer? He thought it over for a few days, and made up his mind to give it a try at least.

  His parents received his decision with a degree of unease, but Lindman pointed out that there were police officers in Kinna – he wouldn’t need to move away.

  He set out immediately to turn his decision into reality. The first thing he did was to go back to school and collect some A-levels. As he was so keen, it had been easier than he’d expected. He occasionally worked as a relief school caretaker in order to earn his keep.

  To his surprise he’d been accepted by Police College at his first attempt. The training hadn’t caused him any problems. He hadn’t been outstanding in any way, but had been among the better ones in his year. One day he’d come back home to Kinna in uniform and announced that he would be working in Borås, just 40 kilometres down the road.

  For the first few years he’d commuted from Kinna, but when he fell in love with one of the girls at the police station, he moved into Borås. They lived together for three years. Then one day, out of the blue, she announced that she’d met a man from Trondheim and she was moving there. Lindman had taken the development in his stride. He’d realised that their relationship was beginning to bore him. It was a bit like going back to his childhood. What intrigued him, though, was how she could have met another man and started an affair without Lindman noticing.

  By now he’d reached the age of 30, almost without noticing it. Then his father had a heart attack and died, and a few months later his mother died as well. The day after her funeral he’d inserted a lonely hearts advert in the local paper. He had four replies, and met the women one after the other. One of them was a Pole who had lived in Borås for many years. She had two grown-up children, and worked as a dinner lady at the grammar school. She was nearly ten years older than him, but they’d never really noticed the difference. He couldn’t understand at first what there was that had attracted him to her straightaway, made him fall in love with her. Then it dawned on him: she was completely ordinary. She took life seriously, but didn’t fuss about anything unnecessarily. They’d started a relationship, and for the first time in his life Lindman had discovered that he could feel something for a woman that was more than lust. Her name was Elena and she lived in Norrby. He used to spend the night there several times a week.
It was there, one day, that he was in the bathroom and discovered he had a strange lump on his tongue.

  He interrupted his train of thought. He was in front of the hospital. It was still drizzling. It was 7.56 by his watch. He walked past the hospital and quickened his pace. He’d made up his mind to walk round it twice, and that was what he was going to do.

  It was 8.30 by the time he sat down in the cafeteria with a cup of coffee and the local paper. But he didn’t read a word in the paper, and never touched his coffee.

  He was scared stiff by the time he got as far as the doctor’s door. He knocked and went in. It was a woman doctor. He tried to work out from her face what he could expect: a death sentence, or a reprieve? She gave him a smile, but that only confused him. Did it denote uncertainty, sympathy or relief at not needing to tell somebody they had cancer?

  He sat down. She organised some papers on the desk.

  “I’m afraid I have to tell you that the lump you have on your tongue is a malignant tumour.”

  He swallowed. He’d known all along, ever since that morning in Elena’s flat in Norrby. He had cancer.

  “We can’t see any sign of it spreading. As we’ve found it in the early stages, we can start treating it straightaway.”

  “What does that mean? Will you cut my tongue out?”

  “No, it will be radiotherapy to start with. And then an operation.”

  “Will I die of it?”

  This wasn’t a question he’d prepared in advance. It burst out without him being able to stop it.

  “Cancer is always serious,” the doctor said, “but nowadays we can take measures. It’s been a long time since diagnosing cancer meant passing a death sentence.”

  He sat with the doctor for more than an hour. When he left her office he was soaked in sweat. In the pit of his stomach was a spot as cold as ice. A pain that didn’t burn, but it felt like the hands of that psychopath on his throat. He forced himself to be calm. He would go for a coffee now and read the paper. Then he’d make up his mind whether or not he was dying.

  But the paper was no longer there. He picked up one of the previous day’s national papers instead. That ice-cold knot was still there. He drank his coffee and thumbed through the paper. He’d forgotten all about the words and the pictures the moment he turned over a page. Something caught his attention. A photograph. A headline about a brutal murder. He stared at the photograph and the caption. Herbert Molin, age 76. Former police officer.

  He pushed the paper aside and went for another cup of coffee. He knew it cost two kronor, but he didn’t bother paying. He had cancer and was entitled to take certain liberties. A man who had shuffled quickly up to the counter was pouring himself a cup of coffee. His hands shook so badly that hardly any of it arrived in the cup. Lindman helped him. The man gave him a grateful look.

  He picked up the paper again, and read what it said without any of it really sinking in.

  When he’d first arrived in Borås as a probationer, he’d been introduced to the oldest and most experienced detective on the staff, Herbert Molin. They had worked together in the serious crimes division for some years until Molin retired. Lindman had often thought about him afterwards. The way in which he was always looking for links and clues. A lot of people spoke ill of him behind his back, but he’d always been a rich source of learning as far as Lindman was concerned. One of Molin’s main lines was that intuition was the most important and most underestimated resource for a true detective. The more experience Lindman accrued, the more he realised that Molin was right.

  Molin had been a recluse. Nobody Lindman knew had ever been to Molin’s house opposite the district courthouse in Brämhultsvägen. Some years after he’d retired, Lindman heard quite by chance that Molin had left town, but nobody could say where he had moved to.

  Lindman put the newspaper down.

  So Herbert Molin had moved to Härjedalen. According to the paper, he had been living in a remote house in the middle of the forest. That is where he had been murdered. There was apparently no discernible motive, nor any clues as to who the killer might have been. The murder had been committed several days ago, but Lindman’s nervousness about his hospital appointment had meant that he shied away from the outside world and the news had only got through to him via this much-thumbed evening paper.

  He got to his feet. He’d had enough of his own mortality to be going on with. He left the hospital in a heavy drizzle. He started downhill to the town centre. Molin was dead, and he himself had been informed that he belonged to the category of people whose days might be numbered. He was 37 years old and had never really thought about his own age. Now it felt as if he’d suddenly been robbed of all perspective. A bit like being in a boat on the open sea, then being cast into a narrow fjord surrounded by high cliffs. He paused on the pavement to get his breath back. He wasn’t just scared, he also had the feeling that somehow or other he was being swindled. By something invisible that had smuggled its way into his body and was now busy destroying him.

  It also seemed to him rather ridiculous that he should have to explain to people that he had cancer of the tongue, of all places. People got cancer, you heard about that all the time. But in the tongue?

  He started walking again. To give himself time he decided to make his mind a complete blank until he got as far as the grammar school. Then he’d decide what to do. The doctor had given him an appointment for further tests the next day. She’d also extended his sick leave by a month. He would start his course of treatment in three weeks’ time.

  Outside the theatre was a group of actors and actresses in costumes and wigs, being photographed. They were all young, and laughing very loudly. Lindman had never set foot inside the Borås theatre. When he heard the players laughing, he quickened his pace.

  He went into the library and proceeded to the newspaper room. An old man was perusing a newspaper with Russian characters. Lindman collected a speedway magazine before sitting at one of the tables. He used it to hide behind. Stared at a picture of a motorbike while trying to make up his mind.

  The doctor had said he wasn’t going to die. Not yet, at least. There was a risk that the tumour would grow and the cancer might start to spread. It would be a head to head battle: he’d either win or lose. There was no possibility of a draw.

  He stared at the motorbike and it struck him that for the first time in years he missed his mother. He’d have been able to discuss things with her, but now he had nobody he could talk to. The very idea of taking Elena into his confidence was unthinkable. Why? He didn’t understand. If there was anybody he should be able to talk to and who could give him the support he needed, it was Elena. Even so he couldn’t bring himself to phone her. It was as if he were ashamed of having to tell her that he did have cancer. He hadn’t even told her about his hospital appointment.

  He leafed through all the pages with pictures of bikes. Leafed his way to a conclusion.

  Half an hour later he knew what he was going to do. He’d talk to his boss, Superintendent Olausson, who’d just got back from holiday – he’d been shooting elk. He’d tell him he’d been given a medical certificate without mentioning why. He’d just say he had to undergo a thorough examination because of the pains he’d been having in his throat. Nothing serious, no doubt. He could hand the doctor’s certificate in to the staffing office himself: that would give him at least a week before Olausson knew the reason for his absence.

  Then he’d go home, phone Elena and tell her he was going away for a few days. Maybe to Helsinki to see his sister. He’d done that before. That wouldn’t arouse her suspicions. Next, he’d go to the wine shop and buy a few bottles. During the course of the evening and the night, he’d make all the other necessary decisions, the main one being whether or not he thought he could cope with fighting a cancer that might turn out to be life-threatening. Or whether he should simply give up.

  He put the magazine back on its shelf, continued through the reading room and paused at a shelf with medical reference
books. He took down one about cancer. Then he put it back again without opening it.

  Superintendent Olausson of the Borås police was a man who laughed his way through life. His door was always open. It was midday when Lindman entered his office. He was just finishing a telephone call, and Lindman waited. Olausson slammed down the receiver, produced a handkerchief and blew his nose.

  “They want me to give a lecture,” he said, with a laugh. “Rotary. They wanted me to talk about the Russian Mafia, but there is no Russian Mafia in Borås. We don’t have any Mafia at all. So I turned ’em down.” He gestured to Lindman that he should sit down.

  “I just wanted to let you know that my doctor’s certificate has been extended.”

  Olausson stared at him in surprise. “But you’re never ill.”

  “I am now. I have pains in my throat. I’ll be off for another month. At least.”

  Olausson leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. “A month sounds a long time for a sore throat, don’t you think?”

  “It was the doctor who signed the certificate, not me.”

  Olausson nodded. “Police officers do catch cold in the autumn,” he said. “But I get the impression that the criminal classes never catch flu. Why’s that, do you think?”

  “Maybe they have better immune systems?”

  “That could be. Perhaps that’s something we should let the Commissioner know about.”

  Olausson didn’t like the National Commissioner. Nor did he think much of the Justice Minister. He didn’t like any superiors, come to that. It was a standing joke in the Borås police force that some years previously a Social Democratic Justice Minister had visited the town to open the new district court, and at the dinner afterwards had got so drunk that Olausson had to carry him up to his hotel room.