The Return of the Dancing Master

by Henning Mankell

Lindman stood up to leave. “I read that Herbert Molin was murdered the other day.”

  Olausson stared at him in surprise. “Molin? Murdered?”

  “In Härjedalen. He lived up there, it seems. I saw it in one of the evening papers.”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t remember which one.”

  Olausson accompanied him out into the corridor. The evening papers were piled up in reception. Olausson found the article and read what they’d written.

  “I wonder what happened,” Lindman said.

  “I’ll find out. I’ll ring our colleagues in Östersund.”

  Lindman left the police station. The drizzle seemed set to keep falling for ever. He queued up in the wine shop and eventually took home two bottles of an expensive Italian wine. Before he’d even taken off his jacket he opened one of the bottles and filled a glass that he proceeded to empty in one go. He kicked off his shoes and threw his jacket over a kitchen chair. The telephone answering machine in the hall was blinking. It was Elena, wondering if he would like to come round for dinner. He took his glass and the bottle of wine with him into the bedroom. The traffic outside was reduced to a faint buzz. He lay down on the bed with the bottle in his hand. There was a stain on the ceiling. He’d lain in bed the night before staring at it. It looked different by day. After another glass of wine he rolled over onto his side and fell asleep without further ado.

  It was nearly midnight when he woke up. He’d slept for almost eleven hours. His shirt was soaked in sweat. He stared into the darkness. The curtains kept out any light there was in the street.

  His first thought was that he was going to die.

  Then he decided that he would fight it. After the next set of tests he would have three weeks in which to do whatever he liked. He’d spend that time finding out all there was to find out about cancer. And he’d prepare for the fight he was going to put up.

  He got out of bed, took off his shirt and tossed it into the basket in the bathroom. Then he stood in the window overlooking Allégatan. Outside the Vävaren Hotel garage a few drunken men were arguing. The street was shiny with rain. He thought about Molin. A vague thought had been nagging at him since he’d read the report in the paper at the hospital. Now it came back to him.

  They’d once been chasing an escaped murderer through the woods north of Borås. It was late autumn, like now. Lindman and Molin had somehow become separated among the trees, and when Lindman eventually found him he’d approached so quietly that he surprised Molin, who turned to stare at him with terror-stricken eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Lindman said.

  Molin just shrugged.

  “I thought it was somebody else,” he said.

  That was all. I thought it was somebody else.

  Lindman remained standing at the window. The drunks had dispersed. He ran his tongue over his top teeth. There was death in that tongue of his, but somewhere or other there was also Herbert Molin. I thought it was somebody else.

  It dawned on Lindman that he’d known all the time. Molin had been scared stiff. All those years they’d worked together his fear had always been there. Molin had usually managed to hide it, but not always.

  Lindman frowned.

  Molin had been murdered in the depths of the northern forests, having always been frightened. The question was: of whom?

  CHAPTER 3

  Giuseppe Larsson was a man who had learnt from experience never to take anything for granted. He woke up on October 26 when his back-up alarm clock rang. He looked at his front-line clock on the bedside table and noted that it had stopped at 3.04. So, you couldn’t even rely on alarm clocks. That’s why he always used two. He got out of bed and opened the roller blind with a snap. The television weather forecast the night before had said there would be a light snowfall over the province of Jämtland, but Larsson could see no sign of snow. The sky was dark, but full of stars.

  Larsson had a quick breakfast made for him by his wife. Their 19-year-old daughter, who still hadn’t flown the nest, was fast asleep. She had a job at the hospital and was due to start on a week-long night shift that evening. Shortly after 7 a.m. Larsson forced his feet into a pair of Wellington boots, pulled his hat down over his eyes, stroked his wife’s cheek and set off for work. He was faced with a drive of a couple of hundred kilometres. This last week he’d done it there and back several times, apart from one occasion when he was so tired, he’d felt obliged to book into a hotel in Sveg.

  Now he had to drive there yet again. On the way he had to keep a lookout for elks, while also trying to summarise the murder investigation he was involved in. He left Östersund behind, headed for Svenstavik, and set his cruise control to 85 kilometres per hour. He couldn’t be sure that he’d be able to stay under the speed limit of 90 kilometres per hour if he didn’t. An average of 85 would get him there in good time for the meeting with the forensic unit arranged for 10 a.m.

  He seemed to be driving through tightly-packed darkness. The northern winter was at hand. Larsson was born in Östersund 43 years ago, and couldn’t understand people who complained about the darkness and the cold. As far as he was concerned, the half of the year usually described as winter was a time when everything settled down and became uneventful. Needless to say, there was always somebody now and then who couldn’t stand the winter any longer and committed suicide or battered some other person to death – but that was the way it had always been. Not even the police could do anything about that. However, what had happened not far from Sveg was hardly an everyday occurrence. Larsson found himself having to rehearse all the details one more time.

  The emergency call had reached the Östersund police station late in the afternoon of October 19. Seven days ago now. Larsson had been on the point of leaving for a haircut when somebody thrust a telephone into his hand. The woman at the other end was shouting. He’d been forced to hold the receiver away from his ear to grasp what she was saying. Two things were clear from the start: the woman was very upset, and she was sober. He’d sat at his desk and fumbled for a notepad. After a few minutes he’d made enough notes to give him a fair picture of what he thought she was trying to make him understand. The woman’s name was Hanna Tunberg. Twice a month she used to char for a man called Herbert Molin, who lived some miles outside Sveg in a house called Rätmyren. When she arrived that day she’d found a dog lying dead in its pen, and seen that all the windows in the house were broken. She didn’t dare stay as she thought the man who lived there must have gone mad. She’d driven back to Sveg and collected her husband, who had retired on health grounds. They’d gone back to the house together. It was about four in the afternoon by then. They’d considered phoning the police right away, but had decided to wait until they’d established what had actually happened – a decision they both bitterly regretted. Her husband had entered the house but emerged immediately and shouted to his wife, who’d stayed in the car, that the place was full of blood. Then he thought he saw something at the edge of the forest. He’d gone to investigate, taken a step back, then sprinted to the car and started vomiting into the grass. When he’d recovered sufficiently, they’d driven straight to Sveg. As her husband had a weak heart, he’d lain down on the sofa while she phoned the police in Sveg, and they’d passed the call on to Östersund. Larsson had noted down the woman’s name and telephone number. When they’d finished talking he’d rung her back in order to check that the number was correct. He also made sure he’d got the name of the dead man right. Herbert Molin. When he put the receiver down for the second time, he’d abandoned any thought of having his hair cut.

  He’d gone immediately to Rundström, who was in charge of emergencies, and explained the situation. Just 20 minutes later he was on his way to Sveg in a police car with blue lights flashing. The forensic boys were making preparations to follow as soon as possible.

  They’d reached the house some time after 7.30. Hanna Tunberg was waiting for them at the turn-off, along with Inspector Erik Johansson, who was statio
ned in Sveg and had just got back from another call-out, a lorry laden with timber that had overturned outside Ytterhogdal. It was already dark by then. Larsson could see from the woman’s eyes that the sight awaiting them would not be a pretty one. They went first to the spot on the edge of the forest that Hanna Tunberg had described to them. They found themselves gasping for breath when they shone their torches on the dead body. Larsson understood the woman’s horror. He thought he’d seen everything. He had several times seen suicides who’d fired a shotgun straight into their faces, but the man on the ground in front of them was worse than anything he’d been obliged to look at before. It wasn’t really a man at all, just a bloody bundle. The face had been scraped away, the feet were no more than blood-soaked lumps and his back had been so badly beaten that bones were exposed.

  They’d then approached the house with guns drawn. They’d established that there was indeed a Norwegian elkhound dead in the pen. When they entered the house they found that Hanna’s description of what her husband had told her was in no way exaggerated. The floor was covered in bloody footprints and broken glass. They’d closed the door to make sure that nothing was disturbed before the forensic team arrived.

  Hanna had been in the car all the time, her hands clutching the steering wheel. Larsson felt sorry for her. He knew that what she’d been through today would stay with her for the rest of her life, a constant source of fear or a never-ending nightmare.

  Larsson had sent Johansson in Hanna’s car to the junction with the main road to wait for the forensic team. He’d also told him to write down in detail everything the woman had to say. Precise times especially.

  Then Larsson had been on his own. He suspected he was faced with something he wasn’t really up to coping with, but he also knew that there was nobody else in the whole of the Jämtland police force who was better equipped than he was to lead the investigation. He decided to tell the chief of police straightaway that reinforcements would have to be called in from outside.

  He was approaching Svenstavik. It was still dark. Several days had passed, but they were no nearer to solving the mystery of the murdered man in the forest.

  There was another major problem. It had transpired that the dead man was a retired police officer who had moved up to Härjedalen after working for many years as a detective in Borås. Larsson had spent the previous evening at home, reading through documents faxed to him from Borås. He was now familiar with all the basic information that forms an individual’s profile. Nevertheless, he had the impression he was staring into a vacuum. There was no motive, no clues, no witnesses. It was as if some mysterious evil force had been let loose, emerged from the forest to attack Molin with all its might, and then disappeared without trace.

  He passed through Svenstavik and continued towards Sveg. It was getting light now, and the wooded ridges surrounding him on all sides were acquiring a shade of blue. His mind turned to the preliminary report he’d received from the coroner’s office in Umeå where pathologists had been examining the body. It explained how the wounds had been inflicted, of course, but hadn’t provided Larsson with any clues as to where this savage attack might have come from, nor why. The pathologist described in detail the violence inflicted on Molin. The wounds on his back appeared to have been caused by lashes with a whip. As there was no skin left on his back, it was only when they discovered a fragment of the lash that they realised what had happened. A microscopic examination revealed that the whip had been made from the hide of an animal. Just what animal they were unable to say, as it did not correspond with any animal in Sweden. It was highly probable that the injuries to the soles of Molin’s feet had been caused by the same instrument. He had not been beaten in the face: the scrape marks indicated that he had been dragged face down over the ground. The wounds were full of soil. The doctor was able to state that on the basis of bruises on the victim’s neck, it was clear that an attempt had been made to strangle him. An attempt was a wording that should be taken literally, the report stressed. Molin had not been choked to death. Nor did he die from the residue of tear gas found in his eyes, throat and lungs. Molin had died from exhaustion. He had, literally, had the life whipped out of him.

  Larsson pulled into the side of the road and stopped. He switched off the engine, got out of the car and waited until a lorry had driven past on its way up north. Then he opened his flies and had a pee. Of all the joys that life had to offer, having a pee at the side of the road was the best. He got back into the car, but before starting the engine, he tried to think objectively about what he now knew concerning the death of Molin. Slowly and deliberately, he tried to let everything he’d seen and read in various reports filter through his mind and find its own way into appropriate pigeon holes. Something among that information might give a lead. They had found no trace of a motive. Nevertheless, it was obvious that Molin had been subjected to protracted and savage violence. Frenzy, fury, Larsson thought. That’s what it’s all about. Perhaps this furious frenzy is in fact the motive. Fury and a thirst for vengeance.

  There was something else that suggested he might be on the right track. Everything gave the impression of having been carefully planned. The guard dog had had its throat cut. The murderer had been equipped with whips and tear gas cartridges. That can’t have been coincidental. The fury must have been an outburst within the framework of a meticulous plan.

  Fury, thought Larsson. Fury and vengeance. A plan. That means that whoever killed Molin had most probably been to the house before, possibly on several occasions. Somebody ought to have noticed strangers hanging around in the vicinity. Or maybe the opposite applied: nobody had noticed anything. Which would mean that the murderer, or murderers, would have been friends of Molin.

  But Molin didn’t have any friends. That was something fru Tunberg had been very clear about. Molin didn’t have a social life. He had been a recluse.

  Larsson went over what had happened one more time. He had the feeling that the attacker had been on his own. Somebody had turned up at the isolated dwelling, armed with a whip made from an unidentified animal hide, and a tear gas pistol. Molin had been killed with ruthless and planned sadism, and the body had been abandoned naked at the edge of the forest.

  The question was: had Molin simply been murdered? Or was it an execution?

  Expert reinforcements would have to be brought in. This wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill murder case. Larsson was increasingly persuaded that they were faced with an execution.

  It was 9.40 by the time Larsson drove up to Molin’s house. The scene-of-crime tapes were still in place, but there was no sign of a police vehicle. Larsson got out of his car. There was quite a wind now. The swishing sound from the forest imposed itself upon the autumn morning. Larsson stood quite still and looked slowly round. The forensic unit had found traces of a car parked exactly where he was standing now: the tracks didn’t correspond to Molin’s ancient Volvo. Every time Larsson came to the scene of the murder, he tried to imagine exactly what had happened. Who had clambered out of this unknown car? And when? It must have been during the night. The pathologists still hadn’t been able to establish the precise time of death. Even so, the writer of the preliminary report had hinted in carefully chosen words that the assault could well have been going on over an extended period of time. He couldn’t say how many strokes of the whip Molin had received, but the beating – with pauses – might well have gone on for several hours.

  Larsson rehearsed yet again in his head the thoughts that had occurred to him during the drive out from Östersund.

  Fury, and the thirst for revenge. A solitary murderer. Everything meticulously planned. No killing on the spur of the moment.

  The phone rang. He gave a start. He still hadn’t got used to the fact that he could be reached by telephone, even in the middle of the forest. He retrieved his mobile from his jacket pocket and answered.

  “Giuseppe Larsson.”

  He’d lost count of the number of times he’d cursed his mother for giving him h
is first name after, as a young girl, she’d heard an Italian crooner at a concert in Östersund’s People’s Park one summer night. He’d been teased ruthlessly throughout his school years, and now, every time anybody phoned him and he said his name, whoever was at the other end of the line always paused to consider.

  “Giuseppe Larsson?”

  “Speaking.”

  He listened. The man at the other end said his name was Stefan Lindman, and that he was a police officer. He was ringing from Borås. Lindman went on to say that he’d worked with Molin and was curious about what had happened. Larsson said he’d phone him back. He’d had cases when reporters had pretended to be police officers, and he didn’t want to run that risk again. Lindman said he appreciated that. Larsson couldn’t find a pencil, and instead marked the phone number in the gravel with the toe of his shoe. He rang back, and Lindman answered. He might be a reporter nevertheless, of course. What he ought to do was to phone the station in Borås and ask if they had an officer by the name of Stefan Lindman. Even so, the way the man at the other end of the line expressed himself suggested to Larsson that he was telling the truth, and he tried to answer Lindman’s questions. But it wasn’t easy to do so on the phone. In any case, reception was not good, and he could hear the forensic team approaching.

  “I’ve got your number,” Larsson said. “And you can get hold of me at this number or at the station in Östersund. Meanwhile, is there anything you can tell me? Did Molin feel under threat? Any information could be of value. We don’t have much to go on. No witnesses, no apparent motive. Nothing at all, really. We’re ready to grab at any straw.”

  He listened to the response without comment. The scene-of-crime van drove up to the house. Larsson concluded the call, and made the number he’d traced in the gravel more obvious with the toe of his shoe.

  The policeman who’d phoned from Borås had said something important. Molin had been scared. He’d never explained why he was uneasy, but Lindman had no doubt. Molin had been scared all the time, wherever he’d been, whatever he’d done.