The Return of the Dancing Master

by Henning Mankell

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about that, I don’t even have a computer.”

  The man on the other side of the table looked worried.

  “You must get yourself one. Especially if you’re ill. There are loads of folk all over the world with cancer. I’ve seen that with my own eyes. I once looked up spinal cancer, which is the worst thing I can possibly imagine. I got 250,000 matches.” He paused. “Needless to say, I’ve no intention of talking about cancer,” he said. “As you said yourself.”

  “It’s not a problem. Besides, I don’t have cancer of the spine. At least, not as far as I know.”

  “I wasn’t thinking.”

  Lindman returned to the question of house prices. “A house like Elsa’s – what would it cost?”

  “Two or three hundred thousand, no more. But I don’t think Elsa has any intention of selling.”

  “Does she live alone?”

  “I don’t think she’s ever been married. She can be a bit stand-offish at times. After my wife died, I thought I might make a move for her, but she wasn’t interested.”

  “What sort of age is she?”

  “Seventy-three, I think.”

  So. More or less the same as Molin, Lindman thought.

  “Has she always lived here?”

  “She was here when we built our house. That was in the late ’50s. She must have lived in that house for 40 years.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Used to be a dance teacher before she came here. No comment.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Who retires at the age of 40 or less? Something fishy there, don’t you think?”

  “She must have had some means of support?”

  “She inherited her parents’ estate. That’s when she moved here. Or so she says.”

  Lindman tried to keep up. “So she wasn’t born here? She must have been an incomer?”

  “Skåne, I think she came from. Eslöv? Can that be somewhere down there where Sweden drifts to a halt?”

  “That’s right. And so she came here. Why here? Had she any family in Norrland?”

  Wigren looked hard at him. “You’re talking like a police officer. Some people might even suppose that you were interrogating me.”

  “I’m curious, like everybody else. You have to ask why somebody would move here from southern Sweden unless they were going to get married or had found their dream job,” Lindman said, sensing that he might be making a serious mistake not telling the truth.

  “I wondered about that as well. My wife too. But you don’t ask questions if you don’t have to. Elsa is nice, and helpful. She babysat for us when we needed it. And I still have no idea why she moved here. She didn’t have any relatives in these parts.” Wigren fell silent. Lindman waited. He had the impression that there was more to come.

  “You might well think it’s a bit odd,” said Wigren when he eventually got round to saying something. “I’ve been living next-door to Elsa for a whole generation. Even so, I’ve no idea why she bought this house in Ulvkälla. But there’s another thing that’s even odder.”

  “What?”

  “All these years I never set foot in her house. Nor did my wife while she was alive. Nor the children while they were growing up. I don’t know anybody who’s ever been inside her house. Let’s face it, that’s a little strange.”

  Lindman agreed. There was something about Berggren’s life that was reminiscent of Molin’s. Both came from elsewhere, and both led isolated lives. The question is whether what I think is true of Molin, that he was running away from something, applied also to Berggren. She was the one who had bought the house on his behalf. But why? How had they got to know each other? Did they have anything else in common?

  “Did you never see anyone arrive at the house?”

  “Nobody has ever seen anyone set foot inside her house, nor come out again, for that matter.”

  Lindman decided it was time to move on. He looked at his watch. “I’m afraid I’ve got to go now,” he said. “But thank you for the coffee.”

  They headed for the front door. Lindman pointed to the 14-pointed antlers.

  “I shot that beast when I belonged to a group of hunters from around Lillhärdal.”

  “Is that big?”

  Wigren burst out laughing. “The biggest I ever shot. It wouldn’t have found its way onto my wall if it wasn’t. When I die, it will fetch up on the rubbish dump. None of my children want it. We could be in for some snow tonight,” he said at the door. Then he turned to face Lindman. “I don’t know why you’ve been asking all these questions about Elsa, but I’m not going to say anything. One of these days though, you’ll come and join me here in the kitchen and tell me what’s going on.”

  Lindman nodded. He’d been right not to have underestimated Wigren.

  “Good luck with the cancer,” the old man said in farewell. “What I mean is, I hope you recover.”

  Lindman walked back the way he’d come. There was still no car on Berggren’s drive, or in the garage. He glanced at the windows. No movement of the curtains. When he crossed the bridge he stopped again and gazed down into the water. The fear he felt at the thought of his illness came and went in waves. He could no longer stop himself thinking about what was in store for him. What he was doing here. Wandering about the periphery of the investigation of Molin’s murder was a form of therapy which had only a limited effect.

  In the centre of the town he found the public library in the Community Centre. There was a large stuffed bear in the foyer, staring at him. He had a sudden urge to attack it in a trial of strength. The thought made him burst out laughing. A man carrying a bundle of papers looked up at him in surprise.

  Lindman located the shelves with medical literature, but when he sat down with a book with information on all varieties of cancer, he couldn’t bring himself to open it. It’s too soon, he thought. One more day. But not more. Then I will have to come to terms with my situation, instead of trying to bury it under my pointless efforts to find out what happened to Molin.

  When he left the Community Centre, he again felt a wave of indecision. Annoyed, he started marching back to the hotel. On the way, he decided to stop at the wine shop. He hadn’t been told by the doctor in Borås that he shouldn’t drink alcohol. No doubt he shouldn’t, but just now, he didn’t care. He bought two bottles of wine. As he emerged into the street, his phone rang. He put his bag down on the pavement and answered it. It was Elena.

  “I was wondering why you hadn’t phoned me.”

  Lindman immediately felt guilty. He could hear that she was hurt and disappointed.

  “I don’t feel too good,” he said, apologetically.

  “Are you still in Sveg?”

  “Where else could I be?”

  “What are you doing there?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m waiting to go to Molin’s funeral.”

  “Do you want me to come? I could take some time off work.”

  He nearly said yes, and yes, he did want her to come. “No,” he said. “I think it’s better for me to be on my own.”

  She didn’t ask again. They talked for a while without anything being said. Afterwards, he wondered why he hadn’t told her the truth. Why hadn’t he told her that he missed her? That he didn’t want to be on his own? It was as if he understood less and less about himself. And all because of the accursed lump in his mouth.

  He walked into the hotel with his bottles. The girl was in reception, watering the flowers.

  “Have you got everything you need?” she said.

  “Everything’s fine,” he said.

  She fetched his key, still holding the watering can.

  “I can’t believe how grey everything looks,” she said. “Early November. And the worst is yet to come. All that ghastly winter.”

  She went back to her plant pots. Lindman returned to his room. The suitcase was where he had left it. He put the carrier bag on the table. It was a few minutes past three. It’s
too early, he thought. I can’t sit here drinking wine midway through the afternoon.

  He stood motionless, gazing out of the window. Then he made up his mind. He would drive to the lake where he’d discovered the traces of a camp, but he’d go to the far side, to the forestry roads Larsson had talked about. He didn’t expect to find anything, but it would help to pass the time.

  It took him an hour to find one of the forestry roads. On the map the lake was called Stångvattnet. It was long and narrow, widest at the point where the forestry road ended with a space big enough for lorries to turn in. He got out of the car and walked the few metres to the water’s edge. It was starting to grow dark already. He stood still and listened. The only sound was a faint rustling in the trees. He tried to remember if there had been any mention in the material he’d read in Östersund of the weather on the day of Molin’s murder. He couldn’t remember anything. It seemed to him that even if the wind were blowing towards the house it would have been possible to hear a shot fired from that direction. But what evidence was there to suggest that anybody had been here that day? None. None at all.

  He remained by the water until darkness fell. A few ripples danced over the surface of the lake, then everything was still again. This was the first time in his life that he had been alone in a forest. Apart from that day when he and Molin had been chasing an escaped murderer outside Borås, and he’d witnessed his colleague’s fear. So, why did Molin move here? Because he wanted a refuge, a nest he could crawl into and hide? Or was there some other reason?

  He thought about what Wigren had said. That nobody ever visited Berggren. That didn’t prevent Molin being visited by her, though. There were two questions he ought to have asked Wigren: Did Berggren go out at night? Did she still like dancing? Two questions that could have given him a lot of answers.

  It struck him that it was Molin who had once taught him this simple truth. If you ask the right question at the right time, you can get a lot more answers than you were looking for.

  There was a scraping noise in the darkness behind him. He gave a start. Then all was quiet again. A branch falling, he thought, or an animal.

  He didn’t have the energy to think about Molin or Berggren any more. There was no point. From tomorrow he would devote all his strength to understanding what was happening to himself. He would leave Härjedalen. He had no business to be here. It was Larsson’s job to unravel the tangled web of information and find a motive and a murderer. He needed all his energy to prepare himself for radiotherapy. He stood there in the darkness a while longer. The trees about him were like soldiers standing guard. The black water was like a moat. For a moment he felt invulnerable.

  When he got back to the hotel, he rested for an hour, drank a couple of glasses of wine, then went down to the dining room. The test drivers had gone. The girl from reception was in her waitress outfit again. She plays all the roles, he thought. Perhaps that’s the only way the hotel can make itself pay?

  He sat at his usual table. He read the menu and saw to his disappointment that it was the same as yesterday. He closed his eyes and jabbed his index finger onto the sparse column showing the main courses. It was elk steak again. He had just begun eating when he heard someone come into the dining room behind him. He turned and saw a woman walking towards his table. She stopped and eyed him up and down. Lindman couldn’t help observing that she was strikingly attractive.

  “I don’t want to disturb you,” she said, “but a policeman in Östersund told me that one of my father’s old colleagues was here.”

  Lindman didn’t understand at first. Then it dawned on him: the woman was Molin’s daughter.

  CHAPTER 9

  Veronica Molin was one of the most beautiful women Lindman had ever met. Before she had sat down, before even she’d had time to say who she was, he’d imagined her naked. He thought back to the files he’d read in Larsson’s office and remembered that in 1955 Molin had had a daughter, christened Veronica. The woman standing at his table now, wearing expensive scent, was therefore 44, seven years older than he was. If he hadn’t known that, he would have guessed she was his age.

  He stood up, introduced himself, shook hands, and expressed his condolences.

  “Thank you.” Her voice was strangely flat. It didn’t belong with her beauty. She reminds me of somebody, he thought. One of those celebrities forever appearing in the papers or on television. But he couldn’t remember who it was. He invited her to join him.

  The girl from reception came over to their table. “Now you won’t have to eat alone,” she said to Lindman. He just managed to avoid telling her to go to hell.

  “If you prefer to be on your own,” Veronica Molin said, “then, of course, you must be.”

  He noticed that she was wearing a wedding ring. This depressed him, just for a moment. It was an absurd reaction, unreasonable, and soon passed. “Not at all,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Not at all, what?”

  “I don’t at all want to be on my own.”

  She sat down, consulted the menu, but put it down again immediately.

  “Could I have a salad?” she said. “And an omelette? Nothing else.”

  “No problem,” the girl said.

  Lindman wondered if she also did the cooking.

  Veronica Molin ordered a mineral water. Lindman was still trying to remember who she reminded him of.

  “I misunderstood the situation,” she said. “I thought it was here in Sveg that I was going to meet the police, but it is in Östersund. I’ll be going there tomorrow.”

  “Where have you come from?”

  “Cologne. That’s where I was when the news of my father’s death reached me.”

  “Do you live in Germany, then?”

  She shook her head. “In Barcelona. Or Boston. It depends. But I was in Cologne. It was very strange and frightening. I’d just got back to my room. The Dom Hotel, it’s called, next to the enormous cathedral. The church bells started ringing at the same time as the phone rang, and a man from somewhere a long way away told me that my father had been murdered. He asked if I’d like to talk to a clergyman. I flew to Stockholm this morning, the soonest I could organise my affairs, and then on here. But, apparently, I ought to have gone to Östersund.”

  Her mineral water arrived and she fell silent. Somebody in the bar burst out laughing, loud and shrill. Lindman thought it sounded like a man trying to imitate a dog. Then it came to him who she reminded him of. An actress in one of those soap operas that go on and on. He tried to remember her name, but he couldn’t.

  Veronica Molin was serious and tense. Lindman wondered how he would have reacted if he’d been in a hotel somewhere and been told over the telephone that his father had been murdered.

  “I’m really very sorry about what happened,” he said. “A completely pointless murder.”

  “Aren’t all murders pointless?”

  “Of course. But some have a motive that one can understand, despite everything.”

  “Nobody could have had any reason to kill my father,” she said. “He had no enemies. He wasn’t rich.”

  But he was scared, Lindman thought, and perhaps that fear was at the root of what happened. Her food arrived on the table. Lindman had a vague sense that the woman sitting opposite him had the upper hand. She had an assurance that he lacked.

  “I gather you and he used to work together.”

  “Yes, in Borås. I started my police career there. Your father helped to put me on the right lines. He left a big gap when he retired.”

  That makes it sound as if we were close friends, he thought. It isn’t true. We were never friends. We were colleagues.

  “Needless to say, I wondered why he’d moved up here to Härjedalen,” he said after a while.

  She saw through him immediately. “I didn’t think he had told anyone where he was going to move to.”

  “Perhaps I remember wrongly. But I’m curious, naturally. Why did he move here?”

  “He wanted t
o be left in peace. My father was a recluse. So am I.”

  There’s no answer to that, thought Lindman. She hadn’t only given him a reply, she’d nipped the conversation in the bud. Why is she sitting at my table if she doesn’t want to talk to me? He could feel himself getting irritated.

  “I’ve nothing to do with the murder investigation,” he said. “I came here because I was off work.”

  She put down her fork and looked at him. “To do what?”

  “Maybe to attend the funeral. Assuming it will take place here. Once the medical people release the body.”

  She didn’t believe him, he could see that, and that increased his irritation.

  “Were you often in contact with him?”

  “Very seldom. I’m a consultant for a computer firm that operates all over the world. I’m nearly always travelling. I used to send him a postcard once or twice every year, maybe phoned him at Christmas. But that was about it.”

  “It doesn’t sound as if you had a very good relationship.”

  He looked hard at her. He still thought she was beautiful, but she radiated coldness and remoteness.

  “What kind of relationship I had with my father is hardly anybody else’s business. He wanted to be left in peace. I respected that. And he respected the fact that we were two of a kind.”

  “You have a brother as well, I believe?”

  Her response was firm and outspoken.

  “We avoid speaking to each other unless it’s absolutely necessary. The best way of describing that relationship is that it is close to open enmity. Why that should be is no business of anybody else either. I’ve been in touch with a firm of funeral directors who will take care of everything. My father will be buried here in Sveg.”