The Return of the Dancing Master

by Henning Mankell

  He walked along the undulating shore of the lake, keeping his ears pricked all the time. The only sound was the rustling of the wind through the trees around him. When he came to the place where he’d pitched his tent, he decided that violence had not warped him, despite everything. He was basically a kind man who couldn’t bear to see suffering. Violence to another human being would be unthinkable in any other circumstances. What he’d done to Molin was a closed book the moment he’d left his naked body at the edge of the forest.

  Violence has not poisoned me, he thought. All the hatred that built up inside me over those years deadened my senses. I was the one who lashed Molin’s skin into bloody strips, but at the same time, it wasn’t me.

  He’d sat down on the fallen trunk and fiddled with a pine twig. Had the hatred left him now? Would he be in peace for the years he had left to live? He had no way of knowing, but that was his hope. He would even light a candle for August Mattson-Herzén in the little church he passed every time he went to his workshop. He might even drink a toast to him, now that he was dead.

  He stayed in the forest until the light faded. A thought he’d had when living in his tent here, that the forest was a cathedral and the trees were columns supporting an invisible roof, had returned. He felt cold, but he felt serenely calm. If he’d had a towel with him, no doubt he’d have jumped into the cold water and swum out until he could no longer touch the bottom.

  He walked back to his car through the gloaming and drove into Sveg. Something remarkable happened then: he had dinner in a hotel dining room, and at another table were two men talking about Molin and Andersson. At first he thought he was imagining things. He couldn’t understand Swedish, but the names had cropped up over and over again. After a while he went out to reception and, as there was nobody around, he looked in the hotel ledger and found that two of the hotel guests were described as “CID Inspectors”. He returned to the dining room, but neither of them evidenced the slightest interest in him. He listened intently and picked up some other names, including “Elsa Bergén” or something of the sort. Then he watched one of the policemen write something on the back of his bill; when they left, he crumpled the bill up and dropped it in the ashtray. Silberstein waited until the waitress was in the kitchen, then picked up the crumpled bill and left the hotel. In the light of his torch, he tried to decipher what was written on the back of the bill. The most important thing was the name of the third person, Berggren, called Elsa, obviously a woman. Linking the three names – Molin, Andersson and Berggren – were arrows forming a triangle. Next to Andersson’s name was a swastika and a large question mark.

  He drove to Linsell and then continued as far as Glöte. He parked the car behind some log stacks and picked his way through the trees until he came to the vicinity of Andersson’s house, then climbed up the hill where he was now lying. He had no idea what he thought he might discover, but he realised that he had to be very close to the place where it had happened if he were ever going to get an answer to the question he kept asking himself: who killed Andersson? And was it indirectly his fault because he’d killed Molin? He needed the answers to those questions before he could return to Buenos Aires. If he didn’t have them, he would be haunted by the anxiety for the rest of his life. Molin would have had the last laugh after all. His mission to cleanse himself from all hatred would have turned back on him with full force.

  He used his binoculars to watch the police officers coming and going between the edge of the forest and the house. They would assume that it was the same person who had killed both Molin and Andersson. There are only two people who know that is not true, he thought. One of them is me, and the other is whoever killed Andersson. They are looking for one person when they ought to be looking for two.

  He realised now, he’d come back to make clear, somehow or other, that he wasn’t the one who had killed Andersson. The police officers he’d been observing through his binoculars were following a trail that would lead them astray. Of course, he couldn’t be certain what the men around the edge of the forest were thinking, but there is always a certain logic to fall back on, it seemed to him. I don’t know, but I suspect there aren’t very many violent crimes up here. People are few and far between, they don’t say much and they seem to get on well with one another. Like Molin and Andersson, for instance: they appeared to have got on OK. Now they were both dead. He had killed Molin. But who killed Andersson? And why? The man who was his closest neighbour?

  He put down his binoculars and rubbed his eyes. The effects of the alcohol had started to leave his body now. His mouth was still dry, and his throat hurt every time he swallowed, but he seemed to be able to think clearly again. He stretched out in the damp moss. His back ached. Clouds sailed over his head. A car engine came to life below, and he heard it reverse, turn, then drive away.

  He relived again what had happened. Could there be a connection between Molin and Andersson that he didn’t know about? There were a lot of unanswered questions. Was it coincidence that Molin had chosen to live in the vicinity of Andersson? Who had arrived there first? Did Andersson come from those parts? Had Andersson too fought for Hitler? Was he too one of those people who had done terrible things and escaped punishment? The thought struck him as most unlikely, but not impossible.

  He heard a car approaching, and sat up. Through his binoculars he watched a man emerge from a car that wasn’t painted blue and white and didn’t have POLICE written on its sides. He tried to hold the binoculars steady. It was the policeman he’d seen in the restaurant, the one who’d written on the back of the bill. So he was right so far. This man was involved in both cases – he wasn’t looking only for the killer of Abraham Andersson, he was hunting the man who’d killed Herbert Molin.

  It was a strange experience, using his binoculars to observe a police officer who was trying to find him. He felt an impulse to run away, but his desire to find out what had happened to Andersson was stronger than the urge to save his own skin. He couldn’t leave until he knew if he was indirectly responsible for the murder.

  He put down the binoculars, and rubbed the back of his neck, which was feeling stiff. This was a very strange situation, it seemed to him. No matter who had killed Andersson, the murderer must have had a motive that had nothing to do with him. If he’d gone to a different restaurant, if there hadn’t been a television set or a sailor who spoke Spanish, he wouldn’t have made this long journey back to where – a few kilometres down the road – he himself had committed murder. He raised his binoculars again and watched the man walk over to the dog and pat it on the head. Then he disappeared into the forest.

  Silberstein focused on the dog. A thought started to evolve in his mind. He put down the binoculars and lay on his back. I must tell them they are on the wrong track, he thought. I can only do that by announcing that I’m still here. Not tell them who I am, nor that I killed Molin, nor why. I have to indicate only that it was somebody else who killed Andersson. My only chance is to put a spanner in their works, to make them stop and think about what actually happened.

  The dog. The dog can help me, he thought.

  He stood up, did some exercises to ease the stiffness in his body, then set off into the forest. He had always lived in cities, but even so, he had a good sense of direction and was good at finding his way in the countryside. It took him less than an hour to find his way back to his car. He had taken with him some food and some bottles of water. He was tempted by the thought of a glass of wine or brandy, but he knew he was capable of resisting the temptation. There was a job to be done. He couldn’t put that at risk by getting drunk. He ate enough to satisfy his hunger, then curled up on the back seat of the car. He could rest for an hour before going back and still be there by midnight. To ensure that he woke up in time, he set the alarm on his watch.

  He closed his eyes and immediately he was back in Buenos Aires. He wondered whether to choose the bed in which Maria was already asleep, or the mattress at the back of his workshop. He chose the latter. T
he sounds that filled his ears were no longer those from the trees. Now he was hearing the noise from the streets of Buenos Aires.

  The alarm on his wristwatch was ringing. He switched it off, got out of the car, opened the boot and took out his newly acquired torch, then set off.

  The last part of the way, he was guided by the beams from the spotlights mounted in the forest. The light shining up from the trees reminded him of the war. One of his earliest memories was peeping out through cracks in the black-out curtains, when nobody was around to see him, and watching the anti-aircraft defences searching for enemy bombers flying in over Berlin at night. He’d always been terrified that a bomb would fall on their house and kill his parents. In his imagination, he himself always survived; but that only made his fear more acute. How would he be able to go on living if his parents and brothers and sisters were no longer alive?

  He banished any such thoughts and, being careful to shield the light, used his torch to locate his binoculars, which were in a plastic bag to protect them from the damp. He sat on the moss, leaning against a tree trunk, and focused on the house. There was light coming from all the windows on the ground floor. The door opened occasionally and someone went in or came out. There were only two cars parked outside now. Before long two men got into one of the cars and drove off. By then somebody had also switched off some of the lights in the forest. He continued scanning the house with his binoculars, until he found what he was looking for. The dog was sitting quietly, at the edge of the light coming from one of the windows. Somebody had placed a food bowl beside it.

  He looked at his watch. 10.30. He should be on his way home from La Cãbana, where he’d dined with a customer. That is what Maria believed, at least. He pulled a face at the thought. Now that he was so far from home, it worried him that he lied so often to Maria. He had never dined with any of his customers at La Cãbana nor at any other restaurant. He didn’t dare tell her the truth: that he didn’t want to eat with her, answer her questions, listen to her voice. My life has slowly grown narrower and become a path strewn with lies. That is another price I’ve had to pay. The question is, will I be honest with Maria in future, now that I’ve killed Molin? I love Maria, but at the same time, I recognise that I actually prefer to be on my own. There’s a split inside me, between what I do and what I want to do. That split has been there since the catastrophe happened in Berlin. What can I do but accept that most things have already been lost and will never be recovered?

  Time passed. A snowflake floated from the sky. He held his breath and waited. A snowfall was the last thing he wanted. It would make it impossible for him to carry out his plan. Luckily, there was only the occasional single flake.

  At 11.15 one of the policemen came out onto the steps for a pee. He whistled to the dog, but it didn’t react. Just as he was finishing, another man came out with a cigarette in his hand. It dawned on him that there were only two officers in the house, two men keeping guard.

  Still he waited until it turned midnight. The house was quiet. Sometimes he thought he could hear the sound of a television or perhaps a radio, but he wasn’t sure. He shone his torch on the ground and made sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Then he started making his way down the back of the hill. He really ought to carry out his plan now, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to see the place where Andersson had been murdered. There could be somebody there standing guard, somebody he hadn’t seen. It was a risk. But he felt he had to take it.

  When he came close to the edge of the trees he switched off his torch. He moved very slowly, feeling his way forward on hands and feet, half-expecting the dog to bark at any moment. He went back into the trees at the other side of the house. Now he was assisted by the light from the spotlights.

  There was no guard. There was nothing at all, in fact. Just a tree on which the police had attached various markers. He plucked up courage and walked right up to the trunk. At about chest height some of the bark had been split open. He frowned. Had Andersson been standing by a tree trunk when he was murdered? In that case he must have been tied to it? And that meant it was an execution. He broke out into a cold sweat and swung round, but there was nobody there. I was after Mattson-Herzén, he thought. Then somebody appeared behind Andersson, and now I have the feeling there is somebody behind me as well. He moved out of the light and made himself invisible. Tried to think straight. Had he set in motion a struggle between different forces over which he had no control? Had he stumbled into something he knew nothing about, when he decided to take his revenge? His head was filled with questions and fear. For some minutes he came very close to doing exactly the same as the man who became Molin had done: running away, disappearing, hiding, and forgetting what had happened – not to some forest in his case, but to Buenos Aires. He should never have come back, but it was too late now. He wouldn’t go home until he’d found out what happened to Andersson. This is Molin’s revenge on me, he thought, and he felt furious. If it had been possible, he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him all over again.

  Then he forced himself to be calm. He took a few deep breaths and imagined waves breaking on a beach. After a while he checked his watch. 1.15 a.m. It was time now. He went back towards the house. He could hear music coming from inside, and the sound of voices conducting a quiet conversation. Presumably the radio was on, and two weary police officers were talking to stay awake. He walked towards the dog and called to it in a low voice. It growled but wagged its tail. He stopped short of the light coming from the window. The dog came up to him in the shadows. He stroked it. It seemed worried, but was still wagging its tail.

  Then he released the lead from the running line and led the dog away. They left no tracks in the darkness.

  CHAPTER 17

  Lindman had seen it many times before. A police officer receives some unexpected information and reacts instinctively by reaching for the telephone. But Larsson was already holding a telephone, and it wasn’t necessary to call anybody in any case. Both of them realised that the first thing to do was to work out the significance of the dog. It could lead to some kind of breakthrough in the investigation, but it could also be a red herring – the most likely explanation.

  “I suppose there’s no chance that it simply ran away?” Lindman said.

  “Evidently not.”

  “Isn’t it possible that somebody stole it?”

  Larsson shook his head doubtfully. “From under the noses of several police officers? I don’t think that’s what happened.”

  “It’s hardly likely that the murderer has returned to collect the dog.”

  “Unless we’re dealing with a lunatic. Let’s face it, we can’t rule that out.”

  They sat quietly, exploring the various possibilities.

  “We’ll have to wait,” Larsson said, eventually. “We must be careful not to get carried away by this dog business. In any case, it might turn up again before long. Dogs usually do.”

  Larsson put his mobile back in his jacket pocket and started walking to Molin’s house. Lindman stayed where he was. It was several hours since he’d last thought about his illness, felt the creeping terror about when the severe pains might return. As he watched Larsson walking away, he felt as if he’d been abandoned.

  Once when he was very young he’d been taken by his father to a football match at Ryavallen in Borås. It was a Swedish Premier League match, very important in some way or other, maybe crucial for the championship. He remembered that the opposition was IFK Göteborg. His father had said, “We’ve got to win this one”, and as they drove from Kinna to Borås he kept repeating the mantra, “We’ve got to win this one”. When they parked outside the ground, his father bought him a yellow and black scarf. It sometimes seemed to Stefan that his interest in football had been awoken by that yellow and black scarf rather than by the match itself. The teeming mass of people had frightened him, and he’d clung onto his father’s hand as they walked towards the turnstiles. In the middle of that seething crowd, he’d concentrated on just
one thing: holding tightly to his father’s hand. That was the difference between life and death. If he let go, he’d be hopelessly lost among all these expectant would-be spectators queuing to get in. And then, just before they came to the turnstiles, he’d glanced up at his father and seen a face he didn’t recognise. He didn’t recognise the hand either, now that he looked closely. Without realising, he’d let go of his father’s hand for a couple of seconds and taken hold of the wrong one. He was panic-stricken, and burst into tears. People looked round to see what had happened. The stranger didn’t seem to have noticed that a boy in a yellow and black scarf had taken hold of his hand, and now snatched it away, as if the boy were about to pick his pocket. At the same moment, his father appeared again. The panic subsided, and they passed through the turnstile. They had seats at the top of the stand on one of the long sides, giving an overall view of the pitch, and they’d watched the yellow-and-blacks battling with the blue-and-whites over the light brown ball. He couldn’t remember the result. IFK Göteborg had probably won, in view of his father’s silence all the way home to Kinna. But Stefan had never forgotten that brief moment when he’d let go of his father’s hand, and felt utterly lost.

  He remembered that incident as he watched Larsson walk off through the trees.

  Larsson turned. “Aren’t you coming?”

  Lindman drew his jacket tighter around him, and hurried after him.

  “I thought you might prefer me not to be there. What with Rundström.”

  “Forget Rundström. As long as you’re here, you’re my personal assistant.”

  They left Rätmyren behind. Larsson was driving fast. When they arrived at Dunkärret, Larsson immediately started shouting at one of the police officers there. He was a man in his fifties, small and very thin, by the name of Näsblom. Lindman gathered that he was stationed at Hede. Larsson was furious when he couldn’t get a straight answer to his question about precisely when the dog had disappeared. Nobody seemed to be sure.