The Return of the Dancing Master Page 30

  “I’ll be home soon.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “I still don’t know where you are.”

  “I’m high up in the mountains. It’s cold.”

  “Have you started drinking again?”

  “Not very much. Just so that I can sleep.”

  The connection was cut. When Silberstein dialled the number again, he couldn’t get through. He tried several times without success. Then he prepared to wait for the dawn. Things had now entered the crucial stage, that was clear. The Berggren woman had seen his face when she pulled the hood off. He hadn’t expected that, and he had panicked. He ought to have stayed there, put the hood on again and forced her to tell him what he was certain she knew. Instead he’d fled and run into the policeman.

  Although he was filling his body with alcohol, he was still able to think during the long wait for the dawn. He always experienced a moment of great insight before he became intoxicated. He had learnt how much he could drink, and how quickly, while still being in control of his thoughts, and he needed to think clearly now. The end game was starting. Nothing had turned out as he’d thought it would. Despite all his planning, all his meticulous preparations. It was all Andersson’s fault. Or rather, it was because somebody had killed him. It had to be the woman. The question was: why? What forces had he set in motion when he killed Molin?

  He carried on drinking, but held his intoxication in check. He found it hard to accept that a woman in her seventies could have murdered Andersson. She must have had an accomplice. In which case, who? And if the police thought she was the murderer, why hadn’t they arrested her? He couldn’t find any answers, and started all over again. The woman had said that she didn’t know who killed Andersson. He was sure from the start that she wasn’t telling the truth. When she heard that Molin was dead, she drove under cover of darkness to Andersson’s house and killed him. Was it revenge? Did she think Andersson had killed Molin? What was between these people that he couldn’t work out? The police must have seen that there was a link. He still had the crumpled restaurant bill with the three names on the back of it.

  He was beginning to think that revenge was a sort of boomerang that was now on its way back and would soon hit his own head. It was a matter of guilt. He was indifferent with regard to Molin. Killing him had been necessary, something he owed to his father. But Andersson wouldn’t have died if he hadn’t whipped Molin to death. The question now was: did he have an obligation to avenge the death of Abraham Andersson? Thoughts buzzed around in his head all night. Occasionally he went outside and gazed at the starry sky. He wrapped himself in a blanket while he waited. Waited for what? He didn’t know. For something to go away. His face was known now. The woman had seen it. The police would start putting two and two together and work out where he was. Sooner or later they’d find his name on the credit card receipt at the hotel. That had been the one thing that had scotched his careful planning: running out of ready cash. The police would come looking for him, and they would assume he’d killed Andersson. And now that he might have killed a police officer – even by accident – they would commit all their resources to hunting him down.

  He kept coming back to that chance encounter. Had he squeezed the policeman’s neck too hard? When he let go and walked away, he was convinced that he hadn’t overdone it. Now he wasn’t so sure. He ought to get away, as far away as possible, but he knew he wouldn’t do that, not until he found out what had happened to Andersson. He could not go back to Buenos Aires until he had the answers to his questions.

  Dawn broke. He was tired. From time to time he nodded off as he sat looking at the mountains. He couldn’t stay here: he had to move on, or they’d find him soon enough. He stood up and started wandering round the house. Where should he go? He went outside for a pee. It was slowly getting light, the thin, grey mist he was familiar with from Argentina. Only it wasn’t so cold there. He went back inside.

  He’d made up his mind. He gathered together his belongings, the bottles of wine, the tinned food, the crisp-bread. He didn’t bother about the car. That could stay where it was. Perhaps somebody would find it tomorrow, perhaps he’d get a start. He left the house at about 9 a.m. and headed straight up the mountain. He stopped after only a hundred metres and off-loaded some of his luggage. Then he set off again, uphill all the time. He was drunk, kept stumbling, falling over and scratching his face on the rough ground. Even so he kept on until he could no longer see the chalet.

  By noon he hadn’t the strength to go any further. He pitched his tent in the lee of a large rock, took off his shoes, rolled out his sleeping bag and lay down, with a bottle of wine in his hand.

  The light seeping through the canvas turned the interior of the tent into something resembling a sunset. He thought about Maria as he emptied the bottle, how much she meant to him. Then he snuggled down and fell asleep.

  When he woke up, he knew he had one more decision to make.

  At 10 a.m. there was to be a meeting in Johansson’s office. The forensic unit were already in Berggren’s house, and a dog team was trying to sniff out traces of the man who had attacked both Berggren and Lindman. Lindman had slept for a couple of hours at the hotel, but Larsson woke him soon after 9 a.m., telling him he must attend the meeting.

  “You’re involved in these murder investigations whether you or I like it or not. I’ve spoken to Rundström. He thinks you ought to be there. Not formally, of course. But we can forget the rule book, given the circumstances.”

  “Any new clues?”

  “The dog headed straight for the bridge. That’s where he must have parked his car. The forensic boys reckon they’ve got a pretty good print of his tyres. We’ll see if it matches any of the casts we made at the Molin and Andersson sites.”

  “Have you had any sleep?”

  “Too much to see to. I’ve brought in four men from Östersund, and we’ve called in a couple of Erik’s boys who were off duty. There are a lot of doors we have to knock on. Let’s face it, somebody must have seen something. A swarthy-featured man speaking broken English. It’s impossible to live without talking to other people. You fill your tank with petrol, you eat, you shop. Someone must have seen him. He must have spoken to someone, somewhere.”

  Lindman said he would be there. He got out of bed, and felt the back of his neck. It was tender. He’d taken a shower before going to bed. As he was getting dressed, he thought about his meeting with Veronica Molin a few hours before. They’d breakfasted together as he was on his way into the hotel. Lindman had told her what had happened during the night. She’d paid close attention without asking any questions. Then he’d begun to feel sick and excused himself. They’d agreed to meet later in the day, when he felt better. He’d fallen asleep the moment he’d crawled into bed.

  When he was woken by Larsson’s call, he felt fine. He examined his face in the bathroom mirror and was overcome by a feeling of unreality that he had no defence against. He burst into tears, flung a towel at the mirror and staggered out of the bathroom. I’m dying, he thought. I’ve got cancer. It’s incurable, and I’m going to die.

  His mobile was ringing in the jacket he’d dropped on the floor. Elena. He could hear the buzz of voices behind her.

  “Where are you?” she said.

  “In my room. And you?”

  “At school. I had the feeling I ought to phone you.”

  “Everything’s OK here. I miss you.”

  “You know where I am. When are you coming home?”

  “I have to report to the hospital on the 19th. I’ll be back some time before then.”

  “I dreamt last night that we went to England. Can’t we do that? I’ve always wanted to see London.”

  “Do we have to fix it now?”

  “I’m just telling you about a dream I had. I thought it might be good to have something we could both look forward to.”

  “Of course we’ll go to London. If I live that long.”

  “What do you mean b
y that?”

  “Nothing. I’m just tired. I have to go to a meeting now.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be on sick leave?”

  “They asked me to stay on.”

  “There was something in the paper here yesterday about the murders. And a picture of Herbert Melin.”

  “Molin. Herbert Molin.”

  “I have to go now. Phone me tonight.”

  Lindman promised to call. He put the phone down. Where would I be without Elena? he thought. Nowhere.

  When they met for the meeting Rundström surprised Lindman by giving him a friendly handshake. Johansson took off a pair of muddy rubber boots, a dog handler from Östersund asked angrily if somebody by the name of Anders had been in touch. Larsson tapped the table with his pen and started the meeting. He made a brisk and clear summary of what had happened the night before.

  “Berggren has asked us to wait until this evening before questioning her in any more detail,” he said. “That seems reasonable. In any case, we have lots of other things that are just as pressing.”

  “We have some footprints,” Johansson said. “From inside Elsa’s house, and from the garden. Whoever it was that broke in and then tapped Lindman on the head was rather careless. We have footprints from the Molin and Andersson murders. That will be a priority for the forensic boys now, establishing whether there’s a match. That and the tyre tracks.”

  Larsson agreed. “The dogs picked up a scent,” he said. “It went as far as the bridge. Then what happened?”

  The dog handler answered. He was middle-aged, and had a scar across his left cheek. “It went cold.”

  “No finds?”

  “Nothing.”

  “There’s a car park there,” Johansson said. “In fact, it’s just the grass verge that’s been concreted over. Anyway, the scent petered out. We can assume that his car was parked there. Especially if we bear in mind that it’s not easy to see anything there in the dark. The street lighting is pretty poor just there. It’s by no means unheard of, especially in summer, for people to park there and do a bit of cuddling in the back seat.” Chuckles from all round the table. “Occasionally we find ourselves lumbered with more intricate problems based on happenings there,” he said. “The kind of thing that used to take place off remote forest tracks and kept the magistrates busy with paternity suits.”

  “Somebody must have seen this man,” Larsson said. “The name on his credit card was Fernando Hereira.”

  “I’ve just been talking to Östersund,” said Rundström, who’d been quiet until now and let Larsson chair the meeting. “They’ve triggered a computer search and come up with a Fernando Hereira in Västerås. He was arrested for VAT evasion some years ago – but he’s over 70 now, so we can probably take it that he’s not the man we’re after.”

  “I don’t know any Spanish,” Larsson said, “but I have an idea that Fernando Hereira would be quite a common name.”

  “Like mine,” Johansson said. “Every other bastard’s called Erik, up here in Norrland at least, and in my generation.”

  “We don’t know if it’s his real name,” Larsson said.

  “We can chase him up through Interpol,” Rundström said. “As soon as we have some fingerprints, that is.”

  Several phones started ringing at once. Larsson proposed a ten-minute break and stood up. He also indicated to Lindman that they should go out into the corridor. They sat down in the reception area. Larsson eyed the stuffed bear up and down.

  “I saw a bear once,” he said. “Not far from Krokom. I’d been sorting out a few moonshiners, and was driving back to Östersund. I remember I was thinking about my father. I’d always thought it was that Italian crooner, but when I was twelve my Mum told me it was some chancer from Ånge, who disappeared the moment he heard Mum was pregnant. All of a sudden, there was this bear, by the side of the road. I slammed on the brakes, and thought: ‘For Christ’s sake! That can’t be a bear. It’s just a shadow. Or a big rock.’ But it was a bear all right. A female. Her fur was very shiny. I watched her for a minute or so, then she lumbered off. I remember thinking: ‘This simply doesn’t happen! And if it does, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime affair.’ A bit like getting a royal flush at poker. They say Erik was dealt one 25 years ago. The rest of the deal was rubbish, there were only five kronor in the pot and everybody else discarded.”

  Larsson stretched and yawned. Then he was serious again.

  “I’ve been thinking about our chat,” he said. “That stuff about having to think again. I have a problem with the fact that we might be looking for two different killers. It seems so unlikely. Such a metropolitan way of looking at things, if you take my meaning. Out here in the wilds, things generally happen in accordance with a simpler pattern. There again, I can see that a lot of the evidence suggests you might be right. I talked to Rundström about it, before the meeting.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s a right bastard with both feet on the ground, never believes anything, never guesses, always sticks to the facts. He shouldn’t be underestimated. He catches on fast, possibilities and pitfalls.”

  Larsson watched a group of children.

  “I’ve tried to map things out in my head,” he said when the last of the children had filed into the library. “A man speaking broken English turns up here and kills Molin. That rubbish his daughter goes on about – owing money to some woman in the UK: I don’t believe that for a moment. What you suggest could be right, especially if you read that awful diary – that the motive can have its source a long time ago, during the war. The brutality, the fury we’ve witnessed might suggest revenge. So far so good. That means we are after a killer who was very clear about what he was undertaking. But then he hangs around. That’s what I can’t work out. He ought to be running away as fast as he can.”

  “Have you uncovered any links at all with Andersson?”

  “Nothing. Our colleagues in Helsingborg have talked to his wife. She claims that Abraham told her everything. He’d mentioned Molin now and then. They were worlds apart. One played classical music and wrote pop songs as a hobby. The other was a retired police officer. I don’t think we’re going to work out how all this hangs together until we find the bastard who knocked you out. How’s your head, by the way?”

  “It’s OK, thanks.”

  Larsson stood up. “Andersson wrote a song called ‘Believe me, I’m a girl’. Erik remembers it. That pseudonym ‘Siv Nilsson’. He had a record by some dance band or other – Fabians, or something of the sort. All very odd. He played Mozart one day, made up pop music the next. Erik reckons the pop songs were utter rubbish. I suppose that’s life. Mozart on Monday, drivel on Tuesday.”

  They went back to the conference room where the rest of them were assembled, but the meeting never got going again. Rundström’s mobile rang. He answered, then raised his hand.

  “They’ve found a rental car in the Funäsdalen mountains,” he said.

  They gathered round the wall map. Rundström pointed to the spot.

  “There. The car was abandoned.”

  “Who found it?” It was Larsson who asked.

  “A man called Elmberg, he has a summer place there. He’d gone to check that his cottage was OK. Somebody had been there, and he thought it was a bit odd at this time of year. Then he found the car. He suspects the chalet where the car’s parked has been broken into too.”

  “Did he see anybody?”

  “No. He didn’t hang around. I suppose he was thinking Molin and Andersson. But he did notice a few other things. The car had an Östersund number plate. Plus he saw a foreign newspaper on the back seat.”

  “Let’s go,” Larsson said, putting on his jacket.

  Rundström turned to Lindman.

  “You’d better come too. I mean, you more or less saw him. Assuming it was him.”

  Larsson asked Lindman to drive because he had calls to make from his mobile.

  “Forget the speed limit,” Larsson said. “As long as you k
eep us on the road.”

  Lindman listened to what Larsson was saying on the phone. A helicopter was on its way. And dogs. They were about to drive through Linsell when Rundström phoned: a shop assistant in Sveg had told the police that she’d sold a knitted woollen hat the previous day.

  “Unfortunately the girl can’t remember what he looked like, nor does she know if he said anything,” Larsson said, with a sigh. “She can’t even remember if it was a man or a woman. All she knows is that she sold a bloody woollen hat. Come on! Some people keep their eyes in their arse.”

  There was a man waiting for them just north of Funäsdalen. Elmberg, he said he was. They hung around until Rundström and another car arrived. Then they continued a couple of kilometres along the main road before turning off.

  It was a red Toyota. None of the police officers there could distinguish between Spanish, Portuguese or Italian. Lindman thought the newspaper on the back seat, El País, was Italian. Then he looked at the price and realised that Ptas meant pesetas, hence Spain. They continued on foot. The mountain towered above them. There was a chalet where the final steep ascent started. It looked like an old shepherd’s hut that had been modernised. Rundström and Larsson reconnoitred, and decided there was nobody there. Both were armed, however, and they approached the front door with care. Rundström shouted a warning. No reply. He shouted again. His words died away with a ghostly echo. Larsson flung the door open. They ran in. A minute later Larsson emerged to say that the chalet was empty, but that somebody had been there. They would now wait for the helicopter with the dog team. The forensic unit that had been sifting the evidence at Berggren’s house had broken off and were on their way.

  The helicopter came in from the north-east and landed in a field above the chalet. The dogs and dog handlers disembarked. The handlers let the dogs sniff at an unwashed glass Larsson had found. Then they set off into the mountains.

  CHAPTER 26

  Larsson called off the search at around 5 p.m. Mist had come rolling in from the west, and that together with the gathering darkness made it pointless to go on.