The Return of the Dancing Master Page 39

  “If not a police car will come to collect you.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Johansson sighed. “I’m the one asking the questions. How long will it take you to get there and check if the car’s where it should be?”

  “Forty minutes. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “No. Write down this number. Phone me as soon as you know.”

  It was still snowing in Sveg. They waited. Thirty-seven minutes later, the phone rang.

  “Erik Johansson here.”

  “How did you know?”

  “How did I know what?”

  “That the car wasn’t here.”

  Larsson and Lindman sat up and leaned towards the loudspeaker.

  “Has it been stolen?”

  “I don’t know. It’s supposed to be impossible to steal a car from here.”

  “Can you explain that a bit more clearly?”

  “This is a garage that charges high fees in return for maximum security. No car can be driven away from here without our checking on the person collecting it.”

  “So everything is recorded?”

  “In the computer, yes. I don’t know how to run that thing, though. I do mostly maintenance. It’s the other lads who look after the computer side.”

  “Mattias Sundelin?”

  “He’s the boss. He doesn’t do anything.”

  “Who are you referring to, then?”

  “The other lads. Five of us work here, apart from the cleaner. And the boss, of course. One of them must know when the car left, but I can’t contact them now.”

  Lindman raised his hand. “Ask him to fax their personal details through.”

  “Have you got access to their personal details?”

  “They are here somewhere.”

  He went to look, then returned to the telephone. “I’ve found copies of their driving licences.”

  “Have you got a fax there?”

  “Yes, and I know how to use that. I can’t send anything until I get the OK from Sundelin, though.”

  “He knows about it. He gave us your number, remember?” Johansson said, sounding as authoritative as he could. He gave Niklasson the police fax number.

  The black fax machine was in the corridor outside the office. Johansson checked that it was working. Then they waited again.

  There was a ring, and paper began to emerge from the machine. Four driving licences. The text was barely legible, their faces like black thumbprints. The machine stopped. They returned to the office. Snow was piling up on the windowledge. They passed the photocopies round, and Johansson wrote down the names: Klas Herrström, Simon Lukac, Magnus Holmström, Werner Mäkinen. He read them out, one after the other.

  Lindman didn’t even listen to the fourth name. He recognised the third one. He took the photocopy and held his breath. The face was just an outline, with no features distinguishable. Even so, he was certain.

  “I think we’ve got him,” he said slowly.

  “Who?”

  “Magnus Holmström. I met him on Öland. When I visited Wetterstedt.”

  Larsson had barely touched on the visit to Wetterstedt when he told Johansson about what Lindman had said, but he remembered even so.

  “Are you sure?”

  Lindman stood up and held the photocopy under the lamp.

  “He’s our man. I’m sure.”

  “Are you saying he’s the one who tried to shoot the driver of the Golf?”

  “All I’m saying is that I met Magnus Holmström on Öland, and that he’s a Nazi.”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Let’s bring Stockholm in now,” Larsson said. “They’ll have to go to the garage and produce a decent picture of this lad. But where is he now?”

  The telephone rang. It was Pelle Niklasson, wanting to know if the faxes had come through all right.

  “Yes, thank you, we’ve got them,” said Johansson. “So one of your staff is called Magnus Holmström.”

  “Maggan.”

  “‘Maggan’?”

  “That’s what we call him.”

  “Have you got his home address?”

  “I don’t think so. He hasn’t been working here long.”

  “You must know where your staff live, surely?”

  “I can have a look. This isn’t part of my job.”

  It was almost five minutes before he returned to the telephone.

  “He’s given us the address of his mother in Bandhagen. Skeppstavägen 7A, c/o Holmström. But he hasn’t given a phone number.”

  “What’s his mother’s first name?”

  “I’ve no idea. Can I go home now? My wife was extremely pissed off when I left.”

  “Call her and tell her you won’t be back for some time yet. You’ll shortly be telephoned by the police in Stockholm.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “You said that Holmström was new?”

  “He’s been working here for a couple of months only. Has he done something?”

  “What kind of an impression of him have you got?”

  “What do you mean by impression?”

  “Is he a good workman? Has he any special habits? Is he extreme in any way? When was he last at work?”

  “He’s pretty discreet. Doesn’t say much. I don’t really have much of an impression of him. And he’s been off work since last Monday.”

  “Good, thank you. Wait where you are until the Stockholm police phone you.”

  By the time Johansson rang off, Larsson had already phoned the Stockholm police. Lindman was trying to track down the telephone number, but directory enquiries didn’t have a Holmström at that address. He tried to find out if there was a mobile phone number corresponding to Holmström’s name and identity number, but he had no luck there either.

  After another 20 minutes, all the telephones were silent. Johansson put on some coffee. It was still snowing, but less heavily. Lindman looked out of the window. The ground was white. Larsson had gone to the lavatory. It was a quarter of an hour before he came back.

  “My stomach can’t cope with this,” he said gloomily. “I’m completely blocked up. I haven’t had a bowel movement since the day before yesterday.”

  They drank their coffee and waited. Shortly after 1 a.m. a duty officer phoned from Stockholm to say that they hadn’t found Magnus Holmström when they went to his mother’s house in Bandhagen. Her first name was Margot, and she’d told them that she hadn’t seen her son for several months. He used to call in occasionally when he was working, and to collect his post, but she didn’t know where he was living now. They would continue searching for him through the night.

  Larsson phoned Lövander, the prosecutor, in Östersund. Johansson sat at his computer and started typing. Lindman’s mind drifted to Veronica Molin and the computer she said contained the whole of her life. He wondered if she and her brother had set off for Sveg through the snow, or if they’d decided to spend the night in Östersund. Larsson finished his call to the prosecutor.

  “Things are starting to happen now,” he said. “Lövander grasped the situation and a new nationwide emergency call is going out. Everybody will be looking not only for a red Ford Escort, but also for a young man called Magnus Holmström who is probably armed and must be regarded as dangerous.”

  “Somebody should ask his poor mother if she knows about his political beliefs,” Lindman said. “What kind of mail does he receive? Does he have a computer at her home, possibly with e-mail?”

  “He must live somewhere,” Larsson said. “It’s very odd, of course, that he has his mail sent to his mother’s address, but lives somewhere else. I suppose this might be what young people do nowadays, moving around from one flat belonging to a friend to another. If that’s it, he probably has a hotmail address.”

  “It suggests he’s purposely hiding his whereabouts,” said Johansson. “Does anybody know how to make bigger letters on this screen?”

  Larsson showed him what to do.

  “Maybe they shoul
d go looking for him on Öland,” Lindman said. “That’s where I came across him, after all. And the car was filled up in Söderköping.”

  Larsson slapped his forehead in irritation.

  “I’m too tired,” he bellowed. “We should have thought of that from the first, of course.”

  He grabbed a telephone and started calling again. It took him ages to find the officer in Stockholm he’d spoken to earlier. While he was waiting, Lindman gave him a description of how to find Wetterstedt’s house on Öland.

  It was 1.30 by the time Larsson finished. Johansson was still tapping away at his keyboard. The snow had almost stopped. Larsson checked the thermometer.

  “Minus three. That means it’ll lie. Until tomorrow, at least.”

  He turned to Lindman. “I don’t think much more is going to happen tonight. Routine procedures are clicking into place now. A diver can go looking for the gun under the bridge tomorrow morning, but the best thing we can do until then is get some sleep. I’ll stay at Erik’s place. I can’t face a hotel room at the moment.”

  Johansson switched off his computer. “At least we’ve taken a big step forward,” he said. “Now we’re looking for two people. We’ve even got the name of one of them. That has to be regarded as an advance.”

  “Three,” Larsson said. “We’re probably looking for three people.”

  Nobody contradicted him.

  Lindman put on his jacket and left the Community Centre. The snow felt soft under his feet. It muffled all sounds. Occasional flakes of snow were still drifting down. He kept stopping and turning round, but there was no sign that he was being followed. The whole town was asleep. No light in Veronica Molin’s window. The funeral was at 11 a.m. later that day. They would have plenty of time to get to Sveg if they had decided to stay in Östersund. He unlocked the front door of the hotel. The two men from yesterday were playing cards again, despite the late hour. They nodded to him as he went past. It was too late to phone Elena now. She’d be asleep. He undressed, showered and went to bed, thinking about Holmström all the time. Discreet, Niklasson had called him. No doubt he could make that impression if he tried, but Lindman had also seen another side of him. Cold as ice and dangerous. He had no doubt at all that it could have been Holmström who had tried to kill Hereira. The question was, did he also kill Andersson? What was still unclear was why Berggren had confessed to that murder. It was possible that she was guilty, of course, but Lindman could not believe it. One could take it for granted that Holmström would have told her anything that wasn’t in the newspapers, such as the washing line.

  The pattern, he thought, is clearer now. Not complete, there are still some gaps. Even so, it’s acquiring a third dimension. He turned off the light. Thought about the funeral. Then Veronica Molin would return to a world he knew nothing about.

  He was brought back to consciousness by the sound of the telephone ringing. He fumbled for his mobile. It was Larsson.

  “Did I wake you up?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wondered if I ought to phone, but I thought you’d like to know.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Molin’s house is on fire. Erik and I are on our way there. The alarm was raised a quarter of an hour ago. A snow plough had gone past and the driver saw the glow among the trees.”

  Lindman rubbed his eyes.

  “Are you still there?” Larsson said.

  “Yes.”

  “At least we don’t need to worry about anybody being injured. The place is deserted.”

  Reception was poor. Larsson’s voice was lost. The link was broken. Then he phoned again.

  “I thought you’d like to know.”

  “Do you think the fire has any significance?”

  “The only thing I can think of is that somebody knew about Molin’s diary but didn’t know that you’d already found it. I’ll phone again if anything crops up.”

  “So it has to be arson?”

  “I wouldn’t like to say. The house was already largely destroyed. It could be natural causes, of course. Erik says they’ve got a good chief fire officer here in Sveg. Olof Lundin. They say he’s never wrong when it comes to establishing the cause of a fire. I’ll be in touch.”

  Lindman put the phone on the bedside table. The light coming in through the window was reflected by the snow. He thought about what Larsson had said. His mind started wandering. He settled down in order to go back to sleep.

  It already felt as if he were walking up the hill to the hospital. He was passing the school now. It was raining. Or maybe it was sleet. He was wearing the wrong shoes. He’d got dressed up in preparation for what was in store. The black shoes he’d bought last year and hardly ever worn. He should have been wearing boots, or at the very least his brown shoes with the thick rubber soles. His feet already felt wet.

  He couldn’t get to sleep. It was too light in the room. He got up to pull down the blinds and shut out the light from the hotel entrance. Then he saw something that made him start. There was a man in the street outside. A figure in the half-light. Staring up at his window. Lindman was wearing a white vest. Perhaps it was visible even though it was dark in the room? The shadow didn’t move. Lindman held his breath. The man slowly raised his arms. It looked like a sign of submission. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the light.

  Lindman wondered if he’d been imagining it. Then he saw the footprints in the snow.

  Lindman flung on his clothes, grabbed his keys and hurried out of the room. Reception was deserted. The card players had gone to bed. The cards were still there, strewn over the table. Lindman ran out into the darkness. Somewhere in the distance he heard the sound of a car engine dying away. He stood stock still and looked round. Then he walked over to the place where the man had been standing. The footsteps were clear in the snow. He’d left the same way as he’d come, towards the furniture shop.

  Lindman examined the footprints. They formed a pattern, that was obvious. He’d seen the pattern before. The man who’d been standing there, looking up at Lindman’s window, had marked out the steps of the tango in the glittering, new-fallen snow. The last time Lindman had seen these same footprints, they had been marked out in blood.

  CHAPTER 33

  He ought to phone Larsson. It was the only sensible thing to do, but something held him back. It was still too unreal, the pattern in the snow, the man underneath his window, raising his arms as if to surrender.

  He checked to make sure he had his mobile in his pocket, then started following the tracks. Just outside the hotel courtyard it was crossed by prints from a dog. The dog had then crossed the road after leaving a yellow patch. Not many people were out in the streets. The only tracks visible were from the man he was following. Straight, confident strides. Heading north, past the furniture shop and towards the railway station. He looked round. Not a soul in sight, no shadowy figures now, just this one set of footprints in the snow. The man had stopped to look round when he came to the café, then he had crossed the road, still heading north, before turning left towards the deserted, unlit station building. Lindman let a car drive past, then continued on his way.

  He paused when he came to the station. The tracks continued round the building towards the rails and the platform. If his suspicions were correct, he was now following the man who’d killed Molin. Not only killed, but tortured him, whipped him to death, and then dragged him round in a bloodstained tango. For the first time, it struck him that the man might be mad. What they had assumed all the time was something rational, cold-blooded and well planned might be the opposite of that in fact: pure madness. He turned, walked back until he was under a street light, and phoned Larsson. Busy. They’ll be at the scene of the fire by now, he thought. Larsson is calling somebody to tell him about it, probably Rundström. He waited, keeping his eye on the station all the time, then tried the number again. Still busy. After a few minutes he tried for a third time. A woman’s voice informed him that it was impossible to get through to the require
d number and would he please try again later. He put the mobile back in his pocket and tried to decide what to do. Then he started walking south towards Fjällvägen. He turned off when he came to a long warehouse and found himself among the railway lines. He could see the station some distance away. He kept walking across the tracks and into the shadows on the other side, then slowly approached the station again. An old guard’s van was standing in a siding. He walked round the back of it. He still wasn’t close enough to see where the footprints had gone. He stood in the shadow of the guard’s van and peered round it.

  The snow muffled all sounds, and so he didn’t hear the man creeping up on him from behind and hitting him hard on the back of his head. Lindman was unconscious by the time he landed into the snow.

  It was pitch dark when he opened his eyes. There was a pounding in the back of his head. He remembered immediately what had taken place – standing by the guard’s van, peering out at the station. Then a flash. He knew nothing about what happened next, but he was no longer outdoors. He was sitting on a chair. He couldn’t move his arms. Nor his legs. He was tied to a chair, and there was a blindfold round his eyes.

  He was terrified. He’d been captured by the man whose tracks he’d followed through the snow. He had done exactly what he shouldn’t have done: gone off on his own, without back-up and without warning his colleagues. His heart was racing. When he tried to turn his head he felt excruciating pain in the back of his neck. He listened to the darkness and wondered how long he’d been unconscious.

  He gave a start. He could hear somebody breathing close by him. Where was he? Indoors, but where? There was a smell in the room that he recognised, but couldn’t place. He’d been in this room before, but where was it? There was a glimmer of light round the edge of the blindfold. He still couldn’t see anything, but the light had been switched on. He held his breath and heard muffled footsteps. A carpet, he thought; and the floor’s vibrating. An old house with a wooden floor. I’ve been here before, I’m certain of it.

  Then somebody started talking to him in English. A man’s voice, coming from his left. It was gruff, the words came out slowly, and the foreign accent was obvious.