The Return of the Dancing Master(108)

Lindman said he would be there. He got out of bed, and felt the back of his neck. It was tender. He had 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 had eaten breakfast together since he was on his way into the hotel. Lindman had told her what had happened during the night. She had paid close attention without asking any questions. Then he had begun to feel sick and excused himself. They had agreed to meet later in the day, when he felt better. He had fallen asleep the moment he had 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 defense against. He burst into tears, threw a towel at the mirror, and staggered out of the bathroom. I’m dying, he thought. I have cancer. It’s incurable, and I’m going to die.

His cell phone 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 should call you.”

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

“Do we have to schedule 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 by 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.”

“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. Call 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 Ostersund 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 knocked 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 tire 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 parking lot there,” Johansson said. “In fact, it’s just a grass shoulder 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 some making out in the backseat.” Chuckles from all round the table. “Occasionally we find ourselves facing more intricate problems based on happenings there,” he said. “The kind of thing that used to take place off remote forest roads 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 Ostersund,” Rundström said, 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 Vasteras. He was arrested for VAT evasion some years ago—but he’s over seventy now, so we can probably take it that he’s not the man we’re after.”