The Return of the Dancing Master(149)

“We don’t know.”

“Who else could it have been?”

“We don’t know.”

“But there must have been a motive, surely?”

Be careful now, Lindman thought. Don’t say too much. Not too little either, make sure you get it right. But what is right? He wants to know if he’s to blame. Which he is, of course. When he killed Molin, it was like turning over a rock: the woodlice scattered in all directions. Now they want to get back under the rock, they want somebody to put it back where it was before all this trouble started in the forest.

There were still a lot of things he didn’t understand. He had the feeling that a link was missing, some thread holding everything together that he hadn’t found yet. Nor had Larsson; nobody had.

He thought about Molin’s house, burning down in the forest. That seemed a question it wasn’t too dangerous to ask.

“Was it you who set fire to Molin’s house?”

“I assumed the police would go there, but perhaps not you. I didn’t know for sure, but it seemed to be a possibility. I was right. You stayed in the hotel.”

“Why me? Why not one of the other officers?”

The man didn’t answer. Lindman wondered if he’d overstepped his mark. He waited. All the time he was searching for a chance to get away, to get out of this room where he was tied to a chair. To do that he must first establish were he was.

The bottle clinked again. Then the man stood up. Lindman listened. He couldn’t feel any vibrations in the floor. Everything was still. Had the man left the room? Lindman strained all his senses. The man didn’t seem to be there. Then a clock started striking. Lindman knew where he was. In Berggren’s house, it was her clock.

The blindfold was suddenly ripped off. It happened so quickly that he didn’t have time to react. He was in Berggren’s living room, on the very chair he had sat on when he first went there. The man was behind him. Lindman slowly turned his head.

Fernando Hereira was very pale. Unshaven and with dark shadows under his eyes. His hair was gray and unkempt. He was thin. His clothes, dark trousers and a blue jacket, were dirty. The jacket was torn near the collar. He was wearing sneakers. So this was the man who had lived in a tent by the lake, killed Molin so brutally, then dragged him around in a bloodstained tango. It was also the man who had attacked him twice, the first time almost strangling him, the second time only an hour or so ago, by hitting him hard on the back of the head.

The clock had struck the half-hour, 5:30 A.M. Lindman had been unconscious for longer than he’d thought. On the table in front of the man was a bottle of brandy. No glass. The man took a swig, then turned to face Lindman.

“What punishment will I get?”

“I can’t tell you that. It’s up to the court.”

Hereira shook his head sadly. “Nobody will understand. Is there a death penalty in your country?”

“No.”

Hereira took another swig from the bottle. He fumbled as he put it down on the table. He’s drunk, Lindman thought. He’s losing control of his movements.

“There’s somebody I want to talk to,” Hereira said. “I want to explain to Molin’s daughter why I killed her father. Stuckford told me in a letter that Molin had a daughter. Perhaps he had other children as well? Anyway, I want to talk to the daughter. Veronica. She must be here.”

“Molin will be buried today.”

Hereira gave a start. “Today?”

“His son, too, has arrived. The funeral’s at 11.”

Hereira stared at his hands. “I can only handle talking to her,” he said after a while. “Then she can explain it to whoever she likes. I want to tell her why I did it.”

Lindman had been given the opportunity he’d been hoping for.

“Veronica didn’t know her father was a Nazi. She’s very upset now that she does know. I think she’ll understand, if you tell her what you’ve told me.”

“Everything I’ve said is true.” Hereira took another drink from the bottle. “The question is, will you allow me the time I need? If I let you go and ask you to contact the girl on my behalf, will I have the time I need before you arrest me?”

“How do I know that you won’t treat Veronica the way you treated her father?”

“You can’t know that. But why should I? She didn’t kill my father.”

“You attacked me.”

“It was necessary. I regret it, of course. I’ll let you go. I’ll stay here. It’s nearly 6 A.M. You talk to the girl, tell her where I am. Once she’s left me, you and the rest of the police can come and get me. I know I’ll never return home. I’ll die here, in prison.”