Hereira was lost in thought. Was he telling the truth? Lindman knew that it wasn’t something he could take for granted.
“Needless to say, I won’t let Veronica come to you on her own,” he said.
“Why not?”
“You’ve already shown that you do not hesitate to use violence.”
“I want to see her on her own. I will not lay a finger on her.”
Hereira slammed his fist down on the table. Lindman could feel his misgivings rising.
“What if I don’t go along with what you are asking?”
Hereira looked hard at him before answering. “I’m a peaceful man, though it’s true that I’ve used violence on others. I don’t know what I’d do. I might kill you, I might not.”
“I can give you the time you need,” Lindman said, “and you can talk to her on the telephone.”
He could see the positive glint in Hereira’s eye. He was tired, but far from resigned.
“I’m already committing myself to more than I should,” Lindman said. “I’ll guarantee you the time you need, and you can talk to her on the telephone. I’m sure you realize that, as a police officer, I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Can I trust you?”
“You don’t really have a choice.”
Hereira hesitated. Then he stood up and cut the tape tying Lindman to the chair.
“We have to trust each other. There’s no other possibility.”
Lindman felt dizzy as he walked to the door. His legs were stiff, and the back of his neck was extremely sore.
“I’ll wait for her to call,” Hereira said. “I’ll probably talk to her for about an hour. Then you can tell your colleagues where I am.”
Lindman crossed the bridge. Before leaving the house he made a note of Berggren’s telephone number. He paused at the place where a police diver would start looking for a shotgun on the riverbed an hour or two from now. He was exhausted, but he tried to think clearly. Hereira had committed murder, but there was something appealing about him, something genuine, when he’d tried to convince Lindman that he wanted to talk to Molin’s daughter, try to make her understand, hope that she would forgive him. He wondered again if Veronica and her brother had spent the night in Ostersund. If so, he’d have to call all the hotels to find her.
It was 6:30 when he got back to the hotel. He knocked on her door. She opened it so quickly that he almost recoiled. She was already dressed. Her computer was shimmering in the background.
“I have to talk to you. I know it’s early. I thought you might have stayed in Ostersund for the night, because of the snow.”
“My brother never showed up.”
“Why not?”
“He had changed his mind. He called. He didn’t want to go to the funeral. I got back here late last night. What is so urgent?”
Lindman headed back to the lobby. She followed him. They sat down and without more ado he told her what had happened during the night and about her father’s murderer, Fernando Hereira, who was waiting in Berggren’s house for her to call him, and possibly even forgive him.
“He wanted to meet you,” Lindman said. “I didn’t agree to that, of course.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said after a while. “I wouldn’t have agreed to go there, though. Of course not. Does anybody else know about this?”
“Nobody.”
“Not even your colleagues?”
“Nobody. He speaks English.”
She looked hard at him. “I’ll talk to him, but I want to be alone when I call him. When the call is over, I’ll knock on your door.”
Lindman gave her the paper with the telephone number. Then he went to his room. As he opened his door it struck him that she might already have called Hereira. He looked at his watch. In twenty minutes he would contact Larsson and tell him where he could find Hereira.
He went to the bathroom, but found that there was no toilet paper left. He went back to the lobby. He saw her through the window. Veronica Molin, out in the street. In a hurry.
He stopped short. Tried to work it out. Thoughts were racing around his head. There was no doubt that Veronica Molin was on her way to Hereira. He should have foreseen that. Something in direct contrast to what he’d previously thought. It has something to do with her computer, he thought. Something she’d said. Maybe something I’d thought without really understanding the implications. His alarm was growing quickly. He turned to the girl, who was on her way to the dining room.
“Ms. Molin’s key,” he said. “I must have it.”
She stared at him in bewilderment.
“She’s just gone out.”