“Eleven years ago or so, you sold the house near Linsell to Herbert Molin. I used to work with him in Borås. He retired and moved up here. And now he’s dead.”
“What happened?”
“He was murdered.”
“Why? By whom?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Marklund shook his head.
“It sounds nasty. We like to think that we live in a pretty peaceful area up here—but maybe there aren’t any of those anymore?”
“Maybe not. What can you tell me about that sale eleven years ago?”
Marklund disappeared into an adjoining room. He came back with a file in his hand. He soon found what he was looking for.
“March 18, 1988,” he said. “The deal was signed and sealed here in this office. The seller was an old forester. The price was 198,000 kronor. No mortgage. The transaction was paid for by check.”
“What do you remember about Molin?”
The reply surprised Lindman.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I never met him.”
“I don’t follow.”
“It’s very simple. Somebody else took care of the matter for him. Got in touch with me, took a look at a few houses, and eventually made the decision. As far as I know, Molin was never here.”
“Who was the middleman?”
“A woman by the name of Elsa Berggren. With an address in Sveg.” Marklund handed the file over. “Here’s the authorization. She had the right to make decisions and sign the deal on Molin’s behalf.”
Lindman examined the signature. He remembered it from the Borås days. It was Molin’s signature.
“So you never met Herbert Molin?”
“I never even spoke to him on the phone.”
“How did you come into contact with this woman?”
“The usual way. She phoned me.”
Marklund leafed through the file, then pointed.
“Here’s her address and telephone number,” he said. “She’s no doubt the person you should talk to. Not me. That’s what I’ll tell Giuseppe Larsson. Incidentally, I wonder if I’ll be able to resist the temptation to ask him how he came by his name. Do you happen to know?”
“No.”
Marklund closed the file.
“Isn’t it a bit unusual? Not meeting the person with whom you were doing business?”
“I was doing business with Elsa Berggren, and I did meet her. But I never met Molin. It’s not all that unusual. I sell quite a lot of vacation cottages in the mountains to Germans and Dutchmen. They have people who take care of the details for them.”
“So there was nothing unusual about this transaction.”
“Nothing at all.”
Marklund accompanied him as far as the front gate.
“Maybe there was, though,” he said, as Lindman was walking through the gate.
“Maybe there was what?”
“I remember Elsa Berggren saying on one occasion that her client didn’t want to use any of the big real estate agencies. I recall thinking that was a bit odd.”
“Why?”
“If you’re looking for a house you wouldn’t as a rule start off with a small firm.”
“How do you interpret that?”
Hans Marklund smiled. “I don’t interpret it at all. I’m merely telling you what I remember.”
Lindman drove back towards Ostersund. After ten kilometers or so he turned off onto a forest road and switched off the engine.
The Berggren woman, whoever she might be, had been asked by Molin to avoid the big real estate agents. Why? Lindman could only think of one reason. Molin had wanted to buy his house as discreetly as possible.
The impression he’d had from the very start had turned out to be correct. The house in which Molin had spent the last years of his life wasn’t really a house at all. It was a hiding place.
Chapter Seven
That evening Lindman wandered through the life of Herbert Molin. Reading between the lines of all the notes and reports, statements and forensic details that had already been collected in Larsson’s files, despite the fact that the investigation hadn’t been going for very long, Lindman was able to compile a picture of Molin that was new to him. He discovered circumstances that sometimes made him thoughtful and at others surprised. The man he thought he’d known turned out to be a quite different person, a complete stranger.
It was midnight when he closed the last of the files. Larsson had occasionally stopped by during the course of the evening. You could hardly say they indulged in conversation; they drank coffee and exchanged a few words about how the evening was going for the police emergency service in Ostersund. Everything had been quiet for the first few hours, but soon after 9 P.M. Larsson had to investigate a burglary in Häggenås. When he eventually returned, Lindman had just reached the end of the last of the files.