It took him an hour to find one of the forestry roads. On the map the lake was called Stångvattnet. It was long and narrow, widest at the point where the forestry road ended with a space big enough for trucks to turn in. He got out of the car and walked the few meters to the water’s edge. It was starting to grow dark already. He stood still and listened. The only sound was a faint rustling in the trees. He tried to remember if there had been any mention of the weather on the day of Molin’s murder in the material he’d read in Ostersund. He couldn’t remember anything. It seemed to him that even if the wind were blowing towards the house it would have been possible to hear a shot fired in that direction. But what evidence was there to suggest that anybody had been here that day? None. None at all.
He remained by the water until darkness fell. A few ripples danced over the surface of the lake, then everything was still again. This was the first time in his life that he had been alone in a forest. Apart from that day when he and Molin had been chasing an escaped murderer outside Borås and he’d witnessed his colleague’s fear. So why did Molin move here? Because he wanted a refuge, a nest he could crawl into and hide? Or was there some other reason?
He thought about what Wigren had said. That nobody ever visited Berggren. That didn’t prevent Molin from being visited by her, though. There were two questions he should have asked Wigren: did Berggren go out at night? Did she still like dancing? Two questions that could have given him a lot of answers.
It struck him that it was Molin who had once taught him this simple truth. If you ask the right question at the right time, you could get a lot more answers than you were looking for.
There was a scraping noise in the darkness behind him. He gave a start. Then all was quiet again. A branch falling, he thought, or an animal.
He didn’t have the energy to think about Molin or Berggren any more. There was no point. From tomorrow onward he would devote all his strength to understanding what was happening to him. He would leave Harjedalen. He had no business being here. It was Larsson’s job to unravel the tangled web of information and find a motive and a murderer. He needed all his energy to prepare himself for the radiation.
He stood there in the darkness a while longer. The trees around him were like soldiers standing guard. The black water was like a moat. For a moment he felt invulnerable.
When he got back to the hotel, he rested for an hour, drank a couple of glasses of wine, then went down to the dining room. The test drivers had gone. The receptionist was in her waitress outfit again. She plays all the roles, he thought. Perhaps that’s the only way the hotel can make money?
He sat at his usual table. He read the menu and saw to his disappointment that it was the same as yesterday. He closed his eyes and jabbed his index finger onto the sparse column showing the main courses. It was elk steak again. He had just begun eating when he heard someone behind him come into the dining room. He turned and saw a woman walking towards his table. She stopped and looked him up and down. Lindman couldn’t help observing that she was strikingly attractive.
“I don’t want to disturb you,” she said, “but a policeman in Ostersund told me that one of my father’s old colleagues was here.”
Lindman didn’t understand at first. Then it dawned on him: the woman was Molin’s daughter.
Chapter Nine
Veronica Molin was one of the most beautiful women Lindman had ever met. Before she sat down, before she even had time to say who she was, he’d imagined her naked. He thought back to the files he’d read in Larsson’s office and remembered that in 1955 Molin had had a daughter, christened Veronica. The woman standing at his table now, wearing expensive perfume, was therefore forty-four, seven years older than he was. If he hadn’t known that, he would have guessed she was his age.
He stood up, introduced himself, shook hands, and expressed his condolences.
“Thank you.” Her voice was strangely flat. It didn’t belong with her beauty. She reminds me of somebody, he thought. One of those celebrities always appearing in the papers or on television. But he couldn’t remember who it was. He invited her to join him. The receptionist came over to their table.
“Now you won’t have to eat alone,” she said to Lindman.
He just managed to avoid telling her to go to hell.
“If you prefer to be on your own,” Veronica Molin said, “then, of course, you must be.”
He noticed that she was wearing a wedding ring. This depressed him, just for a moment. It was an absurd reaction, unreasonable, and soon passed. “Not at all,” he said.