The first to arrive was Johansson. He had a colleague with him, Sune Hodell. Lindman led them to Andersson’s body, and both officers drew back in horror. Then time had dragged as they waited for daylight. They set up their base in Andersson’s house. Johansson had been in constant telephone contact with Ostersund. At one point he’d come into the living room where Lindman was lying down on the sofa with a nosebleed, and announced that Larsson was on his way from Ostersund. The cars from Jamtland showed up soon after midnight, and were closely followed by the doctor. Johansson had gotten through to him in a hunting lodge north of Funasdalen. He’d contacted colleagues in the neighboring provinces of Halsingland and Dalarna to tell them what had happened. Once during the night Lindman had heard him talking to the Norwegian police in Rorös. The forensic team had rigged up a floodlight in the forest, but the investigation had been marking time, waiting for the light of morning.
At 4 A.M. Larsson and Lindman were alone in the kitchen.
“Rundström will be here as soon as it becomes light,” Larsson said. “Plus three dog handlers. We’ll bring them in by helicopter, that’s the easiest way. But he’s bound to wonder what you’re doing here. I need to have a good explanation to give him.”
“Not you,” Lindman said. “I need a good explanation myself.”
“Well, what is it?”
Lindman thought for a while before answering. “Maybe it was that I wanted to know if he’d remembered anything,” he said, eventually. “Concerning Molin.”
“And you stumbled upon a murder? Rundström will understand that, but he’s going to think it odd even so.”
“I’m getting out of here very soon,” Lindman said.
“Okay. But not before we’ve talked through what happened here.”
Then one of Larsson’s colleagues had appeared and reported that the Helsinborg police had informed Andersson’s wife what had happened. Larsson went off to talk to somebody, possibly Mrs. Andersson, on one of the many cell phones that seemed to be ringing constantly. Lindman wondered how it had been possible to conduct a criminal investigation in the days before cell phones, and then he wondered about what mechanisms come into play when a murder investigation gets under way. There are set routines that have to be followed, procedures where everybody knows exactly what to do. But beyond the routines, what happens then?
Lindman thought he could see what was going on inside Larsson’s mind, and he was having similar thoughts himself. Or at least, trying to have. He was handicapped by the image that kept recurring in his mind’s eye. Andersson tied to a tree trunk with a rope. The enormous entry wound. A blast or more than one blast from a shotgun at close range.
Andersson had been executed. An execution squad had appeared in the darkness, held a court martial, carried out the sentence, and then disappeared as discreetly as it had arrived. This is no straightforward little murder either, Lindman thought several times as the night progressed. But if it isn’t, what is it? There must have been a link between Molin and Andersson. They form the base of a triangle. At its missing tip is somebody who shows up under cover of night, not once but twice, and kills two old men who, on the face of it, have nothing in common.
At that point all the doors slammed shut. This is the heart of the investigation, he thought. There is some invisible connection between the two men, a link that is so fundamental that somebody kills both of them. This is what Larsson is thinking about while he’s going through the routines and waiting for the dawn that never seems to come. He’s trying to see what is hidden under the stones.
Lindman stayed close to Larsson throughout the night. He followed him when they hurried back and forth between the scene of the crime and the house they had made their headquarters. He’d been surprised by how lightly Larsson seemed to be approaching his work. Despite the horrific image of a man messily shot and tied to a tree, he heard Larsson’s cheerful laughter several times. There wasn’t a trace of callousness or cynicism about him, just that liberating laughter that helped him to endure all the horror.
Morning came at last, and a helicopter sank down onto the patch of grass behind the house. Out jumped Rundström and three dog handlers with Alsatians tugging eagerly at their leashes. The helicopter took off again at once and was soon out of sight.
In the morning light, all the activities that had gone so slowly during the hours of darkness changed character. The officers who had been working nonstop since they arrived on-site were tired and their faces as gray as the sky, but now their tempo increased. After giving Rundström a brief summary, Larsson and the dog handlers gathered around a map of the area and divided the search between the three of them. Then they left for the place where the body was now being released from the tree.