The Return of the Dancing Master(51)

The first dog found Lindman’s cell phone right away. Somebody had stepped on it during the night and the battery wasn’t functioning. Lindman put it in his pocket and the thought struck him: who would inherit it if he didn’t survive the cancer?

After an hour or so of silent and steady work, Rundström summoned all the police officers to the house to go through the case so far. By then two more cars had arrived from Ostersund with more equipment for the forensic team. Then the helicopter had returned and collected Andersson’s body. Later it would be taken by car from Ostersund to the coroner’s office in Umeå.

Before the meeting started, Rundström had gone over to where Lindman was sitting in his car and asked him to join them. So far he hadn’t inquired how Lindman had been the one to discover Andersson’s body.

The officers huddled in the sizable kitchen. They were tired and cold. Larsson was leaning against a wall, pulling hairs out of one of his nostrils. Lindman thought he looked older than his forty-three years. His cheeks were sunken, his eyelids heavy. He sometimes gave the impression of not being with it, but Lindman thought it was more likely that his mind was working overtime. His concentration was directed inwards. Lindman supposed that Larsson was looking for the answer to the question every investigation leader asks himself over and over: what is it that we can’t see?

Rundström opened the meeting by talking about roadblocks. They had been set up on all the major access roads. Before the police had arrived in Sarna, there had been a report of a car driving south at high speed, towards Idre. This was an important sighting. Rundström asked Johansson to talk to their colleagues in Dalarna.

Then he turned to Lindman. “I don’t know if everyone present knows who you are,” he said. “We have a colleague from Borås here who used to work with Herbert Molin. I think it will be best if you explain the circumstances in which you came to discover Abraham Andersson’s body.”

Lindman described what had happened when he’d driven to Dunkarret from Sveg. Rundström asked him a few questions. What he wanted to know was the timing of various points. Lindman had been experienced enough and had the presence of mind to check his watch both when he arrived at the house and when he discovered the body. The meeting was short. The forensic team was anxious to get back to work because the weather forecast threatened sleet later in the day. Lindman went outside with Larsson.

“There’s something that doesn’t fit,” Larsson said. “You have suggested that the reason for Molin’s death may well be found in his past. That sounded reasonable to me. But where do we stand now? Andersson has never been a police officer. He and Molin didn’t know each other until they happened to settle in the same remote spot. That sinks your theory, I would have thought.”

“It has to be checked out, though, don’t you think? Molin and Andersson may have had something in common that we don’t yet know about.”

Larsson shook his head. “Of course we shall check into it. But I don’t buy it even so.” He burst out laughing. “Police officers shouldn’t believe anything, I know. But we do. From the very first moment we arrive at the scene of a crime we start forming possible conclusions. We make nets without knowing how big the mesh should be. Or what fish we are hoping to catch, not even what kind of water we’re going to put them in. The sea or a mountain lake? A river or a tarn?”

Lindman had some difficulty following Larsson’s imagery, but it sounded convincing.

One of the dog handlers emerged from the forest. Lindman could see from the state of the dog that it had really been stretching itself.

“Nothing,” said the handler. “And besides, I think Stamp’s ill.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He brought up his food. He’s probably caught a virus.”

Lindman turned to look at Andersson’s Norwegian elkhound: it was standing motionless on its lead, staring at the place where the voices of the forensic officers could be heard.

“What’s going on here in the forest?” Larsson said. “I don’t like it. It reminds me of a shadow moving in the dusk. You don’t know if its real or imagined.”

“What kind of a shadow?”

“The kind we’re not used to up here. Molin was the victim of a well-planned attack. Andersson was executed. I don’t get it.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Johansson. “We can forget about the car at Sarna. It was a man in a hurry to get his wife to the maternity hospital.”

Larsson muttered something inaudible in reply. Johansson went back to the house.