He picked up the paper again, and read what it said without any of it really sinking in.
When he’d first arrived in Borås as a probationer, he’d been introduced to the oldest and most experienced detective on the staff, Herbert Molin. They had worked together in the serious crimes division for some years until Molin retired. Lindman had often thought about him afterwards. The way in which he was always looking for links and clues. A lot of people spoke ill of him behind his back, but he’d always been a rich source of learning as far as Lindman was concerned. One of Molin’s main lessons was that intuition was the most important and most underestimated resource for a true detective. The more experience Lindman accrued, the more he realized that Molin was right.
Molin had been a recluse. Nobody Lindman knew had ever been to Molin’s house opposite the district courthouse in Bramhultsvagen. Some years after he’d retired, Lindman heard quite by chance that Molin had left town, but nobody could say where he had moved.
Lindman put the newspaper down.
So Herbert Molin had moved to Harjedalen. According to the paper, he had been living in a remote house in the middle of the forest. That is where he had been murdered. There was apparently no discernible motive, nor any clues as to who the killer might have been. The murder had been committed several days ago, but Lindman’s nervousness about his hospital appointment had meant that he shied away from the outside world and the news had only gotten through to him via this much-thumbed evening paper.
He got to his feet. He’d had enough of his own mortality to deal with. He left the hospital and met with a heavy drizzle. He started downhill to the town center. Molin was dead, and he himself had been informed that he belonged to the category of people whose days might be numbered. He was thirty-seven years old and had never really thought about his own age. Now it felt as if he’d suddenly been robbed of all perspective. A little like being in a boat on the open sea, then being cast into a narrow fjord surrounded by high cliffs. He paused on the pavement to get his breath back. He wasn’t just scared; he also had the feeling that somehow or another he was being swindled. By something invisible that had smuggled its way into his body and was now busy destroying him.
It also seemed to him rather ridiculous that he should have to explain to people that he had cancer of the tongue, of all places. People got cancer, you heard about that all the time. But in the tongue?
He started walking again. To give himself time he decided to make his mind completely blank until he got as far as the high school. Then he’d decide what to do. The doctor had given him an appointment for further tests the next day. She also had extended his sick leave by a month. He would start his course of treatment in three weeks’ time.
Outside the theater was a group of actors and actresses in costumes and wigs being photographed. They were all young, and laughing very loudly. Lindman had never set foot inside the Borås theater. When he heard the players laughing, he quickened his pace.
He went into the library and proceeded to the newspaper room. An old man was perusing a newspaper with Russian characters. Lindman got a motorcycle magazine before sitting at one of the tables. He used it to hide behind. Stared at a picture of a motorcycle while trying to make up his mind.
The doctor had said he wasn’t going to die. Not yet, at least. There was a risk that the tumor would grow and the cancer might start to spread. It would be a head-to-head battle: he’d either win or lose. There was no possibility of a draw.
He stared at the motorcycle and it struck him that for the first time in years he missed his mother. He would have been able to discuss things with her, but now he had nobody he could talk to. The very idea of taking Elena into his confidence was unthinkable. Why? He didn’t understand. If there was anybody he should be able to talk to and who could give him the support he needed, it was Elena. Even so he couldn’t bring himself to call her. It was as if he were ashamed of having to tell her that he did have cancer. He hadn’t even told her about his hospital appointment.
He leafed through all the pages with pictures of bikes. Leafed his way to a conclusion.
Half an hour later he knew what he was going to do. He would talk to his boss, Superintendent Olausson, who’d just gotten back from vacation—he’d been shooting elk. He would tell him he’d been given a medical certificate without mentioning why. He would just say he had to undergo a thorough examination because of the pains he was having in his throat. Nothing serious, no doubt. He could hand the doctor’s certificate in to the personnel office himself: that would give him at least a week before Olausson knew the reason for his absence.