The Return of the Dancing Master (13 page)

Lindman raised an eyebrow. He found it hard to believe.

“I'm not kidding,” Wigren said, seeing Lindman's surprise. “I am eighty-two years old, and I'm in such good health that I'm counting on scoring ninety at least, and maybe more. Whatever difference that will make.”

“I've got cancer,” Lindman said. “I don't know if I'll even make it to forty.” The words came out of the blue.

Wigren raised an eyebrow. “It's a bit unusual to tell somebody that you've got cancer, when you don't know each other.”

“I have no idea why I said that.”

Wigren produced the plate with buns. “You said it because you needed to say it. If you want to say more, I'm all ears.”

“I'd rather not.'

“Okay, we'll put that aside. If you want to say anything, okay. If you don't, that's also okay.”

Lindman saw how he could turn the conversation in the direction he wanted.

“If somebody wanted to buy a house around here like the one we were looking at, for example, how much would it cost?”

“Elsa's house, you mean? Houses are cheap around here. I keep my eye on the ads. Not in the papers, on the Internet. I figured I had better find out how to do that. It took time, but I think I got there in the end. I've got plenty of time, after all. I have a daughter who works for the council in Gavle. She came here and brought her computer with her, and showed me what to do. Now I chat with a fellow in Canada called Jim—he's ninety-six and also worked in the forests. There's no limit to what those computer things can do. We're busy trying to set up a site where old loggers and lumberjacks can talk to each other when they feel like it. What are your favorite websites?”

“I'm afraid I don't know much about that; I don't even have a computer.”

The man on the other side of the table looked worried.

“You must get yourself one. Especially if you're sick. There are tons of people all over the world with cancer. I've seen that with my own eyes. I once looked up spinal cancer, which is the worst thing I can possibly imagine. I got 250,000 matches.” He paused. “Needless to say, I have no intention of talking about cancer,” he said. “As you said yourself.”

“It's not a problem. Besides, I don't have cancer of the spine. At least, not as far as I know.”

“I wasn't thinking.”

Lindman returned to the question of house prices. “A house like Elsa's—what would it cost?”

“Two or three hundred thousand, no more. But I don't think Elsa has any intention of selling.”

“Does she live alone?”

“I don't think she's ever been married. She can be a bit standoffish at times. After my wife died, I thought I might make a move for her, but she wasn't interested.”

“How old?”

“Seventy-three, I think.”

So. More or less the same as Molin, Lindman thought.

“Has she always lived here?”

“She was here when we built our house. That was in the late fifties. She must have lived in that house for forty years.”

“What did she do, anyway?”

“She said she'd been a dance teacher before she came here. No comment.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Who retires at the age of forty or younger? Something fishy there, don't you think?”

“She must have had some means of support?”

“She inherited her parents' estate. That's when she moved here. Or so she says.”

Lindman tried to keep up. “So she wasn't born here? She must have been an outsider?”

“SkÃ¥ne, I think she came from. Eslöv? Can that be somewhere down where Sweden drifts to a halt?”

“That's right. And so she came here. Why here? Did she have any family in Norrland?”

Wigren looked hard at him. “You're talking like a police officer. Some people might even suppose that you were interrogating me.”

“I'm curious, like everybody else. You have to ask why somebody would move here from southern Sweden unless they were going to get married or had found their dream job,” Lindman said, sensing that he might be making a serious mistake by not telling the truth.

“I wondered about that as well. My wife too. But you don't ask questions if you don't have to. Elsa is nice, and helpful. She babysat for us when we needed it. And I still have no idea why she moved here. She didn't have any relatives in these parts.” Wigren fell silent. Lindman waited. He had the impression that there was more to come.

“You might well think it's a bit odd,” said Wigren, when he eventually got around to saying something. “I've been living next door to Elsa for a whole generation. Even so, I have no idea why she bought this house in Ulvkalla. But there's another thing that's even odder.”

“What?”

“All these years I never set foot in her house. Nor did my wife while she was alive. Nor the children while they were growing up. I don't know anybody who's ever been inside her house. Let's face it, that's a little strange.”

Lindman agreed. There was something about Berggren's life that was reminiscent of Molin's. Both came from elsewhere, and both led isolated lives. The question is whether what I think is true of Molin, that he was running away from something, also applied to Berggren. She was the one who bought the house on his behalf. But why? How had they gotten to know each other? Did they have anything else in common?

“Did you never see anyone arrive at the house?”

“Nobody has ever seen anyone set foot inside her house, nor come out again, for that matter.”

Lindman decided it was time to move on. He looked at his watch. “I'm afraid I've got to go now,” he said. “But thank you for the coffee.”

They headed for the front door. Lindman pointed to the fourteenpointed antlers. “I shot that beast when I belonged to a group of hunters from around Lillhardal.”

“Is that big?”

Wigren burst out laughing. “The biggest I ever shot. It wouldn't have found its way onto my wall if it wasn't. When I die, it will end up on the garbage pile. None of my children want it. We could be in for some snow tonight,” he said, at the door. Then he turned to face Lindman. “I don't know why you've been asking all these questions about Elsa, but I'm not going to say anything. One of these days though, you'll come and join me here in the kitchen and tell me what's going on.”

Lindman nodded. He'd been right not to have underestimated Wigren.

“Good luck with the cancer,” the old man said in farewell. “What I mean is, I hope you recover.”

 

 

Lindman walked back the way he'd come. There was still no car in Berggren's drive or in the garage. He glanced at the windows. No movement of the curtains. When he crossed the bridge he stopped again and gazed down into the water. The fear he felt at the thought of his illness came and went in waves. He could no longer stop himself from thinking about what was in store for him. What he was doing here. Wandering about the periphery of the investigation of Molin's murder was a form of therapy which had only a limited effect.

In the center of the town he found the public library in the community center. There was a large stuffed bear in the foyer, staring at him. He had a sudden urge to attack it in a test of strength. The thought
made him burst out laughing. A man carrying a bundle of papers looked up at him in surprise.

Lindman located the shelves with medical literature, but when he sat down with a book with information on all varieties of cancer, he couldn't bring himself to open it. It's too soon, he thought. One more day. But not more. Then I will have to come to terms with my situation instead of trying to bury it under my pointless efforts to find out what happened to Molin.

When he left the community center, he felt a wave of indecision again. Annoyed, he started marching back to the hotel. On the way, he decided to stop at the wine shop. He hadn't been told by the doctor in Boras that he shouldn't drink alcohol. No doubt he shouldn't, but just now, he didn't care. He bought two bottles of wine. As he emerged onto the street, his phone rang. He put his bag down on the pavement and answered it. It was Elena.

“I was wondering why you haven't called me.”

Lindman immediately felt guilty. He could hear that she was hurt and disappointed.

“I don't feel too good,” he said apologetically.

“Are you still in Sveg?”

“Where else could I be?”

“What are you doing there?”

“I don't know. Maybe I'm waiting to go to Molin's funeral.”

“Do you want me to come? I could take some time off work.”

He nearly said yes. Yes, he did want her to come. “No,” he said. “I think it's better for me to be by myself.”

She didn't ask again. They talked for a while without anything being said. Afterwards, he wondered why he hadn't told her the truth. Why hadn't he told her that he missed her? That he didn't want to be on his own? It was as if he understood less and less about himself. And all because of the accursed lump in his mouth.

He walked into the hotel with his bottles. The girl was in the lobby, watering the flowers.

“Do you have everything you need?” she said.

“Everything's fine,” he said.

She fetched his key, still holding the watering can.

“I can't believe how gray everything looks,” she said. “Early November. And the worst is yet to come. All that awful winter.”

She went back to her plants. Lindman returned to his room. The suitcase was where he had left it. He put the shopping bag on the table.
It was a few minutes past three. It's too early, he thought. I can't sit here drinking wine midway through the afternoon.

He stood motionless, gazing out of the window. Then he made up his mind. He would drive to the lake where he'd discovered the traces of a camp, but he'd go to the far side, to the forestry roads Larsson had talked about. He didn't expect to find anything, but it would help to pass the time.

 

 

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.

V
eronica 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.