The Return of the Dancing Master (14 page)

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.

She raised an eyebrow. “Not at all what?”

“I don't at all want to be on my own.”

She sat down, consulted the menu, but put it down again immediately.

“Could I have a salad?” she said. “And an omelette? Nothing else.”

“No problem,” the girl said.

Lindman wondered if she also did the cooking.

Veronica Molin ordered a mineral water. Lindman was still trying to remember who she reminded him of.

“I misunderstood the situation,” she said. “I thought it was here in Sveg that I was going to meet the police, but it is in Ostersund. I'll be going there tomorrow.”

“Where have you come from?”

“Cologne. That's where I was when the news of my father's death reached me.”

“So do you live in Germany?”

She shook her head. “In Barcelona. Or Boston. It depends. But I was in Cologne. It was very strange and frightening. I'd just returned to my room. The Dom Hotel, it's called, next to the enormous cathedral. The church bells started ringing at the same time as the phone rang, and a man from somewhere a long way away told me that my father had been murdered. He asked if I'd like to talk to a clergyman. I flew to Stockholm this morning, the soonest I could organize my affairs, and then continued here. But, apparently, I should have gone to Ostersund.”

Her mineral water arrived and she fell silent. Somebody in the bar burst out laughing, loud and shrill. Lindman thought it sounded like a man trying to imitate a dog. Then it came to him who she reminded him of. An actress in one of those soap operas that go on and on. He tried to remember her name, but he couldn't.

Veronica Molin was serious and tense. Lindman wondered how he would have reacted if he'd been in a hotel somewhere and been told over the telephone that his father had been murdered.

“I'm really very sorry about what happened,” he said. “A completely pointless murder.”

“Aren't all murders pointless?”

“Of course. But some have a motive that one can understand, despite everything.”

“Nobody could have had any reason to kill my father,” she said. “He had no enemies. He wasn't rich.”

But he was scared, Lindman thought, and perhaps that fear was at the root of what happened. Her food arrived on the table. Lindman had a vague sense that the woman sitting opposite him had the upper hand. She had an assurance that he lacked.

“I gather you and he used to work together.”

“Yes, in Boras. I started my police career there. Your father helped to put me on the right track. He left a big gap when he retired.”

That makes it sound as if we were close friends, he thought. It isn't true. We were never friends. We were colleagues.

“Needless to say, I wondered why he'd moved up here to Harjedalen,” he said after a while.

She saw through him immediately. “I didn't think he had told anyone where he was going to move to.”

“Perhaps I remember wrongly. But I'm curious, naturally. Why did he move here?”

“He wanted to be left in peace. My father was a recluse. So am I.”

There's no answer to that, thought Lindman. She hadn't only given him a reply, she'd nipped the conversation in the bud. Why is she sitting at my table if she doesn't want to talk to me? He could feel himself getting irritated.

“I have nothing to do with the murder investigation,” he said. “I came here because I'm off work.”

She put down her fork and looked at him. “To do what?”

“Maybe to attend the funeral. Assuming it will take place here. Once the medical people release the body.”

She didn't believe him, he could see that, and that increased his irritation.

“Were you often in contact with him?”

“Very seldom. I'm a consultant for a computer firm that operates all over the world. I'm nearly always traveling. I used to send him a postcard once or twice every year, maybe called him at Christmas. But that was about it.”

“It doesn't sound as if you had a very good relationship.”

He looked hard at her. He still thought she was beautiful, but she radiated coldness and remoteness.

“What kind of relationship I had with my father is hardly anybody else's business. He wanted to be left in peace. I respected that. And he respected the fact that we were two of a kind.”

“You have a brother as well, I believe?”

Her response was firm and outspoken.

“We avoid speaking to each other unless it's absolutely necessary. The best way of describing that relationship is that it is close to open enmity. Why that should be is no business of anybody else either. I've been in touch with a firm of funeral directors who will take care of everything. My father will be buried here in Sveg.”

That was the end of the conversation.

Lindman ran his tongue over his teeth. The lump was still there.

They ordered coffee. She asked if he minded if she smoked. He said that it was fine and she lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings towards the ceiling. Then she looked at him.

“Why did you come here, really?” she said.

Lindman gave her part of the truth. “I'm on sick leave. I had nothing else to do.”

“The policeman I spoke to in Ostersund said you were helping with the investigation.”

“One gets upset when a colleague is murdered, naturally. But my visit here is of no significance. I've just spoken to a few people, that's all.”

“Who?”

“Mainly the police officer you'll be meeting in Ostersund tomorrow. Giuseppe Larsson. And Abraham Andersson.”

“Who's he?”

“Your father's nearest neighbor, even if he does live quite a long way away.”

“Did he have anything interesting to say?”

“No. But if anybody was going to notice something, it would have been him. You can talk to him, if you like.”

She stubbed out her cigarette, crushing the butt as if it were an insect.

“Your father changed his name,” Lindman said. “From Mattson-Herzén to Molin. That was a few years before you were born. At about the same time he asked to be discharged from the army and moved to Stockholm. When you were two, there was another move, to AlingsÃ¥s. You can hardly be expected to remember anything about the time in Stockholm. A two-year-old doesn't have a conscious memory. But there's one thing I wonder about. What did he do in Stockholm?”

“He had a music shop.” She could see that he was surprised. “As you say, I don't recall anything about it. But I heard later. He tried running a shop and opened one in Solna. It went well in the early years. He opened a second one in Sollentuna. But things went rapidly downhill from there. My first memories are from Alingsas. We lived outside the town in an old house that never got sufficiently warm in the winter.” She paused and lit another cigarette. “I wonder why you want to know all this.”

“Your father is dead. That means that all questions are important.”

“Are you suggesting that somebody killed him because he once owned a music shop?”

Lindman didn't answer and moved instead to the next question.

“Why did he change his name?”

“I don't know.”

“Why would anybody want to change their name from Herzén to Molin?”

“I simply don't know.”

Lindman suddenly had the feeling that he should be careful. He wasn't sure where the feeling came from, but it was certainly there. He was asking questions and she was answering, but at the same time something quite different was going on. Veronica Molin was finding out how much he knew about her father.

He picked up the coffeepot and asked if she would like a refill. She said no.

“When we worked together I had the impression that your father was worried. In fact, that he was scared. What of, I've no idea, but I can remember his fear still, though it's been more than ten years since he retired.”

She frowned. “What would he have been scared of?”

“I don't know. I suppose I'm asking you.”

She shook her head. “My father wasn't the frightened type. On the contrary, he was brave.”

“In what way?”

“He was never afraid of doing things. Never afraid of refusing to do things.”

Her cell phone rang. She apologized, and answered. The conversation took place in a foreign language. Lindman wasn't sure if it was Spanish or French. When it was over she beckoned the receptionist and asked for her bill.

“Did you go out to see the house?” Lindman said.

She looked at him for a while before answering. “I have a good memory of my father. We were never close, but I've lived long enough to know what sort of a relationship some children can have with their parents. I don't want to spoil the image of my father by seeing the place where he was killed.”

Lindman understood. Or at least, he thought he did.

“Your father must have been very fond of dancing,” he said.

“Why on earth should he have been?”

Her surprise seemed genuine.

“Somebody said so,” Lindman said.

The receptionist came with two bills. Lindman tried to take them both, but she insisted on taking hers.

“I prefer to pay my own way.”

The girl went to get some change.

“What exactly does a computer consultant do?” Lindman said.

She smiled but didn't reply.

They went their separate ways in the lobby. Her room was on the ground floor.

“How are you going to get to Ostersund?” he said.

“Sveg is only a little place,” she said, “but I managed to rent a car even so. Thanks for your company.”

He watched her walk away. Her clothes, her shoes, everything about her looked expensive. Their conversation had restored some of his lost energy. The question was: what should he do with it? He didn't suppose there was much in the way of a nightlife in Sveg.

He decided to go for a walk. What Björn Wigren had told him made him think. There was a connection between Berggren and Molin that he wanted to know more about. The curtain had been moved. He was certain of it.

He fetched his jacket and left the hotel. It was chillier than the previous night.

He took the same road as he'd taken earlier in the day. Stopped on the bridge. Listened to the water flowing beneath him. He met a man walking his dog. It was like meeting a ship with no lights far out on a black sea. When he reached the house, he stood in the shadows, away from the glow of the street lights. There was a car on the drive now, but it was too dark to see what make it was. There was a light on upstairs, behind drawn curtains. He stood motionless. He didn't know what he was waiting for. But he stood there nevertheless.

 

 

The man approaching moved very quietly. He'd been watching Lindman for some time before deciding that he'd seen enough. He came diagonally from behind, staying in the shadows all the time.

Johansson had no idea who the man was. He looked in good condition. He eyed him warily.

“Hello,” he said. “I was wondering what you're doing here.”

Lindman was startled. The man had moved so quietly, he'd had no idea there was anybody there.

“Who are you, asking me these questions?”

“Erik Johansson. I'm a police officer. I am asking myself just what you are doing here.”

“I'm looking at a house,” said Lindman. “I'm in a public place, I'm sober, I'm not creating a disturbance, I'm not even urinating. Is it forbidden to stand and look at a pretty house?”

“Not at all. But the lady who lives there was made nervous and telephoned. When people get nervous, I'm the one they contact. I thought I'd find out who you were. People are not used to strangers standing in the street staring at them. Not at night, in any case.”

Lindman took out his wallet and produced his police ID. He'd moved a couple of meters so that he was in the glow from the streetlight. Johansson grinned.

“So it's you,” he said, as if he'd known Lindman of old but only just remembered.

“Stefan Lindman.”

Johansson scratched his forehead. Lindman noticed that he was only wearing a thin T-shirt under his jacket.

“Both of us being police officers doesn't improve matters. Larsson told me you were here. But I couldn't know it was you outside Elsa's house.”

“It was Elsa who bought Molin's house for him,” Lindman said. “No doubt you knew that?”

“I didn't know that at all.”

“I found that out from a real estate agent in Krokom. I thought Larsson might have mentioned that.”

“All he said was that you were here on a visit and that you used to work with Molin. He certainly didn't say anything about your spying on Elsa.”

“I'm not spying,” Lindman said. “I went out for a walk. I don't know why I stopped.”