The Return of the Dancing Master (38 page)

“Ring again. Knock.”

Lindman tried the door handle. It was locked. He knocked loudly. Every time he rapped on the door he felt pain in the back of his neck. Then he heard footsteps.

“Someone's coming now.”

“You can't be certain it's her. Be careful.”

Lindman took a couple of paces back from the door. The door opened. It was Elsa Berggren. She was still dressed. Lindman could see from her face that she was scared.

“She's opened the door,” Lindman said into the telephone.

“Ask her if anything's happened.”

Lindman asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I've been attacked. I just called Inspector Johansson. He said he'd come.”

Lindman reported what she'd said to Larsson.

“But she's not injured?”

“Not as far as I can see, at least.”

“Who attacked her?”

“Who was it that attacked you?”

“He was wearing a hood. When I pulled it off him I caught sight of his face. I've never seen him before.”

Lindman passed this on.

“It sounds very strange. A masked man? What do you make of it?”

Lindman looked her in the eye as he replied.

“I think she's telling the truth. Even if the truth sounds incredible.”

“Wait there with her until Erik comes. I'll get dressed and drive over. Ask Erik to call me when he shows up. Okay, roger and out.”

Lindman stumbled as he walked through the door. He felt dizzy and was forced to sit down. Then he saw that he had blood on one of his hands. He told her what had happened. She went to the kitchen and came back with a wet cloth.

“Turn around. I can stand the sight of blood.”

She pressed the cloth gently against the back of his neck.

“That's enough, thank you,” he said, getting slowly to his feet.

A clock somewhere struck the quarter hour. They went into the living room. A chair was lying on its back, and a glass dish had shattered. She wanted to tell him what had happened, but he told her to wait.

“Inspector Johansson's the one who should listen to what you've got to say. Not me.”

 

 

Johansson arrived just as the invisible clock was striking the next quarter hour.

“What happened?” he said.

Then he turned to Lindman.

“I didn't even know you were still here.”

“I came back. But that's irrelevant. This story didn't start with me, it started in here.”

“That may be so,” Johansson said, “but to make things easier perhaps you can explain how you came to be involved.”

“I was out walking, and thought I saw somebody acting suspiciously in the garden. I went to investigate and was knocked down. Almost strangled, for that matter.”

Johansson leaned over Lindman.

“You've got bruises on your neck. Are you sure you don't need a doctor?”

“Quite sure.”

Johansson sat down, gingerly, as if frightened that the chair might collapse under him.

“How many times in a row is this?” he said. “That you've taken a walk past Mrs. Berggren's house, I mean. The second? Third?”

“Is that important now?”

Johansson's ponderous approach was beginning to irritate Lindman.

“How do I know what's important? But let's hear what Mrs. Berggren has to say.”

Berggren was sitting on the edge of the sofa. Her voice was different; she could no longer conceal her fear. Lindman noticed that she was trying to do so, nevertheless.

“I had just left the kitchen and was on my way up to bed when there was a knock on the door. I thought that was odd, because I rarely, if ever, have visitors. When I opened the door, I had the chain on—but he threw himself at it so violently that it gave way. He told me to be quiet. I couldn't see his face because he was wearing a sort of hood. A woollen hat with holes in it for his eyes. He dragged me into the living room and threatened me with an axe, and started asking me who'd killed Abraham Andersson. I tried to keep calm. I was sitting here, on the sofa. I could see that he was getting nervous. He raised his axe, and so I ran at him. That was when the chair fell over. I pulled the hood off him, and he ran out of the house. I had just called you when there was pounding on the door. I looked out of the window and saw that it was you,” she said, turning to Lindman.

“Did he speak Swedish?” Lindman said.

Johansson growled. “I'm the one asking questions here. I thought Rundström had made that clear to you. But answer anyway. Did he speak Swedish?”

“Broken English.”

“Was it a Swede pretending to be a foreigner?”

She thought before answering. “No,” she said. “Not Swedish. I think he might have been an Italian. Or a southern European, in any case.”

“Can you describe what he looked like? How old was he?”

“It all happened very quickly. But he was old, not what I had expected. Graying hair, going bald, brown eyes.”

“And you've never seen him before?”

Her fear was starting to turn to anger. “I don't associate with that sort of person. You ought to know that.”

“I do know that, Elsa, but I have to ask you. How tall was he? Was he thin or fat? What was he wearing, what did his hands look like?”

“Dark jacket, dark pants, I didn't notice his shoes. No rings on his fingers.” She stood up and walked to the door. “I'd say he was about this height, neither fat nor thin.” She marked a place on the frame with her hand.

“One eighty,” Johansson said, turning to Lindman. “What do you think?”

“All I saw was a moving shadow.”

Berggren sat down again.

“He threatened you,” Johansson said. “How exactly?”

“He asked questions about Abraham Andersson.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Only one, I suppose. Who killed Andersson?”

“Nothing else? Nothing about Molin?”

“No.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“ ‘Who killed Abraham?' Or ‘Who killed Andersson?' ”

“You said he threatened you.”

“He said he wanted the truth. Otherwise there'd be trouble. ‘Who killed Abraham?' That's all. I told him I didn't know.”

Johansson shook his head and looked at Lindman. “What do you make of all this?”

“I am surprised that he didn't ask about the motive. Why was Abraham Andersson murdered?”

“But he didn't. He only asked who had done it. He obviously thought I knew. Then I realized he was actually implying something different. That was when I got really scared. He thought that I had killed him.”

Lindman felt his dizziness coming and going in waves. He tried to concentrate. He could see that Berggren's account of the attack was crucial. The important thing was not what the man had asked her, but what he hadn't asked her. There was only one explanation: he knew the answer. Lindman had broken into a sweat. The man in the shadows who'd tried to strangle him, either to kill him or just to render him unconscious, could be playing the central role in the drama that started with Molin's murder.

Johansson's cell phone rang. It was Larsson. Lindman could hear that he was worried that Larsson might be driving too fast.

“He's already gone through Brunflo,” Johansson said. “He wants us
to wait here for him. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to write up what you've said. We must start searching for this man.”

Lindman stood up.

“I'm going out. I need some air.”

 

 

Once outside, Lindman began searching his memory for something that had to do with what Berggren had said. He returned to the back of the house, avoiding any footprints there might be. He tried to picture the face she'd described. He knew he'd never seen the man before. Nevertheless, it was as if he recognized him. He hammered at his forehead in an attempt to stir his memory. It had something to do with Larsson.

Dinner at the hotel. They were sitting there eating. The waitress had been going back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room. There had been another person there that evening. A man on his own. Lindman hadn't noticed his face. But there was something else about him. It eventually dawned on him what it was. The man hadn't said a single word to the waitress, despite the fact that he had summoned her several times. That man had been in the dining room when first Lindman and then Larsson had arrived, and he was still there when they left.

He racked his brains. Larsson had scribbled things on the back of the bill, then crumpled it up and dropped it in the ashtray as they left. There was something about that piece of paper. He couldn't remember what. And the man by himself at the nearby table; he hadn't said a word. And somehow he answered the description Berggren had given.

 

 

He went back into the house. It was 1:20. Berggren was on the sofa, very pale.

“He's making coffee,” she said.

Lindman went to the kitchen.

“I can't think straight without coffee,” Johansson said. “Would you like some? To be frank, you look awful. I wonder if you shouldn't see a doctor, no matter what you say.”

“I want to talk to Giuseppe first.”

“I'm sorry if I sounded a bit brusque earlier on. The police here in Harjedalen sometimes feel they are being patronized and walked on. That goes for Giuseppe too. Just so that you know.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don't. But never mind.”

He handed Lindman a cup of coffee. Lindman was trying to remember what Larsson had scribbled on that piece of paper.

 

 

It wasn't until about 5 A.M. that he had an opportunity to ask Larsson about what had happened that evening in the dining room. Larsson arrived at Berggren's house at 1:50. Once he had taken stock of the facts, he went with Johansson and Lindman to the police station. An officer had been posted to keep watch over Berggren's house. The description they had of the attacker was too imprecise to be sent out and trigger a nationwide alert. On the other hand, reinforcements would arrive from Ostersund tomorrow morning. They would mount yet another house-to-house operation. Somebody must have seen something, was Larsson's conviction. The man must have had a car. There can't be all that many English-speaking southern Europeans in Sveg at this time of year. People occasionally came from Madrid or Milan to hunt elk, and the Italians are ardent mushroom pickers, of course. The only thing is, we're not in the mushroom-picking or elkhunting seasons. Somebody must have seen him. Or a car. Or something.

At 5:30 Johansson left to cordon off Berggren's garden. Larsson was tired and irritable. “He should have done that right away. How can we carry out correct police procedures if people don't follow the routines?”

Larsson had his feet on the desk.

“Can you remember that dinner we had at the hotel?” Lindman said.

“Very well.”

“There was a man in the dining room as well. Do you remember him?”

“Vaguely. Next to the kitchen door, if I remember rightly.”

“To the left.”

Larsson looked at him, his eyes weary. “Why do you ask?”

“He said nothing. That could mean that he didn't want to let us know that he was a foreigner.”

“Why the hell wouldn't he want to do that?”

“Because we were police officers. We used the word ‘police' again and again during dinner. The word is similar in most languages. What's more, I think he looked a little like the description Berggren tried to give us.”

Larsson shook his head. “It's too circumstantial, too farfetched.”

“Possibly. But even so. You sat there doodling on a piece of paper when you'd finished eating.”

“It was the bill. I asked about it the next day, but it had disappeared. The waitress said she hadn't seen it.”

“That's the point. Where did it go?”

Larsson stopped rocking back and forward in his chair.

“Are you saying that man took the bill after we'd left?”

“I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just thinking aloud. One question is: what did you write?”

Larsson tried to remember. “Names, I think. Yes, I'm sure. We were talking about the three of them: Molin, Andersson, and Berggren. We were trying to find a link.” Larsson sat up with a start. “I wrote down their names, and I joined them with arrows. They made a triangle. I think I drew a swastika beside Andersson's name.”

“Nothing else?”

“Not that I remember.”

“I might be wrong, of course,” Lindman said, “but I think I saw a big question mark after the swastika.”

“You could be right.”

Larsson stood up and leaned against the wall. “I'm listening,” he said. “I'm starting to catch on to the way you're thinking.”

“The man is in the hotel dining room. He hears that we are police officers. When we leave, he steals the bill you left behind. Now a few assumptions. If he takes the bill, he does so because he has an interest. And if he has an interest it can only be because he's involved.”

Larsson raised a hand. “Involved? How?”

“That leads us on to the next assumption. If this is the man who came to see Berggren last night and tried to strangle me, we should ask ourselves at least one more important question.”

“Which is?”

“A question about the question he asked Berggren: ‘Who killed Andersson?' ”

Larsson shook his head in annoyance. “You've lost me.”