The Return of the Dancing Master (4 page)

 

 

Lindman lived in the center of Borås, in Allégatan. Three years ago he had lived in Sjömarken, outside the town, but then he had happened to hear about this three-room apartment and hadn't hesitated to sign a lease for it. Directly across the street was the Vävaren Hotel. He was within walking distance of the police station, and could even walk to Ryavallen Stadium when Elfsborg were playing a home game. Soccer was his biggest interest, apart from his work. Although he didn't tell anybody, he still collected pictures and press clips about his local team in a file. He had daydreams about being a professional soccer player in Italy, instead of a police officer in Sweden. These dreams embarrassed him, but he couldn't put them behind him.

He walked up the steps taking him to Stengardsgatan and kept on towards the City Theater and the high school. A police car drove past. Whoever was in it didn't notice him. His fear stabbed into him. It was as if he were already gone, were already dead. He pulled his jacket more tightly around him. There was no real reason why he should expect a negative verdict. He increased his pace. His mind was buzzing. The raindrops falling onto his face were reminders of a life, his life, that was ebbing away.

He was thirty-seven. He'd worked in Borås ever since leaving the police academy. It was where he wanted to be posted. He was born in Kinna and grew up in a family with three children; his father was a secondhand car salesman and his mother worked in a bakery. Lindman was the youngest. His two sisters were seven and nine years older than he was—you could almost say he was an afterthought.

When Lindman thought back to his childhood, it sometimes seemed strangely uneventful and boring. Life had been secure and routine. His parents disliked traveling. The furthest they could bring themselves to go was Borås or Varberg. Even Gothenburg was too big, too far, and too scary. His sisters had rebelled against this life and moved away early, one to Stockholm and the other to Helsinki. His parents had taken that as a failure on their part, and Lindman had realized he was almost bound to stay in Kinna, or at least to go back there when he'd decided what to do with his life. He'd been restless as a teenager, and had no idea what he wanted to do when he grew up.

Then, purely by chance, he'd gotten to know a young man devoted to motocross. He'd become this man's assistant and spent a few years traveling around racetracks the length and breadth of central Sweden. But he tired of that eventually and returned to Kinna, where his parents welcomed him with open arms, the return of the prodigal son. He still didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, but then he happened to meet a policeman from Malmö who was visiting some mutual friends in Kinna. And the thought struck Lindman: maybe I should become a police officer? He thought it over for a few days, and made up his mind to at least give it a try.

His parents received his decision with a degree of unease, but Lindman pointed out that there were police officers in Kinna—he wouldn't need to move away.

He set out immediately to turn his decision into reality. The first thing he did was to go back to school and earn some more academic credits. Since he was so eager, it had been easier than he'd expected. He occasionally worked as a substitute school caretaker in order to earn his keep.

To his surprise he'd been accepted by the police academy on his first attempt. The training hadn't caused him any problems. He hadn't been outstanding in any way, but had been among the better ones in his year. One day he'd come back home to Kinna in uniform and
announced that he would be working in Borås, just forty kilometers down the road.

For the first few years he'd commuted from Kinna, but when he fell in love with one of the girls at the police station, he moved into Boras. They lived together for three years. Then one day, out of the blue, she announced that she had met a man from Trondheim and was moving there. Lindman had taken the development in stride. He'd realized that their relationship was beginning to bore him. It was a little like going back to his childhood. What intrigued him, though, was how she could have met another man and started an affair without Lindman noticing.

By then he'd reached the age of thirty, almost without noticing it. Then his father had a heart attack and died, and a few months later his mother died as well. The day after her funeral he'd posted a personal ad in the local paper. He had four replies, and met the women one after the other. One of them was a Pole who had lived in Borås for many years. She had two grown-up children, and worked as a meal supervisor at the high school. She was nearly ten years older than Lindman, but they never really noticed the difference. He couldn't understand at first what there was that had immediately attracted him to her, made him fall in love with her. Then it dawned on him: she was completely ordinary. She took life seriously, but didn't fuss about anything unnecessarily. They had started a relationship, and for the first time in his life Lindman discovered that he could feel something for a woman that was more than lust. Her name was Elena and she lived in Norrby. He used to spend the night there several times a week.

It was there, one day, while he was in the bathroom, that he discovered he had a strange lump on his tongue.

 

 

He interrupted his train of thought. He was in front of the hospital. It was still drizzling. It was 7:56 by his watch. He walked past the hospital and speeded up. He had made up his mind to walk around it twice, and that was what he was going to do.

 

 

It was 8:30 by the time he sat down in the cafeteria with a cup of coffee and the local paper. But he didn't read a word, and never touched his coffee.

He was scared stiff by the time he got as far as the doctor's door. He
knocked and went in. The doctor was a woman. He tried to work out from her face what he could expect: a death sentence, or a reprieve? She gave him a smile, but that only confused him. Did it denote uncertainty, sympathy, or relief at not needing to tell somebody that they had cancer?

He sat down. She organized some papers on the desk.

“I'm afraid I have to tell you that the lump you have on your tongue is a malignant tumor.”

He swallowed. He'd known all along, ever since that morning in Elena's apartment in Norrby. He had cancer.

“We can't see any sign of it spreading. Since we've found it in the early stages, we can start treating it right away.”

“What does that mean? Will you cut my tongue out?”

“No, it will be radiation therapy to start with. And then an operation.”

“Will I die of it?”

This wasn't a question he'd prepared in advance. It burst out without him being able to stop it.

“Cancer is always serious,” the doctor said, “but nowadays we can take measures. It's been a long time since diagnosing cancer meant passing a death sentence.”

 

 

He sat with the doctor for more than an hour. When he left her office he was soaked in sweat. In the pit of his stomach was a spot as cold as ice. A pain that didn't burn, but felt like the hands of that psychopath on his throat. He forced himself to be calm. He would go for coffee now and read the paper. Then he'd make up his mind whether or not he was dying.

But the paper was no longer there. He picked up one of the previous day's national papers instead. That ice-cold knot was still there. He drank his coffee and thumbed through the paper. He forgot all the words and the pictures the moment he turned over a page.

Something caught his attention. A photograph. A headline about a brutal murder. He stared at the photograph and the caption.
Herbert Molin, age about 76. Former police officer.

He pushed the paper aside and went for another cup of coffee. He knew it cost two kronor, but he didn't bother paying. He had cancer and was entitled to take certain liberties. A man who had shuffled quickly up to the counter was pouring himself a cup of coffee. His hands shook
so badly that hardly any coffee made it into the cup. Lindman helped him. The man gave him a grateful look.

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.