The Return of the Dancing Master (52 page)

He went to look, then returned to the telephone.

“I've found copies of their driver's licenses.”

“Do you have a fax there?”

“Yes, and I know how to use that. I can't send anything until I get the okay from Sundelin, though.”

“He knows about it. He gave us your number, remember?” Johansson said, sounding as authoritative as he could. He gave Niklasson the police fax number.

The black fax machine was in the corridor outside the office. Johansson checked that it was working. Then they waited again.

There was a ring, and paper began to emerge from the machine. Four driver's licenses. The text was barely legible, their faces like black thumbprints. The machine stopped. They returned to the office. Snow was piling up on the windowsill. They passed the pages around, and Johansson wrote down the names: Klas Herrström, Simon Lukac, Magnus Holmström, Werner Makinen. He read them out, one after the other.

Lindman didn't even listen to the fourth name. He recognized the third one. He took the fax and held his breath. The face was just an outline, with no distinguishable features. Even so, he was certain.

“I think we've got him,” he said slowly.

“Who?”

“Magnus Holmström. I met him on Öland. When I visited Wetterstedt.”

Larsson had barely touched on the visit to Wetterstedt when he told Johansson about what Lindman had said, but he remembered even so.

“Are you sure?”

Lindman stood up and held the paper under the lamp.

“He's our man. I'm sure.”

“Are you saying he's the one who tried to shoot the driver of the Golf?”

“All I'm saying is that I met Magnus Holmström on Oland, and that he's a Nazi.”

Nobody spoke.

“Let's bring Stockholm in now,” Larsson said. “They'll have to go to the garage and produce a decent picture of this kid. But where is he now?”

The telephone rang. It was Pelle Niklasson, wanting to know if the faxes had come through all right.

“Yes, thank you, we've got them,” said Johansson. “So one of your staff is called Magnus Holmström.”

“Maggan.”

“ ‘Maggan'?”

“That's what we call him.”

“Have you got his home address?”

“I don't think so. He hasn't been working here long.”

“You must know where your staff live, surely?”

“I can take a look. This isn't part of my job.”

It was almost five minutes before he returned to the telephone.

“He's given us the address of his mother in Bandhagen. Skeppstavagen 7A, c/o Holmström. But he hasn't given a phone number.”

“What's his mother's first name?”

“I have no idea. Can I go home now? My wife was extremely pissed off when I left.”

“Call her and tell her you won't be back for some time yet. You're getting a call from the police in Stockholm soon.”

“What's going on?”

“You said that Holmström was new?”

“He's only been working here for a couple of months. Has he done something?”

“What kind of an impression of him do you have?”

“What do you mean by impression?”

“Is he a good worker? Does he have any special habits? Is he extreme in any way? When was he last at work?”

“He's pretty discreet. Doesn't say much. I don't really have much of an impression of him. And he's been off work since last Monday.”

“Good, thank you. Wait where you are until the Stockholm police call you.”

By the time Johansson hung up, Larsson had already called the Stockholm police. Lindman was trying to track down the telephone number, but directory assistance didn't have a Holmström at that address. He tried to find out if there was a cell phone number corresponding to Holmström's name and identity number, but he had no luck there either.

After another twenty minutes, all the telephones were silent. Johansson put on some coffee. It was still snowing, but less heavily. Lindman looked out of the window. The ground was white. Larsson had gone to the bathroom. It was a quarter of an hour before he came back.

“My stomach can't handle this,” he said gloomily. “I'm completely blocked up. I haven't had a bowel movement since the day before yesterday.”

They drank their coffee and waited. Shortly after 1 P.M. a duty officer called from Stockholm to say that they hadn't found Magnus Holmström when they went to his mother's house in Bandhagen. Her first name was Margot, and she told them that she hadn't seen her son for several months. He used to visit occasionally when he was working, and to get his mail, but she didn't know where he was living now. They would continue searching for him through the night.

Larsson called Lövander, the prosecutor, in Ostersund. Johansson sat at his computer and started typing. Lindman's mind drifted to Veronica Molin and the computer she said contained her entire life. He wondered if she and her brother had set off for Sveg through the snow, or if they'd decided to spend the night in Ostersund. Larsson finished his call to the prosecutor.

“Things are starting to happen now,” he said. “Lövander grasped the situation and a new nationwide emergency call is going out. Everybody will be looking not only for a red Ford Escort, but also for a young man called Magnus Holmström who is probably armed and must be regarded as dangerous.”

“Somebody should ask his poor mother if she knows about his political beliefs,” Lindman said. “What kind of mail does he receive? Does he have a computer at her home, possibly with e-mail?”

“He must live somewhere,” Larsson said. “It's very strange, of course, that he has his mail sent to his mother's address, but lives somewhere else. I suppose this might be what young people do these days, moving around from one apartment belonging to a friend to another. If that's it, he probably has a Hotmail address.”

“It suggests he's purposely hiding his whereabouts,” said Johansson. “Does anybody know how to make the letters bigger on this screen?”

Larsson showed him what to do.

“Maybe they should go looking for him on Öland,” Lindman said. “That's where I came across him, after all. And the car was filled up in Söderköping.”

Larsson slapped his forehead in irritation.

“I'm too tired,” he bellowed. “We should have thought of that from the beginning, of course.”

He grabbed a telephone and started calling again. It took him forever to find the officer in Stockholm he'd spoken to earlier. While he was waiting, Lindman gave him a description of how to find Wetterstedt's house on Öland.

It was 1:30 by the time Larsson finished. Johansson was still tapping away at his keyboard. The snow had almost stopped. Larsson checked the thermometer.

“Minus three. That means it'll stick. Until tomorrow, at least.”

He turned to Lindman. “I don't think much more is going to happen tonight. Routine procedures are clicking into place now. A diver can start searching for the gun under the bridge tomorrow morning, but the best thing we can do until then is get some sleep. I'll stay at Erik's place. I can't face a hotel room at the moment.”

Johansson turned off his computer.

“At least we've taken a big step forward,” he said. “Now we're looking for two people. We've even got the name of one of them. That has to be regarded as an improvement.”

“Three,” Larsson said. “We're probably looking for three people.”

Nobody contradicted him.

 

 

Lindman put on his jacket and left the community center. The snow felt soft under his feet. It muffled all sounds. Occasional flakes of snow were still drifting down. He kept stopping and turning around, but there was no sign that he was being followed. The whole town was asleep. No light in Veronica Molin's window. The funeral was at 11 A.M. later that day. They would have plenty of time to get to Sveg if they decided to stay in Ostersund. He unlocked the front door of the hotel. The two men from yesterday were playing cards again, despite the late hour. They nodded to him as he went past. It was too late to call Elena now. She'd be asleep. He undressed, showered, and went to bed, thinking about Holmström all the time. Discreet, Niklasson had called him. No doubt he could make that impression if he tried, but Lindman had also seen another side of him. Cold as ice and dangerous. He had no doubt at all that it was Holmström who had tried to kill Hereira. The question was, did he also kill Andersson? What was still unclear was why Berggren had confessed to that murder. It was possible that she was guilty, of course, but Lindman could not believe it. One could take it
for granted that Holmström would have told her anything that wasn't in the newspapers, like the clothesline.

The pattern, he thought, is clearer now. Not complete—there are still some gaps. Even so, it's acquiring a third dimension. He turned off the light. Thought about the funeral. Then Veronica Molin would return to a world he knew nothing about.

He was brought back to consciousness by the sound of the phone ringing. He fumbled for his cell phone. It was Larsson.

“Did I wake you up?”

“Yes.”

“I wondered if I should call, but I thought you'd like to know.”

“What's happened?”

“Molin's house is on fire. Erik and I are on our way there. The alarm was raised a quarter of an hour ago. A snowplow went past and the driver saw the glow among the trees.”

Lindman rubbed his eyes.

“Are you still there?” Larsson said.

“Yes.”

“At least we don't need to worry about anybody being injured. The place is deserted.”

Reception was poor. Larsson's voice was lost. The link was broken. Then he called again.

“I thought you'd like to know.”

“Do you think the fire has any significance?”

“The only thing I can think of is that somebody knew about Molin's diary but didn't know that you'd already found it. I'll call again if anything crops up.”

“So you think it has to be arson?”

“I don't think anything. The house was already largely destroyed. It could be natural causes, of course. Erik says they've got a good fire chief here in Sveg. Olof Lundin. They say he's never wrong when it comes to establishing the cause of a fire. I'll be in touch.”

Lindman put the phone on the bedside table. The light coming in through the window was reflected by the snow. He thought about what Larsson had said. His mind started wandering. He settled down in order to go back to sleep.

He couldn't get to sleep. It was too light in the room. He got up to pull down the blinds and shut out the light from the hotel entrance. Then he saw something that made him do a double take. There was a man in the street outside. A figure in the half-light. Staring up at his window. Lindman was wearing a white T-shirt. Perhaps it was visible even though it was dark in the room? The shadow didn't move. Lindman held his breath. The man slowly raised his arms. It looked like a sign of submission. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the light.

Lindman wondered if he'd been imagining it. Then he saw the footprints in the snow.

Lindman threw on his clothes, grabbed his keys, and hurried out of the room. The lobby was deserted. The card players had gone to bed. The cards were still there, strewn over the table. Lindman ran out into the darkness. Somewhere in the distance he heard the sound of a car engine dying away. He stood stock-still and looked around. Then he walked over to the place where the man had been standing. The footsteps were clear in the snow. He'd left the same way as he'd come, toward the furniture shop.

Lindman examined the footprints. They formed a pattern, that was obvious. He'd seen the pattern before. The man who'd been standing there, looking up at Lindman's window, had marked out the steps of the tango in the glittering, newly fallen snow. The last time Lindman had seen these same footprints, they had been marked out in blood.

H
e should call Larsson. It was the only sensible thing to do, but something held him back. It was still too unreal, the pattern in the snow, the man underneath his window, raising his arms as if to surrender.

He checked to make sure he had his cell phone in his pocket, then started following the tracks. Just outside the hotel courtyard it was crossed by prints from a dog. The dog had then crossed the road after leaving a yellow patch. Not many people were out in the streets. The only tracks visible were from the man he was following. Straight, confident strides. Heading north, past the furniture shop and toward the train station. He looked around. Not a soul in sight, no shadowy figures now, just this one set of footprints in the snow. The man had stopped to look around when he came to the café, then he had crossed the road, still heading north, before turning left towards the deserted, unlit station building. Lindman let a car drive past, then continued on his way.

He paused when he came to the station. The tracks continued around the building towards the tracks and the platform. If his suspicions were correct, he was now following the man who'd killed Molin. Not only killed but tortured him, whipped him to death, and then dragged him around in a bloodstained tango. For the first time, it struck him that the man might be insane. What they had assumed all the time was something rational, cold-blooded, and well-planned might in fact be the opposite of that: pure madness. He turned, walked back until he was under a streetlight, and called Larsson. Busy. They'll be at the scene of the fire by now, he thought. Larsson is calling somebody to
tell him about it, probably Rundström. He waited, keeping his eye on the station all the time, then tried the number again. Still busy. After a few minutes he tried for a third time. A woman's voice informed him that it was impossible to get through to the required number and would he please try again later. He put the cell phone back in his pocket and tried to decide what to do. Then he started walking south towards Fjallvagen. He turned when he came to a long warehouse and found himself among the railroad tracks. He could see the station some distance away. He kept walking across the tracks and into the shadows on the other side, then slowly approached the station again. An old guard's van was standing in a siding. He walked around behind it. He still wasn't close enough to see where the footprints had gone. He stood in the shadow of the guard's van and peered around it.