The Return of the Dancing Master

Chapter Twenty-Four

Lindman opened his eyes. He knew immediately where he was. He sat up slowly, took a deep breath and looked around in the darkness. Nothing to be seen, nor was there a sound. He felt the back of his neck. There was some blood, and it hurt when he swallowed. Still, he was alive. He couldn’t say how long he’d been unconscious. He raised himself up, clinging onto the drainpipe on the house wall. He was thinking clearly again, despite the pain in his throat and at the back of his neck. So his eyes hadn’t deceived him. There had been somebody moving in the shadows at the back of the house, somebody who’d seen him, and tried to kill him.

Something must have happened. Why was he still alive? Whoever had tried to strangle him must have been disturbed and been forced to let go. Of course, there was another possibility. His attacker might have intended to stop him, but not to kill him. He let go of the drainpipe and listened. Still not a sound.

A faint light reached him from one of the windows. Something must have happened in that house, he thought. Just as something happened in Molin’s house, and later in Andersson’s. Now I’m standing outside my third house. He wondered what to do, and had no problem making up his mind. He took out his cell phone and called Larsson’s number. His hand was shaking, and he pressed the wrong buttons twice. When he did get through, a girl answered.

“This is Daddy’s telephone.”

“Can I speak to Giuseppe, please?”

“Good grief, he went to bed ages ago. Do you know what time it is?”

“I have to talk to him.”

“Who are you?”

“Stefan.”

“Are you the one from Borås?”

“Yes. You must wake him up. This is important.”

“I’ll give him the telephone.”

While he waited, Lindman moved a few paces from the house and stood in the shadow of a tree. Then he heard Larsson’s voice, and was able to explain briefly what had happened.

“Are you hurt?” Larsson said.

“The back of my neck is bleeding and it hurts a lot when I swallow; otherwise it’s okay.”

“I’ll try to get hold of Johansson. Where exactly are you?”

“At the back of the house. By one of the gables. Under a tree. Something may have happened to Berggren.”

“You said you disturbed someone leaving the place, is that right?”

“I think so.”

Lindman waited for a long silence.

“Let’s keep the line open,” Larsson said at last. “Ring her doorbell and stay at the door. If there’s no sign of her, wait until Erik gets there.”

Lindman walked around to the front of the house and rang the bell. The outside light was on. He held the phone to his ear the whole time.

“What’s happening?” Larsson said.

“I’ve rung. Twice. Nothing.”

“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 Härjedalen 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 Östersund 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.”

“I’m suggesting that this question leads us to another question, the crucial one, the one he didn’t ask.”

The penny dropped. It was as if Larsson started breathing again.

“Who murdered Molin?”

“Exactly. Shall I go on?”

Larsson nodded.

“You could draw various conclusions. The most likely is that he didn’t ask the question about Molin because he already knew the answer. It means that, in all probability, he was the one who killed Molin.”

Larsson raised both arms. “Hang on, you’re going much too fast. We need some time to figure things out up here in Jämtland. So we’re looking for two murderers. We’ve already reached that conclusion. The question is: are we looking for two different motives?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s just that I find it difficult to take all this in. We’re in a place where crime of this kind is rare. Now we have two cases, one on top of the other, but not committed by the same man. You have to accept that all my experience rebels against such a conclusion.”

“There always has to be a first time. I think it’s time you started thinking new thoughts.”

“Let’s hear them!”

“Somebody makes his way here to the forest and kills Molin. It’s carefully planned. A few days later Andersson dies as well. He’s killed by somebody else. For some reason we don’t know, the man who killed Molin wants to know what happened. He’d been camping beside the lake, but he left after dragging Molin’s dead body to the edge of the forest. He comes back, because he needs to know what happened to Andersson. Why was he murdered? He picks up a scrap of paper left on a restaurant table by a police officer. What does he find there? Not two names, but three.”

“Berggren?”

“It seems to him that she must know the answer, so he tries to put pressure on her. She attacks him when he gets threatening. He runs away, but I happen to be there. You know the rest.”

Larsson opened a window and left it ajar.

“Who is this man?”

“I don’t know. But we can make another assumption. And it could prove that I’m right.”

Larsson said nothing, but waited for what was coming next.

“We think we know the murderer camped by the lake. Once he’s killed Molin, he goes away. But then he comes back again. He’s not going to put up his tent in the same place. So the question is: where’s he living?”

Larsson looked doubtful.

“You mean he might have checked into a hotel?”

“That possibility could be worth following up.”

Larsson checked his watch. “When’s breakfast?”

“They start serving at 6:30.”

“That means we might be in luck. Let’s go.”

A few minutes later they were in the hotel lobby. The girl at the desk looked at them in surprise.

“Two early birds looking for breakfast?”

“Breakfast can wait,” Larsson said. “Do you have a guest list for last week? Do you have your customer records in a ledger, or on loose sheets of paper?”

The girl looked worried. “Has something happened?”

“This is a routine inquiry,” Lindman said. “Nothing to worry about. Have you had any foreigners staying here in the last week or so?”

She thought for a moment. “There were four Finns here for two nights last week, Wednesday and Thursday.”

“Nobody else?”

“No.”

“He might have checked in somewhere else, of course,” Larsson said. “This isn’t the only place to stay in Sveg.”

He turned to the girl. “When we had dinner here, quite late, you may remember another customer in the dining room. What language did he speak?”

“English. But he came from Argentina.”

“How do you know?”

“He paid by credit card. He showed me his passport.”

She went into a back room and eventually came back with a Visa receipt. They read the name. Fernando Hereira. Legible even in the signature.

Larsson grunted with pleasure. “We’ve got him,” he said. “Always assuming it is him.”

“Has he been here before?” Lindman said.

“No.”

“Did you see what kind of car he had?”

“No.”

“Did he say where he’d come from? Or where he was going to?”

“No. He didn’t say much at all. He was friendly, though.”

“Could you describe him?”

The girl thought for a moment. Lindman could see she was trying hard.

“I have such an awful memory for faces.”

“But you must have seen something. Did he look like one of us?”

“Not at all.”

“How old was he?”

“Sixty, perhaps.”

“Hair?”

“Gray hair.”

“Eyes?”

“I wouldn’t remember that.”

“Was he fat or thin?”

“I don’t think he was fat.”

“What was he wearing?”

“A blue shirt, I think. And a blazer — I’m not sure.”

“Can you remember anything else?”

“No.”

Larsson shook his head and sat down on one of the brown sofas in the lobby with the Visa slip in his hand. Lindman joined him. By now it was 6:25 A.M. on November 11. Eight days to go before Lindman was due to report to the hospital in Borås. Larsson yawned and rubbed his eyes. Neither of them spoke.

A door leading to the bedrooms opened. Lindman looked up and saw Veronica Molin.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Silberstein watched the dawn approaching. For a while it was like being at home. The light was the same as what he had often seen while the sun rose over the horizon and spread its rays over the plains to the west of Buenos Aires, but after a few minutes, the feeling had gone. He was in the Swedish mountains, not far from the Norwegian border. He had gone straight back to Frostengren’s chalet after the botched visit to the Berggren woman. The man he’d seen behind the house and had no choice but to knock down and frighten with a pretended attempt to strangle him was one of the police officers he’d seen at the hotel when he was having dinner. He couldn’t understand what the man was doing there at night. Was the woman’s house being guarded after all? He had kept a careful watch on it before knocking on the door and pushing his way in.

He forced himself to consider the possibility that he had squeezed too hard and that the policeman was dead.

He had driven fast through the night, not because he was afraid somebody might be chasing him, but because he could no longer control his craving for alcohol. He had bought both wine and hard liquor in Sveg, as if anticipating a disaster. Now he accepted that he could no longer survive without alcohol. The only restriction he would apply was that he would not open any of the bottles until he got back to the chalet.

It was 3 A.M. by the time he drove the last difficult stretch up to Frostengren’s chalet. It was pitch-black on all sides as he made his way to the door. The moment he was inside, he opened a bottle of wine and downed half of it. Calm gradually settled in him. He sat at the table next to the window, without moving a muscle, without a thought in his head, and steadily drank. Then he drew the telephone towards him and dialed Maria’s number. There was a buzzing and scraping on the line, but her voice sounded very close even so. He could almost smell her breath through the receiver.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I’m still here.”

“What can you see through your window?”

“Darkness.”

“Is what I’m afraid of true?”

“What are you afraid of?”

“That you’ll never come back?”

The question worried him. He took another drink of wine before answering.

“Why shouldn’t I come back?”

“I don’t know. You are the only one who knows what you’re doing and why you aren’t here. You’re lying to me, Aron. You’re not telling me the truth.”

“Why should I lie to you?”

“You haven’t made this journey to look at furniture. There’s some other reason. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps you’ve met another woman. I don’t know. The only one who knows is you. And God.”

He realized that what he’d told her before hadn’t sunk in — that he had killed a man.

“I’ll be home soon.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“I still don’t know where you are.”

“I’m high up in the mountains. It’s cold.”

“Have you started drinking again?”

“Not very much. Just so that I can sleep.”

The connection was cut off. When Silberstein dialed the number again, he couldn’t get through. He tried several times without success. Then he prepared to wait for the dawn. Things had now entered the crucial stage, that was clear. The Berggren woman had seen his face when she pulled the hood off. He hadn’t expected that, and he had panicked. He should have stayed there, put the hood on again, and forced her to tell him what he was certain she knew. Instead he had fled and run into the policeman.

Although he was filling his body with alcohol, he was still able to think during the long wait for the dawn. He always experienced a moment of great insight before he became intoxicated. He had learned how much he could drink, and how quickly, while still being in control of his thoughts, and he needed to think clearly now. The endgame was starting. Nothing had turned out as he had thought it would. Despite all his planning, all his meticulous preparations. It was all Andersson’s fault. Or rather, it was because somebody had killed him. It had to be the woman. The question was: why? What forces had he set in motion when he killed Molin?

He continued drinking, but held his intoxication in check. He found it hard to accept that a woman in her seventies could have murdered Andersson. She must have had an accomplice. In which case, who? And if the police thought she was the murderer, why hadn’t they arrested her? He couldn’t find any answers, and started all over again. The woman had said that she didn’t know who killed Andersson. He was sure from the start that she wasn’t telling the truth. When she heard that Molin was dead, she drove through the night to Andersson’s house and killed him. Was it revenge? Did she think Andersson had killed Molin? What was between these people that he couldn’t work out? The police must have seen that there was a link. He still had the crumpled restaurant bill with the three names on the back of it.

He was beginning to think that revenge was a sort of boomerang that was now on its way back and would soon hit his own head. It was a matter of guilt. He was indifferent with regard to Molin. Killing him had been necessary, something he owed to his father. But Andersson wouldn’t have died if he hadn’t whipped Molin to death. The question now was: did he have an obligation to avenge the death of Abraham Andersson? Thoughts buzzed around in his head all night. Occasionally he went outside and gazed at the starry sky. He wrapped himself in a blanket while he waited. Waited for what? He didn’t know. For something to go away. His face was known now. The woman had seen it. The police would start putting two and two together and work out where he was. Sooner or later they would find his name on the credit card receipt at the hotel. That had been the one thing that had ruined his careful planning: running out of ready cash. The police would come looking for him, and they would assume he’d killed Andersson. And now that he might have killed a police officer — even by accident — they would commit all their resources to hunting him down.

He kept coming back to that chance encounter. Had he squeezed the policeman’s neck too hard? When he let go and walked away, he was convinced that he hadn’t overdone it. Now he wasn’t so sure. He should get away, as far away as possible, but he knew he wouldn’t do that, not until he found out what had happened to Andersson. He could not go back to Buenos Aires until he had the answers to his questions.

Dawn broke. He was tired. From time to time he nodded off as he sat looking at the mountains. He couldn’t stay here: he had to move on, or they’d find him soon enough. He stood up and started wandering round the house. Where should he go? He went outside to urinate. It was slowly getting light — the thin gray mist he was familiar with from Argentina. Only it wasn’t so cold there. He went back inside.

He’d made up his mind. He gathered together his belongings, the bottles of wine, the canned food, the crispbread. He didn’t bother about the car. That could stay where it was. Perhaps somebody would find it tomorrow, perhaps he would get a head start. He left the house at about 9 A.M. and headed straight up the mountain. He stopped after only a hundred meters and off-loaded some of his luggage. Then he set off again, uphill all the time. He was drunk, and kept stumbling, falling over, and scratching his face on the rough ground. Even so, he kept on until he could no longer see the chalet.

By noon he didn’t have the strength to go any further. He pitched his tent in the grass next to a large rock, took off his shoes, unrolled his sleeping bag, and lay down with a bottle of wine in his hand.

The light seeping through the canvas turned the interior of the tent into something resembling a sunset. He thought about Maria as he emptied the bottle, how much she meant to him. Then he snuggled down and fell asleep.

When he woke up, he knew he had one more decision to make.

At 10 A.M. there was to be a meeting in Johansson’s office. The forensic unit was already in Berggren’s house, and a dog team was trying to sniff out traces of the man who had attacked both Berggren and Lindman. Lindman had slept for a couple of hours at the hotel, but Larsson woke him soon after 9 A.M., telling him he must attend the meeting.

“You’re involved in these murder investigations whether you or I like it or not. I’ve spoken to Rundström. He thinks you should be there. Not formally, of course. But we can forget the rule book, given the circumstances.”

“Any new clues?”

“The dog headed straight for the bridge. That’s where he must have parked his car. The forensic boys think they got a pretty good print of his tires. We’ll see if it matches any of the casts we made at the Molin and Andersson sites.”

“Have you had any sleep?”

“Too much to take care of. I’ve brought in four men from Östersund, and we’ve called in a couple of Erik’s boys who were off-duty. There are a lot of doors we have to knock on. Let’s face it, somebody must have seen something. A swarthy man speaking broken English. It’s impossible to live without talking to other people. You fill your tank with gas, you eat, you shop. Someone must have seen him. He must have spoken to someone, somewhere.”

Lindman said he would be there. He got out of bed, and felt the back of his neck. It was tender. He had taken a shower before going to bed. As he was getting dressed, he thought about his meeting with Veronica Molin a few hours before. They had eaten breakfast together since he was on his way into the hotel. Lindman had told her what had happened during the night. She had paid close attention without asking any questions. Then he had begun to feel sick and excused himself. They had agreed to meet later in the day, when he felt better. He had fallen asleep the moment he had crawled into bed.

When he was woken by Larsson’s call, he felt fine. He examined his face in the bathroom mirror and was overcome by a feeling of unreality that he had no defense against. He burst into tears, threw a towel at the mirror, and staggered out of the bathroom. I’m dying, he thought. I have cancer. It’s incurable, and I’m going to die.

His cell phone was ringing in the jacket he’d dropped on the floor. Elena. He could hear the buzz of voices behind her.

“Where are you?” she said.

“In my room. And you?”

“At school. I had the feeling I should call you.”

“Everything’s okay here. I miss you.”

“You know where I am. When are you coming home?”

“I have to report to the hospital on the 19th. I’ll be back some time before then.”

“I dreamed last night that we went to England. Can’t we do that? I’ve always wanted to see London.”

“Do we have to schedule it now?”

“I’m just telling you about a dream I had. I thought it might be good to have something we could both look forward to.”

“Of course we’ll go to London. If I live that long.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired. I have to go to a meeting now.”

“I thought you were supposed to be on sick leave?”

“They asked me to stay.”

“There was something in the paper here yesterday about the murders. And a picture of Herbert Melin.”

“Molin. Herbert Molin.”

“I have to go now. Call me tonight.”

Lindman promised to call. He put the phone down. Where would I be without Elena? he thought. Nowhere.

When they met for the meeting Rundström surprised Lindman by giving him a friendly handshake. Johansson took off a pair of muddy rubber boots; a dog handler from Östersund asked angrily if somebody by the name of Anders had been in touch. Larsson tapped the table with his pen and started the meeting. He made a brisk and clear summary of what had happened the night before.

“Berggren has asked us to wait until this evening before questioning her in any more detail,” he said. “That seems reasonable. In any case, we have lots of other things that are just as pressing.”

“We have some footprints,” Johansson said. “From inside Elsa’s house, and from the garden. Whoever it was that broke in and then knocked Lindman on the head was rather careless. We have footprints from the Molin and Andersson murders. That will be a priority for the forensic boys now: establishing whether there’s a match. That and the tire tracks.”

Larsson agreed. “The dogs picked up a scent,” he said. “It went as far as the bridge. Then what happened?”

The dog handler answered. He was middle-aged, and had a scar across his left cheek. “It went cold.”

“No finds?”

“Nothing.”

“There’s a parking lot there,” Johansson said. “In fact, it’s just a grass shoulder that’s been concreted over. Anyway, the scent petered out. We can assume that his car was parked there. Especially if we bear in mind that it’s not easy to see anything there in the dark. The street lighting is pretty poor just there. It’s by no means unheard of, especially in summer, for people to park there and do some making out in the backseat.” Chuckles from all round the table. “Occasionally we find ourselves facing more intricate problems based on happenings there,” he said. “The kind of thing that used to take place off remote forest roads and kept the magistrates busy with paternity suits.”

“Somebody must have seen this man,” Larsson said. “The name on his credit card was Fernando Hereira.”

“I’ve just been talking to Östersund,” Rundström said, who’d been quiet until now and let Larsson chair the meeting. “They’ve triggered a computer search and come up with a Fernando Hereira in Västerås. He was arrested for VAT evasion some years ago — but he’s over seventy now, so we can probably take it that he’s not the man we’re after.”

“I don’t know any Spanish,” Larsson said, “but I have an idea that Fernando Hereira would be quite a common name.”

“Like mine,” Johansson said. “Every other bastard’s called Erik, up here in Norrland at least, and in my generation.”

“We don’t know if it’s his real name,” Larsson said.

“We can track him through Interpol,” Rundström said. “As soon as we have some fingerprints, that is.”

Several phones started ringing at once. Larsson proposed a ten-minute break and stood up. He also indicated to Lindman that they should go out into the corridor. They sat down in the reception area. Larsson eyed the stuffed bear up and down.

“I saw a bear once,” he said. “Not far from Krokom. I had been dealing with a few moonshiners and was driving back to Östersund. I remember I was thinking about my father. I had always thought it was that Italian crooner, but when I was twelve my mom told me it was some con man from Ange, who disappeared the moment he heard Mom was pregnant. All of a sudden, there was this bear by the side of the road. I slammed on the brakes, and thought, ‘For Christ’s sake! That can’t be a bear. It’s just a shadow. Or a big rock.’ But it was a bear all right. A female. Her fur was very shiny. I watched her for a minute or so, then she lumbered off. I remember thinking: ‘This simply doesn’t happen! And if it does, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event.’ Kind of like getting a royal flush in poker. They say Erik was dealt one twenty-five years ago. The rest of the deal was worthless, there were only five kronor in the pot and everybody else discarded.”

Larsson stretched and yawned. Then he was serious again.

“I’ve been thinking about our talk,” he said. “That stuff about having to think again. I have a problem with the fact that we might be looking for two different killers. It seems so unlikely. Such a metropolitan way of looking at things, if you get my meaning. Out here in the wild, things generally happen in accordance with a simpler pattern. Then again, I can see that a lot of the evidence suggests you might be right. I talked to Rundström about it before the meeting.”

“What did he say?”

“He’s a proper bastard with both feet on the ground, never believes anything, never guesses, always sticks to the facts. He shouldn’t be underestimated. He catches on fast, possibilities and pitfalls.”

Larsson watched a group of children.

“I’ve tried to map things out in my head,” he said when the last of the children had filed into the library. “A man speaking broken English shows up here and kills Molin. That nonsense his daughter goes on about — owing money to some woman in the UK — I don’t believe that for a moment. What you suggest could be right, especially if you read that awful diary — that the motive can have its source a long time ago, during the war. The brutality, the fury we’ve witnessed might suggest revenge. So far so good. That means we are after a killer who was very clear about what he was undertaking. But then he hangs around. That’s what I can’t work out. He should be running away as fast as he can.”

“Have you uncovered any links at all with Andersson?”

“Nothing. Our colleagues in Helsingborg have talked to his wife. She claims that Abraham told her everything. He had mentioned Molin now and then. They were worlds apart. One played classical music and wrote pop songs as a hobby. The other was a retired police officer. I don’t think we’re going to work out how all this fits together until we find the bastard who knocked you out. How’s your head, by the way?”

“It’s okay, thanks.”

Larsson stood up. “Andersson wrote a song called ‘Believe Me, I’m a Girl.’ Erik remembers it. That pseudonym, Siv Nilsson. He had a record by some dance band or other — Fabians, or something like that. All very odd. He played Mozart one day, made up pop music the next. Erik figures the pop songs were utter crap. I suppose that’s life. Mozart on Monday, drivel on Tuesday.”

They went back to the conference room where the rest of them were assembled, but the meeting never got going again. Rundström’s cell phone rang. He answered, then raised his hand.

“They’ve found a rental car in the Funäsdalen mountains,” he said.

They gathered around the wall map. Rundström pointed to the spot.

“There. The car was abandoned.”

“Who found it?” It was Larsson who asked.

“A man called Elmberg, he has a summer place there. He went to check that his cottage was okay. Somebody had been there, and he thought it was a bit strange at this time of year. Then he found the car. He suspects the chalet where the car’s parked has been broken into too.”

“Did he see anybody?”

“No. He didn’t hang around. I suppose he was thinking of Molin and Andersson. But he did notice a few other things. The car had an Östersund license plate. Plus he saw a foreign newspaper on the backseat.”

“Let’s go,” Larsson said, putting on his jacket.

Rundström turned to Lindman.

“You’d better come too. I mean, you more or less saw him. Assuming it was him.”

Larsson asked Lindman to drive because he had calls to make from his cell phone.

“Forget the speed limit,” Larsson said. “As long as you keep us on the road.”

Lindman listened to what Larsson was saying on the phone. A helicopter was on its way. And dogs. They were about to drive through Linsell when Rundström called: a salesperson in Sveg had told the police that she’d sold a knitted woolen hat the previous day.

“Unfortunately the girl can’t remember what he looked like, nor does she know if he said anything,” Larsson said, with a sigh. “She can’t even remember if it was a man or a woman. All she knows is that she sold a stupid woolen hat. Come on! Some people keep their eyes up their asses.”

There was a man waiting for them just north of Funäsdalen. Elmberg, he said he was. They hung around until Rundström and another car arrived. Then they continued a couple of kilometers along the main road before turning off.

It was a red Toyota. None of the police officers there could distinguish between Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian. Lindman thought the newspaper on the back seat, El País, was Italian. Then he looked at the price and realized that “ptas” meant “pesetas,” hence Spain. They continued on foot. The mountain towered above them. There was a chalet where the final steep ascent started. It looked like an old shepherd’s hut that had been modernized. Rundström and Larsson reconnoitered, and decided there was nobody there. Both were armed, however, and they approached the front door with care. Rundström shouted a warning. No reply. He shouted again. His words died away with a ghostly echo. Larsson flung the door open. They ran in. A minute later Larsson emerged to say that the chalet was empty, but that somebody had been there. They would now wait for the helicopter with the dog team. The forensic unit that had been sifting through the evidence at Berggren’s house had broken off and were on their way.

The helicopter came in from the northeast and landed on a field above the chalet. The dogs and dog handlers disembarked. The handlers let the dogs sniff at an unwashed glass Larsson had found. Then they set off into the mountains.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Larsson called off the search at around 5 P.M. Mist had come rolling in from the west, and that together with the gathering darkness made it pointless to go on.

They had started walking toward the mountain at 1 P.M. All approaching roads were being watched. The dogs kept losing the scent, then finding it again. They started out heading due north, then branched off along a ridge heading west before turning north again. They were on a sort of plateau when Larsson called off the operation, after consulting Rundström. They had set off in a line, then spread out as they walked along the ridge. It had been easy going to start with, not too steep. Even so, Lindman soon noticed that he was out of shape, but he didn’t want to give up, certainly not be the first to do so.

But there was something else about this walk up the mountain. At first it was just a vague, imprecise feeling, but eventually it turned into a memory and became steadily clearer. He had been up this mountain before. It happened when he was seven or eight, but he had repressed it.

It was late summer, a couple of weeks before school started again. His mother was away — her sister, who lived in Kristianstad, had been unexpectedly widowed and his mother had gone there to help her. One day his father announced that they were going to pack the car and go on vacation. They would head north, live in a tent, and do it cheaply. Lindman only had a vague recollection of the car journey. He had been squashed in the backseat with one of his sisters and all the luggage that for some reason his father had not secured on the roof. He was also fighting against car sickness. His father didn’t deem it necessary to stop just because one of the children was going to be sick. He couldn’t remember if he and his sisters survived without vomiting: that part of his recollection had gone forever.

Lindman was the last in line. Thirty meters in front of him was Johansson, who occasionally answered calls on his walkie-talkie. The memory unfolded with every step he took.

If he were eight then, it was twenty-nine years ago. 1970, August 1970. On their way up to the mountains they had spent a cramped night in the tent, and Stefan had to clamber over the rest of the family to go outside and pee. The next day they had come to a place that Lindman seemed to remember was Vemdalsskalet. They had pitched their tent behind an old wooden cabin not far away from the mountain hotel.

He was surprised that he’d been able to lose the memory of that holiday. So he had been here before, in these very parts. Why had he chosen not to remember? What had happened?

There was a woman somewhere in that memory. She had appeared just after they had pitched the tent. His father had seen her on the other side of the road, and had gone to greet her. Stefan and his sisters watched as their father shook hands with the woman and started talking, out of earshot. Stefan remembered asking his sisters if they knew who she was, but they had hissed at him to be quiet. That was a part of his recollection that raised a smile. His youth was marked by his sisters always telling him to be quiet, never listening to what he said, looking at him with a degree of contempt that indicated he would never be included in their games or their circle of friends, that he was too small, too stupid.

His father came back to join them; so did the woman. She was older than he was, with stripes of gray in her hair, and she was wearing the black-and-white uniform of a waitress. She reminded him of somebody, he now thought. And then the penny dropped: Elsa Berggren. Even if it wasn’t her. He could remember a smile, but also something off-putting, a ruthless streak. They had stood next to the tent, and she hadn’t been surprised by their arrival. Stefan remembered being rather worried — worried that his father would never go back to Kinna, and that his mother would stay in Kristianstad. The rest of the meeting with the unknown woman now fell into place. His father told them that her name was Vera, that she was from Germany, and then she’d shaken hands with them all in turn, first his sisters and then him.

Lindman stopped. Johansson was over to his left, and cursed as he tripped. The helicopter came rattling in at a low altitude and started circling over the valley below. He started walking again. There’s still another door to open, he thought. They had walked on the mountain all those years ago as well. No really long treks, always within easy distance from the hotel.

An unusually hot August evening in the mountains. He couldn’t see where his sisters were, but Vera and his father were in deck chairs next to the wooden cabin. They were laughing. Stefan didn’t like what he saw and went away to the back of the cabin. There was a door there, and he opened it. He had no idea if it was allowed, but now he was inside Vera’s house. Two cramped rooms and a low ceiling. Some photographs standing on a bureau. He strained his eyes to conjure up those pictures. A wedding photo. Vera and her husband wearing a uniform.

He recalled it now, as clear as day. The man in an army uniform, Vera dressed in white, smiling, a garland of flowers in her hair, or maybe it was a bridal headpiece. Next to the wedding photograph was another picture in a frame. A picture of Hitler. At that moment the door opened. Vera was there, with his father. She said something in German, or possibly Swedish with a German accent, he couldn’t remember. But she had been angry, he remembered that all right. His father had led him away and boxed his ears.

That was it. The memory ended as the blow landed. He had no recollection of the drive back to Kinna. Nothing about being squashed in the backseat, or feeling car sick. Nothing at all. A picture of Hitler, a box on the ears, nothing else.

Lindman shook his head. Thirty years ago his father had taken the children and visited a German woman who worked at a hotel in the mountains. Just under the surface, as on a photograph behind another photograph, was the whole of the Hitler era. It was just as Wetterstedt had said: nothing had completely gone away, it had simply taken on new forms, new means of expression, but the dream of white supremacy was still alive. His father went to see a woman called Vera, and punished his son when he saw something he shouldn’t have seen. Was there anything else? He searched his memory, but his father had never made any reference to it. After the beating there was nothing more.

The helicopter circled around once more, then flew off. Lindman let his gaze wander over the mountain, but all he actually saw were two photographs standing in a room with a low ceiling.

Soon after that the mist came down and they turned back. They came to the chalet at about 6 P.M. The helicopter dropped off two of the dog handlers, then disappeared in the direction of Östersund. The pilot had brought with him baskets containing sandwiches and coffee. Rundström always seemed to be talking into his walkie-talkie when he wasn’t on the phone. Lindman kept to the periphery. Larsson listened to a report from one of the forensic officers who had searched the chalet, and made notes. Then he poured himself a cup of coffee and came over to Lindman.

“Well, we’ve found out a few things at least,” he said.

He balanced his cup on a stone and thumbed through his notebook.

“The owner is a Kurt Frostengren and lives in Stockholm. He usually comes here in the summer, over Christmas and New Year, and a week in March for some skiing. The house is empty for the rest of the year. Apparently he inherited it from a relative. Someone has broken in and set up his headquarters here, then gone away. He knows Berggren has seen his face. He must be aware of the possibility that we might have put two and two together and realized that he read the back of my bill in the restaurant. There is a cold-blooded side to the man that we mustn’t underestimate. He knows we’ll go looking for him. Especially after he attacked you and Berggren.”

“Where’s he headed?”

Larsson thought before replying. “I’d formulate the question differently. Why is he still here?”

“There’s something he still has to do.”

“The question is: what?”

“He wants to know who murdered Andersson. We’ve already talked about that.”

Larsson shook his head. “Not only that. He wants more than that. He intends to kill whoever murdered Andersson.” There was no other explanation. But he had one more question for Lindman.

“Why is it so important for him?”

“If we knew that, we’d know what this whole business is about.”

They stood gazing into the mist.

“He’s hiding,” Larsson said. “He’s clever, our man from Buenos Aires.”

Lindman looked at him in surprise. “How do you know he’s from Buenos Aires?”

Larsson took a piece of paper out of his pocket. A torn piece of newspaper, the crossword from Aftonbladet. Something like a doodle was in the margin, crossed out but originally written quite firmly.

“541,” Larsson said. “54 is Argentina. And 1 is Buenos Aires. The paper is dated June 12, when Frostengren was here. He saved newspapers for starting fires. The numbers have been written by somebody else. It must be Fernando Hereira. The newspaper in the car is Spanish, not from Argentina, but the language is the same. It can’t be easy to find newspapers from Argentina in Sweden, but it’s comparatively easy to find Spanish ones.”

“Is there a full telephone number for the number in Argentina?”

“No.”

Lindman thought for a moment.

“So he’s been sitting up here in the mountains, and made a phone call to Argentina. Can’t the call be traced?”

“We’re doing that now. Frostengren’s phone has its own line and you can dial direct. If Hereira had used a cell phone, we could have traced that without difficulty.”

Larsson bent down to pick up his coffee.

“I keep forgetting that we’re looking for not one but perhaps two cold-blooded murderers,” he said. “We’re beginning to get an idea of who Hereira might be and how he goes about things, but what about the other one? The one who killed Andersson, who’s he?”

The question remained unanswered in the mist. Larsson left Lindman and went to talk to Rundström and the remaining dog handler. Lindman looked at the Alsatian. It was exhausted. It lay with its neck pressed against the damp earth. Lindman wondered if a police dog could feel disappointment.

Half an hour later Larsson and Lindman returned to Sveg. Rundström would stay in Funäsdalen with the dog handler and three other officers. They drove in silence through the forest. This time Larsson did the driving. Lindman could see that he was very tired. A few kilometers short of Sveg he pulled onto the shoulder and stopped.

“I can’t work it out,” Larsson said “Who killed Andersson? It’s like we’re only scratching the surface. We have no idea what this is about. A man from Argentina disappears up a mountain when he should be getting away from here as fast as possible. He doesn’t flee up the mountain, he withdraws there, and then comes back again.”

“There’s another possibility that we haven’t considered,” Lindman said. “The man we are calling Fernando Hereira might know something we don’t.”

Larsson shook his head. “In that case he wouldn’t have put on a hood and asked Berggren those questions.”

Then they looked at each other.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Larsson said.

“Possibly,” Lindman said. “That Hereira knows, or thinks he knows, that it was Berggren who killed Andersson. And he wants to make her confess.”

Larsson drummed his fingers on the wheel.

“Perhaps Berggren isn’t telling the truth. She says the man who forced his way into her house asked her who had killed Andersson. He might well have said, ‘I know it was you who killed Andersson.’ ” Larsson restarted the engine. “We’ll continue keeping watch on the mountain,” he said. “And we’ll get tough with Berggren.”

They continued to Sveg. The countryside vanished beyond the beams of the headlights. As they were driving into the hotel courtyard, Larsson’s cell phone rang.

“It was Rundström,” he said when the call was over. “The car was rented in Östersund on November 5. By Fernando Hereira, an Argentinean citizen.”

They got out of the car.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Larsson said. “Hereira used his driver’s license for an ID. It could be a forgery, of course, but, for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume it’s genuine. We could be closer to him now than we ever were on the mountain.” Lindman was exhausted. Larsson left his suitcase with the reception desk.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said. “Are you staying?”

“I’ll stay one more day.”

Larsson put his hand on Lindman’s shoulder. “I must admit it’s been a long time since I’ve had somebody to talk to like you. But tell me, honestly: if you had been in my shoes, what would you have done differently?”

“Not a thing.”

Larsson burst out laughing. “You’re too kind,” he said. “I can handle the occasional hit. Can you?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but rushed out to his car. Lindman wondered about the question as he got his key. It was a new girl at the reception desk. He went up to his room and lay down on the bed. He thought he should call Elena, but first he needed to get some rest.

When he woke he knew he’d been dreaming. A chaotic dream, but all he could remember was the fear. He looked at his watch: 9:15. He’d better hurry if he were going to get some dinner. Besides, he had an appointment with Veronica Molin.

She was waiting for him in the dining room.

“I knocked on your door,” she said. “When you didn’t answer, I assumed you were asleep.”

“It was a strenuous night and a long day. Have you eaten?”

“I have to eat at regular times. Especially when the food is like it is here.”

The waitress was also new. She seemed hesitant. Lindman had the impression that Veronica Molin must have complained about something. He ordered a steak. Veronica Molin was drinking water. He wanted wine. She watched him with a smile.

“I’ve never met a policeman before. Not as close up as this, at least.”

“What’s it like?”

“I think everybody’s a little frightened of policemen, deep down.” She paused and lit a cigarette.

“My brother’s on his way here from the Caribbean,” she said. “He works on a cruise ship. Maybe I said that already? He’s a steward. When he’s not at sea he lives in Florida. I’ve only visited him once, when I was in Miami to close a business deal. It took us less than an hour to start arguing. I can’t remember what about.”

“When’s the funeral?”

“On Tuesday, eleven o’clock. Are you thinking of coming?”

“I don’t know.”

Lindman’s meal arrived.

“How can you stay as long as this?” he said. “I had the impression that it was difficult for you to get here at all. Now you’re staying forever.”

“Until Wednesday. No longer. Then I’m leaving.”

“Where to?”

“First London, then Madrid.”

“I’m only a simple policeman, but I’m curious about what you do.”

“I’m what the English call a dealmaker. Or ‘broker.’ I bring interested parties together and help them produce a contract. So that a business deal can take place.”

“Do I even dare ask how much you earn from that kind of work?”

“Presumably a lot more than you.”

“Everybody does.”

She turned up a wineglass and slid it towards him.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Lindman filled her glass. He drank to her health. She seemed to be looking at him in a different way now, not as warily as before.

“I went to see Elsa Berggren today,” she said. “I realized too late that it was not a good time. She told me what happened last night. And about you. Have you caught him?”

“Not yet, no. Besides, it’s not me who’s hunting him. I’m not part of the investigation team.”

“But the police think that the man who attacked you is the person who murdered my father.”

“Yes.”

“I tried to get Giuseppe Larsson on the telephone. I do have a right to know what’s happening, after all. Who is this man?”

“We think he’s called Fernando Hereira. And that he’s from Argentina.”

“I hardly think my father knew anybody from Argentina. What is the motive supposed to be?”

“Something that happened during the war.”

She lit another cigarette. Lindman looked at her hands and wished he could hold them.

“So the police don’t believe my theory? About the woman from Scotland?”

“Nothing is excluded. We follow up every lead. That’s one of the basic rules.”

“I shouldn’t smoke while you’re eating.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve already got cancer.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Did I hear you correctly?”

“It was a joke. I’m totally fine.”

What he really wanted to do was leave the table. Go up to his room and call Elena. But there was something else driving him now.

“A strange sort of joke.”

“I suppose I wanted to see how you reacted.”

She put her head to one side and looked hard at him.

“Are you making a pass at me?”

He emptied his glass.

“Don’t all men do that? You must be aware that you are very attractive.”

She shook her head but didn’t say anything, and moved her glass away when Lindman tried to give her more. He filled his own glass.

“What did you and Elsa Berggren talk about?”

“She was tired. What I was most interested in was meeting the woman who knew my father and had helped him to buy the house where he died. She had known my mother, but we didn’t have much to say to each other.”

“I’ve wondered about their relationship. Apart from the Nazi link.”

“She said she was sorry my father was dead. I didn’t stay long. I didn’t like her.”

Lindman ordered coffee and a brandy, and asked for the bill.

“Where do you think this Hereira is now?”

“Perhaps he’s up in the mountains. He’s still in the area, I am sure of it.”

“Why?”

“I think he wants to know who killed Andersson.”

“I can’t work out what connection that man had with my father.”

“Nor can we. It will become clear sooner or later, though. We’ll catch up with both the murderers, and we’ll find out what their motives were.”

“I hope so.”

Lindman swallowed the brandy in one gulp, and sipped at his coffee. After he signed his bill, they went out to the lobby.

“Will you let me offer you another brandy?” she said. “In my room. But don’t expect anything else.”

“I stopped expecting anything long ago.”

“That doesn’t sound quite true.”

They walked down the corridor. She unlocked her door. Lindman was standing as close to her as possible without actually touching her. On her desk was a laptop computer with a glittering screen.

“I have my entire life on this,” she said. “I can still keep working while I’m waiting for the funeral.”

She poured some brandy for him from a bottle on the table. She didn’t take any herself, but kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed. Lindman could feel that he was getting drunk. He wanted to touch her now, undress her. His train of thought was interrupted when his cell phone rang in his jacket pocket. It was bound to be Elena. He didn’t answer.

“Nothing that can’t wait,” he said.

“Don’t you have a family?”

He shook his head.

“Not even a girlfriend?”

“It didn’t work.”

He put his glass down and put out his hand. She stared at it for a long time before taking it.

“You can sleep here,” she said. “But please expect no more than me lying beside you.”

“I’ve already said I don’t expect anything.”

She shuffled along the edge of the bed until she was sitting close to him.

“It’s been a long time since I met anybody who expects as much as you do.”

She stood up. “Don’t underestimate my ability to see through people. Do whatever you like,” she said. “Go back to your room and come back later. To sleep, nothing more.”

When Lindman had finished showering and wrapped himself in the biggest towel he could find, his phone rang again. It was Elena.

“Why haven’t you called?”

“I have been asleep. I don’t feel well.”

“Come back home. I’m waiting for you.”

“Just a few more days. I really must sleep now. If we go on talking I’ll be awake all night.”

“I miss you.”

“And I miss you.”

I lied, he thought. And a little while ago I denied Elena’s existence. The worst of it is that just at this moment, I couldn’t care less.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

When Lindman woke up the next morning Veronica Molin had already left. There was a message on the computer screen: “I’ve gone out. Make sure you’ve left by the time I get back. I like men who don’t snore. You are one.”

Lindman left the room wrapped in a bath towel. On the stairs to the upper floor he passed a chambermaid. She smiled and bade him good morning. When he came to his room he crept into bed. I was drunk, he thought. I spoke to Elena, but I can’t remember what I said, only that it wasn’t true. He sat up and reached for his cell phone. There was a message. Elena had called. He felt a shooting pain in his stomach. He lay down again and pulled the sheets over his head. Just as he used to do as a child, to make himself invisible. He wondered if Larsson did the same? And Veronica Molin? She’d been in bed when he returned to her room last night, but firmly rejected all advances — she just tapped him on the arm and told him it was time to go to sleep. He was feeling extremely passionate, but had enough sense to leave her in peace.

He had never lied to Elena before. Now he had, and he still wasn’t sure how much he cared. He decided to stay in bed until 9 A.M. Then he would call her. Meanwhile, he would lie with the bedclothes over his head and pretend he didn’t exist.

Nine o’clock arrived. She answered at once.

“I was asleep,” he said. “I can’t have heard the phone. I slept really soundly last night. For the first time in ages.”

“Something scared me. It was something I dreamed. I don’t know what.”

“Everything’s okay here, but I’m worried. The days are racing past. It’ll soon be the 19th.”

“It’ll all be fine.”

“I’ve got cancer, Elena. If you’ve got cancer, there’s always a chance that you might die.”

“That’s not what the doctor said.”

“She can’t know for sure. Nobody can.”

“When are you coming home?”

“Very soon. I’m going to Molin’s funeral on Tuesday. I expect to be leaving for home on Wednesday. I’ll let you know when I’ll arrive.”

“Are you going to call me tonight?”

“You’ll hear from me.”

The conversation had made him sweaty. He didn’t like discovering how easy it was to tell lies. He got out of bed. Staying between the sheets would do nothing to dispel his remorse. He dressed and went downstairs to the dining room. The usual girl was back at the reception desk. He felt calmer.

“We’re going to change the television set in your room today,” she said. “When would be a suitable time?”

“Any time, no problem. Is Inspector Larsson around?”

“I don’t think he was in his room at all last night. His key’s still here. Have you arrested anybody yet?”

“No.”

He set off for the dining room, but turned back.

“Ms. Molin? Is she in?”

“I arrived at 6 A.M. and passed her on her way out.”

There was something else he should ask her, but Lindman couldn’t remember what it was. His hangover was making him feel sick. He drank a glass of milk then sat down with a cup of coffee. His cell phone rang. It was Larsson.

“Awake?”

“Just about. I’m having coffee. What about you?”

“I slept for a couple of hours in Erik’s office.”

“Did something happen?”

“There’s always something happening. But it’s still misty in Funäsdalen. Everything’s at a standstill, according to Rundström. As soon as the mist lifts today they’ll go out with the dog again. What are you doing at the moment? Apart from drinking coffee?”

“Nothing.”

“Then I’ll come see you. I think you should come with me on a house visit.”

Ten minutes later Larsson came bounding into the dining room, unshaven, hollow-eyed, but full of energy. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. He had a plastic bag in his hand, and put it on the table.

“Do you remember the name Hanna Tunberg?” he said.

Lindman thought, then shook his head.

“She was the one who found Molin. His cleaning lady who came every two weeks.”

“I remember now. From the file I read in your office.”

Larsson frowned. “It seems like a long time since it was my office,” he said. “It’s only been two weeks, though.”

He shook his head as if he’d just made a great discovery about life and the passage of time.

“I remember there was something about her husband,” Lindman said.

“He had a nasty shock when he found Molin’s body at the edge of the trees. We had several detailed talks with her, though. It turned out that she hardly knew Molin at all, even though she was his cleaner. He never left her on her own, she claimed. He kept constant watch over her. And he would never allow her to clean the guest room. Where the doll was. She thought he was unpleasant, arrogant. But he paid well.”

Larsson put his cup down.

“She called this morning and said that she had calmed down now and been thinking. She thought she had something else she could tell us. I’m on my way there now. I thought you might like to come with me.”

“By all means.”

Larsson opened the plastic bag and produced a photograph behind glass in a frame. It was of a woman in her sixties.

“Do you know who this is?”

“No.”

“Katrin Andersson. Andersson’s wife.”

“Why did you bring that with you?”

“Because Hanna Tunberg asked me to. She wanted to see what Abraham’s wife looked like. I don’t know why. But I sent one of the boys out to Dunkärret this morning to get the photograph.”

Larsson finished his coffee and stood up.

“Hanna lives in Ytterberg,” he said. “It’s not far.”

The house was old and well cared-for. It was beautifully situated with views of the wooded hills. A dog started barking when they parked. A woman was standing next to a rusty old tractor, waiting for them.

“Hanna Tunberg,” Larsson said. “She was wearing the same clothes the last time I saw her. She’s one of the old school.”

“Who are they?”

“People who put on their best clothes when they have an appointment with the police. Want to bet she’s been doing some baking?”

He smiled and got out of the car.

Larsson introduced Hanna Tunberg to Lindman. He found it hard to say how old she was. Sixty, perhaps, or maybe only just over fifty.

“I’ve made some coffee. My husband’s gone out.”

“Not because we were coming, I hope,” Larsson said.

“He’s a bit strange. He’s not overfond of the police. Even though he’s an honest man.”

“I’m sure he is,” Larsson said. “Shall we go in?”

The house smelled of tobacco, dog, and lingonberries. The living room walls were decorated with elk antlers, tapestries, and some paintings with woodland motifs. Hanna Tunberg moved some knitting out of the way, lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and started coughing. There was a rattling noise in her lungs. Lindman noticed that the tips of her fingers were yellow. She had brought the coffee and filled the cups. There was a plate of buns on the table.

“Now we can talk at our leisure,” Larsson said. “You said you’d been thinking. And that there was something you wanted to tell me.”

“I don’t know if it’s important or not, of course.”

“Nobody ever knows that beforehand. But we’re all ears.”

“It’s about that woman who used to visit Mr. Molin.”

“You mean Mrs. Berggren?”

“She was sometimes there when I went to clean. She always left as soon as she saw me. I thought she was strange.”

“How exactly?”

“Impolite. I have no time for people who give themselves airs. Mr. Molin was the same.”

“Was there something particular she did to make you think she was impolite?”

“It was just a feeling I had. That she was looking down on me.”

“Because you were a cleaning woman?”

“Yes.”

Larsson smiled. “Very nice buns,” he said. “We’re listening.”

Hanna Tunberg was still smoking and didn’t seem to notice that she was spilling ash on her skirt.

“It was last spring,” she said. “Towards the end of April. I went to the house to do the cleaning, but he wasn’t there. I thought it was strange, because we’d agreed on the time.”

Larsson raised his hand to interrupt her.

“Did you always do that? Did you always schedule a time in advance when you were going to arrive?”

“Always. He wanted to know. Anyway, he wasn’t there. I didn’t know what to do. I was quite certain that I hadn’t gotten the wrong day or the wrong time, though. I always wrote it down.”

“What happened next, then?”

“I waited. But he didn’t come. I stood on a sled so that I could see in through the window. I thought he might be sick, you see. The house was empty. Then I thought about Abraham Andersson. I knew they were in touch with each other.”

Larsson raised his hand again.

“How did you know that?”

“Mr. Molin told me once. ‘I don’t know anybody around here apart from Elsa,’ he said. ‘And Abraham.’ ”

“What happened?”

“I thought maybe I’d drive to Abraham’s place. I knew where he lived. My husband fixed a bow for him once. He’s a jack-of-all-trades, my husband. Anyway, I went there and knocked on the door. There was a long pause before Abraham answered.”

She stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another. All the smoke was making Lindman feel sick.

“It was in the afternoon,” she said. “It must have been about three. And he wasn’t dressed yet.”

“Was he naked?” Larsson asked.

“I said he wasn’t dressed. Not that he was naked. I’d have said if he had been. Do you want me to tell you what happened, or are you going to interrupt all the time?”

“I’ll take another bun and keep quiet,” Larsson said. “Continue.”

“He was wearing pants, but no shirt. And barefoot. I asked him if he knew where Mr. Molin was. He said he didn’t. Then he shut the door. He didn’t want to let me in. And I knew why, of course.”

“He wasn’t alone?”

“Exactly.”

“How did you know? Did you see anybody?”

“Not then. But I realized even so. I went back to the car. I had parked some way before the driveway. I was just about to leave when I noticed a car parked behind the garage. It wasn’t Abraham’s.”

“How did you know that?”

“I don’t know. I just get the feeling sometimes. Doesn’t it happen to you too?”

“What did you do next?”

“I was going to start the engine and drive away when I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw somebody coming out of the house. It was a woman. When she realized that I was still there she went back inside.”

Larsson picked up the plastic bag with the photograph of Katrin Andersson. He handed it over. She spilled ash on it.

“No,” she said. “That wasn’t her. I was quite a long way away, and it’s not easy to remember somebody you’ve only seen in the rearview mirror. But I’m sure it wasn’t her.”

“Who do you think it was, then?”

She hesitated. Larsson repeated his question.

“Who do you think it was?”

“Mrs. Berggren. But I can’t be sure.”

“Why not?”

“It all happened so quickly.”

“But you had seen her before, hadn’t you? And yet you couldn’t identify her for sure?”

“I’m telling you the truth. It happened so quickly. I only saw her for a few seconds. She came out, saw the car, and went back inside.”

“So she didn’t want anybody to see her?”

Hanna Tunberg looked at him in surprise.

“Is that so strange? If she’d come out of a house where there was a half-naked man who wasn’t her husband?”

“The memory works like a camera.” Larsson said. “You see something and the image is stored inside your head. You don’t need to see a thing for long in order to remember it clearly.”

“Some photographs are blurred, though, aren’t they?”

“Why are you only telling us this now?”

“I didn’t remember until today. My memory’s not very good. I thought it might be important. If it was Elsa Berggren. I mean, she had contact with both Herbert and Abraham. Anyway, if it wasn’t her, it was certainly not his wife.”

“You’re not sure that it was Elsa Berggren, but you are sure that it wasn’t Katrin Andersson?”

“Yes.”

Hanna Tunberg started coughing again, that rattling, scraping cough. She stubbed out her cigarette in irritation. Then she gasped for breath, stood halfway up, and slumped forward over the table. The coffeepot fell over. Larsson stood up as she fell. He turned her over onto her back.

“She’s not breathing,” he said. “Call for an ambulance.”

Larsson started giving her CPR as Lindman took out his cell phone.

Looking back, he would remember the events as if in slow motion. Larsson trying to breathe some life back into the woman lying on the floor, and the thin wisp of smoke rising up to the ceiling from the ashtray.

It took the ambulance half an hour to get there. Larsson had given up by then. Hanna Tunberg was dead. He went to the kitchen and rinsed his mouth. Lindman had seen a lot of dead people — after road accidents, suicides, murders — but only now did he grasp how close death actually is. One moment she’d had a cigarette in her hand and answered “yes” to a question, the next she was dead.

Larsson went out to meet the ambulance.

“It was all over in a second,” he said to the man who examined Hanna Tunberg to make sure she was dead.

“We’re not really supposed to put dead bodies in an ambulance, but we can’t really leave her here.”

“Two police officers are witnesses to the fact that she died a natural death. I’ll make sure that goes into the report.”

The ambulance left. Larsson looked at Lindman and shook his head.

“It’s hard to believe that it can all be over so quickly. Still, it’s the best kind of death you can possibly wish for.”

“As long as it doesn’t come too soon.”

They went outside. The dog barked. It had started raining.

“What did she say? That her husband had gone out?”

Lindman looked around. There was no sign of a car. The garage doors were open. Nothing inside.

“He seems to have gone for a drive.”

“We’d better wait. Let’s go in.”

They sat without speaking. The dog barked again. Then it, too, fell silent.

“What do you do when you have to inform a relative that somebody’s died?” Larsson said.

“I’ve never had to do that. I’ve been present, but it was always somebody else who had to do the talking.”

“There was only one occasion when I thought seriously about resigning from the force,” Larsson said. “Two sisters, aged four and five, had been playing by a pond. Seven years ago. Their father had left them by themselves for a few minutes. We never managed to find out what actually happened, but they both drowned. I was the one who had to go and tell their mother about it, taking a priest with me. Their father had broken down. He’d gone out with the children so their mother could be left in peace to prepare for the five-year-old’s party. That drove me close to giving up. It hadn’t happened before, and it hasn’t happened since.”

The silence wafted to and fro between them. Lindman looked at the carpet where Hanna Tunberg had died. Her knitting was on a table next to the chair, the needles sticking out at an angle. Larsson’s cell phone rang. Both of them jumped. Larsson answered. The rain started pelting against the windowpanes. He finished the call without having said much.

“That was the ambulance. They met Hanna’s husband. He went with them in the ambulance. We don’t need to stay here any longer.”

Neither of them moved.

“We’ll never know,” Larsson said. “A witness steps forward, crossing the threshold that usually holds people back from saying anything. The question remaining is: was she telling the truth?”

“Why wouldn’t she have been?”

Larsson was by the window, looking out at the rain. “I know nothing about Borås,” he said, “other than that it’s a decent-sized town. Sveg is not much more than a village with only a few thousand inhabitants. Fewer people live in Härjedalen as a whole than in a Stockholm suburb. That means that it’s harder to keep secrets here.”

Larsson left the window and sat down in the chair where Hanna Tunberg had died. Then he sprang to his feet and remained standing.

“I ought to have mentioned this before we got here. I suppose I simply forgot that you are not from these parts. It’s sort of like the angels with their halos. Everybody up here is surrounded by little rings of rumor, and Hanna Tunberg was no exception.”

“I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

Larsson stared gloomily down at the carpet where Hanna had been lying.

“One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. What’s so wrong about being nosy? Most people are. Police work is based on facts and curiosity.”

“You mean she was a gossip?”

“Erik told me she was. And he always knows what he’s talking about. I had that in mind all the time she was speaking. If she’d lived for another five minutes I’d have been able to ask her. Now that’s not possible.” Larsson went back to the window. “We should be able to conduct an experiment,” he said. “We’ll put a car where she said she parked. Then we’ll ask somebody to look in the rearview mirror while somebody else comes out of Andersson’s front door, counts to three, and then goes in again. I can guarantee that either the person in the car will see whoever is at the door perfectly clearly, or not at all.”

“So she was lying?”

“Yes and no. She wasn’t actually telling a lie, but I suspect that she had either spotted something behind Andersson when he answered the door, or that she peeped in through a window. We’ll never know which.”

“But you think the gist of what she said was right?”

“That’s what I think. She wanted to tell us something that might be important, but she didn’t want to tell us how she’d found out about it.” Larsson sighed. “I can feel a cold coming on,” he said. “I’ve got a sore throat. No. Not yet. But it’s starting to get sore. I’ll have a headache a couple of hours from now. Shall we go?”

“Just one question,” Lindman said. “Or two, rather. What are the implications if it really was Berggren, as Hanna suggested? And if it wasn’t her, who was it? And what does it all mean?”

“I’d make that three questions,” Larsson said. “And they’re all important. We can’t answer any of them, though. Not yet, at least.”

They hurried through the rain to the car. The dog had retired to its kennel and watched their departure in silence. That was the second melancholy dog Lindman had come across in the space of a few days. He wondered how much of what had happened the dogs had understood.

They were on the point of joining the main road when Larsson pulled onto the side and stopped.

“I must call Rundström. I guess that the mist is as bad as ever. And to make things worse, I heard on the radio this morning that a storm’s brewing.”

He dialed the number. Lindman tried to think about Elena, but all he could picture was Hanna Tunberg. Gasping for breath, then dying with a rattling sound.

Larsson told Rundström about Hanna Tunberg’s death. Then he asked questions — about the mist, the dog, the man on the mountain. It was a short call. Larsson put the phone down and felt his throat.

“Every time I catch a cold I think I’m going to die. It hasn’t even been an hour since Hanna Tunberg died before our very eyes, and here I am complaining because I think I can feel a cold coming on.”

“Why worry about somebody who’s dead?”

Larsson looked at him. “I’m not thinking about her,” he said. “I’m thinking about my own death. That’s all I care about.”

Lindman punched the roof of the car. He couldn’t control his violent outburst. “You sit here complaining about the beginnings of a cold. At the same time, I could really be dying.”

He flung the car door open and stormed out into the rain.

Larsson opened his door. “That was thoughtless of me.”

Lindman made a face. “What difference does it make? Cancer or a sore throat.”

He got back into the car. Larsson stayed out in the rain.

Lindman stared through the windshield, past the raindrops. The trees were swaying gently. He had tears in his eyes. The mist was in his eyes, not on the windshield.

They drove back to Sveg. Lindman leaned his head against the window, thinking about where his life was going. He gave up and started again. Elena was there. And Veronica. He wasn’t sure where he fitted in.

It was 12:30 when they arrived at the hotel. Larsson said he was hungry. The rain was still pattering on the car roof. They hurried into the lobby with their jackets pulled up over their heads.

The receptionist stood up.

“Can you call Erik Johansson,” she said. “He’s been trying to get in touch with you. It’s urgent.”

Larsson took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and cursed. It was turned off. He turned it on and sat on the sofa. Lindman thumbed through a brochure lying on the reception desk. Old Mountain Pastures in Härjedalen. Hanna Tunberg was still dying before his eyes. The receptionist was searching through a file. Larsson was speaking to Johansson.

What Lindman would have liked to do most of all just now was to go to his room and masturbate. That would be the only way of fulfilling last night. And his betrayal of Elena.

Larsson stood up. Lindman could see that the phone call had worried him.

“Is something wrong?”

The receptionist eyed them inquisitively. Lindman noticed that she had been working at a computer identical to the one Veronica Molin had in her room. Larsson beckoned Lindman to follow him into the empty dining room.

“It looks as if the man on the mountain may have found a road through the fog that wasn’t being watched, and then stolen another car. Erik went home for a meal,” Larsson said, “and he saw that he’d been burgled. A pistol and a rifle had been taken. Plus some ammo and a detachable telescopic sight. It must have happened today, early in the morning.” He felt his throat again. “It could have been somebody else, of course. But our man is still in the area, he threatens Berggren, he wants something although we don’t know what. A man like that may have realized that he needed another gun — no doubt he got rid of the others, if he’s got any sense. And who would have a gun in his house? A policeman, of course.”

“He would have to have known Johansson’s name, and that he was a police officer. And where he lives. How could he have found that out? And when?”

“I don’t know. But I think it’s time to work backwards. We must have seen something at some point without realizing its significance.” Larsson bit his lip. “We started looking for a murderer who tried to make us think there were actually two of them. Now I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t only one after all, but he’s let loose his shadow to put us off the scent.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

They gathered in Johansson’s office at 2:15. Lindman had been hesitant about joining them, but Larsson insisted. Johansson was tired and irritable, but most of all he was worried. Lindman sat next to the wall, behind the others. The rain had passed over and the sun, already quite low in the sky, shone in through the open window. Johansson switched his cell phone to speakerphone, and Rundström’s voice could be heard despite a poor connection. The mist in the mountains of northwest Härjedalen was still there.

“We’re marking time here,” he said.

“And the roadblocks?” Johansson said.

“They’re still in place. A Norwegian drunk drove straight into the ditch from shock when he saw police standing in the road. He had a zebra skin in his car, incidentally.”

“Why?”

“How should I know? If it had been a bearskin you could have understood it, but I didn’t know there were any zebras in Härjedalen.”

The connection was lost, then it came back.

“I have a question about the weapons that were stolen,” Rundström said. “I know what make of guns and how many, but what about ammunition?”

“Two magazines for the pistol and twelve cartridges for the Mauser.”

“I don’t like this at all,” Rundström said. “Did he leave any clues?”

His voice was coming and going in waves.

“The house was empty,” Johansson said. “My wife is in Järvsö visiting our daughter. I don’t have any neighbors. The gun cabinet had been broken into.”

“No footprints? Did anybody see a car?”

“No.”

“The mist will start clearing soon, according to the weather people. But the sun will set before long. We’re wondering what to do. If he’s the one who stole the guns there’s not much point in our staying here. It would mean he’d already passed through our cordon.”

Larsson leaned towards the telephone. “Larsson here. I think it’s too soon to withdraw from up there. It might not have been him who broke into Erik’s house. But I have a question. Do we know anything about what this Hereira might have in the way of food?”

“Frostman claimed he didn’t have anything in his pantry. Maybe some jam. He wasn’t sure. On the other hand, the freezer was full. It was worth leaving it on to store all the berries and elk meat he’d been given by friends.”

“It’s hardly possible to prepare an elk steak on a camping gas stove. Sooner or later he’ll have to find a shop and buy some food.”

“We’ve been checking the houses up here. There’s just one solitary old man who lives here all year round. Hudin, he’s called, in a place called Högvreten. We’ve got a couple of officers there. Apparently he’s ninety-five and not exactly a shrinking violet. Apart from him, there are only vacation cottages in the area. You can’t say it’s overpopulated around here.”

“Anything else?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Okay, thanks. We’ll talk again later.”

Rundström’s voice faded away in a buzz of interference. Johansson turned off the phone.

“Frostengren,” said one of the officers. “Wasn’t that his name? Not Frostman?”

“Rundström’s not very good at names,” Larsson said. “Let’s have a rundown now. Is there anybody here who hasn’t met Stefan Lindman? A colleague from Borås who used to work with Herbert Molin.”

Lindman recognized all the faces. He wondered what they would say if he stood up and told them that in a few days’ time he would be starting a course of radiation for cancer.

There was a mass of detail and reports to sort out. Larsson urged them to be brief. They couldn’t waste time dwelling unnecessarily on minor details. At the same time, he had to make decisions about what was important and what could wait. Lindman tried to listen, but found that his head was full of images of women. Hanna Tunberg getting up from her chair and falling dead on the floor. Veronica Molin, her hand and her back as she lay asleep. And Elena was there as well. Especially Elena. He was ashamed of having told Veronica Molin that there was no one in his life.

He forced such thoughts out of his mind and tried to concentrate on what was being said around the table. They talked about the weapons used when Molin was murdered. They must have come from somewhere. It could be assumed that Hereira had entered Sweden from abroad, and so it followed that he had acquired them in Sweden. Larsson had a list of guns reported stolen in Sweden in recent months. He glanced through them, then put it to one side. No Swedish border control post had any information about a man called Fernando Hereira from Argentina passing through.

“Interpol are looking into that right now,” Larsson said. “I know that South American countries can be hard to deal with. A girl from Järpen disappeared in Rio de Janeiro a few years ago. It was sheer hell trying to get anything out of the police there. She turned up eventually, thank God. She’d fallen in love with an Indian and lived with him for a while in Amazonas. But it didn’t last. Now she’s an elementary school teacher and married to a man who works for a travel agent in Östersund. Rumor has it that her house is full of parrots.”

Laughter ran through the room.

“Let’s just hope that a suitable Fernando Hereira turns up,” Larsson said.

Some more papers were put to one side. There was a preliminary summary of Abraham Andersson’s life, but it was far from complete. So far, they had found nothing at all to link him with Molin. Everybody agreed that in light of what Hanna Tunberg had said, they should immediately put more resources into digging up Andersson’s past. Lindman could see that Larsson was trying to keep his impatience under control. He knows he’ll become a bad police officer if he loses his cool, Lindman thought.

They turned their attention to Hanna Tunberg for a while. Johansson said that she’d been one of the leading lights when the Sveg curling club was formed, and that it now had an international reputation.

“They used to play in the park near the train station,” he said. “I can remember her sweeping the ice clear as soon as it was cold enough in the autumn.”

“And now she’s dead,” Larsson said. “That was a horrific experience, believe me.”

“What caused it?” It was one of the officers who hadn’t said anything so far. Lindman seemed to recall that he was from Hede.

Larsson shrugged. “A stroke, maybe a blood clot in the brain. Or a heart attack. She was a chain-smoker. Anyway, the last thing she did before she died was to tell us about Berggren. She thought she’d seen her in Andersson’s house some time last spring. Hanna was honest enough to admit that she wasn’t sure. If she was right, it could mean at least two things. First, that we’ve established a link between Andersson and Molin. A woman. And we must also bear in mind that, so far, Berggren has denied anything more than a fleeting acquaintance with Andersson.”

Larsson reached for a file and picked out a piece of paper.

“Katrin Andersson, Abraham’s widow, told the Helsingborg police that she had never heard the name Elsa Berggren. She claims to have a good memory for names, and that her husband never — I’m quoting here — ‘kept any secrets from me.’” Larsson snapped the file shut. “That could be a claim that proves to be untrue, of course. We’ve all heard that phrase before.”

“I think we should be a little cautious,” Johansson said. “Hanna had a lot of good points, but she also had a reputation for being a nosy busybody. People like that sometimes have trouble distinguishing between what’s fact and what they’ve made up.”

“What do you mean?” Larsson said, irritated. “Should we take what she said seriously or shouldn’t we?”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t be a hundred percent certain that the woman outside Andersson’s house really was Berggren.”

“If the woman actually was outside the door,” Larsson said. “I suspect that Hanna peered in through a window.”

“Surely the dog would have barked in that case?”

Larsson reached impatiently for another file. He leafed through it without finding what he was looking for. “I know I’ve read somewhere that after the murder of Molin, Andersson said that he sometimes had the dog inside the house. This could have been one of those occasions. Now, some guard dogs bark even when they’re in the house if they hear a noise outside, I’ll grant you that.”

“It didn’t seem all that alert for a guard dog when I was there,” Lindman said. “It appeared to be more of a hunting dog.”

Johansson was still skeptical. “Is there anything else that links them? We know that Elsa and Molin were Nazis. If we can believe everything that has emerged so far, that’s what they had in common. Two lunatics, in other words, but harmless. Was Andersson a Nazi?”

“He was a dues-paying member of the Center Party,” Larsson said grimly. “For a while he was even an elected member of the Helsingborg Town Council. He resigned over a split about funding for the local symphony orchestra, but he didn’t leave the party. We can assume that not only was Andersson a man with no links to the unpleasant political movement known as neo-Nazism, but also that he took great exception to it. It would be interesting to know how he’d have reacted if he’d realized that he had a former Waffen-SS officer for a neighbor.”

“Maybe he did know,” Lindman heard himself saying.

Larsson looked at him. It was quiet in the room. “Say that again.”

“I’m just suggesting that we could turn the way we’ve been thinking on its head. If Andersson had discovered that his neighbor, Molin, was a Nazi, and perhaps Berggren as well, that could indicate that there was in fact a link.”

“And what would that be?”

“I don’t know. But Molin had hidden himself away in the forest. He wanted to keep his past a secret, no matter the cost.”

“You mean that Andersson might have threatened to expose him?”

“It could even have been blackmail. Molin had done everything he could to disappear from view, to hide his past. He was scared of something. Presumably of a person, but possibly several. If Andersson discovered his secret, the whole of Molin’s existence would be under threat. Berggren had bought the house on Molin’s behalf. Suddenly some new circumstances arise in which he needs her help again.”

Larsson shook his head doubtfully. “Does that really add up? If Andersson had been killed before Molin, I could have understood it. But not afterwards. When Molin was already dead?”

“Maybe it was Andersson who helped the murderer to find Molin? But something went wrong. There’s another possibility, of course. Berggren could have realized, or assumed, that Andersson was somehow responsible for what happened to Molin, and took revenge.”

Johansson protested. “That can’t be right. Are you suggesting that Elsa, a woman in her seventies, dragged Andersson into the forest, tied him to a tree, and shot him? That can’t be right. Besides, she didn’t have a gun.”

“Guns can be stolen, as we know,” Larsson said, icily.

“I can’t see Elsa as a murderer.”

“None of us can, but we both know that people who are as gentle as lambs on the surface can commit violent crimes.”

Johansson made no comment.

“What Stefan says is worth bearing in mind, of course,” Larsson said. “But let’s not sit around here speculating. We should be gathering more facts. For instance, we have to find out how much you can see in the rearview mirror of a car parked in the place described by Hanna Tunberg. Obviously, we should then concentrate on Berggren. Without dropping everything else, of course. Everybody in this room knows that it could take a long time to work out what happened in the forest, but that doesn’t mean we should let it take any longer than necessary. We might have some luck and catch that man on the mountain, and find out that he killed Andersson as well as Molin.”

Before the meeting closed they called Rundström again, and the mist was as thick as ever.

4 P.M. Those present at the meeting went their various ways, leaving only Larsson and Lindman in the office. The sun had gone. Larsson yawned. Then he smiled broadly.

“I don’t suppose you’ve discovered a bowling alley on your rambles through Sveg? That’s what you and I need right now.”

“I haven’t even found a cinema.”

Larsson pointed at the window. “They show films at the community center. Fucking Amål is showing now. It’s good. My daughter forced me to see it.”

Larsson sat at the desk. “Erik’s upset,” he said. “I’m not surprised. It doesn’t look good for a police officer to have his guns stolen. I suspect that he forgot to lock his front door. It happens easily when you live out in the country. Maybe he left a window open. He’s keeping very quiet about how the thief got in.”

“Didn’t he say something about a broken window?”

“He could have broken it himself. Nor is it absolutely certain that he followed the regulations when he bought the rifle. There are lots of guns in this country that are not kept locked away as the law requires, especially hunting rifles.”

Lindman opened a bottle of mineral water. He could see that Larsson was eyeing him keenly.

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I’m a lot more frightened than I care to admit.” He put the bottle back on the table. “I’d rather not talk about it,” he said. “I’m more interested in what’s happening in the case.”

“I’m thinking of spending this evening here in the office. Going through some papers again. I think our discussion today has given us a few new leads. Berggren worries me. I can’t figure her out. If Hanna Tunberg really did see what she said she saw, what does it mean? Erik is right to soft-pedal a bit. It’s hard to imagine a woman in her seventies dragging a man into the forest, tying him to a tree, and then executing him.”

“There was an old detective in the Borås force called Fredlund,” Lindman said. “He was abrupt, sullen, and slow, but a brilliant investigator. Once when he was in an unusually good mood he said something I’ve never forgotten. ‘You work with a flashlight in your hand. You point it straight in front of you so that you can see where you’re putting your feet, but you should occasionally point it to each side as well, so that you can see where you’re not putting your feet.’ If I understand him correctly he was maintaining that you should always keep checking on what’s central. Which of the people involved is the most important?”

“What happens if you apply that to our situation? I’ve been talking too much today. I need to do some listening.”

“Could there be a link between the man on the mountain and Berggren? What she said about being attacked doesn’t have to be true. It strikes me now that it could have been my showing up there that triggered that situation. That’s the first question: is there a link between her and Hereira? The second question, leading me in a different direction, is: is there somebody else involved in all of this, somebody lurking in the shadows whom we haven’t yet identified?”

“Someone who may share the political views of Berggren and Molin? Are you thinking of some kind of neo-Nazi network?”

“We know they exist.”

“So, Hereira turns up to dance the tango with Molin. That sparks off a series of incidents. One important consequence is that Berggren decides that Andersson has to be killed. So she sends for somebody suitable from her brown-shirted brotherhood to take care of it. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I can hear how crazy it sounds.”

“Not that crazy,” Larsson said. “I’ll keep it in mind as I chew my way through the files tonight.”

Lindman walked back to the hotel. There was no light in Veronica Molin’s room. The receptionist was peering at her new computer.

“How long are you staying?” she said.

“Until Wednesday, if that’s all right.”

“We won’t be full until the weekend.”

“Test drivers?”

“A group of orienteers from Lithuania are coming to set up a training camp.”

Lindman took his key.

“Is there a bowling alley in Sveg?”

“No,” she said, surprised.

“Just wondering!”

When he got to his room he lay on the bed. It was something about Hanna Tunberg, he thought. Something about her death. He started remembering. The images in his head were elusive. It took time for him to sort them out, to make them fit together.

He was five or six years old. He didn’t know where his sisters and mother were. He was at home with his father. He remembered that it was evening. He was on the floor playing with a car behind the red sofa in the living room. The car was made of wood, yellow and blue with a red stripe. His eyes were concentrating on the invisible road he’d mapped out on the carpet. He could hear the rustling of newspaper pages. A friendly noise, but not completely without menace. His father sometimes used to read things that annoyed him. That could result in the newspaper being ripped to shreds. “These damned socialists,” he would say. It was like leaves on a tree. They could rustle like newspaper pages. Suddenly a gale would start blowing and the tree would disintegrate. He drove the car down a road winding along the brink of a precipice. Things could go wrong. He knew his father was in the dark green armchair next to the open fire. Before long he would lower his newspaper and ask Stefan what he was doing. Not in a friendly way, not even because he was interested. Just a question to check that everything was in order.

Then the rustling stopped, there was a groan followed by a thud. The car stopped. A rear tire had burst. He was forced to edge his way carefully out of the driving seat, trying not to send the car tumbling into the ravine.

Stefan slowly stood up and peered over the back of the sofa. His father had fallen to the floor. He still had the newspaper in his hand, and he was groaning. Lindman approached him cautiously. So as not to be completely defenseless, he took the car with him. He would not let go of it. He could use it to escape if necessary. His father looked at him with fear in his eyes. His lips were blue. They were moving, forming words. “I don’t want to die like this. I want to die upright, like a man.”

The images faded away. Stefan wasn’t even in them any more, he was looking in from the outside. What had happened next? He remembered his fear, standing there with the car in his hand, his father’s blue lips. Then his mother had come in. His sisters were no doubt with her, but he couldn’t remember them. It was just him, his father, and his mother. And a car with a red stripe. He remembered the make now. Brio. A toy car from Brio. They made better trains than cars. But he liked it because his father had given it to him. He’d have preferred a train. But the car had a red stripe. And now it was hanging over the edge of a precipice.

His mother had pushed him out of the way, screamed, and what followed was like a kaleidoscope: an ambulance, his father in a sickbed, his lips less blue. A few words that somebody must have repeated over and over again. A heart attack. Very slight.

What he remembered now with crystal clarity was the words his father had said to him. “I want to die upright, like a man.”

Like a soldier in Hitler’s army, Lindman thought. Marching for a Fourth Reich that wouldn’t be crushed like the Third.

He took his jacket and left the room. Somewhere among all those memories he had dozed off for a while. It was 9 P.M. already. He didn’t want to eat in the hotel and made his way to a hot dog stand he’d noticed by the bridge, next to one of the gas stations. He ate some mashed potatoes and two half-grilled sausages while listening to some teenage boys discussing a car parked a few meters away. Then he kept walking, wondering what Larsson was doing. Was he still poring over his files? And what about Elena? He’d left his cell phone in his room.

He walked through the dark streets. The church, the scattered shops, empty premises waiting for someone to make something of them.

When he returned to the hotel, he stopped outside the entrance. He could see the receptionist preparing to go home. He walked down the street, to the front side of the hotel. There was a light in Veronica Molin’s room. The curtains were drawn, but there was a narrow gap in the middle. He slunk into the shadows as the receptionist walked down the street. He wondered again why she’d been crying that time. A car went past. Then he stood on tiptoe to look through the window. She was wearing dark blue. Silk pajamas, perhaps? She was sitting at her computer, with her back to him. He couldn’t see what she was doing. He was about to move on when she got up and moved out of view. He ducked down, then slowly stood up again to look through the window. The computer screen was shimmering. There was some kind of pattern on it, a logo probably. At first he couldn’t make out what it was. Then he recognized it. The screen was filled by a swastika.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It was like receiving a powerful electric shock. He was almost knocked backwards. A car came around the corner, and Lindman turned to walk away, ducking into the courtyard of the building next door, which housed the newspaper offices. Only a week ago he’d opened a wardrobe and found an SS uniform. Then he’d discovered that behind a respectable façade, his own father had been a Nazi and even now, after his death, was paying blood money to keep afloat an organization that might look harmless but nevertheless had murderous intentions. And now came Veronica Molin’s computer screen with its shimmering swastika. His first impulse was to go to her room and take her to task. But for what? Because she had lied to him. Not only had she known that her father was a Nazi, but she was one herself.

He forced himself to remain calm, to act like a police officer, to see clearly, analytically, to distinguish between what was fact and what wasn’t. In the darkness behind the blacked-out editorial offices of the Härjedalen, it was as if everything that had happened since the time he’d been sitting in the hospital cafeteria in Borås and stumbled upon a newspaper report saying that Molin had been murdered finally fell into its logical place. Molin had spent his old age solving jigsaw puzzles, when he wasn’t dancing with a doll or dreaming about some absurd Fourth Reich. Now it seemed that the puzzle in which Molin had been one of the crucial pieces was finally finished. The last piece in place, the picture clear at last. Thoughts were racing through his head. It was as if a series of floodgates had been opened and he was now hastily directing all the masses of water into the correct channels. He was forced to hold on tight so as not to be swept off his feet and away with the current.

He stood quite still. Something moved at his feet. He jumped. A cat. It scuttled away through the light from a streetlamp.

What is this that I can see? A pattern, absolutely clear. Possibly more than a pattern, possibly a conspiracy. He started walking, as he thought more clearly when on the move. He headed for the railroad bridge. The district courthouse on the left, all the windows in darkness. He came upon three women, all humming a tune. They laughed, said “Good night” as he passed, and he recognized the tune as something by ABBA, “Crying over You.” He turned off, following the railroad tracks to the bridge. The railroad tracks, now only used by occasional peat trains and the so-called National Railway during the summer, looked like neglected cracks in a bronze-colored wooden floor. On the other side of the river — Berggren’s side — he could hear a dog barking. He stopped in the middle of the bridge. The sky was full of stars now; it was colder. He picked up a stone and dropped it into the water.

What he should do was speak to Larsson without delay. Then again, perhaps not just yet. He needed to think. He had a head start, and wanted to make the most of it. Veronica Molin didn’t know what he had seen through her curtains. Would he be able to use the head start he had to his advantage?

He left the bridge and walked back to the hotel. There was only one thing to do. Talk to her. Two men were playing cards in the lobby. They nodded to him but concentrated on their game. Lindman stopped at her door and knocked. Once again he had the urge to kick it in, but he knocked instead. She opened immediately. He could see over her shoulder that the computer screen was blank.

“I was about to go to bed,” she said.

“Not just yet. We need to talk.”

She let him in.

“I want to sleep alone tonight. Just so that you know.”

“That’s not why I’ve come. Although I do wonder about that, of course. Why you wanted me to sleep here. Without my being allowed to touch you.”

“It was you who wanted to. I do admit that I can feel lonely at times.”

She sat down on the bed, and just like last night pulled up her legs beneath her. He was attracted to her, and his wounded anger only made the feeling stronger.

He sat on the creaking chair.

“What do you want? Has something happened? The man on the mountain? Have you caught him?”

“I don’t know. But that’s not why I’ve come. I’ve come about a lie.”

“Whose?”

“Yours.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I have no patience with people who don’t come right to the point.”

“Then I’ll come right to the point. A few minutes ago you were working at your computer. Your screen was filled with a swastika.”

It was a few seconds before the penny dropped. Then she glanced at the window and the curtains.

“Precisely,” he said. “I looked in. You’d be right to complain about that. I looked in when I shouldn’t have. But it wasn’t that I hoped to see you naked. It was just an impulse. And I saw the swastika.”

He could see that she was perfectly calm.

“That’s absolutely right. There was a swastika on my screen not long ago. Black against a red background. But what’s the lie?”

“You take after your father. You claimed the opposite. You said you were trying to protect his past, but in fact it was yourself you were trying to protect.”

“What from?”

“The fact that you are a Nazi.”

“Is that what you think?”

She stood up, lit a cigarette, and remained standing. “You are not only stupid,” she said, “you’re full of yourself. I thought you were better than the run-of-the-mill policeman, but you’re not. You’re just an insignificant little shit.”

“You won’t get anywhere by insulting me. You could spit in my face and I wouldn’t lose my temper.”

She sat down on the bed again.

“I suppose in a way it’s just as well you were snooping,” she said. “At least we can get this business out of the way very quickly.”

“I’m listening.”

She stubbed out her cigarette.

“What do you know about computers? About the Internet?”

“Not a lot. I know there’s a lot of Internet traffic that ought to be stopped. Child pornography, for instance. You said you could keep in touch with the whole world, no matter where you were. ‘I have my entire life on this,’ you said.”

She sat down at her computer and beckoned him to pull his chair closer.

“I’ll take you on a journey,” she said. “Through cyberspace. I suppose that’s a term you must have heard?”

She pressed a button on her keyboard. A faint whirring came from inside the computer. The screen came to life. She pressed various keys. Images and patterns flickered across the screen until it turned red all over. The black swastika appeared gradually.

“This network embracing the whole globe has its underworld, just as the real world does. You can find anything at all there.”

She tapped away at the keys. The swastika disappeared. Lindman found himself staring at half-naked Asian girls. She tapped more keys; the girls were replaced by pictures of St. Peter’s in Rome.

“You can find everything in here,” she said. “It’s a marvelous tool. You can retrieve information no matter where you are. Just now, at this moment, Sveg is the center of the world. But there’s also an underworld. Endless amounts of information about where you can buy guns, drugs, pornographic pictures of little children. Everything.”

She tapped away again. The swastika returned.

“This too. Lots of Nazi organizations, including several Swedish ones, publicize their opinions on my computer screen. I was sitting here trying to understand. I was looking for the people who are members of Nazi organizations today. How many of them there are, what their organizations are called, how they think.”

She tapped the keys again. A picture of Hitler. More tapping, and suddenly she appeared on the screen herself. “Veronica Molin. Broker.”

She turned it off. The screen went black.

“Now I’d like you to leave,” she said. “You chose to jump to a conclusion on the basis of a picture you saw on my screen when you were snooping around and looking in at my window. Perhaps you still think I’m stupid enough to sit here worshiping a swastika. It’s up to you to decide if you’re an idiot or not, but please go anyway. We have nothing more to say to each other.”

Lindman didn’t know what to do. She was upset, convincingly so.

“If the situation had been reversed,” he said, “how would you have reacted?”

“I’d have asked. Not immediately accused you of lying.”

She stood up and flung open the door.

“I can’t stop you from going to my father’s funeral,” she said. “But I shall feel no compulsion to speak to you there, or to shake your hand.”

She ushered Lindman out into the corridor and closed the door behind him. He went back to the lobby. The card players had left. He went up to his room, wondering why he had reacted the way he did. He was rescued by a telephone call. It was Larsson.

“I hope you weren’t asleep.”

“On the contrary.”

“Wide awake?”

“Very much so.”

He thought he might as well tell Larsson what had happened.

“It’s a dangerous habit, peeping into little girls’ bedrooms. You never know what you might see,” he said, laughing.

“I acted like an idiot.”

“We all do sometimes. Not all at the same time, with any luck.”

“Did you know that you can look up all the Nazi organizations in the world on the Internet?”

“Probably not all of them. What was the word she used? ‘Underworld’? No doubt there are lots of different rooms down there. I suspect the really dangerous organizations don’t advertise their names and addresses on the Internet.”

“You mean it’s only possible to scrape the surface?”

“Something like that.”

Lindman sneezed. And again.

“I hope that’s not something you’ve caught from me.”

“How’s your throat?”

“I have a slight temperature; it’s swollen on the left side. People who get to see as much misery as we do often succumb to hypochondria.”

“I have enough to deal with in the real world.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I put my foot in my mouth again.”

“What did you want?”

“Somebody to talk to, I suppose.”

“Are you still in Johansson’s office?”

“Yes, and I’ve got coffee.”

“I’ll be there.”

As he passed the front of the hotel he glanced at Veronica Molin’s window. He could just see that the light was still on, but the gap in the curtains was gone.

Larsson was waiting for him outside the community center. He had a cigarillo in his hand.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

“Only when I’m very tired and need to keep awake.”

He broke the end off the cigarillo and trampled the glowing tobacco. They went inside. The bear observed their entry. The building was deserted.

“Erik called,” Larsson said. “He’s a very honest man. He said that he was so depressed about having his guns stolen that he didn’t feel up to working tonight. He was going to have a couple of drinks and a sleeping pill. Maybe not a very good combination, but I don’t blame him.”

“Any news from the mountain?”

They were in the office by now. There were two thermos flasks on the desk, marked “Härjedalen County Council.” Lindman shook his head when Larsson offered him a cup. There were a few half-eaten Danish pastries on a torn paper bag.

“Rundström has been calling off and on. We’ve also heard from backup headquarters in Östersund. One of the helicopters we usually use has broken down. A substitute will be arriving from Sundsvall tomorrow.”

“What about the weather?”

“There is no mist on the mountain at the moment. They moved their base down to Funäsdalen. No joy from the roadblocks yet, apart from that Norwegian drunk. Apparently his grandmother had been a missionary in Africa and brought a zebra skin home with her. There’s an explanation for practically everything. Rundström’s worried, though. If they’re able to carry out a search on the mountain tomorrow and don’t find him, it can only mean that he’s broken through the cordon. In which case it probably was him who burgled Erik’s place.”

“Maybe he never did go up the mountain?”

“You’re forgetting that the dog picked up a scent.”

“He could have doubled back. Besides, don’t forget this man is from South America. It’s too cold for him on a Swedish mountainside in the late autumn.”

Larsson was looking at a map on the wall. He drew a circle with his finger around Funäsdalen.

“What bugs me is why he didn’t leave the area long before,” he said. “I keep coming back to that. Of all the questions buzzing around in connection with this investigation, that’s one of the most important. I’m convinced of it. The only explanation I can think of is that he’s not finished yet. There’s something more for him to do. That thought makes me more and more apprehensive. He runs the risk of getting caught, but still he stays. He might well have gotten himself a new set of weapons. Earlier this evening it made me think of a question we haven’t yet addressed.”

“What did he do with the weapons he used to torture and kill Molin?”

Larsson turned away from the map. “Right. We asked ourselves where he got them from, but not what he did with them. And the fact that he probably disposed of them has set my brain working overtime. What about yours?”

Lindman thought for a moment before replying.

“He goes away. Something has been finished. He throws the weapons away, maybe in the lake, or perhaps he buries them. Then something happens and he comes back. He needs new weapons. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“Precisely. But I can’t make sense of it. We are wondering if he came back to dispose of Andersson. He obviously had access to a gun if that was the case. It seems very strange if he then went away a second time. If he’s the one who broke into Erik’s place, does that mean that he disposed of his weapons twice? That can’t be right. We know the man planned everything meticulously. All these guns thrown away suggests the opposite. Is he after Berggren? He asks her who killed Andersson, but he doesn’t get an answer, so far as we know. He is insistent. Then he hits you over the head and disappears.”

“How about if we ask the same question as he did?”

“That’s what I’ve been doing all evening.”

Larsson gestured toward all the files scattered on every surface in the room.

“I’ve had that question in mind while I’ve been going through the most important pieces of the material we have. I’ve even asked myself if he went to see Berggren to create a false trail because in fact he did murder Andersson. But if that were the case, why is he still here? What’s he waiting for now? Is he expecting something specific to happen? Or is he after somebody else? In which case, who?”

“There’s a missing link,” Lindman said slowly. “A person. The question is, though, is it a murderer or another victim?”

They sat in silence. Lindman found it difficult to concentrate. He wanted to help Larsson, but he was thinking about Veronica Molin the entire time. And he should have called Elena by now. He looked at his watch. It was 11 P.M. already. She’d be asleep. Too bad. He took his cell phone out of his pocket.

“I have to call home,” he said, and went out. He stood beside the stuffed bear, hoping it might protect him.

She wasn’t asleep.

“I know you’re sick, but do you really have the right to treat me like this?” she said.

“I’ve been working.”

“You’re not at work. You’re on sick leave.”

“I’ve been pretty busy talking to Larsson.”

“And so you don’t have time to call me, is that it?”

“I didn’t realize it was as late as this.”

No response. Then:

“We have to have a serious talk. Not now, though. Later.”

“I miss you. I don’t really know why I’m here. I suppose I’m so scared of the day dawning when I have to go to the hospital that I don’t even dare be at home. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going right now. But I do miss you.”

“Are you sure you haven’t met another woman up there?”

That shook him. Hard, in a flash.

“And who would that be?”

“I don’t know. Somebody younger.”

“Don’t be silly.”

He could hear that she was depressed, unhappy, and that made him feel even more guilty.

“I’m standing next to a stuffed bear,” he said. “He sends his greetings.”

She didn’t answer.

“Are you still there?”

“I’m still here. But I’m going to sleep now. Call me tomorrow. I hope you’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

Lindman went back to the office. Larsson was poring over an open file. Lindman poured himself a cup of lukewarm coffee. Larsson pushed the file to one side. His hair was in a mess, his eyes bloodshot.

“Berggren,” he said. “I’ll have another talk with her tomorrow. I intend to take Erik along with me, but I’ll be asking the questions. Erik is too nice with her. I even think he’s a little scared of her.”

“What are you hoping to achieve?”

“Clarity. There’s something she’s not telling us.”

Larsson stood up and stretched.

“Bowling,” he said. “I’ll ask Erik to have a word with the local authority and see if they can’t establish a little bowling alley. Strictly for visiting policemen.” Then he was serious again. “What would you ask Berggren? You’ll soon be as familiar with this investigation as I am.”

Lindman said nothing for almost a minute before replying.

“I’d try to find out if she knew that Erik kept guns in the house.”

“That’s a good idea, of course,” Larsson said. “We’ll keep on trying to fit the old girl into the picture. With a little luck, we’ll find a place for her in the end.”

The telephone on his desk rang. Larsson answered. He listened, sat down, and pulled a notepad towards him. Lindman handed him a pencil that had fallen to the floor. Larsson checked his watch.

“We’re on our way,” he said, and hung up.

Lindman could see from his face that something serious had happened.

“That was Rundström. Twenty minutes ago a car drove right through one of the roadblocks. The officers there were very lucky to escape uninjured.”

He marked the spot on the map with his finger. It was a crossroads southeast of Funäsdalen. Lindman estimated the distance between there and Frostengren’s chalet at about 20 kilometers.

“A dark blue sedan, possibly a Golf,” Larsson said. “The driver was a man. His appearance could be in line with the descriptions we’ve had previously. The officers didn’t have time to see much. But this could mean that our man has broken through the cordon, and that he’s on his way here.”

Larsson looked at his watch again. “If he really leans on the accelerator he could be here in two hours.”

Lindman looked at the map and pointed to a side road. “He could turn off there.”

“All the roadblocks in Funäsdalen are being moved right now. They’ll build a wall behind him. It’s here that has no checkpoint at the moment.”

He picked up the telephone. “Let’s hope that Erik’s sleeping pill hasn’t knocked him out yet.”

Lindman waited while Larsson spoke to Johansson about the roadblock they needed to set up. He put the phone down and shook his head.

“Erik’s a good man,” he said. “He’d just taken his sleeping pill, but he’s going to stick his finger down his throat and throw it up. He’s really determined to catch that bastard. Not just because Hereira’s most probably the one who stole his guns.”

“It doesn’t add up,” Lindman said. “The more I think about it, the more impossible it gets. Why on earth would he break into Johansson’s place and then go back to the mountain?”

“Nothing adds up. But we can hardly start thinking about a third person being mixed up in all this.” Larsson interrupted himself. “Maybe that is what happened,” he said, “but if so, what does that mean?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Whoever is in that car could be the one with the guns. And he might start using them. We’ll put a stinger out to puncture his tires. If he starts shooting, we’ll stay out of the way.” Then he turned serious. “You’re a police officer,” he said. “We’re very shorthanded just now. Will you come with us?”

“Yes.”

“Erik’s bringing a gun for you.”

“I thought they’d been stolen?”

Larsson made a face.

“He had an extra pistol that he presumably hasn’t registered either. Hidden away in the cellar. Plus his police-issue weapon.”

The telephone rang again. Rundström. Larsson listened without saying anything.

“The car is stolen,” he said when the call was over. “It was in fact a Golf. Stolen from a gas station in Funäsdalen. A truck driver saw it happen. According to Rundström, it was one of the guys Erik plays cards with.”

He was in a hurry now. He shoved several files lying on his jacket into a heap.

“Erik will bring in the two police officers in Sveg. Not exactly an impressive squad, but I expect that will be enough to stop a Golf.”

Three quarters of an hour later they had set up a roadblock three kilometers northwest of Sveg. The wind was rushing through the trees. Larsson talked in a low voice to Johansson. The other police officers skulked like shadows, back from the side of the road. The headlights from the police cars cut into the darkness.

Chapter Thirty

The car they were waiting for never arrived. Five other cars passed through. Johansson knew two of the drivers. The other three were strangers: two were women, domestic caregivers, who lived to the west of Sveg, and a young man in a fur hat who had been staying with relatives in Hede and was now on his way south. All were made to submit their boots for inspection before they were allowed to continue.

The temperature had risen again, and some wet snow was falling, melting the moment it touched the ground. There was no breeze now, and every sound was clearly audible. Somebody broke wind; a hand brushed against a car door.

They spread out a map on the hood of one of the police cars, and examined it by flashlight. It quickly became wet. Did they make a mistake? Was there some other route that they had overlooked? They couldn’t see the alternative. All the roadblocks were where they should be. Larsson was acting as a sort of one-man call center, keeping in touch with the other groups of officers stationed at various points in the forest.

Lindman stayed on the sidelines. He’d been given a pistol of a type familiar to him by Johansson. Snow was falling on his head. He thought about Veronica Molin, Elena, and most of all about November 19. He couldn’t make up his mind if the darkness and the trees increased or alleviated his anxiety. There was also a brief moment when it crossed his mind that he could put an end to it all in just a few seconds. He had a loaded gun in his pocket; he could put it to his head and pull the trigger and there would be no need for radiation.

Nobody could see where the Golf could have disappeared to. Lindman heard Larsson getting more annoyed every time he spoke to one of his colleagues. Then Johansson’s telephone rang.

“You what?” he shouted.

He signaled for the wet map to be unfolded again as he listened to what was being said. He jabbed his finger onto the map so hard that it made a hole, repeated a name, Löten, then finished the call.

“Shooting,” he said. “Some time ago, here, by the lake, Löten, three kilometers from the road to Hardabyn. The call was from somebody called Rune Wallén. He lives near there, owns a truck and a bulldozer. He said he was woken by something that sounded like a bang. His wife heard it as well. He went outside, and there was another bang. He counted ten shots altogether. He’s a hunter, so he knows what a shotgun sounds like.”

Johansson looked at his watch and did some calculations. “He said it took him a quarter of an hour to find my cell phone number. We’re in the same hunting club so he knew he had the number somewhere. He said he’d also spent five minutes discussing with his wife what they should do. He thought at first he’d be waking me up if he called. All of which adds up to the fact that the shooting took place twenty-five minutes ago at the most.”

“All right, let’s regroup,” Larsson said. “This roadblock must stay, but a couple of us and some of the men further north will head for the scene. Now we know that guns are being used. Caution is the watchword, no reckless intervention.”

“Shouldn’t we call a national alert on this?” Johansson said.

“You bet we will,” Larsson said. “You can arrange that. Call Östersund. And take charge of the roadblock here.”

Larsson looked at Lindman, who nodded.

“Stefan and I will go to Löten. I’ll call Rundström from the car.”

“Be careful,” Johansson said.

Larsson didn’t seem to hear. Lindman drove. Larsson spoke to Rundström. Described what had happened, what decisions had been taken. Then he put the telephone down.

“What’s going on?” he said. “What the hell is going on?”

After a while, he said, “We could meet a car. We won’t stop, we’ll just try and get its make and registration number.”

It took them thirty-five minutes to reach the place described by Rune Wallén. They could see no cars. Lindman slowed down and pulled up when Larsson shouted, pointing at a dark blue Golf at the side of the road, halfway into a ditch.

“Let’s back up a little,” Larsson said. “Turn off the lights.”

It had stopped snowing. There wasn’t a sound. Larsson and Lindman crouched as they ran from the car. They had each taken one side of the road. Both had drawn their guns. They were peering into the darkness, listening intently. Lindman wasn’t sure how long they waited, but eventually they heard the sound of a car approaching. The headlights cut through the darkness and the police car came to a halt. Larsson had turned on his flashlight. It was Rundström on the other side of the blue Golf, and another officer Lindman thought was called Lennart Backman. It occurred to him that there had once been a footballer he admired whose name was Lennart Backman. Who did he used to play for? Was it Hammarby or AIK?

“Have you seen anything?” Rundström shouted.

His voice echoed through the forest.

“The car seems to be empty,” Larsson said. “We waited for you to get here before moving in to examine it.”

“Who’s with you?”

“Lindman.”

“You and I will approach the car,” Rundström said. “You others stay where you are.”

Lindman held his pistol at the ready, simultaneously shining his flashlight for Larsson. He and Rundström closed in on the Golf from each side.

“There’s nothing here,” Larsson cried. “Move the cars to give us more light.”

Lindman moved the car up and directed the headlights at the Golf.

Wallén had not been mistaken. The Golf was riddled with bullet holes. There were three in the windshield, the front left tire had been punctured, and there were holes in the hood as well.

“The shots seem to have come from straight in front,” Rundström said, “possibly slightly to one side.”

They shone their flashlights into the car.

Larsson pointed. “That could be blood.”

The driver’s door was open wide. They shone their flashlights on the ground, but could see no trace of blood on the road or on the wet ground on the shoulder. Larsson pointed his flashlight into the trees.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” he said. “No idea at all.”

They formed a chain, shining their flashlights into trees and bushes. There was no sign of anybody, nor of any tracks. They continued into the trees for about a hundred meters before Larsson gave the order to turn back. There was a distant sound of sirens approaching from the east.

“The dogs are on their way,” Rundström said when they were on the asphalt again.

The keys were still in the ignition. Larsson opened the trunk. There were some cans of food and a sleeping bag. They exchanged looks.

“A dark blue sleeping bag,” Rundström said. “Labeled ‘Alpin.’ ”

He searched the bank of numbers in his cell phone, then called one of them.

“Inspector Rundström,” he said. “I’m sorry to wake you. Didn’t you say there was a sleeping bag in your chalet? What color was it?”

He nodded. Dark blue. It fitted.

“What brand was it?” He listened. “Can you remember if you had any cans of Bullen’s Party Sausages in your pantry?”

Frostengren’s reply seemed to be comprehensive.

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Rundström said. “Many thanks for your help.”

“So now we know,” he said. “Even though he was half-asleep Frostengren could remember that his sleeping bag wasn’t labeled ‘Alpin.’ That may not be significant, of course. Hereira presumably had some stuff of his own. But the sausages were his.”

Everybody realized what that meant. Hereira had broken through the cordon around the mountain.

The police car came racing up, turned off its siren, and pulled up. A member of the forensic team Lindman had met before got out. Rundström explained briefly what had happened.

“It’ll be light in an hour or two,” Larsson said. “We must get the traffic boys here. Even if we are in the middle of nowhere there’ll presumably be some traffic on this road.”

The forensic officer had some caution tape with him and Lindman helped cordon off the Golf. They positioned the cars so that their headlights lit up not only the Golf in the ditch, but also the road and the edge of the trees. Larsson and Rundström stood back to let the forensic specialist get on with his work. They beckoned Lindman to join them.

“What do we do now?” Larsson said. “None of us understands what’s happened, if we’re honest.”

“Facts are facts,” Rundström said impatiently. “The man we’ve been hunting in the mountains has broken through our cordon. He steals a car. Then somebody has a surprise in store for him, steps into the road, and takes a few pot shots at him. Shoots to kill, because he’s aiming at the windshield. I think we can take it for granted that Hereira didn’t get out of the car and shoot at it himself. The man must have been incredibly lucky — unless he’s lying wounded or dead somewhere out there in the forest, of course. There could have been blood even if we didn’t see any. Has it been snowing, by the way? We had a few millimeters up in Funäsdalen.”

“We had some wet snow for about an hour. That’s all.”

“The dog handler will be here any minute,” Rundström said. “He’s in his own car and, needless to say, he’s gotten a flat. But my sense is that Hereira has survived. The stain on the car seat doesn’t suggest a serious wound. Assuming it is blood, of course.” He went over to the forensic officer and asked him. “It could be blood,” he said when he came back, “but it could also be chocolate.”

“Have we got a time scale?” Larsson said. A question apparently directed mainly at himself.

“It was precisely 4:03 when you phoned me,” Rundström said.

“So this drama must have taken place between 3:30 and 3:45.”

The penny dropped for all of them at the same time.

“The cars,” Larsson said slowly. “Two passed through our roadblock shortly before Wallén called to tell us about the shooting.”

All three realized what that meant. The man who did the shooting could have passed through the cordon already. Larsson looked at Lindman.

“Can you remember? The last two cars to pass through?”

“The first was a woman in a green Saab. Erik knew her.”

Larsson agreed.

“Then there was another car after that woman had gone. Driving rather fast. What was it? A Ford?”

“A red Ford Escort,” Lindman said.

“A young man in a fur hat. Driving back south after visiting some relatives in Hede. The time would fit. First he shoots up this car, and then he passes through our checkpoint.”

“Did you check his driver’s license?”

Larsson shook his head grimly.

“Registration number?”

Larsson called Johansson and explained what had happened. He waited, then put his cell phone back in his pocket.

“ABB 303,” he said. “Erik’s not absolutely certain about the numbers. His notebook got wet and the pages are stuck together. We’re handling this business very badly.”

“Let’s trace that car right away,” Rundström said. “Red Ford Escort. ABB 303, or something similar. We want the owner now, no delays. We yell at Erik later.”

“Let’s try to get clear about what’s happened,” Larsson said. “There are tons of questions that need answering. Just so we don’t overlook something crucial. How could anybody know that Hereira would be driving past in a dark blue Golf at this very spot and at this time? Who stands in the middle of the road and tries to kill him?”

Rundström and Larsson got out their cell phones again. Lindman did the same, but had no idea who to call. A car drew up with the dog handler, two other officers, and Dolly the Alsatian. The dog found a scent immediately. The officers headed into the forest.

Rundström exploded in anger when he’d finished his call. “The stupid computer’s down. We can’t trace the car,” he said. “Why does everything always have to be fucked up?”

“Did it crash or is it a software glitch?”

Larsson was talking to somebody in Östersund and to Rundström at the same time.

“They’re putting in new data. They claim it’ll be up and running within an hour.”

The forensic officer went past. He had gone to his car to exchange his shoes for rubber boots.

“Have you found anything?” Larsson said.

“All kinds of things, but I’ll give you a holler if I think it’s important.”

It was still dark at 6 A.M. The police officers and the dog returned from the forest.

“She lost the scent,” the dog handler said. “She’s tired as well. You can’t push her beyond her limits. We’ll have to get some more dogs here.”

Rundström was talking nonstop on the phone. Larsson had unfolded the map again.

“He hasn’t got much to choose from. He’ll come to two gravel roads. The rest is nothing but trees. He’ll have to choose one of these two roads.”

Larsson folded the map carelessly and tossed it into the car. Rundström was berating somebody for not “understanding how serious this is.” Larsson took Lindman with him to the other side of the road.

“You think clearly,” Larsson said. “And you are lucky enough not to be responsible for all this. Even so, you can help us by telling us what conclusions you think we should reach.”

“You’ve already asked the most important question,” Lindman said. “How could anybody know that Hereira was going to come down this very road tonight?”

Larsson stared at him for a long while before replying. They were standing in the light from one of the police cars’ headlights.

“Can there be more than one answer?” Larsson asked.

“Hardly.”

“So whoever did the shooting must have been in contact with Hereira?”

“It’s the only possibility I can see. Either directly with Hereira, or with a third party who was a link between the two of them.”

“And then he stakes out this road, intending to kill him.”

“I can’t think of any other explanation. Unless there’s a leak from the police. Somebody passing on information about where we were setting up roadblocks, and why.”

“That doesn’t sound plausible.”

It occurred to Lindman that the previous evening he’d had the feeling that he was being followed. That somebody was keeping him under observation. But he didn’t say anything.

“One thing’s certain in any case,” Larsson said. “We’ve got to find Hereira. And we’ve got to identify the man driving that red Ford. Did you see his face?”

“It was pretty much hidden by his fur hat.”

“Erik can’t remember what he looked like either. Nor how he spoke. If it was a dialect. But it’s far from clear that Erik would have noticed anyway. Remember, he threw up that sleeping tablet. I don’t think he’s one hundred percent clear in the head tonight.”

Lindman suddenly felt dizzy. It came out of nowhere. He was forced to grab hold of Larsson so as not to fall.

“Are you sick?”

“I don’t know. Everything started spinning around.”

“You’d better go back to Sveg. I’ll get somebody to drive you. Erik is obviously not the only one who’s not in the best shape tonight.”

Lindman could see that Larsson was genuinely concerned.

“Are you going to faint?”

Lindman shook his head. He didn’t want to tell him the truth, which was that he felt as if he could keel over at any moment.

Larsson drove him back to Sveg himself. They didn’t speak during the journey. Dawn was breaking. The snow had gone away, but the clouds were still thick overhead. Lindman had noted absentmindedly that sunrise was about 7:45. Larsson pulled up outside the hotel.

“How do you feel?”

“Same as you. A sleepless night. I’ll feel better when I’ve had a little sleep.”

“Don’t you think it would be best if you went back to Borås?”

“Not yet. I’ll stay as arranged. Until Wednesday. Besides, I’m interested to know if that registration number has been linked to an owner yet.”

Larsson called Rundström.

“The computers are still down. Don’t they have any paperwork? Don’t they have any backup?”

Lindman opened the car door and eased himself out. Fear was churning around in his insides. Why don’t I say anything? he thought. Why don’t I tell Larsson that I’m so frightened that I can’t stop shaking?

“Go and get some rest. I’ll be in touch.”

Larsson drove away. The receptionist was sitting at her computer.

“You’re up early,” she said with a smile.

“Or late,” he said.

He took his key, went up to his room, sat on the edge of the bed, and called Elena. She was already at school. He told her what had happened, that he’d been up all night, and that he felt dizzy. She asked when he was coming home, but he raised his voice, couldn’t conceal his irritation, and simply said that he needed to sleep. Then he’d make up his mind.

It was 1:30 when he woke up. He lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling. He had dreamed about his father again.

They were paddling in a two-man canoe. There was a waterfall somewhere ahead. He tried to tell his father that they had to turn back before the current became so strong that they would be forced over the edge, but his father didn’t answer. When Stefan turned around, he found that it wasn’t his father sitting behind him, but the lawyer Jacobi. He was stark naked, his chest covered in reeds. Then the dream dissolved.

He got out of bed. He didn’t feel dizzy any more. He felt hungry. Even so, his curiosity got the better of him. He tried Larsson’s number. Busy. He showered and tried again. Still busy. He dressed and discovered that he had no clean underwear left. Called again. Now Larsson answered, with a bellowing “Yes?”

“It’s Lindman.”

“Oh. I thought it was a reporter from Östersund. He’s been chasing me all morning. Erik thinks Wallén must have tipped him off about the shooting. If so, he’s in for a good time. The chief of police is making a stink as well. He’s wondering what on earth is going on. Aren’t we all?”

“How’s it going?”

“We’ve established the registration number. ABB 003. Erik was off by one digit.”

“Who’s the owner?”

“A man called Anders Harner. His address is a P.O. box in Albufeira in southern Portugal. One of the officers in Hede knew exactly where that is. He’s been there on vacation. But we’ve got more problems: Anders Harner is seventy-seven, and the man in that car was certainly not an old man. None of us have eyesight that bad.”

“Perhaps it was his son? Or some other relative?”

“Or the car had been stolen. We’re looking into that. It’s perfectly obvious that nothing about this investigation is straightforward.”

“Why not say that the crimes are well-planned instead? Any trace of Hereira?”

“We’ve sent out three dogs, and the helicopter from Sundsvall finally showed up. But we’ve drawn a blank. No sign at all. Which is quite remarkable. How are you, by the way? Have you had some sleep?”

“I don’t feel dizzy anymore.”

“I have a bad conscience. I don’t know how many regulations I’ve broken by roping you into all this, but most importantly, I shouldn’t have forgotten that you’re sick.”

“I wanted to participate.”

“The forensic specialist thinks it could have been Erik’s gun that was used last night. It’s a possibility, at least.”

Lindman went to the dining room. He felt better after a meal, but he was still tired when he went back to his room. There was a stain on the ceiling that looked like a face. Jacobi’s face, he thought. I wonder if he’s still alive.

There was a knock on the door. He opened it. It was Veronica Molin.

“Am I disturbing you?”

“Not at all.”

“I’ve come to apologize. I reacted too strongly last night.”

“It was my fault. I was stupid.”

He wanted to ask her in, but there was dirty laundry lying around. Besides, it smelled stuffy.

“The room hasn’t been cleaned,” he said.

She smiled. “Mine has.” She looked at her watch. “I’m due to meet my brother at Östersund Airport exactly four hours from now. There’s time for us to talk.”

He took his jacket and followed her down the stairs. He was just behind her and had to force himself not to reach out and touch her.

Her computer was turned off.

“I’ve spoken to Giuseppe Larsson,” she said. “I had to squeeze what happened last night out of him. I gathered from what he said that you might be in the hotel.”

“What did he tell you?”

“About the shooting. And that you haven’t caught the man you’re after yet.”

“The question is, how many men are the police after? Is it one or two? Maybe even three.”

“Why aren’t I being kept informed about what’s happening?”

“The police like to work in peace, without being harassed by reporters. And relatives. Especially when they don’t know what’s actually happened. And especially when they don’t know why something has happened.”

“I still don’t believe that my father died because he used to be a Nazi. Because of something he might have done when he was a German soldier. The war ended more than fifty years ago. I think his death is somehow connected with that woman in Scotland, whose name I remember as Monica.”

Lindman decided on the spur of the moment to tell her about the discovery he had made in Wetterstedt’s apartment in Kalmar. He didn’t know why. Perhaps to establish the fact that they had a secret to share and that both their fathers had been Nazis. He told her without saying how he’d made the discovery, without saying that he’d broken into the apartment and found out by accident. He told her about the network, and the foundation called Strong Sweden. About all the dead as well as the living who made contributions to the organization.

“I still don’t know enough,” he said in conclusion. “Perhaps that organization is just a small part of something much bigger? I’m not so naive that I think there might be a worldwide Nazi conspiracy, but it’s clear that Nazi ideas are alive and well. When all this is over I’ll talk to my boss in Borås. There must be grounds for the security services to look into this in earnest.”

She listened intently to what he had to say.

“You’re doing the right thing,” she said eventually. “I would have done the same.”

“We’ve got to fight against this lunacy,” he said. “Even if these people are harboring a hopeless dream, they are spreading the madness further into the world.”

She looked at her watch.

“I know you have to get your brother,” Lindman said. “Just answer me one question. Why did you let me sleep here?”

She put her hand on her computer.

“I said that this thing contains my entire life. That’s not really true, of course.”

Lindman stared at her hand and the computer. He was listening to what she was saying, but it was an image that imprinted itself on his mind. She removed her hand and the image disappeared.

“I’ll go now. What time’s the funeral tomorrow?”

“Eleven o’clock.”

He turned and walked to the door. He was about to open it when he felt her hand on his arm.

“You’ve got to get your brother,” he said.

His cell phone rang in his jacket pocket.

“You’d better answer.”

It was Larsson. “Where are you?”

“At the hotel.”

“Something very odd has happened.”

“What?”

“Berggren has called Erik. She wants him to pick her up.”

“why?”

“She says she wants to confess to the murder of Abraham Andersson.”

It was 2:25. Monday, November 15.

Chapter Thirty-One

Larsson called at 6 P.M. and asked Lindman to come to Johansson’s office. It was cold and windy when he left the hotel. When he reached the church he stopped and turned around quickly. A car went by along Fjällvägen, followed by another. He thought he could make out a shadowy figure next to the wall of the building opposite the school, but he wasn’t sure. He continued to the community center. Larsson was waiting for him outside the entrance. They went to the office. Lindman noticed that there were two extra chairs — one for Berggren, he assumed, and the other for her lawyer.

“They’re on the way to Östersund now,” Larsson said. “She’s under arrest, and will be remanded into custody tomorrow. Erik is with her.”

“What did she say?”

Larsson pointed at a tape recorder on the desk.

“A tape of the interrogation is on its way to Östersund,” he said, “but I had two tape recorders. I thought you might like to hear the copy. You’ll be on your own here. I have to get something to eat, and rest for a little while.”

“You can borrow my hotel room if you like.”

“There’s a sofa in the other room. That’ll do.”

“I don’t need to listen to the tape. You can tell me what happened.”

Larsson sat in Johansson’s chair. He scratched at his forehead, as if he suddenly had an itch.

“I’d rather you listened to it.”

“Did she confess?”

“Yes.”

“The motive?”

“I think you should listen to the tape. And then tell me what you think.”

“You are not convinced?”

“I don’t know what I am. That’s why I want to hear your reaction.”

Larsson stood up. “Still no sign of Hereira,” he said. “We haven’t found the red Ford either. Nor the man who did the shooting. But we will in the end. I’ll be back here in two hours.”

Larsson put on his jacket.

“She sat on that chair,” he said, pointing. “Her lawyer, Hermansson, was in that one. She’d called him this morning. He was already here when we went to pick her up.”

Larsson closed the door behind him. Lindman turned on the tape recorder. There was a scraping noise as a microphone was being moved. Then he heard Larsson’s voice.

GL: So, we are commencing this interrogation and note that today is November 15, 1999. The time is 15:07. The interrogation is being conducted at the police station in Sveg by Detective Inspector Giuseppe Larsson. The witness is Inspector Erik Johansson. The interrogation of Elsa Berggren is being held at her own request. She is being represented by her lawyer, Sven Hermansson. Would you please give us your name and personal details?

EB: My name is Elsa Maria Berggren, born May 10, 1925, in Tranås.

GL: Could you speak a bit louder, please?

EB: My name is Elsa Maria Berggren, born May 10, 1925, in Tranås.

GL: Thank you. Could we have your full identity number, please?

EB: 250510-0221.

GL: Thank you. (More scraping from the microphone, somebody coughed, a door closed.) So, if you could just move a bit closer to the microphone... Now, please tell us what happened.

EB: I want to confess to the murder of Abraham Andersson.

GL: You are confessing to killing Abraham Andersson with intent?

EB: Yes.

GL: So it was murder, is that correct?

EB: Yes.

GL: Did you consult with your lawyer before saying this?

EB: There’s nothing to consult about. I admit to having killed him with premeditation. Isn’t that what it’s called?

GL: That’s what they usually say, yes.

EB: Then I admit to having murdered Abraham Andersson with premeditation.

GL: So you are confessing to having committed murder?

EB: How many times do I have to repeat it?

GL: Why did you kill him?

EB: He threatened to expose Herbert Molin, the man living nearby who was killed shortly beforehand as a former National Socialist. I didn’t want that. He also threatened to expose me as a convinced National Socialist. And he also committed blackmail.

GL: Against you?

EB: No, Herbert Molin. He demanded money from him every month.

GL: How long had that been going on?

EB: Since a year or so after Herbert moved here. Eight or nine years, I suppose.

GL: Are we talking about a lot of money?

EB: I don’t know. No doubt it was a lot of money for Herbert.

GL: When did you decide to kill Andersson?

EB: I can’t remember the exact date, but after Herbert was killed he contacted me and said he expected me to continue with the payments. Otherwise he would expose me as well.

GL: What happened then?

EB: He came to my house without calling first and was very rude. He demanded money. That was no doubt when I made up my mind.

GL: Made up your mind to do what?

EB: Why do I have to keep repeating everything?

GL: You mean you made up your mind to kill him?

EB: Yes.

GL: Then what happened?

EB: I killed him a few days later. Can I have a glass of water?

GL: Of course... (More scraping noises from the microphone, somebody stood up, then the voices started again. Lindman could see it all unfolding in front of him. Johansson was no doubt sitting closest to the table where there were several glasses and an open bottle of mineral water, and he filled a glass and passed it to her.) So, you killed him.

EB: That’s what I’m sitting here telling you.

GL: Can you tell us how it happened?

EB: I drove to his place in the evening. I took my shotgun with me. I threatened to kill him if he didn’t stop trying to blackmail me. He didn’t think I was serious, so I forced him to walk out into the trees not far from the house and shot him.

GL: You shot him?

EB: I shot him through the heart.

GL: So you have a shotgun?

EB: For God’s sake... What do you expect me to have owned? A machine gun? I’ve already said that I had a shotgun with me.

GL: Is it a weapon you keep at home? Is it licensed?

EB: I don’t have a license. I bought it in Norway a few years ago, and brought it to Sweden illegally.

GL: Where is it now?

EB: At the bottom of the Ljusnan River.

GL: So you threw the gun into the river immediately after shooting Abraham Andersson?

EB: I could hardly have done it beforehand, could I?

GL: No, I suppose not. But I have to ask you to answer my questions clearly and directly, without making unnecessary comments.

(A man’s voice interrupted at this point. Lindman presumed it was the lawyer. To his surprise the lawyer spoke with a very broad Småland accent and was difficult to understand. As far as he could tell, Hermansson had said that in his view his client had answered the questions in a perfectly prosper manner. He couldn’t hear what Larsson said in reply because the microphone was moved again.)

GL: Can you say where you threw the gun into the river?

EB: From the bridge here in Sveg.

GL: Which one?

EB: The old one.

GL: From which side?

EB: The side facing the town. I was standing in the middle of the bridge.

GL: Did you throw the gun or drop it into the water?

EB: I’m not sure. I suppose I dropped it.

GL: Let me change direction for a moment. A few days ago you were attacked in your home by a masked man wanting to know who had killed Abraham Andersson. Is there anything you said at that time that you wish to change now?

EB: No.

GL: So you didn’t make that up to throw us off the trail?

EB: It happened exactly as I said it did at the time. Besides, that pale-looking policeman from Borås... what’s his name? Lindgren... he was also attacked outside my house.

GL: Lindman. Do you have a plausible explanation for what happened? For why the man who attacked you wanted to know who killed Abraham Andersson?

EB: Perhaps he was feeling some kind of guilt.

GB: For what?

EB: Because the murder of Herbert might have led to the murder of Abraham Andersson.

GL: So he was right, wasn’t he?

EB: Yes. But what did he know? Who is he?

GL: Could it have been then that you decided you should confess?

EB: That obviously played a part in it.

GL: Okay, we’ll leave that alone for the moment. Let’s go back to what happened at Andersson’s place. You said that you — and I’m quoting you word for word, I wrote it down — “forced him to walk out into the trees not far from the house and shot him.” Is that correct?

EB: Yes.

GL: Can you describe in detail exactly what happened?

EB: I stuck the gun in his back and told him to start walking. We stopped when we came into the trees. I stood in front of him and asked him one last time if he realized that I was deadly serious. He just laughed. So I shot him.

(Silence. The tape was still running. Somebody coughed, the lawyer perhaps.)

Lindman understood why. There was something wrong here. It was pitch-black in the forest. How had she been able to see anything? In addition, Andersson was tied to a tree when he died. Or at least the police had assumed that he was still alive when he’d been tied to the tree. Lindman suspected that Larsson was beginning to wonder about Berggren’s confession, and was asking himself how to proceed. He was probably trying to recall what had been published in the media, and what was known only to the police.

GL: So you shot him from in front?

EB: Yes.

GL: Can you say roughly how far away from him you were?

EB: Three meters or so.

GL: And he didn’t move? Didn’t try to run away?

EB: I suppose he didn’t believe I was going to shoot.

GL: Can you remember what time it was when this happened?

EB: Around about midnight.

GL: That means it was dark.

EB: I had a strong flashlight with me. I made him carry it when we walked into the forest.

(Another short pause. Berggren had answered the first question that had worried Larsson.)

GL: What happened after you’d shot him?

EB: I looked to make sure he was dead. He was.

GL: Then what did you do?

EB: I tied him to a tree trunk. I had a clothesline with me.

GL: So you tied him up after you’d shot him?

EB: Yes.

GL: Why did you do that?

EB: At that time I had no intention of making a confession. I wanted to make it look as if it was something different.

GL: Something different from what?

EB: A murder a woman could have done. I made it look more like an execution.

(The second question answered, Lindman thought. But Larsson still doesn’t really believe her.)

EB: I need to go to the bathroom.

GL: Then we’ll take a break here, at 15:32. Erik can show you where it is.

The tape started running again. The interrogation continued. Larsson went back to the beginning, repeated all the questions, but stopped in connection with more and more details. A classic interrogation, Lindman thought. Larsson is tired, he’s been working day and night for several days, but he’s still in complete control of what he’s saying, step by step.

The tape stopped. Larsson had brought the interrogation to a close at 17:02. The last thing he said on the tape was the only conclusion he could draw.

GL: Okay, I think we can stop there. What has happened is that you, Elsa Berggren, have confessed to shooting Abraham Andersson, intentionally and after having planned it, at his house at Dunkärret on November 3, shortly after midnight. You have described in detail what happened, and stated that the motive was that you and Herbert Molin had been blackmailed, or threatened with blackmail. You also said that you threw the murder weapon into the Ljusnan River from the old bridge. Is that all correct?

EB: Yes.

GL: Is there anything you’ve said that you’d like to change?

EB: No.

GL: Is there anything Mr. Hermansson would like to say?

SH: No.

GL: I must now inform you that you are under arrest and will be taken to the police station in Östersund. Then a public prosecutor will make a decision about remanding you into custody. Your lawyer will explain all this to you. Is there anything you wish to add?

EB: No.

GL: What you have told us is exactly what happened, is that correct?

EB: Yes.

GL: Then I shall conclude the interrogation at this point.

Lindman stood up and stretched his back. It was stuffy in the room. He opened a window and emptied the half-bottle of mineral water. Thought about what he’d heard. He felt the need to stretch his legs. Larsson was asleep somewhere. He wrote a note and put it on the desk. Short walk, to both bridges and back. Stefan.

He walked quickly because he was cold. The path by the river was well-lit. Again he had the feeling that somebody was following him. He stopped and turned. Nobody in sight. Although — had there been a shadowy figure dodging out of the light? I’m imagining things, he told himself. There’s nobody there. He continued toward the bridge from which Berggren claimed to have dropped her shotgun into the river. Not thrown, dropped. Was she telling the truth? He had to assume so. Nobody confesses to a murder they haven’t committed unless there is a very special reason to protect the real culprit. In such cases, the culprit is usually a child. Parents sometimes accept the blame to save their children. But otherwise? He came to the bridge, tried imagining the shotgun lying there in the water, then turned back. There was one question that Larsson had overlooked. Why had she chosen this particular day to confess? Why not yesterday? Why not tomorrow? Did she only finally make up her mind today? Or was there some other reason?

He came back to the community center and passed behind it. The window was still ajar. Larsson was on the phone. Talking to Rundström, Lindman could hear. The library was still open. He went into the reading room and looked for the Borås local paper. It wasn’t there. He went back to the police office. Larsson was still talking to Rundström. Lindman stayed in the doorway. Looked at the window. Held his breath. He’d been standing out there in the dark and had heard everything Larsson said. He went over to the window, closed it, and went back outside. Now he couldn’t hear a word of what was being said inside. He went back in. Larsson was finishing his conversation with Rundström. Lindman opened the window again. Larsson looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

“What are you up to?”

“I’ve just realized that from outside you can hear every word that’s said in here, loud and clear, when the window’s open. If it’s dark you can be right next to the window and not be seen.”

“So?”

“Just a thought. A possibility.”

“You mean that somebody’s been listening to our phone calls?”

“I expect I’m just imagining it.”

Larsson closed the window.

“For safety’s sake,” he said with a smile. “What do you think about her confession?”

“Did it say in the papers that he was tied to a tree trunk?”

“Yes, but not that a clothesline was used. I also spoke to one of the forensic boys who examined the scene. He could see no flaw in what she described.”

“So she did it?”

“Facts are facts. You no doubt noticed that I was skeptical, though.”

“If she didn’t do it, if she’s protecting the real culprit, we have to ask why.”

Larsson shook his head. “We have to start from the assumption that we’ve got this murder solved. A woman has admitted doing it. If we find the shotgun in the river tomorrow, we can soon establish if the fatal shot came from that gun.”

He sat down and started rolling one of his broken-off cigarillos between his fingers.

“We’ve been fighting on several fronts these last few days. I hope that one of them can now be regarded as closed.”

“Why do you think she decided to confess today instead of any other day?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should have asked her that. I suppose she had only just made up her mind. She may even have had enough respect for us to have decided that we’d get her in the end anyway.”

“Would we have?”

Larsson made a face. “You never know. Sometimes even the Swedish police catch a criminal.”

There was a knock on the half-open door. A boy came in with a pizza box. Larsson paid the bill and put it in his pocket. The boy left.

“This time I’m not going to crumple it up and drop it in an ashtray. Do you still think it was Hereira in the dining room that night? And that he picked up the bill?”

“Could have been.”

“This is the most continental thing about Sveg,” he said. “They have a pizzeria. Not that they normally deliver, but they will if you have the right contacts. Would you like some? I didn’t get around to eating. I fell asleep.”

Larsson cut the pizza in half with a ruler.

“Police officers put on weight quickly,” Larsson said. “Stress and careless eating habits. On the other hand, we don’t commit suicide all that often. Doctors are worse in that respect. Then again, a lot of us die from heart problems. Which is probably not all that surprising.”

“I’ve got cancer,” Lindman said. “Perhaps I’m an exception.”

Larsson sat with a piece of pizza in his hand.

“Bowling,” he said. “That would make you healthy again, no question.”

Lindman couldn’t help laughing.

“I only have to mention the word ‘bowling’ and you start laughing. I don’t think being serious suits your face.”

“What was it she called me? ‘That pale-looking policeman from Borås’?”

“That was the only funny thing she said from start to finish. To be honest, I think Berggren is an awful woman. I’m glad she isn’t my mother.”

They ate in silence. Larsson put the box and the remains of his pizza on top of the wastebasket.

“We’re getting random bits of information in,” he said, wiping his mouth. “The only problem is that it’s the wrong stuff. For instance, Interpol in Buenos Aires have sent a mysterious message telling us that there’s somebody called Fernando Hereira in jail for life, for something as old-fashioned as counterfeiting. They ask if he’s our man. What on earth do you say to that? Do we tell them that if they can prove the guy has cloned himself, we’ll take them seriously?”

“Is that really true?”

“I’m afraid so. Maybe if we’re a little patient we’ll get something more sensible from them. You never know.”

“The red Ford?”

“Disappeared into thin air. Like the driver. We still haven’t tracked down the owner, Harner. He seems to have emigrated to Portugal. Some might take that news with a pinch of salt considering he still has a car in Sweden. The national crime squad are looking into it. There’s a nationwide alert for the car. Something will happen, given time. Rundström’s a persistent bastard.”

Lindman tried to make a summary in his head. His role in this investigation, insofar as he had one at all, had been to ask questions that could be of use to Larsson.

“I take it that you’ll be telling the mass media as soon as possible that you have the person responsible for the murder of Abraham Andersson?”

Larsson looked up in surprise. “Why on earth should I do that? If what we think is right, it could mean that Hereira will leave the country. If it’s true that he came back up to the northern forests to find out about the murder of Andersson, that is. Don’t forget that he put Berggren under pressure about that. I think she was telling the truth about that, at least. Obviously, we’ll have to dig into all this. Our first task tomorrow morning will be to look for the shotgun in the river.”

“Somebody else could have killed Andersson, using a gun that either the murderer or Berggren threw into the river. Or dropped, as she said.”

“Are you suggesting that she confessed to get our protection?”

“I’m just asking questions.”

Then he thought of something else that had been troubling him on and off.

“Why isn’t there a prosecutor?” he said. “I haven’t heard a name, at any rate.”

“Lövander,” Larsson said. “Albert Lövander. They say that in his younger days he was a pretty good highjumper, only just below the elite standard. Now he devotes most of his time to his grandchildren. Of course there’s a prosecutor involved. We don’t work outside the legal system. Besides, Lövander and Rundström are old friends. They talk to each other every morning and every evening. And Lövander never interferes in what we’re doing.”

“But surely he must have given some general instructions?”

“Only to keep on with what we’re doing.”

It was now 9:15. Larsson called home. Lindman went out and stood next to the stuffed bear. Then he called Elena.

“Where are you?”

“Next to the bear.”

“I consulted a map of Sweden today, large-scale. I’m trying to find out where you are exactly.”

“We got a confession. One of the murders might have been solved. It was a woman.”

“Who’d done what?”

“Killed a man who’d been blackmailing her. She shot him.”

“Was that the man who was tied to a tree?”

“Yes.”

“No woman would ever do that.”

“Why not?”

“Women defend themselves. They never attack.”

“I don’t think it’s quite as straightforward as that.”

“How straightforward is it, then?”

He hadn’t the energy to try to explain.

“When are you coming home?”

“I’ve already said.”

“Have you thought any more about our trip to London?”

Lindman had forgotten all about it.

“No,” he said. “But I will. I think it sounds like an excellent idea.”

“What are you doing just now?”

“Talking to Giuseppe.”

“Doesn’t he have a family to go home to?”

“What makes you ask that? Right now he’s talking to his wife on the phone.”

“Can you give me an honest answer to a question?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Does he know that I exist?”

“I think so.”

“Think?”

“I’ve probably mentioned your name. Or he’s heard me talking to you on the phone.”

“Anyway, I’m glad you called. But don’t call again until tomorrow. I’m going to bed early tonight.”

Lindman went back to the office. Larsson had finished his call. He was picking at his fingernails with a straightened paper clip.

“That window cracked open,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. It seems plausible that there was somebody there, listening to what we said. I’ve been trying to remember when it was open, and when it was closed. Impossible, of course.”

“Maybe you should be thinking about what information came from this room and nowhere else.”

Larsson contemplated his hands. “We decided on the roadblocks here,” he said eventually. “We talked about a man on his way from Funäsdalen towards the southwest.”

“I take it you’re thinking about the red Ford? The man who did the shooting?”

“I’m thinking more about the suggestion that there might have been a leak from the police. It seems more likely that it was an open window.”

Lindman hesitated.

“This last day or so I’ve had the feeling that somebody has been following me,” he said. “I’ve felt it over and over again. A shadow somewhere behind me. Noises too. But I can’t be sure.”

Larsson said nothing. Instead he stood up and went to the door.

“Walk over to the wall,” he said. “Keep on talking. When I turn off the light, look out the window.”

Lindman did as he was told. Larsson started babbling about grapes. Why red ones were much better than green ones. Lindman had gotten as far as the window. Larsson switched off the light. Lindman tried to see what was happening in the darkness outside, but everything was black. Larsson put the light back on, and went back to his desk.

“Did you see anything?”

“No.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that there wasn’t somebody there. Or that there wasn’t somebody there not long ago. But I don’t see what we can do about it.”

He pushed aside two small plastic bags lying on top of a file. One of them fell on the floor.

“The forensic boys forgot a couple of plastic bags,” Larsson said. “Odds and ends they’d found on the road not far from the blue Golf.”

Lindman bent down to look. One of them contained a receipt from a gas station. Shell. It was dirty, hardly legible. Larsson watched him intently. Lindman studied the text. It seemed a bit clearer now. The gas receipt was from a filling station near Söderköping. Slowly, he replaced the plastic bag on the desk and looked at Larsson. Thoughts were whirring around in his brain.

“Berggren didn’t kill Andersson,” he said slowly. “We’re into something much bigger than that, Giuseppe. Berggren didn’t kill him.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Snow was falling again. Larsson went to the window to check the thermometer. — 1 °C. He sat down and looked at Lindman. Lindman would remember that moment, a clear and unmistakable image of a turning point. It was made up of the newly falling snow, Larsson with his bloodshot eyes, and the story itself, what had happened in Kalmar, the discovery he had made when he broke into Wetterstedt’s apartment. He remembered that only a few hours beforehand he had told the same story to Veronica Molin. Now it was Larsson listening with great interest. Was he surprised? Lindman couldn’t tell from the expression on his face.

He was trying to create an overall picture. That dirty gas station receipt from a Shell station in Söderköping was a key that fitted all doors, but in order to draw conclusions he must first tell the whole story, not just parts of it.

What had he realized when he picked up the plastic bag that had fallen from the overladen desk? A sort of silent explosion, a wall being broken through, and something that had been limited all at once became very large. Although they were groping in the dark, looking for a murderer who might be called Fernando Hereira and might come from Argentina, the investigation had been local. They had been looking for the solution in Härjedalen. Now the artificial walls had collapsed. The gas receipt shot like a rocket through everything they had built, and at last it was possible to see things clearly.

Somebody had filled up with gas in Söderköping, in a red Ford Escort belonging to a man by the name of Herner who had a P.O. box in Portugal. Then somebody had driven the car across much of Sweden, stopped on a country road west of Sveg, and started shooting at a car that was coming from the mountains. They scraped at the dirty receipt but were unable to read the date, although the time was clearly 20:12. Larsson thought the forensic people would be able to decipher the date, and they had to do that as soon as possible.

Somebody sets off for Härjedalen from Kalmar. On the way, in Söderköping, he stops to fill up with gas. He continues his journey. He tries to kill the man who most probably was responsible for the murder of Molin. Neither Lindman nor Larsson were the type of police officer who believed in coincidences. Somewhere in the Nazi underworld, inhabited by the likes of Wetterstedt and the Strong Sweden foundation, Lindman’s visit had stirred up unrest. They couldn’t be certain that he was the one who’d broken into the apartment. Or could they? Lindman remembered the front door closing shut as he left the apartment, the feeling that somebody was watching him, the same feeling he’d had these last few days. “Perhaps two invisible shadows make one visible shadow,” he said to Larsson. It could be that the shadow following him in Kalmar was the same as the one in Sveg. The conclusion that Lindman was trying to reach was that their thinking had been closer to the truth than they had dared to believe. It was all about the underworld where old Nazis had come across something new that enabled the old madness join up with the new version. Somebody had broken into this shadow world and killed Molin. A shudder had run through the old Nazis. “The woodlice are starting to crawl out from under the rocks,” as Larsson put it afterwards. Who was the enemy of these Nazis? Was it the man who had killed Molin? Could it mean that Andersson had known about more than just the past of Molin and Berggren, that he’d known about the whole organization, and had threatened to expose it and perhaps even something still bigger? They couldn’t know that. But a Ford Escort had been filled up with gas and driven to Härjedalen by a man intent on killing somebody. And Berggren had decided to take responsibility for a murder she almost certainly hadn’t committed. The pattern was becoming clear, and conclusions possible to draw. There was an organization, to which Lindman’s own father was continuing to give support long after his death. Molin was a member, as was Berggren. But not Andersson. Nevertheless, one way or another he had discovered its existence. On the surface he was a friendly man who played the violin in the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, a dues-paying member of the Center Party who also wrote trivial pop songs under the pseudonym Siv Nilsson. Beneath the surface he was a man with more than one trick in his bag. A blackmailer who made threats and demands. And maybe, deep down, was upset at the very thought of living close to an unreformed Nazi.

It took Lindman half an hour to work it all out.

“The hiding place,” he said. “Andersson’s hiding place. What did he have hidden in there? How much did he know? We can’t tell. But whatever it was, it was too much.”

Snow was falling more densely now. Larsson had angled his desk lamp so that it shone out into the darkness.

“This has been threatening for the last week,” he said. “Snow. And now we’re getting plenty of it. It might melt away, but it could stick. Winters up here are not easy to predict, but they’re always long.”

They drank coffee. The community center was empty. The library had closed.

“I think it’s time for me to go back to Östersund,” Larsson said. “All you’ve told me makes me more convinced than ever that the Special Branch must be brought in.”

“What about the information you’ve gotten from me?” Lindman said.

“We may have received an anonymous tip,” Larsson said. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to report you for breaking down the door of that Nazi’s apartment.”

It was 10:15. They examined the situation they were in from various angles. Shuffled the pieces around. A couple of hours ago Berggren had been playing a central role. Now she’d been sidelined, at least for the time being. At the front of stage were Fernando Hereira and the man who’d filled a Ford Escort with gas in Söderköping.

There was a clattering from the entrance to the community center. Johansson eventually trudged in, snow in his thinning hair.

“I nearly ran off the road,” he said, brushing the snow from his jacket. “I started skidding. I was close to catastrophe.”

“You drive too fast.”

“Very possibly.”

“What happened in Östersund?”

“Lövander will work out the remanding procedures tomorrow morning. He came to the police station and listened to the tape, then called me in the car.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“She didn’t utter a word all the way to Östersund.”

Larsson had vacated the desk chair, and Johansson sat down with a yawn. Larsson told him about the gas receipt and the conclusions they’d drawn. He invented a story about Lindman receiving an anonymous call about the Strong Sweden Foundation. Johansson was only half-listening at first, but soon pricked up his ears.

“I agree,” he said when Larsson had finished. “We have to bring in the Special Branch. If we have an organization calling itself Nazi and killing people, then Stockholm needs to be in on the case. There’s been a whole lot of this kind of stuff in Sweden lately. Meanwhile I suppose we’d better keep on hunting for that red Escort.”

“Isn’t Stockholm doing that?”

Johansson had opened his briefcase and was taking out some faxes.

“They’ve traced Anders Harner. He says the Escort is his all right, but it’s in a garage in Stockholm. A place run by somebody called Mattias Sundelin. I’ve got his telephone number here.”

He called the number and switched his telephone to loudspeaker mode. A woman answered.

“I’m trying to get in touch with Mattias Sundelin.”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Erik Johansson and I’m a police officer in Sveg.”

“Where’s that?”

“In Härjedalen, but that’s irrelevant. Is Sundelin there?”

“Just a minute, I’ll get him.”

They waited.

“Mattias here,” said a gravelly voice.

“This is Inspector Johansson from the police in Sveg. It’s about a red Ford Escort, registration number ABB 003. The owner is Anders Harner. He tells us it’s in your garage. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“So you have the car?”

“Not here at home. It’s in the garage in town. I rent out garage space.”

“But you are certain that the car is there at this moment?”

“I can’t be certain about every single car I’ve got parked there. I have about ninety of them. What’s this all about?”

“We need to trace that car. Where is the garage?”

“In Kungsholmen. I can take a look tomorrow.”

“No,” Johansson said. “We need to know right now.”

“What’s the hurry?”

“I can’t go into that. Please drive in and check that the car is still there.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Now.”

“I can’t do that. I’ve been drinking wine. I’d be over the limit if I was stopped.”

“Is there somebody else who could check? If not, you’ll have to take a taxi.”

“You can try Pelle Niklasson. I’ve got his number here.”

Johansson wrote it down, thanked Sundelin, and hung up. Then he called the new number. The man who answered said he was Pelle Niklasson. Johansson repeated the questions about the red Escort.

“I can’t remember if I saw it today. We’ve got quite a few cars in the long-term area.”

“We need to have confirmation that it is there, and we need it now.”

“I’m in Vällingby. Surely you’re not suggesting that I should drive all that way at this time of night.”

“If not a police car will come to get you.”

“What’s happened?”

Johansson sighed. “I’m the one asking the questions. How long will it take you to get there and check if the car’s where it should be?”

“Forty minutes. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“No. Write down this number. Call me as soon as you know.”

It was still snowing in Sveg. They waited. Thirty-seven minutes later, the phone rang.

“Erik Johansson here.”

“How did you know?”

“How did I know what?”

“That the car wasn’t here.”

Larsson and Lindman sat up and leaned towards the speakerphone.

“Has it been stolen?”

“I don’t know. It’s supposed to be impossible to steal a car from here.”

“Can you explain that a bit more clearly?”

“This is a garage that charges high fees in return for maximum security. No car can be driven away from here without our checking the person who’s in it.”

“So everything is recorded?”

“In the computer, yes. I don’t know how to run that thing, though. I mostly do maintenance. It’s the other boys who look after the computer side.”

“Mattias Sundelin?”

“He’s the boss. He doesn’t do anything.”

“Who are you referring to, then?”

“The other boys. Five of us work here, apart from the custodian. And the boss, of course. One of them must know when the car left, but I can’t contact them now.”

Lindman raised his hand. “Ask him to fax their personal details.”

“Do you have access to their personal details?”

“They’re here somewhere.”

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 Mäkinen. 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 Öland, 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 Östersund. 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 Östersund. 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 Östersund. 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.

It already felt as if he were walking up the hill to the hospital. He was passing the school now. It was raining. Or maybe it was sleet. He was wearing the wrong shoes. He had gotten dressed up in preparation for what was in store. The black shoes he’d bought last year and hardly ever worn. He should have been wearing boots, or at the very least his brown shoes with the thick rubber soles. His feet already felt wet.

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.

Chapter Thirty-Three

He 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 Fjällvägen. 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.

The snow muffled all sounds, so he didn’t hear the man creeping up on him from behind and hitting him hard on the back of his head. Lindman was unconscious by the time he landed in the snow.

It was pitch-black when he opened his eyes. There was a pounding in the back of his head. He remembered immediately what had happened — standing by the guard’s van, peering out at the station. Then a flash. He knew nothing about what happened next, but he was no longer outdoors. He was sitting on a chair. He couldn’t move his arms. Nor his legs. He was tied to a chair, and there was a blindfold over his eyes.

He was terrified. He’d been captured by the man whose tracks he’d followed through the snow. He had done exactly what he shouldn’t have done: gone off on his own, without backup and without warning his colleagues. His heart was racing. When he tried to turn his head he felt excruciating pain in the back of his neck. He listened to the darkness and wondered how long he’d been unconscious.

He gave a start. He could hear somebody breathing close by him. Where was he? Indoors, but where? There was a smell in the room that he recognized but couldn’t place. He’d been in this room before, but where was it? There was a glimmer of light around the edge of the blindfold. He still couldn’t see anything, but the light had been turned on. He held his breath and heard muffled footsteps. A carpet, he thought, and the floor’s vibrating. An old house with a wooden floor. I’ve been here before, I’m certain of it.

Then somebody started talking to him in English. A man’s voice, coming from his left. It was gruff, the words came out slowly, and the foreign accent was obvious.

“I’m sorry I had to knock you out, but this meeting was necessary.”

Lindman made no reply. Every word he said could be dangerous if the man really was insane. Silence was the only protection he had at the moment.

“I know you’re a policeman,” the voice said. “Never mind how I know.”

The man waited for Lindman to reply, but he didn’t.

“I’m tired,” the voice said. “This has been far too long a journey. I want to go home, but I need answers to some questions. And there’s somebody I want to talk to. Answer just one question: who am I?”

Lindman tried to work out what it meant. Not the words, but what lay behind them. The man talking to him gave the impression of being perfectly calm, not in the least worried or impatient.

“I’d like a reply,” the voice said. “You won’t come to any harm, but I can’t let you see my face. Who am I?”

Lindman realized he would have to respond. It was a very clear question.

“I saw you in the snow beneath my hotel window. You raised your arms and you left some prints in the snow like those in Herbert Molin’s house.”

“I killed him. It was necessary. I spent all those years thinking that I would draw back when it came down to it, but I didn’t. Perhaps I shall regret it when I’m on my deathbed. I don’t know.”

Lindman was soaked in sweat. He wants to talk, he thought. What I need is time, time to work out where I am and what I can do. He also thought about what the voice had said: all those years. That was something he could latch onto, and put a simple question of his own.

“I realize it must have had something to do with the war,” he said. “Events that took place a long time ago.”

“Herbert Molin killed my father.”

The words were spoken calmly and slowly. Herbert Molin killed my father. Lindman had no doubt that Fernando Hereira, or whatever he was really called, was speaking the truth.

“What happened?”

“Millions of people died as a result of Hitler’s evil war, but every death is individual, every horror has its own face.”

Silence. Lindman tried to pick out the most significant bits of what the man had said. All those years, that was the war; and now he knew that Fernando Hereira had avenged his father. He’d also mentioned a journey that had been far too long. And most important of all, perhaps: there’s somebody I want to talk to. Somebody besides me, Lindman thought, who?

“They hanged Josef Lehmann,” the voice said. “Sometime in the autumn of 1945. He deserved it. He had killed many people in the terror-stricken concentration camps he governed. But they should have hanged his brother as well. Waldemar Lehmann. He was worse. Two brothers, two monsters who served their master by making vast numbers of humans scream. One of them ended up with a rope around his neck, the other one disappeared, and if the gods have been incredibly careless he might be still alive. I’ve sometimes thought I’ve seen him in the street, but I don’t know what he looks like. There are no photographs of him. He had been more careful than his brother Josef. That saved him. Besides, what he enjoyed most was getting others to carry out the torture. He trained people to become monsters. He educated the henchmen of death.”

There was a sigh, or a sob. The man speaking to him moved again. A creaking noise, Lindman had heard it before. A chair, or maybe a sofa that creaked in that way. He’d never sat on it himself.

He gave a start. He knew. He’d sat in exactly the same chair that he was now tied to.

“I want to go home,” the voice said. “Back to what remains of my life. But first I must know who killed Abraham Andersson. I must know if I have to bear some of the responsibility for what happened. I can’t undo what’s already done, but I can spend the rest of my life lighting candles for the Holy Virgin and asking for forgiveness.”

“You drove in a blue Golf,” Lindman said. “Somebody stepped into the road and shot at you. You escaped. I don’t know if you were wounded, but whoever shot you could well have been the person who killed Abraham Andersson.”

“You know a lot,” the voice said. “But then, you’re a policeman. It’s your job to know, you have to do all you can to catch me, even if what has actually happened is the opposite and I’ve caught you. I’m not wounded. You were right: I was lucky. I got out of the car without being hit, and spent the rest of the night hiding in the forest, until I dared to move on.

“You must have had a car.”

“I’ll pay for the car that was shot up. Once I get home I’ll send some money.”

“I mean afterwards. You must have taken another car?”

“I found it in a garage by a house at the edge of the forest. I don’t know if anybody’s noticed that it’s missing. The house looked to be deserted.”

Lindman thought he could detect the beginnings of impatience in the man’s voice. He would have to be more careful about what he said. There was a clinking of a bottle, a top being unscrewed. Some swigs, but no glass, Lindman thought. He’s drinking straight out of the bottle. There was a faint smell of alcohol.

Then the man described what had happened fifty-four years ago. A brief tale, clear, unambiguous, and totally horrific.

“Waldemar Lehmann was a master. A genius at torturing people. One day Herbert Molin entered his life. I’m not sure about all the details. It wasn’t until I met Höllner that I realized who had killed my father. After that I was able to find out enough to know that it would be necessary and just to kill Herbert Molin.”

The bottle clinked again. The smell of spirits, more swigs. This man is drinking himself into a stupor, Lindman thought. Does that mean he will lose control of what he’s doing? He could feel his fear growing, and his temperature rising.

“My father was a dancing master. A peaceful man who loved to teach people how to dance. Especially young, shy people. One day, the man who would hide behind the name of Herbert Molin came to him as a pupil. He’d been granted a week’s leave that he was spending in Berlin. I don’t know how many lessons he had, but I remember seeing that young soldier several times. I can see his face now, and I recognized him when I eventually caught up with him.”

The man stood up. More creaking. Lindman recognized the sound, but it was from the house on Öland, Wetterstedt’s holiday home. I’m going insane, Lindman thought in desperation. I recognize a sound from Öland, but I’m in Härjedalen. The noise started again. From the right now. The man had moved to another chair. One that didn’t creak. Another memory was stirred in Lindman’s mind. He recalled the chair that didn’t creak. Where was this room?

“I was twelve at the time. My father gave his lessons at home. When the war started in 1939 he’d had his dance studio taken away from him. One day a Star of David appeared on the door. He never referred to it. Nobody referred to it. We saw our friends disappear, but my father survived. Lurking somewhere in the background was my uncle. He used to give Hermann Goering massages. That was the invisible protection our family enjoyed. Nobody was allowed to touch us. Until August Mattson-Herzén showed up and became my father’s pupil.”

The voice ground to a halt. Lindman was trying desperately to think where he could be. That was the first thing he needed to know if he were to find a way of escaping. This man he was sharing the room with could be unpredictable, he’d killed Mattson-Herzén, tortured him, he had behaved exactly like the people on whom he had exacted his vengeance.

The man was talking again. “I used to sit in on the lessons sometimes. Once, our eyes met. The young soldier smiled. I can still remember it. I liked him. A young man in a uniform who smiled. Since he never spoke I thought he was German, of course. How could I have known he was from Sweden? I don’t know what happened next, but he became one of Waldemar Lehmann’s henchmen. Lehmann must have found out somehow that Mattson-Herzén was taking dancing lessons from one of those disgusting Jews that were still in Berlin, and was being impertinent enough to behave like a normal, free, respectable citizen. I don’t know what he did to convince the young soldier, but I do know that Waldemar Lehman was one of the devil’s most assiduous servants. He succeeded in changing Mattson-Herzén into a monster. He came for his dancing lesson one afternoon. I used to sit out in the hall, listening to what went on in the big room after my father had pushed the furniture against the walls to make space for his lessons. The room had red curtains and a shiny parquet floor. I could hear my father’s friendly voice, counting the bars and saying things like ‘left foot,’ ‘right foot,’ and imagined his unfailingly straight back. Then the record player stopped. There wasn’t a sound. I thought at first they were resting. The door opened. The soldier hurried out of the apartment. I noticed his feet, his dancing shoes, as he left. Generally he came out, wiping the sweat from his brow, and gave me a smile, but none of that today. I went to the living room. My father was dead. Mattson-Herzén had strangled him with his own belt.”

Lindman experienced the rest of what the man had to say as a long, drawn-out scream.

“He’d strangled him with his own belt! Then shoved a shattered record into his mouth. The label was covered in blood, but I could see that it was a tango. I’ve spent the rest of my life looking for the man who did that to my father. It wasn’t until I happened to bump into Höllner that I discovered who the murderer really was. Learned that my father’s murderer was a Swede, somebody who hadn’t even been forced into serving Hitler, never mind giving vent to an utterly pointless and incomprehensible hatred of Jews. He killed the man who had tried to help him overcome his shyness and teach him to dance. I don’t know what Waldemar Lehmann did to Mattson-Herzén, I have no idea what he beat into him, what he threatened him with. What made him swallow the ultimate Nazi lunacy. It doesn’t matter. He came to our house that day not to learn how to dance, but to kill my father. That murder was so brutal, so horrific, that it is beyond description. My father lay dead with his own belt around his neck. He wasn’t the only one to die. His wife, my mother, and me and my brothers and sisters — all of us died. We all died with that belt around our necks. We kept our lives going, it’s true — my mother only for a few months, until she’d arranged for her children to go abroad. That was the last favor my uncle managed to extract from Goering. Once we were in Switzerland he committed suicide; now I’m the only one of us left. None of my brothers and sisters got beyond their thirties. One brother drank himself to death, a sister took her own life, and I ended up in South America. How I searched for that young man, for that young soldier who killed my father! I suppose that’s why I went to South America, where such a lot of Nazis had fled. I couldn’t understand how he had the right to go on living after my father had died. I found him in the end, an old man who’d hidden himself with a new name, away up here in the forest. I killed him. I gave him his final dancing lesson, and I was about to go home when somebody killed his neighbor. What makes me anxious is to what extent I am responsible for that.”

Lindman waited for him to go on, but nothing was said for a while. He thought about the name Hereira had mentioned, Höllner. Something critical must have happened when they met.

“Who was Höllner?”

“The messenger I’d been waiting for all my life. A man who happened to be in the same restaurant as me one night in Buenos Aires. At first, when I discovered that he was a German emigrant, I was afraid he was one of the many Nazis who hid themselves in Argentina. Then I discovered that he was like me. A man who hated Hitler.”

Hereira fell silent again. Lindman waited.

“When I think back, it all seems so simple,” he said eventually. “Höllner came from Berlin, like me. And Höllner’s father had been given massage treatment by my uncle from the middle of the 1930s. My uncle was indispensable to Goering, who was constantly in pain as a result of his morphine addiction and couldn’t tolerate any masseur but my uncle. That was one starting point. The other was Waldemar Lehmann. A man who’d tortured and murdered prisoners in various concentration camps. His brother had been almost as bad. He was hanged in the autumn of 1945, but Waldemar they did not catch. He disappeared in the chaos at the end of the war and couldn’t be traced. He was high on the list of war criminals headed by Bormann. They found Eichmann, but not Waldemar Lehmann. One of those looking for him was an English major called Stuckford. I don’t know why, but he was in Germany in 1945 and must have seen the horrors when they entered the concentration camps. He’d also been present when Josef Lehmann was hanged. Stuckford’s research revealed that a Swedish soldier had been one of Waldemar Lehmann’s henchmen towards the end of the war, and that, egged on by Lehmann, the Swede had murdered his dancing master.”

Hereira paused again. It was as if he needed to gather strength to tell his story to the end.

“Sometime long after the war Höllner and Stuckford met at a conference for people trying to trace war criminals. They talked about the missing Waldemar Lehmann. During the conversation Höllner heard about the murder of a dancing master in Berlin, and he also heard that the man responsible was a Swede called Mattson-Herzén. Another Nazi had passed the information to Stuckford while being interrogated, hoping for clemency in return. Höllner told me all this. He also said that Stuckford occasionally visited Buenos Aires.”

Lindman heard Hereira reach for the bottle and put it down again without drinking.

“The next time Stuckford was in Buenos Aires I met him at his hotel. I introduced myself and explained that I was the son of the dancing master. About a year after that meeting I got a letter from England. In it Stuckford wrote that the soldier who’d killed my father, Mattson-Herzén, had changed his name to Molin after the war and was still alive. I’ll never forget that letter. Now I knew who had murdered my father. A man who used to give us a friendly smile when he arrived for his lessons. Stuckford’s contacts were eventually able to trace Mattson-Herzén to these forests.”

He paused again. There is no more, Lindman thought. No more is needed. I’ve heard the story. Sitting in front of me is a man who has avenged the murder of his father. We were right in thinking that Molin’s murder had its origin in something that happened in a war that ended many years ago. It seemed to Lindman that Hereira had completed for him a puzzle that he’d been working on. There was an irony in the fact that Molin had also spent his old age solving puzzles, in the constant company of his fear.

“Have you understood what I’ve told you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“Not about that, but I would like to know why you moved the dog.”

Hereira didn’t understand the question. Lindman rephrased it. “You killed Molin’s dog. When Andersson was dead, you took his dog.”

“I wanted to tell you that you were wrong about what happened. You thought I had killed the other man as well.”

“Why should we know that we were wrong because of the dog?”

His reply was simple and convincing. “I was drunk when I made up my mind what to do. I still don’t understand why nobody saw me. I moved the dog to create confusion. Confusion in the way you were thinking. I still don’t know if I was successful.”

“We did start asking different questions.”

“Then I achieved my aim.”

“When you first came, did you live in a tent by the lake?”

“Yes.”

Lindman could hear that Hereira’s impatience had melted away. He was calm now. There were no more clinking noises from the bottle. Hereira stood up, the floor vibrated. He was behind Lindman’s chair now. The fear that had subsided now revived. Lindman remembered the fingers around his neck. This time he was tied up. If the man tried to strangle him, he wouldn’t be able to resist.

When Hereira next spoke his voice came from the left. The chair creaked.

“I thought it would die away,” the voice said. “All those terrible things that happened so many years ago. But the thoughts that were born in Hitler’s twisted mind are still alive. They have other names now, but they are the same thoughts, the same disgusting conviction that a whole people can be killed off if another people or race ordains it. The new technology, computers, the international networks, they all help these groups to cooperate. Everything’s in computers these days.” Lindman remembered that he’d heard more or less the same phrase from Veronica Molin. Everything’s in computers these days.

“They are still ruining lives,” the voice said. “They’ll go on cultivating their hatred. Hatred of people whose skin is a different color, who have different customs, different gods.”

Lindman realized that Hereira’s calm was skin-deep. He was close to the breaking point, a collapse that could result in his resorting to violence again. He killed Molin, Lindman thought, and he tried to strangle me. He knocked me out, and now I’m sitting here tied to a chair. Unless I’m attacked from behind I’m stronger than he is. I’m thirty-seven and he’s nearly seventy. He can’t let me go because in that case I’d arrest him. He knows that he’s captured a police officer. That’s the worst thing you can do, whether you’re in Sweden or Argentina. Lindman had no doubt that the man in this room with him could kill him if he wanted to. He’d just finished telling his story of what happened, he’d made a confession, so what options were open to him? Running away, nothing else. And in that case, what would he do with the police officer he’d captured?

I haven’t seen his face, Lindman thought. As long as I haven’t seen his face he can go away and leave me here. I must make sure he doesn’t take off this blindfold.

“Who was the man in the road who tried to shoot me?”

The man seemed impatient again.

“A young neo-Nazi. His name’s Magnus Holmström.”

“Is he Swedish?”

“Yes.”

“I thought this was a decent country. Without Nazis. Apart from the old ones from Hitler’s generation who aren’t dead yet. Who are still hiding away in their lairs.”

“There’s a new generation. Not many of them, but they do exist.”

“I’m not talking about the young men with shaven heads. I’m talking about the ones who dream in blood, plan genocide, see the world as a feudal empire ruled by white men.”

“Magnus Holmström’s like that.”

“Has he been arrested?”

“Not yet.”

Silence. The bottle clinked.

“Was it her who asked him to come?”

Who did he mean, Lindman wondered. Then he realized that there was only one possibility. Elsa Berggren.

“We don’t know.”

“Who else could it have been?”

“We don’t know.”

“But there must have been a motive, surely?”

Be careful now, Lindman thought. Don’t say too much. Not too little either, make sure you get it right. But what is right? He wants to know if he’s to blame. Which he is, of course. When he killed Molin, it was like turning over a rock: the woodlice scattered in all directions. Now they want to get back under the rock, they want somebody to put it back where it was before all this trouble started in the forest.

There were still a lot of things he didn’t understand. He had the feeling that a link was missing, some thread holding everything together that he hadn’t found yet. Nor had Larsson; nobody had.

He thought about Molin’s house, burning down in the forest. That seemed a question it wasn’t too dangerous to ask.

“Was it you who set fire to Molin’s house?”

“I assumed the police would go there, but perhaps not you. I didn’t know for sure, but it seemed to be a possibility. I was right. You stayed in the hotel.”

“Why me? Why not one of the other officers?”

The man didn’t answer. Lindman wondered if he’d overstepped his mark. He waited. All the time he was searching for a chance to get away, to get out of this room where he was tied to a chair. To do that he must first establish were he was.

The bottle clinked again. Then the man stood up. Lindman listened. He couldn’t feel any vibrations in the floor. Everything was still. Had the man left the room? Lindman strained all his senses. The man didn’t seem to be there. Then a clock started striking. Lindman knew where he was. In Berggren’s house, it was her clock.

The blindfold was suddenly ripped off. It happened so quickly that he didn’t have time to react. He was in Berggren’s living room, on the very chair he had sat on when he first went there. The man was behind him. Lindman slowly turned his head.

Fernando Hereira was very pale. Unshaven and with dark shadows under his eyes. His hair was gray and unkempt. He was thin. His clothes, dark trousers and a blue jacket, were dirty. The jacket was torn near the collar. He was wearing sneakers. So this was the man who had lived in a tent by the lake, killed Molin so brutally, then dragged him around in a bloodstained tango. It was also the man who had attacked him twice, the first time almost strangling him, the second time only an hour or so ago, by hitting him hard on the back of the head.

The clock had struck the half-hour, 5:30 A.M. Lindman had been unconscious for longer than he’d thought. On the table in front of the man was a bottle of brandy. No glass. The man took a swig, then turned to face Lindman.

“What punishment will I get?”

“I can’t tell you that. It’s up to the court.”

Hereira shook his head sadly. “Nobody will understand. Is there a death penalty in your country?”

“No.”

Hereira took another swig from the bottle. He fumbled as he put it down on the table. He’s drunk, Lindman thought. He’s losing control of his movements.

“There’s somebody I want to talk to,” Hereira said. “I want to explain to Molin’s daughter why I killed her father. Stuckford told me in a letter that Molin had a daughter. Perhaps he had other children as well? Anyway, I want to talk to the daughter. Veronica. She must be here.”

“Molin will be buried today.”

Hereira gave a start. “Today?”

“His son, too, has arrived. The funeral’s at 11.”

Hereira stared at his hands. “I can only handle talking to her,” he said after a while. “Then she can explain it to whoever she likes. I want to tell her why I did it.”

Lindman had been given the opportunity he’d been hoping for.

“Veronica didn’t know her father was a Nazi. She’s very upset now that she does know. I think she’ll understand, if you tell her what you’ve told me.”

“Everything I’ve said is true.” Hereira took another drink from the bottle. “The question is, will you allow me the time I need? If I let you go and ask you to contact the girl on my behalf, will I have the time I need before you arrest me?”

“How do I know that you won’t treat Veronica the way you treated her father?”

“You can’t know that. But why should I? She didn’t kill my father.”

“You attacked me.”

“It was necessary. I regret it, of course. I’ll let you go. I’ll stay here. It’s nearly 6 A.M. You talk to the girl, tell her where I am. Once she’s left me, you and the rest of the police can come and get me. I know I’ll never return home. I’ll die here, in prison.”

Hereira was lost in thought. Was he telling the truth? Lindman knew that it wasn’t something he could take for granted.

“Needless to say, I won’t let Veronica come to you on her own,” he said.

“Why not?”

“You’ve already shown that you do not hesitate to use violence.”

“I want to see her on her own. I will not lay a finger on her.”

Hereira slammed his fist down on the table. Lindman could feel his misgivings rising.

“What if I don’t go along with what you are asking?”

Hereira looked hard at him before answering. “I’m a peaceful man, though it’s true that I’ve used violence on others. I don’t know what I’d do. I might kill you, I might not.”

“I can give you the time you need,” Lindman said, “and you can talk to her on the telephone.”

He could see the positive glint in Hereira’s eye. He was tired, but far from resigned.

“I’m already committing myself to more than I should,” Lindman said. “I’ll guarantee you the time you need, and you can talk to her on the telephone. I’m sure you realize that, as a police officer, I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Can I trust you?”

“You don’t really have a choice.”

Hereira hesitated. Then he stood up and cut the tape tying Lindman to the chair.

“We have to trust each other. There’s no other possibility.”

Lindman felt dizzy as he walked to the door. His legs were stiff, and the back of his neck was extremely sore.

“I’ll wait for her to call,” Hereira said. “I’ll probably talk to her for about an hour. Then you can tell your colleagues where I am.”

Lindman crossed the bridge. Before leaving the house he made a note of Berggren’s telephone number. He paused at the place where a police diver would start looking for a shotgun on the riverbed an hour or two from now. He was exhausted, but he tried to think clearly. Hereira had committed murder, but there was something appealing about him, something genuine, when he’d tried to convince Lindman that he wanted to talk to Molin’s daughter, try to make her understand, hope that she would forgive him. He wondered again if Veronica and her brother had spent the night in Östersund. If so, he’d have to call all the hotels to find her.

It was 6:30 when he got back to the hotel. He knocked on her door. She opened it so quickly that he almost recoiled. She was already dressed. Her computer was shimmering in the background.

“I have to talk to you. I know it’s early. I thought you might have stayed in Östersund for the night, because of the snow.”

“My brother never showed up.”

“Why not?”

“He had changed his mind. He called. He didn’t want to go to the funeral. I got back here late last night. What is so urgent?”

Lindman headed back to the lobby. She followed him. They sat down and without more ado he told her what had happened during the night and about her father’s murderer, Fernando Hereira, who was waiting in Berggren’s house for her to call him, and possibly even forgive him.

“He wanted to meet you,” Lindman said. “I didn’t agree to that, of course.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said after a while. “I wouldn’t have agreed to go there, though. Of course not. Does anybody else know about this?”

“Nobody.”

“Not even your colleagues?”

“Nobody. He speaks English.”

She looked hard at him. “I’ll talk to him, but I want to be alone when I call him. When the call is over, I’ll knock on your door.”

Lindman gave her the paper with the telephone number. Then he went to his room. As he opened his door it struck him that she might already have called Hereira. He looked at his watch. In twenty minutes he would contact Larsson and tell him where he could find Hereira.

He went to the bathroom, but found that there was no toilet paper left. He went back to the lobby. He saw her through the window. Veronica Molin, out in the street. In a hurry.

He stopped short. Tried to work it out. Thoughts were racing around his head. There was no doubt that Veronica Molin was on her way to Hereira. He should have foreseen that. Something in direct contrast to what he’d previously thought. It has something to do with her computer, he thought. Something she’d said. Maybe something I’d thought without really understanding the implications. His alarm was growing quickly. He turned to the girl, who was on her way to the dining room.

“Ms. Molin’s key,” he said. “I must have it.”

She stared at him in bewilderment.

“She’s just gone out.”

“That’s why I need her key.”

“I can’t give it to you.”

Lindman slammed his fist on the desk. “I’m a police officer,” he roared. “Give me the key.”

She took the key from beneath the desk. He grabbed it, raced along the corridor, and opened her door. The computer was on. The screen was glowing. He stared at it in horror.

Everything fell into place. Now he could see how it all fit together. Most of all he could see how catastrophically wrong he’d been.

Chapter Thirty-Four

It was 7:05 A.M. and still dark. Lindman ran. Several times he slipped and almost fell in the snow. He should have recognized long ago what was now obvious, absolutely clear and simple. He had been too lazy. Or his worries over what lay in store for him at the hospital had been too great. I should have caught on when Veronica Molin called and asked me to come back, he thought. Why wasn’t I suspicious? I’m only now asking all the questions that cried out to be asked even then.

He came to the bridge. Still not light. No sign of Larsson or a diver. How long was it taking for Molin’s house to burn down? He took out his cell phone and tried Larsson’s number. The same female voice asking him to try again later. He very nearly threw the phone after the shotgun, to the bottom of the river.

Then he saw somebody coming towards him over the bridge. He could see from the light of the streetlamps who it was. During his early days in Sveg he’d had coffee with the man in his kitchen. He tried to remember his name. The man who had never traveled further afield than Hede. Then he got it: Björn Wigren. The man recognized Lindman.

“Are you still here?” he said in surprise. “I thought you’d gone home. I do know one thing, though: Elsa hasn’t committed murder.”

Lindman wondered how Wigren knew she’d been arrested and taken to Östersund. But that didn’t matter for the moment. Perhaps Wigren could be of some use.

“Let’s talk about Elsa Berggren later,” he said. “Just now I need your help.”

Lindman searched through his pockets for paper and pencil, but found nothing.

“Do you have anything to write with?”

“No. I can go home and get something if it’s important. What’s happening?”

His curiosity is terrible, Lindman thought, looking around. They were only just onto the bridge.

“Come over here,” he said.

They went to where the bridge joined the road. There was a drift of virgin snow there. Lindman squatted down and wrote in the snow with his finger.

He stood up.

“Can you see what I’ve written?”

Wigren read it aloud. “What does it mean?”

“It means you should stand here and wait until some police officers and a diver show up. One of the officers will probably be Larsson. Or it might be a man called Rundström. Erik Johansson might well be there as well, and you know him. In any case, show them this message. Is that clear?”

“What does it mean?”

“Nothing that affects you for the moment, but it’s very important for the police. Wait until they get here.”

Lindman was trying hard to sound authoritative. “Stay here,” he repeated. “Is that understood?”

“Yes. But I’m curious, of course. Is it about Elsa?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. The important thing right now is that this message is crucial. You’ll be doing the police a great service if you make sure they see it.”

“I’ll stay here. I was only going out for a morning stroll.”

Lindman left Wigren and ran over the bridge, trying to call the police emergency number at the same time. Same voice. He swore, and put the phone back in his pocket. He couldn’t wait any longer. He turned left and stopped when he came to Elsa Berggren’s house. Tried to keep calm. There’s only one thing to do, he told himself. I have to be as convincing as possible. I must give the impression that I don’t know anything. Veronica Molin must keep believing that I’m still the idiot she’s had every reason to think I am so far.

He thought about the night when she’d let him sleep by her side. No doubt she had gotten up while he was asleep and searched his room. That was why she had let him sleep in her bed. Not even then had the penny dropped. He had been vain and conceited, and he had also betrayed Elena. Veronica had made the most of his weakness. Not that he could blame her.

He went through the gate. Everything was very still. A faint band of light had appeared in the sky over the hills to the east. He rang the bell. Fernando Hereira peeped out from behind the curtain covering the glass part of the front door. Lindman was relieved to see that nothing had happened to him yet. When he’d gone to Veronica’s room he was still worried that something would happen to her, but as soon as he saw what was on her computer screen, everything changed. From that moment on it was Hereira he was worried about. It made no difference that what was taking place now was a meeting between a woman and the man who had murdered her father. Hereira had the right, as everybody else did, to have their actions tried in a court of law.

Hereira opened the door. His eyes were unusually bright. “You’ve come too soon,” he said, brusquely.

“I can wait.”

The door to the living room was ajar. Lindman couldn’t see her. He wondered if he should tell Hereira the truth right away, but decided to wait. She might be standing behind the door, listening. He knew now that Veronica was capable of anything. He must draw out this meeting for as long as possible, so that Larsson and the rest had time to get here.

He nodded towards the bathroom. “I’ll join you in a moment,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“As I hoped it would,” Hereira said. His voice sounded tired. “She’s listening. And it seems as if she understands. I don’t know if she’ll forgive me, though.”

He went back into the living room, somewhat unsteadily. Lindman locked himself in the bathroom. The worst was still to come — looking Veronica in the eye and convincing her that he knew no more now than he had known half an hour ago. On the other hand, why should she suspect that he’d suddenly understood what he’d failed to understand before? He tried Larsson’s number. When he heard the voice once again he nearly panicked. He flushed the toilet and emerged into the hall. He went to the front door and coughed loudly as he turned the key to unlock it. Then he went to the living room.

Veronica was in the chair he’d been tied to. She looked at him. He gave her a smile.

“I can wait outside,” he said in English. “If you haven’t finished, that is.”

“I’d like you to stay,” she said.

Hereira had nothing against that either.

As if by chance Lindman sat on the chair nearest to the front door. It also gave him a clear view of the windows behind the other two. Veronica was still looking hard at him. It was obvious to Lindman now that she had always tried to see right through him whenever they were together. He returned her gaze, repeating over and over to himself: I know nothing, I know nothing.

The bottle was still on the table. Lindman could see that Hereira had drunk half of it, but he’d pushed it to one side and screwed on the cap. He started speaking. About the man called Höllner in a Buenos Aires restaurant, who, purely by chance, had been able to tell him who had killed his father. Hereira gave a detailed account of the meeting, explaining when and where he’d met Höllner, and how they had eventually realized that Höllner was almost a messenger sent by some divine power to provide the information he’d been looking for. Lindman approved: the more Hereira spun out his story, the better. Lindman needed Larsson to be here, he wouldn’t be able to handle the situation on his own.

Then he gave a start.

Neither Hereira nor Veronica seemed to have noticed anything. A face had fleetingly appeared in the window behind Veronica. Wigren. Lindman could see him from the corner of his eye. There was no limit to the man’s curiosity. So he’d left the bridge, he hadn’t been able to control his inquisitiveness.

The face appeared again. It was obvious to Lindman that Wigren hadn’t realized he’d been spotted. What can the man see? Lindman wondered. Three people in a room, engrossed in a serious, not heated conversation. He might be able to see the bottle of brandy from the window, but what is there about this situation that could possibly be “dangerous”? Nothing. No doubt he wonders who the man is, and it’s possible that he didn’t see Veronica when she came to visit Elsa Berggren. He must think the policeman from the south of Sweden that he bumped into on his morning stroll is insane. He must also wonder why they are in Elsa Berggren’s house when she’s somewhere else. And how did they get in?

Lindman could hardly keep his anger in check. He couldn’t imagine that Larsson or anybody else would see the message in the snow by the bridge. And now there was no one waiting for them.

The face disappeared again. Lindman said a silent prayer, hoping that Wigren would go back to the bridge. It might not be too late. But then the face appeared once more, this time in the window behind Hereira. Lindman thought there was a risk that Veronica might see him if she turned her head.

A cell phone rang. Lindman thought at first it was his, but the tone was different. Veronica picked up her handbag, which was on the floor beside her chair, took out the phone, and answered the call. Whoever it is who’s calling, it’s giving me more time, Lindman thought. And time is what I need most of all. Wigren hadn’t reappeared. Lindman dared to hope that he had gone back to the bridge after all.

Veronica listened to what the caller was saying without speaking herself. Then she turned it off and returned the phone to her handbag. When she took her hand out, it was holding a pistol.

She stood up slowly and took two steps to one side. From there she could cover both Lindman and Hereira. Lindman held his breath. Hereira didn’t seem to grasp at first what she had in her hand. When it dawned in him that it was a gun, he started to stand up, but he sat down again when she raised the pistol. Then she turned to Lindman.

“That was stupid,” she said. “Of both of us.”

She was pointing the gun at Lindman now. Holding it in both hands, steady as a rock.

“That was the receptionist at the hotel. She phoned to tell me that you had taken my key and gone into my room. And of course, I know I didn’t turn off the computer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It was pointless trying to talk himself out of the situation, but he had to try. He glanced at the window. No sign of Wigren. He could only hope. This time she had noticed his glance. Without lowering the gun she edged closer to the nearest window, but evidently saw no one outside.

“So you didn’t come on your own?” she said.

“Who do I have to bring with me?”

She stayed by the window. It struck Lindman that the face he’d found so attractive before now seemed sunken and ugly.

“There’s no point in lying,” she said. “Especially when you’re no good at it.”

Hereira stared at the gun in her hand. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“It’s just that Veronica is not what she pretends to be. She might devote part of her time to business deals, but she spends the rest of her life spreading the cause of Nazism throughout the world.”

Hereira stared at him in astonishment. “Nazism?” he said. “She is a Nazi?”

“She’s her father’s daughter.”

“Perhaps it’s better if I explain it myself to the man who killed my father,” said Veronica.

She spoke slowly and in perfect English, a person with no doubt about the justice of her cause. To Lindman, what she said was just as frightening as it was clear. Molin had been his daughter’s hero, a man she’d always looked up to and in whose footsteps she had never hesitated to follow. But she wasn’t uncritical of her father: he had stood for political ideals that were now out of date. She belonged to a new era that adapted the ideals championing the absolute right of the strongest, and the concepts of supermen and subhuman creatures adapted to contemporary reality. She described raw and unlimited power, the right of the strong few to rule over the weak and the poor. She used words like “unfit,” “subhumans,” “the poverty-stricken masses,” “the dregs,” “the rabble.” She described a world in which people in poor countries were doomed to extinction. She condemned the whole of Africa, with just a few exceptions where despotic dictators were still in charge. Africa was a continent that should be left to bleed to death, that should not be given aid, but isolated and allowed to die. The new age and new technology, the electronic networks, gave people like her the upper hand and the instruments they needed to consolidate their sovereignty over the world.

Lindman listened to what she had to say, persuaded that she was insane. She really did believe what she was saying. Her conviction was ineradicable and she really did have no inkling of how crazy she sounded, and that her dream could never come true.

“You killed my father,” she said. “You killed him, and therefore I’m going to kill you. I know that you didn’t leave here because you wanted to know what happened to Abraham Andersson. He was an insignificant person who had somehow found out about my father’s past. So he had to die.”

“Was it you who killed him?”

Hereira understood now. The man next to Lindman had just emerged from one lifelong nightmare only to land in a new one.

“There’s an international network,” Veronica said. “The Strong Sweden Foundation is a part of it. I’m one of the leaders, invisible in the background, but I’m also a member of the small group of people who run the National Socialist Network on a global level. Executing Andersson to be certain that he could never reveal what he knew was not a problem. There are plenty of people who are always ready to carry out an order, without question, without hesitation.”

“How did Andersson manage to discover that your father was a Nazi?”

“In fact it started with Elsa. An unfortunate coincidence. Elsa has a sister who was for many years a member of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. She mentioned to Andersson, when he decided to move up here, that Elsa lived in Sveg and was a National Socialist. He started spying on her, and eventually on my father as well. When he began blackmailing my father, he signed his own death warrant.”

“Magnus Holmström,” Lindman said. “Is that his name, the man you ordered to kill Abraham Andersson? Was it you or him who threw the shotgun into the river after Andersson’s death? And forced Elsa Berggren to confess to the murder? Did you threaten to kill her as well?”

“You know quite a lot,” she said. “But it won’t help you.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“Kill you,” she said calmly. “But first I shall put down the man who murdered my father.”

Put down. She’s totally insane, Lindman thought. Stark raving mad. If Larsson didn’t show up soon he’d have to try to disarm her. He couldn’t plan on any help from Hereira, he’d had too much to drink. There was no hoping he might be able to persuade her to change her mind. He was certain he was dealing with a madwoman. She wouldn’t hesitate to use her weapon.

Time, he thought. That’s all I need, time. “You’ll never get away,” he said.

“Of course I will,” she said. “Nobody knows where we are. I can shoot the man who killed my father, and then you. I’ll arrange it to look as if you shot him and then killed yourself. Nobody will think it strange that a policeman with cancer would commit suicide, especially after he’s just killed another human being. The weapon can’t be traced to me. I’ll go from here to the church where my father will be buried a few hours from now. It will never occur to anybody that a daughter about to bury her father would be killing two other people that same morning. I will be standing by the coffin. The daughter in mourning. And I will be delighted about my father being avenged before he is buried.”

Lindman heard the faintest of noises in the hall. He knew at once it was the front door being opened. He shifted in his chair, as if to stretch his back, and caught sight of Larsson. Their eyes met. Larsson was moving silently. He had a gun in his hand. I must tell him what’s happening, he thought.

“So you shoot us both, one then the other,” he said. “With that notoriously inaccurate pistol. Forensics will sniff you out from a mile away.”

She stiffened. She was on her guard. “Why are you raising your voice?”

She moved rapidly so that she could see into the hall. Larsson wasn’t there, but he can’t have missed what I said.

Veronica stood motionless, listening. She seemed to Lindman like an animal in the night, alert for the slightest sound.

Then everything happened very quickly. She started again, this time towards the doorway. Lindman knew she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. She was too far away from him that he could throw himself at her before she had time to turn and shoot at him. From that range she couldn’t miss. As she reached the door he grabbed the lamp on the table beside the chair and threw it at one of the windows with all the strength he could muster. The pane shattered. At the same time he threw himself at Hereira in such a way that both he and the sofa tumbled over backwards. As he fell down beside Hereira, he saw her turn. She had her gun raised. She fired. Lindman closed his eyes and had time to think that he was about to die before the bang came. Hereira’s body jerked. There was blood on his forehead. Then another bang. When Lindman realized he hadn’t been hit this time either, he looked up and saw Larsson lying on the floor. Veronica had disappeared. The front door was wide open. Hereira was moaning, but the bullet had only grazed his temple. Lindman jumped up, scrambled over the overturned sofa, and rushed to Larsson, who was lying on his back, clutching a point between his neck and his right shoulder. Lindman kneeled beside him.

“I don’t think it’s too bad,” Larsson said.

He was white in the face, from pain and shock. Lindman grabbed a towel from the cloakroom and pressed it against Larsson’s bloodcovered shoulder.

“Call for help,” Larsson said. “Then go and look for her.”

Lindman called the emergency number from the hall. He knew he was shouting into the phone. As he spoke he could see Hereira get up from behind the sofa and slump down on a chair. The operator in Östersund said that reinforcements and an ambulance would be dispatched without delay.

“I’ll be all right,” Larsson said. “Don’t wait around. Go and find her. Is she insane?”

“Completely off her rocker. She’s a Nazi, just as much as her father was, maybe even more fanatical.”

“No doubt that explains everything,” Larsson said. “At the moment I’m not really sure what, though.”

“Don’t talk. Lie still.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight,” Larsson said. “You’d better stay here until the reinforcements arrive. She’s too dangerous. You can’t go after her by yourself.”

But Lindman had already picked up Larsson’s gun. He had no intention of waiting. She had shot at him, tried to kill him. That made him furious. She had not only fooled him, but also tried to kill him, Hereira, and Larsson. There could easily have been three dead bodies on Elsa Berggren’s floor instead of two people with slight wounds and one unscathed. As Lindman picked Larsson’s gun up, he made up his mind that he was a man with cancer who was determined not to miss the chance to undergo treatment and be cured. As he left the house, Wigren was standing by the gate. When he saw Lindman he started running away. Lindman yelled at him to stop.

Wigren’s jaw wouldn’t keep still and his eyes were staring. I ought to beat up the bastard, Lindman thought. His insatiable nosiness very nearly got us all killed.

“Where did she go?” he roared. “Which direction?”

Wigren pointed to the road along the river to the new bridge.

“Stay here,” Lindman said. “This time don’t move an inch. There are police and an ambulance on the way.”

Wigren nodded. He asked no questions.

Lindman started running. A face stared from one of the houses. He tried to make out Veronica’s footprints in the snow, but there had been too much traffic, too many walkers. He stopped to cock his gun, then ran on. It was still only half light. Heavy clouds were motionless in the sky. He stopped when he came to the bridge. There was no sign of Veronica. He tried to think. She didn’t have a car. Something unplanned had happened. She was on the run and forced to make impromptu decisions. What would she have done? A car, he decided. She would find herself a car. She would hardly dare go back to the hotel. She knows that I’ve seen what was on her computer screen, a swastika and underneath it a letter in which she discussed old Nazi ideals that would last forever. She realizes that what’s in the computer doesn’t matter any more. She’s shot three people, and she doesn’t know if any of them have survived. She has two possibilities: try to run away, or give herself up. And she won’t give up.

He crossed the bridge. There were two gas stations on the other side. Everything seemed calm. Some drivers were filling their tanks. Lindman paused and looked around. If somebody had produced a gun and tried to steal a car there would have been turmoil. He tried to put himself in her position. He still thought she would look for a car.

Then he heard an alarm bell in his mind. Was he on the wrong track? Behind her cool, calm exterior he’d seen a confused, fanatical person. Maybe she would react differently? He looked at the church to his left. What had she said? My father will be avenged before he is buried. He continued staring at the church. Was it possible? He didn’t know, but he had nothing to lose. He could hear sirens in the distance. He ran to the church. When he saw that the main door was ajar he was immediately on his guard. He only opened it wide enough for him to slip inside. It creaked slightly. He stood close to the wall of the porch. The sirens were no longer audible. The walls were thick. Slowly he opened one of the doors into the church. There was a coffin at the far end, in front of the altar. Molin’s coffin. He squatted down, aiming Larsson’s gun with both hands. There was nobody there. He crept inside, ducking down behind the back pew. Everything was quiet. He peered cautiously over the back of the pew. There was no sign of her. He must have been wrong, and thought he might as well leave the church when he heard a sound coming from the choir. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was somebody in the vestry, behind the altar. He listened. He heard nothing. Perhaps he was mistaken. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to leave until he was certain that the church was empty. He walked down the center aisle, still crouching, his gun at the ready. When he reached the coffin he stopped and listened. He looked up at the altarpiece. Jesus was on the cross, with a Roman soldier kneeling in the foreground. There was no sound from the vestry. At the altar rail he stopped again to listen. Still no sound. Then he raised his gun and entered the vestry. It was too late by the time he saw her. She was standing beside a tall cabinet, next to the wall at the side of the door. Motionless, with the gun pointing straight at his chest.

“Drop the gun,” she said.

Her voice was low, almost a whisper. He bent down and put Larsson’s pistol on the stone floor.

“You won’t even leave me in peace inside a church,” she said. “Not even on the day my father’s going to be buried. You should think about your own father. I never met him, but from what I’ve heard he was a good man. True to his ideals. It’s a pity he wasn’t able to pass them on to you.”

“Was it Emil Wetterstedt who told you that?”

“Perhaps, but that hardly matters now.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Kill you.”

For the second time that morning he heard her say it, that she was going to kill him. This time, though, he hadn’t the strength to feel afraid. He could only convince her that she should give up, or hope that circumstances would arise enabling him to disarm her. Then it occurred to him that there was a third possibility. He was still in the doorway. If she let her attention wander he would be able to throw himself backwards into the main part of the church. Once there, he could hide among the pews, and possibly even escape outside.

“How did you know I was here?”

She still spoke in the same low voice. Lindman could see that she was holding the gun just as steadily as before. It was aimed now at his legs, not his chest. She’s going to pieces, he thought. He shifted his weight onto his right leg.

“Why don’t you give up?” he said.

She didn’t answer, simply shook her head.

Then came the moment he was waiting for. The hand holding the gun dropped down as she turned to look out of the window. He threw himself backwards as fast as he could, then started running down the center aisle. He expected the shot to come from behind at any second and kill him.

All of a sudden he fell headfirst. He hadn’t seen a corner of the carpet sticking up. As he fell, he hit his shoulder against one of the pews.

Then came the shot. It smashed into the pew beside him. Another shot. The echo sounded like a thunderclap. Silence. He heard a thud behind him. When he looked around, he could see her, just in front of her father’s coffin. His heart was pounding. What had happened? Had she shot herself? Then he heard Johansson’s agitated, shrill voice from the organ loft.

“Lie still. Don’t move. Veronica Molin, can you hear me? Lie still.”

“She’s not moving,” Lindman shouted.

“Did she hit you?”

“No.”

Johansson shouted again. His voice echoed round the church. “Veronica Molin. Lie still. Keep your arms outstretched.”

Still she didn’t move. There was a clattering on the stairs from the organ loft and Johansson appeared in the center aisle. Lindman scrambled to his feet. They approached the motionless body with trepidation, Johansson with his pistol held in both hands before him. Lindman raised his hand.

“She’s dead.” He pointed. “You hit her in the eye.”

Johansson gulped and shook his head. “I aimed for her legs. I’m not that bad a shot.”

They walked up to her. Lindman was right. The bullet had entered her left eye. Right next to her, on the lower edge of the stone underhang of the pulpit, was an obvious bullet mark.

“A ricochet,” he said. “You simply missed her, but the bullet bounced off the pulpit and killed her.”

Johansson shook his head in bewilderment. Lindman understood. The man had never shot at a human being before. Now he had, and the woman he’d tried to hit in the leg was dead.

“It couldn’t be helped,” Lindman said. “That’s the way it goes sometimes. But it’s over now. It’s all over.”

The church door opened. A church official was staring at them in horror. Lindman patted Johansson on the shoulder, then went to the man to explain what had happened.

Half an hour later Lindman arrived at the Berggren house and found Rundström there. Larsson was on his way to hospital, but no Hereira. The ambulance man said Larsson had told him that Hereira had melted into thin air.

“We’ll get him,” Rundström said.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Lindman said. “We don’t know his real name, he might have several different passports. He’s been very good at hiding so far.”

“Wasn’t he wounded?”

“Just a scratch on his forehead.”

A man in coveralls appeared. He was carrying a dripping wet shotgun that he put on the table. “I found it right away. Was there a shootout in the church?”

Rundström brushed aside the question. “I’ll fill you in later,” he said. Rundström eyed the shotgun. “I wonder if the prosecutor will be able to nail Berggren for all the lies she’s told us,” he said. “Even if it was this Holmström who killed Andersson and threw the shotgun into the river. He’s obviously the arsonist as well. Molin’s house has been totally and truly torched.”

“Hereira told me he had started the fire. To confuse the police,” Lindman said.

“So much has happened that’s beyond me,” Rundström said. “Larsson’s in the hospital, and Erik’s in the church, having killed Molin’s daughter. It seems to me that you, Stefan Lindman, the police officer from Borås, are the only person who can fill me in on what’s been happening on my turf this morning.”

Lindman spent the rest of the day in Johansson’s office. The conversations he had with Rundström lasted for hours, thanks to the continual interruptions. At 1:45 Rundström received a call informing him that Holmström had been arrested in Arboga, still in the Ford Escort they had put a trace on. It was 5 P.M. by the time Rundström declared that he felt sufficiently informed. He accompanied Lindman to his hotel. They said their goodbyes in the lobby.

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow. The morning flight to Landvetter.”

“I’ll arrange for somebody to drive you to the airport.”

They shook hands.

“It’s all been very peculiar,” Rundström said, “but I figure that one way or another I’ve come around to understanding most of what’s been going on. Not everything. You never do understand everything. There are always gaps. But most of it. Enough to solve the murders.”

“Something tells me you’ll have problems in catching Hereira,” Lindman said.

“He smoked French cigarettes,” Rundström said. “Do you remember the butts you found down by the lake, and gave to Larsson?”

Lindman remembered. “I agree,” he said. “There are always gaps. Not least this mysterious person named ‘M.’ in Scotland.”

Rundström left. Lindman took it that Rundström hadn’t read Molin’s diary. The receptionist was ashen.

“Did I do the wrong thing?” she asked.

“Yes. But it’s all finished now. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll leave you to your test drivers and Baltic orienteering specialists.”

That evening he had dinner in the hotel, then called Elena and said he’d be coming home. He was on his way to bed when Rundström called to say that Larsson was doing pretty well under the circumstances. The wound was serious, but not life-threatening. Johansson was in a much worse state. He’d had a nervous breakdown. Rundström ended by telling Lindman that Special Branch was now involved.

“This is going to be splashed all over the news,” he said. “We’ve turned over a very large rock. It’s already obvious that this Nazi network is far more extensive than anybody ever dreamed of. Think of yourself as lucky that the reporters won’t be gunning for you.”

Lindman lay awake for a long time after that. He wondered how the funeral had gone. Most of all it was memories of his father flooding through his mind. I’ll never understand him, he thought. I won’t ever be able to forgive him either, even if he is dead and buried. He never showed his true face to me and my sisters. I had a father who worshiped evil.

The following morning Lindman was taken to the airport in Frösön. Just before 11 A.M. his plane touched down at Landvetter. Elena was there to meet him, and he was extremely pleased to see her.

Two days later, on November 19, sleet was falling on Borås as Lindman walked up the hill to the hospital. He felt calm, and was confident he could handle whatever was in store for him.

He had coffee in the cafeteria. Copies of yesterday’s evening papers were piled up on a chair. The front pages were full of what had been going on in Härjedalen, and about the Swedish branch of a worldwide network of Nazi organizations. The head of Special Branch had made a statement. “This is a shocking exposure of something that goes much deeper and is much more dangerous than the neo-Nazis, all those tiny groups dominated by skinheads that have been associated with Fascist aspirations.”

Lindman put the newspapers down. It was 8:10 A.M. Time for him to go to the people who were waiting for him.

Hereira was still at large. Lindman wondered where he had disappeared, and hoped the man would get back to Buenos Aires. Smoke a few more French cigarettes in peace and quiet. The crime he’d committed had been atoned for long ago.