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 realised, 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 on the surface are as gentle as lambs 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 rear-view 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 a bit of luck and catch that man on the mountain, and find out that he killed Andersson as well as Molin.”
Before the meeting closed they phoned Rundström again. 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 Centre. Fucking Åmål is on 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’s easily done 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 fathom 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 torch 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 rightly 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 turning 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 girl in reception was peering at her new computer. “How long are you staying?” she said.
“Until Wednesday, if that’s all right.”
“We shan’t be full until the weekend.”
“Test drivers?”
“A group of orienteerers from Lithuania are coming to set up a training camp.”
Lindman collected 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 to do with Hanna Tunberg, he thought. Something to do with her death. He started remembering. The images in his head were elusive. It took time for him to sort them out, to make them hang 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 concentrated 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 along 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 tyre 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 defenceless, 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. Stefan wasn’t even in them any more, he was looking in from the outside. What had happened next? He remembered his fear, standing ther
e 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 were 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’d 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 stall he’d noticed by the bridge, next to one of the petrol stations. He ate some mashed potato and two half-grilled sausages while listening to some teenage boys discussing a car parked a few metres away. Then he carried on walking, wondering what Larsson was doing. Was he still poring over his files? And what about Elena? He’d left his mobile 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 girl in reception 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 girl from reception 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 pyjamas, 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 recognised it. The screen was filled by a swastika.
CHAPTER 29
It was like receiving a powerful electric shock. He was almost knocked backwards. A car came round 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 organisation 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 street lamp.
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 railway bridge. The district courthouse on the left, all the windows in darkness. He came upon three ladies, all humming a tune. They laughed, said “Good night” as he passed, and he recognised the tune as something by ABBA, “Some of us are crying”. He turned off, following the railway line to the bridge. The rails, nowadays only used by occasional peat trains and the so-called Inland Railway during the summer, looked like neglected cracks in a bronze-coloured 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 ought to do was to speak to Larsson without delay. There again, perhaps not just yet. He needed to think. He had a 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 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 reception. 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 by 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 straight to the point.”
“Then I’ll come straight 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 with it. 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 f
ace 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 went out 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 the whole of my life in this computer,’ 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 marvellous tool. You can retrieve information no matter where you are. Just now, at this moment, Sveg is the centre 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 as well. Lots of Nazi organisations, including several Swedish ones, publicise their opinions on my computer screen. I was sitting here trying to understand. I was looking for the people who are members of Nazi organisations today. How many of them there are, what their organisations are called, how they think.”