“I agree. But even so, the unexpected does happen occasionally.”
“We’ll find out sooner or later,” Larsson said. “We’ll dig deep into the lives of both these men. We’ll eventually find a link between them.”
While they were talking Näsblom had slunk away into the house. He came back now, and approached hesitantly. Lindman could see that he had great respect for Giuseppe Larsson.
“I thought I might suggest that I could fetch one of my own dogs and put him on the scent.”
“Is it a police dog?”
“It’s a hunting dog. A mongrel. But it might be able to pick up a scent.”
“Shouldn’t we bring in one of our own dogs from Östersund instead?”
“They say no.”
Larsson looked at Näsblom in astonishment.
“Who says no?”
“Chief Inspector Rundström. He thought it was unnecessary. ‘The stupid dog has run away, no doubt,’ he said.”
“Go and fetch your Fido,” Larsson said. “It’s a good idea. But you should have had it the moment you noticed that Andersson’s dog had gone for a walk.”
The dog Näsblom fetched picked up a scent immediately. It set off at full speed from the running line between the house wall and the tree, dragging Näsblom along behind it, and the two of them disappeared into the forest.
Larsson was discussing the house-to-house operation currently being undertaken in the district with one of the officers whose name Lindman didn’t know. Lindman listened at first, but then moved away. He could see it was time for him to leave. His trip to Härjedalen was over. It started when he opened a newspaper in the hospital café in Borås and saw the photograph of Herbert Molin. Now he’d been in Sveg for a week. Neither he nor anybody else knew yet who had killed Molin and probably also Andersson. Perhaps Larsson was right in thinking there was a link between the two murders? Lindman wasn’t convinced. On the other hand he knew now that at one time in his life Molin had fought for the Germans on the Eastern front, that he had been a Nazi, maybe was to the very last moment of his life, and that there was a woman who shared his opinions, Elsa Berggren, who had helped him to find the house in the forest.
Molin had been on the run. He had retired from his post in Borås and crept into a lair where someone had finally found him. Lindman was certain that Molin knew somebody was looking for him. Something happened in Germany during the war, he was sure of that. Something not recorded in the diary. Or it could be in a code that I can’t read. Then there’s the week in Scotland and the long walks with “M.” One way or another this all must be linked with what happened in Germany.
But now I’m going to leave Sveg. Giuseppe Larsson is a very experienced police officer. He and his team will solve the case eventually. He wondered if he would live long enough to learn the solution. He found this hard to cope with now. The treatment he would start receiving in a week or so might not suffice. The doctor had said they could try cytoxins if radiation therapy and operative treatment didn’t achieve the desired result. There were lots of other drugs they could try. Having cancer was no longer a death sentence, she insisted. Okay, he thought, but it’s not the same as being cured. I might be dead a year from now. I have to cope with that, no matter how hard it might be.
He was overwhelmed by fear. If only he could, he’d run away.
Larsson came over to him.
“I’m leaving now,” Lindman said.
Larsson looked hard at him. “You’ve been a big help,” he said. “And obviously, I wonder how you feel.”
Lindman shrugged, but said nothing. Larsson held out his hand.
“Would you like me to keep in touch and let you know how things are progressing?” he said.
What did he really want? Apart from getting well again? “I think it’s better if I get in touch with you,” he said. “I don’t know how I’ll feel once the radiation therapy starts.”
They shook hands. It seemed to Lindman that Giuseppe Larsson was a very likable man. Although he didn’t really know anything about him.
Then it dawned on him that his car was in Sveg.
“Obviously, it ought to be me driving you to your hotel,” Larsson said. “But I feel I better hang around here for a while and wait for Näsblom to come back. I’ll ask Persson to take you.”
Persson didn’t have much to say for himself. Lindman contemplated the trees through the car windows, and thought that he would have quite liked to meet Veronica Molin one more time. He’d have liked to ask her some questions about her father’s diary. What had she known about her father’s past? And where was Molin’s son? Why hadn’t he put in an appearance?
Persson dropped him off outside the hotel. The girl at the reception desk smiled when he walked in.
“I’m leaving now.”
“It can get cold as evening draws near,” she said. “Cold and quite slippery.”
“I’ll drive carefully.”
He went up to his room and packed his things. The moment he closed the door, he couldn’t remember what the room looked like. He paid his bill without checking the details.
“Welcome back,” she said when he’d handed over the money. “How’s it going? Are you going to catch the murderer?”
“I certainly hope so.”
Lindman left the hotel. He put his suitcase in the trunk and was just about to get behind the wheel when he saw Veronica Molin come out of the hotel entrance. She walked up to him.
“I heard you were about to leave.”
“Who told you that?”
“The receptionist.”
“That must mean you asked for me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to hear how things were going, of course.”
“I’m not the one to ask about that.”
“Inspector Larsson thought you were. I spoke to him on the phone a few minutes ago. He said you might still be around. I guess I got lucky.”
Lindman locked the car and accompanied her back to the hotel. They sat down in the dining room, which was empty.
“Inspector Larsson said he’d found a diary. Is that right?”
“That’s correct,” Lindman said. “I’ve glanced through it. But it belongs to you and your brother, of course. Once they release it. At the moment it’s an important piece of evidence.”
“I didn’t know my father kept a diary. It surprises me.”
“Why’s that?”
“He wasn’t the type to write anything when it wasn’t strictly necessary.”
“Lots of people keep a secret diary. I bet practically everybody has done so at some stage in their lives.”
He watched her taking out a pack of cigarettes. She lit one, then looked him in the eye.
“Inspector Larsson said the police are still struggling to find any leads. They haven’t found anything specific. Everything seems to suggest that the man who killed my father also murdered the other man.”
“Who you didn’t know?”
She looked up at him. “How could I have known him? You’re forgetting that I hardly even knew my father.”
It seemed to Lindman that he might as well not beat around the bush. He should ask her the questions he’d already formulated.
“Did you know your father was a Nazi?”
He couldn’t tell if the question had come as a surprise or not.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Can that mean so very many different things? I read in his diary that as a young man he left Kalmar and crossed the border into Norway in 1942 to enlist with the German army. He then fought for Hitler until the end of the war in 1945. Then he returned to Sweden. Married, then your brother and you were born. He changed his name, divorced, remarried, and then divorced again — but all the time he was a Nazi. If I’m not mistaken, he remained a convinced Nazi until his dying day.”