The Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell

they had certainly been cigarettes. They’d rotted away, but there were unmistakable flakes of tobacco. He explored further with his hands. There were cigarette butts everywhere. Whoever had sat here was a heavy smoker. He found a butt where the paper was discolored but still retained a bit of whiteness. He picked it up carefully and searched in his pockets for something to put it in. The only thing he could find was a receipt. The Hospital Cafeteria, Borås. He placed the cigarette butt carefully in the receipt, then folded it to form a parcel. He kept on searching and asked himself what he would have done if he’d pitched a tent here. You’d need a shithole, he thought. It was possible to clamber into the forest past the side of one of the biggest rocks. It looked as if the moss had been scraped from one side of the stone. He examined the ground behind the stone. Nothing. He worked his way into the forest, a meter at a time. He thought about the police dogs Andersson had told him about. If they hadn’t found any tracks, they could not have come this far.
    He stopped short. Next to the trunk of a pine tree was a pile that had clearly been made by a human. Feces and paper. His heart started beating faster. He was right. Somebody had camped by the side of the lake. A person who smoked cigarettes and didn’t trouble to bury his excrement.
    Even so, there was nothing to link the camper with Herbert Molin. He went back to where the tent must have been. There had to be some connection with the main road, or a forest road where the man in the tent might have left his car.
    The shortcomings of his argument were immediately obvious to him. The camping site could well have been a meticulously arranged hiding place. The idea of a car parked near the main road didn’t fit in with
that. What were the alternatives? A motorcycle or an ordinary bicycle would be easier to hide than a car. Or perhaps somebody else had driven the camper here.
    He looked over the lake. There was another possibility, of course. The camper could have come that way. But where’s the boat?
    Larsson, he thought, is the man I have to talk to. There’s no reason why I should be playing the private detective here. It’s the police in Jamtland and Harjedalen that have to figure this out. He sat on the fallen tree again. It was colder. The sun was setting. There was a flapping noise in the trees. When he turned to look, the bird had already disappeared. He started retracing his steps. A brooding silence prevailed around Molin’s house. The chill emanating from the events that had taken place here was getting to him.
    He drove back to Sveg. He stopped at the store in Linsell and bought the local newspaper, Härjedalen , published every Thursday (except public holidays). The man behind the counter gave him a friendly smile. Lindman could see he was curious.
    â€œWe don’t get very many visitors here in the autumn,” the man said. His nametag said that his name was Torbjörn Lundell. Lindman thought he might as well tell him the truth. “I knew Herbert Molin,” he said. “We worked together before he retired.”
    Lundell looked doubtfully at him. “You’re the police,” he said. “Can’t our own force handle this?”
    â€œI’ve got nothing to do with the investigation.”
    â€œBut even so, you’ve come here, from as far away as ... Halland, was it?”
    â€œVâstergötland. I’m on vacation. But Herbert told you that, did he? That he came from BorÃ¥s?”
    Lundell shook his head. “It was the police who said that. But he used to shop here. Every other week. Always on a Thursday. Never said a word unless he had to. Always bought the same things. He was a bit choosy when it came to coffee, though. I had to order it specially for him. French coffee.”
    â€œWhen did you last see him?”
    â€œThursday, the week before he