The Return of the Dancing Master Read Online Free PDF

that they had cancer?
    He sat down. She organized some papers on the desk.
    â€œI’m afraid I have to tell you that the lump you have on your tongue is a malignant tumor.”
    He swallowed. He’d known all along, ever since that morning in Elena’s apartment in Norrby. He had cancer.
    â€œWe can’t see any sign of it spreading. Since we’ve found it in the early stages, we can start treating it right away.”
    â€œWhat does that mean? Will you cut my tongue out?”
    â€œNo, it will be radiation therapy to start with. And then an operation.”
    â€œWill I die of it?”
    This wasn’t a question he’d prepared in advance. It burst out without him being able to stop it.
    â€œCancer is always serious,” the doctor said, “but nowadays we can take measures. It’s been a long time since diagnosing cancer meant passing a death sentence.”
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    He sat with the doctor for more than an hour. When he left her office he was soaked in sweat. In the pit of his stomach was a spot as cold as ice. A pain that didn’t burn, but felt like the hands of that psychopath on his throat. He forced himself to be calm. He would go for coffee now and read the paper. Then he’d make up his mind whether or not he was dying.
    But the paper was no longer there. He picked up one of the previous day’s national papers instead. That ice-cold knot was still there. He drank his coffee and thumbed through the paper. He forgot all the words and the pictures the moment he turned over a page.
    Something caught his attention. A photograph. A headline about a brutal murder. He stared at the photograph and the caption. Herbert Molin, age about 76. Former police officer.
    He pushed the paper aside and went for another cup of coffee. He knew it cost two kronor, but he didn’t bother paying. He had cancer and was entitled to take certain liberties. A man who had shuffled quickly up to the counter was pouring himself a cup of coffee. His hands shook
so badly that hardly any coffee made it into the cup. Lindman helped him. The man gave him a grateful look.
    He picked up the paper again, and read what it said without any of it really sinking in.
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    When he’d first arrived in BorÃ¥s as a probationer, he’d been introduced to the oldest and most experienced detective on the staff, Herbert Molin. They had worked together in the serious crimes division for some years until Molin retired. Lindman had often thought about him afterwards. The way in which he was always looking for links and clues. A lot of people spoke ill of him behind his back, but he’d always been a rich source of learning as far as Lindman was concerned. One of Molin’s main lessons was that intuition was the most important and most underestimated resource for a true detective. The more experience Lindman accrued, the more he realized that Molin was right.
    Molin had been a recluse. Nobody Lindman knew had ever been to Molin’s house opposite the district courthouse in Bramhultsvagen. Some years after he’d retired, Lindman heard quite by chance that Molin had left town, but nobody could say where he had moved.
    Lindman put the newspaper down.
    So Herbert Molin had moved to Harjedalen. According to the paper, he had been living in a remote house in the middle of the forest. That is where he had been murdered. There was apparently no discernible motive, nor any clues as to who the killer might have been. The murder had been committed several days ago, but Lindman’s nervousness about his hospital appointment had meant that he shied away from the outside world and the news had only gotten through to him via this much-thumbed evening paper.
    He got to his feet. He’d had enough of his own mortality to deal with. He left the hospital and met with a heavy drizzle. He started downhill to the town center. Molin was dead, and he himself had been informed that he belonged to the