After the Fire

Chapter 8

The next few days felt like a long period of waiting. At night the horses charged around inside my head. I didn’t say anything to Louise about the letter I had received. She had seen Jansson give me the envelope and had looked at me curiously, but she didn’t ask questions.

As we ate dinner in the caravan that first night, we started chatting again. We talked about the contents of the LPG cylinder, the fact that we needed a new frying pan, and washing powder to keep our clothes clean. We avoided anything that might require a serious approach.

After we arrived home I had spent the day in the boathouse while Louise stayed in the caravan. At one point I peeped in through the window; she was sitting on the bed talking on her phone. I tried to make out what she was saying, but without success. Her expression was grave. Perhaps she was angry or sad; I couldn’t tell. When she ended the call I moved away and went back to the boathouse. I had opened a tin of tar — not because I was going to use it, but because I loved the smell. Tar runs through the ages out here in the archipelago.

Behind the boathouse lay an ancient leaky skiff that I hadn’t bothered putting in the water for the last few years. I pushed it in now and saw that it wasn’t in as bad a state as I had feared. I fetched the oars and old tin bailer and clambered in. I would be able to use the skiff to travel back and forth between the island and the skerry where I had pitched my tent.

During my childhood there had been a large rowing boat on the island. It was black, completely soaked in tar, and my grandfather used it when he went out fishing with nets. At first my grandmother used to row, but when I was old enough to manage the oars, and to understand what to do with the nets, the responsibility passed to me.

I remembered an incident that had taken place when I was ten or eleven years old. My grandfather spotted a deer, swimming along. He dropped the net he was holding, pushed me out of the way and grabbed the oars. He caught up with the animal, stood up and hit it on the head with one of the oars.

The oar snapped in half. The deer carried on swimming, but my grandfather leaned out of the boat and managed to seize one of its horns. He took out his Mora knife and slit its throat. It happened so fast that for a few seconds I didn’t realise what was going on. It was only when he dragged the dead animal on board, his hands dripping with blood, that I understood. The deer stared at me with huge, shining, unseeing eyes.

I had met death.

From that day onwards I was always a little afraid of my grandfather. I had seen something in him that I had never previously suspected. Snapping the necks of fish as he picked them out of the nets was one thing, but I had been completely unprepared for this slaughter out at sea.

When we came ashore and he hauled the dead body onto the jetty, I threw up. He looked at me with distaste but said nothing. He shouted to my grandmother, and together they butchered the deer. By then I had walked away.

It was at least fifty-five years since that day, and yet I could still see that powerful gesture as he slit the animal’s throat. He exuded pure hatred as he brought the oar down on its head. I think he would have carried on rowing with the broken oar all the way to the Finnish coast in pursuit of the deer if necessary.

Even as a ten-year-old, the incident made it clear to me that people are never completely what we believe they are. Including me. There is always something unexpected within those we meet, those we think we have got to know.

I rowed back, dragged the skiff ashore and bailed out the water that had found its way in. I wondered whether to dig up one of the anthills on the island in order to seal the skiff, but I decided against it. I knew that my daughter would be furious if I killed a colony of ants just to make an old skiff watertight.

She was sitting on the bench at the top of the island. I sat down beside her. It was time to tell her.

‘I’ve been called in for questioning by the police,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘They think I burned down the house.’

‘And did you?’ she asked without looking at me.

‘No. Did you?’

I got up and went back down to the boathouse. A mixture of anger and fear was growing inside me. I no longer thought that I would be able to control what was going on.

There have been periods in my life when I have briefly turned to drink because of sorrow, fear or anger. Right now I wished I had a bottle of vodka, brandy or schnapps to take with me to my tent.

I was nudging the skiff towards the water when I realised that Louise had followed me.

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said.

‘Where? To the tent?’

‘To the police.’

‘I don’t want you to come with me.’

‘I don’t care. You won’t be able to cope.’

There was an old cork float in the skiff. I picked it up and threw it at her.

‘You’re not coming with me!’ I yelled. ‘Why do I need someone with me when I know I didn’t set fire to my house?’

I didn’t wait for an answer; I just slotted the oars into the rowlocks. Needless to say, one of them slid straight into the water. As I reached for it, just as my grandfather had reached out when he grabbed and killed the deer, I was soaked by a wave. I don’t know if Louise was still standing on the shore but I rowed out stern first so that I didn’t have to look. When I had rounded the headland I turned the skiff. There she was, arms folded. She reminded me of a Native American chief, watching as the white man in a Chinese shirt rowed towards his fate and his half-rotten tent.

I lay awake most of the night, longing for something to drink. I wanted to get drunk, to liberate myself from the insanity of being called in for questioning by the police. When I eventually fell asleep, it was with the perception that I had come close to crossing a line. How would I cope with growing older, with a burned-out house and with the experience of living in a no-man’s-land where no one asked after me? Or where everyone thought I had gone crazy and started running around with cans of petrol and a box of matches?

Even my daughter was starting to regard me as more and more of a burden. I was no longer the longed-for father who had finally come into her life.

When I woke at dawn, I might as well have been drunk the night before. Tiredness made me feel hungover. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and went outside. The sea was grey, the air cold, the wind still light but somehow threatening, as it can be sometimes when a storm is approaching. Two eider ducks were bobbing up and down on the water. I clapped my hands and they flew away — heading directly north, oddly enough. I watched them until it was no longer possible to make them out against the sky.

I didn’t row back to the island until the afternoon. The caravan smelled fresh and clean when Louise opened the door. We ate a simple dinner but didn’t talk much. Afterwards she walked down to the boathouse with me.

‘Why were you signalling with the torch?’ I asked her.

‘I wasn’t. You must have been seeing things.’

There was no point in asking again. If she didn’t want to tell me, then she wouldn’t.

We were both people who lied, I thought. But we lied in different ways.

—

I slept just as badly over the next few nights. The days were all the same, all uniformly grey. I walked around my skerry trying to prepare myself for what was waiting for me at the police station.

The evening before the interview, we had food in the caravan, played a game of cards. Once again Louise accompanied me down to the jetty.

‘I’m coming with you tomorrow,’ she said.

‘No.’

We didn’t say any more.

That night I slept heavily; I was exhausted. My last thought was that I hadn’t taken my morning dip for several days, which was depressing.

I rowed back to the island in the morning feeling well rested at last. However, when I reached the boathouse I discovered that the boat with the outboard motor was missing. I knocked on the door of the caravan, but there was no reply. When I went in I saw that the bed was made and Louise’s rucksack was gone. She hadn’t left a note.

I called her mobile; there was no answer, and I wasn’t able to leave a message. I slammed the door behind me as hard as I could. A piece of the roof edging came away. I left it dangling and went and sat down on the bench by the boathouse. I knew my daughter well enough to realise there was no point in waiting and hoping she would be back in time to enable me to get to the police station.

I did what I had to do: I called Jansson. As usual he answered right away, as if he were sitting there with the phone in his hand. He was like a striking cobra.

‘There’s nothing wrong with my engine this time,’ I said. ‘But I need a lift to the mainland.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘I’m on my way.’

‘Thank you.’

I ended the call before he could ask why I couldn’t use my own boat.

My clothes were still in the caravan. The dangling roof edging was in the way of the door, so I ripped it off and threw it on the grass. I chose the least dirty Chinese shirt, then searched around to see if Louise might have hidden a bottle of wine or spirits, but I couldn’t find anything.

I sat down on the bench and waited. Jansson arrived after precisely twenty-six minutes. Of course he noticed that my boat was gone, but he didn’t say anything. Perhaps he thought he was transporting a prisoner, because he knew my interview with the police was scheduled for today.

We travelled to the mainland without exchanging a single word. He refused to accept any payment when we arrived, but I placed a one-hundred-kronor note under a fishing spoon on the seat and walked away without mentioning that I would need a lift back when the police had finished with me.

Nordin was outside the chandlery cleaning seagull shit off a window. We said hello; I had the distinct feeling he also knew where I was going.

Before I left the quayside I looked around the harbour, but there was no sign of my boat. I didn’t understand where Louise had gone. Perhaps I should be worried? I pushed the thought aside; she wasn’t the kind of person who would put herself at risk unnecessarily.

Oslovski’s house was deserted. The curtains were closed, no sign of life. I picked up my car and set off. Once again I had to brake to avoid a fox that ran across the road. When I had recovered from the shock I thought angrily that the next time it appeared in front of my car, I would do my very best to kill it. The fox was running towards Golgotha, even though it didn’t know it.

It took an hour to reach the town. About halfway there was a modest little roadside cafe where I usually stopped. It’s always been there; I remember it from when I was a child. In those days it was run by a lady who wore bright red lipstick, and spoke in an almost incomprehensible dialect. I remembered fizzy drinks and a plate of meringues. Today I drank coffee and chewed on one of the dry Mazarins that seem to have infected every cafe in our country.

I was the only customer. I could see myself at the empty tables, in different manifestations and at different ages. The loneliness is palpable when you are surrounded by empty tables and chairs.

The door opened and a woman with a wheeled walker manoeuvred her way in. I remembered Harriet’s slow progress across the ice a few years earlier. I couldn’t picture myself with a walker. The thought was terrifying, revolting. Would I really want to live if my legs wouldn’t carry me?

The woman bought a cinnamon bun and drank a glass of water. The waitress carried the tray for her as she groped her way along, feeling for the edge of the table and the chair before she sat down.

I wondered what she was thinking. In my eyes the earth was already dragging her down. She was slowly fading away, and eventually she would disappear completely.

I picked up my coffee, poured it into a paper cup and left the cafe. I had never had anything to do with the police before, apart from routine business such as renewing my passport or reporting some minor damage to my car when someone drove into it on one occasion. Now I was suspected of a serious crime. I knew I was innocent, but I had no idea what conclusions the police had reached.

I sat there and acknowledged my anxiety. The car had become a confessional.

The police station was newly built, of red brick. Behind what I assumed was bulletproof glass sat a receptionist in civilian clothing. I told her who I was and showed her the letter. She picked up the phone and said: ‘He’s here.’

After a few minutes a young police officer came through the door leading to the various departments. He wasn’t in uniform either. He held out his hand.

‘Månsson.’

His grip was firm, but once we had shaken hands he withdrew quickly, as if he were somehow afraid of getting stuck. I followed him into the depths of the building, where at last I caught a glimpse of a uniformed officer. It was reassuring; in my world policemen wore a uniform and carried a baton.

Månsson couldn’t have been more than thirty years old. I thought he was fashionably dressed, but what did I know. For some reason, perhaps a trend that had passed me by, he was wearing different-coloured socks.

We went into a small conference room. There was another plain-clothes officer over by the window, absent-mindedly feeling the compost around a potted plant. He was a little older, maybe thirty-five. He didn’t shake hands, merely nodded and informed me that his name was Brenne.

We sat down. The chairs were green, the table brown. There was a tape recorder. Brenne switched it on, but it was Månsson who took charge.

I wished I had brought my yo-yo with me. Not so that I could get it out, unsettle the two officers, but to calm myself. Feeling its weight in my hand would have helped more than a solicitor.

Månsson glanced down at a file on the table, then began to speak, directing his words at the microphone. I got the feeling he was already sick and tired of what was in front of him.

‘Interview with Fredrik Welin. The time is eleven forty-five. Detective Inspectors Brenne and Månsson are both present.’ He turned to me, then went on: ‘You have been called in for questioning about the fire which destroyed your house. You are aware that’s why you’re here?’

‘I’m not aware of anything. But yes, my house has burned down. Everything I owned is gone. I bought the clothes I’m wearing just a few days ago. Poor quality, made in China.’

Both Månsson and Brenne were looking at me curiously. Obviously my response wasn’t what they had been expecting.

‘Our investigation hasn’t revealed a natural explanation for the fire,’ Månsson continued. ‘We have, however, established that it started simultaneously in at least four different places at the corners of the house. We therefore have reasonable grounds to suspect that the fire was deliberate.’

‘I know that, but I didn’t do it.’

‘Have you any idea who might have done such a thing?’

‘I have no enemies. Nor is there anyone who stands to gain financially from my house burning down.’

‘You were fully insured?’

‘Yes.’

So far the interview had followed the pattern I had been expecting. Nothing I didn’t know, nothing to explain why the finger of suspicion was pointing at me apart from the fact that there was no alternative.

Brenne broke his silence by asking if I would like a coffee. I declined. He left the room and returned with mugs of coffee for himself and his colleague.

The tape recorder was switched back on. I was still missing my yo-yo. The interview seemed to be going round in circles: when exactly had I fallen asleep, when had I woken up and rushed outside, did I have any enemies who might have wanted me to burn to death. I gave them the times as best I could, and continued to deny that I had any idea who might have started the fire.

Eventually I got fed up of the constant repetition.

‘I know I’m here because you suspect me,’ I said. ‘I can only reiterate that you’re on the wrong track. I haven’t a clue how the fire started or who might have wanted to harm or kill me. I’ve told you everything I know.’

Månsson gazed at me in silence for a long time, then he spoke into the microphone, saying that the interview was terminated, and switched off the tape recorder.

‘I’m sure we’ll be in touch again,’ he said as he got to his feet and adjusted his pink tie.

Brenne said nothing. He had gone back to the potted plant on the windowsill.

Månsson showed me out. I felt a surge of relief as I walked away from the police station. I left the car and went into one of the big department stores nearby. There was a sale in one of the clothing concessions, and I bought several items after carefully checking that none of them were made in China. I had lunch at an Italian restaurant in the galleria; the food wasn’t good. It could have been made by Brenne or Månsson, I thought. It contained more fatigue and sorrow than nutrition.

I bought two bottles of vodka at the nearby state-run liquor store, then I went to collect my car. I saw two police officers dragging along a woman who had passed out from drink. One of the officers looked like Lisa Modin. The resemblance was so striking that I thought it was her at first, but then I realised that the officer’s face was thinner and covered in freckles.

Before I headed back towards the harbour and my island, I called Louise again. This time I was able to leave a message.

‘Where the hell did you go?’ I said. ‘I had to swim to the mainland to get to the police station on time.’

I didn’t ask her to pick me up. Instead I called her again.

‘I got beaten up,’ I said in my second message. ‘I’m probably going to lose the sight in my left eye.’

I drove through a landscape filled with beautiful autumn colours, but at the same time it filled me with uncertainty. In the past the seasons had never affected me, but over the last few years the cold and the darkness evoked a growing sense of unease.

I stopped when I reached the place where I had bought my Chinese shirts. The shoe shop was closed. There weren’t many customers in the grocery shop. I filled my basket with things that I didn’t necessarily need to cook; everything could be eaten cold. I carried my bag to the car, then wondered briefly whether I should try to find out Lisa Modin’s home address. The temptation was strong, but I resisted and set off for the harbour. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. The hilly road wound its way through dense forest, except in a few places where it was possible to glimpse the waters of a lake and eventually the sea, shining among the dark trees. If you didn’t know better, the forest could seem endless.

There were few side roads. In fact there was really only one, leading north. The sign, which I don’t think had ever been cleaned, bore the name of a place called Hörum. It was seven kilometres away. I had passed that sign for years, ever since I was a child, but I had never had any reason to go to Hörum. I had no reason now either, but I instinctively turned off, the decision made so quickly that I didn’t even have time to brake. The gravel sprayed up around my wheels, and I only just managed to avoid skidding off the road and driving straight into the trees.

I drove towards Hörum without knowing why. When I was a child I used to dream about a road that led nowhere, that simply kept on going for ever and ever. That feeling came back to me now. Hörum was the name of a place that didn’t exist. I slowed down, but I didn’t turn around. I was going to make that journey into the unknown, the journey I had always imagined.

I stopped and switched off the engine. I cautiously opened the door, as if I might disturb someone. Outside the car the world was silent; there was no wind in the dense forest. I don’t know how long I stood there, I just know that I closed my eyes, thinking that soon I wouldn’t exist any more. I had only old age left. Soon that too would end, and then there was nothing.

I opened my eyes; I ought to turn back. But instead I got in the car and kept on going.

I drove down a steep hill, and then the trees began to thin out. I passed a few houses by the side of the road; some were empty, dilapidated, while others were perhaps still occupied. I stopped the car again and got out. No movement, not a sound. The forest had crept right up to the houses, swallowing the rusty tools, the overgrown meadows. A lost autumn bumble bee buzzed past my face. The two houses that might have been occupied, or at least still had curtains at the windows, lay in the middle of the little village. I saw a mailbox with the lid open; there was a sodden, half-rotten newspaper inside. It was the local paper that Lisa Modin worked for; three weeks old, its main story was about a horse that had died after being driven too hard in a trotting race.

But no people. No one peeping from behind their curtains, as I had seen at Oslovski’s house. No one wondering who I was. Right at the end of the village lay the house that was in the worst state. The grass was overgrown, the gate hanging off its hinges into the ditch. I went into the garden. The remains of a kick sled were hidden among the bushes. The porch door stood ajar; I went inside the deserted house. The rooms were empty, the wallpaper was peeling off, a broken table had been overturned. There were few traces of the former inhabitants. A dead mouse lay on the stairs. The whole place seemed to be a sad sarcophagus, waiting for the walls to collapse and bury everything that had been there, once and for all.

I went upstairs. In one of the bedrooms the roof had fallen in, and the floor had rotted because of the rain.

But there was a bed. I stopped dead. It was made up with sheets that couldn’t have been there for long; they were clean, ironed, perhaps even unused.

I went into the three other bedrooms: no beds or other furniture. Only in that one room, where the rain came in, was there a made-up bed.

Behind the peeling wallpaper I found a newspaper that had once been used to provide insulation. 12 May 1934. A landowner born in 1852 had passed away. A priest by the name of Johannes Wiman had spoken at his funeral.

There was a combine harvester for sale, and Svea Förlag were advertising a book that ‘seriously considered the difficult Jewish question’. The price was three kronor, and speedy delivery was guaranteed.

The newspaper crumbled away between my fingers.

But who slept in that bed? The question stayed with me as I left the house.

I returned to my car and drove back to the main road. When I parked at Oslovski’s house, I could hear someone hammering. The garage door was ajar; she must be at home. I pushed the door open and she turned around. Again I saw her fear, but as soon as she realised it was me, she relaxed. She was holding a bumper.

The day Oslovski bought the house, a truck had arrived with a vintage car in pretty bad condition. Nordin had seen the whole thing and had wondered what kind of strange female car enthusiast had moved in.

Now, after all these years, I knew the car was a 1958 DeSoto Fireflite four-door sedan, and that Oslovski was restoring it from something resembling a heap of scrap metal to a shining vintage car. I had shown no interest whatsoever, but she had informed me that it had 305 horsepower and that the compression was 10:1. Needless to say I had no idea what that meant, just as I didn’t understand the significance of the fact that the tyres were Goodyear, size 8 × 14.

However, I had realised how much passion this strange woman put into her car. When she had been away, she often returned with spare parts gleaned from some scrapyard.

‘A new find?’ I asked, nodding in the direction of the bumper.

‘I’ve been searching for this for four years,’ Oslovski said. ‘I eventually found it in Gamleby.’

‘Do you need many more parts?’

‘The clutch. I’ll probably have to go up north to find something suitable.’

‘Can’t you advertise?’

‘I want to find everything myself. I know it’s stupid, but that’s just the way it is.’

I nodded and walked away. After only a few metres I heard her eager hammer blows once again. I wondered where I would find the old car that could fill my life with meaning. Perhaps that was why my house had burned down? So that rebuilding it would give me a purpose?

As I was carrying my bags to the quayside I noticed an ambulance in front of the chandlery. Nordin was carried out on a stretcher. I put down my bags and ran. Nordin’s eyes were closed, an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. The paramedics were very young.

‘I’m a doctor and a friend,’ I said. ‘What’s happened? Is it his head or his heart?’

One of the paramedics looked dubiously at me. He had freckles, and spots around his nose.

‘I’m a doctor,’ I repeated in a louder voice.

‘His head, we think,’ said the man, who was really no more than a boy.

‘Who made the call?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

I nodded and stepped back. Perhaps I should have gone with Nordin to the hospital, but when the door closed and the ambulance drove off, I just stood there.

I was surrounded by too much death, too much misery. Had Nordin been so upset by my daughter’s appalling behaviour that he’d had a stroke?

Veronika came running down from the cafe, wondering what was going on. I explained as best I could.

‘Why didn’t you go with him?’ she said. ‘You’re a doctor.’

I didn’t have a satisfactory answer to give her, and in any case she seemed to have lost interest in me.

‘I’ll call the family,’ she said. ‘Someone needs to lock up, and they won’t know what’s happened.’

Suddenly we heard the ambulance’s siren; it was already quite a long way off. We stood in silence, both equally upset. Veronika ran back upstairs, and I fetched my bags and put them under the projecting roof of the kiosk which sells smoked fish in the summer.

I walked out to the end of the quay as a light drizzle began to fall. I executed a few dance steps to shake off the bad feeling from the empty house and from what had befallen Nordin.

Then I called Jansson. He answered on the second ring. Of course he would come and pick me up.

I waited for him under the roof with my bags. The faint smell of the summer’s smoked fish lingered in the air.

Chapter 9

Before I had even managed to stow my bags in the boat, Jansson wanted to know what was the matter with Nordin. How he could already know that something had happened was one of those mysteries I would never solve. He was like an old-fashioned telephone exchange operator, who put through calls then listened in.

‘It could be some kind of stroke,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Is he going to die?’

‘Let’s hope not. Can we go now?’

Deep down Jansson is afraid of me. Not just of me, but everyone. His constant desire to help, to be of service, hides his anxiety that we will all turn on him. He is afraid that we will tire of him and stop contacting him when we need help.

I noticed it now. He cowered as if I had delivered a physical blow, then started the engine and began to reverse out of the harbour — much too quickly, as if he feared my impatience.

I usually feel slightly guilty when I have been too sharp with people, but to my surprise I experienced a certain satisfaction at having given Jansson a bit of a scare. I made it clear that I had had enough of his ingratiating self-importance. His friendliness irritated me until I could no longer control my impatience. Several times when he had complained about his imaginary aches and pains I had been tempted to lie, to tell him that he was suffering from a fatal illness. I had never done it, but as I sat in his boat on the way home I thought it would soon be time to give him a serious fright. I would deliver a death sentence when he was lying on the bench outside my boathouse being examined by these doctor’s hands, which he respected more than anything in the world.

We met the coastguard’s biggest patrol boat, on its way back to the harbour after a tour of inspection along the coastline. I thought I could see Alma Hamrén at the wheel. My bags toppled as we bounced over the swell in the wake of the large vessel.

The wind had got up. Jansson pulled his old woolly hat low down over his forehead. He looked like a frozen animal, standing there steering his boat. I tried to prepare myself for the forthcoming encounter with my daughter, if she had returned. The important thing was not to lose my temper. I couldn’t bear the thought of us staring at one another with loathing.

However, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be alone, or whether I wanted her to stay. I couldn’t make up my mind.

I sat facing the direction in which we were going. The wind was against us and felt cold on my skin. I caught sight of something black, breaking the surface of the water. If it was a log we could easily have an accident. I waved my arms at Jansson, trying to tell him to veer to one side, but he misunderstood me and cut the engine.

‘There’s something in the water,’ I shouted.

Jansson swung to the side and moved the boat slowly forward. He spotted the object that I had seen, but we still couldn’t make out what it was. Jansson stood up, steering towards it with one foot. During all those years as a postman in the archipelago he had come across many strange, sometimes frightening things in the sea. He once found a human body, almost completely decomposed, which was never identified. After that incident he came to my little private clinic by the boathouse and complained that he was sleeping badly. He said he had the feeling that the body had been partially eaten, and as there were unlikely to be any flesh-eating monsters in the Baltic Sea, he had started to imagine it was the remains of a cannibal’s supper.

This time it was a dead seal. Not a cub, but a fully grown grey seal. It stank. The eyes had been pecked out by gulls or eagles. Jansson prodded it with the boathook while breathing through his mouth.

‘It’s been shot,’ he said. ‘With a shotgun.’

Using the boathook as a pointer, he showed me where the pellets had hit the back of the animal’s head.

‘It’s pure vindictiveness,’ Jansson said angrily. ‘Someone has amused themselves by shooting the seal without bothering to deal with it afterwards.’

‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘If it’s dead, there’s nothing we can do.’

‘I ought to tow it ashore and bury it. I don’t want it lying here stinking.’

‘You can do that when you’ve dropped me off,’ I said firmly.

I looked away; Jansson increased his speed.

As we turned in towards the jetty, I could see that my boat wasn’t there. Louise still hadn’t come home. Jansson noticed the same thing.

‘Your boat isn’t here,’ he said as he hove to.

‘Louise had a few errands,’ I said.

I quickly unloaded my bags, then gave Jansson two hundred kronor before he had time to protest. I placed the notes under the bailer so they wouldn’t blow away. He reversed out, no doubt heading back to bury the stinking seal. I waved and carried my bags into the boathouse.

It had been drizzling on and off, but at the moment it was dry. It didn’t look as if Louise had been back to the caravan during the day: everything was exactly the same as when I had changed my clothes in the morning.

I sat down on the bed and called Directory Enquiries to find out the number for Veronika’s cafe. It was a while before she answered. In the background I could hear the sound of lively customers, even though it was still only afternoon. Veronika seemed stressed.

I asked if she had been in touch with Nordin’s family. She had, and she now knew that Nordin had suffered a serious brain haemorrhage. His prospects were uncertain. She gave me the number of the hospital and I jotted it down on the back of a magazine about health food that Louise had brought with her.

‘It sounds as if you’re busy,’ I said.

‘There’s a very strange event going on here,’ she replied.

‘What do you mean, strange?’

‘A young woman has won twenty-five thousand kronor a year for the next twenty-five years, so she’s invited all her friends to a party, in the middle of the day. It’s important income, both for me and the cafe.’

‘Do I know her?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. Her name is Rebecka Karlsson; she’s twenty-two years old and she’s never had a job. Nor has she been to college. She lives at home with her parents, who have always supported her. He’s a blacksmith, and her mother is a care assistant in an old people’s home. It’s disgusting, a person like that winning so much money!’

I expressed my agreement and we ended the call. I went back outside. The ruins of my house looked eerie in the dull afternoon light.

Something dangling in the sooty apple tree caught my attention. When I got closer I saw that it was a message left by Louise. She had clearly used the same pen with which I had made a note of the hospital’s phone number: Top of the hill!

Nothing else. Just those four words. I looked around to see if there were any further notes in the alders and oaks, but their branches were empty. I suspected that the most important part of the message was the exclamation mark at the end. She wanted me to go up to the top of the little hill where my grandfather’s bench was located: there were no other hills on the island.

When I got to the top I was expecting to find another note from Louise, but there was nothing on the bench or attached to the little juniper bush. I sat down, wondering if I had misunderstood her. Or did she want me to sit here wondering about some wild goose chase?

I gazed out across the sea, and then I understood. My boat was drawn up on the nameless skerry where I had pitched my tent.

I went back down to the caravan and dug out the old pair of binoculars that had been there ever since Harriet’s day. Now I could see Louise. She was sitting on a rock on the eastern side of the skerry with her back towards me, looking out over the sea. I stared at her until the effort of holding the binoculars made my hands begin to shake.

It was cold, and it had started drizzling again. I didn’t understand my daughter. She probably didn’t understand me either. In spite of all our efforts, we were doomed to misunderstand one another.

I returned to the caravan, switched on the light, plugged my phone into the charger and wondered what Louise was actually up to. Dusk fell. I took the torch and went up the hill to check on her. She had lit a small fire outside the tent, but she was sitting in the shadows; I couldn’t see her even with the binoculars. She was hiding in the darkness in a strange game of cat and mouse.

She must know I’m here, I thought. She must have heard Jansson’s boat. And she probably suspects that I’m sitting on this bench looking over at the skerry.

I was suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion. From my years as a doctor I could remember a similar tiredness after long days and nights on call. Laboriously I got to my feet. Back in the caravan I made myself something to eat; it was far too salty and had a metallic taste, but I ate every scrap, then lay down on the bed.

When I woke up I didn’t know where I was at first. Something in my dream was holding onto me. I was standing on the jetty, watching Harriet swim towards the land. But she wasn’t swimming in the sea, she was in the forest pool in Norrland that I had once promised to show her, the pool we had finally visited the year she died. In my dream the wind was not soughing in the tops of the trees around the pool; instead there was a whining noise that sounded like some kind of machinery. It was unbearable to listen to.

I sat up. It was ten o’clock; I had been asleep for a long time. There was no sign of Louise. I called her phone, but she didn’t answer. I started to leave a message but broke off after a few words. What was the point? I made coffee. The wind had picked up, and it was pouring with rain. I lay down again; all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.

Instead I grabbed my torch and went out into the rain. The mossy rocks were even more treacherous now, and I fell over twice on my way up to the bench. When I eventually made it I could see that the fire on the skerry had gone out, or been extinguished. The place was in darkness.

So Louise had decided to stay over there. She had taken over my tent and left me the caravan.

My wet hair was plastered to my forehead. I flashed the torch a few times, but needless to say there was no response.

I slithered down the hill, wondering why Louise was torturing me like this. I sat down at the table and began to play patience. It didn’t come out, of course. I gathered up the cards and made a decision.

Tomorrow I would ask Louise to leave my islands. I couldn’t have her here.

I lay awake for hours. The pillow carried the faint scent of the soap she used, which made it impossible for me to stop brooding over why she was out there in the darkness in my tent.

Over and over again I got up, flicked through books and magazines that had been here since Harriet’s time.

I might have dozed for an hour or so around daybreak, but when the autumn morning filtered through my window, I got up. I had a cup of coffee, then went up the hill with Harriet’s binoculars. There was no sign of movement around the tent. The flap was closed.

I knew exactly what to do now. I bailed out all the water that had gathered in the skiff and set off for the skerry. The sun had just risen above the horizon, and the water shone like a mirror. It was the coldest autumn day so far this year. Several gulls were screaming and fighting over some invisible prey a short distance away. It might have been the rotten seal, if Jansson hadn’t already towed it ashore and buried it under a pile of seaweed and sand.

I rowed around the skerry. When I had only a few strokes left before the depths turned into a steeply shelving shallow leading onto the rocks, my gaze fastened on something that appeared to be floating just metres below the surface. I slowed down and leaned over the side. At first I couldn’t make out what it was, then I realised it was part of a drift net that had broken free, and was now at the mercy of the winds and the currents. It was festooned with dead fish, a diving duck and ribbons of seaweed. I had never seen an escaped fishing net before. As I gazed down into the silent water, the net reminded me of a prisoner who has scaled a high wall and is now fleeing for his life. Or perhaps it was more like a stray dog, and no one knew where it was going.

The sun disappeared behind a bank of cloud, and I could no longer see the net. I clambered ashore on the far side of the skerry, then hauled the boat up onto the rocks, taking care not to make any noise. I secured the mooring rope with a heavy chunk of stone that had fallen away, then made my way towards the tent. I couldn’t be sure that Louise wasn’t lying awake in there. If she heard footsteps outside, she might be scared. I didn’t want that. Even if we regularly launched symbolic attacks on one another, I didn’t want to frighten her.

I crouched down, put my ear to the fabric of the tent and listened. Could I hear her breathing or not? The sun slipped in and out behind the scudding clouds. I straightened up and went over to the sheltered spot where I usually build a fire. The surface of the rock was blackened from my earlier efforts. Louise had chosen a different place that was less suitable. I gathered up branches, twigs, a plank from an old fish box that had drifted ashore, and covered the whole lot with moss. Then I lit a fire. There wasn’t a breath of wind; the smoke rose straight up into the sky.

I settled down to wait. I had yet to decide how I was going to explain my presence outside the tent.

I fed the fire with more branches and twigs. From time to time I scrambled around the skerry in order to keep the cold and the tiredness at bay.

One hour passed, almost two.

I heard something from inside the tent, but at first I couldn’t work out what it was. I moved closer, put my ear against the side.

My daughter was weeping. I hadn’t seen her cry since Harriet died. She was sometimes unhappy, downhearted, but never enough for the tears to fall. At least not as far as I was aware.

It was upsetting, hearing her cry. I had no idea what to do. I went back to the fire, thinking that it was probably best if I left and returned to the island. But I couldn’t put out the fire without her hearing the hiss of the water as I doused the flames.

I sat there listening to my daughter. I looked at my watch so that I would know how long she cried for. She stopped after fifteen minutes. She must be in terrible pain, I thought.

Silence. I carried on waiting.

I heard her yawn, then she opened the tent flap. The zip stuck, as it always did for me. Her hair was standing on end. It was a few seconds before she noticed me; she froze in the opening as if she couldn’t decide if I really was there. Then she got to her feet and went behind one of the rocks that provides shelter from the east. When she came back she had combed her hair. She fetched the pillow from inside the tent and sat down by the fire.

‘You could have made some coffee, seeing as you’re here,’ she said.

I didn’t reply. I had no intention of asking any questions until she explained why she had taken the boat when she knew I had to get to the police station. Just like her mother Harriet, she has the ability to confuse people when she doesn’t have the upper hand, and then she steers the conversation in a completely different direction.

I always thought I was considerably more intelligent than Harriet, but I have come to realise that my daughter is a dangerous opponent.

‘How did it go?’ she asked.

‘How did what go?’

‘The interview with the police. Did they beat you up like you said in your message?’

‘With batons.’

She suddenly seemed tired. She became someone else, pale and shrunken. I thought vaguely that she must have looked exactly like that when she was a child, when she lived with Harriet and didn’t even know I was her father.

‘Can’t we have a conversation like adults for once?’ she said.

‘They didn’t beat me up. They suspect me of having started the fire, but they have no evidence. And I didn’t do it, either deliberately or by accident.’

‘So how did it happen?’

‘I want answers just as much as you do.’

Louise got up, went into the tent and came back with a bottle of water. She constructed a stand so that she could hang the coffee pot above the fire, then she fetched the Thermos flask and my cup, which I had left in the tent. She gave me the mug and kept the cup for herself. There were a couple of spoonfuls of instant coffee in the bottom of the mug.

A gust of wind came from nowhere and blew smoke in her face. The smell of the fire reminded me of the night my house burned down.

‘I might as well say it here as anywhere else,’ Louise suddenly blurted out. ‘And I might as well tell you now as later.’

I don’t really like the taste of instant coffee. It brings back those long years as a medical student when I never drank anything else.

I put down the mug. Her words made me feel anxious. I thought about Harriet and her incurable illness. Was there something wrong with Louise too? My heart was pounding, just as it had when I rushed out of the burning house a few weeks ago.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said. ‘It sounds serious.’

‘It is.’

I kicked over my mug, and coffee splashed over the side of the tent.

‘Tell me, please.’

‘I’m pregnant.’

She hurled the words at me as if I were a crowd to whom she was delivering an important message.

Curiously enough, they instantly evoked a memory, something I thought I had long since forgotten. Before my relationship with Harriet, when I had just started medical school, a young woman had stood in front of me, radiant with happiness, and told me she was pregnant. She was studying to be some kind of chemical researcher. We had met at a student party. Untroubled by whether what I was saying was true or not, I had showered her with declarations of eternal love, painting a picture of our future together, our family. She had believed me. Now she was pregnant. I faced her happiness with dumbstruck horror. I didn’t want children, not with her or anyone else. I remember her heart-rending despair when I more or less forced her to have an abortion. If she didn’t go through with it, I told her, I would leave her. Which I did anyway, as soon as she had got rid of the foetus.

Now Louise was hurling those words at me. She wasn’t radiant with joy, however; there was a kind of caution about her, as if she were simply stating something that had to be said.

I couldn’t take it in. I had never imagined her as a mother. I don’t think Harriet had either. I had once asked her about Louise’s boyfriends, and she had simply replied that she knew nothing about her daughter’s sexuality. I never asked again. From time to time, when Louise disappeared or returned from her mysterious trips, I had naturally wondered if there was a man in the background. I had never found any evidence of a secret lover. I must admit that I do poke around in her bags and pockets now and again, but I’d never come across the slightest hint about that part of her life.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

She impatiently interrupted my train of thought.

‘Of course. But it might take me a while to understand it.’

‘I’m pregnant. It’s fairly straightforward, wouldn’t you say?’

‘You don’t get pregnant on your own.’

‘That’s the only question I won’t answer,’ she said. ‘The identity of the baby’s father is my business.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s how I want it.’

‘Do you know for sure who it is?’

I didn’t have time to think that question was a mistake before she leaned across the fire and punched me in the face; I didn’t realise my nose was bleeding until the blood trickled down onto my top lip. Louise didn’t say anything, even though she must have seen it. I had a dirty handkerchief in my pocket; I scrubbed at my face and the flow of blood stopped.

‘I won’t ask,’ I said. ‘And of course I have no doubt that you know who the father is. How far gone are you?’

‘Three months.’

‘And everything is as it should be?’

‘I think so.’

‘You think so?’

‘I haven’t been to see a doctor, if that’s what you’re wondering.’

‘You have to make an appointment!’

We weren’t conversing; as usual we were sparring with one another. My phone rang; a welcome interruption.

It was Veronika.

‘Did I wake you?’

‘No.’

‘I wanted to let you know that Axel died.’

At first I didn’t understand who she meant. Axel? I didn’t know anyone called Axel. Then I realised that was Nordin’s name. Axel Nordin.

‘Are you still there?’ she asked.

I could tell from her voice that she was upset. Or maybe she was afraid? Young people often react to sudden death with fear.

‘I’m still here.’

‘He passed away just after four o’clock this morning. Margareta called me; she was devastated.’

I knew that Nordin’s wife was called Margareta. I also knew that they didn’t have any children, which was a great source of sorrow to them. The whole thing felt very strange and unpleasant, bearing in mind that I was sitting here talking to my daughter about the fact that she was expecting a baby and that her dreadful behaviour might have contributed to Nordin’s death.

I stood up and walked out onto the rocks.

‘I don’t think I’m going to open the cafe today,’ Veronika said.

‘I understand. I assume the shop will be closed too,’ I said. ‘Who will take over?’

‘It’s owned by the fishermen’s association. You’d have to ask them.’

‘I’ve ordered some wellington boots,’ I said. ‘I hope I’ll be able to get hold of them.’

Veronika wasn’t impressed, and to be fair I wished I hadn’t mentioned my wellingtons.

‘Who cares about something like that right now?’ she said.

I didn’t respond to her question; I simply said I would get in touch with Margareta, and we ended the call.

When I went back to the fire, Louise was inside the tent. Her expression was grim when she eventually emerged.

‘Nordin is dead,’ I informed her. ‘He had a brain haemorrhage and passed away in the early hours of this morning.’

‘Who?’

‘The man in the shop where the keys to the shower block are kept.’

I thought I saw a fleeting look of worry pass across her face, but it was gone in a second.

‘It can’t have anything to do with me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t give him that much of a hard time.’

‘Nobody is suggesting it’s anything to do with you. All I know is that he’s dead.’

Louise got to her feet.

‘Let’s go. It’s cold.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Around the island.’

‘This isn’t an island. It’s a skerry.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘The size, maybe.’

We clambered over the rocks, slithering and sliding across the stones at the water’s edge. Louise moved with confidence, while I was always afraid of losing my balance. At one stage she was ahead of me, up on a high rock from which she could look down on me. She stopped and turned. She didn’t say a word, she just gazed at me. Then she carried on, still without a word.

I felt a surge of rage that immediately ebbed away. I’m afraid I am hopelessly, furiously envious of all those who will continue to live when I am dead. I am equally embarrassed and terrified by the thought. I try to deny it, but it recurs with increasing frequency the older I get.

I wonder if other people feel the same way? I don’t know, and I am never going to ask, but this envy is my deepest darkness.

Can I really be alone in feeling like this?

We returned to the fire, which had almost gone out.

‘You must realise...’ I began.

‘Realise what?’

‘That I often wonder what you live on. You never ask me for money. I have no idea what you do.’

She smiled at me, then she quickly headed for a clump of alders, bumping into me as she pushed past.

‘I need a pee.’

‘Watch out for the ticks.’

After a moment she came back and sat down.

‘Go home,’ she said. ‘Take the motorboat. I’ll be over in a few hours, but right now I want to be left in peace.’

‘We still have a lot to talk about. Not least what we’re going to do about the house — particularly now there’s a new generation on the way.’

‘I know. We’ve got all the time in the world to talk to one another, haven’t we? About houses and children.’

I pushed the boat out, flipped down the engine and started her up. I decided to take a little trip before returning to the island. Much to my surprise, beyond the outer skerries, the nameless hogsbacks that barely broke the surface, where great shoals of herring used to gather, I spotted a lone sailboat heading into the wind, out towards the open sea. It was strange to see pleasure sailors so late in the year. I followed the boat with my gaze and could see only one person on board, but I couldn’t make out if it was a man or a woman at the helm. Then I turned and went home. I moored the boat and sat down on the bench. I tried to come to terms emotionally with what Louise had said: she was pregnant. I couldn’t feel the unreserved joy I should be experiencing, which worried me. Why did I carry my emotions as if they were a burden?

At least we had started a conversation; I hoped it wasn’t already over.

I went up to the caravan, glancing at my watch on the way.

It wasn’t there. I checked my pockets, then went back to see if it was in the boat. Nothing.

I tried to come up with an explanation; the bracelet was made of steel and was hardly likely to have broken.

My mobile rang, interrupting my thoughts. It was Jansson.

‘Nordin is dead,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘I’m going to be one of the bearers at his funeral. Are you?’

‘Surely he must have closer relatives than me?’

‘It’s terrible, the number of people dying these days.’

‘That’s what people usually do,’ I replied.

Then I said he was breaking up and I pretended I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I ended the call.

Jansson could wait. I might be in a hurry, but right now everything would have to wait.

I had to think of Louise’s child as the best thing that could happen to me.

Chapter 10

I went up the hill and looked over at the skerry. When I saw Louise climb into the skiff, I went down to the boathouse and waited for her. The boat wobbled as she stepped onto the jetty; I thought she was going to fall, but she managed to grab hold of one of the bollards.

‘That was a close thing,’ I said.

‘No, it wasn’t. There’s nothing wrong with my balance. Besides, you probably don’t know that I used to practise walking on a tightrope when I was a child.’

I wondered if she was making it up; Harriet had never said that our daughter had tried the art of funambulism.

‘Can you tell me what time it is?’ I asked. ‘I’ve lost my watch.’

‘Quarter past twelve.’

‘I don’t know where my watch is.’

‘You just said that.’

‘It’s strange that it’s disappeared; I was wearing it when I rowed across to the skerry.’

‘I haven’t seen it.’

‘I mean, a watch can’t just disappear, can it?’

‘It’s probably still over there.’

I was surprised that she sounded so indifferent, but I didn’t pursue the matter. I would find it if I carried out a proper search. I dismissed the idea that I could have dropped it in the water.

Louise headed for the caravan; my telephone rang as she slammed the door, the whole structure shuddering. I didn’t recognise the number, so I didn’t answer. When it stopped ringing I put it back in my pocket.

It immediately rang again; this time I did answer, but hesitantly, afraid of being surprised by someone delivering bad news.

It was Lisa Modin.

‘Am I disturbing you?’

‘Not at all. Was it you who just rang me?’

‘Yes. Are you on your island?’

‘Where else would I be?’

She laughed.

‘I’m calling as a journalist,’ she said.

I was immediately on my guard. It was as if her voice suddenly changed. She wasn’t ringing to talk to me, but on behalf of the newspaper.

I said nothing.

‘I believe the prosecutor is preparing to charge you because there are reasonable grounds to suspect you of arson.’

From nowhere a knot formed in my stomach. I almost groaned in pain.

‘Are you still there?’ Lisa said.

‘I’m still here.’

‘Is it true, what I just said about the prosecutor?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I haven’t heard anything since I left the police station. No one has called; I haven’t had a letter. Perhaps you could explain how you know something that no one has told me?’

‘It’s my job as a journalist to find out what’s going on.’

‘But nothing’s going on, is it?’

‘So you haven’t been charged?’

‘No.’

The conversation broke up. Her voice came and went, but neither of us could hear what the other was saying. I waited for her to call me back. I tried to call her but without success. The phone masts don’t always cover the archipelago. Nordin once asked me to sign a petition protesting about the poor service; I signed, but of course it led nowhere.

I went over to the caravan. The temperature was dropping; I wouldn’t be able to sleep in the tent for much longer.

I was just about to knock on the door when I changed my mind. I wasn’t ready to talk to my daughter yet. Instead I sat down among the old fishing nets in the boathouse. I tried to gather my thoughts, to go back to the night when that bright light suddenly woke me. I had a great deal to process, otherwise I would end up in the midst of insoluble chaos.

But I couldn’t gather my thoughts. All I could hear was Lisa Modin’s voice in my head, asking if I’d been charged. How could she possibly know? Was it a rumour, or was it true?

As I sat there in the darkness, I began to feel afraid. I began to doubt my recollections of that night. Could I have set fire to the house after all, without realising it? Could I really be charged without any solid evidence?

The fear turned to nausea. I put my head between my knees, as I had been taught when I was studying to be a doctor.

How long I sat like that I don’t know. The nausea had metamorphosed into a headache when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I heard myself cry out as I straightened up with a jolt.

‘What’s the matter with you? Why are you sitting here?’

I hadn’t heard Louise come into the boathouse.

‘I don’t have many other places to sit.’

‘It’s cold here. I thought we were going to talk. I’ve been waiting for you.’

We went up to the caravan. I followed a few steps behind her, feeling like a stray dog that nobody really wants to take care of.

She made some coffee.

‘Do you want something to eat?’

‘No.’

‘You mean, no, thank you.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘You have to eat.’

I didn’t protest when she made me a couple of sandwiches. I really was very hungry. She looked at me searchingly, as if she expected me to start the conversation, but I had nothing to say. The truncated phone call from Lisa Modin had chased away all rational thought.

It was Louise who first heard the boat approaching. She raised her head and then I heard it too. I opened the door. I had no doubt that it was Jansson’s boat.

‘It’s the postman,’ I said. ‘Go down to the jetty and tell him I’m not here.’

‘But the boats are both there — he’ll be able to see them!’

‘Well, tell him I’ve drowned!’

‘I have no intention of lying. If you don’t want to see him, you can sort it out yourself.’

I realised she wasn’t going to change her mind. Jansson was my problem. I pulled on my jacket and went down to the jetty. When Jansson rounded the headland, I could see that he wasn’t alone. Lisa Modin was sitting in the prow, her face turned to avoid the icy wind.

It made no sense. Only a little while ago she had been on the other end of the phone, and now she was here.

Jansson hove to, and Lisa jumped ashore. Jansson stayed in the boat and gave me a sloppy salute, raising a hand to his black woolly hat.

Lisa was wearing a raincoat and carrying a sou’wester.

‘I expect this is a bit of a surprise,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘I was standing on the quayside when I called you.’

‘With Jansson?’

‘That was pure coincidence — he just happened to be there.’

I looked at Jansson; he had heard what Lisa said, and he nodded.

‘I won’t stay long,’ Lisa assured me, ‘but our phone call was cut off.’

Jansson picked up the local paper Lisa Modin wrote for, and began to read. We walked up to the caravan. The door was closed, and I couldn’t see any sign of Louise through the window. I could, however, hear the radio.

‘My daughter is here.’

‘That’s good — it means you don’t have to be alone.’

We went up to the ruins; the smell of the fire still lingered, although it wasn’t quite as strong now.

I felt an overwhelming urge to put my arms around her, to let my frozen hands find their way inside her clothes. But of course I did no such thing.

We stood looking at the ruins.

‘What are you thinking now?’ she asked. ‘Now a little time has passed?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I still don’t understand what’s happened.’

‘I have to be honest,’ she said. ‘Apparently the prosecutor’s office has decided to embark on a preliminary investigation which will probably lead to charges against you. As the house was fully insured, the assumption is that the motive was insurance fraud. But you still claim you know nothing?’

‘About the fire or the charges?’

‘Both.’

‘Absolutely. If I hadn’t woken up, I would have burned to death. In which case it would have been a successful suicide attempt, not insurance fraud.’

She pushed the sou’wester into her raincoat pocket. I noticed that her hair was even shorter now.

‘I have to write about this,’ she said. ‘But I’m only allowed a short piece, not a more detailed report.’

‘It would be better if you wrote that I didn’t set fire to my house and that all those who are spreading rumours should be chased down into hell.’

‘That’s not where prosecutors and police officers usually end up.’

I went up the hill; Lisa followed at a distance. Why was she here? Did she think I was going to confess to starting the fire?

I sat down on the bench while she stood a little way off, gazing out to sea. Suddenly she pointed.

‘Look!’

I followed her finger but couldn’t see anything. However, when I got to my feet I understood. Beyond the skerry where I had pitched my tent, the wind was stronger; a windsurfer dressed all in black was heading straight out to sea at high speed. They were often around in the summer, but never this late in the autumn. In contrast to normal practice, the little sail and the board were also black. From this distance it looked as if the man or woman was skimming across the surface of the water on bare feet.

‘He must be freezing cold,’ Lisa said. ‘What if he loses his grip?’

We watched the windsurfer until he disappeared behind Låga Höholmen. After a while he popped up on the other side, still heading straight out to sea. Something about the sight of him, the black sail, the speed, made me feel ill at ease. What kind of person does that on a bitter October day?

I seized Lisa’s hand. It was cold. She let me hold it for a little while before she gently withdrew it.

A dry twig snapped behind us. I turned to see Louise on her way up the hill. Lisa saw her at the same time. Louise’s hair was all over the place, and she seemed upset. Her expression was hostile to say the least.

‘This is Lisa Modin,’ I said. ‘She’s a friend.’

Lisa held out her hand, but Louise didn’t take it.

‘Louise is my daughter.’

Lisa had immediately picked up on Louise’s animosity. They stood there staring at one another.

Louise turned to me. ‘Why haven’t you told me about her?’

‘We haven’t known each other very long.’

‘Are you sleeping together?’

Lisa Modin gasped. Then she started to laugh.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, we’re not.’

Louise was about to speak, but Lisa got there first.

‘I don’t know why you’re being so unpleasant. Just to clarify things: I wanted to ask your father some questions. I’m a journalist. I’ve got my answers, and now I’m going to leave.’

‘What was it you wanted to know?’

Lisa glanced at me, but I had nothing to say. This was about me, but I wasn’t a part of what was going on.

‘The police believe the fire was the result of arson. That means your father is a suspect.’

Both Lisa and I were completely taken aback when Louise stepped forward and yelled, ‘Get the fuck out of here! It’s hard enough without journalists running around all over the place!’

Lisa was dumbstruck. I could see the anger in her eyes, but she walked away, down the hill. She got into Jansson’s waiting boat, and Louise and I stood watching as he started the engine and disappeared around the headland.

The wind was even stronger now. My daughter had robbed me of one of the few hopes I had for the future: that Lisa Modin might become more than a passing acquaintance, more than someone I showed around the archipelago from time to time.

‘I want you to leave,’ I said. ‘If you’re going to chase away the few people I like, I don’t want you here.’

‘Do you really think she’s interested in you? She’s at least thirty years younger than you!’

‘She hasn’t let me down so far. Even if we’re not sleeping together.’

We didn’t say anything else. By the time we got down to the caravan, the wind speed had increased further. I looked at the dark clouds piling up in the west; if it had been a little later in the year, I would have expected snow overnight.

We ate dinner together, then drank a cup of tea. I don’t like the blend Louise favours. It tastes of unidentifiable herbs, which doesn’t appeal to me at all. But of course I didn’t say anything.

We were both tired. We reached a tacit decision that I would sleep in the caravan. We played cards until it was late enough to go to bed. Louise lay awake for a long time, but eventually her breathing became deeper and heavier. Then I fell asleep too.

The following day I rowed across to the skerry to look for my watch. Louise didn’t want to come with me because she wasn’t feeling well.

Perhaps that was when I really grasped the fact that she was pregnant. Now I got it. My daughter was going to have a child, and I hadn’t a clue who the father was.

I rowed slowly, trying to picture this unknown man, but there was only a crowd of men milling around, as if the gates had just opened before a football match.

I spent a long time searching for my watch, but without success. I even pulled out a few tent pegs to see if it might somehow have ended up under the groundsheet, but it was nowhere to be seen. My watch had disappeared, and that was that.

For two days nothing much happened. The wind rose and fell, at times almost reaching gale force. Louise and I spent most of our time in the caravan. I resumed my habit of taking a dip in the cold water in the mornings. I tried to persuade Louise to come with me, but she refused. When I had finished, she washed herself at the water pump. I could hear her puffing and blowing, cursing the icy water.

I wondered why we were behaving so oddly: two adults who couldn’t bring themselves to discuss the new generation that was on its way. What was it that made both of us so ill equipped for something that would be a normal conversation for normal people?

We did, however, talk about the matter of rebuilding the house. As long as the police investigation was ongoing and the prosecutor was considering his options, I wouldn’t receive a payout from the insurance company, but we couldn’t stay in the caravan when the winter came.

At around lunchtime on the second day I called my insurance company. It took a while to get through to someone who was able to access my details. He introduced himself as Jonas Andersson. I searched my memory, but I had no recollection of ever having met him. He spoke much too quickly and seemed keen to end the conversation as soon as possible. He hadn’t heard about the fire because I hadn’t yet submitted a claim. Nor had he read anything about the suspicion that the fire had been started deliberately. Perhaps I was speaking to a young man who belonged to the generation that had given up reading altogether — not just newspapers, but books as well?

The brief conversation with Jonas Andersson was an ordeal. I didn’t mention that the police investigation might well result in charges against me. He could find that out for himself. Most importantly, he was able to confirm that my premium had been paid on time.

My insurance was valid. The company would pay the full amount necessary to rebuild the house, although of course it would never be as solid a piece of workmanship as the house that had been built in the nineteenth century. There would be no oak beams in the walls, nor would the porch boast the same ornate carpentry as my old house.

I wondered if the insurance also covered charred apple trees, but I didn’t ask. Jonas Andersson probably wasn’t interested in that kind of thing.

I was sitting in the caravan while I made the call; Louise stood by the door, listening. Andersson’s voice was quite loud, so she probably heard everything he had to say. At the end of the conversation he said that he or someone else would come out to inspect the site of the fire. He used a strange expression: the site of the fire would be visually assessed. This would happen within a few days.

He didn’t ask where I was living at the moment, nor did he comment on the fact that all my possessions had gone up in flames. I assumed his main responsibility was to ensure that the company didn’t pay out unnecessarily.

‘The insurance is valid,’ I said when we had ended the call. ‘Unless of course I’m charged and convicted of arson.’

‘What happens then?’

‘I’ll end up in prison. And the insurance company won’t pay for a new house.’

The weather had gradually improved. After the blustery winds came clear skies and unexpected warmth. Once a day I went up the hill to look for the windsurfer, but the sea was empty. No boats, no black sails.

When the migration of the birds is over, the archipelago is quiet. The sound of the waves and the sighing of the wind, nothing more.

One evening I came across Louise looking very disheartened. She was sitting on the bench by the boathouse with her head in her hands. I had just come down the hill when I saw her. I watched her for a few moments but didn’t make my presence known. More and more we seemed to spend our time secretly watching one another. We were afraid. My fear stemmed from the fact that I felt as if I knew less and less about my pregnant daughter. And perhaps in me she saw what old age does to a person.

It was ten o’clock in the morning on the first Tuesday in November when I heard the sound of an engine. The wind was coming from the south and the archipelago was quiet, so I heard the boat from a long way off. It wasn’t Jansson. I didn’t recognise the engine at all. I had never seen the boat that rounded the headland; it was a white plastic vessel with a powerful inboard motor, and it had the unusual name Drabant II. I wondered what kind of an idiot had given the boat a horse’s name.

For once both Louise and I went down to the jetty to meet our visitor.

It was a representative from the insurance company, but not Jonas Andersson. The man introduced himself as Torsten Myllgren. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old. I had always imagined that assessors would be experienced individuals who had checked out and dealt with many different types of insurance claim. Torsten Myllgren appeared to be an overgrown teenager.

The person driving the boat was considerably older; with a limp and sweaty handshake. He introduced himself in a high-pitched voice as Hasse, if I heard him correctly. When I asked Louise, it transpired that she wasn’t too sure of his name either.

We went up to the site of the fire. I was expecting Myllgren to inform me that he knew the police were investigating the possibility of arson, but he said nothing. He was wearing orange overalls, and I was pleased to see sturdy green Swedish wellingtons on his feet. I almost asked him where he had bought them. He was carrying a large notepad, and started jotting things down as soon as we reached the blackened ruins.

Hasse lit a large cigar, standing in a spot that was sheltered from the wind by the caravan. I wondered if he was employed by the insurance company to ferry their representatives around the archipelago. The cigar smoke drifted up to Louise and me as we watched Myllgren stomping around. From time to time he stopped and took pictures with his phone. He also used a small Dictaphone to make verbal notes.

‘What’s he looking for?’ Louise said. ‘I mean, he can’t tell what the house used to be like.’

‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.’

‘I’m glad I don’t wake up next to a man like that every morning.’

I was taken aback by her comment, but at the same time I realised she had given me an opportunity to ask the most important question of all.

‘Which man do you want to wake up next to?’

‘You’ll find out when you meet him.’

Asking any more questions would be pointless.

We carried on watching Myllgren.

‘What’s he searching for?’ Louise said.

‘The truth. If it exists.’

Louise took my arm. She nodded in the direction of the hill and my grandfather’s bench. We had only just sat down when she started talking.

‘You remember I was in Amsterdam when we spoke on the phone a few weeks before the house burned down?’

‘Yes, I remember. It sounded as if you were in a cafe.’

‘What do you think I was doing in Amsterdam?’

‘I don’t even want to hazard a guess.’

‘I’ll tell you. I go there several times a year. As you know, the Rijksmuseum — the national gallery of the Netherlands, where a number of Rembrandt’s paintings are preserved — is there. I never tire of looking at his work. No one could fail to be moved by these masterpieces. If such people do exist, then they must be completely immune to art. However, I wasn’t actually there to see the pictures; I was there to help other people visit the gallery. There is a small group, mostly from Holland but also from other countries, who have set up an agreement with the Rijksmuseum. We collect money, we organise cars and ambulances. Our aim is very simple: we offer terminally ill individuals whose life expectancy is very short and who long to see Rembrandt’s paintings just once more the opportunity to make a final visit. Once every four months the gallery opens just for these people, who arrive on stretchers or in wheelchairs. They are lying down or half-sitting, often in severe pain because they have all temporarily eschewed any form of analgesic in order to have a clear head when they face Rembrandt. Most of them want to see his self-portraits, mainly the ones in which he is an old man. This meeting, face to face, makes the transition between life and death less painful. Perhaps you thought I was in Amsterdam because drugs are regarded differently in Holland, that I went there to smoke weed? That wasn’t the case. Now you know something about me that you didn’t know before.’

The sound of a radio blared out from the boat; it was very loud but didn’t seem to disturb Myllgren.

‘What kind of music is that?’ I asked.

‘It’s called techno,’ Louise said. ‘But that probably doesn’t help you.’

It was a beautiful autumn day with glorious colours, a clear sky and almost no wind. I thought about what Louise had told me.

An hour passed, and now Louise had disappeared into the caravan. I paced back and forth by the site of the fire, as if I didn’t want to leave Myllgren alone to do his job. A herring gull with a limp was keeping watch on a rock nearby. I had seen it there before; I had thrown it scraps of food a few times.

Myllgren closed his notepad, almost as if he were bringing down the clapperboard on a film set to mark the beginning of a new take. He tucked a plug of snuff under his top lip, tugged at his overall, which seemed to be chafing at his crotch, then headed in my direction. He stumbled over one of the foundation stones that was partially buried under the remains of the fire. As he went down I heard a bone in his leg crack. He yelled out in pain and dropped his notepad.

He lay there like a wounded animal, clutching his left leg. You didn’t have to be a doctor to see that the leg was broken between the ankle and the knee.

Louise had heard his scream and came running up from the caravan. Hasse, who was sitting in the boat, also realised that something had happened. We gathered around Myllgren, who was struggling to cope. If my house hadn’t burned down I would immediately have given him a pain-killing injection, but as it was I could offer him only tablets. He was very pale, and made me think of a soldier in a trench who has been shot and can feel the life seeping out of him.

‘You’ve broken your leg,’ I said. ‘You need to go to hospital.’

‘We’ll carry him down to the boat,’ Hasse said, who clearly didn’t grasp the severity of the situation.

‘The coastguard will have to come and pick him up,’ I said. ‘If we carry him without a stretcher, we could make things even worse.’

I asked Louise to fetch a blanket.

‘You’ll have to move your boat,’ I said to Hasse. ‘Otherwise the coastguard won’t be able to get in.’

He opened his mouth to protest, but I raised my hand and pointed to the jetty. He decided to cooperate. I called the coastguard, then crouched down next to Myllgren. He was so young, and I was impressed by his determination not to give in to the agonising pain.

The coastguards arrived in less than half an hour. They put Myllgren on a stretcher and carried him down to their boat. Alexandersson was in charge; he was an experienced man who had carried many stretchers in his life.

Hasse had moved his boat, which was drifting just off the jetty. When Myllgren was safely on board, Alexandersson turned to me.

‘I was buying paint yesterday,’ he said. ‘Maggan asked about you. She said your boots had arrived. She’s going to run the chandlery now that Nordin is gone — for a while anyway, until his brother takes over.’

I knew that Nordin’s brother was a plumber. Perhaps he would make a good job of running the shop?

Alexandersson stepped aboard, and the boat reversed out. Hasse followed in his white Drabant II once the coastguard had rounded the headland.

‘My wellington boots have arrived,’ I said to Louise, who was sitting on the bench.

‘In that case we can pick them up tomorrow. We need to do some food shopping anyway.’

I heard Alexandersson turn the engine up to full throttle, the dull roar bouncing off the rocks of the islands and skerries.

I felt sorry for Myllgren, but at the same time I was glad my wellington boots had arrived.

Chapter 11

The wellington boots didn’t fit.

Nordin’s wife Margareta was considerably bigger than I remembered. She must be suffering from some kind of disease. No one can get that fat just through overeating. She could hardly make her way between the shelves and counters in the shop. When I walked in she was contemplating a display of landing nets. The bell above the door pinged; she turned around and knocked over a stand full of thick socks. The thought that I was looking at a large, clumsy animal that had somehow got into a very small shop made me want to laugh, but I managed to maintain my composure.

I said hello, offered my condolences and said that I was pleased my wellingtons had arrived. I sat down on a stool while Margareta went to fetch them. I took off the odd wellingtons I had been wearing ever since the fire. She brought the new ones in an open box: green, shiny Tretorn wellington boots with pale yellow ridged soles. As usual I started with the left one. I couldn’t get it on. I tried the right one, but that was no use either. I checked the number stamped on the side; it was the wrong size.

‘They’re the wrong size,’ I informed Margareta, who was busy picking up socks. I wondered how she managed to bend down without falling head over heels.

‘I don’t know anything about that. It wasn’t me who sent the order.’

‘Did only one pair arrive? Didn’t he order more?’

‘Only this pair.’

I put the wellingtons back in the box.

‘In that case we need to reorder,’ I said. ‘I’m a size forty-three, not forty-one. My feet aren’t that small.’

She wrote down the numbers on the back of an envelope lying next to the till.

‘Perhaps you could ask them to process the order quickly,’ I said, getting up from the stool. ‘It took an awful long time for this pair to arrive, and they don’t fit me.’

‘I don’t know much about all this,’ Margareta complained.

She seemed to think I was holding her personally responsible for what had happened.

Through the window I saw Louise arrive on the quayside in my car. Margareta bent over the socks once more, and I found it very difficult to resist the urge to push her over. If I just poked her bottom with one finger, I was sure she would go. I pulled on my mismatched wellingtons and left the shop. I have found it easier to control my wicked impulses as the years have gone by.

Louise drives erratically and much too fast. Even though I didn’t teach her to drive, she seems to be just as bad a driver as me. It’s not just the speed; we both fail to pay enough attention and get far too close to the middle of the road.

I suddenly wondered if she actually had a licence. I’d never seen it.

We travelled through the autumn forest. I asked her to be careful where the trees were at their thickest, because there were a lot of elk moving around. Just a few years ago a wealthy company owner who had a large summer home in the archipelago had died in a head-on collision with a bull elk. Louise showed no sign of slowing down or paying more attention; she didn’t even answer me.

I rarely if ever know what my daughter is really thinking. Her inner world is hidden behind ramparts and barricades, all invisible but still impossible to breach. I am probably equally incomprehensible to her. What do my defences look like? Are they easier to get past?

On the brow of a hill we met a truck that was far too big and wide for the road. Even though Louise swerved as far over to the verge as possible, we passed each other with just centimetres to spare. She seemed unmoved, while I was stamping hard on the non-existent brake pedal in front of me.

‘You drive too fast,’ I said angrily when I had regained my composure.

‘The truck was driving too fast.’

I had expected her to snap at me, but her response was totally indifferent, as if nothing had happened.

‘Did you find your watch?’ she suddenly asked.

I looked down at my left arm, as if my watch might have magically reappeared.

‘No. No watch.’

‘You must have dropped it when you were rowing.’

‘No, I know that for sure.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do.’

‘You don’t really need a watch. Life can’t be measured anyway.’

‘It’s time we measure. Not life.’

She glanced at me but said nothing.

As a doctor I had been forced to contemplate the fleeting nature of life every single day. Unlike priests, who droned on about the brevity of life as a reminder of the eternal life awaiting us beyond the here and now, a doctor saw what this brevity really meant. A stream of images always scrolled through my mind when I thought about how death came without warning. Not even seriously ill patients, usually very old, with no way out and where the end could reasonably be expected to come at any moment, were ready to die. They might claim they were ready when speaking to visiting relatives, but it was rarely true. When the relatives had left and the dying patient had cheerfully waved them off, they would be overcome by tears, terror and bottomless despair as soon as the door closed.

Those who understood death best were the children. That wasn’t only my experience; it was something we doctors often discussed. How could it be that often very young children, who ought to have their whole lives before them, behaved with such calm composure when they were dying? They would lie quietly in their beds, knowing what was to come. Instead of the life they would never have, there was another unknown world waiting for them.

Children almost always died in silence.

I don’t often think about my own death, but as I sat there in the car with Louise driving so badly, thoughts of the end came into my head. I used to believe that doctors died a different death from those people we can characterise as patients. A doctor is familiar with all the processes that lead to the heart, the brain and other organs ceasing to function; therefore a doctor ought to be able to prepare himself or herself in a different way from people with a different life and a different profession. Now I realised that was far from the truth. Even though I am a doctor, death is just as mercilessly unwanted, just as difficult to prepare for as it would be for anyone else. I do not know if I will die calmly or desperately resisting. I know absolutely nothing about what is to come.

I looked over at Louise, who still seemed distracted. What was she thinking? Did death even form a part of her view of the world? What had Harriet’s death meant to her? What did the child she was expecting mean to her? And what did the child mean to me?

There was a heavy downpour as we parked behind the bank; people ran to get out of the rain. We stayed in the car and divided up the errands between us. I was surprised when she asked me to do the food shopping; I thought she would want to take care of that herself. However, she said she had other things to do, although she didn’t explain what they were.

We decided to meet for lunch at the restaurant in the bowling alley in an hour, then we sat in silence waiting for the rain to stop. I wondered whether I should drive into town to buy a pair of wellingtons instead of waiting for the new order to arrive at the chandlery. I didn’t reach a decision.

When the rain stopped we went our separate ways. I was heading for the grocery shop when I heard Louise calling to me. She waved, ran back and gave me the car keys.

‘You might be finished before me,’ I said.

‘No, I won’t.’

She turned and hurried away. I wondered why she was in such a rush and what she was going to do. I watched her until she went into the bank.

It took me half an hour to buy the food I thought we would need for the next week. The shop was almost empty. The assistant, who was approximately the same size as fru Nordin, had nodded off at the till. I bought a couple of crossword books, then I put my bags in the car and wondered whether to go to the chemist’s but decided not to bother; I didn’t really need anything at the moment.

It was too early to go to the restaurant, so I walked up to the old railway station, which was no longer in use. The tracks had been ripped up long before I moved to my grandfather’s island. I peered into various shops to see if Louise was in there, but there was no sign of her. The window display had changed in the shoe shop where I had failed to find any wellingtons, and now featured autumn and winter shoes. I tried to peer inside, but without success. When I reached the station I remembered all the times I had arrived here as a child and been met by my grandfather. I always made the trip with a sense of freedom when the school term ended in the spring. A sense of freedom that now, all these years later, seems totally incomprehensible. Are we really the same person, the child I used to be and the adult I am today? The thought of my distant childhood made me desperately sad. I left the station as quickly as I could.

I stopped outside a modest antique shop and contemplated the items crammed in the window. I tried to imagine the people whose former possessions now lay there with price tags like little white tails. Who had owned the fob watch with an inscription on the case? Whose was that elegant cut-throat razor?

For many years my father had a special pen when he worked as a waiter. It was with that pen and only that pen that he took orders on his notepad and wrote out the bills. It had been given to him as an extra tip by an elderly gentleman who frequented the restaurant where my father happened to be working; the gentleman finished his meal that day and stated that he wouldn’t be coming back. He didn’t say why, or where he was going, but a few days later my father read in the newspaper that he had committed suicide. He had shot himself in the head. From then on, my father never used any other pen. When he died I searched for it for a long time, but I never found it. What he did with it remains a mystery.

Another downpour was on the way. I hurried to the restaurant and got through the door just before the rain came down. Louise wasn’t there, but it was still only fifty minutes since we had parted company. It was lunchtime, so many of the tables were occupied; I sat down in a corner to wait for her. When she hadn’t appeared after half an hour, I ordered some food at the counter, paid and began to eat. If she didn’t turn up at the agreed time, that was her problem.

There was still no sign of her when I had finished my meal. I waited a few more minutes, then went and got a cup of coffee. It had stopped raining. I put down the coffee cup on my table and went out into the street. I couldn’t see Louise anywhere.

I began to wonder why she had come running back to give me the car keys. Something wasn’t right. Something was going on, but I couldn’t work out what.

The coffee tasted bitter. I drank half of it, then pushed the cup away. The restaurant was beginning to empty. Over by the counter the girl on the checkout dropped a glass on the floor. A heated exchange broke out between her and a man who I assumed was the owner of the restaurant. I couldn’t say what language they were speaking. The argument stopped as quickly as it had started. Still no sign of Louise. I decided to wait another ten minutes, then she would have to fend for herself. She had a phone, she could call me, but my phone hadn’t rung, and I hadn’t received any text messages.

I tried to tell myself that something had happened. An accident. But I couldn’t summon up any anxiety. She had simply ignored our agreement to have lunch together before we drove back to the harbour.

Eventually I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. The sun was shining when I left the restaurant. Louise wasn’t waiting by the car. I had already got in when I spotted a note tucked underneath one of the windscreen wipers. Had I been given a parking ticket? Angrily I flung open the door and grabbed the note.

It wasn’t a parking ticket. Louise had left me a message. The paper wasn’t wet, so she must have put it there after the rain had stopped — ten, fifteen minutes ago at the most.

The message was very short: Go without me.

I looked around to see if she was anywhere nearby, but there was no sign of her. I drove up and down the street, to no avail.

I drove down to the harbour. The heat of the sun was suddenly very noticeable; it was almost like a summer’s day. I parked and looked around for Oslovski. Everything seemed to be closed up. I went over to the garage; there was no one around, but something gave me pause for thought. Oslovski was always very tidy; each of her tools had its place, either on a shelf or hanging on the wall. Now they were spread all over the dirty concrete floor.

I went back to the house and did something I had never had the courage to do in the past: I knocked on Oslovski’s door. Once, twice, three times. No one came. The curtains were drawn. I put my ear to the door, but I couldn’t hear any movement inside.

I took my bags down to the boat. Margareta Nordin was sitting outside the chandlery soaking up the sun. Somehow this seemed like a betrayal of the grief she should be feeling at the loss of her husband.

‘This heat is a bit strange, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘Everything is strange,’ she replied. ‘I’m sitting here trying to grasp the fact that my husband is dead.’

‘We can never make sense of death,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t obey any laws or follow any rules. Death is an intractable anarchist.’

She looked curiously at me, not surprisingly. My words sounded peculiar to me as well, even if they were true.

Alexandersson was standing smoking outside the coastguard’s office as I walked towards my boat. When he spotted me, he hurried inside, thinking I hadn’t seen him. Had things really gone so far that no one wanted to talk to me?

I tossed my bags into the boat, cast off and pushed away from the quay before I had even started the engine. I didn’t care if I got wet when I sat down; I just wanted to get away as quickly as possible.

Of course the engine decided to play up. I had almost drifted out of the harbour before it fired. I assumed Alexandersson was standing by a window watching the whole thing. I wondered if he regarded me with contempt or sympathy. I thought he probably saw me as a shady character, someone who had turned out to be a criminal.

I headed for the island. The wind was warm, considering it was a November day. I was about halfway when I slowed right down and let the engine idle.

I realised that Louise had gone. She hadn’t bothered to pack a suitcase, but I knew that when I got back to the caravan I would find that her passport was missing together with her money, her credit cards, everything she needed in order to move on. She had planned this; she had never intended to come to the restaurant. That was why she had given me the car keys; she knew exactly what she was going to do. She had probably caught a bus into town but I had no idea what she had done next, nor where she was going.

She had taken her unborn child with her. Its father was waiting for her somewhere.

I allowed the boat to drift. Her disappearance filled me with disappointment, but there was something else, a feeling, a rapidly growing suspicion.

I remembered when Louise and I had been out on the skerry. How she had brushed against me when she went to pee. When I got home and was on my way up to the caravan, I had discovered that my watch was missing.

The realisation hit me like a hammer blow. Louise had taken my watch. That must have been what happened. I had a daughter who was a skilled pickpocket.

At first I refused to believe it; it was too astonishing, too frightening. But in the end it was impossible to deny the truth. Louise was a pickpocket. She made her living by stealing. There was no other explanation.

She had asked me about my watch in the car simply because she wanted to know if I suspected anything. My answer must have convinced her that I had no idea of the reason behind the disappearance of my watch.

I swore out loud, at Louise and at my own stupidity. I no longer wanted anything to do with her. I didn’t need her, or a grandchild. She had stolen my watch and gone off to some unknown man who was the father of her child.

I moved into the prow of the boat, stretched out my legs and closed my eyes.

I fell asleep, thanks to a combination of weariness and sorrow. I had been dreaming of Harriet when I woke because the engine had cut out. She was standing by the burned-out ruins of my house, and she looked exactly the same as she had done on the day when she made her way across the ice using her wheeled walker. In spite of the fact that it was late autumn in my dream, as in reality, she was dressed for winter, complaining that she was freezing cold. When I embraced her and bade her welcome, she bit me on the arm.

Still half-asleep, I stumbled to the stern and pulled the engine cord. When I got back to the island, I went straight up to the caravan. Louise’s passport, money and various credit cards were gone. At the bottom of her bag I found my watch. I was furious; I hurled it at the wall, but when I picked it up it was still going. I put it on and lay down on the bed. The door of the caravan was ajar; there wasn’t a breath of wind.

‘Louise,’ I said out loud to myself.

Just that. Nothing else. I wasn’t calling to her, I wasn’t pleading with her or begging her to come back. I just said her name.

I decided to row across to my skerry. Settling down with the oars always filled me with a great sense of calm. It didn’t take many strokes before the unease had left me. I rowed with no sense of urgency, resting often. I pictured Louise in different situations: on a bus, on a train, walking into an airport, aboard a ferry. I wondered why she had chosen this particular day to leave. Had I driven her away by asking too many intrusive questions about how she made a living? Or was she unable to cope with the thought of her father being accused of arson?

A pickpocket. Yet at the same time she was helping terminally ill people to see Rembrandt’s paintings for one last time — it didn’t make sense.

I rested on my oars once more. Perhaps she really did believe I’d burned down my house?

I was sweating by the time I reached the skerry. I walked towards the tent, then stopped dead. Someone had been there and hadn’t managed to hide the telltale signs. Not Louise, but someone else.

I had made a fire on a pile of stones; they had been moved, and the pile had grown. I opened the tent and crawled in; my sleeping bag was in the right place, but it was zipped up. I always leave it open during the day to air.

I went back outside. Who had used the tent and lit a fire? I searched the whole skerry for further evidence but found nothing. I returned to the tent and sat down on the rock where I usually balance a plate of food or a cup of coffee on my knees. Was it my imagination? No, I wasn’t wrong. Someone had come to the skerry, rearranged my fire stones and gone inside my tent.

If it had been summer I could have understood it more easily; some kids paddling kayaks might have spent the night there. But in late autumn? It couldn’t be any of the permanent residents of the islands either.

Before I rowed back, I placed a little brown stone shaped like the point of an arrow just beneath the edge of the tent flap. If anyone undid the zip, the stone would move. It was safe from the wind, and no one would suspect that it was a trap.

I made myself something to eat. From time to time I went up the hill and looked over at the skerry through my binoculars, but there was no one there. When I had finished my meal I sat down at the table and turned my attention to one of the crossword books, but I couldn’t concentrate. I tore up the paper grocery bags and tried to make a list of things that had happened over the past few weeks: the fire, the suspicion of arson and, not least, Louise’s pregnancy.

I sat there scribbling until I noticed that I had started drawing grotesque, swollen faces. I screwed up the piece of paper and threw it on the draining board.

I went up the hill one last time. It was too dark to use the binoculars, but I wanted to see if someone had lit a fire by the tent. Nothing.

Once again I wondered who could have been there, and suddenly I remembered the made-up bed in the empty house in Hörum.

I took one of my sleeping tablets and went to bed. The scent of Louise hit me as soon as I put my head on the pillow, bringing me to the verge of tears; I missed her.

I thought about her unborn child; I hoped she had gone to the man who was its father.

Just before the sleeping tablet began to take effect, my parents came into my mind. When I was a child, I once hid underneath the dining table. My parents thought I was asleep. I did it because I thought it would be an exciting adventure, not because I suspected something was going on that might affect me. I sat there looking at their shoes and bare feet. My father, whose legs ached after a long day and evening at the restaurant where he was working, always took off his shoes and socks when he got home — before he had even taken off his hat or coat. It was as if he couldn’t bear to have anything on his feet. After a particularly hard day my mother would prepare a footbath for him, and he would sit there with his feet in a bowl of water while they ate or had a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. My mother, on the other hand, always wore shoes. I can’t recall ever having seen her bare feet during my childhood.

It was on one of those footbath evenings that I hid under the table. I could hear the clink of wine glasses. Then I heard my mother say that she would really like me to have a brother or sister. I remember trembling inside. It had never occurred to me that I might have a sibling. I had always thought of myself as an only child, and I had expected the situation to remain unchanged. There was no need for any more children. When I heard my mother express her wish, I felt as if it wasn’t a sibling she hoped for; she wanted to swap me for another child. I was a failure, I wasn’t enough for them.

My father didn’t reply, but the wine glasses clinked once more. I realised I had to protect myself against my mother’s attack on me. I sank my teeth into her leg just above the shoe, and I bit her as hard as I could. She screamed and tried to pull her leg away, but I hung on. She got up, still screaming, knocking over her chair in the process, and dragged me out from under the table, where I was still clinging on. She was finally able to free herself. I remember looking at my father. He was holding his glass of red wine, his hand frozen on the way to his mouth. He was staring in surprise, or perhaps it was horror, at his son, who had blood all around his mouth like some repulsive vampire.

That was the only time my mother hit me. She did it not out of viciousness, but out of fear. I can understand how unexpected and frightening it must have been to be bitten on the leg while she was sitting quietly with her husband, enjoying a glass of wine.

I yelled out in pain and terror when she hit me, but I was most scared of being given away.

That evening I changed from being a child to something else, although I didn’t know what it was until many years later. I wasn’t a child, I wasn’t an adult, I was someone living in a land that didn’t exist. My mother felt guilty for the rest of her life because she had hit me, even though we never talked about it. Every time she looked at me, I could see that she was wondering whether I had forgiven her or not. When she died, all our questions remained unanswered. All I know today is that I never had a sister or brother. Perhaps my violent protest under the table played its part. My father spoke of it only once, when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. He had just been sacked from a restaurant where he had fallen out with the maître d’ over certain routines. He had applied for a new job at one of the restaurants in the Tivoli amusement park, and took me with him to Copenhagen. My mother had merely looked at him with heavy eyes when he announced that the family might be moving to Denmark.

When we arrived at Tivoli, we had an hour before he was due to meet the maître d’. It was May, warm when the sun was shining, chilly as soon as it went behind a cloud. We drank lemonade and shivered when the sun disappeared. Without any warning, he asked me about that evening when I had been sitting under the table: why had I bitten my mother? His tone was friendly, calm, almost tentative. He didn’t usually sound like that when he asked me questions; he might as well have been wondering what I would like to eat or drink.

I told him the truth: I had bitten her because I was scared that I was no longer enough for them.

He never mentioned the incident again. Years later I thought that perhaps he understood my reaction, that he felt the bite was somehow justifiable.

He didn’t get the job in Copenhagen. A few weeks later he started work at the restaurant in the central station in Stockholm and stayed there for six years, the longest he ever worked in the same place. Occasionally my mother and I would go for a meal when he was on duty. As I watched him hurrying from one table to another, I vowed I would never become a waiter.

I must have dozed off while I was thinking about my parents; I was woken by the sound of my phone ringing. I sat up in the darkness, alarmed by the noise of the phone inside the caravan.

It was a man, but I didn’t recognise the voice.

‘Fredrik?’

‘Yes?’

‘Just want to warn you.’

‘What about?’

‘You’re going to be arrested, possibly tomorrow.’

‘Who are you?’

‘A friend, perhaps. Or just someone who wants to warn you.’

He ended the call. I replayed the brief exchange in my mind; the voice was completely unfamiliar. I couldn’t decide whether it had been disguised or distorted in some way. Perhaps the man had put a handkerchief or his hand over the phone?

I was scared. My hands were shaking.

I didn’t sleep much that night. I was already up by the time dawn broke. I still didn’t know what to make of the phone call. I went out and took a dip in the ice-cold water. By the time I had dried myself and got dressed, I had made a decision. I had no intention of staying on the island, or on the skerry where my tent was. Nor was I planning to run away. I simply wanted to give myself time to understand what was happening around me.

A grey morning. Slight northerly breeze. Through the binoculars I could see that no one had moored a boat on the skerry. I tucked the money I had left in my jacket pocket and set off without bothering to lock the door of the caravan. The engine started right away. The last of the birds had migrated to warmer climes. I sailed to the harbour and moored at the far end of the inlet, where a half-submerged fishing boat had lain for many years. Fru Nordin had not yet arrived at the chandlery. The bread delivery van was parked outside the grocery shop. The cafe wasn’t open either.

I picked up my car from Oslovski’s. I could see that the tools were still strewn across the concrete floor but had been used. They were lying in different places, different combinations. Oslovski had been in there, working on her car.

I didn’t knock on her door, nor did I see any movement behind the closed curtains.

I drove away. You might say I had a plan, but whether it could be realised was something that no one, least of all me, was able to say with any certainty.

Chapter 12

The three-storey building was in a residential area on the outskirts of the town. When I was a child there was nothing here but fields and meadows where cows grazed. The apartment blocks had been built in the 1960s, and looked exactly like all the others that had been erected in those days.

I parked outside the block closest to the edge of the forest. From the top floor I thought it would be possible to see the deep inlet leading out to sea.

It had been easy to find. I had called Directory Enquiries, and they had given me Lisa Modin’s address.

I ate in the restaurant at the bowling alley then went for a walk along the track by the inlet. Whenever I met anyone, I looked down at the ground. I had the feeling I might be recognised.

I didn’t get back to my car until about two o’clock. Someone had stuck a flyer under one of the windscreen wipers, informing me that cloudberries would be on sale in the square between twelve and two the following day. I wondered if there really were cloudberries so late in the year.

I could see the front door of Lisa’s apartment block. I checked out every window through my binoculars, but the curtains, potted plants and lamps gave me no clue as to which flat was hers.

I got out of the car and went over to the main door, which wasn’t locked. There was a list of residents’ names on a board to the left of the staircase; the building didn’t have a lift. Someone had scrawled GRINGO on a wall with a red marker pen; someone else had crossed it out and written JUNGLE BUNNY instead.

Lisa lived on the top floor. There were two apartments: Modin L. and Cieslak W. Should I go up and ring her doorbell now? No, it was too early in the day; I wanted to be sure she was in.

I sat in the car for almost four hours before Lisa turned up. I had seen children coming home from school, dropping their bicycles carelessly outside the block. A caretaker had oiled the hinges on the outside door. An elderly man with a wheeled walker, moving incredibly slowly as if he thought he might collapse with every new step, had shuffled inside. He had a bag of shopping looped over the handle of his frame; he seemed like a thousand-year-old man who had passed through the ages and had finally reached this grey concrete box with its unbarred windows and tiny built-in balconies with barely enough room for more than two people.

During all those hours of waiting I avoided thinking about what the anonymous voice on the telephone had said. Nor did I have the strength to examine my reasons for leaving the island and hoping that Lisa Modin would provide me with a place of refuge for a few days. What I wanted more than anything was not a place to sleep, but someone to talk to about everything that had happened. I didn’t really know her and she didn’t know me, but now that Louise had sneaked out the back way, so to speak, I had no one else to turn to.

I wanted both clarity and solace, but of course I didn’t know whether Lisa would be able to give me what I needed. She might not even let me in when I rang the bell and she saw who was standing outside her door.

A woman emerged from the apartment block. She reminded me of Harriet. Harriet as a young woman, when I first met her and we had our brief, chaotic relationship.

That was forty years ago. I had just qualified as a doctor. We met, as people often do, through friends of friends. I knew right from the start that Harriet wasn’t the great love of my life, but I found her attractive. I soon realised that I meant more to her than she did to me, so I pretended that my love also went much deeper than erotic need. I still feel ashamed that I deceived her, made her think that I shared her feelings. Even when she made her way across the ice using her wheeled walker, suffering from terminal cancer, I still couldn’t tell her how I had felt all those years ago. The last thing I robbed her of was the truth.

The woman carried on down the hill. I was on the point of giving up, going back to the island and waiting for the police to come for me. It was pointless, this search for a hiding place that didn’t exist.

I suddenly missed my mother and father, the siblings I had never had, Jansson with his imaginary aches and pains, Harriet, Louise, Oslovski, even Nordin, who had messed up the order for my new wellington boots.

And I wondered if there was anyone who missed me.

Lisa Modin came walking up the hill at ten to six with her rucksack over one shoulder, carrying a bag from the shop where I bought my groceries. She was wearing a red beret, and had a scarf wound around her neck. I slid down as far as possible in my seat. She went inside, and a few minutes later a lamp was switched on in the apartment on the top floor closest to the invisible inlet. I caught a glimpse of her as she opened a window.

I got out of the car and crossed the road. As I reached the door a group of teenage boys came out, talking about a girl called Rosalin; apparently they all wanted to undress her and go to bed with her.

I climbed the stairs slowly in order to avoid getting out of breath. I could hear accordion music coming through one door and a loud telephone conversation through another. The wheeled walker was on the first-floor landing, so I concluded that this must be where the thousand-year-old man lived. Did he only need the walker when he was outdoors? Or did he have another one, specifically for indoor use?

I reached the top floor and paused to catch my breath. Although I had taken my time, my pulse rate had still increased. On Lisa Modin’s door there was a picture of a man with a camera in his hand. When I read the caption at the bottom I learned that he was a photographer called Robert Capa, and that the picture had been taken in France at the end of the Second World War. I had never heard of him, but if Lisa had put his picture on her door, then he must be important to her.

I listened for a moment; I couldn’t hear anything from inside the apartment. I opened the letter box a fraction and listened again. The light was on in the hallway, but I still couldn’t hear a thing.

I hesitated. How would I explain the fact that I had simply turned up without contacting her first? What was I actually expecting?

I made several attempts to ring the doorbell, but kept drawing back my hand at the last second. I realised how pointless the whole thing was, and I had lost my nerve. If I drove back to the harbour now, I would have time to row over to the island before it was completely dark.

I set off down the stairs. After a couple of steps I turned, went back up and immediately rang the bell. I wanted to run away again, but I stayed where I was. Lisa flung the door open, as if she had been disturbed. When she saw me she frowned, but she was smiling at the same time.

‘You,’ she said. ‘The man whose house burned down.’

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

She didn’t reply; she just stepped aside and let me in. A big black cat was sitting on a mirrored shelf, contemplating me with displeasure. When I tried to stroke it, it jumped down and ran off.

Lisa handed me a coat hanger.

‘The cat’s name is Sally,’ she said. ‘Even though he’s a tom. He doesn’t like strangers.’

I hung up my jacket and kicked off my boots.

‘I don’t want to disturb you,’ I said again.

‘You’ve already said that, but I’m curious — why are you here?’

‘I’ve got nowhere else to go.’

She was wearing a green dressing gown. She tightened the belt around her waist, waiting for me to say something else. I didn’t.

She showed me into her living room. On the way we passed the half-open door of her bedroom. The duvet was thrown back; presumably she had been lying down when I rang the bell.

It was indeed possible to see the blue waters of the inlet from the living-room window. Lisa had positioned an armchair and a table with a pile of books on it in the spot which gave her the best view. There wasn’t much furniture, and hardly any pictures. A door led into another bedroom, while the kitchen was an open-plan arrangement.

She gestured towards the red sofa in front of a glass coffee table; its legs suggested that it might be from an Arab country.

‘What can I offer you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘In that case I’m going to make a pot of tea, then you can have a cup if you change your mind.’

She went into the kitchen and I looked around the living room. There was nothing to indicate the presence of a man. I couldn’t be sure, but there was no harm in hoping. When she had poured water into the teapot she disappeared into her bedroom and came back fully dressed.

She served the tea in white cups, and placed a plate of biscuits on the table.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Why have you come here?’

‘I don’t know where to start.’

‘I usually find the beginning is the easiest place.’

I already knew I wasn’t going to tell her the truth, but I also knew that for a lie to work, most of what you say must be true. It is only the conclusions that can contain the lie, twisting the story on its own axis. At the same time I thought the truth was impossible to deliver on this occasion, because I didn’t know what it was.

‘You know the beginning,’ I said. ‘The accusation that I’m an arsonist. I’m not.’

‘So surely it’s important for you to defend yourself? No one is convicted without solid proof of their guilt.’

‘I’ve already been convicted. I had a phone call to say I was going to be arrested. I’ve also received several anonymous letters.’

‘I thought you said you didn’t want any post delivered to your island?’

‘They were lying on the bench by the boathouse. I don’t know how they got there.’

Lisa looked at me pensively. The tea was very sweet, nothing like the blend Louise had left in the caravan.

‘My daughter has gone away,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t ask me. She didn’t even tell me she was going.’

‘That sounds like very strange behaviour.’

‘My daughter is strange. I also think she makes her living as a prostitute.’

I have no idea where that came from.

‘That sounds alarming,’ Lisa said after a brief silence.

I noticed that she was on her guard now. I realised I might have gone a step too far.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said. ‘And I’d like you to forget what I just said.’

‘You can’t just make yourself forget something, but I’ll try. I still don’t know why you’ve come to see me.’

‘I’ve got nowhere to go. No one to talk to.’

‘That’s not quite the same thing. You could have phoned me.’

‘I’ll leave right away, if that’s what you want.’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘I couldn’t stay on the island. I hardly know anyone around here. The only person I could think of was you, but now I realise I shouldn’t have come.’

Lisa was still looking at me with a certain wariness.

‘I hope you won’t write about this,’ I said.

‘Why would the local paper be interested in this?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘As you’re here, it’s probably best if you tell me what’s going on. I still don’t understand why you’ve left the island.’

I realised that my lies had made me unsure of what to say next, but there were moments during that long evening when I almost told her the truth: that I wanted her to take me into her bed. That was all.

Perhaps she knew what I was thinking? It was very late and we had drunk a bottle of wine when she suggested I should stay over on the sofa.

‘But don’t get any ideas,’ she added.

I felt like saying that it was always worth getting ideas, but at least she was letting me stay.

She made up a bed on the sofa, cleared away the cups and glasses and gave me a towel.

‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I need to sleep. First thing in the morning I’m off to visit two elderly siblings who live on a remote farm with no mains water supply and no electricity.’

I had hoped I would be able to give her a hug at least, but she merely nodded, switched off all the lamps apart from the one next to the sofa and disappeared into the bathroom. I decided not to get undressed until I heard the bedroom door close behind her.

I sat there in the pale light shining in from the street down below. I had draped the towel over the lampshade.

Nothing had turned out as I had hoped. The childish disappointment I felt reminded me of my clumsy teenage attempts at dating.

I walked around the silent apartment. Listened outside Lisa’s room. I had the feeling that she was standing just behind the door and quickly moved away. I opened the door of the other bedroom. There was a bed, but the room was clearly used as a study. On a desk by the window stood a computer and an old typewriter. I flicked through a pile of papers which contained barely legible notes and a few incomplete manuscripts. Daily newspapers were stacked up on the floor. I was listening the whole time; I didn’t want to be caught by Lisa if she emerged from her bedroom.

There were several framed photos on a shelf. I guessed they were from the 1930s or 40s, men and women posing for the photographer with smiling faces. However, there was nothing more modern, no pictures of people who might be Lisa’s parents or other relatives.

The apartment was strangely empty. It seemed as if her life and mine had some similarities after all.

I sat down at her desk and carried on looking through her papers. I turned on the lamp and read some letters, holding the paper in one hand while the other hovered over the switch. I didn’t want to be caught snooping. I have often expressed my contempt for those who pry into the lives of others, yet I have that same tendency myself.

One letter was from a reader complaining about the way Lisa had written about a serious matter involving the mistreatment of animals. A number of cows had been neglected, and had had to be slaughtered. The man who had sent the letter was called Herbert, and he felt he had been insulted and unfairly hung out to dry. At the bottom Lisa had put: No reply. Another letter was so full of hatred that I was astonished. I had received an anonymous phone call, but Lisa got letters. An anonymous man wasn’t attacking her for some article she had published; he was simply telling her how arousing he found the thought of sleeping with her. The fact that he had sadistic fantasies became clear after the first few lines.

This time Lisa’s note said: Can he be traced?

I turned off the lamp and got to my feet. There was a wardrobe on one wall, containing her clothes. I inhaled the smell of her and picked up a pair of high-heeled shoes.

As I stood there with the shoes in my hand I heard a noise behind me. I spun around so fast that I banged my head on the wardrobe door, but there was no one there. It was just my imagination. I put down the shoes exactly as I had found them. I was about to close the door when something right at the back caught my eye. At first I couldn’t make out what it was: possibly a small Swedish flag? However, when I took it out I discovered that it was an embroidered cloth. Above the Swedish flag was the word ‘Schweden’, and below it a black swastika on a red and white background.

I could see that it was old; the white fabric had acquired a yellowish tinge. I put it back in the wardrobe. Next to it, on another hanger, was a black leather bag. I took it out and opened it. It contained a number of Nazi war decorations, including a gold-coloured clasp with an inscription on the back which I interpreted as ‘close combat clasp’. There was also an Iron Cross, although I couldn’t tell which grade, and a knife in a case that had belonged to a member of the Waffen-SS. At the bottom of the bag was a photograph of an unshaven man in a German uniform. He was smoking a cigarette and smiling into the camera. On the back of the photograph was the name Karl Madsen, and in different handwriting someone had added: ‘Eastern Front 1942’.

I put the bag back in the wardrobe and left the room. There still wasn’t a sound from Lisa. It was quarter to three in the morning. I lay down on the sofa without getting undressed and fell asleep. In my dream Louise was walking along a street I didn’t recognise. I didn’t recognise her either; she looked completely different, and yet I still knew it was her. When I tried to call out to her, she turned and smiled. Her mouth was like a black hole; she had no teeth.

When I woke, it was ten past four. The whole situation, the fact that I was in Lisa’s apartment, felt like a dream. I went over to the window and looked down on the open space illuminated by a swinging street lamp. My car was in the shadows.

I went into Lisa’s study again. Once more I opened the wardrobe and took out the embroidered cloth with the Swedish flag and the swastika. Why was it hanging there among her clothes? What did the contents of the black leather bag mean?

I couldn’t find any answers.

I was on my way back to the sofa, but I couldn’t resist listening outside Lisa’s bedroom door again. Everything was still silent. Gently I pushed down the handle and opened the door a fraction. The blind was pulled only halfway down, and the street lamp shone onto the bed where she was lying.

I don’t know how long I stood there in the doorway, gazing at her. In the pale glow she looked like the women I have been with during my life. There weren’t many, apart from Harriet, but they were all lying in that bed looking just like Lisa Modin.

Eventually I lay back down on the sofa and dozed off, even though I really didn’t want to. When she woke up I wanted to be sitting here so that I could tell her I hadn’t slept a wink. I hoped that would arouse her sympathy.

I came back to life every fifteen minutes or so, in a state somewhere between sleep and drowsiness. When I heard the alarm clock in her bedroom, immediately followed by the sound of the radio, I sat up, combed my hair and waited. She opened the door softly, so as not to wake me. It was six o’clock. She was wearing her dressing gown. She nodded when she saw me sitting there; I nodded back as she disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the sound of running water. When she came out she had a towel wrapped around her hair. She went back into the bedroom; I stayed where I was. It was still dark outside.

She was dressed when she reappeared.

‘I thought you’d be asleep since you were so tired,’ she said. ‘But you’re up and dressed already.’

‘I haven’t slept,’ I said. ‘I didn’t even get undressed.’

‘Have you been sitting on the sofa all night?’

‘I lay down from time to time.’

She shook her head and looked worried.

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘At least I’ve had peace and quiet here. Nobody knows where I am.’

‘Not getting any sleep isn’t going to help.’

‘Sleeping isn’t going to help either.’

She went into the kitchen and began to prepare breakfast. I waited on the sofa until she said the coffee was ready. I was hungry but only had a cup of coffee. She tried to persuade me to have a sandwich, but I refused.

She got up, taking her coffee with her.

‘I’ve got a couple of things to do,’ she said. ‘I’ll be leaving in half an hour.’

When she had gone into her study I quickly made a sandwich while trying to work out how I could stay in the apartment. I didn’t want to go back to the island.

Lisa came out of her study. She topped up her cup, went over to the window and looked out towards the inlet; the sky was growing lighter now.

‘Why did you come here?’ she asked. Her voice was different, deeper. She was still gazing out of the window.

‘I tried to explain last night; perhaps I didn’t do a very good job.’

‘You’ve been snooping,’ she said, turning to face me.

I felt my pulse rate increase, as if I had avoided a car accident by the narrowest of margins.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

She put down her coffee cup on the draining board; I could see her hand trembling.

‘You’ve been in my study. You’ve been going through my papers, and you’ve opened my wardrobe. I can’t say exactly what you’ve done or why, but I can tell when something has changed.’

‘I’m not in the habit of going through other people’s things,’ I said huffily. ‘Whatever you might think, you’re wrong.’

Lisa looked tired. She shook her head slowly.

‘I’d like you to leave now. I thought you really needed help and a place to sleep, but now I don’t know who you are or why you’ve come here.’

‘I can assure you I haven’t been in your study.’

She shook her head again. I didn’t know how she had discovered what I had been up to during the night, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to convince her that she was mistaken.

‘In that case I’ll go,’ I said, getting to my feet.

She followed me into the hallway and watched as I put on my jacket and my wellington boots. I opened the door, then asked her, ‘Who’s the man in this picture?’

‘Robert Capa. He’s a photographer; I admire him more than any other journalist or photographer. He died when he was reporting from a war zone in Asia; he stepped on a landmine.’

I made my mind up there and then, with one foot outside her door.

‘One day you must tell me why there’s an embroidered cloth in your wardrobe with the Swedish flag and a swastika on it. Who made it? You must tell me all about it, but not right now — you’re obviously in a hurry.’

I didn’t wait for her response because I didn’t want to hear it. I hurried down the stairs, and as I reached the wheeled walker outside the old man’s apartment, I heard Lisa’s door slam.

I got in the car, lowered the back of my seat and fell asleep almost immediately.

When I woke up two hours later I was frozen through and felt sick. I took my pulse. It was much too rapid: ninety-seven. I got out of the car and walked around for a couple of minutes to shake some life into my body.

A little while later I parked by the bank and waited in the car until the liquor store opened. I bought half-bottles of vodka so that I could slip them into my jacket pocket, and ten cans of beer to ease the hangover that was bound to follow.

I went to a small cafe I had never been to before and had a couple of sandwiches. Since I was alone I added a good slug of vodka to my coffee cup. I saw no reason to wait until I got home. There were no police checks on the short stretch of road between here and the harbour. I wasn’t used to drinking spirits, so I felt the effects immediately. A warming sense of calm flooded my body.

I left the cafe, got into my car and had another swig of vodka before I set off. I was drunk, but I was still capable of keeping the car on the road and avoiding a collision with the oncoming traffic. I felt extremely cheerful. I was convinced that my parting comment to Lisa had hit home.

I parked outside Oslovski’s house, which still appeared to be deserted. I listened for sounds from her garage but heard nothing.

I went down to the boat with my stash of booze; I didn’t bother looking over at the chandlery to see if fru Nordin was there. The two coastguard patrol vessels were moored at the quayside. I clambered into my boat and left the harbour. A gentle offshore breeze was blowing, and just as I was picking up speed the sun emerged from behind the clouds. I set a more northerly course so that I could take a longer route home, travelling between islands with summer cottages closed up for the season. At one point I thought I caught a glimpse of a wild boar among the trees, but I couldn’t be certain. The water opened out into the wide expanse of Ramfjärden. In the distance I could see the outer sunken reefs and the open sea. I intended to head east when I had gone about halfway to the open sea; I would soon be home. However, instead I switched off the engine. I moved to the prow and fell over when the boat rocked. One of the oars slid into the water, but I managed to fish it out before it drifted away. I sat down and carried on drinking. The sun was lovely and warm. I took off my jacket.

I didn’t think about anything — not Lisa Modin, not my daughter, not the unknown police officers I would soon be talking to. I drank. Exhaustion from the almost sleepless night caught up with me, and I fell asleep.

I was woken by the boat bumping into something. When I sat up I was staring straight into Alexandersson’s face. He was leaning over the rail of the larger patrol boat, which loomed above me like an enormous whale. I looked in the other direction and realised that I had drifted all the way to the outer reefs, where the open sea was waiting. I was already caught up in the sea swell. I didn’t know how long I had slept, but I was still extremely drunk.

‘I think it’s best if you come aboard,’ Alexandersson said.

‘Fuck off,’ I replied as I stumbled to the stern and pulled the cord. The engine started immediately; I reversed away from the reef and set off towards my island. I thought Alexandersson would come after me; I was drunk, and could be arrested for being in charge of a vessel while under the influence.

However, the coastguard made no attempt to stop me. When I reached the island I ran the boat straight up onto the shore, but managed to flip up the engine before the propeller sustained any damage.

I tottered up to the caravan. Before I lay down I did something I never usually do.

I locked the door.

Chapter 13

I was woken by the sound of someone knocking.

It was the second day after the coastguard had found me drifting in my boat. I had carried on drinking when I’d got back to the island, and hadn’t begun to sober up until the following day. I was constantly expecting the police to come and pick me up.

The occasions in my life when I have drunk heavily have been few and far between, and I have always been alone when they happened. They follow the same path: I drink, I remain silent apart from yelling into the emptiness now and again. I fall asleep easily but usually wake up after a short time.

When I had started to sober up and felt the remorse gradually ebbing away, I went up to the bench on the hill with my binoculars. I looked over at the tent on the skerry, but there was no sign of anyone. However, I couldn’t be sure that the mysterious visitor hadn’t been there.

I noticed that I was listening for the sound of an engine the whole time. There wasn’t a breath of wind. I made myself something to eat when I remembered, but I hardly touched it and threw it to the gulls on the rock down by the boathouse where my grandfather used to sit mending his eel traps when I was a child. Slowly my thoughts returned to the night I had spent in Lisa Modin’s apartment.

The events to which the embroidered cloth bore witness, and the contents of the black bag, belonged to the past. It was seventy-five years since the war broke out, since the Nazi threat had seemed unstoppable. I was born after the war, Lisa Modin much later than me. Obviously there was something in her past that was still alive as far as she was concerned, but she didn’t have the items on display. It wasn’t something she wanted on show.

The most important question in my mind was of course the identity of the smiling man blowing cigarette smoke straight into the photographer’s eye. Who was Karl Madsen?

Remorse was replaced by depression and self-loathing. Every time I was overcome by those feelings I thought about my father and his many failures. I remembered him coming home after long shifts and immediately sitting down at the kitchen table, forcing my mother to listen to his complaints about all his difficult colleagues and the maître d’s, not to mention the diners he had to put up with. I never heard him accept responsibility for any tricky situation that had arisen; it was always the other person who had been in the wrong. When I was a child, I thought my father was an amazing man who never made any mistakes, but as time went on I realised that of course he was simply blaming someone else. That was also why he burdened himself with what sometimes seemed like a bottomless sorrow over a life that had turned out to be a failure.

My mother was his polar opposite. She was happy to take the blame for everything that happened in our home. If I came home with bad marks from school, it was her fault; she should have made sure I had peace and quiet to do my homework. If I got a nosebleed because I’d been fighting in the playground, she was responsible; she should have warned me about the boys who had attacked me.

I began my second day after my major drinking session by going down to the jetty and taking a dip in the ice-cold water. When I had rubbed myself dry I was even able to manage a substantial breakfast. Afterwards I poured the remains of the vodka down the sink but kept the cans of beer I hadn’t yet drunk.

In the afternoon I lay down for a sleep only to be woken by the sound of someone knocking. I opened the door to find Lisa Modin standing outside. She was dressed in the same way as on the day we went over to Vrångskär. She was pale and seemed nervous. I stepped aside and let her in.

‘How did you get here?’ I asked when she was sitting at the table. I had offered her the bed, which was more comfortable, but she chose the stool.

‘My editor has a small boat; I came on my own. I was afraid of running aground because I only knew the general direction, not how far away from the islands I needed to stay, but it was fine. I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

‘You’re not disturbing me. Can I get you anything?’

‘Tea?’

We drank tea. I didn’t like the taste; Lisa didn’t seem very keen either. I could tell from her face, but she didn’t say anything. I waited.

I had once been sent for by my senior consultant when I was a newly qualified doctor. I didn’t know why he wanted to see me, so I sat down and said nothing. The consultant, who was both stern and rather self-important, didn’t say anything either. We sat in silence for perhaps ten minutes, then he looked at me and thanked me for coming. When I mentioned this strange encounter to one of my contemporaries, he said I should have asked for a pay rise. That was why the consultant had sent for me. He knew I wasn’t happy, but he would never have started the conversation about my salary.

I topped up Lisa’s cup. She still didn’t say anything. I looked at her, remembering the night I had seen her in her bed.

‘I wasn’t lying,’ I said.

She looked questioningly at me.

‘I wasn’t snooping. I made a mistake in the night when I needed the toilet. I opened the wrong door, and then the wardrobe. I might have tripped. But I don’t read other people’s letters. I don’t poke around in other people’s belongings. Nor do I allow anyone to poke around in what is mine. Or was mine. Now my house has burned down, there’s nothing left.’

When I stopped speaking she looked at me for a long time, presumably trying to decide whether to believe me or not. Trusting what a person says is always a risk. The truth is always provisional, while lies are often solid.

‘I came here because I want to explain,’ she said. ‘At the moment I don’t care whether or not you got lost in the night. You’re wrong if you think I was trying to hide something.’

She got to her feet.

‘Can we go outside? It’s not raining or windy. I need air; it’s so cramped in here.’

I pulled on my wellingtons, grabbed my jacket and opened the door. The sun was shining; late autumn in the archipelago was still mild.

We walked around the island and eventually sat down on the bench at the top of the hill.

She began to talk. Her family came from Germany. Her grandmother Ulrike had married Karl Madsen, a member of the infamous Waffen-SS. He had belonged to one of the units responsible for appalling outrages in Poland while Ulrike had remained in Bremen. Lisa’s mother Roswita was born when the war was over, in the autumn of 1945, following Karl’s last visit home towards the end of 1944.

Ulrike, who had been born in 1917, died at the end of the 1970s. Until that day Roswita had believed that her father had died while defending Berlin, before the city fell in May 1945. However, as she went through everything her mother had left behind, she realised that Ulrike had lied to her. Karl Madsen had been lynched in Krakow a few months before the end of the war, hanged on a makeshift gallows in one of the city’s squares. He had been recognised because of his involvement in indescribably brutal actions during the conflict in Poland. There was no indication in Ulrike’s papers of what he had done, nor was there any explanation as to why the photograph of Karl Madsen had been taken somewhere on the Eastern Front. It seemed likely that he had fought on the front line for a short period; a soldier’s life was always full of gaps.

We set off for a brisk walk around the island again because Lisa was cold. When we got back to the bench, she continued her story.

‘I hardly remember my grandmother. I was only six or seven when she died. We were already living in Sweden by then; I was born in Uddevalla. My mother met a sailor called Lars Modin, who was fifteen years older than her and had moved here from Germany. Ulrike came too, with her few memories of my grandfather. My first recollections are of sunshine: warm summer days, a great stillness. My grandmother had her own apartment on the top floor of our house. She used to eat with us, but I never went up to visit her; she wanted peace and quiet. I was frightened of her — not because she was strict, but because she hardly ever spoke. I don’t remember her voice. Then she died, and my mother passed away too when I was thirteen. She was only forty, but she had a massive brain haemorrhage. I stayed with my father until I was twenty; he died a few years ago. A lovely old man who kept himself smart in his room in a care home. I didn’t learn much from Roswita about my German heritage; it was only when my father died that I found the items that you came across in my wardrobe. There isn’t really any more to say.’

I had no reason to doubt the veracity of what she said. I realised that was the most important thing I could tell her.

‘That’s a remarkable story, and I believe you. And of course I won’t tell anyone else.’

‘I had to explain, but I don’t want to talk about it any more. It’s my story, not yours, not ours. Mine.’

I offered to cook her a simple meal, and to my surprise she accepted the invitation. Louise had left a fish pie in the freezer compartment; I put it in the microwave and got out the cans of beer I had bought. We ate and drank and talked about anything apart from what she had just told me.

We said nothing about her journey home, we just carried on chatting and finished off the beer. I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask her. I was convinced that she would soon move away; I felt as if she didn’t fit in at all in the small town where she lived and worked. However, I didn’t mention it. I had come to realise that she liked to choose the moment when it came to sharing information about herself.

‘I’ll have to stay the night,’ she said when it was almost midnight.

I had been expecting her to say that.

‘We’ll manage somehow,’ I said. ‘You take the bed and I’ll put a mattress on the floor. It’s a bit cramped, but it’s OK.’

I put a pan of water on the hob and gave her a towel.

‘I’ll go and see to the boats; when you’ve had a wash and got into bed, turn out the light. I can find my way around in the dark.’

‘I’ve never slept in a caravan,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’ve never even slept in a tent.’

I picked up my jacket and was just about to leave when she touched my shoulder.

‘I can take the mattress,’ she said. ‘The bed is yours. But don’t expect anything.’

I just shook my head and went outside. When I turned I saw that she had drawn the curtain.

I switched off my torch and stood motionless in the darkness. I could hear the sound of a cargo ship in the distance, ploughing through the waves, although I couldn’t work out in which direction it was going. It was a moment of absolute timelessness. I have always felt that time, the passage of the year, was a growing burden, as if days and years can be measured in grams and kilograms. The timelessness I experienced as I stood there on the jetty was almost like weightlessness. I closed my eyes and listened to the night breeze. There was no past, no future, no worry about Louise, no burned-out house. Above all there was no botched operation, no young woman who had lost her arm.

I felt tears scalding my eyes.

It wasn’t me, standing there on the jetty. It was the child I had once been.

I managed to pull myself together. I wiped my eyes and noticed that the light in the caravan had gone off. I went into the boathouse and fetched a bar of saltwater soap, then I stripped off and climbed down into the ice-cold water. I worked up a good lather, then dipped under the surface. By the time I got dressed my fingers were blue, my legs were shaking and my teeth were chattering.

I jumped up and down on the jetty to get my circulation going; only to get cramp in one leg. I had to massage my calf muscle before I was able to walk back up to the caravan. The pain had driven home the truth: I was a man of almost seventy who was tired, slightly hungover and wanted to sleep more than anything. Softly I opened the door; the light from the small lamp in the kitchen area cast a faint glow over the room. Lisa had turned to face the wall; only her head was visible above the covers. No doubt she was awake but wanted me to think she was asleep. I rolled out the mattress, fetched a pillow and a blanket from the cupboard, undressed to my underpants, switched off the lamp and lay down.

When I was studying medicine, before I met Harriet, a group of us went to a bar. It was someone’s birthday; he had plenty of money, and was treating us. At the end of the evening I joined forces with one of the female students because we were going in the same direction. It was winter, cold and icy. She was a fairly anonymous member of the group; not pretty or funny, just pale and quiet. She spent most of her time alone and seemed perfectly happy to do so; she never really sought out the company of anyone else. Just before we were about to say goodnight, she slipped on a patch of ice. I caught her before she fell, and suddenly I was holding her close. It happened in a second. We could feel each other’s bodies through our thick winter coats. Without either of us saying anything, I went home with her. She had a small bedsit; I can still remember the scent of soap. As soon as we got through the door she was tearing at my clothes. I still think she was the most passionate woman I have ever met. She raked her nails down my back and bit my face. When we finally fell asleep at dawn, the sheets were spattered with blood. A glance in the bathroom mirror told me that I looked like someone who had been hit by a hail of shotgun pellets.

We didn’t speak during the night. In spite of her wildness she didn’t utter a single word. When I woke up in the morning, she was gone. She had left a brief note on the table.

Thanks. Close the door when you leave.

Later that day we met in a lecture on ethics. She nodded at me as if absolutely nothing had happened. I tried to speak to her during the break, but she simply shook her head. She didn’t want to talk. I’m not even sure she wanted to remember.

I never went to her apartment again after that night. When we qualified, we went our separate ways; many years later I saw her name in a death notice. She had died suddenly, and was mourned by her parents, brother and sister. She was forty-two years old and working as a GP in the northern province of Västerbotten at the time.

When I saw the notice I felt a deep and unexpected wave of grief. I missed her, although I didn’t understand why.

‘I can tell you’re not asleep,’ Lisa said.

She didn’t turn over. Her words bounced off the wall.

‘I never sleep particularly well,’ I replied.

She rolled over. I could just make out her face in the light shining faintly through the curtain.

‘I was asleep,’ she said. ‘Then all at once I woke up and didn’t know where I was. It’s worse than the worst nightmare, that split second when you don’t know where you are. It’s as if you don’t know who you are either. While I was dreaming someone has taken my face and my body and replaced them with something I don’t recognise; I don’t know who they belong to.’

‘I never have nightmares in the caravan. It’s as if there isn’t room in here. Nightmares need space, or a proper bedroom at least.’

‘It’s the opposite way round for me.’

The conversation stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

‘I have to repeat what I said when you slept on my sofa,’ she said after a while. ‘I hope you’re not expecting anything just because I’ve stayed over. But perhaps you’ve already got the message?’

‘One always expects something,’ I replied. ‘But that doesn’t mean you have anything to worry about.’

‘What is it you expect?’

‘Do I have to answer that?’

‘I can’t force you.’

‘Well, of course I’m expecting you to ask me to join you in bed, and then we’ll make love.’

Lisa laughed. She didn’t sound annoyed or surprised.

‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘I’m too old for you anyway.’

‘I’ve never slept with a man I wasn’t deeply in love with.’ She turned to face the wall once more. ‘Let’s go to sleep. If we carry on talking I’ll be wide awake.’

‘You started it,’ I pointed out.

‘I know. Go to sleep.’

It was a long time before I nodded off. The temptation to get up and squeeze into the bed was ever-present. Either she would open her body to me or push me away.

I stayed on the mattress and listened to her breathing gradually grow heavier until she was asleep.

In my dream the searing light was there once more. I tried to get out of the burning house, but to no avail. The staircase was missing. There was no way down from the first floor. When I turned around, my grandmother was standing there. She shouted to my grandfather to tell him that dinner was ready; they were having boiled pike.

At that point the dream ended abruptly, with no conclusion.

I was woken by the sound of an engine. I sat up and discovered that the bed was empty, and Lisa’s clothes and handbag were gone. I ran outside; her boat was just pulling away. When she saw me she waved and pointed to the jetty. I walked across the damp grass; she had left a folded piece of paper under a stone on the bench. The name of her newspaper was at the top.

You were sleeping so deeply that I didn’t want to wake you. But at least you know a little bit more about who I am now.

I climbed down into the water. The cold sliced through my body. I counted to ten out loud before heaving myself onto the jetty, then I ran back to the caravan and got into bed.

I woke several hours later, finally feeling rested. I decided I needed to work out how I was going to deal with the risk of being arrested. As I yanked back the curtain the fitting came away from the plastic wall; I threw the curtain out of the door. If it didn’t want to be there, I wasn’t going to waste time trying to fix it.

I went outside. If I was going to be able to think clearly, I needed to move. I put my binoculars around my neck and made my way down to the skiff. It was half full of water, and I had to bail it out before I set off for the skerry where my tent was.

The wind was a north-easterly. Far away on the horizon I could see a dark bank of cloud. I rowed to the skerry as fast as I could in order to warm myself up and get my circulation going.

The tent was empty, but I could see straight away that someone had made a fire among the stones. Next to a juniper bush lay empty tins that had contained American corned beef. There were no other traces of the person who had been using my campsite. I walked around the skerry to see if I could find anything; an empty milk carton was jammed between some smaller rocks, but it could simply have drifted ashore.

I wondered whether to leave a message for the mysterious visitor. I crawled into the tent and stretched out on my sleeping bag.

As I lay there with the grey light seeping in through the porous fabric, I thought that Lisa Modin was closer to me than I had dared to believe possible. The age difference between us was considerable, but I was starting to believe that she needed me in some way, just as I needed her.

It was an exciting prospect. I headed home without leaving a message on the skerry. To give myself more exercise, I rowed around my island before mooring at the jetty.

I would make a plan. Not just for the next few days, but for the future. I would suggest to Lisa that we took a trip together. If there was a place she dreamed of visiting, I would pay for us to go there. If she didn’t have anywhere specific in mind, I would make suggestions. Somewhere hot. The Caribbean perhaps, or even further afield — a Pacific island.

For the first time since the fire I was in a good mood. I hurried up to the caravan, eager to start formulating my thoughts. As I stepped inside, my phone rang. I recognised the number.

It was Louise. She was talking fast, and her tone was forced. The line was bad too; I asked her to slow down. She said she didn’t have much time. I could tell that she was frightened and on the verge of tears. Stammering, almost shouting when I interrupted her to say that I could hardly hear her, she told me that she had been arrested. She was being held by the police in Paris and needed my help. I tried to ask her what had happened, but she wasn’t listening; she just kept repeating that she needed help.

The connection was broken. Her voice echoed inside my head. I tried her number but couldn’t get through.

I had never heard her sound so scared. I went outside, taking the phone with me in case she called again. I sat on my grandfather’s bench even though the wind had increased, and I immediately started to shiver.

My passport had been lost in the fire, but I knew that it was possible to obtain a provisional passport at the larger Swedish airports. I called the bank and managed to speak to the clerk who had helped me before. My new card had arrived.

I didn’t need to give the matter any more thought. I called Jansson and asked him to pick me up in an hour. Naturally he wondered if the engine was giving me trouble again.

‘No. I just need transport, nothing else.’

I dug out an old bag left over from Harriet’s time and packed my Chinese shirts, my underwear and my phone charger. I gathered up the cash I had, then wrote a note to Alexandersson. I didn’t want anyone to think I’d done a runner. I told him that my daughter was in trouble and needed my help, and I hoped to be back in a few days.

I was waiting on the jetty when Jansson arrived, punctual as usual. We shook hands; he was always very particular on that point.

‘I expect you’re going to the harbour,’ Jansson said. ‘When do you want to come back?’

‘I don’t know.’

The sea spray was fresh and cold as we sped across the water. Jansson dropped me off by the petrol pumps, and I gave him a hundred kronor as usual. By the time he left the harbour I was already on my way to the coastguards’ office. I had folded the piece of paper and written Alexandersson’s name on one side.

As I was passing the chandlery I couldn’t resist popping in to ask Margareta if my wellington boots had arrived. They hadn’t.

‘I’m going away for a few days,’ I said. ‘Perhaps the boots will be here when I get back.’

‘You can never tell when orders will arrive,’ Margareta said. ‘You can’t rely on anyone these days.’

Oslovski wasn’t at home, but when I looked in the garage, all the tools were in their proper places.

The curtains were closed.

I got in the car and drove off.

I hoped to find a flight leaving for Paris that evening. I would leave my country with a slight bow.