Sail of Stone

30

Halders and Aneta drove over Fattighusån. The water was black. It seemed to stand still, unable to decide which way it should flow. They passed SKF. There was a dull shine to the factory façades. Halders stared at the large windows. He could have been in there now, wandering in and out day in and day out. Maybe he was actually made for a different life, that life. He could have been a renowned union chairman, or a notorious one. He could have been the director of the whole thing. He could have been all of that, but he couldn’t be a chief inspector. Why?

Why, Aneta had once asked when he was complaining, and she had meant why in the sense of why do you want to strive for that? It’s not that much more money. There’s not more independence, or whatever you call it. You wouldn’t actually have more power. Yes, I would, he had said. Power to use how? she had said. He didn’t know, he couldn’t answer that.

There was also a dull sheen to Fastlagsgatan. Aneta guessed there were places on the street that were never touched by the sun.

A pickup from Statoil stood outside the fifth entrance. They could make out furniture under the cover but they couldn’t see people to carry it.

“Coming or going?” said Halders.

A man of about twenty-five came out through the front door and hopped up into the pickup and pulled some sort of wicker chair to the edge and hopped down again and carried it in.

“Coming,” said Halders.

The guy came back quickly and took another piece of furniture and carried it in again.

“He’s filling the elevator,” said Halders.

“Which apartment in that stairwell is empty, do you think?”

“The same one you’re thinking,” said Halders, opening the car door.

“There’s nothing we can do,” said Aneta. “Take it easy.”

“We’re just UN observers,” said Halders.

In the stairwell, the elevator doors were closed and the elevator was on its way up. Aneta hesitated.

“Should we stomp in there and tell them that this apartment they’re moving into has recently been the scene of several crimes?” said Aneta.

“It’s not as though someone has been murdered,” said Halders.

“Could have been,” said Aneta.

The elevator rumbled down again. They waited. The door opened and a young, dark-haired woman stepped out. The elevator was empty. She propped the door open with a chair. She nodded hastily and continued out through the door, which was fastened open. She ducked into the pickup.

She came back with a box that seemed heavy. They were still standing there.

“If you’re not doing anything else, maybe you can carry things,” she said.

Halders laughed. That was his style. Aneta didn’t laugh. She saw the woman smile and shove the box into the elevator. She had seen this woman before. A few times in a car that stopped outside the Palace to pick up a tired chief inspector. She knew his name, and she knew her name.

“What are you doing here, Moa?”

Ringmar and Winter were standing in the stern when the Vipan set out at 2:35. Winter was smoking a Corps, his first of the day. He told this to Ringmar, who congratulated him.

They had made two phone calls after they’d made their decision. Now here they stood, with a sudden sun over all the mountains that stuck up above the surface of the water. But that was only a small part of it, a tenth of a percent. Everything was below the surface. The iceberg effect. These weren’t icebergs, but the effect was the same. That’s how it was with good books. Ringmar pondered that concept. The simple words were only the topmost layer. Everything was underneath. Books, but also the work in their world. Their world was words, words, words. Spoken, written. Bawled out. Complete, half complete, broken into pieces, broken off. Forced out. Dissolved sentences. Lies and truths, but often those didn’t matter since most of it was still below the surface. They only saw the tops of the truth or the lies.

“A person should probably live out here,” said Winter. “It’s always cloudy in the city but when you come out here, it clears up. It’s always like that.”

“Well, you’re going to build by the sea.”

Winter didn’t answer.

“Right?” Ringmar observed him. “You did buy the land.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Mmhmm? Aren’t you sure? Didn’t you both decide?”

“Yeah, I guess we did.”

“It’s great to hear young, enthusiastic people talking about their future.”

Winter squinted at the sky.

“You have a family, and you and I both know what Angela wants. And imagine how Elsa will love life by the sea.”

Vipan sped up toward Asperö East. They saw the bathing beach, the bay, and the houses on the right, which were visible behind the passage, Asperö North, Brännö Rödsten. Life by the sea. It had its different sides, dark and light.

But this was life on the islands, all around him; it was different from life by a beach on the mainland.

“Get started building now, Erik. I can help out with the administration of your topping-out party.” He shivered suddenly in the gusty wind. “What do you say to a cup of coffee?”

They asked their way to Arne Algotsson’s house. It was on one of the sheltered streets. The colors of the houses hadn’t been transformed by the wind and the sun and the salt, not like on the other houses they’d passed. The front of the house lay in shadow. Maybe that was the reason.

Ringmar knocked on the heavy door, which seemed to be sunk into the ground. If they were allowed in they would have to duck. The woman who’d answered when Ringmar called had sounded dismissive but accepting, at least then. Her name was Ella Algotsson and she was Arne Algotsson’s sister; she had always lived on Donsö and had never been married. She was over eighty years old and she took care of her brother now. Arne lived his life in there. According to Johanna Osvald, he never went out.

Ringmar knocked again, and they heard sounds, as though iron bolts were being lifted away on the other side.

The door opened and the woman nodded warily. She was short and thin. Winter could see the skin on her arms; it was like pale leather. Her face had more wrinkles than Ringmar would ever get. They ran in all directions. She looked at Ringmar, who was the shorter of the two inspectors. Her eyes were transparently blue, a washed-out shade, whitewashed, and Winter thought for a moment that she was blind.

“What is’t this time?” she said.

“Sorry?” said Ringmar.

“What you sayin’ sorry fer?” she said.

Ringmar looked at Winter, who was smiling a little. These were literal people.

“I’m the one who called,” said Ringmar.

“What?”

“I’m the one who called. I spoke to a woman who answered here and the-”

“That was the assistant,” answered Ella Algotsson as though she were the CEO of Västtrafik public transport, which had taken over the archipelago lines. “She isn’t here now, so you can go again.”

“But you’re the one we want to talk to, Mrs. Algotsson. She-”

“Miss.”

“Miss Algotsson,” said Ringmar. “She said that it would be okay for us to talk to you and your brother for a little bit.” Ringmar took out his wallet, showed her his ID. “My name is Bertil Ringmar and I’m a detective in Gothenburg, and this young man is Erik Winter and he’s my assistant.”

Winter showed his ID. Ella Algotsson looked at it, then looked suspiciously to Winter and then to Ringmar.

“Can’e really mek food?”

“Make food?” Ringmar gestured toward Winter. “That’s what he’s best at.”

“Arne’s sleepin’,” she said.

“Can we wait?” said Ringmar.

“He’s tired, Arne is.”

“We can leave for a bit and come back,” said Ringmar.

She didn’t answer.

“Has anyone else been here asking about Arne?” asked Ringmar.

“What’s that?” she said.

“When we came, you wondered what it was this time.”

“Axel was here,” she said.

Ringmar looked at Winter.

“Axel?” asked Ringmar, who got to be in charge of questioning. His assistant had the sense to know his place and keep quiet. Winter had backed up a few steps. “Axel Osvald?” Ringmar leaned a bit closer. She didn’t seem to hear. “Was Axel Osvald here recently to talk to Arne?”

“A few weeks ago,” she said, without hesitation. “They sat in the parlor. I wasn’t there.”

“What did they talk about?”

“The’ talked abou’ before o’course,” she said. “That’s all Arne can talk about. Ev’rythin’ else he’s forgot. But before he ca’ remember some’a.”

He can remember the past, Winter translated to himself.

“His Erik were here too,” she said. Ringmar hadn’t asked anything further. But he had earned her trust. She hadn’t asked what brought the inspector here, why he wanted to speak to her elderly brother. It didn’t seem to be of concern to her. Did she know something? Something more than that John Osvald had disappeared once upon a time? Winter tried to see her face behind the wrinkles that were her face, and there were her eyes with that strange, glimmering blue color that was almost a source of light in the dim hallway where she stood, and those eyes were directed at Ringmar the entire time. Did she know something that her brother Arne had once known but had forgotten long ago? Had some secret ended up within her? She had said that Axel and Erik Osvald had been looking for her brother, but maybe they’d also spoken with her.

They hadn’t asked about that.

“Erik?” said Ringmar. “Erik Osvald?”

“Yes.”

“Was he here along with his father? With Axel?”

“No. It was after.”

Moa Ringmar released her grip on the box and straightened up. She looked first at Aneta and then at Halders. Now she recognizes me, thought Aneta. It’s not some local darkie standing here.

“Didn’t Dad tell you? Isn’t he the one who sent you here?” asked Moa, whose eyes had become sharper.

“Moa!” said Halders. “Now the gears are starting to turn. You’re Moa Ringmar!”

“Bertil didn’t send us, Moa,” said Aneta. “We’re here on duty. And he has no idea what we’re doing here.”

“The state can’t afford to let us work as moving men too,” said Halders.

“And moving women,” said Moa.

“Yes,” said Aneta.

“I meant that he meant that you were to keep an eye on me in general.”

“Why would we do that?” asked Aneta.

“Because this is dangerous and unfamiliar territory for someone from idyllic Kungsladugård,” said Moa.

Never trust idylls, thought Aneta. They are even worse.

“Which apartment are you moving into?” asked Halders.

She told them, and they asked who she was renting it from.

“His name is Lindsten.”

“Is it a sublet?”

“Yes, for now. It’s a rental, of course. It could be-”

She stopped talking and looked from one detective to the other.

“Have I done something illegal here?” she asked. “It wasn’t a problem for the landlord.”

“I’m going to tell you something, Moa,” said Halders.

Ringmar took a deep breath, in and out, up on a cliff behind the houses. They could see the open sea and the coastline past Näset, to Askim, Hovås, Billdal, Särö, and down to Vallda. A fog was floating above the water, but it didn’t ruin the view. Ringmar threw out his arms.

“All of this can be yours, Erik.”

Winter had an unlit Corps in his mouth. He tried to see the little bay south of Billdal. It was impossible.

“The message has been received, Bertil.”

“Do you think the old man will be more conscious this afternoon?” said Ringmar.

“We can talk to the sister,” said Winter. “Maybe she knows everything.”

“Yes.”

“Should I continue to play your kitchen aide all afternoon?” asked Winter. “Or maybe it’s called a home health aide within the health-care field.”

“It can only be good for you,” said Ringmar.

“Are you done breathing?” said Winter.

“You should do it, too,” said Ringmar as Winter lit his cigarillo. “Breathe in the sea.”

“I prefer to eat it,” said Winter.

“I’ve tried,” said Ringmar, “but oysters are not my thing.”

“Too bad for you, Bertil.”

Ella Algotsson opened up after three knocks.

“I thought ya’d gone back,” she said.

“There’s a boat at four thirty,” said Ringmar.

“Is Arne awake?” asked Winter.

She didn’t answer.

“Is Arne awake?” asked Ringmar.

“That he is,” she answered.

“May we come in for a bit?”

Arne Algotsson looked like a larger version of his sister. There was no doubt that they were siblings, as though their advanced age had enhanced their common features. Arne Algotsson was sitting on a red chair in the kitchen, and he turned around as they came in. His face was illuminated by the light from the horizon, which was visible though the window. There was a different light on the back side of the house; a different space. You could see the strip of mainland.

Arne Algotsson nodded. His eyes were blue in the same way as his sister’s, as though the sea wind had scrubbed everything clean out there, even eyes. Everyone who lived there for a long time ended up with the same worn blue haze in their eyes. But the man’s eyes lacked his sister’s lucidity and focus. He seemed to look through the visitors without holding on to anything.

Winter let Ringmar off at the Margreteberg roundabout and drove home via Linnéplatsen, Övre Husargatan, Vasagatan.

The parking garage smelled like leaking oil.

The elevator smelled like cigars.

He heard children’s laughter in the stairwell. It was about time in this building. Everyone was twice as old as he and Angela were.

He loved this building.

It had always been there. It was larger than life, was there before he came, would be there when he was gone.

They could sublease it, for the time being. When the house was finished down on the beach. Bertil’s Moa needed a place. If she hadn’t settled into Kortedala too much. This would be suitable for her. A little big for one, but she could share.

He unlocked the door and Elsa came running through the hall.

They made toast and brewed tea. Winter fried a few slices of haloumi for its saltiness. There were olives on the table.

“Let’s have a glass of white wine too,” he said.

The phone rang as he uncorked the bottle.

“I’ll get it,” said Angela.

“No, me, me!” yelled Elsa.

She answered, a confident hello?

They saw her listening intently. Suddenly she giggled and said, “Yes, suw.”

“Steve,” said Winter to Angela.

“Ya prata svinska,” said Macdonald when Winter took the phone.

“And Elsa speaks English,” said Winter.

“Yes, sir.” Macdonald excused himself for a second and said something to someone and came back. “I just got home.”

Steve Macdonald lived with his wife and their fourteen-year-old twin girls in a house, a cottage as he said, down in Kent, just over an hour’s drive south of Croydon. Croydon was part of London, but it was also one of England’s ten biggest cities. It wasn’t exactly idyllic, Croydon.

“Same here,” said Winter. “I just opened the wine.”

“Jamie called in the car,” said Macdonald.

“I spoke with him,” said Winter, “if you mean Craig.”

“Yes. The daughter has arrived.”

“And?”

“She’s identified the body as her father. There’s no doubt.”

“When did this happen?”

“Just now. Half an hour ago.”

“Then she’ll call me soon,” said Winter.

“Was he prone to depression? Or had he been mentally ill in some way?” asked Macdonald, direct questions.

“I don’t know, Steve. Not according to the daughter, anyway. Nothing that was treated.”

“They haven’t found the car,” said Macdonald.

“Craig figured it had been stolen. It’s common.”

“It should have turned up by now.”

“What does Craig say?”

“He agrees with me.” Winter heard Macdonald mumble something to someone again and then returned. “Sorry. We’re just going over to a neighbor’s soon to celebrate because his loutish son is moving out.” Macdonald coughed out a short laugh. “Okay. Just for your information. We did have time to put out a bulletin about this Osvald before we found him, and a number of tips and… observations have come in.”

“What did those tips say?”

“They say that people have apparently seen him about up here during the last few weeks. In fact, it seems he’s been seen all over Moray and even down by Aberdeenshire.”

“What does that imply? The area, I mean?”

“I don’t know if this will mean anything to you, but it’s all the way down along the coast over to Fraserburgh and then down to Peterhead. We’ve even gotten a report from Aberdeen. It’s rather a long way to Aberdeen. And someone says they saw the man inland as well.”

“Does that matter, Steve?”

“I don’t know, my friend.”

“Something happened to him,” said Winter.

“Yes,” said Macdonald.

“Is it connected to his travels?”

“Why else would he have made them? Roaming around in our godforsaken district?” said Macdonald. “He sure wasn’t there on holiday.”

Speaking of holidays, thought Winter.

“One more thing,” said Macdonald. “He wasn’t alone.”

“I’m listening.”

“If it’s our man the witnesses saw, one of them saw him with company.”

“Has the witness described this company?”

“It was an older man.”

“An older man,” Winter echoed. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck, as though it suddenly moved. He saw that Angela noticed.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Macdonald.

“Is there more?” said Winter.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s up to Craig in Inverness. It seems that more will probably come in.”

“Craig is an efficient man.”

“Yes, you can say that about him. An efficient asshole.”

“I thought he was a friend. I thought you recommended him for the job up there.”

“Why do you think I did that?”

Winter laughed. Elsa laughed when he laughed. She liked English. Angela looked at him with a wrinkle between her eyes.

“The farthest commissioner’s office in all of Great Britain. Why do you think I recommended Craig for that?”

“Okay, okay.”

“He doesn’t like it,” said Macdonald.

“No, I can understand that.”

“I don’t mean the job or the place. I’m talking about this case,” said Macdonald. “Craig is an angry bastard, but that’s also to his advantage. In his career. He says that things aren’t what they look like.”

“What did you say he said?”

“Things are not what they look like,” repeated Macdonald. “That’s what he said.”

Winter felt the hair on the back of his neck again. Angela saw how serious he was.

“They’re doing another autopsy,” said Macdonald.

“Has Johanna accepted that? The daughter, that is.”

“Yes. According to Craig. But he didn’t think they would find anything there.”

“Where will they find something then?”

“Don’t ask me, Erik.”

“And what will they find?” said Winter.

“You sound quite involved in this,” said Macdonald.

“I have actually thought about it quite a bit,” said Winter. “Worked on it a little.”

“It sounds like it.”

And suddenly Winter saw what he would be doing in the near future. What he wanted to do. He saw an opportunity to see Steve again, an obvious opportunity. Some would call it obvious.

Angela was playing backgammon with Elsa now. She had made a meaningful gesture toward the wine bottle. He had nodded, and she had poured half a glass for herself and brought one to him. In three days they were supposed to go to Marbella for a week.

There would be other opportunities.

“It’s… interesting,” said Winter.

“Now you’ve started to get me interested,” said Macdonald. “You and Craig.”

“If it hadn’t been for the information I just received,” said Winter.

“You’ve thought about it before,” said Macdonald.

“What?”

“Don’t even try,” said Macdonald.

Winter didn’t answer; he took a drink of the wine, which was cold and dry. He thought, thought. He felt the old feeling, the old, wonderful, damn feeling. He thought of Marbella, of Angela, Mother… it could work out. Elsa might think it was nice. He could ask Siv…

“What do you say?” said Winter. They hadn’t needed to say out loud what they were discussing. It was the so-called iceberg effect. “Is it possible for you?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Macdonald, “I’ve been planning to take a trip home soon. I’ve actually been putting it off for too long.”

“Can you get away on short notice?”

“How short?” asked Macdonald.

“Three days.”

“Yes. It might work.”

“I might not come alone,” Winter said, looking at Angela, who had stiffened during the last minute of conversation.

“Me neither,” said Macdonald. “Sarah is ready for a trip. We have even arranged for a babysitter. If you can say that about taking care of girls who are almost fifteen.”

“I’ll call you later tonight,” Winter said, and hung up.

“What was that?” Angela said.

“Oh…,” Winter said, blinking quickly and making a motion with his head toward Elsa, who was concentrating on her pieces, “Steve wanted to talk a little.”

Elsa was sleeping like a little rock. Winter snuck out into the hall and into the kitchen. Angela was playing a round of solitaire that appeared to be coming to an end.

“Well?” she said.

“What do you say we go to Scotland for a few days?” he said.