Depths

Chapter 135

It sounded as if she was howling. An animal in distress.

The net with the bits of skeleton had been snagged by the rail. She stood up and tugged at it as if fighting with a big fish. But she didn’t want to have it on board, she wanted the net to sink back down to the bottom of the sea.

He sat motionless, holding the oars. What was happening was beyond his control. The net came loose and started to sink down to the bottom.

‘Row,’ she screamed. ‘Let’s get away from here.’

She flung herself at him and started to row herself. He could see her fear, feel the power in the strokes.

They were a long way from the spot where they had caught the bones when she slumped back on to the stern seat.

‘Turn,’ she said.

‘Turn to where?’

‘I was wrong. I must bring him up. I must bury my husband.’

Her fear had now become despair.

‘There’s no sign of the net,’ he said. ‘But I know where the place is.’

‘How can you know when there’s nothing to see?’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s my special skill. I can read the sea, see what isn’t visible.’

He turned the boat round, rowed nineteen strokes, then changed direction slightly to port and rowed twenty-two more strokes.

They had a little drag anchor in the boat. He knew that the depth here was between fifty-five and sixty metres. The anchor rope was only thirty metres long.

‘It’s here,’ he said. ‘But the rope is too short. I can’t reach the bottom.’

‘I must get him up.’

‘I know where it is. We can come back to this very spot. You have a length of rope in the inlet and we can tie it to the anchor rope. That would give another forty metres, which would make it long enough.’

He didn’t wait for her to answer but started rowing back to Halsskär. She sat quietly on the stern seat, hunched up, as if she’d just been exerting herself.

When they got to the inlet he fetched the rope and put it in the dinghy.

‘Let me do it,’ he said. ‘Let me bring the net up. You don’t need to be there.’

She said nothing. When he rowed out again she stood watching him.

Chapter 136

He let the anchor sink to the seabed.

He felt something at the fourth attempt. He stood up and pulled in the rope. The net reappeared, and in it the bits of bone and the piece of leather. It was part of a jackboot, with a rusty stud still attached to it. He pulled the net on board. There were fish wriggling away in it, a sign of life amid all the death. He removed the fish and the seaweed, and threw the net back into the water.

He was reminded of the piece of drift net he’d seen that morning on board the Blenda. The soundless, lifeless movements, the freedom that meant always being on the move. Now another net had achieved freedom.

He examined the pieces of bone. There was part of a forearm, a broken rib and the remains of a left foot.

The foot upset him. There was something shameless about this well-preserved section of a man’s skeleton, the only thing to remind an observer so vividly that this person had drowned in a state of inconceivable terror and loneliness.

He rowed back to Halsskär. At one point he stopped rowing and felt his forehead to feel if he had a temperature. His forehead was cool.

When he got back to the cottage he found it empty. He put the bones down, walked back to the spring and drank deep. Then he went to look for her. She must be there somewhere. Even so, he suddenly felt all alone on the skerry.

Chapter 137

He found her at the far north end of the island. She had crawled into a crevice, pressed herself down into the heather, lay with her eyes wide open but seeing nothing. He sat down beside her.

There is nothing so easy as taking control of suffering people, he thought. People totally lacking in resistance. He remembered his mother, weeping, alone in one of the dark rooms that comprised his childhood home.

A flock of crows was cawing somewhere in the distance. The sound died away. He waited. Thirty-two minutes passed. Then she stood up and hastened away. She walked back to the cottage. He was about to follow her in when she came out and hurried down towards the inlet.

He stood quite still. Should he allow her to be on her own? There was nowhere she could disappear to, there were no hidden doors in the rocks that could open up.

Then he saw smoke and could smell tar. When he got there he found she had set fire to a tar barrel and was stuffing nets and eel traps into the flames.

‘You can burn yourself!’ he yelled. ‘You can get burning tar all over you!’

He pulled at her, but she refused to budge. So he smacked her, hard, in the face. When she stood up he hit her again.

This time she stayed sitting on the ground. He knocked the barrel over and kicked it into the water. The barrel sizzled, the smoke stank. She was lying on the ground now, stained with tar and blood, her skirt pulled up way above her stomach. He reminded himself that there was a baby inside there, a baby that existed even if it couldn’t be seen.

The burning tar slowly went out. There was a thin layer of smoking grease on the surface of the water. He helped her up.

‘I must get away,’ she said. ‘I can’t stay here.’

‘We’ll leave the island. Soon. But not yet.’

‘Why do we have to stay here? Why not now?’

‘I haven’t finished my task.’

She examined her tar-stained hands.

‘I salvaged the bones and cut off the floats,’ he said. ‘The net has gone.’

‘It’ll come floating up again.’

‘It will be driven by the currents down deep in the water. It will never come up to the surface again. Not here at least.’

She looked around.

‘The bones are in the cottage.’

‘I have to bury him.’

She set off. When they got to the door he took hold of her again.

‘I found something else.’

‘His head! God, I can’t take this.’

‘Not his head. But a foot.’

‘They were big and dirty. His feet were only important for him, not for me.’

She collected the remains on the ground in front of her and squatted down. She was murmuring, conducting a whispered conversation between herself and the bones. He leaned towards her to hear what she was saying, but he could not make out any words.

Then she stood up and fetched the fur from the mad fox. She rolled up the bones and the piece of leather inside it, and asked him to bring a spade.

The grave was a shallow hollow in one of the rocky ledges towards the west of the island. She did the digging, would not allow him to do it for her. When the spade struck rock she put the pelt in the hole and covered it with the soil. That evening she took the pipe and threw it into the fire. It seemed to Tobiasson-Svartman that she did that for his sake, removing the last trace of her husband. That night she clung tightly to his body. Her hands made it clear to him that she never intended to let go.

Chapter 138

The next day, in the evening, he told her that Halsskär was a sort of haven. A remote outpost in the sea for people with nowhere to go.

‘It’s like a church,’ he said.

She had no idea what he meant by that.

‘This skerry from Hell? A church?’

‘Nobody commits a crime in a church. Nobody sticks an axe into his enemy’s head in a church. It’s a haven. In the old days outlaws were able to seek sanctuary in a church. Perhaps Halsskär was that kind of place for you and your husband? Without your realising it?’

She looked at him in a way he did not recognise. It was as if her eyes were turning away.

‘How did you know about her?’ she asked.

‘Know about who?’

‘The woman who sought sanctuary on this island. The goddess. I heard about her once from Helge. A storm had blown up and I let him stay overnight. That was when he told me about the winter’s night in 1843. You can’t always believe what Helge says, but he tells lovely stories. He has many words, just as many as you have. It was a severe winter that year, the ice was so thick that they say it roared like a wild animal when it formed pack ice. But there was an open channel from the sea way out near Gotska Sandön, and a woman came floating along in that channel, she must have been a goddess because there was a sort of halo all around her body. She had been thrown overboard by a drunken sailor. She was transparent and freezing cold and the open channel froze over once she had passed through it. But she reached here, and she hid herself on the skerry. The following year a dead sailor drifted ashore, he had cut his own throat. It was the sailor who had thrown her overboard, and now it was his turn to be washed up here. Helge had heard the story from his father. I sometimes think that she and I are the same person.’

She snuggled down under the covers. He sat down on the floor next to the bed, she stroked his hair.

Then he started to tell her about another goddess, the one who stood guard on the edge of the great city in the west, far away over the sea, and bade welcome to everyone who went there seeking sanctuary.

‘I’ll take you there,’ he said. ‘It’s time for me to make a new start as well. You have your dead husband, I have my dead family.’

‘I want to go to somewhere far away from the sea. I don’t want to see it, or hear it, or smell it.’

‘There are towns surrounded by desert. It’s a long way to the sea from there.’

‘What would you do there? In the middle of a desert? With your sounding leads and your sailor’s book and your navigable channels?’

‘There are things to measure in deserts as well. I could explore the depth of the sand. I could keep track of how it keeps moving.’

‘But what about the water?’

‘If I started to long for it, I could no doubt find a sea out there to start sounding out.’

She fell asleep. He lay close to her, felt her warmth.

That night he dreamed about a ship sailing backwards across the horizon. It felt like somebody being taken to be executed.

Chapter 139

One night in the middle of May she woke him up and put his hand on her stomach. The baby was kicking.

The cry of a bird rang out through the night.

They said nothing, just the hand, the baby kicking, the cry of a bird.

He tried to conjure up the baby. Sara Fredrika’s baby. Kristina Tacker’s baby.

Kristina Tacker’s had a face, it was his own.

Sara Fredrika’s looked like the skeleton of a foot.

When she fell asleep again he got up and went out. It was a bright spring night, damp, with a breeze blowing over the rocks. He went to the highest point of the skerry and looked out to the sea.

He was overcome by his helplessness. All his lust and desire had gone. All he could envisage was dirt and misery.

I have to get away from here, he thought. Without her. I have to find a way of following her from a distance. Of seeing her without her seeing me.

I will have to enjoy my child from a distance. I cannot stay here.

Chapter 140

Although it was now May, it was still on the cold side.

A short but devastating storm demolished the cottage’s chimney. He climbed on to the roof and repaired the damage. He could hear Sara Fredrika talking to herself inside the cottage.

As he was about to climb down he noticed a sailing dinghy approaching the island along the narrow Lindöfjärden channel. It was making good progress, its sail positively bulging.

He jumped down from the roof, and told Sara Fredrika about the dinghy.

‘It will be Helge,’ she said. ‘You must remember him, and his son.’

He prepared to receive the dinghy.

‘I want to talk to him in private,’ she said. ‘But I’m not going to say a word about my husband’s foot in the net.’

He went into the cottage, lay down on the bed and went to sleep. When he woke up again it was already evening. He walked down to the inlet. Sara’s dinghy was still there. But there was no sign of the visiting boat.

Nor was there any sign of Sara Fredrika.

He shouted for her all over the skerry. No response. It was only when he came to the steep north edge of the island that he found her, where the breakers were rolling in to the battered rocks.

She was asleep. Beside her among the rocks was a broken bottle.

Chapter 141

She woke with a start and sat up.

She started coughing, the smell of strong drink slapped him in the face. When she tried to stand up she stumbled and grazed her cheek on a rock. He stretched out a hand, but she pushed it away with a laugh.

‘I’m drunk. Helge realised that I needed something to drink. He always has aquavit in the boat. It doesn’t happen often. I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.’

‘You can’t spend the night out here.’

‘I shan’t freeze to death. No birds are going to come and peck at me. I have to lie here in order to gather strength to stand up again.’

She stretched, pulled up her skirt and straightened her legs.

‘You won’t be able to get me to the cottage tonight. But you can stay here with me if you like.’

She grabbed hold of his leg and almost succeeded in pulling him over. She was strong, her hands were like monkey wrenches. When he tried to pull himself free she laughed even more and tightened her grip.

‘Haven’t you got it? I’m not going to let go of the man who’s going to take me away from here.’

‘I’ve gathered that.’

She let go and curled up in the hollow.

I have to get away, he thought. One of these days she’ll stick an axe into my head when she finds out that I’m not the person who’s going to rescue her. It had dawned on him that he was afraid of her. He could not control her, whether she was drunk or sober. She tore some moss off a rock and covered her face with it.

‘Leave me alone now,’ she said. ‘Everything will be back to normal by tomorrow.’

There is no normality, he thought. She’ll discover the abyss inside me if I do not leave the island. Her abyss is hers, mine is mine. I’m too close to her.

Later that night he returned to the hollow in the rocks.

He could smell that she had been vomiting. He left her there.

Chapter 142

The next day it was drizzling and blowing a gale from the east.

When he woke up she was sitting outside the door like a wet, shivering dog.

‘I’m not taking a dead woman with me to America,’ he said. ‘Go inside, take your wet clothes off and get warm. Otherwise you’ll be ill. The baby will die.’

She did as he said. He went down to the inlet and sat down on a broken corf.

Why would he not tell her the truth, that he could not come back and fetch her?

He knew the answer. He had killed his wife, and he had killed his daughter. He had been caught by the nets he had set out. He was being pulled down, just as her husband had been when he got caught in a herring net.

He went back to the cottage and stole a look through the window. She was sitting in front of the fire, wrapped up in a blanket, with her head turned away. Just like Kristina Tacker, he thought. Two women who turn their faces away from me.

Later that day he started to prepare for his departure. He talked to her, convinced her that she would not have long to wait. He would soon be leaving, but he would soon be back.

They continued fishing together, sleeping together, and he tried to look her in the eye all the time.

After a week he was convinced. She believed he would be coming back.

He could leave the island.

Chapter 143

It was 7 June, at the crack of dawn.

They were sailing northwards, with Harstena and the seal rocks to starboard, and were making good progress towards the skerries where they would turn westward towards the Slätbaken approach. He was sitting by the mast, in charge of the sail. They did not speak much, nor did they pass any other boats.

Late in the afternoon the wind died down. They found themselves drifting and they still had not reached the Slätbaken approach. They could see a warship passing by on the horizon, and shortly afterwards another one. He could see through the telescope that they were gunboats, but they were too far away to be identified. They steered to the nearest skerry, beached the dinghy, lit a fire and ate the potatoes and cold fish she had brought with her in a basket. She also had a jug of water.

The summer’s night was light. A few stars twinkled in the sky. Despite everything he felt quite close to the woman he would soon abandon. She was by his side, despite his efforts to build a wall of inaccessibility around himself.

She had lain down, using the basket lid as a pillow.

‘Is it true?’ she asked suddenly. ‘The stars, the winter darkness and the light summer nights — is it true that they will never end? Or will they cease to exist? You must know, because you can measure depths and see distances that nobody else can see.’

‘Nobody can know that,’ he said. ‘You can only believe.’

‘What do you believe?’

‘That you can go mad if you look too far out into space.’

She thought over his reply.

‘My husband,’ she said eventually. ‘He used to dream about that. He would get restless when it started getting dark in the autumn. Strangely scared. He had to go outside at night, I had to go out with him and hold him tight. He could never explain it. He started to stammer as autumn set in. He never stammered at other times, but then, as it grew dark and the eels started to run, he would stare up at the stars and begin to stammer. He could not understand it, he said. It was beyond comprehension. There was a sailor on Haskö who got drunk and claimed that nothing came to an end, not the sky, not the stars, nothing. Everything just kept on going for ever.’

‘Nobody can know that,’ he said again. ‘You are alone with the stars even if you see them together with somebody else.’

‘Can you see your daughter up there? And your wife?’

‘I can see them. But I don’t want to talk about them.’

She said no more. Soon it will all be over, he thought.

The fire died out.

At daybreak they continued towards Slätbaken and the approach to the Göta Canal. They had a following wind, sailed through the sound at Stegeborg and had fresh winds when they came to Slätbaken itself.

Small boats were queuing up at the first set of locks at the entrance to the canal. They headed for the mouth of the river and rowed to the quays in the centre of Söderköping.

Their leave-taking was perfunctory. Her last impression had to be that he was telling the truth, that he really would complete his mission and hand the results over to his superiors in Stockholm. Then he would return to fetch her from Halsskär.

They moored at the quay next to the Brunns Hotel. It was low water. He clambered on to the quay. She stayed in the boat.

‘Go home now,’ he said. ‘Sail carefully. I’ll soon be there.’

He waved to her. She waved back and smiled.

He hoped she believed him. To be on the safe side he did not turn round.

Chapter 144

Two days later Tobiasson-Svartman was back in Stockholm. He went straight home from the station.

Kristina Tacker was surprised but delighted to see him. On the hall table was a message from Skeppsholmen, requesting him to report as soon as possible.

It was drizzling the following morning. As he crossed the bridge to Skeppsholmen he noticed a familiar face. Captain Rake looked thinner, and his face was very pale. Tobiasson-Svartman could see that something was troubling him, perhaps he had some crisis in his life.

‘I’ve seen the new chart for the navigable channel at Sandsänkan,’ Rake said. ‘I hear that we’ll be able to start using it soon.’

‘It won’t save as much time as I’d hoped,’ said Tobiasson-Svartman. ‘A ship progressing at full speed, let’s say twenty knots, will save fifty minutes. I’d hoped for something better than that. But the seabed didn’t behave itself as I would have liked.’

‘So the seabed is a bit like people.’

‘There’ll be less of a risk of being hit by torpedoes and mines, of course. And the new channel ought to be able to cope with the considerable increase in draught that we can expect new naval vessels to have.’

Tobiasson-Svartman shook hands and made to continue on his way to Naval Headquarters. But Rake held on to his hand.

‘I never cease to be surprised about how my memory works,’ Rake said. ‘I’ve seen an endless procession of bosuns and officers passing through my life, but even so, the most graphic memory is that of Bosun Rudin.’

‘The man who died while he was being operated on for his appendix?’

‘An insignificant spider in the massive web. But for some reason I can’t shake him off. I wonder why.’

Rake let go of his hand and saluted.

‘I talk too much,’ he said. ‘But at least I don’t ask what you are doing now, because I take it for granted that whatever you’re up to, it’s secret.’

Tobiasson-Svartman watched Rake walking over the bridge. He was hunched, his long overcoat flapping around his legs.

Chapter 145

He was ushered in without delay.

To his surprise there were only two people waiting for him. One was Vice Admiral H: son-Lydenfeldt, the other a civil servant with a pale complexion and big bags under his eyes.

As he sat down in the chair provided for him, he felt a nagging pain in his stomach.

The vice admiral eyed him up and down.

‘Are you aware of why you are here, Commander Svartman?’

‘No, but I do know that I must ask for an extension of my unpaid leave.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m not restored to health.’

The vice admiral pointed impatiently at a file in front of him on the desk.

‘Restored from what? The only reason you have given is exhaustion. Who the hell isn’t exhausted? We’re all exhausted. The world is exhausted. Our highly esteemed Naval Minister Boström sometimes nods off during our meetings. Not because he’s bored, but because he’s exhausted, he claims.’

Tobiasson-Svartman was about to justify his claim to be exhausted but the vice admiral held up his hand.

‘You have been summoned here for a different reason. It has been reported that while you have been on leave you have undertaken journeys, and you have been seen in the Östergötland archipelago. We’ve received reports from people wondering if you are a spy working for Germany or Russia. And there are other relevant circumstances. Not least the fact that you claimed to have found errors in the charts you have produced yourself. It has become clear that you were lying. We haven’t been able to throw full light on that one yet, but it is obvious that you have been making strange and clearly unjustified assertions and acting in highly questionable ways. What do you have to say to that?’

Tobiasson-Svartman was struck dumb. He had no idea how to answer. He felt himself blushing. The vice admiral had more to say:

‘I don’t think you are so damned stupid as to be a spy. But you have betrayed our confidence in you and caused a lot of trouble. You have proved to be unreliable. As nothing harmful has ensued, and as you are basically a competent hydrographic engineer, one of the best we have ever had, all we ask is that you resign your commission. If you refuse, we shall dismiss you and the reasons will be dishonourable. If you resign voluntarily, we shall give you the best possible reference that the circumstances allow. Is that clear?’

The civil servant with the big bags under his eyes leaned over the table. His teeth were yellow, his moustache dirty.

‘I represent the minister with responsibility for the navy,’ he said in a voice that suggested he enjoyed torturing others. ‘The minister is in full agreement with what the vice admiral has just said.’

H: son-Lydenfeldt slammed both hands down on to the desk.

‘You have twenty-four hours in which to make up your mind. You might think that this is an unnecessarily dramatic reaction from His Majesty’s armed forces, but in present circumstances the Swedish Navy cannot tolerate the slightest stain on its reputation. I believe you understand that.’

He took out his pocket watch.

‘You will report here tomorrow at 10 a.m.’

The meeting was over.

When Tobiasson-Svartman left the room he was forced to lean against the corridor wall, so as not to fall.

Chapter 146

He paused on the steps outside Naval Headquarters. He watched some sparrows pecking away on one of the gravel paths. Then he continued. But stopped when he came to the bridge. He was still in shock. But he was thinking clearly now.

He was convinced. There was only one possible explanation. Sub-Lieutenant Welander had returned from the dead. Or at least from the demi-monde he had occupied while slowly recovering from the tribulations he had suffered as he wriggled out of the grip of strong drink.

He could see it all in his mind’s eye.

Welander had not been cashiered but allowed to return to duty. Before that he had been reprimanded for the inadequate soundings he had made in the area surrounding the Sandsänkan lighthouse.

Needless to say, Welander had not understood what his accusers were talking about, and maintained that he had carried out his duties impeccably until the moment when everything fell to pieces. He had demanded to be confronted with the soundings Tobiasson-Svartman had attributed to him.

The truth had emerged. Welander had not in fact made any errors.

Tobiasson-Svartman started to walk over the bridge. Every step he took made him more certain that the bridge was like thin ice that could give way at any moment.

Chapter 147

That evening he sat in the warm room and told Kristina Tacker about his next mission. It put his mind at rest, describing an expedition that would never take place and which no superior officer had ordered him to undertake.

It was not the lies themselves that calmed him down. It was the impassive way his wife took in what he had to say. Thanks to her everything became real.

Her questions were always the same. Where would he be going? How long would he be away? Was there any danger involved?

‘It doesn’t have to be risky just because it’s secret,’ he said.

Without having prepared anything in advance he started to talk about lighthouse beams. The light projected from remote rocks or lightships in order to help ships stay on course. He talked about the beauty of the transit lines, the interplay between the red, green and white lights. He invented a mission he had never had and would never be given.

‘I shall be measuring the distance from which the beams of various lighthouses can be seen in different weather conditions,’ he said. ‘I shall be investigating the possibility of creating an extra line of defence round our country by misleading the enemy with beams of differing strengths.’

Then he stopped. ‘I’ve already said too much,’ he said.

‘I’ve already forgotten everything you said,’ she replied.

He thought he detected a hint of alarm in her voice, barely noticeable, but there even so. Measuring lighthouse beams. Perhaps he had gone too far? Did she not believe him? Was there, for the first time, a vague suspicion in her mind?

She looked down and stroked her stomach. ‘When will you be leaving?’

‘Nothing is fixed yet, but a decision could be made at short notice.’

‘I want you to be here when the baby comes.’

‘Obviously, I hope the expedition will be over by then. Or that it hasn’t even started. But I shall protest strongly if they want me to leave just when you are due to give birth.’

He stood up and went out on to the balcony.

He wondered where Sub-Lieutenant Welander lived.

Chapter 148

Two days later he had discovered that Welander lived on Kungsholmen.

When he called in at Skeppsholmen to submit his resignation he took the opportunity of visiting the personnel department. They informed him that at the moment Welander was not on board any navy ship.

His first new mission was to spend all his time outside the building where Welander had a flat.

It was four days before Welander appeared. He emerged from the front door with a woman and a girl aged about fourteen. Tobiasson-Svartman remembered vaguely that the family included a daughter and three sons. He followed them down Hantvarkergatan. When they came to Kungsholms Torg they went into a shop selling ladies’ wear, and when they came out again both the wife and the daughter were carrying parcels.

Sooner or later Welander would be on his own. He would confront him. He observed Welander’s face from a safe distance. The paleness and bloated features had gone. Welander really seemed to have overcome his addiction.

His wife was small and thin. She kept looking at her husband with a loving smile.

Chapter 149

Days passed. He waited, displaying the patience of a predator. The opportunity came one evening when he had been observing Welander for a week. The hydrographic engineer came out on his own. It was raining, and he set off towards the centre of town. He was walking fast, his gaze directed at the pavement ahead of him. Then he turned off on to a path running alongside the water in Riddarfjärden. The path appeared to be deserted.

Tobiasson-Svartman wrapped a scarf round the lower part of his face. In his pocket he had a hammer with an old sock round the head. He took it out and followed Welander along the path.

Yet he could not summon the courage to hit him, and he turned and ran away. He was afraid Welander would see him and follow, but there was no sound from the path behind him. He put the scarf and the hammer back into his overcoat pockets and forced himself to walk slowly.

When he came to Wallingatan he took his pulse. He did not go up to the flat until the rate had sunk to sixty-five.

Chapter 150

He continued leaving the flat every morning. He told Kristina Tacker that he was going to a meeting of the secret committee. He spent the days in museums and cafés. Eventually he reconciled himself to the fact that he had not dared to attack Welander. He was still furious, but unsure of where he should direct his rage.

Weeks passed. Kristina Tacker’s stomach became bigger and bigger.

He tired of going to museums first, then cafés. Instead he went for very long walks. As dusk fell he would imagine the lighthouses, the ones that had not yet been switched off on account of the war. He could see in front of him a beam of light over the sea. Soon he must start measuring it. It was time to give himself the order to set out.

He thought about Sara Fredrika and the skerry on the edge of the open sea.

The sea is calm, he thought. For once the sea around me is dead calm.

Chapter 151

One evening it dawned on him that he was outside the building where Ludwig Tacker lived, the place where those dreadful Christmas dinners were held.

He recalled that his father-in-law went out for an evening walk every week.

Ludwig Tacker had once visited the British protectorate in southern Africa ruled autocratically by Cecil Rhodes. He never stopped telling his family about the long journey that had taken him to distant Lusaka via Gothenburg, Hull and Cape Town, and then by rail and on horseback to the copper mines at Broken Hill. He had never seen anything like it. Veins of copper were exposed on the ground in some places, so that you only needed to bend down to gather the valuable ore.

The object of his journey had been for Tacker to invest in the copper mines, but Rhodes had enough money and did not want anybody else to become involved. It had come to nothing. But Tacker was still interested in mining. That is why one evening every week he would meet a group of men roughly his own age who shared his interest in minerals. They met at the home of a mining consultant who lived at Järntorget in the Old Town.

As he walked home that evening it struck him that he might have found an outlet for his fury after all.

Chapter 152

The next week he followed his father-in-law through the streets to the mining consultant’s home. He had no specific plan, he only wanted to find out what route Tacker took. He remained hidden in the shadows. It was a warm evening, and he waited for four hours until Tacker emerged and went back home accompanied by two other men. One of them stumbled occasionally, they were laughing a lot, kept stopping, then moving on again, all the time engrossed in talk.

That night, when his wife had gone to bed, he sat in his study and worked out a plan. On his desk were the hammer and the dark-coloured scarf. He was perfectly calm. It was like preparing for one of his expeditions. He did not notice that on two occasions his wife had appeared in the doorway, looking at him.

Chapter 153

It was a windy evening, with occasional showers.

He had put the scarf and the hammer with the sock round its head in his overcoat pockets. When Ludwig Tacker came out of his front door, Tobiasson-Svartman hurried to waylay him at a spot where it was especially dark and usually deserted. He hid in the shadows next to a wall. His father-in-law passed by so close that he could smell his cigar. The old man’s walking stick tip-tapped on the paving stones. Tobiasson-Svartman wrapped the scarf round his face and took out the hammer. Seven paces, eight at most and he would have caught up.

Tacker spun round and raised his walking stick.

‘Who are you?’ he yelled. ‘What do you want?’

Tobiasson-Svartman was terrified. He was sinking, hitting out was a way of coming back up to the surface. Tacker bellowed and defended himself stoutly, hitting with his walking stick and trying to pull off the scarf round Tobiasson-Svartman’s face. Tacker was strong. He pulled and tugged and the scarf was half off when the hammer hit him on the nose. There was a crunching sound. Tacker fell heavily. Tobiasson-Svartman ran away. He threw the hammer into the water at Nybroviken, having first knotted the scarf tightly round its handle.

All the time he was afraid that somebody was going to grab him. But nobody came. He was alone with his fear.

He stood in Wallingatan for a long time. He had never been so terrified in all his life. Ludwig Tacker had almost exposed him. Everything would have collapsed.

In the end he opened the front door and walked up the stairs to his flat. Kristina Tacker was asleep. He listened outside her door.

The dead eyes of the china figurines glinted in the light from the street lamps. He sat down in the warm room and hoped that Ludwig Tacker was dead.

Chapter 154

The attack on Ludwig Tacker aroused a lot of attention. There were prominent articles in the newspapers. Everybody agreed that the assailant must be a madman.

But his father-in-law did not die. He had a broken jaw, a badly broken nose and he had bitten deeply into his tongue. The doctors treating him established that he also had concussion.

It was evening. Kristina Tacker had been to see her father. Tobiasson-Svartman was in his study, reading a meteorological journal, when she came into the room.

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

He put the journal down and pointed to the sofa in front of one of the two high windows. She slumped down.

‘You’re not disturbing me,’ he said. ‘How could you do that?’

I’ve been thinking about what happened.’

‘We must be grateful that he wasn’t more badly injured.’

She shook her head. ‘What kind of a person would try to kill a man he didn’t know?’

‘It’s like in a war.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You don’t kill people, you kill enemies. And the enemy is nearly always faceless. This man is conducting a secret war. Everybody is his enemy, nobody is his friend.’

She asked no more questions but left the room. He picked up a newspaper and read about himself. About the madman they were looking for.

I am completely calm, he thought. Nobody is going to arrest me, nobody knows. The man who appeared out of the darkness has vanished. He will never reappear. He will remain a riddle.

Chapter 155

The next day they went to visit his father-in-law; he was in bed at home, receiving only a few visitors.

He was tempted, just for an instant, to tell Ludwig Tacker who it had been, hidden behind the scarf.

‘I’m very sorry to hear about what happened,’ he said. ‘It’s the duty of the police to track down the madman. Let us hope they succeed. Thank goodness it didn’t end in catastrophe, at least’

Ludwig Tacker looked hard at him without saying a word. Then he made a dismissive gesture. He wanted to be left in peace.

Tobiasson-Svartman sat down on a bench in Humlegården.

It’s not me, he told himself. For short periods I am somebody else, perhaps my father, perhaps somebody I could never imagine. I am searching for something, a bottom that does not exist, neither in the sea nor in myself.

His thoughts faded away. Children were playing in the park. His head was a complete vacuum. He started to feel extremely weary, it was like a bank of fog creeping up on him.

When he woke up it was late afternoon. He went home.

In the flat he found the maid waiting for him, red-eyed. Kristina Tacker had been rushed into hospital some hours previously. She had gone into labour, although the baby was not due for a long time yet.

The shock, he thought. Her shock and fear are now mine as well. I hoped her father would die. It might end up with me killing my own child instead.

Chapter 156

Kristina Tacker gave birth to a daughter that evening.

The doctors were very doubtful if the baby would live. For the next few days Tobiasson-Svartman did not leave the flat. He sent the maid back and forth, bringing news from the Serafimer Hospital.

The days were sultry. At night, when the maid had fallen asleep in exhaustion, he took to wandering about the flat naked. He frequently sat at his desk to write down his thoughts. But over and over again he discovered that he did not have any thoughts. All around him and inside him was nothing but a vast vacuum.

One night when he could not sleep he packed a suitcase. He tried to fold his clothes as if it had been his wife doing the packing for him.

The china figurines stood silently on their shelves. He waited.

Chapter 157

On 2 August he received a telephone message from a hospital consultant by the name of Edman.

He was asked to attend the hospital as soon as possible. His panic reaction was such that he had stomach pains. He hurried out of the flat doubled up in agony.

If the baby had died his wife would be very critical. He had stayed away for too long, had avoided his responsibilities. Or had something happened to her? Had she caught an infection? He had no idea, and sat shivering in the cab.

Then it struck him: Ludwig Tacker. Has he realised that I was the one who attacked him? Has he told her?

When he arrived at the hospital the first thing he needed to do was to go to the lavatory. Then he knocked on the consultant’s door, heard a loud ‘Come’, and went in. Dr Edman was tall and bald. He invited his visitor to take a seat.

‘You look very frightened.’

‘Obviously, I was very worried when I was summoned here.’

‘Everybody always fears the worst when they are bidden to come to the hospital. I’ve tried to drum it into my staff that they should try not to sound so damned dramatic on the telephone. But hospitals are frightening places, whether one likes it or not. However, you have no need to worry. Your daughter will survive. She is strong and has a powerful lust for life.’

His relief was beyond words. Once he had injured his arm when he fell from a companionway. The pain was intense and he had been given a morphine injection by the ship’s doctor. He had never forgotten the feeling of relief when the injection started working. It was the same now, as if somebody had pumped some drug into his veins. His stomach pains ceased, Dr Edman stood before him like a beaming redeemer, dressed in white.

‘They had better stay in hospital for a while yet,’ the doctor said. ‘We learn a lot every time we have an opportunity to study a premature baby.’

He left Dr Edman’s office and walked along the corridor.

I do not deserve this, he thought. But my daughter wants to live, she has more of a will to live than I have.

He went to look at the little miracle.

Chapter 158

It seemed to him that she looked like a dried mushroom. But she’s mine, he thought. She’s mine and she’s alive.

Kristina Tacker had a small private room. She was pale and tired. He sat down on the bed and took her hand.

‘She’s a beautiful baby,’ he said. ‘I want her to be called Laura.’

‘As we had agreed,’ she said with a faint smile.

He did not stay for long. Just before he left, he told her that he would have to set out on his mission now. He ought to have left already, but he had asked for a postponement until he could be confident that the baby would survive.

‘Thank you for staying,’ she said.

‘Everything will be all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll soon be back.’

He left the hospital. It was a relief, like sinking into warm water.

Chapter 159

That night he wandered around the flat naked.

Shortly before dawn he opened the door of the maid’s room. She had thrown off the covers and was lying naked in her bed. He stood looking at her for a long time before leaving.

When she woke up he was no longer there.