Sail of Stone

17

Lotta made Winter call home first. A nice surprise, Angela had said. Of course she should come. Absolutely.

“If only we had something special to offer you,” she said when they came.

“Erik promised me fifteen barrels of rum,” said Lotta.

She went home when it was almost dawn.

“What we can’t do during the day we do at night,” said Angela, who was standing at the window watching the taxi disappear into Allén.

“There is no day, there is no night,” said Winter.

“No?”

“That’s how it is.”

“I don’t know if what you’re saying is positive or negative,” said Angela.

“It’s a state of being. At sea.”

“I don’t think I want to hear more about the sea right now, Erik.”

“Soon you’ll be living a stone’s throw from it.”

She didn’t say anything; she kept standing at the window. There was a faint glow in the east. The sun was coming up but it wasn’t above the sea.

“I don’t know,” she said.

He waited, but she didn’t say anything more.

“I really don’t know,” she said after that.

“What don’t you know?”

“About the sea. The land. The house.” She turned around suddenly. “I might just end up alone. Elsa and me. It might be isolated. Far from everything.”

“The idea isn’t that you and Elsa are going to live there on your own,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

“Did you hear what I said?”

She walked over to the sofa where he was sitting.

“We should probably think it over one more time,” she said.

“It’s still a good piece of land,” he said. “We should probably still buy the land, right?”

On Sunday afternoon they took a walk in the Garden Society. Elsa ate an ice cream and then fell asleep. Winter felt a bit tired. It must have been that last barrel of rum at dawn.

They sat on the grass. A couple paddled by on the canal in a kayak. They heard a laugh from them; it floated on the water.

Angela had a dark circle under one eye.

She was on at five in the afternoon. It would be a long night, but there was no night, she thought now, there is no day in health care, and no night. Everything is governed by the frailty of the body, by the regular rhythm of the nurses handing out medicine. And suddenly the rhythm could be broken by an alarm, by the nasty sound of ambulances outside the emergency entrance.

Everyone to his station.

“You have become very interested in fish all of a sudden,” she said.

“Angela…”

“Yes, I know that we weren’t going to talk about it, but I’m doing it anyway.”

“I thought I owed it to her.”

“You carry a lot of debts, Erik. Constantly.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How many calls do you get every day when people’s loved ones are missing or they want to report a stolen bike or they’ve fallen down the stairs or been punched in the face?”

He didn’t answer.

“All those people you’re all duty-bound to meet personally, to listen more thoroughly to their problems. God, it has to be hundreds a week. And none of you have time. That must make you feel so guilty.”

Winter saw Elsa move on the blanket. Angela had raised her voice, but only slightly.

“Can we talk about this later, Angela?”

“Later? Later when? I go to work at four thirty, darn it.”

“She’s been trying to reach me for a long time, and it does concern a missing person, after all.”

“Really? How long has this person been missing? A grown man. Is there a bulletin out? Have you contacted Interpol?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you have now, but not when you went out to Donsö.”

“It was when I went there that I understood that it was time to go farther.”

“And none of that could happen over the phone?”

He heard the sound of paddling again, a laugh again, water. He looked at her.

“I think it was good that I went there and talked to them. Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s a hunch. And it doesn’t feel good.”

Aneta Djanali had decided to let Anette Lindsten go; let her go to an independence without a husband and without violence. Anette would find her own way via her detour to her childhood home.

Aneta had started to feel a bit sorry for Sigge Lindsten. The traveler. She smiled as she sat in the car on the way to the police station. He had never explained what it was he sold. Maybe reference books. About English football. That went like hotcakes among old ladies out in the woods. She smiled again. She was also a traveler. How many of her working hours did she spend in her car? An awful lot.

Fredrik honked behind her. She stopped and he took the last parking spot. She would get her revenge. She had to drive around. More time in the car.

They went in through the glass doors. It was Monday morning. Inside, the usual number of unfortunate souls waited to speak to someone. She could see the usual lawyers wander back and forth with the usual facial expressions. The usual binders. She thought of Forsblad. He didn’t work in the court, not in that way.

The unfortunate souls in the waiting room hung their heads. Someone sneezed, someone screamed, someone cried, someone laughed, someone cursed, someone made gestures that could only be made here. Some poor person in a coat with a torn collar stared at the messages on the bulletin boards: Investigators needed in Uddevalla. Yes, thank you. Substitutes on the city squad, temporary positions. Thank you, good sir. I wasn’t planning on staying forever anyway.

Police went in and out through the doors to the stairs and the elevators. Someone waved. Someone dropped something solid on the floor. Someone else picked it up.

This was her life, her world. Was it supposed to be like this? Was there any alternative? Was it better somewhere else? Which other paths were there?

She suddenly thought of Gabin Dabiré’s music; she played it more and more often, and other music from Burkina Faso; folk music from the Lobi, Gan, Mossi, and Bisa people, and from the surrounding countries. Mali, of course, but also Ghana, Niger. The music was like paths, or like people who walked on the paths with a rhythm that everyone who listened had to follow.

“I’ll buy you coffee,” said Halders.

“The coffee is free here,” she said.

“It’s the thought that counts,” he said.

The elevator stopped. Möllerström was coming down the hall.

“A man was asking for you,” he said. “He just called.”

“Who was it?”

“Sigge something,” said Möllerström. “I have the number.”

“I have it myself,” she said, going into the office she was sharing with Halders while they renovated their floor. It would be finished before the new century was over, if everything went well. She dialed the Lindstens’ number. The childhood home.

“We’re not really rid of him, it seems,” said Lindsten in his calm way.

“What happened?”

“He’s calling and threatening.”

“Threatening? Threatening Anette?”

“Yes, her, and me too if we don’t put Anette on the phone. He screamed at my wife.”

“May I talk to Anette a little?”

“She’s… asleep, I think.”

“Should I come over right away?”

“Then I heard her cell phone ring,” said Lindsten, as though he hadn’t heard Aneta.

“Yes?”

“I think it was him.”

“She should probably turn it off.”

“Yes. I’ve told her so.”

“Forsblad told me he was able to borrow a key from her. To the apartment,” said Aneta.

“She told me. It seems he had to get something.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know. But he must have been the one who gave it to the people who cleaned out the place,” said Lindsten.

“I got it from him. Rather, he threw it at me.”

“Keys can be copied,” said Lindsten.

“Could you ask Anette to call me when she wakes up?” said Aneta.

“Yes.”

“I want her to call.”

“So what can you do?”

“I want to talk to her first,” said Aneta.

“No one here is making anything up,” said Lindsten.

She heard the dog let out a bark in the background.

“I didn’t think you were,” she said.

Aneta waited for a call that didn’t come. She called the Lindstens, but no one answered. She looked up. Halders had entered the room.

“No one is answering at the Lindstens’. I don’t like this. Something isn’t right.”

She told him about the conversation she’d just had with Sigge Lindsten.

“We can go over there, if you want to,” said Halders.

“I don’t know… I’ve knocked at their door once before. Without an invitation.”

“The guy did call you. That’s as good as an invitation.”

“Okay.”

No one opened the door when they rang the doorbell. There was no car in the driveway.

“Flown the coop,” said Halders.

A car drove by slowly down on the street, behind them. Aneta turned around. The windows were tinted and the sun was at such an angle that the driver was only a silhouette. Halders had also turned around.

“Visitors?” said Halders.

“Can’t you go down and check?” she said.

“Scared?”

“I don’t like this,” she said.

She watched Fredrik walk down to the street. He stood next to the gate, authoritatively, as though he demanded that those in question drive by again, just as slowly.

The car returned. She thought she recognized it. Halders stepped out onto the sidewalk. The car sped up and drove away, to the south. Halders had not raised his hand. He wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was in plainclothes, as he had once put it. With emphasis on plain, Winter had retorted. Now she saw him dig out a notebook and write something.

He came back.

“I didn’t see a face, but I have the license plate number. Do you want me to call it in?”

“Yes, why not.”

“Now?”

Aneta didn’t answer.

“Now?” Halders repeated.

“Did you see that curtain move?” she said.

“Where? Nope.”

“The window in the gable. The curtain moved.”

“Did you ring the bell again?”

“Yes.”

“Then the girl has probably woken up,” said Halders.

“She should have woken up before,” said Aneta.

Halders went over to the window. He had to dodge the tall weeds that were growing under some spruce trees that stood close to the house. It must be very dark in that room, no matter the weather or season. It could be any season at all in there.

“I don’t see anything,” said Halders with a voice that was audible from where she stood. It was probably audible all the way down to the street.

“There was someone there,” she said.

Halders knocked on the window. That must also have been audible from a distance. He knocked again.

He came back.

“We can’t break in, you know,” he said.

Aneta called the number again from her cell phone. They didn’t hear any ringing from inside.

“Maybe it’s off the hook,” said Halders. “Have you tried her cell?”

“Yes.”

“She probably turned it off.”

“Something really shady is going on here,” said Aneta.

Halders looked at her. He had a new expression on his face now, or a different one.

“Have you met Anette Lindsten?” he asked.

“Barely. Three seconds.”

“Do you have a picture of her?”

“No. But I’ve seen a picture of her. One that was a few years old.”

She thought about the younger Anette. The ice pop in her hand. A child in the background was on the way into a store.

“So you don’t know what she looks like now?” asked Halders.

“No…”

“How will you recognize her, then? When you meet her?”

“It seems as though it’s never going to happen anyway.”

“If some girl opens this door and introduces herself as Anette, you won’t know if it is.”

“Quit it, Fredrik. That happened to me once already, and that’s enough.”

“Yeah, yeah, it just occurred to me.”

They heard noises behind them. A car drove onto the property.

Winter was dealing with Axel Osvald’s missing person bulletin. He conveyed the information he had received from Johanna Osvald. He had photographs of a man he had never met.

When Winter had met the man’s daughter, that one summer, the father was out at sea, maybe halfway to or from Scotland.

He had met Erik Osvald then, but he hadn’t seen him as a fisherman. But he was one then, too, a fisherman, a young fisherman.

“Maybe Osvald met someone up in the Highlands and chose to go underground,” said Ringmar, who was standing at the window.

“Go underground in the Highlands?” said Winter. “Wouldn’t that be easier in the Lowlands?”

“I will never again use a sloppy and careless phrase in this building,” said Ringmar. “No linguistic clichés from me ever again.”

“Thanks, Bertil.”

“But what do you think? That it could have been something he chose to do?”

“I don’t think he’s the type. And that’s not why he went over there.”

“Why-exactly-did he go?”

“To search for his father.”

“But it wasn’t the first time.”

“Something new had come up,” said Winter.

“The mysterious message.”

“Is it mysterious?”

Ringmar went over to the desk. They were in Winter’s office. He picked up a copy and read:

THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.

JOHN OSVALD IS NOT WHAT HE SEEMS TO BE.

“Well,” said Ringmar.

“Is it mysterious?” Winter repeated.

“If nothing else, it’s mystifying,” said Ringmar.

“Enough to go over there?”

“Well…”

“You are clear and direct, Bertil. I like that.”

“There’s something tautological about this message that bothers me,” said Ringmar, looking up. “It says roughly the same thing twice.”

Winter nodded and waited.

“Things are not what they look like. That is: John is not what he seems to be. Or is considered to be. Or thought to be.” Ringmar looked up. “What is he thought to be? Dead, right? Drowned.”

“No one knows. If he drowned, that is.”

“Is that what this tells us? That he didn’t drown. That he’s been dead since the war, but that it didn’t happen by drowning?”

“How did it happen, then?” said Winter.

They had hit their stride now, with their inner dialogues turned up to an audible level. Sometimes it led to results. You never knew.

“A crime,” said Ringmar.

“He was murdered?”

“Maybe. Or died from negligence. An accident.”

“But someone knows?”

“Yes.”

“Who wrote a letter?”

“Doesn’t have to be the same person who had something to do with his disappearance. His death.”

“Things are not what they seem to be,” Winter repeated.

“If that’s how it should be interpreted,” said Ringmar. “Maybe we can’t see all the shades of meaning.”

“Then we need someone who has English as their native language,” said Winter.

“There is someone,” said Ringmar. “Your friend Macdonald.”

“He’s not an Englishman,” said Winter, “he’s a Scot.”

“Even better. The letter came from Scotland.”

Winter read the sentences again.

“It doesn’t necessarily only have to do with John Osvald,” he said. “The first line might have nothing to do with John Osvald.”

“Develop that thought.”

“It could be about those around him. His history. The people he surrounded himself with, then and now.”

“His relatives,” said Ringmar. “His children and grandchildren.”

“His children or grandchildren aren’t what they seem to be?”

Ringmar shrugged his shoulders.

Winter read the sentences for the seventeenth time that day.

“The question is what all of this means,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The letter itself. Why it was sent. And why now? Why more than sixty years after John Osvald disappeared?”