Sail of Stone

39

An abandoned stroller lay upside down in the concrete stairway in the viaduct. It was yellow and blue. It immediately reminded Winter of an earlier case, still painfully in his memory. Macdonald turned it over without saying anything.

The wind on the bridge was harsh. Winter had a view over the city and the river and the mountains to the south. There was a closed-down bakery to the left down there. They walked a hundred yards along Longman Road and turned off at the police station, which looked relatively newly built, and for that reason stood out among the buildings around it.

They walked in under the bilingual sign: Inverness Command Area. Sgìre Comannd Inbhirnis. The office reminded Winter of the Police Palace at home, the same worn charm, the international brotherhood’s surly reception of a public in need. Some of them were sitting in there with the same expression as everywhere else. A mixture of helplessness and fear, of solitude in a world that wasn’t kind. A woman was standing at the counter and carrying on a conversation in something that must have been Gaelic; her voice was high and hollow like a cracked muffler, and the words seemed to rasp through the room. There was a notice on the other side of the wall: Dèiligeadh leis a h-uile tachartas de ghiùlan mìshòisealta gu h-èifeachdach. There was what Winter presumed was a translation next to it: To effectively tackle all incidents of antisocial behavior.

A proud task for the international brotherhood, his and Steve’s. Put quote marks around “effectively.” But we try. At the same time, the damned society doesn’t want to stand still so we can get some order in the middle of everything that is antisocial, or has become antisocial.

Another poster was hanging on the wall in yellow and black: Going to the Hills? Let Us Know Before You Go.

Axel Osvald hadn’t followed this request. But he hadn’t climbed that high.

Jamie Craig came out from a door to the right of the glassed-in reception area. He looked like he sounded. Brutal. His cheeks were red and chapped, which might have been due to whisky or the Highland air or both. He greeted Macdonald with a professional handshake that lacked enthusiasm, and he pressed Winter’s hand quickly and firmly.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They walked through underground corridors. The lighting was weak and it cast shadows that might have been anything at all from the last hundred years. Winter thought of the gas works, which he’d seen from the bridge. Maybe there was a running hundred-year agreement between the police and the gas company.

When they came up, the light was blinding and electric. Johanna Osvald was waiting in a room.

Winter gave her a hug. She greeted Macdonald. They stood in the middle of the room.

“I’m… we’re leaving in a few hours,” she said.

“I know,” said Winter.

“You wanted to see him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Winter, but he knew; he knew something he couldn’t explain, even to himself.

“But it was a natural death,” said Johanna with doubt in her voice: I do not accept death as natural. Not this one.

Axel Osvald looked like he was sleeping. Winter sat at his head for two minutes and then got up. Osvald’s hair was brushed back, and there was a weak shadow of stubble on his cheeks. Winter couldn’t tell whether he’d been unshaven or recently shaven when he died. The beard continued to grow on dead men, and the nails too. It was natural.

Macdonald and Johanna and Craig waited in the bare room.

“Let’s go,” said Craig.

They returned through the same corridor. Johanna’s hair looked like gold. Winter thought he smelled gas. It was cold down there, colder since he’d seen the body. He felt goose bumps on his upper arms. These passages must have existed when the buildings above had been different, in another time. They had been saved as a reminder.

They came up into a new light that blinded their eyes. Craig showed them into his office, which was a glass cage in the middle of an office landscape. He could see all of his subordinates, but they could also see him. Winter couldn’t have stood being there for ten minutes, but Craig moved about as though he could see out but no one could see in, the way it was in rooms they had used before for witness lineups. But the other way around.

Craig showed them to three chairs that had been put there for this purpose. He sat behind his desk, which was clear of papers, pens, stands, baskets, ashtrays, everything. The top of the desk gleamed, as though Craig devoted all his time to polishing it. Winter met Macdonald’s glance. One of those. The telephone stood on a little side table. Behind Craig people were working to effectively tackle all incidents of antisocial behavior. Winter could see this through the glass. Men and women in and out of uniform were moving back and forth, telephones were picked up and put down, computer screens flickered at random. Winter saw two officers come in wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, with machine guns strapped on. A man who looked southern European and dismal was sitting next to one of the desks closest to Craig’s glass wall, and he seemed to be staring at the back of Craig’s neck.

“I believe we’ve done all we can here,” Craig said, scratching that neck.

“We appreciate it,” said Winter.

Johanna Osvald nodded. She had been very quiet during the hike through the corridors, as though she were already sitting on the plane with her father in a coffin among all the Samsonite suitcases in the belly of the plane.

“There’s still that car,” said Craig.

“We met the rental guy,” said Winter. “Cameron.”

“Nice fellow,” Craig said with a thin smile.

“Stolen cars usually turn up right quick,” Macdonald said.

Craig seemed to stiffen, just barely.

“That’s why I’m bringing it up,” he said, and he got up and walked to a filing cabinet and opened it.

He came back with a piece of paper and sat down and put on a pair of reading glasses.

“Between April and July this year we had one hundred twelve auto thefts in the greater city and all but one of the cars showed up,” he said. “We also caught forty-six car thieves in the act.” He looked up. “It was peak season.”

“Admirable,” said Macdonald.

“Which part is admirable?”

Craig smiled; perhaps there was an ironic wrinkle in one corner of his mouth.

“Your statistics.”

“We’re the best in all of Scotland,” he said.

“This car,” said Winter, “that it didn’t come back. That indicates a crime, of course. Maybe a violent crime.”

“Yes,” said Craig, “that’s exactly why I’m bringing it up. But of course it’s not necessarily connected to the death.” He looked at Johanna, who was looking at something else through the window walls. “He could have gotten rid of the car somewhere else.”

“Is that likely?” said Winter.

“No.”

“Someone could have given him a ride in a different car to Fort Augustus,” said Macdonald.

“In that case we’re really talking about a crime here,” said Craig.

“But remember, no marks on the body,” Winter said with a glance at Johanna, who didn’t seem to be there. As though she didn’t want to hear this.

“It was a heart attack,” said Craig. “His heart packed it in. The question is why.”

“You don’t have more information about his acting confused in town?” asked Macdonald.

“It wasn’t that conspicuous,” said Craig. “He walked around a little and maybe asked a few questions that no one understood and talked to maybe three or four people.”

“Do you know who might have been the last one?” asked Winter.

“Who might have been, yes. But the times are a bit unclear, of course.” He scratched his neck again. “One of the most irritating parts of this job is people’s fuzzy perception of time.” Craig suddenly heaved himself forward. “Isn’t it? We can know with one hundred percent certainty that different witnesses met someone, say around lunchtime, and one of those witnesses will swear that it was at midnight and the other at dawn!”

“What kind of time span are we looking at in the case of Axel Osvald?” asked Winter.

“A few hours,” said Craig. “Early afternoon.”

Winter nodded.

Craig looked at Johanna’s profile.

“He died the same night.”

“He got very excited,” Johanna said suddenly, catching everyone off guard.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Osvald?” said Craig.

“I’ve thought a lot about it.” She turned to them. “When that letter came, he didn’t seem very… astounded or whatever you’d call it, not as agitated as you might expect. But then, after a few days he suddenly became… well, agitated, and he called about a ticket up here and left that same afternoon, I think… no, it was the morning after.” She looked out at the office landscape again. “It was like something more had happened. Something different.”

“Did he get another letter?”

“Not that I saw.”

“But he could have?”

“Yes; I wasn’t home those two days. I was at school.” She looked at Winter. “I had the morning off when that first one… no, what am I saying, when that letter came, I saw it.”

“Was anyone else home then, Johanna?” asked Winter. “Anyone besides your dad?”

“Erik was home,” she said. “It was his week at home.”

“But he hasn’t said anything about another letter?”

“No.”

“No telephone call?”

“No.”

Winter didn’t say anything more. It was quiet in Craig’s cage of an office. He heard voices from the outside but couldn’t make out words. It could be Scots English or Gaelic, or Swedish.

“What do you think about your father acting confused?” Macdonald asked, straight to the point.

She just shook her head.

“Does it sound unlikely?” Macdonald continued.

“Yes,” she answered.

“But you said he was agitated…”

“Not that way,” said Johanna, “never that way. He has never had problems like that, I can tell you that for sure. He had both feet on the ground, as they say.”

On deck, thought Winter. Had both feet on deck. Maybe that was even safer. At the same time, he trusted in God above the earth.

“Something must have happened to him,” said Johanna. “Something awful must have happened.”

They drove over Ness Bridge in the car that Craig had loaned them, and they turned right onto Kenneth Street and then onto Ross Avenue, which was one of a hundred little streets lined with row houses of stone. They drove slowly and stopped in front of one of the houses. A sign was hanging on the wall between the door and the window: Glen Islay Bed and Breakfast.

“Glen Islay,” said Winter. “Sounds like a brand of whisky.”

“Bed and breakfast and whisky,” said Macdonald.

Winter looked around as they got out of the car.

“I’ve been here,” he said.

“Here? On this street?”

“Yes. I stayed at a B and B on this street.”

“Maybe this one,” Macdonald said.

Maybe, thought Winter as they stood in the cramped hallway, which also served as the lobby. Stairs led upward. It smelled like eggs and bacon and dampness, maybe mold. Burned bread. A rattle came from the pipes that ran on strange courses along the wallpaper, which could have been put up during Edwardian times. Everything was as it should be.

A telephone stood on a rickety table. An older woman stood next to it, one of those little old ladies who ran their guesthouses through the centuries.

“So Mr. Osvald drove away in a car, Mrs. McCann?” Macdonald asked.

“I’m absolutely cerrrrtain,” said Mrs. McCann. She looked quite positive. “And I’ave told the otherrr policemen exactly that.”

“Did he have visitors while he was staying here?”

“No.”

“Was he alone when he checked out?” Macdonald asked.

“Yes, of course. What do you mean, Officer?”

“No one was sitting in the car out there?”

“I couldn’t see. I didn’t go outside when he left.” She waved her hand toward the outer door, which had two windows that were covered by some sort of lace.

Winter could see their car out there, but not whether anyone was sitting in it. He nodded toward Mrs. McCann.

“Could we see his room?” asked Macdonald. “If it’s empty.”

“At the moment it’s empty,” she answered.

“Have any other police visited it?” asked Winter.

“No.”

Winter looked at Macdonald, who shrugged. Craig wasn’t investigating a murder, after all.

“May we see the room?” Macdonald repeated.

She took a step away from the telephone.

“Did Mr. Osvald get any phone calls while he was here?” asked Winter.

“I’ve already answered that,” said Mrs. McCann.

“We usually ask several times,” Macdonald said, smiling.

“Why don’t you write it down right away?” asked Mrs. McCann.

“We try,” said Macdonald.

“I told the other officer that there were three calls and I took them and it was a woman every time,” said Mrs. McCann.

“Was it the same woman?”

“Yes…”

“She said who it was?”

“She said it was Miss Osvald.”

“Okay,” said Macdonald. “The room…”

“Has anyone else stayed there since Mr. Osvald did?” asked Winter.

“No, it’s not the high season anymore. At the moment I don’t have any guests, unfortunately.” She seemed to consider something. She looked up. “But I have cleaned the room.”

“We completely understand, Mrs. McCann,” Macdonald said.

“He hadn’t forgotten anything,” she said. “If you’re looking for something.”

“We only want to see the room,” said Macdonald.

“It’s on the second floor,” she said, and walked straight across the hall and took a key out of a cabinet on the wall.

It was a room that evoked Winter’s memories of all small guesthouse rooms like this one. It had two windows, facing different directions. The room was filled with a thousand small odds and ends, to make it cozy. There was even a hot water bottle at the foot of the bed. A cheap picture hung on the wall to the right of the bed; it depicted a monster with a long neck swimming in a lake. The picture had a frame shot through with orange. It was a special picture, a special frame.

Good God.

I have slept in this room.

Winter looked at Mrs. McCann. What could she be? Maybe sixty-five. He remembered a matron from back then. A woman just over forty. Like he was now. He didn’t remember what she looked like. But he wanted to know, know for sure.

“Mrs. McCann, how long have you run this place?”

“For exactly thirty years,” she answered with a resolute expression.

“Good. Have you perhaps saved the check-in registers that go back in time?”

“Naturally.” She looked at Macdonald. “There’s a law about it now. But I did it before, too, I did. And my mother did, too.”

“Sorry?”

“My mother. She ran Glen Islay before me.”

“How long have you actually been letting rooms?” asked Macdonald.

“Since thirty-nine,” she answered. “The war had started and there were lots of soldiers up here and Mother said now we have to help these poor boys to have a good roof over their head and a nice room to stay in.”

“Could we look at the registers?” asked Winter.

“Weren’t you going to look at the room?” she asked.

“I can do that,” said Macdonald, after exchanging a glance with Winter.

It smelled like dry dust in the part of the cellar where the books stood in piles of red imitation leather. There seemed to be hundreds. He didn’t feel any moisture in the room, which meant that the books would be well preserved.

“What is it you want to look for?” asked Mrs. McCann.

Winter told her about his visit during the early eighties. It had been in March.

“Then I ought to remember you,” said Mrs. McCann.

“I had a beard,” Winter said.

“We had several Scandinavian youngsters,” Mrs. McCann said.

Winter nodded. He walked between the piles, which were numerous and relatively short. Winter could see that there were scraps of paper with dates attached to the walls behind them. She picked through one pile and came back with a register.

“This is the spring,” she said, browsing through. Winter stood next to her and saw the wide columns with illegible signatures and printed names and addresses. Mrs. McCann lifted a few pages from March. There were surprisingly many guests. She held her finger to an entry from March 14. Winter read his address in Hagen, his parents’ home in Gothenburg; he saw his signature as it was then, much neater than it was now, uncertain and neat at the same time, sprawling.

“Well, that must be you,” she said. “Isn’t it strange?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“And there are so many B and Bs in this part of town,” she said. “This is where most of them are.”

He nodded.

“Did someone put you on to it?” she asked.

“I walked here from the station after asking there,” said Winter. “I assume most people do that.”

“Yes. They call from the room information at the station when people come here by train. Or sometimes from the airport.”

“How was it with Mr. Osvald?” asked Winter.

She thought for several seconds.

“He called,” she said.

“He called? Himself?”

“Yes.”

“He called here himself and reserved a room?” Winter asked.

“Yes, that’s what I just said.”

“Could you hear where he was calling from, at all?”

“Yes… it wasn’t from the city, anyway. There was some crackling and buzzing and so forth, so I took for granted that it was from abroad. If someone calls from abroad that’s what it sounds like.”

Winter thought.

“It’s not possible that Mr. Axel Osvald had been a guest here before?” he asked.

“When would that have been?” she asked. “No, I don’t remember him. And not his name either. I would remember.” She nodded toward the piles of red books. “But it’s easy to check.”

“You didn’t remember me,” said Winter.

“That’s different,” she said. “You were young then. And had a beard.”

Winter told Macdonald. They stood in the Room of One Thousand Things. Macdonald smiled at Mrs. McCann’s words.

“‘When I Was Young,’” he said. “Eric Burdon and the Animals.”

Mrs. McCann had left them alone for fifteen minutes.

“Axel Osvald must have been told about this place,” said Winter. “Or else he had been here before.”

“Sometime during the last forty years,” said Macdonald. “We just have to start browsing.”

“No thank you,” said Winter.

“If we’d had a murder here, Craig would have given us a team,” said Macdonald. “But not now.”

“I can see myself browsing,” said Winter. “But not for Axel Osvald’s name.”

Macdonald had followed him down into the cellar again, along with Mrs. McCann. She was very cooperative. Macdonald commended her on the well-kept guesthouse. Winter promised to recommend this excellent place to half of Gothenburg. They had taken informational brochures and business cards. There was no Internet address, no www.glenislay.com, and there would hardly be one soon.

“I just started a new one after this one,” she said, lifting up the top register in the rightmost pile.

Winter had asked for all the registered guests during the days Axel Osvald had stayed there, and the days immediately before and after.

He and Macdonald read through the pages together. There weren’t very many names. They saw Osvald’s signature. Mrs. McCann had noted when he checked out. There was a note for everyone who checked out. Everything was very tidy.

The day before Axel Osvald checked in, an Os Johnson checked out.

Winter read the slightly shaky signature. It was relatively large, but it seemed to lack force.

Os Johnson.

Winter had had John Osvald’s name in his head for so long now that he connected it immediately when he saw “Os Johnson” written in an uneven and weak hand. Os Johnson. Osvald Johnson. John Osvald.

Something had led Winter to these books. His idea. He couldn’t blink now. Something had led him to Glen Islay again.

“Do you remember this Os Johnson?” he asked, placing his index finger on the signature.

She leaned forward and then looked up.

“Do you think I’m senile, Officer?” She shook her head. “It was only a month ago.” She looked at Macdonald. “Mr. Johnson was so sweet. A truly honorable man, like they were back then.”

“Back then?” Winter asked.

“Mr. Johnson was a little over eighty years old,” she said. “But he managed on his own. All on his own.”

Winter and Macdonald looked at each other.

“Was he from here?” Macdonald asked. “From Scotland, I mean? Or perhaps England?”

“He didn’t say much,” she answered. “But I think he probably was. It sounded like it. He didn’t talk much, like I said. But I helped him mail a letter.”

“Sorry?”

“He wanted to mail a letter and I offer that service, too. I have stationery and envelopes and stamps and everything, and then I can take it to the mailbox if my guests want help with that. Some are in a bit of a hurry and are going to leave, and then it’s nice to be-”

“Excuse me for interrupting, Mrs. McCann,” said Macdonald, “but did you see to whom this letter was addressed?”

“Absolutely not. It would never occur to me to steal a glance at something like that.”

“Had Mr. Johnson put on the stamps himself?” asked Macdonald.

“Yes…,” she said.

“Aren’t you sure?”

“Yes… but there was something… I don’t remember now… the envelope wasn’t from here. I mean that it wasn’t one of the envelopes I offer. And there were more stamps than normal on it. That I remember, because I saw it when I put it in the box along with the others. It was a small pile.”

Winter opened his shoulder bag and took the original envelope out of the plastic sleeve. He could see the Inverness postmark on the edge, on top of the three stamps.

“Was this the envelope?” he asked.

She looked for a long time. She really wanted to help. Sometimes you have to be very critical of the extra helpful. Some mean so well, they want to help put together the puzzle. Like in a strange country where everyone points a different way when you ask for directions. To be helpful.

But Mrs. McCann held back any misdirected helpfulness.

She looked up.

“I can’t say. But I don’t think so.”

Winter took yet another ace from his bag, the last one.

He showed her the photograph he had gotten from Erik Osvald.

John Osvald was about half his grandson’s age in that photograph.

He was smiling from the quarterdeck. Nets were hanging around him. The sky was open above the young man and the boat. He held ropes in his hands. He was wearing a brimmed cap that shaded his eyes. Most of what remained was a smile.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“Os Johnson,” said Winter.

“Really?” she said. “Well, everyone was young once.”

“It could be him,” said Winter.

“Well, I don’t recognize him,” she said. “It can’t be.” She looked up. “Why, it’s completely impossible.”

Winter nodded and put the photograph away and took out a different one. John Osvald in profile this time, shortly before he sailed away, never to return.

“No,” said Mrs. McCann.

Winter closed his bag.

“May we come back if we want to ask anything else?” Macdonald asked.

She nodded.

“Is there anything in particular you remember about Mr. Johnson?” Macdonald asked.

“What might that be?”

“Anything. What he said. Did. Some gesture. Whether he called. Anything about his appearance. Whether he had guests. Everything. Anything at all.”

“That was a lot,” she said.

“Think about it,” said Macdonald, “and call me if you think of anything, Mrs. McCann. Anything at all, like I said.”

They could see that she hesitated.

“Yes?” said Macdonald.

“That letter…,” Mrs. McCann said, avoiding their eyes. “That I sent.”

“Yes?” repeated Macdonald.

“I happened to see a bit of the address when I put it in the box.”

“That’s completely natural,” said Macdonald.

“It would be strange if you hadn’t,” said Winter.

“I only saw which country,” Mrs. McCann said, looking up at Macdonald, “which country it was being sent to.”

“Which country was it?”

“Denmark.”

“Denmark?” Winter said, and looked at Macdonald. “It wasn’t Sweden, Mrs. McCann?”

“No. It said Denmark on the envelope.”

They rounded the corner out onto Kenneth again. Macdonald stopped for pedestrians and then turned right onto Tomnahurich Street.

“Maybe Axel Osvald didn’t have visitors,” said Winter. “We asked about visitors, but maybe the person he was meeting was already there.”

“And called for him,” said Macdonald.

“Yes.”

Macdonald gave Winter a quick look.

“Are you beginning to enjoy this?”

“No.”

“You know what I mean.”

“In that case, yes.”

They passed a large chip shop. Winter could smell the fried fat right across the busy street.

“The air in there is so greasy that a human body leaves an impression,” Macdonald said, nodding toward the door. “You can see the outlines of bodies in the air. It’s like in Siberia, where seventy-below temperatures have the same effect on the air.”

“I believe you,” said Winter.

“We even fry black pudding,” said Macdonald.

“That might be necessary,” said Winter.

They stopped at a red light. In front of them the A82 continued to Loch Ness. They kept going and passed a cemetery and the sports center and the Aquadome and a sign for an all-weather football pitch.

“Is there more than one kind of weather up here?” Winter asked, pointing at the sign.

“No, and it’s just like Gothenburg, from what I hear,” said Macdonald.

Winter looked at the clock and took out his phone and dialed a number from his notebook.

Johanna Osvald answered on the third ring.

“Hi,” he said. “How is it going?”

“Good. They’ve been extremely helpful. I… we are at the airport now. The plane leaves in forty-five minutes.”

“Sorry we couldn’t help you,” he said.

“We’ve already discussed that, Erik. It’s better that you and Macd… Steve are doing what you’re doing.”

“I have a question,” he said, shifting his weight on the seat as Macdonald took a hard right onto the narrow main road. “How many times did you call your dad at the bed and breakfast place here in Inverness? Glen Islay?”

“Uh, two, I think. Two.”

“Try to remember.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“First think of how many times,” said Winter.

“Two.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” A second of silence. “Completely sure.”

“Axel got three calls,” said Winter. “At least according to the woman who runs the place. Three calls and it was a woman every time.”