Sail of Stone (18 page)

“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?”

T
hey heard Sigge Lindsten’s voice before the car stopped. They heard his steps on the gravel. Aneta Djanali thought she saw the curtain move again. Fredrik had said it was the wind, that the window was drafty.

“Well, no one’s here right now,” said Lindsten.

That was a strange comment, thought Aneta.

“I thought you all would be here when we came,” she said.

“I had to run an errand.” He gestured with his hand. “The veterinarian had to look at Zack.”

“Anything serious?”

“They didn’t know. They admitted the dog, anyway. I guess we’ll see.”

“Is Anette home?” asked Halders.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. She and her mother went to the coast.”

“To the coast?”

“We have a little cottage down in Vallda,” said Lindsten.

“When did they leave?” asked Halders.

“Does it matter?” Lindsten looked from one officer to the other. “They’d had enough, quite simply. Anette couldn’t handle … how he was calling.”

Running away to yet another place, thought Aneta.

“Does Forsblad know about this cottage?” asked Halders.

“Yes, I suppose he does.”

“Is it so smart to go there, then?”

“There’s no telephone there. And Anette has the sense to turn off her cell.”

“But he doesn’t need to call. He can go there himself,” said Halders.

“I don’t think so,” said Lindsten. “I don’t think he would dare to.”

“What kind of car does Forsblad have?” asked Halders, but at that moment his telephone rang. He answered and listened and hung up.

“The car belongs to a Bengt Marke,” he said to Aneta, and looked at Lindsten. “A car drove past here a few times when we got here. A Volvo V Forty, a few years under the hood. Black, but they all are. Bengt Marke. Is that someone you know?”

“Never heard of him.”

“We’ll have to check him out,” said Aneta to Halders.

“I’ll call down to … Anette and my wife and say that you were here,” said Lindsten.

“How can you do that?” asked Halders. “There’s no telephone in the cottage.”

“I’ll leave a message on her voice mail.”

“Didn’t you just say that she never checks it?”

“I never said that,” said Lindsten.

“Okay,” said Halders.

“What are you going to do about this?” asked Lindsten.

“We’re going to talk with Forsblad,” said Halders.

“Can you do that?”

“We can do everything,” said Halders.

In the car, Halders wore an expression that Aneta recognized. He was staring straight ahead. Aneta was driving.

“Have you become interested in this too?” she asked.

“Curious,” said Halders. “About that Herr Hauptsturmführer Hans Forzblatt. But also about the rest of them.”

“Good.”

“Not least about the girl who was hiding behind the curtain while we were standing outside that place.”

“Are you guessing now, Fredrik?”

“No sir.”

“You really saw her?”

“Yes sir.”

“How well documented are the events surrounding shipwrecks?” said Ringmar.

“Is it called a shipwreck?” said Winter.

“Answer the question,” said Ringmar.

“I don’t know,” said Winter. “The boat, the
Marino,
sank on their way home from south of Iceland.”

“Where did it happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“But two men survived?”

“Apparently. John Osvald’s brother and another crew member.”

“Were they on board at the time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or were they in harbor?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has anything been recovered from the wreck? Wreckage?”

“I don’t know.”

“It must have gotten some attention at the time. Something, at least. In the paper over there.”

“I don’t know.”

“Were there any dives for the wreckage?”

“I don’t know.”

“What
do
you know, Erik?”

“I really don’t know, Bertil.”

Hans Forsblad lived as a “boarder” with someone on the northern riverside; that was his expression. It means that he has to go over a bridge from Hisingen to get to Anette, thought Aneta. Always something.

“Look at that,” said Halders as they studied the nameplates at the door. “Someone else from the Marke family resides here.”

Aneta read: Susanne Marke. Fourth floor. She looked up. Could be that balcony. Or that one. Must be a nice view over the river. You would see several churches. The sea was so close you could dive. You would probably kill yourself, but you could consider giving it a try.

“Does he live with her?” said Halders.

“I don’t know.”

Winter was alone in the room. He was playing Haden and Metheny,
Beyond the Missouri Sky,
Haden’s bass ambling around the walls, Metheny’s guitars layered above it, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-
doo-doo. Spiritual, beautiful like the dawn in September, like a streak of smoke across the horizon, like his daughter’s smile, like the beach grove where their house—

The phone rang, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo; he answered without lowering the volume, heard the Realtor’s voice, It’s about time for a decision, isn’t it? Do you know what you—

I know.

N
o one answered the doorbell. Aneta turned around and saw the churches on the other side of the river, and the Seaman’s Wife standing and waiting on the pillar outside of the Maritime Museum, looking out toward the mouth of the harbor. Eyes of stone, a body of stone; it was a sculpture that summarized part of life near the sea in this part of the world. She had always been there.

“Do you ever think about what that sculpture symbolizes?” she asked Halders, who had also turned around.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he answered.

“What’s obvious?”

“She’s waiting for her husband to come home from the sea. She’s filled with anxiety. Her name is the Seaman’s Wife.” He looked at her. “Every Gothenburger knows that.”

“Including me,” said Aneta.

“The pillar was built in the beginning of the thirties, first the pillar and then the woman,” said Halders. “The interwar period. Thirty-three, I think.”

“The things you know.”

“It interests me.”

“What? The sea?”

“Oh, this city’s history.”

Two tugboats were pulling a container ship farther into the harbor. A ferry passed, on its way to Denmark. She could see passengers duck as they glided under the bridge. There was a pale light over there, above the sea, as though everything was unreliable there, hazardous. She thought she could see the Seaman’s Wife’s gaze against that opening.

“She’s actually looking the wrong way,” said Halders, pointing at the sculpture.

“What do you mean?”

“I know this, but maybe you can see it from here … Well, she’s not
looking out at the sea; she’s looking straight
here,
actually. Toward the northern riverside.” He turned to her and smiled. “She’s looking straight at us.”

“Is there something symbolic about that, do you think?”

“Something that includes Forsblad, you mean? That he lives in this building and the woman over there is leading us here?”

“It’s an interesting theory,” said Aneta.

“The sculptor had trouble finding the sea,” said Halders. “Maybe it was foggy the day the lady arrived.”

Aneta laughed. The Stena Line catamaran passed. She could see passengers on that quarterdeck too. Just like the Seaman’s Wife, they were gazing at the northern shore where she was standing. She had the urge to wave. She had done so when she was a child, she’d done so often. There were more ships in the harbor back then. Sometimes you couldn’t see the other side of the harbor for all the ships.

“She’s really standing there as a memorial,” said Halders, “a monument for all the sailors and fishermen who were lost in the First World War, and all the ships that sank.”

“Then she’s waiting in vain,” said Aneta.

Winter biked home for lunch. Angela had three days off in a row. She was going to hang around town. Elsa was going to hang around with her.

But right now she was home. The fish was simple and good, just olive oil and lemon and a little butter, tarragon, and another fresh herb that he couldn’t identify at first. He could still feel the sweat on his back from his bike ride.

“Who were you trying to beat home?” she asked.

“Myself, as usual,” he said, smiling at Elsa, who was taste-testing the fish with a thoughtful expression.

“Who won?”

“I did.”

“That’s not a bad arrangement, is it.”

“Should we bike down to the lot?” he said. “This weekend?”

“Do you want to, Elsa?” asked Angela. “Bike down to the sea?”

“Yes, yes!”

He helped himself to the mashed potatoes.

“So now it’s settled,” he said. “
The deal is in the harbor,
to use a Swedish expression.”

“That deserves a bike trip,” said Angela.

Yes, he thought. Everyone here had been waiting for his decision, including himself. But now it was settled. After all, it was only a plot of land.

No. It was a bigger decision than that.

He looked at his family, who looked at him. Fuck, he didn’t want other people to have to wait for him to make up his mind.

For one of his selves to make up its mind.

I’m always sliding a little bit farther away, and I have to get back, work my way back.

I’m trying. The other day I didn’t answer the phone.

It didn’t help.

What am I doing wrong?

It shouldn’t be so hard.

It won’t be so hard. It’s better than ever, right? I’m
here
more than ever, aren’t I? I’m
there
but also here, and I’m starting to find a balance. Yes, balance. It’s thanks to her. And her. Both of them.

Does everyone think like I do?

One of them said something.

“Uh …?” said Winter.

“Elsa made dessert,” said Angela.