Sail of Stone

by Ake Edwardson

“Kortedala.”

  “Kortedala!”

  “Better than Vasastan, isn’t it?”

  “I’m speechless,” said Ringmar.

  “You don’t have to say more than hallelujah,” said Moa.

  “Kortedala,” repeated Ringmar, shaking his head.

  “I’m not moving to the South Bronx or anything.”

  “Martin was on his way to the Bronx,” said Ringmar.

  “But he went with the Lower East Side.”

  Ringmar nodded.

  “Which used to be the worst neighborhood in Manhattan,” said Moa.

  “Used to be, sure. Now only designers live there.”

  “Like his neighbor?”

  “I could sponsor a move for him,” said Ringmar.

  “Maybe you could sponsor mine,” said Moa.

  “Are you serious about this Kortedala thing, Moa?”

  “Do you know how hard it is to find an apartment in Gothenburg? Do you know how long I’ve tried?”

  “The answer to both questions is yes.”

  “Then you’ve also answered your own.”

  “Where is this nest? Kortedala is pretty big.”

  She told him the address. It didn’t mean anything to him.

  “How did you get wind of it?” asked Ringmar.

  “Some girl in my class knew someone. I guess there was a guest lecturer who talked about how there might be something free and I got a phone number from this classmate and called, and, well, I might be able to rent it.”

  “Secondhand?”

  “I don’t actually know. Maybe at first. It was a little vague, I think. He sounded a little surprised when I called. They hadn’t taken out an ad or anything. Like I said, a little vague.”

  “Doesn’t sound too promising.”

  “Come on. It was a nice old guy who answered. His daughter’s the one who moved out of there. At least for now.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t actually ask.”

  “What was the nice old man’s name, then? Would he give it out, or was that a little vague too?”

  “Do you always have to be so suspicious, Dad? Either you seem to hate people or else you’re suspicious of them.”

  She took out a little red notebook.

  “Yes, unfortunately. I don’t want to say it’s an occupational hazard, but …,” said Ringmar.

  “Sigge Lindsten,” she said, reading from the notebook. “The nice old man’s name is Sigge Lindsten.”

  The name didn’t mean anything to Ringmar.

  Aneta Djanali was given concise directions, and she walked around the hill to the car. Sigge Lindsten had offered to drive her there, but it was only a few hundred yards. Climbing back up the way she came was not something she wanted to do. It was dusk now. She didn’t want to get a twig through her eye.

  She drove back on the narrow road. It was simpler with the powerful headlights. She didn’t meet anyone. She went by the pullout sign, which wasn’t any color at all now. She could hear the sea to her right.

  Sigge Lindsten hadn’t revealed anything more. There’s something I don’t understand here. But it’s my job. You don’t understand and when everything is over you understand even less. No. It’s possible to understand. The problem is that it just gets worse then.

  She had colleagues who refused to understand in order to avoid being neurotic. Neurosis was a concept that lived on within the force. Time could stand still in the force. Old values.

  That wasn’t always wrong.

  When she reached the paved route north, it was with the sense of returning to civilization. At the moment she welcomed it.

  She turned after the stop sign and switched on her cell phone. She had wanted it to be turned off when she spoke to Sigge Lindsten. Something had told her that she would learn something important from that conversation. That something had been wrong. Or else she hadn’t understood.

  Her voice mail beeped in irritation. She listened to the three messages, all of which were from Fredrik, and she saw that he’d also sent a text.

  “It’s nice to call before you go off into the blue,” he had written by way of summary in his message to her.

  And that was completely true. What if something had happened? Fredrik knew, and he had never practiced what he preached, and that had become dangerous.

  But this is how she had wanted it to be this time.

  She called.

  “What the hell,” said Halders in greeting, since he had seen her number on his screen.

  “Same to you,” she said.

  “You’ve never done this before,” said Halders.

  “Has something happened?” she asked.

  “That’s what I should ask you.”

  “I went down to the Lindstens’ beach house. Or cottage, rather.”

  “For God’s sake, Aneta.”

  “She wasn’t there. Anette.”

  “You couldn’t know that. He could have been there.”

  “He’s probably at his sister’s house now.”

  “He has a sister?”

  “Susanne Marke.”

  “The Volvo broad?”

  “She is a fanatic supporter of Hans Forsblad,” said Aneta.

  “Then we should go there and get him,” said Halders.

  “I’ll be at headquarters in twenty minutes.”

  “I’m the only one here.”

  “Who’s with the kids?”

  “My permanent babysitter,” said Halders.

  “I’m going by Fredriksdal,” said Aneta.

  “I am too,” said Halders. “We can at least see if the lights are on inside.”

  Everything shone cozily and warmly as they drove through the southern neighborhoods. Someone had lit yard torches. Aneta stopped for a group that seemed to be on the way to a party. It wasn’t Friday or Saturday, but this was a big city. Had become one. For some, it was Saturday every day. The group up ahead took their time crossing the street. Another car came from the opposite direction. It looked like the happy group was starting to play charades in the middle of the street. This was their neighborhood. The driver on the other side leaned on his horn. She caught a glimpse of the driver’s face. Fredrik.

  “As discreet as always,” she said when they had parked down the street from the Lindstens’ house and walked up the gravel drive.

  “They should be glad I didn’t run them over,” said Halders. “I couldn’t see anything as I was driving up. Did you see any reflections?”

  Aneta didn’t answer.

  “Do you see any lights?” said Halders.

  “We’ll have to walk around,” said Aneta.

  They walked between the dense bushes and the southern wall of the house. The window where Halders had seen a figure was a dark rectangle against the lighter wall. Aneta felt a branch against her face. Halders cursed quietly when it hit him. She heard voices a ways away. It still sounded like charades.

  “There are lights on, anyway,” said Halders.

  In the back, the veranda was lit up by light from the inside. The light cast a circle across the lawn. When her eyes had adjusted to the brightness, she saw a floor lamp inside the window. The window was broken.

  “Well,” said Halders, walking quickly up the low stairs to the veranda, but he stayed outside the railing. Aneta searched the room with her gaze, standing next to the small covered lamp, which cast a lot of light. She had her SIG Sauer in hand, and Fredrik had his God-knows-what in his hand. Fredrik would get nailed for that one fine day, or one fine evening like this one; he would hurt someone and the investigation would show what he’d shot with, and it would be the end of this professional team. She had often wondered if everyone actually knew. They ought to know. Did Erik know? Would he forbid it if he knew? Halders kicked down sharp shards that stuck out like icicles. He pulled on a glove and opened the veranda door from the inside. He pushed it open.

  It was quiet in there. There was another light on farther in the house.

  “I’m calling for back
up,” said Aneta.

  “No reason to,” said Halders.

  “It could—”

  “Hello, this is the police,” yelled Halders. She jumped and the hearing in that ear was gone.

  “It’s the police,” yelled Halders again, and he ran through the room out into the hall, and she heard his steps going up the stairs as she came into the kitchen, which also faced the back, and the light over the stove was lit but no one was sitting at the table or standing at the sink. She heard Fredrik up there, marching from room to room. It sounded like three rooms. She heard his steps on the stairs again.

  “Empty,” he said.

  Aneta pulled on her gloves and went out into the hall again and tested the front door, which was locked.

  “Came and went through the veranda door,” she said.

  “Through is right,” said Halders.

  Said the broken record, thought Aneta; she couldn’t help it.

  Halders went to the room that faced south. He turned on the ceiling light. Aneta stepped in. They saw an unmade bed and a desk, which was empty. The desk was white. There was a wooden chair in front of it; it was white. A white leather chair stood in one corner, with a little white coffee table in front of it. A white curtain valance hung in the window. The blinds were white. The wallpaper was a shade of white. Two photographs in white frames hung over the bed. The pictures were black as coal in the room. The sheets were white, and they were rumpled. Aneta expected to catch sight of a red stain in that bed, but there was nothing there.

  A white rug lay on the floor, which looked like white-stained pine.

  “If it weren’t for those photos I would be snow-blind by now,” said Halders. He turned to Aneta. “Do you think this looks nice?”

  “No.”

  “White is the color of innocence, at least.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Maybe nothing has happened here.”

  “Someone broke a window and came in.”

  “Maybe just went out,” said Halders. “Maybe she couldn’t get out any other way.”

  “Was she a prisoner in her own home? Anette?”

  “Well, maybe she went crazy in this room. Who wouldn’t?”

  “In any case, she’s not here now,” said Aneta. “So where is she?”

  Halders shrugged. What is with him? she thought. Has he lost interest? Does he just feel silly? I got over that years ago, worked my way past it via lots of failures.

  Aneta went back to the living room. Everything seemed to be in its place. Almost nothing was white in here.

  She leaned over to the broken window and studied the floor, which wasn’t lit by the lamp just there. She didn’t want to move it, touch it. The floor was parquet, and it was a yellowish shade. She heard Fredrik behind her.

  “Do you have a flashlight?”

  “In the car.”

  “Can you get it?”

  Halders went without asking. She heard him walking on the other side of the wall, and she heard when he opened the car door farther down the wall and closed it again and came back and cursed suddenly between the bushes and the trees. He stomped across the veranda and handed over the flashlight.

  “What are those spots?” she said.

  “Do you want an answer right away?” said Halders.

  “It could be blood,” she said.

  “It could be anything.”

  She shone light on the broken window right above her. She didn’t see anything.

  “Give me the flashlight,” said Halders.

  He shone the light from the outside, a little higher up. There was something there.

  “Someone cut themselves,” said Aneta.

  There will be a crime-scene investigation after all, she thought. But not where I’d thought.

  Halders straightened his back.

  “We have a message,” he said, nodding at something behind her.

  A telephone they hadn’t seen before on one of the bookshelves had suddenly started to blink. They hadn’t heard it ring.

  23

  The first time they went into Aberdeen, he rubbed his face, passed his hand across his eyes. It felt like being color-blind. It was different than at sea. He knew the color of the sea. But here he was met by a city that was built out of a single granite block.

  The Granite City.

  They lived on the boat.

  Frans tried to stay in Brentwood for a night, but it didn’t work.

  They sat at the Schooner, which opened at seven in the morning. He remembered a slogan that had been by the door: “Where life begins at 7 o’clock.”

  Life.

  It began and it ended.

  They had met the men. Arne had met them, and it did something to him. He changed quickly. Let’s stay away for now, he had said.

  No one had gone along with that.

  Frans had … had …

  Jesus. Jesus.

  He got up and walked over to the car, which he had learned to drive faster than he had expected. His body was still agile. He had discovered this when he leaned over and turned the key. He drove back to the east. The roads had improved. When he had come there the first time, freight was pulled by horses. Soldiers marched. Everyone stared at the sky. And the sea.

  That was then.

  He stopped at an inn and locked the car and went in and asked if he could use the toilet.

  He washed off the worst. He looked at himself in the mirror, and he still recognized his own face. He turned his eyes away and dried himself with a paper towel, which was rough, and then he went out and kept driving.

  After half an hour in the car he saw the sea far below.

  He thought about the first time.

  He had wandered along Albert Quay, wandered and waited. Gone down Clyde Street, loitered outside Caley Fisheries, passed Seaward Marine Engineering Co., Hudson Fish, North Star Shipping. Grampian Fuels, day after day he walked there and he could remember the names, and everything that went on there, any time he wanted.

  They had been docked next to the Cave Sand, which had wintered here but came from Grimsby. It brought up slag and had gotten work south of the harbor. The men were black as Negroes all day long, and that was their life. Like Negroes!

  He saw lots of soldiers, but never Negro soldiers, not even when the Americans came.

  The cranes in the harbor were yellow and blue. That’s not something you forget either. Yellow and blue everywhere.

  He wondered whether they had been repainted in the same colors.

  He stopped for a cup of coffee. He didn’t remember passing this city as they drove west. He had been given some kind of directions, but he didn’t remember them now. It didn’t matter anymore.

  Should I drive straight out into the sea?

  At the right speed you could reach it. First you would fly, before you reached the sea.

  Aberdeen. He had walked up Union Street and past Virginia and out to the beach where the city opened itself to the sea. The beach was wide; the sea was big here, and visibility was good on certain days. There was always haze and wind.

  I was so young.

  I didn’t have a different name yet.

  There had been ice cream trucks on the field that was the amusement park. It was always dark at night there. He could stand and watch the carousels that whirled in the darkness, and the people who whirled in the carousels. The only light came from the sea. Everything that whirled in darkness, an amusement park in darkness. It didn’t fit. An amusement park should be a field of light.

  They had continued up to Peterhead.

  Now it was Europe’s biggest whitefish harbor. Had it been the biggest one in the world back then?

  Peterhead Congregational Church.

  Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.

  Fishermen’s Mission.

  Everything was fishermen and harbor and fishing industry and trawlers and the smell of the sea and of everything that came from the sea.

  And God. Everything was also God.
>
  24

  Aneta Djanali called down to the shore in Vallda. Sigge Lindsten answered after the second ring. His voice was calm.

  “Is Anette down there?” asked Aneta.

  “We’re expecting her tonight again,” he said.

  “There’s been a break-in at your home.”

  “Another break-in?”

  “In the house,” she said.

  “Is Anette there?” asked Lindsten.

  “No.”

  “I’ll call her on her cell.”

  “Give me the number,” said Aneta.

  “I’ll call her now,” said Lindsten, and he hung up.

  Aneta looked at Halders.

  She dialed the number again and heard a busy signal.

  “I’ll call forensics,” said Halders.

  He went back into the hall with his phone. She heard him talking. She dialed the number to the Lindstens’ beach cottage again. Lindsten picked up.

  “She’s not answering,” he said.

  “Where could she be?”

  “What actually happened?” asked Lindsten.

  “We don’t know.”

  “Was anything stolen?”

  “We don’t know that either,” said Aneta. “I swung by here on my way home from Vallda and saw that the glass from the veranda door was broken.”

  “And Anette wasn’t home then?”

  What kind of question is that? thought Aneta. Would I have called and said what I said if she were?

  “Is there any evidence?” asked Lindsten.

  Evidence of blood. But I won’t tell you that. And not before I know what it is. And not before I know what you were doing this afternoon.

  “Did you leave a message for your daughter?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Oh, not much. I said she should call as soon as possible. That we were worried.”

  “We want to speak with her too. As soon as possible,” said Aneta.

  “We’re coming home right away,” said Lindsten.

  “Good.”

  She hung up and Halders came back.

  “A guy is on his way. Reluctantly.”

  “Doesn’t matter how he gets himself here.”

  Halders let out a short laugh.

  “Did you tell him that we’re talking about a disappearance here that might involve violence?”