Sail of Stone

by Ake Edwardson

  “Yes,” he said, “but maybe I didn’t sound so convincing.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” she said.

  “I guess I do too,” said Halders after a bit.

  “Have you called Susanne Marke?”

  “Yes. No reply.”

  “Try again.”

  Halders took a deep breath.

  “Well, we have to wait to hear what forensics says anyway.”

  “We should go there now.”

  “One of us can go,” said Halders. “No, wait. There have been enough solo trips.” He seemed to be listening for the sound of a motor from the road. “We can ask for a car there. In the meantime.”

  “I’ll call dispatch,” said Aneta.

  They drove across the bridge. The river was lit up as though by torches on both sides all the way to the sea to the west and up through the land to the east. Ferries came and went.

  “They say that Gothenburg is a dead harbor, but that’s hard to believe when you’re looking down from here,” said Halders.

  “Doesn’t it have to do with the shipbuilding industry?” said Aneta. “It must.”

  “The hammers have become silent,” answered Halders.

  “You sound sad about it.”

  “There’s always a reason to be sad,” he said. “Who doesn’t light up to the sound of hammering?”

  “They’re lighting up here, anyway,” she said as they parked in the new residential area. The attractive houses glistened and seemed to preen in the light from the torches.

  “Can’t be cheap to live here,” said Halders.

  “Obviously not.”

  “How can Marke afford it? What was it she does?”

  “Clerk at the district court.”

  “Financial crime?”

  “No,” said Aneta.

  “Then I don’t get it,” said Halders.

  “Her ex probably has money. We’ll have to check.”

  “If we need to,” said Halders.

  Aneta took three steps to the left.

  “Her car is home,” she said.

  Susanne Marke opened the door after the first ring, as though she had been waiting just inside.

  She doesn’t look as cocky anymore. Aneta could see an uncertain expression on her face, or maybe it was a puzzled one.

  Susanne invited them in with a gesture. She told them to keep their shoes on.

  The living room window had room for all the lights on the other side of the river. Halders could see the illuminated Seaman’s Wife. She looked him in the eye.

  A woman was sitting in one of the two white leather easy chairs. She had a bandage on her left hand. Aneta recognized her face.

  “What really happened?” she asked straight out.

  “When?” said Anette Lindsten.

  “At your … at your parents’ house.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The glass in the veranda door is broken.”

  “Oh, that. I ran into it.”

  She held up her hand. The bandage was starting to fall off. It was only a few loops of cheap gauze.

  “I was trying to open it—it sticks—and suddenly the glass broke and I … I cut myself.”

  “Down by the doorstep?” said Halders.

  “That’s where it … stuck,” she said, darting a look at Susanne.

  Is this a lesson she’s reciting and checking with Susanne? thought Aneta. Is this a threat, too? But then why did she come here?

  “Why did you come here?” asked Halders.

  “She can go where she wants, can’t she?” said Susanne.

  “Shut up!” said Halders.

  “I got—”

  “We’ve tried to contact you, Anette.” Halders interrupted Susanne, but without taking his eyes from Anette. “Why have you been avoiding us?”

  “I haven … haven’t been avoiding you.”

  “According to several reports from your neighbors in Kortedala, you have been subjected to violence,” said Halders. “Violence and threats. We would like to talk to you about that. We don’t like violence and threats in general, and especially not against women.”

  “What do you call your coming in here and harassing me?” said Susanne.

  Her uncertainty seemed to be gone. Aneta tried to read something in her face. Had Anette come here? Just come here, just shown up? Or had Susanne asked her to come?

  “Why did you come here, Anette?” Aneta asked gently.

  Anette didn’t answer. Was she trying to catch the eye of the Seaman’s Wife? Or was she studying the shining church steeple all the way up to hea—

  “I have nothing more to say,” she said. “You mu … must leave me alone.”

  “And I must ask you both to leave,” said Susanne.

  “We can give you a ride wherever you’d like to go,” said Aneta.

  How did she get here? Did she get a ride here? A taxi?

  “I’ll drive Anette when she wants to go,” said Susanne.

  “Do you want to go home?” asked Aneta.

  Anette shook her head.

  “We can drive you down to your parents’ in Vallda,” said Aneta.

  “They’re on their way he … on their way home,” said Anette.

  “Have you spoken with them?”

  She nodded.

  Halders looked at Aneta.

  “We can go somewhere and talk for a bit,” he said.

  Anette shook her head.

  I feel helpless, thought Aneta. Something is very wrong here, but there’s nothing we can do about it right now. We can’t take her with us. We can’t force her to tell us what’s happened to her, no more than we can ask her to write everything down and sign it while we stand here tapping our feet on this damn parquet floor.

  “Where is your brother?” said Aneta, turning to Susanne.

  “I don’t actually know,” she said.

  Aneta tried to look at Anette’s face. It was averted.

  “Isn’t he staying here anymore?”

  “No.”

  “We need to have a rather long conversation with him,” said Halders, looking at Anette, who was still sitting with her face averted.

  “We can actually bring him in for questioning,” said Halders to the averted face. “We have that right whether Hans Forsblad likes it or not. Anette? Can you hear me? Just so you know.”

  “He isn’t here,” said Susanne.

  “And we’re going to do it,” continued Halders.

  “Where did he move to this time?” asked Aneta.

  “He didn’t actually say.”

  The darkness of Indian summer was outside. Aneta could smell lingering scents from the summer gone by. It must be sixty degrees. She heard voices from a sidewalk café on the other side of the building. A laugh bounced across the river.

  “Pure continental,” said Halders.

  “Aren’t you furious?” she said.

  “I was about to become really angry at Forsblad’s sister,” said Halders.

  “That would have been perfect,” she said. “On top of everything you said.”

  “Hmm.”

  “She might report it.”

  “Good. Then at least someone will.”

  They got into Halders’s car. Aneta’s car was still outside the Lindstens’ house.

  “They’re probably home by now,” she said. “The Lindstens.”

  “She is fucking freaked out,” said Halders.

  “Yes, but why isn’t she saying anything? To anyone else?”

  “How do you know she hasn’t said anything to anyone else?”

  “Yes, that’s true …”

  “To the gal in there, for example.”

  “Susanne? Do you mean that she’s protecting her?”

  Halders turned to her with a crooked smile.

  “Not a thought you really want to think, is it. She’s not worth it, is she.”

  Aneta didn’t answer. They were on their way over the bridge again. The city’s lights were like a dome all
the way from the flatlands in the north to the forests in the south. A sign for the ships out there to the right. For everyone who could see. Could see. Could …

  “There’s something here that we haven’t seen,” she said.

  “Isn’t it always—”

  “Something obvious,” she interrupted. “Something totally, completely obvious that we haven’t seen. What it is. What happened.”

  “Do we know what’s going to happen, too?” asked Halders.

  The Lindstens’ house was unlit and quiet. Halders looked at Aneta’s questioning face: Shouldn’t the Lindstens be here?

  “It’s almost like I don’t care anymore,” said Halders.

  Their colleagues from forensics had left shortly after Halders and Aneta had arrived. There had been two of them. We needed to come out anyway, as one of them had put it, and the other cracked up and they went on their way.

  No one was laughing now. There was no car in the driveway. Aneta called, but Sigge Lindsten didn’t answer, nor did his wife.

  “Are you up for another drive?” said Aneta.

  “Aren’t we going home? You said you’d come home with me.”

  Halders looked at his watch. He had called the babysitter. Hannes and Magda were watching a quiz show that he had okayed. After that, straight to bed. He had said good night to the children just in case. But he had thought he would make it back. He and Aneta.

  Aneta looked at him without answering.

  He understood.

  “No, Aneta. Not that. Not tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s late. We’re tired. Anyway, we can’t set up a …”

  “Good interrogation? Who says it’s Hans Forsblad we’ll find there?”

  She left the car at home in Kommendantsängen. “Governor’s field.” It was an interesting name for a concrete jungle. A beautiful concrete jungle. They heard drunken roars from Gyllene Prag over on the corner. Everyone was enjoying the reprise of summer. Two cafés had moved their furniture out again. The people of the city were out on the streets. It smelled like grilled meat and rapidly warmed wind from the south. They heard ambulance sirens out on Övre Husargatan.

  “Someone else is in trouble,” said Halders. “In the dark I hear a siren … Someone else is in trouble. I am not the only one.” He started the car again. “Eric Burdon and the Animals.”

  They drove through Allén.

  “I’m glad you came along, Fredrik.”

  “Well, of course I’m curious. Too.”

  The world of the seasons was unlit, and the contrast to downtown was great. Smoke rose from the large factories, or maybe it was fog that was rising in the sudden warmth.

  The houses towered up like transatlantic ships in dry dock, but with their cabins lit up.

  There were no people on the street. Shadows, but no people. Cars drove by at great intervals, but they seemed driverless. There were no sidewalk cafés.

  “Cozy,” said Halders.

  “It’s the in place to live now,” said Aneta.

  “I know. Why else would we be here?”

  “We’ve arrived,” she said, nodding toward the building.

  “My God,” said Halders. “Does this monster of a house end anywhere?”

  Graffiti had been written over the top of graffiti in the elevator. Some people called it street art. Halders stared at that shit with a hateful look. Not so long ago, Swedish Television had called the CID and asked for a policeman who could participate in a debate program during prime time about graffiti versus street art, art versus damage. Some joker at the switchboard must have sent it up to Möllerström, and Möllerström proved that he had a sense of humor when he transferred the call to Halders, and Halders said yes.

  Birgersson had managed to put a stop to the whole thing at the last second. It’s for your own sake, he had said to Halders. Someone has to find out the truth, Halders had said. Soon, Birgersson had said, soon. The police commissioner had sent someone from a department no one had heard of, and Halders hadn’t watched the piece of shit.

  “When did you last see a mirror in an elevator in a building like this one?” he said, turning to Aneta, who was trying to prepare herself for their arrival on the floor above.

  “It was before your time, anyway,” continued Halders, and let out some sort of laugh. “There were mirrors everywhere. Jesus, it’s almost like you can admire how naïve they were back then!”

  “It was a belief in the future,” said Aneta. “Don’t be so cynical. They believed in the residents.”

  “Cynical? Me?”

  “There are still mirrors in elevators,” she said.

  “In hotels downtown, yes. And in Winter’s building!”

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  Halders followed the numbers above the elevator door and nodded.

  The elevator stopped.

  The doors opened automatically.

  All the doors in the stairwell were closed.

  The light went out above them as they walked up to the door.

  There was a light coming from inside.

  25

  Aneta Djanali rang the doorbell. They couldn’t kick in the door. It wasn’t ringing in there. Aneta didn’t remember the doorbell being broken. She heard steps inside; it sounded like steps. Was it the thieves? The ones who said they were father and son? The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.

  “Don’t stand right in front of the door,” said Halders.

  He knocked, or banged.

  The shuffling inside stopped. Halders banged on the door again.

  They heard steps again.

  “Who is it?”

  Aneta recognized the voice.

  “Police,” said Halders.

  They heard the voice again, but no distinguishable words.

  The door opened.

  “So we meet again,” said Aneta.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Halders.

  “I thought Anette was here,” said Sigge Lindsten.

  “She said that she had spoken with you tonight.”

  “Have you spoken to Anette?”

  “Just now,” said Aneta, “at Forsblad’s sister’s house.”

  “I was already on my way here then,” said Lindsten.

  “Why would she come here?” asked Halders.

  “If she wasn’t at home or with us down in Vallda, well, where else could she be? This was the only place I could think of.”

  “What about Susanne Marke’s?”

  “No,” said Lindsten.

  “No, what?”

  “I didn’t think she’d be there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not after … what happened.”

  “Where could Forsblad be now?” said Aneta.

  “Not at his sister’s, then?” said Lindsten.

  “No.”

  “He could have been here,” said Halders.

  “He doesn’t have a key,” said Lindsten.

  Is he that naïve? thought Aneta. Forsblad could have made any number of keys he wanted to.

  “I was just about to go,” said Lindsten.

  “What is that smell?” said Halders.

  “I don’t smell anything here.”

  Halders pushed past Lindsten before he had time to say anything more. Aneta saw Halders turn into the kitchen on the left side of the hall.

  She heard Halders’s voice: “Coffee. Brewed pretty recently.”

  Aneta looked at Sigge Lindsten.

  “I felt like a cup.”

  “Food in the fridge,” Halders’s voice said.

  “Were you hungry too?” asked Aneta.

  Lindsten threw a glance over toward the hall and the kitchen.

  “It’s for Anette’s sake,” said Lindsten.

  “Sorry?”

  “If she has to come here. Suddenly. If something else happened.”

  “Isn’t this the last place she would choose?”

  Lindsten didn’t answer.

  Halde
rs came out into the hall again and walked into the bedroom on the other side and came back.

  “Are the air mattress and sleeping bag in there for her sake too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Apparently you think of everything,” said Halders.

  “It’s still my apartment,” said Lindsten. “I can do what I want here.”

  “When is Anette coming home again?” asked Aneta. “Home to the house in Fredriksdal?”

  “Tonight, I assume.”

  “Is your wife there now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would like the two of you to check whether anything has been stolen from your house,” said Aneta.

  “Been stolen? But Anette told me that she happened to trip and break the window. Didn’t she tell you that too?”

  They didn’t answer.

  “Didn’t she tell you?” repeated Lindsten.

  “She did,” said Aneta.

  “Someone could have come in after that,” said Halders.

  “Am I supposed to believe that?”

  Halders looked around.

  “What will happen to this apartment now?”

  “Nothing,” said Lindsten.

  Bergenhem drove north. He passed Olskroken, Gamlestaden. He was driving aimlessly. He stopped for streetcars. They seemed to be running empty. They had had a problem with a streetcar driver last Christmas. “Problem” was not the word. It wasn’t even the first syllable. Where would it end? Your wall’s too high, sang John Kay inside the car. I can’t see, can’t seem to reach you, can’t set you free.

  There was a rumbling out there somewhere. Could be thunder, could be cannons, could be fireworks. He passed the SKF factory. The façade looked threatening, like a black memory. People have good memories from there, he thought. All the Italians who came here in the sixties and built welfare for the Swedes. The record years. Now there are no more records left to break except this one: most trips around the city in one week, one month, one year. John Kay sang “Born to Be Wild.” No choppers passed him. Otherwise, he was in Chopperland. There were different laws here, chopper laws. Biker laws. That was the rumbling; he heard it again. Harleys in the courtyards among buildings that had been blown into the air, or would be. The sound of motors would remain, cylinders, wheels, gears. Though SKF wouldn’t remain, not here. They would be relocated to South America, maybe southern Italy. The residents of Kortedala would have to move to Calabria and produce new welfare for others. New record years.