Sail of Stone

by Ake Edwardson

  But she wasn’t smiling when she closed the door behind her.

  29

  Winter called in from the car. Möllerström put him through to Ringmar, who was working on a homicide in Kärra. Open and shut. All that loathsome, never-ending paperwork for an event that took no time at all, but no secrets, no mystery. A drunk who beat another drunk to death because of some reason the killer had forgotten when he woke up. He didn’t remember any beating, any killing.

  “What do you say to a drink out on the town,” said Winter. “I don’t have the strength to go back to my office today.”

  “I never saw you clock out,” said Ringmar.

  “See you at Eckerberg’s in twenty minutes,” said Winter.

  “Do they still have those shrimp sandwiches there?” said Ringmar. “I love those shrimp sandwiches.”

  “If they don’t, they’ll have to make one,” said Winter.

  There was only one shrimp sandwich left when Winter arrived, but they were happy to make one more. “Make it twice as big as that one right there,” he said, nodding at the refrigerated counter. “I’ll pay the difference.”

  “Yours is bigger,” said Ringmar when they sat down at the table.

  “I didn’t get any lunch,” said Winter.

  “Fucking weird,” said Ringmar, who was still comparing sizes. “Does the deli girl have faulty perspective?” He rotated his plate, as though to see whether his sandwich was bigger on the other side. “This is ridiculous. There’s half a pound more shrimp on yours. And the diameter of yours exceeds mine by—”

  “I wouldn’t accept that if I were you,” said Winter. “After all, you’re the one who paid for it.” Winter chewed on yet another shrimp. “It’s unfair.”

  It had been Ringmar’s turn to pay.

  Ringmar raised his hand discreetly in order to get the waitress’s attention, and then Winter had to tell him what was up.

  “When is she going to call?” Ringmar asked when their plates were empty and Winter had told him what had happened that morning. “Will she make it there tonight, or is she staying overnight in London?”

  “She should be there at six o’clock local time if she makes her connection at Heathrow,” Winter said, and looked at his watch. “That’s seven o’clock here.”

  “Have you spoken with Macdonald?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Well, before he goes to too many of his old—”

  “I think that Craig guy has already informed him. He said he would give Steve a call.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Hmm,” Ringmar repeated.

  “What is it, Bertil?”

  “This is a strange tale, you know. I don’t know, I think I smell crime.” Ringmar held his glass in his hand and drank the last of his sparkling water and put down the glass. “There was actually some kind of message about the father, this John Osvald. Someone in Scotland, maybe in Inverness or somewhere around there, someone is interested in shaking up his family in Sweden.” Ringmar ran his finger around the edge of the glass and looked up. “Axel Osvald leaves immediately after he sees the message. Takes off right away. So the question is whether he saw something in it that we didn’t see. Something he recognized.”

  “Or if something else arrived that we don’t know about,” said Winter. “Other messages. At the same time.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’d been there before,” said Winter.

  “Perhaps he knew who’d written that thing about how nothing was how it appeared to be,” said Ringmar.

  “Or he guessed.”

  “But his earlier trips hadn’t gotten results,” said Ringmar.

  “We don’t know that,” said Winter.

  “And apparently no one else knows either,” said Ringmar.

  “Yes they do,” said Winter.

  “Who?”

  “He does. Axel Osvald himself.”

  “Yes. Maybe.”

  Ringmar decided to have another cup of coffee and got up and went over to the lovely little wooden table where the coffeepot stood on the warmer. He had seen the newly brewed batch arrive a minute ago.

  Winter followed him with his eyes. No one else drank as much coffee as Bertil, and no one else could stand all the peculiar witches’ brews that went along with the job. Coffee was offered in every context. It was worse than being a mail carrier out in the country. The contents of some cups had to be eaten with a spoon. And Ringmar would still ask for a refill.

  He came back and sat down.

  “It sure seems like Axel Osvald went insane,” he said.

  Winter shrugged.

  “Doesn’t it?” said Ringmar.

  “If we assume that he was the one who took off his own clothes, item by item, as he climbed up the hills,” said Winter.

  “Well, he had been acting confused in that town or city or whatever it is.”

  “Who actually said that?” said Winter.

  “Weren’t there several witnesses?” said Ringmar.

  “When did you start trusting witnesses, Bertil?”

  “Hope no one heard that,” Ringmar said, looking around.

  “Maybe they thought he was confused, but that could be because of the language, couldn’t it? A person who no one understands might seem strange.”

  “Yes,” said Ringmar, “now that you mention it. And especially in the case of Brits. Isn’t anyone who doesn’t speak English as their native language considered confused? Isn’t that the English point of view?”

  Winter smiled.

  “But these are Scots,” he said.

  “So?”

  “They’re probably closer to us Scandinavians.”

  “That didn’t help Axel Osvald in his attempts to communicate,” said Ringmar.

  “No. You’re right about that.”

  “But of course, it’s possible he was trying to say something that wasn’t crazy,” said Ringmar.

  “He could have been confused,” said Winter.

  “By what?”

  “Too much alcohol?” said Winter.

  “Did you ask his granddaughter about his use of alcohol?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think he was drunk?” said Ringmar.

  “Not according to Craig, and not according to his witnesses,” said Winter. “I asked him, actually.” Winter leaned forward. “The autopsy will show the blood alcohol content, of course.”

  “Was he poisoned?” said Ringmar.

  “By what?”

  “Some kind of drug. Some poison.”

  “By ‘poisoned,’ do you mean secretly poisoned?” said Winter.

  “Yes. Someone could have snuck something into a beer or into his food or … well …”

  “Should we ask the Scottish pathologist to look for something? If he hasn’t already.”

  “I don’t know, Erik. Maybe we’re letting this conversation get too far off track.”

  “Isn’t that our method?” said Winter.

  “It is.”

  “So where are we? We’ve talked about alcohol and drugs. More?”

  “Fear,” said Ringmar.

  “Fear of what?”

  “Of something he saw.”

  “Of something he heard?” said Winter.

  “No. Saw.”

  “What did he see?”

  “His father.”

  “Would he be afraid of that?”

  “It depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “Who his father was,” said Ringmar.

  “Who he was? Not how he was?”

  “Who he was. Who he had become.”

  “Yes.”

  “Or who he had always been.”

  “Hmm.”

  “It has to do with the past,” said Ringmar.

  “Doesn’t it always?”

  “Here more than ever,” said Ringmar.

  “How so?”

  “Whatever happened with the dad has to do with what happened on that monster of a
sea.”

  “How so?” Winter repeated.

  “He found out,” said Ringmar. “He finally found out what happened.”

  “And it led to his death?”

  “Somehow,” said Ringmar.

  “He had no memory of his father,” said Winter. “He was only a baby when he saw John for the last time.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “I don’t know, Bertil.”

  “And there are other people who have memories of him,” said Ringmar. “Of John Osvald.”

  “Yes and no,” said Winter.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “The only survivor from the war years—the only known survivor from those years, I should say—his name is Arne Algotsson, but he’s got complete dementia.”

  “Have you met Algotsson?” asked Ringmar.

  “No.”

  Ringmar looked at him.

  “There hasn’t really been a reason to, Bertil.” Winter looked at Ringmar. “And the question is whether there is one now.”

  “Who told you that Algotsson is demented or totally senile or whatever he is?”

  “Johanna Osvald. And her brother.” Winter looked at Ringmar again. “Are you saying they could have lied?”

  “I’m not saying anything. I’m just wondering whether they’ve made the correct diagnosis. Has anyone made the correct diagnosis?”

  “Arne Algotsson is pretending to have dementia, you’re saying?”

  “I’m still not saying anything,” said Ringmar. “But maybe it couldn’t hurt to have a few words with the old fisherman. Or try to have a few words with him.”

  Winter nodded.

  “If there actually is a reason to, as you just said yourself,” said Ringmar.

  “Just the fact that we’re sitting here working our way through our method as though this was a case makes it into some kind of case,” said Winter.

  “So how do we move forward?” Ringmar said.

  “By trying to talk to Algotsson,” said Winter.

  “The salty old survivor,” said Ringmar.

  “Mmhmm.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we’ll see how much of a mystery we think this is.”

  “And the granddaughter will call tonight,” said Ringmar. “That will guide what we do in the future.”

  “I think I know what she’s going to say,” said Winter.

  Halders and Aneta were on the afternoon shift together. Halders rubbed his eyes as they stood in the elevator.

  “Are you tired, Fredrik?”

  “I stayed up after you left,” he said.

  She didn’t answer, just nodded at his image in the mirror.

  They were on their way down. Something in the elevator stank.

  “The jail was allowed to use this elevator,” said Halders, who saw Aneta’s expression. “Theirs is striking.”

  “I can understand why it would,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Are there elevators in Africa?” asked Halders as they walked through the reception area.

  “Only at the hotel.”

  30

  Halders and Aneta drove over Fattighusån. The water was black. It seemed to stand still, unable to decide which way it should flow. They passed SKF. There was a dull shine to the factory façades. Halders stared at the large windows. He could have been in there now, wandering in and out day in and day out. Maybe he was actually made for a different life, that life. He could have been a renowned union chairman, or a notorious one. He could have been the director of the whole thing. He could have been all of that, but he couldn’t be a chief inspector. Why?

  Why, Aneta had once asked when he was complaining, and she had meant why in the sense of why do you want to strive for that? It’s not that much more money. There’s not more independence, or whatever you call it. You wouldn’t actually have more power. Yes, I would, he had said. Power to use how? she had said. He didn’t know, he couldn’t answer that.

  There was also a dull sheen to Fastlagsgatan. Aneta guessed there were places on the street that were never touched by the sun.

  A pickup from Statoil stood outside the fifth entrance. They could make out furniture under the cover but they couldn’t see people to carry it.

  “Coming or going?” said Halders.

  A man of about twenty-five came out through the front door and hopped up into the pickup and pulled some sort of wicker chair to the edge and hopped down again and carried it in.

  “Coming,” said Halders.

  The guy came back quickly and took another piece of furniture and carried it in again.

  “He’s filling the elevator,” said Halders.

  “Which apartment in that stairwell is empty, do you think?”

  “The same one you’re thinking,” said Halders, opening the car door.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” said Aneta. “Take it easy.”

  “We’re just UN observers,” said Halders.

  In the stairwell, the elevator doors were closed and the elevator was on its way up. Aneta hesitated.

  “Should we stomp in there and tell them that this apartment they’re moving into has recently been the scene of several crimes?” said Aneta.

  “It’s not as though someone has been murdered,” said Halders.

  “Could have been,” said Aneta.

  The elevator rumbled down again. They waited. The door opened and a young, dark-haired woman stepped out. The elevator was empty. She propped the door open with a chair. She nodded hastily and continued out through the door, which was fastened open. She ducked into the pickup.

  She came back with a box that seemed heavy. They were still standing there.

  “If you’re not doing anything else, maybe you can carry things,” she said.

  Halders laughed. That was his style. Aneta didn’t laugh. She saw the woman smile and shove the box into the elevator. She had seen this woman before. A few times in a car that stopped outside the Palace to pick up a tired chief inspector. She knew his name, and she knew her name.

  “What are you doing here, Moa?”

  Ringmar and Winter were standing in the stern when the Vipan set out at 2:35. Winter was smoking a Corps, his first of the day. He told this to Ringmar, who congratulated him.

  They had made two phone calls after they’d made their decision. Now here they stood, with a sudden sun over all the mountains that stuck up above the surface of the water. But that was only a small part of it, a tenth of a percent. Everything was below the surface. The iceberg effect. These weren’t icebergs, but the effect was the same. That’s how it was with good books. Ringmar pondered that concept. The simple words were only the topmost layer. Everything was underneath. Books, but also the work in their world. Their world was words, words, words. Spoken, written. Bawled out. Complete, half complete, broken into pieces, broken off. Forced out. Dissolved sentences. Lies and truths, but often those didn’t matter since most of it was still below the surface. They only saw the tops of the truth or the lies.

  “A person should probably live out here,” said Winter. “It’s always cloudy in the city but when you come out here, it clears up. It’s always like that.”

  “Well, you’re going to build by the sea.”

  Winter didn’t answer.

  “Right?” Ringmar observed him. “You did buy the land.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Mmhmm? Aren’t you sure? Didn’t you both decide?”

  “Yeah, I guess we did.”

  “It’s great to hear young, enthusiastic people talking about their future.”

  Winter squinted at the sky.

  “You have a family, and you and I both know what Angela wants. And imagine how Elsa will love life by the sea.”

  Vipan sped up toward Asperö East. They saw the bathing beach, the bay, and the houses on the right, which were visible behind the passage, Asperö North, Brännö Rödsten. Life by the sea. It had its different sides, dark and light.

  But this was life on the
islands, all around him; it was different from life by a beach on the mainland.

  “Get started building now, Erik. I can help out with the administration of your topping-out party.” He shivered suddenly in the gusty wind. “What do you say to a cup of coffee?”

  They asked their way to Arne Algotsson’s house. It was on one of the sheltered streets. The colors of the houses hadn’t been transformed by the wind and the sun and the salt, not like on the other houses they’d passed. The front of the house lay in shadow. Maybe that was the reason.

  Ringmar knocked on the heavy door, which seemed to be sunk into the ground. If they were allowed in they would have to duck. The woman who’d answered when Ringmar called had sounded dismissive but accepting, at least then. Her name was Ella Algotsson and she was Arne Algotsson’s sister; she had always lived on Donsö and had never been married. She was over eighty years old and she took care of her brother now. Arne lived his life in there. According to Johanna Osvald, he never went out.

  Ringmar knocked again, and they heard sounds, as though iron bolts were being lifted away on the other side.

  The door opened and the woman nodded warily. She was short and thin. Winter could see the skin on her arms; it was like pale leather. Her face had more wrinkles than Ringmar would ever get. They ran in all directions. She looked at Ringmar, who was the shorter of the two inspectors. Her eyes were transparently blue, a washed-out shade, whitewashed, and Winter thought for a moment that she was blind.

  “What is’t this time?” she said.

  “Sorry?” said Ringmar.

  “What you sayin’ sorry fer?” she said.

  Ringmar looked at Winter, who was smiling a little. These were literal people.

  “I’m the one who called,” said Ringmar.

  “What?”

  “I’m the one who called. I spoke to a woman who answered here and the—”

  “That was the assistant,” answered Ella Algotsson as though she were the CEO of Västtrafik public transport, which had taken over the archipelago lines. “She isn’t here now, so you can go again.”

  “But you’re the one we want to talk to, Mrs. Algotsson. She—”

  “Miss.”

  “Miss Algotsson,” said Ringmar. “She said that it would be okay for us to talk to you and your brother for a little bit.” Ringmar took out his wallet, showed her his ID. “My name is Bertil Ringmar and I’m a detective in Gothenburg, and this young man is Erik Winter and he’s my assistant.”