Sail of Stone

“What do you mean, Erik?”

“We’re thinking of coming down for a few days.”

“Did you say we? All of you?”

“Yes.”

“That would be so nice. Oh, how nice!”

“We think so, too.”

“What does Elsa think?”

“She doesn’t know yet. I wanted to check with you first.”

“But, Erik, you know very well that you’re all always welcome. And you haven’t been here since… since…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, and she didn’t need to. He had come down the day after Christmas last year, and he had drunk seven bottles of whisky-of course, they were those ridiculous little airplane bottles, but still-and beer on top of that, and it had taken half the ground personnel at the airport in Malaga to get him out and to the car. The police had been there, but only to help. Ringmar had called the police commissioner when Winter had boarded the plane: Here’s what you can expect in Malaga. Ringmar had understood, and their Spanish colleague understood.

Muy borracho. Si. Comprendo.

Winter had not understood, not when he left after the Christmastime events in Gothenburg. Who could have understood? Really understood everything? He wanted to understand, soon. It was possible to understand. Nothing bad happened without a reason. It came from somewhere. From people. That made the bad into something comprehensible, but it became simultaneously more terrible.

Ringmar had had to do the terrible finishing up last Christmas. Bertil had been strong, stronger than him. Bertil had had his own private hell, but he was a great person, a real person. Without Bertil there was nothing, he had thought then, and he thought so sometimes afterward. I am weak but he is strong. I become weaker and he becomes stronger. Will it be like that for me, too? Will it change? Do I want it to? Do I want to become stronger?

“I’ll let you know the details,” he said to his mother.

“Will it be soon?”

“I hope so.”

“I presume you’re having bad weather as usual at home.”

He looked out at the Indian summer sun, sharp as a knife.

“Yes,” he lied.

Aneta Djanali drove south and turned off toward Krokslatt. Everything felt like it was a few decades ago here: the houses, the streets, the signs, the stores; stucco houses where the plaster had fallen and been stuck on again, cafes with two tables and five chairs.

She wasn’t alone on the streets. She was tailing a black V40 that was one hundred yards ahead, and she wasn’t driving her usual Saab. This was another one of the unmarked cars from the garage under the Police Palace, as it was called, on Ernst Fontells Plats.

Aneta guessed where they were going, but she felt confusion inside of her; not the dizziness from before, but something that reminded her of it.

The V40 was driven by Susanne Marke. Aneta had seen her get into the car on one of the deserted streets in the old part of Nordstan. Aneta had been waiting there. She knew where Susanne would be during the afternoon, because she had asked. She had guessed four o’clock as the end of her workday, and it was a good guess.

But she couldn’t guess where Susanne would drive. Now she was driving into Fredriksdal, and into the familiar driveway. Sigge Lindsten’s car wasn’t there. Aneta drove by and saw Susanne getting out of the car. In the rearview mirror she saw her walk toward the house without looking around. Then the road curved and Aneta could only see other houses that didn’t mean anything to her.

She turned around in a narrow intersection five hundred yards to the north. When she came back, Susanne’s car was gone.

“Forsblad didn’t show up at work this afternoon,” said Halders when she called from the car. “And there’s no one answering in the love nest in Norra Alvstranden.”

“I saw her ten minutes ago,” said Aneta.

“Are you over there?”

“No, she went to the Lindstens’ house.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“It was just a short visit.”

“How do you know?”

She told him.

“You still don’t know what Anette Lindsten really looks like these days, right?” said Halders.

“No, what…,” she said, and then understood what Fredrik meant.

“You’re totally wrong,” she said.

“It’s important to think outside the box,” said Halders.

“Do you really think so?” said Aneta, mostly to herself. “No, she can’t have changed that much.”

“Best to check, isn’t it? To be completely certain.”

She sat with the phone in her hand. Susanne Marke was Anette Lindsten, who was Susanne Marke, who was…

No.

But Sigge Lindsten had called. That is, if he was Sigge Lindsten. He could have had a fake ID. The house in Fredriksdal was fake, maybe just a set like in a movie studio. This was just a movie. She suddenly thought of the film festival in Ouagadougou. She had been to the movies in Ouagadougou, a drafty bunker where the white light from outside filtered in through ten thousand holes in the curtain. It was a domestic film, which surprisingly enough was about people who lived in a city in the desert. The city seemed to lack gods, or spirits. The movie was in Mossi with French subtitles, and she understood the words but never the true meaning of what the people said. It wasn’t just another culture, it was another world.

Maybe the two men she had met in the apartment that might have been Anette Lindsten’s really were Anette’s father and brother. But the apartment was in her name. Susanne Marke’s apartment was in Susanne Marke’s name. The car was in Bengt Marke’s name. Who was Bengt Marke? Was he also named Hans Forsblad? Or Heintz Fritsfrutz? She almost giggled. Then she felt a chill.

She started the car and drove south, far south.

Winter got hold of Steve Macdonald during lunch.

“Guess what I’m eating,” said Macdonald.

“I know where it came from,” said Winter.

“The fish or the chips?” said Macdonald.

“I know the fisherman who hauled up the haddock,” said Winter.

“That’s fantastic,” said Macdonald. “Is there a stamp or something here under the breading?”

Winter told him about his visit to Donso.

“And now his father has gone walkabout in the Highlands.”

“He is still missing, at least. Or he hasn’t contacted anyone.”

“Have you put out a bulletin?”

“Yes.”

“Send over all the information and I’ll have a chat with the people up in Inverness.”

“Thanks, Steve.”

“Otherwise?”

“I’m going to build a house. By the sea.” Winter paused. “I think.”

Macdonald laughed.

“I like your resolve,” he said.

“It’s a nice plot of land,” said Winter. “You can smell the sea.”

“Good.”

“Do you ever go home?”