“Yes, I heard that, but how easy is it to recognize people in photographs? To compare a photo with… with a… a dead person…,” she said, and hid her face in her hands.
Winter looked at his own hands. What should I do with them? Should I hold her?
He leaned forward and touched her arm, which was bare. She shivered and he got up, took a cardigan that was hanging on the desk chair, and placed it over her shoulders.
Photographs. Dead people. He had seen enough of both for a lifetime. She was absolutely right. There were no similarities between the living and the dead. Eyes that could see; eyes that couldn’t see. A superficial likeness, yes, but no
There was always another last time.
It was for a lifetime; he had seen enough. An eternity. No. Life didn’t belong to eternity, it was death that was eternity; life was the pause between the quiet eternities. For many, it was a short pause; he knew because he had been there, just after eternity had taken over.
And the photographs of the dead. There were always photographs of the dead on his desk. What a fucking job, photographs of dead people on your desk, broken cheekbones, empty eye holes, mouths like mine shafts. Choke marks like tattoos across the throat.
And the pictures of those who were completely still, untouched. They looked like they had fallen asleep. Pictures like that were often the worst.
He placed them all under other pictures, of houses, roads, vehicles, cliff crevices, whatever the fuck else, or under papers filled with words, because words were not as gruesome at a distance, not from a yard away.
Now he could hear children’s voices, shouts, laughter. He saw several children through the window. Recess again. Forty-five minutes go by quickly.
Johanna Osvald looked up.
“I have to go there, of course,” she said. “There’s only one way to make sure that it’s… Dad.”
Winter nodded.
“They’re probably waiting for me to come,” she said.
“Do you have anyone who can go with you?”
She looked at him. Did she mean… no, he didn’t think so. This was for her, her family. There was no murder, no marks. No blunt objects.
But there was still a why. That had been with him on the way here, on the archipelago boat, in the car before that, in his conversation with Craig, in his conversation with Johanna. Why.
“Where is Erik now?” he asked.
“I don’t know, exactly. I’ll have to call out there to him.”
Winter nodded again.
“He can do what he wants,” she said. “But I’m going to try to fly over there as soon as I can. Today, if possible.”
“I can help you,” said Winter, and made a call from the telephone that stood on the desk between them.
She would be able to make it. The next boat was the
“It’s things like this that make it a disadvantage to live on an island,” she had said after two phone calls.
Right now there was no one available who could drive over to Saltholmen.
But there was another way to get to the mainland.
Winter had called dispatch, who transferred him to the marine police at Nya Varvet.
“We have a patrol boat down by Vargo,” his colleague had said. “They’re not doing anything anyway.”
“Are you sure you want to go right away?” Winter had asked Johanna, with his hand on the receiver.
She had nodded in her rush to go home and throw her things in her overnight bag.
On the way over he asked about Axel Osvald. The boat went fast, faster than Winter had thought was possible in the interior waterways. No sirens, but apparent speed and apparent right-of-way.
“It wasn’t the first time he went to Scotland to look for his father… your grandfather,” said Winter.
“No, as I believe I said before.”
“What did he tell you about those previous trips?”
“Not so much. Almost nothing.”
“Why not?”
“My dad was a man who didn’t talk very much,” she said.
Winter noticed that she spoke of her father in the past tense. She didn’t seem aware of it herself. He had seen it many times. A sort of mental preparation for the worst. To know before you know for sure. To start the task of mourning right away.
He had done it himself, on a plane to Marbella a few years ago. His father was sick and Winter knew, knew without knowing.
“What did he tell you when he did talk about it, then? You must have asked, right?”
She saw islands and rocks and skerries swish by. She turned around, as though she wanted to make sure that that really was Branno, Aspero. This was her world. Winter looked around too. Everything was familiar to her, everything near the water. Downtown Gothenburg was not on the sea.
“There were only two trips,” she said. “I mean, before this one.”
He waited. They were on their way in; he could see the buildings at Nya Varvet, the Nordic School of Public Health in the old flotilla barracks that had gotten new clothing. Everything had gotten new clothing there. Everything in the entrance to the harbor was familiar to him, even the transformed facades. He had biked through Nya Varvet ten thousand times in his youth, and many times after that as well. He walked there sometimes with Angela and Elsa. In the summer, the restaurant Reveille had nice outdoor seating that few people knew about, and that was good too. A beer, twenty yards from the water, a few grilled fish dishes, a skewered turkey dish that turned up on the menu year after year.
“When was he there the last time?” asked Winter.
“It was a long time ago, at least ten years ago.”
“Why did he go this time?”
Johanna Osvald looked at Winter.
“I don’t actually know.”
A marked car was waiting on the quay. This was quicker than if they had gone in via Saltholmen and Winter had then had to drive on the narrow, slow road through Langedrag.
“Will I make it?” she said as she got into the car.
“You’ll make it now,” said Winter, nodding at Detective Inspector Morelius, who was the driver. An old friend from a different time.
“Are we allowed to do this?”
“What?”
“Go by police boat and a police car to make a plane?”
“Yes.”
Morelius started the car.
“Call me when you get there,” said Winter. “When you’ve… made the identification.”
It sounded awkward, but what was he supposed to say? When you’ve seen your dead father?
She nodded.
“My colleague in Inverness, Craig, he’ll meet you at the airport or send a car.”
She nodded again, and Morelius went up toward Kungssten and the highway past Frolunda, to the east. Winter looked at his watch again. She would make it. They had gotten a move on. She could have waited a day, but he wanted to know too. He didn’t know and he wanted to know. He felt the pull… he couldn’t stop thinking about Axel Osvald. Or about John Osvald. There was something here, something he wanted to know, or search for.
There was a mystery.
“We’re going out again,” said the skipper of the police boat. “We can let you off at Saltholmen.”
