He continued eastward, across Albert Terrace, Victoria Place, back toward the cemetery, where he didn’t know where he would lie. No one knew.
There was a darkness over the sea when he returned, walking down the stairs to Seatown. He met someone on the stairs, but he was invisible again. He could move in and out of it. He could reach out a hand, no one would see him.
The children’s clothes on the line next to the nearest house moved in the evening breeze. The black windows, covered by shutters.
The red paint of the telephone booth glowed. It was as though it were fluorescent. He had stood in there, he had been forced to use it. He never would have believed it. At first he hadn’t understood what to do, but he could read. His hands had shaken so hard that he had to try several times before it worked. Then he had asked her.
As he walked past it rang!
He gave another start and felt his hip. He kept walking and didn’t look around. It rang and rang.
At home he lit the fireplace. The humidity had increased while he was away. He kept his coat on as he readied the fire. It flamed up from the newspaper and then began to lick at the sticks in the middle. He warmed his hands.
He looked into the blaze, which was growing now, pulled up by the air, which was a spiral through the flue. The fire was like iron that burned and turned to glowing rust. Rust. Yes. Everything was stone and rust around here now. There wasn’t anyone with hammers anymore.
They had gone into the old capital, the one for the fishing fleet. Back then it had been like a teeming square next to an open harbor.
He had gone there, and he had felt the message that burned in his coat pocket. It was like sharp flames inside him. He had driven by the shipyard and two rusty ships lay as though frozen in the red sludge. There was only silence, no blows.
He had seen the monument again. He remembered; he had been there.
He had sent his message over the sea. He knew that Hanstholm was a second home harbor now for boats from his old harbor. The auction. The bunkering.
The few boats from home.
Before the war there had been forty fishing boats on the island.
They had gone twenty hours west, two hundred nautical miles. Mondays.
They set the trawl. They fastened well. To pipe was an art. It was gone now.
They dragged the trawl. It ran one hundred fathoms deep.
He had missed that. He had always missed it.
They pulled up the trawl by hand. He missed that too. In rough seas it could wash over. Missed it. Speed set at three knots. The last pull, the last time they lifted the trawl for the night. They cast the anchor and were still. Lit the stern lights.
On Fridays they went to the fishing harbor with the boxes. Two hundred boxes. He knew how to shovel ice.
Bertil had stood in the cabin. Egon had run the machinery. Arne had taken care of the tools.
He and Frans had done all the other scut work. They were the youngest. They had rushed back and forth across the deck, slipping, hauling, lifting, undoing knots, and watching the fish run down into the bin. They had cleaned. Their hands had been red and cold.
They had had to prepare food. The youngest prepared the food on board.
They had gone to sleep too late and been woken too early.
Trawl haul!
Their work continued.
Later he would be at the helm himself.
They fished in the dark.
They fished all night.
They continued westward.
God!
He had sung in the Mission congregation.
Almost half the people on the island had been members of the congregation.
There was always a Bible on board.
It had been good to have someone to turn to out there.
His own father had said that no matter what happens, good things will come to a man who loves God.
34
Angela had made a decision in her sleep. If it worked out with Elsa. If it wasn’t for too many days.
“But I can always come home early,” she said. ‘’Different plans and all that stuff we talked about.”
“I’ll call Lotta,” said Winter.
“Don’t forget Siv.”
Wonder of wonders. Siv Winter decided within half a minute to come home and stay in Gothenburg while they were gone. She would stay with Lotta, who would take a “time-out” from the hospital.
“Everyone else is taking a time-out all of a sudden, so why not me?”
Steve Macdonald was also taking a time-out. Winter called him during the morning.
“My dad isn’t feeling well, so I have to take a trip up there anyway.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He’ll be okay.”
“Angela is coming along. But she wants to speak with Sarah a little bit first.”
“Sarah said the same thing.”
“I met a survivor yesterday,” Winter said, and described the conversation, or whatever it was, with Arne Algotsson.
“He said something that I think was Cullen sink. Cullen is a city or a village, according to the map,” said Winter. “Cullen sink or something like that.”
“Cullen
“What is it?”
“Cullen skink is a local specialty, a soup made of smoked haddock, potatoes, onion, I think, and milk.”
“I see.”
“So this senile old man was sitting there talking about that soup,” said Macdonald.
“It must have made a strong impression on him,” said Winter.
“Smoked haddock tends to have that effect,” said Macdonald.
“A strange combination of ingredients in that soup,” said Winter.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Macdonald.
“So he had a connection to Cullen,” said Winter.
“Or the soup,” said Macdonald. “They have it all over Scotland.”
“Okay.”
“Unfortunately,” said Macdonald. Winter heard his smile across the line from south London. “Just like the smell of smoked or fried haddock. Why do you think I fled to London?”
“But London’s called the Smoke, isn’t it?”
“It’s a different smell,” said Macdonald, without clarifying further.
“Algotsson also talked about a coastal city that might be Buckie,” said Winter. “Do you know it?”
“We’re practically talking about my hometown, here,” said Macdonald. “Buckie? It’s a classic fishing harbor. The biggest one up there during the war, I think, and for a while after.”
“He mentioned Buckie,” said Winter, “or at least it sounded like it.”
“Didn’t the chief inspector record the conversation?” said Macdonald.
