“No.”
“Are there many boats from here out at sea?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“There was a generation shift here on Donso that went wrong.” Osvald had started to walk toward the houses, and Winter followed. “The men were very angry, the ones who were my father’s age, maybe a little older.” Osvald was speaking straight out; he didn’t look at Winter. Screeching gulls circled above them. There was a gull sitting on a section of rock. “They never budged, those men, just kept their crews. And they
“Why not?”
“It takes too much money today to get established. You’ve seen my boat. Well, it’s not cheap, three hundred twenty gross tons, thirteen hundred horsepower.” He turned around as though the boat would be there and he could point to it. “If we stopped now we would get a lot of money for it.”
“Would you want to?” asked Winter.
“Stop? Never. The EU wants us to. But I don’t want to.”
Osvald lived in one of the older houses. Both men had to duck as they went in but the ceiling was high inside, an arch of wood above the large room. There was a tall, wide window that let in light and cliffs and sea and horizon. It was a perfect room.
Winter heard a sound from somewhere else in the house, and he turned his head.
“The cat,” said Osvald. “You’re not allergic, are you?”
“I don’t actually know,” said Winter. “I’ve never had a cat.”
“You’ve petted one, right?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I actually never have,” said Winter. It was the first time he’d considered this, and it was really pretty ridiculous. A man over forty who’d never petted a cat in his entire life. He needed a place in the country.
“Now’s your chance,” said Osvald, bending down and grabbing a small, thin, coal-black shorthaired cat under its stomach and holding it out to Winter, who tickled its chin and stroked its head, and that was that. Osvald put the cat down, which took a lithe leap over the doorstep.
“We had that one’s ancestor when, oh, that summer when you and Johanna had a little something going on,” said Osvald.
“I was never here then,” said Winter.
It was true. He could have stood in that room more than twenty years ago and seen the same sea then as he did now, the same angular boulders. This house had been the Osvald siblings’ parents’ home. Erik had taken over, and his father had moved to the annex, and Johanna had her own little house farther up, closer to the school.
“Have you spoken with Johanna?” asked Osvald.
“Yes. Have you?”
“Of course I’ve spoken with her. What do you mean?”
“I mean since you came back. If you’ve heard anything more about the trip home.”
“We chatted this morning,” said Osvald. “The doctor there, the pathologist I guess he’s called, is supposed to analyze something. But I’m sure you know that.”
It depends, thought Winter. I haven’t heard anything today.
“Do you know what it’s about?” Osvald repeated.
“I haven’t heard anything this morning,” said Winter.
“That’s not what I meant.” Osvald looked at him with those pale eyes that reminded him of a blue sky in January, with a faint light around the pupils. They were like everyone’s eyes here. They were exposed to the open light, and no fisherman could wear dark glasses and still retain his honor. Only tourists wore sunglasses on the islands in the southern archipelago. “I mean, the reason he died.”
It was the first time they’d mentioned Axel Osvald.
“I only know what they said before,” said Winter. “That it was a heart attack.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I did then.”
“That’s not what I asked,” said Osvald.
“What’s the alternative?” said Winter.
“That’s a question for you, isn’t it?” said Osvald. “You’re the detective.”
“But if I were to ask
“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” said Osvald. “I’m not sure that I will get there, either.” He began to walk to the door, stopped. “What is the point of it?”
“I don’t actually know,” said Winter.
“But you don’t seem to have completely accepted that explanation,” said Osvald.
“Did something happen one time when your father traveled to Scotland? When he was looking for clues, or information about what happened to John?”
“He wasn’t looking for clues,” said Osvald.
“No?”
“Not that kind of clues. We had all accepted that Grandpa went down with that ship. With the
“Did he tell you all of this?”
“Is that so much?”
“Did he tell you what you just said?” Winter asked again.
“More or less,” said Osvald. “That’s what he was thinking, anyway.”
“Then it must have been an enormous shock when that letter came.”
“I don’t know,” said Osvald.
“Weren’t you at home?”
“Yes and no. But I think he, Dad, I think he still believed that nothing new had really happened. That it was more, well, the circumstances.”
“Which are pretty unclear,” said Winter.
“You could say so.”
“How much did he find out about that, then?”
“What people knew in general. The boat goes out and doesn’t come home.”
That was probably the fastest way that the event could be summarized, thought Winter.
“But not all of the old crew was along on that last trip,” said Winter.
“No, which was lucky for them.”
“But why not?”
“There are different explanations depending on who you ask,” said Osvald. “And now there’s no one to ask anymore.” He took another step. “I’ll go get those letters now.”
36
Bergenhem kept the truck under surveillance. The two men who had gotten out and were standing next to it seemed to be doing the same, or waiting for something or someone.
One of them, the older one, looked at his watch.
Bergenhem had parked on the cross street on the other side of Fastlagsgatan, among a row of cars that were all past their prime. His own unmarked service car would actually have stood out if it weren’t so dirty.
