Sail of Stone

I’m lying.

We won’t see each other for a long time, he had said to Krister in the car on the way back.

Okay, Krister had said.

They had shaken hands at Sveaplan.

Winter had told him about Macdonald. But that was just the small reason. He tried to explain the other one, the big one. It wasn’t easy.

“I’m not usually wrong,” he said.

Osvald looked out through the window again. It looked like dusk was coming, but it wasn’t time for that. A cloud must have come in over the island.

“If there’s anything more to know, then of course it’s good if someone investigates,” said Osvald.

Winter nodded.

“So there is?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m going.”

“I understand,” said Osvald.

“Someone got your father to go over,” said Winter.

“What do you mean?”

“He got a letter, didn’t he?”

“Yes, yes, right.”

Winter looked at the two old sheets of paper that lay on the glass coffee table. He could see the rather jerky handwriting from here, but he couldn’t read it.

“I would like to borrow those two letters for a while.”

“Why?”

“So we can take a closer look at them.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Why would you think that?” asked Winter.

“Well, I don’t know, it’s just what I thought of.”

Winter didn’t say anything. He heard the moped for the third time out there, brutt-brutt-brutt-bruuuuuuut as it passed, brutt-brutt-brutt. He suddenly thought of an old movie in which a motorcycle regularly, or rather irregularly, showed up in the middle of groups of people, in a city, suddenly it was there and then it was gone. Amarcord. Fellini.

There was also another movie… it was the same thing, a character on a motorcycle, and it was an obvious wink at Fellini’s film. What was the other one called? He saw a village and a sea… it was called Local Hero. And as he recalled it was filmed somewhere in Scotland, a small community by the sea where everyone was suspicious of newcomers.

“Isn’t it to look for fingerprints?” said Osvald.

“Maybe,” said Winter.

He thought of the letter that had come a month earlier and that had caused Axel Osvald to journey away toward his death. He looked at his son and saw that he was thinking about that too.

“Are you going to compare?” said Osvald.

“Maybe,” said Winter.

“But surely you don’t think that…”

Winter didn’t answer. The moped went by for the fourth time. It must be different mopeds, but in that case they sounded completely identical. He saw that film from Scotland pass by in his mind for a few seconds. The houses were close together. There was an inn. An artsy type ran it. He and an American had discussed selling a beach.

“That’s completely idiotic,” said Osvald. “That would mean Grandpa was still alive.” He got up from his chair. “Do you really think he is?”

“What do you think?”

“No, no.”

“What did your father think?”

“Not that. Not that it’s… like that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Maybe he hoped it was. At one time. But that’s another story.”

Belief. Or hope. Was it different? In Winter’s world, in the world where he had thus far spent most of his time, in his adult life, belief and hope sometimes slid into each other.

“I want to ask you about one more thing, Erik,” said Winter.

“What is it, Erik?” said Osvald.

“Do you have any photographs at home of your grandfather when he was young?”

Osvald moved his hand up to his forehead again. He rubbed his hair. He was standing in the middle of the floor.

“Anything other than that probably doesn’t exist,” he said. “We only remember him as young, you know.”

“Is there a picture?” asked Winter.

“Yes,” Osvald said, and left the room.

Bergenhem was standing four rows away from the truck, which seemed to sway in the wind when the cover moved. He could see that it was stretched over a van, which was peculiar. He looked at his watch. He had been sitting there for half an hour. He got out and approached the truck. He looked toward the entrance, where hundreds of people were going in and out and pushing carts full of flat packages. IKEA’s business idea was flat packs, and they sailed around the world. All over the world people bought the packages and assembled their homes, their worlds. Bergenhem still had a scar on his knuckles from trying to assemble a TV stand in which the predrilled holes in the hard-as-stone glued sheets of beech didn’t match the hardware. He had sworn and bled. But it had been cheap. In the end he had pounded in the screws with a hammer.

He looked at his watch again, at the truck again. He walked toward the entrance.

Half an hour later the parking lot began to empty.

The truck was still there.

Bergenhem began to realize what had happened.

Fifteen minutes later the truck was alone in its row. Bergenhem understood perfectly now. He called Meijner.

37

Harbour Office. It looked the way it always had, mostly like a wall against the sea. He had parked outside the shipyard and walked back along the quays. There was no wind.

It fit in. It was quiet here, a quiet no one wanted to have. Peterhead had taken over everything now, or almost everything. The shipyard behind his back was empty and quiet. A hammer strike coming from there would have caused passersby to jump. But there were no strikes.

He himself had held a hammer in there, in the red dust.

Suddenly he turned around, right in front of the fish market, which was partially built on poles above the water. People streamed out on their way to the buses that waited in the parking lot. He heard American voices, like sheep bleating their way up to the buses. Brae-brae-brae-brae.

In one of the docks there were still boats with meaningful existence, trawlers from here and from the horn: the Three Sisters, Priestman, Avoca, Jolair, Sustain. A familiar name: Monadhliath.

That couldn’t be right.

A man came up onto the quarterdeck. He walked by as fast as he could, with his eyes on the Marine Accident Investigation Branch on the other side.

He shifted his gaze. He didn’t need any reminders.

Absolutely nothing had happened to the houses behind the shipyard. The stone walls were like the bottom of