Sail of Stone

from this place, it’s called Glen Islay Bed and Breakfast.” She looked at him. “Ross Avenue, Inverness. The street is called Ross Avenue. I assume he was calling from there.”

Glen Islay, thought Winter. It sounds like a brand of whisky. I recognize it, but it’s not whisky.

“Why do you assume your father called from there?” he asked.

“He might have mentioned it, now that I think about it. And anyway, he doesn’t have a cell phone.”

So there are still people who aren’t cellified, Winter thought. In my next life I’ll be one of them.

“I tried to send my cell along with him, but he refused,” said Johanna. “Said that it wouldn’t work and then he’d just get frustrated on his trip.”

“He had a point there,” said Winter.

“In any case, he hasn’t made any sort of contact since then,” she said.

“Is it really that long a time?” Winter asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Four days. After all, you did wait four days to become worried. It could-”

“What do you mean?” she interrupted. “Like I wasn’t worried the whole time. But as I just said, my father is not the type to call every day. But finally I became worried enough on top of my normal worrying that I called Glen Is… Glen Is…” She broke off and started to cry.

Winter felt immobile, like a stone. I’m an idiot, he thought. And this is something I can’t really handle. It suddenly feels personal. Now I have to find a way out.

“What is your dad’s name?” he asked gently.

“Ax… Axel,” she answered. “Axel Osvald.”

Winter got up, took her cup and his own, put them away to create a distraction, another way of thinking.

He went back to his chair and sat down.

“What do you think?” he said. “What could have happened? What are you thinking right now?”

“I think something has happened to him.”

“Why do you think that?”

“There’s no other explanation for why he hasn’t contacted me by now.”

Winter thought. Thought like a detective. It felt like an effort after all his other thoughts this summer, all his other plans.

“Did he rent a car?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“But your father has a driver’s license?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of work does he do?”

“He’s… a carpenter.”

“That took you a moment,” said Winter.

“Yes. He was a fisherman before, like everyone else in the Osvald family. And like almost everyone else on the island. But he quit.”

Winter didn’t question this further. He continued:

“Maybe he found something, met someone, and maybe it was somewhere other than in Inverness and he’ll contact you soon.”

“Oh, it’s such a relief to hear you say that,” she said with sudden irony.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Forgive me. I just thought that you would know.”

“We can register a description of him with Interpol,” Winter said. “If you want to do that, I can help you.”

“Interpol-that sounds so formal. Will it really get results? Isn’t there something else you can do?”

“Listen, Johanna. It hasn’t been very long yet. There’s nothing to indicate that your dad is in danger. He could-”

“How do you explain that letter, then?” she interrupted, nodding toward the letter that was still on the table.

“I can’t explain it,” said Winter.

“You think it’s some nutcase?”

“Is that what you think?” asked Winter.

“I don’t know what to think. I only know that Dad took the fact that he was going very seriously. Or maybe he learned something new, like I said before. And that it’s weird that he hasn’t contacted me.”

Inverness. Winter got up and walked over to the map of Europe that hung on the wall facing the hall. Inverness, the northern point of the Highlands. He had been there, twenty years ago. Only one time, on his way through from north to south. He thought of the woman who was sitting behind him. It must have been the same summer…

He considered this as he looked at the map. Yes, it could have been that summer, or right after it. An Indian summer like this one, in September. He had been on his way somewhere in his life, but he didn’t know where. He had decided to quit studying law after the survey course, because that survey was quite enough, thank you very much.

He had worked as a sorter at the post office. That was before the inheritance from his grandfather, which changed a lot. He had said adios to the letters and decided to travel in Great Britain because he had never been there. He wanted to do it right. He took the ferry to Newcastle and the northbound train all the way to Thurso and out to Dunnet Head, which was the northernmost point of the island nation, and then he traveled south by train and bus and thumb to the southernmost point, Lizard Point; it was a mission he’d assigned to himself, and he realized that this was what his life would be like forever after: He was on his way, but he never really knew how, and yet his uncertainty was methodical and planned.

I haven’t allowed myself to have confidence in my uncertainty until now, he suddenly thought, and he looked at the name “Inverness” on the map again. He had stayed there for one night, at a B and B.

There was one particular memory. He thought of that place. He remembered it now because he had gone from the station to the streets where all the B and Bs were, and it had been a long way there, at least that’s how he remembered it; longer than they’d told him at the tourist bureau at the station, and they had called a place he didn’t remember the name of and gotten him a room and then he walked, walked through the city center and over a bridge and through a new city center that looked like it came from a different civilization and into a neighborhood of small houses, houses of stone, granite, and to the left and to the right and straight ahead and to the left and right and right and right and left. You can’t miss it, dear. It was one of his first experiences with the peculiar people of Britain.

He had looked for the name of the street his B and B was supposed to be on for so long that the name was forever archived deep in his memory. He also remembered it because he had been looking for a fancy avenue but hadn’t seen one, especially not when he found the right street: Ross Avenue. A street like any other.

Winter turned to her with a feeling of wonder in his body.

“Didn’t you say that his B and B was on Ross Avenue?”

“Yes.”

He turned back to the map.

“I’ve been there,” he said. “I stayed in a B and B on Ross Avenue. For one night.”

“How strange,” he heard her say.

Winter didn’t want to say that it was then, that it was after that summer. He turned to her again. He had been struck by another thought.

“I know someone from the Inverness area,” he said. “A colleague, actually.”

Anette’s dad poured her a cup and placed it in her hand. His son had been standing by the window looking out, and then he left and continued carrying things.

Aneta sat on a stool in the bare kitchen. The table was folded up and leaning against the wall.

“Why did you decide to come here now?” Lindsten asked.

“I was here the other day, and it didn’t look so good,” she answered.

“What didn’t?”

Aneta sipped her coffee, which was hot and strong.

“The situation.”