“Did the neighbors call?”
“Yes,” she answered. “And it wasn’t the first time.”
“But it was the last,” he said.
“At least from here,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “From this place.”
“No,” said Lindsten, and she saw the resolve in his face. “There will be no more times.” He drank from his cup, with the same resolve. She could see that the hot coffee hurt his throat.
“Where is Anette now?” Aneta asked.
He didn’t answer at first.
“In a safe place,” he said after a bit.
“Is she staying at your house?”
“For the time being,” he said, and looked away.
“Do you know where her husband is?”
“No,” he answered.
“What we’re discussing now is very important,” said Aneta. “From a general perspective, too. There are many women who are afraid of their husbands. Or their exes. Who try to stay away. Who must go into hiding. Or who sometimes hope for a change. Who stay.”
“Well, that’s over with in this case,” said Lindsten.
“Who rents the apartment?” asked Aneta.
“It’s always been in Anette’s name,” he said. “There are two months left on the lease but that’s our treat, if I can say so. It will be empty.”
“Have you spoken with the husband? Her husband?”
“That damn bastard? He called yesterday and I told him to stay away.”
“Will he?”
“If he shows up at our house, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop Peter from beating him up, and then we’d really have to deal with the police, wouldn’t we?”
“Yes. That’s not a good way to go about it.”
“He’d be getting a taste of his own medicine,” said Lindsten. “His own bitter medicine.”
They heard a box thud in the hall, a curse from Peter Lindsten. The dad motioned toward the hall with his head. “The difference would be that that devil would be dealing with someone his own size.”
Forsblad, Hans Forsblad. That was the man’s name. Aneta had seen the name in the papers at the dispatch center, and later with her colleagues in Kortedala. The matter was on its way to the coordinator for the violence against women program.
Forsblad’s name was very Swedish too, she thought-“rapids leaf”-it came from nature, and just like his wife’s it linked something with great power to infinite lightness. An airiness. Who stood for what? Should it be interpreted physically?
“Doesn’t he have the keys to this place?” she asked.
“We’ve changed the locks,” said Lindsten.
“Where are his things?”
“He knows where he can collect them,” said Lindsten.
Somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine, thought Aneta.
“So you’ve made him homeless.”
Lindsten laughed suddenly, a laugh without joy.
“He hasn’t stayed a night in this apartment for a damn long time,” he said. “He’s been here, it’s true. But only to… to…” And suddenly it was as though his face cracked and she saw his eyes fill and how he suddenly turned toward the window, as though he were ashamed of his behavior, but it wasn’t shame.
“She didn’t have a restraining order,” said Aneta. “Unfortunately.”
“As though it would help,” said Lindsten in a muffled voice, with his head lowered.
“He could have been issued a restraining order if Anette had reported him,” said Aneta. “Or someone else. I could have made the decision myself, for the short term. I was prepared to do it now. That’s why I came here.”
He looked up, his eyes still glistening.
“It’s not a concern anymore,” he said, “none of it.”
Suddenly it was as though the father didn’t believe his own words. She heard another thud in the hall, another curse. It was time for her to go. These people had a move to undertake, a departure that would lead to a new era in their lives. She truly hoped that it would be so for the woman whose face she had seen for only three seconds.
“You know someone from there?” asked Johanna Osvald. She looked like she was about to get up. Winter remained standing by the map. “From Inverness?”
“I think so.”
“A colleague? You mean a policeman?”
“Yes. He lives in London but he’s a Scot.”
Winter thought, searched the archives of his memory. There were many corridors. He saw London, an inspector his own age with a Scottish accent, a picture of a beautiful wife and two beautiful children who were twins, the inspector’s face, which perhaps couldn’t be called beautiful, but was probably attractive to one who could judge such things.
The face had an origin. A farm outside of Inverness. That’s what Steve had said. Winter looked at the map; it was of an impossibly large scale.
“Steve Macdonald,” said Winter. “He’s from there.”
“Do you mean that you could ask him?” said Johanna.
“Yes,” said Winter.
“He could probably check if Dad rented a car?” she said.
“We can do that,” he said. “You can do it yourself.”
“Yes, but if your colleague is from there maybe he knows someone who can… oh… check if it… no, I don’t know.” Now she was standing next to Winter, in front of the map. It seemed as though she didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to see any of the country that had played such a large and tumultuous role in the Osvald family’s lives. And might continue to do so, he thought.
He felt her nearness, heard her breathing. At that second, he thought of how the years go by, a completely banal thought, but true.
“If you want to know more, maybe Steve knows who we should ask,” said Winter, turning toward her.
What am I getting roped into here? he thought. In normal cases, this conversation would have been finished before it started. Now it has almost become a case. An international case.
5
He stood at the summit. The church lay below him. He had prayed there sometimes, in earlier years, prayed to Jesus for his soul. The church was the only thing from the really old days that was still there in Newtown.
When Lord and Lady moved the village in 1836, the church was allowed to remain where it was. It was from the 1300s, after all. That sounded like before all time, before the great sailing voyages. The great discoveries.
Still, what a brutal story it was! Lord and Lady moved the village. They didn’t want it next to the castle.
They didn’t want the railroad next to the castle.
He could see the viaducts down there, clanging in the air from the bite of the wheels. They had to be built down there, far away from Lord and Lady. A superhuman act, but possible.
Lord and Lady were gone now, like so much else here. The sea remained, but even that seemed to pull away, little by little each year. The trawlers ended up farther away during ebb, their shining bellies like jaws in the twilight, as though a school of killer whales had started to attack the city but had gotten stuck in the ebb.
He stood above the docks. There was sulfur in the air. In the air, he thought: What seemed to be physical
