Sail of Stone (10 page)

“You listed a whole investigation squad,” said Ringmar.

“If you want to look at it that way.”

“May I borrow it?” said Ringmar.

Winter turned around in his chair and reached for the CD rack and took out a CD case and tossed it like a Frisbee to Ringmar, who caught it with an elegant motion. He saw a man’s back, clad in a black coat, wandering along a river. It said “Tales from the Hudson” at the bottom. Ringmar thought of the sluggish river behind him and thought of something else.

“The Hudson River,” he said.

Winter knew what he was thinking about.

“How is Martin?” asked Winter.

“Good.”

“Is he still in New York?”

“Yes.”

Ringmar’s son Martin worked as a chef at a good restaurant in Manhattan. Third Avenue. He had a complicated relationship with his father. Or maybe it was the other way around. Winter didn’t know, but he had his own idea of what had happened. He hadn’t asked, not about
everything. And Ringmar had reestablished contact with his son. They spoke to each other, before it was too late. For Winter it had been too late, or almost too late. He had spoken with his father days before his death. Bengt Winter had died at Hospital Costa del Sol outside of Marbella and Winter had been there. It was the first time they’d seen each other in five or six years, and the first time they’d spoken to each other. It was a tragedy. Worth crying oneself to sleep over night after night.

“Have you thought about going over and visiting soon?” asked Winter.

“Thought about it.”

“Go, for fuck’s sake.”

Ringmar moved his head in time with the piano music that streamed through the room. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“They had some sort of catering job for a firm in the World Trade Center,” he said.

Winter didn’t answer, waited.

“Martin was there sometimes; he was in charge of getting the buffet set up or something.”

“When did he tell you that?” asked Winter.

“When do you think? After nine-eleven, of course. There was no reason to before.”

Winter nodded.

“But he wasn’t there that day.” Ringmar walked away from the window and sat on the chair on the other side of the desk. Winter took a drag. It sounded like the volume had been turned up, but the music had just changed tempo, become even more nervous. Desperate. Tales from New York. “Good God. He was supposed to have been there
that day
but that consulting firm or whatever the hell it was changed the reception to the next day.” Ringmar rasped out a rough sound, like half a laugh. “There was no reception the next day.”

“How did Martin react?”

“He’s thanking God, I think.”

“Mmhmm.”

“He’s started to visit the church next door,” said Ringmar, and Winter thought that his face brightened. “He says that he sits there without praying or anything. But that he feels peace there. And thankfulness, he says.”

“Go over,” said Winter.

“I’ve been about to,” said Ringmar. “But now he’s coming home.”

“Is he?”

“Just a break. For a few weeks.”

Winter left early and walked by way of Saluhallen, the indoor market. He bought a pound of farmer cheese from Brittany and two Estonian flatbreads; that was all.

A bar on Södra Larmgatan glowed invitingly. It was new and he didn’t see a name. He went in and ordered a beer from the tap and sat at a window table. A man was sitting alone at the bar. The bartender was preparing glasses and olives and plates and bottles and doing all the other pleasant things bartenders occupy themselves with during the hour of blue twilight before guests arrive. Winter lit a Corps. This was the best time in a bar, as good as empty, a sense of anticipation before the evening, an unidentifiable serene sound. He looked around. The twenty-first century had introduced new trends in bar design. It was no longer mini-mini-minimalistic, the kind of design that gave the impression that you were sitting in a deserted hangar.

There was leather and wood and a warm light here. No bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling.

He could have his new office here. Here, by the window. During interrogations you could hold the candle a little closer to the person being interrogated in order to see the play of his eyes. The video camera could stand on the windowsill.

His colleagues from the jail could wait at the bar.

He took his phone out of his inner jacket pocket and called home.

“I’m on my way,” he said.

The bartender dropped a glass on the floor. The floor was made of stone. The man at the bar yelled, “Cheers!” and raised his glass.

“The streetcar is lively, I hear,” said Angela.

“Ha ha.”

“Be good and come home now,” said Angela.

Winter looked around.

“What do you say about a little drink before dinner?” he said.

“It depends on the place,” she said.

“It’s new and I’m the only one here,” he said, watching as the man at the bar climbed off his stool and made some sort of bow toward the
bartender and left the bar with the exaggeratedly decisive movements of someone who is half drunk.

“I have to ask Elsa,” said Angela.

“Do you have to ask her permission for everything?”

“Ha ha ha.”

“I promise not to smoke,” said Winter.

“She says it’s okay if I come, but she wants to invite herself along to keep an eye on us.”

“Södra Larmgatan, right across from Saluhallen.”

He hung up and drank his beer. People outside were on their way somewhere. The sun was on its way to the Southern Hemisphere. The sky was colored orange, which meant that the sun would come back tomorrow. The light outside was blue because the hour was blue. A long evening awaited. He thought he would let it take its course; he wouldn’t interfere.

The phone rang again. He didn’t recognize the number on the screen. He debated letting it ring, but if he did it would be the first time.

There’s a first time for everything.

He didn’t answer.

He felt a sensation in his body when the ringing stopped.

Something has happened.

He lifted his hand toward the bartender.

This calls for a celebration.

A
ngela came with Elsa, who immediately ordered a drink with bubbles. Angela ordered a dry martini. Winter ordered a Longmorn. Angela had a dark circle under one eye, which was a sign that she was tired. Never more than one circle, and it was never there for more than a few short hours, before a new day. Soon it would be a new day.

“Cheers, and hi,” said Elsa.

Winter raised his glass. He looked into Angela’s eyes. What kind of habits are we teaching our daughter? How will it be when we’re not there keeping an eye on her? What will happen with the bubbles?

“Is it good, Elsa?” asked Angela.

“It tickles my nooose,” said Elsa.

Just then, Winter felt a sting in his nose and in the next second he sneezed.

“Bless you!” shrieked Elsa.

“Thanks, sweetie.”

“Does your nose tickle too, Papa?”

“Yes. Just like yours.”

“But I didn’t sneeze!”

“I did it for both of us.”

“Ha ha!”

“If you two keep this up, I’ll sneeze too,” said Angela.

“How can this be explained from a purely medical perspective?” said Winter.

“What?”

“Well, you’re a doctor. How do you explain why you have a sneezing reflex when other people talk about sneezing?”

“I don’t think the research has come very far in that area,” said Angela. “And I really don’t know which branch it would be done in.”

“Medicine,” said Winter. “Ear nose throat.”

“No.”

“Physiology.”

“No.”

“Sneeziology.”

“No.”

“Nosiness,” said Elsa.

Her parents looked at her.

I am the father of a genius, thought Winter.

“Where did you get that from, Elsa?” asked Angela.

“You had to say something with ‘nose,’ right? My day-care teacher told us the story of the nosy boy.”

“So you didn’t mean that Papa and I were talking about knowing about noses?”

Winter saw that Elsa didn’t understand the question, and he relaxed.

“Did your teacher tell you what nosiness means?” he asked.

“I forget.”

“What does it actually mean?” asked Angela, looking at him.

“That you take too many liberties,” said Winter.

“You’re taking too many liberties here,” said the man who said that his name was Sigge Lindsten and that he was Anette Lindsten’s father. “Even for the police.”

Aneta Djanali didn’t answer. She still felt dizzy. If there had been anything to take hold of, she would have grabbed it.

“Are you okay?” asked the man.

“Could I have a glass of water?”

The man seemed to make a decision. He no longer looked unsympathetic. Maybe he never had.

“Come in,” he said.

She took off her shoes in the hall. She could smell some plant, a scent she recognized but couldn’t place.

When she followed the man to the kitchen she remembered that she had smelled the same scent in the apartment that two men were in the process of emptying in front of her. Crazy. Just crazy.

She felt the dizziness again.

“Please sit down,” said the man. He filled a glass with water. “Here,” he said.

She drank. She saw the wind move in a tree outside, maybe a maple.
The wind had increased the last few days, like a growling promise of autumn. She didn’t look forward to it.

She suddenly spun again. Am I becoming seriously ill? she thought.

“Now, what’s this about Anette?” said Sigge Lindsten.

That’s my question, she thought.

“Is Anette home?” she asked.

“Not at the moment,” said the man.

She looked around.

“Is your wife home?”

“She’s not home at the moment either,” he said.

“Could I see some identification?” asked Aneta.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Identification. I’m sorry, but this is all a bit confusing, and I will explain soon. But first I have to be certain that you’re the—”

“Good Lord,” interrupted the man, “I’ll get my wallet. This should be interesting to hear.”

He went out into the hall and came back with his wallet and held it out, and she saw his driver’s license in a plastic sleeve. It was in the name of a Sigvard Lindsten, and the relatively recent photograph showed the man who stood before her.

“Thanks,” she said.

He closed his wallet.

“Have you heard of Hans Forsblad?” she asked.

“Isn’t it my turn to ask some questions?” said Lindsten.

“Just answer this one.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“That piece of shit wouldn’t dare come here. If he did, it would be the last thing he did.”

“When did Anette move out of the apartment in Kortedala?”

“That’s another question.”

“I’ll explain soon,” said Aneta.

Lindsten suddenly seemed to lose interest in the conversation. He turned toward the counter and turned on the faucet and turned it off again.

“When?” repeated Aneta.

“What?”

“When did she move?”

“She hasn’t moved,” said Lindsten. “Not officially. She has left the apartment but she hasn’t given notice yet.”

Good God, thought Aneta.

Time to explain.

Lindsten had made himself a cup of coffee. Aneta had declined. She had called dispatch and reported a break-in. She had called the local police.

She had felt like an idiot the whole time.

Would Fredrik have asked for identification first off if he had been her and had come up to Anette’s apartment and met a nice but worried dad and a sulky brother? She wasn’t sure. She would ask him.

It was an interesting psychological situation. She had wandered right into it. The man who had claimed he was Sigge Lindsten had shown exceptional presence of mind in this situation. Exceptional. She had been under his command. The younger man had been under his command. When she thought back to the hour or so she had spent in the apartment, she realized how skillfully he had handled everything. Almost an hour! They were in the process of emptying an entire apartment and the cops knock on the door and they offer coffee and wave good-bye in the end!

It was comical, but it was also something else.

She had exposed herself.

To the two men.

And to Hans Forsblad. If it had in fact been him.

Was that man also someone else?

“Do you have a picture of Forsblad in the house?”

Lindsten went and got a photograph without a frame. A young woman and a young man, trying to outdo each other’s smiles. It was possible that several years had gone by since, but she recognized Forsblad from the meeting in that damn apartment.

It struck her that this was the first time she’d seen Anette, really seen her. She had come here without having a face in mind. That was unusual for her. The first time. But she had also come here. Something had
brought
her here, and there was also something frightening in that thought.

Suddenly she thought of death. She thought of her own death. She felt the sharp but fleeting sense of dizziness again, as though she had been dragged down into an abyss, a darkness.

Something told her that she ought to run away from these people, these events. Run away from everything,
immediately,
hurry away from this case, this investigation, before everything got bigger, even more incomprehensible, worse. More dangerous.

Anette Lindsten had regular features that tried to make her beautiful but didn’t really succeed. Aneta held the picture in her hand. Anette’s face was long, and the impression was intensified by her hair, which hung free. She was wearing a dress that was bigger than it needed to be. Anette and Hans were sitting on a bench, and it wasn’t possible to determine how tall Anette was. The man was of an average build, well over six feet.

Anette held a Popsicle that was in the process of melting.

The picture was taken on a street with cars parked on it. A store was visible behind the couple, but she couldn’t see the name. A child was on the way into the store, maybe on the way to the ice cream counter. There were sharp shadows in the photograph. Somewhere outside the picture was a sharp sun.