Sail of Stone (49 page)

He dreamed of water, black water. He saw a face under the water. He couldn’t see who it was. It shone with a dreadfully strong light, as though from within itself. There was nothing in its eyes.

It was someone he had known.

He woke at dawn and was thirsty. He pulled up the blinds a little bit and saw half the sea. He thought he heard it. He heard seabirds screaming. There was a black bus down there, on the other side of the street, next to the post office. He thought of his dreams again; a sense of fear remained in the room even now that he had been awake for a while. He drank a glass of water and considered a mouthful of whisky but refrained. It would be another day.

It wouldn’t be like any other day he had experienced.

When he lay down again he thought about how this day that had now begun would be the last. Why did he think that? It was like a dream where truths that no one wanted to hear took form.

T
hey left after an early breakfast. Macdonald hadn’t slept well, either. Neither of them blamed the whisky. It was something else. It was this city. Something that had been here.

It could be called intuition. An impulse, sometimes immediate. To know without being able to present the evidence. That could be the most frustrating part. That could be the deciding factor: intuition. They both had it. A detective without intuition was doomed, doomed like a fish out of water.

It wasn’t far to Buckie; it was shorter than Winter thought. They could have taken a taxi there last night, but he wanted to have a clear head. He wasn’t tired now. It was gone now.

They drove along the coastal road through Portnockie, Findochty, Portessie. It was a calm morning. The sea was calm. The sun was hanging above the eastern mountains now, lighting up the horizon. Winter could see the smoke from a ship that was balancing on the line of the horizon. There were no clouds. It was one of the most beautiful mornings God had made.

The Cluny Hotel was half lit up by the morning. Macdonald parked outside of the Buckie Thistle Social Club. A small group of schoolchildren walked by. One of the children was carrying a soccer ball under his arm.

A maid in a gray apron was vacuuming the lobby. She had begun with the lowest tread and looked up in surprise when the two men nodded a greeting and stepped up the stairs.

Winter held the photograph in his hand, John Osvald’s profile.

He walked slowly up the stairs, from frame to frame containing the city’s black and white history. The fishing industry and fishing had been the present and future for this city of the past, Buckie. Now the past remained. The Cluny Hotel belonged to the past.

They walked in a staircase whose walls shone with red velvet.

Winter saw masts, forests of masts. Had he been wrong? Was it someone else he’d seen … and somewhere else?

He looked at the picture of the young Osvald again, taken on an island in a Swedish archipelago. Winter could see the sea behind Osvald. It was also a calm day, a beautiful day. Maybe Osvald had turned his face away to avoid getting the sun in his eyes.

“Here we have a few thousand,” said Macdonald, who was a step ahead. Macdonald pointed at another framed photo. He stood three steps from the restaurant level up above.

Winter studied the picture. The square, Cluny Square, was black with people. They were standing in a thousand circles around the monument, the Buckie War Memorial, finally erected in 1925 in memory of the dead during the first great war.

Now it was 1945. Winter read the few words on the label next to the frame. The people of Buckie gather at the monument to celebrate the end of the Great War. There was a date on the label. It was a spring day. It was a beautiful day; the sun plowed shadows through the mass of people. Winter looked at the faces in the foreground. A man in a cap stood near the camera. He had turned his head to the side, as though to avoid the sun. It was John Osvald.

“Yeah, it’s him,” said Macdonald.

Winter looked at the two faces, back and forth. There was no doubt. Macdonald held up Winter’s photograph, compared.

“Yeah,” Macdonald repeated. “No question.”

“But it doesn’t tell us that he’s still around,” said Winter.

“Around where?” said Macdonald.

“Around life,” Winter said.

They stood on the square. The letters on the stone of the pedestal were forever: Their Name Liveth For Ever.

Two elderly people were sitting on a park bench in front of the building next to the square. They seemed to be the same couple Winter had seen last time he’d stood here. He walked over to the building. There was a sign on the wall: “Struan House—Where older people find care in housing.”

They were two old men. Winter walked over. He asked the men if they were around when the end of World War II was celebrated. They
looked at him. Macdonald translated to Scottish. They asked why he wanted to know that. Macdonald explained. Winter took out the photograph. They looked at it and shook their heads.

“Would you like to come along into the hotel and look at the photo on the wall?” Macdonald asked.

The two men got up after a minute.

Inside, they walked up the stairs without great difficulty.

“Has it been hanging here long?” one of them said, in front of the photograph.

They studied the picture.

“So I’m there in that sea of people,” said the other, nodding at the sea of people.

“I can’t see you, Mike.”

“I don’t remember where I was standing,” said Mike.

“Do you recognize him?” Macdonald asked, placing his index finger on Osvald’s cap.

“So it’s the same guy?” said Mike.

“See for yourself,” Macdonald said, holding out Winter’s photo.

“Yeah,” Mike said, comparing it a few times. “But he’s a stranger to me.”

Macdonald and Winter got into the car. The owner of the pub on the other side of the street rolled up the blinds. There were chairs on the tables inside the windows. A ray of sunshine lit up part of the bar. Winter suddenly felt very thirsty.

“We’ve gotten this far, anyway,” said Macdonald.

“Don’t you want to get farther?” said Winter.

“So where should we go?” Macdonald asked. “What should we do?”

“I don’t know,” Winter said. “And it’s a question of time, too.”

Macdonald looked at his watch.

“The girls will get on the train in an hour or so.”

“We should probably start on our way up to those high lands ourselves,” said Winter.

Macdonald studied the pub owner, who had started to take the chairs down from the tables. He was wearing sunglasses for protection from the sun, which shone intensely between the two houses behind Winter and Macdonald.

“I sense that we’re close,” Macdonald said, turning to Winter. “Don’t you feel it too?”

Winter nodded but didn’t answer.

“We’ve followed him. At least partially, we’ve followed in his old footsteps,” said Macdonald.

“Or new ones,” said Winter.

“New and old,” Macdonald said. “We can drive through Dufftown so you can buy a few bottles at the Glenfarclas distillery.” He turned the key.

His phone rang. He got it out of his leather jacket after the fourth ring.

“Yes?” Macdonald nodded at Winter. “Good morning yourself, Inspector Craig.” He listened.

“Sorry it took some time,” said Craig, “but it was like I couldn’t convince the authorities of the penalty in this case.”

“I understand,” said Macdonald.

“It’s not exactly murder,” said Craig.

“Not technically,” said Macdonald.

“In any case, I have the information now,” said Craig. “Sure enough, two of those calls to Glen Islay B and B on Ross Avenue came from a landline in Sweden, dialing code thirty-one.”

“The daughter,” said Macdonald. “Johanna Osvald.”

“Yes,” said Craig. Macdonald heard the rustle of paper. Someone said something in the background. Craig’s voice came back. “There weren’t too many phone calls to Glen Islay during that time period. The off season. But one of them might be of interest. At least, it’s a little odd. It’s from the days when this Axel Osvald was staying there.”

“Yes?”

“Someone called from a phone booth,” said Craig.

“Good,” said Macdonald.

Telephone booths were good. Cell phones were trickier; with those they could establish the area, but then it could be difficult. Telephone booths were not as mobile.

First they could tell that it was a phone booth, and then which one it was, and where it was. Sometimes they seized the whole booth for a technical investigation.

“It was a woman,” said Macdonald, “according to the matron at Glen Islay.”

“Whatever you say,” said Craig, “The call came from a telephone booth up in Cullen. Have you ever been there?”

“Cullen?”

“Yes.”

“I’m on my way,” said Macdonald.

A
neta Djanali drove home. It was a brilliant day, really brilliant. Everything above the buildings was blue. There were sharp shadows all over Sveagatan. There was a fresh smell in the wind.

She walked quickly through the hall, after having checked the new lock, and she went into the bedroom and took off her blouse and the thin undershirt, and it was as she was unbuckling her belt that she froze.

She pulled the belt tight again and put on her blouse and felt her pulse. What had she seen? No. What had she
not
seen?

She walked slowly out into the hall.

The shell.

The shell was in its place on the shelf.

She approached it slowly. She didn’t want to touch it.

She listened for sounds now, listened inward, backward. She turned around slowly, following the sound of bare feet.

“I didn’t think you’d come back so soon,” said Susanne Marke.

The woman was standing barefoot in her hall, in
her
hall!

Aneta could still hear hammering in her head, a sledgehammer between her eyes. She heard herself:

“Wha … what are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” said Susanne. She had a strange expression in her eyes. “You were supposed to come home soon.”

“Wh … why?” said Aneta. That was the most urgent question. Not how, when, what, who.

“You still don’t get it?” said Susanne.

Aneta didn’t think to move. Susanne was standing still. She had nothing in her hands.

“What am I supposed to get?”

Susanne suddenly laughed, hard, shrill.

“About Anette and me!”

“Anette and … you?” Aneta echoed.

Susanne took a step forward, and another. She was still a few yards away.

“Why do you think everyone is keeping so quiet about everything?” she said. “Including Anette? Why do you think?”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Aneta said, and suddenly she could move. “You broke into my house. That’s a crime, and now we—”

“I don’t
give
a shit!” Susanne screamed, taking another step forward. “Just like I don’t give a shit about anyone else. Why do you think my dear brother can’t leave his dear wife alone, huh? Or why his dear wife’s dad doesn’t want anything to get out? Huh?
Huh
?”

“You’ve done the most to protect Hans,” said Aneta.

“No, I haven’t,” said Susanne. “But I haven’t been able to tell you
everything
. I had to think of Anette, too. Of what she wants. Her wishes.”

“Where is she now?”

“Soon she won’t have the strength to deal with it all,” said Susanne.

“Who is Bengt Marke?” asked Aneta.

“He’s my ex-husband. He has nothing to do with this.”

“He owns the car you drive around in.”

“That was a gift. Believe me. Bengt has nothing to do with this. He doesn’t even live in Sweden.”

“Where is Hans? Where’s your brother?”

“He wanted to talk to her one last time. I tried to stop it.”

“Where are they?”

“Anette wanted to make him understand. One last time.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Aneta.

“But you believe this?” she said, making a movement with her arms in the form of a circle. “That someone can get in here whenever they want?”

“I see that you’re here,” said Aneta.

“And before?” said Susanne. “Who was it before? It wasn’t me.” She suddenly pointed at the shell that shone dully in the light from the naked fixture in the hall. “I brought that back. My dear brother had it. Do you believe me now?”

“I … I don’t know what that explains,” said Aneta. “I don’t understand the logic of what you’re saying.”

Susanne continued to look at the shell. As though it would say something to them. It had a sound. Sometimes Aneta put the shell to her ear. It was the rush of the sea.

Aneta asked about Kontômé.

“There was a mask hanging here,” she said. “A mask of a spirit from Africa.”

She saw that Susanne didn’t understand, didn’t know.

“I got his special tools,” said Susanne. “You can get in anywhere.” She looked straight at Aneta. “Do you know who Hans got them from?”

“I can guess,” said Aneta.

“They’re down there now,” said Susanne. She looked at Aneta. “It’s wrong.”

“Wrong? Wrong? What’s wrong?”

“He shouldn’t have gone down. And she shouldn’t have gone down.” She continued to speak in a small voice, like someone else. “Something could happen.”

Aneta walked quickly through the hall, past Susanne. In the bedroom she first called the Lindstens’ house in Fredriksdal but didn’t get an answer. She called the house by the sea but didn’t get an answer. She called Anette Lindsten’s cell phone but didn’t get an answer.

She had to make a decision.

Susanne was truly afraid out there; it wasn’t just a disguise. They could solve the puzzle of everything that led up to this later, but right now Aneta felt that she had to act, act quickly.

She went back out into the hall.

“Are you really sure they’re down there at the cabin?” she asked.

“They’re there.”

“Who exactly is there?”

“Hans and Anette.”

Aneta took her jacket from the coatrack. Susanne was still standing completely still.

“Are you coming along?” asked Aneta.

“Coming along? Coming along where?”