Åke Edwardson - Sail of Stone

“Is Anette home?” asked Halders.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. She and her mother went to the coast.”

“To the coast?”

“We have a little cottage down in Vallda,” said Lindsten.

“When did they leave?” asked Halders.

“Does it matter?” Lindsten looked from one officer to the other. “They’d had enough, quite simply. Anette couldn’t handle… how he was calling.”

Running away to yet another place, thought Aneta.

“Does Forsblad know about this cottage?” asked Halders.

“Yes, I suppose he does.”

“Is it so smart to go there, then?”

“There’s no telephone there. And Anette has the sense to turn off her cell.”

“But he doesn’t need to call. He can go there himself,” said Halders.

“I don’t think so,” said Lindsten. “I don’t think he would dare to.”

“What kind of car does Forsblad have?” asked Halders, but at that moment his telephone rang. He answered and listened and hung up.

“The car belongs to a Bengt Marke,” he said to Aneta, and looked at Lindsten. “A car drove past here a few times when we got here. A Volvo V Forty, a few years under the hood. Black, but they all are. Bengt Marke. Is that someone you know?”

“Never heard of him.”

“We’ll have to check him out,” said Aneta to Halders.

“I’ll call down to… Anette and my wife and say that you were here,” said Lindsten.

“How can you do that?” asked Halders. “There’s no telephone in the cottage.”

“I’ll leave a message on her voice mail.”

“Didn’t you just say that she never checks it?”

“I never said that,” said Lindsten.

“Okay,” said Halders.

“What are you going to do about this?” asked Lindsten.

“We’re going to talk with Forsblad,” said Halders.

“Can you do that?”

“We can do everything,” said Halders.

In the car, Halders wore an expression that Aneta recognized. He was staring straight ahead. Aneta was driving.

“Have you become interested in this too?” she asked.

“Curious,” said Halders. “About that Herr Hauptsturmführer Hans Forzblatt. But also about the rest of them.”

“Good.”

“Not least about the girl who was hiding behind the curtain while we were standing outside that place.”

“Are you guessing now, Fredrik?”

“No sir.”

“You really saw her?”

“Yes sir.”

“How well documented are the events surrounding shipwrecks?” said Ringmar.

“Is it called a shipwreck?” said Winter.

“Answer the question,” said Ringmar.

“I don’t know,” said Winter. “The boat, the Marino, sank on their way home from south of Iceland.”

“Where did it happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“But two men survived?”

“Apparently. John Osvald’s brother and another crew member.”

“Were they on board at the time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or were they in harbor?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has anything been recovered from the wreck? Wreckage?”

“I don’t know.”

“It must have gotten some attention at the time. Something, at least. In the paper over there.”

“I don’t know.”

“Were there any dives for the wreckage?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know, Erik?”

“I really don’t know, Bertil.”

Hans Forsblad lived as a “boarder” with someone on the northern riverside; that was his expression. It means that he has to go over a bridge from Hisingen to get to Anette, thought Aneta. Always something.

“Look at that,” said Halders as they studied the nameplates at the door. “Someone else from the Marke family resides here.”

Aneta read: Susanne Marke. Fourth floor. She looked up. Could be that balcony. Or that one. Must be a nice view over the river. You would see several churches. The sea was so close you could dive. You would probably kill yourself, but you could consider giving it a try.

“Does he live with her?” said Halders.

“I don’t know.”

Winter was alone in the room. He was playing Haden and Metheny, Beyond the Missouri Sky, Haden’s bass ambling around the walls, Metheny’s guitars layered above it, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. Spiritual, beautiful like the dawn in September, like a streak of smoke across the horizon, like his daughter’s smile, like the beach grove where their house-

The phone rang, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo; he answered without lowering the volume, heard the Realtor’s voice, It’s about time for a decision, isn’t it? Do you know what you-

I know.

No one answered the doorbell. Aneta turned around and saw the churches on the other side of the river, and the Seaman’s Wife standing and waiting on the pillar outside of the Maritime Museum, looking out toward the mouth of the harbor. Eyes of stone, a body of stone; it was a sculpture that summarized part of life near the sea in this part of the world. She had always been there.

“Do you ever think about what that sculpture symbolizes?” she asked Halders, who had also turned around.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he answered.

“What’s obvious?”

“She’s waiting for her husband to come home from the sea. She’s filled with anxiety. Her name is the Seaman’s Wife.” He looked at her. “Every Gothenburger knows that.”

“Including me,” said Aneta.

“The pillar was built in the beginning of the thirties, first the pillar and then the woman,” said Halders. “The interwar period. Thirty-three, I think.”

“The things you know.”

“It interests me.”

“What? The sea?”

“Oh, this city’s history.”

Two tugboats were pulling a container ship farther into the harbor. A ferry passed, on its way to Denmark. She could see passengers duck as they glided under the bridge. There was a pale light over there, above the sea, as though everything was unreliable there, hazardous. She thought she could see the Seaman’s Wife’s gaze against that opening.

“She’s actually looking the wrong way,” said Halders, pointing at the sculpture.

“What do you mean?”

“I know this, but maybe you can see it from here… Well, she’s not looking out at the sea; she’s looking straight here, actually. Toward the northern riverside.” He turned to her and smiled. “She’s looking straight at us.”

“Is there something symbolic about that, do you think?”

“Something that includes Forsblad, you mean? That he lives in this building and the woman over there is leading us here?”

“It’s an interesting theory,” said Aneta.

“The sculptor had trouble finding the sea,” said Halders. “Maybe it was foggy the day the lady arrived.”

Aneta laughed. The Stena Line catamaran passed. She could see passengers on that quarterdeck too. Just like the Seaman’s Wife, they were gazing at the northern shore where she was standing. She had the urge to wave. She had done so when she was a child, she’d done so often. There were more ships in the harbor back then. Sometimes you couldn’t see the other side of the harbor for all the ships.

“She’s really standing there as a memorial,” said Halders, “a monument for all the sailors and fishermen who were lost in the First World War, and all the ships that sank.”

“Then she’s waiting in vain,” said Aneta.

Winter biked home for lunch. Angela had three days off in a row. She was going to hang around town. Elsa was going to hang around with her.

But right now she was home. The fish was simple and good, just olive oil and lemon and a little butter, tarragon, and another fresh herb that he couldn’t identify at first. He could still feel the sweat on his back from his bike ride.