Åke Edwardson - Sail of Stone

Around the neck.

He received his ale and watched it clear up.

The sea had been crazy that night, it had been c-r-a-z-y. They had all been crazy. Crazy.

It wasn’t just the money. Or the women.

Or God.

On the last night he took the bus to the southern point of the sea.

He wandered up in the mountains.

He found a place that could be a peaceful place. If the wind were right. If the light would just disappear.

In the evening he waited. Someone had lit a bonfire on the beach. He saw the faces like flecks. Someone was banging on a guitar, a ragged sound that floated out on the water. He thought he saw a movement out there.

At night he cried. He tried to write a new letter, in the old language. He tried to sort his memories into different piles, far away from one another. Before it became day, he planned to take out some of those damn piles and throw them on the fire and let them burn up. He heard his thoughts, the strong words he’d never articulated but was thinking now.

Words were nothing compared to actions. Words could hurt, but not like that, never like that.

There was one memory he kept at bay.

He had said that it didn’t concern him: This doesn’t have to do with you.

It was a good day.

Stay on land, he had said. Stay here.

I don’t want to. Why should I do that?

Stay.

No.

Stay.

But…

You’re not going on board. You’re not going on board. You’re not coming along.

It hadn’t ended up that way.

The car was green like the algae he’d held in his hand three days earlier.

Jesus! Take me away from here!

Winter saw the lake for the first time at Lochend. It looked like a fjord; the mountains were high on the other side of the water, which was black and white, in layers.

“How’s it going with the monster?” Winter asked. He thought he saw a movement on the surface of the water, a waving movement. He pointed.

“Nessie?” Macdonald followed his gaze. “She stays away.”

“Does she exist?”

“Naturally,” said Macdonald.

“You have to say that,” said Winter. “The tourist industry here rises and falls on the monster.” He saw road signs that announced the Loch Ness Monster Exhibition in Drumnadrochit three miles down the road. The water to the left was still black and white.

“It’s not that simple,” said Macdonald.

“What do you mean by that?”

Macdonald didn’t answer. He looked serious.

Winter let out a laugh.

“Come on, Steve.”

Macdonald looked out across the lake, which was wider here.

“There are places,” he said.

“What kind of places? Places where you can see ?”

Macdonald nodded slightly.

“Do you know something no one else knows?”

“Maybe,” Macdonald said.

“But you don’t want to reveal it?”

“Certain secrets must remain secret,” said Macdonald.

“The first rule of the chief inspector,” said Winter.

“Nessie hasn’t been accused of anything, as far as I know,” said Macdonald.

Winter looked at him, turning around in his seat.

“You like the monster, don’t you, Steve. You really believe this.”

“She has always existed,” Macdonald said with an innocent expression, and Winter couldn’t tell what was serious and what was some kind of subtle joke. “Nessie is part of my youth.” He turned to Winter. “I’ll show you something another time.”

“Why not now?” Winter asked.

“Wrong season.” He looked out over the water. “Maybe the wrong season.”

Winter saw the monster center emerge just before the city limits of Drumnadrochit. No passerby could avoid it. The water was still visible to the left. Far to the south where the lake ended and turned into the river Oich, Axel Osvald had met his death, possibly in a confused state. Most likely. What was it? Was there something evil down there, beyond exhibits and the idiotic tourist industry and legends of monsters and medieval ruins that stood like mangled sand castles around Loch Ness? Did it exist? Had Axel Osvald met it? What had he met, whom? Why here? Why right here?

“I’m thirsty,” Macdonald said, turning off and parking outside Hunter’s Bar and Restaurant, which was right across from the exhibition.

“Have you seen the exhibit?” asked Winter.

“I don’t need to,” said Macdonald.

“Now you’ve hinted so much that soon I will insist that we make a serious attempt to solve the monster mystery,” Winter said. He got out of the car. “We’ll be world famous.”

“I don’t want to be famous,” Macdonald said. “I just want to be rich.” He got out and locked the car with the remote. “Like you.”

“And I just want to be famous,” said Winter.

They went into the bar. A movie poster was hanging on the wall, an ad for a ten-year-old Hollywood production about the monster myth, with Ted Danson in the lead role. Winter didn’t feel disappointed that he hadn’t seen it.

Macdonald ordered two pints of Scotch ale.

Winter took out his pack of Corps and lit one of the cigarillos.

“So you haven’t given up that crap yet,” said Macdonald. “I thought you’d quit.”

“Soon,” Winter said, pulling in the pleasant smoke and letting it out again as discreetly as he could.

Fort Augustus was two rows of houses in a U-turn, gas stations, pubs. It smelled like fried fat and gas and maybe rotting seaweed in the parking lot in front of Morag’s Lodge.

Macdonald read from a piece of paper. They walked down the street to Poacher’s and went in. The air was thick with smoke from the late-afternoon drinkers. The volume was loud.

The manager showed them to a room behind the bar. His face was gray from way too many years in the poisoned air. Perhaps he had never been closer to the sea than this.

“Funny geezer,” said the man, an Englishman whose name was Ball. “Didn’t seem to know what he was doing, or why.”

“Apparently he was asking questions,” Macdonald said.

“Apparently,” said Ball. “But in any case I couldn’t answer them, because I didn’t understand what he said.”

“No words at all you remember?”

“Nix.”

“Was he agitated?”

“No, he was… confused, but on the other hand that’s nothing strange in here,” Ball said, smiling, “and people become agitated rather often when they’ve drunk their wallet empty and aren’t allowed more credit.”

“How would you care to describe him, then?” Winter asked.

Ball looked at him.

“Are you a Swede too, like him?”

They knew that Ball knew that the dead man was a Swede.

“Yes,” said Winter.

“I can barely hear it,” said Ball.

“What was he like?” Macdonald repeated.

“Well, since you asked, he seemed… spooked. Scared. Wacky somehow, and, well, scared.” Ball made a movement with his head. “Like this, you know, it was like he was looking around for someone who was after him. He acted like he was being followed or something.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“What, following him?”

“Yes,” Macdonald said.

“Nah.”

“When he left the pub, then?”

“Nah. I suppose I watched him go, because he seemed strange, but then he shut the door behind him and that was that.”

“So he didn’t say a single word in English?” Winter asked.

“Nah.”

“Did you talk to anyone else who talked to him?” Winter asked.

“Only old Macdonald down at the Old Pier,” said Ball. “It seems the Dane was staying there, from what I hear.”

“Sorry?” said Macdonald.

“The Dane had a room there, right?”