‘They’re dead.’
‘Did they burn to death?’
She seemed horrified at the thought.
‘Dead and buried.’
‘And you don’t have a wife?’
‘She’s dead too. Cremated. But I do have a daughter.’
‘What does she have to say about all this?’
‘Nothing so far. She doesn’t know yet.’
She gave me a searching look, then she put down her pen and drank her coffee. I noticed that she was wearing a ring with an amber stone on her right hand. No ring on her left hand.
‘It’s too late today,’ she said. ‘But how about tomorrow? If you have time?’
‘I’ve got all the time in the world.’
‘Surely not, if everything you owned has gone up in smoke?’
I didn’t reply because of course she was right.
‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow,’ I said instead. ‘What time?’
‘Ten o’clock? Is that too early?’
‘It’s fine.’
She pointed to the window. ‘Down there?’
‘I’ll be by the petrol pumps. Wear something warm. And we might have rain tomorrow.’
She finished her coffee and stood up.
‘I’ll be there at ten,’ she said and left the cafe.
I heard the sound of a car starting. I wondered if she knew my name.
I travelled home across the dark sea. The boat was full of plastic bags. I thought about Lisa Modin and the movements of her hands as she wound her scarf around her head and neck. I felt a sense of excitement and anticipation as I contemplated the following day.
I rounded Höga Tryholmen expecting to see the coastguard’s boat moored at my jetty, but it wasn’t there. I pushed my boat into the boathouse and carried all my bags to the caravan. I had switched on the small fridge and the heater before I left and the place felt nice and warm. I checked the LPG gauge; there was plenty of fuel in the cylinder.
I unpacked my new clothes and glanced at where they had been made. The three shirts were all manufactured in China. I moved on to the underclothes and socks: also China. The jacket was made in Hong Kong, so from now on I would be going around entirely dressed in clothes from China. Until my new wellingtons arrived, nothing that I was wearing to keep out the cold would be from anywhere other than faraway China.
I hung up the shirts, wondering why it seemed important. Was I just looking for something to complain about? As if the last thing that remains for a man who is growing old is the ability to complain?
I put on a shirt, a sweater and the jacket. The remains of the fire had now stopped smoking; however, the acrid stench of the seawater-sodden oak timbers was still unpleasant. It made me feel sick if I got too close. I walked slowly around the ruins of my house to see if there might be something salvageable after all, apart from the buckle from one of Giaconelli’s shoes. I didn’t find anything. The feeling that I was contemplating a war zone returned.
I stopped when I reached the plastic sheet. I frowned. Something had changed. I stood there for several minutes before I gave up. I had noticed something, but I couldn’t say what it was.
I glanced at my new watch. I feel helpless if I don’t know what time of the day or night it is. Perhaps it’s because my father was such a poor timekeeper; on at least one occasion he was sacked from the restaurant where he was working for turning up late three days in a row.
I went up to the highest point on the island, from which I could see in all directions. My grandfather built a bench so that he and my grandmother could sit up there on warm summer evenings. I don’t know whether they talked to each other or sat in silence, but once when I was a child, a few years before they died, I picked up my grandfather’s binoculars and trained them on my grandparents. Much to my surprise I discovered that they were holding hands. It was a clear expression of tenderness and gratitude. They had been married for sixty-one years.
The bench is falling apart. I haven’t looked after it. I have neglected it, like so many other things on the island.
I stood there staring out across the archipelago. My gaze settled on a little skerry to the east of my island. The skerry belongs to me too, but it doesn’t have a name. It consists of no more than a couple of rocks and a small hollow in which a few trees grow. The hollow is deep enough to be protected from the wind. When I was a child I often built a den there. From the age of ten, when I was a strong swimmer, my grandparents allowed me to sleep over there when the weather was good.
When I was a teenager I had a tent on the skerry during the summer. Now I was looking at the place with different ideas. A thought had struck me, but I hadn’t quite processed it yet.
I continued my walk around the island. On the western side I caught a glimpse of two mink disappearing among the rocks. Otherwise everything was quiet. It was as if I was all alone in a deserted world.
I stopped when I reached the plastic sheet again. Now I realised what I had noticed earlier. Lundin and Alexandersson had been back while I was away, then they had left without any indication as to whether they would return.
I couldn’t prove it, but I was absolutely certain.
They suspected me of having started the fire. There was no obvious cause, so they had to investigate the possibility that I was an arsonist.
I knew I had done nothing, but how would I cope with being suspected of a crime?
My life had been turned upside down once before, when my career as a doctor came to an end following a botched operation. Had I now been afflicted by another disaster? How much could I bear?
I went to the boathouse and took down the blood-pressure monitor I use when Jansson turns up with his imaginary pains. I unbuttoned my Chinese-made shirt, rolled up my sleeve and took my blood pressure: 160 over 98. That’s unusually high for me, so I checked the other arm too: 159 over 99. I wasn’t happy with the result, even though I understood that it was probably because my house had burned down. I had had a shock. I had bought the medication at the chemist’s earlier; I didn’t normally take metoprolol, but it would bring down my blood pressure. If necessary I could also take an Oxascand tablet, a tranquilliser I use occasionally.
I took my pulse: 78. A little high but nothing serious. As I put the monitor back in the boathouse, I heard the sound of an engine in the distance. It was so far off that I couldn’t work out which boat it was, and after a little while it died away.
I remembered that there was an old wind-up alarm clock in the boathouse. I had no idea whether it still worked; I searched among the tools and took it outside. The spring held when I wound it up, it started ticking and the hands began to move. I set it to the right time and put it down beside me on the bench. Right now that clock, my mobile phone and the Chinese shirts were my most valuable possessions.
The wind had got up. The weathervane on top of the boathouse was hovering between south and west. I picked up the clock and got to my feet.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to try and get hold of my daughter.
Chapter 4
Louise is forty years old. As I said, the last time we spoke she was in Amsterdam. I presumed she had friends there but saw no reason to tell me anything about them. Of course she could also have been driven to the Dutch city by one of the political projects to which she devoted her time.
She doesn’t only write to presidents and dictators. More than once she has caused a scandal by throwing bags of rubbish at reactionary politicians. Sometimes it seems to me that she is an anarchist who has got lost along the way, at other times she appears to be a right-thinking radical woman who resorts to hopeless methods. Whenever I have tried to engage in a political discussion with her, I have always lost. Even if she hasn’t managed to convince me with her arguments, she has crushed me with her constant interruptions.