I peeped under the tarpaulin and tried to judge if I’d ever be able to put to sea again in my boat. Had it been beached for too long? Would I have the strength and energy to carry out the necessary repairs and spruce it up again? I replaced the tarpaulin without having answered my question.
One evening the telephone rang. A rare thing. More often than not it would be some telephone company or other urging me to change my supplier, or to install broadband. When they discovered where I lived and that I was an old-age pensioner, they usually lost interest. Besides, I haven’t the slightest idea what broadband is.
A female voice I didn’t recognise said: ‘Agnes Klarström here. I’ve received your letter.’
I held my breath. Didn’t say a word.
‘Hello? Hello?’
I said nothing. After further attempts to lure me out of my cave, she hung up.
So I’d found her. The letter had reached the address it was sent to. She lived near Flen.
There was an old map of Sweden in one of the kitchen drawers. I think it used to belong to my grandfather. He sometimes used to go on about how he would like to visit Falkenberg before he died. I’ve no idea why he wanted to go there; but he had never been to Stockholm, nor had he ever ventured outside the borders of Sweden. He took his dream of visiting Falkenberg with him to his grave.
I spread the map out over the table and located Flen. The scale wasn’t big enough for me to pin down Sångledsbyn. It would take me two hours at most to drive there. I had made up my mind: I was going to pay her a visit.
Two days later I walked across the ice to my car. I hadn’t left a note on my door this time or told Jansson. The dog and the cat had been supplied with sufficient food. The sky was blue, it was dead calm, plus two degrees. I drove north, turned off inland and reached Flen shortly after two in the afternoon. I found a book shop, bought a large-scale map and tracked down Sångledsbyn. It was only a couple of miles away from Harpsund, which is the location of the summer residence of Swedish prime ministers. Once upon a time, a man had lived there who made a fortune out of cork. He had left his home to the state. There was an oak tree in the grounds around which many a visiting foreign statesman, their retinue and their hosts had gathered — not many of the younger generation would ever have heard of them.
I knew all that about Harpsund because my father had once worked there as a waiter when the then prime minister, Tage Erlander, had been entertaining foreign guests. He never tired of talking about the men — they were all men, no women — sitting around the table conducting important discussions about world politics. This had been during the Cold War; he had made a special effort to move without making a noise, and could recall details of the menu, and the wines. Unfortunately there had also been an incident that came close to causing a scandal. He used to describe it as if he had been party to something top secret, and was chary about revealing any details to me and my mother. One of the guests had become extremely drunk. He had delivered an incomprehensible ‘thank you’ speech at the wrong time, which had caused a bit of a problem for the waiters: but they had saved the day and delayed the serving of the dessert, which had been about to begin. Shortly afterwards the drunken man had been found dead to the world on the lawn at the front of the house.
‘Fagerholm got himself drunk in most unfortunate circumstances,’ my father used to say in serious tones.
My mother and I never discovered who this Fagerholm was. It was only much later on, when my father had died, that I realised he must have been one of the Finnish trade union leaders of the day.
However, living close to Harpsund now was a woman whose arm I had cut off.
Sångledsbyn consisted of a few farms spread along the shore of an oval-shaped lake. The fields and meadows were covered in snow. I had taken my binoculars with me and climbed to the top of a hillock in order to get a better overview. People occasionally crossed over the farmyards, between outhouses and barns, or house and garage. None of those I saw could have been Agnes Klarström.
I gave a start. A dog was sniffing at my feet. A man in a long overcoat and wellington boots was standing on the road below. He shouted for the dog, and raised a hand in greeting. I hid my binoculars in a pocket and went down to the road. We spoke briefly about the view, and the long, dry winter.
‘Is there somebody in this village by the name of Agnes Klarström?’ I asked.
The man pointed at the house furthest away.
‘She lives there with her bloody kids,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t used to have a dog until that lot came here. Now everybody has a dog.’
He shook his head in annoyance, and continued on his way. I didn’t like what I’d heard. I didn’t want to get involved with something that would bring even more disorder into my life. I decided to go home and went back to the car. But something made me stay on even so. I walked through the village until I came to a cart track where the snowplough had been busy. If I went along it, I could approach the rear of the last house through a clump of trees.
It was late afternoon, and dusk would soon close in. I made my way along the track and stopped when I came to a spot where I could see the house through the trees. I shook the snow off some branches and created a good view. The house was obviously well looked after. A car was parked outside, with the cable from an engine heater trailing through the snow to an electric socket in the wall.
Suddenly a young girl appeared. She was looking straight at me and my binoculars. She produced something that had been hidden behind her back. It appeared to be a sword. She started running straight at me with the sword raised above her head.
I dropped my binoculars and fled. I stumbled over a tree root or a large stone and fell down. Before I could get to my feet, the girl with the sword had caught up with me.
She was glaring at me with hatred in her eyes.
‘Perverts like you,’ she said, ‘they’re everywhere. Peeping Toms skulking in the bushes with their binoculars.’
A woman came running after her. She stopped by the girl and snatched away the sword with her left and only hand — and I realised it must be Agnes Klarström. Perhaps, hidden away at the back of my subconscious mind, there was an image of the young girl from twelve years ago who had lain in the sunbed position in front of my well-scrubbed hands in their rubber gloves.
She was wearing a blue jacket, zipped up to her neck. The empty right sleeve was fastened to her shoulder with a safety pin. The girl by her side was eyeing me with contempt.
I wished Jansson could have come to rescue me. For the second time recently the ice under my feet had given way, and I was drifting without being able to clamber ashore.
Chapter 6
I stood up, brushed off the snow and explained who I was. The girl started kicking out at me, but Agnes snapped at her and she slunk away.
‘I don’t need a guard dog,’ said Agnes. ‘Sima sees absolutely everything that’s going on, everybody who approaches the house. She has the eyes of a hawk.’
‘I thought she was going to kill me.’
Agnes eyed me up and down, but didn’t respond.
We went into the house and sat down in her office. Somewhere in the background rock music was blaring out at top volume. Agnes seemed not to hear. When she took off her jacket, she did it just as quickly as if she’d had two arms and two hands.
I sat down on a visitor chair. Her desk was empty. Apart from a pen: nothing else.