Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,34

was a long way to go before it reached its culmination.

PART IV

Autumn, Winter, Loneliness

CHAPTER 58

Their conversations were spasmodic.

He was close to her all the time in the cramped room, but it felt to him as if the distance between them grew.

Late in the afternoon she stood up and left the cottage. He made no move, but glanced surreptitiously at the window. He expected her to be standing there, watching him.

The window was empty.

He did not understand it. She was not behaving as she ought to have done. All the time when he was growing up he had kept his parents under constant observation. He would peer furtively through half-closed doors or use mirrors to see unnoticed into rooms where his parents were, together or alone or with others. In his imagination he bored invisible holes in the upstairs floor of the house they lived in at Skeppsbron, so that he could see down into his father's office.

He had learned not to reveal his presence when he listened to their angry exchanges, watched them drinking themselves silly or, as was often the case with his mother, sitting alone, sobbing.

His mother always wept silently. Her tears seemed to tiptoe out of her eyes.

These memories shot through his mind, one after the other. He walked to the window, which was coated in a thin layer of salt spray.

He caught a glimpse of her walking along the path to the inlet. He assumed that she wanted to make sure her boat was securely moored.

He looked around the room. She had just put more wood on the fire. It smelled of juniper. The light from the flames danced round the walls. In one of them was a low door, closed. He tried the handle. It was not locked and led into a windowless closet. In one corner were a few wooden barrels; sheep shears and broken carding combs were scattered on the floor as well as some folded sacks for flour. On one of the walls hung a herring net, half finished. He made a mental inventory of the room and its contents, as if it were important to remember every detail.

Sara Fredrika still had not returned. In the big room was a corner cupboard, rickety, with rusty hinges. Did he dare to open it? Would the door fall off if he did? He pressed his hand against the cupboard frame and turned the key.

On the only shelf were two objects: a hymn book and a pipe. The pipe was similar to the one Lieutenant Jakobsson usually had in his mouth. He picked it up and sniffed at it. It seemed not to have been used for a long time. The remains of the burned tobacco were rock hard. It still smelled of old tar. He put the pipe down, eyed the hymn book without touching it, then closed the door.

He squatted down and felt under the bed. There was something there. He could feel that it was an old-fashioned shotgun, but he did not take it out. He pressed his face against the pillow, trying to find traces of her smell. All he could feel was that the pillow was damp.

Damp loneliness, he thought. That's her fragrance. The thought excited him.

There had been a man in the house, a man who had left behind a well-used pipe and an old shotgun. Perhaps he was not gone altogether. Perhaps he was away selling fish in Slätbaken on the way to Söderköping. Autumn was ending, and there were markets all over Sweden.

The storm was still battering the walls. He tried to imagine the man, but was unable to give him a face.

The door flew open. Sara Fredrika was back. The cold wind rushed into the room.

'I went to check the boats,' she said. 'I've never seen one like yours before.'

'It's a tender. We have four of them, in case we need to abandon ship. And we also have two quite big launches. If the ship starts to sink, nobody need be left behind. You may find it hard to believe, but the tender is classified as a warship.'

She poked at the fire. Her movements were precise and purposeful, he noticed, but she was trying to conceal a degree of worry or impatience. She sat down on the bunk. The fire was blazing away again, and he could see her clearly. Something was welling up inside him that he could not put his finger on. Somehow or other he felt tricked, deceived. The pipe in the corner