Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,39

her. He did not think she noticed him following her.

He sometimes thought that they were like ships in crowded channels. Channels with leading lights, meaning that you had to keep a lookout straight ahead and astern, but not to either side.

The floor was cold. He stood up, put on his boots, jumper and jacket and went out. The wind had not died down completely, it still crashed into the rocks at irregular intervals. He looked around, but could not see her. He walked to the inlet where the boats were moored. Before he reached there, he took cover in a hawthorn thicket.

She was sitting in the stern of her boat, baling it out. Her skirt was hoisted over her knees, and she was holding on to a lock of hair with her teeth. He observed her and decided to christen her Sara Fredrika Kristina. But he could not imagine her in the silent rooms in the flat in Wallingatan. He could not picture her wearing a long skirt, adjusting with deft fingers the china figurines. He could not conjure her up with her skirt hoisted above her knees when he said goodbye to her in the hall before setting out on one of his missions.

Not being able to find a place for her in his life made him so upset that he started panting. He backed out of the bushes and clambered up on to a rock from which there was a more open view of the sea, and where the wind was more biting.

He thought about what he had said to her the previous evening, about his wife and daughter being killed. Whenever he lied to his father he felt ill or suffered diarrhoea. Terror was at home in his stomach, and always tried to flee through the dark passages of his guts.

But now? Having killed off Kristina without her knowing was a special triumph.

He contemplated the Blenda, riding the waves some way out to sea. He tried briefly to erase the ship from his consciousness. No Lieutenant Jakobsson, no crew, an empty sea, navigable channels meaningless. The only thing in existence was this rock, and Sara Fredrika. But it was not possible to erase the ship, nor the ship's master, nor the navigable channels; it was not possible to erase himself.

He went down to the path again, stamped on the stones so as not to surprise her. When he got there he saw how dirty her skirt was. There were layers of muck. The light was clearer now that the clouds had scudded away, and it was not possible to disguise the filth. He could see that her hair was matted and sticky thanks to all the grease and sea salt. Her hands were black, her neck coated in dirt. But she did wash, he thought, confused. I saw her naked. The dirt must have some recent cause.

She had stowed away the baler and left the boat. As he approached her now, he noticed that she smelled of everything associated with being unwashed, of sweat and urine. Why hadn't he noticed that before, in the cottage? Why now, out in the open?

'It wasn't much of a storm,' she said. 'The weather was impatient.'

'They say that a storm lasts for three days,' he said. 'It takes three days for a storm to declare itself the winner.'

I'm talking rubbish, he thought. I know nothing about a storm lasting for three days, I know nothing about what people ought to believe or not believe about a storm.

'Now you can row back to the ship,' she said.

He held out his hand. She hesitated before shaking it. Then she took back her hand, like a shot. Like a fish that changes its mind and spits out the bait it has tasted.

She went back to the cottage and fetched his oilskin coat. He untied the painter, the boat scraped over the stony bottom and he jumped aboard.

There is still a possibility, he thought. A moment when everything could change. I can confess that what I told her yesterday was a he.

But, of course, he said nothing. She remained on the shore, watching him.

She did not raise a hand to wave. A bit like when you know that somebody who is leaving will never return, he thought.

CHAPTER 63

The days grew shorter, darker, and the sea more choppy.

One afternoon a lone seal swam past, on its way to a distant reef. Flocks of migrating birds headed south, especially at dusk.

Lars Tobiasson-Svartman used the term 'chapter' in