Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,46

of me. I will not get much thanks for it, that is hardly the done thing at Naval Headquarters. But I shall be given new jobs to do, more responsibility, and sooner or later I shall be promoted. I am proceeding up life's invisible staircase.

He checked his suitcases, made sure he had not forgotten anything and left the cabin. It was lighter now, the archipelago stepped forward out of the mist. Corves full of fish in little cargo boats sailing towards Stockholm to unload their catches. Grey men hunched over tillers and leaning against masts.

He had a quick breakfast in the officers' mess. Without joining in, he listened to a heated discussion between a lieutenant and an engineer officer. The lieutenant, who was red-haired and pale, insisted in a shrill voice that the outcome of the war was obvious. Germany would win, since that nation was driven by a fury that the English had lost. The first engineer maintained that the Germans and Russians were arrogant, they wore 'Napoleon's boots', he claimed, which meant they would be punished and defeated.

Tobiasson-Svartman left the mess and went on deck. What kind of boots am I wearing? he wondered. They were now approaching Djurgården. He remembered his dream. What did it mean? The German sailor who had returned from the bottom of the sea off Sandsänkan, what did he want?

A warning, he thought. Don't proceed too quickly, don't forget too quickly.

That was as far as he got. His thoughts got in each other's way, short-circuited his power to reason.

CHAPTER 70

The Svea had docked. Captain Rake bade him farewell. A rating had already carried his suitcases down to the quay, where he was hailing a man with a wheelbarrow.

Rake looked hard at Tobiasson-Svartman. The dawn light was very bright.

'You look pale,' he said. 'Paler than you did.'

'Perhaps exhaustion is taking its toll.'

Rake nodded thoughtfully. 'Like when there's been a battle at sea,' he said. 'While it's happening you notice nothing. Doctors have maintained that it's a purely physical process. Something they call "adrenalin" is pumped around the body. A chemical or biological name for human bloodthirstiness. When the battle is over you are either dead or alive. If you are dead the bloodthirstiness was pumped round in vain. If you are alive you are overcome by exhaustion. Whether you have won or lost is of no great significance. Or rather, if you have survived you have won, even if you are on the losing side.' He stopped abruptly, as if he had realised he was uttering something inappropriate. 'I talk too much sometimes,' he said, embarrassed. 'I often tell people around about me to hold their tongues, but I don't always practise what I preach.'

He stood erect, saluted and shook hands.

'Good luck.'

"Thank you.'

Tobiasson-Svartman walked off the gangway. He turned, but there was no sign of the captain. He took a few hesitant steps, almost stumbled. He had experienced the same dizziness each time he landed on Halsskär. On board ship he had to work actively to keep his balance, whereas on dry land it was up to the earth or the stones under his feet to prevent him from falling.

The rating saluted and returned to the ship. The man with the wheelbarrow full of luggage was old and toothless. His cheeks were hollow, he wheezed when he breathed. Tobiasson-Svartman had to help him to get the wheelbarrow on the move.

Stockholm was all hustle and bustle. It seemed to him rusty, covered in mud and dirt, all these houses, trees, streets and people that suddenly surrounded him. The city gushed all over him, unexpectedly; perhaps it was frightening, perhaps beautiful.

CHAPTER 71

He did not go directly home.

He had in him something of the sluggishness of a large ship, the need to reduce speed slowly, to yaw without excessive impetuosity. He could not walk through the door of his flat in Wallingatan too soon. That would be like losing control and crashing your bows into the quay.

The first time he had been away on a mission after marrying Kristina Tacker he sent a telegram saying when he expected to be home. That was the only time. He had never repeated the mistake.

He parked the toothless man outside the building in Wallingatan and went to a modest licensed cafe in the next block. It was early in the day, but he knew the owner, the widow of a sailmaker who had spent his life working for the Crown. Her name was Sally Andersson and she was full of