up a plan that he had kept secret, even from himself. He would return to Halsskär and meet Sara Fredrika. Nothing else meant anything, only that had any real significance.
He went into the Grand Hotel and found a table in the café. It was still early, there were not many customers and the waiters had nothing to do. He ordered coffee and a cognac.
'It's cold outside,' the waiter said. 'Cognac is made for days like today.'
Tobiasson-Svartman managed to suppress an overwhelming urge to stand up and hit the waiter. He could not cope with being talked to. The decision had been a sort of declaration of war, he must resist it, make a new plan to replace the one that had just been foiled.
He stayed in the café for several hours. He was drunk by the time he left. But he knew what he was going to do.
When he left he gave the waiter a large tip.
CHAPTER 84
He said nothing to Kristina Tacker about the cancellation of his mission. She asked how long he thought he would need to stay at Gamlebyviken and when he would be leaving. He told her that it could take several weeks, but hardly longer than to the end of January, and that she should think in terms of thirty days when she did his packing for him.
That evening and night he sat hunched over his sea charts and notebooks with the new stretch of navigable channel at Sandsänkan. By five in the morning he had finished, and lay down on the sofa in his study with his naval overcoat over him.
Twice during the night Kristina Tacker had got up and peeped through his study door. He did not even notice that she was there. Her fragrances did not get through to him.
CHAPTER 85
On 9 January 1915 a violent storm raged over Stockholm. Roofs were blown off, chimneys collapsed, trees fell, people were killed. When the storm had subsided there followed a period of extreme cold. It held the city in its grip until the end of the month.
On 30 January Tobiasson-Svartman put his plan into action. He had started work on Skeppsholmen, apparently willingly and contentedly, on a check of all sea charts covering the Gulf of Bothnia. He arrived at the office as usual at eight, exchanged a few words with his colleagues about the severe cold, then asked for an interview with his boss, Captain Sturde. His section head was obese, rarely completely sober and regarded by all and sundry as a master of the art of doing nothing. He dreamed of the day when he could retire and devote all his time to his beehives in his garden near Trosa.
Tobiasson-Svartman spread his charts out on the table.
'A serious error has crept into the calculations relevant to the new section of navigable channel at Sandsänkan,' he said. 'In the notes I received from Sub-Lieutenant Welander, the depth for a section of three hundred metres has been wrongly presented as eighteen metres on average. I have reason to believe, on the basis of my own notes, that the average depth can be put at six or seven metres at most'
Captain Sturde shook his head.
'How could that have happened?'
'No doubt you are aware that Welander suffered a breakdown.'
'Was he the one who drank himself silly? I'm told he's in a mental hospital now. Destroyed by alcoholism and the desperation caused by his having to stay sober.'
'I'm convinced my measurements are correct.'
'What do you suggest?'
'Since the measurements I am referring to can neither wait nor be carried out by anybody else, I propose that I should go down to Östergötland and make another check.'
'Isn't the sea there under ice?'
'Yes, but I can get help from local fishermen and bore holes through the ice.'
Captain Sturde thought for a moment. Tobiasson-Svartman looked out of the window and observed a flock of bullfinches squabbling over something edible in a tree made white by the hoar frost.
'Obviously something needs to be done about this,' Sturde said. 'I can't think of a better solution than the one you suggest. I just find it hard to understand how this could have happened. Indefensible, of course.'
'Sub-Lieutenant Welander was very good at concealing his alcohol abuse.'
'He must have realised that his negligence could have given rise to a catastrophe.'
'People with a severe alcohol problem are said to be interested in nothing but the next bottle.'
'Tragic. But I'm grateful to you for discovering the error. I suggest that this matter should stay between you