Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,56

as the jetty at Gryt, where he would set out on his trek. The road was icy, and the cold could cause engine problems. After being offered ten kronor extra, a taxi driver with a Ford agreed to take him.

They left shortly after half past seven. Tobiasson-Svartman was wrapped in a thick blanket in the back seat. The driver had a scarf round his winter hat. It reminded Tobiasson-Svartman of Lieutenant Jakobsson. He shuddered at the memory of the man who had dropped dead in front of him on the deck.

The countryside was embedded in the cold.

Just before driving through Söderköping they passed the Göta Canal. Barges were frozen in beside the canal banks. They were chained by their hawsers, like animals in their stalls. He turned to look at the barges through the back window for as long as they were visible. I shall remember those barges, he thought. One of them will take me over the final border when my time comes.

At Gusum the engine began coughing and it was not possible to go any further when they reached Valdemarsvik.

He decided to stay there overnight, paid the driver and booked into a guest house on a hill beyond the big tannery on the shore of the bay. The wind was from the east and blew the smell away. The landlord, who spoke a dialect very difficult to understand, promised to arrange transport the next day.

Having installed his luggage in his room he walked down to the harbour and examined the ice. It was thick and did not give when he stood on it. He approached a man who was busy chiselling ice off a fishing boat and asked what conditions were like out in the archipelago, but he did not know.

'If it's as cold out there among the skerries, the sea will no doubt be frozen there as well. But I don't know, and I don't want to know.'

He had dinner at the guest house, avoided answering anything more than yes or no to the questions asked by the inquisitive landlord and his wife, and went early to bed.

He snuggled down deep into his pillow and tried to imagine that he did not exist.

CHAPTER 89

The Gryt jetty was deserted, a few boats frozen into the ice, a locked boathouse, a battered slipway. The driver lifted out the two rucksacks and took his payment. There was a thin layer of snow on the ice, but the only footprints were those of an occasional crow or magpie.

'Nobody's gone from here,' said the driver. 'And nobody's come neither. No boats'll be coming here until the ice melts in March or April. Are you really sure this is where you wanted to come to?'

'Yes,' Tobiasson-Svartman said. 'This is where I wanted to come to.'

The driver nodded slowly and asked no more questions. The black car disappeared up the hill from the jetty. Tobiasson-Svartman stood motionless until the sound of the engine had died away. Then he took out his sea chart. Panic was ticking deep inside him. I cannot go back, he thought. There is nothing behind me, perhaps nothing in front of me either, but I must do what I have set myself to do.

There was an easterly breeze blowing. It would take him three days to get to Halsskär, assuming the weather did not take a turn for the worse, and that there really was ice in the outer archipelago. He decided to walk as far as Armnö in the central part of the archipelago this first day. There ought to be a boathouse there where he could spend the night and be comparatively warm.

He strapped on his two rucksacks after fixing crampons to his leather boots and hanging his ice prods round his neck. It was ten minutes past ten when he took his first step out on to the ice. His route would take him round the south end of Fågelö and then he would head towards Höga Svedsholmen. He estimated the distance to Armnö to be eight kilometres, which meant that he ought to be there before dusk.

He set off. The thin layer of snow had been blown away in some places, exposing the dark ice beneath. It felt like balancing on the edge of a precipice that could give way at any moment. The archipelago was empty. He would occasionally pause and listen. Sometimes an invisible bird would call, but apart from that it was totally silent. When he had passed Fågelö he stopped, unstrapped his