deepest part of the sea in this area.
He took his ice drill from his backpack. It had been made by the skilled craftsmen at Motala Verkstad in accordance with his own design. Unlike the ice drills used by the navy, his had a short handle. He found it made the work less strenuous because he could kneel on the ice and press down with his chest as he worked his way through the ice. He used one of his crampons to mark out a one-square-metre area. Then he started drilling.
Somewhere in the distance Sara Fredrika would be watching him through the telescope. Maybe she had Dorflinger by her side. The deserter was suspicious, of course, and for his sake if for no other reason it was necessary to put on this performance.
He made the first hole and was sure Sara Fredrika would be deceived into thinking he was sounding the depth. He drilled another hole and noted that the ice was fourteen centimetres thick.
Then he drilled two more holes in the remaining two corners of his square. He made the holes big enough for him to be able to force his fist through them. When he had finished he pressed down with his foot in the middle of his square. He took off his hat and listened.
The ice creaked loudly. He would be able to carry out his plan.
The light was dazzlingly bright. The ice reflected it into his eyes. He turned round and shielded them with his hand.
He thought he could see Sara Fredrika on a ledge just below the highest point on Halsskär. If he was right, the thing by her side was not a misshapen juniper bush, but the deserter he had promised to protect and assist.
He didn't want to mention his name, it was easier to think of him as the despicable deserter, the man who had abandoned his duty and got in the way.
CHAPTER 98
He returned over the ice.
Where the dead cat had been was only the patch of dried blood. He forced his way through the bushes growing by the shore and made his way towards the cottage.
Gunfire could be heard from out to sea. Then came the shock wave. Then another shot and another shock wave. Then all was silent again. Perhaps it was a warning signal. Perhaps the deserter was surrounded, perhaps the whole German Fleet was moving towards them at the edge of the ice? He sat down on a ledge to the north of the cottage. From there he could keep watch on it. A solitary bird flew over his head, its wings flapping madly. He imagined it to be a projectile, aimed at nobody.
Sara Fredrika came out, followed by the deserter. He had taken off his tunic and replaced it with an old jacket that must have belonged to her husband.
Jealousy.
He thought about the revolver locked away in a cupboard in Stockholm. If he had had it with him, he could easily have killed them both.
She pointed towards the inlet, they set off. The deserter suddenly stopped, took hold of her arm and pulled her towards him. She let it happen. At first the jealousy had been minor, creeping and not especially worrying. Now it had grown into something intolerable.
Then came fury.
His father had once spoken to guests at dinner about the importance of people learning to act like snakes. Cold blood, endless patience and poisonous fangs that struck at exactly the right instant. He had not been at the table, it was a dinner for grown-ups and he was only a child. But he had listened from behind the door.
Afterwards he had played snakes. He had dressed in brown, painted a stripe on his tongue so that it seemed to be forked, and tried to wriggle his way forward, wait patiently in the shade cast by a tree, stretch himself out on some rocks. He had even taught himself to spit thin squirts of saliva through his front teeth.
When he was eight he had forced himself to endure the ultimate snake test. He had caught a mouse in a trap, still alive, and bitten it and killed it. He had not been able to eat it, though.
Now here he was confronted by the unexpected. A deserter had got in his way. I shall kill him, he thought. And I'll cut off her hair that he has touched.
He lay motionless on the ledge until they were out of sight. Then he went to the cottage, found the deserter's papers