Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,73

sounding lead to his chest. Nobody knew where he was, nobody knew where he was heading for, least of all himself.

There was a draught from the window. He wrapped a scarf round his head, moved as close as possible to the wall and waited for the strength to make a decision.

CHAPTER 113

The snow eased off at about eleven. He stood in the window and looked down at Vasagatan. He was looking for somebody among the pedestrians who might be himself.

He made his decision. He would stay in the hotel today and tonight. Then he would go home to Kristina Tacker.

The events on Halsskär began to fade. He examined his hands. No trace there of what had happened. His fingers were smooth and unmarked, his hands were unaltered.

He went out in the evening. It had stopped snowing, but it was bitterly cold and the city was deserted. Only those who had to ventured out of doors. He took a cab outside the Central Station and asked to be taken to the Grand Hotel.

As he was entering the dining room a man turned towards him. It was his father-in-law, Ludwig Tacker.

Tobiasson-Svartman could see no escape. Tacker introduced him to the man he was with, Tobiasson-Svartman understood his name to be something like Andrén. Tacker asked his companion to wait in the foyer.

'I spoke to my daughter yesterday,' Tacker said. 'She was very worried to have heard nothing from you.'

'My mission was classified as secret.'

'So damned secret that you couldn't even send a greeting to your wife? When did you get home?'

'I came to Stockholm about an hour ago,' he said. 'I haven't been home yet. I have to meet some of my superiors first and submit a report.'

Ludwig Tacker's eyes were narrow and cold.

'At the Grand Hotel? In the dining room of the Grand Hotel? Secret goings-on?'

'We shall be meeting in a special room. I just wanted to see if I was the first to arrive.'

Tacker eyed him up and down.

'And when are you intending to go back to your home and your wife?'

'I don't want to disturb her too late. I shall spend tonight in a hotel. I can't go back home like a thief in the night.'

Tacker leaned towards him.

'I don't believe you,' he said. 'I have never liked you, I could never understand why Kristina married you. You're lying. There's something fishy about you, something about you never rings true.'

He did not wait for a reply but marched out of the dining room. Tobiasson-Svartman went to the Grand Café and started drinking. His father-in-law had seen through him. Now he would have to repeat that explanation to Kristina Tacker when he got home the next day.

He would give her the details, apologise for having spent the night in a hotel then sit down calmly by her side. She would tell him what had happened while he had been away. He would listen, and all he would say about his expedition to the frozen waters at the edge of the open sea would be that he was glad it was over.

CHAPTER 114

That night he dreamed about very deep water.

He was holding his sounding lead in his hand, using it as a sinker and gliding down through the sea, but he felt no pressure despite being several kilometres under the surface.

It was not the fissure in the Pacific Ocean where a British hydrographic vessel had claimed to lower more than ten kilometres of line into the water before the bottom was reached. This was an unknown deep spot he had himself discovered, and even as he was gliding slowly down with his sounding lead in his hand, he knew that the bottom was 15,345 metres below the surface. It was a bewildering depth, and it concealed a secret. At the very bottom was a different world and a different life corresponding to the one he led.

He carried on sinking, perfectly calm, no hurry. His only worry was that he would never reach the bottom.

He had often had this same dream, and he had always woken up before reaching the bottom. It was the same again. When he opened his eyes he remembered that there had still been quite a way to go.

He stayed in bed. His disappointment at not having reached the bottom metamorphosed into an intense desire to murder Ludwig Tacker.

Somewhere there must be a hole in the ice for him as well, he thought. One of these days Ludwig Tacker too will descend to the bottom of the sea