‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Maybe not.’
‘What kind of an answer is that? Yes and no, and maybe something in between?’
‘We haven’t decided yet.’
‘Autumn has hit us early this year, as the old men say when they see the clouds and feel the winds. Early autumn, long winter, rainy spring. Don’t wait too long before leaving.’
He watched the dinghy disappearing round the headland. He could hear his daughter crying in the distance.
Angel’s words had hit him with full force. All his life he had been keeping things at a distance. But distance did not matter, it was closeness that was significant.
He realised that he would have to tell Sara Fredrika the truth, that he had belonged to somebody else, that he had been kicked out of the Swedish Navy and one of these days would be penniless. Only then could they start again from the beginning, only then could they really make plans to leave.
With great effort he had built walls around Halsskär. Now he would have to demolish them, in order to get out.
He was overcome by a strong sensation. Surprised and confused, he said to himself: I think my sounding lead has reached the bottom.
He was in the habit of rounding off the day by taking his telescope and climbing up to the highest point on the skerry. There was a north-easterly wind, fresh and squally. He pulled his jacket more tightly round him and gazed out towards the mainland.
A sailing dinghy was approaching. The sail was straining hard, but the boat was sitting well in the water. He did not recognise it, he did not need the telescope to tell him that. It was longer than the boats used by the fishermen in the archipelago.
He aimed his telescope and focused it.
There was a woman at the helm and she was steering straight for Halsskär.
The woman was Kristina Tacker, his wife.
Part X
Angel’s Message
Chapter 186
He thought it was an optical illusion.
But the boat was real. Kristina Tacker was sailing resolutely, the sail straining in the wind. She was heading for Halsskär because she knew that was where he was hiding.
He searched for a way of escape. But there was none. He had nowhere to escape to.
He set off in a hurry for the inlet when he saw her turning the boat into the wind. All the time he was trying to find an explanation. Could he have left a trail by way of his sea charts? He had never imagined that she would start to interpret them. Or had somebody given him away, somebody who knew where he was?
He could not find an answer. There wasn’t one.
By the time he reached the shore the boat was inside the inlet. Kristina Tacker had already dropped anchor when she noticed him, stood up and started yelling. In order to shut her up he waded out into the cold water until it was chest-deep.
‘Stop shouting,’ he said. ‘Everything can be explained.’
‘Nothing can be explained!’ she screamed. ‘Why do you keep lying to me? Why are you hiding here? How can you explain that away?’
She had moved into the bows and started hitting him over the head with a piece of rope. He tried to defend himself, but she went on hitting him, he would never have imagined her capable of such fury. This was not the wife he knew, this was somebody else, somebody who smashed china figurines every time she moved them around on their shelves.
The only way he could shut her up was to pull her out of the boat. He took hold of her and dragged her into the water. She resisted, but he kept hold of her, pushed her down under the surface. Every time she came back up again she continued shouting at him. He smacked her face, once, twice, harder. She went quiet in the end. Her wet hair was sticking to her cheeks. He could no longer smell her fragrance, nothing of the wine nor the subtle perfume.
‘I can explain everything,’ he said. ‘Provided you stop shouting.’
He had never felt as scared as he felt at this moment. If Sara Fredrika were to turn up now all the walls would crumble around him. Nothing would survive.
Kristina Tacker looked at him in disgust.
‘Behind a secret there can be another secret,’ he said.
She lurched at him and scratched his face. She did it perfectly calmly, without taking her eyes off him.
Blood ran down his cheek.
‘I don’t want to hear any lies about what you are doing and why you are here,’ she said. ‘I just want you to explain the only thing that is important. Why did Laura have to die? That’s all I want to know.’
He took a step backwards, stumbled over a piece of rock and fell. She grabbed hold of his arm.
‘Don’t you try and run away again. You’re never going to do that again. I’ll find you no matter where you hide. All your lies leave a clear trail that I can follow, wherever you go.’
He was punch-drunk. It felt as if the cold water was penetrating his skin and making his body swell up.
‘We can’t stand in the water like this,’ he said. ‘It’s too cold.’
‘This is only water. Death is cold. Laura is cold, not this water.’
‘What happened?’
She took hold of his head and pulled it towards her. She had tears in her eyes, he recognised her now. There were glimpses of the woman he was married to behind all the wet hair.
‘After you went off I stayed in hospital for a few weeks. Laura grew as she ought to do. She grew bigger and stronger. But then one night I was woken up by her screaming. It wasn’t the usual sort of scream, it was something different. Dr Edman came. He thought it was colic and would die down of its own accord. But it didn’t die down, it wasn’t colic, it was ileus, an obstruction of the intestine. Laura died in terrible agony. There was nothing I could do, and where were you? I thought you were on an important mission, I thought that you were with me in spirit, I thought about all the sorrow we would have to bear together. But the baby’s death exposed all your lies, that was the terrible price I had to pay in order to discover who you really are.’
She leaned even further forward into his face.
‘Was it you who attacked my father?’
‘Of course it wasn’t. But will you stop shouting, I can’t bear such loud noises.’
She slapped the water with her hand so that it splashed into his face.
‘What do you know about noises? You have no idea what a dying baby sounds like. Do you want to hear? I can imitate exactly what she sounded like just before she died.’
He shook his head.
‘I’m devastated,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying. Is Laura dead?’
‘On 22 August at 4.35 in the afternoon Dr Edman said that he could only express his sympathy. She is dead. But you are alive. What can’t you understand?’
He did not answer. He tried to picture the dead child, but all he could see was a black hole.
‘We can’t stay in the water like this. It’s too cold.’
She started to hit his face again.
‘Can’t you hear what I’m saying? My daughter is dead.’
‘She was my daughter as well.’
‘She wasn’t your daughter. You were never there, you reacted to her by telling lies to get away from her and from me and from yourself and from everything I’ve ever believed in.’
She could not find any more words. She stood in the water screaming in despair.
He could picture the shelves with the china figurines slowly falling down one after another, each one smashing to smithereens.
Chapter 187
He led her carefully out of the water.
He was appalled by her bitterness, but shaken most of all by the boundless sorrow he had caused her. For the first time he felt utterly defenceless when facing her. This time he would not be able to wriggle off the hook. And Sara Fredrika would not be able to rescue him. Her presence would only compound the catastrophe.