by Viveca Sten
Thomas grabbed a sweater and ran down to the jetty. He was glad he had decided to buy a decent motorboat last summer. His Buster Magnum was solid and reliable, and she could easily do thirty-five knots when necessary.
Like now.
He quickly cast off and sped away. After just a few minutes he could see the lights of Sandhamn. The gnawing fear in his belly was spreading. As a police officer he had learned to trust his instincts, and this didn’t feel right.
If it had been anyone else, he might have thought it involved a little fling while Henrik was away, but in Nora’s case that was out of the question. She was far too faithful, and of course she knew that Henrik would be back during the night.
The Linde family’s jetty appeared in the darkness. He slowed down and pulled in. With practiced fingers he tied up the boat, then strode up toward the house.
Henrik met him at the gate. “Come in,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
They went into the kitchen. The table was neatly laid for one, with a plate of chicken in the middle. It looked as if it had been there for quite some time.
“Does this look as if she was planning to spend the evening somewhere else?”
Thomas shook his head.
“There’s something else.” Henrik pointed to a used pen needle. “This means she took her insulin. She always takes her insulin just before eating. You have to do that if you’re diabetic. Otherwise, the body can’t process the sugars and carbohydrates ingested during the meal.”
“But she’s taken her insulin.” Thomas didn’t understand what Henrik was getting at.
Henrik picked up the plate. “Yes, but she hasn’t eaten. This hasn’t been touched. And there’s a bar of chocolate here, too. Nora loves dark chocolate. But she hasn’t eaten it.”
Thomas still didn’t get it. “So what?”
Henrik glanced at him impatiently. Slowly, as if he were addressing a child, he explained, “A diabetic who has taken her insulin must also eat. Very soon. Otherwise, she’s at risk of hypoglycemic shock. She could end up in a coma.” He paused and swallowed hard. “If you take too much insulin without eating, you lose consciousness and die. In the best-case scenario you just end up with brain damage. Now do you understand what I’m saying?”
The color drained from Thomas’s face as he realized how serious this was.
Henrik sank down onto a chair and buried his head in his hands. “Where the hell can she be?”
“How long have we got?” Thomas asked, his brain analyzing the situation.
“That depends on when she took the insulin. After a few hours there could be permanent damage, even if she’s found alive.”
Thomas felt the beads of sweat break out on his upper lip. “Go back to her parents’; they might have some idea where she could be. Try the neighbors, and ask if anyone has seen her.”
He suddenly thought about the letter they had found in Krister Berggren’s apartment.
The missing link they had been searching for all along.
He turned to Henrik. “Signe Brand might be mixed up in this. I’ll go over there.”
Thomas ran the short distance to the imposing house next door. The Brand residence looked desolate and lonely. The whole of Kvarnberget was deserted at this time of night. The young people who came to Sandhamn to work for the summer liked to go there on fine evenings on the weekend, but now it was silent and empty.
He banged on the door. There was no movement inside the house. The external lights were switched off. He banged again.
“Signe,” he shouted. “Signe, it’s me, Thomas. Open the door, please.”
No response.
Thomas stared at the dark windows, unsure of what to do. Then he ran around the back of the house, which faced the sea. Sometimes the greenhouse door was open; he might be able to get in that way.
But the door was locked, the glass room in darkness.
He could see a silhouette through the window; it looked as if someone was sitting on the wicker chair. Thomas knocked again. No reaction. He thought he could see Kajsa lying on the floor beside the chair, but she didn’t move.
He hesitated; breaking and entering wasn’t exactly recommended within the police force. But this was an emergency.
He pulled his sleeve down over his fist and smashed a pane of glass, then pushed his hand through and opened the door.
Signe was leaning back in the chair, deeply unconscious. Her face looked peaceful, almost as if she were relieved about something. A well-used blanket lay across her knees.
Thomas had always thought of Signe as constant, timeless. It seemed to him that she looked exactly the same as she had when he was a little boy and got to know her through Nora’s family. But now she seemed thin, transparent.
An old woman.
A lonely woman.
Kajsa lay by her side, her front paws crossed. Her tail had come to rest forming a semicircle. She wasn’t breathing. The black coat was completely still.
Thomas bent down and felt Signe’s neck. A faint pulse, almost imperceptible. Her breathing was shallow.
He grabbed his phone and quickly called Carina.
“It’s Thomas. I know it’s the middle of the night.”
He waved an agitated hand in response to Carina’s sleepy objections.
“Listen carefully. I’ve found Signe Brand unconscious in her house on Sandhamn. I can’t determine the cause. You need to send a helicopter to pick her up and get the team over here. Nora Linde has disappeared. Put out a call right away, and call me as soon as you hear anything.”
He ended the call and ran across to Nora’s parents’. They were standing in the hallway with Henrik.
“Henrik, can you go over to Signe Brand’s house? She’s in the greenhouse, unconscious. I’ve sent for the air ambulance.”
Nora’s mother looked at him. “What’s going on, Thomas?” she asked anxiously. “What’s happened to Nora?”
“I don’t know, Susanne,” he said. “Stay with the boys. We’ll keep looking for her. Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find her soon.”
Thomas wished he were as confident as he sounded.
CHAPTER 76
The man in the recently purchased Arcona 36 was whistling as he adjusted the mainsail. For many years he had dreamed of having a decent yacht, and now he relished every second he spent at sea. As he leaned back in the cockpit he had to stop himself from reaching forward and patting the tiller.
He had always preferred a tiller to a wheel in a yacht. It provided a much better sense of the movement of the boat in the water. With a firm grip on the tiller he could cope with both wind and waves while holding a steady course.
Sailing was almost better than sex, he thought.
Well, not far off.
When he had suggested to his wife that they should sail overnight from Horsten to Runmarö, she had thought he was crazy. She had shaken her head at the very idea.
“You must be crazy. Why on earth would anyone want to go sailing at night? What if we hit another boat?”
But after a while she had given in; she had said she didn’t have the strength to argue with him any longer. She was curled up on a cushion in the cockpit clutching a mug of tea as they sailed past skerries and islets.
“This wasn’t such a bad idea, was it?” the man said with a smile.
His wife smiled back. “No. It’s lovely.”
The man adjusted the tiller again.
There was a gentle downwind breeze, just enough to maintain a steady speed. The Arcona was easy to sail, effortlessly cleaving through the surface of the water. The big genoa jib caught the breeze and exploited it to the full.
“Can you pass me the chart?” the man said to his wife. “We should be pretty close to Revengegrundet.”
His wife put down her tea and passed the chart to her husband, who
switched on his flashlight and studied the chart for a minute or so before handing it back.
“Just as I thought. We’re exactly where we should be.” He pointed without losing concentration or letting go of the tiller. “If you look over there, you can see the old lighthouse on Grönskär. It was built in the eighteenth century . . . or was it the nineteenth?” He frowned as he pondered.
“You mean the one that’s known as the Queen of the Baltic?”
“That’s it.”
His wife turned her head and looked at the imposing lighthouse, stretching her neck to get a better view. “There’s a very bright light. I thought it wasn’t used anymore.”
“It isn’t. I think it was decommissioned in the sixties.”
The woman left her comfortable seat and pushed back the cabin hatch. She stuck her head in and grabbed a pair of binoculars hanging from a hook just to the left of the steps. She sat down again and took them out of their case. “Actually, it looks like there’s a fire in the lighthouse.”
Her husband laughed. “What? You’re seeing things!”
“You have a look, then!”
She handed over the binoculars. Her husband took them with one hand, keeping the other on the tiller. He brought them up to his eyes and let out a whistle.
“Holy shit, you’re right. It’s on fire!”
“That’s what I said! You never believe anything I say.”
“We need to inform the coast guard,” the man said, looking through the binoculars again just to make sure.
“Can’t we just call the usual emergency number?”
The man gave his wife a haughty look. “We’re at sea, darling. When you’re at sea, you contact the coast guard.”
His wife glared at him but didn’t say anything.
He waved her over. “You need to hold the tiller while I radio through.”
They changed places, and the man quickly went downstairs. He switched on the VHF radio and found the correct channel. The rushing sound of radio waves immediately filled the boat. The man unhooked the microphone and held it close to his mouth.
“Stockholm Radio, Stockholm Radio, Stockholm Radio, this is S/Y Svanen calling.”
He repeated the call a couple of times, then there was a crackling sound, and he suddenly heard a woman’s voice.
“S/Y Svanen, S/Y Svanen, S/Y Svanen, this is Stockholm Radio responding to your call.”
“We are just off Grönskär northeast of Sandhamn. I want to report a fire. It looks as if there’s a fire in the lighthouse, up in the tower.”
“S/Y Svanen, please repeat. I can’t hear you clearly.”
“I said there’s a fire in Grönskär lighthouse. I repeat, there’s a fire in Grönskär lighthouse.”
He made an effort to speak clearly.
“S/Y Svanen, are you sure?” The woman sounded perplexed, as if she didn’t quite know what to do with the information.
“Yes, I’m sure. We’ve looked through binoculars, and I can see flames up in the tower.”
“Did you see any people?”
“No. The place looks deserted. The only thing I could see was the flames.”
The voice on the other end fell silent for a couple of seconds as the rushing sound grew louder. Then she came over the ether once more: “S/Y Svanen, thank you for the information. We will investigate immediately. Thank you for your help.”
The man smiled, satisfied that he had done his civic duty. “S/Y Svanen over and out.”
He switched off the radio and replaced the microphone. He climbed back into the cockpit and looked over toward Grönskär again. The flames looked smaller now, but perhaps it was his imagination. They had sailed some distance while he was reporting the fire, and Grönskär now lay behind them.
He shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do under the circumstances. Either the fire would die out, or the lighthouse would burn down. But it had stood there for almost three hundred years, so it must be pretty resilient.
CHAPTER 77
Henrik was sick with worry. As a doctor he knew exactly what would happen if Nora had taken her insulin and not eaten. He tried to convince himself that she must have eaten enough to be safe, wherever she was. But why wasn’t she at home? And why was the food on the table untouched?
He reproached himself for the arguments of the past few days. Twenty-four hours at sea hadn’t changed his opinion—he had still been angry when he came ashore—but he had decided to ignore the issue. He had already made his feelings clear, end of story. He just didn’t understand why women needed to talk things through all the time. Much better to get to the point as quickly as possible, make a decision, then stick to it.
Now he bitterly regretted his uncompromising attitude.
He pictured Nora’s face on the day Adam was born. She had been so proud. Completely exhausted, of course, but indescribably happy. Her hair had been plastered to her forehead with sweat, as if she’d run a marathon. Which of course she had, in a way. She held her newborn son close, beaming with joy and triumph. “Isn’t he wonderful?” she had said. “Isn’t he amazing? Our son.”
There was a strange taste in Henrik’s mouth, a mixture of acidity and something metallic. At first he couldn’t identify it, but then he realized what it was. He had experienced exactly the same thing when Mats, his best friend at school, fell off his bike. Mats had been unconscious for several minutes, and during that time Henrik had been more scared than he had ever been in his twelve-year-old life.
It was the taste of deep anxiety. Pure fear.
He had been to see Signe and had concluded that there was nothing he could do for her; they were waiting for the air ambulance to take her to the hospital.
Now he was with Nora’s parents. Thomas had also returned. Henrik shook his head in despair. “No one’s seen Nora. It’s as if she’s gone up in smoke.”
The shrill ringtone of Thomas’s phone made them both jump. Thomas’s voice was barely recognizable as he answered with a roar. “Hello!”
“It’s Carina.”
“What’s happened?”
“I’ve spoken to the coast guard and Stockholm Radio. Neither of them had anything in particular to report, apart from the usual weekend drunks. But Stockholm Radio did say that a sailor called in and said there was a fire in the old lighthouse on Grönskär. They’ve tried to contact the curator for confirmation, but he was on another island. He’s on his way over to see if anything’s happened. I don’t know if it’s important, but you did say I should call about the least thing, and Grönskär isn’t far from Sandhamn.”
Thomas looked at Henrik. “There’s a fire in Grönskär lighthouse. Could she be there?” He called out to Nora’s parents, “There’s a fire in Grönskär lighthouse. Could it have anything to do with Nora?”
Her father looked horrified. “We were there today, on an excursion with the Friends of Sandhamn.”
Susanne appeared in the doorway, her arms wrapped around her body. Her face was ashen. “But what would she be doing over there? At this time of night?”
“Shit.” Thomas suddenly realized he had missed something when he was in Signe’s house. There had been a life jacket on the floor when he’d walked in through the greenhouse. It didn’t belong there and was completely out of character for Signe Brand, who was always so tidy. But if she had just been out in a boat, that might explain it.
And the fact that Nora’s boat was still moored by the jetty.
“I think she’s on Grönskär,” Thomas said. “We’ll take the Buster.”
CHAPTER 78
Henrik and Thomas raced down to the jetty. Henrik hardly had time to cast off before Thomas revved the engine. He blessed his years with the maritime police, where he had learned to handle boats at high speed and in difficult nighttime conditions.
But he still didn’t see the rigid inflatable boat—commonly called a
RIB—before it was almost upon him.
It came hurtling through the sound as if it had been fired from a cannon; it had no lights and was ignoring the speed limit of five knots. It must have been doing forty knots, maybe more.
It raced across the surface of the water, a miracle of speed that wasn’t remotely under the control of its young, intoxicated driver.
Loud rock music pulsated from the speakers, but Thomas barely had time to register the noise before they were on the point of colliding. He did, however, see the driver’s terrified face and could hear the sound of young girls’ laughter, which quickly turned into hysterical screams. They were so close that he could smell rubber from the other boat.
Thomas gripped the wheel so hard that his fingers hurt. He tried to avoid the RIB by veering sharply to the left, as hard as possible. The sudden maneuver caused the Buster to list heavily, and water splashed in over the port side. And still it seemed as if the RIB was heading inexorably toward them. He realized in despair that there was no escape; time had run out.
With only inches to spare, they avoided a direct collision, but the other boat was so close that it touched the Buster’s hull. The petrified driver, who had been trying to move to starboard, lost control. The impact made the prow jerk sideways, and the speed at which the RIB was traveling increased the effect. The engine let out a high-pitched roar, and the RIB was standing on its right-hand side above the dark water. For a moment it balanced there as the occupants desperately tried to hang on, but then gravity took over and the boat tipped over with a dull, heavy thud. The passengers were hurled into the sea as the hull came crashing down in a cascade of water.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Henrik yelled. The sudden changes of direction had thrown him down on the deck; he had managed to grab ahold of a cleat and clung on for dear life.
