THE HOT-BULB ENGINE was much too large and so loud a person could have been excused for thinking they were on a mid-sized fishing vessel rather than a small, open wooden skiff. But the harbourmaster needed no persuasion to explain at very great length why his do-it-yourself contraption was ingenious.
Within minutes, Fabian had tuned him out, moved to the bow, far from both the engine and the harbourmaster, and was using the headset of his phone as makeshift ear buds. What he wanted was silence. But since not playing anything through the headphones meant anything but silence, he’d turned on Brian Eno’s ambience album Thursday Afternoon, which helped create a space for his thoughts in the calm before what lay ahead.
It was only once they reached the open sea that he realized he’d been feeling that way all week. That everything around him was just the calm before the storm, before the abyss opened up in front of him. As though nothing made any real difference because everything was already preordained.
It was a feeling that went against his nature and everything he believed, and he would have preferred to pour all his energy into the complete opposite. Into thinking that of course it’s possible to effect change and make a difference. That was exactly what he’d been trying to make Theodor understand. But he hadn’t got through, and now he didn’t know if he even believed it himself any more.
Once he’d managed to calm down the alarmed family and explain why he’d broken into their yacht, he’d gone to find the harbourmaster to ask him if he knew anyone who would be willing to take him out in their boat immediately. The man had once more warned him of the low pressure that, according to his hip, was about to roll in, but had in the end offered to take him in his own skiff.
With Laholm Bay on their port side, they were moving south towards Hallands Väderö outside the Bjäre peninsula. Visibility could only be described as middling, and there was virtually no wind. Even so, the boat was pitching in waves left over from the previous day’s blustery weather, which, although they were evenly spaced and smooth as mirrors, were also long and deep. In other words, it was a day made to cause seasickness, but Fabian was so focused on analysing what he could see through the binoculars as he scanned the vague horizon that he didn’t notice. Here and there, he saw the occasional freighter, the size of a matchbox. From time to time, a motorboat whisked past in stark contrast with the yachts that bobbed about, waiting for the evening breeze to pick up, like scattered crumbs on a vast, billowing tablecloth.
The area Molander had identified was based on just two masts. One in Torekov and the other on Hallands Väderö, which, with a maximum elevation of thirty feet, was almost invisible in the thickening haze. It was an impossibly large area, and with the deteriorating visibility, time was an important factor.
The maximum speed of the little skiff was six knots, which meant they were easily outstripped by any boat running by engine. Yachts with their sails up, on the other hand, were no challenge. But those weren’t the ones Fabian was interested in; he was studying the ones lying still, their sails down.
A part of him was hoping they’d be forced to turn back to Halmstad with their errand unfinished. That Tuvesson would call and tell him Molander had just identified a new location further north. That the phone was still moving because Frank Käpp had broken his promise and was pushing on towards Gothenburg as originally planned.
But the sense of unease in the pit of his stomach knew better. It always did.
The dark dot came into sight for just a few seconds before vanishing into the haze once more. It could have been anything. A fishing boat, a light buoy or just a grain of sand on the lens of the binoculars. But it wasn’t, and once he spotted it a second time, he felt convinced it was what they were looking for.
He signalled to the harbourmaster to change course and noted that the old man’s hip had been correct. Conditions had gradually been worsening since they set out from the marina and a steadily thickening fog had appeared from out of nowhere. Now, just half an hour later, they were unable to see much further than a hundred feet.
‘I told you,’ called the man from behind the wheel, reducing their speed. ‘My hip is never wrong. Never.’
Fabian nodded and gave him a thumbs up. He didn’t even have time to start pondering whether there was a scientific explanation for how that worked before a yacht with lowered sails appeared out of the thick fog.
The boat with the characteristic dark-blue Hallberg-Rassy stripe along both sides was adrift on the long, rolling waves, and even if you didn’t know what had happened, it was an ominous sight.
Increasingly dense fog banks floated by like big cotton wads in various shades of grey, draining the world of colour and from time to time hiding the yacht from view entirely.
It looked dirty, and both the mainsail and the genoa were dragging in the water. The mainsheet wasn’t cleated either, so the boom kept sweeping back and forth with the waves. There was no sign of life on board, and apart from the boom and a stray fender rolling back and forth across the deck, nothing moved.
When they were no more than fifty feet away, Fabian signalled for the harbourmaster to circle the yacht, which was considerably dirtier on the other side. Through the binoculars, he could see that what looked like dirt from a distance was in fact sticky dark-red smears that in places had run down the hull.
Pontus Milwokh had refused to allow circumstance to trump the dice’s decision. Against all odds, he had not only survived, but located, caught up with and ruthlessly slaughtered a completely innocent family.
His evil seemed to know no limits. The monumental meaninglessness felt like a few more tons on Fabian’s shoulders. He could barely breathe under the pressure, and for the first time he asked himself how much longer he would be able to carry on. How much he was willing to give up to keep going.
Less than five minutes ago, they could have given up and turned back empty-handed. They could have blamed the fog and no one would have questioned it. But it was too late for that now, and there wasn’t going to be another phone call from Tuvesson about a new position further north. He was going to have to climb on board and do a quick inspection and then tie a rope to the bow so they could tow the boat back to shore.
The movement in one of the windows was almost imperceptible. But he’d seen it, he was certain. Something had moved inside the cabin. He turned around to see if the harbourmaster had caught it too, but was met by a vacant stare.
‘Hello? Is there anyone there?’ he called out as loudly as he could, while pulling out his gun. ‘If so, come out with your hands above your head!’
Nothing happened. But at least the harbourmaster snapped out of it and moved the skiff in alongside the drifting yacht. The waves made it far from easy, but eventually Fabian was able to step up onto the Hallberg-Rassy and down into the cockpit.
There was blood everywhere. The sticky smears on the white plastic bore witness to a protracted struggle.
‘Hello!’ he called again, but there was no answer.
The cabin door was swinging open and shut as the boat rolled. Fabian walked over to it and took a deep breath before throwing it open and pointing his gun down into the gloomy saloon, completely unprepared for the scream that greeted him, together with a fist that came flying straight at him.
He fired a shot and then three more in quick succession, before realizing it was just a big seagull with a severed hand in its beak that had been trying to get out and was now dying on the floor among a jumble of body parts that two other seagulls were still feasting on.
It was a bloodbath. A severed foot here, a forearm there. An ear and what looked like part of a torso. One of the seagulls hopped onto the top of Frank Käpp’s head, which was sitting on a sofa, and started to peck at the contents of one of the eye sockets.
About a foot from it, Fabian spotted the son’s head, mostly hidden under a soiled blanket. Only one ear, part of one cheek and some hair was visible, and even though he would have given a lot not to have to, he walked over and slowly lifted a corner of the blanket.
The eyes that met his changed everything.
‘Hi, Vincent,’ he said. ‘Remember me?’
The boy nodded, and just like that, the feeling of failure and preordained pointlessness Fabian had been carrying around for so long was replaced by something like hope.
Maybe he could make a difference after all.