The tea brewed and then cooled to the point of being useful. As they talked, he thought Ingrid seemed dampened, even spiritless, but given the mood of her visit, not to mention her husband’s ill health, he should not have expected more. He did wish it, though. When they moved to better ground—their daughter and her fireman boyfriend, and the attendant speculation about grandchildren—the air seemed to improve. Ingrid even made him laugh once or twice, which was once or twice more than any other night this week. They’d talked for an hour when she finally looked at her watch.

“I should be going. Alfred doesn’t always remember his pills before bed.”

“Yes, of course.”

After an awkward moment, she said, “I promised Blix I’d tell you to see a doctor. If he asks, say I did.”

Sanderson smiled. He helped her put on her coat, and she looked at him with something old and familiar.

“This investigation—it’s bothering you, isn’t it, Arne?”

“They all do.”

“No. Not like this.”

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing more I can do about it.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She went to the door and took the handle. “You could always get off your ass and finish what you started.”

*   *   *

To sink a sailboat was not as easy as Christine imagined. She spent an hour in near darkness hammering and pounding, and in the end used a battery-powered drill to breach what she guessed was an adequate hole below the starboard waterline. When seawater finally began flowing, she disabled the automatic bilge pump and cranked the motor.

She had argued at length with David over the need for sinking the boat, he being of the school that no evidence should ever be left behind, and she assuming a more practical sailor’s point of view. A compromise was reached when he agreed that once their situation normalized they would search out Bricklayer’s owner and make things right.

With the boat hove close to shore in a cove off Runmarö Island, Christine maneuvered to point the bow toward open water. She shone a flashlight into the cabin and watched the water level, trying to estimate the rate of rise in relation to the engine compartment. When she gauged submersion to be minutes away, she lashed a line beam-to-beam to hold the tiller steady and levered the motor into gear. For the third time in as many days, Christine slipped down the stern ladder in her underwear and eased into the Baltic. It seemed colder than ever.