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down at the little table and unpacked his lead. The brass gleamed. For one brief moment he had the feeling that Kristina Tacker was standing behind him, leaning over his shoulder.
    'Something is going to happen,' she whispered. 'There is a point where your lead will never reach the bottom. There comes a point where everything is found wanting, my darling husband.'

PART II
The Navigable Channel

CHAPTER 25
    The evening before Lars Tobiasson-Svartman started on his mission, a petty officer came to his cabin to tell him that Captain Rake wanted to give him the final instructions.
    He put on his naval jacket and hurried up the slippery companionway. The crescent moon kept appearing through the clouds. The Svea was anchored to the northeast of the Häradskär lighthouse.
    He paused halfway up the stairs and gazed out over the dark sea to where the lights of gunboats could be seen. The Häradskär light had been turned off. He thought about all the shells, all the torpedoes out there. Every vessel was laden with the man-made fury known as dynamite or gunpowder.
    The hardest place to estimate distances was over open water, but not when it was dark. He judged the nearest gunboat to be 140 metres distant, with a margin of error no greater than ten metres either way.
    Before entering the captain's quarters, he removed his dark blue naval cap.
    Rake offered him a brandy. Normally, Tobiasson-Svartman never touched alcohol when he was working, but he could not bring himself to refuse it.
    Rake emptied his glass and said: 'They are very much concerned in Stockholm, and rightly so. They say on the wireless that Russian and German naval vessels have been sighted to the east of Gotland. But there haven't been any reports of action. The whole of the Gotland coastline is crammed full of people with good hearing, straining to detect the sound of guns or torpedoes.'
    'There's no concern worse than the sort you feel when you don't know what's going on,' said Tobiasson-Svartman. 'Concern based on knowledge is always easier to handle.'
    Rake handed him the sheet of paper he was holding.
    'Nobody knows if any of these nations intend attacking Sweden. We are going to switch off all our lighthouses and creep down into our burrows.'
    'Are people worried more about the Russians or the Germans?'
    'Both. You don't need to be one of the navy's most experienced officers or even the Minister of Defence to know that. On the one hand both Germany and Russia have an interest in Sweden being kept out of the war. On the other hand both of them probably suspect that Sweden won't be able to hang on to its neutrality in the long run. That could lead to either or both of them launching a pre-emptive strike. The other possibility, of course, is that they decide to leave us alone. Being an insignificant country can be both an advantage and a drawback.'
    Tobiasson-Svartman read through the list of lighthouses that had been switched off, and which other navigation marks had been covered up or hastily dismantled. He could picture the sea charts. At night in total darkness it would be very difficult for a foreign warship to sail through the archipelago.
    Rake had rolled out a chart on his table and placed an ashtray on each corner. It covered the area between Gotska Sandön and the southern tip of Gotland. He pointed at a spot out to sea.
    'A German convoy – comprising a couple of cruisers, a few small destroyers, torpedo boats, minesweepers and probably some submarines – has been seen here, travelling north. They are said to be travelling at speed, around twenty knots. They were on a level with Slite when they were spotted by a fishing boat from Fårösund. At four o'clock this afternoon they vanished into a belt of fog north-east of Gotska Sandön. At about the same time another fishing boat discovered a number of Russian ships also on their way north, but a bit further to the east. The skipper of the fishing boat was not sure of their exact course. He wasn't sure