A Summer of Drowning [antikvár]

Late in May 2001, about ten days after I saw him for the last time, Mats Sigfridsson was hauled out of Malangen Sound, a few miles down the coast from here. They say he must have gone into the water at Skognes, then drifted back down to the pier near Straumsbukta, not far from where he lived - and I like to think that the sea took pity on the puny child it had killed, and was in the process of carrying him home, when a fisherman caught sight of that distinctive, almost white shock of hair through the summer gloaming and, with due care and sadness and habitual skill, fetched him to shore. Later, they found a boat drifting in the Sound, halfway between Kvaloya and the shipping channel where the great cruise and cargo vessels from Troms0 glide out into the open sea. The boat, it turned out, had been securely moored half a mile from Mats's house, which seemed to confirm that he must have stolen it - but that really was beyond explanation, for there was no less likely thief than Mats Sigfridsson, and nobody could think of a reason why this quiet, well-behaved boy would even be out on the water in the middle of the night. The whole thing was a mystery and everyone had his own theory about why Mats was in that boat, or what his intentions might have been. There were those who spoke of suicide: it was the end of the school