Free Third Voice by Cilla Börjlind, Hilary; Rolf; Parnfors Page A

Mumford & Sons. What music do you like?’
    ‘None in particular.’
    Luna looked at him and took a small sip from her glass.
    ‘Luna,’ said Stilton.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Quite an unusual name.’
    ‘Mum christened me Abluna, some family name.’
    ‘Sounds foreign.’
    ‘Abluna is an old Swedish girl’s name. But then Mum disappeared and Dad didn’t like the name so he called me Luna instead. Moon in Italian. I like it.’
    ‘It’s beautiful.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘When did your mum disappear?’
    ‘When I was twelve. She was a “wind walker”.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘It’s an old Sami term, he who walks with the wind. Who goes his own way.’
    ‘Was she Sami?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Oh right.’
    That’s where Stilton’s conversational stocks began to run dry, but he went for something within easy reach.
    ‘How long have you had the barge?’
    ‘I came across it two years ago, in Toulouse, I fell for the name.’
    ‘ Sara la Kali. ’
    ‘Yes. It’s the name of a Roman saint. I took it up the canals.’
    ‘On your own?’
    ‘No, my dad’s a sea captain. He came too.’
    Stilton nodded and drank up the whiskey. He felt how the accumulated fatigue hit him with full force. Yet he still wantedto remain seated. On one level. And on another he had Rune Forss to deal with.
    ‘I’m going to hit the sack now,’ he said.
    ‘Thanks for the company.’
    ‘There’ll be other times.’
    Stilton looked away as he said it. Luna smiled again and followed him with her gaze. She slowly poured herself another splash. When she put the glass to her lips Stilton had disappeared.
    ‘I come from a family of seal hunters.’
    Luna gulped the whiskey and put the glass down. As she let go she saw her hand was trembling slightly. It was a sinewy hand, divided by furrows, some from hard work and others were secrets. She turned it over and looked at her nails, broad, evenly cut, unpainted. She wasn’t one for nail polish. She was vain in a different way.
    But the trembling?
    She clenched her fist to calm it. The trembling was troubling her. She’d had it that morning too, and at the cemetery the day before. A light tremble in both hands that she couldn’t explain. She was forty-one years old and had been fit as a fiddle her entire life, apart from the odd allergy. She looked at the corridor into which Stilton had disappeared. Shame that he wasn’t been a doctor, she thought. Former coppers probably didn’t have much to say about trembling hands. She leant back and put the lights out in the lounge. The lamps on the quay were casting a dull raking light through the portholes, and her silhouette was visible against the dark wood-panelled wall behind her. She lowered her body onto the wooden bench and stretched out a little. She’d had trouble falling asleep recently. Sometimes she went up to lie down in the lounge, just to get a change of environment, and every now and again she fell asleep there. She shut her eyes and felt that she was drifting off, the booze rocking her in the darkness. Just a second before she was about to surrender to sleep, she heard the scream.
    It came from Stilton’s cabin.
    She sat up, her heart pounding. She was just about to lie back down when she heard another scream. Luna got up and went over towards the corridor. She stopped some distance away from Stilton’s cabin. There was no light seeping under the door. She stood there in silence. Then there was another scream, lower now, shorter, followed by a long protracted whimper.
    He’s dreaming, she thought. Nightmares.
    When Stilton asked whether he could lock the cabin door, she’d already felt that there was something mysterious about this man. As though the rent he was paying was just a necessary evil, a quick and easy way of getting an abode, a place to sleep and nothing more.
    She went back into the lounge.
    ***
    The little round beam of light slowly slid across a bare white bedroom wall. Carefully it brushed against the edge of a framed