The Dead Of Summer

by Mari Jungstedt

  The next second he saw her standing next to Viktor, who was buying some booze from the man at the gangway.

  When the purchase was completed, she nonchalantly went on board.

  JOHAN COULDN’T MAKE up his mind. Should he follow her?

  He didn’t have to ponder his decision for long. The next second, police sirens began wailing, and four cars came to a screeching halt on the dock. Within a few minutes, a dozen officers had gone on board the boat while others rounded up the people on the wharf. Knutas didn’t seem to be among the officers, but Johan caught a glimpse of Karin Jacobsson in the crowd.

  It didn’t take long before people began coming out. Pia was escorted by two solid-looking policemen who resolutely hustled her down the gangway. Then Johan discovered Knutas, his face bright red, striding towards Pia.

  ‘What in the world are you doing here?’ he shouted. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  She didn’t hesitate to answer.

  ‘We have every right to cover any story we like, and to whatever extent we deem worthwhile. Or are you saying that we should ring the police and ask permission every time we’re going to put together a report?’

  ‘Damn it all, you could ruin the whole investigation. Get her out of here,’ he ordered his colleagues.

  A moment later, Knutas caught sight of Johan.

  ‘You’re here too? Why can’t you stay out of police business?’

  Ever since Johan’s report from the construction site in Stenkyrkehuk had been shown on TV, Knutas had been noticeably annoyed and curt with him. Now he was furious.

  ‘It’s damned hard to do our job when we keep having reporters swarming at our heels. How are we supposed to conduct an investigation with you hanging around all the time? Do you think this is going to benefit the investigation in some way?’

  Johan felt his hackles rise.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about? This is a public place, and we’re just doing our job. Like you are.’

  ‘Get out of here,’ roared Knutas. ‘Before I decide to arrest you.’

  ‘What for? Disturbing the peace? Or endangering somebody? I call this a fucking threat against journalists.’

  The officers who were holding Pia now let her go, and she came over to Johan and took his arm.

  ‘Come on,’ she said quietly. ‘Let’s get out of here. We’ve got what we came for.’

  Reluctantly, Johan complied. He was shaking his head at Knutas and muttering something inaudible.

  ‘Lucky for you I didn’t hear what you just said,’ snapped Knutas. ‘You’d bloody well better watch your step.’

  SUNDAY, 23 JULY

  KNUTAS HAD TIPPED back his worn oak desk chair as he sat on the leather cushion, shiny with age. The appearance of the chair offered a stark contrast to the rest of the furnishings in his office. Police headquarters had been remodelled a couple of years earlier, and it was all Scandinavian design, with white walls; the old things had been replaced with plain, simple furniture made of light birch. But Knutas had refused to give up his favourite chair. It stimulated his thought processes, as did the pipe which he was now filling with the greatest attention. He rarely lit the pipe, but just fiddling with the aromatic tobacco helped him think.

  He’d come back to headquarters, even though it was Sunday evening, because he wanted to go over the interviews that had been conducted over the weekend with the crew of the Russian coal transport. The results of the police raid had been meagre, at least from his perspective. They had confiscated hundreds of litres of Russian vodka, and a number of individuals had been arrested, suspected of illegal sales, but nothing new had surfaced that might propel the homicide investigation forward.

  The search for the murder weapon was continuing without interruption. Everyone who lived on Gotland and had a licence for a gun had been checked, but nowhere had they been able to locate the Korovin gun that had been used for the killing. The police knew full well that a good many illegal weapons could be found in Swedish homes. But every few years a gun amnesty was conducted in the country for several months, when anyone could turn in their weapons to the police anonymously and without risking any sort of punishment. The last time this was done, they had collected 17,000 guns in three months.

  Knutas leaned his head in his hands. There was something fundamentally wrong with this whole investigation, but he just couldn’t work out what it could be.

  GOTSKA SANDÖN, 22 JULY 1985

  THE MERCILESS RAYS of the sun woke Vera as she lay tangled up like a snake in the sleeping bag. It was a moment before she was fully conscious, but the first sensation was a dull nausea in her stomach.

  She blinked at the light and heard voices further down the beach. With an effort, she pulled herself into a sitting position and lifted away a corner of the windbreak. Ten or fifteen people were walking past. They were in late middle age, with rucksacks, sunhats and sensible shoes. She heard scattered laughter interspersed with their chatter. Without a care in the world, they continued on, although one person did cast a glance in her direction, but quickly looked away. They paid her no attention.

  The sleeping bag next to hers was empty. She was wearing her watch, which told her it was eleven fifteen. Good God, how could she have slept so long? She peered out again. Tanya was nowhere in sight. Maybe she’d gone for a walk or a swim. But then Vera began thinking more clearly, and memories from the previous evening returned. Those boys from Stockholm. They’d had fun grilling food, swimming and drinking a lot of beer and booze. One of them had a guitar; she’d almost had a crush on him when he played. Then she’d suddenly felt sick and couldn’t sit up any longer; everything began spinning around. She had to go and lie down for a while. She told them she needed to pee and walked away. She threw up in the bushes and then crawled into her sleeping bag behind the windbreak. She’d intended to stay only until she felt better, but she must have fallen asleep.

  Again she pushed aside a corner of the windbreak to peer out at the water. The boat was gone. She sank back to the ground. Her throat was parched, and she was hot and thirsty. She staggered to her feet, found a bottle of water and drank some of it. Her head was spinning and she was sick with worry. Where was her little sister? What if something had happened to her?

  ‘Tanya!’ she shouted, as loudly as she could.

  She walked from one end of the deserted beach to the other without finding her sister. Then she went into the woods to look for her. The longer she searched, the more worried she became. The idyllic beach suddenly felt menacing and inhospitable.

  By two o’clock, she had given up searching and packed up as much as she could carry. For safety’s sake, she left behind the windbreak, some food and water, and Tanya’s rucksack. She wrote a note explaining that she’d gone back to the campsite.

  Before she left the beach, she turned around one last time, straining to see as far as she could.

  But nothing moved.

  MONDAY, 24 JULY

  THE HEAT IN the limestone quarry was almost unbearable.

  Morgan Larsson wiped the sweat from his forehead and left the barracks-like office in the western section of the pit, next to the car-wash for the tractor-trailers.

  Underneath the broiling sun, the temperature slowly but relentlessly rose to more than 85 degrees, even though it was not yet noon. He got into his pick-up and drove along the road towards the biggest limestone quarry, Fila Hajdar, five kilometres away.

  He was going to set things up for the blasting to be done that day.

  It was scheduled for eleven thirty. That was the best time, because that was when the shift change took place and most of the workers were on lunch break in the factory’s big cafeteria at the other end of the property.

  The road, 200 feet wide, was dusty and white with limestone. The road had to be wide in order to make room for all the vehicles travelling between the factory and the two quarries. The tractor-trailers drove back and forth all day long carrying stone to the big crusher inside the factory, w
here it was transformed into cement. If they didn’t water the road to keep down the dust, a gigantic dust cloud would be perpetually visible over Gotland.

  The vehicles drove the road every day, year round, from six in the morning until ten at night. The only time they took a break was during the daily blasting.

  On either side of the road was a lowland forest. Dwarf pines and juniper shrubs looked as if they were fighting for their lives in the arid surroundings. They were covered with white dust, as if someone had sprinkled the entire forest with powdered sugar, producing a ghostlike and sinister impression.

  Morgan Larsson waved a greeting to the driver of a fully loaded truck on its way back from the quarry.

  He felt the familiar tingling in his stomach that always occurred right before the blasting, when forty thousand tons of stone were broken apart in an instant. Even though he’d participated in so many blastings, he never stopped being fascinated by the sight when enormous chunks of the hillside collapsed, making the huge crater open up even more. There was something irrevocable about the whole spectacle. The rock gave way, cracked open, never to exist again.

  When Morgan Larsson reached the quarry, he drove up the slope until he came to the top. He stopped a safe distance from the edge, opened the door of his pick-up and got out. Sweat was running down his back, soaking his armpits and groin. He took the edge off his thirst by finishing off a whole bottle of water in one draught.

  His two colleagues, who would help supervise the blasting, were due to arrive in a few minutes. He couldn’t see them from where he was standing, but they had contact via radio. Strict safety measures were enforced so that no one would be in the blast area or even nearby when it occurred. A tremendous explosive force was released when tons of stone were broken away from the edges and roared down into the gigantic pit, which lay below where he stood.

  There was a risk that stones would fly through the air. Last year, a fellow worker had died when a rock struck him on the head.

  Morgan took up position as close to the edge as he dared and ran his eyes over the rim surrounding the quarry. It was 1,000 yards long and 650 yards wide. The surrounding walls were 200 feet high. It was one of the largest stone quarries in Sweden, and he was proud to be working here. He’d been an explosives expert for almost twenty years, and he enjoyed his job. It was also a big responsibility, making sure that the holes packed with two or three hundred kilos of explosives had each been bored in the right place and at a precise depth.

  About 65 feet from the precipice stood a round wooden shed; that was where he took shelter during the actual blasting. Inside was a cable, which he would soon attach to the detonator that was now in his pocket.

  He glanced at his watch: ten more minutes. He saw a flash of light from the other side of the quarry. The car with his two colleagues had arrived. They took up positions on either side of the pit, 1,000 yards apart, as they checked that nobody else was in the vicinity. He switched on his radio.

  ‘Hello, Morgan here. Everything OK?’

  ‘Sure, it looks deserted,’ he heard Kjell say.

  ‘Five more minutes.’

  ‘Fine. Want to have lunch afterwards?’

  ‘Absolutely. See you then.’

  He stuffed the radio in his breast pocket, turned round and walked over to the many deep holes that had been bored in rows along the edge of the quarry. He bent down and checked to see that everything was as it should be.

  When he straightened up again, he thought he saw someone moving down below in the pit. What the hell? Such an unexpected development was worrisome, to say the least. Only authorized personnel were allowed here. Especially since only a few minutes remained before the blasting. He rushed over to the pit and shouted. His colleagues were much too far away for him to attract their attention. He fumbled for his radio and managed to switch it on just as he reached the pit opening. Strangely enough, it was completely deserted. He looked up towards the edge of the woods. Nothing. Was it some sort of optical illusion? Maybe it was the heat playing tricks on him. It was almost time to detonate. He glanced up at the sky. Not a cloud in sight, and the sun was like a blazing lamp shining in his face. His mouth was completely dry, and his tongue stuck to his palate. A crackling sound came from his radio.

  ‘Is everything ready, Morgan?’

  ‘Yup. I thought I saw somebody, but I must have been imagining things. You haven’t seen anything strange, have you?’

  ‘No, the quarry is empty. But I can check again with my binoculars, just to be sure. We’ve still got a few minutes.’

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  He peered through the observation slit in the shed while he waited. The sweat was pouring off him. He felt upset and wasn’t filled with the usual anticipation; all he wanted was to get this over with so he could leave and have something to eat.

  ‘Hey, Morgan. I don’t see anything unusual. Everything seems quiet.’

  ‘Good. Let’s go, then.’

  When he glanced up again, he gave a start. He hadn’t noticed how it happened, but a stranger was standing across from him, just outside the opening of the shed. He looked into the cold eyes of the intruder. All of a sudden, the muzzle of a gun was pointing at him.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he stammered.

  The walls of the cramped shed seemed to close in on him.

  The radio in Morgan Larsson’s pocket began crackling.

  ‘Come in, Morgan… Are you there? Morgan… Morgan?’

  ‘Turn it off,’ said the stranger. ‘Otherwise I’ll shoot you.’

  With trembling fingers, Morgan switched off the radio. Silence.

  All sorts of thoughts were whirling around in his confused brain. He should have detonated the explosives by now. He was always very precise, down to the second. He wondered how long it would take for his two colleagues to react when they discovered his radio was turned off and the explosion hadn’t taken place.

  The image of Peter Bovide’s face flickered past. He’d been shot to death two weeks earlier. Was it his turn now? That was all he had time to think before the intruder handed him the cable that was supposed to be attached to the detonator and signalled for him to proceed.

  He fumbled in his pocket for the detonator, which was no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Then he attached the cable and pressed the button. The sound was deafening. The low, scraggly forest, covered with white powder, shook from the blast. An enormous cloud of dust rose up from the crater below. The little shed was enveloped in a haze of dust from the explosion.

  The dust stung his eyes, filled his mouth, got under his clothes. He closed his eyes tight to avoid the worst of it and because he had no idea what was going to happen next. The thundering of the huge boulders still filled the air as they broke apart and then plummeted to the bottom of the pit with a deafening crash.

  When the first shot was fired, the sound was drowned out by the din of the explosion.

  FOREMAN KJELL JOHANSSON slowly lowered his hand, which was holding the silent radio. At least Morgan had carried out the blasting, although after a delay of several minutes. He was never late, but no doubt he’d be able to explain. It was odd that he wasn’t answering his radio. Had he put it down somewhere? That seemed very unlikely. They always stayed on site for five or ten minutes after the explosion, just for safety’s sake. Sometimes rocks broke loose quite a distance away from the detonation.

  Something wasn’t right. Kjell Johansson raised the binoculars to study the other side of the quarry and find out what his colleague was doing.

  At first he didn’t see anything. The blasting hut looked deserted, and Morgan’s pick-up was still parked in the same place. He began surveying the area and couldn’t believe his eyes when he spotted a dark figure, which definitely wasn’t Morgan Larsson, emerge from the shed and disappear into the woods. Kjell Johansson tried his radio again, his eyes still peering through the binoculars.

  ‘Morgan, damn it all. Morgan, what’s going on?’

  Still no answer.r />
  Kjell Johansson called to his colleague on the other side of the pit.

  ‘Something’s wrong. Morgan’s not answering, and somebody was here, inside the shed. I just saw him come out. We have to go over there. Right now.’

  When the two men drove up to the opposite side of the quarry, they instantly realized that something serious had happened. Morgan Larsson’s communications radio lay on the ground, smashed to bits.

  When they approached the shed that was the explosives expert’s domain, they suddenly slowed their pace.

  Both men recoiled at what they saw. Morgan Larsson was lying on the floor, his body twisted at an odd angle. Their eyes went first to his abdomen. It was riddled with bloody bullet holes; in the heat, flies and other insects had already begun to swarm over the wounds.

  KNUTAS, JACOBSSON AND Wittberg were all riding in the same vehicle, on their way up to Slite. The big factory buildings dominated the town, located on the north-east side of Gotland. The limestone quarry was gigantic, with its huge crater off to one side of the road.

  Knutas pulled to a stop at the entrance to the factory.

  The Cementa harbour master then joined them to show the way to the quarry where the body had been found.

  ‘Can you tell us what you know so far?’ asked Knutas as they drove through the wrought-iron gates to the factory area.

  ‘Sure. Morgan was in charge of the blasting here, and he had two workmates with him, although they were on the other side of the quarry to him, almost a kilometre apart.’

  ‘How did they stay in contact?’ asked Jacobsson.

  ‘By radio. The two other men were supposed to make sure that nobody came near the site while the blasting was going on. It creates a tremendous force, you know, when thousands of tons of rock are broken up. Right before the detonation, Morgan said that he thought he could see someone near his shed, but then he decided it was only his imagination. The explosion went off, but it was late, so his colleagues tried to get hold of him by radio. He didn’t answer. One of them used his binoculars and saw somebody running away from the area, heading for the woods.’