They went back down the steps.
Per realized there was no hope for anyone inside the house.
‘Go, Pelle?’ said Jerry behind him.
It was a tempting thought, simply to start the car and set off for Öland – but of course it was impossible.
‘No,’ Per said. ‘We have to wait here.’
Several more sirens could be heard in the distance. An ambulance swung in and parked between the fire engines and the Saab. The siren was switched off and two paramedics climbed out. They stood looking at the burning house with their arms folded; there wasn’t much else they could do.
‘Come with me,’ said Per, helping his father out of the car. They went over to the ambulance, and Per pointed at Jerry. ‘My father’s got an injury to his stomach, and he’s had some kind of blow to the head … Could you take a look at him?’
The paramedics nodded, without asking any questions. They simply opened the back doors of the ambulance and helped Jerry inside.
Per himself was starting to feel a little better; he just needed lots and lots of fresh air. He left Jerry and walked over to the fence running along one side of the house. He stood there for a minute, deep in thought, looking over at the forest. Then he climbed over the fence.
He had stared so much at the burning house that he hadn’t noticed that the sun had gone down. It was almost dark now, and as he crossed the field he glanced at his watch: it was ten to seven.
He thought about Jerry, who always wore two watches when he was working: one stainless steel, one gold.
The forest rose up ahead of him. Per searched for the opening among the fir trees, and found it after a few minutes. It was a forest track, deserted but not overgrown. There was a strip of grass down the middle, with a broad rut along each side. He bent down. The ground was hard and stony, but with patches of wet mud here and there, and in the fading light Per thought he could see fresh tyre marks.
He straightened up and looked along the track, which wound through the trees and disappeared round a bend. Where did it end? Perhaps it led to a road north of Ryd.
A good escape route.
* * *
Ten minutes later he was back at the house. He stayed away from the fire-fighters, but stopped by the ambulance.
The paramedics had cleaned up Jerry’s wound. Now the blood had gone, a long, red slash was visible across his pale, fat belly.
‘It looks like a knife wound,’ said one of the paramedics as he applied a dressing. ‘Pretty superficial – I think the knife must have slipped.’
‘Slipped?’ said Per.
‘Slipped across the skin … He’s been lucky, it should heal in a week or so. Then you can go to a clinic and ask them to remove the dressing, or do it yourself.’
Per helped Jerry back to the car. They sat beside each other in the front seats, gazing over at the house.
Eventually Per broke the silence. ‘There was a body in a bed upstairs,’ he said. ‘At least I think it was a body, but I could hardly see anything with all the smoke … and I thought I heard cries.’
He sighed, leaned back in his seat and thought about the open window. Who had opened it?
His father was mumbling something beside him. His brain seemed to have shut down again.
Per made a fresh attempt. ‘What did you and Bremer talk about?’ he asked. ‘What did he say when he called and wanted you to meet him here?’
‘Can’t remember,’ said Jerry.
‘But why did you have a fight?’
Jerry just coughed and leaned back. Per sighed, placed his hands on the steering wheel and gazed at the dark-grey sky. ‘I have to go home soon,’ he said. ‘Nilla, my daughter, she’s in …’
He stopped speaking as a white Volvo turned into the drive. It was moving slowly as it swung around the fire engines then pulled up facing Per’s car. When it had stopped directly in front of him, a man and a woman got out. They were dressed in civilian clothes, but he suspected he knew who they were.
The man went over to the ambulance; the woman came over to Per’s car, and he opened the door.
‘Good evening.’
‘Good evening,’ said the woman, showing him her ID. She was from police headquarters in Växjö. ‘Was it you who called the emergency services?’
‘Yes,’ said Per.
The officer asked for his name and address, and he gave them.
‘And who are you?’ she said to Jerry, who stared sullenly back at her.
Per knew that his father had never been fond of the police. Police officers and traffic wardens were two of his bugbears.
‘This is my father, Jerry Morner,’ said Per. ‘He owns the property.’
‘I see,’ said the police officer, glancing over at the fire. ‘Well, let’s hope you’re insured. Are you, Jerry?’
No response.
‘My father’s had a stroke,’ Per explained. ‘He has some speech problems.’
The officer nodded. ‘So you were both here before the fire started?’
‘Something like that,’ said Per. ‘Jerry was here … I arrived just after.’
‘Can you tell me what you saw?’
Nothing to hide, Per thought again. Then he began to tell her about going into the house, discovering Jerry and the petrol can, helping his father out and going back inside.
The officer took out a notebook and started to write down what he said. ‘So you saw somebody upstairs? And you heard cries for help?’
‘I think so.’
‘Did you see anyone else in or near the house?’
Per was silent, considering what he had seen. A figure fleeing into the trees? And tyre tracks from a car?
‘I didn’t see anything clearly … But someone had knocked my father down, and slashed him with a knife.’
‘Oh?’
‘Bremer,’ said a voice behind Per.
‘Bremer?’ said the police officer. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Hans Bremer, he’s my father’s associate,’ said Per. ‘He might be the person inside the house.’
All three of them gazed silently at the blaze, which was still defeating the efforts of the fire-fighters. Sparks were shooting up into the sky, and the heat could be felt right across the drive.
‘OK,’ said the police officer, looking around. ‘My colleagues and I will make a start on cordoning off the area.’
‘So you’re treating this as a crime scene?’ said Per.
‘It could be.’ She turned away.
‘Is it all right if we leave?’ Per said to her back. ‘I mean, there’s nothing more we can do, is there?’
She shook her head. ‘We’ll soon be done here,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘and then you can follow us up to Växjö in your car.’
‘What for?’
‘We’d just like to do another interview back at the station. It won’t take long.’
Per sighed. He looked up at the darkening sky, then down at his watch. It was quarter to eight.
He felt very tired. The plan had been to drive Jerry back to his apartment in Kristianstad, but then he wouldn’t have time to get back to Öland tonight. And Jesper would have to spend the night alone in the cottage.
He turned around. ‘Jerry, I won’t have time to drive you home tonight. You’re going to have to come to Öland with me.’
His father looked at him. ‘Öland?’
He looked doubtful, and Per had his doubts too. After all, he had promised himself that he would keep Jerry away from Nilla and Jesper.
‘Yes … well, I mean, you are my father, after all. Part of the family.’
‘Family?’ Jerry didn’t seem to understand the word.
‘My family,’ said Per. ‘So you can come and celebrate Easter with me and Nilla and Jesper in our summer cottage – on one condition.’
Jerry waited, and Per went on: ‘That you keep quiet.’
‘Quiet?’
Per nodded. Asking someone who couldn’t manage a whole sentence to keep quiet was quite funny,
of course, but he wasn’t laughing.
‘I want you to keep quiet, Jerry. You are not to tell your grandchildren what you and Bremer used to do here.’
15
Vendela was wearing a white cap and a windproof red tracksuit as she bent down to the dog basket in the hallway and kissed Aloysius on the top of his head. Then she went to the front door. ‘I’m going for a run!’ she called out. ‘See you in an hour or so!’
There was no reply from Max, just a whimper from Aloysius. He was uneasy; perhaps he sensed there was going to be a party. Since he had lost his sight, Ally always found strange voices around him quite stressful.
It looked as though there were going to be about ten people at Wednesday’s get-together: she and Max, the Kurdins and their baby, Per Mörner and his two teenage children, plus Gerlof Davidsson, the elderly man from across the road, and his friend John. She wouldn’t need to prepare too much food, although of course it was important to work out how much they would need. She would go down to Borgholm tomorrow and fill the car with supplies, including dog food.
Then all she had to do was get everything ready for Wednesday, and she wouldn’t get any help from Max. But she wasn’t going to think about that now, she was going to go for a run.
Vendela had taken up jogging ten years ago. She had actually started when she married Max, who didn’t run and couldn’t understand why she wanted to do it. Last winter she had stayed fit by jogging on a running machine, but she had missed nature and the chance to be out in the open air.
She spent a couple of minutes stretching on the steps outside before heading off northwards, in a wide semicircle around the edge of the quarry.
Vendela noticed a strange kind of gateway to the north of the quarry – two substantial hazel bushes growing a couple of metres apart. She ran between them. Hazel was always special; it was used for both magic wands and divining rods.
It felt as if she was in a new world now. Her goal was to return to her childhood home after almost forty years – if she could find her way. A great deal had changed since then. Houses had been built, tarmac roads had appeared, meadows and fields had become overgrown.
She increased her speed and ran out on to the coast road above the shore. It was late afternoon and the sun was low in the sky, just as in October, but its light was sharper in the spring. The narrow strips of snow still remaining on the grass and in the ditches were melting fast.
The rocky landscape was silent and still. The only thing that was moving was Vendela herself, her arms and legs swinging back and forth. Slowly she began to find her rhythm, and was able to relax. When she came to a fork in the coast road she turned right, inland. The air she inhaled was fresh and cool. There was no sign of her allergy.
It took about twenty minutes to run to the place where her childhood had begun and ended. She ran virtually straight there, without getting lost. First of all along the wide tarmac road, then on to a narrower gravel track which she thought she recognized, past a grove of ash trees that had grown tall and dense over the years since she had left the island. In the middle of the grove was a short, narrow track, and Vendela turned on to it. She was hot and sweaty by now, and tense with anticipation.
When she had run another fifty metres she reached the end of the track, and there was the farm. She breathed out and tried to compose herself.
It was slightly set apart at the edge of the alvar, a couple of kilometres north of Stenvik. There were two new white-painted iron gates in front of the stone path leading into the garden. Vendela couldn’t see anyone moving about, so she opened the gates.
The sun had slipped lower in the sky to the west, and the garden lay in shadow. But the sun’s rays were still shining on the house, and the windows gleamed at her. Vendela had been afraid that the place would be deserted and falling apart, with broken windows and the doors hanging off their hinges, but the house was well maintained and had recently been painted yellow. Someone with time and money had bought the place.
There was a lawn below the house, and to the left a slight rise in the ground was visible, a long rectangle. Forty years ago a little barn had stood there, but it was gone now. Grass and moss had crept up and covered the foundations.
For appearances’ sake Vendela walked up the path to the house and knocked on the kitchen door, but no one answered. The farm had become a summer residence, like so many others, the lawn uncut and the blinds lowered. Presumably the place was empty and deserted from autumn through to spring.
She thought about the family who would soon arrive and quickly clear away all traces of winter. On the very first evening they would be busy raking up the leaves and cutting the grass. Young, carefree people; perhaps they had children. But could they feel echoes of the unhappiness that had existed in this house?
Vendela walked through the garden. At the far end, there were still fragile patches of snow and the ground was sodden, like a marsh. She looked over at a thicket of bushes and spotted an old shed. It was standing in the shadows, and didn’t fit in with the rest of the well-cared-for holiday idyll at all. It was scruffy and unpainted and was leaning slightly to one side, as if it were in the process of sinking down into the ground. The shed looked hidden and forgotten, and Vendela suddenly remembered that her father had used it as his tool shed. He had left some tools down in the quarry at the end of the day, but the rest he had brought home and locked up here.
She went over and tugged at the rickety door, and it opened reluctantly on stiff hinges. There was no unpleasant smell. Just a faint aroma of earth. It was dark inside, dark and cramped. Old tools and bags were piled up on top of one another. In the corner nearest the door stood a slender stick made of chestnut, with the bark scraped off. Vendela recognized it at once. She hesitated, then picked it up.
The cow stick.
It was hers. Her father had given it to her when she was responsible for tending the cows. The stick was shiny and well used.
Öland 1957
The flies are buzzing lazily and sleepily above the path, woken by the spring sunshine. The wind is soughing in the trees, and Vendela raises her stick and hits the three cows, over and over again.
‘Go on! Get a move on!’
She is walking barefoot along the path, wearing a white dress, and she hits the cows as hard as she can. Three blows each. She measures the distance and swings the stick sideways at their flanks, just above the back legs. When she hits them there, it goes smack! Further forward on their bodies the sound is duller, smock!
The blows can be heard in long, rhythmic sequences along the path between the meadow and the farm, where she and Henry and the Invalid live.
‘Go, go, go!’
The bell on a strap around the leading cow’s neck clonks rhythmically. It is hot, and hitting the cows is tiring. Vendela is only nine years old and the stick is heavy. She is sweating. Her dress is stuck to the skin under her arms, her hair hangs in her eyes and bluebottles circle around her and the cows. She blows her nose on some grass and raises the stick once again. ‘Get a move on!’
When she turned eight, Vendela was given the responsibility of moving the cows between the farm and the meadow. It was a proper job, but there was never any mention of Henry paying her – he doesn’t even have enough money for electricity, even though the cables were brought as far as the farm several years ago. Her only reward was to be allowed to name the cows, and she called them Rosa, Rosa and Rosa.
That made her father laugh. ‘We might as well just give them each a number,’ he said.
The cows’ names mean nothing to him; he has marked them with a clear snick in the ear so that anyone who comes across them on the alvar can see that they belong to him. But he must have found the idea amusing, because the names stick.
Rosa, Rosa and Rosa.
Vendela is not in the least amused. It doesn’t matter what the cows are called, because she can’t see any difference between them. To her they are merely three brown and white things that have to be driven back and forth be
tween the meadow and the barn. It’s a daily obligation that begins with the start of the spring farming and the arrival of the sun in April. That is when Henry, in keeping with tradition, gives each cow a herring dipped in tar for its first meal outside the barn. Then he lets them out on to their spring grazing land and tells his daughter to take care of them.
The cow stick is smooth and beautiful, slender and flexible. Henry removed all the bark before he gave it to her. Use this to guide the cows, he said. Walk behind them and prod them in the side occasionally, just to make sure they’re heading in the right direction.
The cows are as big as great lumps of rock, and Vendela prodded them tentatively when she first started driving them between the meadow and the farm. For the first few days she was afraid they would turn on her, but the cows didn’t react at all. It was as if she didn’t exist. So she prodded harder and harder, and after a month or so she started hitting them with the stick.
Finally she took to beating them.
By now, hitting the nearest cow as hard as possible with the stick has become a habit. Rosa, Rosa and Rosa have such thick brown and white hide, as hard as leather, and she wants to penetrate it and see it bleed; most of all she wants to frighten the cows. But the Rosas just carry on lumbering along, their great heads swaying as Vendela’s stick swishes through the air. Occasionally the blows make them give a little skip or two along the gravel track. The cow bells lose their rhythm, then they settle back to their normal, lumbering gait.
The lumbering along, the swaying heads, the brown eyes with their indifferent expression – Vendela regards all this as part of the daily struggle. Rosa, Rosa and Rosa try to show her that she is of no significance, but they are wrong.
Last summer Henry gave her responsibility for the henhouse as well, and she thought she would start hitting the hens and chickens too, or at least kicking out at them when they got in her way. But the cockerel went mad when she tried. He crowed and flapped his wings and stabbed at Vendela with his beak, chasing her out of the henhouse and halfway across the farmyard.
The Quarry Page 9
