The sea, and an open area covered in tarmac.
‘This is the dock,’ Pecka whispered.
He and Rita stopped, but the Homecomer kept on going, past the tarmac and on through the forest. The path led through trees and dense undergrowth, and he was astonished – he recognized this place from his childhood, and yet he didn’t.
The trees were new, but the earth and the water and the smells were the same.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of breaking glass beneath his boot.
A piece of an old windowpane.
He looked up and saw the space just twenty metres away. Everything had been cleared.
This was the spot. This was where the croft had stood. But a giant appeared to have stamped all over it, brushed the bits and pieces to one side, then moved on.
The Homecomer looked at what was left for a little while, then backed away. That was enough.
He turned around and increased his speed – and almost bumped into the other two. Pecka and Rita were crouching down in the undergrowth; Pecka was holding a pair of binoculars and looking in the direction of the dock.
The Homecomer saw that there was a small cargo boat moored by the quayside; it looked rusty, possibly abandoned. But then he noticed movement on deck. People were moving around by the hatches leading to the hold, and on the bridge.
‘We know their schedule,’ Rita said. ‘They’ve brought goods ashore for the past two days, and she sails straight after midsummer.’
The Homecomer didn’t say anything, but Pecka nodded.
‘That’s when we’ll do it.’
They carried on watching the boat in the middle of a cloud of buzzing flies, but the Homecomer couldn’t forget the remnants of his childhood, deep in the forest.
The New Country, June 1931
The flies are buzzing inside the carriage, the wind is strong as they speed along, and the train whistle blows. Aron has watched the trains crossing the alvar all his life, but he has never been on one. It’s a real adventure, chugging across the island just a few carriages behind the engine, straight through the flat landscape. A journey through emptiness, through the grassy plain that is the alvar, but it’s still exciting. Aron sticks his head out of the window, feeling the wind in his hair. The steam train is moving faster than the odd cars and buses he sees on the road.
Sometimes they travel past a barn, which brings back memories of last summer, when the barn wall collapsed and everything went quiet in the darkness.
The wall had fallen to reveal a black gap underneath, like the opening of an underground crypt. Aron had stood stock still, staring at it. Then Sven had placed a hand on his back and given him a shove.
‘In you go,’ Sven had growled, sweaty and stressed. ‘Get in there and fetch his money.’
Aron had done as he was told. He had lain down on the grass and wriggled under the wall.
Into the darkness. He had crawled in over the cold ground, in under the hard, wooden wall. A nail had scratched his forehead, but he had ducked and kept on going.
Towards the body.
Edvard Kloss, lying there under the wall.
Trapped. Motionless.
Aron shudders in the cold wind as he gazes out of the train window. He doesn’t want to remember that night.
But the farms alongside the railway line don’t seem to bother Sven. When he sees the farmhands working by the barns, he raises a hand and waves.
‘Do you know them?’ Aron asks.
‘No, but all workers are my brothers. They, too, will be liberated from their back-breaking toil one day!’
After Kalleguta, the railway turns sharply to the west, towards the station in Borgholm. Outside the town the sea appears once again, like a blue ribbon in the west. Aron has never travelled on the ferry to the mainland either; he has never crossed the Sound.
When they arrive they alight from the train at the big stone building, then wander through the straight streets. The black-suited residents of the town glance at Aron and Sven’s simple clothes as they pass by. Aron can hear them speaking quietly behind them.
‘They were gossiping about me,’ Sven says. ‘They know who I am.’
‘Do they?’
Sven nods, his lips compressed into a thin line.
‘They haven’t forgotten my quarrels with those who were out to exploit the poor.’
They carry on down towards the harbour, where a dozen or so small cargo boats and a couple of ferries are moored, with a large yacht in solitary splendour slightly further away.
In the restaurant they each have an omelette, which costs two kronor and fifty öre. Sven has a glass of beer, Aron a soft drink.
After the meal Sven takes a pinch of snuff from his wooden box, the one Aron gave him, and stares gloomily at the bill for lunch. He shakes his head, but pays.
‘In the new country you can eat for free,’ he says when they are back on the street.
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely. You pay only if you have money.’
In the afternoon they leave the island, crossing the Sound on a steamship. Sven keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the mainland, but Aron turns around and watches as the island slowly shrinks to a greyish-brown strip on the horizon. He feels as if it is sinking into the sea, as if his whole world is disappearing behind him.
Jonas
Over the past two years Jonas had forgotten how brilliant it was to wake up by the sea. It was a bit like being an astronaut, waking up on a strange planet where the sounds and the air were different.
On Midsummer’s Day, he opened his eyes to the sound of the wind and the cries of the gulls, bumble bees buzzing around the house and bikes rattling by out on the coast road – and, beyond that, the faint rushing of the waves out in the Sound.
Villa Kloss, he thought.
The sounds were strange, yet familiar. Jonas was back in a summer world where his father had brought him ever since he was a little boy. But now he was grown up. Almost. He was nearly twelve years old and no longer slept in Uncle Kent’s big house with his dad but in a little chalet of his own twenty metres away. A guest chalet, consisting of nothing more than a narrow room with white walls and a white wooden floor. His older brother, Mats, and cousin Casper were staying in the other two chalets, but he had this one all to himself for the next four weeks.
Aunt Veronica, his father’s sister, had helped him make up the bed, bringing a faint hint of perfume with her along with the sheets.
Veronica had been wearing a white dress, and had the same bright-blue eyes as his father. Jonas was fond of his aunt, but he hadn’t seen her for almost two years. He hadn’t come over last year, and Veronica hadn’t had time to come and visit them in Huskvarna. Jonas had a feeling that Veronica and his mother didn’t particularly like each other.
‘This is your very own space,’ Veronica had said when they had finished making the bed. ‘Nobody to disturb you – that will be nice, won’t it?’
It was lovely. Jonas had slept, and nobody had disturbed him.
He sat up in bed and looked out of the window. He could see water – the pale-blue swimming pool was only ten metres away.
On the other side of the coast road, the dark-blue Sound sparkled at the bottom of the steep cliffs.
And up there on top of the cliffs, almost at the very end of the plateau, lay the old cairn. The big, rounded grave made of stones, which was haunted. But not now, not when the sun was shining.
Jonas jumped out of bed.
All he could hear were the faint sounds of summer. No voices. When he fell asleep last night, the rest of the family had still been awake, celebrating the shortest night of the year in various ways: Mats and his cousins had gone down to the jetty to see if there were any girls around, Jonas’s father had been working as a chef in the village restaurant, which was also owned by the Kloss family, and Aunt Veronica and Uncle Kent had been sitting on the decking together with Veronica’s husband, who was on a flying visit from Stockholm, and Kent’s new girlfriend, whose
name Jonas didn’t know. Uncle Kent had had a new girlfriend every summer, ever since Jonas could remember. They didn’t say much, and they didn’t usually stay around for long.
Jonas had been too tired to stay up. He had gone to bed at about ten, and fallen asleep to distant music, quiet voices and loud laughter.
This morning he pulled on his shorts and a thin T-shirt, opened the glass door and went out into the sunshine. It was only eight o’clock, but it was already hot.
The two plots that made up this part of Villa Kloss extended around him, covered in stones, the odd juniper bush and viper’s bugloss. His father used to own the third plot at the southern end, but that was several years ago, before he got involved in some business that didn’t go too well. His summer cottage had been sold, and Jonas noticed that the new owners had put up a fence to separate the place from Villa Kloss.
He was hungry, and hoped there would be something to eat in Uncle Kent’s kitchen.
A wide, gravelled path led past the pool to the main house. The water looked warm and clear, but hardly anyone ever swam in it. The adults never seemed to have time, and Jonas thought it was more fun to go down to the shore. It was somehow wilder down there, with flat rocks and seaweed and tiny shrimps swimming around your legs.
He went up the steps to the wooden decking at the front of the house. This would be Jonas’s workplace for the next few weeks, along with Veronica’s decking. His job was to sand down all the planks, then oil them. His wages would be thirty-five kronor an hour. That was a lot of money – Jonas had said yes straight away.
Uncle Kent’s house was long and wide, with huge panoramic windows at the front. There was also a sliding glass door; Jonas pushed it to one side and went in. He had always thought that walking into this cool room felt like stepping into the command module in a huge spaceship. Not that he had ever done such a thing, but this was what it ought to look like: a rectangular room with enormous windows and electronic gadgets everywhere. There were rows of tiny lights on the ceiling and an impressive stereo next to an even bigger TV, both connected to black speakers built into the wall.
Kent’s golf bag was on the right, next to a treadmill, and beyond that lay the entrance to the kitchen, which was every bit as shiny and metallic as the living room. Various things were humming and flashing in there.
Uncle Kent had employed a young housekeeper from Russia or Poland this summer; she was standing by the worktop, where she had laid out an array of breakfast food: bread, butter, juice, eggs, fruit and four kinds of cereal.
Jonas stared. He was glad he was alone right now, because back home in Huskvarna he always had to wait until Mats had finished helping himself. Now he could just dive right in. He picked up a blue bowl, filled it with cornflakes and milk and sat down on the biggest of Uncle Kent’s black leather sofas. He had a fantastic view of the coast from here: the stony garden, the coast road, the sea and the burial cairn up on the edge of the cliff.
After about fifteen minutes the sliding door opened and Aunt Veronica came in.
‘Good morning, Jonas. Did you sleep well?’
She was already dressed, in a black business suit and red shoes.
Jonas chewed, swallowed and nodded.
‘Mmm.’
‘Are Kent and Niklas here?’
‘I haven’t seen anyone,’ Jonas replied.
‘I expect they’re out jogging,’ Veronica said with a smile.
In the winter Veronica lived in Stockholm with Urban, who was eighteen, and Casper, who was fifteen, and their father, but in the summer she lived here at Villa Kloss; she was the managing director of the Ölandic Resort. She never took any time off during the period when the complex was open, from the end of May to the beginning of September.
‘So what are you going to do today, Jonas? Do you have any plans for the summer?’
He looked out at the wooden decking and nodded.
‘I’m going to make a start on rubbing down the decking.’
‘Not today. It’s Midsummer’s Day, and almost everyone is off work. You, too, Jonas. You’re on holiday.’
That sounded good.
Holiday, Jonas thought. Not a break from school. He hadn’t even started work yet, but he was already on holiday, like a grown-up.
Lisa
The Ölandic Resort was a couple of kilometres south of Stenvik and was owned by the Kloss family. Lisa was also working at the resort this summer, and she drove down there at lunchtime to get things ready.
At the entrance there was a reception booth and a barrier, and a CCTV camera. She could feel the cold lens staring at her as she wound down the window and gave her name to the security guard, but everything was fine. The barrier was raised and she drove on to a tarmac road, past rows of tents and caravans, down towards the sea and the gleaming white Ölandic Hotel.
It was Midsummer’s Day, the day after the big party. But of course every night was party night at the Ölandic – at least it was in the nightclub in the hotel basement. Two DJs and two cover bands would be working there in shifts right through July, from early evening until late into the night.
This evening was Lady Summertime’s debut, and Lisa wanted to make sure everything went well.
The Ölandic Resort was a custom-built holiday complex with straight roads and huge lawns. The contrast with the little campsite in Stenvik was striking. The Ölandic was a place for thousands of summer visitors to gather in the sun, on the beach, on the golf course, in the hotel and in the nightclub. But as Lisa drove down towards the water she didn’t see many people, and those she did see looked as if they were sleepwalking. People were probably having a lie-in, or sunbathing down on the shore, beyond the dense deciduous forest.
She parked in front of the hotel. It was four storeys high, built on the slope above the beach. The hotel had the best view in the resort, the summer cottages the next best, and the campsite lay furthest away from the sea.
Lisa picked up her CDs and LPs and went inside; the reception area was cool, with goldfish swimming around in a large aquarium on the limestone floor. Two blonde receptionists, both in their twenties and wearing pale-blue blouses, were on duty behind the desk.
The one nearest to Lisa smiled, and Lisa introduced herself.
‘Oh, so you’re Lady Summertime. The club’s downstairs.’
She led the way, but didn’t offer to carry any of Lisa’s records.
A red neon sign above the door read ‘MAY LAI BAR’. The club beyond the cloakroom was large, with tables on the right and a bar made of dark wood running the entire length of the left-hand wall. There wasn’t a soul in sight, but there was a good variety of drinks on the shelves, and green champagne bottles ready and waiting in a glass fridge.
‘The calm before the storm,’ the receptionist said.
‘So does this place get stormy in the evenings?’ Lisa asked.
‘Well, people do like to let rip … It’s full every night in July. Quite a few kids with rich parents come here, with a sports car of their own and Daddy’s credit card.’
Lisa nodded; she knew the type.
The DJ booth was near the door, next to a wide glass door leading out on to the seafront. The dance floor looked freshly mopped, black and shining, but a faint smell of perspiration and alcohol still lingered.
‘Have you got “Summer Is Short”?’ the receptionist asked.
Lisa looked blank.
‘Tomas Ledin,’ the girl said. ‘“Summer Is Short”. Do you play that one?’
‘Sometimes.’
Lisa much preferred Daft Punk’s “Around The World”, but she knew that the old classics brought people in.
The booth was locked, but the receptionist had a bunch of keys. She handed one of them over to Lisa.
‘Just say the word if you need anything.’
‘Thanks.’
Lisa unlocked the door, went inside and checked out the equipment. The turntables were Technics SL 1200; they looked as if they’d been through some tough times, but the P
ioneer mixer desk looked brand new. There was an effects panel which would allow her to control a small light show over the dance floor, complete with glitter ball, and even a cordless microphone for shout-outs.
‘We’ve got a smoke machine, too,’ the receptionist said, pointing to a button close to the floor.
‘Excellent,’ Lisa said. She loved special effects.
The booth was raised above the dance floor, a bit like a pulpit, but it was just as cramped as all the others she had worked in. A sheet of Plexiglas at the front protected her from the public and any alcohol that might be splashing around.
‘What about security?’ she asked.
‘We’ve got guards here 24/7 in the summer,’ the receptionist said. ‘In the evenings they move between the hotel and the club. There’s an alarm button over by the bar if things kick off.’
‘Great.’
‘Make yourself at home,’ the receptionist said, and headed back up the stairs.
Lisa placed her records and CDs on the floor behind the Plexiglas, then locked the booth and went over to the glass door to have a look outside.
The door was like a wide fire exit or an escape route – which was good. She slid it open and stepped out into the summer heat. The sea air rushed towards her from the sparkling Sound, carrying with it the faint smell of seaweed.
On the large wooden deck there were more tables and metal chairs arranged around a large barbecue made of metal and stone; there was also a bar decorated with bamboo. There was no one in sight, but many of the tables already had a RESERVED notice on them.
Immediately below the hotel she saw a sandy beach in an inlet extending south. To the north there was a verdant deciduous forest, with a low stone wall in front of it. The wall was topped with tightly stretched barbed wire.
A flight of stone steps led down to the lawn in front of the hotel, where croquet hoops had been set up. Lisa walked down past the croquet lawn, and went over to the forest and the wall.
Fences and walls always made her curious. She could see nothing but a dense wall of low trees and tangled bushes, so why the need for barbed wire?
The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) Page 6
