The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4)

by Johan Theorin

  Gerlof tried to adjust the sound in his ear, improve his ability to eavesdrop, but he still couldn’t make out what they were saying. Were they speaking Swedish, or a different language?

  Then the catch on the gate rattled and Gerlof saw that his grandchildren were back from the jetty. He sat up straight and quickly turned down the volume; their cheerful shouts were a little too much.

  Jonas

  Mats looked around as if to make sure that no adults were listening, then leaned closer to Jonas and lowered his voice.

  ‘You can’t come to Kalmar with us. You do understand that?’

  Jonas was sitting next to him on Uncle Kent’s leather sofa. He wanted to protest, have the courage to stand up to his older brother, but he said nothing.

  ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t understand it at all.’

  ‘Because you’re too young for the film,’ Mats said. ‘You have to be over fifteen to see Armageddon.’

  Jonas looked at him. He knew that the battle over the cinema trip was already lost, but he went on anyway: ‘I’ve seen films like that in Marnäs. The two of us have … All we had to do was walk in.’

  Mats waved a fly away from his ear. ‘Yes, but this is different. They check on everybody in Kalmar. They’ve got security, they ask for ID. You don’t have any, which means you wouldn’t get in and you’d have to sit on a park bench waiting for the film to end. You’d be hanging around Kalmar on your own all evening … Is that what you want?’

  Jonas shook his head. Mats was eighteen, Urban nineteen, and he knew they’d got together behind his back and chosen an American action movie with a 15+ certificate so that Casper could go with them but Jonas couldn’t.

  ‘You’ll get the money for the ticket anyway, that’s no problem,’ Mats said. ‘But Dad and Kent and Veronica will think you’re with us in Kalmar, so try and stay out of the way until we get back.’ He smiled. ‘Go and play with one of your little friends.’

  Play? Jonas didn’t have any real friends in the village. All the boys were either older than him, or much younger. He wasn’t allowed to hang out with the older boys, and the younger ones were boring.

  Hiding away inside Villa Kloss wasn’t an option, because the adults were having a party. If he could have disappeared without a trace for the evening, he would have done just that.

  ‘Hi there, you two!’

  Their father came into the big room. Jonas thought he was looking at his two sons as if they were no more than recent acquaintances, in spite of the fact that they had seen him several times over the past few years.

  ‘So you’re off to the cinema in the big city tonight?’

  Jonas didn’t say a word.

  ‘Are you catching the bus to Kalmar, Mats?’

  ‘Urban’s driving.’

  ‘OK. Stay off the beer, in that case.’

  Mats looked up at the ceiling, then down at his father.

  ‘But I expect you’ll be having a few drinks at the party tonight, Dad? Knocking them back?’

  ‘No,’ Niklas said, but he couldn’t look his son in the eye. ‘Have you ever seen me drunk, Mats?’

  ‘Mum has. She says you were often drunk when you were married.’

  Jonas stared at the floor, wondering where everyone else was. Please let Veronica come in …

  Niklas looked at Mats.

  ‘That was a long time ago. Before you were born. In our first apartment. We had a few parties that got a bit out of hand. And Anita … Anita wasn’t always sober back then either. I could tell you a few tales about her.’

  ‘Don’t start badmouthing Mum.’

  ‘I’m just telling it like it was, Mats.’

  Jonas got up, slowly and silently. If he moved very carefully, perhaps no one would notice him. Like a ghost, he drifted towards the glass door leading to the veranda; he was almost there when the call came.

  ‘Jonas?’

  He stopped, turned around – and saw that Dad had found a smile somewhere and plastered it on.

  ‘Fancy a swim?’

  The sky was blue and the air dry and warm outside, but Jonas still felt chilled to the bone. And alone, in spite of the fact that he was walking next to his father. There was no trip to the cinema in Kalmar to look forward to tonight, just loneliness.

  They walked across the baking-hot coast road and out on to the ridge. Niklas didn’t speak until they were passing the burial cairn. He pointed to the stones and said, ‘People think there’s treasure buried beneath the cairn. You know it’s an ancient grave, don’t you?’

  Jonas nodded. ‘We learned about the Bronze Age in school. It came between the Stone Age and the Iron Age.’

  ‘Exactly. So there’s a Bronze Age chieftain buried here, just like King Mysing in his burial mound in the south of the island. But you’re not scared, are you?’

  ‘Not me,’ Jonas said.

  Not at the moment, anyway, he thought; not when the sun was shining and his dad was here. The cairn was completely harmless right now. But he didn’t like being out here in the evening, when it became a portal to another world, and the ghost came out and turned people into killer zombies.

  His dad had said something, asked a question as they started down the stone steps leading to the water.

  ‘What?’ Jonas said.

  ‘Is Mum OK?’

  ‘Yes … I suppose so. She spends a lot of time working.’

  ‘Good,’ his dad said. ‘It’s good that she’s got a job.’

  He looked as if he wanted to ask more questions about Mum, so Jonas hurried down the steps.

  They could hear cheerful cries from the jetty further north, but the shore down below Villa Kloss was empty and red-hot. The waves lapped gently against the flat, greyish-white rocks. Niklas pointed to a row of thick poles extending a couple of hundred metres straight out into the water, just to the south of the bathing area.

  ‘I see the fishermen have laid their gill nets this year, too. There must be some eels left in the Sound …’

  A limestone boathouse near the bottom of the steps housed the sun loungers and swimming gear belonging to the Kloss family. It was padlocked, but Casper had given Jonas the combination.

  Casper’s rubber dinghy was in there, along with a couple of plastic oars, but the air had gone out of it over the winter, and it looked deflated and a bit pathetic. Casper hadn’t used it for several years. Jonas must have grown seven or eight centimetres since he last sat in it, and he was definitely heavier. He probably wouldn’t be able to use it after this summer, but he dragged it out into the sun anyway.

  ‘Are you going out in that?’ his father asked.

  Jonas nodded.

  ‘Well, don’t go too far … I’ll help you blow it up.’

  While his father was pumping more air into the dinghy, Jonas quickly pulled on his trunks. He just wanted to get out on to the water, follow the nets and see if any eels were moving around down there in the darkness.

  He didn’t want to spend any more time talking to his father. If he did, then sooner or later he would ask him what he had done to end up in prison; all Jonas knew was that it was something bad. Something to do with money and the customs office. Something Dad didn’t want to talk about.

  ‘Dad fucked things up for the whole family,’ Mats had once said when they were alone. As if the fault lay not in what their father had done, but in the fact that he had got caught.

  The Homecomer

  The summer evening seemed to be ageing, turning as grey as the Homecomer as the light vanished on the west coast of the island. The sun began to go down, and the day’s short shadows quickly grew longer. The horizon disappeared, and sea and sky became a darkening curtain in the west. The figures moving beneath the trees were almost invisible.

  It was time.

  Pecka and the Homecomer had entered the Ölandic’s private area through the north fence then made their way south through the forest. They had kept out of sight of the shore until they reached the dock. The car park in front of
them was empty now; all the cars had left.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ the Homecomer asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Pecka said, but his eyes were darting all over the place, and he hadn’t said much all evening. Pecka had grown a lot quieter since the murder of the security guard, but he still obeyed orders.

  They had remained hidden among the trees until the sun went down, but now they stepped out and moved towards the water. Towards the L-shaped quay and the ship on the outer side of the dock.

  The Homecomer had spent so much time watching the ship over the past few days that he almost felt like a member of the crew. There were four men on board, all foreigners. Today there had been no loading or unloading, and all the indications were that the ship would set sail tomorrow morning. Tonight the crew were probably up at the hotel, celebrating. Happy and unsuspecting.

  Time to get on board.

  They made their way quickly towards the quayside, the Homecomer in front, with Pecka a few steps behind him.

  Both were armed. Pecka didn’t want to carry a gun any more, but he was carrying a freshly sharpened axe. The Homecomer had the Walther hidden behind his back.

  ‘Here we go, then,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ Pecka replied, pulling the balaclava over his head.

  The Homecomer could feel his age in his legs but increased his speed.

  Once they reached the quayside and everything was quiet, Pecka pressed a key on his mobile and allowed it to ring out twice, which was the signal to Rita to start up the launch, come around the point and board the ship from the other side. When they had finished, all three of them would make their escape in Rita’s boat. That was the plan.

  But suddenly they heard a rumbling noise, disturbing the peaceful evening.

  The Homecomer slowed down. At first he couldn’t work out what was going on, but then he realized that someone had just started up the ship’s engines. He heard Pecka behind him: ‘Fuck! We’ll have to forget the whole thing!’

  The Homecomer shook his head and kept on going.

  ‘There are too many of them!’ Pecka yelled. ‘They’re all on board … they’re leaving tonight!’

  But the Homecomer just kept on walking towards the ship, the gun hidden behind his back. He headed straight for the gangplank, knowing that Pecka was following him, in spite of his protests.

  Yes, there were lights on the bridge – the crew were on board. The Homecomer spotted one man in the stern, a seaman who must have just come up on deck. He was in his fifties, dressed in blue overalls, and had started repairing a broken air vent with a piece of corrugated cardboard. He looked extremely bored.

  The Homecomer was so close to the ship that he could read the name on the prow: Elia. The hull was dark, a mixture of rust and black paint.

  He heard an angry buzzing through the throbbing of the engines. Rita had rounded the point in the little launch.

  The seaman looked up and saw the two visitors. He stared at them with no trace of suspicion, merely surprise.

  The Homecomer walked to the edge of the quay and said, ‘Good evening,’ in a calm, steady voice.

  The seaman opened his mouth and his expression changed from quizzical to uneasy – but by that time the Homecomer had produced his gun.

  Pecka had also reached the ship, while at the same time Rita swung the launch around sharply, heading for the stern.

  The ship was moored with three hawsers. Pecka positioned himself next to the first one, and raised the axe. Five sharp blows, and the hawser was severed. He quickly moved on to the next one.

  The Homecomer was on the deck now, still pointing the Walther at the seaman and speaking quietly but firmly as he issued a series of instructions.

  He glanced back and saw that Pecka had lowered the axe. All three hawsers had been cut, and the ship slowly began to drift away from the quayside and out into the dark waters of the Sound.

  He looked around. The quayside was still deserted.

  The seaman looked confused; he raised his hands and began to back away.

  The hijacking had begun.

  The New Country, June 1931

  Sixty-eight years earlier, the ship that is to take Aron and Sven to the new country is made of metal, and is bigger than any vessel Aron has ever seen.

  They have travelled by train from Kalmar, journeying northwards through Sweden. The train has chugged its way through vast coniferous forests, past mountains and lakes, then out into the sun and straight into the heart of a big city.

  The station is enormous, packed with travellers and all their luggage. Outside the city awaits, with its long, straight cobbled streets, people strolling along the pavements, and more vehicles than Aron has seen in his whole life. Plenty of carts and horse-drawn carriages clatter by, but there are also big, black motor cars, rumbling along with uniformed chauffeurs behind the wheel and smartly dressed men in the back seat.

  ‘Stockholm,’ Sven says.

  Aron recognizes the name from school.

  ‘The capital city of Sweden.’

  They eat a plate of steaming-hot stew in a smoky café not far from the central station, then buy provisions and the last bits and pieces for their journey. In an ironmonger’s, Sven equips himself with a hammer and a decent spade.

  ‘It’s easier to get a job if you bring your own tools to the new country,’ he explains.

  Then they wander across the city’s bridges, past the tall buildings and the splendour of the Royal Palace, then down through narrow alleyways, to a long quayside with rows of derricks and crowds of people.

  ‘There she is!’

  Both large and small ships are moored alongside, but Sven is pointing to a long, white vessel. A thin curl of smoke is emerging from a big funnel, which has three yellow crowns painted on a blue background. Pennants along the railing flutter in the wind, and a large Swedish flag hangs down from the stern.

  The name on the prow reads SS Kastelholm.

  ‘That’s our bridge,’ Sven says. ‘The bridge that will take us across the water!’

  He quickly takes a pinch of snuff from the wooden box, and seems to have left all his anger, all his troubles, behind.

  Aron sees that they will not be crossing the sea alone. There are at least twenty fellow travellers standing on deck, with suitcases and rucksacks and tools in their hands. They are all straight-backed, heads up, as if something great is waiting for them.

  ‘Let’s go on board,’ Sven says. ‘We’re off to the new country!’

  Aron feels a shiver run down his spine. It might be the cold wind blowing off the water, or a sudden fear of the unknown.

  He has no idea what is going to happen in the new country, but he follows Sven up the gangplank and turns his back on Sweden.

  Gerlof

  The sun disappeared into a huge bank of cloud behind Gerlof’s cottage on Monday evening. A dark-grey wall rose up on the horizon, as if there were a forest fire on the mainland – but, as an old seaman, Gerlof knew that more overcast weather was on the way. He must remember not to whistle, because whistling brought gales and thunderstorms.

  There was no need to whistle; things were already noisy enough in the cottage. He was the only adult at the dinner table; his daughters had gone back to the mainland after midsummer, back to their jobs. But their children were still here.

  Julia and her husband were coming over for a holiday at the beginning of July, and until then Gerlof was in charge. He often missed his wife, particularly at a time like this, because she would have been much better at looking after the three boys. Vincent was nineteen, and old enough to keep an eye on the two younger ones, who were sixteen and eleven, but all three had an energy and speed that Gerlof had lost a long time ago. They and their friends raced around the cottage with enormous water pistols, and played video games – Nintendo and Super Mario Bros, or whatever they were called.

  Or they watched TV, which was something Gerlof rarely did. He remembered what an old Pentecostalist acquaintance had said to him when he put up hi
s first television aerial towards the end of the sixties: ‘That’s the Devil himself, sitting on your roof!’

  He had suffered in silence so far, but he had formulated an escape plan.

  ‘I’m going to sleep in the boathouse tonight,’ he said over dinner.

  He would get away from the cottage for the night. Seek sanctuary down there, as the old fishermen had done in days gone by.

  ‘But why, Granddad?’ Vincent said.

  Gerlof combined a lie with the truth. ‘It’s … darker down there. And a bit quieter.’

  Vincent nodded; he was grown up enough to understand.

  So, after dinner, Gerlof picked up his pyjamas and a bottle of water and left the cottage. This evening, his legs felt strong enough for him to manage without the wheelchair, but he used his walking stick and linked arms with his grandson as they made their way to the ridge. They strolled along at a leisurely pace, and the smell of meat and oil reached Gerlof’s nostrils. Someone was having a barbecue.

  On the grass next to the road he noticed an empty beer can, and poked at it with his stick. ‘Tourists from Stockholm … Terrible.’

  ‘Someone from Småland might have dropped it there,’ Vincent said.

  Gerlof bent down with some difficulty and picked it up. ‘Put this in our bin, would you?’

  ‘No problem,’ Vincent replied.

  Gerlof made it his business to pick up litter – at least there was something he could still do.

  As they passed his old gig, he saw that someone had used a plane to remove all the rotten wood. John, presumably, or his son, Anders. Gerlof wasn’t surprised; they always kept their promises.

  Vincent unlocked the door of the boathouse up above the shore. The ceiling light was broken and it was dark inside, but Gerlof could see that both camp beds were made up. Had he done that? He couldn’t remember.