The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4)

by Johan Theorin

  Sven nods, but Aron just stands there.

  The man looks around. ‘Any stubborn rocks you want to get rid of?’

  ‘Definitely,’ Sven says.

  There are always huge rocks. Some of the older workers point out several waiting up ahead.

  ‘Excellent, in that case allow me to demonstrate a little magic trick!’ the man from Esbo says, lifting the first wooden box off the cart.

  Aron helps him to carry the rest, and watches as he takes fat sticks wrapped in oiled paper out of the boxes.

  ‘Ammonal!’ he shouts, gathering the men around the nearest rock. He picks up the sticks. ‘These are my boys, and they’re going to work together … Put them on the opposite side of the rock from the direction you want it to go in, bury them deep in the ground so they have something to kick against and press the detonator against the fuse. But slowly! You have to treat these boys as tenderly as if they were your very own cock!’

  The men burst into raucous laughter, then fall silent. They all watch with tense anticipation as the man borrows a pickaxe and makes a row of holes for the dynamite underneath the rock. He shows them in which direction to point the sticks, and how to pack them tightly in order to achieve the best possible effect.

  Then the man lights a metre length of black fuse wire and, when it begins to spark and crackle, he makes everyone move back. A long way back.

  The ground shakes. A cloud of smoke and fire erupts, and the rock is hurled in the air. It’s like magic! The men cheer and the man raises his cap once more.

  ‘Ammonal! Dynamite is the future!’

  The man from Esbo teaches them how to blow up rocks, but he soon moves on, and it’s back to the spades. Aron almost wishes he had never met the mining engineer, never found out that something called dynamite even existed. He doesn’t want to know that there are balls of fire that can move mountains, when all he has is a spade.

  As the days grow warmer, the mud dries out and digging becomes easier. But then the mosquitoes arrive; the air is filled with them in early summer. Clouds of mosquitoes sweep in across the forest, whining around Aron’s ears, crawling up inside his sleeves, or biting right through the fabric of his shirt. His face swells up, his skin itches and throbs from all the bites. The mosquitoes get in his eyes and his nose, even in his mouth, where they taste sweet, like blood.

  Sven makes them each a hat of birch bark to protect them from both the mosquitoes and the sun. And then he picks up his spade and carries on digging.

  ‘We mustn’t give up,’ he says. ‘After all, this is what we wanted, isn’t it?’

  Aron doesn’t say anything.

  He never wanted to dig in the new country; he wanted to be a sheriff.

  When they are given soup during their short break in the middle of the day, hundreds of mosquitoes land on the warm liquid, at first swimming and then slowly, helplessly, sinking. Aron crushes them with his spoon and shovels the lot down. He chews ferociously, with his eyes shut; he wants to murder the mosquitoes. Murder every last one.

  Jonas

  Jonas was back at Villa Kloss. He wasn’t going to think right now, at least not about Peter Mayer. He was going to work.

  He fetched the sander and plugged it into the socket on Uncle Kent’s decking. Then he switched it on and carried on sanding, one plank at a time. Slow and steady, just as his father had taught him. Every scrap of grey had to be removed from the wood, leaving it pale and fresh. Only then would he be able to start brushing in the oil.

  Jonas worked on his knees, his forehead shiny with sweat. The sun was burning down and he really didn’t want to think about it – but that name kept echoing through his mind. Peter. Peter Mayer. Mayer. Peter. He knew he couldn’t talk to anyone, but the name Gerlof had given him just wouldn’t go away. The man on the ship, the man who had killed people with an axe.

  Peter Mayer. Sold the tickets for The Lion King. Lives in Marnäs.

  ‘How’s it going, Jonas?’ His father had slid open the glass door and was looking down at him. ‘Are you getting on OK?’

  Jonas nodded.

  ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’

  Jonas didn’t know what to say. He tried to smile, but his father must have seen something in his expression. He stepped outside.

  ‘Are you missing Mum?’

  ‘A bit … But it’s all right.’

  Jonas carried on sanding.

  ‘So what is it, then?’ his father said.

  Jonas switched off the machine. After a few seconds he said, ‘Stuff’s been happening.’

  ‘Stuff? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Something happened … on Monday evening.’

  ‘Monday? When you were at the cinema?’

  Jonas should have kept quiet, but he felt a kind of pressure in his chest when his father stared at him.

  ‘I didn’t go to the cinema,’ he said eventually. ‘I stayed at home.’

  His father came and stood beside him. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I went down to the shore and took the dinghy out. And something happened.’

  The thing that had happened was too big to keep inside, and he ended up telling his father about everything he had seen out in the Sound. He spoke slowly at first, then faster and faster. He told him about the ship, about the living dead, about the man who had chased him. The man who might be called Peter Mayer.

  His father listened carefully. He was a good listener; he had never laughed at anything Jonas had told him. And he wasn’t laughing now.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘So now I know. Thank you for telling me, Jonas.’

  That was all he said. He didn’t seem in the least bit disturbed by the story, just thoughtful. After a while, he seemed to reach a decision.

  ‘Everything’s fine. You can go and play.’

  ‘I’m working,’ Jonas said. Then he thought about the woman he had spoken to at Gerlof’s house. ‘Are we going to contact the police?’

  ‘Of course … Soon. I need to think.’

  His father looked away, over towards the water, as if he were slightly embarrassed. Then he went back indoors.

  Jonas was worried; he had promised Mats that he wouldn’t say anything about the cinema trip to Kalmar, and he had promised Gerlof that he wouldn’t tell anyone about Peter Mayer. ‘Promise not to tell anyone else,’ Gerlof had said, but that was exactly what Jonas had done. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

  All he could do was carry on working. Stop thinking.

  After an hour he had finished about a fifth of the decking. The wood looked almost new, clean and fresh in the sunshine. No chips.

  He was quite proud of himself.

  As he straightened up, he saw a big car turn off the coast road. It was Uncle Kent, in a white cap and oversized sunnies. He opened the door and waved.

  ‘JK, come over here for a minute!’

  Jonas made his way over. Uncle Kent got out of the car and was already talking by the time Jonas reached him.

  ‘Your dad called me a little while ago, JK … He said something exciting had happened to you the day before yesterday.’ Kent crouched down so that they were face to face. ‘He said you were on board a big ship, and you met a guy called Peter Mayer.’

  Jonas didn’t say a word.

  ‘Is this true?’ Kent demanded.

  Jonas nodded slowly.

  ‘Interesting.’ Kent held Jonas’s gaze. ‘In that case, let me explain. We had a ship in the dock at the Ölandic over midsummer, delivering a cargo of fish. It left a couple of nights ago, without informing us. We thought that was very strange.’

  Jonas thought about the dead seamen, but still he didn’t say anything.

  Uncle Kent went on. ‘And this Peter Mayer: he calls himself Pecka, and he worked at the resort as a security guard last summer … so I’d like to speak to him. But I want to be sure that it really was Pecka you saw on board that ship, JK. Do you think you’d be able to identify him?’

  Jonas hesitated, but Uncle Kent smiled reassuri
ngly.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Pecka lives in Marnäs. I have an address for him there, and I’d just like a word with him. But first of all I need to be sure … Could you come up there with me?’

  Jonas thought for a moment, then nodded again. He opened his mouth to speak, but Uncle Kent ruffled his hair.

  ‘Excellent! In that case, we’ll pop up and see him this evening.’ Kent straightened up. ‘There’s a fair on in Marnäs, so it will be really busy. We’ll just have to hope he’s at home.’

  Kent got back in the car, and Jonas watched as he reversed out on to the coast road.

  There was nothing for it but to go back to his sanding. But things just didn’t feel right to Jonas.

  Look for the man from the ship? And speak to him? But what if he had the axe with him?

  Lisa

  No champagne, no pissed guests. Just a golden sunset and a warm breeze at a little outdoor bar and restaurant in Stenvik.

  Lisa wasn’t spinning any discs this Thursday evening. She was sitting on a stool with her guitar resting on her knee and a microphone in front of her. The microphone was the only thing she could see clearly, because the sun was in her eyes.

  She wasn’t wearing a wig tonight, because she wasn’t a DJ. She was a troubadour, playing folk songs. It was completely different from spending half the night in the DJ booth. The sound was nowhere near as good, for example – she had nothing more than one small speaker, and the wind coming off the water swept away quite a lot of the music.

  She preferred the old Swedish songwriters such as Evert Taube, Dan Andersson and Nils Ferlin, but the audience often demanded more modern masters.

  ‘Play Ace of Base!’ a girl’s voice yelled out.

  ‘I don’t know any of theirs,’ Lisa said.

  ‘What about Markoolio, then?’ one of the guys shouted.

  Lisa picked up her guitar. It was after nine, and time to finish off.

  ‘I’ll play you a song I do know,’ she said. ‘It was written by Tomas Ledin, and it’s all about how short the summer is …’

  She was behaving herself this evening. There was no way Lady Summertime could be let loose among ordinary holidaymakers with her long fingers. She was after the fat wallets that belonged to the rich, so that she could give them to the poor. Well, to Silas.

  At quarter past nine she had finished the gig, as the blood-red sun hovered above the horizon.

  Lisa needed bread and milk, but the shop next to the bar had closed at eight o’clock. It was run by an elderly father and his son; their name was Hagman. The bar itself was owned by her employers, the Kloss family; it was a small but intense workplace: two Finnish waitresses picked their way among the tables, and in the kitchen a Canadian chef presided over pizza dough and jars of pesto. Kent Kloss wasn’t responsible for this place, thank goodness; it was run by Niklas, his younger brother, who kept a low profile and spent most of his time on the till; the staff didn’t need his constant supervision.

  Lisa put away her guitar and headed for the exit. Niklas Kloss smiled at her, and she quickly asked, ‘Did it sound OK?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll be back on Monday.’

  ‘Good – I’ll look forward to it.’

  He didn’t really seem to be listening; he was looking over towards a big car that had just pulled into the car park and was standing there with its engine ticking over.

  The driver got out, and Lisa saw that it was Kent Kloss. He waved to his brother, and Niklas walked towards him.

  The wind carried odd words across to Lisa.

  ‘… former employee,’ Kent said.

  ‘… don’t want to talk about …’ Niklas responded.

  ‘… have a chat …’

  ‘… ought to call …’

  ‘… rather go round there …’

  After a while, Niklas got into the car, looking both grim and stressed. Kent quickly slid behind the wheel and drove out of the car park.

  Lisa could see a boy in the back seat, one of the Kloss children; he glanced at Lisa as the car pulled out on to the main road. He didn’t look too happy either.

  As she walked back to the campsite, carrying her guitar, the sun had just gone down, leaving only a glow in the sky and making the clouds look like red fire above the horizon. Or streaks of blood.

  The coast quickly darkened. Lisa headed towards her caravan, wondering why the Kloss brothers would allow a young boy to be out so late at night.

  Jonas

  Marnäs lay on the west coast; it had a number of shops and the white, medieval parish church. It was too big to be a village and too small to be a town, but people gathered there anyway. There was an off-licence, a harbour with several fishing boats and a police station that was open for a few hours every Tuesday.

  Jonas really liked the shops in Marnäs, but there was no chance of visiting them tonight. It was almost nine thirty; it was twilight and the shops were shut. However, the fair was in full swing and had attracted plenty of people.

  The funfair had been set up in the harbour area next to the square, with brightly coloured carousels and stalls selling burgers and sausages. There were lots of cars, and Uncle Kent couldn’t find a space on the square, so he parked in a disabled bay behind the harbourmaster’s office.

  ‘We won’t be long,’ he said. ‘I’ll just have to pay the fine if we get a ticket.’

  Niklas didn’t say anything; he didn’t seem particularly happy this evening. But Uncle Kent carried on talking as the three of them got out of the car: ‘We’ll go over to Mayer’s place and ring the doorbell, see if he’s at home.’ He looked at Jonas. ‘If he’s there, JK, and if you’re sure he was the guy you saw on the ship, then we’ll have a little chat with him, find out what happened. But you don’t need to stay around for that … OK?’

  Jonas nodded. His heart was pounding, but he also felt as if he had grown since this morning. He was suddenly at the centre of everything. He was important – he was a witness.

  The three of them walked past the harbour and the funfair. Jonas looked at the flashing lights and caught the aroma of grilled sausages and fresh popcorn. He would have loved to look around the stalls, buy some sweets and check out the second-hand videos, but Uncle Kent marched on, shaking his head.

  ‘Look at all this crap,’ he said. ‘Marnäs is a real magnet for people peddling cheap tat in the summer. It’s all sell, sell, sell.’

  Once they had passed the fair, he increased his speed and turned into a narrow side street. He led the way to a couple of apartment blocks north of the harbour, with a view over the dark-blue Baltic.

  ‘Number eight, that’s where he’s supposed to be living,’ he said. ‘Second floor.’

  He opened the door, held it to allow Jonas and his father to go in, then let it close behind them.

  The cool stairwell felt eerily silent.

  Kent set off up the stairs. ‘Keep behind me, JK,’ he said quietly. He was moving more cautiously now, and didn’t switch on the light. Niklas stayed at the back, as if protecting their line of retreat.

  They reached the second floor and saw two doors. MAYER was on a handwritten label on the left-hand door. Jonas’s pulse rate shot up when he saw it; he felt as if the name were leaching evil into the stairwell.

  But Uncle Kent didn’t seem in the least concerned. He stepped forward and pressed the doorbell. For a long time.

  Jonas was even more frightened when he heard the sound of the bell; he felt as if he were back on board the ship. He noticed a peephole in the door, just like the one they had at home in Huskvarna. Perhaps someone was standing there, spying on them.

  Peter Mayer. The man with the axe.

  But no one answered the door. Uncle Kent waited, rang again, waited. Eventually, he sighed. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘No one’s home, JK. We’ll have to go back to Villa Kloss.’

  Jonas was relieved. A little disappointed, perhaps, but mainly relieved.

  They left the building; it was even
darker now. The streetlamps around the harbour had come on and the people visiting the fair looked even more shadowy.

  Jonas moved a little distance away from his father and his uncle so that he could look at the rides. They ought to let him have a go on something now, maybe the dodgems or the cannonball, but he knew they wouldn’t.

  Beside the harbour was Moby Dick, the only pizzeria in Marnäs. Jonas had eaten there with Mats and their father the summer before last. The place was packed tonight, of course. There were tables outside and every one was occupied, with people drinking and laughing and smoking. Sunburnt golfers in white caps and blue polo shirts, sailors in blue jackets, cyclists with helmet hair.

  Summer visitors. Jonas couldn’t take his eyes off them.

  A tall guy in a black denim jacket was moving between the tables, carrying a takeaway pizza; he had a shaven head and his eyes were darting all over the place.

  Jonas stared at him for a long time.

  Time had slowed down; his heart was thumping.

  He made himself look away after a while, as if everything was perfectly normal – but he was absolutely certain who he had seen. He stopped, turned around and gently tugged at his father’s arm.

  ‘There,’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s him.’

  Niklas stopped. ‘Who?’

  ‘The man from the ship.’

  ‘You mean Mayer? Where?’

  Jonas tilted his head in the direction of the pizzeria, where Peter Mayer had just reached the pavement. He was about to walk past them, heading down towards the harbour.

  ‘Kent!’ Niklas called out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Over there.’

  Niklas pointed, and Kent turned his head. He spotted Peter Mayer and stopped dead.

  A second later, Kent took off, straight across the street. ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Pecka!’

  The man looked over his shoulder and froze for a few seconds. Then he began to move in the opposite direction, faster and faster. Away from the crowd and from Kent Kloss.

  ‘Hang on!’ Kent yelled. ‘I just want to …’