The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4)

by Johan Theorin

  ‘So Hibinogorsk isn’t in America?’

  Sven shakes his head. ‘It’s in northern Russia, by a mountain called Hibina.’

  Aron is still staring at him, and Sven goes on. ‘Russia is part of a union, just like America, but this one is known as the Soviet Union.’

  Aron has heard of Russia, and he vaguely remembers the word ‘Soviet’ from some lesson at school, but it means nothing to him.

  ‘But you said …’

  ‘I said we were going to the new country. That’s where we are now: in the east, where the sun rises. The sun and the wealth that comes with abundance.’

  Aron says nothing, but he is thinking about the fact that he had nothing but a piece of black bread for breakfast. One small piece. He looks around the mining town, at the grey huts and the muddy streets.

  ‘America is not the Promised Land,’ Sven says. ‘It is the kingdom of evil. The poor and the blacks are hunted down like dogs in America. They are captured and hanged from trees so that the rich white folk can use them for target practice, just for fun. Do you really want to go there?’

  Aron doesn’t reply.

  ‘No, you don’t. I can see it in your face. You want to stay here, where everyone works side by side.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ Aron says eventually. ‘Back to Rödtorp. I wrote and told Mum we were coming home.’

  ‘She doesn’t know that.’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘She knows nothing,’ Sven says, shuffling unsteadily to one side. ‘I never posted the letters.’

  Aron can’t believe his ears.

  ‘In any case, we can’t leave the Soviet Union at the moment,’ Sven says quietly. ‘We can’t afford it. We will leave this country and go home … but not yet.’

  Aron has been listening to the same thing for the past three years. The same empty promises. As far as he is concerned, his stepfather, the proud Swedish worker, has begun to shrink.

  The Soviet Union? Aron tries to find out more about this country. He has started to understand the language now, the Russian language that he thought was American, and he can hold a conversation of sorts with the workers in the camp.

  He is also allowed to go to school for a few hours each day. Aron is studying with a Russian teacher, herr Kopelev. He listens and repeats the words, and learns the language much faster than Sven. He can swear in Russian, and he can reel off such high-flown phrases as ‘Comrades, a groaning table awaits you after the world revolution!’ and ‘Do not allow your possessions to consume you, Comrade – private property is the root of all evil!’

  But what everyone talks about is food. Including Aron – he dreams of Swedish food. Plaice, salted and fried. Eel, smoked and oily or boiled and firm. Potatoes, grated potatoes. Pork. Minced salt pork. Grated potatoes and minced pork turned into Öland dumplings, steaming hot.

  Everyone talks about food, all the time. Rumours spread in Russian, and one morning down in the ditch he passes them on to Sven.

  ‘People are starving. Dying on the streets.’

  Sven stops digging and looks at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve heard. There’s no food.’

  ‘Where? Where are these people starving?’

  ‘In the south. In Kraine,’ Aron says, wiping his nose with his glove.

  ‘Ukraine,’ Sven corrects him.

  ‘That’s it … Ukraine. There are farms there, so that’s where the food ought to be, but there’s none left. The soldiers have taken all the produce.’

  ‘It’s not soldiers who take the food,’ Sven says, driving his spade into the mud. ‘It’s the wealthy farmers who hide it, then eat at night.’

  ‘But all the cows are dead,’ Aron insists, ‘so they’ve started slaughtering their children. They’ll eat anything down there.’

  ‘Don’t listen to that kind of nonsense.’ Sven leans closer. ‘I’ll tell you a story about Stalin.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The leader. The captain who steers this whole ship, Josef Stalin.’ Sven looks up at the pale sky, then back at Aron. ‘Twenty years ago, he was the one who led the struggle against the old guard, the Tsar and his followers. On one occasion, he was arrested by the Tsar’s police and sentenced to a beating. He was to run the gauntlet between two rows of police officers, standing ready with their barbed whips. Do you know what Stalin did then?’

  Aron shakes his head.

  ‘Before he moved forward to accept his punishment, he picked a blade of grass and placed it between his teeth. Then he began to walk. Stalin didn’t run between the whips – he walked. He took his time, as if he were strolling through a meadow. And when he reached the end, with his back covered in blood, he opened his mouth and showed the last police officer the blade of grass. There wasn’t a tooth-mark on it. So, although Stalin was beaten that day, he still won. Do you understand?’

  Aron nods.

  ‘That’s how strong we have to be if we’re going to get through this,’ Sven says, straightening up for a moment. ‘Start digging.’

  Aron makes no move to obey him. ‘I’m not like Stalin.’

  Sven looks sharply at his stepson. ‘But you can be.’

  The Homecomer

  The Homecomer was sitting in his car in a deserted lay-by with an open wooden box on the passenger seat. The box could have contained tins or jars, but it was marked with a yellow sticker and the words DANGER – EXPLOSIVES!

  Inside, there were twenty sticks of pale-yellow plastic explosive. Side by side. Fast asleep. Encased in protective wrapping. There were also detonators, and the rolls of plastic cable were fuse wire.

  All of this belonged to him now. Wall no longer needed anything.

  The Homecomer hid the boxes under a blanket, then got out of the car and went over to one of the picnic tables. There was no one around; all the other cars just went whizzing by until, eventually, an old yellow sports car pulled in. He recognized the car, although the driver was different. Rita was sitting behind the wheel, and there was no sign of Pecka.

  She got out and slowly came over to join the Homecomer. He raised a hand in greeting, but she just gazed blankly at him. Her eyes were red from crying.

  Something was wrong.

  ‘Where’s Pecka?’

  Rita merely shook her head. ‘Gone,’ she said.

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘He was hit by a car … on Thursday night.’

  The Homecomer stared at her. ‘Where did it happen?’

  ‘On this road … a bit further north. He only went out to get us a pizza … A couple of smartly dressed guys rang the doorbell while I was waiting for him, but I didn’t answer.’

  ‘Smartly dressed?’

  ‘Two men and a boy.’

  ‘Kloss,’ the Homecomer said. ‘The Kloss brothers. And the boy who saw Pecka on the ship. One of them must be his father.’

  Rita looked down, unable to suppress a sob. The Homecomer sighed. ‘Pecka’s uncle is dead, too.’

  ‘Einar?’

  ‘That’s right. I found him outside his cottage; he was lying dead in his boat. So Kloss must have been to see him, too.’

  Rita sat down. For a moment, the Homecomer felt as if he had his daughter sitting beside him, but he pushed the thought aside.

  ‘Einar must have heard about Pecka,’ Rita said quietly. ‘He was very fond of Pecka. They were almost like father and son.’

  They sat in silence for a little while; the Homecomer was thinking about fathers and sons, about Pecka and Wall and all the others who had died. The world was full of them.

  After a while, Rita stood up. ‘We can’t stay here any longer,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to get out.’

  ‘That’s exactly what the Kloss brothers want,’ the Homecomer said. ‘They think they’ve won.’

  Rita glanced over at the road, down towards the coast and the Ölandic Resort; she seemed to be thinking something over.

  ‘There is something we could do,’ she said after a moment or two. ‘
For Einar Wall and Pecka.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s something he talked about … something he was planning when he got the sack from the Ölandic, before he and Wall decided to go for the ship instead.’

  ‘An attack on the Kloss family?’

  Rita nodded. ‘He said he was going to ruin their business. Get his revenge. Pecka was going to make sure that no one wanted to stay at the Ölandic Resort. They would lose millions … He told me exactly what he was going to do.’

  The Homecomer also got to his feet. He gave a brief smile. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Gerlof

  At the beginning of July, a shimmering heatwave had moved in across the island. The sun rose above the Baltic Sea at half past four in the morning, and by seven any trace of the night’s chill had disappeared. At nine, the heat out on the alvar was almost overwhelming. Some birds, like the cuckoo, had already fallen silent.

  Gerlof realized that, up to now, the summer had merely been warm. This was heat, with glaring sunshine from a white sky making the air quiver, and not a breath of wind.

  Like many other villagers, he preferred to spend time down by the shore, where there was at least the hint of a sea breeze. Sometimes John was there too, sanding down the gig or replacing a rotten plank.

  Gerlof was sitting in the shade of the boathouse in a low deckchair, wearing his straw hat. ‘I won’t be here for much longer,’ he said to John.

  John wrinkled his nose and carried on with his work. ‘You’ve been saying that for years.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ Gerlof said quickly. ‘I meant physically, down here in the village. Both my daughters will be arriving with their families soon, and there’s not enough room in the cottage. So I’ll be moving back up to the home in Marnäs.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next weekend … In ten days.’

  John looked at Swallow and shook his head. ‘She won’t be ready by then.’

  ‘I know,’ Gerlof said gloomily. ‘And I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to get down to the village. But my thoughts will be with you.’

  Otherwise, his thoughts were mainly occupied by two young boys: Aron Fredh and Jonas Kloss.

  Not that Aron was a boy any more, if he had survived the trip to the Soviet Union, but that was how Gerlof pictured him. A young boy in the sunshine, standing by a freshly dug grave. Had the knocking sound from down in the ground scared him that day? Gerlof assumed it had; he remembered a tall, gaunt man had come to fetch Aron from the churchyard. His stepfather, Sven, the committed communist.

  Then he thought about Jonas Kloss, another frightened boy. He had also been scared by ghostly goings-on, but Gerlof wasn’t convinced that it was only his fear of the cairn ghost and his experiences on board the ship that had made Jonas so tense.

  He suspected that Jonas also had family problems.

  When John had finished working on the gig for the day, Gerlof slowly made his way back up to the garden. But the sun was too strong; he couldn’t sit outside any longer.

  After a while, one of his grandsons helped him to set up a parasol. It provided shade for him and a small part of the garden, but the rest of the lawn was looking very much the worse for wear.

  Gerlof took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. It was twenty-eight degrees in the shade. Plants were dying, animals hiding away.

  A few species of bird seemed to be enjoying the warmth and the light. When Gerlof looked inland he saw a shadow high in the sky: a hawk searching out rodents in the grass down below. Its wings were spread wide like black sails, and it hovered above the alvar, circling effortlessly.

  Gerlof wondered whether the hawk was happy, experiencing such freedom.

  Or perhaps it wasn’t free at all.

  Just hungry.

  Gerlof was hungry, too; he went inside for a bowl of yoghurt with cinnamon. The phone rang while he was standing in the kitchen. It was Tilda, with news.

  ‘We’ve heard from the coastguard.’

  ‘About the ship?’

  ‘No, it’s still missing. But they’ve found a body out in Kalmar Sound – a seaman.’

  It was the summer heat, Gerlof thought. As the waters of the Sound warmed up, bodies floated to the surface.

  ‘Was he from the Elia?’

  ‘Possibly. The Kalmar police are dealing with the matter. He had ID on him, so they’re checking it out.’

  ‘Good,’ Gerlof said. ‘I’m checking out a few things, too.’

  He heard Tilda sigh, but carried on anyway. ‘I’m trying to track down the old man on the ship … The American, if that’s what he actually was.’

  ‘According to Jonas Kloss, he was a Swedish-American,’ Tilda said.

  ‘Yes, but if he’s the person I think he is, then he emigrated to Russia, not America. That fits in better with what was going on at the time. And, if that’s the case, his name is Aron Fredh.’

  ‘I don’t recognize the name,’ Tilda said. ‘But let me know if you find him.’

  ‘It’s not easy. There are far too many people on the island at the moment.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Tilda said drily. She was silent for a moment, then added, ‘The discovery of the body means that we’re going to have to question Jonas Kloss. And this time it will be a formal interview, not just a chat.’

  ‘At the station?’

  ‘We’ll probably do it at his home, if he feels safer there.’

  But does he? Gerlof thought. Out loud, he said, ‘I’d like to be there, if that’s all right.’

  Tilda laughed. ‘Hardly.’

  But Gerlof refused to give in. ‘I can be … what did you call it? A witness, an independent observer to make sure that everything is done properly.’

  After a brief silence, Tilda said, ‘In that case, the boy would have to agree.’

  ‘I think he will.’

  ‘And you’d only be allowed to sit there,’ Tilda stressed. ‘You wouldn’t be allowed to say a word, or to talk about it afterwards.’

  ‘I can do all that.’

  ‘Really?’ Tilda sounded far from convinced.

  Jonas

  ‘We’re having visitors, JK,’ Uncle Kent said.

  He was standing straight-backed in the heat on the decking, and he looked far from pleased. He was gazing out at the deserted coast road, and Jonas could see the corner of his left eye twitching slightly, just as it had done that evening in Marnäs.

  He had tried to avoid his uncle as much as possible after that evening but, as he was working on the decking right next to the front door of the house, it wasn’t always possible. Uncle Kent walked past him morning and evening. Sometimes in a suit, sometimes in shorts and a T-shirt. Sometimes he said a quick hello, sometimes he seemed too stressed even to notice Jonas.

  This evening he was wearing a dark-grey suit and had stopped on his way from the car to tell Jonas about the impending visit.

  ‘Who’s coming?’

  Kent looked at him, weighing him up. ‘The police,’ he said. ‘They’re coming here tomorrow evening, JK. They want to talk to you.’

  ‘What about?’

  Kent turned his attention to the Sound. ‘They want to discuss the mysterious ship you claim you saw out there. Nothing else … So all you have to do is answer their questions. And I’ll be there the whole time.’

  Jonas glanced at the house and saw two heads through the panoramic window: his brother, Mats, and his cousin Urban were sitting on the sofa, watching TV. He knew that they knew he’d told the truth about the cinema visit; they hadn’t said anything to him, but they knew. And he was still waiting for some kind of retribution.

  ‘Is that all right, JK?’ Kent said.

  Jonas nodded and turned to look in the other direction, at the coast road and the ridge. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The cairn was still there, of course, but there had been no sign of the ghost over the past few days. It was as if Gerlof’s revelation that the cairn wasn’t a real grave had frightened it away.

  ‘One mo
re thing … Do you know what a player is, JK?’

  His uncle leaned closer. His shirt was unbuttoned beneath his jacket, and Kent was wearing some kind of male fragrance, as heavy and cloying as alcohol.

  Jonas shook his head.

  ‘A player is someone who’s part of a business enterprise, or perhaps a game of some kind. There are small players and major players … and you are a small player in a very big game. Do you understand?’

  Jonas nodded hesitantly.

  ‘Good.’ Kent blinked and lowered his voice so that he was almost whispering in Jonas’s ear: ‘And you know what your father did, don’t you? Why he wasn’t around last summer?’

  Jonas nodded again.

  ‘He’s back with us now, so everything is all right.’ Kent leaned even closer. ‘But if you got the idea that you’re a major player, JK, and you decided to tell the police about the evening when we went to Marnäs … well, they might just decide to take him away again. Is that what you want?’

  Jonas shook his head.

  ‘Nobody wants that,’ Kent said. ‘So you give them basic answers to their questions about the ship, but don’t tell them anything else. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Good. If you do that, we can win this game.’

  Kent straightened up, patted Jonas on the shoulder and went indoors. A little while later, Jonas heard the treadmill start up.

  The Homecomer

  The farm was illuminated by a single floodlight attached to a pole high above the barn. The rest was in darkness, full of the sounds of animals lowing and bleating and thudding against the wooden walls. An old silo loomed up against the sky like a blunt-nosed rocket.

  It was Friday, and even though a large farm never closes down, tonight it was likely to be less busy than usual. The working week was over; everybody wanted some time off.

  But not the Homecomer. He crouched in the shadow of the silo, keeping quiet and still as he waited for Rita, who had disappeared in the direction of the barns, carrying a plastic bucket.

  ‘Won’t be long,’ she had said, without asking for any help.