The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4)

by Johan Theorin

  ‘We’ll be in touch,’ Cecilia Sander said as she left. She looked straight at Kent Kloss and added, ‘We’ll be working with Customs and Excise and with the coastguard on this case.’

  Gerlof followed her outside. The sun had almost disappeared, but the heat was still there. At least Kloss had a big blue pool in which to cool off.

  Jonas was already hard at work; he had switched on a small sander and was moving it over the decking with long, even strokes. His father had disappeared.

  Gerlof turned and saw Kent Kloss standing by John Hagman’s car. John had wound down the window, and they were talking. They stopped when Gerlof reached the car. Kloss stared at him; the self-assured look was back in his eyes. Just you try, it seemed to be saying.

  Five minutes later, John started up the car and reversed on to the road.

  ‘I see you were chatting with the enemy,’ Gerlof said.

  ‘Kloss isn’t an enemy. Just a rival,’ John said.

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He was asking if I had any elderly guests staying on the campsite.’

  ‘You must have, surely?’ Gerlof said. ‘You’ve got your regulars, haven’t you?’

  ‘Of course. And then he wanted to know if there were any elderly men on their own, someone who might not have stayed here before in the summer. New faces. There are a few; he asked me if they were from overseas, but I haven’t a clue.’

  ‘So he’s looking for elderly foreigners? Just like us.’

  ‘That’s right. He wanted me to tell him which caravans they were staying in, but I can’t do that. I can’t betray the confidence of my guests.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Gerlof said, in spite of the fact that he had been thinking of asking John exactly the same thing. ‘What do you know about Kent’s brother?’

  ‘His name is Niklas.’

  ‘Indeed. And what else do you know about Niklas Kloss?’

  ‘Not much,’ John said, glancing back at the coast road. ‘He runs the restaurant, but I don’t see much of him. It’s Kent Kloss who’s around most of the time, and sometimes their sister, Veronica.’

  ‘It was the same today,’ Gerlof said thoughtfully. ‘Kent Kloss was there while the boy was being interviewed. It should really have been Jonas’s father, but he seemed to be hiding.’

  ‘Niklas Kloss is the black sheep of the family,’ John said. ‘If you believe the gossip.’

  ‘What’s he supposed to have done?’

  John nodded in the direction of the houses on the coast road. ‘He also inherited a plot of land here, but he couldn’t afford to build on it, so after a few years he sold it. Gambling debts, apparently. And then of course he ended up in jail.’

  ‘Did he? What for?’

  ‘No idea. Fraud, maybe, or theft … It’s not very long since he came out.’

  Gerlof nodded pensively. ‘In that case, I can understand why he avoids the police.’

  The Homecomer

  The second weekend in July, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky over Öland; from morning till evening, the island was bathed in light and warmth, and the sun attracted visitors from all over southern Sweden. This was when the real wave of tourists arrived from the mainland. The holiday season was well under way. There were no traffic jams, as there had been at midsummer, but from Friday to Sunday a steady stream of cars and caravans passed over the bridge before dispersing all over the island, from north to south.

  The beaches were packed with people during the day, the campsites and hotels at night. Summer cottages were opened up, barbecues set up, lawnmowers hummed into life. For the next few weeks, every road, every electrical supply cable and every sewage outlet on the island would be used to its maximum capacity, until calm returned in August.

  The holiday complexes were also full to bursting, as were the nightclubs. This was the most important month of the year for the Ölandic Resort outside Stenvik.

  The Homecomer was standing in a picnic area just off the main road, watching the cars pass by. Rita was beside him; she looked tired but resolute. She tilted her head in the direction of her own car: ‘Well, we’ve done what we had to do … I’ll be on my way.’

  The Homecomer nodded, thinking once again that he could have been her father or grandfather. He took out his wallet and removed a wad of notes. ‘A bit more from the ship,’ he said. ‘Where will you go?’

  She took the money but made no attempt to count it. ‘Copenhagen,’ she said. ‘I’ve got friends there. I’m going to stay out of the way for a while … What about you?’

  ‘I’m staying here on the island,’ the Homecomer said.

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘Until I die.’

  Rita smiled briefly, as if he were joking. ‘Thanks for everything.’

  She gave him a quick hug, then walked away. Heading for new adventures.

  The Homecomer remained where he was. Several cars had stopped, and the picnic tables were beginning to fill up with people. He knew that the Kloss family would be looking forward to the arrival of all the tourists.

  The Ölandic Resort was ready. But no one except the Homecomer and Rita knew that disaster was on its way to the complex. It was already creeping through the ground.

  The New Country, February 1936

  The day when disaster strikes is just like any other working day.

  There are four of them in the forest: Aron, Vlad, old Grisha and Sven. They are shifting logs, and on this particular occasion they have an old horse to help them. His name is Bokser, and he drags the sledge down to the river and back again. Bokser is half dead; he has scabs as big as saucers on his neck, but he still has to work. He is the third horse the commandant has requisitioned from a farm to the south of the camp; the first two froze to death. The meat tasted like dry bacon.

  Bokser is a luxury, and no one knows how long they will be allowed to keep him. Other brigades don’t have a horse; the prisoners have to pull the sledges instead.

  The four of them work hard, felling trees and loading up the logs; they are behind with their quota. They are always behind. The trees would have to fall down by themselves in their thousands for them to catch up. There should have been seven of them in the brigade today, but two are sick and one is in solitary confinement, accused of trying to cheat the system.

  The logs are lying on the ground. Vlad counts to three, then he and Grisha and Aron lift them on to the sledge, one after the other, and Sven secures them with a chain. Grisha whines and complains after each one. They have done all this thousands of times before.

  Aron’s movements are mechanical; in his mind, he is on the shore down below Rödtorp, where the sun is shining and the waves murmur among the rocks. Where the sand is soft and you can go for a swim whenever you like.

  ‘Aron,’ Sven says quietly.

  Aron blinks, and he is back in the cold, the endless exhaustion. He turns his head and sees Sven standing by the sledge laden with logs; there is a strange expression on Sven’s face. A resolute expression. His hands are moving, turning something around and around.

  Then everything falls apart. The world shakes and shatters.

  ‘Look out!’ Sven yells in Swedish.

  Vlad is still bending down next to the sledge, but Aron begins to move. He realizes what is happening. The chain has come off, and the logs are moving. Nothing can stop them now.

  ‘Vlad!’ Aron shouts.

  At the same time, he jumps back, and almost gets away. He hears the crash as the first log falls off the sledge, but the end of it catches his shoulder, dislocating the joint.

  The next log strikes him, knocks him to the ground and hits him in the face.

  Aron feels no pain. He feels only the power, the weight of the tree trunk pressing him down into the snow. He sees the rest of the logs rolling down, long and black against the sky. They bounce on the frozen ground like millstones, crushing everything in their path, but by some miracle every single one misses his head, and they go rolling down the slope.

  He
can hear Grisha’s voice shouting through the racket. Bokser neighing frantically. They have both survived.

  But somewhere under the logs is Vlad. Vladimir from the Ukraine. With his warm coat and his sheepskin hat.

  Aron knows he is there, but he can’t see Vlad. His eyes are swollen shut. When the pain from his broken bones takes over his entire body, Aron is no longer there. He has gone away, drifted off into unconsciousness as if it were the sea, gently lapping on the shore near Rödtorp.

  aron

  aron

  Aron!

  Faint noises in the darkness, echoing shouts that sound like his name. He can hear them, but he doesn’t want to go back.

  Aron opens his eyes. No, he isn’t lying on warm sand, he is lying in the snow among the fir trees. And a huge shadow is looming over him.

  ‘Aron! Can you hear me?’

  It is Sven’s voice, full of energy. He shouts right in Aron’s face. ‘We’re going to do it! We’re going to swap!’

  Sven bends down and Aron feels hands on his body. Hard blows that make his broken ribs throb with agonizing pain.

  ‘Stop it,’ Aron whispers.

  But Sven won’t stop.

  ‘We have to hurry up, Aron … I’ve sent Grisha to get help. They’ll be here soon – we have to hurry!’

  Aron feels someone pulling off his clothes. It is Sven, his hands tugging at buttons and laces.

  ‘We’re swapping over!’

  Aron stops listening; he turns his head to the side and vomits. Into the snow, and all over his upper body, which is now naked.

  Then he loses consciousness once more.

  Aron wakes up to a faint light. He is lying on something soft, but it isn’t snow. He is in a bed.

  ‘Vladimir Jegerov?’ a voice says beside his bed.

  Aron turns his head and sees a nurse. She is pale and thin; she is a prisoner just like him, but at least she works indoors.

  The nurse smiles; she has kind eyes.

  Afterwards, he can’t remember whether he nods in response to her question, but she goes on. ‘You’ve been in an accident involving some logs, Vladimir. Your right leg is broken, and so is your nose. Your shoulder was dislocated, but we managed to put it back. You were lucky … One of your comrades wasn’t so fortunate.’

  ‘Who?’

  The nurse holds a steaming cup of tea up to his lips.

  ‘A foreigner,’ she says. ‘A young Swede … The logs rolled over him like a tank. He was crushed to death.’

  Vlad, Aron thinks. But he doesn’t say a word, he just sips his tea.

  ‘You’ll be in here for a while,’ the nurse says. She smiles again, and leaves him.

  Every movement hurts, but Aron slowly raises his left hand and feels his face. The shape is different; it is swollen and covered in scabs. Crushed and numb. He lifts the sheet and sees splints on his right leg. He is wearing underpants and felt boots, but they are not his own. They are Vlad’s.

  Aron closes his eyes. No point in thinking about it.

  Sven did this. He loosened the chain and released the logs. He swapped their clothes.

  This was his plan: Aron the foreigner would become Vlad the Soviet citizen.

  Someone coughs. Aron turns his head and discovers that he is lying in a crowded hospital hut with at least thirty other men. There isn’t much room, but there are lamps and stoves and it is light and warm.

  And the sheets might not be clean but they are sheets, and he can’t see any bedbugs. The tea is real, not ersatz. And there is a plate of freshly sliced onion by his bed.

  He has heard rumours about this in the camp: that prisoners who are injured or fall seriously ill are very well cared for.

  It’s strange, but all he can do right now is rest between the sheets, enjoying the sensation.

  He relaxes.

  Vlad is dead, but it is Aron who has ended up in paradise.

  Lisa

  Lisa hadn’t felt well that morning. She didn’t have a temperature, but she was weak and shaky. Lady Summertime had done her sixth gig at the hotel on Friday night, and it had been extremely lucrative. The club had been packed, she had filled it with smoke and, in the darkness, three wallets and two mobiles had found their way into her bag. However, the credit cards lay untouched; she had been too exhausted to drive down to Borgholm to deal with them.

  Lady Summertime had stuck to water all evening, but Lisa was still unsteady on her feet when she got up in the caravan the next morning. It felt like a stomach bug, as if something were in the process of waking up down there. She only had a sandwich for breakfast, but she felt bloated and full. She went down to the shore with her swimsuit and a towel, but she stayed away from the water, dozing in the sun instead.

  Several days of shimmering heat had brought crowds of people to the shore, and Lisa felt almost hemmed in by all the beach towels and summer bodies. Kids, clutter and chaos everywhere. The stench of suntan lotion was worse than ever, the holidaymakers yelled and screamed to one another in the water, beach flies buzzed around, trying to get into her mouth. Lisa swallowed and closed her eyes.

  By lunchtime, she had had enough and made her way back to the caravan. Several times she stubbed her toes on the stony ground; her feet weren’t cooperating, somehow. Was she dehydrated, in spite of all the water she’d drunk at the club?

  Her mobile was lying on the bed; she’d forgotten to take it with her to the shore, and she saw that Silas had called twice. Shit. But she didn’t have the energy to ring him back.

  She had a sandwich with no butter for lunch, then got back into bed for a few hours and drifted off to sleep. When she raised her head the interior of the caravan was oppressively hot, even though the sun was quite low over the sea. It was quarter past six; the whole day had gone.

  Time to get up, have a shower and head for the May Lai Bar.

  She was there by half past seven, but didn’t feel any better. Her case of vinyl albums was as heavy as lead as she trudged down the stairs, panting and pouring with sweat.

  Dinner was available in the hotel kitchen, but she didn’t go there. She filled up her water bottle in the ladies’ room, put on her wig and her make-up and emerged as Lady Summertime. A somewhat shaky DJ.

  She entered the booth and started the show. No cheerful shout-outs over the microphone tonight. Summertime put on a track without saying anything at all and switched on the disco lights. She had a long shift to get through; all she could do was grit her teeth and look happy.

  No, there was no way she could look happy.

  But she carried on working, and after nine o’clock the cellar gradually began to fill up. Earlier than usual – a typical Saturday night with lots of people. The temperature was rising, and the bartender was happy to supply anyone who was thirsty with water from his soda pistols.

  But the bar staff also seemed to be moving slowly this evening, as if they were sleepwalkers who’d taken too many tablets. And, in spite of the crowd, there wasn’t much action on the dance floor; most people were hanging around at the sides.

  Summertime glanced at the tempting wallets and purses sticking up out of the pockets of shorts and jeans, but she didn’t feel up to going after them. She could hear Silas muttering in her head, but this evening she just concentrated on playing music, focused and determined.

  She kept on drinking water, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Her stomach was like a gurgling washing machine with worn cogs. It went round and round, refusing to settle.

  Summertime swallowed; she could feel her false eyelashes starting to come away because she was sweating so much. She tried to keep her balance at the mixer desk.

  At some point after ten o’clock, she just couldn’t do it any more. Her stomach started to bubble, and Lisa knew her body sufficiently well after twenty-four years to realize that an eruption was imminent. Something had to come out, one way or another.

  She couldn’t stay in the booth, so with trembling fingers she put on the longest track she had: the Beach Boys favour
ite ‘Here Comes The Night’, which lasted almost eleven minutes. Then she backed away from the decks. It was OK, hardly anyone was dancing, and she definitely had to get to the ladies’ toilets.

  But the door was open and there was a long queue stretching back into the cloakroom – and as Lisa pushed people aside in a panic and forced her way in, she saw a young girl in a white blouse, with an equally white face, leaning over the hand basin and bringing up yellow liquid in a seemingly endless cascade. Into the basin, over her blouse, splashing up on to the mirror. Lisa could hear similar noises from inside the cubicles, a chorus of retching.

  She swallowed hard to keep the vomit down, and turned away. It was happening; her stomach could no longer tie itself in knots, and it was ready to get the show on the road.

  The apocalypse was coming. Any minute now.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she gasped. ‘Excuse me, could you move, please … I have to get through!’

  Several girls in the queue weren’t listening; the sounds from inside the toilets had made them start throwing up, too. They were bent double, vomit all over their bags and shoes, their hair limp with sweat. It was like a gastric ward in the middle of an outbreak of salmonella. Stinking pools on the tiled floor, revolting smells in the air. Total chaos.

  Lisa broke away from the queue and ran for the door. She needed a bush to squat behind, or a car if the worst came to the worst. But the stairs were too far away, she wasn’t going to get there, wasn’t going to make it outside.

  The world was spinning, the cramps in her gut were sheer agony. Far away, she could hear the thump of the Beach Boys track, like a beating heart.

  She spotted the door to the VIP room next to the stairs and rushed towards it.

  ‘Hey, you!’ a voice said behind her.

  A fucking security guard. But Lisa couldn’t talk now; she simply opened the door, saw a load of suits sitting around the table but, most important of all: an ice bucket. She bent over it and opened her mouth.

  It was disgusting, it was embarrassing, but at the same time it was liberating. Just to open her mouth and let it all out.