The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4)

by Johan Theorin

  She was hunting for golf balls in the grass.

  It was Kent Kloss’s idea, and she wasn’t sure whether it was brilliant or completely stupid: he had placed a white ball next to each caravan or chalet that he wanted her to investigate. As if the balls had just happened to land on the campsite …

  So Lisa kept her eyes on the ground, and after about fifty metres she spotted the first flash of white in the yellow grass. It was next to a fairly new caravan with a small awning.

  She stopped a few metres away and glanced around. There was no one nearby.

  A risky business, she thought, and wished she could have worn her wig, like Lady Summertime.

  She was nervous. Even if the security guards had been told to leave her alone, the occupants of the caravan might turn up. What was she supposed to say then – that she was cleaning?

  If the neighbours saw her, she could pretend that this was her caravan and simply walk in. Which would be fine until the real owner appeared.

  Lisa couldn’t just stand here, so she stepped inside the awning and tried the door. Locked. In which case there wasn’t much she could do except peer through the window. Very quickly.

  She pressed her forehead against the glass. What was she looking for?

  ‘Anything unusual,’ Kent Kloss had said.

  A gun, perhaps, or bundles of notes.

  But all she could see was a neat and tidy interior, much tidier than her own caravan, with folded towels and a small pile of books. Empty worktops. No guns.

  So she moved on, and found another golf ball at the end of the same row. This caravan was silver-grey and bigger than most of the others; it was almost as broad as hers was long.

  The door inside the awning was ajar – only a fraction, but it was obviously not locked.

  Going inside was extremely risky.

  She looked around. The long expanse of grass between the rows was completely deserted.

  OK. She stepped inside.

  A fat black fly was buzzing against the windowpane; it rested for a few seconds, then started up again. It wanted to get out into the sunshine, but Lisa didn’t dare open the window. She didn’t dare touch anything, and kept on glancing outside.

  Still no one in sight. But if you didn’t lock your door, you weren’t far away. She didn’t have much time.

  She noticed a grey blanket on the bed; it looked as if there was something small and round underneath it. She didn’t really want to go that far inside but decided to take a chance. She took three quick steps over to the bed and pulled back the blanket.

  The puppy was a dachshund. It had been fast asleep; it gave a start, leapt up on its short little legs and started barking at Lisa.

  She backed away in a blind panic, out through the door; she closed it behind her and scurried away across the grass, her cap well pulled down.

  The barking died away, but it was several minutes before her heart began to slow down. Fortunately, no one was taking any notice of her.

  Only the holiday village left now. There were a couple of suspect older guests staying there, according to Kent Kloss, so Lisa might as well check them out while she was here. She walked down towards the water, past a small grove of ash trees, and reached the chalets.

  There was a golf ball lying outside the third one in the first row, as if a player on the course had somehow pulled off a diagonal shot right across the campsite and through the trees.

  The chalet looked closed up and empty, but Lisa moved carefully anyway. She stepped up on to the little veranda and tapped on the door. After a short silence, she heard a thud, then the door opened and a man in very small red trunks and with an equally red face peered out. He was in his seventies, tall and thin and completely bald.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  Lisa stepped back, but immediately regained her equilibrium.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ she said. ‘I was wondering if you had any soap powder? I’m staying just over there, and I’ve run out.’

  The man stared at her; he looked as if he’d only just woken up.

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, no problem.’ Lisa beamed at him. ‘Bye, then.’

  Then she was gone, hurrying away as fast as she could. Had she seen anything suspicious? No. She hadn’t seen anything at all.

  The other interesting chalet was two rows down, twenty metres closer to the water. One last white golf ball shone out in the grass. She picked it up as a souvenir, then went up to the door and knocked gently.

  No answer.

  She glanced around, then pushed down the handle. And the door opened.

  Nothing else happened. She stuck her head inside.

  ‘Hello?’

  No response. No barking dog, and the bed was empty. If she saw a blanket, she certainly wasn’t going to lift it up, but she might as well have a quick look.

  The place was neat and tidy; the bed had been made, and there was a suitcase next to it, but no sign of any other personal effects. Oh yes – there was a rucksack on the worktop in the kitchenette, next to over a dozen bottles of mineral water and some kind of red pump.

  The rucksack was made of black leather and looked full.

  Lisa always found suitcases and bags tempting, of course. There might be anything in there. Money. Jewellery. Rubbish.

  She checked once more to make sure there was no one behind her, then slipped inside the chalet. She took off her sunglasses, went over to the worktop and opened the rucksack.

  It contained a couple more bottles of water and a man’s clothing: rolled-up flannel shirts, jeans, sweaters. But she could also see something pale down at the bottom; it looked like wood. She took it out.

  A wooden box. A snuff box? It was old and scratched.

  And there was something else underneath it; a shiny metal tube was sticking up, and at first Lisa thought it was some kind of pipe. Then she realized she was staring at a gun.

  A revolver.

  She didn’t pick it up. She backed away, still clutching the box. She just wanted to get out of the chalet; she had seen enough, and she had no intention of getting caught again this summer. She didn’t feel safe, because if the door had been left unlocked, perhaps the occupant had just popped out for a few minutes and …

  She turned around and shot outside.

  There was no one in sight. Lisa kept her head down and moved about thirty metres away, to the edge of the forest. She stopped in the shade of a tall ash tree and took out her mobile.

  ‘Kent Kloss.’

  His voice was loud and authoritative, but she spoke quietly. ‘It’s Lisa Turesson.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think I’ve found something.’

  ‘On the campsite?’

  ‘In one of the chalets – the last one. I’ve just been in there, and I …’ She fell silent.

  She saw an old man; he had appeared from behind the trees and stopped in the shade. And he was looking at her.

  Lisa recognized him. At first, she couldn’t work out where from, and then she realized that she had seen him from approximately the same distance a few weeks ago, at midsummer. The man had been standing out on the rocks by the shore, in the fenced-off part of the resort.

  He set off towards the chalet she had just left. Lisa was horrified when she saw that she hadn’t closed the door behind her. It was standing wide open, like a warning signal.

  The man disappeared inside.

  ‘He’s here,’ she whispered. ‘He’s back.’

  ‘Keep him there,’ Kent Kloss said. ‘We’re on our way.’

  Lisa stood there, not knowing what to do. Keep him there? How the hell was she supposed to do that?

  After less than thirty seconds, the man emerged from the chalet.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said into her phone. ‘He’s leaving.’

  It was definitely the man from the shore. Aron Fredh, if that was his name. An old, white-haired man with a compact body; he looked strong, in spite of his age. He was moving fast, away from the chalets and up towards the car park. In
seconds, he was hidden by the trees.

  ‘Stop him,’ Kloss said in her ear.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said again.

  She didn’t move. Aron Fredh had a revolver in his rucksack, and she had taken enough risks already today.

  She opened her left hand and looked at the object she had taken from the chalet. A small wooden box. She turned it over; there were stains on the bottom. Snuff, perhaps, or oil. Or blood.

  Gerlof

  The cottage was full of people again. Lena and Julia had arrived with their husbands for two weeks’ holiday with the children. They had all had morning coffee, and his daughters had helped Gerlof pack his bags, so now there was nothing left to do before he set off for Marnäs. He had glanced at his phone from time to time, but it had remained silent all morning.

  John Hagman looked at him. ‘Ready to go?’

  Gerlof nodded. ‘Back to the institution.’

  As they drove away from Stenvik and the cottage, Gerlof watched the bright landscape passing by and wondered if summer was over – as far as he was concerned, anyway. Time passed so quickly during this late phase of his life.

  The residential home was bathed in sunlight, its windows shining. The car park was empty, and the place felt deserted when he walked in. At first, he couldn’t understand why, then he realized that many of the staff were on holiday.

  Most of the residents were still there, of course, dozing in the heat. As he passed the coffee bar, he saw Raymond Matsson sitting at a table with a younger relative who had come to visit. The relative must have been in his fifties, but could well be a grandchild, as Raymond himself was ninety-seven years old.

  The relative leaned forward and yelled in a voice that sounded as if it were coming through a megaphone, ‘Have you eaten today, Raymond?’

  ‘What?’ Raymond raised his head. ‘Beaten? Who’s been beaten?’

  ‘No, Raymond, I’m asking you … have you eaten?’

  Gerlof moved on, without waiting for Raymond’s answer.

  It shouldn’t be like this, he thought; younger people shouldn’t be yelling at the elderly. Raymond ought to be sitting there talking about his long life, about everything he had learned from having experienced almost the whole of the twentieth century, from horse-drawn carriages to space shuttles. But perhaps Raymond had nothing to say in spite of all that, no wisdom to share.

  What did Gerlof have to tell?

  Only that both the summer and the century had gone so fast. The six weeks he had been away from here, on parole in the summer cottage, had felt like six minutes.

  He followed John, who had unlocked the door of his room and carried his suitcase inside.

  ‘Gerlof!’

  He heard a voice behind him as he was about to go in. It was Boel, the supervisor of the home, and she was smiling. She even winked at him.

  ‘So you couldn’t stay away any longer?’ she joked.

  Gerlof nodded. ‘I gave up.’

  ‘Now it’s my turn to escape,’ Boel said. ‘I’m going on holiday on Friday; my husband and I are off to Provence.’

  ‘Have a lovely time.’

  ‘What about you?’ Boel said. ‘Have you had a good rest?’

  ‘Yes, I feel fine. I take after my grandfather.’

  ‘So, he was big and strong, like you?’

  ‘Tough rather than strong,’ Gerlof said, launching into a story. ‘When my grandfather was eighty years old, he was out fishing all by himself one day, just off Blå Jungfrun. A storm blew up and his skiff capsized. But my grandfather wasn’t afraid; he simply swam ashore, towing the boat behind him, then lay down underneath it on the shore. He couldn’t light a fire, because his matches were wet, so he lay there for three days with no food, all alone, as the storm raged and his clothes slowly dried out. When the wind dropped he rowed home to Stenvik, and he was perfectly fine.’

  ‘Impressive,’ Boel said.

  ‘He was a good role model,’ Gerlof said. ‘And I’ve been working on my gig this summer.’

  Boel stopped smiling. ‘Don’t even think about going out in it on your own. Not at your age.’

  She moved on, and Gerlof went into his room. John was pulling up the blinds.

  Everything looked just the same as usual. The long plastic mat was still there in the little hallway, the bathroom was clean, and all the framed diplomas that gave him the right to command a ship at sea were in their proper places on the walls.

  The telephone was still there, too. Gerlof went over and picked it up and got a signal straight away. Good.

  ‘I’ve told Julia and Lena that if anyone rings the cottage asking for me they’re to pass on this number.’

  John nodded; he knew exactly who Gerlof meant.

  ‘What else are you going to do?’

  ‘It’s back to the bottle for me, I think.’ Gerlof pointed to his desk, where he was working on another ship in a bottle. This one was a two-masted schooner; he had almost finished whittling the hull, and the next job was the masts and the rigging. Then came the tricky task of getting the ship in through the narrow neck.

  But he would also have plenty of time to think about Aron Fredh.

  Gerlof could try to persuade himself that Aron had done what he came to do and had left the island, but he didn’t believe it. Not as long as Kent Kloss was still around.

  Lisa

  Kent was sitting in Lisa’s caravan, weighing the old wooden box in his hand. Lisa was perched on her bed, as far away from him as possible. Kloss didn’t look well; there was a hunted expression in his eyes. And he stank of booze again this evening. Of a lot more than one Cosmo.

  He looked at her. ‘So this was in the rucksack in his chalet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you saw a gun in there, too?’

  Lisa nodded.

  ‘What kind of gun?’

  ‘I don’t know … a revolver?’

  Kent’s expression was far from pleasant. ‘You should have taken that as well.’

  ‘I didn’t have time.’

  He stared at the box and sighed. ‘Aron Fredh registered as Karl Larsson when he rented the chalet. He paid cash, and didn’t give a home address. That meant he could stay at the Ölandic, go anywhere he wanted, and spy on us … But if he comes back, we’ll have him.’ He glanced up. ‘What else did you see in the rucksack?’

  ‘Not much … Some clothes, and several bottles of water.’

  Kent smiled wearily. ‘I’m not surprised he had his own water; after all, he’d poisoned ours … We know how he did it now.’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘How he caused the gastroenteritis epidemic,’ Kent explained. ‘He brought a high-pressure pump in with him, then all he had to do was unscrew the pipes in the chalet, then pump water polluted with dung all through our system.’

  ‘It affected the staff, too,’ Lisa reminded him.

  ‘Yes, but the guests were his priority.’ Kent rubbed his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept for several days. ‘We’ve purified the water now, but of course a lot of people have already left. So this is a lost season, as far as we’re concerned … A complete waste of time.’

  Lisa looked at him. ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean … He must really hate you.’

  Kent’s eyes were weary and red-rimmed, but his expression was dark. ‘That’s not something you need to concern yourself with,’ he said. ‘That would be a mistake.’

  ‘OK.’

  Kent stared at her for a long time, then he glanced down at the wooden box again. ‘I’ve seen this before.’ He pointed at the double cross burned into the bottom. ‘This is our house mark. My grandfather had one exactly the same; all three Kloss brothers had a snuff box made of apple wood. But Sigfrid’s and Gilbert’s are on a shelf in my kitchen. Edvard’s was missing – until now.’

  He weighed the box in his hand and added, ‘Sigfrid, my grandfather, always carried his box with him. I assume Edvard did the same.’

  ‘So what does t
hat mean?’

  ‘It means that Edvard Kloss had this box with him when he died. And that Aron Fredh was there, and took it.’

  In the silence that followed, Lisa considered asking how Edvard had died – whether Aron Fredh had murdered him, perhaps – but she decided to say nothing.

  Kloss was beginning to look quite pleased. ‘At least he’s on the run now. We’re watching the chalet, so he can’t come back there.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll leave the island,’ Lisa said.

  Kloss didn’t reply. Lisa was relieved when he got to his feet and moved towards the door. She still remembered the slap he had delivered, and she couldn’t relax when Kent Kloss was around.

  ‘So we’re done?’ she said.

  Kloss stopped in the doorway. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We haven’t finished yet.’ Kloss was smiling, but the hunted look was still in his eyes. ‘Keep working,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  He walked out and shut the door behind him.

  Lisa stayed where she was, feeling the walls of the caravan closing in on her. The heat was oppressive; it felt as if some kind of explosion were imminent.

  Jonas

  There wasn’t a sound. It was quarter past ten, and the sun had gone down; a white half-moon was drifting slowly across the Sound, occasionally veiled by thin, wispy clouds. The heat along the coast had been swept away by a cool sea breeze this evening.

  Jonas was lying in his little chalet, listening to voices chatting and laughing on the coast road. Boys’ voices, but deeper than his own.

  It was his brother, Mats, and their cousins. They were down on the ridge with some of their friends from other houses in the village. They all had their bikes and mopeds with them; the older boys met up in different places every evening – down by the restaurant or the jetty, or up by the main road.

  Jonas had given up trying to keep tabs on them. He was lying on his bed on top of his very own secret: the gun he had found in the bunker. He still hadn’t told anyone about it, not even his dad.

  He didn’t know if he could trust his father.