Sympathy is the wrong attitude – it means the battle is lost.
Vlad refuses to participate in this particular battle, in spite of the fact that anxious wives and parents regularly turn up at the prison. They stand there with warm clothes and food parcels for the prisoners, pleading for help. As a guard, Vlad is used to it. He listens to them, his face expressionless, and gives the response he has been taught to give: ‘Razberemsja. We will take a closer look at this case.’
Silently, he wonders, how can these people still be at liberty? They are related to criminals; they should all be arrested. This does happen frequently, but there are still many left out there.
Why haven’t we seized all our enemies yet?
Vlad must not lose his grip, not here at Kresty in his uniform. If a woman with frightened eyes stops him in the street, perhaps with a child in her arms, he simply stares her down and goes on his way.
And if she won’t give up, if she calls after him and catches him up, he stops, plants his legs in their shiny boots wide apart, and replies, ‘I’m sorry. Your husband has been moved elsewhere.’
Which is always true.
Gerlof
As the sun blazed down on the landscape outside the windows, Gerlof drifted around the corridors of the residential home. It was cool and airy inside, and it was easy to get about. There were no raised thresholds, no stones, no clumps of grass – but it was lonely. Very little happened.
He had few visitors. John was busy with the shop and the campsite, and Tilda was away on holiday. His daughters popped in, but they were always on the way to somewhere else.
There was a poster by the main door advertising a course that was due to begin in August: ‘Make Friends with the Net’. Gerlof assumed it didn’t have anything to do with learning to fish.
He missed the talks they had during the rest of the year. Veronica Kloss had come in to talk about her family history, and it had been really interesting. Now, of course, he knew quite a lot more about the Kloss family than she had mentioned that day.
There was a small library in the home, so he went down there and found a book by an Anglo-American historian, Robert Conquest, about the Soviet Union in the thirties. He borrowed it and took it up to his room. He wanted to know what kind of life Aron and Sven Fredh had encountered when they reached the new country, and the title of the book made him fear the worst. It was called The Great Terror.
One quiet Friday towards the end of July, Gerlof took the lift down to the ground floor. It was just as cool and quiet down there. Using his walking stick for support, he made his way slowly along the corridor. Greta Fredh’s room had been almost at the end, if he remembered rightly. It was now occupied by someone called Blenda Pettersson, according to the name on the door.
He remembered what Aron had said on the phone: ‘They took everything I had here.’ He had meant the croft by the shore. Nothing else. Hadn’t he?
Gerlof looked at the nameplate, but didn’t knock.
‘Hello there – are you lost?’
A dark-haired, tanned young woman was smiling at him; she was wearing a red uniform and was obviously a temporary member of staff.
Gerlof shook his head and introduced himself. ‘I live upstairs,’ he said. ‘I’m just having a little wander round, calling in on my neighbours.’
‘Oh, I see. Our residents down here tend to spend most of their time in their rooms; the heat makes them very tired. Do you know Blenda?’
Gerlof shook his head again, but the girl had already opened the door. ‘We can go in, I need to check on her anyway … Hi, Blenda!’
Gerlof felt like an intruder, but followed her anyway.
He walked into a small apartment that was almost an exact replica of his own: a hallway with a worn plastic mat, a spacious bathroom with an adapted shower on the left, and a bedroom beyond the hallway. A woman with thin white hair was slumped in an armchair.
Gerlof couldn’t work out whether she was awake or not. The girl chatted away to Blenda, but got no response. She tidied the bed, filled a glass with water and set out several tablets. Then the visit was over.
But Gerlof lingered outside the door. ‘The lady who used to live in this room before Blenda … Greta, wasn’t it?’
‘Greta Fredh, that’s right. She died last summer, when I was filling in over the holidays. It was in the middle of August.’
‘Did she have a fall?’ Gerlof asked, vaguely remembering something Sonja Bengtsson, the gravedigger’s daughter, had told him.
‘That’s right.’ The girl lowered her voice, as if Death might be listening. ‘Greta fell and hit her head in the bathroom. The lock might as well have been glued shut; we had to send for a locksmith to let us in … but by then it was too late.’
Gerlof looked at the door. ‘Did Greta have any visitors? Any relatives who sometimes came to see her?’
The girl thought for a moment. ‘Veronica Kloss used to come and read books and magazines to her … You know, the woman who runs the Ölandic?’
Gerlof nodded. He knew very well. ‘But they weren’t related, were they?’
‘Greta sometimes claimed they were, but she was very confused towards the end.’
‘Any other visitors?’
‘Not as far as I know. Not while she was alive. Her brother was here a couple of times earlier this summer, but I think he was just collecting some of her things.’
Gerlof gave a start. ‘Did this brother tell you his name?’
‘Yes … Arnold.’
‘Aron,’ Gerlof said.
‘Oh yes, Aron. But he didn’t say much; he was very quiet.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Old, but in good shape. Tall and broad-shouldered … He seemed to have lots of energy, even though he must have been getting on for eighty.’ She looked at Gerlof, and quickly added, ‘Mind you, that’s no age.’
‘Age is all in the mind,’ Gerlof responded.
He thanked the girl and set off along the corridor. He saw the name ‘Wall’ on the room next door. Ulf Wall. Who was that? The father of Einar Wall, who had been murdered? Perhaps, because the picture of Einar Wall that the police had shown him seemed to have been taken just here.
Ulf Wall’s door was firmly closed. Gerlof didn’t knock; he kept on going. He was desperate for a cup of coffee, and he could only get one back in his own section.
Jonas
Uncle Kent was wearing a black T-shirt and khaki camouflage shorts; he was almost behaving like a soldier, marching up and down in front of the family and staff at Villa Kloss – and for the first time in days he looked quite pleased with himself, Jonas thought.
‘The alarm is triggered by a motion sensor,’ he said. ‘It’s switched off using a remote control. You have one minute to deactivate it once you step on to our land. It’s also millennium-proof, so it will work after New Year.’
Jonas listened to Kent’s presentation, surrounded by Mats and their cousins, Aunt Veronica, his father, Paulina and a gardener who had only just started working for the family. His name was Marc, and he came from somewhere abroad; he was muscular and very tanned.
They were gathered in the garden at the front of the house, which currently looked like a moonscape. The grass, the shrubs and the viper’s bugloss were gone; everything had been ripped up and replaced with fine gravel. Over the past few days, Jonas had realized what the temporary markers that had appeared the previous week were for.
They had now been replaced by a dozen small posts, buried in the ground with only a couple of centimetres showing. They were made of black plastic, but Jonas thought they looked like the wooden poles in a gill net.
‘Sensors’, that’s what Kent called them. He reminded everyone several times that they were extremely sensitive, then pointed to a panel next to the garage.
‘This is the control panel for the external alarm. You use one code to activate it and a different one to switch it off.’
He pointed towards the house.
‘The
control panel for the intruder alarm is on the wall just inside. You open the door and switch it off. It covers the guest chalets as well.’
He gazed at the assembled group. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘So now we have both an external and internal alarm to guard against intruders; everyone will be given the codes. Any questions?’
No one said anything. All Jonas wanted to do was slip away.
‘What about the hares?’
Jonas looked around; his father had put up his hand.
‘I’m sorry?’ Kent said.
‘There are hares all over the place at night,’ Niklas went on. ‘Won’t they set off the alarm when they run across the garden?’
‘Yes,’ Kent said. ‘Which is why we’re getting a fence next week. One and a half metres high, all the way round Villa Kloss, with an automatic gate. The hares won’t get over that.’
Aunt Veronica was standing slightly apart from everyone else; she had remained silent so far. She wasn’t in camouflage gear, just a pale-green dress, and now she was shaking her head. ‘I’m not having some kind of Berlin Wall around my part of the property,’ she said.
‘It’s quite a low fence,’ Kent insisted. ‘Even the boys will be able to see over it.’
Veronica stared at him. ‘Our family is not going to hide.’
‘No, but we do need to protect ourselves until things calm down. This isn’t just a petty quarrel between neighbours, Veronica.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’ With that, she turned and went back to her own house.
Kent ignored her; he took several small pieces of paper out of his pocket and addressed the group once more. ‘Good, that’s everything, then … Come and collect your copy of the alarm codes.’
Jonas joined the queue; as he was waiting, he looked over at the cairn. It had been quiet there for the past few days; one or two tourists had stopped to gaze at the stones, but there had been no sign of an old man.
‘Can you see anything, JK?’
Jonas turned his head and saw Uncle Kent smiling at him. He was holding out a piece of paper, and Jonas took it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not a thing.’
Kent glanced down at the road. ‘I know someone is watching us,’ he said quietly. ‘An old man who sometimes sneaks into the bunker … But we’re going to take care of that particular problem.’
Lisa
‘Are you feeling all right?’
Lisa was playing her guitar at the restaurant in Stenvik. It was Saturday night, and the place was more or less full; there were a couple of empty tables inside, but the outside tables were packed. Presumably, most people were there for the beer and pizza and the view over the bay rather than for the music, but it didn’t matter.
The odd ‘Yeeaah …’ drifted back to her.
‘Good to be here!’ she said into the microphone.
It was all a bit of a cliché, but it did feel good to be there, even if her voice was starting to sound hoarse after several weeks of shout-outs and singing, constantly trying to make herself heard above the hum of conversation. It was much nicer to be out here in the evening sun by the sea, rather than down in the cellar in the nightclub. Any pleasure in playing Lady Summertime over there had completely disappeared.
Here in the village, her audience consisted only of ordinary holidaymakers who wanted to relax. Playing records in the May Lai Bar had been something completely different over the past week; it had felt like playing in a tomb. The upper-class brats who had been there at the beginning of July, throwing their money around, had moved on to Gotland or Stockholm, leaving the place empty and much too quiet.
However, here at the restaurant, there were people to entertain, and she was enjoying herself.
‘Thank you!’ she said in response to scattered applause. ‘And now here’s a song by Olle Adolphson, which you just might recognize …’
It was a warm evening with a golden sunset. Lisa brought out the old Swedish songs about the beauty and fragility of the summer, knowing that all this would soon be over. It was almost August. The summer was short, there was no denying it. Life wasn’t that simple; you couldn’t just drift around doing whatever you wanted while the sun was shining.
She had less than a week left in Stenvik, then she would be going home, back to the city and its exhaust fumes. Back to Silas, to answer his questions about why she hadn’t sent any money, and what she was going to do about it.
The setting sun was in Lisa’s eyes, but she tried to focus on her audience. Most tables were full, but right at the back she could just see a man on his own, with a glass of water in front of him. He was only a dark shadow against the sun, but he was nodding in time with the music.
Was it the man from the campsite? Was he watching her? Did he want the wooden box back?
Concentrate, she thought.
She closed her eyes and sang, trying to forget about the man. Otherwise, she would lose it.
She managed two more songs, with her eyes shut. When she looked up, the man had disappeared.
‘Thank you!’ she shouted, and it was over. She slid off her stool and made her way into the darkness of the restaurant.
Niklas Kloss was standing by the till. He had seemed tired and distracted over the past week, moving at a completely different speed from the waiters and waitresses and spending most of his time hanging around by the chiller cabinet. She presumed that the outbreak of gastroenteritis at the Ölandic had given the whole Kloss family sleepless nights.
‘Well done,’ he said.
That was it. Time to go home. But as Lisa left the restaurant, someone stepped out of the shadows. A slim figure, moving quietly across the gravel.
‘Lisa?’
It was Paulina, and she was smiling a little uncertainly. ‘Nice music,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’
Lisa wondered how long Paulina had been standing there listening. Why hadn’t she sat down at one of the tables? Was she shy, or didn’t she have any money?
‘You are going back now, Lisa?’ she said, nodding towards the campsite.
‘Yep,’ Lisa said, picking up her guitar case. ‘Back to the caravan for a rest before my last gigs.’
Paulina walked beside her in the darkness, past the maypole with its withered garlands. As they were crossing the coast road, she jerked her head towards Villa Kloss and said quietly, ‘He has a suggestion.’
‘Oh yes?’
Lisa didn’t need to ask who ‘he’ was – Kent Kloss, of course.
‘He has a job for you. For us,’ Paulina went on.
‘Another gig?’
‘No, a different kind of job … here in the village.’
Lisa looked at Paulina. ‘What does he really want? Is he exploiting you?’
Paulina gazed at her for a moment, trying to work out what Lisa meant, then she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not like that. I just work for him.’
She sounded so definite that Lisa was sorry she had asked the question and quickly changed the subject. ‘So how did you get the job here?’
‘An advert. He put an advert in lots of newspapers, and I answered.’
‘Just like me,’ Lisa said with a sigh.
Paulina looked at her. ‘He’s going to talk to us soon. He wants more help.’
‘I know,’ Lisa said wearily. ‘I’ve already helped him, down on the campsite.’
She knew that this wasn’t a request for help, of course. Kent Kloss didn’t make requests. He gave orders.
‘He’ll pay,’ Paulina said.
‘Will he, indeed? And is this job legal?’
Paulina didn’t say anything, and Lisa shrugged. Legal or not, she had her price.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘In that case, maybe I’ll help him one last time before I go home.’
The Homecomer
There was a hotel in the village on the coast to the north of Stenvik – a huge white colossus not unlike the Ölandic Hotel, right by the harbour in Långvik.
The Homecomer pulled into the car
park, then went into Reception. A young girl in a white blouse and shorts who looked as if she was about to go and play tennis welcomed him. He smiled at her.
‘Do you have any vacancies?’
‘We had a cancellation yesterday evening,’ the girl said, looking at her computer. ‘It’s a double room.’
‘I’m on my own, but I’ll take it.’
‘Excellent.’ The receptionist entered something into the computer. ‘Do you have some form of ID? A driving licence?’
The Homecomer stared at her. He hadn’t been asked for anything like that at the Ölandic.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing Swedish … I’m from overseas.’
‘So you have a passport?’ the receptionist said. ‘We have to register overseas guests.’
The Homecomer didn’t say anything.
Register. That meant they would contact the police. Or Kloss. Had Kent Kloss asked them to keep an eye open for him?
‘It’s in the car,’ he said in the end. ‘I’ll go and get it.’
He backed away and hurried out of the hotel; he could feel the receptionist watching him the whole time.
He got in the car and drove away. Out of Långvik, up on to the main road. There were lots of cars there; it was easy to blend in, become one of the crowd.
Then he suddenly remembered a hiding place where he could stay. He had been there before.
A place near to the Kloss family property but still out of the way.
He turned off the main road, constantly checking in his rear-view mirror. No one.
The New Country, February 1938
Aron has turned twenty, and this year is full of work and news. From the cellar in Leningrad, he hears radio reports of political trials and major purges of Party officials in Moscow. But Vlad himself is promoted to the rank of lieutenant within the NKVD.
This brings privileges. Each month, Vlad receives a book of coupons that he can use to shop at Insnab, the new shop for employees of the state, which sells foreign goods and clothes.
The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) Page 30
