‘Who are you talking about?’
‘A security guard,’ the voice went on. ‘He’s buried under the cairn between the shore and Rödtorp. He was shot.’
As Gerlof listened, he remembered Tilda talking about a security guard who had gone missing at midsummer. ‘Why are you telling me this, Aron?’
‘Who else would I tell?’
Gerlof thought for a moment. ‘I heard about your sister,’ he said. ‘I know that your younger sister died in the home at Marnäs last year, Aron. Was she your only family?’
‘I have a daughter. But she’s not here.’
‘So you must have a wife, too.’
‘Not any more.’
‘What happened?’
The voice didn’t respond.
‘Goodbye,’ it said eventually, and Gerlof heard a click at the other end of the line. He sighed and put down the phone.
So that was that. He looked at John.
‘He’s somewhere else now … I couldn’t hear the same background noises. There was no whinnying horse this time.’
‘The question is, why did he call you?’
‘I suppose he wants some kind of contact, like everyone else,’ Gerlof said. ‘Everyone wants to feel human. Even murderers have that need within them.’
He stared at the telephone.
‘Aron had a family,’ he said. ‘He talked about a daughter, and about a wife who isn’t around any more. I think he’s completely alone now, and that’s not good … It felt as if that was our last conversation, as if he was just calling to say goodbye.’
When John had left, Gerlof picked up the phone again and called Tilda. She was back in Sweden, but didn’t want to talk.
‘I’m on holiday,’ she said.
‘It’s about a police matter,’ Gerlof said.
‘As I said, I’m on holiday.’
‘Unfortunately, this can’t wait. The security guard who disappeared at midsummer – is he still missing?’
‘As far as I know,’ Tilda said.
‘I’ve got some information.’ He explained what Aron Fredh had told him about the body near Rödtorp.
At least Tilda was listening.
‘I’ll ask them to check,’ she said. ‘Where exactly is Rödtorp?’
‘It’s where the Ölandic Resort is now. Aron Fredh grew up there.’
‘Inside the complex?’
‘Yes, down by the water,’ Gerlof said. ‘So this will mean more hassle for the Kloss family, if what he says is correct … as I’m sure he’s well aware.’
Gerlof could hear Tilda writing something down, then she said, ‘We have to try and find this man.’
Gerlof sighed. ‘Talk to Kent Kloss.’
Jonas
Something bad had happened. Jonas could feel it in the air around Villa Kloss.
He didn’t speak to anyone, he just kept on working, and Veronica’s decking was half finished. After several weeks on his knees, he had developed a routine when it came to sanding down and oiling the wood, and fortunately he was able to make much faster progress; there were only three days left of his summer holiday in Stenvik. Everyone seemed to be hurrying to get things finished before the summer was over.
Jonas hadn’t seen much of his father; Niklas often worked late at the restaurant, and stayed in bed in the mornings. He emerged later and later with each passing day, wearing dark glasses, but he always had a smile for Jonas before he went off to work.
Mats was going home on Saturday morning, Jonas and Niklas on Sunday. Either Veronica or Uncle Kent would give them a lift to the station.
Jonas was hoping it would be Veronica.
He had a good view of Villa Kloss from the decking, and he could see brief family meetings here and there: Uncle Kent and Niklas had a lunch meeting by the garage, Veronica and Niklas had a chat afterwards by the pool, and later in the evening he noticed Kent and Veronica sitting on Kent’s decking. Whispered conversations, every one.
Something had definitely happened – but there was still work to do and a blazing sun to bring him out in a sweat, so Jonas kept on slogging away.
At the beginning of the holiday he had been afraid that he would be lonely, but now he enjoyed spending time on his own during the day. Avoiding Kent and his cousins – even Mats and their father.
Urban and Mats got back very late from working at the Ölandic that evening. Urban went straight to his room, but Mats stopped to have a word with his kid brother. He crouched down on the decking and asked quietly, ‘Have you heard, bro?’
‘No, what?’
‘The police have found a body. Hidden under a cairn.’
Jonas immediately glanced over at the ridge, but Mats shook his head. ‘Not that one – another one, inside the Ölandic complex. The cops are all over the place.’
‘Who was it?’
‘A guy who worked for us, a security guard … I never met him, but he worked at the Ölandic.’
Jonas looked at his brother and wondered whether to tell him about the cairn ghost, but Mats straightened up. ‘Anyway, that was my last shift.’ He sounded relieved.
One by one, everyone returned to Villa Kloss. Jonas stood on the decking as the sun went down; he had the feeling that they were all keeping up a pretence in front of him. In spite of the fact that they chatted about the dry weather and the shortage of water and the fact that there would be no more swimming lessons after today, he knew that the adults were thinking about something else entirely.
The sun was cooled by the sea and became a red line on the horizon. Jonas turned around and saw Veronica sitting by the house with a glass of wine.
‘Hi, Jonas,’ she said.
He went over, expecting her to tell him about the body that had been found, but she just ruffled his hair.
‘Tired?’
‘A bit,’ he said.
Veronica took a sip of her wine; she seemed to be thinking something over. After a moment, she asked, ‘Has your father told you about our family, Jonas?’
Jonas shook his head. ‘Not really.’
His aunt leaned back in her chair and gazed out across the coast.
‘It’s a fascinating story,’ she began. ‘It all started with a farmer called Gillis, who acquired a lot of cheap land here on the coast in the nineteenth century. Everyone thought it was worthless, because after all you couldn’t grow crops on the coast … but he just kept on buying more, and held on to it all his life. Then he passed it on to his three sons, Edvard and Gilbert and my grandfather Sigfrid, and after his brothers died, Sigfrid fenced off a large portion of the land and created what became the Ölandic Resort. So we’ve owned that land for generations. The Kloss family has lived here for as long as anyone can remember, I think. People have tried to take it away from us, but they have never succeeded.’
She twirled the wine glass around in her fingers. ‘We should all be proud of our family. That’s what I tell Casper and Urban, and it applies to you, too, Jonas.’
He nodded – but, to him, the family was just a series of names. He had no idea who Gillis and Edvard and Gilbert and Sigfrid were.
He said goodnight to his aunt and went off to his little chalet.
As he lay beneath the cool sheet he could hear a lone bird outside, a subdued song that gradually fell silent in the twilight.
And just before he fell asleep he heard quiet footsteps crossing the decking; it sounded as if Uncle Kent was setting the alarm, or perhaps sneaking off down to the coast road. Jonas closed his eyes and covered his ears with the pillow and the duvet. All he wanted to do was sleep.
The Homecomer
Aron knew they were getting closer.
They were bound to have discovered the body by now, if Gerlof Davidsson had believed him, but that meant the police would be concentrating on the Ölandic Resort.
After the telephone conversation with Gerlof, he had waited until the sun went down before leaving Marnäs and driving back to the western side of the island.
He could move around i
n the darkness now. It was long after midnight, and the dip down below the coast road was full of shadows.
Was anyone there?
Standing at one end, he wasn’t at all sure. He could see the metal door of the bunker fifty metres away, and he listened hard to check if he could hear anything.
Silence.
Slowly and cautiously, he moved along the dip, just as he had for several weeks now.
The padlock was still in place; he took out the key and quietly unlocked the door. It squeaked slightly, but swung open.
He had finished digging the hole beneath the cairn, which was why he was being more careful than before. He no longer came here in daylight; he had become a nocturnal creature.
The moon emerged from a bank of cloud over the Sound, helpfully illuminating the entrance to the bunker as he looked inside. Everything looked fine, just as he had left it, his tools and the boxes in place.
A roll of electric cable lay just inside the entrance, and Aron picked it up and took it outside, closing the bunker door before he started paying out the thin cable behind him, concealing it under pebbles and larger limestone rocks.
Eventually, it was completely hidden. Good, he thought, as he straightened up.
Then he heard the sound of rustling in the darkness.
Someone had entered the dip at the far end and was moving towards him.
Aron wasn’t prepared to take any risks at this stage. He quickly turned around and hurried away.
After ten metres, he was out of the dip and could see the campsite and the jetty. The Sound shimmered before him beneath an almost full moon, but he moved away, into the darkness beyond the shore. Across the coast road, past the festival site and in among the low-growing trees.
Only when he reached the shadows in the forest did he stop and listen. He couldn’t hear any footsteps behind him.
And yet Aron could feel the blood surging through his arms and chest. His heart was pounding, damaged and worn after more than eighty years, but he thought it would go on beating for a little while longer.
He needed his heart to see out this week.
The New Country, October 1957
It is late autumn in Moscow, and Aron has just left a deathbed in a bedroom that is cramped and dusty and unbearable. Like many others, he has gone out on to the street this evening, scanning the sky for the Sputnik satellite, which is supposed to be whizzing around up there. A technological triumph. But the sky above him is dark grey.
His former commanding officer Major Karrek looked just as grey when Aron left him. Karrek has been at death’s door for a long time, his body swollen from alcohol abuse, yet at the same time shrivelled like a mummy in his tiny apartment. A young nurse has visited him every day over the past year, but in the evenings Aron is alone with Karrek. No one else comes to see him.
Soldiers die alone.
So much has happened in just a few years. Stalin also died eventually, sick and alone in his bed, because no one dared to disturb him. The new leader is called Nikita Khrushchev and, in common with everyone who had held that position, he carried out a purge when he took over. Lavrenti Beria, Stalin’s spymaster, was quickly condemned and executed and, once he was gone, Comrade Karrek had to leave his post. Karrek had done his duty as the governor of Lubyanka Prison, and no punishment awaited him, just a small state pension and total obscurity.
Karrek was evicted from his office, and he took it very hard. Only three years after Beria’s death, Karrek’s liver collapsed, destroyed by his drinking. The major was already thirsty beforehand, but once the great leader’s protective hands were gone Karrek went into freefall in a sea of vodka, like so many who had worked for the security of their country and dedicated their lives to tracking down the enemies of the people.
Towards the end, there was a look of terror in his eyes. He seemed to be waiting for something.
‘I’ve counted them, all those to whom I administered the ultimate punishment under the law,’ Karrek whispered, staring at Vlad. ‘You probably think that’s impossible, but I had a number inside my head, and I kept a tally of every shot.’
Vlad didn’t want to ask about the number, but Karrek coughed and went on. ‘Twelve thousand, three hundred and five.’ He lifted his right hand, the one that shook most after all the recoils. ‘By this … this hand. How does that sound?’
‘Incomprehensible,’ Vlad said.
Karrek was still staring at him with glassy eyes, but Vlad lowered his gaze and looked at his own right hand. For the first time, Aron thought about what it had done, and how often.
Had the index finger pulled the trigger thousands of times? Definitely.
And how many blows to backs and feet and heads with the dubinka? The number was incalculable. Most of those who had suffered were men, but there were women, too. Never children, however. There were sadists within the organization who beat children, even killed them – but not Vlad. His limit was the age of fifteen. Or thereabouts.
Traitors and enemies of the people. They got what they deserved.
Karrek died with a sigh. He fell asleep quietly and peacefully in his bed, unlike the twelve thousand, three hundred and five.
It is October, and Sputnik is whirling around in space, spinning and bleeping.
Aron is walking around Moscow, every bit as alone as the satellite. However, he thinks he sees familiar faces everywhere on the streets, and that frightens him.
Last week, he was recognized outside Kursky Station; he is sure of it. A middle-aged woman stopped just a few metres away and stared at him with terror in her eyes. What had Vlad done to her? Used the dubinka on her back? Kept her awake for three days? Or had he just broken her son’s arms, or shot her husband?
Aron doesn’t remember.
Whatever Vlad did, it was in a good cause.
A higher goal, a better future. Vlad and his colleagues had worked hard down in the cellar, clearing away one enemy after another, always looking to the future.
Is this the future? Has it arrived?
Aron has his doubts. He walks the streets and thinks about running away. Going to the Swedish embassy, a building he has never been anywhere near, or to Ovir, the official bureau for visa issues and registration, and telling them everything.
It is evening, a cold autumn evening, and Vlad seeks refuge from Moscow’s icy winds in an Azerbaijani restaurant not far from his apartment. He sits down at a corner table and orders vodka. He will have a kebab later, but the vodka is his main aim.
A chilled glass covered in condensation arrives, and Vlad drinks a silent toast to Stalin. Down with Khrushchev, the hypocrite who is himself up to his neck in blood.
He is drinking heavily for the first time in his life. The alcohol makes Aron feel sick, but Vlad orders one glass after another. When he has emptied his fifth and felt the vodka worm its way down into his belly, he looks up and sees his dead NKVD colleagues sitting at the table with him. They encourage him: keep on drinking! His stepfather, Sven, is sitting on his left; he and Aron are the same age now. Vladimir from the Ukraine is on his right, with shattered legs.
Old Grisha is there, too, and his stylish colleague Grigori Trushkin, whom Vlad interrogated for several nights until Trushkin was broken. But Trushkin is smiling and nodding at him. Drink, Comrade! So many summers, so many winters.
Vlad raises his glass to the dead, over and over again. He empties each glass methodically; he closes his eyes after the eleventh or twelfth and feels the room spinning. He is a satellite, spinning out into space.
This is what it’s like. This is what it’s like to be free and damned at the same time. Stupefyingly lonely, and increasingly drunk and sick.
Aron doesn’t remember any more.
Does he get thrown out of the restaurant, muttering in Swedish, or does he stagger out of his own accord? All he knows is that, suddenly, he is on his knees on the pavement, with his head hanging down and saliva dribbling from his mouth.
He has to get home; he will freeze to death out here
. So he tries to stand up.
Then everything goes black, and when he comes round he sees nothing but cobbles. He has fallen over.
Where is he? He has no idea. He loses consciousness again.
Darkness.
A hand is shaking his shoulder. A slender hand, and he can hear a woman’s voice: ‘Are you all right, soldier?’
Her name is Ludmila, and her middle name is Stalina, but she never uses it. She calls herself Mila, and she helps him home. Once she has got him into bed, he looks at her and tells her, or tries to tell her, that this is the first time he has ever been drunk. He never, ever drinks.
Mila doesn’t believe him, of course.
‘At least you’re not aggressive,’ she says quietly. ‘A lot of men turn nasty when they’re drunk.’
Aron is not aggressive, he promises her that. He is not dangerous. And he will never drink again.
Mila sits by his bed for a while. Gradually, he is able to see her more clearly; she is dark and pretty.
‘What work do you do?’ she asks.
Both Aron and Vlad hesitate. ‘Civil servant,’ they say eventually. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m a nurse.’
After a brief silence, Aron asks, ‘Can I see you again? Do you live here?’
‘My mother lives in Moscow,’ Mila says. ‘I’m staying with her for a week. I work … somewhere else.’
Aron realizes that she works with secrets, just like him.
Mila gets to her feet. ‘I have to go.’
‘I’d really like to see you again.’
Mila looks around the room. ‘You have a telephone.’
‘Yes,’ Aron says. ‘My office needs to be able to get hold of me sometimes.’
Mila smiles. ‘I’ll give you my mother’s number. Give her a call and speak to her, and we’ll see if she’ll allow you to talk to me.’
Lisa
Kent Kloss looked tired; perhaps he had been drinking the night before. But he was sober now, moving animatedly back and forth and making Lisa’s caravan shake.
The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) Page 33
