‘He was close last night. I could hear him creeping around down by the bunker, but he got away … Tonight, you two will be there, too, and we’ll get him.’
We? Lisa thought. Was he including her?
But she didn’t say anything; she just sat quietly on the sofa listening to Kent. Paulina was over by the door; she didn’t say anything either.
Kent was on his feet as usual, his head almost touching the ceiling, and even though his face was pale and tired, there was an energy in his body. He kept opening and closing his fists, turning his head and listening, shifting position.
He had placed a black bag on the worktop.
‘He’s got a day,’ Kent went on. ‘Maybe two … Before his luck runs out.’
Lisa had heard what had happened, of course: a security guard had been found shot and buried in the resort. She was almost certain that it was the same man who had appeared in the forest on her first day here, but she had no intention of asking Kent any questions about the matter. This wasn’t the time to reveal that she had met him just before he died.
Instead she asked, ‘So what’s he doing down there in the bunker?’
‘He’s spying,’ Kent said. ‘He’s spying on me and my family. And he’s using the bunker as his operational base.’
Lisa noticed that Kent had started using military terminology, but she kept quiet, and so did Paulina.
Kent unzipped the bag and took out two small items made of black plastic. ‘You’ll need these tonight.’
Lisa realized they were walkie-talkies. No surprise there – Kent Kloss liked his gadgets.
He glanced at his watch and went on, ‘It will be dark in an hour. We’ll meet on the coast road down below my house at ten, and I’ll explain what you have to do. Bring torches and the walkie-talkies … Any questions?’
Lisa and Paulina remained silent.
For the first time in many years, Lisa wished the police would turn up. Knock on the door and start investigating the whole thing. But she knew that Kent Kloss didn’t want the police anywhere near him, whatever he was intending to do to the man in the bunker.
Kent picked up the bag and opened the caravan door. ‘Good. See you later… Wrap up warm – it could be a cold night.’
He stepped outside and shut the door behind him.
Lisa stayed where she was as the smell of Kent’s aftershave gradually faded. ‘Bollocks,’ she said to the closed door. ‘It’s going to be a warm night.’
She looked at her walkie-talkie, which looked like a large black toy mobile phone. But Kent Kloss was serious, so no doubt it worked.
Then she looked over at Paulina, who was sitting with her hands clasped in her lap, a determined expression on her face. Lisa felt she had to say something. ‘So we’re going to do this?’
Paulina nodded. ‘We are.’
‘Why?’
Paulina was quiet for a moment. ‘Sick mother,’ she said eventually.
‘Your mother is sick?’
Paulina nodded again, and Lisa asked, ‘So Kent Kloss is paying you well?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much?’
‘A thousand.’
‘A thousand kronor?’
‘Dollars,’ Paulina said, taking an old tea caddy out of her bag. ‘He give me a hundred already.’ She opened the caddy and showed Lisa the notes.
‘OK. Good,’ Lisa said.
Paulina looked at her. ‘And you? Why you do this?’
Lisa hesitated before answering. ‘I have a relative who needs money.’
‘Relative?’
‘My father … my dad. He lives in Stockholm and he uses the street drugstore, if you know what I mean.’
Paulina obviously didn’t understand.
‘He’s a junkie,’ Lisa explained. She quickly got to her feet. ‘OK, we’d better make sure we’re ready.’
She wished she hadn’t mentioned Silas. She just wanted to get away now, dump this last job and drive away from the island right now.
But she knew she had to stay.
The walkie-talkie was silent, but Lisa’s mobile rang when Paulina had left. Lisa was lying on the bed. She stared at it for a long time without answering.
She knew who it was.
The phone kept on ringing: eight signals. Nine. Ten.
But Lisa didn’t take the call. She just stared out of the window, where the fiery yellow sun was on its way down over the Sound. Eventually, the ringing stopped; Lisa stayed where she was.
After half an hour she got up, pulled on a dark jacket and covered her blonde hair with a black cap.
The sun had disappeared; it was time to go.
Gerlof
For the past week, Gerlof had been hearing stories about Veronica Kloss. How fantastic she was, how well she looked after the elderly.
‘Incredible energy,’ the staff in the residential home said. ‘Never gave up. Happy to chat or to listen. Kept the old ladies going. Used to read to them.’
But if Veronica was so considerate, why hadn’t she been here this summer? Gerlof knew that the Kloss family had had a number of problems to sort out down at the Ölandic, but even so … He hadn’t seen her once.
Last summer, Veronica had been here almost every week. According to the temporary care assistant he had spoken to, Veronica had got on well with Greta Fredh, and had made several subsequent visits to read to Greta and the others.
Then Greta had died after a fall in her bathroom, and Veronica had stopped coming. Gerlof had talked to several residents who missed her and wished she would come back.
But why had she stopped? Was it only Greta who had been important to her?
The door of Ulf Wall’s room was often ajar, but the room inside was dark even when the sun was shining down on the home in Marnäs, and Gerlof had resisted the temptation to call in. He didn’t know much about Ulf, just that he was at least five years older than Gerlof, and might be the father of Einar Wall, the huntsman and arms dealer. And that he had been Greta Fredh’s neighbour.
Finally, on the last day of July, Gerlof pushed open the door and peered in. ‘Hello?’ he said quietly.
At first there was silence, followed by a brief response: ‘What do you mean?’
This question was rather difficult to answer, so Gerlof said nothing. He stepped into the hallway; the room was familiar because it was decorated and furnished exactly the same as his own, but it didn’t smell quite as good. There was no movement in the air in here.
There was no movement in Ulf Wall either. He was wearing a grey cardigan, sitting in an armchair next to the window, which was covered by a roller blind.
Gerlof made his way slowly along the hall. ‘Gerlof Davidsson,’ he said.
The man in the armchair stared at him, and nodded. ‘Yes. I know who you are, Davidsson.’
‘Good.’
‘You were in the paper a while ago.’
‘That’s right. And I heard about your son,’ Gerlof said. ‘That was a little while ago, too. My condolences. Einar was your son, wasn’t he?’
Wall continued to stare at him, not moving a muscle, but after a moment he nodded again. ‘But I’ve got two more,’ he said. ‘They’re better behaved than Einar … they don’t drink and they don’t go poaching.’
There was nowhere for a guest to sit, so Gerlof remained standing, swaying slightly on his weak legs. ‘I heard about your neighbour, too,’ he said. ‘Greta Fredh.’
‘That’s right – Aron’s sister. She died last summer.’
Gerlof swayed even more. Aron’s sister.
‘So you know Aron Fredh?’
‘We got into conversation,’ Wall said. ‘He was here a few times.’
‘When was that?’
‘Early summer … He came and had a look at his sister’s room. Took one or two things with him.’
‘And what did you talk about?’
‘Greta, mainly … he wanted to know what had happened.’
‘I heard she had a fall.’
Ulf
Wall nodded once more. ‘He wanted to know if any of the Kloss family had been around at the time.’
‘The Kloss family?’ Gerlof said.
‘I told him what I knew.’
‘And what did you know?’
‘That she was here,’ Wall said. ‘Veronica Kloss kept on turning up for a while last year.’
‘So I heard,’ Gerlof said. ‘She used to give talks and read to the residents. But she hasn’t been here this year.’
‘No, she stopped coming. After the accident.’
‘When Greta fell?’
‘Yes. When she died in the bathroom.’
‘And the door was locked,’ Gerlof said.
‘Yes, Greta was very particular about locking the bathroom door. So that nobody could poke their head in.’ Wall had a brief coughing fit. ‘But Veronica Kloss was in there, too. She came out. I saw her running past my door.’
‘Did you?’
‘I did. And that’s what I told Aron Fredh, too.’
Gerlof thought for a moment. ‘Was your son Einar here at the same time as Aron?’
‘Once, yes. They had a chat.’
‘About the Kloss family?’
‘About all kinds of things … Einar was furious with Kent Kloss – he was always trying to beat down the price of the meat and fish Einar supplied.’
Gerlof realized that something had begun here in Ulf Wall’s room; it had started with a chance meeting between an arms dealer and a man who had come home. Two angry men with a common enemy.
‘So do you think they might have done business together?’
‘Very likely,’ Wall said. ‘But Einar didn’t say anything to me about it.’
Gerlof couldn’t stay on his feet any longer, and he was too polite to sit down on the bed, so he thanked Ulf Wall and left the room.
He paused in the corridor and looked at the room next door, where Greta Fredh had lived. He knocked on the door; no one answered, but he’d got into the habit of simply walking in, so he did the same again.
The old woman who had taken over the room was sitting there; she looked quite alarmed.
‘Good afternoon.’ Gerlof was slightly embarrassed at intruding like this, but he smiled and waved to show that he wasn’t a threat.
He looked around; so this was where Aron’s sister, Greta, had lived, and where she had died. In the bathroom, after a fall.
And the bathroom door had been locked – both Ulf Wall and the care assistant had said the same. It would have been impossible for anyone to push her over.
Gerlof was just about to leave when he noticed the mat in the hallway. He had one exactly the same – plastic.
And then he realized how it could have happened.
Veronica Kloss. Nice, kind Veronica, who came to the home to give talks. Who got involved with the residents, went to see them in their rooms, read to them. Last summer, until Greta Fredh was dead.
Gerlof turned and went out into the corridor.
‘Hello?’ he called out. There was no response, so he raised his voice like the former sea captain he was. ‘Hello! Anyone there?’
A young woman appeared. She wasn’t the care assistant he had spoken to before, but they were similar. ‘What’s happened?’
‘This room,’ Gerlof said, pointing with his stick. ‘You need to cordon it off and call the police.’
The girl looked bewildered. ‘Sorry?’
Gerlof tried to look as authoritative as possible and to sound utterly sure of himself. ‘This is a crime scene. Greta Fredh was murdered in that room.’
Jonas
On Saturday, the sky was grey above Villa Kloss. There wasn’t a breath of wind along the coast, but darker clouds were gathering over the mainland. It felt as if there was a storm on the way.
Jonas worked hard all day, brushing oil into Veronica’s decking, and at quarter past seven in the evening he finished the very last section. His aunt had already paid him, and he had put the envelope containing the money under his pillow, along with his wages from Uncle Kent.
Jonas narrowed his eyes and glanced up at the sun as he put away the brush and the tin of oil. He didn’t want to think about sandpaper, wood oil or decking ever again. He was thinking about the money now, and the fact that he and his father were going home. Veronica had promised to drive them tomorrow after lunch.
Mats had already left; he had caught the bus to Kalmar on the main road this morning.
Jonas cycled over to the Davidsson family’s cottage to say goodbye, as was the custom when someone was leaving the island to go home. Kristoffer was there, along with his mum and dad, but Gerlof had moved back to the residential home in Marnäs.
Jonas rode home in the sunset, feeling a little disappointed; he was sorry not to have seen Gerlof one last time.
The summer was almost over but it was still mild, and Jonas left the door of his chalet open when he went to bed, to let in the night air. Needless to say, it was almost as warm as the air inside the room.
He looked at his watch one last time: nearly ten o’clock. The garden was darker than usual, because someone had turned off the lights around the pool and down by the drive. But the alarm was switched on; Jonas could see the green flashing diodes.
He slid down in his bed, the sound of the crickets filling his ears. He didn’t think he would miss their loud chirping when he got back to town, although it was actually quite calming, a kind of rhythmic chomping from some invisible machine out there in the grass.
Suddenly, the crickets fell silent. Not for long, just a brief pause as if the needle on a record player had been lifted for a few seconds. And then they gradually resumed their song.
Was there someone out there? An animal? Or a person? Jonas listened for a while, but the crickets had returned to their usual rhythm.
He turned over, lay on his back. Through the white curtain, he could see the round moon suspended above the rocks and the Sound. Perhaps it was the full moon that was making the crickets sound so peculiar.
The bed was warm, but the sheets were lovely and cool. Outside, he could hear low voices; it sounded as if his father had come home from his last shift at the restaurant and was saying goodnight to Casper and Urban.
There had been no sign of Uncle Kent all day. Which was fine.
Jonas closed his eyes.
After a while, the voices fell quiet, then he heard footsteps and muted thuds from the other chalets as Casper and Urban went to bed, then there was silence.
The room seemed to get darker. Jonas slowly slipped away into the shadows of the summer night, as if a sooty grey fog had crept in under the door and wrapped itself around him. But he was tired, so very tired, and there was no danger here. No cairn ghost.
Only a guardian angel.
An angel was standing by his bed, tall and still. The angel placed a hand over his face, and whispered that everything was all right.
Sleep, just sleep.
The angel’s soft white hand was still there. And that was fine, everything was peaceful. Jonas sank deeper and deeper, down towards the bottom of the sea.
A little part of him knew that this was wrong, that is was dangerous to sink this deep, but by that time he couldn’t do anything about it.
The Homecomer
The three guest chalets stood side by side towards the back of the extensive plot that made up Villa Kloss. When the sun had gone down and the chalets were in darkness, there was no light here.
There was an alarm, but Aron knew the code, of course.
Silently, he opened the door of the chalet on the left. The room smelled of chloroform, thanks to the bottle he had found in Einar Wall’s boathouse.
There was a boy lying in the bed inside. A white handkerchief soaked in chloroform had been placed over his face, so he was fast asleep. A deep sleep beneath a white mask.
Good.
Aron picked him up. The boy’s breathing was calm and even as he was carried out of the chalet, across the grass and over to the far end of the garden, where
a low wall ran alongside a narrow dirt track.
Aron stepped over the wall and on to the track. His car was parked a short distance away in the darkness. Keeping one arm around the boy’s back, he opened the boot and gently placed the thin body inside.
Then he closed the boot and turned around to visit the boy in the next chalet.
There ought to be room for two boys in the boot, and the third one could go on the back seat. There was no danger of suffocation – they wouldn’t be going far.
It was eleven thirty now.
In an hour, Aron would be back here on the coast for his final encounter with the Kloss family.
The New Country, 1960–80
Aron carries on seeing Ludmila, when she is not away because of her work. He misses her, of course, but he is more balanced now, a middle-aged man quietly working for the KGB. He has a new car, a white Volga.
It is slightly easier to travel now. The Soviet Union has opened up, slowly and cautiously, after the death of Stalin, and no one comes knocking late at night any more. Political dissidents are interrogated and imprisoned, but there are no longer any quotas involving thousands of class enemies. Aron’s gun remains in its holster.
There are, of course, memories of the past, among both the hunters and the hunted, but no one talks about them. There is an old Soviet saying: ‘Let he who mentions the past lose an eye.’ People may no longer believe in a future paradise, but they want peace and quiet.
Mila continues to work as a nurse, but one particular job has made her ill. In the autumn of 1960, she travelled south, was away for several months and returned with fear in her eyes and a terrible cough. She has been coughing ever since, a dreadful rasping that is worst at night. And when she does manage to get to sleep, she sometimes wakes up with a start, screaming.
Aron doesn’t ask any questions. Either Mila doesn’t want to tell him what happened, or she’s not allowed to, and that’s fine. He has secrets of his own.
They get engaged in May 1961 and marry the following year. Not in God’s name, but in the name of the state – a dignified, low-key ceremony at the Central Registry Office.
The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) Page 34
