Aron and Mila can now move in together, but Vlad’s tiny apartment is not suitable. A recently renovated two-room apartment is waiting for them on Petrovka Street.
Aron never thought he would be someone’s husband but, at the age of forty-three, that is exactly what has happened. He just wishes that his mother and his sister, Greta, could see him now.
In time, they have a child, a daughter who is born in 1972, when Mila is thirty-eight years old. She is a much-longed-for baby, because Mila has had two miscarriages. Aron wonders if this is related to her illness.
The night before the child is due, Mila finally tells him what happened twelve years earlier. She tells him about the mass grave in the desert steppes that no one was allowed to talk about.
She even had to help with the digging. ‘Everyone had to dig,’ she says.
‘A mass grave?’ he asks. ‘Who’s buried there?’
‘The engineers.’
And Mila tells him about the rocket launch on the great plain to the east of the Aral Sea, in October 1960. The night when her lungs were destroyed.
‘I was at the hospital, several kilometres away, but we still felt the impact of the shockwave. At first, we thought it was the rocket lifting off, as planned, but that wasn’t the case … We had no idea how badly prepared everything was, how those in charge ignored safety regulations in order to stick to the timetable.’
Things had become more and more hectic before lift-off, with the generals hassling the engineers. It was late at night, everyone was tired. So in the end it went wrong, very badly wrong. A short circuit in the system meant that the second-stage engines fired too early, detonating the fuel tanks below the first-stage engines while the launch pad was still crowded with people.
‘The rocket started up without warning,’ Mila says. ‘It began spewing flames in all directions, then the fuel tanks exploded. A burning cloud billowed up into the night sky, and the whole launch pad was covered in fire … It annihilated those who were standing nearby and rolled like a burning wave towards those standing further away. They couldn’t escape.’
Mila had been spared the sight of the firestorm, when many of those trying to run away got caught on the barbed-wire fence surrounding the area and turned into living torches.
But she saw everything afterwards. Everything.
‘I went with one of the first fire engines to the scene of the accident to see what I could do for the injured on the spot and to arrange transportation to our hospital. We worked for several days among the smoking wreckage of the rocket and bodies charred beyond recognition. But we weren’t allowed to say a word about the accident afterwards. Not a word. All the dead were hidden in a mass grave.’
Mila falls silent, then starts coughing. She coughs for a long time.
Aron sits by her bed, attempting to comfort her, but she shakes her head. ‘It’s indescribable … You wouldn’t understand, you’ve spent your whole life sitting behind a desk … Have you ever seen a dead person, Vlad?’
At first, Aron doesn’t say anything, but then he begins to speak. ‘I haven’t spent all my time sitting behind a desk. And I have seen people die.’
‘Have you?’
Aron nods. He could spend several days telling Mila about the ‘black work’ he used to do, but instead he chooses to tell her about what happened one cold spring after Vlad had accompanied Major Karrek to Moscow. It was April 1940; Poland had fallen and it was the year before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
‘I was a soldier and I was given a special task,’ Aron says. ‘It began with a train journey away from the biting winds of the city, travelling inland with an NKVD commando of trusted men from the prisons in Moscow and Leningrad, handpicked by Major Karrek. He was my commanding officer, and had a great deal of power. He led a unit that reported directly to Stalin.
‘“We will be working in the darkness,” Karrek explained to us. “Black work.”
‘No one on the train told us where we were going, and we knew we weren’t allowed to ask questions.
‘The railway line was newly laid. It stopped somewhere between Leningrad and Moscow, in a huge, gloomy forest.
‘We got off the train and were transported further into the forest in trucks; eventually we arrived at a very basic barracks next to an extensive prison camp. I had seen high fences before, but behind this fence I could hear foreign languages which I think were German and Polish – even though we were definitely still in the Soviet Union.
‘On that first evening, Major Karrek changed his clothes. He put on leather gloves and dressed like a butcher, with a thick leather apron straining over his big belly to protect his green uniform, from his neck right down to his boots.
‘He gave us a short talk:
‘“We have been given an important task to carry out,” he said. “We are going to shoot dogs that have been captured. A great many dogs … to ensure that they do not escape and tear our children limb from limb.”
‘Our black work was carried out indoors at night, next door to the camp, in a freshly dug cellar that was soundproofed with sandbags and logs.
‘There were no desks. No one recorded proceedings.
‘Comrade Karrek had brought special guns for the job; they were made by a German manufacturer – Walther. My role was to be in charge of the weapons, to be constantly at the ready with reloaded magazines.
‘Comrade Karrek stepped forward in his butcher’s apron. “Let us begin.”
‘My colleagues led the prisoners down into the cellar and over to the brightly lit part of the room, one at a time. I saw that they were soldiers, officers of some kind, but none of them had caps, and some were not wearing jackets. Their hands were bound behind their backs. They were not permitted to speak, but I could see that they were foreigners.
‘Then I had to stop thinking and start counting.
‘As soon as a prisoner entered the room, his legs were kicked from beneath him and he was dragged over to the wall by the logs on his knees. By this time, Comrade Karrek was already moving towards him with his gun raised, and in a single movement he took aim at the back of the prisoner’s neck and fired.
‘Five seconds later, my colleagues lifted the body and took it out through another doorway to a large flatbed truck.
‘The floor was sluiced down and Karrek returned to the shadows. Everything was ready for the next prisoner.’
Aron falls silent, lost in the past.
‘We worked through the night in that cellar. It was like … like a conveyor belt. Or a millstone, grinding away.
‘Comrade Karrek allowed himself a small glass of vodka after every tenth execution. On some nights, my piece of paper was covered in tiny strokes, and Karrek had drunk more than twenty-five vodkas. All I had done was to load guns and count bodies, but after a ten-hour shift I was still completely exhausted.
‘And Karrek’s eyelids would be drooping as dawn broke, when the black work was almost over, but even the very last shots found their mark. Only when the last prisoner had been removed did he take off the stained apron and count the marks on my sheet of paper. The politicians who had planned all this insisted on a final tally each morning.
‘I remember the smell of the forest when we emerged from underground; it was cold and fresh. But the stench of the cellar lingered on our uniforms when we returned to the barracks to wash and to sleep as the sun rose.
‘The stench of gunpowder and blood.
‘Early one morning, towards the end of our black work, a very drunken Karrek talked to us about tjistka, the necessary purge.
‘“Every tjistka is difficult,” he muttered, raising his glass. “But they pass. Soon, all our enemies will be gone, and then we can go home.”
‘And we did.’
Aron has finished his confession to Mila, but of course he has not told her everything.
He hasn’t said anything about Sven.
Or about Comrade Trushkin.
His wife has listened, with one hand resting on her belly. Sh
e gazes at him for a long time afterwards, but not with disgust. Only sorrow.
‘It was war,’ she says. ‘You wanted to win that war. You did what you had to do.’
Aron looks away. ‘I was someone else back then,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t myself.’
And then he takes a deep breath and at long last he tells her who he really is. He is not from the Ukraine, and his name is not Vladimir Jegerov.
‘My name is Aron,’ he says. ‘Aron Fredh, and I came here from Sweden in the thirties.’
Mila is still listening, and she does not recoil in horror.
‘I had to change my name and become someone else in order to survive,’ he says eventually. ‘But the executioner is gone now.’
Yes, Vlad is gone. He is dead. Aron is almost certain.
But he and Mila are alive, and twenty-four hours later they become parents.
Their daughter grows into a happy schoolgirl, tall and slender as a reed, with lots of energy. Aron loves his child; he plays with her for hours. When she is old enough, he begins to speak a little Swedish to her.
Mila sometimes goes out with friends from her army days, but Aron spends most of his time at home with his daughter.
He retires in the year she starts school. It feels as if a large part of Vlad’s spirit leaves him on that spring day, never to return.
Aron visits the KGB veteran association occasionally, to catch up with former colleagues, but he grows tired of their melancholy nostalgia and his visits become more and more infrequent. He gains nothing from the quiet conversations, and the fear of being caught up in bonds of friendship has been with him ever since his days with the NKVD.
Aron takes it easy. He lives for the beautiful light over Moscow, for the sun drifting over the river and the parks – and for his wife and daughter.
And yet: one day he would like to show them his home at Rödtorp, and the shore.
Gerlof
‘Kloss has installed a new alarm system,’ John Hagman says.
‘I can understand why,’ Gerlof replies. ‘They’re afraid of Aron Fredh.’
John had picked him up from the residential home on Saturday evening; they had driven down to Stenvik, to John’s little cottage, then on to the campsite, where John had collected the day’s fees from the holidaymakers.
Now they were sitting in John’s car south of the campsite, looking towards Villa Kloss. There were lights on in both houses, but Gerlof couldn’t see any movement at the windows. The sun had gone down and no doubt the alarm was switched on, so he was reluctant to go and ring the doorbell.
‘I understand him a little better now,’ he said. ‘Aron, I mean.’
‘In what way?’
‘I understand what drives him. The Kloss family have taken everything Aron Fredh had left on this island. Everything he has done this summer has been an act of revenge.’
‘They should have spoken to one another,’ John says.
‘Yes, but I presume Aron did that before he left Russia. I should imagine he got in touch and told them he wanted his share of the inheritance, as Edvard Kloss’s son.’
‘An unknown heir,’ John said.
‘Two heirs,’ Gerlof pointed out. ‘Greta Fredh was Edvard’s daughter, and Aron is his son. “Illegitimate children”, as we said in those days, but still with a legal right to Edvard’s land … Land on the coast around Stenvik, worth millions. This was bad news for the family and, even worse, Greta and Aron were entitled to claim their share of the Ölandic Resort.’
‘If I know the Kloss family as well as I think I do,’ John said, ‘they would never agree to that.’
‘No, and I think they made that pretty clear. They’d already demolished Aron Fredh’s childhood home, and his sister, Greta, is no longer alive. Apparently, Veronica Kloss was the last person to visit her the day she died.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Exactly,’ Gerlof said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it ever since I discovered how much the staff at the home trusted Veronica Kloss. She was able to come and go more or less as she wished. And that was why she was able to kill Greta.’
‘Do you know that for certain, Gerlof?’
‘Well, it wasn’t anybody else, at any rate. Greta Fredh was in her bathroom when she fell and broke her neck. And I’m told she always locked the door, so no one could have pushed her over.’
‘But you think Veronica managed to get to her somehow?’
‘Yes,’ Gerlof said. ‘There is a way to make a person fall over on the other side of a door … If they’re light enough, and if you have strong arms. And if the floor is flat.’
John was listening, and Gerlof went on. ‘There’s a long, narrow, plastic mat in the hallway in every room in the home. I think Veronica put the mat in the bathroom, with one end sticking out under the door. When Greta had gone into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, Veronica stood on the other side and yanked the mat away. Then gravity did the rest … Greta fell and broke her neck, and Veronica could simply replace the mat in the hallway and leave the room.’
‘So the murder weapon was a mat,’ John said.
‘It was still in Greta’s room. I told the staff to put it somewhere safe so that the police can take a look at it. There could be fingerprints, or other traces. The mats don’t get washed very often up there.’
‘Did you call your own personal police officer?’
Gerlof sighed. ‘Tilda, yes. Unfortunately, she wasn’t very interested … she just said that fingerprints on a mat don’t really count as proof. I think the only thing that would convince her is a confession from Veronica Kloss.’
‘Not much chance of that,’ John said.
‘No. And that’s why we’re sitting here. Like two owls.’ Gerlof glanced over at Villa Kloss and sighed again. It was almost ten o’clock, and he felt tired and powerless. ‘What can we do?’ he said. ‘This is like one of those old disputes over land; it just gets more and more bitter. We’ve got Aron Fredh on one side, and the Kloss siblings on the other. This could end very badly.’
‘Do you want to go home?’ John said.
‘Yes.’
John started up the car and set off along the coast road, away from Villa Kloss.
‘Perhaps I could stay the night at your place,’ Gerlof said.
‘Of course.’
‘Then we can try and have a word with the Kloss family tomorrow. When it’s light.’
‘Good,’ John said.
But Gerlof didn’t think there was anything good about it.
Lisa
What am I doing here? Lisa thought in the darkness down by the shore. How did I end up in the middle of all this?
She didn’t really remember; she just knew what she had to do. Kent Kloss had set a trap for Aron Fredh, and she was part of it.
She lay pressed against the rockface above the entrance to the dip; she could hear the rushing of the sea behind her and was vaguely aware that her new friend Paulina was crouching on the edge of the rock on the other side. It was after midnight, which meant it was technically Sunday morning and the month of August had just begun. Lisa and Paulina had already been in position for over an hour.
The moon had risen, but its light didn’t reach into the crevices in the rocks above the shore.
Kent had brought a powerful torch with him, and Lisa and Paulina had their walkie-talkies so they could alert him if anything happened. If someone approached the rocks, they were to press the ‘send’ button twice; if someone entered the dip, they were to press it three times.
Kent had hidden himself further along, somewhere near the bunker, with his camouflage jacket and his torch. Lisa thought he might be armed, too, possibly with a knife. It was just a feeling she had, the way he moved when he crept down from the ridge.
She couldn’t see much at the moment; the area all around her lay in darkness, thanks to Kent. Once the rest of the Kloss family had gone to bed, he had turned off all the lights on the outside of the house and the lighting in the garden.
>
At first, Lisa couldn’t understand why only Kent was down here with them; there was no sign of any other members of the family. Neither of his siblings, none of the boys.
But when she saw how silently Kent moved she began to realize that this was a mission he wanted to keep from the rest of them. He didn’t want anyone to see what happened here tonight.
Only those who were a part of the trap.
Lisa and Paulina were each holding one end of a length of rope, which was attached to an old nylon fishing net concealed under a thin layer of gravel at the entrance to the dip.
When (or if) Aron Fredh appeared, they were to raise the net and pull it tight, blocking the narrow track.
‘If he tries to run, he’ll get tangled up in the net,’ Kent had explained. ‘Just like a fish.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we can relax and have a chat,’ Kent had said, without explaining exactly who would be relaxing and chatting.
A cool breeze had begun to blow in off the Sound, and Lisa shivered. The height of summer was almost past; each night was a little darker and colder than the one before. Soon, she would be going home.
But, right now, she was here. She would get the job done as quickly as possible.
Absolutely nothing had happened since they began their watch, apart from the odd bat flitting past like a black rag in the darkness. They could hear the faint sound of the waves lapping down below; a boat occasionally chugged by out in the Sound – but nothing else. No old man had approached the dip.
Lisa cautiously stretched her upper body so that she wouldn’t get pins and needles. She blinked. Waited. Wondered which street corner Silas was hanging around on tonight. Then she heard something.
Not footsteps in the night, just a low, muted sound. A boat engine. But this one was much closer than the others had been, and it wasn’t going away. It was heading for the shore, slowing down just off the land belonging to the Kloss family. It seemed to have stopped; the engine was idling.
Lisa tried to twist around so that she could have a look, but she couldn’t see a thing. Without the moonlight, the sea was completely black.
The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) Page 35
