Echoes From the Dead

20

Gerlof was sitting in his wheelchair on the way across the churchyard, pondering. Ernst had failed to reach an agreement with somebody when he died, Gerlof believed — but an agreement about what?

Ernst had never been particularly interested in money, as far as Gerlof knew — he’d been perfectly happy working in the quarry and selling a sculpture to a tourist now and again to earn money for food and rent. That was enough for him. So why hadn’t he wanted to share his ideas about Jens’s disappearance with Gerlof?

He’d chosen the Kant stone. He’d definitely done that. And what did it mean?

Gerlof could spend ages thinking about all these questions, going round and round in circles. He still kept coming back to the same thing: if Nils Kant wasn’t dead, if he’d somehow arranged to fake his death and managed to return to Sweden under another name, as John believed, then the people who were trying to find out the truth would be a danger to him.

“Ready, Gerlof?” asked Astrid behind him as they reached the community center.

He nodded.

“In we go, then,” she said, pushing the chair up the ramp.

There weren’t as many people inside as there had been at the burial itself, but Gerlof and Astrid still had to weave their way through them. A few bent down to ask Gerlof how he was feeling, but after three such condescending conversations, he forced himself to his feet. He wanted to show that he could actually walk in spite of the pain, he wasn’t an invalid.

Astrid pushed the wheelchair to one side, and Gerlof leaned on his cane as he greeted various acquaintances. Thank goodness Gösta Engström from Borgholm wasn’t interested in his health, and even better was the fact that Margit wasn’t with him when Gerlof made his way over on shaky legs. They had a quiet conversation about the events of the autumn, and eventually Gerlof told him what he thought about Ernst’s death.

“Not an accident?” said Gösta.

Gerlof shook his head.

“You mean — murder?”

“Somebody pushed him into the quarry, then tipped that sculpture on top of him,” said Gerlof. “That’s what John and I think.”

He was afraid Gösta would laugh at him, but Gösta’s expression was grim.

“Who would do such a thing?” he asked.

Gerlof shook his head again. “That’s the question.”

Then Margit Engström came over to say hello; Gerlof shook hands with her, and tottered off.

He bumped into Bengt Nyberg from Ölands-Posten, who was fishing for news as usual:

“I’ve heard they’re short-staffed up at the home in Marnäs these days. Is that true? Are the residents having problems with the service?”

Gerlof had nothing to tell him. It seemed as if everybody in the room wanted something from him. Before he’d even made it to the buffet tables, he met Gunnar Ljunger and his wife from Långvik. Gunnar got straight to the point as usual.

“I need six more, Gerlof,” said the hotel owner. “Has your daughter spoken to you? She was in the hotel in Långvik the other day and I asked her to mention it to you: six more.”

He was talking about ships in bottles, of course.

“Isn’t it getting a bit crowded on your shelves?” asked Gerlof.

“We’re expanding,” said Ljunger quickly. “They’re going to go in the windows in the new part of the restaurant.”

He took out a notebook and a pen with the slogan SHOP AND ENJOY IN LÅNGVIK! and jotted down some figures on a piece of paper, which he passed over to Gerlof.

“That’s what I’ll pay,” he said. “For each ship.”

Gerlof looked at the piece of paper. He wasn’t happy about what the Ljungers were doing up in Långvik, it was pure exploitation of the area — but this four-figure sum was enough to maintain both the cottage and the boathouse in Stenvik for at least another year.

“I’ve got two ships ready now,” he said quietly. “The others will take a while — maybe till spring.”

“That’s fine.” Ljunger straightened happily. “I’ll buy them then. Come down to Långvik and have a meal sometime.”

Gerlof shook his hand, his wife smiled at Gerlof, and the two moved on. Gerlof could finally make his way to the tables to have a cup of coffee and a slice of carrot cake.

Astrid and Carl were already sitting there, and when Gerlof had sat down, with some difficulty, and had a cup of coffee in front of him, another man sat down on the other side of the table. It was Lennart Henriksson.

“So that’s that, then,” the policeman said to Gerlof.

Gerlof nodded. “But of course the sorrow is still with us.”

“Indeed. And you daughter... is she here?” asked Lennart.

“No. She’s gone back to Gothenburg.”

“Did she leave yesterday?”

Gerlof shook his head. “I assume she left this morning.”

Lennart looked at him. “Didn’t she call in to say goodbye?”

“No. But that doesn’t particularly surprise me.”

He could have added that he and Julia hadn’t succeeded in getting all that close to each other during her stay on Öland, but Lennart could work that out for himself.

Lennart sat gazing down into his coffee cup. He wore a troubled frown, and was drumming faintly on the table with the fingers of his right hand.

Then he looked up at Gerlof. “But you’re sure she’s gone?”

“Astrid said the car had gone.”

“There was nothing on the ridge,” Astrid said. “And the blinds were pulled down in the boathouse, weren’t they, Carl?”

Her brother nodded.

“Did she say goodbye to you?” Lennart asked Astrid.

Gerlof couldn’t understand why he was so worried.

“Well, no,” said Astrid. “But you don’t always have time to get round to that sort of thing...”

“I’ll call her,” said Lennart firmly. “Is that okay with you, Gerlof?”

“Of course,” said Gerlof. “Did you want her for anything special?”

“No,” said Lennart, taking out his cell phone.

“Have you got her number?”

“Yes.” Lennart punched in the numbers. “I just want to check where she is. She said she might...”

He stopped speaking, holding the phone to his ear.

“I don’t understand those phones,” Astrid whispered to Gerlof. “How do you use them?”

“No idea,” said Gerlof, then asked Lennart, “Is she there?”

Lennart lowered the phone. “The subscriber cannot be reached... it’s just her voice mail.” He looked at Gerlof and added, “You can turn phones off, of course... if you don’t want to be disturbed.”

“Then I’m sure that’s what Julia’s done,” said Gerlof. “She’ll be driving through Småland now.”

Lennart nodded reluctantly, but still didn’t seem satisfied. He kept drumming his fingers on the table, and then he stood up abruptly.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I... just need to go and check something.”

Then he picked up his coffee cup and walked away.

Gerlof watched the policeman hurrying toward the door, and wondered if his daughter and Lennart Henriksson had some project on the go that he didn’t know about — but just a few seconds later a spoon was tapped tentatively against a coffee cup across the room. A chair scraped, and someone stood up.

Gerlof saw to his surprise that it was John Hagman. Both he and his son Anders looked equally uncomfortable in their black suits.

John cleared his throat, red in the face, his fingers scrabbling nervously at the sides of his black jacket. Then he began to speak:

“I...” he said. “I don’t usually do this sort of thing... not really... But I’d just like to say a few words about my friend and yours, Ernst Adolfsson, and the village of Stenvik. It will be a darker and lonelier place now that...”

An hour later Gerlof was back at the home in Marnäs — thanks to Astrid and Gösta — and could relax. He ate a late lunch, warmed up for him by Boel. On one of the tables in the empty dining room was that day’s edition of Ölands-Posten, and Gerlof noticed a headline on the front page: MISSING PENSIONER FOUND DEAD.

Even more bad news. The article was about the elderly man who had left his home in southern Öland a week or so earlier, and had now been found in a copse out on the alvar, frozen to death.

The police did not suspect any crime, the paper reported. The man was old and senile, and appeared to have got lost less than a kilometer from the village where he’d lived all his life.

Gerlof didn’t know the dead man, but he still felt the newspaper article was a bad omen.

For the rest of the afternoon he stayed in his room, and didn’t bother going for coffee. He didn’t come out until dinner, which consisted of Öland dumplings, badly seasoned and with far too little meat — not a bit like the delicious dumplings Ella used to make once a month or so — but Gerlof ate a couple anyway.

“Did you manage all right over in the church without me?” asked Marie as she was serving up his dumplings.

“No problem,” said Gerlof.

“So Ernst Adolfsson is in the ground now?” said Maja Nyman on the other side of the table.

Of course, Maja was from Stenvik, too, thought Gerlof, even if she hadn’t lived there for forty years.

He nodded. “Yes, Ernst is resting next to the church now.”

He picked up his fork and began to eat, grateful as ever that his teeth were good. And thank heavens Sjögren had finally settled down.

“Was it a nice coffin?” asked Maja.

“It was,” said Gerlof. “White-painted wood, polished and beautiful.”

“I’d like mahogany,” said Maja. “If it’s not too expensive... Otherwise I suppose it’ll be cheap wood and a cremation.”

Gerlof nodded again politely, took another bite of his dumplings, and was just about to say that cremation was definitely preferable, when somebody touched him on the shoulder. It was Boel.

“Telephone call, Gerlof,” she said quietly.

“In the middle of dinner?”

“Yes. It’s obviously important. It’s Lennart Henriksson... from the police.”

Gerlof felt a sudden icy chill in his stomach, a chill that woke Sjögren from his evening nap and made him seize Gerlof’s joints again. Stress always made his rheumatism worse.

“I’d better take it, then,” he said.

Julia? It was almost certainly about Julia, and it was almost certainly bad news. He struggled to his feet.

“You can use the telephone in the kitchen,” said Boel.

He made his way into the kitchen, leaning on his cane. There was a red plastic telephone on the wall, and Gerlof picked up the receiver.

“Davidsson,” he said.

“Gerlof... it’s Lennart.” His voice sounded extremely serious.

“Has something happened?” asked Gerlof, although he already knew the answer.

“Yes... It’s Julia. She hadn’t gone to Gothenburg.”

“Where is she?” Gerlof heard the wobble in his voice.

“Down in Borgholm,” said Lennart. “In the hospital.”

“Is it bad?”

“Pretty bad. But it could have been much worse. She’s knocked herself about a bit. They’re putting her in plaster at the hospital... I’ll go down there and pick her up tonight.”

“What happened?” said Gerlof. “What’s she done?”

Lennart hesitated, took a deep breath, then replied:

“She broke into Vera Kant’s house yesterday evening and fell down the stairs from the upper floor. She was a bit... well, she was very confused when I found her. She kept saying the house is occupied. That Nils Kant lives there.”