Echoes From the Dead (15 page)

The sky up above him was deep blue, the wind was blowing,

but oddly enough a thin mist was still hanging above the ground.

Ernst Adolfsson was standing up on the edge of the cliff, looking out across the quarry with black eye sockets.

Gerlof opened his mouth to ask his friend if he was really the one who had pushed the sculpture down into the quarry, and if so, exactly what he’d meant by itbut a whisper made Ernst turn |

around. |

“I killed them all.” i;

It was Nils Kant who had whispered.

“Gerlof… your grandson says hello.”

Nils Kant had come wandering across the alvar with his

smoking shotgun, and now he was standing just around the corner of |

Ernst’s house; soon he would come over. Gerlof lifted his head and held his breath, full of expectation; he would finally get to see what Nils Kant looked like as an adult, as an old man. Did he still |

have his hair? Was it gray? Did he have a beard?

But it was Ernst who turned and disappeared around the side ‘

of the house instead, slipping slowly away in the mist like a silent’

ghost ship. Gerlof called after him, but Ernst was gone.

The grief he felt over Ernst was crippling when Gerlof finally awoke.

“Turn left,” said Gerlof to Julia in the car the following morning. ‘

Julia looked at him, then braked.

“We’re going to Marnas, aren’t we?” she asked. “Back to the

home?” .

“Soon. Not just yet,” said Gerlof. “I thought we might have coffee here in Stenvik first.”

Julia studied him a few seconds longer, then turned left. They!

rolled back down toward the road above the water. Gerlof

automatically glanced over to his boathouse to make sure no windows were broken.

“Left again,” he said, pointing to a house on the coast road.

“That’s where we’re going.”

Julia braked and turned across the road without checking

whether anything was coming toward them, or even looking in

her rearview mirror.

“An old woman lives here,” she said as she pulled up in front of the house. “I saw her the day before yesterday … She was out with her dog.”

“She’s not that old,” said Gerlof. “I’d say Astrid Linder is only about sixtyseven, or maybe sixtyeight. She’s only recently retired … she was a doctor down in Borgholm for many years. But she grew up here.”

“And she lives in Stenvik all year round?”

“She does now. I moved out of my summer cottage, but Astrid

did the opposite when she was widowed. She moved into hers.”

Gerlof opened the door, felt the pain in his limbs as he twisted in his seat, and sighed. “Of course, she’s a bit fitter than me.”

Gerlof managed to swing his legs out, but Julia had to go

round and help him to his feet. He gave her a brief nod of thanks and they walked toward the house.

“When I’m back in Stenvik, I pretend there are people living in all the houses all year round,” Gerlof said, looking around.

“Sometimes I think the curtains move in the cottages. You can see shadows strolling along the village road, just small movements out of the corner of your eye… You can see ghosts most clearly out of the corner of your eye.”

Julia didn’t reply.

There was a wooden gate in the low wall, and Julia opened it.

The garden inside was empty, but furnished. On a low limestone terrace in front of the house, four white plastic chairs stood around a small plastic table, and beside them stood a little gray porcelain gnome wearing a green hood and gazing out over the inlet with a fixed smile.

Even before they’d got as far as ringing the doorbell, the sound of excited barking could be heard from inside the house.

“Quiet, Willy!” shouted a woman’s voice, but the dog took

no notice.

When the door opened, it came hurtling out like a little brown and white bolt of lightning, dashing around Julia’s and Gerlof’s legs; he had to hang on to her to avoid losing his balance.

“Calm down, you stupid dog!” shouted Astrid again.

She appeared in the doorway, small and whitehaired, and, in

Gerlof’s eyes, very beautiful.

“Hello, Astrid.”

Astrid grabbed hold of the fox terrier’s leash, held on tight, and looked up.

“Hello, Gerlof, are you back at home?” Then she saw Julia,

and asked quickly, “Goodnesshave you brought a new girlfriend with you?”

Despite the fact that the sun was shining, the autumn wind sweeping in across the island was persistent and bitterly cold. But still Astrid Linder set the table for morning coffee out on the terrace, fetched a blanket which she wrapped around Gerlof, and put on a thick green woolen sweater.

“I need a sweater,” said Gerlof.

“No you don’t. It’s nice and fresh out here,” said Astrid,

bringing out the coffee and a plate of cakesnothing homemade, just four shopbought muffins. Astrid wasn’t fond of baking. She poured the coffee and settled down.

Gerlof had introduced Julia as his youngest daughter; she and Astrid had said hello, chatted a little about Willy’s tremendous energy, and watched the dog gradually calm down and settle under the table. None of them had mentioned Ernst.

Gerlof didn’t think Astrid remembered who Julia was, so he

was surprised when she suddenly said quietly:

“You probably don’t remember me julia, but… I was there on that day, searching along the shore. My husband was there too.”

Gerlof saw Julia stiffen on the opposite side of the table; she slowly opened her mouth and searched for the right words.

“Thank you,” she said eventually. “I don’t remember …

Everything was so mixed up that day.” [

“I know, I know.” Astrid nodded and drank her coffee.

“Everybody was running around all over the place. The police sent boats out into the sound, but nobody knew where they were supposed to be going. One group of villagers was sent southward along the water’s edge, and we went north with another group.

We walked and walked along the shore and looked in the water and underneath all the boats that had been pulled up onto the shore, and behind every single rock. In the end it got dark and we couldn’t see anything anymore, not even a hand in front of our faces … so we had to turn back. It was terrible.”

“Yes,” said Julia, gazing down into her cup. “Everybody

searched that evening. Until it got dark.”

“It was so dreadful,” said Astrid. “And he was neither the first nor the last to disappear in the sound.”

There was silence around the coffee table. The wind was blowing gently. Willy sneezed and shuffled uneasily at Astrid’s feet.

“The boy’s sandal has been found,” said Gerlof after a moment.

He

was looking at Astrid, but he glimpsed Julia’s surprised expression out of the corner of his eye.

“I see,” said Astrid. “Was it in the water?”

“No,” said Gerlof. “On land. Somebody must have had it for all these years, but so far we don’t know who.”

“Goodness,” said Astrid. “But wasn’t it… didn’t he drown?”

Julia put down her coffee cup, but didn’t speak.

“Apparently not,” said Gerlof. “It’s complicated … We don’t really know much yet.”

“That man you mentioned yesterday, Gerlof,” said Julia.

“Nils Kant. Might he know something about Jens? Is that what you think?”

“Nils Kant?” said Astrid, looking at Gerlof. “Why are you talking about him?”

“I just happened to mention him yesterday.”

Julia looked uncertainly from Astrid to Gerlof, as if she’d said something inappropriate. “I just thought… that maybe he was involved. Since he’d obviously caused problems before.”

Astrid sighed. “I thought Nils Kant had been forgotten by now,” she said. “When he left Stenvik”

“He is forgotten, by and large,” Gerlof broke in. “The fact that Julia had never even heard of him until yesterday proves that, if nothing else.”

“He was a year or so older than me,” Astrid went on, “but we Were still in the same class up at the junior school. And he always seemed to be in a bad mood, I never once saw him looking happy.

He was always fighting, and he was a big lad. We girls were afraid of him … and so were the boys. Nils was always the one who started a fight, but he always blamed somebody else.”

“I missed him in school, I was older than Kant,” said Gerlof, “butJohn Hagman told me about the fights.”

“Then he started working in the quarry the family owned,”

said Astrid, “but that didn’t go too well either.”

“There was a fight there too. A stevedore nearly drowned.”

Gerlof shook his head. “Do you remember one of the boats they used to transport the stone caught fire the night after Nils finished there, Astrid? Isabell, she was called. She’d been blown into the harbor over at Langvik, and the captain was woken by the fire on board. They only just managed to tow her out past the jetty before she went up. ‘Spontaneous combustion’ they said at the hearing, but here in Stenvik plenty of people thought Nils Kant was responsible.

And that was when it all started.”

Julia looked at him inquiringly. “When what started?”

“Well… Nils Kant became Stenvik’s very own scapegoat,”

he answered. “Anything bad that happened was blamed on him.”

“Not everything,” objected Astrid. “Just all the crimes. Fires and thefts and injured animals …”

“Accidents too,” said Gerlof. “If the windmill sails split or nets broke or boats slipped their moorings and drifted away …”

“He deserved all the suspicion,” declared Astrid. “And he proved it.”

“He had his own story,” said Gerlof. “A strict father who died when he was little, and a mother who constantly told Nils he was better than everybody else in the village. It wasn’t a healthy upbringing.”

Astrid

nodded, but remained silent and pensive for a few moments

before asking quietly:

“I heard about the accident on the local radio yesterday

… When’s the funeral, Gerlof?”

She’d quickly changed the subject, he noticed. Unless Astrid too realized that there was some kind of connection between Nils Kant and Ernst’s death.

“On Wednesday, as far as I know,” he said. “I spoke to John

on the telephone this morning, and that’s what he thought.”

“And it’ll be in Marnas church?”

“Yes,” said Ernst, picking up his coffee cup. “Even if it was that bloody church tower that did for him in the end.”

“Ernst was always so careful,” said Astrid. “I can’t understand what he was doing at the cliff edge.”

Gerlof shook his head, but said nothing.

“Is that everybody?” asked Julia after their visit to Astrid, when they were in the car on the way back to Marnas.

“Everybody?” said Gerlof.

“Everybody who lives in Stenvik. Have we met everybody

who lives there now?”

“More or less,” said Gerlof. “All the real Stenvik people.

There are a few who come over on weekends from Borgholm and

Kalmar. Probably fifteen or twenty altogether. I don’t really know them very well.”

“What’s it like in the summer?”

“Busy,” said Gerlof. “It’s packed with summer visitors

here … hundreds of them. We just get more and more tourists.

They keep on building and building. And there are just as many over on John’s campsite every week. We end up with almost more people than actually lived here when I was little. But it’s even worse over in Langvik, where they’ve got the marina and the beach hotel.”

“I remember what it’s like in the summer,” said Julia.

Gerlof sighed. “I shouldn’t complain. They come over from

the mainland with money, after all.”

“But it’s difficult to know who’s who,” said Julia, braking to turn off toward Marnas.

“It’s impossible in the summer,” Gerlof pointed out. “It gets just like the city where you live, people can come and go as they want.”

“They can do that in the autumn too,” said Julia. “I mean,

there’s nobody down in Stenvik who can see”

She suddenly stopped, as if something had occurred to her.

“Astrid usually keeps an eye open,” said Gerlof. Then he noticed Julia’s silence. “What is it?”

“I just remembered … Ernst said he was expecting a visitor.

When I met him at our cottage the day before yesterday. He said, ‘You’re welcome to come and have a look at my sculptures, but not tonight because I’m expecting a visitor.’ Or something like that.”

“Is that what he said?” said Gerlof, gazing thoughtfully through the windshield.

“Is this about him too … this Nils Kant?”

“Maybe.”

There was silence in the car. They drove past Marnas church, and Gerlof was reminded of Ernst’s impending funeral. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

“You know more than you’re willing to tell me,” said Julia

after a while.

“A bit more,” said Gerlof quietly. “Not much. We have a few

theories, John and I.”

Of course, Ernst had had a number of theories too, he thought sadly.

“This isn’t a game,” said Julia, a little sharply. “Jens is my son.”

“I know that.” Gerlof wished he could ask her to stop talking about Jens as if he were still alive. “And I’ll tell you what I think, soon.”

“Why did you tell Astrid about the sandal?” said Julia.

“To spread the news,” said Gerlof. “Astrid’s bound to pass it on, she’s good at that.” He looked at Julia. “Did you tell the police about the sandal yesterday?”

“No … I had other things on my mind. And why should we

tell people about it?”

“Well… it might bring something out. Bring somebody out.”

“Bring who out?”

“You never know,” said Gerlof as they arrived at the residential home.

Julia helped him out of the car again.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked.

“I don’t know … I might go over to the church.”

“Good idea. There’s a lantern on Ella’s grave; you can take a candle to put in it. I’ve got one up in my room.”

“Okay,” said Julia, going to the door with him.

“And you can have a look around the churchyard too