Echoes From the Dead (33 page)

It was always nice to have some company.

Lennart came back to fetch her after an hour.

“You need to be careful of all those stones and rocks on the shore,” said the young doctor when he’d checked the plaster once more. “Especially when it’s dark.”

“Did you have things to do in town?” asked Julia as they were driving back north.

“I was over at the police station,” said Lennart. “Their computers are faster than mine up in Marnas, so I wrote up a few reports.” He looked at her. “Including one about a breakin in Stenvik.”

“Oh,” said Julia.

“It wasn’t about you,” said Lennart. “I reported that somebody had broken into the Kant house and was sleeping there.

You’ve never been in there, don’t forget. You saw a light there one night. The following day you called me and reported it. Isn’t that what happened?”

Julia stared back at him.

“Okay,” she said. “I stumbled and fell on the shore. In the

dark.”

“Exactly,” said Lennart.

“But I still think Nils Kant has been in there,” she added quietly.

“I don’t believe he’s dead.”

“You can believe what you like,” said Lennart tersely. “Kant is dead.”

But at the same time Julia could see, or thought she could see, a shadow of doubt in his eyes.

PUERTO LIMON, MARCH 1960

“the sun has set, darkness has fallen over the eastern

coast of Costa Rica. In the shadows on the little sandy beach below the veranda bar of the Casa Grande, someone coughs quietly and then begins to whistle to himself, a cheerful, carefree melody that rises and falls almost in time with the rhythmic swell of the sea as the waves break on the shore. From inside the bar comes the sound of laughter and clinking glasses.

Silent flashes of white lightning illuminate the horizon, followed by a muted rumbling. It’s a night thunderstorm far out over the Caribbean, a storm which is slowly coming closer to the land.

Nils Kant is sitting at his usual table at the far end of the veranda, alone as always beneath the small red lanterns. He stares down into his halfempty glass for a while, then empties it in one gulp.

Is that his sixth or seventh glass tonight?

He can’t remember, it doesn’t matter. He hadn’t intended to

drink more than five glasses of lukewarm red wine tonight, but it doesn’t matter. Soon he’ll order another. There’s no reason to stop drinking, none at all.

He puts down the empty glass and scratches his left arm. It’s red and swollen. These last few years he’s begun to get painful inflamed patches of skin on his arms and legs, from the sun. White flakes of skin peel away in drifts, the skin breaks, and his sheets are spotted with blood each morning when he wakes up. And there are always hairs on the pillow; he’s begun to get a bald patch on the top of his head.

It’s the sun, it’s the heat, it’s the humidity. Nils is falling to pieces bit by bit. Nothing he can do about it.

Nothing but keep drinking. He’s been drinking cheap wine

for a few years now, because the stream of money from his mother has steadily diminished since the middle of the fifties.

All his mother has written by way of explanation is that the family quarry has been sold and closed down. She hasn’t told him how much money she has left. And Uncle August hasn’t written from Smaland for many years.

Nils hasn’t had a fight with anyone or seriously injured anyone since he left Oland. But still District Superintendent Henriksson stands by his bed some nights, silent and bleeding. One small consolation is that it happens less often now.

Nils clutches his wineglass and leans forward to get up and go inside for a topupand at that very moment he realizes that he actually recognizes the melody someone is whistling in the darkness down below.

He stops and listens more carefully.

Yes, he’s heard it before, many years ago. It was played on the radio quite a bit during the war, and it was in his mother Vera’s collection of 78s.

A cheerful, bold song. He doesn’t remember what it’s called, but he remembers the words.

Hey, if you want, just say the word,

and we’ll go home to Sbder…

He hasn’t heard it since he left Stenvikit’s a Swedish tune.

Nils gets up. He peers cautiously over the balustrade, seven or eight feet above the ground.

Shadows.

But isn’t there someone sitting down there on the sand, right next to the poles supporting the veranda?

“Hello?” he calls quietly in Swedish.

The whistling stops at once.

“Hello yourself,” replies a calm voice from the darkness.

As his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, Nils sees a figure sitting down below. It’s a man in a hat. He’s stopped whistling, and he isn’t moving.

Fine drops of cold drizzle begin to fall as Nils goes over to the steps at the other end of the veranda. He places his hand on the banister and makes his way down on unsteady legs.

Down into the darkness, step by step, until he feels soft sand, still warm, beneath his leather sandals.

Nils has sat up on the veranda in the evenings for years, but he has never been down on the beach in the dark before. There might be rats there, big, hungry rats.

He cautiously approaches the sturdy poles that hold the veranda up.

The figure who answered him is still sitting over there, leaning back comfortably in a deck chair that can be rented for a few colones in the shop a couple of hundred yards away.

It’s a man, Nils sees, with his shirtsleeves rolled up and some kind of sun hat shading his face. He’s humming to himself, the same cheerful melody as before.

Just say the word,

and we’ll go home…

Nils takes a couple more steps and stops. He stands still, his body swaying with the wine, but also with nervousness.

“Good evening,” says the man.

Nils clears his throat.

“Are you … from Sweden?” he asks.

The Swedish words feel strange in his mouth.

“Can’t you tell?” says the man in the deck chair, just as a flash of lightning illuminates the horizon.

In the sudden burst of light, Nils catches a brief glimpse of the Swede’s white face. A few seconds later a faint rumble comes from the sea.

“I thought it was best if you came down to me in the darkness, rather than the other way round,” says the Swede.

“What?” says Nils.

“I went to look for you in your room, but your landlady said you’re usually here in the bar drinking in the evenings. Perhaps there isn’t much else to do in Costa Rica.”

“What do you want?” asks Nils.

“It’s more important to talk about what you want, Nils.”

Nils says nothing. For a brief moment he has the feeling that he’s seen this man before, when he was young.

But when? In Stenvik?

He can’t remember.

The Swede grabs hold of the arms of the chair and gets up. He glances at the sea, then looks straight at Nils.

“Do you want to go home, Nils?” he asks. “Home to Sweden?

To Oland?”

Nils nods slowly.

“Then I can make that happen,” says the Swede. “We’re going

to give you a whole new life, Nils.”

“I haven’t said anything!”

“anything?” said Lennart slowly,

“but you’ve obviously made your daughter believe that Nils Kant is still alive. That he’s living in his mother Vera’s old house. And that he stole her son away out on the alvar.”

It was late afternoon at the home in Marnas, and Gerlof was

sitting at his desk. He was gazing at the floor like a schoolboy who’s been found out.

“I might have hinted at something along those lines,” he said eventually. “Not that Nils is hiding in Vera’s house, I never said that, but that he might possibly be alive …”

Lennart just sighed. He was standing in front of Gerlof in the middle of the room, dressed in his uniform. He’d come to the home to tell Gerlof that Julia was now resting at Astrid’s cottage down in Stenvik, after being treated at the hospital in Borgholm the previous day.

“How is she?” asked Gerlof.

“Sprained right foot, broken wrist, broken collarbone, severe nosebleed, lots of bruises, and concussion,” said Lennart; he sighed again, then added, “As I said, it could have been worse, I mean she could have broken her neck. It could have been better, too … She could, for example, have decided not to break into Vera Kant’s house.”

“Will she be charged?” said Gerlof. “With the breakin?”

“No,” said Lennart. “Not by me. And the owners are hardly

likely to do it either.”

“Have you spoken to them?”

Lennart nodded. “I managed to find a nephew of Vera’s in

Vaxjo,” he said. “I called him before I came here. A younger cousin of Nils’s … He hasn’t been to Stenvik for many years, and was pretty sure nobody else in the family has either. The house is owned by several cousins in Smaland, but they obviously can’t decide whether to renovate it or sell it.”

“I suspected it was something like that,” said Gerlof. Then he shook his head and looked at the policeman. “I never told Julia that I believe Nils Kant is still alive, Lennart,” he said. “I only said that some people believe it.”

“Like who?” asked Lennart.

“Well… Ernst,” said Gerlof, not wanting to get John Hagman mixed up in police business. “Ernst Adolfsson. I think he believed Nils Kant was alive and that Kant had killed Jens out on the alvar.

So Ernst tried to get me to…”

Lennart looked at him wearily.

“Private eyes,” he interrupted. “Some people think they know better than the police how crimes should be solved.”

Gerlof considered coming out with a dry witticism, but

couldn’t think of anything.

“There’s another thing, of course; somebody has actually

been inside Vera Kant’s house,” Lennart went on.

Gerlof looked at the policeman in surprise.

“Really?” he said.

“The door has been forced. And there were traces upstairs.

Newspaper cuttings pinned on the wall, stale food … a sleeping bag. And the cellar has been dug up.”

Gerlof thought it over.

“Have you examined the house?” he said.

“Only briefly,” said Lennart. “My priority was getting your

daughter to the hospital.”

“Good. Her father thanks you for that,” said Gerlof.

“This morning I went into Vera Kant’s house again before

I came here,” the policeman went on. “Julia was lucky: the paraffin lamp smashed on the stone floor when she dropped it. If it had ended up by the wall, the whole place could have burnt down.”

Gerlof nodded. “But what’s this about the cellar? Have they

dug things up? Or buried them?”

“It was hard to see. Dug up, I should think. Or just dug.”

“People who break in don’t usually start digging for things,”

said Gerlof. “And they don’t usually stay the night.”

Lennart looked tiredly at him. “Now you’re playing private

eye again.”

“I’m just thinking out loud. And I’m thinking…”

“What?” pressed Lennart.

“Well… I’m thinking it must be somebody from Stenvik who’s been in the house.”

“Gerlof…”

“You can do plenty of things up here on Oland without being

disturbed. You know that too. There’s hardly anybody around to see you…”

“Do feel free to write a letter to the paper about the shortage of police officers,” said Lennart sharply.

“But one thing people always see,” Gerlof went on quietly, “is strangers. Strangers with shovels, strange cars parked outside Vera Kant’s housepeople in Stenvik would have noticed something like that. And they haven’t, as far as I know.”

Lennart thought about it.

“Who actually lives in Stenvik all year round?” he asked

eventually.

“Not many people.”

Lennart didn’t speak for a few seconds.

“I might need your help, Gerlof,” he said, and quickly added, “Not as a private eye, but just to check out a few facts. I found something in the cellar.” He put his hand in his pocket. “There were several snuff tins on the windowsill in the cellar and under the stairs. All empty. They’re hardly from Vera Kant’s day.”

He pulled out a snuff tin, along with a notepad. The tin was in a small plastic bag.

“I don’t take snuff,” said Gerlof.

“No. But do you know anybody down in Stenvik who does?”

Gerlof hesitated for a few seconds, then nodded. There was

no point in hiding things the police could find out anyway.

“Just one person,” he said.

Then he gave Lennart a name. The policeman wrote it down

on his pad and nodded.

“Thanks for your help.”

“I’d like to come with you,” said Gerlof. “If you’re going to see him.” Lennart opened his mouth, and Gerlof added quickly, “I feel fine today, I can walk on my own. He’ll relax and be more ready to talk if I’m there. I’m almost sure of it.”

Lennart sighed.

“Put your coat on, then,” he said “and we’ll go for a little ride.”

“That was a fine speech, John,” said Gerlof. “At Ernst’s funeral, I mean.”

John was sitting on the other side of the table in his little kitchen in Stenvik, and nodded briefly without replying. He leaned back for a few seconds, then forward again. He was tense, Gerlof could see that very clearly, and it wasn’t difficult to see the reason either: the third person at the table was Lennart Henriksson, still dressed in his uniform. It was a quarter to six in the evening, and it was dark outside.

The empty snuff tin was on the table between them.

“So you’re reopening the case?” John asked Lennart.

“Well, I don’t know about reopening …” said Lennart, shrugging his shoulders. “We’d like to talk to Anders, if this actually is his snuff tin. Because that means he’s definitely the person who’s slept at Vera Kant’s house and been digging in the cellar and tacked up several newspaper cuttings about Nils Kant and Jens Davidsson.

And we’d also really like to find out where Anders was the day little Jens disappeared.”

“You don’t need to ask Anders about that,” said John. “I can tell you.”