Echoes From the Dead (40 page)

“I think Nils was walking around out there one foggy September day, when he met a little boy who had got lost in the fog. My grandson, Jens.”

Martin Malm said nothing.

“And then something went wrong,” Gerlof went on quietly.

“Something happened and Nils got scared. I don’t believe Nils Kant was as evil and as crazy as some people maintain. He was just scared and impulsive, and he could be violent sometimes.

And that’s why Jens died.” Gerlof sighed. “And then … you probably know better than anyone. I think Nils came and asked you for help. Together you buried my grandson’s body somewhere out on the alvar. But you kept one thing.”

He brought out the object he had taken from his briefcase.

It was the brown envelope with Malm Freight’s logo torn off, the one Gerlof had received in the mail.

“You kept one of Jens’s sandals. You sent it to me a couple of months ago, in this envelope. Why did you do that, Martin? Did you want to make your confession?”

Malm looked at the envelope, and his chin moved again.

“Unner’s azee.”

Gerlof nodded without understanding what the other man

meant. He sat down slowly to get his breath back, and gave Martin one last long look.

“Did you kill Nils, Martin?”

Gerlof’s final question received no answer, of course, so he|

answered it himself:

“I think you did … I think Nils had become too dangerous

for you. And I think he was the one who gave you that scar on your forehead. But I can’t prove that either, of course.”

He leaned forward and wearily pushed the book and the envelope back in his old briefcase. It had been hard work, this performance, and he was exhausted.

On a bookshelf along one wall, framed family photographs

were arranged, and Gerlof could see smiling youngsters on several of them.

“Our children, Martin …” he said. “We have to expect that they will forget about us. We want our children to remember all the good things we did in spite of everything, but that isn’t always the way things turn out.”

Gerlof was so tired now, just saying whatever came into his head. Martin Malm too seemed to have lost all his strength. Over in his wheelchair, he was neither moving nor attempting to say anything else.

The air in the drawing room seemed to have been completely used up, and the room felt darker than it had been. Gerlof got up slowly.

“It’s time I was on the move, Martin,” he said. “Look after yourself… I might be back.”

He thought the last sentence sounded threatening, and that was his intention, to a certain extent.

The door to the hallway opened before he got there. AnnBritt Malm’s pale face appeared.

Gerlof smiled wearily at her.

“We’ve had our little chat,” he told her.

It was actually only Gerlof who had done any chatting, and he hadn’t received one single clear answer.

He walked past Martin Malm’s wife, and she closed the drawing room door behind them.

“Right, well, thank you very much,” said Gerlof, nodding to her.

“It was me who sent that,” said AnnBritt Malm.

Gerlof stopped. She was pointing at his briefcase, where the top edge of the brown envelope was sticking up.

“Martin has cancer of the liver,” she said. “He hasn’t got long left.”

Gerlof remained rooted to the spot, not knowing what to say.

He looked down at his briefcase.

“How did you know …” He cleared his throat. “… where to

send it?”

“Martin gave me the envelope last summer. The sandal was

already inside, and he’d written your name on it. All I had to do was send it.”

“Did you call me too?” he asked. “Somebody called me after it had arrived … somebody who put the phone down.”

“Yes. I wanted to ask… about the sandal,” said AnnBritt

Malm. “Why Martin had it, what it might mean. But I was afraid of the answers… afraid Martin might have done something to your child.”

“Not my child. Jens was my grandchild. But I don’t know

what the sandal means.”

“I don’t know either, and it’s …” She fell silent. Then she said, “Martin didn’t want to say anything when he got it out, but I… I had the feeling he’d taken the sandal as some kind of security.

Could that have been the case?”

“Security?” said Gerlof.

“Against somebody else,” said AnnBritt. “But I don’t know.”

Gerlof looked at her. “Has Martin ever talked about the

Kants? The Kant family?

AnnBritt hesitated, then she nodded. “Yes, but nothing more than to mention they were doing some business together … Vera invested money in Martin’s ships, after all.”

“Vera in Stenvik?” said Gerlof. “But it was August, surely?”

AnnBritt shook her head. “Vera Kant in Stenvik put money

into Martin’s first steamship. And he really needed that money, I do know that.”

Gerlof merely nodded. He had only one question left, then he wanted to get out of this big, gloomy house.

“When Martin gave you the envelope,” he said, “had anyone been to visit him, just before that?”

“We don’t get many visitors,” said AnnBritt.

“I think someone from Stenvik might have been here. An old stonemason… Ernst Adolfsson.”

“Ernst, yes, that’s right,” said AnnBritt. “We’ve bought a few things made of stone from himhe’s dead now. He did call in to see Martin… but I think it was earlier in the summer.”

Ernst had got there first again, thought Gerlof.

“Thank you” was all he said, picking up his overcoat. It felt, much heavier now, like some kind of armor. “Will Martin be going into the hospital soon?” he asked.

“No, he won’t,” said AnnBritt. “No hospitals. The doctors always come here.”

Out on the steps the wind grabbed hold of him again, and this|

time it made him sway unsteadily. It had begun to drizzle. He screwed up his eyes to face the cold alone, but then he spotted John’s car parked a dozen or so yards away.

John nodded as Gerlof opened the passenger door and got in.

“It’s over,” he said.

“Good,” said John.

Only then did Gerlof notice there was someone sitting in the, back seat: a broadshouldered figure who had managed to sink right down and hide himself behind John. It was Anders, his son.

“I went over to the apartment,” said John. “Anders is back home. They let him go.”

“Excellent. Hi there, Anders.”

John’s son merely nodded.

“It’s good that the police believed you, isn’t it?” said Gerlof.

“Yes,” said Anders.

“You won’t go into Vera Kant’s house anymore, will you?”

“No.” Anders shook his head. “It’s haunted.”

“That’s what I heard,” said Gerlof. “But you weren’t scared?”

“No,” said Anders. “She stayed in her room.”

“She? You mean Vera?”

Anders nodded. “She’s bitter.”

“Bitter?”

“She feels as if she’s been deceived.”

“Does she indeed,” said Gerlof.

He was thinking about what Maja Nyman had told him, about the two male voices she’d heard in Vera’s kitchen. Had one of them belonged to Martin Malm?

It kept on raining, and John switched on the windshield wipers as he pulled out into the street.

“I was thinking of staying here in Borgholm with Anders for a while,” he said. “We’re going to have a coffee with his mother. I’m sure you’d be welcome too.”

“No, I’d better get back,” said Gerlof quickly. “Otherwise Boel will have a fit.”

“Right,” said John.

“I can get the bus to Marnas,” said Gerlof. “Isn’t there one at half past three?”

“We can have a look at the depot,” said John.

Gerlof sat in silence as they drove through Borgholm, thinking things over. As usual he had the feeling he’d missed things at Martin Malm’s, that he’d asked the wrong questions and hadn’t interpreted correctly the few answers he’d been given. He should have made some notes.

“Martin can’t talk anymore,” he said with a sigh.

“Oh yes?” said John.

When the car turned right at the square, Gerlof turned his head and suddenly saw Julia through a window on the opposite side of the street.

She was sitting in a restaurant beside the church with Lennart Henriksson, the policeman. Gerlof felt no surprise at seeing them together.

Julia was looking at Lennart and she looked calm, Gerlof

thought as the car moved away from the restaurant. Not happy perhaps, but peaceful. And Lennart also looked better than he had for many years. Good.

“So you’re okay catching the bus?” asked John.

Gerlof nodded. “I feel fine now,” he said. This was partly true; he could walk, at any rate. “And we have to support public transport.

Otherwise no doubt they’ll get rid of the buses too.”

John turned north toward Borgholm’s bus station. It had been a railway station in times gone by, the terminus for the train Nils Kant had jumped off after he murdered the policemanbut now only buses and cabs stopped there.

The car pulled into the parking lot. John got out and went around to the passenger’s side to open the door.

“Thanks,” said Gerlof, wobbling to his feet. He nodded a farewell to Anders.

It had been a strenuous day, but he fought hard to walk

steadily and with dignity toward the buses behind the station, with his briefcase in one hand and his cane in the other. The drizzle was coming down more heavily now. The bus going to Byxelkrok via Mamas was already in; the driver was sitting behind the wheel reading the paper.

Gerlof stopped by the door of the bus.

“Anyway, it’s finished now,” he told John. “We’ve done as much as we could. Martin will have to live with what he’s done.

For however long he’s got left.”

“Yes. He will,” said John.

“One thing …” said Gerlof. “Fridolf… have you ever heard of anyone Martin knew by that name?”

“Fridolf?” John said. “As in Little Fridolf? In the comic strip?”

“Yes. Or maybe Fritiof,” said Gerlof. “Fridolf or Fritiof.”

“Not that I know of,” said John. “Is it important?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Gerlof stood in silence in front of John for a few moments as two teenage boys in black padded jackets and with spiky hair pushed quickly past them and leapt onto the bus without so much as glancing at the two old men.

Gerlof suddenly realized it wouldn’t matter at all if he’d just unmasked a murderer or not. It wouldn’t change a thing. Life was carrying on as normal around him, and Oland was still a sparsely populated island.

He felt depressed. Perhaps he was having an eightyyearold’s crisis.

“Thanks for today,” he said to John. “I’ll call you when I get back.”

“You do that.”

John nodded and held his cane as Gerlof struggled up the

high steps onto the bus. He took his cane, paid the driver for his journey, including his senior citizen’s discount, and went to sit on the right by a window. He watched John walk back to his car and get inside.

Gerlof leaned back, closed his eyes, and heard the bus rumble into life. As slowly as an old cargo boat, it began to pull away from the station.

Fridolf or Fritiof, he thought. And a meeting in Ramneby, where Ernst grew up.

Fridolf? Fritiof?

Gerlof didn’t know anyone on Oland with either of those

names.

“No, I’m not married, said Lennart. “Never have been, either.”

“No children?” said Julia.

Lennart shook his head. “No children, either.” He looked

down into his halfempty glass of water. “I’ve had precisely one serious relationship in my life, but on the other hand, it lasted almost ten years. It ended five years ago … she’s living in Kalmar now, and we’re still friends.” He smiled at Julia. “Since then I’ve devoted most of my energy to the house and the garden.”

“Perhaps northern Oland isn’t the best place,” said Julia. “If you want to meet somebody, I mean.”

“You mean there’s not much choice,” said Lennart, still smiling.

“That’s very true. I suppose it’s much better in Gothenburg?”

“I don’t know …” said Julia. “I’ve almost stopped looking.”

She drank some of her water and went on: “I’ve really only had one serious relationship as well. And it was even longer ago than yours … It was with Jens’s father, Michael; he was always restless, and it ended … well, afterward. You know.”

Lennart nodded. “You have to be very determined to maintain a relationship.”

Julia nodded.

“But what are your plans now?” said Lennart. “Are you going to stay on Oland?”

“I don’t know… maybe,” said Julia. “There isn’t much to

keep me in Gothenburg. And Gerlof isn’t all that well. He probably doesn’t want anybody keeping tabs on him, but I think he might need it.”

“Northern Oland needs nurses, I know that,” said Lennart, looking at her. “And I’d like you to”

He was interrupted by a persistent bleeping, and Julia jumped.

Lennart looked down at the pager on his belt.

“They’re after me again,” he muttered.

“Is it something important?”

“No. It looks as if I just need to call in at the station for a little while.” He got to his feet. “I’ll go and pay our bill.”

“We can split it.”

“No, no.” Lennart waved the suggestion away. “I was the one who dragged you over here.”

“Thanks,” said Julia.

As usual she was short of money.

“Shall we say we’ll meet up at…” Lennart looked at his

watch. “… a quarter to four over at the station? I should be done by then, and we can get out of the big city and head home.”

“Fine.”

“Perhaps you’d like to come and see where I live? It isn’t a big house, but it’s right by the sea north of Mamas. The sun rises out of the sea with each new day, if you want to put it poetically.”

“I’d like that,” Julia told him.

They parted outside the restaurant. Lennart walked off quickly toward the station, and Julia hopped much more slowly toward Kungsgatan on her crutches to have a look at the shops. There didn’t seem to be any clothes sales on this week, but at least she could study what was in the windows.

She went past a newsagent’s and automatically read some of the headlines on the placards outside