The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) (49 page)

‘Go home.’

The boy moved towards the door, past Veronica. She didn’t even glance at him.

The door closed behind him.

Aron looked at Veronica Kloss and pointed to the empty chair, the one her nephew had just vacated. ‘Sit down.’

She didn’t move. ‘Why?’

‘You have a number of charges to answer.’

‘Such as?’

‘You and your brother flattened Rödtorp, and you killed my sister.’

When Veronica still didn’t move, he added, ‘And my wife.’

It is Easter, and Aron and Mila travel west. They leave their daughter at home and catch the train to Leningrad (which is once again known as St Petersburg) on Good Friday, and stay there overnight.

Mila would like to look around the city, perhaps visit the Winter Palace and see the River Neva – she has not been there since she was a student – but she is too weak. And Aron has no desire to wander around the streets feeling nostalgic. He does not want to renew his acquaintance with Kresty Prison down by the river, he does not want to reawaken old memories of the smells and sounds in there. Or of his friend Trushkin.

He can only think about Sweden, and about the island on the other side of the Baltic Sea.

On the morning of Easter Saturday they board the cruiser MS
Baltika
, which sails between Stockholm and St Petersburg. It is just as white as SS
Kastelholm
was, but bigger, and this time Aron doesn’t have to share a cabin with his seasick stepfather. They glide west along the Neva and out into the Baltic, full of anticipation.

The water is calm, and Mila seems to feel a little better in the sea air. She smiles at him as they stand by the rail.

So many summers, so many winters, Aron thinks.

The crossing is much faster than it was in the thirties, and it is still Easter when they arrive in Stockholm.

Aron realizes that this city has changed, too, of course. The derricks in the docks are gone, and the number of buildings has increased significantly.

The Swedish immigration official merely glances at Aron and Mila’s Russian passports, then he says ‘Welcome’ and waves them through. They stay in a small hotel not far from Nytorget, and Aron finds a map in the telephone directory. Veronica Kloss and her family live on Norr Mälarstrand. An impressive address, right by the water.

Mila smiles. ‘We’ll go over there in the morning, in plenty of time before we sail.’

Aron smiles back, but he is trembling inside. He feels like the bastard son when it comes to the Kloss family. And, of course, he
is
a bastard, the illegitimate offspring lumbering in among the posh folk, with no idea how to behave.

But they have a lovely evening in Stockholm. They wander through the narrow streets of the Old Town, just as Aron and Sven did; they take a ferry trip around the islands and spend the last of their money on a special dinner in a restaurant. Mila coughs quite a lot during the evening, and she is very tired, but she is smiling, too.

‘Everything will be all right.’

Maybe, Aron thinks. If I get down on my knees to Veronica Kloss.

The following day, it is time to go and see her.

Kungsholmen is a little distance away from their hotel. Aron is still hesitating but, eventually, they set off, and manage to find the right house. The outer door is made of dark wood, wide and sturdy. And closed. But there is a nameplate with ‘K
LOSS
’ engraved on it, and a button beside it.

Aron presses the button and waits by the entry phone, with Mila beside him.

‘Yes?’

It is a woman’s voice, and Aron’s heart begins to pound.

‘Veronica?’ he says quietly. ‘Veronica Kloss?’

‘Yes?’

Aron introduces himself again. He explains, with Mila at his side, that they have come to Sweden because they need help. That he has brought
proof
that they are related, a snuff box that used to belong to his father, Edvard Kloss.

There isn’t a sound from the speaker.

Then something rattles up above his head. A window opens, three floors up, and a white envelope drifts down through the air. Bizarrely, it reminds Aron of Comrade Trushkin and the letters he left on the streets of Leningrad.

‘Aron Fredh’ is written neatly on the front.

Slowly, he opens the envelope. There is no letter inside, just a piece of paper with a picture on it. A picture of a forest clearing, with a digger standing among the remains of a small house. A croft. The machine has rolled straight in and crushed the walls.

Needless to say, Aron recognizes the croft.

He drops the picture and stares at the door. It remains closed. Veronica Kloss has put down the phone upstairs in her apartment, and the lock never buzzes to let them in.

Aron turns and looks at his wife. She doesn’t understand Swedish, but she knows. Something has died in her eyes; hope is gone.

She takes his arm. ‘We have to go,’ she whispers. ‘We’ll miss the boat.’

They set off, walking in silence.

Mila’s breathing is laboured by the time they reach the hotel. They collect their luggage and take a taxi to the ferry. She is very low, and her cough is worse than ever. Aron wants to cheer her up, but he doesn’t know what to say. His croft is gone. Kloss has destroyed the dream he has cherished for so long.

They manage to catch the boat. Mila is very breathless, without a scrap of colour in her face, in spite of the sun that has been shining down on Stockholm. The ferry slips away from the land, out through the archipelago, leaving Sweden behind them.

‘We’ll come back,’ Aron says.

Mila nods wearily. It is almost time for dinner, but she shakes her head and goes to bed. She seems ill; perhaps she is suffering from seasickness, even though the sea is perfectly calm.

Aron eats as quickly as possible in the only restaurant on board, then goes back down to the cabin.

Mila is asleep, her breath rattling in her chest. Aron has the dizzying feeling that he has done this before, when he travelled with Sven, who was so ill. But this is far more serious.

Two days later, they are back in Moscow. They have travelled the same way as they did on the outward journey, by train from St Petersburg. Their daughter, Paulina, is waiting for them at the Belorussky Station. Aron notices that she has changed out of her winter coat; spring has arrived in Russia.

He climbs down from the carriage with a heavy tread and helps Mila down the steps; she is exhausted. They both hug their daughter for a long time.

And so they go home, and the hospital visits begin again. And the constant battle for oxygen.

At the end of June he calls his sister again, on the line beneath the Baltic Sea, but she doesn’t answer. A nurse speaks to him instead, with that faint rushing sound in the background, as before.

‘Greta Fredh is no longer with us, I’m afraid. She’s passed away.’

Aron doesn’t understand.

‘She had a fall. She fell in her bathroom.’

After a while, the news sinks in, and he puts down the phone.

His sister is dead, and there is no hope for his wife.

It takes ten months of hospital visits and vigils before Mila’s lungs give up. She is like a drowning woman at the end, fighting and fighting, but unable to get any air.

On 20 February 1999 she finally dies. Aron and Paulina are sitting with her, but Aron has to leave the room several times during the struggle. The feeling of powerlessness is the worst thing of all.

At the beginning of May, two months after the funeral, he travels back to Sweden. He buys an old Ford in Stockholm and drives down to Öland.

Greta’s room has been cleared, but he is allowed to look at the box containing the things she left behind. She had nothing – nothing of value, at least – but he takes a few family photos of himself when he was a little boy, and of their mother, Astrid.

The door of the room next to Greta’s is standing open; the nameplate says ‘W
ALL
’. Aron looks inside. Two men are sitting there; one is older than Aron, the other is younger. But they bear a strong resemblance to one another; he assumes they are family.

‘Did you know the lady next door?’ he asks.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Fredh. Aron Fredh.’

‘So you and Greta were related,’ the older man says. ‘She had a fall.’

He puts a little too much stress on the last word, and Aron pricks up his ears.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’m her brother.’

‘My name is Wall,’ the older man says. ‘Ulf Wall … This is my son, Einar.’

Aron nods.

‘I’m related to the Kloss family as well,’ he says.

He notices that the younger man, Einar Wall, frowns slightly at the mention of that name, so he takes a step into the room. Purposefully, like a soldier.

‘Kent is dead,’ Veronica Kloss said.

Aron nodded. ‘So is Greta. And Mila.’

Veronica stared at him in the glow of the paraffin lamps, and he stared right back.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

She hesitated briefly, then sat down on the empty chair next to her youngest son. He looked at her and she opened her mouth to say something to him, but Aron didn’t want to hear it.

‘Right,’ he said loudly. ‘Let’s begin.’

This was the last interrogation he and Vlad would ever conduct, he knew that. It was important to do it properly.

There was no desk in the mill, but he had brought a pen and paper and found a wooden box to lean on. He pushed the box over to Veronica.

‘Take the pen.’

She looked at him for a long time, but took it eventually.

‘And some paper.’

She took a sheet of paper.

Aron raised the assault rifle. ‘Start writing. I want you to admit that you killed my sister in the residential home last summer, after I told you we were related. And I want you to explain how you did it.’

The pen was poised over the paper.

‘And then?’ Veronica said.

‘When you’ve finished, I’ll let the boy go.’

‘And me?’

He lowered the rifle so that it was pointing at the makeshift desk.

‘Just write.’

Veronica gazed at the empty sheet of paper, then she began to write.

Aron’s eyesight was good; if he leaned forward slightly he could read her confession.

‘You’d put the mat under the bathroom door earlier on, and then you jerked it away …’ he said. ‘What happened next?’

Veronica looked down at her hands. ‘I couldn’t hear anything from the bathroom, so I left. No one saw me.’

Silence fell inside the mill. Veronica was still holding the pen, and Vlad was staring at her from behind Aron’s eyes.

‘Carry on writing,’ he ordered. ‘I want you to admit that you refused to help my wife, Ludmila Jegerov, who was seriously ill, in spite of the fact that we asked you for help several times. I want everything written down and signed.’

It was overcast and windy outside, and Jonas fled from the mill as fast as he could. He ran along a narrow path between the trees and undergrowth. It was almost evening now, and he slipped several times on the damp grass but immediately got back on his feet and carried on going. The ropes had chafed his hands and legs, but he was free now.

He could feel the wind off the Sound in his face, and it drew him onwards. Juniper bushes whipped at his arms, tangled hazel branches scratched his face, but he gritted his teeth and forced his way through. He was free, and he just wanted to get away from the tall, black monster behind him – the windmill.

He had no intention of abandoning Casper and Aunt Veronica, but he had to get help from someone. The police, anyone.

The trees began to thin out. He put his head down and speeded up. Suddenly, something reached out towards him, something that grabbed his arm so firmly he was forced to stop dead. This wasn’t a juniper branch, this was a hand. A large hand, and it belonged to a man wearing a pulled-down cap. His gaze was penetrating.

‘Where are you off to?’

Jonas struggled to escape, but in vain, so in the end he gave up and said, ‘To the police.’

The grip on his arm relaxed slightly. The man pushed back his cap and looked at Jonas; he didn’t seem dangerous.

There was a movement behind them in the bushes, then came another voice: ‘Jonas?’

A quiet voice that Jonas recognized; it was Gerlof Davidsson. He emerged slowly from the undergrowth, leaning on his stick for support, and nodded to Jonas. At the same time, the other man let go of Jonas’s arm.

‘What are you doing here?’ Gerlof said.

Jonas jerked his head backwards, towards the clearing with the tall black tower. ‘He let me go.’

‘So you’ve been in the mill?’

Jonas nodded. His knees gave way and he felt sick.

‘Casper’s still there,’ he managed to gasp. ‘With the cairn ghost. And Aunt Veronica … She wanted him to let Casper go, but he chose me instead.’

Gerlof nodded as the other man helped Jonas to his feet.

‘The cairn ghost is called Aron Fredh,’ Gerlof said. ‘Is he still in the mill with your cousin and your aunt?’

‘Yes.’

‘What does he want? Do you know what he’s going to do with them?’

Jonas shook his head. ‘He’s got a big gun … and he said he wanted to talk to Aunt Veronica. He said she had to come to the mill on her own.’

Gerlof looked tired. ‘A confrontation.’ He glanced over towards the mill and asked quietly, ‘Exactly where are they sitting in there, Jonas? Can you remember? Are they downstairs, or up in the loft?’

‘Downstairs.’

‘Good. In the middle of the room, or by the wall?’

Jonas tried to think. ‘Me and Casper were sitting by the door. We were tied to chairs.’

‘And were you tied to the wall as well?’

Jonas shook his head. ‘He put ropes around our hands and our ankles.’

‘Good,’ Gerlof said, looking at the other man. ‘There is something we can do, John, but it’s a bit risky … There’s a trapdoor in the floor of the mill; it was used to drop heavy sacks of flour down on to the ground. If the boy is sitting on top of it, we can get him out. Veronica Kloss, too, perhaps.’

The other man adjusted his cap, frowning in the gathering twilight. He didn’t seem entirely happy with Gerlof’s plan. ‘How do we do that?’