Echoes From the Dead

8

Julia had called Gerlof on Ernst Adolfsson’s phone and told him what had happened — that she’d found Ernst, where he’d been lying, and that he was dead.

Gerlof had understood what she was telling him, but had tried not to think or feel too much, but to concentrate almost entirely on listening to her voice. It sounded tense, of course, but not shaky. Julia was in control.

“So Ernst is dead,” said Gerlof. “Are you sure?”

“I’m a nurse,” said Julia.

“Have you called the police?”

“I rang the emergency number. They’re sending somebody. But they won’t need an ambulance for Ernst... It’s too late.” She stopped. “But the police are bound to come as well, even if it is an accident. He’s...”

“I’ll come down to you,” said Gerlof. He made the decision at the same moment as he spoke the words. “The police are sure to be there soon, but I’m coming, too. Sit down on Ernst’s sofa and wait for them.”

“Okay, I’ll wait,” said Julia. “I’ll wait for you.”

She still sounded calm.

They hung up, and Gerlof stayed where he was at his desk for a minute or two, gathering his strength.

Ernst. Ernst was dead. Gerlof allowed this fact to sink in. Up to now he’d had two close friends remaining in his life, John and Ernst. Now he had only one.

He picked up his cane and got up. He was utterly resolute, despite the fact that his rheumatism and his grief made it more difficult than ever to move. He went out into the corridor, heard laughter coming from the kitchen, and made his way there.

Boel was standing there with some new young girl who was clearly being instructed in how to use the dishwasher. They caught sight of Gerlof and Boel smiled at him, then she saw his face and her expression instantly became serious.

“Boel, I have to go to Stenvik. There’s been an accident. My best friend has died,” said Gerlof firmly. “Somebody will have to take me.”

He didn’t look away, and in the end Boel nodded. She didn’t like alterations to the routine, but this time she didn’t say anything about it.

“Wait two minutes and I’ll drive you,” she told him.

When they reached the northern turnoff for Stenvik leading down to the quarry, Gerlof raised his hand and pointed straight ahead.

“We’ll take the southern road,” he said.

“Whatever for?” said Boel. “You said you wanted to go to—”

“I have two friends in Stenvik,” said Gerlof. “One was Ernst. The other needs to be told what’s happened.”

She drove on; the southern turnoff soon appeared, with the CAMPSITE sign taped over to indicate that Stenvik’s campsite was closed for the season. It was John Hagman who had done that, despite the fact that there wasn’t much risk of anybody turning up with a tent or trailer in October.

The closed kiosk appeared, then the mini-golf course, where a middle-aged man in a green tracksuit was sweeping the track; he glanced shyly at their car as they drove past. It was Anders Hagman, John’s only son. Anders was a bachelor and very quiet, and Gerlof had hardly ever seen him wearing anything other than that scruffy tracksuit — perhaps he had several.

The track leading onto the campsite appeared.

“Here,” Gerlof told Boel. “It’s that house over there.”

He pointed to a small house beside the track, a low building with narrow windows that looked like some kind of guardhouse. A rusty old green VW Passat was parked outside the door, which meant John was at home.

Boel braked and stopped the car. Gerlof opened the door and climbed out, using his cane, and almost at the same moment the door of the small house opened. A short man in dark blue dungarees, his gray hair swept back and caught in a little knot at the back of his neck, came out onto the wooden steps in his stocking feet. It was John Hagman, who was always quick to come out and see who was visiting.

John and Anders Hagman ran the campsite together in the summer months. Anders mostly lived in Borgholm during the winter.

John stayed in Stenvik all year, and had to take care of the daily maintenance of the campsite when Anders wasn’t around. It was hard work for an old man — Gerlof would have helped him, if he hadn’t been even older than John.

Gerlof nodded to John, who nodded back, then pushed his feet into a pair of black Wellington boots standing on the steps.

“Gerlof?” said John as Gerlof walked over. “This is unexpected.”

“Yes. There’s been an accident,” said Gerlof.

“Where?”

“At the quarry.”

“Ernst?” said John quietly.

Gerlof nodded.

“Is he hurt?”

“Yes. It’s bad,” said Gerlof. “Very bad.”

John had known him for almost fifty years; they had kept in touch after their years together at sea. He seemed to understand exactly how bad it was from Gerlof’s expression alone.

“Is there someone with him?” he asked.

“There should be by now,” said Gerlof. “My daughter Julia was going to phone them. She’s there now. She came over from Gothenburg yesterday.”

“Right.” John stepped back into the house, and when he came out again he was holding a padded jacket and a bunch of keys. “We can take my car,” he said. “I’ll just go and have a word.”

Gerlof nodded, that would be good. Boel was bound to want to get back to the senior home, and it would be easier to talk to John if they were alone.

John went over to Anders, stopped in front of him, then pointed at the golf course and said something quietly. Anders shook his head. John pointed at him, and Gerlof could hear his raised voice. The Hagman father and son had a somewhat strained relationship, Gerlof knew that — they were too dependent on each other.

In the end Anders nodded, and John shook his head and turned his back on his son. They’d finished arguing.

As John was unlocking his own car, Gerlof made his way slowly over to Boel to thank her for the lift.

“So Ernst is dead, then,” said John behind the wheel.

“That’s what Julia thought,” said Gerlof beside him, looking out at the shore and the glittering water down below the coast road.

“A stone fell on him,” said John.

“A big stone. That’s what Julia said,” explained Gerlof.

There hadn’t been a serious accident for over sixty years in the quarry, he realized — but now that it was closed, Ernst had ended up underneath a stone.

“I brought the spare key,” said John. “In case they’ve taken him away.”

“Did he give you a key?” said Gerlof, who had never been entrusted with one by Ernst. On the other hand, he’d never given Ernst a spare key to his cottage either. Perhaps they hadn’t really trusted one another.

“Ernst knew I wouldn’t go snooping around,” said John.

“Maybe we should take a look around in there now, though,” said Gerlof. “I don’t really know what we’re supposed to be looking for. But we ought to look.”

“Yes,” said John. “It’s different now.”

Gerlof didn’t say anything else, just gazed ahead through the windshield, because there was an ambulance coming toward them along the coast road. Gerlof had never seen an ambulance in Stenvik before.

It was coming slowly along from the track to the quarry, and the dark blue lights on the roof were not flashing. This wasn’t a good sign, but it was what they’d expected. John slowed as the ambulance passed them, then they turned off onto the northern road into the village.

“His work sold really well last summer,” said John after a while. “We joked about it a bit, the fact that Ernst had more customers than I had fish in my nets.”

Gerlof merely nodded; there was nothing more to say right now. Ernst’s death still felt like a great weight resting on his shoulders.

John turned onto the narrow track leading to the plateau above the quarry, and Gerlof could see the tracks of several vehicles in the mud. Ernst’s and Julia’s cars were up ahead, and behind them two police cars and another private car, a shiny blue Volvo. Beside it stood a man wearing a cap, his camera resting on his stomach.

“Bengt Nyberg’s bought another new car,” said Gerlof.

“I suppose newspaper editors earn good money,” said John.

“Do they?” said Gerlof as John pulled up level with the sign CRAFT WORK IN STONE — WELCOME and switched off the engine.

Gerlof got out of the car with some difficulty; his limbs were stiff as usual, protesting at the unfamiliar movements. He balanced himself using his cane, straightened his back, and nodded at the local editor of Ölands-Posten for northern Öland, who was ambling toward them with his hand resting on his camera.

“The ambulance has taken him away,” said Nyberg.

“We know,” said Gerlof.

“I missed him too. I’ve taken a few pictures of the police and the big mark down there, but I don’t think we’ll be able to print them. The Borgholm office will decide, of course.”

It sounded as if he were talking about pictures of a car that had driven into a ditch, or a broken window. Bengt had always been insensitive, thought Gerlof.

“Best not to use them,” said Gerlof.

“Do you know who found him?” said Nyberg, pressing a button on the camera.

There was a whirring sound as the film rewound.

“No,” said Gerlof.

He began to walk slowly toward the edge of the quarry. Where was Julia?

“Go home and write your article, Bengt,” said John behind Gerlof.

“I’ll do that,” said Nyberg. “You’ll be able to read all about it tomorrow.”

He went over to his new car, got in, and started it up.

Gerlof kept walking past the house and the shed toward the quarry. When he was a few yards from the edge, a uniformed police officer came scrambling up from the quarry. He managed to get one leg up onto the edge, heaved himself up, then bent down to help another officer up, a younger colleague. Then he breathed out heavily and looked at Gerlof, who didn’t recognize either of them. The policemen must be from Borgholm, or from the mainland.

“Are you relatives?” asked the older officer.

“Old friends,” replied Gerlof. “His relatives live in Småland.”

The police officer nodded. “There isn’t much to see,” he said.

“Was it an accident?”

“A work-related accident,” said the police officer.

“He was moving a sculpture at the edge here,” said the younger officer, pointing at the cliff edge, where there was a small hollow in the gravel. “So he was standing here, and he must have grabbed hold of it. And then...”

“He slipped or stumbled and fell down, and it landed on top of him,” said the older one.

“It would have been very quick,” said the younger officer.

Gerlof took another step forward, leaning on his cane. He could see it now.

The church tower, Ernst’s biggest sculpture, was lying down in the quarry. You could clearly see where it had landed when it fell. There was a deep gash in the gravel down below.

A trace of Ernst. Gerlof looked quickly away, out over the quarry, but when he thought about how many gravestones and tombstones had been hacked out of this hillside over the years, he let his eyes gaze even further away, toward the shore and the water, and then he finally felt a little better.

Then he looked to the right along the edge of the cliff, where the other stone sculptures were lined up. Ernst had arranged them a few yards apart, but there was a wider space over there... Gerlof walked across.

Another sculpture had fallen down, a smaller one. He could see it down at the bottom of the quarry, a long oval shape that might have been some kind of egg or the head of a troll. Unlike the church tower, this sculpture had split into two pieces.

Gerlof turned away, slowly so that he wouldn’t lose his balance on the uneven gravel, and began to make his way to the house.

“Is Julia Davidsson still here?” he asked the police officers. They had stopped to look in Ernst’s shed, where hammers, wheelbarrows, and an old stone plane were jammed together with yet more sculptures of different sizes.

“She’s in there with Henriksson,” answered the older officer, pointing toward the house.

“Thank you.”

The door of the house was ajar, so John must have gone in. Gerlof made his way laboriously up the low wooden steps. He wiped his feet on the doormat. Then he pushed open the door.

Several pairs of outdoor shoes were in his way; Gerlof had to push them aside with his cane in order to get past. There was no question of bending down and taking off his own shoes; he kept them on and continued along the narrow hallway. Framed pictures of old quarrymen with picks and spades in their hands hung along the walls.

He could hear low voices up ahead.

John was standing by the window in the big room, looking out. Julia and another uniformed police officer were sitting on the sofa; he was an older man who had politely removed his cap.

Gerlof nodded to him. “Hello, Lennart.”

Lennart Henriksson had been a policeman for almost thirty-five years; he worked all over northern Öland, but lived in a house north of Marnäs, and had a local office by the harbor. His hair was gray, and he was slowly heading toward his pension. Normally his expression was rather listless and his broad shoulders were slumped in his uniform, but at the moment he was sitting up very straight next to Julia.

“Hello there, skipper,” Henriksson said to Gerlof.

“Hi, Dad,” said Julia quietly.

It was the first time in many years she’d used that word to him, so Gerlof knew she was unsettled. He slowly walked over and stood by the table.

“Would you like to sit down?” said Lennart.

“I’m fine, Lennart. I need a bit of exercise from time to time.”

“You’re looking well, Gerlof.”

“Thank you.”

There was a silence. Behind them John turned and left the room without a word.

“Julia was just telling me she’s your daughter,” said Lennart.

Gerlof nodded, and there was silence once again.

“Has the ambulance gone?” said Julia, looking at Gerlof.

“Yes... John and I passed it on the road.”

Julia nodded. “So he’s gone, then.”

“Yes.” He looked at Henriksson. “Was there a doctor?” he asked.

“Yes. A young one from Borgholm... I haven’t met him before. He just confirmed what had happened.”

“He said it was an accident?” said Gerlof.

“Yes. Then he left.”

“But he’d been lying out in the rain overnight,” said Gerlof.

“Yes,” said Lennart. “It must have happened yesterday evening.”

“So there wasn’t any blood,” said Gerlof. “I suppose all the traces had disappeared in the rain?”

He didn’t really know himself why he was asking these questions or where they might lead, but he presumed he wanted to make himself look important. The need to be important is perhaps the last thing that leaves us, he thought.

“He had blood on his face,” said Julia. “A little bit of blood.”

Gerlof nodded. Footsteps came clomping along the hallway, and the younger of the two police officers looked into the room.

“We’re done now, Lennart,” he said. “We’re off.”

“Fine. I think I’ll stay a little bit longer.”

“You’re the boss.”

There was something respectful in the younger officer’s voice, thought Gerlof. Perhaps the respect came from Lennart’s many years in service, or the fact that his father had been a policeman too, and had been killed in the course of his duty.

“Drive carefully,” said Henriksson; his colleague nodded and disappeared.

John was standing behind him holding a large brown leather wallet. He held it up to Gerlof and Julia and Henriksson.

“Three thousand two hundred and fifty-eight kronor, from selling the sculptures,” he said. “It was in the bottom drawer in the kitchen, underneath the plastic bags.”

“You look after it, John,” said Henriksson. “It would be stupid to leave that amount of money lying around here.”

“I can take it, until the family divide everything up,” said Gerlof, holding out his hand.

John seemed relieved to hand it over.

The room fell silent again.

“Right,” said Henriksson eventually. He leaned forward and got up from the sofa with some difficulty. “I suppose I’d better make a move too.”

“Thanks for...” Julia was still sitting on the sofa, searching for the right words. “... for taking the time.”

“No problem.” Henriksson studied her. “It isn’t easy, being first on the scene of a fatal accident. It’s happened to me a few times over the years, of course. You feel quite... lonely. Powerless.”

Julia nodded. “But I feel better now.”

“Good.” Henriksson put his cap on. “I’ve got an office in Marnäs. You’re welcome to call if anything comes up.” He looked at John and Gerlof. “You too, of course. It’s open house, just pop in. Will you lock up here?”

“We will,” said Gerlof.

Lennart Henriksson nodded his goodbyes and left.

They heard a car engine start, then slowly fade into the distance.

“We’ll be on our way soon too,” said Gerlof to Julia. He pushed Ernst’s wallet into his pocket, then looked at John. “Can we go out for a minute?” he asked. “I just wanted to show you something... Something I noticed outside.”

“Shall I come with you?” said Julia.

“No need.”

John let Gerlof lead the way when they got outside. Leaning heavily on his cane, Gerlof went out onto the steps, down onto the gravel, and round the corner of the house toward the edge of the quarry.

“What are we going to look at?” asked John.

“It’s over here by the edge, something I noticed before I went inside... Here.”

Gerlof was pointing down into the quarry where the polished stone that looked like a big egg or a misshapen head lay, split into a larger and a smaller piece.

“You recognize it, don’t you?” he said to John.

John nodded slowly. “It was the one Ernst called ‘the Kant stone,’ ” he said. “As a joke.”

“It’s been pushed,” Gerlof went on. “Hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” agreed John. “It looks that way.”

“It was propped up behind the house last summer,” said Gerlof.

“It was standing here last week when I was here,” said John. “I’m sure of that.”

“Ernst pushed it over on purpose,” said Gerlof.

“You’re probably right.”

The old friends looked at each other.

“What are you thinking?” asked John.

“I don’t really know.” Gerlof sighed. “I don’t know. But I think Nils Kant might be back.”