Echoes From the Dead

10

Gerlof didn’t reply to Julia’s question about Nils Kant. He simply pointed over her shoulder, toward the darkness outside the window.

“The Kant family lived just down here,” he said. “In the big yellow house. They’d been living there for a long time before we built this cottage.”

“I remember some old woman lived there when I was little,” said Julia.

“That was Nils’s mother, Vera,” said Gerlof. “She died at the beginning of the seventies. Before that she lived alone for many years. She was rich... her family owned a sawmill in Småland, and she owned a lot of land here along the coast, but I don’t think she ever got any pleasure from her money. I assume her relatives are still squabbling about what’s left of their inheritance, because the house is just falling apart down there. Or maybe nobody dares live there.”

“Vera Kant...” said Julia. “I’ve just got a vague memory of her. She wasn’t very popular, was she?”

“No, she was too bitter for that, and she bore grudges,” said Gerlof. “If your grandfather had done her some injustice, she would hate your mother and you and your dog, for the rest of your life. Vera was stubborn and proud. When her husband died, she went straight back to her maiden name.”

“And she never went out in the village?”

“No, Vera was a recluse,” said Gerlof. “She spent most of her time sitting in her house, longing for her son.”

“So what did he do?” Julia asked again.

“A lot of things...” said Gerlof. “When he was young, people suspected that he’d drowned his little brother down by the shore. Evidently only Nils and his brother were there when it happened, and afterward Nils swore it was an accident... so we’ll never know the truth about that.”

“Were you friends? You and Nils?”

“No, no. He was a few years younger than me, and I soon left and went to sea. So I hardly ever ran into him when he was little.”

“And when he grew up?”

Gerlof almost smiled, but when it came to Nils Kant, there was nothing to smile about.

“Definitely not when he grew up,” he replied. “He left the village, as I said.” He raised his hand and pointed toward the narrow bookcase in the corner of the room. “There’s a book about Nils Kant over there. At least it’s partly about him. It’s on the third shelf down, it’s got a narrow yellow spine.”

Julia got up and went over to the shelves. She looked and finally pulled a book out from the third shelf. She read the title.

“Öland Crimes.”

She looked inquiringly at Gerlof.

“That’s it,” he said. “A colleague of Bengt Nyberg’s on the local paper wrote it a few years ago. Read it, it’ll fill you in on most things.”

“Okay.” She looked at the clock. “But not tonight.”

“No. Time for bed,” said Gerlof.

“I’d like my old room,” said Julia. “If that’s all right.”

It was. Gerlof chose the bedroom next door, the one he and Ella had shared for many years. Their old double bed was gone, but the new beds stood in the same spot. While Gerlof was in the bathroom, Julia made up one of them for him; making beds was something her father could no longer manage.

When Julia had finished and had gone into her own room, Gerlof undressed down to his long johns and T-shirt and got into bed. The mattress here was harder than he was used to nowadays.

He lay there for a while in the darkness thinking, but he no longer felt any more at home here in the cottage than he did in his room up at Marnäs. It had been a big step, admitting he was too old to manage on his own in Stenvik and moving up there, but perhaps it had been the right decision. At least he didn’t have to wash dishes and make his own coffee.

Gerlof listened to the wind in the trees for a while, then he fell asleep. And at some point during the night he dreamed he was lying on a bed of hard stones over in the quarry.

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 it — but a whisper made Ernst turn around.

“I killed them all.”

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 Marnäs, aren’t we?” she asked. “Back to the home?”

“Soon. Not just yet,” said Gerlof. “I thought we might have a 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 sixty-seven, or maybe sixty-eight. 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 white-haired, 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, “Goodness — have 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 cakes — nothing homemade, just four shop-bought 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, “but John 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 Långvik, 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 Marnäs 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 Marnäs.

“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 Långvik, 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 Marnäs.

“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 Marnäs 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. When you’ve lit the candle on your mother’s grave, go over to the left-hand wall of the church and have a look at the graves there.”

“Right. Why?” said Julia, pressing the button that opened the outside door of the residential home.

“You’ll know when you see it,” said Gerlof.