Echoes From the Dead

18

Lennart didn’t call.

Julia sat there waiting in the summer cottage for several hours. It got to eight-thirty on Tuesday evening, then nine o’clock, but he never rang.

By this time Julia had finished off the bottle of red wine; it wasn’t difficult. And the temptation to go inside Vera Kant’s house had become so obsessive that it didn’t actually matter whether Lennart turned up or not.

She thought about phoning Gerlof and telling him what she was intending to do, but decided against it. She couldn’t do any more packing or cleaning to make the time pass. She was restless and curious.

Darkness and silence pressed against the walls of the cottage. At a quarter to ten Julia finally stood up, slightly tipsy, but more determined than drunk.

She put an extra sweater on under her coat, and thick socks. There was an old brown woolly hat in the wardrobe by the front door; she tucked her hair inside it and glanced at herself in the hall mirror. Had the furrows of anxiety etched on her forehead smoothed out slightly since her conversation with Lennart?

Maybe — or then again, it could be the wine.

She put her cell phone in her pocket, picked up the old paraffin lamp, and switched off the light in the cottage. She was ready.

Just a quick look.

The evening had turned clear and cold, with only a faint breeze in the trees. When she came out onto the village road, the darkness closed around her instantly, but she could see glimmering points of light on the mainland.

She stopped after a few moments, listening for noises among the shadows: rustling leaves or creaking branches. But there wasn’t a sound — nothing was moving.

Stenvik was deserted. The gravel crunched faintly beneath her feet as she made her way down to Vera Kant’s house.

There she stopped again. The gate glowed pale and white in the moonlight, and it was closed as usual. Julia slowly reached out and touched the cold iron latch. It was rough with rust, and was stuck fast.

She pushed. The gate groaned slightly, but didn’t open. Perhaps the hinges had rusted up.

Julia put the paraffin lamp on the gravel, stood close to the gate with both hands on the top, and lifted it up and inward. It moved a few inches before sticking again. But now she could squeeze through the opening.

The intoxication from the wine was holding her fear of the dark at bay, but only just.

The garden was surrounded by tall trees and was full of black shadows. Julia stood still, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. Slowly she began to discover details in this new darkness: a winding path made of limestone slabs that led further into the garden like a silent invitation, a round well lid beside the path, covered in leaves and patches of black mold, and overgrown grass everywhere. On the far side of the well stood a rectangular woodshed, the roof of which seemed to be on the very edge of collapse, like a badly erected tent.

Julia took a tentative step into the dark garden. And another. She listened, then took a third step. It was getting more and more difficult to move forward.

Her cell phone suddenly started bleeping; the ringtone made her heart jump. She hastily pulled the phone out of her coat pocket, as if it might disturb someone or something in the darkness, and pressed the reply button.

“Hello?”

“Hello... Julia?”

It was Lennart’s calm voice on the other end.

“Hi,” she said, making an effort to sound sober. “Where are you?”

“I’m still in the meeting. And we’re not quite finished yet... it went on a bit. But I was thinking of going straight home afterward.”

“Okay,” she said, taking a couple more steps along the path. Now she could see one corner of Vera Kant’s house. “That’s fine. At least I know...”

“It’s just that it’s the funeral tomorrow, and I have to put in a few hours’ work before that,” Lennart went on. “I don’t really think I can manage to get to Stenvik tonight...”

“No, I understand,” said Julia quickly. “We can do it some other time.”

“Are you outdoors?” asked Lennart.

There was no hint of suspicion in his voice, but Julia was still tense as she came out with the lie in a relaxed voice:

“I’m just out on the ridge. I’m taking a little evening stroll.”

“Oh, right... Will I see you tomorrow? In church?”

“Yes... I’ll be there,” said Julia.

“Fine,” said Lennart. “Good night, then.”

“Good night... sleep well,” said Julia.

Lennart’s voice vanished with a click. Julia was completely alone once more.

Half a dozen steps in front of her, the path came to an end at the bottom of a flight of broad stone steps, leading up to a white wooden door and a glassed-in veranda decorated with ornate carvings that the wind and rain had done their best to splinter and wear away.

The house loomed above Julia. The black windows made her think of the burnt-out ruined castle she’d seen that morning in Borgholm.

Are you there, Jens?

Not even the darkness could disguise the state of decay. The panes of glass on either side of the front door were cracked, and the paint was flaking off the window frames.

The veranda inside was pitch-black.

Julia walked slowly to the end of the path. She listened. But who was she actually creeping up on? Why had she almost whispered when she was talking to Lennart on the telephone?

She realized how ridiculous it was to try and be quiet when nobody could hear — but still she couldn’t relax. She went up the stone steps with stiff legs, her heart pounding.

She tried to reason like Jens, feel as Jens would have if he’d been here the day he disappeared. If he’d gone into Vera Kant’s garden — had he been brave enough to go up the steps to the front door, and knock? Perhaps.

The iron handle on the door to the veranda was pointing downward, as if someone were just opening it from the inside. Julia assumed it was locked and didn’t even bother reaching out for the handle — until she realized the door was slightly ajar. A piece of wood had been hacked or whittled out of the doorframe so that the barrel of the lock had nothing to click into. All someone had to do was open the door and walk in.

So somebody had broken into Vera Kant’s house.

Burglars, perhaps? They came out to rural areas in the winter so that they could work undisturbed in the empty summer cottages. An abandoned property that had belonged to one of the richest women in northern Öland was bound to have been of interest to them.

Or was it someone else?

Julia reached out silently and pulled at the door. It didn’t move, and when she looked down she could see why. A small wooden wedge had been pushed under the door.

Presumably somebody had put it there so that the door wouldn’t be battered by the wind, with the lock being broken. Would a burglar be so considerate?

No.

Julia nudged the wedge out with her foot and pulled at the handle again. The hinges were stiff, but the door opened.

The darkness inside made her feel even more nervous, but she couldn’t turn back now. Curiosity killed the cat.

But the person who had put the wedge there had done it from the outside, so they weren’t still inside the house. Unless of course there was another way out.

Julia walked across the threshold of Vera Kant’s house.

It felt even colder inside than outside, and as dark and still as in a cave. She couldn’t see a thing, and then she remembered that she was carrying the paraffin lamp.

She took a box of matches out of her pocket, struck one, and lifted the glass. The broad wick began to burn with a small, flickering flame, which grew bigger and brighter when Julia lowered the glass over it. There was enough light to illuminate the empty veranda with a thin gray glow, even though the darkness remained, in the form of shadows creeping around the corners of the room.

She raised the lamp and made her way through the veranda toward the inside door. It was closed but not locked, and Julia opened it.

Vera’s hallway. It was narrow and long, with flowery wallpaper faded by the sun, and it was just as empty as the veranda. Julia wouldn’t have been surprised to find a hall stand with Vera’s black coats still hanging there, or a row of narrow ladies’ shoes, but the floor was completely bare. Along the walls and from the ceiling hung white curtains made of cobwebs.

There were four doors leading off the hallway. They were all closed.

She reached out for the nearest door along the long wall, and opened it.

The room inside was small, only a few square yards, and completely empty except for some glass jars on the floor, containing something moldy. A storeroom for cleaning materials.

She closed the door carefully, and opened the next one.

This was Vera’s kitchen, and it was huge.

Julia could see a brown linoleum floor that changed to polished stone in the center of the room, where an enormous black iron stove stood resplendent against the wall. Straight ahead were two big windows looking out from the back of the house, and Julia knew that the summer cottage lay behind the trees, just a few hundred yards away. It made her feel less alone, and gave her the courage to step into the room.

To the left along the wall, a narrow, steep wooden staircase with a rickety banister led to the upper floor. A faint smell of rotting vegetation hung in the dark, motionless air. Dust and dead flies lay in drifts on the floor.

This is where Vera Kant must have stood in the evenings, bending over her steaming pots and pans. This was the room Nils Kant had left with his shotgun hidden in his rucksack one beautiful summer’s day after the war.

I’ll be back, Mother.

Had he promised her that?

There was a half-open door under the stairs, and when Julia took a couple of silent steps toward it, she saw a steep drop on the other side.

It was the staircase down into the cellar. The cellar would be a good place to start if she was looking for...

A dead body, hidden away. But she wasn’t. Was she?

Just a quick look.

Julia could feel the weight of her cell phone in her pocket. Lennart’s number was in the memory, and she could ring him any time she wanted to — some small consolation.

She leaned in through the doorway under the stairs, holding the paraffin lamp up in front of her.

The staircase leading underground was made of rough-hewn planks of wood. At the foot of the steps below was a hard-packed earth floor, black and moist and glistening in the glow of the lamp.

But — something was wrong.

Julia went down a couple of steps so that she could see more clearly. She bent her head to avoid catching it on the sloping ceiling, and stared downward.

The earth floor in the cellar had been dug up.

The patch at the bottom of the steps had been left untouched, but somebody had made little holes all over the place along the stone walls. And there was a spade leaning against the staircase, as if the person who’d been digging had just gone for a short break.

Patches of dried mud from a pair of boots led up the cellar stairs toward her.

Earth was piled up in a little heap along the wall, and a couple of full buckets stood a little further away. Somebody was in the process of methodically digging up the entire cellar.

What was going on?

Julia moved backwards up the stairs. She moved as noiselessly as she could until she was back in the kitchen, holding her breath while she listened, her heart thudding in her ears.

Everything was still silent.

She could phone Lennart now — but she didn’t want to be heard, or seen.

She reached carefully into her pocket and took out her cell phone. She started to walk across the kitchen taking small steps, switching on the cell phone and retrieving Lennart’s number from the memory as she did so. Then she let her thumb rest on the call button.

If something happened, if...

She tried to convince herself that her son was with her in this dark house, even if he was dead, and that he wanted her to look for him. She kept on walking.

Piles of fluff swirled noiselessly away from her shoes and scuttled along the walls to hide as she walked across the linoleum in the kitchen, onto the stone floor and past the iron stove.

Then she went up the first flight of stairs to the upper floor, her heart pounding.

The wood creaked beneath her feet, but only faintly. Julia allowed her right hand, clutching the cell phone, to rest lightly on the banister so that she could feel the solid security of the wall, and continued moving upward, where the light of the paraffin lamp didn’t reach. When another stair creaked, she placed her foot on the one above instead.

It was utterly dark above her.

Halfway up the staircase she stopped, breathed out, and listened once more. Then she set off again.

The banister ended by an opening without a door, and Julia stepped cautiously onto the wooden floor of the upper story.

She was in a corridor, just as narrow as the hallway downstairs, and with a closed door at either end.

Fear and indecisiveness made her stop once more.

Right or left? If she stood still for long, it would be impossible to move, so she chose the left side of the corridor. It seemed less dark, somehow. She kept going, moving through yet more balls of fluff and the black corpses of flies.

Paler rectangles were visible on the walls — the traces of pictures that had once hung there.

She had reached the end of the corridor. She pushed open the door, holding the lamp in front of her.

The room inside was small and unfurnished, like the rest. But it wasn’t completely empty. Julia stepped inside and stopped when she saw a dark figure lying by the wall next to the room’s only window.

No. It wasn’t a person lying there, she could see that now. It was a sleeping bag, unrolled like a black cocoon. It was lying below a collection of newspaper cuttings stuck up on the wall.

Julia took another step forward. She saw that the cuttings were old and yellow, attached to the wallpaper with pins.

GERMAN SOLDIERS FOUND DEAD — EXECUTED WITH SHOTGUN was printed in black on one of them. On another:

POLICE KILLER HUNTED NATIONWIDE

And on a third, slightly less yellow:

BOY VANISHES IN STENVIK

In the slightly blurry picture beside the headline, a little boy smiled his carefree smile at her, and Julia was seized by the same feeling of despair that overwhelmed her every time she saw her son. There were more cuttings, but she didn’t stay to read them. She quickly looked away and backed out of the room.

Then she stopped. In the light of the paraffin lamp she saw that the door at the other end of the corridor was now open.

It had been closed before, she was certain of it, but now the threshold leading into the darkness of the room beyond was visible. This room wasn’t just dark, it was pitch-black.

And it wasn’t empty. Julia could feel that there was someone waiting in there. An old woman. She was sitting on a chair by the window.

This was her bedroom. A cold bedroom, full of loneliness and waiting and bitterness.

The woman was waiting for company, but Julia stood there in the corridor, rooted to the spot.

She heard a scraping noise from within the darkness. The woman had got up. She was moving slowly toward the door. Dragging footsteps were moving closer...

Julia had to get away. She had to get back downstairs.

Julia ran.

Onto the landing and then down.

She thought she could hear footsteps above her, and she felt the old woman’s cold presence behind her.

He deceived me!

Julia felt the hatred like a hard push in her back. She ran blindly forward in the darkness, missed the next step, and lost her balance, three or four yards above the stone floor.

Her arms flailed in the air, both the cell phone and the paraffin lamp went flying.

The lamp and the cell phone smashed onto the kitchen floor down below. Flames shot up from the paraffin — and Julia knew that she too would very soon land on the stone floor down below.

She gritted her teeth against the pain.