Echoes From the Dead

37

“How are you feeling?” asked Gerlof quietly from his hospital bed.

Lennart shrugged his shoulders wearily. “Not so bad. I should have been more alert.” He sighed heavily. “I should have realized what he intended to do.”

“Don’t think about it anymore, Lennart,” said Julia from the other side of Gerlof’s bed.

“He fooled me. He’d sat down, and I thought he’d given up... but then he hurled himself forward and threw me against the desk and ripped open the holster. I wasn’t prepared.” He sighed and touched the thick bandage on his forehead. “I’m too old, my reactions are too slow. I should have—”

“Don’t think about it, Lennart,” said Julia again, this time more firmly. “It was Ljunger who hurt you, not vice versa.”

Lennart nodded, but seemed unconvinced.

Gunnar Ljunger’s first shot had only hit the wall of the police station, but Lennart had banged his head on the edge of the desk during the desperate struggle for his service revolver. He had several stitches in his forehead now, binding up the gash underneath the bandage.

Lennart and Julia were now sitting on either side of Gerlof’s bed in the hospital at Borgholm. It was late afternoon, and a deep-yellow autumn sun was splashing its final light over the town outside the window.

Gerlof hoped the visit wouldn’t last too long; all he really wanted to do was to be alone. To sleep. He had no strength to talk or to get out of bed.

He still didn’t remember much about the last few days. Presumably he wouldn’t have survived without the rapid response of the emergency medical crew. He had been in critical condition for two days. Then he had finally improved and become more stable, and on the fourth day he had been taken by ambulance to the hospital in Borgholm.

There was more privacy there than in Kalmar, and Gerlof had his own room on the second floor with a view of Slottskogen and the houses of Borgholm. Julia and Lennart had come to visit him; it was the fifth day since Ljunger’s attempt to kill him on the shore outside Marnäs.

“This is the fifth time in five days I’ve been to see you, Dad,” Julia told him. “But it’s the first time you’ve been awake.”

Gerlof merely nodded tiredly.

His left arm was in a splint and bandaged after his fall onto the sand. One foot was in a cast. A tube leading from a bag of some kind of nutrient solution was attached to a needle in his arm; another tube was attached to a catheter; and he was lying under a double layer of blankets — but he still felt better than the previous day. His temperature had slowly but surely gone down.

Gerlof tried to sit up so that he could see Julia and Lennart, and his daughter quickly got up and slipped an extra pillow behind his back.

“Thank you.”

His voice was very weak, but he could talk.

“How are you feeling today, Dad?” she asked.

Gerlof slowly raised his right thumb toward the ceiling. He coughed and inhaled laboriously.

“At first they thought I had... pneumonia.” He took a ragged breath, then said, “But this morning... they said I’ve only got bronchitis. And they’re pretty sure I’ll... be able to keep both feet.” He coughed, then added, “I’d like to do that.”

“You’re tough, Gerlof,” said Lennart.

Gerlof nodded at the big policeman. “Gunnar Ljunger... said the same thing.”

Lennart’s pager suddenly bleeped from his belt. “Not again...”

The policeman sighed wearily. He glanced down at the display.

“Looks as if my boss wants to talk to me again, the questions are never-ending... I’d better go and call him. Back soon.”

Lennart smiled at Julia, who smiled back and nodded toward the bed.

“Don’t run away, Gerlof,” he added.

Gerlof nodded slowly back at him, and Lennart closed the door.

There was silence in the sickroom, but for once it wasn’t an uncomfortable or menacing silence. There was nothing that really needed to be said. Julia placed her hand on Gerlof’s coverlet and leaned forward.

“Everybody sends their love,” she said. “Lena called from Gothenburg last night; she’s coming soon. And Astrid sends her love, too. John and Gösta came to see you yesterday, but they said you were asleep. So everybody you know is thinking about you.”

“Thank you.” Gerlof coughed again. “And how... are you feeling?”

“Fine,” said Julia quickly. “I’ve been spending some time with Lennart over the past few days, up at his house in the pine forest — it’s lovely there. Although of course he’s had to spend most of his time sitting writing a load of reports, or he’s had to be down in Borgholm... so I haven’t been able to do a great deal for him. I’ve spent most of my time sitting in the next room, worrying about you.”

“I’ll... be fine,” whispered Gerlof.

“Yes. I know that now,” his daughter said. “And so will I.”

Gerlof coughed and went on: “You’re feeling strong, then?”

“Sure.” Julia smiled, as if she didn’t really understand what he meant. “I’m much stronger, anyway.”

“I’ve been thinking...” Gerlof said. “I’m not sure... but I think I know how it all happened now.”

Julia started to shiver.

“All of it?” she asked.

“All of it,” whispered Gerlof. “Do you want to know... what happened to Jens?”

“Did Ljunger tell you exactly what happened, Dad?”

“He said... a few things. Not everything, I suspect. So part of what happened... I’ve only guessed. But it’s... not a happy ending, Julia. The ending is just the way it is. Do you want to know?”

Julia found she was holding her breath. Did she really want to know?

“Tell me,” she said.

“Do you remember, when you came to Öland I said... that the murderer might be tempted to turn up... to look at Jens’s sandal?”

Julia nodded. “But he didn’t come.”

Gerlof looked over at the sun setting above the trees outside the window. He wished he were a little boy listening to the spine-chilling stories in the twilight hour, instead of being old and having to tell them himself.

“I think he did,” he said. “The murderer came to us... even if you and I didn’t see him.”