Echoes From the Dead

38

Gerlof had told the story of Nils Kant’s death in a series of slow whispers.

Julia had been forced to lean closer to him in order to hear. But she heard everything, right to the very end.

Now she sat there by his bed, stiff and mute. She does not look at Gerlof.

“This... happened?” she said after a long silence. “What you’ve just told me? It happened... Are you sure about that?”

Gerlof nodded slowly. “Pretty sure,” he whispered.

“Why?” said Julia. “How can you be sure?”

“Well... things Ljunger said to me... when he was waiting for me to freeze to death,” said Gerlof. “He said... this wasn’t just about getting Vera Kant’s money and land. He said it was about revenge too. But... revenge on whom? And who wanted revenge? I’ve been lying here thinking about it... and I could only come up with one person.”

Julia shook her head. “No,” she said.

“Why should Nils Kant be brought home... at all?” persisted Gerlof. “Not for Gunnar Ljunger’s sake. For Ljunger, Nils was more valuable over in South America... He was no danger to Ljunger there, and with each year that passed, Gunnar could get more land out of Vera... The Germans’ treasure was of no significance in comparison to all the land Gunnar could get his hands on.” He took a breath. “But somebody else wanted Nils home... and to let him almost get home to his mother before he was executed. It was to be a fitting punishment.”

Julia shook her head again, but there was no strength in the movement.

“Someone who helped out,” Gerlof went on. “Who helped Gunnar Ljunger and Martin Malm get the coffin to Öland, and who was there when it was opened and examined... Someone who could convince everyone that Nils’s body had come home. A reliable young policeman.”

Gerlof turned his head and looked toward the door.

Julia turned.

Lennart was back. He’d opened the door of Gerlof’s room without her noticing. He came in as if everything were perfectly normal.

“That was my boss on the phone again,” he told them. “They’ve finished their investigations up in Marnäs now, so I can get back to work when I...”

Lennart stopped, seeing their grim expressions.

“Has something happened?” he asked.

“We were talking... about the sandal, Lennart,” said Gerlof. “Jens’s sandal.”

“The sandal?”

“The one you borrowed from me,” said Gerlof. “Did you ever get a reply from your forensic technicians over on the mainland? Did they find anything on it?”

Lennart shook his head. “No,” he said. “No traces... They didn’t find anything.”

“You said you’d sent it,” said Julia, looking at him.

“You did send it, didn’t you?” said Gerlof. “I’m sure we can check... that they got it?”

“I don’t know... maybe,” said Lennart.

He was looking at Gerlof the whole time, but there was no anger in his eyes. No emotions at all. His face was pale, and he slowly lifted his hands and placed them on the back of the chair.

“One thing I was wondering about, Lennart...” said Gerlof. “When did you actually meet Gunnar Ljunger for the first time?”

Lennart looked down at his hands. “I don’t remember,” he said.

“Don’t you?”

“It must have been... ’61 or ’62.” His spoke in a monotone. “In the summer, when I’d just joined the police in Marnäs. He’d had a break-in at his restaurant in Långvik... and I went to take a statement. We started talking.”

“About Nils Kant?”

Lennart nodded. He wouldn’t look at Julia.

“Among other things,” he said. “Ljunger knew... He’d found out I was the son of the district superintendent who’d been shot. A few weeks later he called me. He asked me to come and see him again. He wanted to know if I was interested in trying to find Kant, to entice him back home, so we could bring him to justice for what he’d done to my father...”

Lennart stopped speaking.

“What did you say to him?”

“I said I was interested,” replied Lennart. “I would help him, and he would help me. It was a business arrangement.”

Gerlof nodded slowly. “Did it come to an end a few days ago?” he said quietly. “At Marnäs police station? Were you afraid he’d start telling your colleagues things about you? Who was actually holding the gun, Lennart... the one Gunnar Ljunger was shot with?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“A business arrangement,” said Julia quietly.

She looked out of the window. She could see the twilight out there, but this time, she wasn’t thinking of the twilight.

She was thinking about the fact that Martin Malm had got money for new ships.

And that Gunnar Ljunger had acquired lots of cheap land to sell at a high price.

And that Lennart Henriksson, the man she had come to believe she was in love with, had finally got his revenge on Nils Kant.

All at the price of her son’s life.

“It was just an arrangement,” Lennart told them. “I would help Ljunger and Martin Malm with certain things... And they would help me.”

“So you met in the fog on the alvar... that day,” said Gerlof.

“Ljunger called me that morning and said they were going to the memorial cairn,” said Lennart. “We were to meet there. But I was delayed, and by the time I got there everything had gone terribly wrong... Martin Malm was lying on the ground, covered in blood. Kant had hit him with a shovel. Malm never really recovered... He had his first brain hemorrhage just a few days later.”

“And my Jens?” said Julia in a low voice.

“It was an accident, Julia. I didn’t see him...” said Lennart, his voice thick; he still wouldn’t look at her. “When Kant was dead, we found... we found the little body underneath the car. He didn’t... have time to get away when I ran over Kant...”

He fell silent.

“Where did you bury him?” asked Gerlof.

“He’s down in the churchyard, in Kant’s grave.” Lennart was speaking like someone forced to recall a terrible dream. “We took the boy’s body and Kant’s up there in the darkness. We put a bell on the church gate so we’d hear if anybody came along, and lifted the turf. We put the earth on a tarpaulin. Then we dug half the night. Martin Malm, Ljunger, and me. All three of us... we dug and dug. It was dreadful.”

Julia squeezed her eyes shut.

By a stone wall, she thought. My Jens is buried by the stone wall surrounding Marnäs churchyard, murdered by a man filled with hatred — just as Lambert had said.

She took a deep breath.

“But before you buried Jens,” she said, her eyes closed and her voice faint, “you came down to Stenvik that evening and helped look for him. You led the search for the boy you’d killed... my son... And then you drove around pretending to search on the alvar, so you could get rid of any traces you’d left behind.”

“But it hasn’t been easy,” he said quietly, still not looking at her. “I just want to say that, Julia, it hasn’t been easy keeping quiet. This autumn, when you came back... I really wanted to help you. I tried... I wanted to forget everything that happened twenty years ago. I wanted you to forget too.” He stopped, then added, “I really thought it was going to work.”

“So Nils Kant is really lying in his coffin,” said Gerlof.

Lennart nodded. “I haven’t spoken to Gunnar Ljunger for many years. Not about this... I had no idea what he was intending to do to you, Gerlof.”

He let go of the back of the chair and turned slowly around; once again he looked just as exhausted as the first time she’d seen him, at the quarry, the day she found the body of Ernst Adolfsson. Perhaps even more exhausted.

“One thing I can say... shooting Ljunger felt better than taking revenge on Nils Kant,” he said.

Lennart opened the door and left the room.

Gerlof breathed out in the silence of his hospital room.

He looked at his daughter. “I’m... sorry, Julia,” he whispered. “So terribly sorry.”

She nodded and met his gaze, tears pouring down her face.

At that moment Julia felt she could see what Jens would have looked like as an adult. She could see it in Gerlof’s face.

They would have been very much alike, grandfather and grandson. Jens would have had big, slightly sad eyes, thoughtful furrows in his broad forehead, and a wise, understanding gaze that could see both darkness and light in the world.

“I love you, Dad.”

She took Gerlof’s hand and held it tightly.