The Darkest Room

25

“People worry too much nowadays,” said Gerlof. “I mean, these days people call out the lifeboat as soon as it gets a little bit choppy out there. In the old days people had more sense. If the wind got up when you were a long way out, it was no problem… you just carried on to Gotland, pulled the boat up onto the shore, then lay down underneath it and went to sleep, until the wind had blown itself out. Then you sailed home again.”

He fell silent, lost in thought after his last story. Tilda leaned over and switched off the tape recorder.

“Fantastic. Are you okay, Gerlof?”

“Yes. Sure.”

Gerlof blinked, and was back in the room.

They each had a small glass of mulled wine in front of them. The start of Christmas week had been heralded with wind and snow, and Tilda had brought a bottle with her as a present. She had warmed the sweet red wine out in the

kitchen and added raisins and almonds. When she brought the tray in, Gerlof had got out a bottle of schnapps and added a shot to each glass.

“So what are you doing on Christmas?” Gerlof asked when they had almost finished their drinks and Tilda was feeling warm right down to the tips of her toes.

“I’ll be celebrating quietly, with the family,” she said. “I’m going over to Mom’s on Christmas Eve.”

“Good.”

“And what about you, Gerlof? Would you like to come with me over to the mainland?”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll probably stay here and eat my Christmas rice pudding. My daughters have invited me to the west coast, but I can’t sit in a car for so long.”

They both fell silent.

“Shall we have one last go with the tape recorder?” said Tilda.

“Maybe.”

“But it’s fun to talk, isn’t it? I’ve found out so much about Grandfather.”

Gerlof nodded briefly. “But I haven’t told you about the most important part yet.”

“No,” said Tilda.

Gerlof seemed hesitant. “Ragnar taught me a great deal about the weather and the winds and fishing and sailing when I was a kid… all the important stuff. But when I got a little older, I realized I couldn’t trust him.”

“No?” said Tilda.

“I realized that my brother was dishonest.”

There was silence around the table once again.

“Ragnar was a thief,” he went on. “Nothing more than a thief. I can’t make it sound any better, unfortunately.”

Tilda thought about switching off the tape recorder, but left it running.

“So what did he take?” she asked quietly.

“Well, he stole everything he could, by and large. He

went out at night sometimes and stole eels from others’ tanks. And I remember one time… when the manor house at Eel Point was having new drainpipes put in. There was a box left over, sitting out in the courtyard, until Ragnar stole it. He didn’t actually need drainpipes at the time, but he had keys to the lighthouses, so he put the box in there, and I’m sure it’s there to this day. It wasn’t the need that was important to him, it was the opportunity, I think. He always kept an eye open for something that was left unlocked or unwatched.”

Gerlof was leaning forward; it seemed to Tilda that he was speaking more intensely than ever.

“But surely you must have stolen something yourself at some point?” she said.

Gerlof shook his head. “No, I haven’t, actually. I might have lied a little about my cargo prices sometimes, when I met up with other skippers in port. But fighting and stealing, those are things I’ve never done. I just think we should all help one another.”

“That’s the right attitude,” said Tilda. “We are the community.”

Gerlof nodded. “I don’t think about my older brother too often,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Well… he’s been gone for such a long time, after all. Many, many years. The memories have faded… and I have allowed them to fade.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

The silence hung in the room, before Gerlof replied:

“It was at Ragnar’s little farm, in the winter of 1961. I went out there, because he was refusing to answer the telephone. We quarreled… or rather, we stood and glared at each other. That was our way of quarreling.”

“About what?”

“We quarreled about our inheritance,” said Gerlof. “Not that it helped, but…”

“What inheritance?”

“Everything my mother and father left.”

“What happened to it?” said Tilda.

“A lot disappeared. But it was Ragnar who took it, he did himself proud on it…My brother was a real shit, in fact.”

Tilda looked at the tape recorder, but couldn’t come up with a suitable response.

“Ragnar was a shit, toward me at any rate,” Gerlof went on, shaking his head. “He emptied our parents’ place in Stenvik, sold most of the contents of the house, sold the house to people from the mainland and kept the profit for himself. And he refused to discuss it. He would just stare coldly at me…It was just impossible to get anywhere with him.”

“Did he take everything?” said Tilda.

“I got a few mementos, but Ragnar took the money. Presumably he thought he would be better at taking care of it.”

“But… wasn’t there anything you could do?”

“Sue him, you mean?” said Gerlof. “That isn’t the way we do things here on the island. We become enemies instead. Even brothers, sometimes.”

“But…”

“Ragnar helped himself,” Gerlof went on, “he was the eldest brother after all. He took what he wanted first, then shared with me if he felt like it… so we parted on bad terms, in the fall before he froze to death in the storm.” Gerlof sighed. “‘Let brotherly love continue’ it says in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, but it isn’t always that easy… Of course, that’s the sort of thing I end up thinking about these days.”

Tilda looked at the tape recorder again with a regretful expression. Then she switched it off.

“I think… I think it might be best if I delete this last part. Not because I think you’re lying, Gerlof, but…”

“Fine by me,” said Gerlof.

When Tilda had put the tape recorder away in its black case, he said, “I think I know how it works now. Which buttons you have to press.”

“Good,” said Tilda. “You obviously have a talent for technology, Gerlof.”

“Might you be able to leave it here? Until we see each other again?”

“The tape recorder?”

“Just in case I feel like talking into it some more.”

“Sure.” Tilda passed over the case. “Talk as much as you want. There are a couple of blank tapes you can use.”

When she got back to the police station, the light on the answering machine was flashing. She started to listen to the message, but when she heard Martin’s voice she sighed and pressed Delete.

It was time he gave up.