The Dead Of Summer

GOTSKA SANDÖN, THE NIGHT OF 22 JULY, 1985

THE SEARCH FOR Tanya went on all night. At the campsite, every single person turned out to help find the missing young woman. The core group of the Folklore Society on the island had gathered a number of people together and gone out in their own vehicle. In all, a hundred people took part, organized into different search parties that left from the campsite. The police would arrive as soon as it was light.

Vera was in the group searching on the western side. She felt numb, moving mechanically, staring at the ground, shining her torch into crevices and groves of trees. She wanted to find her sister, and yet she didn’t. The dread got worse with every step. Oleg and Sabine walked hand in hand about ten yards ahead of her, seeking support and solace from each other. She was locked out. The injustice of it all burned inside her. As if it was her fault. Her parents were punishing her by closing themselves off in their own bubble, and she was not allowed to enter. They were so focused on the search for their younger daughter that they hardly even noticed Vera. She continued doggedly on, shouting until she was hoarse, walking without a pause across the forest floor, the beaches and the rocky cliffs.

Suddenly she tripped over an invisible tree root on the ground. Then she lay on the ground in the dark, sobbing. She didn’t have the energy to get up. She had a horrible feeling she was never going to see her little sister again. Maybe it didn’t matter whether she got up. What she really wanted to do was to walk right out into the sea and let herself drown. Just disappear.

‘What’s the matter?’

The man appeared out of nowhere and leaned over her. At first she was scared, but she calmed down as soon as she saw the look in his eyes.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘OK.’

He switched to English. He wanted to know if she was OK and offered to help. He didn’t know who she was, probably assumed she was just an ordinary summer visitor who was taking part in the search for the missing young woman. He helped Vera to her feet. They were standing in the middle of the woods, utterly alone. The others had already moved on. The moon was spreading a pale light that trickled through the trees and cast ghostlike shadows.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.

‘No, I’m OK.’ She brushed off the dirt that was clinging to her clothes.

‘Are you cold?’

She shook her head.

‘Where are you from? Germany?’

‘Yes, Hamburg. We got here a few days ago. It’s my sister who’s missing.’

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just put his arm around her shoulders.

‘Are you able to keep searching?’

‘Sure. Of course.’

Silently, they walked side by side. He didn’t ask any questions, and she was grateful for that. It just felt comforting to walk next to somebody.

The hours passed, and every once in a while they would sit down to rest. He’d brought along a rucksack containing water and biscuits. The sun started coming up, and then it was time to head back to camp.

When they arrived, people had begun to gather, coming from every direction. More police had arrived, with dogs on leads, and they were in the process of organizing another search. Oleg and Sabine were nowhere in sight.

‘You need to rest,’ said her new-found friend. ‘Which cabin are you staying in?’

‘I don’t want to go there.’

The thought of sleeping in a room that she had shared with Tanya horrified her.

‘Would you like to come with me?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

They walked past the tents. Vera could feel everyone staring at her. None of the police officers seemed to know who she was.

They quickly passed the crowd. He was holding her by the arm and leading her away from the Folklore Society cottages. They stopped in front of a red-painted wooden house with white trim at the edge of the settlement. Vera was so tired she could hardly stand up.

A narrow stairway led up to the top floor. He made her hot chocolate and several sandwiches, which he coaxed her to eat. They sat across from each other at the little table. He looked out of the window.

‘There’s the police helicopter.’

Vera couldn’t bring herself to reply.

THE MUSEUM WAS deserted when Jacobsson went in. It consisted of only two rooms. One of them housed displays of objects from the sea and the island, with texts describing their history. The other room was used as a library. Along the wall were rows of books about Gotska Sandön, the lighthouses and the fisheries. On a table stood file folders with different labels: the lighthouse-keepers’ diaries, newspaper clippings from various periods, general facts. Jacobsson leafed through them and was again struck by how little she’d known before coming here. She sat down and began going through the folders. From the lighthouse-keepers’ diaries she learned what a hard life it must have been for them, and she was shocked by the large number of ships that had gone down in the vicinity over the years. There was even a cemetery on the island, near Franska Bukten, where Russian sailors had been buried after their ship sank.

Suddenly she caught sight of a folder with the title ‘Crimes on the Island’. The first page showed newspaper clippings from the early twentieth century, when a lighthouse-keeper’s assistant was suspected of murdering the lighthouse-keeper by pouring arsenic into his box of macaroni. The pages continued with stories of burglaries, the plundering of wrecked ships, and a man who had heaved an enemy overboard during the crossing to the island.

An article about a missing young woman caught Jacobsson’s attention. The text described the search for a German woman who had disappeared in the 1980s after an outing with her sister at Franska Bukten, where the two young women had spent the night. The family had notified the police the following evening, and a patrol had come over the next morning. A search party was organized, but without result. The headline of the next article announced: ‘Missing woman found dead.’ Jacobsson read with growing interest. A police helicopter had flown over the island, and that was when Tanya Petrov’s body was found in the water a short distance out in Franska Bukten.

At first the theory was that her death was an ordinary drowning accident. Then came a series of articles recounting how the story had developed. It was discovered that the woman hadn’t drowned at all. She’d been murdered, and then her body was thrown into the water. The post mortem showed that she was killed by a blow to the head delivered with a blunt instrument, that someone had gripped her throat in a stranglehold, and that she had most likely been raped. Jacobsson shivered as she read on. The police had put out a nationwide alert for a boat with two men, probably Stockholmers. According to the interview with the sister, the young women had met the men when they anchored their sailboat in Franska Bukten. They had partied together on the beach, and later the older sister had gone off to bed. In the morning her little sister and both men were gone, and the boat was too. Twenty-four hours later, the woman’s body was found in the water of Franska Bukten.

The evening newspapers couldn’t get enough of the story, reporting on the lives of the entire Petrov family, how the father had fled from the Soviet Union and created a new life for himself in the West. How Tanya was missed by her classmates, and how the sunny story of the happy family that was finally going to make their dream trip to Gotska Sandön had ended in a tragedy as black as night.

In spite of intensive investigative work, neither man had ever been found. The case was eventually shelved.

Jacobsson leafed through the rest of the folder, looking for more articles. What had happened to the family? She had a vague memory of hearing something about the case when it happened. She had some scattered images in her mind of the newspaper headlines and photographs of Gotska Sandön. That was even before she’d started at the Police Academy, in 1985.

She closed up the folder and left the museum with an uneasy churning in her stomach.