The Rabbit Hunter

75

The dark-blue hull bounces through the waves and foaming water hits the cabin’s windshield. One of the fenders breaks free of its rope and rolls across the wet deck.

‘Hold the wheel,’ the captain tells Joona, leaving the cabin.

As its speed increases even further, coastguard vessel 311 starts to plane.

Through the streaked windshield Joona watches as the captain grabs the loose fender and ties it down. He lurches as the bow hits a large wave and water sprays over the railing, but manages to keep his balance, and makes his way back into the cabin, where he takes the wheel again.

The captain wears his long hair in a plait. He has tattoos all the way to his fingertips, and black eyeliner around his eyes. The rest of the crew seem delighted by his Captain Sparrow act, and call him Jack.

‘Can you get her up to thirty-five knots?’ Joona asks.

‘If I dig my spurs into her flanks,’ Jack replies, smiling to reveal his crooked teeth.

He speeds up. One of the crew claps his hands and lets out a whistle.

‘Jack,’ a muscular man calls out. ‘At this speed you’d better watch out for the coastguard.’

‘I’ve heard they can be pretty tough,’ the captain replies.

‘Not as tough as us!’ the others call back in chorus.

Joona smiles and looks out over the rough water.

Neither Oscar’s nor his girlfriend Caroline’s phone is in use, but Anja found Caroline’s last Instagram post. She’d taken a picture of herself looking sulky, with the caption ‘Quality time’.

In the picture she’s leaning against a stack of grey pallets, and behind her is a red Department of Transport sign with information about Stavsnäs jetty.

Anja quickly discovered that Oscar’s half-brother owns a small house in the outer archipelago, not far from Stavsnäs.

‘I understand that it’s something of an honour to be giving you a lift,’ the captain says, glancing at Joona.

The engines make the deck vibrate. They swerve around a cluster of rocky outcrops and find themselves rolling as the waves hit the side of the boat. Water breaks over the deck.

The captain points towards a greyish-black island, barely visible in the darkness.

‘Bullerön isn’t just another island... it used to be owned by Bruno Liljefors, the painter, but he sold it to newspaper magnate Torsten Kreuger, and during his time guests like Zarah Leander, Errol Flynn and Charlie Chaplin all came out here, to this little island, which is pretty much nothing but rock. You can walk across it in half an hour — makes you wonder what on earth they did out here, doesn’t it?’ Jack says.

As they approach the island the captain slows their speed.

There are no lights on the island. The waves crash on the steep rocks as gnarled trees bow in the wind.

‘Are we allowed to know what you’re expecting to find out here?’ the captain asks.

‘I’m looking for someone I need to question,’ Joona replies.

They enter the public marina. The captain puts the boat in reverse, but it still hits the pier with a scraping sound before they come to rest.

‘This person — is he dangerous?’ Jack asks.

‘He’s probably scared,’ Joona replies.

‘Should I come with you?’

‘Bring your pistol.’

The two men jump ashore and Jack fastens his holster around his hips as they head across the rocks. It’s much darker on the island than it was on the open water. The waves crash regularly against the rocks, as the gulls make their plaintive cries.

The house, once a simple fisherman’s cottage, lies in a south-facing inlet some distance from the other buildings.

Against the night sky the façade looks black at first, like dried blood, but as they get closer they can see that it’s actually a traditional red wooden house extended to link up with a raised boathouse.

The wind tugs at Joona’s clothes as he stops to check his weapon.

The house looks boarded up, as if preparing for a hurricane. The doors and windows have been barred from the outside.

Joona and the captain walk down towards the house. There’s grass growing from the gutters, and the gooseberry bushes are blowing in the strong wind.

There are some red buoys and floats by the side of the building. At the back of the house is an old frame with rusty hooks that looks like a football goalpost.

‘No one here,’ Jack says.

‘We’ll see,’ Joona replies in a low voice.

He wonders if Oscar and his girlfriend arrived by private boat, and whether they drove it into the boathouse like a garage.

The boathouse’s water entrance could be the only one that isn’t barred.

Joona slides down the rocks beside the boathouse, puts his face against the lowest planks in the wall and tries to see between the cracks.

When his eyes get used to the darkness, he sees swaying water.

‘There’s no boat in there,’ Joona declares, and starts to walk back up.

He passes a woodshed containing stacks of birch, sees the axe embedded in the block, and some large splinters of wood on the ground beside it.

He stops next to an ornately carved tool-shed. There’s sawdust in the cracks. Joona gestures to Jack to stand still, cautiously approaches the shed and goes inside.

Rows of tools hang neatly from the walls, and in the middle of the floor, next to a folded sawhorse, is a workbench with a handsaw on it.

‘I think they’re here,’ Joona says, pulling a crowbar from the wall.

‘Where?’ Jack asks.

‘In the house,’ Joona replies.

‘Doesn’t look like it.’

‘He nailed the doors and windows shut recently.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because the wind has been blowing from the west for a couple of days... Oscar sawed the timbers in here, then carried them to the house... Most of the sawdust has blown away, but not the pieces that were sheltered from the westerly wind, here in these cracks.’

‘OK,’ Jack says. ‘You’re right, there wouldn’t be any sawdust there if the wind had turned... but all the entrances are nailed shut from the outside. No one could be inside unless they’d been helped by someone standing out here.’

They go back to the house for another look. There’s some sawdust in a spider’s web below one of the barred windows. Joona tugs at the plank, then moves on around the corner. He stops in front of the kitchen door and sees that it opens inwards.

The plank nailed across it is purely for show.

He pushes the handle and tries to open the door.

It’s been nailed shut from the inside.

Oscar and Caroline put the plank across the door to make it look like the house was shut up, then went inside and sealed it from within.

Joona returns to the front of the house, picks up a crowbar in the tool-shed and walks down to the main entrance.