“So that… they won’t forget,” he said.
“Exactly,” said Mirja.
“Did you talk to Katrine about this wall?”
“Oh yes, way back in the summer. She was definitely interested… but I don’t know if she came up here.”
“I think she did,” said Joakim.
Mirja ran her fingers over the characters carved into the wood.
“When I found these names as a teenager, I read them over and over again,” she said. “And then I began to wonder who they were. Why they had lived here and why they died… It’s difficult to stop thinking about the dead, isn’t it?”
Joakim looked at the wall and nodded silently.
“And I used to hear them,” Mirja went on.
“Who?”
“The dead.” Mirja leaned closer to the wall. “If you just listen… you can hear them whispering.”
Joakim kept quiet, but couldn’t hear a thing.
“I wrote a book about Eel Point last summer,” said Mirja as they were on their way back through the loft.
“I see,” said Joakim.
“I gave it to Katrine when she moved in here.”
“Did you? She never mentioned it.”
Suddenly Mirja stopped; she seemed to be looking for something on the floor. She moved a broken box and looked down.
Beneath the box two names had been carved into the floor, very close together, along with a year:
MIRJA & MARKUS 1961
“Mirja…” Joakim read, and looked at her. “So you carved this?”
She nodded.
“We didn’t want to carve our names into the wall, so we did it here instead.”
“So who’s Markus?”
“He was my boyfriend. Markus Landkvist.”
Mirja didn’t say any more. She merely sighed and strode over the two names, back toward the steps.
They said goodbye in front of the house. Mirja’s energy was almost gone by now. She took a last long look at the house.
“I might come again,” she said.
“You do that,” said Joakim.
“And as I said, you must come to Kalmar with the children. I can find them some juice.”
“Fine… and if the cat doesn’t settle, I’ll bring him with me.”
Mirja smirked. “Just you try it.”
Then she got into the Mercedes and started the engine.
When Mirja had disappeared in the direction of the coast road, Joakim walked slowly back across the courtyard. He looked down toward the sea-where had the cat gone?
The big door to the barn was still ajar; they hadn’t closed it properly behind them.
Joakim was drawn toward it, and in the end he went back inside, into the darkness. The silence in here was like a cathedral.
He climbed up the steps again and went over to the far side of the loft. He read all the names on the wall, one after another.
He put his ear close to the wall and listened, but heard no whispering.
Then he picked up a nail that was lying on the floor and
carefully carved the name katrine westin and her dates into one of the lower planks.
When he had finished, he stepped back to look at the whole wall.
The memory of Katrine was preserved here now. It felt good.
The children loved Rasputin, of course. Gabriel patted him and Livia gave him a saucer of milk. They didn’t want to be separated from the cat for a minute, but the evening after Mirja Rambe’s visit, the family was invited, without the cat, to visit their neighbors at the farm to the south. The older children weren’t at home, but seven-year-old Andreas joined them at the dinner table before he and the Westin children went into the kitchen for some ice cream.
Joakim stayed in the dining room, drinking coffee with Roger and Maria Carlsson. The topic of conversation was fairly inevitable: looking after and renovating houses by the sea that were exposed to all kinds of weather. But he also had another question, which he eventually asked:
“I wondered if you’d heard any stories about our place? About Eel Point?”
“Stories?” said Roger Carlsson.
“Yes, ghost stories or other tales,” said Joakim. “Katrine said she’d talked to you last summer about… about the fact that it was haunted.”
That was the first time he had mentioned her name all evening-he took care not to talk too much about his late wife. He didn’t want to seem obsessed, after all. He wasn’t obsessed.
“She didn’t talk to me about any ghosts,” said Roger.
“She did talk to me about it when she came over for coffee,” said Maria. “She was just wondering whether Eel Point had a bad reputation.” She looked at her husband. “I mean, when we were little the adults used to talk about a secret
room at Eel Point that was haunted… do you remember, Roger?”
Her husband just shook his head-obviously ghosts weren’t one of his major interests-but Joakim leaned forward.
“Where was this room? Do you know?”
“No idea,” said Roger, drinking his coffee.
“No, I don’t know either,” said Maria. “But my grandfather said something about the ghosts haunting this room every Christmas. The dead came back to the manor and gathered in a particular room. And then they took-”
“That’s just ridiculous nonsense,” said Roger, picking up the coffeepot and offering it to Joakim. “More coffee?”
15
Tilda Davidson lay naked and sweaty on her thin mattress.
“Was that good?” she asked.
Martin was sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her.
“Yes… I suppose it was.”
As he quickly pulled on his underpants and jeans after getting out of bed that Sunday morning, Tilda should have realized what was coming, but she didn’t.
He had sat down on the edge of the bed and was looking out of the window.
“I don’t think we can do this,” he said eventually.
“Do what?” she asked, still naked under the covers.
“This… all this. It’s not working.” He was still looking out of the window. “Karin’s asking questions.”
“About what?”
Tilda still didn’t realize she was in the process of being dumped. Screwed and then dumped-classic.
Martin had arrived late on Friday, and everything had seemed just the same as usual. Tilda hadn’t asked what he’d told his wife-she never did. That evening they had stayed in her small apartment; she had made fish stew. Martin had seemed relaxed, telling her about the new cohort of recruits that had started at the police training academy this term, some good and some less suitable.
“But I expect we’ll knock them into shape,” he said.
Tilda nodded, thinking back to her early days at the academy; she had been one of twenty recruits. Mostly boys, just a few girls. They had quickly divided their new tutors into three categories: old tutors who were members of the police force, nice but a little fusty; civilian tutors who taught law and hadn’t a clue about real police work; and then the young police tutors who were mainly responsible for the practical work. They came from the field and had exciting stories to tell; they were the role models for the students. Martin Ahlquist was one of them.
On Saturday they had traveled north in Martin’s car, right up to the most northerly point of the island. Tilda hadn’t been there since she was little, but she remembered the feeling of having reached the end of the world. Now, in November, a bitterly cold wind was blowing off the sea, and there wasn’t a soul in sight around the lighthouses. The chalk-white tower rising above the point, Long Erik, had reminded her of the twin lighthouses at Eel Point. She wanted to discuss the case with Martin, but didn’t bring it up-this was her weekend off.
They ate a late lunch at the only restaurant in Byxelkrok
that was open in the winter, then went back to Marnäs and stayed in for the rest of the evening.
It was after that that Martin became more reserved, Tilda thought, despite the fact that she tried to keep the conversation going.