Beyond these banks a new layer of ice had quickly formed out at sea, like a blue-and-white field crisscrossed with black cracks. The ice didn’t look safe-some of the deep cracks met up in dark gaps.
Joakim peered toward the horizon, but the line between sea and sky had disappeared in a dazzling mist.
The telephone rang after breakfast. It was Gerlof’s relative, Tilda Davidsson, who started off by saying that she was calling on a police matter.
“I just wanted to check something, Joakim. You said before that your wife didn’t have any visitors at the house… but you have had workmen there?”
“Workmen?”
It was an unexpected question, and he had to think about it.
“I heard you’d had someone laying floors,” said Tilda. “Is that correct?”
Now Joakim remembered. “Yes,” he said, “but it was before I moved here. There was a guy here to rip out some old cork flooring and sand the floors in the main rooms.”
“From a firm in Marnäs?”
“I think so,” said Joakim. “It was the realtor who suggested them. I’ve probably still got the invoice somewhere.”
“We don’t need that at the moment. But do you remember what his name was?”
“No… it was my wife who dealt with him.”
“When was he there?”
“In the middle of August… a few weeks before we started bringing our furniture down.”
“Did you ever meet him?” asked Tilda.
“No. But Katrine did, as I said. She and the children were here then.”
“And he hasn’t been back since then?”
“No,” said Joakim. “All the floors are finished now.”
“One more thing… have you had any uninvited guests during the fall?”
“Uninvited…” said Joakim, his thoughts immediately turning to Ethel.
“Anyone trying to break in, I mean,” said Tilda.
“No, we haven’t had anything like that. Why do you ask?”
“There have been a number of break-ins on the island during recent months.”
“I know, I read about it in the paper. I hope you find them.”
“We’re working on it,” said Tilda.
She put down the phone.
The following night Joakim woke up in bed with a start.
Ethel…
The same fear as always. He raised his head and looked at the clock: 1:24.
He pushed away all thoughts of Ethel. Had Livia called out? There wasn’t a sound in the house, but still he got up and pulled on a sweater and a pair of jeans, without switching on the light. He went out into the corridor and listened again. He could hear the ticking of the wall clock, but not a sound came from the darkness of Livia’s and Gabriel’s rooms.
He went in the opposite direction, over to the windows in the hallway, and looked out into the night. The solitary lamp illuminated the inner courtyard, but nothing was moving out there.
Then he saw that the door to the barn was standing open once again. Not far, just eighteen inches or so-but Joakim was almost certain he had pulled it shut a few evenings earlier.
He would go and close it right now.
He pulled on his winter boots and went out through the veranda.
It was windy outside, but the sky was clear and full of stars, and the southern lighthouse flashed rhythmically, almost keeping pace with his heartbeat.
He went over to the half-open door and peered into the barn. It was pitch black.
“Hello?”
No reply.
Or was there? Perhaps he could hear a slow, whimpering sound somewhere inside the wooden building. Joakim reached in and switched on the light. He didn’t step inside until the lights on the ceiling came on.
He wanted to call out again, but stopped himself.
He could hear something now: a quiet but regular rasping sound. Joakim was sure of it.
He went over to the steep steps. The bulb high above on the ceiling wasn’t very powerful, but he began to climb upward.
Up in the hayloft Joakim stopped again and looked at the piles of old forgotten junk. At some point he must clear all this out. But not tonight.
He moved in amongst the objects. He could make his way through the piles without any problem by now; he knew this labyrinth by heart and was drawn to the far side of it. Toward the wall at the far end of the loft.
That was where the rasping noise was coming from.
Joakim could see the wall now, and the names of the dead that had been carved into it.
Before he had time to start reading them again, he heard a whimpering noise again, and stopped. He looked down at the floor.
First of all came the whimpering, then Rasputin yowling.
The cat was sitting by the wall, carefully washing his paws. Then he looked up at the visitor, and Joakim met his gaze; the cat almost looked pleased. And why not? He had worked hard tonight.
In front of him lay a dozen or so slender bodies with brown fur. Mice. They had been carefully ripped apart, and looked as if they had been killed just before Joakim arrived.
Rasputin had placed the bloody mice in a row at the bottom of the wall.
They looked like a sacrifice.
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.”