‘But they’ll bring you back, won’t they?’
The man was smiling at the helm.
‘I’m sure they will.’
Peder had no idea how he would get back. The question was of minor importance. Finding his brother was the only thing that mattered.
Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.
Thea Aldrin had explained where her parents’ house was. Finding his way there wouldn’t be a problem. She had started talking about an old film; she seemed to assume he knew what she meant. Peder couldn’t recall having seen a film that had been made in a summerhouse. Was it the one Torbjörn Ross had mentioned?
The boat trip took less than ten minutes.
‘I’ll drop you at the big jetty up ahead, if that’s OK.’
The young man pointed.
‘That’s great.’
Peder braced himself and jumped ashore as they drew near the jetty.
‘Thanks for the lift.’
‘No problem.’
The other man raised a hand in a hesitant farewell.
‘You don’t want me to wait for you?’
‘No, I’ll be a while.’
Peder pushed his hands deep in his pockets; his companion still looked concerned.
‘OK, if you’re sure.’
He put the boat in reverse and pulled away from the jetty.
Peder watched it as it sped across the water. Then he turned away and set off along the path leading to the island.
62
‘Who is Valter Lund?’
Alex Recht didn’t waste any time on inessentials, but asked the most important question first. Fredrika sat in silence by his side. He had no doubt that she had just as many questions as he did.
The well-known businessman who had been calling himself Valter Lund for almost three decades, but whose real name was Johan Aldrin, slumped in his chair.
‘A guy from Gol in Norway. We enlisted on the same ship in Norway in 1980. Annie, her name was. The ship, I mean. A huge car ferry. We were going to go around the world, cross every ocean.’
‘Did you already know each other?’ Fredrika asked.
‘No, definitely not. It was sheer coincidence. We were the same age, and we were both new recruits, so they put us in a cabin together. He slept in the top bunk and I was below.’
‘You weren’t particularly alike, either in appearance or personality.’
Fredrika looked meaningfully at Valter Lund’s old passport photograph.
‘No, but as time went by that was less important. Although I still dye my hair regularly. It’s actually quite fair.’
Alex looked at his brown hair. It looked completely natural.
‘Where is Valter Lund now?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘What happened?’
‘He died in an accident on board.’ Johan squirmed. ‘We were working a night shift. He had a drink problem. I’d tried to bring it to the attention of the officers in charge, but they chose to ignore it. We were cheap labour, and as long as he did his job, they didn’t think they needed to bother. But I knew it was only a matter of time before he injured himself or someone else. He was always in the way – in his own way, or someone else’s. He was clumsy and inept. It wasn’t just the booze – that was how he was.’
Johan grabbed the passport photograph from Fredrika.
‘He slipped and hit the back of his neck on the sharp fluke of an anchor that was lying on the deck; it belonged to one of the lifeboats. It was pouring with rain that night, and he was just too drunk to cope with the slippery deck.’
‘So he slipped and broke his neck?’
‘Worse than that. The fluke went right into the nape of his neck, just below his head. He was dead when I found him. There was nothing anyone could have done.’
‘What did you do?’ Alex asked.
He could picture the scene. Night, dark skies. Pouring rain and poor visibility. Not a good combination with booze, whatever your role on the ship.
‘I threw him overboard.’
Johan uttered the words without any hesitation, and folded his arms.
‘He wouldn’t be missed by a single person. And I desperately needed a new identity. So I threw him into the sea. The next day, we docked in Sydney. None of the crew noticed he was missing until the afternoon, when I woke up after the night shift. I said I’d heard him leave our cabin during the morning, but I didn’t know where he’d gone. Then I lied for the last time: I said he’d told me he’d love to live in Australia, and that he’d been thinking of leaving the ship when we arrived there. That would have been impossible if he hadn’t run away, because we were bound by unbreakable contracts.’
Johan shrugged.
‘Did they believe your story?’ Fredrika asked.
‘Why wouldn’t they? We left Sydney two days later; the captain was furious. He called Valter a traitor. He was never reported missing; everyone assumed I was right, and that he’d jumped ship in Sydney to make a fresh start in Australia.’
Slowly Alex put down the pen he was holding.
‘And it’s never occurred to you that what you did was wrong?’
‘Many times. If he’d had parents or anyone else who cared about him, I would have acted differently.’
‘He did have someone who cared about him,’ Fredrika said angrily. ‘An uncle in Gol, who has no other relatives. He still turns up at the police station every year to ask about his nephew.’
Johan stared at Fredrika for a long time.
‘That’s why you asked me if I’d seen my uncle lately.’
She didn’t answer, but gazed back at Johan Aldrin in silence. Who did he look like? His mother or his father? He had his mother’s big eyes, but the nose came from someone else. Or perhaps it was just chance.
‘Why was being Thea Aldrin’s son such a terrible thing? Why did you need a new identity?’
‘Ah. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.’
Johan clasped his hands on the table, wondering how to go on.
‘Have you heard of Mercury and Asteroid?’
Both Fredrika and Alex gave a brief nod. They were well aware of the much talked about books.
‘Me too,’ said Johan. ‘The entire country was talking about them. Everyone was laughing behind my back at school, saying that my whore of a mother had written them. That she was sick in the head. I was so tired of all the crap. I’d been defending my mother ever since I was little. Always alone, often facing more than one opponent. In spite of my loyalty, she refused to answer my questions. She said I wouldn’t understand why my father had left us, that I was too young to cope with such a terrible story. Do you see?’
He looked at Fredrika and Alex.
‘She hinted that there was some “terrible story”, but she wouldn’t say any more. I mean, I’m sure you can work out what was going through my mind. Anyway. One day, I was up in the loft hunting for a suitcase my mother had asked me to bring down. She had many good points, but tidiness wasn’t one of them. The loft was a complete mess, with boxes and other stuff all over the place. By accident, I knocked over a small box that was perched on top of a bigger box in a corner. It was full of paper – manuscripts, I assumed. I started gathering them together as fast as I could. Her manuscripts were sacred. No one else was allowed to touch them, so I hurried. Until I happened to read a few lines on one of the pages.’
Johan fiddled with his watch; he looked as if the memories he was digging up were extremely painful.
‘It was the sickest thing I’d ever read. I remember my legs kind of gave way, and I sat down on the floor. And I stayed there. I sat there reading for an hour. The rumours were true, apparently. It really was my mother who had written the sickest books of the century.’
Johan shook his head.
‘So many things fell into place. Why she lived alone. Why she hadn’t had any more children. She was disturbed, that was all there was to it. Mentally ill. Perhaps even dangerous. My whole world collapsed. Everything was dirty, destroyed. So I ran away. I got a job cleaning fish in Norway for a year, then I signed on as a crew member on the car ferry and started working with Valter Lund.’