The Homecomer nodded.
‘And what about Rödtorp?’
‘What’s that?’
‘A little croft, south of the dock.’
‘Never heard of it.’ Pecka didn’t sound remotely interested. ‘But the fence stops just south of the dock, by the bathing area.’
‘Can we get in?’
Pecka nodded.
‘There’s a gate down by the water, but it has a CCTV camera.’
The Homecomer looked up at the fence.
‘It’s too high for me.’
‘We’re not climbing it,’ Pecka said. ‘There are other openings... Come with me.’
He set off among the trees and headed east. It was difficult to get through the undergrowth, but Rita and the Homecomer followed him.
The Homecomer had his gun with him, tucked into the waistband of his trousers.
After perhaps sixty paces they reached a small glade; there was a steel gate in the fence. It was locked, but Pecka pulled a key out of his pocket. He smiled.
‘I “forgot” to hand this in last year when they kicked me out.’
He unlocked the gate, and all they had to do was walk through.
Pecka raised a hand; it was time to be quiet. It was obvious that he knew the area; he walked straight through the trees and led them to a path. He chose the right-hand fork.
The further they got into the forest, the more cautious Pecka became. He moved slowly, and seemed to be listening all the time. He kept on going, and after a few minutes the Homecomer heard a faint rushing sound. He glimpsed the water through the trees.
The sea, and an open area covered in tarmac.
‘This is the dock,’ Pecka whispered.
He and Rita stopped, but the Homecomer kept on going, past the tarmac and on through the forest. The path led through trees and dense undergrowth, and he was astonished — he recognized this place from his childhood, and yet he didn’t.
The trees were new, but the earth and the water and the smells were the same.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of breaking glass beneath his boot.
A piece of an old windowpane.
He looked up and saw the space just twenty metres away. Everything had been cleared.
This was the spot. This was where the croft had stood. But a giant appeared to have stamped all over it, brushed the bits and pieces to one side, then moved on.
The Homecomer looked at what was left for a little while, then backed away. That was enough.
He turned around and increased his speed — and almost bumped into the other two. Pecka and Rita were crouching down in the undergrowth; Pecka was holding a pair of binoculars and looking in the direction of the dock.
The Homecomer saw that there was a small cargo boat moored by the quayside; it looked rusty, possibly abandoned. But then he noticed movement on deck. People were moving around by the hatches leading to the hold, and on the bridge.
‘We know their schedule,’ Rita said. ‘They’ve brought goods ashore for the past two days, and she sails straight after midsummer.’
The Homecomer didn’t say anything, but Pecka nodded.
‘That’s when we’ll do it.’
They carried on watching the boat in the middle of a cloud of buzzing flies, but the Homecomer couldn’t forget the remnants of his childhood, deep in the forest.
The New Country, June 1931
The flies are buzzing inside the carriage, the wind is strong as they speed along, and the train whistle blows. Aron has watched the trains crossing the alvar all his life, but he has never been on one. It’s a real adventure, chugging across the island just a few carriages behind the engine, straight through the flat landscape. A journey through emptiness, through the grassy plain that is the alvar, but it’s still exciting. Aron sticks his head out of the window, feeling the wind in his hair. The steam train is moving faster than the odd cars and buses he sees on the road.
Sometimes they travel past a barn, which brings back memories of last summer, when the barn wall collapsed and everything went quiet in the darkness.
The wall had fallen to reveal a black gap underneath, like the opening of an underground crypt. Aron had stood stock still, staring at it. Then Sven had placed a hand on his back and given him a shove.
‘In you go,’ Sven had growled, sweaty and stressed. ‘Get in there and fetch his money.’
Aron had done as he was told. He had lain down on the grass and wriggled under the wall.
Into the darkness. He had crawled in over the cold ground, in under the hard, wooden wall. A nail had scratched his forehead, but he had ducked and kept on going.
Towards the body.
Edvard Kloss, lying there under the wall.
Trapped. Motionless.
Aron shudders in the cold wind as he gazes out of the train window. He doesn’t want to remember that night.
But the farms alongside the railway line don’t seem to bother Sven. When he sees the farmhands working by the barns, he raises a hand and waves.
‘Do you know them?’ Aron asks.
‘No, but all workers are my brothers. They, too, will be liberated from their back-breaking toil one day!’
After Kalleguta, the railway turns sharply to the west, towards the station in Borgholm. Outside the town the sea appears once again, like a blue ribbon in the west. Aron has never travelled on the ferry to the mainland either; he has never crossed the Sound.
When they arrive they alight from the train at the big stone building, then wander through the straight streets. The black-suited residents of the town glance at Aron and Sven’s simple clothes as they pass by. Aron can hear them speaking quietly behind them.
‘They were gossiping about me,’ Sven says. ‘They know who I am.’
‘Do they?’
Sven nods, his lips compressed into a thin line.
‘They haven’t forgotten my quarrels with those who were out to exploit the poor.’
They carry on down towards the harbour, where a dozen or so small cargo boats and a couple of ferries are moored, with a large yacht in solitary splendour slightly further away.
In the restaurant they each have an omelette, which costs two kronor and fifty öre. Sven has a glass of beer, Aron a soft drink.
After the meal Sven takes a pinch of snuff from his wooden box, the one Aron gave him, and stares gloomily at the bill for lunch. He shakes his head, but pays.
‘In the new country you can eat for free,’ he says when they are back on the street.
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely. You pay only if you have money.’
In the afternoon they leave the island, crossing the Sound on a steamship. Sven keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the mainland, but Aron turns around and watches as the island slowly shrinks to a greyish-brown strip on the horizon. He feels as if it is sinking into the sea, as if his whole world is disappearing behind him.
Jonas
Over the past two years Jonas had forgotten how brilliant it was to wake up by the sea. It was a bit like being an astronaut, waking up on a strange planet where the sounds and the air were different.
On Midsummer’s Day, he opened his eyes to the sound of the wind and the cries of the gulls, bumble bees buzzing around the house and bikes rattling by out on the coast road — and, beyond that, the faint rushing of the waves out in the Sound.
Villa Kloss, he thought.
The sounds were strange, yet familiar. Jonas was back in a summer world where his father had brought him ever since he was a little boy. But now he was grown up. Almost. He was nearly twelve years old and no longer slept in Uncle Kent’s big house with his dad but in a little chalet of his own twenty metres away. A guest chalet, consisting of nothing more than a narrow room with white walls and a white wooden floor. His older brother, Mats, and cousin Casper were staying in the other two chalets, but he had this one all to himself for the next four weeks.