Lisa picked up the microphone, but thought for a second, then shouted back to the guard, ‘I saw three guys just now... They looked a bit dodgy!’
The guard had started to move away, but he stopped. ‘What did they look like?’
‘How can I put it?... Kind of greasy. Mafia types, if you know what I mean. Slicked-back hair and white shirts.’
The guard nodded, his expression grim.
‘OK, we’ll see if we can track them down.’
He made his way through the crowd as Lisa turned down the music and warned people to keep an eye on their possessions and their money. Nobody took any notice; they just carried on dancing.
The club closed at two thirty, and it was all over. Lisa finished with a slow number to calm things down.
‘Thanks, everyone! I love you all — see you tomorrow!’
The security staff took over and started ushering people out. However, the partying continued as everyone dispersed towards the campsite, chalets or the hotel, dancing their way home. Some would catch the night bus, others might decide to sleep under the full moon, or go for a swim.
The place was almost empty, but a guy who was far too young for Lisa hung around the booth, helping her pack away. He was wearing a black jacket and was just as tanned as the kids with rich daddies.
‘Do you recognize me?’ he said.
‘Vaguely. From Stockholm?’
He shook his head.
‘I was there when you picked up the keys. My name is Urban Kloss. I’m the one who owns all this... the Ölandic Resort.’
‘Oh, really?’ Lisa said; she could see that he was twenty at the most. ‘And when did you buy it?’
He stopped smiling, not quite sure what to say. Eventually he said, ‘It’s in the family.’
‘In that case, your family owns the place,’ Lisa said. ‘Not you, Urban. You just work here.’
‘I’m the manager,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘I am, I’m the acting catering manager.’
‘Whatever,’ Lisa said.
Urban smiled at her. He seemed to be enjoying the banter.
‘Do you fancy playing golf sometime? It’s the Ölandic Open next week.’
Summertime smiled back, anything but sweetly. Guys often chatted her up, and she was much better at dealing with them than Lisa was. She shook her head.
‘Balls are delicate; hitting them isn’t such a good idea,’ she said with a yawn. ‘And now I’m heading back to Stenvik with my records and I’m going to bed.’
‘I’ll help you.’
‘It’s fine, Urban, I can—’
‘Let me help you, for fuck’s sake.’
He picked up the bag of LPs and headed off. Lisa locked the booth and followed him, carrying her CDs. The car park was full of people hanging around. Among the Swedish cars there was a Porsche, a BMW, even a Lamborghini. And her Passat.
‘There you go,’ Urban said, turning to face her.
She gave him a brief hug, an ironic hug, and quickly got into the car.
‘Sleep well, Urban.’
If you were wearing a purple wig, giving a guy the brush-off was no problem.
She had split herself into two different people over the last couple of years: one was Lisa Turesson, who played melodic tunes on the guitar and was afraid of most things (like seagulls, wasps and snakes at this time of year), and the other was Lady Summertime, the feisty DJ in the purple wig who yelled into the microphone and got everyone on their feet. Lisa liked Lady Summertime.
She was back at the campsite in Stenvik in fifteen minutes. Everyone seemed to be asleep; there wasn’t a sound, but Lisa’s ears were still ringing from the music.
It was ten to three. The sun rose at about half past four, but the night sky was still dark grey. She could see a few faint lights along the coast in cottages and boathouses, but nobody saw Lisa carry her bag into the caravan and lock the door. She drew the curtains, too.
Then she opened the bag and started flicking through her records. The stolen wallets were hidden at the bottom. There were five altogether and, in spite of the fact that she was super-sleepy, she couldn’t help opening them and counting her spoils.
Mostly credit cards, but a reasonable amount of cash as well. She tipped them out on top of the fridge and counted three thousand-kronor notes and several five hundreds.
Early in the morning, Lisa would go through the wallets looking for scraps of paper with PIN numbers written on them. If she found any, she would drive down to the ATM in Marnäs and take out some money.
But now it was time to go to bed.
By twenty past three she was in a deep sleep. No dreams, no guilty conscience.
It wasn’t Lisa who had taken the wallets, it was Lady Summertime. And it wasn’t Lisa who needed the money, it was Silas.
Gerlof
Midsummer was over, and many people on the island of Öland could now relax; above all, security staff and those who owned campsites or bars.
Gerlof also relaxed. Stenvik was still standing.
His young relative Tilda Davidsson belonged to the group who perhaps felt the greatest sense of relief; she was a detective inspector with the county police in Kalmar but lived with her husband and children by a lighthouse on eastern Öland and seemed to feel that she was personally responsible for keeping an eye on things on the island.
‘So it was a good midsummer as far as the police were concerned?’ Gerlof asked when he spoke to her on Monday.
‘It was no worse than a normal weekend,’ Tilda replied.
‘How did you manage that?’
‘We ran a checkpoint at this end of the bridge. We pulled over as many cars as we could and confiscated all the alcohol.’
‘But surely people will always find booze, if they really want to?’
‘Yes, but we locked up those who’d already had too much, so we avoided any major disturbances.’
‘So everything was quiet?’
‘Well, no, there’s always something,’ Tilda said. ‘We had a couple of cases of GBH, quite a lot of petty thefts, some outboard motors went missing, there was a certain amount of vandalism and five or six drink-driving cases... but it was quieter than it’s been for a long time.’
‘Sounds good,’ Gerlof said.
‘We’ve got a missing person too,’ Tilda went on. ‘A security guard at the Ölandic Resort. But they think he’s probably gone off to the mainland.’
‘He’s disappeared?’
‘We’re looking for him,’ Tilda said.
Gerlof knew that she wouldn’t give him any more information. He could get her to talk about her work, but only up to a point.
‘Perhaps he’d had enough of Kent Kloss,’ Gerlof said. ‘Anyway, you’ll be finishing work soon, won’t you?’
‘I’ve got less than two weeks to go,’ Tilda said. ‘My holiday starts on the sixteenth.’
‘Let’s hope things stay nice and quiet, then.’
‘Absolutely. I hope you have some peace and quiet, too.’
But Gerlof knew that things were never really quiet when there were teenagers around. He was going to be alone with them for the next five days, until Julia returned from Gothenburg.
Ulrik the audiologist came back to Stenvik the day after the midsummer weekend to make the final adjustments to Gerlof’s new hearing aid.
He seemed pleased.
‘Don’t forget to take it off when you go to bed,’ he said. ‘And turn it off at night to save the batteries.’
He switched on the device, looked up at the trees and the blue sky, and added, ‘I wouldn’t mind working in the country all the time.’
Ulrik was talking to himself, but to Gerlof it sounded as if someone was shouting in his ear. It was almost too loud. He could hear lots of other things, too: a chainsaw in a garden somewhere inland, a moped rattling along the coast road and the faint buzz of a light aircraft.