They could hear cheerful cries from the jetty further north, but the shore down below Villa Kloss was empty and red-hot. The waves lapped gently against the flat, greyish-white rocks. Niklas pointed to a row of thick poles extending a couple of hundred metres straight out into the water, just to the south of the bathing area.
‘I see the fishermen have laid their gill nets this year, too. There must be some eels left in the Sound...’
A limestone boathouse near the bottom of the steps housed the sun loungers and swimming gear belonging to the Kloss family. It was padlocked, but Casper had given Jonas the combination.
Casper’s rubber dinghy was in there, along with a couple of plastic oars, but the air had gone out of it over the winter, and it looked deflated and a bit pathetic. Casper hadn’t used it for several years. Jonas must have grown seven or eight centimetres since he last sat in it, and he was definitely heavier. He probably wouldn’t be able to use it after this summer, but he dragged it out into the sun anyway.
‘Are you going out in that?’ his father asked.
Jonas nodded.
‘Well, don’t go too far... I’ll help you blow it up.’
While his father was pumping more air into the dinghy, Jonas quickly pulled on his trunks. He just wanted to get out on to the water, follow the nets and see if any eels were moving around down there in the darkness.
He didn’t want to spend any more time talking to his father. If he did, then sooner or later he would ask him what he had done to end up in prison; all Jonas knew was that it was something bad. Something to do with money and the customs office. Something Dad didn’t want to talk about.
‘Dad fucked things up for the whole family,’ Mats had once said when they were alone. As if the fault lay not in what their father had done, but in the fact that he had got caught.
The Homecomer
The summer evening seemed to be ageing, turning as grey as the Homecomer as the light vanished on the west coast of the island. The sun began to go down, and the day’s short shadows quickly grew longer. The horizon disappeared, and sea and sky became a darkening curtain in the west. The figures moving beneath the trees were almost invisible.
It was time.
Pecka and the Homecomer had entered the Ölandic’s private area through the north fence then made their way south through the forest. They had kept out of sight of the shore until they reached the dock. The car park in front of them was empty now; all the cars had left.
‘How are you feeling?’ the Homecomer asked.
‘Fine,’ Pecka said, but his eyes were darting all over the place, and he hadn’t said much all evening. Pecka had grown a lot quieter since the murder of the security guard, but he still obeyed orders.
They had remained hidden among the trees until the sun went down, but now they stepped out and moved towards the water. Towards the L-shaped quay and the ship on the outer side of the dock.
The Homecomer had spent so much time watching the ship over the past few days that he almost felt like a member of the crew. There were four men on board, all foreigners. Today there had been no loading or unloading, and all the indications were that the ship would set sail tomorrow morning. Tonight the crew were probably up at the hotel, celebrating. Happy and unsuspecting.
Time to get on board.
They made their way quickly towards the quayside, the Homecomer in front, with Pecka a few steps behind him.
Both were armed. Pecka didn’t want to carry a gun any more, but he was carrying a freshly sharpened axe. The Homecomer had the Walther hidden behind his back.
‘Here we go, then,’ he said.
‘OK,’ Pecka replied, pulling the balaclava over his head.
The Homecomer could feel his age in his legs but increased his speed.
Once they reached the quayside and everything was quiet, Pecka pressed a key on his mobile and allowed it to ring out twice, which was the signal to Rita to start up the launch, come around the point and board the ship from the other side. When they had finished, all three of them would make their escape in Rita’s boat. That was the plan.
But suddenly they heard a rumbling noise, disturbing the peaceful evening.
The Homecomer slowed down. At first he couldn’t work out what was going on, but then he realized that someone had just started up the ship’s engines. He heard Pecka behind him: ‘Fuck! We’ll have to forget the whole thing!’
The Homecomer shook his head and kept on going.
‘There are too many of them!’ Pecka yelled. ‘They’re all on board... they’re leaving tonight!’
But the Homecomer just kept on walking towards the ship, the gun hidden behind his back. He headed straight for the gangplank, knowing that Pecka was following him, in spite of his protests.
Yes, there were lights on the bridge — the crew were on board. The Homecomer spotted one man in the stern, a seaman who must have just come up on deck. He was in his fifties, dressed in blue overalls, and had started repairing a broken air vent with a piece of corrugated cardboard. He looked extremely bored.
The Homecomer was so close to the ship that he could read the name on the prow: Elia. The hull was dark, a mixture of rust and black paint.
He heard an angry buzzing through the throbbing of the engines. Rita had rounded the point in the little launch.
The seaman looked up and saw the two visitors. He stared at them with no trace of suspicion, merely surprise.
The Homecomer walked to the edge of the quay and said, ‘Good evening,’ in a calm, steady voice.
The seaman opened his mouth and his expression changed from quizzical to uneasy — but by that time the Homecomer had produced his gun.
Pecka had also reached the ship, while at the same time Rita swung the launch around sharply, heading for the stern.
The ship was moored with three hawsers. Pecka positioned himself next to the first one, and raised the axe. Five sharp blows, and the hawser was severed. He quickly moved on to the next one.
The Homecomer was on the deck now, still pointing the Walther at the seaman and speaking quietly but firmly as he issued a series of instructions.
He glanced back and saw that Pecka had lowered the axe. All three hawsers had been cut, and the ship slowly began to drift away from the quayside and out into the dark waters of the Sound.
He looked around. The quayside was still deserted.
The seaman looked confused; he raised his hands and began to back away.
The hijacking had begun.
The New Country, June 1931
Sixty-eight years earlier, the ship that is to take Aron and Sven to the new country is made of metal, and is bigger than any vessel Aron has ever seen.
They have travelled by train from Kalmar, journeying northwards through Sweden. The train has chugged its way through vast coniferous forests, past mountains and lakes, then out into the sun and straight into the heart of a big city.
The station is enormous, packed with travellers and all their luggage. Outside the city awaits, with its long, straight cobbled streets, people strolling along the pavements, and more vehicles than Aron has seen in his whole life. Plenty of carts and horse-drawn carriages clatter by, but there are also big, black motor cars, rumbling along with uniformed chauffeurs behind the wheel and smartly dressed men in the back seat.
‘Stockholm,’ Sven says.
Aron recognizes the name from school.
‘The capital city of Sweden.’
They eat a plate of steaming-hot stew in a smoky café not far from the central station, then buy provisions and the last bits and pieces for their journey. In an ironmonger’s, Sven equips himself with a hammer and a decent spade.