Gerlof considered this response. ‘But you did recognize him?’
Jonas thought hard. ‘I think so.’
‘Where had you seen him before?’
‘I don’t know.’
The boy had lowered his gaze, and Gerlof didn’t want to press him, so he simply said quietly, ‘Just try to remember... What was the first thing that came into your mind when you saw the man on the ship?’
Jonas looked up at Gerlof and frowned, then said, ‘Africa.’
The Homecomer
The engines had fallen silent. The ship was drifting in the middle of the Sound now, almost motionless in the calm conditions, but it was still difficult for an old man with weary arms and stiff legs to disembark.
The Homecomer threw the bag containing his booty into the bottom of the launch. Then he tied the end of a long plastic cable around his wrist, climbed over the gunwale and managed to get his feet on the front seat. For a few seconds he was sure the two vessels were going to drift apart, but Rita was in control, revving the outboard motor and keeping them side by side.
The Homecomer slid down into the launch, the plastic cable still around his wrist; it was now the only connection between the ship and the launch.
Rita didn’t say anything. She seemed calm and collected, unlike her boyfriend. Pecka was sitting in the middle of the launch with his head down, mumbling to himself. As soon as he got in he had hurled his bloodstained axe into the water, far out into the darkness.
‘Fuck... fuck...’
The Homecomer slumped down in the prow and touched his knee. ‘Pecka. Look at me.’
Pecka raised his head. ‘Fuck,’ he said again. ‘They’re dead.’
The Homecomer nodded. ‘Yes, and now we need to remove all traces.’ He held up the cable in the darkness. ‘We’ve got one thing left to do.’
Pecka stared blankly at him. ‘We killed them,’ he said. ‘The whole crew.’
The Homecomer took his hand, which was ice cold. He knew what was wrong with Pecka. He was in shock, just like many soldiers when they have killed for the first time. The important thing was to get Pecka to focus on details now, to forget the wider picture. When he himself had started killing as a young man, he had thought only about his gun, about handling it correctly — nothing else. Then it had been quite easy.
‘They were sick, weren’t they?’ Pecka went on. ‘Because of something in the hold?’
The Homecomer shook his head. He had no answer to that.
‘They had only themselves to blame,’ he said eventually, passing the end of the cable to Pecka. ‘Let’s finish this. You can do it.’
Pecka looked at the cable, which ran up over the gunwale of the ship and disappeared into one of the hatches. He grabbed the end in his trembling right hand, clutched the small detonator and pressed hard.
They heard a dull thud from inside the ship. The darkness seemed to shudder, and there was a gurgling noise from beneath the waterline. They had blown a hole in the hull.
The Homecomer had been holding his breath, and now he let it out. ‘OK, let’s go.’
Rita turned the wheel, and the launch moved away from the ship, which had already begun to list. The Homecomer had placed the explosives in the bow, which went down first. The stern began to tip up, slowly to start with, then faster and faster.
The ship sank majestically but almost silently, with only the odd hiss of air forced out of the vents.
After less than fifteen minutes the surface of the water was empty, and Rita set off at speed, heading home through the night.
The black shape of the island quickly grew larger as they approached. From a distance the shoreline was made up of gentle curves, but as they came closer the Homecomer could see how rocky and jagged it really was.
They had reached the inlets and the headlands between the Ölandic and Stenvik, where they had parked the car. The shore was still dark and deserted; everything was going to be OK.
Just before they landed, the Homecomer reached into the bag and took out two rolls of banknotes. He gave one each to Pecka and Rita.
‘That’s to keep you going until we meet again.’
Pecka didn’t say thank you, but he seemed more composed now. He raised his voice above the sound of the outboard motor. ‘That kid who came aboard the ship... What was he doing there?’
The Homecomer stared at him. ‘A kid?’
‘Yes, when were were on our way out into the Sound... He just appeared by the hatch, all of a sudden. I was looking for you, but you’d gone, and then this boy turned up with the living dead behind him — one of the crew members, I mean — so I used the axe and—’
‘Calm down,’ the Homecomer interrupted. He looked at Pecka as the bottom of the boat scraped against the rocks in the shallows. ‘This boy — did he see you?’
‘Well, yes, he was only a metre away. Right in front of me on the deck. God knows where he came from; I tried to grab hold of him but he disappeared over the gunwale...’
Rita turned off the engine. ‘But you were wearing your balaclava, weren’t you?’ she said into the silence. ‘He couldn’t see your face?’ Pecka shook his head, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
‘I wasn’t wearing it at the time,’ he said after a while. ‘I got so fucking hot and sweaty.’
The Homecomer got to his feet and gazed out at the dark shore. ‘Do you know who he was?’
‘No.’
The Homecomer stepped ashore, but turned back to face Pecka. ‘Go straight home,’ he said. ‘And stay there. Don’t go out.’
Pecka seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation. He nodded. ‘What about you?’ he said. ‘Will you be going home soon?’
‘Home?’
‘Yes... Back to America?’
The Homecomer didn’t answer. He merely stared out at the black waters of the Sound. He was thinking about his voyage across the sea when he was a boy, when he still believed in the future.
The New Country, July 1931
Aron has left Sven in the cabin. There is nothing he can do. Sven’s skinny body is lying in his bunk, but his head is hanging over the edge of the bed as he vomits into an enamel chamber pot on the floor. The smell is indescribable. Aron can’t breathe in there.
Between the bouts of vomiting Sven mumbles to himself. He talks about the Kloss family, about the burial cairn and rocks rolling down and falling walls.
‘You always have to have the last word... He was like a pillar of stone, solid and erect... I should have gone home... should never have raised my fist to him...’
Sometimes, Sven seems to think he is back on the island, that he is lying on the shore at Rödtorp, but that is not the case. He is lying on board the long white ship SS Kastelholm, as she steams across a vast, choppy sea.
He and Aron are sharing a bunk, but Aron is rarely in the cabin. He doesn’t want to lie next to Sven in the middle of that stench; he spends most of his time on deck. Or on the bridge, where the captain has allowed him to come and watch how they sail the ship.
At the beginning of the voyage, Sven also wandered around SS Kastelholm. He would often stand on the foredeck, his hands resting on the gunwale as he gazed out to sea. But on the third day the waves began to get bigger and he took himself back to the cabin. And the chamber pot.
Aron is standing by the gunwale, watching the rushing water.
The sun is hidden behind a bank of cloud, the horizon has disappeared, and there is no sign of land or any other vessels. All he can see are the never-ending waves, racing towards the ship in long lines and breaking against the bow in a burst of spume.
Aron has lost all concept of time at sea, and he longs for them to arrive. To step on to dry land, any land at all. He can almost smell it.