His father listened carefully. He was a good listener; he had never laughed at anything Jonas had told him. And he wasn’t laughing now.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘So now I know. Thank you for telling me, Jonas.’
That was all he said. He didn’t seem in the least bit disturbed by the story, just thoughtful. After a while, he seemed to reach a decision.
‘Everything’s fine. You can go and play.’
‘I’m working,’ Jonas said. Then he thought about the woman he had spoken to at Gerlof’s house. ‘Are we going to contact the police?’
‘Of course... Soon. I need to think.’
His father looked away, over towards the water, as if he were slightly embarrassed. Then he went back indoors.
Jonas was worried; he had promised Mats that he wouldn’t say anything about the cinema trip to Kalmar, and he had promised Gerlof that he wouldn’t tell anyone about Peter Mayer. ‘Promise not to tell anyone else,’ Gerlof had said, but that was exactly what Jonas had done. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
All he could do was carry on working. Stop thinking.
After an hour he had finished about a fifth of the decking. The wood looked almost new, clean and fresh in the sunshine. No chips.
He was quite proud of himself.
As he straightened up, he saw a big car turn off the coast road. It was Uncle Kent, in a white cap and oversized sunnies. He opened the door and waved.
‘JK, come over here for a minute!’
Jonas made his way over. Uncle Kent got out of the car and was already talking by the time Jonas reached him.
‘Your dad called me a little while ago, JK... He said something exciting had happened to you the day before yesterday.’ Kent crouched down so that they were face to face. ‘He said you were on board a big ship, and you met a guy called Peter Mayer.’
Jonas didn’t say a word.
‘Is this true?’ Kent demanded.
Jonas nodded slowly.
‘Interesting.’ Kent held Jonas’s gaze. ‘In that case, let me explain. We had a ship in the dock at the Ölandic over midsummer, delivering a cargo of fish. It left a couple of nights ago, without informing us. We thought that was very strange.’
Jonas thought about the dead seamen, but still he didn’t say anything.
Uncle Kent went on. ‘And this Peter Mayer: he calls himself Pecka, and he worked at the resort as a security guard last summer... so I’d like to speak to him. But I want to be sure that it really was Pecka you saw on board that ship, JK. Do you think you’d be able to identify him?’
Jonas hesitated, but Uncle Kent smiled reassuringly.
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Pecka lives in Marnäs. I have an address for him there, and I’d just like a word with him. But first of all I need to be sure... Could you come up there with me?’
Jonas thought for a moment, then nodded again. He opened his mouth to speak, but Uncle Kent ruffled his hair.
‘Excellent! In that case, we’ll pop up and see him this evening.’ Kent straightened up. ‘There’s a fair on in Marnäs, so it will be really busy. We’ll just have to hope he’s at home.’
Kent got back in the car, and Jonas watched as he reversed out on to the coast road.
There was nothing for it but to go back to his sanding. But things just didn’t feel right to Jonas.
Look for the man from the ship? And speak to him? But what if he had the axe with him?
Lisa
No champagne, no pissed guests. Just a golden sunset and a warm breeze at a little outdoor bar and restaurant in Stenvik.
Lisa wasn’t spinning any discs this Thursday evening. She was sitting on a stool with her guitar resting on her knee and a microphone in front of her. The microphone was the only thing she could see clearly, because the sun was in her eyes.
She wasn’t wearing a wig tonight, because she wasn’t a DJ. She was a troubadour, playing folk songs. It was completely different from spending half the night in the DJ booth. The sound was nowhere near as good, for example — she had nothing more than one small speaker, and the wind coming off the water swept away quite a lot of the music.
She preferred the old Swedish songwriters such as Evert Taube, Dan Andersson and Nils Ferlin, but the audience often demanded more modern masters.
‘Play Ace of Base!’ a girl’s voice yelled out.
‘I don’t know any of theirs,’ Lisa said.
‘What about Markoolio, then?’ one of the guys shouted.
Lisa picked up her guitar. It was after nine, and time to finish off.
‘I’ll play you a song I do know,’ she said. ‘It was written by Tomas Ledin, and it’s all about how short the summer is...’
She was behaving herself this evening. There was no way Lady Summertime could be let loose among ordinary holidaymakers with her long fingers. She was after the fat wallets that belonged to the rich, so that she could give them to the poor. Well, to Silas.
At quarter past nine she had finished the gig, as the blood-red sun hovered above the horizon.
Lisa needed bread and milk, but the shop next to the bar had closed at eight o’clock. It was run by an elderly father and his son; their name was Hagman. The bar itself was owned by her employers, the Kloss family; it was a small but intense workplace: two Finnish waitresses picked their way among the tables, and in the kitchen a Canadian chef presided over pizza dough and jars of pesto. Kent Kloss wasn’t responsible for this place, thank goodness; it was run by Niklas, his younger brother, who kept a low profile and spent most of his time on the till; the staff didn’t need his constant supervision.
Lisa put away her guitar and headed for the exit. Niklas Kloss smiled at her, and she quickly asked, ‘Did it sound OK?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘In that case, I’ll be back on Monday.’
‘Good — I’ll look forward to it.’
He didn’t really seem to be listening; he was looking over towards a big car that had just pulled into the car park and was standing there with its engine ticking over.
The driver got out, and Lisa saw that it was Kent Kloss. He waved to his brother, and Niklas walked towards him.
The wind carried odd words across to Lisa.
‘... former employee,’ Kent said.
‘... don’t want to talk about...’ Niklas responded.
‘... have a chat...’
‘... ought to call...’
‘... rather go round there...’
After a while, Niklas got into the car, looking both grim and stressed. Kent quickly slid behind the wheel and drove out of the car park.
Lisa could see a boy in the back seat, one of the Kloss children; he glanced at Lisa as the car pulled out on to the main road. He didn’t look too happy either.
As she walked back to the campsite, carrying her guitar, the sun had just gone down, leaving only a glow in the sky and making the clouds look like red fire above the horizon. Or streaks of blood.
The coast quickly darkened. Lisa headed towards her caravan, wondering why the Kloss brothers would allow a young boy to be out so late at night.
Jonas
Marnäs lay on the west coast; it had a number of shops and the white, medieval parish church. It was too big to be a village and too small to be a town, but people gathered there anyway. There was an off-licence, a harbour with several fishing boats and a police station that was open for a few hours every Tuesday.
Jonas really liked the shops in Marnäs, but there was no chance of visiting them tonight. It was almost nine thirty; it was twilight and the shops were shut. However, the fair was in full swing and had attracted plenty of people.