Gerlof
Gerlof was posing in the churchyard, leaning on his stick in front of a clicking camera. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation, but it had been his decision. It was all in a good cause, he told himself.
The plan was to lure Aron Fredh from wherever he was hiding.
He looked up at the photographer, who was also a reporter. Bengt Nyberg was a veteran on the local paper, which carried stories about most of the things that happened in the north of the island.
‘I noticed you wrote about the gastroenteritis outbreak,’ Gerlof said.
Bengt looked quite pleased. ‘Yes, down at the Ölandic. I think they wanted to keep it as quiet as possible, but it was a bit of a scoop for me. Hundreds of people were affected... The whole of their sewage system was knocked out by the amount of use their toilets were subjected to.’
‘But you didn’t come down with it yourself?’
‘No, I avoided the water. And it seems to have been very localized... They think it was in the pipes in the complex itself, that some kind of parasite got into the system.’
‘Dear me,’ Gerlof said. ‘And right in the middle of the high season.’
‘Yes, it’s bad news for the Kloss family,’ Bengt said. ‘But good for the other campsites.’
They fell silent. Gerlof gazed around the churchyard, at the neatly mown grass and the rows of gravestones around the church. He had been visiting this place for seventy years, and many new graves had appeared. His wife and all of his older relatives had ended up here.
He turned his attention back to the reason he was here, and the story he wanted to tell. ‘It happened somewhere around here. I can’t say exactly where, but I know we were standing fairly close to the wall.’
Bengt took a few more pictures of Gerlof pointing dramatically at the graves with his stick. Then he lowered the camera. ‘So which grave was it?’
‘I don’t remember. I dug quite a lot of graves that summer. But it was in this area...’
He was lying, of course, but he didn’t want to name the Kloss family in the newspaper. He didn’t think Kent Kloss would appreciate that.
‘But I remember what I heard,’ he went on. ‘Three sharp knocks, then three more... And that was when we stopped filling in the grave. We brought the coffin back up and called Dr Blom. He turned up on his bike, but there was nothing he could do.’
‘He was dead?’ the journalist asked. ‘The man in the coffin?’
‘As dead as a doornail.’
Gerlof looked around again. It was just as warm and sunny today as it had been all those years ago; it was a strange feeling. As if a whole lifetime hadn’t passed at all. He remembered exactly where they had stood, the priest, the doctor, the Kloss brothers, and Bengtsson the gravedigger slightly behind the others. And Aron Fredh, further away.
Nyberg took one more picture and jotted something down in his notepad. He seemed satisfied, and looked up at Gerlof. ‘Well, that’s certainly a hair-raising story... A summer mystery.’
‘So are you going to write about it?’
‘Yes, I’ll put something together. It won’t be very long, but we’ll have a picture and a short article. Material like this is very useful when it comes to filling an empty column.’
‘And when will it be in the paper?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nyberg said. ‘Tomorrow, with a bit of luck, although we’re not exactly short of news this month, even though it is holiday time.’
Gerlof assumed he was talking about the deaths of Einar Wall and Peter Mayer the previous week. He leaned forward. ‘You’re welcome to say that I’d like to hear from any witnesses.’
‘Witnesses?’
‘Yes, anyone else who remembers the knocking. Anyone who was in the churchyard that day. They can get in touch with me.’
Bengt Nyberg nodded, without asking who Gerlof thought these witnesses might be, after some seventy years.
They parted company at the church gate, after Nyberg had revealed what the headline was likely to be. It was less than subtle:
GERLOF STILL HAUNTED BY KNOCKING FROM THE GRAVE
You could call it sensationalism, but Gerlof was still pleased when he opened the paper two days later. The article was in a prominent position, and he thought plenty of people would read it. He knew that everyone else who had heard the sound of knocking on that day was long dead.
Everyone except himself, and possibly Aron Fredh.
Lisa
A settled stomach was what everyone needed. Lisa felt pretty good this morning; the sun was shining and life felt better. She should have known it wouldn’t last long.
About an hour after she had woken up, she went down to the shore. The rocks were warm beneath her feet. She carried on out on to the jetty, right to the very end, and jumped in without hesitating. The sandy seabed was soft and the water was warm, over twenty degrees, and she stretched out with a sigh of pleasure. Closed her eyes, floated along, chilled out. No worries.
She swam back and forth not far from the jetty until a large group of children arrived for their swimming lesson and started splashing around. She got out and went back to the campsite.
When she saw her caravan, she realized something was wrong.
It was moving. The door was ajar, and it was rocking slightly.
Lisa slowed down but kept on walking. She remembered an old saying: Don’t go knocking if the trailer is a-rocking.
But if a caravan was rocking when it ought to be empty, surely you should check it out?
Lisa didn’t knock, she simply opened the door.
‘Hello?’ she said quietly.
It was dark inside, and she couldn’t see properly after being out in the sunshine, but she clearly heard a voice: ‘Hello, Summertime.’
It was a male voice. It sounded calm, but Lisa’s stomach turned to ice. Something was wrong. She didn’t climb the steps into the caravan but leaned forward and stuck her head around the door so that she could see as far as the bedroom area.
A tall figure was sitting in the middle of her narrow bed.
Kent Kloss, wearing white shorts and a red top. He nodded to her, and she realized that he had opened her bag.
Her DJ bag. Kloss was slowly going through her vinyl LPs. He hadn’t got very far yet, but he was making steady progress.
‘Come on in!’ he said with a smile. ‘Make yourself at home!’
Lisa stepped inside, but this certainly didn’t feel like home. The caravan was hot and cramped and seemed to be quivering around her. She dropped her beach bag and gave him a quick smile in return.
‘Hi, Kent... How did you get in?’
He was still smiling. ‘I have a spare key. We own this caravan — don’t you remember? We allow you to live here, as our employee.’
The last sentence sounded slightly threatening. Lisa didn’t quite know what to do, so she nodded.
‘I wanted to see if everything was OK,’ Kent went on. ‘So I came in, and I was curious. I love old dance music, so I thought I’d have a look at what you’ve got.’
‘Fine by me,’ Lisa said. ‘Those are the LPs I play over at the club... I’ve got nothing to hide.’
His response was instant. ‘Haven’t you?’
She shook her head, moved a step closer.
Kent carried on flicking through the records, then suddenly jerked his head towards the bed beside him. ‘And what about all this?’
Lisa looked down and saw a small pile at the foot of the bed. Wallets and purses, which of course she recognized. And the mobile phones next to them.
Her entire haul from the May Lai Bar was lying on the bed for all to see. Kloss had already found it.