John Hagman looked at him. ‘Ready to go?’
Gerlof nodded. ‘Back to the institution.’
As they drove away from Stenvik and the cottage, Gerlof watched the bright landscape passing by and wondered if summer was over — as far as he was concerned, anyway. Time passed so quickly during this late phase of his life.
The residential home was bathed in sunlight, its windows shining. The car park was empty, and the place felt deserted when he walked in. At first, he couldn’t understand why, then he realized that many of the staff were on holiday.
Most of the residents were still there, of course, dozing in the heat. As he passed the coffee bar, he saw Raymond Matsson sitting at a table with a younger relative who had come to visit. The relative must have been in his fifties, but could well be a grandchild, as Raymond himself was ninety-seven years old.
The relative leaned forward and yelled in a voice that sounded as if it were coming through a megaphone, ‘Have you eaten today, Raymond?’
‘What?’ Raymond raised his head. ‘Beaten? Who’s been beaten?’
‘No, Raymond, I’m asking you... have you eaten?’
Gerlof moved on, without waiting for Raymond’s answer.
It shouldn’t be like this, he thought; younger people shouldn’t be yelling at the elderly. Raymond ought to be sitting there talking about his long life, about everything he had learned from having experienced almost the whole of the twentieth century, from horse-drawn carriages to space shuttles. But perhaps Raymond had nothing to say in spite of all that, no wisdom to share.
What did Gerlof have to tell?
Only that both the summer and the century had gone so fast. The six weeks he had been away from here, on parole in the summer cottage, had felt like six minutes.
He followed John, who had unlocked the door of his room and carried his suitcase inside.
‘Gerlof!’
He heard a voice behind him as he was about to go in. It was Boel, the supervisor of the home, and she was smiling. She even winked at him.
‘So you couldn’t stay away any longer?’ she joked.
Gerlof nodded. ‘I gave up.’
‘Now it’s my turn to escape,’ Boel said. ‘I’m going on holiday on Friday; my husband and I are off to Provence.’
‘Have a lovely time.’
‘What about you?’ Boel said. ‘Have you had a good rest?’
‘Yes, I feel fine. I take after my grandfather.’
‘So, he was big and strong, like you?’
‘Tough rather than strong,’ Gerlof said, launching into a story. ‘When my grandfather was eighty years old, he was out fishing all by himself one day, just off Blå Jungfrun. A storm blew up and his skiff capsized. But my grandfather wasn’t afraid; he simply swam ashore, towing the boat behind him, then lay down underneath it on the shore. He couldn’t light a fire, because his matches were wet, so he lay there for three days with no food, all alone, as the storm raged and his clothes slowly dried out. When the wind dropped he rowed home to Stenvik, and he was perfectly fine.’
‘Impressive,’ Boel said.
‘He was a good role model,’ Gerlof said. ‘And I’ve been working on my gig this summer.’
Boel stopped smiling. ‘Don’t even think about going out in it on your own. Not at your age.’
She moved on, and Gerlof went into his room. John was pulling up the blinds.
Everything looked just the same as usual. The long plastic mat was still there in the little hallway, the bathroom was clean, and all the framed diplomas that gave him the right to command a ship at sea were in their proper places on the walls.
The telephone was still there, too. Gerlof went over and picked it up and got a signal straight away. Good.
‘I’ve told Julia and Lena that if anyone rings the cottage asking for me they’re to pass on this number.’
John nodded; he knew exactly who Gerlof meant.
‘What else are you going to do?’
‘It’s back to the bottle for me, I think.’ Gerlof pointed to his desk, where he was working on another ship in a bottle. This one was a two-masted schooner; he had almost finished whittling the hull, and the next job was the masts and the rigging. Then came the tricky task of getting the ship in through the narrow neck.
But he would also have plenty of time to think about Aron Fredh.
Gerlof could try to persuade himself that Aron had done what he came to do and had left the island, but he didn’t believe it. Not as long as Kent Kloss was still around.
Lisa
Kent was sitting in Lisa’s caravan, weighing the old wooden box in his hand. Lisa was perched on her bed, as far away from him as possible. Kloss didn’t look well; there was a hunted expression in his eyes. And he stank of booze again this evening. Of a lot more than one Cosmo.
He looked at her. ‘So this was in the rucksack in his chalet?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you saw a gun in there, too?’
Lisa nodded.
‘What kind of gun?’
‘I don’t know... a revolver?’
Kent’s expression was far from pleasant. ‘You should have taken that as well.’
‘I didn’t have time.’
He stared at the box and sighed. ‘Aron Fredh registered as Karl Larsson when he rented the chalet. He paid cash, and didn’t give a home address. That meant he could stay at the Ölandic, go anywhere he wanted, and spy on us... But if he comes back, we’ll have him.’ He glanced up. ‘What else did you see in the rucksack?’
‘Not much... Some clothes, and several bottles of water.’
Kent smiled wearily. ‘I’m not surprised he had his own water; after all, he’d poisoned ours... We know how he did it now.’
‘Did what?’
‘How he caused the gastroenteritis epidemic,’ Kent explained. ‘He brought a high-pressure pump in with him, then all he had to do was unscrew the pipes in the chalet, then pump water polluted with dung all through our system.’
‘It affected the staff, too,’ Lisa reminded him.
‘Yes, but the guests were his priority.’ Kent rubbed his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept for several days. ‘We’ve purified the water now, but of course a lot of people have already left. So this is a lost season, as far as we’re concerned... A complete waste of time.’
Lisa looked at him. ‘Why did he do it?’
‘What?’
‘I mean... He must really hate you.’
Kent’s eyes were weary and red-rimmed, but his expression was dark. ‘That’s not something you need to concern yourself with,’ he said. ‘That would be a mistake.’
‘OK.’
Kent stared at her for a long time, then he glanced down at the wooden box again. ‘I’ve seen this before.’ He pointed at the double cross burned into the bottom. ‘This is our house mark. My grandfather had one exactly the same; all three Kloss brothers had a snuff box made of apple wood. But Sigfrid’s and Gilbert’s are on a shelf in my kitchen. Edvard’s was missing — until now.’
He weighed the box in his hand and added, ‘Sigfrid, my grandfather, always carried his box with him. I assume Edvard did the same.’
‘So what does that mean?’
‘It means that Edvard Kloss had this box with him when he died. And that Aron Fredh was there, and took it.’
In the silence that followed, Lisa considered asking how Edvard had died — whether Aron Fredh had murdered him, perhaps — but she decided to say nothing.
Kloss was beginning to look quite pleased. ‘At least he’s on the run now. We’re watching the chalet, so he can’t come back there.’
‘Maybe he’ll leave the island,’ Lisa said.