‘The Kloss family?’ Gerlof said.
‘I told him what I knew.’
‘And what did you know?’
‘That she was here,’ Wall said. ‘Veronica Kloss kept on turning up for a while last year.’
‘So I heard,’ Gerlof said. ‘She used to give talks and read to the residents. But she hasn’t been here this year.’
‘No, she stopped coming. After the accident.’
‘When Greta fell?’
‘Yes. When she died in the bathroom.’
‘And the door was locked,’ Gerlof said.
‘Yes, Greta was very particular about locking the bathroom door. So that nobody could poke their head in.’ Wall had a brief coughing fit. ‘But Veronica Kloss was in there, too. She came out. I saw her running past my door.’
‘Did you?’
‘I did. And that’s what I told Aron Fredh, too.’
Gerlof thought for a moment. ‘Was your son Einar here at the same time as Aron?’
‘Once, yes. They had a chat.’
‘About the Kloss family?’
‘About all kinds of things... Einar was furious with Kent Kloss — he was always trying to beat down the price of the meat and fish Einar supplied.’
Gerlof realized that something had begun here in Ulf Wall’s room; it had started with a chance meeting between an arms dealer and a man who had come home. Two angry men with a common enemy.
‘So do you think they might have done business together?’
‘Very likely,’ Wall said. ‘But Einar didn’t say anything to me about it.’
Gerlof couldn’t stay on his feet any longer, and he was too polite to sit down on the bed, so he thanked Ulf Wall and left the room.
He paused in the corridor and looked at the room next door, where Greta Fredh had lived. He knocked on the door; no one answered, but he’d got into the habit of simply walking in, so he did the same again.
The old woman who had taken over the room was sitting there; she looked quite alarmed.
‘Good afternoon.’ Gerlof was slightly embarrassed at intruding like this, but he smiled and waved to show that he wasn’t a threat.
He looked around; so this was where Aron’s sister, Greta, had lived, and where she had died. In the bathroom, after a fall.
And the bathroom door had been locked — both Ulf Wall and the care assistant had said the same. It would have been impossible for anyone to push her over.
Gerlof was just about to leave when he noticed the mat in the hallway. He had one exactly the same — plastic.
And then he realized how it could have happened.
Veronica Kloss. Nice, kind Veronica, who came to the home to give talks. Who got involved with the residents, went to see them in their rooms, read to them. Last summer, until Greta Fredh was dead.
Gerlof turned and went out into the corridor.
‘Hello?’ he called out. There was no response, so he raised his voice like the former sea captain he was. ‘Hello! Anyone there?’
A young woman appeared. She wasn’t the care assistant he had spoken to before, but they were similar. ‘What’s happened?’
‘This room,’ Gerlof said, pointing with his stick. ‘You need to cordon it off and call the police.’
The girl looked bewildered. ‘Sorry?’
Gerlof tried to look as authoritative as possible and to sound utterly sure of himself. ‘This is a crime scene. Greta Fredh was murdered in that room.’
Jonas
On Saturday, the sky was grey above Villa Kloss. There wasn’t a breath of wind along the coast, but darker clouds were gathering over the mainland. It felt as if there was a storm on the way.
Jonas worked hard all day, brushing oil into Veronica’s decking, and at quarter past seven in the evening he finished the very last section. His aunt had already paid him, and he had put the envelope containing the money under his pillow, along with his wages from Uncle Kent.
Jonas narrowed his eyes and glanced up at the sun as he put away the brush and the tin of oil. He didn’t want to think about sandpaper, wood oil or decking ever again. He was thinking about the money now, and the fact that he and his father were going home. Veronica had promised to drive them tomorrow after lunch.
Mats had already left; he had caught the bus to Kalmar on the main road this morning.
Jonas cycled over to the Davidsson family’s cottage to say goodbye, as was the custom when someone was leaving the island to go home. Kristoffer was there, along with his mum and dad, but Gerlof had moved back to the residential home in Marnäs.
Jonas rode home in the sunset, feeling a little disappointed; he was sorry not to have seen Gerlof one last time.
The summer was almost over but it was still mild, and Jonas left the door of his chalet open when he went to bed, to let in the night air. Needless to say, it was almost as warm as the air inside the room.
He looked at his watch one last time: nearly ten o’clock. The garden was darker than usual, because someone had turned off the lights around the pool and down by the drive. But the alarm was switched on; Jonas could see the green flashing diodes.
He slid down in his bed, the sound of the crickets filling his ears. He didn’t think he would miss their loud chirping when he got back to town, although it was actually quite calming, a kind of rhythmic chomping from some invisible machine out there in the grass.
Suddenly, the crickets fell silent. Not for long, just a brief pause as if the needle on a record player had been lifted for a few seconds. And then they gradually resumed their song.
Was there someone out there? An animal? Or a person? Jonas listened for a while, but the crickets had returned to their usual rhythm.
He turned over, lay on his back. Through the white curtain, he could see the round moon suspended above the rocks and the Sound. Perhaps it was the full moon that was making the crickets sound so peculiar.
The bed was warm, but the sheets were lovely and cool. Outside, he could hear low voices; it sounded as if his father had come home from his last shift at the restaurant and was saying goodnight to Casper and Urban.
There had been no sign of Uncle Kent all day. Which was fine.
Jonas closed his eyes.
After a while, the voices fell quiet, then he heard footsteps and muted thuds from the other chalets as Casper and Urban went to bed, then there was silence.
The room seemed to get darker. Jonas slowly slipped away into the shadows of the summer night, as if a sooty grey fog had crept in under the door and wrapped itself around him. But he was tired, so very tired, and there was no danger here. No cairn ghost.
Only a guardian angel.
An angel was standing by his bed, tall and still. The angel placed a hand over his face, and whispered that everything was all right.
Sleep, just sleep.
The angel’s soft white hand was still there. And that was fine, everything was peaceful. Jonas sank deeper and deeper, down towards the bottom of the sea.
A little part of him knew that this was wrong, that is was dangerous to sink this deep, but by that time he couldn’t do anything about it.
The Homecomer
The three guest chalets stood side by side towards the back of the extensive plot that made up Villa Kloss. When the sun had gone down and the chalets were in darkness, there was no light here.
There was an alarm, but Aron knew the code, of course.
Silently, he opened the door of the chalet on the left. The room smelled of chloroform, thanks to the bottle he had found in Einar Wall’s boathouse.
There was a boy lying in the bed inside. A white handkerchief soaked in chloroform had been placed over his face, so he was fast asleep. A deep sleep beneath a white mask.