But could the younger members of the family help out? Perhaps.
He nods to his wife and picks up the phone again.
A further conversation with the international operator reveals that there are several individuals with the surname Kloss who still live on the island of Öland. One of them, Veronica, also has a home in Stockholm. She was the person Greta mentioned.
Aron is given her address and telephone number, and glances over at Mila. He has to make the call. He keys in the number with his index finger — his trigger finger — and waits.
After a while, a young man answers. His name is Urban Kloss, and it turns out that he is Veronica’s son. He understands Aron’s Swedish and confirms that this is the right family. They come from Öland, and spend the summers there.
But he doesn’t seem to have any idea who Aron Fredh is.
Aron asks him to fetch his mother. Once more, he listens to the faint rushing sound as he waits. After a moment, he hears the cool voice of a woman: ‘Veronica Kloss.’
Aron clears his throat and introduces himself, a little hesitantly, in Swedish. He explains who he is, where he is calling from.
‘We’re related,’ he says.
‘Related?’
As Aron goes on talking, his Swedish slowly improves. He tells Veronica about Rödtorp and the shore. About Edvard Kloss and Aron’s mother. About travelling to Stockholm with Sven, then on to Leningrad. About the journey north, and the hard labour. He stops at that point; he doesn’t want to tell her any more.
‘But we are related,’ he says again. ‘I’m Edvard’s son.’
Veronica has listened in silence; now she takes a deep breath. ‘I have nothing to say to you.’
There is a click, and the connection is broken.
That’s it. Aron sits there, lost for words, still holding the receiver. He looks at Mila, then back at the phone.
‘She’s gone,’ he says. ‘I suppose it all sounded a bit crazy...’
Mila nods. ‘In that case, we’ll go to Stockholm at Easter,’ she says. ‘When the air is a little warmer. We will go and visit your relative, young Weronikaya, so that you can speak to each other face to face.’
‘Veronica. It’s just Veronica,’ Aron says.
He’s not sure about this, but Mila is determined. ‘Veronica, then. You can take your papers and the old snuff box with you, to prove who you are. That you are her father’s brother.’
‘Her father’s stepbrother,’ Aron says quietly.
‘You’re family,’ Mila says firmly. ‘We need their help; they have to give the croft and the shore back to you.’
Lisa
Paulina led Lisa on through the darkness by the shore, away from the shattered ridge, without stopping. Northwards, past juniper bushes and boathouses. They had almost reached the stone wall surrounding the campsite.
Lisa was expecting Paulina to head for her caravan, but instead she turned off towards the road. She stopped a few metres away from the roadside and waited.
Lisa looked at her. ‘What’s ammonal?’ she said.
‘Dynamite buried underground. He’d dug out a channel and placed the dynamite in it.’
Lisa blinked. She had so many questions it was difficult to choose one.
Paulina was looking south towards the dark Sound. They could still hear the throb of a motorboat engine, but couldn’t see it.
Then came the sound of another engine, somewhat closer this time, and Lisa saw two headlights approaching.
A dark-coloured car was moving slowly along the coast road, coming from the south. It was probably her imagination, but she thought Paulina was smiling at the car.
‘It’s over, Lisa,’ she said.
Paulina was strangely calm after everything that had happened; she seemed so different.
Lisa stared at her. ‘Who are you?’
‘I don’t come from Lithuania,’ Paulina said, still watching the car. ‘I’m from Russia.’
The dark-blue Ford stopped beside them, the engine still running. Paulina turned to Lisa and took her trembling hand. ‘It’s time to leave Öland,’ she said. ‘Go home, Lisa.’
Then she walked away. Lisa watched as Paulina covered the short distance to the coast road. The driver of the Ford had reached over and opened the passenger door.
Paulina got in.
Lisa could see by the interior light that the old man was sitting at the wheel. Aron Fredh. He smiled wearily at Paulina as she sat down beside him and gently stroked his cheek.
The car swung across the coast road. It drove past the restaurant and disappeared into the night.
Lisa was left alone by the campsite, where people had begun to emerge from their tents and caravans to gaze up at the damaged ridge to the south, murmuring to each other in their confusion.
She opened her right hand; Paulina had given her something as she was leaving. It was a thick roll of notes. Swedish banknotes.
She closed her hand around it and thought about Silas, her father. Silas would want this money. Silas needed this money. And that need would never end.
But she was tired of giving her father money to feed his drug habit.
She slipped the roll of notes into her pocket and set off. Slowly at first, then faster. She went to her caravan and packed up her clothes, her records and her guitar, then she did what Paulina had told her to do — left the island. She wanted to get home before the police turned up.
The Homecomer
Aron stopped the car on the way to the main road, and he and Paulina changed places. He looked back, down towards the inlet.
Everything was in darkness. His head was pounding after the explosion, but at least his hearing seemed to be intact.
‘The cairn the Kloss family built is gone now,’ he said in Russian. ‘And their home and their boathouse. All gone... We’ve done what we came to do.’
Paulina looked at him. ‘I thought you were dead, Papa. You were so close to the bunker, and I...’
‘I always survive,’ Aron said tersely.
Paulina nodded. ‘And what about him?’
‘Him’, that was all she said. Aron had managed to meet up with his daughter in secret a few times over the summer, but Paulina had never mentioned Kent or Veronica Kloss by name.
‘He’s gone,’ Aron said.
‘But she survived,’ Paulina said. ‘She was down in the launch, waiting for him to bring down your body. He was going to shoot you... that’s what they’d planned.’
‘She survived? Veronica Kloss?’
‘Yes. I heard the engine afterwards... the boat was moving away.’
She started the car and set off. Not south towards the mainland, but north, where there was no bridge. Towards the furthest point of the island.
They didn’t meet any other cars, and when the road narrowed and the pine forest began Paulina turned on to a dirt track leading through the trees and switched off the headlights. It was almost two o’clock. Aron was exhausted, and every bone in his body was aching.
Paulina had cleared out her caravan and put her bags in the back seat earlier that evening. She opened one, took out two blankets and reclined the seats. They settled down in the darkness, and silence fell inside the car.
‘We couldn’t let the children come to any harm,’ Paulina said after a while. ‘You do understand that, don’t you, Papa?’
Aron didn’t respond at first. It had been his daughter’s idea to remove the boys from Villa Kloss before the cairn was blown up. She had crept in and placed cloths soaked in chloroform over their faces once they had fallen asleep, and she had given Aron the alarm code.
‘I know,’ he said eventually.
The children, he thought. As Vlad, he had harmed many young people in the thirties. Eighteen-year-olds, seventeen-year-olds, perhaps even younger. He had interrogated them, beaten them, sent them off to the camps without turning a hair. Or he had made them orphans.