He started the car and glanced over his shoulder at the bag containing the guns. Then he swung the car around and drove south.
Jonas
For the second time that summer, Jonas woke up in a boathouse, confused and blinking. But this place had thick stone walls, and he wasn’t in a bed. He was lying on a pile of nets, fishing nets that were soft with age and stank of tar. The wind was howling around the boathouse, and he could hear the muted cry of gulls outside.
He realized that he wasn’t alone. Casper and Urban were over by the wall, wearing pyjamas; when he looked down, he saw that he was in his pyjamas, too.
His cousins seemed as drowsy as he was, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.
Jonas knew he had fallen asleep in the chalet, but he had vague memories of the night: a white angel by his bedside, a sweetish smell filling his nostrils. Then rough hands in the darkness.
He closed his eyes, dozed, waited. Someone had left bottles of water on a stool by the wall, and all three boys had a drink. A thin strip of light was visible through a narrow gap under the door, and eventually Urban got up. He pushed the wooden door with both hands, harder and harder, but it was sturdy and impossible to move. It must be secured from the outside somehow. Urban gave up and went back to his pile of nets.
The three of them sat in silence. Jonas had lots of questions, but no one had any answers. As the light outside grew stronger, Urban and Casper started talking to him.
They both had a headache. So did Jonas.
‘It must have been some kind of drug,’ Urban said quietly. ‘They knocked us out while we were asleep.’
‘I remember someone carrying me,’ Casper chipped in. ‘It was a man... an old man. But he was strong.’
The cairn ghost, Jonas thought.
They sat there in the semi-darkness for a long time. None of them had a watch. All they could do was wait. Jonas leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, listening to the wind and the birds.
Then he heard something else: the sound of a car engine nearby. He raised his head. ‘Can you hear something?’
Casper and Urban listened, looking worried.
‘Is it him?’ Casper whispered.
‘Dunno.’
The car drove right up to the boathouse, then the engine was switched off. They heard slow, heavy footsteps approaching through the grass.
The rattle of a padlock, the sound of an iron bar being removed. The door opened.
An old man stood there looking at them, his expression forbidding. Jonas recognized him; it was the man he had seen by the cairn.
Ten metres behind the man he could see a blue Ford.
The man had a black gun in his hand, pointing at the floor, but from the easy way he was holding it Jonas could tell he was used to it. The gun was a tool. He would take aim in a second if it became necessary.
‘Out you come,’ he said.
Jonas and Casper stood up and stepped out through the low doorway. The light was very bright outside; it felt like afternoon. Urban came out last, but the cairn ghost stopped him with his free hand, looking closely at him.
‘You’re a Kloss, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘And Veronica is your mother?’
Urban nodded.
‘Good.’ The man pointed along the shore. ‘Off you go. There are houses a few kilometres down the coast. Run to one of them and call home. Call your mother and tell her where you’ve been. Tell her to come here as soon as possible. To Einar Wall’s boathouse. Alone.’
Urban looked at Jonas and Casper and opened his mouth. ‘I just want to say—’
‘Shut up,’ the man said. He pointed the gun at Urban with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. ‘Do you want a bullet in the back of your neck?’
‘No, but—’
‘Clear off, then.’
Urban glanced anxiously at Jonas and Casper once more — then he ran, loping across the grass by the shore.
The cairn ghost watched him go.
‘Good.’ He nodded to the two boys. ‘Now it’s just the three of us.’
Jonas didn’t dare say anything, but he suddenly realized that the man was sick. He was swaying slightly, and from time to time he pressed his hand against his stomach, as if he was in pain. His face was shiny with sweat, even though the heat of summer had passed.
The man might be sick, but he still moved like a soldier, with focus and determination.
He placed a piece of paper on the floor of the boathouse. Jonas caught a glimpse of five words written in pencil, in capital letters:
THE OLD MILL,
STENVIK.
ALONE.
The man closed the door.
‘Let’s go.’
He gave Jonas a push in the direction of the car. Jonas walked obediently in front of the man with the gun, as prisoners must always do.
Gerlof
Gerlof and John were out in the car the following morning. It was almost eight thirty, but it wasn’t particularly light; dark clouds hung over the island.
John had woken Gerlof at seven, without even bothering to say good morning.
‘It’s the cairn,’ he said. ‘They’ve blown it up.’
‘The cairn?’
‘Not yours. The one Kloss built.’
Gerlof heard what he said, but he couldn’t quite believe it. He had heard the explosion — but the cairn?
Then he thought about it, and said, ‘Aron Fredh.’
John didn’t answer, but then it wasn’t a question; it had to be Aron.
‘We’d better get over there,’ Gerlof said.
John helped him to the car. They drove the short distance down to the coast road and turned off by the mailboxes. Past the campsite and over to the southern tip of the inlet, where the ridge rose above the water.
John drove slowly, and Gerlof had plenty of time to take everything in. First of all, he saw a small group of campers and holiday-home owners, then the police cars and an ambulance in front of a blue-and-white police cordon and, finally, the scene of the tragedy.
He realized that it must have been an enormous explosion as soon as he saw the cairn.
Or what was left of it. By now it was more of a crater, containing only earth and gravel. A few stones lay on the edge of the ridge — the rest had been spread inland in a great shower, right across the coast road. Many of them had landed on Villa Kloss, which was the only property within reach.
Aron might be a war-damaged lunatic, Gerlof thought, but his aim had been excellent. The explosion had destroyed only property belonging to his own family. Kent’s house was closest, and looked as if a bomb had hit it; the roof had collapsed and the decking was smashed to pieces. Every single panoramic window was shattered.
Gerlof gazed at the devastation and thought about Jonas Kloss.
He searched among the faces of the people standing around. Most of them were strangers as far as Gerlof was concerned, and he couldn’t see any members of the Kloss family. Then he recognized a middle-aged man in a pale-blue dressing gown, his spiky hair standing on end. He had forgotten the man’s name, but he came from Stockholm and lived next door to Villa Kloss.
John stopped the car and Gerlof wound down the window. He didn’t need to ask what had happened.
‘Anyone hurt?’ he said.
The neighbour shook his head. ‘I’m not sure. Our garden is a bit further away, so the stones didn’t hit us, but... well, what can you say?’
He nodded in the direction of Villa Kloss. ‘Was anyone there last night?’
‘One of the brothers was sleeping in a room at the back... Niklas Kloss. He’s OK, apparently.’
‘And the other brother, Kent? And the boys?’
The neighbour shook his head. ‘No idea.’