John and Gerlof sat in the car for a little while longer, staring at the wreckage, then John seemed to have had enough. He started the engine and put the car in reverse.
‘Wait, John,’ Gerlof said suddenly.
When the car had stopped, he got out and took a few steps on to the ruined property, using his stick for support. He had spotted a man walking across the grass, picking his way between the huge stones. Niklas Kloss.
Kloss was wearing brown shorts, with a grey coat hanging open on his upper body. It was an odd combination, but at least he looked unhurt. Gerlof raised his hand and Niklas Kloss came over to him; his eyes were empty, his movements stiff. He seemed to recognize Gerlof, but didn’t say hello.
‘Kent and the boys are gone,’ he said instead. ‘And Paulina.’
‘Gone?’
‘Veronica’s spent half the night looking for them... So have I.’
Gerlof looked at the two houses. ‘So the boys weren’t at home last night? And nor was Kent?’
‘I don’t know,’ Niklas said quietly. ‘They never tell me anything... Kent and Veronica never tell me anything.’
‘What is it you think they should be telling you?’ Gerlof asked.
Niklas didn’t answer; he turned away.
The door of the other house opened and Veronica Kloss stepped out on to her decking. She was better dressed than her brother, in jeans and a blouse, and the decking was undamaged. She looked over at the two men and came towards them.
Before she reached them Gerlof leaned over to Niklas and asked a brief question; it was something he had been wondering about for several weeks.
‘Were you involved in the smuggling, Niklas?’
Niklas looked at him blankly. ‘Smuggling?’
‘Spirits and tobacco.’
Veronica was almost upon them.
‘It wasn’t me,’ Niklas replied. ‘It was all down to my brother.’
Veronica’s expression was anything but blank, Gerlof saw; it was sharp and focused.
‘Niklas,’ she said quietly.
But her brother carried on talking, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘Kent brought in spirits and cigarettes by boat and car every summer. But he’s the boss of the Ölandic Resort, and the boss can’t go to prison. So I took the fall.’ He looked at Veronica and added, ‘It was my sister’s idea.’
‘I expect she was thinking of the business,’ Gerlof said.
Veronica ignored him; her gaze was fixed on her brother. ‘Niklas, go indoors and call my husband in Stockholm. He should be in the office by now. Tell him to call my mobile, and keep calling until I answer.’ Then she turned to face Villa Kloss. ‘I have to go,’ she said.
‘What’s happened?’ Gerlof asked.
Veronica didn’t look at him, but she did reply. ‘He’s taken the boys.’
‘Who?’
Veronica Kloss didn’t say any more; she just hurried towards her car.
But Gerlof didn’t need an answer, of course — it could only be Aron Fredh.
Niklas was still standing there. Gerlof realized that he was in shock.
‘Niklas, have you seen a doctor?’
‘Not this year.’
Gerlof placed a hand on his shoulder and pointed to the ambulance. ‘Go over there and ask the paramedics to have a look at you... We’ll take care of things.’
Niklas nodded obediently. ‘You’ll find the boys?’
What could Gerlof say? After all, he and John were just two old seamen.
‘We will,’ he promised eventually.
He watched as Niklas slowly made his way over to the ambulance, then he got back in the car and sighed.
‘We’d better drive around, see if we can find the boys. I don’t really know where to look, but...’
‘That’s fine,’ John said. ‘I’ve got plenty of petrol. But can we just stop off at the shop?’
‘Do you have to work?’
‘No, Anders is working, if there are any customers... But I just need to make sure we have enough milk for the weekend.’
‘Of course,’ Gerlof said.
So John turned off, stopped in the car park outside the little shop in Stenvik and got out of the car. Gerlof stayed where he was, until John turned around. ‘Would you like a coffee before we set off?’
They drank their coffee among the boxes in the storeroom.
‘So Aron blew up the cairn,’ John said, ‘and abducted the Kloss children.’
‘It looks that way. And Veronica Kloss went after him.’
‘Yes.’
They sat in silence, listening to the ticking of the clock. Gerlof sipped his coffee. Where was Aron now? Where had he hidden himself? In a cottage somewhere?
All of a sudden, an image came into his head of Aron Fredh on that summer’s day when Gerlof had seen him in the churchyard, before they heard the knocking from inside the coffin. Aron, twelve years old, had appeared by the shed that served as a mortuary like a little ghost. He had reminded Gerlof of a ghost because...
‘He was white,’ Gerlof said out loud.
‘White?’ John said.
‘He was covered in white powder... The first time I saw Aron in the churchyard, his clothes were covered in flour dust.’
John nodded. ‘That makes sense — Sven Fredh was a miller’s labourer. Aron had probably been helping him before he came to the churchyard.’
‘So Sven worked for different farmers,’ Gerlof said slowly. ‘In the flour mills.’
‘The mills...’
‘Yes,’ Gerlof said. ‘I think that’s where he’s hiding. In a windmill that’s still standing.’
John frowned. ‘But which one? There must be thirty-five or forty in this parish alone.’
‘It can only be an abandoned mill,’ Gerlof said. ‘The kind of place that’s falling down, hidden among the trees and undergrowth somewhere... the kind of place people have forgotten about.’
‘There aren’t so many of those. I should think most of them have fallen down already.’
‘Some are still standing. There must be a mill on or near Kloss family land somewhere... That’s where Aron grew up.’
‘That cuts it down even more,’ John said.
Gerlof nodded. Suddenly, he remembered hearing voices from time to time when he was sitting in his garden. An old man and a younger woman had been talking among the trees, a barely audible conversation. As if they had been sitting in a hiding place, above the ground. In a tree, or some other tall structure...
‘I could be wrong,’ he said to John, ‘but I think it’s in Stenvik. The old mill in the forest, behind my garden.’
The Homecomer
It was a grey afternoon on the coast; the storm was almost upon the island. The hundred-year-old mill in the forest was being shaken like a lighthouse by the winds, swaying in time with the trees all around it, but it was still standing.
The interior of the mill consisted of one fairly small square room, with a high ceiling; there was also a loft, and the dusty machinery still stood in the middle of the room. There were no windows, only a number of narrow apertures, so it was dark even in the middle of the day.
After Aron had tied the two boys to old wooden chairs by the wall, he lit some paraffin lamps and stable lanterns he had found, and before long there was a bright light burning in each corner of the mill’s dusty floor, illuminating the wooden walls and the boys’ pale faces. They were keeping very quiet, but he knew they were waiting for Veronica Kloss to come and help them.
Aron was waiting for her, too, his forehead burning and an agonizing pain in his belly. He leaned against the back wall and listened to the wind.
It took time, but eventually Veronica found the right place. He heard the sound of a car engine approaching, then it was switched off. For a moment, there was only the desolate howling of the wind, then footsteps. High heels tapping on the wooden steps leading up to the door. Only one pair of feet. She was alone. Good.