‘We’ll come back,’ Aron says.
Mila nods wearily. It is almost time for dinner, but she shakes her head and goes to bed. She seems ill; perhaps she is suffering from seasickness, even though the sea is perfectly calm.
Aron eats as quickly as possible in the only restaurant on board, then goes back down to the cabin.
Mila is asleep, her breath rattling in her chest. Aron has the dizzying feeling that he has done this before, when he travelled with Sven, who was so ill. But this is far more serious.
Two days later, they are back in Moscow. They have travelled the same way as they did on the outward journey, by train from St Petersburg. Their daughter, Paulina, is waiting for them at the Belorussky Station. Aron notices that she has changed out of her winter coat; spring has arrived in Russia.
He climbs down from the carriage with a heavy tread and helps Mila down the steps; she is exhausted. They both hug their daughter for a long time.
And so they go home, and the hospital visits begin again. And the constant battle for oxygen.
At the end of June he calls his sister again, on the line beneath the Baltic Sea, but she doesn’t answer. A nurse speaks to him instead, with that faint rushing sound in the background, as before.
‘Greta Fredh is no longer with us, I’m afraid. She’s passed away.’
Aron doesn’t understand.
‘She had a fall. She fell in her bathroom.’
After a while, the news sinks in, and he puts down the phone.
His sister is dead, and there is no hope for his wife.
It takes ten months of hospital visits and vigils before Mila’s lungs give up. She is like a drowning woman at the end, fighting and fighting, but unable to get any air.
On 20 February 1999 she finally dies. Aron and Paulina are sitting with her, but Aron has to leave the room several times during the struggle. The feeling of powerlessness is the worst thing of all.
At the beginning of May, two months after the funeral, he travels back to Sweden. He buys an old Ford in Stockholm and drives down to Öland.
Greta’s room has been cleared, but he is allowed to look at the box containing the things she left behind. She had nothing — nothing of value, at least — but he takes a few family photos of himself when he was a little boy, and of their mother, Astrid.
The door of the room next to Greta’s is standing open; the nameplate says ‘WALL’. Aron looks inside. Two men are sitting there; one is older than Aron, the other is younger. But they bear a strong resemblance to one another; he assumes they are family.
‘Did you know the lady next door?’ he asks.
‘Who wants to know?’
‘Fredh. Aron Fredh.’
‘So you and Greta were related,’ the older man says. ‘She had a fall.’
He puts a little too much stress on the last word, and Aron pricks up his ears.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’m her brother.’
‘My name is Wall,’ the older man says. ‘Ulf Wall... This is my son, Einar.’
Aron nods.
‘I’m related to the Kloss family as well,’ he says.
He notices that the younger man, Einar Wall, frowns slightly at the mention of that name, so he takes a step into the room. Purposefully, like a soldier.
The Homecomer
‘Kent is dead,’ Veronica Kloss said.
Aron nodded. ‘So is Greta. And Mila.’
Veronica stared at him in the glow of the paraffin lamps, and he stared right back.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
She hesitated briefly, then sat down on the empty chair next to her youngest son. He looked at her and she opened her mouth to say something to him, but Aron didn’t want to hear it.
‘Right,’ he said loudly. ‘Let’s begin.’
This was the last interrogation he and Vlad would ever conduct, he knew that. It was important to do it properly.
There was no desk in the mill, but he had brought a pen and paper and found a wooden box to lean on. He pushed the box over to Veronica.
‘Take the pen.’
She looked at him for a long time, but took it eventually.
‘And some paper.’
She took a sheet of paper.
Aron raised the assault rifle. ‘Start writing. I want you to admit that you killed my sister in the residential home last summer, after I told you we were related. And I want you to explain how you did it.’
The pen was poised over the paper.
‘And then?’ Veronica said.
‘When you’ve finished, I’ll let the boy go.’
‘And me?’
He lowered the rifle so that it was pointing at the makeshift desk.
‘Just write.’
Veronica gazed at the empty sheet of paper, then she began to write.
Aron’s eyesight was good; if he leaned forward slightly he could read her confession.
‘You’d put the mat under the bathroom door earlier on, and then you jerked it away...’ he said. ‘What happened next?’
Veronica looked down at her hands. ‘I couldn’t hear anything from the bathroom, so I left. No one saw me.’
Silence fell inside the mill. Veronica was still holding the pen, and Vlad was staring at her from behind Aron’s eyes.
‘Carry on writing,’ he ordered. ‘I want you to admit that you refused to help my wife, Ludmila Jegerov, who was seriously ill, in spite of the fact that we asked you for help several times. I want everything written down and signed.’
Jonas
It was overcast and windy outside, and Jonas fled from the mill as fast as he could. He ran along a narrow path between the trees and undergrowth. It was almost evening now, and he slipped several times on the damp grass but immediately got back on his feet and carried on going. The ropes had chafed his hands and legs, but he was free now.
He could feel the wind off the Sound in his face, and it drew him onwards. Juniper bushes whipped at his arms, tangled hazel branches scratched his face, but he gritted his teeth and forced his way through. He was free, and he just wanted to get away from the tall, black monster behind him — the windmill.
He had no intention of abandoning Casper and Aunt Veronica, but he had to get help from someone. The police, anyone.
The trees began to thin out. He put his head down and speeded up. Suddenly, something reached out towards him, something that grabbed his arm so firmly he was forced to stop dead. This wasn’t a juniper branch, this was a hand. A large hand, and it belonged to a man wearing a pulled-down cap. His gaze was penetrating.
‘Where are you off to?’
Jonas struggled to escape, but in vain, so in the end he gave up and said, ‘To the police.’
The grip on his arm relaxed slightly. The man pushed back his cap and looked at Jonas; he didn’t seem dangerous.
There was a movement behind them in the bushes, then came another voice: ‘Jonas?’
A quiet voice that Jonas recognized; it was Gerlof Davidsson. He emerged slowly from the undergrowth, leaning on his stick for support, and nodded to Jonas. At the same time, the other man let go of Jonas’s arm.
‘What are you doing here?’ Gerlof said.
Jonas jerked his head backwards, towards the clearing with the tall black tower. ‘He let me go.’
‘So you’ve been in the mill?’
Jonas nodded. His knees gave way and he felt sick.
‘Casper’s still there,’ he managed to gasp. ‘With the cairn ghost. And Aunt Veronica... She wanted him to let Casper go, but he chose me instead.’
Gerlof nodded as the other man helped Jonas to his feet.