Юхан Теорин - The Voices Beyond

The glass door was still ajar. She decided to go in and make sure she’d locked the booth before she went back to the caravan to call Silas and grab a few hours’ rest before tonight’s debut as Lady Summertime.

Just as she was about to step inside, she thought she heard something behind her, a short, sharp noise from the forest. An old oak tree coming down? A firework? Lisa stopped in the doorway for a moment, but she didn’t hear anything else.

She went in and closed the glass door behind her.

The Homecomer was standing out on the makeshift jetty when the guard turned up. The boulders from his childhood, arranged in a row stretching out from the shore — but of course it was a mistake to walk out on to them. It made him too visible, too vulnerable.

He had longed to stand here by this narrow sandy shore almost every day while he was overseas, had dreamed of coming back and walking right to the very end of the jetty. His croft up in the forest was gone, but Kloss couldn’t erase these rocks.

He had sat among the trees for a while, watching the Ölandic dock with Pecka, his young recruit, but the flies had been a nuisance and his leg had gone to sleep. Eventually, he had left the protection of the forest and gone down to the sea, with the Walther still tucked into the waistband of his trousers at the back. He had made sure the safety catch was on.

Tentatively, he made his way along the boulders, and for a few moments he had allowed himself to be drawn back to his childhood, although he didn’t leap from rock to rock like a boy; he took the slow steps of an old man.

Twelve steps, and the Homecomer was standing on the very last boulder. He straightened his back and gazed out across the empty Sound.

The sun was shining, but the water around him was dark and full of shadows; the bright light barely reached the sandy seabed. However, when he looked north he could clearly see the black ship that Pecka had been watching. It was still moored in the dock, and the crew were working flat out. They seemed to be carrying plastic boxes of fish from the ship to a delivery van on the quayside.

In the other direction, to the south, he could hear the sound of the Ölandic’s summer residents enjoying the sunshine, but the bathing area was hidden behind a spit of land. The Homecomer couldn’t see them, and no one could see him.

There was an air of calm about the island. No doubt the visitors who weren’t down on the shore were fast asleep in their tents and chalets, and many of those who had celebrated the shortest night of the year would wake up with gaps in their memory and trembling hands, feeling ten years older on this bright summer’s day.

But the Homecomer was wide awake, and he felt good.

After a while, the van drove away from the quayside. The seamen went back on board, and the Homecomer decided it was time to leave.

‘Hey! You there!’

The voice came from behind him, and he slowly turned around.

‘Yes, you! This is private property!’

A young man was standing on the shore, but it wasn’t Pecka. He was wearing blue trousers and a black peaked cap, and he looked like a park keeper.

‘Private?’ the Homecomer said, standing his ground.

The security guard nodded. ‘Were you looking for someone?’

No doubt this was a question he usually asked unauthorized persons, but out here it sounded rather odd.

The Homecomer shook his head and stayed exactly where he was. He wondered whether Pecka had seen the guard.

‘I used to live here when I was a boy,’ he said. ‘I used to stand here on the rocks catching pike with a wooden spear... We had a croft in the forest.’

‘Right,’ the guard said. ‘Well, there’s no croft there now.’

‘No, it’s been knocked down.’

The guard wasn’t listening; he seemed to be pondering something.

‘How did you get in here?’

‘I walked.’

‘Didn’t you see the notices?’

‘No.’

‘But what about the fence? You must have seen the fence!’

The Homecomer shook his head — and at the same time he felt for the pistol with his right hand. His fingers touched the butt of the Walther he had bought from Einar Wall.

‘This place used to be called Rödtorp,’ the Homecomer said, holding the security guard’s gaze. He kept the pistol hidden behind his back as he carried on talking. ‘Our cottage was small but cosy... my grandfather built it. I lived there with my mother, Astrid, and my sister, Greta, and my stepfather, Sven. But Sven wanted to travel to the new country, so that was what we did. We sailed from Borgholm and—’

‘I’m sure you did,’ the guard interrupted him, his voice hardening, ‘but you need to come ashore!’

The Homecomer nodded. He set off along the rocks, but he wasn’t quite so steady on his feet now.

He stopped and shook his head. ‘My legs have seized up.’

‘Hang on,’ the guard said wearily. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

He stepped on to the first rock.

The Homecomer waited for him, holding the pistol behind his back. He could hear the excited screams and joyful shouts of the holidaymakers in the distance.

The guard took five strides and reached the Homecomer.

‘Put your hand on my shoulder and we’ll get you back,’ he said, turning away. Perhaps he was pleased at the thought of being able to help an old man.

‘You’re very kind,’ the Homecomer said, his eyes fixed on the back of the young man’s neck.

He raised the gun, slipped off the safety catch and took aim.

The guard grabbed his radio and began to turn as he heard the sound, but it was too late.

The back of his neck was unusually slender. The line where the skull ended and the vertebrae began was clearly visible.

The Homecomer fired.

The shot echoed out across the water; the guard’s body convulsed and he fell sideways. Down into the water, away from the light, with a cascade of white foam all around him.

The Homecomer watched as the waters closed over the young man and the body disappeared into the darkness.

He looked around, listened. The shot had been a sharp report in the wind, short and hard, with no echo. Trees muffled the sound of a bullet being fired, as he knew very well, and there were plenty of trees around the shore.

Pecka had heard the shot. He had got to his feet among the trees and was staring open-mouthed towards the sea. Slowly, he began to move.

After ten seconds, the guard’s body floated back to the surface, face up. A stream of bubbles was coming out of his mouth, and his arms were moving feebly.

Pecka appeared. He stared at the guard in the water.

‘He’s still alive,’ he said.

The Homecomer crouched down with his arm outstretched, put the Walther under the water and fired into the guard’s head, with hardly a sound.

The bubbles stopped.

Everything went quiet.

‘Let’s get him out,’ the Homecomer said.

Pecka looked at him blankly. ‘What?’

The Homecomer didn’t reply. He looked around; there was no one in sight, which meant that no one had heard the shot. And if there was one thing he knew about, it was taking care of dead bodies.

He bent down and grabbed hold of the man’s belt, then started hauling the body towards the shore.

‘Give me a hand,’ he ordered.

Pecka moved like a sleepwalker, but stepped down into the water and seized the guard’s arms.

They dragged the body to the shore, then pulled it ashore and in among the trees.

‘Shit,’ Pecka said. ‘Shit...’

The Homecomer wasted no time on him. He quickly ripped open the guard’s shirt and removed the wet clothes.

There was an old ditch under the tangle of dog roses, just a few metres away. He got Pecka to roll away all the big stones in order to make it deeper, then they tipped the naked body into the hollow. He covered it with a thick layer of rotting bladder wrack from the shore to contain the smell of the corpse, then topped the seaweed with several layers of stones.