Юхан Теорин - The Voices Beyond

Paulina nodded. ‘We are.’

‘Why?’

Paulina was quiet for a moment. ‘Sick mother,’ she said eventually.

‘Your mother is sick?’

Paulina nodded again, and Lisa asked, ‘So Kent Kloss is paying you well?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much?’

‘A thousand.’

‘A thousand kronor?’

‘Dollars,’ Paulina said, taking an old tea caddy out of her bag. ‘He give me a hundred already.’ She opened the caddy and showed Lisa the notes.

‘OK. Good,’ Lisa said.

Paulina looked at her. ‘And you? Why you do this?’

Lisa hesitated before answering. ‘I have a relative who needs money.’

‘Relative?’

‘My father... my dad. He lives in Stockholm and he uses the street drugstore, if you know what I mean.’

Paulina obviously didn’t understand.

‘He’s a junkie,’ Lisa explained. She quickly got to her feet. ‘OK, we’d better make sure we’re ready.’

She wished she hadn’t mentioned Silas. She just wanted to get away now, dump this last job and drive away from the island right now.

But she knew she had to stay.

The walkie-talkie was silent, but Lisa’s mobile rang when Paulina had left. Lisa was lying on the bed. She stared at it for a long time without answering.

She knew who it was.

The phone kept on ringing: eight signals. Nine. Ten.

But Lisa didn’t take the call. She just stared out of the window, where the fiery yellow sun was on its way down over the Sound. Eventually, the ringing stopped; Lisa stayed where she was.

After half an hour she got up, pulled on a dark jacket and covered her blonde hair with a black cap.

The sun had disappeared; it was time to go.

For the past week, Gerlof had been hearing stories about Veronica Kloss. How fantastic she was, how well she looked after the elderly.

‘Incredible energy,’ the staff in the residential home said. ‘Never gave up. Happy to chat or to listen. Kept the old ladies going. Used to read to them.’

But if Veronica was so considerate, why hadn’t she been here this summer? Gerlof knew that the Kloss family had had a number of problems to sort out down at the Ölandic, but even so... He hadn’t seen her once.

Last summer, Veronica had been here almost every week. According to the temporary care assistant he had spoken to, Veronica had got on well with Greta Fredh, and had made several subsequent visits to read to Greta and the others.

Then Greta had died after a fall in her bathroom, and Veronica had stopped coming. Gerlof had talked to several residents who missed her and wished she would come back.

But why had she stopped? Was it only Greta who had been important to her?

The door of Ulf Wall’s room was often ajar, but the room inside was dark even when the sun was shining down on the home in Marnäs, and Gerlof had resisted the temptation to call in. He didn’t know much about Ulf, just that he was at least five years older than Gerlof, and might be the father of Einar Wall, the huntsman and arms dealer. And that he had been Greta Fredh’s neighbour.

Finally, on the last day of July, Gerlof pushed open the door and peered in. ‘Hello?’ he said quietly.

At first there was silence, followed by a brief response: ‘What do you mean?’

This question was rather difficult to answer, so Gerlof said nothing. He stepped into the hallway; the room was familiar because it was decorated and furnished exactly the same as his own, but it didn’t smell quite as good. There was no movement in the air in here.

There was no movement in Ulf Wall either. He was wearing a grey cardigan, sitting in an armchair next to the window, which was covered by a roller blind.

Gerlof made his way slowly along the hall. ‘Gerlof Davidsson,’ he said.

The man in the armchair stared at him, and nodded. ‘Yes. I know who you are, Davidsson.’

‘Good.’

‘You were in the paper a while ago.’

‘That’s right. And I heard about your son,’ Gerlof said. ‘That was a little while ago, too. My condolences. Einar was your son, wasn’t he?’

Wall continued to stare at him, not moving a muscle, but after a moment he nodded again. ‘But I’ve got two more,’ he said. ‘They’re better behaved than Einar... they don’t drink and they don’t go poaching.’

There was nowhere for a guest to sit, so Gerlof remained standing, swaying slightly on his weak legs. ‘I heard about your neighbour, too,’ he said. ‘Greta Fredh.’

‘That’s right — Aron’s sister. She died last summer.’

Gerlof swayed even more. Aron’s sister.

‘So you know Aron Fredh?’

‘We got into conversation,’ Wall said. ‘He was here a few times.’

‘When was that?’

‘Early summer... He came and had a look at his sister’s room. Took one or two things with him.’

‘And what did you talk about?’

‘Greta, mainly... he wanted to know what had happened.’

‘I heard she had a fall.’

Ulf Wall nodded once more. ‘He wanted to know if any of the Kloss family had been around at the time.’

‘The Kloss family?’ Gerlof said.

‘I told him what I knew.’

‘And what did you know?’

‘That she was here,’ Wall said. ‘Veronica Kloss kept on turning up for a while last year.’

‘So I heard,’ Gerlof said. ‘She used to give talks and read to the residents. But she hasn’t been here this year.’

‘No, she stopped coming. After the accident.’

‘When Greta fell?’

‘Yes. When she died in the bathroom.’

‘And the door was locked,’ Gerlof said.

‘Yes, Greta was very particular about locking the bathroom door. So that nobody could poke their head in.’ Wall had a brief coughing fit. ‘But Veronica Kloss was in there, too. She came out. I saw her running past my door.’

‘Did you?’

‘I did. And that’s what I told Aron Fredh, too.’

Gerlof thought for a moment. ‘Was your son Einar here at the same time as Aron?’

‘Once, yes. They had a chat.’

‘About the Kloss family?’

‘About all kinds of things... Einar was furious with Kent Kloss — he was always trying to beat down the price of the meat and fish Einar supplied.’

Gerlof realized that something had begun here in Ulf Wall’s room; it had started with a chance meeting between an arms dealer and a man who had come home. Two angry men with a common enemy.

‘So do you think they might have done business together?’

‘Very likely,’ Wall said. ‘But Einar didn’t say anything to me about it.’

Gerlof couldn’t stay on his feet any longer, and he was too polite to sit down on the bed, so he thanked Ulf Wall and left the room.

He paused in the corridor and looked at the room next door, where Greta Fredh had lived. He knocked on the door; no one answered, but he’d got into the habit of simply walking in, so he did the same again.

The old woman who had taken over the room was sitting there; she looked quite alarmed.

‘Good afternoon.’ Gerlof was slightly embarrassed at intruding like this, but he smiled and waved to show that he wasn’t a threat.

He looked around; so this was where Aron’s sister, Greta, had lived, and where she had died. In the bathroom, after a fall.

And the bathroom door had been locked — both Ulf Wall and the care assistant had said the same. It would have been impossible for anyone to push her over.

Gerlof was just about to leave when he noticed the mat in the hallway. He had one exactly the same — plastic.

And then he realized how it could have happened.

Veronica Kloss. Nice, kind Veronica, who came to the home to give talks. Who got involved with the residents, went to see them in their rooms, read to them. Last summer, until Greta Fredh was dead.