Юхан Теорин - The Voices Beyond

At first, Lisa couldn’t understand why only Kent was down here with them; there was no sign of any other members of the family. Neither of his siblings, none of the boys.

But when she saw how silently Kent moved she began to realize that this was a mission he wanted to keep from the rest of them. He didn’t want anyone to see what happened here tonight.

Only those who were a part of the trap.

Lisa and Paulina were each holding one end of a length of rope, which was attached to an old nylon fishing net concealed under a thin layer of gravel at the entrance to the dip.

When (or if) Aron Fredh appeared, they were to raise the net and pull it tight, blocking the narrow track.

‘If he tries to run, he’ll get tangled up in the net,’ Kent had explained. ‘Just like a fish.’

‘And then?’

‘Then we can relax and have a chat,’ Kent had said, without explaining exactly who would be relaxing and chatting.

A cool breeze had begun to blow in off the Sound, and Lisa shivered. The height of summer was almost past; each night was a little darker and colder than the one before. Soon, she would be going home.

But, right now, she was here. She would get the job done as quickly as possible.

Absolutely nothing had happened since they began their watch, apart from the odd bat flitting past like a black rag in the darkness. They could hear the faint sound of the waves lapping down below; a boat occasionally chugged by out in the Sound — but nothing else. No old man had approached the dip.

Lisa cautiously stretched her upper body so that she wouldn’t get pins and needles. She blinked. Waited. Wondered which street corner Silas was hanging around on tonight. Then she heard something.

Not footsteps in the night, just a low, muted sound. A boat engine. But this one was much closer than the others had been, and it wasn’t going away. It was heading for the shore, slowing down just off the land belonging to the Kloss family. It seemed to have stopped; the engine was idling.

Lisa tried to twist around so that she could have a look, but she couldn’t see a thing. Without the moonlight, the sea was completely black.

Then she heard more noises, much closer. The crunch of gravel.

Someone was very close to her, down in the dip. But it wasn’t a man, it was a tall, slender figure. A woman.

‘Lisa?’

Paulina’s quiet voice. Lisa could see her only as a shadow in the darkness, the whites of her eyes shining. She must have left her hiding place and crept along the bottom of the dip; she was only a couple of metres away.

Lisa leaned over and whispered back. ‘Paulina... What are you doing?’

The other girl held out her hand. ‘Listen,’ she said, pointing towards the Sound. ‘Listen to me... Veronica Kloss is down there. She’s fetched the motor launch.’

‘The motor launch?’

Paulina kept her eyes fixed on Lisa. Her Swedish was much better now; she spoke with virtually no accent.

‘The Kloss launch,’ she said. ‘Veronica and Kent are going to shoot Aron Fredh. They’re going to take him out in the boat, attach weights to his body and throw him overboard.’

Lisa was trying to understand. ‘You mean... You mean murder ?’

Paulina nodded, then she reached up and grabbed Lisa’s arm. ‘We have to go,’ she said. ‘Right now.’

Lisa blinked. ‘What?’

But Paulina didn’t answer, she just kept tugging at Lisa’s arm.

Eventually, Lisa got to her feet. ‘Is he here?’ she whispered.

Paulina shook her head. ‘Come on!’

‘But why?’

Lisa couldn’t understand what the rush was, but Paulina wouldn’t give up. She pulled even harder, and in the end Lisa dropped her end of the rope, swung her legs over the edge and scrambled down the slope.

Paulina turned away from her briefly, and shouted along the dip in a loud, shrill voice, ‘He’s got a gun! He’s outside the bunker!’

A man’s voice shouted in response, and Lisa saw a white light appear further along the dip. Kent Kloss had switched on his torch.

Lisa jumped down on to the gravel, managing to keep her balance. Paulina gave her a shove.

‘Run!’ she yelled. ‘Now!’

The loud cry galvanized Lisa into action, and she ran. Away from the dip, down towards the water. Paulina was running behind her, pushing her on. Across the gravel, down to the shore.

Behind them, the beam of the torch swept across the walls of the dip and suddenly it picked up a powerful figure in the darkness.

It looked like the old man, Lisa thought. Aron Fredh.

But he wasn’t down in the dip. He was standing up on the ridge, not far from the cairn. And he was holding something in his hand. Something shiny.

It was time. Aron had left his car in the bathing area car park, at the far end of the inlet. Then he had walked south along the deserted coast road and turned off towards the cairn. He had crept silently through the long grass to the edge of the ridge, just above the entrance to the bunker. The cairn was now on his left, like a broad black cupola in the darkness.

He listened, and heard the throb of a small motorboat out in the Sound. Nothing else.

He moved on, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. Finally, he dropped to his knees on the gravel at the very edge of the rocky outcrop.

Searching in the dark was hard, but after a couple of minutes he found what he was looking for: the end of the pale plastic tube he had run from the bunker and buried a few days earlier. It was sticking out from under a stone, protected from dust and moisture by a small piece of tape.

Aron removed the tape and carefully pulled a little more of the tube free of the gravel. It didn’t look like a fuse, but that was exactly what it was. The modern kind was hollow, like a thin tube, and the inside was filled with highly flammable gunpowder. The fuse wasn’t lit with a match but with a metal spark igniter. It was smaller than a pistol butt, and Aron was already holding it in his hand. He attached the igniter to the fuse, and slowly got to his feet.

He gazed down from his vantage point but saw only darkness. Then he heard a shout, echoing through the dip: ‘He’s got a gun! He’s outside the bunker!’

It was a woman, and he recognized the voice.

Paulina.

Aron understood her warning, but didn’t have time to react or move before the sky was suddenly lit up. A white light was switched on in the dip; it swept upwards in a broad arc and shone straight in his face.

‘Aron!’ a man’s voice yelled.

Kent Kloss. He had a torch in his left hand and a gun in his right hand. An old gun that Aron knew very well. It was his own Walther.

Aron remained standing in the beam of the torch; he knew Kloss could see him. It didn’t matter any more.

He nodded to Kloss, brought his hand into the light and felt the button under this thumb.

‘Drop the gun!’ he shouted. ‘Otherwise, up she goes.’

But he was still too close to the bunker to risk pressing the button, and he hesitated a fraction too long.

‘Fuck you,’ Kloss said.

He raised the gun and fired. The bullet sped upwards in the darkness, and Aron reacted fast. He crouched down and shuffled backwards. He dropped to his knees again, then flattened himself on the ground; the second bullet whistled over his head.

Aron had dropped the igniter and the fuse. He began to feel around, and that was when he heard the crunch of gravel.

Kent Kloss had started to climb up out of the dip.

Where was the igniter? He saw it glinting in the grass but didn’t have time to pick it up.

‘Aron!’ a voice yelled. ‘It’s over!’

Kloss had reached the top and was just a few metres away, waving his torch around. Aron could see that the gun was still in his hand. At any minute, he would spot his target, take aim and fire...