Юхан Теорин - Echoes From the Dead

“Right.” John stepped back into the house, and when he came out again he was holding a padded jacket and a bunch of keys. “We can take my car,” he said. “I’ll just go and have a word.”

Gerlof nodded, that would be good. Boel was bound to want to get back to the senior home, and it would be easier to talk to John if they were alone.

John went over to Anders, stopped in front of him, then pointed at the golf course and said something quietly. Anders shook his head. John pointed at him, and Gerlof could hear his raised voice. The Hagman father and son had a somewhat strained relationship, Gerlof knew that — they were too dependent on each other.

In the end Anders nodded, and John shook his head and turned his back on his son. They’d finished arguing.

As John was unlocking his own car, Gerlof made his way slowly over to Boel to thank her for the lift.

“So Ernst is dead, then,” said John behind the wheel.

“That’s what Julia thought,” said Gerlof beside him, looking out at the shore and the glittering water down below the coast road.

“A stone fell on him,” said John.

“A big stone. That’s what Julia said,” explained Gerlof.

There hadn’t been a serious accident for over sixty years in the quarry, he realized — but now that it was closed, Ernst had ended up underneath a stone.

“I brought the spare key,” said John. “In case they’ve taken him away.”

“Did he give you a key?” said Gerlof, who had never been entrusted with one by Ernst. On the other hand, he’d never given Ernst a spare key to his cottage either. Perhaps they hadn’t really trusted one another.

“Ernst knew I wouldn’t go snooping around,” said John.

“Maybe we should take a look around in there now, though,” said Gerlof. “I don’t really know what we’re supposed to be looking for. But we ought to look.”

“Yes,” said John. “It’s different now.”

Gerlof didn’t say anything else, just gazed ahead through the windshield, because there was an ambulance coming toward them along the coast road. Gerlof had never seen an ambulance in Stenvik before.

It was coming slowly along from the track to the quarry, and the dark blue lights on the roof were not flashing. This wasn’t a good sign, but it was what they’d expected. John slowed as the ambulance passed them, then they turned off onto the northern road into the village.

“His work sold really well last summer,” said John after a while. “We joked about it a bit, the fact that Ernst had more customers than I had fish in my nets.”

Gerlof merely nodded; there was nothing more to say right now. Ernst’s death still felt like a great weight resting on his shoulders.

John turned onto the narrow track leading to the plateau above the quarry, and Gerlof could see the tracks of several vehicles in the mud. Ernst’s and Julia’s cars were up ahead, and behind them two police cars and another private car, a shiny blue Volvo. Beside it stood a man wearing a cap, his camera resting on his stomach.

“Bengt Nyberg’s bought another new car,” said Gerlof.

“I suppose newspaper editors earn good money,” said John.

“Do they?” said Gerlof as John pulled up level with the sign CRAFT WORK IN STONE — WELCOME and switched off the engine.

Gerlof got out of the car with some difficulty; his limbs were stiff as usual, protesting at the unfamiliar movements. He balanced himself using his cane, straightened his back, and nodded at the local editor of Ölands-Posten for northern Öland, who was ambling toward them with his hand resting on his camera.

“The ambulance has taken him away,” said Nyberg.

“We know,” said Gerlof.

“I missed him too. I’ve taken a few pictures of the police and the big mark down there, but I don’t think we’ll be able to print them. The Borgholm office will decide, of course.”

It sounded as if he were talking about pictures of a car that had driven into a ditch, or a broken window. Bengt had always been insensitive, thought Gerlof.

“Best not to use them,” said Gerlof.

“Do you know who found him?” said Nyberg, pressing a button on the camera.

There was a whirring sound as the film rewound.

“No,” said Gerlof.

He began to walk slowly toward the edge of the quarry. Where was Julia?

“Go home and write your article, Bengt,” said John behind Gerlof.

“I’ll do that,” said Nyberg. “You’ll be able to read all about it tomorrow.”

He went over to his new car, got in, and started it up.

Gerlof kept walking past the house and the shed toward the quarry. When he was a few yards from the edge, a uniformed police officer came scrambling up from the quarry. He managed to get one leg up onto the edge, heaved himself up, then bent down to help another officer up, a younger colleague. Then he breathed out heavily and looked at Gerlof, who didn’t recognize either of them. The policemen must be from Borgholm, or from the mainland.

“Are you relatives?” asked the older officer.

“Old friends,” replied Gerlof. “His relatives live in Småland.”

The police officer nodded. “There isn’t much to see,” he said.

“Was it an accident?”

“A work-related accident,” said the police officer.

“He was moving a sculpture at the edge here,” said the younger officer, pointing at the cliff edge, where there was a small hollow in the gravel. “So he was standing here, and he must have grabbed hold of it. And then...”

“He slipped or stumbled and fell down, and it landed on top of him,” said the older one.

“It would have been very quick,” said the younger officer.

Gerlof took another step forward, leaning on his cane. He could see it now.

The church tower, Ernst’s biggest sculpture, was lying down in the quarry. You could clearly see where it had landed when it fell. There was a deep gash in the gravel down below.

A trace of Ernst. Gerlof looked quickly away, out over the quarry, but when he thought about how many gravestones and tombstones had been hacked out of this hillside over the years, he let his eyes gaze even further away, toward the shore and the water, and then he finally felt a little better.

Then he looked to the right along the edge of the cliff, where the other stone sculptures were lined up. Ernst had arranged them a few yards apart, but there was a wider space over there... Gerlof walked across.

Another sculpture had fallen down, a smaller one. He could see it down at the bottom of the quarry, a long oval shape that might have been some kind of egg or the head of a troll. Unlike the church tower, this sculpture had split into two pieces.

Gerlof turned away, slowly so that he wouldn’t lose his balance on the uneven gravel, and began to make his way to the house.

“Is Julia Davidsson still here?” he asked the police officers. They had stopped to look in Ernst’s shed, where hammers, wheelbarrows, and an old stone plane were jammed together with yet more sculptures of different sizes.

“She’s in there with Henriksson,” answered the older officer, pointing toward the house.

“Thank you.”

The door of the house was ajar, so John must have gone in. Gerlof made his way laboriously up the low wooden steps. He wiped his feet on the doormat. Then he pushed open the door.

Several pairs of outdoor shoes were in his way; Gerlof had to push them aside with his cane in order to get past. There was no question of bending down and taking off his own shoes; he kept them on and continued along the narrow hallway. Framed pictures of old quarrymen with picks and spades in their hands hung along the walls.

He could hear low voices up ahead.

John was standing by the window in the big room, looking out. Julia and another uniformed police officer were sitting on the sofa; he was an older man who had politely removed his cap.