Юхан Теорин - Echoes From the Dead

“She seems to care about you,” said Julia as she drove away from the home. “Boel, I mean.”

“It’s her responsibility, she doesn’t want anything to happen to me,” said Gerlof, and added, “I don’t know if you heard, but a pensioner has disappeared in the south of Öland... The police are looking for him.”

“I heard it on the car radio,” said Julia. “But we’re not going out onto the alvar today, are we?”

Gerlof shook his head. “Like I said, we’re going to Borgholm. We’re going to see three men. Not all at the same time. One after another. And one of them sent Jens’s sandal to me. You want to talk to him, don’t you?”

“And the others?”

“One of them is a friend of mine,” said Gerlof. “His name’s Gösta Engström.”

“And the third man?”

“He’s a little bit special.”

Julia braked as they approached the stop sign at the intersection with the main road.

“You always have to be so secretive, Gerlof,” she said. “Is it because you want to feel important?”

“No, it isn’t,” said Gerlof quickly.

“Well, that’s what I think,” said Julia as she turned onto the main road to Borgholm.

Maybe she was right, thought Gerlof. He’d never really considered what it was that motivated him.

“I’m not self-important,” he said. “I just think it’s best to tell stories at their own pace. Before, people always took their time over telling stories, but now everything has to be done so quickly.”

Julia didn’t say anything. They drove south, past the turning for Stenvik. A few hundred yards further on, Gerlof could see the old station house on the horizon to the west. This was where Nils Kant had walked that summer’s day after the end of the war, the day that ended with him shooting District Superintendent Henriksson dead on the train.

Gerlof could still remember the commotion. First two German soldiers shot dead on the alvar, then the murder of a policeman, and a murderer on the run — a sensation that merited plenty of news coverage, even during the final bloody and dramatic months of the Second World War.

Reporters had come from far and wide to write about the violence and the horrifying events on Öland. Gerlof himself had been in Stockholm at the time, trying to resume his civilian maritime career, and had only been able to read about the drama in the newspaper. The police had called in reinforcements from all over southern Sweden to search the island for Kant, but he had jumped off the train and managed to get away.

There were no trains on Öland now; even the railway tracks had been pried up, and the Marnäs train station had become someone’s home. A summer home, of course.

Gerlof looked away from the station house and leaned back in his seat; a few minutes later something suddenly started bleeping persistently somewhere inside the car. He looked around quickly, but Julia remained calm and, as she was driving, slid a cell phone out of her purse. She spoke quietly, answering in monosyllables, then switched off the phone.

“I’ve never understood how those things work,” said Gerlof.

“What things?”

“Cordless phones. Cell phones, as they call them, whatever a cell is.”

“All you have to do is switch them on and make a call,” said Julia. Then she added, “That was Lena. She says hello.”

“That’s nice. What did she want?”

“I think she mainly wants her car back,” said Julia tersely. “This one. She keeps calling me about it.” Her grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I own it jointly with her, but that doesn’t seem to bother her.”

“Right,” said Gerlof.

His daughters obviously had points of disagreement between them that he knew nothing about. Their mother would doubtless have done something about it if she’d been alive, but unfortunately he had absolutely no idea what he ought to do.

Julia sat in silence behind the wheel after her telephone conversation, and Gerlof couldn’t come up with any way of breaking the silence.

After a quarter of an hour Julia turned off onto the exit road to Borgholm.

“Where are we going now?” she asked.

“First of all we’re going to have our morning coffee,” replied Gerlof.

It was warm and comfortable in the Engströms’ apartment on the southern outskirts of Borgholm. Gösta and Margit had a fantastic view of the ruined castle from their balcony in the low apartment block. On the far side of a narrow, deserted meadow was a long steep hillside with huge deciduous trees clinging to it, and on the plateau above the hillside rose the medieval castle. One of Borgholm’s many mysterious fires had ravaged it at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and now both the roof and the wooden beams were gone. Great black openings gaped where the windows had been.

The burnt-out windows up there always made Gerlof think of a skull with empty eye sockets. Some of those who lived in Borgholm had never liked the castle, he knew, at least not until it was transformed from a showy, dilapidated wreck into a historic ruin that brought in the tourists. Centuries ago, the inhabitants of Öland had been forced to build the castle, but it had been yet another royal command that brought nothing but blood and sweat and disappointment for them. The people of the mainland had always tried to suck the island dry.

Julia stood in silence on the balcony contemplating the ruin, and Gerlof turned to her.

“In the Stone Age they used to throw the old people who were sick off that cliff,” he said quietly, pointing toward the ruin. “That’s what they say, anyway. Of course, that was before the castle was built. And long before those who govern us started building old people’s homes...”

Margit Engström bustled toward them. She was carrying a tray of coffee cups and wearing an apron that proclaimed THE BEST GRANNY IN THE WORLD!!!

“In the summer they have concerts in the ruin,” she told them, “and it can get a bit noisy here. Otherwise it’s really nice living below a castle.”

She set the tray on the table in front of the television and poured coffee for them all before fetching a basket of buns and a plate of cookies from the kitchen.

Her husband Gösta was wearing a gray suit with a white shirt and suspenders, and was smiling the whole time. He had looked happy when he was a sea captain too, Gerlof remembered — at least as long as people were doing what he told them to do.

“Nice to see you both,” said Gösta, picking up a steaming cup of coffee. “Of course we’re coming up to Marnäs tomorrow. You’re going too, I presume?”

He was talking about Ernst’s funeral. Gerlof nodded.

“I am, at least. Julia might have to get back to Gothenburg.”

“What’s happening to his house?” said Gösta. “Have they said?”

“No, I suppose it’s too early to decide,” said Gerlof. “But I imagine it will end up as a summer cottage for his family in Smäland. Not that northern Öland needs any more summer cottages... but I expect that’s what it will be.”

“Yes, things will have to change a good deal before anybody moves in to live there all year round,” said Gösta, taking a sip of his coffee.

“We’re so happy down here in town, with everything close by,” said Margit, placing the generously filled dishes on the table. “But of course we’re members of the Marnäs local history association.”

Her husband smiled lovingly at her.

They didn’t stay long at the Engströms’, no more than half an hour.

“Okay,” said Gerlof once they were back in the car, “you can drive over to Badhusgatan now. We’ll stop off at Blomberg’s car lot and do a little shopping before we head off down to the harbor.”

Julia looked at him before she started the car.