Echoes From the Dead (46 page)

toward the sea. He could use the engine if necessary. Gerlof had always taken good care of his machinery. His cargo ships had been equipped with compressionignition engines. They needed greasing every hour when they were running, but he’d never once forgotten to do it.

“Heaveho,” he said to himself.

He let go of the tree and took a shaky step toward the sea. It felt pretty good; his joints had gone numb, and were no longer aching.

He kept close to the stone wall, where the grass was shorter than out in the meadow, and slowly drew closer to the shore. The wind was blowing in off the seait felt as if it were cutting straight through Gerlof’s wet shirt and into his upper body. But the rattling noise was growing louder and louder, and the sound drew him on.

He was beginning to grow more and more certain that he knew

what it was.

He was rightit was an empty plastic bag.

Or a garbage bag, to be more accurate, big and black and

halfburied in the sand. Presumably thrown overboard from some ship out in the Baltic. There was more garbage further down the shore: an old milk carton, a green glass bottle, a rusty tin. It was shameful, the way people threw garbage overboardbut if Gerlof wanted to survive, he was going to need that plastic bag. If he pulled it up out of the sand, made holes in the bottom, and put it on, it would protect him from the rain and retain his body heat during the night.

Good.

Not bad thinking, for a frozen brain.

The problem was getting down onto the shore, because

where the meadow ended, the waves had created a sharp ledge. It dropped straight down, like a step.

Twenty years earlier, perhaps even ten, Gerlof would have

stepped down onto the shore quickly and easily, without even thinking about itbut now he no longer trusted his balance.

He screwed up his courage, took a deep breath in the icecold air, and stepped out into the wind, his right foot raised and his cane outstretched.

It didn’t go well. The cane hit the shore first and sank deep into the wet sand.

Gerlof toppled forward, let go of the cane too late, and heard it snap with a sharp crack.

He fell and fell toward the shore, trying to break the fall with his right hand. When he landed, the surface of the sand was as hard as a stone floor, and all the air was knocked out of him.

Gerlof lay there, a few yards from the plastic bag.

He couldn’t movesomething was broken. Trying to reach

the bag had been a good plan, but this time he wasn’t going to be able to get up.

Once again he closed his eyes. He didn’t even open them

when the purr of a car engine reached his ears.

The sound was nothing to do with him.

The police radio beside the steering wheel in Lennart’s car had been silent until he started making calls to an emergency center in Kalmarafter that it started broadcasting crackling responses Julia couldn’t understand.

But Lennart was listening with great concentration.

“The dog patrols will be a little while,” he said, looking out into the darkness through the windshield, “but a helicopter will be here soon.”

“When?” said Julia.

“They’re taking off from Kalmar in a few minutes,” said

Lennart, and added, “And they’ve got a thermal imaging camera.”

“A what?”

“A camera,” repeated Lennart. “It registers body heat. Very

useful in the dark.”

“Very,” said Julia, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

She kept on looking out of the windows, but it was so dark out there. It was half past six and it was almost pitchblack.

Earlier, back at the home, Boel had been annoyed at first because Gerlof hadn’t been in touch.

“Are we going to have to lock him in?” she said with a heavy sigh. “Are we?”

But all too soon she had become almost as worried as Julia.

She’d pulled together a search party made up of staff on the evening shift, who set off on foot from the home to see if Gerlof was sitting at some bus stop.

Lennart had been calmer, but he too knew the situation was

serious. He had used his radio to alert the duty officer down in Borgholm.

After a few brief telephone calls he had also managed to locate the bus driver, who had turned around in Byxelkrok and was back in Borgholm with his bus. The man hardly even remembered that Gerlof had been on board, but he did know that he had made at least a couple of stops on the main road before Marnas, and at least three more between Marnas and Byxelkrok.

It was just after six when Julia and Lennart got back in the car and joined the search. Two other cars with staff from the home set off at the same time. Boel stayed behind in her office to man the phone.

It was raining hard. Julia and Lennart drove south from the

homeeven if it wasn’t definite that Gerlof had got off the bus there. He could have fallen asleep and got off after Marnas. But they had to start looking somewhere.

!he’s probably wandered off, or whatever it is that’s happened. I think he thinks too much.”

“We’ll find him,” said Lennart quietly.

“He had his winter overcoat on when he set off this morning.

He’ll be all right in that, won’t he?”

“He’ll be perfectly all right if he’s outside all night, as long as he’s got his overcoat,” said Lennart. “Particularly if he can find some shelter from the wind.”

But there was no shelter from the wind out on the alvar,

thought Julia.

Lennart kept his speed down, driving not much faster than a moped, and pulled in at every bus stop and parking lot so that he wouldn’t miss anything.

“You can’t see a thing …“Julia muttered impatiently.

Not that there was much to see; nobody was out wandering

along the main road on this frigid, rainy evening. All she could see was black ditches, bushes, and pale trees twisting in the wind.

The police radio started crackling again.

“The helicopter’s taken off,” Lennart said. “They’re heading for Marnas now.”

Julia nodded. It was probably their only hope, she realized

with a sinking heart.

“Is this like Gerlof?” said Lennart after a while.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean … has he been… unreliable before?”

“No.” Julia shook her head fiercely, feeling a spurt of anger at Lennart. Then she thought about it and added, “But I’m not totally surprised … I mean, if he has got off the bus and just wandered.”

Gerlof opened his eyes reluctantly, awakened from yet another warm dream about sailing. He blinked into the slashing

rain.

“What?” he said hoarselyor maybe he just thought he said it.

He was still lying on his back down on the shore. There was a throbbing pain in his right leg.

Up above him on the grass, like a great shadow against the

evening sky, stood Gunnar Ljunger. The hotel owner wore his

ugly yellow jacket with the advertising slogan.

Was he really standing there? Yes, it wasn’t a dream. But

Ljunger wasn’t smiling his chummy smile now, Gerlof noticed.

Instead there was an angry furrow between his eyes.

“Where’s my phone?” he wanted to know.

Gerlof swallowed; his mouth was dry and he could barely

speak.

“Hid it,” he whispered.

“Have you called anyone?” demanded Ljunger.

Gerlof shook his head wearily. He hadn’t been able to call,

had he? All those little buttons. It was impossible to know which one to press.

“Where is it? Have you shoved it up your ass?”

“Come down here and look for it, Gunnar,” hissed Gerlof

quietly.

But Ljunger didn’t move. And Gerlof knew why; if Ljunger

came down onto the shore, his shoes would leave deep prints behind.

Not even the rain would get rid of them.

The cell phone was in Gerlof’s trouser pocket, not particularly well hidden, but Ljunger had to figure out how he was going to get hold of it.

“You’re tough, Gerlof” was all the hotel owner said, straightening up. “But I see you’ve fallen and hurt yourself.”

Gerlof didn’t seem to have a voice anymore, because when

he opened his mouth, no sound emerged. His lips felt frozen stiff.

” ‘Most peaceable are the dead,’ ” said Ljunger calmly, looming above him. ” ‘Death is harsh but honorable, so sing hey and ho …’ That’s Dan Andersson, in case you didn’t know. I love his songs, and Evert Taube’s old songs about the sea and sailors, too.

It was actually Vera Kant who got me listening to them. She had lots of old records.”

“She had land and money,” whispered Gerlof into the sand.

“What?”

“Vera’s land. Her money… That’s all this is about.”

Ljunger shook his head. “It’s about a lot of things,” he said.

“Land and money and revenge and big dreams … and love for Oland too, as I said. I love this island.”

Gerlof watched him reach into his jacket pocket and take out a pair of leather gloves.

“I think it’s time for you to go to sleep now, Gerlof,” Ljunger said. “And when you’ve done that, I’ll find my phone. You shouldn’t have taken it.”

Gerlof was tired of listening to Ljunger. Talking and talking.

The hotel owner stood up there on the grassy ledge talking and talking, refusing to leave him in peace, just as a faint rushing noise had begun to make itself heard in the darkness.

“Time to say thank you and good night,” said Ljunger. “I

think we’ll”

He suddenly fell silent and turned his head.

The rushing sound could be heard higher and higher above

the shore, like roaring water; it was as if the wind out over the sea was increasing to storm force.

The noise was swiftly becoming a roaring gale that ripped at Gerlof’s thin clothes.

He could also see that the figure up above who was Ljunger

had turned his face up to the sky in silent amazement.

Gerlof looked up. A shadow swept over him.

An enormous body with blinking eyes was hovering above

the shore. Its upper half was dark and its lower half was pale; it was making a constant clattering noise.

Ljunger was no longer standing there watching over him. He

was gone, he’d run awaylike a troll who has been discovered and unmasked, he was running away along the gravel track with long, desperate strides.

Gerlof stared. The roar increased. Huge blades clattered round, round. The fat, ungainly body dipped forward, slipped in over the meadow, and began to descend.

The helicopter landed carefully, and Gerlof closed his eyes.

He felt neither joy nor relief; he felt nothing. His brain was still waiting for the ship of death to come and take him out to sea.

But it didn’t come. He opened his eyes again.

The clattering of the rotor blades died away, and the door

opened. Two men wearing helmets clambered out, stooping. They were wearing uniforms like gray overalls; they were pilots or flying policemen, and they were moving quickly across the grass toward Gerlof.

One of them had a thermal blanket under his arm, and the

other was carrying a white bag. Gerlof began to understand why they had come, and breathed out.

The helicopter was there for him. He was going to live.

Julia had shouted loudly, and Lennart braked so quickly

that the car skidded. But it stopped almost immediately, slewed across the road. They were just south of the turning down to Stenvik.

“Where?” said Lennart.

Julia pointed through the windshield. “I can see him. Out

there … on the field. He’s lying there!”

Lennart leaned forward. Then he put his foot down and swung

the wheel around. “There’s a track here … I’ll drive down.” The car spun around sharply on the wet road.

But when they pulled onto the little gravel track, Julia could see she was wrong. It wasn’t a body. It was …

Lennart slammed the car to a stop and Julia scrabbled for the door. But her crutches made her slow, and he got there first.

He bent down and picked up the object from the little ditch

by the track.

“It’s just a coat,” he said, holding it up so she could see it. “A coat someone’s thrown away.”

Julia came forward and looked at it. “It’s Dad’s,” she said.

“Are you sure?” asked Lennart. “It looks like a”

“Look in the inside pocket.”

Lennart opened the coat and burrowed in the pocket. He took

out a wallet and opened it.

“Should have brought a flashlight…” he muttered, trying to hold up the wallet in the car’s headlights.

“It’s Gerlof’s,” said Julia. “I recognize it.”

Lennart pulled out a wornlooking driver’s license and nodded.

“Yes. It’s his.”

Then he looked around.

“Gerlof!” he shouted. “Gerlof!”

But the wind and the sound of the car engine drowned out

his cry.

“I don’t recognize this track,” he said. “I think it goes down to the shore. We’d better take the car and have a look.”

At the police car, he spoke briefly into the radio mike.

Julia followed him.

“The helicopter knows where we are now,” Lennart told her.

He put the car into first gear and began to crawl forward,

peering out through the smeared windshield.

“I’ll turn the lights off,” he said, “then we’ll be able to see better.”

The track in front of them was abruptly, impenetrably dark,

but when Julia’s eyes had become accustomed to it, she could see the alvar on both sides. Every new shadow that appeared out there looked like an old man swaying upright in the grass, but each shadow turned out to be only a juniper bush.

Suddenly Lennart pointed up at the sky.

“There it is!” he exclaimed. “Thank God.”

Julia stared up at a pair of rapidly flashing redandwhite lights moving across the sky. She realized it was the helicopter, just as the police radio crackled into life again.

“I think they’ve found something,” Lennart said. “Down by

the water.”

He increased his speed, swung around a bendand a second