The Dead of Summer (26 page)

Suddenly she tripped over an invisible tree root on the ground. Then she lay on the ground in the dark, sobbing. She didn’t have the energy to get up. She had a horrible feeling she was never going to see her little sister again. Maybe it didn’t matter whether she got up. What she really wanted to do was to walk right out into the sea and let herself drown. Just disappear
.

‘What’s the matter?’

The man appeared out of nowhere and leaned over her. At first she was scared, but she calmed down as soon as she saw the look in his eyes
.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘OK.’

He switched to English. He wanted to know if she was OK and offered to help. He didn’t know who she was, probably assumed she was just an ordinary summer visitor who was taking part in the search for the missing young woman. He helped Vera to her feet. They were standing in the middle of the woods, utterly alone. The others had already moved on. The moon was spreading a pale light that trickled through the trees and cast ghostlike shadows
.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked
.

‘No, I’m OK.’ She brushed off the dirt that was clinging to her clothes
.

‘Are you cold?’

She shook her head
.

‘Where are you from? Germany?’

‘Yes, Hamburg. We got here a few days ago. It’s my sister who’s missing.’

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just put his arm around her shoulders
.

‘Are you able to keep searching?’

‘Sure. Of course.’

Silently, they walked side by side. He didn’t ask any questions, and she was grateful for that. It just felt comforting to walk next to somebody
.

The hours passed, and every once in a while they would sit down to rest. He’d brought along a rucksack containing water and biscuits. The sun started coming up, and then it was time to head back to camp
.

When they arrived, people had begun to gather, coming from every direction. More police had arrived, with dogs on leads, and they were in the process of organizing another search. Oleg and Sabine were nowhere in sight
.

‘You need to rest,’ said her new-found friend. ‘Which cabin are you staying in?’

‘I don’t want to go there.’

The thought of sleeping in a room that she had shared with Tanya horrified her
.

‘Would you like to come with me?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

They walked past the tents. Vera could feel everyone staring at her. None of the police officers seemed to know who she was
.

They quickly passed the crowd. He was holding her by the arm and leading her away from the Folklore Society cottages. They stopped in front of a red-painted wooden house with white trim at the edge of the settlement. Vera was so tired she could hardly stand up
.

A narrow stairway led up to the top floor. He made her hot chocolate and several sandwiches, which he coaxed her to eat. They sat across from each other at the little table. He looked out of the window
.

‘There’s the police helicopter.’

Vera couldn’t bring herself to reply
.

THE MUSEUM WAS deserted when Jacobsson went in. It consisted of only two rooms. One of them housed displays of objects from the sea and the island, with texts describing their history. The other room was used as a library. Along the wall were rows of books about Gotska Sandön, the lighthouses and the fisheries. On a table stood file folders with different labels: the lighthouse-keepers’ diaries, newspaper clippings from various periods, general facts. Jacobsson leafed through them and was again struck by how little she’d known before coming here. She sat down and began going through the folders. From the lighthouse-keepers’ diaries she learned what a hard life it must have been for them, and she was shocked by the large number of ships that had gone down in the vicinity over the years. There was even a cemetery on the island, near Franska Bukten, where Russian sailors had been buried after their ship sank.

Suddenly she caught sight of a folder with the title ‘Crimes on the Island’. The first page showed newspaper clippings from the early twentieth century, when a lighthouse-keeper’s assistant was suspected of murdering the lighthouse-keeper by pouring arsenic into his box of macaroni. The pages continued with stories of burglaries, the plundering of wrecked ships, and a man who had heaved an enemy overboard during the crossing to the island.

An article about a missing young woman caught Jacobsson’s attention. The text described the search for a German woman who had disappeared in the 1980s after an outing with her sister at Franska Bukten, where the two young women had spent the night. The family had notified the police the following evening, and a patrol had come over the next morning. A search party was organized, but without result. The headline of the next article announced: ‘Missing woman found dead.’ Jacobsson read with growing interest. A police helicopter had flown over the island, and that was when Tanya Petrov’s body was found in the water a short distance out in Franska Bukten.

At first the theory was that her death was an ordinary drowning accident. Then came a series of articles recounting how the story had developed. It was discovered that the woman hadn’t drowned at all. She’d been murdered, and then her body was thrown into the water. The post mortem showed that she was killed by a blow to the head delivered with a blunt instrument, that someone had gripped her throat in a stranglehold, and that she had most likely been raped. Jacobsson shivered as she read on. The police had put out a nationwide alert for a boat with two men, probably Stockholmers. According to the interview with the sister, the young women had met the men when they anchored their sailboat in Franska Bukten. They had partied together on the beach, and later the older sister had gone off to bed. In the morning her little sister and both men were gone, and the boat was too. Twenty-four hours later, the woman’s body was found in the water of Franska Bukten.

The evening newspapers couldn’t get enough of the story, reporting on the lives of the entire Petrov family, how the father had fled from the Soviet Union and created a new life for himself in the West. How Tanya was missed by her classmates, and how the sunny story of the happy family that was finally going to make their dream trip to Gotska Sandön had ended in a tragedy as black as night.

In spite of intensive investigative work, neither man had ever been found. The case was eventually shelved.

Jacobsson leafed through the rest of the folder, looking for more articles. What had happened to the family? She had a vague memory of hearing something about the case when it happened. She had some scattered images in her mind of the newspaper headlines and photographs of Gotska Sandön. That was even before she’d started at the Police Academy, in 1985.

She closed up the folder and left the museum with an uneasy churning in her stomach.

TUESDAY, 25 JULY

IT FELT UNREAL to be waking up in the double bed in Roma next to Emma. It took Johan a moment to comprehend that he was really there. Only now, as he lay in bed, did he realize how intense his longing had been. She lay on her side, turned away from him. Gently he stroked the small of her back. How fragile she was, both inside and out. Suddenly he felt so strong. And then he had a great yearning to see Elin. He wanted to drive out and get her at once. But his work was waiting for him; they hadn’t sent over another reporter from the national news, so he was responsible for the continuing coverage of the murder of the explosives expert.

In the shower, he thought about the homicide. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Morgan Larsson had been killed at the Cementa site in Slite, so close to the harbour where the sale of illegal booze took place. Booze that Peter Bovide had also purchased. There had to be some sort of connection: the Cementa factory – the transactions at the harbour – Russia. Everything fitted together. Plenty of indications that the key to the motive for the murders would be found down at the harbour. The first thing he had to do was to find a link between Peter Bovide and Morgan Larsson.

His thoughts were interrupted when Emma appeared in the doorway to the bathroom and let her dressing gown fall to the floor. How beautiful she was. Although thinner than usual. He held out his hand.

‘Come here.’

He’d never found it so difficult to leave her. It was as if the time they’d spent apart had now brought them closer together than ever before.

‘What’s happened to your mouth?’ he asked with a laugh when they kissed on the way out to his car. ‘It’s like a suction cup.’

‘You should talk.’

He took her face between his hands.

‘I love you, Emma.’

‘I love you too.’

‘I want to see Elin. When can you bring her home?’

‘I’m driving out there today, so why don’t you come back here after work and spend the night?’

‘When can I move in?’

‘Now.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

She looked so serious he had to laugh.

‘Too bad we can’t get married tomorrow.’

AT FIVE THIRTY, the alarm clock rang. Karin Jacobsson felt as if she hadn’t slept more than an hour. She had to make a real effort to get herself out of bed. Outside the window it was utterly quiet. She packed her rucksack, drank a cup of coffee and forced herself to eat a couple of sandwiches. She was definitely not a breakfast person, and she didn’t much like eating anything so early in the morning, but the words of the ranger were still echoing in her ears. She had a long hike ahead of her, and there was no food to be found along the way.

The rising sun was just becoming visible between the trees, but it was still the early light of dawn as she set off. There wasn’t a sound in the woods; all she heard was the soft tramping of her own feet.

On the map, she’d seen where the chapel was located, and she caught sight of it after only a few minutes. The door stood open, and she went inside, sat down in one of the back rows, and let her eyes scan the blue-painted wooden pews. The furnishings were simple, and a lovely light came in through the windows. She wondered if there was some special reason Morgan Larsson had always come here.

She lit one of the candles that were affixed to the pews, studying it for a moment before she blew it out, and then left the chapel.

The hike through the woods took longer than she’d thought. On the other side, the beach called Las Palmas opened up before her. She’d read that the name came from a Spanish ship which had capsized long ago.

The shore was rocky and uneven, which made it difficult to walk. When she reached Säludden, she fought an inner battle with herself. Either she could choose to follow the instructions on the little sign and turn right so as not to disturb the seals, or she could ignore what it said and continue along the water. The decision was easy to make. If for once in her life she was going to see seals in their natural habitat, then she wanted to see them up close.

As she approached, she saw big, ungainly shapes moving slowly back and forth, way out in the sun-glinting water. She raised her binoculars to her eyes and was amazed when she counted fifteen chubby grey seals frolicking in the morning sun. Soon she could see them with the naked eye.

She sat down cautiously at the very end of the promontory, took out the sandwiches she’d brought along, and then poured herself some coffee. The seals were swimming, playing and drying themselves off in the sun. Even though she was breaking the law, she didn’t regret for a moment coming this way. She sat there for half an hour, fascinated by the spectacle. Just her and the seals.

After walking for three hours, Franska Bukten opened out before her. It was hard to imagine that a young woman had been raped and murdered in this peaceful spot.

In the middle of the beach, Karin stopped, stripped off her clothes and walked naked into the water. She knew she was alone. Presumably, she’d left long before all the others, and it was at least a three-hour walk from the campsite. Nobody was going to turn up for at least an hour.

After her swim, she lay down on the beach to dry off. She drank a bottle of water and looked at the map. So it was here that she’d find the Russian cannons from the sunken ship. She looked around, but couldn’t see anything. According to the map, they were a bit higher up on the shore, near the Russian cemetery.

She pulled on her shirt and shorts and walked up towards the woods. There it was. Slowly, an idea was taking shape in her mind. She stopped short. The Russian cemetery. Of course. The murders had nothing at all to do with illegal workers or Russian coal transports. The key was here, on Gotska Sandön. Right in front of her eyes. How could she have been so stupid? She ran down to the beach and grabbed her things.

She thought about Morgan Larsson’s visits to Gotska Sandön. When was it he’d come here? Always on the same date, over the past fifteen years. She got her notebook out of the rucksack. He was usually here between 21 and 23 July. When was Tanya murdered? It was in the summer, but she couldn’t remember the exact date. She cursed herself for not writing it down. She pulled out her mobile to ring the head ranger. It was dead. No coverage. Shit. That meant she couldn’t ring Knutas either.

She checked the map to find the quickest route back to camp.

BY THE TIME Jacobsson finally reached the campsite, she was parched and drenched with sweat. She was dying for a drink of water, but there was no time for that. First she had to do two things: get in touch with Knutas, and then find out the date that Tanya was murdered. She also wanted to get home as fast as possible. Her mobile still wasn’t working. Near the rows of outhouses, she ran into a couple of young guys who were emptying the latrines. They told her that the next boat to Gotland was leaving in fifteen minutes.