The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) (30 page)

Vlad does not lose the rifle. He has been a Swedish prisoner in the camp; now he is a Soviet guard and can feel the weapon straightening his spine.

There are many advantages to his new role – on the very first day, he is allowed to collect five kilos of potatoes, but he does not have permission to leave the camp. However, he can move around more freely, and he has an important task to carry out.

The following evening, he is on guard duty, patrolling the fence, and he arranges to meet Grisha by the furthest huts. Grisha creeps along in the shadows behind the buildings; Vlad stands and waits just a few metres from the fence.

But Grisha is wary. He won’t come out into the light, so Vlad takes something out of his pocket. It is a paper bag, rustling in his hand. ‘Dried apricots and fresh tobacco,’ he says quietly.

At last Grisha steps forward. He takes the bag, slips it inside his jacket. Fruit and tobacco are hard currency, but he still seems disappointed. ‘Is that all?’

Vlad shakes his head. ‘I’ve hidden the money over there.’ He nods towards a dark spot further along. ‘Five hundred roubles … If you promise to keep quiet about me, it’s yours.’

Grisha looks at him. A guard earns about eight roubles a day; five hundred is a fortune.

But he still has doubts.

‘What about the dogs?’

Vlad smiles. ‘Can you see any dogs? They’re over by the main gate tonight.’

Grisha is still standing behind the hut, undecided.

Vlad has had enough; he shrugs wearily. ‘Please yourself … I’ll take the money if you don’t want it.’

And he sets off along the fence. He is holding his breath, watching for a movement out of the corner of his eye.

And there it is.

Grisha is old, but he moves fast. He rushes past Vlad, heading for the fence post where the money is supposed to be.

When he is two steps away from the fence, Vlad raises the rifle to his shoulder.

‘Prisoner trying to escape!’ he shouts.

Then he aims at Grisha’s back and fires. Once, twice.

It’s like shooting a seal.

Other guards come running, but Vlad has aimed well. All they can do is prod at the body, then return to their own posts.

Grisha will be left there by the fence for a few days, as a warning.

It took forty-eight hours of a sky-high temperature, an unbearable stench and a distinct shortage of toilet paper in the caravan but, eventually, Lisa began to feel better. Slightly better, anyway. After throwing up in the VIP room, she had somehow managed to drag herself back to the caravan, where she had collapsed into bed and spent all night vomiting helplessly. The gastroenteritis turned her into a five-year-old, a five-year-old with a temperature, dizzy and confused.

She spent Sunday lying in a daze.

By Monday, she was able to move, keep down a little water. Blink at the sun outside.

By Tuesday, she was almost back to being an adult. Her stomach ached, but it was calmer now. She couldn’t eat anything, but at least she managed to get out of bed.

Toast. She ought to have some toast, but she just didn’t want any. Paulina was fine and had called in with several bottles of mineral water; Lisa drank some, then waited. Her stomach gurgled rather worryingly, but nothing came back up. She drank a little more and gazed out of the window.

It was still summer out there.

She had cancelled only one gig at the May Lai Bar. Nobody at the hotel seemed to care, because the whole complex had been affected by the same sickness bug.

And now it was over. Although that wasn’t quite true, because the news had spread.

The May Lai Bar was virtually empty that night. Lisa thought the whole resort felt a bit like a ghost town as she drove down to the hotel. The campsite was just a huge field, with the odd tent and caravan here and there; the long rows of campers had gone. Apparently, lots of people had taken one look at the headline in the local paper – R
ESORT
S
TRICKEN BY
G
ASTROENTERITIS
– and had quickly packed up and gone home. Or moved to other large campsites on the island, where there were no bugs in the water.

But how could one complex be affected, and not the rest?

Anyhow, the show at the Ölandic must go on, so Lady Summertime stepped into her booth at nine o’clock. She felt like a little bird back in her cage as she put on the first record and picked up the microphone. ‘Good evening, everybody! Lady Summertime is here with all your favourites. Let’s go – it’s the Bee Gees with “You Should Be Dancing”!’

Her voice echoed through the club as if it were an empty waiting room; she sounded weary and mechanical, and nobody took any notice of the Bee Gees. A few shadowy figures were sitting at the bar with tall glasses, but there was nobody on the dance floor. And it stayed that way. Nobody wanted to move tonight.

Lady Summertime did her job, anyway.

At twenty past eleven, she glanced up from her decks and saw a mobile phone lying next to an empty glass on one of the high oak tables along the right-hand wall, which cheered her up no end. There was also a pair of black sunglasses; Summertime looked around, but there was no sign of the owner. Turning back to the decks, she did a smooth segue from Fleetwood Mac to Elton John while covertly keeping an eye on the table. The phone was still there, partly hidden behind the glass. It was small and black, probably one of the latest Ericsson models. The table was triangular, fixed to the wall at chest height. She wouldn’t have to bend down to pick up the phone, she could just reach out and …

Who’d left it behind? A rich guy? A poor girl? She hadn’t noticed who had been standing at that particular table, which was unprofessional.

Her shift was almost over. She put on ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Eurythmics, still watching the table. It was as if she had developed tunnel vision; Summertime could see nothing but the mobile, apart from the odd quick glance at the guests dotted around the room.

No one appeared to be looking at her.

When there were two minutes left of the track, she switched on all the flashing white spotlights, dimming the wall lights, and sent a curtain of smoke swirling across the dance floor. Then she quickly slipped out of the booth, as if she were going to the loo.

But instead she moved into the room.

No one by the door, no security guards. The customers at the bar were chatting to each other, apart from one, who was talking to Morten, the Danish bartender. And there was still no sign of anyone near the mobile. Summertime was only two metres away from it now. Three short steps through the white smoke. Then two more, and she was standing by the wall. She turned in a single elegant movement, hiding the table from view while at the same time sweeping her hand across and picking up the phone. A second later, it was safe in the pocket of her denim shorts.

She looked around and saw that one of the doormen had come into the club. It was … what was the guy’s name? Lisa couldn’t remember, and he was too far away for her to be able to read his badge. He wasn’t looking in her direction at the moment, but what about a few seconds earlier?

If that were the case, surely he would have come over to her by now?

The phone felt heavy in her pocket, but she couldn’t dump it now. She had to get back to the booth.

She put on her headphones. ‘Sweet Dreams’ was almost over, and she couldn’t allow a single second of silence. She mixed to Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’, a quieter track to slow things down. A few couples actually got up to dance; perhaps someone would find the love of their life tonight.

Halfway through ‘Perfect Day’ a skinny girl in a black dress came in and went straight over to the table by the wall. The table where the mobile had been.

Summertime saw her, but did nothing. The girl picked up the glass, looked at the table, bent down and peered at the floor, gazed around the club.

Summertime pretended she hadn’t noticed her; she adjusted her headphones and bent over the decks.

The girl went over to the bar and spoke to Morten. He shook his head but reached under the counter for his own mobile. The girl nodded and took it.

Summertime glanced over at the door. The security guard was still there, but she was hidden by the door of the booth, so she took the stolen phone out of her pocket, slowly, slowly. She held it lightly between the fingers of one hand and with the other she picked up a couple of LPs and put them in the case under the table. At the same time, she reached out and slipped the phone through the gap at the bottom of the pane of glass at the front of the booth.

Just before it disappeared from view, it started flashing and vibrating. The girl had used Morten’s phone to call her own number, of course. She was gazing around the room, in spite of the fact that the music was drowning out the ringtone.

Summertime put on another slow number, ‘Don’t Give Up’, even though her shift was now over. She was nervous, she wanted to look busy.

The mobile was flashing away. After a minute or so, a couple swaying around the dance floor just a couple of metres away noticed it. The man bent down, picked it up and answered, sticking his finger in his ear so that he could hear. He looked over at the bar, where the girl was waving her hand. He went over to her and Lisa watched the end of the pantomime:

Thank you so much, where did you find it?

On the dance floor.

Thanks again, I looked everywhere …

The phone had been found, the drama was over. And so was Lisa’s shift. The last notes died away and she grabbed the microphone.

‘That was Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush with “Don’t Give Up”. Never give up, people! Lady Summertime isn’t giving up either; I’m just taking a little break until midnight, making way for our live band, The Fun Boys, who will be playing out on the terrace …’

She took off the headphones. She would go up to the hotel kitchen for something to eat before she started again in half an hour.

On her way out, she nodded to the tall security guard and gave him a relaxed smile. His name was Emanuel, according to his badge. He looked down at her and nodded back, but Lisa couldn’t read his expression.

There was a dull, rumbling noise outside Gerlof’s garden, silencing the insects and muffling the birdsong. He turned his head and could just make out a big, black shadow behind the trees on the village road.

Nothing else happened for a long time. The sun carried on shining, the shadow stayed where it was, the rumbling noise continued.

Gerlof was tired, and his legs were aching, but after a while he got up and went over to the gate.

There was an enormous car out on the road, with tinted windows. One of those SUVs, built to withstand a collision with a traffic island or a pushchair in the city. A plethora of chrome and glass sparkled in the sunlight.

The driver’s window slid down, and Gerlof saw Kent Kloss sitting there, one hand resting on the leather-covered steering wheel, his mobile pressed to his ear.

Kent obviously had two cars. Gerlof opened the gate and slowly made his way over to the car.

‘Hello there,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the other day.’

They hadn’t seen each other since Jonas’s interview at Villa Kloss.

‘No, thank
you
,’ Kent said.

He looked tired, and made no move to switch off the engine.

‘Did you want something, Kent?’

Kloss nodded. ‘I’ve come to pick up JK.’

‘JK?’

‘Jonas … my nephew. I’ve come to take him home.’

Gerlof didn’t move. He had no intention of fetching Jonas.

‘How are things over there?’ he asked instead.

‘Absolutely fine. It’s just as hot as it is here.’

‘I meant at the resort,’ Gerlof said. ‘I hear you’ve had some problems down there.’

Kloss lowered his gaze. ‘That’s right – gastroenteritis. It’s been chaos all weekend … But the toilets have been cleaned and everything’s fine now.’

‘And the guests?’

‘They’re coming back,’ Kent said quickly. ‘One by one.’

But he looked far from convinced and started revving the engine impatiently.

Gerlof wondered what Kent was really doing here. Why did he need to pick up his nephew in the car? Did he want to keep an eye on him?

‘Any news about the
Ophelia
?’ he asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘The cargo boat you hired.’

Kent looked down at the sea. ‘Not as far as I know,’ he said. ‘She’s disappeared, but …’ He paused, then added, ‘I’m trying not to think about her.’

‘No,’ Gerlof said. ‘After all, she was being used to move contraband.’

Kent took his foot off the accelerator. ‘What did you say?’

‘You were smuggling alcohol on board the
Ophelia
.’

Kloss stared at him and shook his head. ‘We were transporting fish,’ he said, revving the engine once more in what could be perceived as a threatening manner.

‘Smuggling alcohol is an ancient occupation,’ Gerlof went on. ‘Not only on Öland; it used to go on all along the coast throughout southern Sweden. Do you remember Algoth Niska?’

Kloss didn’t say anything, so Gerlof went on, ‘When I was young, Algoth and his gang used to sail out into international waters and meet up with ships from Poland and Germany. They would buy vodka for one or two kronor a litre. Tobacco, too, and sometimes arms. They would bring the whole lot back to the island and hide it all over the place, in boathouses, wells, under piles of logs … even in shelters way out on the alvar.’ He looked down at Kent Kloss. ‘What happens nowadays?’

‘No idea.’

‘I’m sure it’s tempting to sell the alcohol on,’ Gerlof said. ‘When the high season begins, the police keep a close check on bottles brought
on
to the island over the bridge, but they don’t monitor vehicles as they leave. So once you’ve unloaded the cargo from the ship, the contraband can be transferred to cars and distributed that way. Am I right?’

Kent managed a thin smile. ‘As I said … the
Ophelia
was carrying fish.’

‘I’m sure there was some fish on board. An old cargo that you could show Customs … but that was a mistake. She had no refrigeration unit, so the fish went rotten in the heat. That was fine as long as the hold was left open, but when someone battened down the hatches the crew suffocated.’