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

‘It’s German,’ the old man said.

‘Mine are made under licence.’ Wall pointed to the rest of his display. ‘This is a Sig Sauer, and this one is a Swedish automatic assault rifle. That’s what’s on offer.’

Pecka got up and came over to the table. The old man recognized the look in his eyes: the same curiosity that every young soldier felt when a new weapon appeared. Every young soldier who had never killed someone, at least.

‘So you like guns?’ Pecka said.

The old man nodded curtly. ‘I’ve used them.’

‘So you’re an old squaddie?’

The old man looked at him. ‘What?’

‘An old soldier,’ Pecka said. ‘Did you fight in a war?’

A war, Aron thought. It was something young men might long for. A new country.

‘I know what I’m doing,’ he said. ‘How about you?’

Pecka shook his head gloomily.

‘I haven’t been in a war,’ he said, but then he lifted his chin proudly. ‘But I never back down … I was in court for GBH last summer.’

Wall didn’t look quite so impressed.

‘That’s crap,’ he said. ‘It was just a tourist who got out of hand.’

The old man realized that they were family, and that Wall was concerned about Pecka. He calmly pushed in the Walther’s magazine and put it down on the table.

He looked out of the window. The sun was shining over the sea and the shore, but barely reached in through the grubby windows. Wall’s cottage was in an isolated spot, on a section of the shore where the grass ran all the way down to the water’s edge. There was a small enclosure housing a few geese by the shoreline, with a boathouse made of grey limestone beside it, looking every bit as neglected as the cottage itself.

Wall heaved himself to his feet.

‘Here,’ he said, handing out the guns. Rita was given a small Sig Sauer, Pecka a Walther, and the old man both a Walther and the automatic.

‘Will you be needing plastic explosives as well?’ Wall asked.

The old man who had come home looked up.

‘Have you got some?’

‘I brought some back last winter,’ Pecka said proudly. ‘From a road construction project in Kalmar. Fuses, detonators, the lot.’

Wall looked equally pleased.

‘It’s all carefully hidden and locked away,’ he said. ‘Nobody will find it. The cops were here back in May, but they left empty-handed.’

‘We can take a couple of charges,’ the old man said. ‘What about payment?’

‘Afterwards,’ Wall said. ‘Do your job and take care of the safe, then we’ll split everything later.’

‘We’ll need balaclavas as well, Einar,’ Pecka said. ‘Did you get them?’

Wall didn’t ask any questions. He simply opened a cardboard box underneath the table and took out a packet of rubber gloves and several grey balaclavas with holes cut out for the eyes.

‘Burn them when you’re done,’ he said.

The old man looked at them and said, ‘I don’t need any protection.’

‘You’ll be recognized,’ Pecka said.

The man shook his head.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said, gazing out of the cracked window. ‘I’m not here.’

The journey begins one sunny summer’s day, eleven months after the death of Edvard Kloss. Aron has almost stopped thinking about that night. About the wall that fell down, about Sven giving him a shove. ‘
In you go! Get in there and fetch his money
.’

Sven had been Aron’s new father for just a couple of years, but he did as he was told. Otherwise he might face a beating.

They don’t talk about that night, just about the trip. It feels as if they have been preparing for today all through the spring, but everything they are taking with them still fits into one suitcase each.

Sven has brought the old snuffbox made of apple wood. Aron wants to bring something as well, something precious.

‘Can I take my gun to America?’

Aron has his very own single-barrel shotgun, which he fills with pellets so that he can shoot partridge and seabirds.

‘Of course you can’t,’ Sven says. ‘They wouldn’t let you on board the ship.’

So Aron has to leave his shotgun behind. It was given to him by his grandfather, who is a huntsman himself; he told his daughter, Astrid, that the boy is a pretty decent shot. That sounds good, ‘a decent shot’.

And indeed he is; he was only ten years old when he shot his first seal. It was lying on an ice floe that came drifting towards the island one cold, sunny spring day. The seal raised its head, Aron raised his gun and when he fired the seal’s body jerked, then lay still. He had hit the back of its neck and broken its spine. It was over a metre long and provided over twenty kilos of blubber.

‘But I need a gun,’ Aron says. ‘How am I supposed to be a sheriff without a gun?’

Sven laughs; it sounds like a dry cough.

‘We’ll find you a new one when we get there.’

‘Do they have shotguns in the new country?’

‘Lots of them. They have everything there.’

Aron knows one thing they don’t have in the new country: a waiting family. His mother, Astrid, and his sister, Greta, are staying behind in Sweden, and saying goodbye to them is hard. Greta is only nine, and gazes at her brother in silence. His mother clamps her lips together.

‘Stay out of trouble,’ she says. ‘Look after yourself.’

Aron nods, then he picks up his bag and goes with Sven, taking long strides to stop him from turning back.

The day of their departure is dry and sunny.

They walk side by side along the dirt track. Sven has longer legs, but he limps with his right foot, so Aron is able to keep up with him.

‘You’re off to the new country in the west,’ his mother had said, ‘the country they call America. You’re going to work hard over there for a couple of years, then you’ll come home with money.’

And Sven says the same thing, but more concisely.

‘The new country. That’s where we’re going. Away from all this.’

They head north, across the Kloss family’s extensive land, almost all the way up to the cairn. It’s on top of the ridge in the west and it looks like a harmless pile of stones, but Sven spits anyway, just to be on the safe side.

‘I hope it falls into the sea!’

Then they turn to the east, moving inland past several tall windmills, standing on their thick wooden feet with their sails in the air, ready to catch the wind from all directions. Sven glares at the windmills, too.

‘We won’t have to look at those damned things where we’re going either!’

He lopes along, addressing the horizon as if he is giving a speech: ‘Free at last – free from all those filthy jobs! As white as a ghost every time I come out of the mill – never again!’ He looks at Aron. ‘Where we’re going, they have machines that take care of everything. They have huge agricultural factories, where the grain goes in at one end and sacks of flour come out at the other. They just press a button, and hey presto!’

Aron listens, but he has just one question: ‘When are we coming home?’

Sven slows down, then he turns around and wallops Aron across the back of the head.

‘Don’t ask me that question! We’re not going to think that way! We’re going to the new country – forget about home!’

It’s not the hardest blow Aron has ever received, it’s just making a point, so he feels brave enough to carry on: ‘But
when
are we coming home?’

‘Impossible to say,’ Sven replies.

‘Why?’

‘Because not everyone comes home.’

The summer air feels colder when Aron hears those words. He doesn’t say any more – he doesn’t want to provoke any further blows, but even before they reach the train he makes his mind up that he will do what his mother told him to do, and that he will come back home.

Home to the island.

Home to the croft.

‘What’s going on, Officer?’ asked Uncle Kent. ‘Has there been an accident?’

‘No,’ replied the policeman, who had just got off his motorbike. ‘It’s just you.’

‘Me? What have I done?’

‘You were driving too fast.’

‘
Me?
’

Uncle Kent had lowered the window with the press of a button so that he could speak to the police officer, and the faint smell of flowers drifted into the car from the ditches along the roadside, reaching Jonas in the back seat. He could see a profusion of yellow and purple flowers swaying in the breeze. Their scent mingled with the aroma of his uncle’s aftershave and a hint of perspiration from his father, who had arrived late and had to run to catch the train. Mum had told him off on the platform, and Mats and Jonas had just looked at one another.

His father sat in silence next to Kent; he seemed tense in the presence of the police officer. But Jonas had a clear view of his uncle’s profile and could see a slight smile playing around the corner of his mouth.

‘Driving too
fast
?’

‘Much too fast.’

The Öland sunshine was bright, dazzling Jonas when he looked out of his own window. The traffic cop was no more than a dark shape next to the car, dressed in a blue uniform.

‘Could you tell me how fast?’ Uncle Kent said.

‘Twenty-two kilometres over the speed limit.’

Kent sighed and leaned back in his seat.

‘It’s all down to this bloody car. A Corvette only runs really smoothly when you take her up above a hundred.’

Jonas had encountered the police on only one occasion previously, when two officers came to talk to his class in Huskvarna about traffic awareness for cyclists. They had been really nice, but he still felt a bit nervous.

Uncle Kent’s car was red with black stripes, and it looked a bit like a spaceship. It felt like a rocket inside, too, low and narrow, particularly in the back seat. Jonas still had some growing to do, but he still had to bend his legs to one side to fit in. His older brother, Mats, had a bit more room because he was sitting behind Niklas, their father, who had shorter legs.

‘Are you going to fine me?’ Uncle Kent said.

‘Indeed I am.’

‘Typical, on the sunniest day of the summer so far.’ He smiled at the police officer. ‘But I hold my hands up … I broke the law.’

Jonas looked at his father, who still hadn’t said a word. Nor had he so much as looked at the policeman.

Uncle Kent had picked up Jonas and Mats and their father from the station in Kalmar in his red Corvette. He owned a big Volvo as well, but in the summer he preferred to drive his sports car. And it was fast.

They had left the Öland bridge half an hour earlier, whizzing northwards as his father and Uncle Kent chatted in the front, but when the motorcycle came up alongside them and waved the car over to the side of the road, his father had immediately fallen silent. He had stopped speaking and shuffled down in his seat.

Uncle Kent was doing all the talking. He sat there with his hands resting on the wheel, seeming totally relaxed, as if this was merely a minor hiccup on the road to Villa Kloss.

‘Do I pay the fine directly to you?’ he said.

The police officer shook his head.

‘I’ll write you a ticket.’

‘How much?’

‘Eight hundred kronor.’

Uncle Kent looked away and sighed. He gazed out across the sunlit cornfields to the right of the road, then glanced back at the police officer.

‘What’s your name?’

No reply was forthcoming.

‘Is it a secret?’ Uncle Kent persisted. ‘What’s your first name?’

The police officer shook his head. He took a pad and a pen out of his inside pocket.

‘My name is Sören,’ he said eventually.

‘Thank you, Sören. I’m Kent Kloss.’ He nodded to his right. ‘This is my younger brother, Niklas, and his two boys. We’re all going to spend the summer together.’

The officer nodded impassively, but Uncle Kent kept on talking.

‘Just one thing, Sören … Here we are on a dry, flat road, two days before midsummer. The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day. A fantastic summer’s day, the kind of day when you feel most alive … What would you have done, if you were me? Would you have stayed behind that caravan all the way to Borgholm?’

Sören didn’t bother to answer; he finished filling in the penalty notice and passed it through the window. Kent took it, but refused to give up: ‘Couldn’t you at least admit it, Sören?’

‘Admit what?’

‘That you would have done the same thing? If you’d been the one stuck behind that caravan, in the summer sun on your way to the sea? Wouldn’t you have put your foot down … well, maybe not put your foot down, but gone just a little bit over the speed limit? Won’t you admit that?’

Kent wasn’t smiling now, he was deadly serious.

The traffic policeman sighed. ‘OK, Kent. If it makes you feel better.’

‘A little better,’ said Kent, smiling once more.

‘Good. Drive carefully now.’

He went back to his motorbike and started it up, then did a U-turn and headed south.

‘You see that? Look at the speed he’s going, the bastard!’ Uncle Kent nodded to Jonas and Mats. ‘Never let them get the upper hand, boys. Just you remember that!’

With that, the engine kicked into life with a dull roar and Uncle Kent pulled out on to the road, right in front of yet another caravan. He quickly increased his speed.

The sun was shining, the road was flat and straight. Jonas had a warm breeze on his face and the scent of wild flowers in his nostrils. Uncle Kent still had his window down, his left elbow sticking out as he steered the car with one hand, fingers resting lightly on the wheel. Nothing more.

His mobile rang. He answered using his free hand, listened for twelve or fourteen seconds then interrupted loudly: ‘
No.
A supporting wall, I said. What for? Support, of course! I want it to look old, kind of medieval, but
modern
at the same time. Made of stone, or railway sleepers. And I want the pipework
under
the wall, not next to it. Good … Has the digger arrived?’ He listened again. ‘Fantastic! In that case, we can … Hello?’ He lowered the mobile. ‘Lost the connection – typical.’

Uncle Kent had certain favourite words, like ‘typical’ and ‘fantastic’. He imbued them with an energy and self-confidence that Jonas could never manage, whatever he said.