‘Look,’ he said, pointing. ‘Jesper and I are building a flight of steps … we can use them now, if we’re careful.’
He held Jerry’s arm firmly as they moved down the narrow ramp; there was just enough room for them to walk side by side, although some of the stones felt alarmingly wobbly beneath their feet. But the blocks remained in place.
‘Not bad, eh?’ said Per as they reached the bottom.
Jerry’s only response was a cough. He looked around the wide gravelled space. ‘Empty,’ he said.
Per kept an eye on him, but started working on the steps again. The wheelbarrow was still there, and he filled it with gravel and pushed it over to the rock face so that he could unload it and start building up the ramp with his spade to make it more stable.
When he had emptied out five loads of gravel, he turned and looked at his father. ‘What are you doing, Jerry?’
Jerry had gone to stand over by the nearest pile of gravel, with his back to Per. He was just standing there, his head bowed, and at first Per didn’t realize what he was doing – until he noticed that Jerry was fiddling with his flies.
‘No, Jerry!’ he shouted.
His father turned his head. ‘What?’
‘You can’t do that down here … You need to go back up to the house!’
But it was too late. He could only stand and watch until Jerry had finished and done up his zip.
The trolls don’t like it if you spill liquid, thought Per. He went over and took his father by the arm. ‘There’s a toilet in the house, Jerry. Use it next time, please.’
Jerry looked at him uncomprehendingly, then suddenly he stiffened, looking past Per and out towards the sea. He blinked. ‘Bremer’s car,’ he said.
‘What?’
Jerry raised his good arm and pointed over towards the coast road, winding its way between the quarry and the sea.
Per turned and saw that a car had stopped. A dark-red car had driven far enough to allow a clear view across the whole of the quarry. He hadn’t seen it arrive, but he was fairly sure the coast road had been empty when he and Jerry had walked down the steps.
He squinted at the car, which was almost directly in the path of the sun. ‘Why do you think … what makes you think it’s Bremer’s car?’
Jerry didn’t answer, but kept on staring at the car.
‘OK. I’ll go and have a word,’ said Per.
He strode across the huge expanse of gravel. The car was still there, and as he drew closer he could see a man hunched over the wheel, looking down at him. A motionless figure that seemed to be wearing some sort of cap.
When he was about a hundred metres away from the coast road, the engine sprang into life.
‘Hello!’ Per shouted and waved, without any idea of who he was waving to, and increased his speed. ‘Wait!’ he shouted.
But the dark-red car began to move. It reversed, swung around and shot away to the south, and it was still too far away for him to be able to make out a number plate, or even what make of car it was.
The sound of the engine died away, and Per had to turn back. He was out of breath when he reached the eastern end of the quarry.
Jerry looked enquiringly at him. ‘Bremer?’
‘No.’
‘Markus Lukas?’
Per shook his head, gasping for breath. No one from Jerry’s world was allowed to come here. Per lived here, and so did Jesper and Nilla.
‘I expect it was a tourist,’ he said. ‘Shall we try out the steps, then?’
Lars Marklund rang Per again at about three o’clock, when they were back in the cottage.
‘I’ve had a look at my diary,’ he said, ‘and I was thinking that perhaps we could meet halfway … Could you and your father come to the police station in Kalmar at the end of this week?’
‘OK.’
‘So we could meet on Friday at two o’clock, for example?’
‘Sure. But things are a bit up in the air at the moment, so I don’t know … I might have to go to the hospital.’
‘Is your father seriously ill at the moment, then?’
‘No, it’s not my father. It’s my daughter.’
‘I see. But could we say Friday anyway, and you can ring me if there’s a problem?’
‘Of course,’ said Per. ‘But can’t you tell me why you want us to come in? Have you found something in the house?’
‘One or two things.’
‘Was the person upstairs Hans Bremer?’
Marklund hesitated. ‘The bodies have been identified.’
‘A man and a woman, according to the papers,’ said Per. ‘And the fire was started deliberately, wasn’t it?’ There was no response from Marklund, so he went on. ‘You don’t have to say anything – I saw a leaking petrol can down in the studio. And the whole place stank of petrol.’
The silence continued, but eventually Marklund spoke. ‘As I said, we would like to ask your father a few more questions about what he saw when he arrived at the house … and what you saw inside.’
‘Are we suspected of anything?’
‘No. Not you, at any rate. You didn’t have time to set the fire.’
‘So you suspect my father? Or Bremer?’
Marklund was silent again, and then he sighed. ‘We don’t suspect Bremer. He can’t have attacked your father, or started the fire.’
‘Why not?’
Marklund hesitated again, then said, ‘Because Bremer’s hands were tied behind his back when he died. And so were the woman’s.’
39
‘Bye Ally, won’t be long!’
Vendela closed the door and walked across the gravel. She reached up towards the sky, stretching her body as she tried to grab the wispy clouds floating high above. Then she jogged over to the Mörners’ cottage and saw Per’s father sitting out on the patio, slumped in a sun lounger.
She knocked on the door. After a minute or so Per opened it a fraction, as if he was unsure who the caller might be. She thought he looked a bit uneasy, perhaps even afraid.
‘Ready?’ she said.
He looked at her. ‘Were we supposed to be going for a run today as well?’
Vendela nodded quickly. ‘That’s what we said yesterday. Have you changed your mind?’
Their arrangement seemed to have come back to him now. ‘No, I’m coming. I just need five minutes to get Jerry inside.’
It sounded as if he were talking about a pet, Vendela thought.
Ten minutes later, Per had woken his father and got him settled on the sofa indoors. Vendela could see that Jerry was still half asleep; his son placed a blanket over him and let him nod off again.
When Per had changed into his tracksuit and running shoes, they set off.
‘Same route?’
‘Fine by me,’ said Vendela.
They didn’t run as fast today, and the steadier tempo made it easier to talk.
‘Didn’t you want your father to be outside today?’ asked Vendela.
‘Yes, but not when I’m out,’ said Per. ‘I need to keep an eye on Jerry … he has a tendency to wander off.’
They carried on running, striding out and breathing evenly. It felt just as good as the last time. When they had left the buildings behind, Vendela turned to him and said, ‘You never use the word “Dad”.’
Per laughed, or he might have been panting. ‘No. We did away with all that.’ He took a deep breath and asked, ‘What about you … did you always say “Dad”?’
‘To Henry? Yes, but sometimes I said “Father” as well.’
‘But you loved him?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Vendela, looking over towards the quarry. ‘He came down here every morning and came home every evening. I think he was much happier here than he was on the farm … he enjoyed quarrying and working with the reddest limestone of all.’
‘You mean the stone from the place of blood?’ said Per. ‘I know what it is now.’
‘What it is?’
‘I know how it was formed.’ He
took a deep breath and went on, ‘I was talking to Gerlof Davidsson, and he said it was a geological—’
Vendela interrupted him. ‘I don’t want to know.’
‘Why not?’
‘It takes something away … it takes away the magic.’
They didn’t speak for a while; the only sounds were the crunch of their shoes on the ground and Per’s deep breathing.
Vendela suddenly veered off to the east on impulse, on to one of the smaller gravel tracks leading up to the main road.
Per followed her. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I want to show you something,’ she said, running on ahead.
She led him along the track leading to her childhood home, and stopped by the gate. It had been a week since her last visit. The grass had grown greener and more lush, but the house was empty. There was no Volvo parked outside. The happy family who lived there had gone home to the city.
Per had also stopped; he was taking deep breaths and looking around. ‘What is this place?’
Vendela opened the gate and said, ‘You can hear my childhood sighing in the trees here.’
‘Oh?’
‘This is where I grew up,’ said Vendela, walking into the garden.
Per seemed to hesitate before following her. ‘So what was it like, living here?’ he said. ‘Was it a good childhood?’
Vendela didn’t answer for a moment; she didn’t want to say too much. And she didn’t want to think about the cows.
‘It was a bit lonely,’ she said eventually. ‘I didn’t have any friends nearby, they lived up in Marnäs. I had my father for company, and then I had …’
She fell silent and stopped in front of the overgrown foundations that showed where the little barn had stood.
Then she looked up at the house, at the middle window upstairs, and for a moment she expected to see two staring eyes up there. A face behind the glass, a raised hand and a low laugh.
Come up and see me, Vendela.
But the room behind the glass was dark and empty.
Öland 1958
When the elves have made fru Jansson so ill that she is unable to work for the remainder of the school year, the supply teacher, fröken Ernstam, is allowed to stay with the class. Vendela likes her very much, and so do the rest of the pupils. She comes from Kalmar and has new ideas about teaching. She seems young and modern; sometimes she leaves her desk and walks around the classroom, and she refuses to play the pedal organ.
A week after she has taken over the class, fröken Ernstam tells the class that they will be going on a spring trip to Borgholm next Friday; they will be visiting the harbour and the castle, but they will also have the opportunity to spend some time in the shops around the square. The trip will be a kind of encouragement, a treat before they begin preparing for the important end-of-year exams.
A buzz of anticipation runs through the classroom, but Vendela remains silent.
She can’t go, of course. The cows have to be taken care of, and besides, everyone has to take two kronor for their train fare. It’s not exactly a fortune, but she hasn’t got it, and she has no intention of asking her father for extra money. She knows he hasn’t got any, he’s said so several times.
But within a week the issue of money for the trip is sorted out; on Tuesday she is able to borrow two fifty-öre pieces from her best friend Dagmar, and on Thursday – yet another miracle – she is walking home past Marnäs church when she suddenly spots a shiny two-kronor coin that someone has dropped on the gravel. So now she has enough money for the trip, and some to spare.
There is only one more problem: Rosa, Rosa and Rosa.
With the coins in her hand, she stops by the elf stone. She stands there, looking at the hollows in the stone.
They are empty, of course.
Vendela places a fifty-öre coin in one of the hollows and wishes that she might be spared the job of leading the cows home and milking them the next day. One day off a year – that’s not too much to ask, surely?
She stays by the stone for a little while, gazing at the coin. Afterwards she can’t remember what she was thinking about – maybe she wished for something else.
A better life, perhaps? Did she wish that she could get away from the farm, away from her father and the Invalid upstairs, away from the island? That she could escape to another world where she would have no duties, and where money wouldn’t be a problem?
Vendela can’t remember. She leaves the coin in the hollow and sets off across the grass without looking back.
She goes out to the meadow when she gets home, and the cows lift their heads when they see her. Rosa, Rosa and Rosa form a line and begin lumbering towards the gate, and Vendela lifts her stick. But she doesn’t hit them today; her head is full of thoughts. She walks behind the cows, wondering how her wish will be granted.
That night she is woken by the sound of the cows bellowing in the darkness. They sound terrified, and a strange crackling noise is mingled with their cries.
Vendela sits up in bed; she can smell smoke. Through the blind she can see a flickering glow outside. A yellow light around the barn that just keeps on growing, making the rest of the yard melt into one with the dark forest. She hears feet thundering up the stairs, and a shout: ‘The barn’s on fire!’
It’s Henry’s voice. She hears his steps crossing the floor, then the door is flung open. ‘It’s on fire! Get out!’
Vendela gets out of bed, and Henry pulls and drags and carries her down the stairs and out into the cold night air. She ends up on the wet grass, looking around in confusion; that is when she sees that the barn is ablaze. The flames are forcing their way out through the walls, sending sparks whirling up into the night sky. The fire has already begun to lick at the gables.
Henry is standing over her, barefoot and wearing only his nightshirt. He turns away. ‘I have to go and get Jan-Erik!’
He rushes back into the house.
‘Jan-Erik?’
No reply.
The cows are still bellowing, louder and more long-drawn-out than she has ever heard – they can’t get out.
The flames writhe across the ground, scrambling up the barn and colliding with each other beneath the roof like red breakers, and Vendela feels as if her legs are paralysed. She can’t move. She sits there on the grass watching her father emerging from the house with a big bundle of blankets in his arms.
Henry drops the bundle on the grass.
Vendela can hear the sound of wheezing. Two arms push the blankets aside, a face with white eyes appears, blinking, then a mouth with white teeth smiles at her.
The Invalid is sitting there on the grass, just a metre away from her. They sit and stare at one another, and all they can hear is the sound of creaking and cracking as the roof of the barn begins to collapse.
In the glow of the fire Vendela can see that the Invalid is not old at all. The Invalid is just a boy, perhaps five or six years older than she is. His legs are long and thin.
But he is sick. Vendela can hear that he has thick phlegm in his windpipe, and there is something wrong with his skin; his face is red and swollen even when the glow of the fire is not illuminating it, and he has long, bloody scratches on his cheeks and forehead, as if an animal has attacked him. The upper part of his body is also red and covered in sores. But he’s still smiling.
Between two and three years – that’s how long the Invalid has been living on the farm without Vendela knowing who he is. Can he talk? Does he understand Swedish?
‘What’s your name?’
He opens his mouth and laughs, but doesn’t answer.
‘My name’s Vendela. What’s yours?’
‘Jan-Erik,’ he says eventually, but his voice is so quiet and muted that she can barely hear it through the fire. He carries on laughing.
‘Who are you?’
‘Jan-Erik.’
Henry is still running around the yard, sometimes clearly visible in front of the flames, sometimes completely invisible in the darkness. Wh
en the fire reaches out and grabs hold of the gables of the house, he pumps a bucket full of water and goes upstairs to damp down the wood and beat out any sparks.
Vendela’s paralysis eases, and she begins to move. She does just one thing right tonight: she goes over to the hens’ enclosure next to the barn and opens the rickety gate. The hens and chickens come flapping into the yard, tumbling over one another, followed by the cockerel. They gather in a dense huddle in the darkness, out of danger.
‘Ring the fire brigade!’ shouts Henry.
Vendela dashes into the kitchen and rings the fire brigade in Borgholm. She is put through to Kalmar, and it takes a long time to reach someone and explain where the fire is.
When she comes back outside, the Invalid is still sitting on the grass, and Henry is still running back and forth between the barn and the water pump.
But it’s all too late. The fire is roaring through the loft and across the walls along the animals’ stalls, and in the end Henry slows down. He takes a deep breath, one long, heavy sigh.
Vendela can only stand outside and listen as the bellowing from inside falls silent.
Cooked meat: the night is filled with the smell of charred beef.
Vendela can feel the heat of the fire, but she is still freezing cold. She doesn’t want to stay out here.
‘Father … are you coming inside?’
He doesn’t seem to hear her at first, then he shakes his head and answers quietly. ‘It’s not the fire’s fault.’
Vendela doesn’t understand what he means.
After almost an hour the fire brigade turns up with two vehicles from Borgholm, but all they can do is prevent the fire from spreading. It is impossible to save the barn.
Several hours after midnight, when the fire-fighters have left but the yard is still thick with smoke, Henry is sitting out on the steps in the cold. He has carried the Invalid back to his room, but refuses to go inside. Vendela goes out to him one last time.
‘Who’s Jan-Erik, Dad?’
‘Jan-Erik?’ says Henry; he seems to consider the question before answering. ‘Well, he’s my son, of course … your brother.’
‘My brother?’
The Quarry töq-3 Page 20