The Quarry

by Johan Theorin

  ‘Did he sound nice?’

  ‘Not bad,’ said Ulrica. ‘He talked about how cool it would be. So Petra and I went down to Ryd together on the train. We spent most of the time giggling – it was a bit like an adventure, like running away with the circus.’ She looked at Per and added, ‘But without a band.’

  Then she went on: ‘When we came out of the station in Ryd there was another girl waiting there … She was much more provocatively dressed in tight jeans and a tight top, and she just glared at us. Then this guy Bremer came along in his car; he got out and smiled at us and said hello, and ushered us into the car. Sitting there in the back seat it all suddenly seemed much more serious; I stopped giggling, and when I looked at Petra she seemed really nervous.’

  She looked down at the table.

  ‘So what did Bremer say then?’ Per asked.

  ‘He spent most of the time talking to the girl in the front seat; it was obvious she was an old hand and had been there several times before. Cindy or Lindy, he called her.’ Ulrica smiled tiredly. ‘I shouldn’t think that was her name … both Petra and I were given new names in the magazine. Petra was called Candy and I was Suzy.’

  ‘And the men were always called Markus Lukas, weren’t they?’

  Ulrica nodded. ‘I suppose most things were fake in that industry … Anyway, we were driven out to the house – it felt as if we were deep in the forest – and as Bremer pulled up I realized that nobody knew where we were. That wasn’t a very good feeling … and the house was big and dark, with thick curtains at the windows on the ground floor. It smelled of detergent, but I remember thinking that was probably just covering up a whole load of disgusting smells that you would start to notice if you stayed around for too long.’

  ‘And Jerry, was he there?’

  ‘Yes, he was there. He said hello and brought some papers over for me and Petra. We both signed some kind of contract, it said something along the lines that we were doing this voluntarily and weren’t underage.’

  ‘Did they check your ages?’

  ‘No … Bremer asked how old we were when we rang up, I think, but nobody asked us for our passport or driving licence or anything like that.

  ‘I don’t know if it was so we could learn how things worked, but Petra and I were allowed to stay in the studio while Cindy/Lindy was being photographed, with Bremer egging her on. She sat on the bed stroking herself and undressing for the camera. It was ridiculous sometimes, what she was doing. Shy yet wanton at the same time, somehow … as if there was a war going on inside her.’

  She lowered her gaze to the floor.

  ‘When I saw her I realized I could never make a career of this, or even do it again … I just wanted to go home, even at that stage. But I still had my own photo session to do; it was impossible to back out. I just had to do it … I was to be photographed on a sofa. So I had to walk into the bright light, and we made a start. You didn’t really have to move, just pose in different positions.’ She paused. ‘I was really nervous, but it was just routine for the others – all in a day’s work.’

  ‘Who was there?’ Per asked.

  ‘Bremer was standing between the spotlights; he was directing everything and telling me what to do, then there was a young lad who was the photographer, then this wiry, tattooed guy who was to do the shots on the sofa with me.’

  ‘So what was Jerry doing while all this was going on?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Ulrica. ‘He was probably standing to one side somewhere “adjusting his trousers” … that’s what we used to say about the dirty old men who hung about near our school.’

  Per could imagine Jerry doing exactly that.

  ‘Then it was Petra’s turn. She was after me, with this other guy who was also called Markus Lukas.’

  ‘What do you remember about him?’

  Ulrica thought about it.

  ‘He was taller and a bit older, much more muscular,’ she said. ‘Taller and quieter, a bit bored maybe … it was obvious this was just a job to him. At least my Markus Lukas chatted, made the odd joke and tried to get me to relax. And he told me his real name afterwards. It was Tobias … Tobias Jesslin, and he was from Malmö.’

  Per made a mental note of the name. A Markus Lukas called Tobias – another real name among all the false ones.

  ‘Are you still in touch with Petra?’ he asked.

  Ulrica looked horrified. ‘In touch?’ she said.

  ‘Have you got a number or an address? I’d really like to talk to her as well.’

  ‘Petra’s dead,’ said Ulrica.

  Per looked at her in surprise.

  ‘She died at the beginning of the nineties. We’d lost touch by then, but I heard about it, and I saw the notice in the paper.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘I think she was ill … It was just a rumour, but I think she had cancer.’

  Per looked down into his coffee cup; that was a word he didn’t want to hear. ‘Very sad,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ulrica, ‘and what happened to Madde was just as bad. Or even worse, actually.’

  ‘Madde?’

  ‘Madeleine Frick. She was another friend of mine from school. She moved to Stockholm after we left, but just a couple of years later she threw herself in front of a train.’

  Per breathed in slowly and said quietly, ‘Did she work with my father as well?’

  Ulrica nodded. ‘I think so … I never saw any pictures or films, of course, but when we met up that summer she told me she’d been out to Ryd and had done some filming too. “With the wiry guy or the tall one?” I asked her. “The tall one,” she said. I didn’t want to hear any more … that was the only time we talked about it.’

  Per didn’t say anything. Of the four girls he had found who had filmed with Jerry, two were dead.

  Suddenly a door flew open in the hallway.

  ‘Mum?’ a boy’s voice called out.

  ‘Coming!’

  Per looked at her and tried to come up with one last question. ‘How do you feel about it now?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Ulrica, getting up to rinse her coffee cup. She looked at him. ‘What’s done is done … If you do stupid things when you’re young, you regret it, and if you don’t do anything stupid, you still regret it, sooner or later. Don’t you agree?’

  Yes, thought Per. If you survive.

  But he didn’t say anything.

  As he drove away from the farm, he thought about Ulrica Ternman, then about Regina. What was he doing? He wanted to save girls who sometimes didn’t want to be saved. He wanted to save them from his father.

  Just before he reached the motorway, he pulled into a car park and rang Directory Enquiries. He found two people called Tobias Jesslin. One lived in Mora, the other in Karlskrona.

  Karlskrona was closer to Kalmar, so he tried that number first. After three rings a girl’s voice chirruped: ‘Hello, this is Emilie!’

  Per was taken aback, but asked for Tobias anyway.

  ‘Daddy’s not here,’ said the girl. ‘Do you want to talk to Mummy?’

  Per hesitated. ‘OK.’

  There was a rattling sound, then a stressed female voice came on the line. ‘Hello, this is Katarina.’

  ‘Hi, my name’s Per Mörner … I was hoping to speak to Tobias.’

  ‘He’s at work.’

  ‘Where does he work?’

  ‘Honolulu.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The Honolulu restaurant. Who are you?’

  ‘I’m … I’m just an old friend. We haven’t been in touch for a long time. This is the Tobias who used to live in Malmö, isn’t it?’

  The woman didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

  ‘Yes, he did live in Malmö.’

  ‘Good,’ said Per, ‘I’ve probably got the right person then. When will he be home?’

  ‘He finishes at eleven … but you could ring him at the Honolulu.’

  ‘Or I could go there … what’s the address?’

  He mad
e a note of it and rang off.

  Then he thought it over. It was almost seven o’clock now, and it would probably take him about an hour to drive down to Karlskrona.

  He made a decision, and got in the car. He would go and see Tobias Jesslin, who once upon a time had been called Markus Lukas.

  55

  Vendela spent the whole of Tuesday working on the new garden. Before lunch she planted ivy, box and a long row of elder saplings which would provide good foliage and shade when they had grown, and in the afternoon she hauled bags of compost and small limestone blocks and created three little flowerbeds. She could see in her mind’s eye the rows of green leaves emerging in May, the stems growing strong in June, the big petals turning towards the sun.

  The telephone in the house rang a few times, but she didn’t answer. At about seven she went in and ran herself a hot bubble bath, ate a couple of pieces of crispbread for dinner, and stared out of the window. Over towards the little cottage to the north.

  She didn’t want to go for a run on the alvar this evening. She thought about going to see old Gerlof, but didn’t want to disturb him. What she really wanted was to go over to Per Mörner and spend the rest of the evening sitting chatting to him, but his car wasn’t there. So she sat there in her big empty house, waiting for her husband and her dog to come back.

  They didn’t come. At ten o’clock she went to bed.

  Through the fog of sleep Vendela could hear a throbbing noise coming closer, then she was woken by the sound of someone unlocking the front door. She opened her eyes and saw from the clock by her bedside that it was quarter to eleven.

  The light went on in the hallway and a strip of light fell across her bed.

  ‘Hello?’ called a man’s voice.

  It was Max.

  ‘Hello …’ she replied quietly, running a hand over her forehead.

  ‘Hi darling!’

  Max came into the bedroom, still wearing his padded jacket.

  Vendela raised her head and looked around the floor. ‘Where’s Aloysius?’

  ‘Here,’ said Max, throwing something on the bed. ‘It’s done now.’

  Vendela looked at him in confusion. ‘What’s done?’

  Then she looked down at the bed and saw something small and narrow lying beside her, something strangely familiar. She reached out and picked it up.

  It was a strip of leather. A dog collar.

  She recognized the faint smell of Aloysius. It was his collar.

  Max was still standing by the bed. ‘I thought you might want that. As a memento.’

  ‘Max, what have you done?’

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I’ll tell you about it, if you want to know. It was very peaceful and I was holding him all the time … The vets know exactly what to do.’

  Vendela just stared at him, but he carried on. ‘First of all they gave him a tranquillizer, just like the ones you take sometimes. Then they injected an overdose of anaesthetic into his front leg, and by that time—’

  Vendela sat up. ‘I don’t want to hear it!’

  She threw the covers aside and leapt out of bed, pushing past Max. She ran into the hallway, pulled on her coat and boots and hurtled out of the door. When she landed on the path the gravel flew up around her feet.

  Away, she had to get away.

  Suddenly the Audi was there in front of her and she fumbled with the door. It wasn’t locked.

  She got in the car and leaned her head against the hardness of the wheel.

  Then came the tears. Tears for Aloysius.

  Ten years. She and Max had bought him when he was just a young dog, the autumn they got married. When they walked into the kennels to look for a dog he had wagged his tail and come running up to them, as if he had chosen them instead of vice versa, and he had been with Vendela every single day since then.

  A shadow appeared next to the car.

  ‘Vendela?’ It was Max, tapping on the window. ‘Come inside, then we can talk.’

  ‘Go away!’

  She flung open the door and clenched her fists, forcing Max to take a step backwards. Then she took the torch out of the glove compartment and got out of the car. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she screamed.

  He took two more steps backwards and she walked past him, heading for the gravel track.

  ‘Where are you going, Vendela?’

  She didn’t answer – she just wanted to get away from her husband as quickly as possible, heading out into the cold and the darkness.

  56

  A bitterly cold wind was blowing in off the Baltic as Per got out of his car in front of the Honolulu restaurant. The air felt icy cold tonight, as if the winter had suddenly changed its mind and come back.

  The restaurant was right by the water just outside the centre of Karlskrona, but it didn’t look as though it boasted many Michelin stars. Two of the neon letters weren’t working, so the sign above the entrance said HON LULU RE TAURANT.

  He went into the warmth and took off his jacket. There were about thirty tables, only eight of which were occupied, but then it was Monday, after all. No doubt there would be plenty more customers in three days’ time, on May Day.

  He sat down at a table in a quiet spot by the window and picked up the menu; the choice was limited almost exclusively to pizza and hamburgers. When the waiter appeared, Per ordered a glass of water and a Honolulu burger with cheese.

  He glanced covertly at the waiter as he took Per’s order through to the kitchen. He was dark-haired and broad-shouldered like one of Jerry’s models, but he looked about twenty-five, and was hardly likely to have been employed by Jerry ten years ago.

  When he came back with the food fifteen minutes later, Per asked, ‘Do you know Tobias Jesslin?’

  The waiter put the plate of food down on the table. ‘Tobias? Tobias the chef?’

  ‘That’s right, the chef,’ Per said quickly. ‘I’d really like to speak to him.’

  The waiter looked dubious. ‘Is it to do with the food?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing to do with the food.’

  ‘Tobias is rushed off his feet at the moment.’

  ‘But he’ll be free later, won’t he? Could you give him a note?’

  The waiter hesitated, then nodded.

  Per took an old receipt out of his wallet and quickly jotted down a message, similar to the one he had left at the Moulin Noir.

  The waiter took the note and disappeared without a word. Per started to eat his burger, which was greasy and somewhat rubbery. He gazed out at the blackness of the sea as he chewed. The old cargo ships carrying limestone from Öland had sailed past out there, heading for Denmark and Norway.

  When the plate was empty he sat there staring at the kitchen door. It remained closed.

  The thought that Markus Lukas might be behind that door was making him nervous. After waiting for ten minutes he just had to do something. He got up, went into the empty foyer and called a mobile number he had rung earlier that day. It was answered immediately.

  ‘Fall?’

  ‘This is Per Mörner from Öland. I rang you this morning … about Hans Bremer?’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  Thomas Fall sounded tired, but Per went on anyway. ‘I just wanted to check if you’d found that briefcase yet … Bremer’s briefcase?’

  ‘Yes … it was in the loft.’

  ‘Great. Have you looked inside?’

  Fall seemed hesitant, as if he were embarrassed. ‘Yes … I did take a look, just a quick look. It’s full of old magazines, and some kind of book manuscript.’

  ‘Like a diary?’

  ‘Maybe. I haven’t read it.’

  ‘Could I have a look at it?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Fall. He paused. ‘Actually, you can have it. It’s no use to me.’

  ‘That would be great, although it’s going to be a bit difficult for me to come and pick it up …’

  Per was just working out how he could drop everything and drive all the way back down to Malmö ag
ain – he couldn’t go so far away from Nilla right now – but Thomas Fall solved the problem.

  ‘I’m driving up to Stockholm for the May Day celebrations, so I could take a detour to Öland and drop it off, if I can have your address.’

  Per gave it to him and explained how to get to Stenvik. ‘It’s the third house along by the quarry,’ he said. ‘The smallest one.’

  He switched off his mobile and went back to the table. The waiter removed his plate.

  At half past nine the kitchen door opened and a man in chef’s whites emerged. He came over to Per’s table and held up the note. He didn’t look put out or annoyed, just curious. ‘Did you write this?’ He spoke with a Skåne accent.

  Per nodded, and the next question came:

  ‘So you’re Jerry Morner’s son?’

  ‘That’s right. And you’re Tobias?’

  ‘Yep. I did a bit of work for your father before I became a chef.’

  Tobias’s face was sweaty, perhaps from the heat of cooking. But he looked Per in the eye, and didn’t seem bothered in the least.

  ‘I know,’ said Per. ‘Jerry called you Markus Lukas.’

  Jesslin didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

  ‘Yes. But that’s all finished now. There’s hardly any Swedish porn these days … Practically all the films are made in the USA now, in California.’

  ‘Could we have a chat anyway? I’m just curious about a few things to do with my father’s activities.’

  ‘Sure … We can go to the staff room.’

  Jesslin turned back to the kitchen. Per put the money for his meal on the table and followed him.

  The smell of cooking hung in the air around the stoves, but the tiled floor looked clean. Tobias Jesslin led the way to the back of the kitchen and into a small room with closed metal cupboards, a shower, and a chair with several tables. A window framed a view of the sea.

  ‘Ulrica Ternman wanted me to say hello,’ said Per when Jesslin had closed the door.

  ‘Who?’

  Jesslin sat down and took out a packet of cigarettes.