The Darkest Room (28 page)

“People worry too much
nowadays,” said Gerlof. “I mean, these days people call out the lifeboat as soon as it gets a little bit choppy out there. In the old days people had more sense. If the wind got up when you were a long way out, it was no problem … you just carried on to Gotland, pulled the boat up onto the shore, then lay down underneath it and went to sleep, until the wind had blown itself out. Then you sailed home again.”

He fell silent, lost in thought after his last story. Tilda leaned over and switched off the tape recorder.

“Fantastic. Are you okay, Gerlof?”

“Yes. Sure.”

Gerlof blinked, and was back in the room.

They each had a small glass of mulled wine in front of them. The start of Christmas week had been heralded with wind and snow, and Tilda had brought a bottle with her as a present. She had warmed the sweet red wine out in the
kitchen and added raisins and almonds. When she brought the tray in, Gerlof had got out a bottle of schnapps and added a shot to each glass.

“So what are you doing on Christmas?” Gerlof asked when they had almost finished their drinks and Tilda was feeling warm right down to the tips of her toes.

“I’ll be celebrating quietly, with the family,” she said. “I’m going over to Mom’s on Christmas Eve.”

“Good.”

“And what about you, Gerlof? Would you like to come with me over to the mainland?”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll probably stay here and eat my Christmas rice pudding. My daughters have invited me to the west coast, but I can’t sit in a car for so long.”

They both fell silent.

“Shall we have one last go with the tape recorder?” said Tilda.

“Maybe.”

“But it’s fun to talk, isn’t it? I’ve found out so much about Grandfather.”

Gerlof nodded briefly. “But I haven’t told you about the most important part yet.”

“No,” said Tilda.

Gerlof seemed hesitant. “Ragnar taught me a great deal about the weather and the winds and fishing and sailing when I was a kid … all the important stuff. But when I got a little older, I realized I couldn’t trust him.”

“No?” said Tilda.

“I realized that my brother was dishonest.”

There was silence around the table once again.

“Ragnar was a thief,” he went on. “Nothing more than a thief. I can’t make it sound any better, unfortunately.”

Tilda thought about switching off the tape recorder, but left it running.

“So what did he take?” she asked quietly.

“Well, he stole everything he could, by and large. He
went out at night sometimes and stole eels from others’ tanks. And I remember one time … when the manor house at Eel Point was having new drainpipes put in. There was a box left over, sitting out in the courtyard, until Ragnar stole it. He didn’t actually need drainpipes at the time, but he had keys to the lighthouses, so he put the box in there, and I’m sure it’s there to this day. It wasn’t the need that was important to him, it was the opportunity, I think. He always kept an eye open for something that was left unlocked or unwatched.”

Gerlof was leaning forward; it seemed to Tilda that he was speaking more intensely than ever.

“But surely you must have stolen something yourself at some point?” she said.

Gerlof shook his head. “No, I haven’t, actually. I might have lied a little about my cargo prices sometimes, when I met up with other skippers in port. But fighting and stealing, those are things I’ve never done. I just think we should all help one another.”

“That’s the right attitude,” said Tilda. “We are the community.”

Gerlof nodded. “I don’t think about my older brother too often,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Well … he’s been gone for such a long time, after all. Many, many years. The memories have faded … and I have allowed them to fade.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

The silence hung in the room, before Gerlof replied:

“It was at Ragnar’s little farm, in the winter of 1961. I went out there, because he was refusing to answer the telephone. We quarreled … or rather, we stood and glared at each other. That was our way of quarreling.”

“About what?”

“We quarreled about our inheritance,” said Gerlof. “Not that it helped, but …”

“What inheritance?”

“Everything my mother and father left.”

“What happened to it?” said Tilda.

“A lot disappeared. But it was Ragnar who took it, he did himself proud on it. …My brother was a real shit, in fact.”

Tilda looked at the tape recorder, but couldn’t come up with a suitable response.

“Ragnar was a shit, toward me at any rate,” Gerlof went on, shaking his head. “He emptied our parents’ place in Stenvik, sold most of the contents of the house, sold the house to people from the mainland and kept the profit for himself. And he refused to discuss it. He would just stare coldly at me …It was just impossible to get anywhere with him.”

“Did he take
everything?”
said Tilda.

“I got a few mementos, but Ragnar took the money. Presumably he thought he would be better at taking care of it.”

“But … wasn’t there anything you could do?”

“Sue him, you mean?” said Gerlof. “That isn’t the way we do things here on the island. We become enemies instead. Even brothers, sometimes.”

“But …”

“Ragnar helped himself,” Gerlof went on, “he was the eldest brother after all. He took what he wanted first, then shared with me if he felt like it … so we parted on bad terms, in the fall before he froze to death in the storm.” Gerlof sighed. “‘Let brotherly love continue’ it says in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, but it isn’t always that easy … Of course, that’s the sort of thing I end up thinking about these days.”

Tilda looked at the tape recorder again with a regretful expression. Then she switched it off.

“I think … I think it might be best if I delete this last part. Not because I think you’re lying, Gerlof, but …”

“Fine by me,” said Gerlof.

When Tilda had put the tape recorder away in its black case, he said, “I think I know how it works now. Which buttons you have to press.”

“Good,” said Tilda. “You obviously have a talent for technology, Gerlof.”

“Might you be able to leave it here? Until we see each other again?”

“The tape recorder?”

“Just in case I feel like talking into it some more.”

“Sure.” Tilda passed over the case. “Talk as much as you want. There are a couple of blank tapes you can use.”

When she got back to
the police station, the light on the answering machine was flashing. She started to listen to the message, but when she heard Martin’s voice she sighed and pressed Delete.

It was time he gave up.

Joakim was making one
last trip with the children before Christmas. It was the first day of the Christmas break and he drove down to Borgholm with them.

There were plenty of people out shopping for Christmas presents. The Westin family went into the big supermarket on the way into town and wandered up and down the long aisles full of food, stocking up on supplies for the holiday.

“What shall we have for Christmas dinner?” asked Joakim.

“Grilled chicken and fries,” said Livia.

“Juice,” said Gabriel.

Joakim bought chicken, fries, and raspberry juice, but also potatoes and sausage and ham and Christmas beer and crackers for himself. He bought frozen minced beef to make meatballs, and when he saw that they were selling Öland eel on the fish counter, he bought some smoked pieces. It had presumably swum past just off Eel Point.

He also bought a couple of pounds of cheese. Katrine had always liked to eat bread with thick slices of this particular cheese at Christmas.

It wasn’t entirely sensible, but the previous week Joakim had actually bought her a Christmas present. He had been down in Borgholm looking for presents for the children, and in the window of a store he had seen a pale green tunic Katrine would have loved. He had gone on to the toy store, but then went back to Danielsson’s boutique and bought the tunic.

“Could I have it gift wrapped please … as a Christmas present,” he had said, and the assistant had handed over a red package with white ribbons.

At the parking lot next to the food store, they were selling Christmas trees wrapped in plastic. Joakim bought a big Nordman fir that was tall enough to reach up to the ceiling on the ground floor. He fastened it onto the roof of the car, then they drove home.

It was cold on the island, minus ten degrees, but there was hardly a breath of wind when they got back to Eel Point. The water was just beginning to freeze again, but there was still only a thin layer of snow on the ground. Joakim’s breath billowed out in white clouds, slowly drifting away, as he carried the bags of food across the courtyard and into the house. Then he brought the tree into the warmth. Thousands of tiny insects would come in too, tucked among the branches, he knew that, but most of them were in the middle of their long winter sleep, and would never wake up.

That would be the best way to die, Joakim thought—in your sleep, without any warning.

He put up the tree in the drawing room, beneath the white ceiling. The table with its high-backed chairs was already here, but not much else. The rooms on the ground floor were feeling more and more empty as Christmas drew closer.

The Westin family spent
the rest of the day cleaning and getting everything ready in the house. They had two big cardboard boxes of Christmas decorations to unpack: the Christmas crib, the candlesticks, the red-and-white hand towels for the kitchen, the Christmas stars to hang in the windows, and a goat and a pig made of straw, which they placed on either side of the tree.

When all the Christmas decorations had been unpacked, Livia and Gabriel helped to dress the tree. They had both made paper decorations and wooden figures at nursery school, which they hung up where they could reach, on the lowest branches. On the higher branches Joakim placed tinsel and baubles and Christmas candles, with a golden star right at the top. The tree was ready for Christmas.

Finally they got out the bags of Christmas presents and arranged them under the tree. Joakim placed the gift for Katrine next to the other presents.

Everything fell silent around the tree.

“Is Mommy coming back now?” asked Livia.

“Maybe,” said Joakim.

The children had almost stopped talking about Katrine, but he knew that Livia in particular really missed her. For children the line between what was possible and what was impossible didn’t exist in the same way as for adults. Perhaps it was just a question of wanting to see her enough?

“We’ll have to see what happens,” he said, looking at the pile of packages.

It would be wonderful to see Katrine one last time. To be able to talk to her and say goodbye properly.

The TV weather forecasters
had warned of storms and snowfall over Öland and Gotland during Christmas, but two days before the festivities began Joakim looked out of the
window and saw only fine wisps of cloud in the sky. The sun was shining, it was minus six degrees, and there was hardly any wind.

Then he looked at the bird table outside the kitchen window, and had the feeling that a storm was on the way after all.

The table was empty. The fat balls and piles of seed were still there, but there were no birds pecking at them.

Rasputin jumped up onto the counter next to Joakim and confirmed for himself that the table was empty.

The meadow leading down to the shore was equally deserted, and there were no mute swans or long-tailed ducks out at sea. Perhaps they had all sought shelter over in the forest. Birds don’t need to look at a weather chart to know when a storm is on the way, they can feel it in the air.

That same morning
Joakim let Livia and Gabriel sleep in until eight-thirty. He would have liked to take them off to nursery school so that he could be alone, but they would be at home with him for the next two weeks, however he felt about that.

“Is Mommy coming home today?” asked Livia as she got out of bed.

“I don’t know,” said Joakim.

But the atmosphere in the house was different now, he could feel it, and the children seemed to sense it too. There was an air of tense expectancy in all the white-painted rooms.

He got the candles out straight after breakfast. He had bought them in a store in Borgholm, despite the fact that you really ought to make your own Christmas candles as people had done in the kitchen at the manor house in days gone by, after the children had plaited the wicks; that made the candles personal. But these factory-made candles were all the same length and burned with an even glow in the windows,
on the tables, and in the circular holders suspended from the light fittings.

Living flames for the dead.

The family ate a light lunch in the kitchen in the middle of the day, when the sun was just above the roof of the outbuilding. It would soon begin to go down again.

After lunch Joakim dressed the children in thick jackets and took them for a walk down to the sea. He glanced at the closed door of the barn as they walked past, but didn’t say anything to the children.

They continued on down to the shore in silence. The fine, feathery cirrus clouds were still hovering above the point, but away on the horizon a storm front had begun to loom like a dark gray curtain.

The ice was thin and frosty white by the shore, but firm and dark blue further out. The children threw pebbles and bits of ice that bounced and slid across the shining surface, meeting no resistance, out toward the black cracks.

“Are you cold?” asked Joakim after a while.

Gabriel’s nose was red, and he nodded gloomily.

“We’d better go home, then,” said Joakim.

It was just past the shortest day of the year—it was only half past two, but the sky was dark blue, like twilight on a late summer evening, as they walked back up to the house. Joakim thought he could feel the breath of the approaching snowfall on the back of his neck.

When they got inside in the warmth, he lit the candles again. In the evening the glow from the house would be seen all the way up to the road, perhaps even as far away as Offermossen, the sacrificial peat bog.

When Livia and Gabriel had fallen
asleep that evening and everything was quiet in the house, Joakim put on his padded jacket and left the house with a flashlight in his hand.

He was going to visit the barn. These last few weeks he had rarely managed to stay away for more than a few days at a time.

It was a clear, starry night, and the thin covering of snow in the courtyard had become hard and dry in the cold. The ice crystals crunched beneath his boots.

He stopped by the door of the barn and looked around. Dark shadows surrounded the outbuilding, and it was easy to imagine that somebody was standing over there. A thin woman with a ravaged face, gazing at him with a dark expression …

“Stay away, Ethel,” Joakim muttered to himself as he dragged open the heavy door.

He walked in and listened for the sound of yowling from Rasputin the mouser, but heard nothing.

Tonight Joakim didn’t go over to the steps leading up to the hayloft. He took a walk around the ground floor first, past the empty feeding troughs and stalls where the cows had once stood in a line in the winter, chewing away.

A rusty horseshoe had been nailed to the gable-end wall at the far side of the barn.

Joakim went over to look at it. The ends were pointing upward, presumably so that the luck wouldn’t run out.

The light from the bulbs on the ceiling didn’t quite reach this far, so he switched on his flashlight. When it illuminated the roof beams up above, it occurred to Joakim that he must be directly underneath the hidden room in the loft. Then he lowered the flashlight.

Someone had swept the stone floor. Not everywhere, but in a strip along the walls. There was no dried dung or piles of old hay there.

It could hardly be anyone other than Katrine who had swept in here.

In the right-hand corner on the gable wall, old fishing nets and thick ropes hung from a row of nails. Several of them reached right down to the floor, like a curtain. But behind the curtain, the wall appeared to sink inward.

Joakim took a step forward and shone the flashlight, and the shadow by the wall moved silently away, revealing a low opening down by the floor. Part of the wooden wall was missing, and when Joakim pushed the curtain of ropes and nets smelling of tar to one side, he could see that the stone slabs continued beyond it.

There was some kind of opening by the floor in the gable wall. It only reached up to Joakim’s knees, but was at least six feet wide.

He was driven on by his curiosity, and bent down to try and see what was on the other side of the opening. All he could see was more closely packed earth, and dancing balls of fluff.

In the end he lay down on his belly and started to crawl. He took the flashlight with him, and wriggled under the wooden planks.

He just managed to get under the wall before it came to a stop; there was another wall, made of limestone this time. It was ice cold—it must be the outside wall. The space between was only about three feet wide. When Joakim had brushed aside some curtains of freshly spun cobwebs, he could actually stand up.

In the beam of the flashlight he could see that he was in a narrow space between two walls: the inner wall made of wood that he had crawled under, and the western outer wall of the barn. A couple of yards away an old wooden ladder led straight up into the darkness.

Someone had been here before him. It looked as if someone had been moving around in here, creating walkways in the hundred-year-old dust.

Was it Katrine? After all, Mirja had said she didn’t know anything about a hidden room anywhere at the manor.

The ladder in front of him rose almost vertically into the darkness. Joakim shone his flashlight upward and saw that it led to a square hole. It was pitch black up there, but he didn’t hesitate for a second. He started to climb.

Eventually he perched on the edge of the opening and heaved himself up from the ladder.

He was on a wooden floor. To his left was an unpainted wooden wall. He recognized the wide planks, and knew that he had found the hidden room behind the hayloft.

He stood up and swept the flashlight around in front of him.

In its yellow glow he saw benches—rows of benches.

Church benches.

He was at one end of something that looked like an old wooden chapel inside the loft. It was a little room dedicated to worship beneath the high, angular roof, set out with four benches and a narrow aisle alongside them.

The wooden benches were dry and split and the edges were battered, completely without any kind of ornamentation; they looked as if they came from a medieval church. They must have been put here when the barn was built, Joakim realized. There was no door through which to carry them in.

There was no pulpit in the room. And no cross. High up on the wall in front of the pews was a filthy window. Below it a sheet of paper was hanging from a nail, and when he went over he saw that it was a page ripped out of a family Bible: a Doré drawing of a woman, Mary Magdalene perhaps, staring in amazement at the stone rolled away from the entrance to Jesus’ tomb. The big round stone lay cast aside on the ground, and the opening to the tomb gaped above her like a black hole.

Joakim looked at the picture for a long time. Then he turned around—and discovered that the wooden benches behind him were not empty.

In the glow of the flashlight he could see letters lying on them.

And dried-up bunches of flowers.

And a pair of white children’s shoes.

On one of the benches lay something small and white, and when he bent down he saw that it was a set of false teeth.