The Viper (37 page)

“Read it,” said Lennart.

Sara gave him a quick look, but managed to refrain from saying what had been on the tip of her tongue. Instead she started to read.

“‘July twenty-first. The
Adventure
put out from Klintehamn at eight o’clock in the morning. Light breeze. Would we be able to make it without having to use the engine? We put up the spinnaker.’”

“Call the girl,” Lennart interjected, “she must know.”

“Elin Traneus?” Sara asked.

“Yeah,” said Lennart. “That’s the simplest solution isn’t it. Unless you want to keep her out of it for some reason.”

Sara and Fredrik looked at each other.

“Isn’t there anything there?” asked Fredrik.

Sara scanned a few paragraphs mumblingly, then continued out loud.

“‘Dropped anchor alee of the headland. The sea report promised a calm night. Stefania can still show brief flashes of her old self when Elin and Rickard manage to draw her out of herself. A lively water fight broke out between the three of them. Went on for a long while before she suddenly caught herself and went and lay down with a book. Rickard and Elin stopped, too, and instead went to play cave explorers. I went along. Elin bobbed up and down inside the cave in her red life vest. Rickard took her in tow.’”

“Östergarnsholm,” said Lennart. “I can bet you a hundred crowns.”

“I’m in,” said Sara in a flash without really thinking about it.

They shook on it.

“Easy money,” said Lennart.

55.

The trick was to stay warm and dry. He was wearing a union suit, a windproof Helly Hansen top, and a windbreaker on top of that. Waterproof shoes.

Father had taught him how to dress properly and what supplies to bring along. Even if he never managed to get his business degree he knew how to dress properly.

Apart from wearing the right clothes, there were only two ways to stay warm on the island; either by moving continuously or else crawling down into the sleeping bag in the alcohol-soaked room in the old lighthouse. He had walked over to the new lighthouse on the east end of the island and back again, had seen the distant tower grow ever larger until he finally had to bend his neck back in order to look up at the lantern room at the top with a crop of antennae on its roof. Then he turned toward the gray, can-like building where he had spent the night. He’d had to open his jacket and sweater a little at the neck on the way back. He was still hot, but the heat quickly radiated away when he stood still. His clothes could only retain it for short time.

His mouth tasted of fat and smoke from the sausage he had eaten for lunch.

Why had he come out here? Was it because there was no way out? No way out of himself?

The daylight wasn’t enough anymore. It didn’t help that the sun broke through the tears in the cloud cover. The visions left him no peace. No matter how light it was, he was sucked into a darkness of bleeding eyes staring at him. They bled forth the realization that there was no going back. He was what he was, something he had never thought he could be, and would remain forever.

When that realization grabbed hold of him, he wanted more than anything to run headlong up the bluff and throw himself off. But he didn’t do it.

Was that what he was going to do? Was he building up his courage to overcome the last memories of Elin and Stefania, of the bleached-white bird skeletons and fire ants, the last fragments of a few happy summer days that seemed so distant that they might just as well have belonged to somebody else?

And maybe they did, too. He was someone else now, someone else entirely, about as far away from being an innocent child on a summer adventure as it was possible to be. The sun wasn’t shining on him anymore. There was no light that could penetrate his darkness.

Father’s head rose up out of a hole in the ground. It stared at him with empty eye sockets, the eyes eaten away by worms and insects.

The white skin smelled of smoked sausage. His silence had made Father into a murderer. For weeks he had been singled out as a murderer right up until he had been absolved by the remains of his own corpse. Only once his head had come out of the ground had his reputation been restored.

56.

“You shouldn’t have taken him up on it,” said Fredrik once they had pulled their car doors shut.

“I can’t stand it when he acts so damn certain.”

She glanced at Fredrik out of the corner of her eye.

“I guess I’ll live to regret it?”

“Don’t know,” said Fredrik, “but I hope so.”

It took them barely twenty minutes to drive to Herrvik from Lennart’s house. The little fishing harbor looked deserted as it came into view below Grogarnsberget. There wasn’t a person to be seen anywhere, but stacks of fishing crates, fishing nets, and other equipment hinted that it was still a working harbor. A fishing boat with a shimmering green hull was moored along the concrete quayside. Black net floats marked with bleached flags lay sprawled amidships. Along the pier over by the parking lot lay two older pleasure boats and a little fishing boat without any equipment. The red fishing huts were shuttered, except for one with the sign
HARBOR OFFICE
above the door.

Fredrik parked the car in the middle of the large asphalt parking lot where only two other cars were standing. He turned off the engine. The restaurant that lay on a little rise above the parking lot was also closed. It was in there that Eva Karlén had dumped him one Sunday in July a little over two years ago.

“What now?” said Sara next to him.

Fredrik looked out at the parking lot.

“We should run a check on those cars,” he said. “Would be a shame if we missed something that easy. If you do that, I’ll go and check with the harbor office.”

“Okay,” said Sara.

Fredrik climbed out of the car and walked the short distance over to the harbor office. The windows were dark. There was a handwritten note taped up to the windowpane directing inquiries to a cell phone number.

He turned his back to it as the phone began to ring at the other end. The flags on the fishing buoys flapped hard in the wind, but he was standing sheltered from the wind.

“Hello? Maj speaking,” a woman answered out of breath after it had rung so many times that Fredrik ought to have hung up a long time ago.

He introduced himself and explained his reason for calling. He had heard that there was a fisherman who used to take people out to Östergarnsholm during the tourist season. Would it be possible to get hold of him?

“Sure,” said Maj and gave him another cell phone number.

The fisherman’s name was Evert Söderman. Sounded more like someone from Roslagen than from Gotland.

“He’s usually quick to answer.”

Fredrik went back to the car and slid into the driver’s seat. It was muggy inside the car, so he kept the door ajar.

“Nothing of interest,” said Sara, “both cars are registered to people around here. No Traneus.”

“Okay,” said Fredrik, “let’s see if we have any luck with the fisherman.”

He called the number he’d gotten from Maj and got an answer on the second ring.

“Evert Söderman,” said an elderly man as if he’d read the name from a slip of paper.

Fredrik explained why he was calling.

“Are you in Herrvik right now?” said Evert Söderman.

“Yes,” answered Fredrik.

“Are you the ones sitting in that Volvo?”

“We’re sitting in
a
Volvo, if it’s
that
Volvo or not I can’t say,” said Fredrik and peered toward the houses across the inlet’s bluish-gray water, expecting to catch a glimpse of a man with a cell phone raised to his ear standing in one of the windows, but didn’t see anyone.

Sara looked at him questioningly.

“In the parking lot, down by the harbor office?” said the voice on the cell phone.

“Yes,” said Fredrik after a moment’s hesitation.

“I’ll be right down,” said Evert Söderman.

“That won’t be necessary,” said Fredrik. “We can do this over the phone.”

“I was on my way down to the boat anyway.”

“Well, in that case,” said Fredrik.

He flipped his phone shut.

“He’s coming down,” he said in answer to Sara’s questioning look.

It didn’t take long before an old, well maintained, former phone company Volvo came rolling down to the quayside. Bright orange. It stopped as close to the little fishing boat as was possible. The man who climbed out was white haired, tall, and slightly hunched, but more springy than slouched. He walked straight up to Fredrik and Sara, who met him halfway.

“Evert Söderman,” he said and held out a hand that was knotted from a lifetime on the Baltic.

He greeted Sara first.

“You often take people out to Östergarnsholm, is that right?” asked Fredrik when they had shaken hands.

“That’s right,” said Evert Söderman and squinted at Fredrik as if the light bothered him.

“Have you taken anyone out there over the past few days?” he asked.

“No, no,” said Evert Söderman and laughed. “Last time was a while ago. It’s mostly tourists.”

“When was the last one?”

“Must have been right at the beginning of September. Maj usually gives out my phone number when somebody asks,” said Evert Söderman.

He smiled warmly at Fredrik, and glanced at Sara. The light from the breaks in the clouds flashed in his dark-gray eyes.

“Do you know if anyone else might have taken someone out there this week?” said Fredrik. “Or rented someone a boat?”

“No, I doubt it. Not that I’ve heard anything about, anyway.”

“And nobody’s had a boat stolen, a skiff or a dinghy that’s been lying pulled up onshore somewhere?”

“Nah, I would’ve heard about that.”

He turned out toward the sea and looked north.

“Of course, there are a few summer residents with small boats they keep up on land in the off-season. If one of those has disappeared, then it’s likely to take a while before it gets discovered.”

He turned to Fredrik again.

“So you’re out hunting boat thieves?”

Fredrik excused himself and took Sara aside while Evert Söderman climbed nimbly aboard his boat, the
Anita,
and got busy with something.

“We could ask him to take us out there,” he said to Sara.

“To look for Rickard?”

“Yes.”

“You’re thinking of what it said in the diary?”

“It’s worth a try.”

“Do you think that Rickard’s the one who did it?”

“I think he knows something. He’s protecting someone, or else he’s directly involved. Maybe he needed money, tried to make some deal with Ringvall, but everything went wrong. Ringvall flipped out and killed all three. Or else it was Rickard who did it, although I have a hard time believing that.”

“I have a hard time believing that, either. That kid’s no maniac. But there’s gotta be some reason why he disappeared,” said Sara.

“Rickard is the key to this case. That I’m sure of.”

Sara lay a hand on the roof of the car, looked over toward the fishing boat.

“Well,” she said then, “why not? Let’s go out there and take a look. Will you call Göran?”

*   *   *

SARA AND FREDRIK
sat at the very front of the prow during the crossing. The boat didn’t seem to be used for fishing at all, anymore. The net winch may have still been there, but the interior of the boat was scrubbed clean and freshly painted and cross benches had been added for people to sit on.

When they came out of the sheltered harbor inlet, the boat began to slam into the waves that were coming head-on. The occasional spray from the sea reached them in the form of a fine mist.

Evert Söderman stuck his head out from one of the windows on the side of the wheelhouse and hollered to them.

“You can squeeze in here with me if it’s getting too cold for you out there.”

“We’re fine!” Sara shouted back. “We’re protected from the wind here.”

“One hell of a bumpy ride though,” said Fredrik to Sara.

When the bow plunged down into the larger troughs they were lifted slightly off their bench and landed again a split second later with a hard bang.

Closer to the island, the waves settled down and the crossing became more pleasant. Evert Söderman steered in toward the thin headland that jutted straight out to the south. You could just make out a jetty at its midpoint, probably built to facilitate the maintenance of the lighthouse.

He stuck his head out the side window again.

“I usually take the tourists over to those cliffs over there,” he shouted while pointing, “but in this wind it’s better we go ashore at the jetty.”

Söderman had wanted to take them out free of charge since it was police business. He didn’t have much else to do just then anyway, he had said. In the end, Fredrik managed to convince him to accept payment. It was the police department that would be footing the bill anyway, he had argued, not him or Sara personally. That had worked and Söderman had accepted. The question was whether that wasn’t his intention all along.

Göran had said yes to the expense and urged them to be careful. “Look around; if you’re right, you just stand by and call for backup.”

The
Anita
wasn’t a fast boat and the headwind was slowing her down even more. It took nearly half an hour to reach the jetty. Evert Söderman put the throbbing diesel engine into neutral, threw out the fenders, and leaped ashore with a rope in his hand. It went so quickly and smoothly that neither Fredrik nor Sara had a chance to offer to help.

They stepped ashore. Evert Söderman held out a steadying hand to Sara, but Fredrik had to manage on his own. The surface of the jetty had recently been refurbished. The pressure-treated planking still shone green.

“I’ll wait here,” said Evert Söderman, “but if the wind turns northerly, then I’ve got to move. Then I’ll have to head over to those cliffs, but you’ll see that.”

A narrow path led north from the jetty and beyond it loomed the Östergarnsholm’s eastern lighthouse.

“So, if you were to come out here in a little outboard, where would you go ashore?” asked Fredrik.

“Well, there’s a beach on the north side of the island. I guess I’d try over there. Then you could pull up the boat and tie it to a tree,” said Söderman and slowly turned around as he spoke as if it helped him to visualize the island’s topography.