The Darkest Room (23 page)

“I’d like that,” said Joakim, “if there are any.”

“Oh, there are,” said Gerlof. “But I suppose you mean ghost stories? Is that the kind of thing you’re interested in?”

Joakim hesitated, as if he was afraid someone might be eavesdropping, then said, “I’d just like to know if anyone else has experienced unusual things here,” he said. “I’ve felt … or imagined I’ve felt … the presence of the dead at Eel Point. Both out by the lighthouses and here inside the manor. Others who have been here seem to have had a similar experience.”

Tilda said nothing, but she was thinking of the October evening when she had waited here for Westin. She had been alone here then—but it hadn’t really felt that way.

“Those who have lived here in times gone by are still here,” said Gerlof, his coffee cup in his hand. “Do you think they rest only in graveyards?”

“But that’s where they’re buried,” said Joakim quietly.

“Not always.” Gerlof nodded toward the expanse of plowed fields at the back of the house. “The dead are our neighbors everywhere here on the island, and you just have to get used to it. The whole countryside is full of old graves … tumuli containing chambers from the Stone Age, burial cairns and cists from the Bronze Age, and the burial grounds of the Vikings.”

Gerlof turned to look out toward the sea, where the horizon had disappeared in a damp winter fog.

“And there’s a churchyard out there too,” he said. “The whole of the east coast is a graveyard for hundreds of ships that ran up on the sandbanks and were smashed to pieces, and for all the sailors who drowned. Many of those who went to sea in days gone by couldn’t even swim.”

Joakim nodded and closed his eyes. “I didn’t believe in anything,” he said. “Before we came here I didn’t believe the dead could come back … but now I don’t know what to believe. A number of remarkable things have happened here.”

Silence fell in the kitchen.

“Whatever you might feel of the dead, or whatever you think you might see,” said Gerlof slowly, “it can be dangerous to let them rule our actions.”

“Yes,” said Joakim quietly.

“And to try to call them up … or ask questions.”

“Questions?”

“You never know what answers you might get,” said Gerlof.

Joakim looked down into his coffee cup and nodded. “But I have wondered about this story that says they will return here.”

“Who?”

“The dead. When I was having coffee with the neighbors, they told me a story: those who have died here at the manor return home every Christmas. I was just wondering if there were any more tales about that?”

“Oh, that’s an old story,” said Gerlof. “It’s told in many places, not just here at Eel Point. The Christmas vigil of the dead, that’s when those who have passed away during the year return for their own Christmas service. Anyone who disturbed them at that time had to run for their life.”

Joakim nodded. “An encounter with the dead.”

“Exactly. There was a strong belief that people would be able to see the dead again … and not only in church. In their homes too.”

“At home?”

“According to folk beliefs, you should place a candle in the window at Christmas,” said Gerlof, “so that the dead can find their way home.”

Joakim leaned forward. “But was that just those who had passed away in the house,” he said, “or other dead people as well?”

“You mean drowned sailors?” said Gerlof.

“Sailors … or other members of the family who have passed away somewhere else. Did they come back at Christmas as well?”

Gerlof glanced briefly at Tilda, then shook his head. “This is just a story, you know,” he said. “There are many superstitions surrounding Christmas … It was the turning point of the year, after all, when the darkness was at its peak and death was at its closest. Then the days grew longer again, and life returned.”

Joakim didn’t say anything.

“I’m looking forward to that,” he said eventually. “It’s so dark now … I’m looking forward to the turning point.”

A few minutes later
they were outside saying goodbye. Joakim held out his hand.

“You have a beautiful home out here,” said Gerlof, shaking it. “But be careful of the blizzard.”

“The blizzard,” said Joakim. “It’s supposed to be a really big snowstorm down here, isn’t it?”

Gerlof nodded. “It doesn’t come every year, but I’m pretty sure it will come this winter. And it comes quickly. You don’t want to be outdoors down here by the sea when that happens. Especially not the children.”

“So how do people on Öland know when something like that is coming?” asked Joakim. “Can you feel it in the air?”

“We look at the thermometer and listen to the weather forecasts,” said Gerlof. “The cold has arrived early this year, and that’s usually a bad sign.”

“Okay,” said Joakim with a smile. “We’ll be careful.”

“You do that.” Gerlof nodded and set off toward the car, supported by Tilda, but he suddenly stopped, let go of her arm, and turned around. “One more thing … what was your wife wearing on the day of her accident?”

Joakim Westin stopped smiling. “I’m sorry?”

“Do you remember what clothes she was wearing that day?”

“Yes … but they were nothing special,” said Joakim. “Boots, jeans, and a winter jacket.”

“Have you still got them?”

Joakim nodded, looking tired and tortured again. “The hospital gave them to me. In a parcel.”

“Could I take a look at them?”

“You mean … you want to borrow them?”

“Borrow them, yes. I won’t damage them in any way, I just want to look at them.”

“Okay … but they’re still all parceled up,” said Joakim. “I’ll go and get them.”

He went back into the house.

“Can you take care of the parcel, Tilda?” said Gerlof, setting off toward the car once more.

When Tilda had started
the engine and driven out through the gate, Gerlof leaned back in his seat.

“So, we had our little chat,” he said with a sigh. “I suppose I was a bit of a canny old man after all. It’s difficult to avoid it.”

A brown parcel containing Katrine Westin’s clothes was lying on his knee. Tilda glanced at it.

“What was all that business with the clothes? Why did you want to borrow them?”

Gerlof looked down at his knee. “It was just something that occurred to me when we were standing out there by the bog. About how the sacrifices were carried out there.”

“What do you mean? That Katrine Westin was some kind of sacrifice?”

Gerlof looked out through the windshield, over toward the bog. “I’ll tell you more very soon, when I’ve looked at the clothes.”

Tilda pulled out onto the main road.

“This visit worried me a little,” she said.

“Worried?”

“I’m worried about Joakim Westin, and about his children …
It felt as if you were sitting there in the kitchen talking about folktales, while Westin regarded them as reality.”

“Yes,” said Gerlof, “but I think it was good for him to talk a little. He’s still grieving for his wife, which is not so strange after all.”

“No,” said Tilda. “But I thought he talked about her as if she were still alive … as if he were expecting to see her again.”

After the break-in
at Hagelby vicarage and the flight through the forest, it was two weeks before the Serelius brothers came back to Borgholm. But suddenly there they were at Henrik’s door one evening, at the worst possible moment.

Because by that time the quiet but rhythmic knocking in his apartment had started to become intolerable, like a dripping faucet that couldn’t be turned off.

At first Henrik was convinced that it was coming from the old stable lantern, and after three difficult nights with the constant sound of tapping, he put it in the car. The following morning he drove over to the east coast and put the lantern in the boathouse.

But the knocking continued the next night, and now it was coming from inside the wall in the hallway. But not always the same wall—the sound seemed to move slowly behind the wallpaper.

If it wasn’t the lantern, then it must be something else he had brought with him from the forest, or from that fucking death chamber he’d been crawling around in.

Unless of course it was something that had sneaked into his apartment through the brothers’ Ouija board. Those nights when they had sat around the kitchen table staring at the glass as it moved beneath Tommy’s finger, it had definitely felt as if something invisible was in the room.

Whatever it was, it was getting on Henrik’s nerves. Every night he wandered back and forth between the bedroom and the kitchen, terrified of going to bed and turning off the light.

In sheer desperation he had called Camilla, his ex-girlfriend. They hadn’t been in touch for several months, but she sounded pleased to hear from him. They had talked for almost an hour.

Henrik’s nerves were at
the breaking point when his doorbell rang three days later, and the sight of Tommy and Freddy at the door didn’t exactly make him feel any better.

Tommy was wearing sunglasses and his hands were twitching. He wasn’t smiling.

“Let us in.”

It wasn’t a friendly reunion. Henrik wanted money from the Serelius brothers, but they had none—they hadn’t sold any of the stolen goods yet. He knew they wanted to do one more trip to the north of the island, but Henrik didn’t want to.

And he didn’t want to discuss any of it with them tonight, because he had a visitor.

“We can’t talk now,” he said.

“Sure we can,” said Tommy.

“No.”

“Who is it?” asked Camilla from the sofa in front of the TV.

The brothers craned their necks curiously to see who the female voice belonged to.

“It’s just … two friends,” said Henrik over his shoulder. “From Kalmar. But they’re not staying.”

Tommy lowered his sunglasses and gave Henrik a long look. It made him step outside and pull the door closed behind him.

“Congratulations,” said Tommy. “Is this a new find, or an old one you’ve dug up?”

“It’s the girl I used to live with,” said Henrik quietly. “Camilla.”

“Fuck me … she took you back?”

“I called her,” said Henrik. “But she was the one who wanted to meet up.”

“Nice,” said Tommy without a smile. “But what shall we do now, then?”

“About what?”

“Our joint project.”

“It’s over,” said Henrik. “Apart from the money.”

“Oh no.”

“It’s over.”

They stared at one another, Henrik and the brothers. Then he sighed.

“We can’t talk out here on the stairs,” he said. “One of you can come in.”

In the end Freddy lumbered back out to the van. Henrik led Tommy into the kitchen and closed the door behind them. He lowered his voice:

“We’re going to sort this out right now, then you can go.”

But Tommy was still more interested in Camilla, and asked loudly and clearly, “So has she moved back in? Is that why you look so fucking tired?”

Henrik shook his head. “That’s something else,” he said. “I’m not sleeping well.”

“I expect that’ll be your conscience,” said Tommy. “But the old guy will be okay, they’ll patch him up.”

“Who the fuck knocked him down?” hissed Henrik. “Don’t you remember?”

“It was you,” said Tommy. “You kicked him.”

“Me? But I was behind you in the hallway!”

“You stood on the old guy’s hand and broke it, Henrik. If they find us, you’re going down.”

“For fuck’s sake, we’re all going down!” Henrik glanced toward the door and lowered his voice again. “I can’t talk any more now.”

“You want money,” said Tommy. “Don’t you?”

“I’ve
got
money,” said Henrik. “I’ve got a job during the day, for fuck’s sake!”

“But you need more,” said Tommy, nodding toward the other room. “They’re expensive to run.”

Henrik sighed. “It’s not the fucking money that’s the problem, it’s all the stolen stuff in the boathouse. We need to get it sold.”

“We’ll sell it,” said Tommy. “But first we’re going to do one more trip … the last trip to the north. To the manor house.”

“What manor house?”

“The one with all the paintings … the one Aleister told us about.”

“Eel Point,” said Henrik quietly.

“That’s the one. When shall we go?”

“Wait a minute …I was there last summer. I went just about everywhere, but I didn’t see any fucking paintings. And besides …”

“What?”

Henrik didn’t say any more. He remembered the echoing rooms and corridors at Eel Point. He had enjoyed working for Katrine Westin, the woman who lived there with her two small children. But the place itself had felt forbidding even in August, despite the fact that the Westin family had given it a thorough cleaning and started a massive renovation project. What would it be like there now, in December?

“Nothing,” he said. “But I didn’t see any paintings at Eel Point.”

“They’re probably hidden, then,” said Tommy.

There was a faint knocking sound.

Henrik jumped, then realized it was just an ordinary knock at the kitchen door. He went over and opened it.

Camilla was standing outside. She didn’t look pleased.

“Will you be done soon? Otherwise I’m going home, Henrik.”

“We’re done,” he said.

Camilla was small and slender, much shorter than the men. Tommy smiled sweetly down at her and held out his hand.

“Hi there … Tommy,” he said, in a quiet, polite voice Henrik had never heard before.

“Camilla.”

They shook hands so vigorously, the buckles on Tommy’s jacket jingled. Then he nodded at Henrik and moved toward the door.

“Okay, so that’s agreed then,” he said to Henrik. “I’ll call you.”

Henrik locked the front door behind Tommy, then went and joined Camilla on the sofa. They sat in silence and finished watching the film they’d started before the brothers turned up.

“Do you think I should stay, Henrik?” she asked half an hour later, when it was almost eleven o’clock.

“If you want to,” he said. “That would be good.”

After midnight they were lying next to each other in the little bedroom, and for Henrik it was like being taken six months back in time. As if everything was as it should be. It was just fantastic that Camilla had come back, and the only thing that was bothering him now was the persistent Serelius brothers.

And the knocking.

Henrik was listening for it, but all he could hear was the sound of Camilla’s soft breathing. She had fallen asleep with no problem.

Silence. No noises inside the walls.

He didn’t want to think about the knocking now. Or about the visit from the Serelius brothers. Or about the manor house at Eel Point.

Camilla had come back
, but Henrik didn’t dare to discuss with her exactly what their relationship was. They weren’t living together, anyway. Early the next morning he got up and went off to work in Marnäs.

She was still in the apartment then, but when he got home it was empty. There was no reply when he rang her.

That night he lay alone in his bed again, and when he had turned out the light the noises started in the hallway. There was a knocking sound inside the walls, quiet but persistent.

Henrik raised his head from the pillow.

“Shut the fuck up!” he yelled out into the room.

The knocking paused briefly, then resumed.