She opened it and Julia tried to see what lay beyond, but there was a dark curtain on the other side.
She and Gerlof remained where they were, in silence, as if the big house with its closed doors didn’t invite conversation. Everything was as hushed and solemn as in a church — but when Julia listened carefully she thought she could hear someone moving about upstairs.
The middle door opened and the nurse came back out.
“Martin isn’t feeling too well today,” she told them quietly. “I’m sorry. He’s tired.”
“Oh dear,” said Gerlof. “That’s a shame. We haven’t seen each other for several years.”
“You can come back another time,” said the nurse.
Gerlof nodded. “We’ll do that. But we’ll call first.”
He was moving backwards toward the front door, and Julia reluctantly went with him.
Outside the air seemed even colder than before, Julia thought. She walked beside Gerlof in silence, opened the iron gate, and then looked back at the big house.
She could see a pale face staring at her through one of the broad windows on the upper floor. It was an elderly woman, standing up there and gazing intently down at them through the window.
Julia opened her mouth to ask if Gerlof recognized the woman, but he was already at the car. She had to move quickly to get the door open for him.
When she looked at the house again, the woman at the window had vanished.
Gerlof settled into his seat and looked at his watch.
“Half past one,” he said. “Maybe we should get something to eat. Then we need to pop down to the liquor store. I promised some of my neighbors at the home I’d make a few purchases. Is that okay?”
Julia got behind the wheel.
“Alcohol is a poison,” she said.
They ate the pasta dish of the day at one of the few restaurants in Borgholm that was open during the winter. The dining room was almost empty, but when Julia tried to get Gerlof to discuss the visit to Martin Malm, he just shook his head and concentrated on the food. Afterward he insisted on paying, then they went off to the liquor store, where Gerlof bought two bottles of schnapps flavored with wormwood, a bottle of advocaat, and six cans of German beer. Julia had to carry it all.
“Time to go home now,” announced Gerlof when they were back in the car.
He had the carefree tone of someone who had enjoyed a successful day in town, and it annoyed Julia. She slammed the car into gear and pulled out onto the street.
“Nothing happened,” she said once they were on their way and had stopped at a red light east of Borgholm.
“What do you mean?” said Gerlof.
“What do I mean?” said Julia, turning north onto the main road. “We achieved nothing today.”
“But we did. First, and most important, we had delicious cakes at Margit and Gösta’s,” said Gerlof. “Then I got a closer look at Blomberg the car dealer. And we also got—”
“Why did you want to do that?” interrupted Julia.
Gerlof didn’t reply at first.
“For various reasons,” he said eventually.
Julia took a deep breath.
“You need to start telling me things, Dad,” she said, staring fixedly through the windshield. She felt like stopping the car, opening the door, and throwing him out on the alvar. It felt as if he were teasing her.
Gerlof was silent for a while longer.
“Ernst Adolfsson got an idea in his head last summer,” he said. “A theory. He believed that my grandchild, our Jens, went out onto the alvar in the fog that day, not down to the sea. And he believed that Jens met a murderer out there.”
“Who?”
“Nils Kant, perhaps.”
“Nils Kant?”
“Nils Kant who’s dead, yes. He’d been dead and buried for ten years at the time... You’ve seen his gravestone, after all. But there were rumors...”
“I know,” said Julia. “Astrid told me about them. But where did the rumors come from?”
Gerlof sighed. “There was a mailman in Stenvik... Erik Ahnlund. There was a story he used to tell after he’d retired, to me and Ernst and anybody else in the village who was prepared to listen to him; he said Vera Kant used to receive postcards with no sender’s name on them.”
“So?”
“I don’t know when they started to arrive, but according to Ahnlund she kept getting postcards from different places in South America in the fifties and sixties. Several times a year. Every one with no sender’s name.”
“Were they from her son?”
“Presumably. That’s the most likely explanation.” Gerlof looked out across the alvar. “Then of course Nils Kant came home in a coffin and was buried in Marnäs.”
“I know,” said Julia.
Gerlof looked at her.
“But the postcards kept on coming even after the funeral,” he said. “From abroad, with no sender’s name.”
Julia glanced quickly at him. “Is that true?”
“I think it probably is,” said Gerlof. “Erik Ahnlund was the only one who actually saw the postcards addressed to Vera, but he swore they kept arriving for several years after Nils’s death.”
“And that made people in Stenvik think Kant was still alive?”
“Definitely,” said Gerlof. “People have always sat around chatting in the twilight hour. But Ernst wasn’t much of a one for gossip, and he thought the same thing.”
“And what do you think?”
Gerlof hesitated.
“I’m like the apostle Thomas,” he said. “I want proof that he’s alive. I haven’t found it yet.”
“So why did you want to see this Blomberg?” asked Julia.
Gerlof hesitated again, as if he were afraid of appearing old and gaga.
“John Hagman thinks Robert Blomberg might be Nils Kant,” he said at last.
Julia stared at him. “But surely you don’t think that?”
Gerlof slowly shook his head. “It seems a bit far-fetched,” he said. “But John made a number of points. Blomberg was a seaman, as I said. He grew up in Småland and went to sea as an engineer when he was just a teenager. He was away for many years... twenty or twenty-five years, or more. Eventually he came home and moved to Öland. He got married here, and had children. I think his son is the one who was in the workshop today.”
“That doesn’t sound particularly suspicious,” said Julia.
“No,” agreed Gerlof, “the only odd thing really is that he was away for so long. John’s heard rumors that Blomberg was kicked off his ship, then drifted around some port in South America as a down-and-out alcoholic until some Swedish captain finally brought him home.”
“But Blomberg can’t be the only person who’s moved to Öland?”
“Oh no,” said Gerlof. “Hundreds of people have moved here from the mainland.”
“And does John suspect them all of being Nils Kant?”
“No. And I didn’t think Blomberg was anything like him either,” said Gerlof. “But you see what you want to see, don’t you? My mother — your grandmother Sara — saw a goblin once when she was young... Do you remember? She used to refer to him as ‘a gray man’...”
“Yes, I’ve heard that story,” said Julia, “you don’t need to—”
But there was no stopping Gerlof.
“Whatever it was, she saw him one spring day toward the end of the nineteenth century as she was standing down by Kalmar Sound doing her washing, outside Grönhögen. She suddenly heard rapid footsteps behind her, and he came rushing out of the forest... A little man, about three feet tall, in gray clothes. He didn’t say a word, just ran toward the sound, straight past Sara without even looking at her. And when he reached the water, he didn’t stop... Mother called out to him, but he kept on going, straight out into the water, until the waves washed over him and he sank beneath the surface. Then he was gone.”