Heimersson moved on cheerfully. He went ahead of them along the corridor to the other room.
“There’s our first computer, over there... The size of a house. But that’s the way they used to be.”
Gerlof nodded absently and allowed Heimersson to show him around the room where the technological development of the sawmill and forestry in general was presented. Most of it dealt with statistics and big machines.
“It really is very interesting,” said Gerlof after ten minutes. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re very welcome,” said Heimersson. “It’s always a pleasure to meet people who are interested in wood.”
He went outside with them and pointed over to one of the steel buildings.
“We’ve just installed a new X-ray process to assess the quality of the wood. Perhaps you’d like to see that too?”
Gerlof caught a brief shake of the head from John, who had had enough of timber.
“Thank you,” he replied, “but I should think that would be far too technical for us. But we would like to go down to the harbor and have a look around, if that’s okay. On our own.”
“The harbor?” said Heimersson. “I wouldn’t call it that. It’s too shallow here for the big ships to come in. All our wood is transported by truck.”
“We’d still like to take a look,” said Gerlof.
“Fine,” said Heimersson. “I’ll lock up the museum, then.”
He was right — Gerlof could see it wasn’t much of a harbor to speak of when they’d walked the hundred yards or so down to the water. There was hardly anything that could be called a quay, the asphalt was cracked, and the square granite slabs along what was left of the quay had become dislodged, with gaping spaces between them.
Beside the quay a wooden jetty extended a dozen or so yards out into the water. Even that needed repairing, in Gerlof’s opinion. Was there really not enough timber from the sawmill to do that?
There was an old lone wooden skiff bobbing in the water by the jetty, silently waiting for its owner to lift it out before the winter storms came.
The wind was coming off the land, bitterly cold, and Öland could just be glimpsed as a dark strip along the horizon. Despite the fact that the coast of Småland was beautiful, with its islands and inlets, Gerlof was already longing to get back to the island.
“I assume it was here that Martin Malm’s ships used to dock,” he said.
“That’s right,” said John. “The picture was taken here.”
There wasn’t much more to see, and Gerlof was feeling the cold right through his overcoat. He had no desire to go out onto the jetty in this wind, and when John turned away he did the same.
On the way back Gerlof stopped and looked out over the open space between the sawmill buildings. It was still completely deserted.
At that same moment he was suddenly struck by absolute certainty. There was no logic to it; it came up from his subconscious like a dark fish, appearing and striking just beneath the surface of the water, and before he had even managed to think it through, he opened his mouth:
“It began here.”
“What did?” said John.
“Everything began here. Nils Kant and Jens and... My grandchild died because of something that began here.”
“Here in Ramneby?”
“Yes, here. Here at the sawmill.”
“How do you know that?”
“I can feel it,” said Gerlof, and he could hear how stupid it sounded. But still he had to go on: “There was some kind of meeting, I think it was a meeting. When Nils came here... He must have met his uncle August and reached some kind of agreement. Something like that must have happened.”
But the feeling of certainty had already disappeared.
“Right. Shall we go home, then?” said John.
Gerlof nodded, and set off again.
Gerlof was sitting alone in John’s car. It was parked next to the stone houses on a deserted Larmgatan in the middle of Kalmar. John had wanted to stop off in the town for a brief visit to his sister Ingrid before they went back to Öland.
Gerlof was thinking things over. Had they really got anything out of the visit to the museum? He wasn’t sure.
On the other side of the street the door of Ingrid’s apartment block opened and John came out. He walked straight over to the car and opened the driver’s door.
“Was she all right?” asked Gerlof.
John settled himself behind the wheel without replying. Then he started the engine and pulled out.
They left Kalmar and drove out on the straight freeway toward Öland in silence, but it wasn’t until they reached the bridge that Gerlof decided it had lasted long enough.
“Is something wrong?” he asked. “Did something happen at Ingrid’s?”
“The police have got Anders,” John said. “They picked him up there at lunchtime.”
“Picked him up where?” said Gerlof. “At Ingrid’s?”
John nodded. “Anders was at his aunt Ingrid’s. He was hiding there. And now they’ve arrested him.”
“Arrested him — are you sure about that?” said Gerlof. “The police only arrest someone if they think—”
“Ingrid said they walked in without knocking,” John interrupted him. “They came in and told Anders he had to go with them to Borgholm. They refused to answer her questions.”
“Did you know he was in Kalmar?”
John didn’t say anything, he simply nodded again.
“As I said this morning,” said Gerlof slowly, “it’s never a good idea to take off if the police want to talk to you. It just makes them suspicious.”
“Anders doesn’t trust them,” said John. “He was trying to prevent that brawl at the campsite. But he was the one who ended up in court, not those people from Stockholm.”
“I know,” said Gerlof. “And that wasn’t right.” He thought for a while, then asked as gently as he could, “But if... if the police think Anders might have anything to do with my grandchild’s disappearance, and want to talk to him about it... Is there anything to suggest they might be right? I mean, you know Anders better than anyone else... Have you ever suspected anything?”
John shook his head. “Anders is a decent man.”
“You don’t even need to think about it?” said Gerlof.
“The only stupid thing I’ve ever seen him do,” said John, “was one evening when he was creeping around in the juniper bushes by the jetty. He was spying on some girls who were getting changed at the swimming club. He was twelve or thirteen at the time. I told him never to do anything like that again. And he never did.”
“That’s not too serious,” Gerlof said, nodding.
“He’s a decent man,” John repeated. “But they’ve arrested him anyway.”
The car had crossed the bridge now, and they were back on the island.
Gerlof was thinking as he gazed out over the windswept alvar east of the main road. He nodded again.
“Okay, let’s go to Borgholm,” he said. “I’m going to talk to Martin Malm one last time. He’s going to tell me what really happened.”
25
“I’m not the one who’s going to be talking to Anders Hagman,” said Lennart to Julia as they were on their way to Borgholm in the police car. “An inspector from Kalmar is coming; he’s trained in this sort of thing.”
“Will it be a long interrogation?” said Julia, looking at Lennart behind the wheel.
He was wearing a new uniform jacket, a padded winter jacket with the police badge on the shoulder. Dressed for town.
“I don’t think we’ll call it an interrogation,” said Lennart hastily. “It’s just a chat, a conversation. He hasn’t been arrested or held on suspicion or anything like that. There’s no evidence for that. But if Anders admits that he’s the one who broke into Vera Kant’s house, and saved those old newspaper cuttings, then I’m sure they’ll talk about your son too. And then we can see what Anders has to say about all that.”