“Right, well, thank you very much,” said Gerlof, nodding to her.
“It was me who sent that,” said Ann-Britt Malm.
Gerlof stopped. She was pointing at his briefcase, where the top edge of the brown envelope was sticking up.
“Martin has cancer of the liver,” she said. “He hasn’t got long left.”
Gerlof remained rooted to the spot, not knowing what to say. He looked down at his briefcase.
“How did you know...” He cleared his throat. “... where to send it?”
“Martin gave me the envelope last summer. The sandal was already inside, and he’d written your name on it. All I had to do was send it.”
“Did you call me too?” he asked. “Somebody called me after it had arrived... somebody who put the phone down.”
“Yes. I wanted to ask... about the sandal,” said Ann-Britt Malm. “Why Martin had it, what it might mean. But I was afraid of the answers... afraid Martin might have done something to your child.”
“Not my child. Jens was my grandchild. But I don’t know what the sandal means.”
“I don’t know either, and it’s...” She fell silent. Then she said, “Martin didn’t want to say anything when he got it out, but I... I had the feeling he’d taken the sandal as some kind of security. Could that have been the case?”
“Security?” said Gerlof.
“Against somebody else,” said Ann-Britt. “But I don’t know.”
Gerlof looked at her. “Has Martin ever talked about the Kants? The Kant family?”
Ann-Britt hesitated, then she nodded. “Yes, but nothing more than to mention they were doing some business together... Vera invested money in Martin’s ships, after all.”
“Vera in Stenvik?” said Gerlof. “But it was August, surely?”
Ann-Britt shook her head. “Vera Kant in Stenvik put money into Martin’s first steamship. And he really needed that money, I do know that.”
Gerlof merely nodded. He had only one question left, then he wanted to get out of this big, gloomy house.
“When Martin gave you the envelope,” he said, “had anyone been to visit him, just before that?”
“We don’t get many visitors,” said Ann-Britt.
“I think someone from Stenvik might have been here. An old stonemason... Ernst Adolfsson.”
“Ernst, yes, that’s right,” said Ann-Britt. “We’ve bought a few things made of stone from him — he’s dead now. He did call in to see Martin... but I think it was earlier in the summer.”
Ernst had got there first again, thought Gerlof.
“Thank you” was all he said, picking up his overcoat. It felt much heavier now, like some kind of armor. “Will Martin be going into the hospital soon?” he asked.
“No, he won’t,” said Ann-Britt. “No hospitals. The doctors always come here.”
Out on the steps the wind grabbed hold of him again, and this time it made him sway unsteadily. It had begun to drizzle. He screwed up his eyes to face the cold alone, but then he spotted John’s car parked a dozen or so yards away.
John nodded as Gerlof opened the passenger door and got in.
“It’s over,” he said.
“Good,” said John.
Only then did Gerlof notice there was someone sitting in the back seat: a broad-shouldered figure who had managed to sink right down and hide himself behind John. It was Anders, his son.
“I went over to the apartment,” said John. “Anders is back home. They let him go.”
“Excellent. Hi there, Anders.”
John’s son merely nodded.
“It’s good that the police believed you, isn’t it?” said Gerlof.
“Yes,” said Anders.
“You won’t go into Vera Kant’s house anymore, will you?”
“No.” Anders shook his head. “It’s haunted.”
“That’s what I heard,” said Gerlof. “But you weren’t scared?”
“No,” said Anders. “She stayed in her room.”
“She? You mean Vera?”
Anders nodded. “She’s bitter.”
“Bitter?”
“She feels as if she’s been deceived.”
“Does she indeed,” said Gerlof.
He was thinking about what Maja Nyman had told him, about the two male voices she’d heard in Vera’s kitchen. Had one of them belonged to Martin Malm?
It kept on raining, and John switched on the windshield wipers as he pulled out into the street.
“I was thinking of staying here in Borgholm with Anders for a while,” he said. “We’re going to have a coffee with his mother. I’m sure you’d be welcome too.”
“No, I’d better get back,” said Gerlof quickly. “Otherwise Boel will have a fit.”
“Right,” said John.
“I can get the bus to Marnäs,” said Gerlof. “Isn’t there one at half past three?”
“We can have a look at the depot,” said John.
Gerlof sat in silence as they drove through Borgholm, thinking things over. As usual he had the feeling he’d missed things at Martin Malm’s, that he’d asked the wrong questions and hadn’t interpreted correctly the few answers he’d been given. He should have made some notes.
“Martin can’t talk anymore,” he said with a sigh.
“Oh yes?” said John.
When the car turned right at the square, Gerlof turned his head and suddenly saw Julia through a window on the opposite side of the street.
She was sitting in a restaurant beside the church with Lennart Henriksson, the policeman. Gerlof felt no surprise at seeing them together.
Julia was looking at Lennart and she looked calm, Gerlof thought as the car moved away from the restaurant. Not happy, perhaps, but peaceful. And Lennart also looked better than he had for many years. Good.
“So you’re okay catching the bus?” asked John.
Gerlof nodded. “I feel fine now,” he said. This was partly true; he could walk, at any rate. “And we have to support public transport. Otherwise no doubt they’ll get rid of the buses too.”
John turned north toward Borgholm’s bus station. It had been a railway station in times gone by, the terminus for the train Nils Kant had jumped off after he murdered the policeman — but now only buses and cabs stopped there.
The car pulled into the parking lot. John got out and went around to the passenger’s side to open the door.
“Thanks,” said Gerlof, wobbling to his feet. He nodded a farewell to Anders.
It had been a strenuous day, but he fought hard to walk steadily and with dignity toward the buses behind the station, with his briefcase in one hand and his cane in the other. The drizzle was coming down more heavily now. The bus going to Byxelkrok via Marnäs was already in; the driver was sitting behind the wheel reading the paper.
Gerlof stopped by the door of the bus.
“Anyway, it’s finished now,” he told John. “We’ve done as much as we could. Martin will have to live with what he’s done. For however long he’s got left.”
“Yes. He will,” said John.
“One thing...” said Gerlof. “Fridolf... have you ever heard of anyone Martin knew by that name?”
“Fridolf?” John said. “As in Little Fridolf? In the comic strip?”
“Yes. Or maybe Fritiof,” said Gerlof. “Fridolf or Fritiof.”
“Not that I know of,” said John. “Is it important?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Gerlof stood in silence in front of John for a few moments as two teenage boys in black padded jackets and with spiky hair pushed quickly past them and leapt onto the bus without so much as glancing at the two old men.
Gerlof suddenly realized it wouldn’t matter at all if he’d just unmasked a murderer or not. It wouldn’t change a thing. Life was carrying on as normal around him, and Öland was still a sparsely populated island.
He felt depressed. Perhaps he was having an eighty-year-old’s crisis.