“No, nothing,” Nora shouted back. “Not a thing.”
The sun had almost disappeared beyond Harö, and the light had dimmed even more. She moved slowly, looking for the metallic gleam of the cell phone.
“Hang on. I’ll pass you the flashlight,” shouted Signe. She passed it up through the narrow opening. She could only just reach.
Nora swept the beam of light around the lantern room. Once to the right, once to the left. She almost felt like an old lighthouse keeper. She swung the beam around once more. Then she gave up. There was no cell phone in here. She started to climb back down. “I think we’re going to have to give up. It could be anywhere. I’ll have to come back tomorrow and look for it in the daylight. That’s all there is to it.” She cursed her own carelessness.
When she got down, she stopped in front of the door to the walkway. “It’s so beautiful here. You could almost believe that God lives out there, in the space between the sea and the horizon.” She turned to Signe again. “Don’t the fishing rights for these waters belong to the Brand family?”
Signe nodded. “Yes, almost everything you can see out there is ours. I often go fishing, as you know. Have to put food on the table,” she added with a wry smile. She shook her head as she leaned against the handrail where the steps began. “But there are an awful lot of people fishing illegally these days. There are plenty who don’t pay any heed to fishing rights.”
Nora looked at her in surprise. “I’m sorry to hear that. But do you think they’re from Sandhamn?”
“I know exactly who they are. And which families.” Signe tossed her head. “After all these years, you can be sure I know exactly who likes to stick their fingers in somebody else’s pie.” She went on with resentment in her voice. “Take that poor Jonny Almhult, for example. I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but both father and son in that family fished illegally in my waters without the slightest hint of embarrassment. I caught those two many times.”
“How do you know it was them? Did you ever catch them red-handed?”
“I don’t need to when they’re too idle to take out their needles when they’ve been repairing the nets. I’ve taken Georg Almhult’s fishing nets more than once.”
“Taken?”
“Didn’t you know? If someone fishes in your waters without permission, you have the right to claim their nets. That’s the way it’s been for many years.”
“Like a kind of fine?”
“Yes, exactly. You could definitely call it that.”
“That’s why you had nets in your boathouse that were marked with initials other than your own,” Nora said.
Signe frowned. “How did you know that?”
“I saw them when I went into your boathouse yesterday to borrow your perch nets.” She stood by the door to the platform, thinking. Then she looked at Signe. “Why haven’t you told Thomas that you had fishing nets belonging to the Almhults? I’m sure the police would have been interested. The net that Berggren man was tangled up in was marked with the initials GA.”
Signe opened her mouth as if to say something but closed it again.
In the distance they could hear the sound of the gulls screaming, but inside the lighthouse there was complete silence.
Suddenly, Nora understood. “It wasn’t the Almhults’ net that Krister Berggren was tangled up in when he died. It was yours,” she said, half to herself. “It was a net you’d taken when Jonny and his father were fishing illegally.”
Signe looked away. Then she nodded. “That’s exactly how it was.”
“But why haven’t you told Thomas? It’s important for the investigation. We must call him as soon as we get back and explain what happened.”
Signe didn’t reply.
Nora tried to tone down the seriousness in her words. “I mean, it was an accident. You had nothing to do with his death, right? Nobody can blame you for the fact that he got tangled in your net. You do understand that?”
Signe stood rigidly by the steps, not saying a word.
“Signe?” Nora said tentatively.
The question echoed around the lighthouse.
CHAPTER 72
The silence grew, sweeping over Nora and Signe. A terrible silence, paralyzing both of them.
In Signe’s ashen face Nora saw a truth she could not accept. The shock made her back away toward the wall and sink down on the steps in front of the door leading to the walkway.
She could hardly force the words out. “But it was an accident, wasn’t it, Auntie Signe?” In her confusion she used the familiar form of address from her childhood.
Signe shook her head without speaking. Her face was set in an inscrutable mask; only her thin lips moved. After a moment her expressionless voice sliced through the air like a knife. “Krister Berggren drowned because of me.”
“But why? What had he done to you? You didn’t even know him, did you?”
Signe’s expression was implacable. “Krister Berggren was Helge’s illegitimate son.”
“So you were related? You killed your nephew?”
Signe nodded. “But he didn’t know anything about our family connections until his mother died. Then he decided to come looking for me, demanding the Brand house as his inheritance.” Signe’s voice had a harshness that Nora had never heard before. It sounded as if she were talking about someone else altogether, rather than herself.
Nora had begun to shiver violently. She felt nauseous. She wished this were a nightmare and that she would wake up soon.
“I would have had to leave my home, Nora. He would have forced me to sell so I could pay him. I would never have been able to afford to buy him out.” She clenched her fists in fury. “I hadn’t planned to kill him. But it was the only solution. If he died, everything could just go back to normal.” Signe paused for a moment, closing her eyes as if she were trying to erase something from her mind. “At least that’s what I thought.” She took a deep breath and carried on, her words betraying a kind of relief at being able to talk about what had happened. “Then his body washed ashore. I realized right away that it was him. I didn’t know what to do.”
Nora hid her face in her hands. She hardly dared ask the next question. “What happened to his cousin? That woman they found in the Mission House?”
Signe folded her arms, her hands clenching and unclenching. “That terrible woman. She just turned up out of the blue, claiming to be Krister’s cousin. His only relative and heir. She demanded her share of his inheritance.”
Nora was finding it difficult to breathe. “So you killed her, too?”
Signe turned away. “I couldn’t let her take my home. It was their own fault. Both of them. If they’d only stayed away from Sandhamn, none of this would have been necessary.” Her voice was shaking with rage. “Who did they think they were? What right did they have to come here and destroy my life?”
Nora didn’t know what to say. Her tongue felt like a numb mass inside her mouth, incapable of forming anything intelligible. “And Jonny Almhult?” The words were no more than a whisper, lost syllables creeping out into the narrow tower, which by now was in near darkness.