The Dead Of Summer

‘What’s that, Pappa?’ asked Tanya. ‘Have you got good news?’

Oleg slapped the envelope against the door frame.

‘You might say that,’ he replied gleefully. He came in, gave each of his daughters a kiss on the cheek and then sat down on a chair across from Tanya.

‘But I think I’ll just wait until Mamma comes home,’ he said.

‘No!’ they both protested. ‘Tell us what it’s about!’

‘OK.’

All three of them pushed aside the food to clear a space on the table.

Oleg opened the big envelope and took out a brochure and several photographs.

He held up the brochure so the girls could see it. Vera leaned forward to get a better look.

The picture showed a sandy beach with a bunch of reeds in the foreground. The sky was cornflower blue. It looked like a lovely beach somewhere in the Canary Islands. Then they read the text. ‘Gotska Sandon,’ it said.

‘What’s this all about? Are we going there?’ asked Tanya eagerly.

Without replying, their father showed them the photographs, one after the other. A sunset over a shimmering sea; long expanses of shoreline, sandy beaches and pebble-strewn shores; deserted forests; enormous flocks of exotic birds; a ravine; and plump grey seals lazing on the rocks in the sunshine.

‘Yes,’ he said with a sigh. ‘At last.’

‘But foreigners aren’t allowed there,’ Vera objected. ‘You said it was a restricted military area.’

‘It is, but I’ve been granted special dispensation. The county administrative board in Gotland has given me permission to go there because that’s where my great-grandfather is buried.’

‘That’s fantastic, Pappa.’

Tanya gave him a big hug. Vera studied her father. Oleg had been talking about Gotska Sandon for as long as she could remember. He was a biologist and an active member of an ornithological association. In her eyes he seemed incomprehensibly obsessed with nature. Gotska Sandon was a nature reserve, and he had told them countless times about the amazing natural setting and the wealth of flora and birdlife on the island. Otherwise, she really didn’t know much about it. Except that it was part of Sweden, just off another island called Gotland.

‘Do we get to go with you?’

‘Yes, of course. I haven’t said anything to your mother yet. I want to surprise her.’

‘Oh, what fun,’ said Tanya. ‘When are we going?’

‘In about three weeks. We leave for Sweden on 16 July and we’ll spend the night in Stockholm. It’s supposed to be such a beautiful city. From there we catch a plane to Visby on Gotland, and we’ll stay there overnight. Then we take the boat to Gotska Sandon for a week.’

‘But where are we going to stay?’ asked Tanya. ‘Is there a hotel there?’

‘No,’ said Oleg with a laugh. ‘It’s a protected nature reserve. There are only a few little cottages. The rest of the island is uninhabited. Nobody lives there year-round.’

Vera was touched by the fact that he looked so happy. He’d been dreaming about this trip all his life.

Now his dream was finally going to come true.

TUESDAY, 11 JULY

KARIN WOKE WITH a jolt and reached for the clock on the nightstand. 6.55. She lay in bed for a while, thinking about the events of the previous day. The image of Peter Bovide’s lacerated body appeared in her mind.

Outwardly there seemed to be nothing remarkable about his life. Bovide was an ordinary father of two and part-owner of a construction company. The answers that his partner Johnny Ekwall had given seemed perfectly straightforward. Karin was looking forward to hearing the results of the search the police had carried out, both at Bovide’s home and at his company offices. The police had still been hard at work late last night.

Jacobsson climbed out of bed. She and Knutas were both morning people. She wondered what else they shared. How would he have handled the investigation? She realized that she wouldn’t be able to resist ringing him again later in the day.

She opened the window. Since she lived on the top floor, she could look out over the rooftops to the sea. Off in the distance she saw one of the Gotland ferries on its way out of Visby harbour.

The floorboards creaked under her feet as she went out to the kitchen. Her cockatoo, Vincent, was awake, and he said, ‘Good morning,’ to her, in English. He was the only bird she knew who was bilingual. Karin had inherited him from an Australian friend who had moved back to her home country a few years earlier.

She made herself some coffee and a couple of open sandwiches on rye. She fetched the newspaper from the letterbox and switched on the radio. The murder of Peter Bovide was of course the top story. She noted with relief that the news reports contained no surprises, only the information that the police had already revealed. After carefully reading everything written about the murder, she quickly scanned the rest of the newspaper. An article in Gotlands Tidningar caught her attention.

The Russian ships bringing coal to the cement factory in Slite were going to double their deliveries in the autumn. They would be arriving in Slite harbour once a week instead of every two weeks, as they did now. The factory was apparently increasing its production, and coal was used in its furnaces. The stone quarry in Slite was one of the largest in Sweden.

She poured herself another cup of coffee. Something about this article bothered her, but she couldn’t work out what it was. She read it again, this time paying more attention, but didn’t notice anything special.

No doubt it would come to her later on.

THE PHONE STARTED ringing even before Karin Jacobsson stepped into her office. She recognized at once the agitated voice of the director of tourism. No matter what the issue, Sonja Hedstrom always sounded as if it was a matter of life and death. Just the sound of her voice could raise the blood pressure and cause heart palpitations in even the calmest of people.

‘Hi, this is Sonja Hedstrom. We’ve got our hands full here with nervous campers and visitors. The public seem to think that this terrible murder has something to do with the fact that the man was staying at the campsite!’

As usual, the tourism director took it for granted that whoever she happened to be calling had all the time in the world to talk to her. She didn’t ask whether she might be interrupting anything, even though the police were in the middle of a homicide investigation. Jacobsson did her best not to sound too annoyed.

‘Is that right?’

‘Yes. It had already started yesterday morning, and since then it has escalated, getting worse and worse. And now the cancellations have started rolling in too. What if people decide they don’t dare come over here? What if the murderer strikes again, at some other tourist destination?’

The high season was not very long on Gotland; it lasted about six weeks, from Midsummer’s Eve until early August. During that time, between 300,000 and 400,000 tourists visited the island, which had only about 60,000 permanent residents. So of course the income from these tourists was essential. Jacobsson could understand why Sonja Hedstrom was so concerned.

‘Tell the people who call that there’s no indication that the murder has anything to do with camping or that particular campsite,’ said Jacobsson. ‘On the other hand, we really can’t rule out anything, since we’ve just started the investigation.’

‘The only thing that will calm the public down is if the police catch the murderer. How close are you to making an arrest?’