The Darkest Room

“I’ve given up on the investigation into Katrine Westin’s death,” said Tilda as she was having coffee with Gerlof a couple of evenings later.

“Her murder, you mean?”

“It wasn’t a murder.”

“Oh yes,” said Gerlof. “I think it was.”

Tilda said nothing, she merely sighed and took out the tape recorder.

“Shall we do one last-”

But Gerlof interrupted her.

“I saw a man almost murdered once, without anyone touching him.”

“Really?”

Tilda put the tape recorder down on the table, but didn’t switch it on.

“It was out by Timmernabben, a few years before the war,” Gerlof went on. “Two cargo ships carrying stone were moored up side by side, in perfect harmony. But aboard one was a first mate from Byxelkrok, and aboard the other an ordinary seaman from Degerhamn. They got into an argument about something, and stood yelling at each other across the gunwales. In the end one of them spat at the other… then it got serious. They started hurling shards of stone at each other, and in the end the guy from Degerhamn jumped up onto the gunwale to get across to the other ship. But he didn’t get far, because his opponent met him with a boat hook.”

Gerlof paused, drank a little of his coffee, and went on:

“Boat hooks these days are pathetic things made of plastic, but this was a sturdy wooden pole with a big iron hook on one end. So when this lout came hurtling over the gunwale, his shirt got caught on the hook, and he stopped in midair. Then he fell straight down like a stone into the water between the ships, with his shirt still tangled up on the boat hook… and he didn’t come up again, because the other guy

was holding him under the water.” He looked at Tilda. “It was more or less the same as they did with those poor souls who were pushed down into the water with poles out on the peat bog.”

“But he survived?”

“Oh yes, the rest of us broke up the fight and got him out. But he only just made it.”

Tilda looked at the tape recorder. She should have switched it on.

Gerlof bent down and started rustling with some paper under the table.

“Anyway, it was that fight I was thinking of when I asked to see Katrine Westin’s clothes,” he said. “And now I’ve had a look at them.”

He took an item of clothing out of the paper bag. It was a gray cotton top with a hood.

“The murderer came to Eel Point by boat,” said Gerlof. “He put in by the stone jetty, where Katrine Westin was waiting… and she stayed where she was, so she must have trusted him. He was holding a boat hook, which of course was perfectly natural because that’s what you use when you put in. But this was one of the old kind… a long pole with an iron hook that he twisted into the hood of her top, then he used it to drag her down into the water. Then he held her down until it was over.”

Gerlof spread the top out on the table, and Tilda saw that the hood was torn. Something sharp had ripped two inch-long holes in the gray fabric.

22

Often when Joakim looked out of the kitchen window in the evening, he would see Rasputin slinking off to go hunting. But sometimes he thought he caught a glimpse of other black shapes moving out there-sometimes on four legs, sometimes on two.

Ethel?

The first few times, Joakim had hurried out onto the veranda steps to get a better look, but the inner courtyard had always been empty.

The shadows lengthened around Eel Point with every evening, and Joakim felt that the sense of unease in the house was also increasing as Christmas approached. The howling of the wind rose and fell around the eaves, and there was a constant tapping and creaking in the house.

If there were some unseen visitor at the manor, it wasn’t Katrine, he knew that. She was still keeping herself from him.

“I’ve brought the clothes back,” said Gerlof, handing over the brown package to Joakim on the other side of the table.

“Did you get anything out of them?”

“Perhaps.”

“But you don’t want to tell me what it was?”

“Soon,” said Gerlof. “When I’ve finished thinking.”

Joakim had never visited an old people’s home, as far as he remembered. Both sets of grandparents had remained at home until a ripe old age, and had spent their final days in the hospital. But he was sitting here now, drinking coffee in silence in Gerlof Davidsson’s room at the home at Marnas. A candleholder with two lit Advent candles was the only sign that Christmas was coming.

A series of old objects hung on the walls: ships’ name-plates, framed ships’ certificates, and black-and-white photographs of two-masted sailing ships.

“Those are pictures of my cargo ships,” said Gerlof. “I had three different ones.”

“Are any of them still around?”

“Just one. She’s at a sailing club down in Karlskrona. The other two are gone… one of them burned, the other sank.”

Joakim looked down at the package of Katrine’s clothes, then looked out of the only window in the room. Twilight was already starting to fall.

“I have to pick up my children in an hour,” he said. “Can we talk for a while?”

“Of course,” said Gerlof. “The only thing on my schedule this afternoon was a talk on incontinence in the dayroom. It wasn’t all that appealing.”

For a long time Joakim had wanted to talk to someone about what had happened in the fall, someone who knew Eel Point. The pastor at the church in Marnas seemed to have such rigid views, and Mirja Rambe thought too much about herself.

It was only when Gerlof Davidsson came out to the house and proved himself to be a good listener that he thought he might have found the right person. A kind of father confessor.

“I never asked you when you came out to the house, but… do you believe in ghosts?”

Gerlof shook his head. “I neither believe nor don’t believe,” he said. “I do collect ghost stories, but not in order to prove anything. And of course there are so many theories about ghosts… that they are part of the framework of old houses, or electromagnetic radiation.”

“Or just patches on the cornea,” said Joakim.

“Exactly,” said Gerlof. He was silent for a few seconds, then went on: “Of course, I could tell you a story I’ve never written about in any folk history book, but it’s the only real ghostly experience I’ve had.”

Joakim nodded.

“I took over my first cargo ship when I was seventeen,” said Gerlof. “I’d been at sea for a couple of years before that, saving up, and my father helped out with the finances. I knew exactly which ship I wanted to buy, a single-masted sailing ship with an engine; she was called Ingrid Maria, and her home port was Borgholm. The owner, Gerhard Marten, was in his sixties and had sailed cargo ships all his life. But then he developed heart problems and his doctor told him he couldn’t go to sea anymore. Ingrid Maria was for sale, and the price was three thousand five hundred kronor.”

“That was cheap, wasn’t it?” said Joakim.

“Yes, that was a good price even then,” said Gerlof, and continued: “The evening I was due to go and hand over the money to Marten, I took a walk down to the harbor to have a look at her. It was April, and the ice had just disappeared from the sound. The sun was going down, and there was hardly anybody around in the harbor… the