“We found this in Copenhagen,” he said.
Then he held the black fabric up to the flashlight, and Henrik could see that it wasn’t a cap. It was the kind of hood robbers wear, a balaclava, with holes for the eyes and the mouth.
“My suggestion is that we put these on next time,” said Tommy, “and move on from the summer cottages.”
“Move on? Move on to what?”
“Houses that aren’t empty.”
There was silence for a few moments in the shadows by the shore.
“Sure,” said Freddy.
Henrik looked at the hood without saying anything. He was thinking.
“I know… the risks increase,” said Tommy. “But so do the gains. We’ll never find cash or jewelry in the summer cottages… only in houses where people live all year round.” He dropped the hood back in the van and went on: “Of course we need to check with Aleister that everything’s okay. And we need to choose safe houses that are a bit out of the way, with no alarms.”
“And no dogs,” said Freddy.
“Correct. No bloody dogs either. And nobody will recognize us with the hoods on,” said Tommy, looking at Henrik. “So what do you think, then?”
“I don’t know.”
It wasn’t really about the money-Henrik had a good
trade these days-it was mostly the excitement he was after. It chased away the tedium of everyday life.
“Freddy and I will go solo, then,” said Tommy. “It’ll bring in more money, so that’s no problem.”
Henrik shook his head quickly. There might not be many more outings with Tommy and Freddy, but he wanted to decide for himself when to stop.
He thought about the ship in the bottle, smashed to pieces on the floor earlier that evening, and said, “I’m in… if we take it easy. And nobody gets hurt.”
“Who would we hurt?” said Tommy.
“The house owners.”
“They’ll be asleep, for fuck’s sake… and if anybody wakes up we’ll just speak English. Then they’ll think we’re foreigners.”
Henrik nodded, not completely convinced. He pulled the tarpaulin over the stolen items and fastened the padlock on the boathouse door.
They jumped into the van and set off south across the island, back toward Borgholm.
After twenty minutes they were in town, where rows of streetlamps drove away the October darkness. But the sidewalks were just as empty as the country roads. Tommy slowed down and pulled in by the apartment block where Henrik lived.
“Good,” he said. “In a week, then? Tuesday night next week?”
“Sure… but I’ll probably go out there before then.”
“You like living out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Henrik nodded.
“Okay,” said Tommy, “but don’t start trying to do any deals of your own with the stuff. We’ll find a buyer in Kalmar.”
“Fine,” said Henrik, closing the door of the van.
He walked toward the dark doorway and looked at his
watch. Half past one. It was pretty early despite everything, and he would be able to sleep in his lonely bed for five hours before the alarm woke him for his ordinary job.
He thought about all the houses on the island where people lay sleeping. Settled.
He’d get out if anything happened. If anyone woke up when they broke in, he’d just get out of there. The brothers and their fucking spirit in the glass could fend for themselves.
3
Tilda Davidsson was sitting with her bag containing the tape recorder in a corridor at the residential home for the elderly in Marnas, outside the room of her relative Gerlof Davidsson. She wasn’t alone; on a sofa further down the corridor two small white-haired ladies had sat down, perhaps waiting for afternoon coffee.
The women were talking nonstop, and Tilda found herself listening to their quiet conversation.
It was conducted in a discontented, troubled tone, like a long series of drawn-out sighs.
“They’re always on the move, flying all over the place,” said the woman closest to Tilda. “One trip abroad after another. The further away, the better.”
“You’re absolutely right, they certainly don’t begrudge themselves anything these days,” said the other woman, “indeed they don’t…”
“And the money they spend… when they’re buying
things for themselves,” said the first one. “I rang my youngest daughter last week and she told me she and her husband were buying another new car. ‘But you’ve got a lovely car,’ I said. ‘Yes, but everybody else in our street has changed their car this year,’ she said.”
“That’s all they do, buy, buy, buy, all the time.”
“That’s right. And they don’t keep in touch, either.”
“No they don’t…My son
“And that’s another thing-they’re always buying television sets, and they have to be the size of a house these days…”
“And new refrigerators.”
“And stoves.”
Tilda didn’t get to hear any more, because the door to Gerlof’s room opened.
Gerlof’s long back was slightly bent and his legs were shaking just a little-but he was smiling at Tilda like an old man without a care in the world, and she thought he looked more alert today than when she had seen him the previous winter.
Gerlof, who was born in 1915, had celebrated his eightieth birthday in the summer cottage down in Stenvik. Both his daughters had been there, his eldest daughter, Lena, with her husband and children, and her younger sister, Julia, with her new husband and his three children. That day Gerlof’s rheumatism had meant that he had to sit in the same armchair all afternoon. But now he was standing in the doorway leaning on his stick, wearing a waistcoat and dark gray gabardine trousers.
“Okay, the weather forecast has finished,” he said quietly.
“Great.”
Tilda got up. She had had to wait before going into Gerlof’s room, because he had to listen to the weather forecast.
Tilda didn’t really understand why it was so important-he was hardly likely to be going out in this cold-but presumably keeping an eye on the wind and the weather was a routine left over from his days as captain of a cargo ship on the Baltic.
“Come in, come in.”
He shook hands with her just inside the door-Gerlof wasn’t the kind of person who hugged people. Tilda had never even seen him pat anyone on the shoulder.
His hand was firm as it grasped hers. Gerlof had gone to sea as a teenager, and despite the fact that he had come ashore twenty-five years ago, the calluses were still there from all the ropes he’d hauled, all the boxes of cargo he’d lifted, and the chains that had torn the skin from his fingers.
“So what’s the weather got in store, then?” she asked.
“Don’t ask.” Gerlof sighed and sat down on one of the chairs by his small coffee table, his legs stiff. “The radio
