The Killer's Art Read Free Page B

noticed a car coming out. That surprised him. It seemed unlikely that anyone would be coming here in the wintertime.
    The parking area close to the road was designated for visitors, but since it was February it was deserted. When he got out of the car, he paused on the gravel path to face the sea, which was only just visiblefrom this distance. Far below, the waves rolled in, as steady and inevitable as the passing of the years.
    On either side of the path stood dense rows of trees, growing low to the ground and crooked, clearly stunted by the harsh autumn storms. He knew that there were no neighbouring houses.
    As he walked down the long slope, his eyes filled with tears. It was so long ago that he was last here. The treetops whispered around him, and the gravel crunched beneath his feet. He was alone, and that was precisely what he wanted. This was a sacred moment.
    As he rounded the bend and saw the house, snow began to fall. The flakes gently drifted down from the sky, settling softly on top of his head. He stopped to study the area spread out below: the dilapidated main building, the gardener’s residence, and further away the red-painted cottage that had its own special history.
    What a contrast it all was to the last time he was here. Back then it was summertime, and they had stayed for two weeks, just as the visiting artist and his lover had done, although that was almost two hundred years earlier.
    Erik had enjoyed every second they were here, sleeping in the same room where the artist had slept, simply being under the same roof, eating breakfast in the kitchen where he had once sat; not even the old cast-iron stove had changed since then. The walls could have told stories that Erik could only imagine.
    Right now he had a panoramic view of the home called Muramaris. The name meant ‘hearth by the sea’. The rectangular, sand-coloured main house had two storeys and had been built of limestone. Its architectural style was a unique blend of Italian Renaissance, with a loggia facing the sea, and a traditional Gotland estate. Large windows with white mullions graced each side, opening on to the woods, the water, and the austere Baroque garden at the back with its sculptures, fountains, flagstone paths and decorative flower beds.
    The man who’d had such an influence on Erik’s life had often visited this place, spending sunny summer weeks here, swimming, taking walksalong the beach, painting, and spending time with the controversial artist couple who had built their dream house on this plateau at the beginning of the twentieth century. Even though so many years had passed since then, the artist’s presence was still strong.
    With some difficulty Erik opened the green wooden gate; it moved reluctantly, creaking loudly. He wandered around to the back. The house had stood empty for years, ever since the new owner had taken over, and the neglect was evident. The stucco was peeling off, the wall surrounding the property had crumbled in several places, some of the sculptures in the garden were now missing, and the once-so-proud building was sorely in need of renovation.
    He walked slowly along the flagstone path. Unlike the house, the garden had retained some of its former grandeur, with carefully pruned hedgerows. Near the pond in the middle of the garden he sat down on a bench. It was damp and cold, but that didn’t bother him any more than the snow, which was coming down harder now. His eyes were fixed on a particular window belonging to the guest room on the ground floor, next to the kitchen. It was there that one of the most myth-shrouded paintings in Swedish art history had been created. At least that was the rumour, and there was no reason to doubt the claim. The artist had worked on the large oil painting during the same year that he had designed the garden here at Muramaris, in the midst of a raging world war. The year was 1918.
    That was when Nils Dardel painted ‘The Dying Dandy’. Erik whispered the words as