The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) Read Free Page A

nothing more we can do.’
    The gravediggers had no option but to comply. Gerlof shivered in spite of the sunshine, but he set to work. His spade felt as heavy as an iron bar in his hands.
    The earth began to thud against the coffin lid once more; the rhythmic beat was the only sound.
    After twenty shovelfuls the lid had begun to disappear beneath a layer of earth.
    There was still no other sound in the churchyard.
    But, suddenly, someone sighed next to Gerlof. It was Gilbert Kloss, edging towards the grave. The sigh sounded like a long, heavy exhalation; he lifted his feet and moved slowly across the grass. He stopped by the open grave and tried to take a deep breath, but his lungs managed only a thin whistling.
    ‘Gilbert?’ Sigfrid said.
    His brother didn’t reply; he stood there motionless, his mouth open.
    Then he stopped breathing, and his eyes lost focus.
    Gerlof watched as Gilbert Kloss fell sideways by the grave. He saw Bengtsson simply standing there staring, along with the doctor and the priest.
    Sigfrid called out behind them; Gerlof was the only one who rushed forward, but he was still several steps away when Gilbert’s heart stopped beating.
    Gilbert’s body fell head first on to the grass beside the grave, rolled slowly over the edge and landed on the lid of the coffin like a heavy sack of flour.

Early Summer
    When the sun gives the summer its streams then the nightingale wakes the dreams we have gathered around death like midsummer myths in the valley.
    Harry Martinson

Gerlof
    Could a boat die? And, if so, when was it dead? Gerlof gazed at his old wooden gig and considered the question. She should have been in the water on this sunny June day, but she was still ashore. Cracks all over the place, tipped on her side on the grass. The name of the gig was
Swallow
; it was carved on a little wooden nameplate on the stern, but she no longer flew across the water. A fat green fly was crawling idly around the dry hull.
    ‘What do you think?’ asked John Hagman, who was standing on the other side of the boat.
    ‘She’s a wreck,’ Gerlof replied. ‘Old and useless.’
    ‘She’s younger than us.’
    ‘Indeed. So that probably means we’re wrecks as well.’
    Gerlof was eighty-four years old, while John would turn eighty next year. They had sailed across the Baltic on cargo ships together for almost three decades as captain and first mate, carrying limestone and oil and general cargo to and from Stockholm, through stormy weather and calm waters. But that was a long time ago, and now the Öland gig was the only boat they had left.
    Swallow
had been built in 1925, when Gerlof was just ten. His father had used her to fish for flounder for almost thirty years, then Gerlof had taken over in the fifties and had sailed her every summer for another forty years. But one spring in the early nineties, when the ice had receded out into the Sound and it was time to carry
Swallow
down to the water, Gerlof simply hadn’t had the energy.
    He was too old. And so was
Swallow
.
    Since then she had been lying there next to Gerlof’s boathouse as her planks dried out and split in the sunshine.
    The light on Öland was intense, and on this cloudless day the sun was blazing down on the coast. A fresh, cooling breeze was coming off the sea in gentle gusts. So far, there had been no heatwave on the island; the really hot weather didn’t usually arrive until July, and sometimes it didn’t arrive at all.
    Gerlof poked at the gig’s dried-out oak planks with his stick and watched as it penetrated the wood. He shook his head.
    ‘She’s a wreck,’ he said again. ‘She’ll sink in seconds if we put her in the water.’
    ‘She can be fixed,’ John said.
    ‘Do you think so?’
    ‘Absolutely. We can seal the cracks. I’m sure Anders will help out.’
    ‘Maybe … but the work would be down to the two of you, in that case. All I can do is sit and watch.’
    Gerlof suffered from Sjögren’s Syndrome, a type of rheumatism