The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

wind.
    Invisible from the shore, another rowing boat moved further and further away from Fårö.

THE PASSENGER FERRY M/S
Stora Karlsö
chugged towards Norderhamn where it sailed through an idyllic bay between steep limestone cliffs. After Yellowstone National Park in the United States, Stora Karlsö was the world’s oldest protected nature preserve, famous above all for the thousands of common guillemots, but also for the orchids that covered the island in the springtime. It wasn’t a big island – just one and half kilometres from north to south, and two kilometres wide.
    Stora Karlsö had no year-round inhabitants, but every summer ten thousand tourists visited the island to enjoy its unique flora and fauna.
    The group of friends had barely managed to catch the nine-thirty ferry from Klintehamn. They were running late because Håkan had overslept.
    Now, as the boat approached the island, Sam and Andrea were standing with John and Beata in the bow, enjoying the view. Håkan had stayed inside, retreating from the others to spend his time intently tapping on his mobile.
    Sam watched him through the windows to the passenger area. Håkan seemed anxious, not his usual friendly and easy-going self. His movements were abrupt and frenzied. There were lines around his mouth that weren’t normally there. Last night he had told them that he was worried about his eldest daughter who had moved away from home and now lived alone in Stockholm. Apparently things were even more difficult for her than usual. He was also disappointed that Stina had been forced to goback to work, even though he knew that there was always that risk when she was on call. Håkan seemed nervous and off balance. He had started squinting, which was a sign that things weren’t going well; it happened only whenever he was tired or in a bad mood.

THE CRIES OF the guillemots were deafening. The steep slopes were black with thousands of birds crowded on to the narrow ledges. The sea below was full of male birds calling to their broods, and the air was whizzing with females, shrieking as they flew back and forth from the ledges to inspire the fledglings to dare to dive. Dust was settling in a protective layer over the limestone rocks where the young birds, who had not yet tried to fly, prepared for the great dive. Twenty days earlier they had hatched on the ledges, and now it was time for them to leave the cliffs and follow their fathers out to sea. There they would make their way to the southern part of the Baltic by swimming. The birds went all the way to the Polish shores to spend the winter there before returning in the spring to the exact same ledges on Stora Karlsö. The diving occurred over a period of one hour. It always began after ten o’clock at night, when it was more or less dark, or at least as dark as it would get in June. At that time of year it was never truly night. The birds waited until evening because their biggest enemy, the gulls, didn’t see well in the dark, so they wouldn’t be able to take the babies when they dropped like stones towards the ground from a height of 30 or 40 metres.
    Each year the ornithologists needed help to capture a couple of thousand baby birds that had to be weighed, measured, and marked before they were allowed to disappear out to sea. This required assistance from the public, and about thirty volunteers would show up every evening until the work was done.
    After a short briefing meeting near the lighthouse, the group headedfor the beach, led by a number of researchers. Everyone was wearing warm sweaters and wellington boots. They followed a winding path along the ridge until they came to a sturdy iron ladder that had been bolted to the slope. It was a lengthy and steep climb down to the shore. The beaches around the island were closed during the spring and summer because of the breeding birds. More than six thousand pairs of guillemots and even more pairs of razor-billed auks bred on the ledges of the steep slopes. The closer to the beach the group of volunteers came, the stronger the din from the thousands of male birds waiting out in the water. The activity was intense, even though the diving itself hadn’t yet begun. The shore was rocky and stretched along the full length of the bird cliff. The assistants spread out, while some of the boldest and most nimble in the group made their way out to the big boulders.
    Andrea looked up at the steep cliff and could hardly believe her eyes. The ledges were