The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

Ekström. He arrived yesterday and rented a room in a hostel in the village. He’s supposed to be there for three days. The last time the people staying in the next room saw him was last night, but a witness from the hostel saw him surfing off Hienviken this morning. Nobody has seen him since. The manager of the hostel phoned and sounded worried.’
    ‘You and Wittberg will have to go out to the island. How fast can you get there?’
    ‘I talked to the coastguard, and they can get us there in an hour. We leave from Klintehamn.’

BERG LEANED BACK against the sofa cushions in the living room at home in Roma. He was bored. Elin was at the day nursery, and Anton was having his afternoon nap. Emma had gone to see a friend in Visby.
    Listlessly he looked around the messy room. He really ought to tidy things up and vacuum, but he couldn’t make himself get up from the sofa. He switched on the TV and aimlessly surfed through the channels. Reluctantly he was forced to admit that the life of a stay-at-home dad was already starting to wear on him. He was unbearably tired of dust balls, dirty dishes and unmade beds. His life seemed to revolve entirely around feeding Anton, changing his nappy and getting him to take a nap, as well as taking him out in the pram, comforting him when he cried, feeding him again, changing him again, and finally putting him to bed for the night. That meant that he and Emma had a maximum of one or two hours to themselves before, dead tired, they fell into bed around 10 p.m.
    Johan took an apple out of the fruit bowl and apathetically looked through the selection of newspapers on the table before settling on
Gotlands Allehanda
. He found himself looking at the obituaries, and one name in particular caught his interest. Erik Berg. The same name as his father, who had died of cancer a few years back. Johan still missed him terribly and thought about him every single day. He had been very close to his father, maybe because he was the oldest son. He was sad that his father hadn’t lived long enough to see the birth of his children, Elin and Anton.
    As the eldest of five brothers, Johan had been forced to take on a great deal of responsibility when his father died; in a sense he’d taken overthe role of family patriarch. His mother had been devastated, and Johan had had to handle all the practical matters. He was also expected to be available whenever his mother needed consoling. No one had thought about Johan’s own needs. He hadn’t either. Now his mother had a new man in her life, and everything had been going well lately, considering the circumstances. But Johan still missed his father.
    He leafed backwards through the newspaper. For some strange reason he had started reading the papers from back to front ever since going on paternity leave. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m living in an upside-down world these days, he thought.
    A double-page spread was devoted to the question of what was going to happen to Ingmar Bergman’s home on Fårö now that the director had passed away. There had been all sorts of speculation during the past year. Apparently a Gotland entrepreneur was now prepared to invest in the project in order to transform the property into an artists’ retreat – primarily for screenwriters and authors who could stay there for short periods and find inspiration for their writing. At the same time, the abandoned school near the Fårö church would be turned into a Bergman Centre, with exhibitions about the acclaimed director’s life. The article included a number of theories and assumptions as to what would become of Bergman’s property, which was estimated to be worth millions.
    Johan’s newspaper reading was interrupted by a brief cry from the baby’s room. He was painfully aware that the sound would shortly erupt into loud wails. Daily life was calling. As usual.

IT WAS LATE afternoon by the time the coastguard boat approached Stora Karlsö. Those on board saw at once that something was happening. Members of the Home Guard and a host of volunteers had gone out in their own boats to help look for Sam Dahlberg and Jakob Ekström. A search on land had also been organized, and everyone staying on the island had joined in. The shore of the small harbour below the island’s only restaurant was teeming with people. It was a matter of making full use of the time before it got dark. They still had a few hours.
    The fact that Sam Dahlberg suffered from diabetes and might have