Unspoken

the meantime, he could take a much-deserved weekend to relax. Away from any kind of police work. He and Leif were going out to the Almlöv family summer house in Gnisvärd, on the coast about fifteen miles south of Visby, as they always did right before Christmas. He hadn’t been sure that he could actually get away this time because of the investigation. But a warrant had been issued for Kingsley’s arrest, and they couldn’t do anything else until he returned home. So Knutas had decided that it would be possible, after all. It was only a twenty-minute drive from Visby, and he could be reached by cell phone if anything happened.
    As for preparing for Christmas, he had done everything that was expected of him—the traditional buying of the Christmas tree with the children, and all the grocery shopping and cleaning that he had done together with Lina. Late one evening he had made his own pickled herring in a sherry sauce, as he always did for the Christmas and Midsummer holidays. During his lunch hour he had run out to buy Christmas presents and had actually managed to buy everything, wrap all the gifts, and compose the traditional rhymes to go with them.
    Now he was ready for his reward. Two days of solitude eating good food and doing some fishing—interests that he shared with Leif.
    He hurried home after work on Friday afternoon and packed a bag with clothes and his fishing gear. It had been snowing all day. The snowplows had been working nonstop to make the roads passable. Knutas couldn’t remember the last time it had snowed so much on Gotland. If only it would stick around until Christmas.
    In the car on their way south he felt himself relaxing more with every mile they put behind them. They were playing Simon and Garfunkel full blast. The wintry landscape slid past outside the windows, with expanses of white fields and an occasional farm.
    A beautiful layer of snow covered the yard when they arrived.
    It’s actually silly to call this place a summer cabin , thought Knutas. It’s more like a manor house . The typical Gotland-style limestone house from the mid-nineteenth century was impressive with its whitewashed walls, pitched roof, and smooth gables. During that era bigger houses were being built on Gotland to keep pace with the increasing prosperity in the countryside. This house had no less than seven rooms and a kitchen, divided into two wings. The farm also had a boathouse that was used as a storeroom and food cellar. Next to the house stood a sauna, only a few yards from the dock where Leif’s fishing boat bobbed up and down all year-round.
    The place was rather isolated. The nearest neighbor lived a couple of hundred yards away.
    “I can just imagine how cold it is in the house,” Leif warned his friend when he opened the heavy, creaking front door.
    “It doesn’t feel so bad,” said Knutas as they stepped inside. He carried the bags of food out to the kitchen and started putting away the provisions. “But I suppose it will seem worse if we sit still.”
    “I’ll turn on the electric heat and make a fire in the fireplace, but it will take a while to get rid of the dampness.”
    Several hours later they sat at the table with plates of roast beef and potatoes au gratin that smelled of garlic, along with a bottle of a robust Rioja wine. It had been a long time since Anders Knutas had felt so good.
    “How many times have we done this? Is this the fifth or the sixth year? This year it seems even more necessary than usual.”
    “Yes, I think we both needed to get away,” Leif agreed. “There’s been a hell of a lot to do at the restaurant. The worst is when there are problems with the staff. One of my best waitresses had a miscarriage and had to go to the hospital. Then another waitress had to go to Stockholm because her mother died. And to top it off, I caught one of the bartenders stealing from the till. All within a couple of weeks. And as usual, these kinds of situations always happen at the least convenient time. Right now we’re up to our necks in Christmas reservations. It’s lucky I have such a superb chef, otherwise I’d never be able to handle all this. He can fix pretty much anything. I actually offered to stay home this weekend, but he persuaded me to go. I was thinking we could postpone this to some later date,” he added apologetically.
    “I’m glad we didn’t. Tell him thanks from me.” Anders took a sip of his wine. “At least you should be happy that the