‘I saw the lighthouse on my way here,’ said Jasmin, changing the subject.
‘That old thing? Well, I suppose you can’t miss it. You should pay a visit some time. Jan Berger will be sure to give you a tour if you tell him I sent you.’
‘Really? Thank you, that’s very kind. I’ll make sure I do, Mr Sandvik.’ Jasmin glanced at her list. ‘Do you sell those big torch batteries here?’
Sandvik gave her a thoughtful look, as if he knew what was going through her mind.
‘We do,’ said a voice from behind her. Jasmin found herself looking at a small, grey-haired woman in her seventies, who was approaching them both in a wheelchair. ‘Grit Sandvik,’ she said. Her hand was covered in calluses. ‘Don’t pay too much attention to that old eccentric. He loves boring visitors with his stories.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t at all bored,’ she replied with a smile. ‘I actually found it rather interesting.’
Karl Sandvik gave her a broad grin. ‘You shouldn’t flatter old men like that, young lady. We both know she’s right. Old men like to talk, and occasionally the stories they tell even manage to be entertaining.’ His laugh was as rough as the sea. ‘But only occasionally. Don’t pay it any mind if folk are a little gruff with you. The people here are hard. You can’t survive in a place like this if you aren’t hard. If you don’t have the cold Norwegian Sea flowing through your veins.’
‘All the same, I think you and I are going to get on very well.’ Jasmin picked up the rest of the supplies she needed, went over to the counter and paid.
‘Did you tell her about the rumours?’ Grit Sandvik asked.
Her husband shook his head. ‘There’s no need. She’s only been here a day, we should let her—’
‘Are you living alone down there?’ Grit interrupted.
‘Just me, my dog Bonnie and my son Paul.’
‘Your son?’
‘Yes, he’s—’ Jasmin turned around. Paul wasn’t in the shop, but she spotted him outside by the car, where he was kneeling in front of Bonnie and getting her to put her paw in his hand. The grey paintwork of the Volvo sparkled in the sunlight. ‘He’s already outside.’
‘I think you ought to know,’ Grit Sandvik continued. ‘Especially given the circumstances. All on your own out there.’
‘It’s OK.’ Jasmin sensed this would be an uncomfortable topic, but after yesterday’s events, she was on the alert. Better to know too much than too little. Knowing things can’t hurt. ‘You can tell me. But I don’t want to force either of you, of course.’
Karl Sandvik shot a look at his wife as if to say, I told you so. ‘There’s a – hmm, what should I call him exactly? A drifter. Yes, I think that’s the right word. Or a vagrant, perhaps. He’s been spotted in various places over the last few weeks. Jon from the boat hire place says he’s been lurking around the warehouses. He carries a grey plastic bag around with him and wears a long, grey trench coat or a sort of oversized windcheater that’s full of holes.’
‘Oh,’ Jasmin replied, thinking of the figure at the forest edge. ‘It’s good that you told me.’
‘Like I said,’ replied Grit Sandvik, ‘you can’t be too careful nowadays.’
‘Boeckermann has it all under control. But what I can’t work out is how he got here in the first place.’
‘On the ferry, man!’ said his wife, shaking her head slightly. ‘You know how it goes. How easy it is to stow away on board.’
Jasmin picked up her purchases. ‘Who’s Boeckermann?’
‘Arne Boeckermann is our policeman, the only one out here. The island constable, in a manner of speaking.’ Karl Sandvik closed the drawer of the enormous cash register, which jingled quietly. It was an old till, of a kind you seldom saw nowadays, and like everything else in the shop it lent the place an old-fashioned and homely atmosphere. Just like its owners. As if time has stood still here, in a very pleasant way, thought Jasmin.
‘You’ve seen him, haven’t you?’ Grit Sandvik leaned forward and her wheelchair squeaked softly.
‘Boeckermann?’
‘Not him,’ she snorted. ‘The vagrant. Forgive me, but you seem a little . . . hmm, nervous? Is that right?’
Jasmin closed her eyes for a moment and recalled the previous night – all those shadows and fast-moving clouds in the sky; all that darkness, which seemed so endless, as if it would never lift. But Bonnie’s wet nose had woken her up early in the morning, and after breakfast, Jasmin had fetched a hammer and some boards from the shed. The door had jammed, like the caretaker had told her, but she’d solved the problem with a firm kick. Armed with nails and oak boards, she’d returned to the house and sealed the door leading to the cellar. After that, she’d felt a good deal safer.
Maybe you’re overdoing things a little here, she’d thought to herself as she hammered the finger-length nails into the wall. No, you’re definitely overdoing it. A man died down there, but that’s all.
You could leave the door permanently open.
There’s nothing in the cellar.
And yet she’d nailed board after board into place until the door couldn’t open an inch.
‘How will you get down there now?’ Paul had asked her. She’d let him hammer in the last two nails and he’d managed it very well.
‘There’s still the door at the back beside the shed,’ she’d replied. ‘We can always clear the woodpile out of the way if we need to get in. We’ll need the wood anyway – the two stoves use a lot of fuel. But there isn’t actually anything in the cellar that we’ll want.’
Nothing at all.
‘I . . .’ She cleared her throat. ‘I did see somebody. There’s a path behind the house that leads down to the beach, and there was a man standing there last night. He might have been wearing a coat like the one your husband just described. But I’m not sure. Not entirely, anyway.’
‘Oh my dear, that isn’t good.’ Grit Sandvik gave her a sympathetic look. ‘Are you quite sure you want to stay out there?’
Absolutely, she wanted to reply, but then changed her mind. ‘It might have been a bush that looked like a man in the moonlight,’ she answered instead. ‘I can’t be sure.’
Karl Sandvik tore a sheet of paper from a notepad lying beside the old cash register and wrote down two phone numbers in his large handwriting. ‘You might need this. The top number is Boeckermann’s, and the other one is ours – the one for our house over there. You should call us if you see anybody else.’
‘Do you have a gun?’ asked Grit Sandvik in a worried tone.
‘My husband has a hunting gun.’ Jasmin looked out at Paul and saw him pressing his nose against the window of the neighbouring shop. ‘It’s still in the house.’
‘Do you know how to use it?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘That was always too . . . It was never my thing.’
‘And I say it’s never too late to learn something new. If you do call at the lighthouse, ask Berger to show you how it works. In fact, let me write down his number for you too. I’d show you myself, but my back . . .’ Karl Sandvik muttered.