The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4) Read Online Free PDF

do, but he still had to bend his legs to one side to fit in. His older brother, Mats, had a bit more room because he was sitting behind Niklas, their father, who had shorter legs.
    ‘Are you going to fine me?’ Uncle Kent said.
    ‘Indeed I am.’
    ‘Typical, on the sunniest day of the summer so far.’ He smiled at the police officer. ‘But I hold my hands up … I broke the law.’
    Jonas looked at his father, who still hadn’t said a word. Nor had he so much as looked at the policeman.
    Uncle Kent had picked up Jonas and Mats and their father from the station in Kalmar in his red Corvette. He owned a big Volvo as well, but in the summer he preferred to drive his sports car. And it was fast.
    They had left the Öland bridge half an hour earlier, whizzing northwards as his father and Uncle Kent chatted in the front, but when the motorcycle came up alongside them and waved the car over to the side of the road, his father had immediately fallen silent. He had stopped speaking and shuffled down in his seat.
    Uncle Kent was doing all the talking. He sat there with his hands resting on the wheel, seeming totally relaxed, as if this was merely a minor hiccup on the road to Villa Kloss.
    ‘Do I pay the fine directly to you?’ he said.
    The police officer shook his head.
    ‘I’ll write you a ticket.’
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Eight hundred kronor.’
    Uncle Kent looked away and sighed. He gazed out across the sunlit cornfields to the right of the road, then glanced back at the police officer.
    ‘What’s your name?’
    No reply was forthcoming.
    ‘Is it a secret?’ Uncle Kent persisted. ‘What’s your first name?’
    The police officer shook his head. He took a pad and a pen out of his inside pocket.
    ‘My name is Sören,’ he said eventually.
    ‘Thank you, Sören. I’m Kent Kloss.’ He nodded to his right. ‘This is my younger brother, Niklas, and his two boys. We’re all going to spend the summer together.’
    The officer nodded impassively, but Uncle Kent kept on talking.
    ‘Just one thing, Sören … Here we are on a dry, flat road, two days before midsummer. The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day. A fantastic summer’s day, the kind of day when you feel most alive … What would you have done, if you were me? Would you have stayed behind that caravan all the way to Borgholm?’
    Sören didn’t bother to answer; he finished filling in the penalty notice and passed it through the window. Kent took it, but refused to give up: ‘Couldn’t you at least admit it, Sören?’
    ‘Admit what?’
    ‘That you would have done the same thing? If you’d been the one stuck behind that caravan, in the summer sun on your way to the sea? Wouldn’t you have put your foot down … well, maybe not put your foot down, but gone just a little bit over the speed limit? Won’t you admit that?’
    Kent wasn’t smiling now, he was deadly serious.
    The traffic policeman sighed. ‘OK, Kent. If it makes you feel better.’
    ‘A little better,’ said Kent, smiling once more.
    ‘Good. Drive carefully now.’
    He went back to his motorbike and started it up, then did a U-turn and headed south.
    ‘You see that? Look at the speed he’s going, the bastard!’ Uncle Kent nodded to Jonas and Mats. ‘Never let them get the upper hand, boys. Just you remember that!’
    With that, the engine kicked into life with a dull roar and Uncle Kent pulled out on to the road, right in front of yet another caravan. He quickly increased his speed.
    The sun was shining, the road was flat and straight. Jonas had a warm breeze on his face and the scent of wild flowers in his nostrils. Uncle Kent still had his window down, his left elbow sticking out as he steered the car with one hand, fingers resting lightly on the wheel. Nothing more.
    His mobile rang. He answered using his free hand, listened for twelve or fourteen seconds then interrupted loudly: ‘
No.
A supporting wall, I said. What for? Support, of course! I want it to look old, kind of