Chapter 18

Simon couldn’t stop thinking about the dog. For once he had trouble concentrating on his tasks in the greenhouses. He was awfully curious – if it was one of those game dogs, he wouldn’t be able to spy on the cult members anymore. It would be too dangerous.

In the moments he wasn’t dwelling on the dog, his thoughts turned to Sofia. He hadn’t heard from her for a few days, which was par for the course. But this time, for no real reason, he suspected something was wrong. It was just a gut feeling, but it was the same as when Daniel had disappeared. He had been worried about Sofia ever since the trial – how hastily she and Benjamin had brushed off Oswald. As if it were all over. Simon had known people like Oswald before. They weren’t apt to allow themselves to be humiliated without consequences. Something was up. The staff, back on the property. The dog. Elvira, looking so sad. But how could he warn Sofia without scaring the daylights out of her? Typically, Simon’s troubles receded as soon as he got his hands into the dirt. But today not even that was enough.

After dinner he went to his little cottage and took the shotgun from the wardrobe. He’d used it to hunt hares and pheasants on the farm in Småland. There it had been so natural to go out and shoot your supper, but these days he didn’t even have any ammunition. The shotgun had stood there unused, but now it would be of help. If someone discovered him sneaking around the manor, he could say he was out hunting. It wasn’t hunting season, but the dummies at ViaTerra were clueless about that sort of thing. He was sure of it.

He changed into his warmest winter overalls and thickest coat, then went to the greenhouse for a knife to carry in his pocket. He’d seen a movie once where a guy slit the throat of a German shepherd that was attacking him. In self-defence. Then he headed for the manor. It took just over half an hour of brisk walking to get there. The village was on the southern end of the island; the manor on the northern point. He took the car road along the coast this evening; the air was chilly and bracing. The view from the road was dazzlingly beautiful all year round. The cliffs at the side of the road plunged straight into the sea. It was a little breezy, but it wasn’t enough to whip up waves, so the water just seethed and hissed with white foam. The sun was setting, but all you could see from the road was the red glow of the sky.

Simon walked fast. He stuffed his hands into his roomy coat pockets. The road was deserted; no cars, not a soul in sight. He turned off at the gravel road to the manor and slipped into the forest when he was almost at the gate. It was almost pitch black now, but he had walked this path so many times that his legs moved of their own accord. He had timed his trip well – he could hear the murmur of voices within the walls, almost time for assembly. So it was seven o’clock. If he was lucky, they would have brought the dog along.

He didn’t dare enter the gate as he didn’t want to be discovered on the property. If they found him here in the woods, he could say he was out hunting, but that lie wouldn’t hold up if they caught him on ViaTerra property. Instead he lifted the birch that was still resting against the wall, thrust his knife into its trunk, and used it as a handle. He climbed up and grabbed the edge of the wall. It occurred to him that it would look ridiculous if his head suddenly popped up behind the barbed wire, but no one noticed him. The yard was bathed in the glow of the floodlights. The staff were lined up, backs straight and tense, almost as it had looked back when Oswald was there. His eyes swept the group. He saw a few faces he recognized, but no Elvira.

Madeleine and Bosse were standing in front of the staff, but neither had begun to speak. He searched in vain for the dog and wondered if they kept it in a doghouse – and at that moment, he saw it. It was lying down, head on its paws, on the lawn nearby. And it was huge. Simon had to stifle a laugh. This whole situation was absurd – the fact that he was there spying; the fact that the staff thought they were so clever, getting a guard dog. It was a giant, shaggy Saint Bernard, and it looked old, tired, and fat. Simon grinned to himself. Those idiots couldn’t do anything right.

His courage returned. He decided to sneak through the gate after all, so he opened it up with his key, quietly, gently, and went to stand behind the big oak.

The assembly had begun by now. Madeleine was speaking, and Simon could hear most of what she said. It was as if she were burning with fresh passion. Her voice was strong and piercing and her gestures sweeping but firm. The tiny, delicate girl Simon remembered her to be was gone. Now she had a force-field, an aura, that seemed to envelop the entire staff. The lighting even created a halo around her head, and her breath rose in an impressive column of condensation as she proclaimed directives at the group.

Simon knew at once that she was Oswald’s mouthpiece. In some peculiar way, Oswald was there in Madeleine’s body, telling off the staff, just like usual. This is the moment she’s been waiting for, he thought, the chance to become Oswald’s stand-in. He didn’t even want to think about what life was like for the poor bastards all lined up in rows.

Simon’s suspicions were confirmed as he listened to her words. They were all ‘Franz says…’ and ‘Franz wants this and that done.’ Franz, Franz, Franz.

Then she spoke about new rules, and punishments for bad behaviour that would soon take effect. They sounded even worse than the punishments Oswald had come up with in the past. Rice and beans, hard labour as a penalty, and compensatory projects. And from now on the staff would have to jump in the icy waters of the sea after certain transgressions.

This is unbelievable, Simon thought. This was what almost did them in last time. What Oswald had to defend in court. The scandals that made a whole year’s worth of fodder for the media. Yet they were acting as if nothing had happened.

At that moment, it dawned on Simon that ViaTerra really had been resurrected. That the poor bastards lined up on the lawn would go through the same hell he had been through not so long ago. And that some who had already gone through that hell were still standing there in line, nodding eagerly.

Simon mused that it took a lot more than a media scandal and a trial to eradicate a cult, and that Oswald was still very much a presence there. His physical absence made no difference whatsoever.

Madeleine’s sermon had turned into a droning hum in his mind, but then she said something that made his ears prick up. She was picking on Benny, who had apparently looked bored while she was speaking.

‘You have no right to stand here and slack off,’ she said. ‘Franz said the Sofia Bauman project is our highest priority right now.’

Benny was startled.

‘We’ve got it under control,’ he said.

‘You’d better. Franz wants a report. You aren’t to go to bed until it’s on my desk.’

With these words, she ended the assembly. The staff scattered. Simon lingered.

Then he did something he’d never done before. He sent a text to Sofia while he was still within the walls of the manor.