Free The Spring Tide by Cilla Börjlind, Rolf Börjlind Page A

wind is blowing from the sea and it will get worse and if we get rain too then it can be hell here. You haven’t planned on sitting inside the cabin all the time, or have you?’
    ‘No, but I do have an extra jumper.’
    Betty Nordeman shook her head a little. They never learnt, did they, these mainlanders. Just because the sun shone in Strömstad they would come out here with just swimming trunks and a snorkel and an hour later they would have to rush off to Leffe’s and buy lots of rain clothes and wellies and God knows what.
    ‘Shall we move along?’
    Betty started to walk and Olivia followed her. She found it hard to keep up. They passed a number of basket-like cages piled on the quay. Olivia pointed.
    ‘Are those lobster traps?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Is there a lot of lobster fishing here?’
    ‘Not like there used to be. Now we’re only allowed fourteen traps per fisherman, they’ve decided, before we could have as many as we wanted. But it’s probably just as well, because there are hardly any lobsters left out there.’
    ‘Pity, I like lobster.’
    ‘I don’t. The last time I ate lobster was the first time, and since then I’ve stuck to crabs. It’s them that like lobster!’
    Betty pointed at a couple of enormous yachts beside the jetty some way away.
    ‘Norwegians. They sail here and buy up every lobster we catch. Soon they’ll buy up all of Nordkoster.’
    Olivia gave a little laugh. She could imagine that there would be some tension between the Norwegian nouveaux riches and the old islanders. They lived so close to each other.
    ‘But the lobster season doesn’t start until September so they’ll have to cool it till then… or fly in some from America, like he did once, him Magnuson.’
    ‘Who’s he?’
    ‘I’ll show you when we go past.’
    They walked up through the little gathering of wooden houses down by the water. Some red and black fishing huts. A restaurant, Strandkanten. A couple of shops selling a mixture of archipelago kitsch and old fishing tackle. And then Leffe’s Laundry. And Leffe’s Fishmongers. Leffe’s Kayaks. And Leffe’s Veranda.
    ‘This Leffe guy seems to have a finger in every pie.’
    ‘Yes, we call him XL here on the island. Short for Extra Leffe. He grew up on the eastern side of the island. On one occasion he visited Strömstad and got a bad headache, and since then he hasn’t left the island. There it is!’
    They were now a bit above the harbour. Houses large and small lined the narrow lane. Almost all of them were well tended, with neat façades, properly painted. Mum would approve of this, Olivia thought, and looked in the direction Betty was pointing. At a large, magnificent house, obviously designed specially for its beautiful site on a plot sloping down towards the sea.
    ‘That’s Magnuson’s house. Bertil Magnuson, you know the man who owns that mining company, he had that built in the Eighties, he had no planning permission or anything, and then afterwards he bought his way out of it.’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘He gave all the local councillors a fancy dinner and flew in a hundred lobsters from America and that problem was soon dealt with. For the people from the mainland, the rules are not the same as for us.’
    They continued walking towards the part of the island where there were fewer houses. Betty guided, and Olivia listened.Betty had the gift of the gab. Olivia had her work cut out to keep track of who had been fishing lobster unlawfully, who had had an affair with somebody else’s wife and who hadn’t kept their garden in good order.
    Crimes great and small.
    ‘And that’s where his companion lived, by the way, the one who disappeared.’
    ‘Whose companion?’
    Betty looked quickly at Olivia.
    ‘Him, Magnuson, I told you about him earlier.’
    ‘Yeah, right. And who disappeared? Magnuson?’
    ‘No, his companion, I just said. I can’t remember his name. Anyway, he disappeared, people thought he’d been kidnapped or murdered, as