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

I recall.’
    Olivia stopped in her tracks.
    ‘But, wait a minute! Did that happen here?’
    Betty smiled at Olivia’s excited expression.
    ‘No, it was somewhere in Africa, and a bloody long time ago.’
    But this had fired Olivia’s imagination.
    ‘When did he disappear?’
    ‘Sometime in the Eighties it must have been.’
    Olivia picked up the scent. Could there be a connection?
    ‘Was that the same year that woman was murdered? At Hasslevikarna?’
    Betty came to a sudden halt and turned towards Olivia.
    ‘Is that why you’re here? Murder tourism?’
    Olivia tried to read Betty. Was it the question that had made her angry, or what? Olivia quickly explained why she was on the island. That she was a student at the Police College and was working on a student assignment about the beach case.
    ‘Is that right? So you’re going to join the police, are you?’
    Betty scrutinized Olivia with a sceptical look.
    ‘Yes, that’s the intention, but I’ve not finished…’
    ‘Well now, we’re all different aren’t we?’
    Nor was Betty especially interested in hearing about Olivia’s studies.
    ‘But no, he didn’t disappear the same year as the murder on the beach.’
    ‘When did he disappear?’
    ‘A lot earlier.’
    Olivia felt a sting of disappointment. But what had she thought? That she would find some sort of connection between a disappearance and the beach murder as soon as she had set foot on Nordkoster? And, on top of that, a connection that the police had missed over all those years?
    They met some families with small children out cycling, and Betty said hello to everyone. And kept on talking.
    ‘But that murder on the beach, nobody here on the island will ever forget that. It was horrific. It hung over us for years and years.’
    ‘Were you here yourself when it happened?’
    ‘Yes, of course. Where else would I have been?’
    Betty looked at Olivia as if that was the stupidest question she had ever been asked. So Olivia refrained from mentioning that there was an entire world outside of Nordkoster where Betty could have been. And then there was a long harangue about what Betty had done when the air ambulance arrived and the island was invaded by police and everything.
    ‘And then they interrogated everybody on the island and you can be sure that I told them what I thought had happened.’
    ‘And what did you think?’
    ‘Satanists. Racists. Some sort of -ists that was for sure, that’s what I told them.’
    ‘Cyclists?’
    Olivia meant it as a joke, but a few seconds passed before Betty twigged. Was she making fun of an old islander?… but then she started laughing. City humour. You had to take it for what it was.
    ‘There’re the cabins!’
    Betty pointed at a row of small yellow cabins a bit ahead of them. They were well kept too. Newly painted for the high season, set out in the shape of a horseshoe at the edge of a beautiful meadow.
    Just behind started a dark forest.
    ‘Now it’s my son who runs it. You booked it with him, Axel.’
    They got closer to the cabins and Betty got going again. Her hand indicated cabin after cabin.
    ‘Well, we’ve had all sorts of people staying here I can tell you…’
    Olivia looked at the small huts. All of them were numbered with a figure in brass that looked as if it had just been polished. Everything was spick and span at Nordemans.
    ‘Do you remember who was staying here then, when the murder took place?’
    Betty made a bit of a face.
    ‘You don’t give up do you? But yes, I do actually remember. Some of them anyway.’
    Betty pointed at the first in the row of cabins.
    ‘There, for example, a couple of homos stayed there, there was a lot of hush-hush about that, it wasn’t like it is today when every Tom, Dick and Harry climbs out of the closet. They said they were birdwatchers, but I didn’t see them looking at anything other than themselves.’
    Homos. Olivia had hardly heard the word used before. Would two homos have been capable of