by Rachael Blok
Sunny leans forward, shakes himself into action and leafs through some sheets. ‘Here! In the initial statements back from the hospital. Two have mentioned it: there was some confusion with the drinks before they all got on the helicopter.’
Maarten remembers the clinking glasses in the October sun; he had swallowed the foreboding, bitter in his mouth. Those glasses had sat out there with all of them. It could have been any of them. But if there is toxin in the glass, then it must have been one of them. No outsider this time.
‘Yes. Aksel spilt his drink, I think?’ He fights his memory for the details, wading through, muddied and muddled. ‘And the glasses were hand-painted, with names and Halloween figures. It would have been easy for any one of us to have put something in Marieke’s glass.’
Aksel had given a speech…
‘Yes. Aksel’s broke, so Marieke gave hers to Aksel.’ Sunny reads from a statement.
Maarten looks to Adrika quickly. ‘So, Marieke’s…’
‘Yes. Hopefully the go-ahead from the super to push ahead with the forensic lab in the next twenty-four hours will do the trick, then they can test the glasses. We can’t wait until Monday. They might come back with something; it’s possible that if Aksel was poisoned, it could have been intended for Marieke. It looks like it could still all be about Marieke.’
All about Marieke.
Eleven for dinner. Ten on the lawn for cocktails. With one dead, one unconscious, there are seven suspects still standing, able to kill again.
This isn’t finished.
53
LOIS
Tiredness, like a physical impairment, pulls at Lois’s arms, slows her brain. She pauses over the tea and coffee pots, confused suddenly about which is which, and wondering if she dare ask again what they all wanted. It’s only 7.30 a.m. How will she get through today?
She glances at the table. No one speaks. Luckily, Ebba has flicked the radio on. The silence is taut.
‘Sleep much?’ Ebba takes the coffee pot from her hand and lifts the lid. ‘You look terrible. Here.’
She pulls the tea pot from Lois’s hand too and Lois feels her fingers soften their hold. ‘Not much. You?’
Ebba shakes her head. The kettle boiling, the mugs waiting, she puts her arms around Lois and pulls her in. Ebba’s blonde hair looks paler than normal, pulled backwards, and her skin too seems washed of colour. But maybe it’s Lois’s eyes. The brightness of things has dimmed. The sparkle of the weekend crashed when the helicopter came down.
Unable to help it, Lois looks out over the lawn, the grass and the stone of the Roman theatre.
‘I still can’t believe it,’ she says.
Ebba’s hand remains on hers as they wait for the kettle to boil.
‘Are you OK?’ Lois asks.
‘About Richard? I haven’t heard from Sarah this morning.’
Confused, Lois frowns. ‘No, Aksel! You must be upset. Ebba, I know there was something…’
Tears fill her eyes. She hadn’t decided whether to tell Aksel about the baby. Now she will never be able to. She’d cried on Marieke last night. She’d started an email to him, before the weekend, in which she’d told him. But she’d never sent it. And now she never can.
The kettle whistles and Ebba turns away, reaching for the switch, but Lois sees her fingers are unsteady. Ebba’s voice is muffled when she says, ‘There was nothing.’
‘Ebba…’ Lois speaks softly, aware of a roomful of people, hollowed and shaken. ‘Ebba, it’s OK. You don’t have to be strong through this. It’s OK to say.’ Lois thinks of Ebba’s fragility, how she drops quickly with disappointment. Her highs, her lows. And always, the memory of their father, literally falling down with disappointment as his company slipped through his fingers.
They’d not had a clue. No warning. Out of the blue, the press had run a bad news article about their father’s company. Someone had clearly leaked information about a potential issue with a product. It had been 2008, when loss of confidence could kill a company. By noon that day, the shares had fallen so steeply, their father clutched his chest and crashed to the floor; Lois hadn’t even had the chance to speak to him before the stress had felled him. Ebba had called her. She’d been with him. She’d held him as she’d waited for the ambulance. What that must have done to her, Lois will never know.
‘Ebba, please, speak to me.’
‘I can’t. Not now. Lois, it’s…’
And whatever she had been going to say is lost in the clatter of a cup, as Marieke’s voice comes from behind, saying, ‘Sorry, my fingers.’
Lois leaves the rest of the drinks to go to Marieke, who is ghost pale. She’d lain in Lois’s bed, not sleeping.
‘Maarten is coming this morning,’ Lois tells them all. ‘The police will come back. We will have some protection, until all this has passed. We’re hoping to hear news of Richard this morning.’
‘Filip, what did he say to you?’ Marieke asks.
No one speaks for a second, and Sophie looks confused. She looks at Marieke, and Lois wonders at her expression. Come to think of it, she doesn’t remember Sophie and Marieke speaking at any point this weekend.
‘What do you mean, what did he say? Who say?’ she asks.
‘Aksel,’ Marieke says, but she looks at Filip, not at Sophie. ‘When Aksel fell on you in the helicopter, I heard him say something. What was it? You know they would have been his last words. What were they?’
Filip looks round the room, and he too is tired. There are bruises and scratches on his face. His shoulder hangs limp. It’s clearly been giving him some grief today. He tilts to one side, resting it.
‘Nothing. He said nothing.’
‘Nothing at all?’ Marieke says, her eyebrows raised. ‘I heard him speak. He must have said something.’
Filip shakes his head again. ‘It was babble – the helicopter was loud. I honestly couldn’t say.’
But Lois watches him stare down as he speaks, fiddling with the spoon next to his cup.
Marieke shakes her head and stands. ‘This is all such bullshit,’ she says, but her voice is quiet. She makes her way to the coffee pot, refilling the kettle and adding more coffee to the jug.
Lois waits for a minute, and when Sophie stands to go to the side, to get more milk, she slips into the chair beside Filip.
‘Really?’ she says quietly. ‘Did you really not hear anything?’
He looks at her, as Marieke asks loudly who wants a top-up and Sophie offers to bring round milk, and leans close to her ear.
Ebba sits opposite and her phone lights up. She glances down. ‘Maarten,’ she says.
Filip’s voice is soft. ‘He said, “It was never meant…” and then he gasped, and then some stuff in Norwegian, but nothing. Just the odd word.’
His forehead touches hers, and his hand is tight. ‘Lois, I’m scared. I don’t even think it’s me I’m scared for, but it’s not finished. I’m sure it’s not finished.’
‘Coffee?’ Marieke says.
Filip lifts his head and Lois’s mind is racing. What does it mean? What did Aksel mean?
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Milk?’ Sophie asks, not waiting for an answer, pouring quickly.
Ebba stands. ‘He’s on his way,’ she says, and the room falls silent again.
‘Thank God,’ Marieke says.
Lois wonders if this is it. Will this bring an end to it?
Iqbal enters. He too looks tired, drained. ‘I’ll help you clear,’ he says to Lois.
And slowly, they all leave.
Looking back out of the window, the frost is light this morning. It’s fresh, like everything’s been washed clean outside.
And tomorrow they announce the deal, and still Lois has no idea what will happen. She watches Ebba leave the room, her head pale like a watery sun, and she prays that whatever the outcome is, she still has a sister by the end of tomorrow.
54
MAARTEN
‘Maarten?’ Answering the ph
one, Maarten’s head aches. Eight a.m. Dehydration, lack of sleep. He’d slept at his desk for a few hours. It will have to do. He manages to speak, but even to him his voice is raspy, brusque. Even by his standards. It’s the super.
‘Yes?’
‘The team is ready, Maarten. You can go in.’
*
On the doorsteps to the house, he reminds them of the plan. ‘Adrika, Sunny? We’ll stay out of the search. Use this time to take statements. I know you both spoke to most of the guests yesterday, but they will have slept, might remember more. We can’t rule out someone from outside, as unlikely as we may think it, not until we have confirmation on where Aksel Larsen consumed the poison. And we can’t rule out suicide or overdose. We need to find out what’s been going on, but gently does it. I think we still lead with our assumption that Marieke was the intended target. Keep your ears open.’
Sunny nods, swinging his head to the side to flick his hair out of his eyes. It’s a move Maarten finds intensely irritating, despite how much he likes Sunny. Why can’t he just get his hair cut? He can feel his irritation increasing with exhaustion. This weekend feels like it will never end.
‘Adrika,’ he says, facing her. ‘I want you to do the interviews together, but if you think you might get more out of Ebba or Lois, then catch them afterwards. I’m sure there are things to unpick here. Richard received that letter threatening exposure over tax evasion. He’s a suspect. Marieke received violent letters, threatening physical harm. Two different types of letters, of threats. There might be others.’
‘Do we know if they’re from the same person?’ Sunny asks, pulling out a pen and pad.
‘No, they look different. Aksel’s letter is formal and signed. It offers no physical threat. There might be more we don’t have access to. The teams will search for anything.’
The early morning light shines pale blue over the lawns, either side of the drive. There is a morning frost, arriving with November; a low mist lies over the fields, and Maarten imagines Liv, lying warm in bed. He shivers, thinking of the warmth of the duvet and the frost by his feet. But the scene is beautiful. Behind the house, the fields lie low and flat, stretching out for miles. Trees appear above the freezing mist and they had trodden the first footsteps of the day across the gravel from the car. Such mornings are meant to be experienced. Not hidden from, in bed.
Adrika leans in and knocks on the door, stamps her feet. Her breath comes out like smoke, and Maarten thinks of yesterday. Of the flames, and Aksel’s body, lying cold on the lawn.
Banging his gloves together, Sunny says, ‘Shame we couldn’t have shut the house down yesterday.’
‘You’re right. And we still don’t know for sure that it’s murder. There’s a chance Aksel ingested poison by accident. Or took it as a recreational drug.’ Adrika shivers, digging her hands deep into the pockets of her black coat. Her brown bob gleams in the pale light. ‘Nevertheless, I don’t trust any of them.’
‘They’re here,’ Maarten says, looking down the drive as the teams arrive for the search. ‘We’ll get the results back from the cocktail glasses soon. That will help.
‘Let’s get this done.’
55
IQBAL
‘Lois,’ Iqbal starts.
She’s in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher.
‘Maarten is on his way in,’ she says, looking out of the window. There are huge scorch marks and ambulance tracks leading down to the amphitheatre. The grass is blackened, and against the trees waving their bare arms, the view looks stripped back. Every inch the morning after Halloween.
She checks her watch. ‘He’ll be here any minute. They’re classifying the house as a crime scene. They will move us all to the dining room for the search. There’s a small team in there now, making a space. God, Iqbal. What’s happened?’ She lowers her forehead on to her hand, raised up on its elbow. Slowly massaging her temples with her palm, she looks broken.
He flicks on the kettle and as the water bubbles, screaming to its boiling point, he clatters with two mugs, teabags, milk.
Pulling out a chair opposite, he sits across the wooden table, pushing tea towards her. ‘Lois,’ he says again, but continuing is difficult. It’s too hard to say. It makes no sense. But then again, if he’s right, it makes perfect sense.
He shakes his head, leans back. He can see Ebba walking across the lawn towards the black marks scored, burnt.
‘Iqbal, what is it?’
Sweat breaks out on his back, trickles down. What is he going to say?
‘Go on, Iqbal. I want to hear it.’
A door bangs in the hallway.
Lois rises and slams the kitchen door shut, sitting back in her chair, waiting for him to continue.
Slow to start, nervous about speaking, he watches Lois scratch at the polish that still covers her fingernails, cracked and peeling, dulled strips of varnish, hanging and fragile.
‘You’re scaring me,’ she says, biting the nail now.
The words burn at the back of his throat.
‘Is it about Marieke?’ she asks. ‘Is what you’re going to say about Marieke?’ But he shakes his head again.
‘Iqbal.’ She grabs his hand, squeezing it so tight it hurts, and there is a burst of sunlight through the window, despite the breeze rattling quietly on the pane of glass. ‘Tell me what it is. If it’s something important, I need to know. Even,’ she says, rearing her head back, steeling herself, ‘even if it’s something that will hurt.’
Nodding, he places his other hand on top of hers, peeling at her fingers to release the pressure, then immediately regretting it, as sometimes pain is a release in itself.
There’s nowhere to begin but the beginning. ‘I’ve had an email from Obaidur,’ he says, and her face clears and breaks into a smile.
‘Oh, Iqbal! You found him! Such good news!’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, it is.’
The wind picks up, buffering, and the sun’s brightness fades. The room seems muted in its colours, its sounds; and his words roll out smoothly, filling the edges of walls, the floorboards, the cracks everywhere.
‘I need to tell you… How to start… Obaidur had ideas – back then we all did. But he was always sketching plans for how the products he made could be better.’
Lois is very still. ‘Go on.’
Iqbal feels like he’s started in the middle. Maybe he should start at the end. ‘You know we, Archipelago, have insisted on guarantees in all the production contracts – no exploitation, minimum wage. And if anyone breaks these, the contract is broken…’ No. The end doesn’t make sense. He shifts to the start, where he started with it all, on Friday. ‘He told me in his email that just before the fire, he’d been talking to an American journalist about factory conditions. The interview was in one of the fancy hotels. When the journalist went to the bar, a man approached him, said he’d heard mention of a product and Obaidur could earn some money. And you have to understand how low the wages are – even a hundred dollars can be four months’ salary… Obaidur went with him to another bar, talked about his idea, about how to improve a product.’ Iqbal shakes his head. He can imagine Obaidur’s excitement. ‘He’d guessed that this man was working for a company who could be interested in his idea.’
Lois listens carefully, waiting. She drinks her tea. There are noises from the corridor. They’ll be interrupted soon.
‘He was right. He was taken to meet a man, a researcher, and they bought the idea from him.’
Lois is nodding but looking confused. ‘This is all good news, surely, for Obaidur?’
This is the hard part. He takes a deep breath.
‘It was an idea about how to tighten up the first VR headsets. He was making them in the factory at the time, and he tried them out. You remember what the first ones were like – motion sickness, clumsy. Well, he came up with a simple idea: he moved the vision lens closer to the eye in a particular way – and the result was no motion sickness. Normally an idea would disappear, because t
here’s no access to anyone to tell. But because of the journalist writing about conditions, because he got to speak to this other man…’ He speaks quickly. ‘I don’t think he knew the real name of the man he spoke to. And they made him sign a contract, but it was written in English. They said it was a formality. Obaidur can’t read English, so the contract is invalid. Whatever he signed away, he will legally still own the rights.’
Lois shakes her head. ‘But… Well, that’s what we did? Moving the lens so close to the eye was how we first broke into the market?’
‘Yes.’
Lois is silent. The wind has dropped. The front doorbell sounds and Iqbal knows they will need to go and speak to the police soon.
‘I sent Obaidur the photo from before the helicopter, the group shot of us all. I asked him to let me know if the man was in it. The man who stole his idea, this “researcher”. If he was, then Archipelago’s success was built on this theft. Our guarantees in our contracts – we’d be built on a breach of our own guarantees.’
Lois’s eyes are like polished green stones, hard, shiny. ‘And did he get back to you? Who?’ She clasps Iqbal’s hand again, tight. ‘Who was it?’
His fists clench as he speaks. ‘It was Aksel. Aksel bought his idea. But when I checked the patent, it’s registered to Archipelago. Do you even remember who on our team suggested it?’
‘No. I don’t remember exactly who, but it was in a team meeting. When I asked them later, they said it had landed in a memo on their desk as something to try. Unsigned. In the end we agreed it was a collective decision, a natural product of development.’
There’s a knock on the front door.
‘Did he say how much he was paid?’ Lois’s voice is very quiet. She hasn’t dropped his gaze, but her words leave her mouth like they taste foul; she spits them out. ‘Oh God, I had no idea Aksel was even in Bangladesh! I only went to see the factory conditions, when we were thinking about production. I imagined the worst, and I was right. It was why we moved production to Europe.’ She paused. ‘Iqbal, how do we tell Ebba? This could destroy the whole company if it gets out. The ethics clauses in the franchise contract – we’d be breaching our own contract. We’d lose millions.’