‘I’ll let you know.’
‘I didn’t want to put you under pressure, but sometimes it’s necessary. People react differently under pressure. They give themselves away.’
‘Then I guess I passed the test.’
No sooner had Henriksen left the house and shut the door behind him than Jasmin sank to the floor. She had to bite her fist to suppress a scream.
Once she’d recovered herself, she dashed up to her bedroom, where she’d left her dirty, mud-covered boots. She carried them into the bathroom and put them in the bathtub before placing the spare pair she’d shown Henriksen back in the cabinet.
That was close.
Seriously close.
But now—
Just then, the doorbell rang.
The doorbell rang and Jasmin reached out nervously to open the door. It’s him. It has to be. And while the noise of low-volume music and lively conversation rang out behind her from the rest of the house, a smile crept over her lips. You’re acting like a teenager, she thought. And yet tonight is basically a work party, albeit a slightly bigger one than usual.
Sven Birkeland was standing in front of her. His coat was wet from the rain, his hair plastered to his head, and yet in the warm light illuminating the driveway and the ivy-covered stone walls of the Brechts’ house, he looked unbelievably handsome.
‘Jasmin!’ he said, sounding not quite like the colleague she knew from the hospital. ‘Looks like this evening just got a lot more interesting.’
He embraced her, and Jasmin helped him take off his coat. ‘Is our consultant surgeon giving speeches again? I suppose Brecht has already shown you his alcoves. You wouldn’t believe how tedious he can be about all the design features in his house.’
Jasmin couldn’t help but laugh. ‘He hasn’t mentioned them yet, but the night is still young.’
‘Well, let’s dive in, shall we?’
‘Let’s,’ she agreed. ‘And no talking shop, now.’
And then, as she followed Sven Birkeland, the memory vanished . . .
Chapter 11
All of it vanished: the party, the night when she would go on to have her accident. Why had it sprung into her head now, of all times? With a trembling hand, Jasmin reached for the handle and opened the door a crack. ‘Did you forget something?’ she asked bemusedly, feeling her heart race faster than it had ever done before. Henriksen was standing in front of her, as though he had returned to finally reveal the true reason for his visit.
What’s he doing now? Is he reaching for his handcuffs?
‘Not as such, no. Just this.’ A slender business card appeared between his fingers, as if he were a magician who could conjure objects out of thin air. ‘I thought you might need it. Please call me right away if you notice anything that seems threatening to you, no matter how trivial. You’ll find my mobile number on the card.’
‘Thank you.’ Jasmin realised she was gripping the door handle so hard it hurt, but luckily Henriksen couldn’t see her hand.
He turned to go, and it occurred to Jasmin that she could ask him about the drifter – whether there was any news on that front, whether he’d already heard about him. But in the end she merely watched as Henriksen got in his car and drove off.
Only then could she breathe freely again.
That was really close. Fucking close.
She spent the next hour cleaning the sand and mud off her dirty boots before placing them next to the other pair in the cabinet.
Paul was still in a bad mood.
‘You’ll have to come downstairs if you want something to eat,’ she said when she looked in on him. ‘I’m going to cook myself lunch, anyway.’
Jasmin sat down on the sofa and rested her plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce on her knees. She didn’t want to stay in the kitchen; Henriksen’s aftershave was still hanging in the air.
As she ate, she went over her plan in her mind. She had to visit Yrsen, that was obvious. She had to ask her to hear her out. Maybe it would help; maybe this would be the crucial spark, the moment of impetus, that would let her finally remember everything.
And after that . . .
You have to find out whether it’s true.
Whether you really did see him.
If Henriksen wasn’t lying and the man really did drown then maybe you were imagining things after all.
Under the light of the moon last night, maybe you saw what you wanted to see in his face. Maybe you imagined it. Maybe it wasn’t him.
Jasmin could think of only one way to resolve her doubts. She had to find out where they’d taken the body. If it had been removed from the island then she had a problem on her hands – but she didn’t think that would have happened yet. No, she felt sure they’d keep the corpse here on Minsøy, for now.
So find out where it is.
Easier said than done.
‘That’s enough sulking now,’ she said to Paul. ‘We’re going to take a little trip into the village. What do you say?’
‘What for?’ He looked up from the book he was reading and Jasmin realised he was only pretending to be mad at her. Not for the first time.
‘We’re going on an adventure,’ she answered. ‘Like Max and the boys in your book. Only we’re going to be detectives.’
Jasmin found a small, charming cafe on the main street in Skårsteinen and sat with Paul by the window, which looked out on to the road. The cafe stood directly opposite the only bookshop in the village, and next door to that was the police station.
The first time she’d come here in search of Sandvik’s grocery shop, she’d seen a police car parked outside the station – a Volkswagen that had seen better days.
This time, Boeckermann’s car wasn’t there.
‘I’ll be with you shortly,’ the waitress called over to them. She was wearing a floral-patterned apron and wiping one of the tables down with a cloth. Jasmin got up and approached her. Once out of Paul’s earshot, she asked, ‘Have you heard?’
The woman looked at her warily. ‘Heard what?’
‘I’m new here. My husband and I own a small holiday home down by the beach.’
‘Oh.’ The waitress nodded sympathetically. ‘Of course. And now you’re worried. That’s understandable.’
‘I’ve just been to the police station,’ Jasmin lied, ‘but there was no one there. Is that normal?’
‘No, it’s not. But to think of a dead body turning up here, of all places.’ The woman hesitated. As though she’d already said too much. ‘Well, you know how it is in a small village like this. News travels fast.’
‘Do you mean to say they’re all out right now? That the station is empty?’
‘They’re down at the coast. So I heard.’
Jasmin sighed. Then she looked at the menu and thought carefully. She wouldn’t get anything else out of the waitress here, but Karl Sandvik might know more. ‘I’ll take two hot chocolates,’ she said.
‘Two?’
‘Please.’
She took the drinks and went back to the table where Paul was sitting. ‘I need to pop over and see Mr Sandvik. You remember him, don’t you? There’s something important I want to ask him. Wait here for a second with Bonnie, OK?’
‘OK, Mummy,’ Paul replied sullenly.
Jasmin shot a warning look at Bonnie, who was lying under the table, before heading out and crossing the road. The shopkeeper was alone and reading a book. Homer’s Odyssey, Jasmin saw from the cover.
‘Ah, hello there,’ he greeted her. ‘How are you settling in, Ms Hansen?’
She frowned. ‘That looks like rather heavy going for this time in the afternoon.’
Sandvik shut the book and placed it carefully on the counter. ‘A good book is never heavy going. I expect you’ve already heard the news. I can tell by looking at you.’
‘Mr Sandvik, could you do me a favour?’ Jasmin tried to flash him her most engaging smile, but found it a challenge. You’re getting rusty, she thought. ‘I can’t find any police officers in the
station up the road.’
‘Oh no?’ Sandvik scratched his chin with his thumb. ‘They’re all in a bit of a flap at the moment. Boeckermann was never going to cope with anything like this on his own, and as for the new chap and his team – well, I’m not quite sure what to make of that lot.’
‘He’s called Hendrik Henriksen and he’s come from the mainland.’ Jasmin noticed how eagerly Sandvik took in the new information. Henriksen’s name would probably be all over the village before long, which meant he’d be recognised before he could introduce himself to anybody he wanted to interview. ‘He’s already asked me a few questions, but I’ve remembered something I didn’t tell him, so I need to know where I can find him.’
‘They were all at the ferry terminal just now. Down by the Bakke warehouse.’
‘Bakke?’ Jasmin hadn’t heard the name before, and she couldn’t remember seeing any warehouses down there either.
‘The fishing company,’ Sandvik explained. ‘From what I’ve heard, the man wasn’t killed on land.’ He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘So it makes sense that they’d want to start by interviewing the people with the biggest boats who sail the furthest offshore.’
Did that mean the corpse had been disposed of from a trawler? Jasmin blinked. It didn’t seem to ring true. ‘And you saw it for yourself? I mean, that Henriksen and Boeckermann were down there?’
‘I went for a stroll, like every morning, and I saw them and their police van with my own eyes. I wouldn’t send you off to the other end of the village for no reason, young lady.’
Jasmin laughed. ‘No, I’m sure you wouldn’t. You’re one of the good guys.’ Then she grew serious once more. ‘I . . . There’s another thing I wanted to ask you, about a subject that’s kept coming up ever since I got here.’
Sandvik smiled encouragingly. ‘Go on.’
‘There must have been a fire here at some point.’ She thought of the painting she’d discovered in the attic. ‘A serious fire. An incident people don’t like to talk about. I’d be interested to know what happened back then, and when exactly it was.’
And what the deal with Yrsen is – whether that was when she suffered her burns. Could that be possible? She kept those thoughts to herself, though. Jasmin had the impression that the lines around Sandvik’s mouth had grown harder, but he sounded as laid back as ever when he spoke. ‘There was a fire once, out on the western end of the island. But that was another era. And not one I care to remember.’
‘I—’
‘Sometimes the past should stay in the past. Sometimes people should let things lie.’
‘I understand.’ She wouldn’t get anything more from him on this subject, however hard she tried. She could see it in his eyes. Besides, she’d never been very good at getting strangers to reveal their secrets.
She said goodbye to Sandvik, who waved at her as she left the shop before returning to his book. Back in the cafe, Jasmin noticed Paul hadn’t touched his hot chocolate yet. He was looking out of the window, lost in thought.
‘Give it a try, it’s very good.’ Jasmin dabbed her lips with a napkin.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Paul, ‘that there’s something going on here.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jasmin scanned her surroundings, but the waitress was elsewhere. That was just as well. Paul’s words made her feel a little nervous.
‘It’s all fake,’ he said. ‘It feels off.’
‘Don’t say things like that. This is a nice little village.’
‘When I was in the attic,’ Paul went on, ‘I didn’t just find the old Christmas things. I saw that painting too, the one with the cloth over it. I looked under the cover.’
The fire, Jasmin thought. The old building in flames, the onlookers in front of it. Yrsen’s scarred face and her diary. How are all those things connected?
‘And?’ she asked cautiously. ‘Quite apart from the fact that Daddy and I told you—’
‘That I’m not allowed up there.’ Paul shook his head. ‘I don’t know. When I saw it, I felt funny. Like there’s something here, inside the house, down on the beach – everywhere on the island. And it doesn’t want us here. It doesn’t add up – it feels very, very wrong.’
Jasmin felt goosebumps creeping down her arms.
Paul abruptly stood up. ‘Can we go, Mummy?’
‘Of course.’ Jasmin paid and put Paul’s untouched hot chocolate back on the counter. ‘Sorry. I enjoyed mine, anyway.’
As she left the cafe, she noticed the waitress give her a bemused look.
After a short stroll through the centre of Skårsteinen and down to the harbour, Paul and Jasmin found themselves standing outside the warehouses Sandvik had mentioned. Seagulls screeched and bickered in the distance. It smelled of fish and the sea, and the wind blowing in from the water was as cold as the touch of an early frost.
There was a man loitering by a jetty nearby who embodied every cliché of a sailor. Jasmin asked him if he’d seen the police officers.
‘They were here,’ came the gruff reply. ‘And then they left again.’
‘So they didn’t interview anybody?’
‘Nope.’ He scratched his chin. ‘Just dropped off a package. And you can probably guess what it was, can’t you? Bakke owns the only big cold storage shed on the island.’
‘The only . . .’ Jasmin realised what he meant, and the realisation felt good and terrifying at once, like a hot-and-cold shiver running down her back. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’
‘For what?’ He pointed along the road heading north. ‘They drove off that way.’
There’s something going on here. Paul’s words echoed through Jasmin’s mind as she headed north in her rental car. And maybe more people know it than you would like. How else did that old painting get into your attic? Did the caretaker put it there? Or somebody else? Were they trying to hide it?
Did they know Jasmin had found it?
Were they watching her?
What about the drifter everyone kept mentioning?
‘Where are we going, Mummy?’ Paul was sitting on the back seat and scratching Bonnie between the ears while the dog gave out low grunts of satisfaction. ‘It’s nice here. Nicer than the other way, somehow.’
‘Nicer than the south, you mean.’ Jasmin kept glancing at the rear-view mirror, but there was nobody following her. The road was completely empty.
No Jeep chasing after you with blinding headlights.
‘Do you remember the piece of paper that blew over to us on the wind?’
‘You caught it in the air. That was pretty cool!’
‘Well, I think we should go and talk to the artist again. I mean, partly because I want to apologise to her for the things I said.’
‘And also because you think she’ll help you.’
‘What makes you say that?’
Paul shrugged. ‘Just a hunch. Daddy wouldn’t like it.’
Daddy isn’t here, Jasmin thought. But Paul was right: Jørgen definitely wouldn’t like it, what with his aversion to the occult.
A woman with second sight, a clairvoyant? It’s complete nonsense, barely more than a con.
But she knew things she shouldn’t have known, even though all she did was touch your hand, for the briefest of moments. And everyone in the village knows about her. Think of the picture in Sandvik’s shop, and the one in the attic too. Her story must be true. She really must have drawn people to the island in the past who believed she could help them – and who she really did help.
Until the fire.
‘The way I look now, nobody wants anything to do with me anymore,’ Yrsen had said.
How sad. How lonely she must be, out there on the northern tip of the island.
‘We’ll pop in for a quick visit,’ said Jasmin. ‘That’s all.’
‘Are we going to have something nice for dinner tonight?’ Paul asked enthusiastically.
Jasmin had to smile. That was the Paul she knew. ‘We will, I promise.’
Not for your sake, but for Paul’s.
That’s your priority.
Chapter 12
The house Jasmin’s satnav directed her to stood at the northern end of the island, close to the clifftops. Yrsen’s house was set back from the road and hidden behind a sandstone wall, a scanty hedge and a fence. Clad in burgundy-red wood, it had a thatched roof from which two chimney stacks protruded. Jasmin took Paul by the hand and together they walked over to the fence securing the edge of the cliff in order to look down at the sea. The waves rolled against the blue-black rocks, their crests capped with foam.
‘Wow,’ said Paul in awe.
‘Yes, nature is truly powerful,’ said a quiet voice behind them. Jasmin turned around and saw Gabriela Yrsen shuffling towards them, leaning on a walking stick. She was wearing a white scarf that fluttered in the wind, but no hat this time. Her hair was dark, almost black, without a single strand of grey, and it gleamed in the light of the low sun. A wig, thought Jasmin. The fire had taken so much more from her than she’d thought.
The thundering and crashing of the waves was deafening, so Yrsen gestured for them to follow her back towards the house.
‘People have been telling me for so long now to sell up, pack my bags and leave, but no. I simply can’t leave it behind.’
‘That’s understandable,’ replied Jasmin feebly. ‘It’s a very impressive place.’
‘Nature takes whatever she can. The ground is fragile, and according to a geologist who came here a few times to take measurements, it’s very possible it might all suddenly collapse and that my little house could end up in the sea. It might be better if I wasn’t around when it happened, he said . . .’ Yrsen looked out to sea. The endless volumes of water, the low grey clouds – it was an atmosphere like something from a painting by a tortured artist. ‘Then again, maybe it’d be better if I was.’
‘You shouldn’t think like that,’ Jasmin replied.
‘Tea?’
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