Black Ice

by Ian Giles

  ONE EVENING WHEN Sandra had gone to bed, but still hadn’t fallen asleep, she heard footsteps on the porch. It happened fairly often when you lived in the country, and sometimes she would catch the intruder red-handed, sometimes she would see the tracks the morning after. In the summer they had no such needs, but during the rest of the year wild animals weren’t bothered by stairs if it was something edible they were after. A pot filled with wilting summer plants for instance, or like now: spring bulbs that were almost over.

  The sound of the uninvited guest made her more alert, and the light May evening didn’t make it any easier for her drift off. Instead, her thoughts began to whir, and for better or worse it was Hallin who dominated them.

  It had been a week and she hadn’t heard from him. She wondered what his reasoning was—she tried to put herself in the shoes of someone like him in a threatening situation like this.

  The denial was hardly sincere on his part. In all likelihood, he remembered the event. That was unless he had raped so many women that he couldn’t keep count, but this was highly unlikely since Sandra hadn’t heard any suggestion of there being a serial rapist on Gotland. It hurt her a little to think that others who had been affected behaved more soundly than she had, and actually reported the attacks.

  Nevertheless, Hallin was probably thinking about it right now, speculating which direction the devilment that had hit him might take.

  The easiest thing would simply be to cough up and be done with it. But perhaps he couldn’t do that without his wife getting curious and starting to ask questions, and that was possibly a fate worse than death for him. It might also be that he couldn’t afford it—however improbable that sounded for a man of his age and stature in society. Three thousand seven hundred kronor a month ought to be manageable for most people in his situation.

  The other option was to let Sandra report the case to the social services, whereupon he would still be forced to pay support at parity with Sandra’s fairly generous offer once there had been a paternity test. Which wouldn’t enable him to keep it from his wife either. There was also the risk here that Sandra would report the rape—something he must be scared to death about. But perhaps he thought the risk was minimal that Sandra would have the energy to start a process like that after so many years, and that she would lose if she did. Perhaps he was also fostering some hope that he wasn’t the father of the child and he therefore had no intention of putting a penny in her account until she had managed to prove it.

  A third possibility was obviously to stick his head in the sand and hope the threat went away by itself. He had tried that tactic the last time someone had tried to extort money from him four years ago, and it had succeeded.

  There was naturally another scenario—even if Sandra dismissed it as unrealistic. He could always try to scare the so-called gold digger into silence.

  THE MORNING AFTER, when Erik and Sandra were going out to the car, she discovered something that had to be a bouquet of flowers dropped on the floor outside the front door. They weren’t wrapped in the usual paper from a florist’s but were in newspaper.

  She let Erik wait outside while she picked off the tape, took out the flowers from their original wrapping, and put them in a vase on the kitchen table. They were beautiful, but there was no card—nothing to reveal where they had come from.

  Time was scarce at this hour in the morning, so Sandra didn’t give it another thought; she simply dropped off Erik at kindergarten before heading to work. In the evening they had dinner at her parents’ and it was only when she got home and had put Erik to bed that she took the time to think about the flowers.

  She didn’t have any admirers so far as she knew. There was nothing particular to celebrate, no birthdays, no lottery wins, no pay rises, nor even her name day. Hang on—wasn’t it Erik’s name day sometime in May? Today, in fact, she discovered when she glanced at the calendar. But it wasn’t something they celebrated, and who wasted money on flowers for a three-year-old? With no card to boot—something he would probably have appreciated more than the flowers.

  Botany wasn’t Sandra’s strong suit, but she thought the white flowers might be some kind of lily, with their splendid stamens and pollen that she knew left a hell of a stain. She recognised the other flowers, but she had no clue what kind they were. After googling for a while she had the answer. Calla lilies: she knew of these, but it was the colour that confused her. Sandra thought she had seen calla lilies that were mostly red, but probably other colours too. She hadn’t seen this dark purple kind, however, which were almost black.

  White lilies and black calla lilies, she thought, a feeling of unease creeping in. It wasn’t hard to guess what the colours black and white might mean in some contexts, but what about the flowers themselves—did they have any symbolic value in the world of floristry?

  Yes, lilies were a symbol of innocence. The Virgin Mary was often depicted with a lily, Sandra discovered, as an allusion to the immaculate conception. According to some sources, it could also symbolise conceitedness. The calla lily didn’t seem to mean anything in particular, except that it was often used in funeral displays. Like the regular lily.

  Perhaps Sandra was supposed to be struck down by fear and nail shut all the windows and leave mines in the garden. She could have thrown out the flowers so she never had to see them again.

  Instead, she got angry. And the flowers were very beautiful—carefully sculpted by nature’s own hand in some rainforest on the other side of the planet. So she left them in their full splendour on the dining table in silent protest and as a reminder of the contempt she felt towards that man.

  Hallin’s venture was frankly infantile: insinuations about virgin birth and conceit delivered in newspaper on Erik’s name day with a clear reference to death and burial. It was clearly intended to arouse fear in her. To frighten her into withdrawing her demand and make her leave him alone.

  Or what? Death and burial?

  With the best will in the world, a bunch of flowers could hardly be considered a death threat in the eyes of the law—so getting the police involved would be the same as disgracing herself. What was more, she didn’t take the threat seriously. It was a final, clumsy gesture from a floundering man who already considered the battle lost.

  On the whole, death and innocence packaged in newspaper was an inspiring thought. A plan was beginning to form in her mind. Her fists clenched, she contemplated the magnificent flowers and realised that life would never be the same again.

  STILL NO TRACE OF MISSING 41-YEAR-OLD

  It has been more than two weeks since 41-yearold Peter went missing in central Visby. Despite extensive search efforts, including assistance provided by the Swedish Home Guard, the man has still not been found.

  The man was last seen on the fourth of February. He reportedly left his place of work around lunchtime and disappeared without a trace. His car was found in the car park adjacent to his workplace. His mobile phone was last active in the same location. The search is now being de-intensified.

  The man is described as being 5ft10, 12 stone and with short, dark hair. He is thought to have been wearing a black jacket, light shirt, and a pair of dark trousers when he disappeared.

  GOTLANDS ALLEHANDA

  JANUARY–FEBRUARY

  2014

  29

  Karl-Erik

  HE HAD SLEPT for a while on the ferry from the mainland, so he felt fairly rested as he sat in the car heading home. It was freezing on Gotland—it hadn’t been yesterday morning when he had left the island. Temperatures were in free fall and it was already at the freezing point. He had to be careful, because a hazardous layer of frozen slush was forming a crust on the road.

  But there wasn’t far to go. Soon he would be home in the warmth, where Kerstin would hopefully be waiting with some little surprise for him. He assumed she would after all these years of waiting. At this very moment, he felt that it might still have been worth it. He wouldn’t repeat it—definitely not—and if he got to reli
ve the last thirty years of his life he would make different choices. But as of now they had a future ahead of them that wouldn’t have been possible if the last thirty years hadn’t happened, and he had to see that as being worth something. The fact that he, they—Kerstin too, of course—were worth it. Otherwise everything was a waste, and he didn’t want to look back on his life like that.

  He realised he had forgotten to call her. He had promised to give her a ring when he came ashore so that she could prepare whatever it was she was going to prepare. He smiled at the thought of it—Kerstin was a rock. In the kitchen and in every other way. She put up with him—that in itself was noteworthy. And she had been patient and waited for him all these years instead of finding a new man. Which he, against his better judgment—although he was a good-natured soul—had suggested to her at an early stage. But it had never been in the picture. For some completely incomprehensible reason she apparently loved him.

  “My dove!” he bellowed when she answered.

  She laughed, used to his theatrical expressions of affection.

  “I forgot to call—sorry.”

  “I realised,” said Kerstin. “But I knew when the ferry was due. Has it gone well?”

  “I’m on Gotland. I’ve got enough petrol. There’s air in the tires. I’m wearing my seat belt. I can’t see any cars in my rearview mirror and the road is devoid of any hazardous objects. What can possibly go wrong?”

  “Knock on wood. Where are you?”

  “I just passed that crossroads where it says ‘Sarve’ something to the left and ‘Lilla’ something else to the right.”

  “You sound like a mainlander,” Kerstin said with a laugh. “Havdsarve and Lilla Lärs. How hard can it be?”

  “I’ve lived here for two years! You’ve been here for ten. They use such strange names everywhere on this island. What are we having?”

  “I’ve made a whiskey sour—that much I can tell you. But I thought we might start with a glass of champagne.”

  “Oh my—she’s brought out the big guns, has my beloved wife.”

  “Wasn’t she meant to?”

  “Naturally. This is the first day of the rest of our lives. What about food?”

  “In that matter, you will have to be patient. Drive carefully—I expect it’s getting really slippery.”

  “Yep. Love you, baby!”

  “Love you too. Kiss kiss.”

  How far did he have to go? Twenty-five kilometres, perhaps? Forty-five minutes in these conditions. He drove with exaggerated care. Nothing could go wrong. Not this time—not when there was so much at stake. When he entered the bend by the old limestone quarry he slowed down even more, thinking about the horse farm they would get and about Kerstin in welly boots and a posh oilskin jacket. Then he noticed they had taken down the barrier between the road and ravine, and he thought that January seemed an exceptionally poorly chosen time to do so.

  It was at that moment that he caught sight of the oncoming car as it appeared around the next corner. It was on the wrong side of the road, travelling at a speed that a child could have worked out was inappropriate in this kind of place and in these conditions. The Audi did nothing to avoid a collision, so it was up to Karl-Erik to take control and brake, potentially moving onto the wrong side of the road. Potentially, since there was still a possibility that the Audi would move back to its side of the road and brake to avoid a head-on collision. But the Audi just drove on at breakneck speed, and it was doubtful whether it slowed down at all. At the last moment, Karl-Erik realised he would have to act—he would have to swerve. So he did, and regretted it in the same moment, because he could feel that the tires had no grip on the asphalt. The car slid almost sideways across the road before hurtling off the edge and through the air, tipping backward in an improbable way that could never, never, never end well.

  The first time he regained consciousness, he didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he lingered on the image of Kerstin in her Barbour jacket, now holding a whiskey sour. But he was having difficulty breathing, so he let himself drift off. The next time he came to he had a horrible hangover, a thumping headache and a mouth as dry as a Bedouin in a sandstorm. Kerstin made her drinks too strong—she always had. The third time he saw a woman who he first thought was Kerstin, but when he realised he was mistaken, he closed his eyes again because he would never betray her, not Kerstin. After that he didn’t want to open his eyes again, because he could see what he wanted to see inside his eyelids—good people in beautiful places where there was freedom and air to breathe and no pain.

  30

  Jeanette

  ONCE THE AUDI had disappeared, she instinctively set off down the slope without giving a thought to the fact that she was hardly dressed for that kind of escapade. It wasn’t far in terms of distance, but it was steep and the terrain inaccessible. She climbed and slithered down, occasionally setting stones rolling that caused her to slip and end up on her behind—but she didn’t care, simply getting up and struggling on. She had to get down there as quickly as possible—even if the price was a twisted ankle or torn coat.

  Peter was slower off the mark, but he had stronger legs and caught up with her when she was almost at the bottom. While Jeanette ploughed her way through brush and scrub to the driver’s side of the car, he stopped.

  “I don’t think I can,” he said. “You look first.”

  “It doesn’t look good,” said Jeanette when she reached the car. “It looks dreadful.”

  She wanted to cry—scream in fact. An awful scene lay before her: the car looked like an accordion, and the driver was squashed between the steering wheel and the rest of the crushed car. He was presumably dead, because his face was covered in blood, and he had a deep, unpleasant gash on his forehead and a large shard of glass in his throat. It was a scene from a horror film—this couldn’t be happening.

  “Is anyone in the car alive?” Peter asked from a distance.

  He had moved round to the back of the car now.

  “I don’t think so,” said Jeanette. “I can only see the driver, and he seems to be alone. We have to try and get him out.”

  She didn’t really feel up to it, and thought she might faint at any moment, but she had to contain her own emotions and needs and do what she could. Only then did the obvious occur to her: they had to call for help. That should have been the first thing she did, but she hadn’t been thinking—just tearing down the slope without switching on her brain.

  “Call emergency services, Peter,” she said. “I’ll open the door and try to pull him out.”

  Would she even manage to open the door? Probably not, because it was so dented and damaged that it would take a crowbar to open it, and even that might not be enough. A blowtorch? Panic took hold of her. She wanted to throw up and cry and faint, or just wake up from this nightmare of wounded flesh and blood and glass and crushed metal. Why on earth had she come down here? It would have been better to call the emergency services and let the professionals do their job.

  “Call emergency services, Peter!” she shouted—why wasn’t he answering?

  She pulled and tugged at the door, but it was stuck fast.

  “Come here for a moment,” Peter said eventually.

  “We need to raise the alarm, Peter. Call them!”

  Expending great effort, she put a heel on the centre of the door hoping to shift something into a new position, but it did nothing.

  “I want to show you something first,” said Peter. “Come here.”

  She kicked once more, tugging at the handle, doing it again and again—but nothing happened. She kicked the door one final time, but mostly in resignation rather than hope.

  Reluctantly, Jeanette took her eyes off the victim, who still hadn’t shown any signs of life. She struggled over a stone and through bushes to the back of the wreck where Peter was standing.

  “Look at this,” he said.

  The boot, opened by the crash, was wide open—she had seen that from the road. What she hadn’t noticed was
what the boot contained—a small suitcase and two sports holdalls. Both open—she assumed that Peter had for some reason unzipped them.

  At first, Jeanette didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand why the contents of the bags mattered here and now in the middle of this devastation, or how one person could have so much money.

  “Is he alive?” Peter asked again.

  “I don’t know for sure. But it looks really bad. He’s probably cracked his skull, and has a . . . I don’t think he can breathe at all.”

  “With this money we can build a future together.”

  It was a strange thing to say—the money wasn’t theirs.

  “He’s dead, right?” he said, reassuring himself.

  “I assume so,” Jeanette replied, a sob in her throat. “But we still need to call . . . why aren’t you calling?”

  “Where do you think he got the money, Jeanette? This is cash—he’s hardly earned it or won it at the bookie’s. It won’t be missed, believe you me.”

  “It belongs to someone,” Jeanette replied, feeling bewildered by the situation.

  “This man has somehow come across this money. Illegally—I guarantee it. He’s dead and we’re here. Are we stupid or what?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeanette answered hesitantly. “Can’t we just call emergency services?”

  “Why don’t we leave that to someone else? It’s already too late, and we didn’t cause this swindler’s death. This is the chance of our lives. You and me, Jeanette. We can buy a nice place to live—a house. We can travel.”

  She heard what he was saying, and he sounded so convincing standing there and looking at her, his velvet eyes pleading with her. She didn’t want to stay here any longer; her body and soul were both exhausted and she couldn’t make any decisions. She wanted to get away from the brutalised body in the car wreck, away from the cold and the darkness creeping in, and she never wanted to think about this day again.