Black Ice

by Ian Giles

  As some kind of initial first step in her terror campaign, she had been planning to tell his wife about that brief and transient moment of infidelity. He had told her from the start that this would be no use—since Jan and his wife kept no secrets from each other. It was the truth, albeit modified, but Gunilla undeniably knew most of what had happened that afternoon with Sandra.

  What was worse was that in the heat of the moment, he had also dropped some comment along the lines that things hadn’t gone well for the last person who had tried to blackmail him. It seemed stupidly premeditated now that the bitch was writing a book in which he was accused of murder. As a guy who murdered blackmailers, to be precise.

  But that statement hadn’t had the intended effect either—soon enough this Sandra had made good on her threat to get his wife involved. The sexual act itself hadn’t been news to Gunilla, but the fact that it had resulted in a child was something she hadn’t taken as well as Jan had hoped she would. She had been very upset, and even though she hadn’t had the slightest desire to serve up almost seven hundred thousand kronor, she had stepped up to defend Sandra and made Jan feel ashamed.

  So much so that he had been forced to admit to himself that he actually wanted the boy gone from the face of the earth. So that he didn’t have to deal with paternity tests, demands for child support payments, and rape reports, and all that this involved. And all the other misery that as sure as fate would come along too.

  But now, with something akin to an answer key in her hands, it was the mother of the brat who seemed to be the biggest threat. Who would have guessed she would write a book about what had happened more than four years ago? That she would have such an improbable amount of knowledge about what had happened even after the so-called rape that she could write a whole fucking book about it? A book that was being serialised in Gotlands Allehanda? And all while she was still nagging at him for the bloody child support, threatening him with this and that. When the worst that could happen was already happening—he was being dragged through the mud in public, being pilloried before all of Gotland.

  The very fact that she had the stomach to do it—it made him feel sick just thinking about it. He wished so hard that he had spotted that serial while it was still in its infancy.

  The widespread public interest in the publication would probably get the odd police officer and prosecutor to raise their eyebrows, and soon enough the circus would be in full flow. Which would inevitably result in a personal catastrophe for Jan.

  What he wanted most of all right now was for anyone who had read even just one instalment of that serial to be hit by anthrax. For the Gotlands Allehanda offices to be blown to kingdom come, for the printers to burn down to the ground. But above all, he wanted the person who was responsible for all these dreadful attacks, the one behind the slanderous campaign and its unpredictable consequences, to die. She needed to die a slow, painful death.

  In short, he wanted Sandra dead, Jan thought to himself, rain running down his face as he pulled back the bolt on the cellar door.

  63

  Jeanette

  JEANETTE HARDLY DARED breathe as she sat there squashed behind the rainwater barrel with her arms tightly wrapped around her legs. She listened intently for any sound, but all she could hear was the incessant thud of the rain on the ground and the trees, water forming into trickles running into the soil, gushing down the drainpipe, and making the barrel overflow. Beyond that, what she was expecting to hear were other sounds from over by the privy: voices and the door slamming.

  But she didn’t. Since the car door had been slammed shut, there had been silence from that direction. The driver didn’t seem to have spotted Nanna, who in turn must have spotted the car in time to shut the door and her mouth. The driver’s business wasn’t in the outhouse, but somewhere else on the plot—probably inside the cabin itself.

  But if that was true then wouldn’t she have heard that door slam? Had they locked up behind themselves? she thought to herself. Had they hidden their belongings and the leftovers from the packed lunches they had eaten on the veranda? No, of course they hadn’t. They weren’t finished here and they had been planning to tidy up and shut everything up as the last step before leaving.

  At least the front door was shut, and that was some small comfort if all the driver was doing was quickly inspecting the exterior. Perhaps the hunting cabin was going to be sold, now that Peter was out of the picture? Perhaps it was a stranger who had come to visit, an outsider who wanted to check out the plot and the buildings ahead of a viewing of the interior, and didn’t care a jot about unwelcome visitors or the two bags filled with cash.

  Now she could make out the sound of someone moving across the sodden grass with squelching but determined footsteps. It was clear that they were heading away from Nanna and towards Jeanette. She hardly dared to look, let alone lean out to catch a glimpse of the mysterious visitor.

  What if she needed to sneeze? Cough? She couldn’t, quite simply. Not now. Why was she even thinking like that? It would only become a self-fulfilling prophecy—and now she suddenly felt the urge to cough even though she hadn’t at any point during the day.

  A smoke, she thought to herself instead. She was dying for a drag. Now. Surely no one would notice if she sparked up in this weather?

  Nanna would go round the twist if she knew what Jeanette was up to, how nuts she was, and how little self-control she had.

  She spotted a movement between the rainwater barrel and the wall. Somewhere further off on the plot, beyond the crack. All she could see through that gap was part of the back of the slaughterhouse unless she bent forward from behind the barrel, which would give her away to anyone paying attention.

  What on earth was going on? There was something behind the slaughterhouse, something at ground level that seemed to capture the interest of the visitor. Of course—it was a root cellar that she and Nanna would have checked last of all. Bolted from the outside but without a lock. It was probably full of garden spiders and other nasties that liked being in the darkness.

  Jeanette didn’t seem to be alone in those thoughts. After sliding back the bolt and standing there as if in contemplation for about half a minute without pushing the door open, it was apparently time for the visitor to leave the root cellar behind. And the place as a whole. Less than a minute after the squelching steps had once again passed by Jeanette’s water barrel, the car door slammed again. Then the engine was started up and the car left.

  Without anything much at all having happened.

  64

  Kerstin

  KERSTIN HELD HER breath as she stood there, counting the seconds, but the door to the privy never opened. After a while, she realised that the visitor must have turned right in front of the car, changed course from one that appeared to be heading straight towards her, and instead headed into the yard between the cabin and the outbuildings. Shortly afterwards, when she dared to nudge the door ajar, her suspicions were confirmed. There was no one to be seen between the car and herself.

  If it hadn’t been raining, she might have been able to hear something and form an understanding of what the visit was for. Given the situation, she could only be grateful that she hadn’t been discovered, hope for the best on behalf of Jeanette, and dutifully wait in the darkness until the visitor had left again. Preferably without taking any interest in the two stinking packages outside the privy door.

  Her prayers were answered, and faster than she dared hope. Just a few minutes after the visitor’s arrival, Kerstin, who was significantly more attentive now, heard the engine start back up, before the car reversed into the yard to turn around, and then the sound grew ever more distant. Only then did she open the door and step into the rain.

  She glanced at the two plastic-wrapped bundles that were begging for attention, reached for the floor scraper and turned them over with the intention of letting the rain play its part before she got to grips with them. Then she tore off her gloves, dropped them on the grass and headed over to the
slaughterhouse, calling out for Jeanette—who made herself known when she peeked up from behind a barrel brimming over with rainwater.

  Kerstin struggled to contain her laughter when she caught sight of her. Jeanette looked as though she had taken a dip in the barrel without permission and been caught in the act.

  “Oh my sweetheart,” Kerstin exclaimed compassionately. “Did you end up hidden round the end of the house?”

  Jeanette nodded and looked like she was about to burst into tears.

  “And the water was overflowing and I was about to sneeze and cough and it was just terrible,” said Jeanette. “I thought I was going to give us away.”

  “But you didn’t,” said Kerstin, rinsing herself off in the water barrel. “You did a great job. Come on, let’s get you into some dry clothes. Then we’ll take a closer look at those bags.”

  “We need to check the root cellar first,” said Jeanette. “It was so weird . . . The only thing that person did was to slide back the bolt on the door.”

  “Without opening it?” said Kerstin.

  “Without opening it. They hesitated for a while, then went back to the car. That was all I could see through the crack between the wall and the water barrel.”

  “What a bizarre thing to do,” Kerstin said thoughtfully. “Coming all the way out here just to undo a bolt.”

  “Without even noticing our leftovers on the veranda,” Jeanette pointed out.

  That was something that hadn’t occurred to Kerstin in her minutes of horror spent in the outhouse. They had left truly obvious evidence of their presence. Under normal circumstances those would have disclosed the presence of intruders on the property. But the circumstances were anything but ordinary, she noted to herself. The visitor hadn’t noticed their cups or backpacks on the veranda, or the black bin liners outside the privy. They weren’t really in the here and now, and had been focusing on something else entirely. They had headed towards the root cellar, undid the bolt, and then departed without doing anything else.

  What a weird thing to do, Kerstin muttered to herself. And then she was struck by a peculiar and almost panicky feeling in her chest that made her set off at a run towards the root cellar door without any clearly formulated thoughts or words. Jeanette was on her tail, and together they raised the heavy hatches and threw them to one side. Kerstin pulled out her mobile, turned on the torch and descended the steps into the subterranean space. She shone the light around the chamber. It was bare and uninviting, and lined with rickety shelves without any sign of any food. It was raw and damp down here, water trickling down the walls to form large puddles on the floor.

  But there, at the far end in the darkness by the wall there was something lying on the floor that didn’t look like it belonged there. She moved closer to it and gasped when she realised what she was looking at.

  A little boy in blue jeans, a red sweatshirt, and green boots.

  “It’s Erik!” Kerstin cried out at once, throwing herself forward to gather him up in her arms.

  He was cold, wet, and loose-limbed. It was impossible to tell whether there was any life left in the boy, but Kerstin just ran. Up the steps and into the light and rain. Jeanette proved herself to be unusually efficient in the situation and ran ahead towards the house, tearing open the door and wedging it wide open, before rushing inside with her muddy boots on. She went over to the sofa where she spread out a blanket.

  “Lay him down there,” she ordered Kerstin. “Take his clothes off and I’ll fetch more blankets.”

  Kerstin did as she was told: she removed his boots, trousers, jumper, and underclothes with furious speed. Everything was cold and wet.

  “Lie down with the boy in your arms,” Jeanette said. “I’ll wrap you up in blankets. If he’s alive then he needs your body heat.”

  Kerstin had no medical knowledge and no clue what she was supposed to do, but now that she was lying with the naked, cold little body close to her own she could feel that he was breathing. It was fast and shallow, but he was breathing. While Jeanette wrapped them in the blankets, Kerstin massaged him as best as she could, kneading his small limbs and the little back with her rough hands, exhaling warm air onto his face and his throat.

  “He’s alive,” said Kerstin. “Call emergency services.”

  Jeanette made the call and explained the gravity of the situation, explaining that it was probably the missing boy. With Kerstin providing prompts, she described where the hunting cabin was and the easiest way to get there. She asked for instructions, but was directed simply to keep the child warm and to get him to drink fluids if it were possible.

  Once the call was over, Jeanette went to fetch water. She bathed the boy’s lips and then forced one drop of water after another into his mouth as best she could. To her relief, Kerstin felt the temperature rising in the small child’s body, his breathing becoming deeper and slower.

  “He must be famished,” Jeanette said. “But they’ll put him on a drip as soon as they arrive. It’ll be okay—we saved him.”

  A small smile appeared on her face, and it was infectious. They—Kerstin and Jeanette—had done something together. They had saved the life of a small child—how would Kerstin be able to see Jeanette as an enemy after this?

  Four days, she thought to herself. Didn’t they say that a fully grown adult could manage three days without water? And Erik—a little kid—had managed four. Four days of constant rain.

  “If it hadn’t been raining so persistently over the last few days, he wouldn’t have made it,” she said. “The kidnapper didn’t count on all that water leaking into the root cellar. Erik was wet and cold, but he didn’t go thirsty, and that’s what kept him alive.”

  Rage germinated inside her. Only now did she have the opportunity to think through what had actually happened. Someone—and she reckoned she knew who—had spirited away a three-year-old and locked him up in a cold, dark root cellar without any food or water. With the intent that he would die—of thirst and hunger. A little kid! What kind of monster were you if you subjected another person—a very small person—to something like that?

  “The kidnapper?” said Jeanette.

  “What do you think the purpose of undoing the bolt was?” said Kerstin.

  “You mean . . . Do you actually think someone intentionally locked him in there four days ago so that he would die?” Tears began to form in Jeanette’s eyes.

  “And now they came back to undo the bolt in the belief that it was all over and people would think he had wandered in there by himself,” Kerstin said with a nod.

  The thought that the kidnapper hadn’t even dared to see for himself the misery he had caused—he had simply left without glancing into the cellar—left her raging. But she contained the agitated emotions within her, pursed her lips, and kneaded the boy’s body with almost manic eagerness.

  “There are a few things you need to do, Jeanette. Before the ambulance gets here. And probably the police too.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want you to tidy up after us. Close doors, remove any visible traces that we were ever here. I should have done it myself, but it would be good if you could wipe up a bit inside the privy. The door, the bench, the floor, the walls—well, you’ll see what I mean. Use the gloves. But first of all, you need to drag those bags down to our bikes. Leave them in the plastic, but put them there and hide them well. You can take the branches that are covering the bikes—we don’t need to hide those any longer.”

  “Respectfully, I don’t give a shit about the money,” said Jeanette.

  “I know that, Jen. But it’ll come in handy very soon, and if the police find it here with us, then things won’t work out the way we planned. Believe me.”

  Jeanette looked at her incredulously but shrugged her shoulders in resignation. She glanced tenderly at the boy, who was moving slightly in Kerstin’s embrace. Perhaps he was resurfacing from unconsciousness.

  Kerstin extracted her mobile from her pocket, thinking to herself that she should call Sandra
and tell her that they had found Erik—if the news hadn’t reached her yet. But she had no signal.

  “Emergency calls only,” said Jeanette.

  “It worked an hour ago,” Kerstin objected. “I received a call.”

  “But now it’s emergency calls only. Same for me. You’ve got to be grateful for the little things.”

  “Little things?” Kerstin said with a smile. “The only thing that matters at all, if you ask me.”

  Jeanette nodded and smiled back at her, before resuming a serious expression.

  “What exactly are we doing here?” she asked.

  At first, Kerstin didn’t understand what she meant. She dipped her fingers in the glass of water on the table and tried to get the boy to suck at them. Jeanette had her arms crossed and was looking at her lying there with anxious eyes that were imploring. Now she realised what the question meant.

  “We’re on a bike ride,” Kerstin replied. “We stumbled on this seemingly abandoned place, sought shelter from the rain and decided to eat our lunch out on the covered veranda. I needed a shit, and I took the chance to use the outdoor privy. Then we saw a car turn up and you hid behind the end of the house. And so on. After that, we’ll stick to the truth. Okay?”

  “Okay. I’ll get on then. How is he doing?”

  “He’s breathing, and his temperature is rising. He’ll be okay. Thanks to you, Jen.”

  “Thanks to me?”

  “It was you who noticed the weird thing happening over by the root cellar.”

  Jeanette pursed her lips and something flashed through her eyes. Then she left the house, walking more lightly than she had done in a long time. Perhaps this was the opportunity she had been waiting for, over the course of more than four years. An opportunity to do something right, once and for all. To compensate for everything she had done that had been so very wrong.