by Chris Ould
“You mean they were delayed?” Hentze asked.
“No, they’ve been lost – for the moment, at least.”
“Shit!” Sophie said with some feeling.
“Are we sure they didn’t just miss the flight at this end?” Hentze said. “Could they still be at Vágar?”
“No.” Remi was definite. “The case went through baggage handling here. It was tagged and scanned but it didn’t come through at the other end. I’ve asked for a thorough check in Kastrup but if it was wrongly diverted, to another plane for instance, it could be anywhere now.”
“So what do we do?” Hentze asked.
“For the moment? Just wait, but we have to assume the worst, I suppose,” Remi said. He looked to Sophie Krogh. “Can you stay in case we need to gather new samples?”
“I can, but you know some can’t be reproduced, right? The clothing and other items can’t be replaced and there are some samples we can’t take again: those prior to the postmortem, for example. They have to be taken at the time and in situ or they’re no use as evidence.”
“Well, can you go through the list of samples you took and identify the ones you could take again and which would still be valid as evidence?”
Sophie shook her head in disgust. “Yeh, yeh, okay. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you,” Remi said, somewhat drily. He turned to the others. “So then, that leaves us with the problem of what we do about Finn Sólsker. I’ve talked to Rógvi Dam in the Prosecutor’s office and he doesn’t believe that we can justify a charge based on what we have at the moment. Nor does he think a judge will grant an extension to custody, unless perhaps we could give a definite time by which we’d have forensic results. Clearly we can’t do that. So we’ll have to release him.”
“We still have a few more hours,” Ári said. “And now that he’s had all night to think about things I’d like to try another interview.”
“Hjalti?”
Hentze shook his head. “I think you should leave me out of this.”
“Yeh, yeh, but if it was anyone else – any other case – what would you think?”
“With nothing new to put to him? I don’t see why he would say any more now than yesterday, but by all means try.”
“All right, then, but will you also sit in on the interview with Ári? Be a friendly face.”
“I don’t think Finn will see me that way,” Hentze said. “But if that’s what you want.”
“Thank you,” Remi said, as if Hentze had selected the most tactful option. “And after that – assuming that he doesn’t admit anything more – what then? Have we other lines of enquiry to follow without forensic results to guide us?”
“If we have to release Finn I think we should look at Høgni Joensen again,” Ári said immediately. “As soon as possible, before he and Finn have a chance to talk.”
“Høgni?” Hentze said, unable to keep his surprise out of his voice. “Based on what?”
“Based on the fact that he had the same access to the boat shed as Finn. And didn’t you say he tried to give Finn a false alibi?”
“Only because I put the idea in his head, to see what he’d say.”
“So he’s proved he’d try to cover for Finn,” Ári said, as if Hentze had made his point for him. “So who knows, maybe they were acting together, or Høgni helped Finn after it happened. Or maybe Høgni was secretly attracted to Erla and tried to make something happen between them. Then, if she rejected him… A man built like him could easily kill someone – accidentally or on purpose.”
“Høgni hasn’t the mental capacity to move or leave the body like that,” Hentze said. “He’s also as good at lying as Sophie is at hiding her opinion.”
“So maybe Finn helped him,” Ári said, unwilling to be swayed. “Whatever the case, I think Høgni Joensen should be interviewed.”
It was a peculiar sort of madness, Hentze decided: to jump from one scenario to another, with nothing to say that any one of them had actually happened, but to still give each one credence. He looked to Remi Syderbø for some show of rationality.
“Let’s cover all possibilities,” Remi said. “It can’t hurt to talk to Joensen again.”
“Well, if we’re covering all possibilities maybe we should also be trying to find out more about the man Erla met at Kaldbak on Saturday,” Hentze said.
Given that Remi had already set Kaldbak aside, Hentze intended it only as an indication that he thought it was as futile as interviewing Høgni, so it struck him as odd when Remi agreed.
“Okay, that too, then,” Remi said. “And in the meantime let’s hope that the airline can locate the forensic samples in lost luggage.”
* * *
Outside Sophie Krogh followed Hentze down the corridor to the CID canteen. It was empty. “And you say I’m the one who doesn’t hide my opinion,” she said as Hentze switched on the kettle.
“I’m just tired and cranky today.”
“Which makes it harder to pretend Ári Niclasen’s not an arsehole.”
“Something like that.” Hentze spooned Nescafé into two mugs. The coffee in the jug on the hotplate already smelled stewed.
“I still can’t believe those fucking samples have gone missing,” Sophie said, aggrieved. “Everyone tells me how safe and reliable it is to send them on their own. ‘Bags never get lost between here and Copenhagen,’ they said. Well apparently they do.”
“Don’t feel too bad about it,” Hentze said. “It wasn’t your fault. If it got lost anywhere it was probably at the other end.”
“So it could have been diverted to Abu Dhabi or some other godforsaken hole.”
“Will it ruin the case?”
“I dunno, I’m no legal expert. I don’t think it would help if a lawyer could challenge the validity of replacement samples, though. And like I said, some can’t be replaced. Luckily, though, I don’t have so much faith in airline efficiency.”
Hentze looked at her. “You’ve got duplicate samples?”
“Of the most important ones, of course. What am I, an amateur?”
He handed her a coffee. “No, ‘amateur’ is not the word I would use. What’s the word the Americans have: ‘ballbreaker’?”
“Tcha!” Sophie said. “They deserve to suffer a bit, just for the fact that I’ll have to spend the morning cataloguing what I do need to take again. And I won’t get the afternoon flight. Katrina’s going to be very pissed off.”
“Katrina? Is she new?”
“A month or so. I only managed to get her into the sack last week but now she’s a very enthusiastic convert. She especially likes—”
“Stop.” Hentze held up a hand. “Too much information.” Sophie grinned broadly, which made him laugh. “Just don’t leave Remi in purgatory for too long before you tell him all isn’t lost,” Hentze told her. “Okay?”
“Okay. But I think he can live with it for an hour or so.”
“Yeh, all right, fair enough.”
He laughed again. Sometimes Sophie Krogh was just what you needed.
27
FINN SÓLSKER DIDN’T LOOK AS IF HE HAD SLEPT WELL, HENTZE thought. Hardly surprising. The cells in Klaksvík were as comfortable – or not – as those anywhere. But he was also glad that Finn didn’t look too well rested. In his experience those who slept well in a cell were, more often than not, guilty. The guilty could sleep because now they’d been caught they could finally relax. The innocent had too many things on their mind.
“I thought you might want some coffee,” Hentze said, putting the mug down in front of Finn. “Have you had breakfast?” Finn nodded. “Okay. Good.”
Ári Niclasen and Finn’s lawyer settled themselves. The recorder went on. The time was logged.
Hentze sat back in his chair almost leisurely. “Feel like talking?” he asked.
“I’ve already told him everything I know.” Finn gestured at Ári without looking at the man.
“But not me.”
Finn took a moment, then sipped
his coffee experimentally. “Are you going to ask anything different?”
“Probably not. But there might be details you’d forgotten last time.”
“I didn’t kill her,” Finn said, putting the coffee mug down. “That’s the only thing that matters, right? Did I or didn’t I? And I didn’t. I keep on saying it and now I’m sick of saying it. I did not kill Erla. Okay? End of story.”
Hentze didn’t say anything. Give it time; let the first hard resolve dissipate…
“Okay, so let’s start again at the beginning, shall we?” Ári said flatly. “Saturday afternoon.”
The moment crashed to the floor and shattered.
For the next half an hour Hentze barely spoke. There was no need and no point. Ári was going to push this as hard as he could, as if badgering and cynicism would wear Finn Sólsker down rather than simply strengthen his obstinacy. It took two minutes for Finn to start saying, “On the advice of my lawyer I have no comment to make,” but still Ári pressed on, until he had been through his list of questions, each one pushing Finn Sólsker further away.
“Do you have anything to say before I conclude this interview?” Ári asked finally.
Finn didn’t bother to reply.
“Finn, now would be a good time,” Hentze said mildly. It was a final appeal but he knew it wouldn’t work. Finn shook his head.
“Very well. This interview is concluded,” Ári said.
Ári didn’t hang around. He was off to Sandoy to find Høgni Joensen, Hentze knew. Clutching at straws.
Because it was the easiest way, Hentze dealt with the release; the return of possessions, the signing of forms. Throughout it all Finn said no more than he had to, then followed Hentze to the back door of the station.
“Call Martha,” Hentze told him, unlocking the door. “Then go home. Get some sleep if you need it. When the test results come from the lab there could still be more questions.”
Finn shifted. “These tests, will they—” He changed his mind. “They’ll show you I didn’t do it. I’m telling the truth.”
“Yeh? Just not all of it, though – right?” Hentze opened the door.
For a moment Finn Sólsker looked as if he might say something to that, but then he set his shoulders and walked out.
“Call Martha,” Hentze repeated, then went back inside.
He took the open tread stairs to the third floor but as he pressed his key fob to the sensor the door opened anyway and Jósef Dimon came out.
“Hey, Jósef.” Hentze nodded.
“Hey,” Dimon said. “How’s it going with your murder case?”
Dimon was lead officer on the islands’ four-strong drugs squad; a compact, athletic man in his mid-thirties with brush-cut hair and a short-cropped beard. He was generally close-mouthed and slightly remote from the others, but a decent guy just the same.
“It might be a lot better if the airline hadn’t just lost the forensic samples,” Hentze said.
“Lost them? Shit. Maybe we should both just go home for the day.”
“Your day’s not so good either?”
“You could say.” For a moment Dimon seemed to debate how much he wanted to say, but then he gestured Hentze to move along the short corridor to the glass wall of the stairwell.
“I’ve just had an operation cancelled,” Dimon said, keeping his voice low. The stairs carried sound well. “We’ve been setting it up for a fortnight, all set for today, and then it’s called off. Not from our side: the Danes. No explanation, it’s just off. Complete waste of time. Maybe anything to do with the airline is jinxed.”
“Your stuff was flying in?”
“Yeh, the lazy way. You’d think they’d know better, but they don’t.” There was the sound of footsteps and voices below and Dimon took it as a cue to become more circumspect. “So now I have to find something else to do for the day. Or maybe I’ll just go fishing. Sometimes it’s all you can do, right?”
“Yeh, sometimes,” Hentze said.
* * *
On a map the norðoyar – the northern islands – look like long thin ripples of rock spreading away from the ragged coastline of Eysturoy. In reality, or if you look more closely at the map, they aren’t ripples but ridges, some over two and a half thousand feet high. You get the sense that they’re the crenellations of a drowned world.
It took me an hour to reach Klaksvík, the second largest town on the islands, and once through its strangely disorientating road system I followed route 70 north until it made an abrupt turn into a mountain.
So far all the tunnels I’d been through had had two traffic lanes, and they were all lit. The Árnafjarðartunnilin took me by surprise because it had no lights and the road narrowed to a single lane. It was like driving into a mine, with no indication of how far and how deep you would have to go. It was unnerving and the roughly cut passing places carved out of the rock didn’t make it any less so.
I was lucky, though. I made it through without meeting anything coming the opposite way and was finally ejected into the light on a long stretch of downhill road with a view of the narrow strait separating Borðoy from Viðoy. A bridge spanned the gap to the scattered buildings of Hvannasund on the far side, but before I got to it I slowed and took a turn to the left.
There was no sign to point the way down this side road, but if Múli was deserted I guessed there was no need. Who’d go there? Still, for the first half-mile or so the single-lane road was metalled and relatively smooth, until I crossed a cattle grid and started hitting potholes and patches of eroded tarmac. I slowed down a lot and from then on the road was a track, in places hardly more than a ledge perched on the hillside, with a two hundred foot slope to the sound on my right.
It seemed to go on for ages like this, but finally I rounded a curve in the hillside and saw a small cluster of buildings that could only be Múli, sitting in the scoop of a valley near the toe of the headland. Around the buildings there was a patchwork of fields, a few divided by dry stone walls, but most only delineated by streams and ditches, the usual Faroese way. The green-yellow shades of the grass were the colours I’d come to recognise when hay had been cut. Even if no one lived here the land couldn’t be wasted.
By the time I got to the outskirts of the place the track was just two ruts with grass in between. I let the car idle along at little better than walking pace, as far as a stone shed where there was room to pull in without blocking the way. Force of habit. Nothing moved, there was no sign of life and when I switched off the engine the only sound was the breeze through the half-open window and the tick-ticking of hot metal from the car.
When I got out the same absence of sound told me the place was deserted. It felt that way, too. It’s odd to be sure there isn’t another soul within miles, but I was. You could feel it. It was the sort of sensation that makes you want to walk quietly and make a noise, both at the same time.
I left the car and followed the track between several stone outbuildings, varying in size and proximity, with greying wooden doors and rusted tin roofs. Past them there were two houses, one higher than the other on the slope, separated by a track and a patch of overgrown grass. The larger one was also the highest so I went to look at it first: double-fronted with gabled dormers in the red tin roof and an undercroft of white-painted stone.
From a distance it had looked fairly well maintained, but that was an illusion. Closer to it I saw the window frames were rotting and the paint on the stones was flaking away. The door to the undercroft was secured by a small rusting padlock on a hasp; the same at the door round the back.
The windows were greyed with dirt and I cupped my hand against one to see through it. Inside, back-lit by an open door to a front room, there was a kitchen: cabinet doors ajar, two chairs and a small table, all looking as if they dated from the fifties. In the centre of the table there was an arrangement of dusty artificial flowers and a half-burned candle in a gilt candlestick.
I went back to the door. It wouldn’t have taken much to prise the hasp from
the wood, and for a moment I was tempted. Wasn’t that why I’d come: to walk in places Lýdia had known; to pass through the doors and go up the stairs to see what sort of view she might have looked out at?
I tugged at the padlock; rattled it hard and then harder. And then I stopped and let it drop because I recognised this for what it was. I stepped back. Drew a breath. Forty years on, it was too late to hope to walk in anyone’s footsteps.
Back at the main track I took a look at the second house, but only in passing. I felt the need to strike out and I followed the path towards the headland beyond the houses and sheds, past an overgrown potato patch and several small stone-built enclosures. On the hillside down to the sea most of the fields had been cut and the grass was baled up in green plastic bags, scattered or stacked in threes and fours, awaiting collection.
The ruts of the track finally gave out at a stone wall, but I hadn’t gone far enough so I climbed over at a low place, then followed the faint outline of a path through the wet sod. After a while, even that path faded, but it didn’t matter. I stuck to the contour of the land and followed the curve of the hill around to the west until Múli disappeared behind me and all there was was the hillside and the exposed ribs of rock strata beneath the conical summit of the mountain.
Eventually I slowed as I came to a sheepfold. Far enough. I sat down on the stones to look at the view and simply to stop. The breeze was stronger out here and across the strait the sun shone on Viðareiði’s tiny white buildings. I wished I had a cigarette to smoke, just to mark the moment, but I hadn’t.
So, had I got what I wanted?
I’d come here because it was a place she had been. But the question wasn’t really about the place; it was why had she come? It was too far from Suðuroy to make the journey without reason; too far to simply drop in for a visit. Two hours by ferry, just to reach Tórshavn, and I guessed that forty years ago – before tunnels and good linking roads – it would have taken all day to get here. So she must have stayed, at least for a few days, when she came here.
Had she brought me with her, then – had I been here, too? I guessed so. If not, I was sure Sofia Ravnsfjall would have cited it as another damning indictment of Lýdia’s behaviour: young mother abandoning her baby as well as her husband to go to the ends of the islands.