Resin

by Ane Riel

  ★

  Roald scratched his head as he studied the contents of the fridge. He was pretty sure there had been two foil trays of Dauphinoise potatoes rather than just one. He was also fairly sure that he had put a bottle of fizzy lemon pop near the front of the shelf before going to bed. He looked about him. There were no other signs to indicate that someone had been in the pub kitchen.

  His initial conclusion was that one of the guests must have sneaked down to the kitchen and helped himself to a late-night snack. But it still didn’t add up. This had become a regular occurrence, every few days at times, and in between he would notice that things other than food had gone missing. Odd things. One morning he had searched in vain for a deck of cards he was certain he had left on the kitchen table the night before; another time, the chef discovered that a saucepan was missing. By now there had been countless incidents, all of which defied explanation.

  Now, the chef himself might be the culprit, but it seemed highly unlikely. He simply wasn’t like that. Roald couldn’t think of a more trustworthy man than his culinary-skilled distant cousin, and he refused to believe that the man would jeopardize his trusted position through impulsive and insignificant petty thefts.

  Besides, the chef reacted with total composure whenever he discovered that something was missing. He simply laughed it off. He laughed everything off. Then again, to claim that he was in complete control of his kitchen and the items in the stock room would be something of an exaggeration. In fact, the chef probably suspected Roald of sneaking down at night to scoff the leftovers. When he hinted at this with a glint in his eye, Roald would protest vociferously, but he couldn’t help laughing too, and that was always the end of that.

  But then who could it be? Who on earth would want to help themselves to leftovers and decks of cards and ballpoint pens and fizzy pop and tinned tuna from the stock room? And how did they do it?

  That night there had been no guests staying over at the pub so the possibility that the thief might be a guest was now completely eliminated.

  Roald left the kitchen and walked down the short back stairs to the small corridor that led to the stock room. It took him some time to realize that some rolls of kitchen towel, a few packets of crispbread and crackers, several tins of tomatoes, some sausages, possibly a jar of honey and definitely a large bag of biscuits … and some bubble wrap were missing. Yes, there had definitely been a lot of bubble wrap in the big cardboard box in which the new trouser press had been delivered. And now it was gone.

  Bubble wrap? Who would nick that? The gloves that Roald wore whenever he handled frozen goods were also gone.

  As he walked back through the corridor he stopped for a moment and looked up at the small, rectangular basement window, which as usual was ajar, because fresh air was good for you. But surely no one could get in through that window. It was impossible.

  The kitchen was closed for the next fortnight because, for the first time in twenty years, the chef had decided to take a proper holiday. He and his wife were taking a trip to the mainland but might return sooner than planned if they didn’t enjoy being away.

  Given that the public bar and several of the first-floor guest rooms were in need of painting and various minor repairs, Roald decided to deal with that at the same time and pretty much close the pub in the meantime. He could carry out the work himself, thank God, which would bring the cost down. If he did find himself in need of help after all, he knew who to ask: the regulars were keen to return to their watering hole and were willing to don a boiler suit, if that was what it took. Especially if it also involved beer. Roald, however, had initially turned them down because he wanted some time to himself.

  He made a quick decision. He took out a bag of flour and left it in the kitchen. Before he went to bed that night he would sprinkle a very fine layer across the floor. He could always sweep it up the next day. He intended to do this for the next few nights now that he knew that he was the only one going into the kitchen. Never mind the hassle of sweeping it up, Roald needed to know what was going on.

  To add to the fun, he left a broken pencil, six liquorice pastilles and a deck of cards on the table. And he put exactly twenty-five slices of salami on a plate in the fridge, as well as ten slices of ham and five rings of red pepper.

  The first five mornings he inspected the kitchen there were no signs of anything amiss. The sixth morning the pencil was gone, as were three of the pastilles, seven slices of salami, two slices of ham and one ring of red pepper. And there were footprints in the flour between the fridge and the kitchen table and the door to the basement corridor. Roald squatted down on his haunches and stared, baffled, at the clearest of the prints. It was very small. It had to be a child.

  When he followed the footprints out into the corridor and below the window, the penny dropped. With a little bit of ingenuity, a child might be able to get in and out that way.

  But a child? At night?

  And why steal bubble wrap?

  While Roald was repairing a strip of flooring in a first-floor guest room, his thoughts circled around the night-time visits. He wished more than anything that he could dismiss them as an innocent childish prank, but it was impossible. A child who regularly stole food and flour and saucepans and kitchen towels must be a child in need.

  However, there were no children in need in Korsted. Judging by the size of the shoeprint, it was a young child. A boy, he imagined, without questioning why he thought so.

  Roald wouldn’t claim to know every child in town, yet he knew quite a few and thought he had a fair idea of who they were and where they lived. Not one of them fitted the narrative playing out in the pub kitchen in any way. The baker’s three boys were fond of making mischief, but they couldn’t possibly be behind the break-ins. Roald’s reasoning was partly that he didn’t think any of them would be able to squeeze through the narrow window but, more importantly, he was convinced that they would have woken up everyone in the pub before they even reached the back of the house. The boys were much noisier than other people’s children. Even when they played sleeping lions, you had to press your hands over your ears. Whenever Roald encountered the three boys and the volume of the noise they made, he was overcome by spontaneous gratitude at being childless. He pitied the sixth-form teacher who would one day do battle with their hormones.

  On the other hand, Roald’s heart nearly exploded with joy whenever he saw the police officer’s daughter. She was the loveliest, tiniest human being he knew. Always wore a dress and had her hair in plaits, as if she lived in a Little House on the Prairie, rather than a large, yellow-brick house in the middle of the high street. And her name was Laura; it was almost too good to be true. But apart from Roald’s heart, little Laura was unlikely ever to have stolen anything.

  So who could it be? He went through the children one by one, and he couldn’t imagine any one of them sneaking out at night to go scavenging for food. Everyone had what they needed, as far as he was aware. And if they brought home stolen goods, surely their parents would start noticing eventually, for goodness’ sake.

  Roald had always been very careful not to spread rumours in the public bar, and for that reason he had kept his knowledge of the thefts to himself. On one occasion he had asked some of the regulars in a roundabout way if there were people on the island suffering actual hardship, people who found it difficult to make ends meet.

  The regulars had scratched their heads and suggested a slightly down-at-heel old woman with a pram who often wandered around the junkyard. And then there was the village idiot from the derelict farm with the Shetland ponies. And the three drunkards who lived in a lean-to near the ferry berth, or at least they had done so recently.

  However, the regulars had soon agreed that none of these people were in dire need. The drunkards looked like they had enough to drink, the village idiot had enough to eat – at least, considerably more than his poor ponies. And it was believed that the old lady with the pram lived in a nice thatched cottage on the road to Sønde
rby – with a neatly trimmed box hedge and a fine little windmill in her front garden. Her husband was a retired bookkeeper. She was just crazy.

  And then there was Jens Horder on the Head; now he had always been a bit odd and difficult to get close to. He drove around with a lot of junk, but that didn’t necessarily equal hardship, and he certainly had plenty of stuff at home. Nor was his wife thought to suffer serious hardship because, according to the postman, she had grown quite big. By the way, it was a very long time since anyone had seen her south of the Head.

  Horder had a child, Roald remembered. Had. Everyone on the island knew that the poor girl had died at sea. Imagine being a parent struck by such a tragedy. It didn’t make it any less tragic that a few years earlier they had lost a baby, also in an accident. As far as Roald had gathered, it had been the girl’s twin brother. How cruel is fate allowed to be? So if you weren’t already a little odd, surely such experiences would make you so.

  Roald remembered the sound of the helicopter restlessly criss-crossing the island and the shoreline during the search for the girl. If only they had found a body.

  You would surely reach that point eventually. Wanting to find the body. At some stage, hope would die like a tired fire and become a small, glowing wish. It was better than nothing.

  Imagine getting to that point.

  The strip of flooring was in place, and he shifted back slightly to look at it. At least that wasn’t going anywhere.

  So it couldn’t be Horder’s child, either. For obvious reasons.

  Could it be a dwarf?

  He dismissed the thought and got up. If a hungry dwarf with a penchant for bubble wrap lived somewhere on the island, he would undoubtedly have heard about it.

  He needed a beer.

  Roald flopped into the office chair and stared at the telephone. The curved black handle lay neatly across the cradle. The glossy Bakelite had grown a little dull from being held by sweaty hands, and the once so transparent dial had taken on a taupe hue of dust and dirt. Roald took a swig of his beer.

  He knew that he ought to contact the police. He had built up an excellent relationship with the police officer, who was a sympathetic man, when you could get him off duty.

  But still he hesitated. Why?

  After the next gulp he had made up his mind. He wiped the froth off his lips and set the empty bottle down on the table. He would start by trying to get to the bottom of this himself. There was no need to make a big drama out of it, and the police officer wasn’t going anywhere.

  There had always been a few days between the night-time visits, so Roald waited four days. On the fifth evening he went to bed early and caught a few hours of shut-eye before getting up around midnight. Then he tiptoed down to the kitchen and began his vigil. He had set out various items and had even fetched a pile of Donald Duck comics from the bookcase on the landing. On the rare occasions that children were among the pub’s visitors, the comics were usually a hit. Now they were laid out on the kitchen table.

  If only he had been able to turn on the light, then he would have been able to read a book, or a Donald Duck comic, for that matter, but it was out of the question. Any kind of light would be seen through the windows. At one point he fell asleep, slumped across the small table where he was sitting, and around five in the morning he was woken up by pins and needles in his arm. The house was as quiet as the grave, and he tiptoed back upstairs to bed.

  Another few nights passed in a similar fashion: no visits. And then, finally, on Monday night something happened. This time Roald had brewed himself a cup of strong coffee in the hope that it would keep him up until the early morning, and at two thirty he was still wide awake. His mind was focused and his thoughts moved calmly back and forth between tax accounts, whisky stocks, ex-colleagues and his ex-wife to pest control and pools football. He was even enjoying sitting here, thinking, while everyone else was asleep. Outside, the wind was blowing just enough for the pub sign to squeak on its hinges, and a branch from a bush scratched the wall softly.

  And then suddenly another sound came from the back of the building. It was quite faint, but it was there. He got up as quietly as he could and retreated to his hiding place in the corner, next to the dining room. He was able to squeeze in next to a tall cupboard and stand unnoticed in the darkness.

  Soon he heard the handle on the door to the corridor being pushed slowly down. It wasn’t in his field of vision. But the fridge was. And soon the boy was too.

  Roald held his breath as he saw the small figure approach the fridge. If it hadn’t been for his eyes adjusting to the darkness over the previous few hours, he wouldn’t have been able to see a thing, but now he could clearly see the contours of a small boy. Shortish hair, slim build, and holding a large bag, possibly a rucksack, in his hand. He moved with impressive lightness and didn’t make a sound. Roald couldn’t hear a single one of his footsteps.

  The boy didn’t turn on the light, but he evidently knew his way to the fridge. He opened the fridge door, only very slightly, but enough to see what it contained. As he had his back to Roald, his face wasn’t revealed by the fridge light, but Roald had time to catch sight of dark, straggly hair and a brown-and-orange-striped sweater. The next moment, the boy took out a foil tray and closed the fridge door. He stayed where he was, sniffing the tray, which contained the leftovers of the meal Roald had cooked for himself the night before. Spaghetti Bolognese. It wasn’t at all bad.

  The boy ate a little with his fingers before putting the foil tray back, quickly and noiselessly, apart from the hissing sound which the door made when the rubber strips found one another again. Then he licked his fingers clean and turned to the table where Roald had been sitting. His hand reached the Donald Duck comics and, for a brief second, a tiny beam of light revealed Scrooge McDuck’s face. Then it was dark again. The boy put his rucksack on the table, took some magazines from the bottom of the pile and put them in his bag. Then his hand sought out the small glass bowl with sweets, and there was a momentary flash of multiple colours. He grabbed a handful and let liquorice pastilles and gummy bears trickle into a side pocket of his rucksack. A single pastille missed; it hit the floor with a small ping and rattled over the floor tiles.

  The boy stood stock-still and listened out while he waited. Roald did likewise. No noise came from the rest of the house. Then the boy bent down, felt with his hands across the floor until he found the pastille and popped it into his mouth.

  Was he going to take anything else? Continue to the stock room? Roald didn’t want to reveal himself yet. To his amazement, he was not only intrigued but also overcome with a strange tenderness towards his shy guest. There was something infinitely tragic about how skilled the boy was at executing his routine. Roald felt no anger at all, only compassion. And wonder.

  The boy began exploring drawers and cupboards with great caution. At times the small cone of light would strike something, but only ever as a flash. Something was fished out of a drawer and put in the rucksack. Roald tried guessing what it might be. A hand whisk, possibly. The boy also took a pair of oven mitts, or possibly just the one. Then he suddenly hoisted up the rucksack and went back to the door.

  Roald hesitated. Was now the time to make himself known? Should he step forward, clear his throat? The boy would probably get the shock of his life if he did. Perhaps he had better wait until the kid was on his way out of the window? Why the hell hadn’t he made a plan of his own?

  The boy disappeared out of Roald’s field of vision. A faint squeak revealed that the door had been opened and closed. Soon afterwards there was a barely audible sound from the corridor; it came from the door to the stock room. If Roald hadn’t been expecting the sound, he would never have heard it. It might easily have been the wind. For a moment he hesitated in his hideout next to the cupboard, trying to collect his thoughts.

  Finally he came forward. He didn’t head for the door to the corridor, although he knew that his stock room was in the process of being raided. He slipped out of anot
her door – through the living room, out into the hall, out through the front door. He moved more silently than he had ever done, and thanked the wind for being a little noisier now. When he had closed the heavy front door carefully behind him, he turned to the small reception area in front of the pub. In one of the flower beds a couple of large bushes were swaying in the glow from the streetlight. Apart from that, everything was quiet.

  The road to the north was just as deserted as the reception area. At that time of night any human activity would have been strange. Roald walked softly along the front of the pub until he reached the corner, from where he had a view of the driveway round to the back and thus the open basement window. The light from the nearest street lamp didn’t reach this far, but a crescent moon threw a faint glow over the gravel and the pub.

  The first item to appear might well be toilet paper. An economy pack of twelve, which you could just about squeeze through the window frame. Afterwards, followed … a roll of some sort? Maybe oilcloth. Then the rucksack. Two skinny arms in a stripy jumper arranged everything outside to make room.

  And then the child followed.

  After he had climbed out, the boy left the window ajar, as he had found it. Then he put on the rucksack, picked up the toilet paper and the oilcloth and moved almost silently across the gravel and out on to the tarmac road. Roald stared after him. He still couldn’t decide whether to make himself known to the boy.

  So instead he followed him. In the shadows.

  The boy didn’t run, not really, but neither did he walk. There was something floating about his gait. Roald was reminded of indigenous people and Asian field workers who carried heavy loads over long distances.

  However, what puzzled Roald wasn’t so much the gait. It was the direction. The child was following the road northwards. Did he live in one of the houses scattered along the road a little further up? Were there even children his age living there?