The Forgotten Dead

by Tove Alsterdal

  I took a few steps back from the bed so he wouldn’t be able to reach me with his feet.

  ‘From Patrick Cornwall,’ I said.

  It took a few seconds for Thery’s brain to process the name, which set off alarm bells, making his eyes widen and his chin drop. He started yanking on the cuffs.

  ‘What the hell?’

  I smiled as the next realization fell into place.

  ‘It’s you, you fucking bitch! Didn’t you get enough in Tarifa? Huh? Didn’t they tell you what they’re going to do to you next?’ He yanked and tugged, but the lamps were securely screwed into the wall. Highest quality, exquisite quality.

  ‘What do you want? This is fucking criminal. Take off these cuffs, or else—’

  ‘Or else, what, Alain? Or else you’ll tell your boys to throw me into the sea?’ I sat down on a small leather stool and set my gold bag on my lap.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Thery. ‘You’re crazy. Take off these cuffs before things get nasty.’

  ‘Like with Patrick Cornwall?’

  ‘He should never have got in that boat and gone out to sea, for Christ’s sake.’ Thery tried to wriggle out of the cuffs, but his hands were too big. He had the working-class fists of a man from Pas-de-Calais.

  ‘Wrong, Alain,’ I said. ‘He was never on that boat.’

  He stopped moving, and I saw how he tried to assume an expression that was worthy of a man of his social position.

  ‘I’m a businessman. I know people in the French government, in the EU parliament. Here on the sun coast too. Influential people.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, but they’re not here right now, are they?’ I looked in all directions. ‘It’s just you and me at the moment, so let’s talk. They took him out to sea, right? After they threw Mikail Yechenko off the terrace in Alfama, they followed Patrick down along the lane. Did they pick him up there, or did they wait until he got back to the hotel? By the way, how did they know where Yechenko and Patrick were going to meet?’

  ‘You’re out of your mind.’ He yanked and kicked so the covers flew off him, revealing his nakedness. I let my eyes slide over his pale body, and all I could see was Patrick’s naked body at the edge of the water. I stuck my hand in my gold bag and took out one of the two big plastic bottles. I unscrewed the top and sniffed at the contents.

  ‘I’m thinking about the fire at the hotel in Saint-Ouen. Seventeen people died, Alain. There was a little boy in there who dreamed of becoming Ronaldo, but he’s never going to kick a soccer ball again because you wanted to set an example. That’s why you sent your boys to light the fire and make sure nobody got out. Am I right? Because everybody needs to know what will happen if they try to escape from your slave camps.’

  ‘Take off these cuffs. Give me the key, and maybe I’ll let you go.’

  ‘How would you do that? We’re quite a ways out to sea by now.’

  ‘What the hell?’ He looked one way, then the other, fixing his eyes on the small windows. Outside nothing but darkness. No longer any neighbouring yachts, no glittery nightclubs.

  ‘We could go for a swim,’ I said, ‘but I’ve heard you’re not a big fan of swimming.’

  The boat came to a gentle stop, and the faint vibration from the engine ceased. I stood up and gave the bottle in my hand a slight swirl so that some of the gasoline spilled onto the wall-to-wall carpet. A sharp combustible odour instantly filled the room.

  ‘What the fuck are you up to? What are you going to do? It wasn’t me.’ His voice rose to a falsetto. ‘Those guys — they’re insane. They weren’t supposed to kill him. I told them to talk to him, pay him off so he’d stop writing all those fucking articles. Wait, stop it, putain! You’re out of your mind!’ Thery thrashed and struggled, kicking and throwing himself to the left, trying to get as far away from the line of gasoline that I slowly poured along the right side of his bed.

  I’d bought a spare fuel container at the gas station near the bus stop in Tarifa and then sat down in a vacant lot with a view of the sea. The last thing I did before leaving the town was to empty two big plastic bottles of mineral water and fill them with gasoline. Then I’d thrown the container in the bushes and made it to the bus station just as the bus for Algeciras rolled in.

  ‘Ramón, merde, Ramón, come here!’ Thery screamed at the top of his lungs. ‘I’m going to kill you, you fucking whore. Ramón!’

  I took in a deep breath.

  ‘Yes, yesss,’ I screamed even louder. ‘Kill me, Alain, hit me harder, kill me now!’

  Thery stared at me. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  I smiled. ‘I just want to assure your pal that we’re having a good time down here.’

  His eyes narrowed into slits.

  ‘Didn’t you get enough in Tarifa?’ he said. ‘Do you want to know what my friends will do to you if they find me like this?’

  ‘When they find you,’ I said, ‘they won’t recognize you at all.’ I splashed gasoline on the sheet, and Thery screamed when the fluid struck his leg.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing? I have money. How much do you want?’

  ‘What’s it worth?’ I said. ‘What did you pay James, the immigrant?’

  Thery laughed. A sick laugh that echoed, loud and hollow, before falling to the thick carpet and fading away. ‘You can have a lot more than that. What the hell.’ He gave me a pleading look. ‘Everybody knows they lie.’

  I held up the plastic bottle so the gasoline gleamed in the light from the bedside lamps. I rolled it against my cheek, feeling the intoxication of the strong smell, the dizziness from breathing in the fumes too deeply.

  ‘What about Mary Kwara?’ I said. ‘What did you do with her? Did you throw her into the sea too?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ said Thery. ‘I don’t know any fucking Mary.’

  I walked along the end of the bed, letting the bottle dribble a trail along the carpet. Then I turned and walked along the left side. Thery whimpered. I stopped pouring gasoline and leaned against the wall, looking at the pitiful expression on his face.

  ‘You could have simply denied what he wrote,’ I said. ‘You could have bought other witnesses, bribed the police, sued the magazine and scared the shit out of their lawyers. But you had to kill him, you couldn’t let him go free. Why? Because he interrupted you at dinner?’

  ‘I’m a businessman,’ whined Thery. ‘I have to think of my business.’

  ‘Don’t you have enough money? But it’s not just the money, is it? It’s the power, right? That’s what you’re after.’ I took aim and splashed some gasoline right between his legs. Thery screamed and tried to protect himself, desperately thrashing and yelling.

  ‘Yes, whip me, kill me!’ I shouted towards the ceiling. Thery spat at me, but missed his target by at least a metre.

  ‘Pute de noir,’ he snarled. ‘You bitch, you filthy whore, married to a black man. He thought he was so smart, but that idiot had no idea who he was dealing with. He never even realized they were following him, not even when his cell phone was stolen in the middle of the street in Lisbon. That American. What a fool, letting anyone read his text messages. But he thought he was really something. He thought he was smarter than me.’ Thery raised his chin and glared at me, his eyes bloodshot now, and saliva running out of his mouth. I thought he looked like a dog, a chained creature. No longer a human being. I clutched the lighter in my hand.

  ‘I told them to take him far out,’ Thery snarled. ‘Take him halfway to fucking Africa, I said, and throw him in. They said he screamed like a pig when they dumped him in the sea.’

  Slowly I leaned down and picked up a pair of red silk boxers that had been tossed on the carpet. I crumpled them up, took a step forward, and stuffed them in his gaping mouth.

  Shut up, you bastard.

  He tossed his head from side to side and arched his body to kick, but he couldn’t reach me. I studied the man thrashing around on the bed. I looked at his pale skin and wide-open eyes, his stomach sticking o
ut over his shrunken dick. I looked at the watch on his wrist, the expensive wood of the cabin, all the wealth surrounding him.

  ‘What a worthless worm you are, what a disgusting little bastard,’ I said. ‘What the hell makes you think you’re worth more than Patrick, or any of the other people who have died for all this?’

  ‘Uuuuh,’ he groaned.

  I held up the bottle again.

  ‘For Salif,’ I said, splashing gasoline on his face. ‘For Checkna, for Sambala, for the little boy who played soccer, for Mary Kwara …’

  I reached out my hand and aimed the stream of gasoline right at the red silk stuffed in his mouth.

  ‘For Patrick.’

  For a second I stood there, watching the sheet darken from the fluid. I saw death in his eyes. I felt nothing. Not even a speck of doubt.

  I flicked the lighter and held the flame towards him.

  ‘Burn in hell,’ I said, and bent down. The flame ignited the gasoline on the carpet and flared up.

  Alain Thery uttered stifled screams as the fire raced across the floor. I quickly backed away. The last thing I saw before I slammed the door behind me was a contorted face hanging from the wall, and legs thrashing back and forth as the flames engulfed the bed.

  I kicked off my stiletto heels and ran barefoot along the corridor and up the stairs. I glanced towards the Plexiglas steps that led up to the bridge where the skipper sat. The bedroom door would stop the smoke for a short time, but the fire alarm would start wailing any second.

  I raced past the galley and through the bar, throwing open the glass door to the black night. In the distance I could see the lights from shore. I tried to orient myself as I went down the stairs on the right. ‘Starboard,’ said the voice inside me, speaking in the jovial patter of the salesman. ‘That’s what we yachtsmen call it,’ he’d said.

  Europe must be the continent straight ahead, I decided as I leaned forward and grabbed hold of the lid of the diesel tank, turning it as hard as I could. Thousands of lights glittered along the whole shoreline, the beam from a lighthouse flashed right at me. It was impossible to estimate the exact distance, but it couldn’t be more than a kilometre, maybe less. Astern I could see the lights from Africa, further away, like scattered cats’ eyes gleaming in the dark. The navigation lights of a boat bobbed and then disappeared. The lid of the tank refused to budge. I grabbed it with both hands. At that instant the fire alarm went off, a screeching wail that sliced right through me and filled the whole space between the sea and the sky.

  Now the skipper is running downstairs, I thought. I couldn’t see any of the yacht’s interior through the black glass in the doors. Maybe he sees the thick smoke seeping under the door. He has to try to put out the fire. The Marquis is equipped with fire extinguishers in every room, but it will take time. At least two minutes. Maybe more, maybe less. Then Ramón will come after me, or both of them will if he’s been quick with the extinguisher and also made it to the engine room to find some sort of tool so he can free his boss. Maybe they’ll run straight up to the bridge to cut loose the tender, the extra motorboat that’s used to take passengers over to Niki Beach or for water skiing. It’s probably an inflatable jet boat. Then they’ll make their way to shore, and Alain Thery will soon be eating lunch at Taillevent again.

  This damned lid. My hands were ice cold. I twisted and turned, but the metal lid still wouldn’t budge. That’s exactly what happened when I inspected the display model in the marina. The salesman hadn’t been able to find the tool that was designed to stick in the two holes to open the lid more easily.

  The alarm filled the night with its screeching wail. The stars fell towards me.

  I threw all my weight against the lid, and finally it released its grip and turned. I lifted it off in my hand. The diesel tank was open. I threw the lid in the sea. Then I took out of my bag the sheet and the second plastic bottle, using my teeth to unscrew the top. My whole arm was shaking, and I had to grip it with my other hand as I drenched the sheet in gasoline. I thought I heard men screaming through the wail of the alarm, but it could merely have been the sound of Thery’s stifled screams echoing in my head. With stiff fingers and trembling hands I stuffed one end of the gasoline-soaked sheet into the diesel tank. The salesman had told me that tossing a match into a diesel tank wouldn’t have any effect. Diesel oil was not as flammable as gasoline. So he assured me that my boss shouldn’t be concerned about safety. We’ll see about that, I’d thought as I scrutinized the diesel tanks, which each contained 2,500 litres. An image of a Molotov cocktail had flashed before my eyes, a soaked rag burning inside a bottle of gasoline.

  Now I flicked the lighter again and held it to the very end of the sheet. The gasoline flared up, igniting the cloth. A twisting flame that quickly approached the tank.

  I jumped down the last step and ran across the yacht’s platform, which was supposed to be so great if you wanted to go swimming out at sea. I was positive I could hear screams as I pulled the skirt of my dress up to my waist and dived in.

  The water closed around me, ice cold and black, and I slid through a soft nothingness. The silence freed me from all the noise and screams. Only reluctantly did I rise back up to the surface when my lungs demanded air. The sounds instantly descended upon me, and all I could think of was to get away from the wailing, as far away as possible before the shockwave hit. Somehow my body began moving rhythmically as my legs found the strength to kick, and I began swimming towards the lights in the distance, swimming as I hadn’t swum since the days when I competed in school. Efficient strokes, don’t relax, don’t give your competitor a chance to get ahead, aim for the goal, pace yourself. The length of a swimming pool was programmed into my body. I was thirty metres from the yacht when the explosion came and turned the water yellow and orange. I dived to avoid the shockwave. I felt it approaching behind me, shooting me forward like a projectile, tumbling me around in an endless whirl. When I had no more air left in my lungs, I rose to the surface and turned around to see the water on fire. The heat reached me like a warm wind blowing across the sea.

  The tip of the sleek bow was the only thing still visible of Alain Thery’s 69-foot Marquis. The rest was roaring flames and thick black smoke. The alarm had stopped. I heard the sound of boat engines coming from the west, and I could just make out the Rock of Gibraltar in the distance. A motorboat was approaching at high speed. But much more important was the fact that no small rubber boat was moving away from the burning yacht.

  I trod water and saw a faint shift in the darkness to the east. In a couple of hours the sun would come up. Ashes would be scattered on the surface of the water, and twisted pieces of fibreglass would wash ashore. Maybe along with the bodies of those who had died at sea.

  I turned north, and with steady strokes I began swimming towards shore.

  Chapter 20

  Öresund

  Two weeks later

  ‘Keep quiet now.’ He poked his elbow into her side.

  She lowered her eyes, thinking that he didn’t need to tell her that. She hadn’t said a word since they’d crossed the first border, after going through the mountains. Night and day, sitting on the bus. It was a warm bus, with soft seats. She was travelling in comfort. She could lean back and sleep, or think about what was ahead.

  ‘Don’t answer any of the questions,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘You’re a woman. You don’t speak. They understand that. They know how things are.’ He tapped his chest. ‘I’ll do the talking.’

  Then he stuck the earphones back in, and she faintly heard the beat of the music he was listening to. She turned to look out of the window. Never before had she seen so many different variations of grey. The sky was a pale grey, with dark grey clouds scudding past. The pavement was steel grey under the wheels of the bus, and the smoke from the numerous tall chimneys rose up to the clouds, blending the grey of its plumes with the sky. The grass swaying at the side of the road was yellowish grey.

  She thought about her new name. The one in th
e passport.

  The picture didn’t look much like her. The name felt like chafed feet.

  A person is not her name, she thought. When the last people have forgotten me, I will be gone.

  And she thought about Sefi, who would soon be married. Sefi would have chattered the whole way. It was a good thing she wasn’t the one travelling. Sefi would have settled for a beautiful warm bed to sleep in, and her own room with a view through the narrow slit in the window. She would not have gone to Cádiz, and the family would have been mired in debt for ever. If Sefi had come to Europe, her mother would never have been able to get a house.

  Mary Kwara put a hand to her throat as the signs approached. She didn’t want the man to see that she was curious. The text rushed past, telling her nothing, but she memorized the names all the same. Some of them she would later forget, just as she’d forgotten Barcelona and Perpignan and Stuttgart as they disappeared behind her. She wondered how far north you would have to go before the earth curved downwards again.

  Malmö, she thought. Sweden. København. An aeroplane thundered past, flying low overhead.

  She would do what they’d decided. Her mother had made a deal with the men who had lent her money for the trip. They were cousins of someone she knew. ‘They’ll get you a job. They’ll arrange for the proper papers,’ her mother had said. Her maternal grandmother had wanted to give her an amulet to wear around her neck to protect her from evil spirits and the infection. ‘Witchcraft,’ her mother had snapped. ‘They don’t have that in Europe.’ Mary had left the amulet behind, but she’d memorized the address of the man in Cádiz.

  She would never tell anyone about the journey. Her mother wouldn’t want to know. Sefi would start crying. Her brothers were in South-South and could not find work. They spent their money on burukutu, drinking themselves senseless.

  But she had told the man in Cádiz about the crooks who had thrown the people in the sea. ‘They have nothing to do with us,’ he’d told her. ‘They were crooks. It’s a bad business.’

  Last exit in Denmark, it said on a new sign.