So he was alive, thank God. But he was in a lot of trouble.
She thought about phoning the pastor to let him know, but decided against it. She had interrupted him enough, and anyway he would be here again in only two hours’ time.
Martha had arrived early, had driven through the dark, partly because she had been unable to sleep. But also because she wanted to do some searching of her own. It was maybe clutching at straws, but she wanted to take a look in Håkon’s garage. She wasn’t searching for anything specific - she wished she was. She was simply hoping to find something that would explain what was going on, what her brother had got himself mixed up in.
When she went into the garage she pulled her hat down over her ears and her scarf up around her face. Inside the unlit building the temperature seemed about ten degrees lower than out in the open air, and her breath condensed as she moved around, shining her torch under work-benches and over piles of junk.
She searched for perhaps an hour, picking through the flotsam of her brother’s life - her older brother who had once, a long time ago, been a source of support and guidance but was now a perpetual worry. In contrast to the sparseness of his house, the garage was like a shrine to clutter, a museum of artefacts that had once had a place in the house: old furniture, a broken fridge, cooking pots blackened with age and mishandling. In the deepest corner of the garage there was a wardrobe. Martha opened the door and jumped back in fright when she saw there was a dog in it, a stuffed dog that she had almost forgotten about. In its lifetime the animal had been Håkon’s constant companion. He had bought it when he was in his twenties, as soon as he got a place of his own. It had accompanied him on his hunting trips and had even had its own armchair in the house. After it died he’d had it stuffed, and for years it stood in the living room, still wearing its collar, as if ready for action. Martha remembered how her mother would shake her head at the sight of it and lament that no woman would ever marry Håkon now.
She closed the door of the wardrobe and continued searching, but found nothing that helped her. One thing that she did find was not encouraging, the big petrol container that her brother kept in his vehicle when he was hunting, to tide him over if he ventured into a particularly remote area, far from filling stations. She would not have expected it to be there – not if he was on the run from the police.
She had almost finished when she heard a noise outside. She went out quickly, hoping to see Håkon. But there was no-one, and when the noise came again she realised it was just snow, catching the sun’s rays and dropping from the branch of a tree.
She locked the garage and went back inside the house, then sat in the armchair under the elk head. That was another thing that didn’t seem right, the elk head. The police had moved it during their search, in case it concealed a safe or a hole in the wall. It was still uneven, the antlers tilted at an angle rather than horizontal. If Håkon really had been back, he would surely have straightened it. It was one of the very few things he was fastidious about, the head of the first elk he had ever shot, decades ago. He’d had even had it re-stuffed a few years back, had taken it all the way to Sweden to have the work done by some taxidermist that he knew, the same man who’d done the dog.
Martha brought a dining chair over from the table, stepped up on it and tried to straighten the head. As she did so, one of the antlers moved in her hand and made a loud click. For a horrible moment she thought she had broken it, but when she twisted the antler again it made a different sort of click and the head separated itself from the board that fixed it to the wall. Martha could now see that the board was actually two pieces of wood, not one, and that they were held together by a long hinge. She pulled the antler around. It moved only a few centimetres before the other antler knocked against the wall, but that was enough to let her see that the head itself was hollow.
Tentatively she reached her hand inside. There was something, a bundle of papers held together by a rubber band. She took it out carefully then stepped down from the chair. She put the papers on the table and removed the rubber band.
On top of the bundle was an envelope containing money. She counted ten thousand kroner in notes, much more than she would have expected Håkon to have. Then there was an envelope with a key in it. She didn’t recognise it and had no idea what it opened. Then there was a bank book, for an account in the name of her grandson. She opened it and saw that only two deposits had been made, one four years ago and the other two years ago. In the final envelope there was an old black-and-white photograph of a blonde girl standing in front of a house. Martha thought she recognised the girl, from her own school days, a tall girl who had always looked older - more developed - than her years. But even if she hadn’t recognised her, Martha would have been able to place the girl from the house. It was the old house that had once been the pastor’s accommodation, until falling numbers caused the church to move to a smaller property lower down the valley.
In the last envelope there was a picture of the same girl, now looking a little older and holding a baby.
Martha turned the picture over and saw faded handwriting. It was too faint to read in the poorly lit room, so she took it over to the window. It said, Your son, now baptised Olav, born Kampala 7 April, 1971. Although Mr and Mrs K. are very kind and forgiving, Olav and I are hoping – after your last letter – that you will help us come home. Please write again soon.
Chapter 35
Dressed in a hospital gown, Cally was sitting on a high-backed chair, watching Neep. During the night, after opening the window to ease the stuffy conditions in their little side-ward, she had managed a few hours of fitful sleep - until the sounds of early-morning traffic woke her. Since then she had been at Neep’s bedside. Through the window behind him she had seen the stars gradually fade, and then the sky gradually lighten as the new day began.
Neep had slept all night - thanks, no doubt, to the drugs in the drip-bag that hung from a stand by his bed.
He had been in a desperate state by the time the ambulance reached Lillehammer. During the long drive he groaned at every bump in the road, but the paramedics told Cally they couldn’t give him anything for the pain, in case he needed surgery. When they finally arrived at the hospital he was wheeled straight into Emergency. Almost an hour passed before a doctor came out to tell Cally he was not in danger. He had a broken nose and several broken ribs, and he was concussed. The medics thought that surgery would not be needed, but they wanted to observe and monitor, in case there was any internal damage.
In the daylight, Neep looked bad - really bad. His head was a swollen mess of cuts and bruises. But at least he was alive. Cally knew that Richard was dead, his throat cut by the man she had battered in the garage. She hoped she had killed him.
In the ambulance Neep had given her a garbled narrative, with a lot of tearful guilt mixed in - guilt about being physically unfit, and about being too much of a coward to fire a gun. He clearly held himself responsible for Richard’s death. But Cally knew that she was equally to blame. Richard had only signed up for the ski trip to help her, she was certain of that. He was due to submit his thesis by Easter, and he should have been in his study working on it, not holidaying in the mountains.
During all the time she had been planning this ski tour, she now realised, she had only ever thought about the benefits that she would get from it: a dramatically clean bill of health and a final sign-off from Dr Anne. Cally Douglas would be declared to be a normal person who could take her rightful place in society - without any further need to worry that her psychiatrist might slap a section on her, for ongoing drug addiction, historic prostitution and occasional abetting of theft from shops.
But now one friend was dead and another was badly injured. And her pathetically insignificant bid for normality was falling apart. In the last few days she had suffered one full-blown episode and had a near-miss with another. And now, without any benzos, or any way of getting them, she was destined to have several more episodes, starting very soon. All of which
would be witnessed and recorded by members of the medical profession, and duly communicated to Dr Anne.
Cally had been trying her best to get some drugs. After the paramedics had checked her out at the cabin and wrapped her in blankets, she asked them for some sedatives. They refused point blank. She tried her luck again when the hospital doctor was examining her elbow, told him she was taking benzodiazepine on prescription and would very much like some right now, please. But he fobbed her off with a few painkillers, and got someone to put her arm in a sling.
He finally offered her some sleeping pills, which she accepted gratefully. But he gave her just two pills, miserably tiny things, and they had no effect whatsoever. They didn’t help her sleep, and they didn’t take away the withdrawal symptoms she was already feeling, the jumpiness, the sweating palms, the feeling that someone had transfused a solution of acid into her blood. She needed some strong drugs and she needed them soon. Her own packet of benzos was in her rucksack, last spotted in a cabin that had now been blown to pieces.
She tried to console herself with the big, important fact that she was alive - and was in a safe and warm place.
Last night the nurses had let her take a shower, and then they gave her a meal before putting her and Neep in this small room with its two sections, a bed in each section and a chair by each bed. After the hardship and squalor of the last couple of days it seemed a sanitised and ordered environment, with magazines in a rack and with a white wall-clock whose second-hand had ticked the night away.
They had been left in peace until just before six, when a nurse came in to do something to Neep’s drip-bag. At seven thirty there had been sounds of people coming and going in the corridor and now, at seven forty-five, Cally was aware of footsteps stopping outside the door. A nurse came in, not the one who had been in earlier, and said, “Miss Elin Olsen from Vesterheim Mountain Hotel is here, with some of your belongings. Are you willing to see her, or shall I just take your things from her?”
Cally said, “It’s fine. I’m happy to see her.”
Neep stirred at the sound of voices.
When Elin Olsen came in, incongruously pushing a wheel-chair with three black bin-bags on the seat, Cally could see the worry and tiredness on her face. In the space of a few days the hotelier seemed to have aged several years.
Elin looked at Cally’s sling. “How are you?” she asked. “We heard such dreadful rumours, but no one is saying exactly what happened.”
Cally side-stepped the obvious invitation. She said, “I’m okay. Neep got the worst of it.”
Neep was now fully awake. He tried to sit up but then slumped back. At the sight of his face Elin put her hand to her mouth.
Cally unhooked the little control-pad from the foot of Neep’s bed and pushed the button that would raise him into a sitting position. She knew exactly how to operate it. She had tried so many combinations on her own bed during the night, in the attempt to get comfortable.
Neep raised a hand in greeting, and tried to smile.
Elin didn’t seem to know what to say. She pointed to the bin-bags. “I brought you these, the bags you left at my house. I thought you might need a change of clothes.” She looked around and said, “Mr Slater’s bag is there as well . . .”
Once again Cally turned down the implied invitation to tell the story. She opened a cupboard and moved the bags into it. “Thanks,” she said. “It’s good of you. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do without driving all the way to Lillehammer for our sakes.”
The woman still seemed lost for words. “I don’t have so much to do now. The police have closed the hotel.”
She was clearly at the end of her tether. Cally helped her sit down on the wheelchair.
After a moment Elin said, “There was a telephone call to the police late last night, saying that there was a bomb in the hotel. The police expected a hoax, but when they came to check they found what they are calling an explosive device. It was a small one, they said, but big enough to cause a lot of panic. And so they evacuated the building. There weren’t many guests, and we got them into a hotel in Vinstra. Then I stayed in my house with the staff for a few hours until the police told us they had received a second phone call, saying there was another bomb. So they told us we had to evacuate the house as well. I’ve come to Lillehammer with the cook and his wife, in their car.”
Cally waited for a break in Elin’s speed-talking, then poured a glass of water and made her drink it, hoping it would calm her. However as soon as she put the glass down, Elin started again. “We were supposed to have an event for kids this weekend. But the police have served some kind of closure order on the hotel. The boss of the charity that organised the event has been up all night, phoning other hotels, and he has found two that can each take half the group. They aren’t far from here, in the hills above Lillehammer. I’m going up to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”
She finally stopped talking when the door opened and a doctor came into the room. Cally recognised him from the previous day. When he saw Elin he was clearly horrified. “I’m sorry,” he said. “The police have told us that no visitors are allowed. I expect the day-shift nurses don’t know about that yet. I need to ask you to leave. And please go quickly, for the police are in the ward now and they have just reminded me about the no visitors rule”.
Elin got up from the wheelchair. She gave Cally a frail sort of hug and said. “I’ll try to look in again later today with some toothpaste and shampoo, and maybe some clothes. I can leave them with the nurse.”
And then she was walking along the corridor, back to her problems.
Cally hoped she would be alright.
The doctor was already at Neep’s bedside. He fixed a clamp to Neep’s finger and while he was studying the display on it he asked, “How are you this morning?”
“I’m a lot better, thanks.”
“Are you feeling any pain?”
“I’m not feeling anything at all.”
“Don’t worry. We gave you a very strong painkiller and something to help you sleep. The nurse changed your medication a couple of hours ago, and you should be a lot brighter soon.”
He shone a torch in Neep’s eyes, seemed satisfied by what he saw, and then said, “Mr Newton, can you tell me where we are?”
“In hospital in Lillehammer.”
“Can you remember coming here?”
“Not all of it. I remember Cally saving my life. But then it’s all a blank until we got here and I could see a lot of worried faces looking down at me. Then I slept – until Cally’s snoring woke me up.”
The doctor laughed and turned to Cally. “So the sleeping tablets worked?”
Cally tried not to glare at Neep. She said, “Not very well. To be honest I’d prefer some benzodiazepine. I think I told you I take it on prescription?”
“Yes, you did.” The doctor held her gaze. He said, “I’ll go along to the pharmacy department when it opens, and see what they can do for you. But right now I need to ask you both if you feel well enough to speak to the police. They’re waiting at the desk now and they tell us – like they usually do – that it’s urgent”.
Cally waited for Neep to nod his assent and then said, “It’s not a problem. We’re happy to do all we can to help them catch the people who did this to us.”
The doctor pointed to an orange button on the headboard of Neep’s bed. “I’ll be just along the corridor,” he said. “If you need me you only have to press this buzzer.”
He had been gone for just a couple of minutes when two policemen came in. Cally was surprised by their stern faces.
The officers moved the two chairs together, in the centre of the room. Elin had left the wheelchair behind, so Cally pushed it over to Neep’s bed and sat on it. She tried a smile but it had no effect.
The older of the two men said, “I am Inspector Dahle and this is Police Sergeant Holt. We are now in charge of this investigation. I will start by saying that, following the statements that you made to our co
lleagues here yesterday, we have had officers out in the mountains all night. Although the weather conditions were bad and snow was falling, they were able to find the isolated cabin in the position you described. As you had reported, the main door has been damaged.”
The inspector paused. “The officers gained entry to the side-building and established that it was empty.”
Cally looked at him in disbelief. “They must have gone to the wrong cabin!”
“No, it was the correct cabin. Otherwise they would not have been able to use your key to open the padlock.”
Cally was aware of Neep taking her hand.
“Our officers also went to the hut known as Bergbu and it too was empty. There was no rucksack and there were no skis. And there was no dead body behind the hut. Nor were our officers able to locate a dead skier at the bottom of a cliff.”
Neep was now gripping Cally’s hand very tightly.
“The lakeside cabin where you were found yesterday afternoon has been destroyed and so has its garage. But the fire crew have searched the wreckage and have not found a dead body in the garage, although you said they would. Our own specialist officers will make a search as soon as the site has been declared safe.”
Inspector Dahle paused and then said, “So, the only real evidence of criminal behaviour that we have is a totally destroyed cabin by a lake and a slightly damaged hut in the mountains.”
He closed his notebook. “And we have two Scottish people who have a lot of explaining to do – especially as they have already admitted to causing the damage to both sites. I should also say that the third Scottish person, whom you say has been killed, but whose body we cannot find, happens to be someone we want to interview in connection with explosives that have been found at Vesterheim hotel where he recently spent two nights. We particularly want to interview him because he has a serious previous conviction.”
Cally said, “What do you mean serious previous conviction?”
The Red Mitten Page 20