As Elsa turned left up a narrow road that wound to the left, the players stopped to watch. The road surface was dusty, the grass at the side spattered with dried mud. We reached the top of the rise. Elsa parked the car, got out. I got out too. In front of us a hole, three storeys deep, and behind it a towering wall of rock. Around the edges of the pit stood vast industrial machines: earth movers; cranes; pile drivers.
‘And this is definitely the address you came to?’ I said.
‘Some church, Mum,’ said Vee.
‘Vee,’ I said, ‘not the time.’
Angry tears were forming in Elsa’s eyes. ‘I should have taken a telephone number from someone, or gotten an email or a name … I just didn’t think …’
I took her in my arms. ‘This is a blow, love,’ I said. ‘But we’ll tell Tvist about the house church, and maybe he’ll turn something up.’
13
My brother Dan came for the memorial service. I was late to the airport. He was standing there, alone in a black suit, hair cropped close, a tan leather bag slung across his shoulder, coffee in hand.
‘The traffic,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Christ man, don’t be daft. I would have met you at the kirk. C’mere.’ He dropped his bag to the ground, bear-hugged me. Always the older brother, though there was only a year between us.
There was whisky on his breath, though. I stepped back. A tracery of red veins in the whites of his eyes.
‘You didn’t sleep on the flight,’ I said. ‘Did you?’
‘Wrong way round, pal.’ He laughed, shook his head. ‘You don’t get to worry about me.’ His eyes were searching my face, all brotherly concern.
‘We’re getting by,’ I said.
‘Right. Yeah.’ He exhaled heavily. There was something more than concern in his eyes. Something more like grief. He ran the palm of his right hand across his right eye, blinked hard. ‘The station are being understanding,’ he said. ‘So’s Daisy. She wanted us all to be here, but we didn’t feel we could take Lyndon out of school.’
‘Dan, the official line is that Licia’s coming back. Great if Vee could hear that from you as well as us.’
‘Aye. Sure.’ He nodded, swallowed. ‘What’s your instinct, Cal?’
‘My instinct is she’s coming back.’
He was searching my eyes. Perhaps he heard the catch in my voice.
Brake lights in front flashed twice. I cut and swerved to the inside lane, swore under my breath. We came to a stop.
‘Hate it when that happens. You OK?’
‘Are you?’ said Dan.
My phone began to ring. I checked the mirror. Gridlock in front. Gridlock behind. I unclipped and unjammed my seatbelt, let it flow back into the reel, reattached it. Dan did the same.
I answered the phone hands-free.
That rich voice filled the car. ‘Cal Curtis? It’s Ephraim Tvist.’
I felt my brother’s eyes on me.
‘Hello,’ I said.
I heard Tvist say, ‘A girl matching your daughter’s description …’ I felt my muscles tense against the news I was sure was to come. Licia’s body, borne by the currents … I avoided my brother’s eye.
‘A girl matching Licia’s description?’
‘… saved the life of a young boy. Got him out of the woods and into the water. While she was in the woods she appears to have jettisoned an ammunition box along with the silver bracelet. I thought you’d want to know. Cal, the men ran out of bullets. When my tactical unit arrived they offered no resistance. It seems your daughter may have shortened the massacre.’
‘Oh my God.’
The relief was overwhelming. I felt Dan’s hand gripping my arm. I could almost see the smile on Tvist’s face. ‘I wanted you to hear it from me and not from the press, Cal. You will have many questions, I’m sure, but a piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. We shall speak more.’ And he was gone.
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Fuck.’
‘That’s my Licia,’ said Dan. ‘You can be proud.’
‘So fucking proud.’
‘We both know Licia’s a survivor, Cal.’
I took the roundabout at the top of the slip road, turned left across the bridge that crossed the highway.
‘Just the one wee note of caution,’ said Dan. ‘You do understand that man has already released this story to the press?’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I’d say that’s pretty much what he was telling you.’
Elsa was fresh from the shower, hair wet, a towel knotted over her breasts.
Dan stepped into her waiting arms. ‘Good to see you, darling. Wish the circumstances …’
‘Circumstances just improved a little,’ said Elsa. ‘I think.’
‘Dan, tell Mum we have five minutes. She literally needs to get dressed now.’ Vee was standing, impatient for her mother to end the embrace, in a blue sequinned dress exactly like her sister’s, a thin black cardigan across her shoulders.
‘A journalist rang,’ said Elsa, eyes shining, ‘to tell me Licia saved a little boy. Called her the hero of Garden Island. Said she ended the massacre.’
‘Yeah. Tvist rang me,’ I said.
‘So this can only be good,’ said Elsa. ‘Right?’
Dan stepped away from Elsa. ‘I’d maybe switch your phones off for the next couple of days. Give some thought to how you manage this.’
Confusion in Elsa’s eyes. ‘Manage this?’
‘Mum,’ said Vee, ‘you really need to get ready.’
Elsa looked at Vee, seemed to see for the first time the kingfisher dress. Vee crossed her arms self-consciously across her body, drew the cardigan tight.
‘Where’s the dress from, Vee?’ I said.
‘Julie,’ said Vee, suddenly defensive.
‘Because it looks awfully like …’
‘Are those your sister’s shoes?’ said Elsa, her voice full of simmering fury.
Vee, defiant, all jutting angles. Her mother staring daggers. Was that what she had found on the island? Her sister’s dress.
I saw the tremble in Vee’s jaw, saw the clenching of her right fist, saw the nail of her right forefinger digging into the quick of the thumb. ‘They’re Licia’s shoes. Julie lent me the dress.’
‘And if I check with Julie’s mum?’ said Elsa.
Dan walked towards Vee, took her in his arms, looked at Elsa, then at me. ‘This is a tribute,’ he said. ‘Right, Vee?’
Vee nodded. Her eyes were filling with tears.
‘Might be an idea to change, love,’ I said, as gently as I could.
‘You’re thinking of your sister.’ Dan turned to Elsa. ‘It sends a good message.’
‘I agree with Dad, Vee,’ said Elsa, her voice tight with control. ‘It might be a good idea if you changed.’
Dan put a protective arm across Vee’s shoulders. ‘Family line is you’re looking forward to welcoming Licia home. Hence the dress.’
I stood very close to Elsa. ‘Dan’s good on this stuff,’ I said, as quietly as I could. ‘And Vee clearly needs this. Let’s deal with the rest when we get home.’
‘All right,’ said Elsa, quiet as breath. ‘We mustn’t fracture. I see that.’
‘I thank everybody who was on Garden Island for the courage they showed on that terrible day.’ The prime minister was looking out across the cathedral at the survivors, at the families of the dead, with his buzz-cut hair and his Boateng suit. ‘Whether you faced down these two very disturbed men, as our tactical weapons unit did, or whether you simply survived to tell your story, as so many of you that I see before me, you have proven once again that courage is the defining Norwegian virtue.’
I felt eyes on me. I turned to the left. On the pew beside me was a small boy in a perfectly fitted black suit. I tried to smile, but the boy would only stare. So much stress in his sinewy, bony frame.
A hand reached out for the boy’s. His mother, an older woman, elegant in grey silk. I recognized her too now. She ruffled her son’s ha
ir, then leaned across him to whisper to me. ‘I wanted to say thank you. On Arno’s behalf.’
‘That means a lot,’ I whispered.
Arno. Of course. The last of the children. Rescued from the water after Licia helped him escape. In the days since Garden Island his face had changed. His features were drawn, the flesh below his eyes puffy.
‘Courage,’ the prime minister was saying, ‘Courage is the … great … Norwegian … virtue.’
Arno’s mother squeezed my hand. ‘We are all very much hoping you will have news of your daughter soon. Without her …’ So she knew, then.
Arno turned his blank stare on me again. ‘How are you, Arno?’ I said.
‘He hasn’t spoken,’ said his mother. ‘Not once.’
‘Give him time.’
She nodded, and I nodded, then we turned to face the front.
The prime minister was not done discoursing on courage. ‘Courage defined our forefathers when they faced down the Nazi threat during the war. Courage defines the young people who faced unspeakable dangers on Garden Island. Courage is the virtue shared by every man, woman and child in this great Norwegian cathedral of ours.’
Beside me, Elsa said something to Vee that I did not catch. I turned towards Vee, who leaned across her mother. ‘That boy knows things, Dad.’ She stared across at Arno. ‘Bet you anything you want.’ Arno returned Vee’s stare, suspicious.
‘This isn’t the time, Vee,’ I said.
‘He should tell us what he knows, Dad.’
Arno’s mother, sensing something, reached out and drew her son close.
‘As the man in charge,’ the prime minister was saying, ‘I accept responsibility for what went wrong on that most terrible day.’
Murmurings behind us. Ahead people were nodding, visibly moved.
‘But I also accept …’ he paused dramatically, leaned forward on the lectern. ‘I also accept responsibility for the things that went well.’
‘What?’ whispered Dan. ‘What were the things that went well?’
‘Nothing,’ said Vee. ‘Not a single thing.’
The prime minister stopped. Had he heard? His eyes flicked across to our pew. A look of displeasure crossed his features. ‘We are,’ he said, ‘the most courageous of nations.’
I turned around, expecting to see my family’s disbelief reflected in other faces, but if there was anger it did not show. People sat in rapt attention, tears pouring down their cheeks, as if listening to a different speech. Arno’s mother seemed profoundly moved.
The prime minister looked down at his notes. He pulled at the ends of his cuffs, cleared his throat, drank water from a crystal glass, made himself tall. ‘You will forgive me, dear friends of Norway, if I continue my speech in the language of our forefathers. Kjære alle sammen …’
And so we sat there at the memorial service, surrounded by the families of the dead, as the prime minister promised the television cameras that his country would not change, that he would meet this atrocity with more democracy, more openness. Dan sat beside Vee, holding her hands very tightly. Vee did not cry. None of us did until the final hymn. To Those in Peril on the Sea, sung in Norwegian by a choir of two hundred. The deep bass of the organ took hold in our bones, wrenching the emotion from us, while the descants in the choir soared high above, ethereal and timeless.
We cried then, huddled together, my wife, my brother, my daughter and I, as Franklin gurgled happily on my lap. We cried for Licia, who was yet to come home, and we cried for the lives lost or ruined that day, for those who would not be coming home, and for those who had come home changed. And all the while little Arno sat, staring rigidly ahead, saying nothing.
When the service was over we slipped from our pew past the journalists and the camera crews.
‘Viktoria! Viktoria Curtis!’ one shouted.
Vee turned. A man in a suit was stepping towards her, microphone extended. ‘Your sister, the hero of Garden Island …’
Vee made to speak.
‘No, Vee,’ I said.
I could see Vee’s confusion.
‘Viktoria Curtis,’ the man was saying, ‘do you have a message for your missing sister?’
I handed Franklin to Elsa, stepped between the reporter and my daughter, guided her away.
‘They shouldn’t be trying to speak to you, Vee.’
The reporter moved to intercept us.
‘Do the right thing, pal,’ Dan said to the reporter as gently as he could. ‘Step away.’
I began drawing Vee to the side.
‘But Dad.’ She turned back towards the reporter. ‘She needs to know we’re looking for her.’
‘This is not the time, Vee.’
‘Your dad’s right, Vee,’ said Dan. He stepped in front of the reporter. ‘Page one of the ethics book, pal. No mics in kids’ faces.’
The reporter was not giving up. ‘When you feel the time is right to give your side of the story, Viktoria …’
‘She doesn’t,’ Dan said.
‘She won’t,’ I said.
I could feel Vee trying to pull away. ‘Who said you could speak for me, Dad?’
I took her hand. ‘Excuse us,’ I said. ‘Please. Vee, we need to go.’ I bundled her past the reporter, and out on to the steps of the cathedral. From both sides of the path people watched us.
When we reached the gate on to the street, Vee stopped. ‘I want to wait for the others.’
‘They’ll catch us up.’ On the cathedral steps I could see a camera team looking in our direction. I began to pull her along the street.
‘You all think she’s dead. You think I just don’t know yet.’
‘We don’t. We think she’s a hero. But we need to keep to the family line.’
She laughed an outraged little laugh. ‘Why do we need a family line? What’s Dan scared we’re going to say?’
‘It’s more subtle than that.’ I stopped, turned to her. ‘The family line is what we need to project if we are going to get your sister back, Vee. And it’s why we need to control the narrative. Love, if you felt lied to or patronized, I am so sorry.’
‘Patronized, maybe.’
‘That was never our intention. Listen, your Uncle Dan thinks we need to manage our relations with the press. So the story they are reporting is ours, and not someone else’s.’
‘Oh.’ Her anger seemed to drop away. She stood, thinking for a moment. ‘Yeah, that actually makes sense.’
The door to Vee’s room was ajar. I stepped towards the door, heard movement, stopped. Vee, facing away from me, taking off her dress. The sequins at the edges flashed in the low evening sun. Like fish scales. Vee laid the dress out carefully on the bed. She reached on to the top bunk, took an old Bauhaus T-shirt of mine, pulled it on.
I smiled, about to turn away.
Vee knelt, reached out to the rear panel of the dress, ran her fingers along it. She lifted it away from the front panel at the strap, held it in the flat of her hand. She crossed the floor to the doorway into her sister’s room, walked towards the window, stood, silhouetted, dress in hand. Tiny specks of light on every wall.
I stepped forward, stood in the doorway of Vee’s room, watching. The area Vee was holding seemed duller than the rest, and when its sequins did glint it was not blue but orange-red.
‘Vee! Cal!’ Elsa’s voice from the kitchen.
I slipped out into the hall, stood again at the gap between hinges, looking in. Vee folded the dress at the middle and slipped it down between her mattress and the wall.
‘That dress today,’ I said to Elsa, as we stood washing dishes at the sink.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Something really not right there.’
‘I saw her hide it down the side of her bed. I mean, it feels wrong to breach her privacy …’
‘We need to know,’ she said. ‘Absolutely we do.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘Vee!’ she shouted. ‘Honey! Can you go fetch the ice cream from the freezer?’
Ve
e sauntered in. ‘Dan’s smoking cigarettes on the patio. What do you want to do about that?’
‘Nothing.’
Vee rolled her eyes. ‘Hmm.’ She opened the fridge, made a play of opening the icebox.
‘The freezer downstairs,’ said Elsa. ‘In the storage room.’
‘Why can’t Dad?’
‘Your father and I are talking.’
Vee rolled her eyes again. But she took the key Elsa handed her and headed out of the door.
I found the dress at once, between Vee’s bed and the wall.
Elsa was waiting in the kitchen. I held the dress by the straps, let it unroll. The sequins sent tiny shards of light on to every surface. Elsa took the dress from me, turned it around. A brown stain in the rear panel below the right shoulder.
‘She brought something home with her from the island.’
‘And you didn’t tell me.’
‘I wish I had now.’
I heard the door of the apartment swing open, heard Vee kick off her shoes in the hall, heard the door slam shut.
‘We agree it’s a blood stain?’ said Elsa.
I nodded. Elsa blinked hard, handed me the dress. From the front it looked perfect. You wouldn’t know. But when I turned it over there was no mistaking the small tear in the darker blue fabric underneath, and the stain that radiated out from it. Like Elsa’s pictures. Carmine 12 shading to Cinnabar 14.
14
We asked Dan to take Vee out.
‘Vee,’ said Dan as she entered the room. ‘Vee, what say you and I go for a walk?’
‘I’m fourteen, Dan.’
‘Which means what? You don’t do walks?’
‘Which means there’s nowhere to walk to. Literally, like, nothing.’ She looked at Elsa, suspicious, then at me. ‘What are they planning?’
‘What about that Viking grave?’ I said.
‘It’s barbwire and dead grass,’ said Vee. ‘Maybe some skater goths drinking beer and smoking weed.’
‘Sounds edgy,’ said Dan. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Thanks, Dan,’ I said.
‘It’s not edgy. It’s lame.’ Vee looked at me, then at Elsa. ‘Fine,’ she said. She walked from the room, angry.
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