‘Perhaps I will see you in court today,’ said Tvist. He turned. He was ending the conversation.
I caught the door as it swung shut behind him, followed him out along the path. As he reached the gate I touched his shoulder and he turned.
‘You lied to me. About the Post-it note. And I know there’s more.’
‘Is there?’
‘Maybe your problem isn’t police incompetence? Maybe it’s active corruption?’
‘How would one even prove such a thing?’ For a moment he looked almost amused, though I could feel the underlying anger. ‘Why are you pursuing a narrative that is harmful to the police, and harmful to our country?’
‘Are you telling me not to make an enemy of you?’
‘That’s one interpretation, isn’t it?’
There was an analytical coldness to him now, a hardness in his quick black irises. Then he was smiling. ‘If only ethics did not prevent us from taking a beer together.’
‘A beer?’
‘I am certain this could be cleared up over a beer.’
He walked towards a grey Tesla SUV, lifted the gull-wing door on the driver’s side, sat down. The door closed. The car moved silently off.
In the courtroom I chose seats towards the right-hand wall, placed myself on Vee’s left. If the men made eye contact with her I would lean in to block it. But today they sat slouched in their chairs, paying us no mind. Every now and then one turned to the other and made some kind of joke. They would smirk, then turn to face the glass wall, glaring out at the public.
I took out my phone, unlocked it, opened Find My Family. I looked about me.
Vee was staring at the screen of her own phone. She caught me looking and held it out to me. I placed my phone face down on my thigh and took Vee’s.
REMEMBER: THIS IS WHAT THE #ANTIFASCIST #FIGHTBACK LOOKS LIKE
That same image of Licia, the gun braced in her hands.
‘Pretty cool,’ said Vee, taking her phone. ‘Don’t you think?’ She flicked into Instagram and began to write.
I turned my own phone over. There was Elsa on the street outside our apartment block. A flashing orange dot.
Vee leaned towards me. I shielded the phone with my hand.
‘Which one would you drop, Dad?’ she whispered. ‘If you had a Glock?’
‘Vee, you can’t talk like that here.’
Vee rolled her eyes, turned to face the men.
I looked at my phone screen. Elsa was on the move.
Vee leaned in again. I shielded the screen.
‘Just because we’re “pacifists” doesn’t mean you can’t answer the question. Say you have one gun and one bullet, which one would you drop?’
I looked about me. No one had heard her. But still. ‘That’s not why we’re here. We’re here to learn.’
Vee rolled her eyes, faced forwards, made a play of listening.
I watched my screen for a while, tilting it so Vee could not see. I assumed at first that Elsa was heading for the mall, but she took a road that led into town, walking swiftly.
‘Dad,’ said Vee. ‘Put that away.’
‘Sorry.’ I turned my phone face down. I sat forwards, tried to listen. The absent father; the abusive, neglectful mother; the social work reports recommending removal of the boys: there was nothing here that we did not already know; all those markers that so many killers share, but which do not in themselves make a killer.
The men looked unaffected when the psychiatrists read out the injuries they had sustained at the hands of their mother: the broken arms and the scalded legs, the kettle-flex marks and, once, the imprint of an iron in the skin of Paul Andersen’s lower back. Time and again the social workers had recorded their concern. Time and again the boys’ mother moved them to a new district, and the social work evaluations began again from scratch.
‘The answer is you shoot the little one,’ whispered Vee after a time.
‘Vee, no.’
‘What? This is a game. You shoot Paul Andersen. John Andersen shrivels up and dies. Two men, one bullet.’
‘Vee.’
‘It’s OK. I’m done.’
I turned my phone over in my hand. There was Elsa at Stein Erik Lundgren’s plass, an address I didn’t recognize.
‘Put it away, Dad.’
‘All right.’
I dropped the phone into my pocket, tried to concentrate on the trial.
After a while I began to see small differences between the men. It was the smaller brother, Paul, who made most of the jokes. The taller brother, John, did most of the laughing.
Vee was right. John Andersen was completely dependent on Paul.
Elsa spent an hour and a half at Stein Erik Lundgren’s plass number 2. When she left, it was at a slow walk. As if something had calmed her.
In the café during morning break, while Vee fetched drinks and cinnamon buns, I dropped the address into Google. A low-rise industrial building, painted white.
Skarpsno pistolklubb
A pistol club in Skarpsno. Was this Elsa’s idea of therapy?
I felt Vee hovering at the edge of my vision. I looked up.
‘It’s their sanity,’ she said. I put my phone on the table, face down.
‘What is?’
She passed me a black coffee in a paper cup. ‘That’s what the men find funny.’ She put down her soda. ‘Every time someone says the Andersen brothers are insane, that’s when they laugh. They find it hilarious that anyone could think that. Like they gamed the system.’
And she was right. For the rest of the morning I watched the Andersens closely and the pattern was the same. Details from the reports were read out. Same facts, different conclusions. At every finding of insanity, the men sniggered. At every mention of planning, they looked bored.
At twelve Elsa collected Franklin from kindergarten. There was her flashing orange dot. At quarter to one she put Franklin down for his nap. She was on the terrace at the back of the apartment for seven minutes. Nothing grows on our terrace, so she could only be drinking coffee or smoking a cigarette.
The tracking on Elsa’s phone is very precise.
I recorded my piece. I climbed the steps to Security. There was one person in front of me. Edvard, taller and thinner than ever, in an ill-fitting grey suit, dropping his belongings into a grey plastic tray.
Perhaps he felt my eyes on him. He turned, made himself smile. ‘Hello, Cal.’
‘Hello, Edvard.’
We embraced. ‘How’s Jo?’ I said.
He turned to face the scanner.
‘Oh, Jo’s OK,’ said Edvard. ‘I’m sure he sends his love.’
‘Send mine back.’
‘I’ll be certain to do that.’
The woman nodded at him. He stepped briskly through the scanner. Some strange edge to his behaviour; something untruthful.
The scanner woman smiled. I passed her my telephone.
Edvard turned to me. ‘I thought perhaps I’d sit with you in the courtroom?’
‘That would be … that would be nice, Edvard …’
The woman was inspecting my phone. I put my keys and belt on to the conveyor, and stepped through the scanner.
Edvard was watching me, expectant.
‘I’m going to see you in there, Edvard. I have a couple of calls to make.’
‘See you in there.’
I watched him go, then rang Jo.
‘Hey, Cal,’ said Jo. ‘Good piece. Moving.’
‘I worry I come across as angry. So anyway …’
‘Righteous anger.’
I was in the foyer now. I sat on a low wooden bench. ‘So anyway, Edvard’s here at the courthouse, and he wanted to sit together, and I guess I was wondering how things were between you, because he was being a little odd.’
A long pause. ‘Odd is a pretty fair description of how things are between Edvard and me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘And you really don’t want to hear about our problems.’
&nbs
p; ‘Actually, I kind of do.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Cal, he moved into the spare room. Says he wants us to experiment with celibacy. Like it’s something I should be getting excited about.’
‘Wow.’
‘And then he asks me if I think Mila Kunis is hot.’
‘OK …’
‘It’s like he’s practising not being gay,’ said Jo. ‘Or being married. I mean, is Mila Kunis hot to married men? And who in the world decides it’s a good idea to experiment with celibacy?’ He was making light, but I could hear the pain behind the words. ‘It’s like when his parents came to stay and I pretended to be his roommate. Only no one’s coming to stay. The flat is like a morgue.’
‘Wait a second,’ I said to Jo, because there was Vee, coming down the stairs.
I moved to stand up, but Vee did not see me. She began walking towards the exit. I watched as she passed, then stood up.
‘No offence about being married, by the way,’ said Jo.
‘None taken. I’m so fucking sorry, Jo.’
Vee stood at the top of the courthouse steps. She looked about herself, then headed quickly away.
‘Beer soon, mate,’ I said. ‘Gotta go.’
28
The gate into the building was four metres high and made of oak. Cut into it was a small door. Ten minutes since Vee had taken something from her pocket – a credit card, I guessed – then leaned in against the door, and it had swung open. She had walked swiftly into the leafy courtyard. The door had swung shut.
On the gables carved Viking dragons snaked towards the sky. Gargoyles stared down on me from the eaves, angular and strange, a memory of darker times. Here even the streets carried the names of Norse gods: Baldur’s Gate; Odin’s Gate; Thor’s Gate.
I tried my weight against the door. It didn’t give. I took a step back. I took a credit card from my wallet. I stood, looking at the door, looking at the card. Was I the type to break into an apartment building?
Further up the street two girls were goading a small black dog, barking at it across a metal fence. The girls held their fists just above the fence, daring it to jump. Jump the dog did, frantic and full of rage. The girls collapsed against each other in fits of laughter.
No one was watching me. No one would see me force the door. And yet …
I turned towards the gate. Footsteps on the flagstones on the other side, coming this way. High heels.
I arranged my face into a smile, put a smile into my voice too. The door was pushed outwards. ‘Hei!’ I said.
‘Hei!’
An old woman, strong-looking and immaculately turned out. White shirt, blue jeans, strapped shoes. I held open the door. The woman stepped nimbly through, then held the door for me in my turn.
‘Thank you!’ I said.
‘English! Welcome!’
Before I could correct her the door had slammed shut. ‘I’m Scottish,’ I said quietly.
On all sides of the courtyard were stone apartment buildings, six floors high, and in the middle a line of trees higher than the buildings. It was quiet, the sounds of the city distant and filtered. The air was cool, the sunlight dappled. In front of the trees was a small stable block, two storeys high, stone-built and pretty. At its side a grey-painted postbox. P Lisowski. Pavel lived and worked here.
Oh, Vee, I thought. Not again.
I paused by the doors on the ground floor, but they were heavy and as old as the gate to the street. A metal staircase ran up the side of the stable building to the second floor. The staircase clanged quietly under my feet, though I stepped as lightly as I could. At the top was a terrace, with room for two aluminium chairs and an aluminium table. On the table was an ashtray. Everything was clean and neat. Flowers hung from the lampposts. Creepers hung from high suspended wires.
Far above a plane cut a trail through the intense azure sky.
I stood at the glass-panelled door, pushed gently. The door gave.
Inside everything was white. I stepped in, pulled the door closed behind me.
‘Vee.’
No response.
I stood, listening. Light poured in from all sides. Every door was open. There was a white-painted bedroom with white-painted cupboards and a white-stained wooden floor. The bed was recently made with fresh white linens. There was a small kitchen, also white, where the dishes in the sink had recently been washed. The white-tiled bathroom smelled of expensive soap. A white-painted staircase led down to the floor below.
‘Vee.’
Again, no response. Had she even been here?
I stepped on to the white carpet of the bedroom. Five framed erotic prints on the wall. Couples fucking. Artfully drawn.
‘Pavel!’ I shouted.
The gauze curtains moved gently, drawn towards the window by a breeze outside. The wardrobe was open. The clothes in here were expensive, fashionable. Suits hung casually from pegs. I ran my fingers around the backs of the shelves and the drawers. Nothing. Not even dust.
This was trespass, surely. But Pavel had not been honest. I didn’t owe him.
I stepped out on to the landing. In the bathroom the window was ajar. Expensive toiletries. The sink, the bath both scrupulously clean. I stood on the landing, looked down. The floor below was dark. The walls were painted black; grey, maybe.
‘Pavel!’
Nothing. I stepped into the kitchen. The kicker boards were aluminium. The worktops were quartz. Everything was orderly. Everything smelled clean. In the freezer were meals for one: curries; pizzas; goulashes. In the fridge were bottles of wine, a loaf of bread, a carton of milk. In the drawers were only knives and forks; in the cupboards only plates and bowls, glasses and cups. There were no pans, no scales, no measuring jugs. Pavel, I guessed, didn’t like to cook.
The aluminium kicker boards slid easily out from under the cupboards. Even here the floor was free of dust. I felt around the back of the space with my fingertips. Nothing. I slid the kicker boards into place and stood up.
I could feel now the heat rising from the stairs below. When I listened – really listened – everything down there seemed damped down, as if there were a different quality to the silence.
I stood on the landing, looking into the bedroom. The line of framed erotic prints above the bed. Why hadn’t I seen it before? By the second print from the right a tiny area of difference. The wall was scuffed. Grey marks against the white, where the metal corner of the frame had rubbed against the paint, as if it had been moved and replaced many times. I looked at the print. The woman’s mouth was engulfing the man’s penis, the scene described in very few lines.
My heart was racing, I realized. It had been for some time.
The picture was out of alignment. Pavel’s bed was wide.
I knew I would leave traces, that I should take off my shoes, but I got on to the bed anyway, pulled the print gently towards me. The picture wire tautened. I lifted the frame slightly, and it came away from the wall. I sat down, crossed my legs on the white quilt, not caring about the marks my shoes left. I turned over the print.
Something rectangular had been fixed to the back with tape. You could see the adhesive traces at the corners.
From the courtyard below I heard the heavy door stutter on its hinges. Rapid footsteps passed across the flagstones. I looked up through the window, saw Vee disappearing towards the gate that led to the street. In her right hand was something metallic. She was gone before I could see what it was. I looked at the tape marks on the back of the picture. What had she taken?
I replaced the picture, made sure it hung neatly beside the others. I should run after Vee, catch her up, but I wasn’t done.
The staircase shifted under my weight. Downstairs a single room ran the length of the building. The walls were covered in grey foam. At the far end of the room a tiny white point of light faded in and out. Computer, I guessed. A sound-dampened workroom. And to my right the heavy door into the garden, ajar, from which the only sound was
the whisper of leaves in the wind.
Vee had slipped out through that door.
My eyes were adjusting to the dark. Here by the stairs two leather sofas faced each other across the sprung wooden floor. At the far end a wooden desk ran the width of the room. In front of the desk was a mesh chair, sleek and high-backed. On the desk behind was a small computer tower, its white LED pulsing gently off and on behind the mesh of the chair.
I found the main light switch. In the ceiling two rows of spots glowed dimly.
It was then that I saw Pavel. He was lying curled on his side by the desk, arms tucked in by his chest, legs pulled into his body. Like a baby, asleep.
I took a step towards him.
‘Pavel.’
But Pavel did not answer. And when I knelt beside him, my hands on the carpet, I saw something glisten darkly and my mind wondered at the formlessness of Pavel Lisowski’s head, at the way in which his hair seemed to meld with the carpet.
‘Pavel,’ I said again.
I stood up. I walked to the light switch, found the dimmer that controlled the spotlights. And in their harsh white light I understood.
A red-black mass was leaching from the back of Pavel’s head and into the grey-black of the carpet.
Although my heart was hammering against my lungs I did not panic. I considered the situation, and thought about the words I would use when I rang the police. I would walk calmly up the stairs and wait in the clean white rooms above. I would sit on the clean white bed linen and purge from my mind the image of Pavel, down here, his brains seeping into the carpet.
I looked down at my hands. They were flecked with Pavel’s blood, though I had not directly touched him. I thought of Vee, of her finding Pavel on the carpet. I thought of her looking down and seeing her own hands flecked with Pavel Lisowski’s blood.
I pushed through the stable doors and began to run.
29
I found her on the subway platform, small and alone, huddled as if against the cold. Her face was streaked red, her breathing ragged. I looked down at her shoes. Tiny dark flecks of blood.
Oh little Vee.
She looked at me, anticipated my question. ‘I don’t know why I ran. I got scared when I heard your voice. Like it made it real.’
The Island Page 22