The Island

by Ben McPherson

  That dark disturbance on the bottom left. That grey sworl. Vee looked at me, checking that I had seen it. She ran the cursor back along the timeline, found the first frame of it.

  The image was softer in the corners; the contrasts were less clear. But once you saw that shape there was no doubting it. A man dressed in grey, crossing quickly through the bottom edge of the picture.

  There.

  Gone.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  She parked the footage on the first frame of him. Grey clothes. Wild hair. She pressed the right arrow key. The smallest of movements, down and to the right. She advanced the frame once more. And once more. Something seemed to billow around the man’s feet, to soften his outline. As if he were wearing a robe. She pressed the right arrow key three more times. Just the edge of his robe on the bottom edge of the frame now. She pressed the arrow key again, and the man in grey was gone.

  ‘It really looks like him,’ said Vee.

  ‘Seems so unlikely,’ I said.

  ‘Not impossible, though …’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not impossible.’

  ‘We need to ask them, Dad. Because why did someone in the police enlarge past him? It’s like they don’t want someone to know.’

  I dialled Tvist. Vee leaned her head close to mine, the better to hear.

  The line rang twice. ‘Cal Curtis.’

  ‘Are your people investigating Bror?’

  ‘This is not a question I can answer. You know that.’

  Vee whispered, ‘I mean, he’s only there in the middle of the frickin’ film.’

  I made a Shh sign with my finger. Vee rolled her eyes.

  I said, ‘There is a figure in grey in the Garden Island footage. When Paul Andersen shoots the man in the T-shirt.’

  ‘I wish you had a little more faith. These days my people are very thorough.’

  ‘Your people enlarged past it. You don’t see it in the version shown to the courtroom. So either your people are investigating him and don’t want him to know – in which case why don’t you know that? – or someone is protecting him.’

  ‘Why the urgency? Can this wait until morning?’

  ‘I realize it’s inhumanly late,’ I said. ‘And maybe you’ll tell me it isn’t him. But it’s got to be worth checking out, no? Just to eliminate him?’

  ‘It is him, Dad,’ said Vee. ‘Any money you like.’

  ‘Is that Viktoria’s voice I hear?’

  ‘Vee found it,’ I said. ‘Seven frames. Maybe eight. A third of a second. You don’t see it if you’re not looking for it.’

  ‘Then why don’t you send me the frames in question? With timings from the start of the shot?’ We were trying his patience. I could hear it.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Has to be worth checking out.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Licia’s voice, clear and bright.

  I turned.

  She was standing in the library, looking in. ‘Who’s Bror?’

  ‘Go to bed, Licia,’ said Vee loudly.

  ‘I have to go,’ I said to Tvist.

  ‘Then we shall speak in the morning, when we’ve both had a chance to reflect.’

  ‘Talk then.’ I hung up.

  I looked at my daughters. If Tvist had heard Vee call Licia by her name, he had given no sign of it.

  ‘Who is Bror?’ said Licia again.

  ‘This doesn’t really concern you,’ said Vee. ‘Although, also, how can you not know?’

  I could see Licia’s face beginning to crumple.

  ‘Oh, Vee,’ I said. ‘Please …’

  ‘But Dad, I’m really not saying she’s stupid.’

  ‘Vee …’

  This time she heard the warning note in my voice.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Licia. I wasn’t implying anything. I won’t do it again.’

  ‘OK,’ said Licia as brightly as she could. ‘Goodnight, then.’

  Vee watched her go. ‘You know what’s weird, Dad? I mean, even if she was locked away for a year, wouldn’t you think Licia of all people would know exactly who Bror is?’

  41

  I couldn’t sleep for thoughts of him. How easily he had attached himself to our lives, with his talk of heroism and the life well lived. How carefully he shielded his inner core. We knew nothing of what he actually believed. A compliment here, a deflection there, as his agile mind gently kept us at bay, all the while telling us we were close.

  Had Bror been there on the island? And what did he want with my family?

  At three I found myself standing on the threshold between my daughters’ rooms. The in-in-and-out of Vee’s breathing, so familiar, so like her mother’s. Always that suggestion that it might stop on the in-breath. And Licia’s breathing, no longer the same, a gentle in-and-out now, peaceful and assured. For that at least I was grateful, no matter what else she had experienced in the past year. Since coming home Licia had not used her inhaler once.

  I was awake before six. I stopped by Franklin’s crib, watched his fingers flex and turn as he dreamed, watched his lips shape the words that he would soon begin to speak: the Ds and the Ms and the Ls and the Vs. Dada, Mama, Licia and Vee.

  I opened the door into Vee’s room. I walked across, opened the connecting door into Licia’s.

  Licia had drawn the mattress to one side of the room, was reading, cross-legged, in the light from the open window. She was wearing a white summer dress that belonged to her mother.

  She looked up. ‘It’s Sunday.’ A glorious smile, full of peace.

  ‘What are you reading, love?’

  She held up the book so I could read the spine. The Gnostic Gospels.

  ‘Is that a Sunday thing?’

  She considered this. She smiled. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Borrow it when you’re finished?’

  ‘Sure. Just … I don’t think a person ever finishes reading the Gospels.’

  ‘That good?’

  ‘Word of God. They say.’ She smiled again, put down the book. She stretched her arms in front of her, began to unfold her legs, stood up in a single fluid movement. ‘I would like to finish cleaning my room today.’

  ‘Your mum and I will help.’

  ‘No need.’

  I turned to look into Vee’s room. Vee was sitting up in bed, squinting. ‘It’s like nothing o’clock, Dad.’

  ‘I know.’

  Licia called through the door, ‘Maybe you’d like to help me clean, Vee?’

  ‘Tell her to go back to bed,’ said Vee.

  ‘I’ll go make breakfast, Vee,’ I said. ‘You can get up when you want.’

  ‘Gee, Dad, thanks.’

  I was at the farmhouse shortly after eight.

  Bror was standing in the middle of the courtyard, waiting, but not for me. ‘Cal Curtis,’ he said as he embraced me. I had caught him off guard but he smiled his easy beatific smile. ‘You are always welcome here.’

  I said, ‘You told me to prepare for something utterly wonderful?’

  ‘I did.’ He was looking over my shoulder. ‘Please, enter the house.’

  I heard car tyres compressing the gravel. I turned. A little red cabriolet approaching, a woman at the wheel. Arno’s mother, elegant in a headscarf and sunglasses. I waved. Mari waved back.

  ‘Make your way to the kitchen,’ said Bror.

  I walked across the courtyard, hovered on the threshold.

  Silence in the hall. Around me the great wooden beams seemed to flex and settle. Again that strange sense of a living house, breathing. At the far end the door to the kitchen was open. And a sound from closer by. A soft object lifted from a hard surface.

  ‘You may keep your shoes on,’ I heard Bror call after me.

  ‘Thank you!’ I shouted. I took them off all the same.

  The second door on the left was ajar. A shadow crossed the doorframe. There was Arno, shoes in one hand, a small overnight bag in the other. His face betrayed him: something hasty
and furtive, though he tried to smile it away.

  ‘Hi, Arno,’ I said. ‘Good to see you.’

  ‘Hei.’ He stood facing me, pulling the door handle towards him.

  ‘Did you just …?’ I said, unsure if I’d imagined it, but he stepped past me and down the hall, was on the porch now stepping into his shoes, waving to his mother.

  I turned towards the door to the second room. Imperceptibly ajar.

  In the courtyard Arno was climbing into the car, was embracing his mother. Bror was smiling down on them, benevolent and kind, his arms held wide.

  What did Arno not want me to see? The door had not clicked shut. Tempting to lean against it, just to see. But if it gave, what then? Because when Bror turned I would be in his line of sight.

  I heard Bror slam Arno’s car door shut. I turned to watch him. He said a few words to Arno’s mother and waved her away. Now he was striding towards the house as the red cabriolet arced out of the courtyard and along the track towards the main road.

  I stood in the hallway, waiting, arms folded across my chest.

  ‘What did you mean by “something wonderful”?’ I said as he crossed the threshold. ‘Was it Licia?’

  He gave the broadest of smiles. ‘How is her breathing?’

  ‘Cured,’ I said. ‘Almost.’

  ‘Then why do I see trouble in your eyes?’

  ‘Was she living here with you?’

  He laughed gently. ‘There would be a cruelty in that, would there not?’ He put a steadying hand on my arm. ‘For Alicia Curtis to have been here, and for you to have been here, and for me not to have told you? Surely you do not think me cruel?’

  The idea was absurd. And yet …

  ‘Who was she with?’

  ‘Good people.’ He must have caught the look in my eye.

  ‘Why did she leave us?’

  He smiled, but his eyes flicked to the side as he gathered his thoughts. ‘Wouldn’t you rather hear the whole thing from her?’

  ‘She hasn’t spoken.’

  ‘You must have faith, Cal. I guarantee that Licia will speak. And soon.’ He placed his hand on my arm. For a moment I felt truly understood. He was so good at this, and yet …

  I said, ‘Has she spoken to you?’

  ‘Troubled young people are my stock in trade, and Alicia was indeed very troubled, and very lost, and I like to think I have been instrumental in bringing her safely back to you. She loves you very much, you know.’

  The quiet power of the man. That overwhelming sense of his goodness: so plausible, so gentle, so hard to counter, even for a cynic like me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For everything.’ Did my words sound cynical? I didn’t know. Bror seemed to accept that I was sincere.

  ‘And finally I may accept your thanks. You are truly welcome, Cal Curtis. Now, follow.’

  At the sink he tipped coffee from a mortar into the filter, used his index finger to loosen the last of the grounds, examined the mortar closely.

  He turned to me, and his eyes seemed to see my very soul. ‘You are not at peace, my friend,’ he said.

  I thought of the grey sworl in the footage from Garden Island. I thought of the door ajar in the hall. I thought of Vee and Licia bickering and quarrelling and fighting as they had always fought, when Licia was so clearly changed. So tempting to confront him, to accuse him outright. I know.

  ‘Ask me anything you like.’

  Seven frames. The bottom left of the picture. Eight frames perhaps. Blink and you miss it.

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘What is troubling you?’

  I said, ‘Were you ever on Garden Island?’

  The slightest shake of the head.

  His gaze was even. His smile was sincere. ‘Why do you ask?’ His arm on mine, warmth flowing from him.

  ‘Just my looping paranoia,’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘Ah, the curse of the agile mind. Here’s a crazy idea. Will you not have dinner with us tonight?’

  And from the hall the sound of bare feet scuffing across flagstones. Milla, dressed all in grey, her hair again drawn into a tight bun. She saw me, looked meekly down at her feet. As if we had never met.

  I said, ‘Good to see you again, Milla.’

  She glanced up at me, glanced at Bror, then looked away.

  ‘Six rabbits from the refrigerator,’ said Bror. ‘Please skin them and joint them and have them ready for eight thirty.’

  ‘Of course.’ She walked to the workbench by the sink. From a drawer underneath she took a long-bladed knife.

  Bror turned to me. ‘Eight for eight fifteen?’

  ‘That’s kind.’

  I must have frowned.

  ‘You’re concerned about logistics,’ he smiled.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I am.’

  ‘You will drive home, collect your family, and return. I shall have Milla make up beds. You may then choose whether or not to overnight with us. Milla is an excellent cook. We will talk then, I hope, about things which we have alluded to but never quite spoken of. At the worst, you get a wonderful meal. At best, perhaps I can bring you all some peace. Go and ring your extraordinary wife.’

  I stood for a moment looking down the hall, at its line of uniform doorways. I walked past the room from which Arno had emerged, stood by the front door, dialled Elsa.

  ‘Cal.’

  ‘How’s Licia?’

  ‘Grimly pious. It’s freaking Vee out. How’s Bror?’

  ‘He invited us to dinner tonight,’ I said, loud enough for him to hear.

  She laughed.

  ‘I think we should accept.’

  Shouting on the line. Vee’s voice.

  ‘One moment,’ said Elsa. I heard the phone hit a solid surface. I heard Vee shout. I heard Franklin cry. I heard Elsa remonstrating with Vee, and Franklin’s rising wail.

  I walked towards the door from which Arno had emerged, turned to face the kitchen. Bror was speaking Norwegian, all rising and falling tones. Milla was replying in monosyllables.

  I leaned gently backwards, felt the door slide open behind me. I turned.

  Inside was a wooden table, and on that wooden table was a leather sports bag, brand new. On the floor beyond were seven identical bags.

  I knelt beside the table, put my phone on the floor, slipped the catch on the bag. A short-sleeved shirt, light blue in colour. I removed it from the bag, found the police badge on the sleeve. I put the shirt down on the table, reached into the bag, pulled out the regulation black trousers with the checkerboard reflectors.

  Blood pulsing in my ears, I stepped towards the open door. I looked towards the kitchen. Milla was speaking in long sentences, her voice flat and monotonous.

  I took a photo of the uniform. I put the phone on the floor. I refolded the shirt, returned it to the bag, clicked the catch shut.

  ‘Cal?’ Elsa’s voice, tinny and distant. ‘What’s going on?’

  I picked up my phone, spoke very quietly. ‘Elsa, whatever happens, I need you to stay on the line.’

  I heard her begin to reply.

  ‘Please, love,’ I said. ‘I’ll explain. Stay on the line.’

  I knelt on the floor, popped the catch on another bag. Another light blue shirt. Another pair of checkerboard trousers. The standard summer uniform of the police. I closed the bag, listened.

  Milla was speaking in the kitchen.

  The next bag I checked also contained a uniform. And the next.

  Each bag had a single side pocket, zipped, flush to the surface. I slid my hand into a pocket. Nothing. I ran my finger along the inside seam, found something small and hard-edged.

  I drew out the object. A microSD card, unlabelled. The same in the next pocket I checked. And the next. I took a card, pushed it into the slot on my phone.

  There was a briskness to Bror’s voice now; he was ending the conversation.

  I could feel my pulse in my throat.

  I checked the alignment of the bags on the floor. I zipped the side pockets shut. Everything
as I had found it, except for a single missing microSD card, now in my phone.

  I stepped out into the hall. From the kitchen I heard Bror’s footsteps scuffing towards me across the flagstones. I pulled the door towards me, felt the lock begin to engage, stepped cleanly away. I turned, checked that it was as it had been, then took two long steps towards the front door, quiet as I could. I turned. I saw a shadow cross the kitchen doorframe. I leaned my left side against the wall, brought the phone to my ear.

  ‘That’s a shame, love,’ I said. ‘A great shame.’

  Bror appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. He sent me a quizzical look.

  Elsa’s voice in my ear. ‘Cal, are you all right?’

  ‘I will give him your best. I love you so much.’

  I ended the call.

  Bror simply standing there, watching me from the other end of the hall. Did his eyes glance at the door I had opened?

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I said. ‘Licia isn’t up to seeing anyone right now. Even you.’

  ‘You’re right. That is a great shame.’ The warmest smile. The most unwavering gaze. ‘Perhaps you will join us. On your own? There is much to tell.’

  ‘I …’ I turned apologetically towards the front door. I blinked hard, gathering my thoughts. I knew now. I knew. I turned towards him, returned his gaze with the sincerest smile I could manage. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You feel the need to be with your family. I understand.’

  ‘We are so grateful.’ I stepped on to the porch.

  ‘Go in peace, Cal Curtis,’ he called after me.

  ‘Go in peace, Bror,’ I called back.

  I could hear the dogs in their low wooden building, their growls dark and melancholy, though the day was still bright. I stepped into my shoes, walked as casually as I could across the gravel of the courtyard, certain with every step that I was giving myself away.

  When I reached the car I drove slowly away. If Bror or Milla were to follow me, I wanted to know.

  I stopped at the first petrol station I came to.

  I bought a coffee to calm my nerves.