THE ICE CAGE
By Olivier Nilsson-Julien
THE ICE CAGE
Copyright 2012 Olivier Nilsson-Julien
All Rights Reserved
First published in Great Britain in 2012
by Olivier Nilsson-Julien at KDP
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any other means without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper, broadcast or other relevant publication.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Table of Contents
Map
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 10
Chapter 20
Chapter 30
Chapter 40
Chapter 50
Chapter 60
Chapter 70
Chapter 80
Chapter 90
Chapter 100
Acknowledgements
About the author
Feedback
Magnus series
To Lindsay, Estelle & Oscar
Men love their ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it.
Edward Abbey
Baltic Sea, Tuesday 28 February 2006
They say that when you die, you see your life in flashback. I didn’t. All I saw was what I hadn’t done, what I should and could have done. I tried to slam my elbow against the ice, but it came out as a caress, barely a movement, not even a touch. I had no power left and the ice was too close. It was perfect, strong, sealed. On top. There were shadows attacking the ice and the darkness came with unbearable noise. My lungs were imploding, trapped between the seabed and the ice.
1
On winter Sundays Lisa Forsman and her husband Mikael would lace up their skates and head out into the archipelago. This morning they’d discussed making a full day of it, but settled for a picnic in a local bay. They’d brought sandwiches and coffee in a thermos. Solviken was their regular summer beach. They enjoyed the contrast – imagining themselves in swimming trunks, as opposed to polar outfits.
They hit the ice a little after 7 a.m. It was a perfect morning with blue sky, no wind and black ice. The only sound was the crackling under their skates. They took their time – this was their only chance to talk properly. They had to decide whether to buy a new car and during the week they were too busy to make a decision. Their Clio had broken down and Mikael was against a replacement. Did they really need a car on a tiny island, where the longest road was 30 kilometres? Working as a teacher and a bank clerk, they had to watch their finances, especially as they were supporting their daughter’s biology studies. But Lisa still thought that wheels were handy, even an old banger would do. They were halfway to a compromise, when they arrived in the bay.
‘Look!’
At first Lisa couldn’t understand why Mikael was shouting. The bay was still, everything normal, but then she saw the man lying naked on the ice, staring at the sky. Mikael wanted to turn back immediately. This wasn’t the Med – there were enough coves not to have to share with a nudist.
‘Wait.’
The man wasn’t moving. It could have been an eccentric, but with the thermometer flirting with -30°C overnight and still hovering around -20°C, Lisa wanted to make sure he was OK. She skated closer, until she was about 10 meters away.
‘Hello?’
He still didn’t budge.
‘You OK?’
She looked around and saw a car parked behind the rocks. She skated over to the man, with Mikael in tow. The silence was total as they stopped. The man was lifeless and his hair had turned into an ice cap. There was a hole in the ice next to him. It was as if the sea had regurgitated him and left him stranded. His body was so deep-frozen and his whiteness so surreal that there was no question he was dead. Mikael stared with his mouth wide open, paralysed. Numbers were his forte, life wasn’t.
‘Give me your phone.’
Mikael reached for his mobile and handed it to Lisa, who dialled while he did the fainting. Now she had two men lying at her feet – one naked, one in full winter gear, both lifeless. Thankfully the ambulance was on its way.
2
He hated Finland.
Saab, Volvo, Björn Borg, ABBA, Henrik Larsson, ASEA, Absolut Vodka, Karolina Klüft, IKEA… The Swedish superiority was evident, as clear and sparkling as Ramlösa mineral water. Ask a foreigner to name a Finnish writer, or just a mineral water for that sake. He couldn’t. A composer? Sibelius might spring to mind, but he was a Swedish Finn. Their artists didn’t exactly top the music charts either. Nokia? Founded by another Swedish-speaking Finn. Without the oppressed Swedish minority, Finland wouldn’t even exist. It would be a bunch of scattered degenerates living in mosquito-infested forests. It was.
3
When my father’s solicitor called to tell me my father had drowned, I wasn’t sure what to do – I hadn’t seen the man for 20 years. But in the end I decided to go. I would regret it if I didn’t and Carrie agreed I should, if nothing else to get a clearer picture of my Scandinavian roots. I jumped on a flight from Stansted to Arlanda and after a quick train journey to Stockholm followed by a two-hour wait at the ferry terminal, I boarded the connection to Mariehamn.
Flying over Sweden, I’d seen hundreds of lakes scattered in the forests. Cruising towards the Åland archipelago, I saw equal numbers of tree-covered islands scattered in the sea. It looked like a photographic negative of the Swedish mainland.
Although Åland was officially Finnish, everyone saw the archipelago as Swedish. Not only was it nearer the Swedish mainland, but the islanders spoke Swedish and referred to mainland Finland as ‘actual Finland’, as if they were living in an ‘imaginary’ Finland, as if they were ‘imaginary Finns’ but real-life Swedes. Ultimately, they were just Ålanders.
Arriving in Mariehamn was familiar but unfamiliar. The feeling reminded me of my first trip to New York, with the difference that I knew Åland from memories, not from film or imagination. Mariehamn had changed and so had I. After 20 years of transformation everything except the ferries looked smaller. They were even larger than I remembered and it was odd having a Tate-sized ferry stopping only to drop me off.
In the summer there would be hundreds if not thousands of tourists coming off the ferry with me, but this was the low season. One thing hadn’t budged – the weather. The rain was pouring and the streets were icy. It was perfect weather for hip replacement surgeons. Not for me, I was soaked in minutes and definitely hadn’t missed this side of Mariehamn.
Although the ‘homecoming’ had triggered expectations in me, no one was waiting at the ferry terminal. This had been my home town, my birth island. I’d spent the first 10 years of my life here. So what? Clearly, no one cared. I was left to my own devices.
My father’s solicitor had told me to give him a ring as soon as I arrived, but the line was busy and Dahl had no voicemail. I’d been naïve to think that all Finns had a Nokia transplant at birth. It was still busy when I tried again. I decided to walk to his office. It couldn’t be far in a small place like Mariehamn. Thanks to well-meaning but clueless locals, it took me half an hour of slipping and sliding to find Dahl’s address. Although I spoke Swedish, I had the nagging feeling they’d put me through this icy schlep on purpose, only because of my English accent. Given half a
chance, they would probably have blamed me for the weather too.
Dahl’s secretary was on the phone gossiping about Expedition Robinson, the Swedish format that had spawned Survivor and other remakes across the world. It must have been a very serious matter, because she was totally absorbed, just about managing to give my dripping clothes a disapproving glance before finally turning to me. Obviously there were more important matters at hand.
‘Yes?‘
‘I’m Magnus Sandberg, son of Henrik…’
‘Why didn’t you call?’
So much for heartfelt condolences. She did a quick aside to the phone.
‘Hang on, I’ll be quick.’
Glorious. I’d just lost my father, but she was going to fob me off.
‘I’m here to see Dahl.’
‘If you’d rung, you’d know he won’t be in for another couple of hours.’
‘I did.’
She ignored that.
‘There’s a café across the street with great sandwiches.’
I’d just stuffed myself with the ferry smörgåsbord, so I went straight to the point.
‘Do you have the keys?’
She told me where I could find them, which was probably the only bit of work she would do all afternoon.
4
As it turned out I didn’t even need the keys – my father’s front door stood ajar. I peeped in.
‘Hello?’
When there was no reply, I pushed the door and put my foot over the threshold.
‘Anyone here?’
The only response was the reassuring tick of a wall clock, the rest of the place was upside down: drawers emptied onto the rug, books pulled out of the shelves, pictures unhooked from the walls, DVDs scattered over the floor boards. Funnily enough, the stereo and the television were still standing, but that was the last thing I remembered; that and a movement out of the corner of my eye.
I came to with a thudding headache, not knowing where I was, until the orange cloud hovering above came into focus. I recognised the orange lamp that had hung over my head the first 10 years of my life. It was in plastic and shaped like a witch’s hat. My London friends would have killed for it, because to them it stood for the ultimate in design. My father had probably just seen it as a light-giving device that had lit his dinners for three decades, regardless of 1970s nostalgia. But I was losing my thread – I wasn’t here to study kitchen paraphernalia.
When I finally sat up, I felt like I’d been pummelled by an ice bear. Who the hell would do this in Mariehamn? A junkie? The worst thing was that he (I assumed it was a man, it didn’t seem like a female thing to do) must have known that my father had died. Why didn’t he take the telly? Maybe he’d been after the painkillers I couldn’t find in the bathroom cabinet. I hadn’t seen my father for over 20 years and the bloody vultures didn’t even have the decency to let me see his house the way he’d left it, let alone leave me a single Paracetamol.
I had no clue what was missing in the house, but there must be a way to see through the mess of the burglary and picture the house as my father had left it. I had to try to put the pieces back together, but first I needed to call the police. I didn’t have the number, so I rang Dahl without expecting him to be there. My head was pounding and I skipped the small talk – could he help me? He could. Within five minutes a squad car with a female police officer behind the wheel pulled up outside my father’s house. Dahl had promised to drop by later with some pain relief.
The police woman looked friendly enough from the top of the front door steps, but she pulled her gun as soon as she saw me. What happened to ask first and shoot later? Back in England the police didn’t even have guns. They tasered innocent people to death instead – a much more civilised approach.
‘Don’t move.’
‘I’m the victim here.’
She walked round the stairs, keeping her gun pointed at me through the metal banister.
‘This is my father’s house.’
‘Hands on the railing.’
I obliged – anything to stop her waving that death tool – and she cuffed my hand to the railing.
‘Other hand.’
When they were both attached, she finally dared to come up the stairs to frisk me.
‘ID?’
I couldn’t reach my passport.
‘Can you…?’
She pulled it out of my pocket and examined the photo. I had to look over my shoulder to see her.
‘OK.‘
She undid the handcuffs while having a good stare at my forehead. For a moment, I thought she was cross-eyed.
‘You should put some ice on that.’
‘On what?‘
I felt my head. The bump explained the pain.
‘Sorry about this, but I can’t take any risks, especially on my own. We get a lot of Eastern cowboys these days. They don’t ask, they shoot.’
‘Might account for my bump.’
She picked up a handful of snow and shaped it into a ball, but I really wasn’t in the mood for a snowball fight. Hopefully she wouldn’t mind.
‘Hold this against it.’
Of course, I should have guessed. I took the snow ball, put it against my forehead. I was shivering and the last thing I wanted was to catch a cold, but she was right. I needed to cool the bump. She took out a notepad and asked me what I’d seen.
‘Nothing.’
‘Try to remember.’
I paused, trying to think back.
‘I was standing looking at the mess, thinking it was strange they’d left the television and DVD player untouched.’
‘Then what?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Anything missing?’
‘I haven’t been here for 20 years.’
She made a last scribble before pocketing her notepad.
‘Give us a ring if you think of something.’
She handed me a business card: Eva Mikaelsson.
‘And put on some dry clothes.’
She’d aimed a gun at me, frisked me and cooled my bump. Now she was telling me to change clothes. I nodded. I could never tell anyone anything without feeling bossy, but it came naturally to her. Her orders made common sense.
5
Looking through the mess left by the burglary, it struck me how tidy my father had been. I found neither piles of dishes in the sink, nor mouldy food in the fridge. The kitchen table was clean and there was no knick-knackery in the house. It was as if he’d been expecting visitors or cleared up before dying. Even the orange kitchen lamp was dust free.
I seemed to have at least one thing in common with him – the Mexican film star. The huge poster of her on the wall was an immature choice for a man his age, but there was nothing unformed about her curves and look of determination. Maybe the voluptuous colour poster was meant as an ironic touch in a house dominated by what I assumed were my father’s black and white portraits. The contrast certainly reinforced the qualities of both the poster and the photos.
He had hundreds of photography books and Scandinavian films from the silent era, when Sweden and Denmark had been at forefront of cinema. There were old photos of me on the chest of drawers in the bedroom and I found a whole box covering my first 10 years. I’d seen some of the pictures my mother’s albums, but my father had always been snipped out.
Now I could see the whole picture and the fact that he’d kept them suggested he cared, so why hadn’t he contacted me? Why 20 years of silence? This was too close, too strange, too much, and not something I’d really thought about. I sat down on his bed, confused.
I lost myself staring at a photo of me and my father skating. My old skates were still hanging on the wall next to his – a pair of old school Dutch Vikings. Unlike the more common ice hockey and touring skates, speed skates have a low shoe and much longer blades, allowing longer strokes. Once you’ve built up speed, you can easily reach 40 to 50 km/h and even faster with a tailwind.
I tried his on. They were a tight fit and it was good
to see that I’d overtaken his size, but it was scary at the same time. Now that he was dead and I had larger feet, there was nowhere to hide. I had to face the world alone.
Slipping – well cramming – my feet into the skates was a great feeling once they were in. It brought up memories of skating as a kid, as well as literally putting me in my father’s shoes. Doing the laces up with frozen fingers had always been a pain, but it was worth it, because the skating experience was a direct function of the tightness – the more painful the fit, the better the gliding.
My father never left the house without his flask of home-brewed aquavit. The distilling equipment was set up in a broom cupboard in the basement. As a kid I’d been terrified of the secret room – all that bubbling and glass work reminded me of witchcraft, but home-made aquavit was a well-established tradition outside the big cities in Scandinavia. Government campaigns alleging that homemade spirits could lead to blindness were of little discouragement. Everyone knew that they were only after tax benefits, as home-distilling meant lost income for the state’s alcohol monopoly – alcoholic drinks could only be bought in special state-owned shops.
Home-brewing was done by everyone and it was tolerated for personal consumption. It was the currency in an underground bartering economy. I poured myself a glass and downed it – a real throat-clearer. I couldn’t imagine my bosses at the BBC accountancy department paying my overtime in bottles of in-house aquavit. It was a shame, because there was an element of resistance in this custom that appealed to me. It wasn’t the heavy drinking. It was the grey zone, the tacit acceptance of relatively harmless illegal activities when they were a private matter. The depolarisation of right and wrong appealed to me. It seemed more pragmatic, in touch with reality.
An old-fashioned photo lab had been set up in one of the basement rooms. It looked like my father had been using a 35 millimetre film camera. There were still chemicals in the baths, but no trace of any photos.
The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) Page 1