The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy)

by Nilsson-Julien, Olivier

  10

  Pastor Fredriksson was tall, sinewy, slightly bent over. There was something Dutch about his look. He could have been anything between 35 and 55. He wanted to know if I had any special requirements for the funeral. I had no idea what my father would have wanted and didn’t feel entitled to an opinion. Any of my father’s friends or colleagues from Mariehamn would know Henrik much better than I did, not that I’d met any of them yet.

  All I could say was that he’d taught me to skate and to play chess. That was it. These were pretty much the only first-hand memories I had left. The rest of my associations with my father were poisoned by my mother’s backstabbing. Apparently, my father had helped Fredriksson with youth projects and given most of his spare time to the kids. He’d lived in the moment. I asked the pastor what he meant by that.

  ‘I think you need to talk to Thor.’

  ‘Thor?’

  ‘They led the yachting club together. He was probably Henrik’s closest friend.’

  It was the first time I heard about Thor and the yachting club. I would go there immediately once I was done with Fredriksson.

  It felt odd preparing to bury a father I didn’t know. He would be in the coffin, but I hadn’t spoken to him for 20 years. The nearest I’d come to a conversation was in the funeral home, imagining what we would have said to each other. The situation was confusing and I kept trying to get a grip. I still couldn’t digest my father coming back into my life as a dead man. Yes, he’d been absent from my life, but until now it hadn’t been definite.

  Fredriksson stopped by the grave destined to host my father and asked if I’d discussed the headstone inscription with the undertaker. I hadn’t, but names and dates would do. As for the final words at the funeral, mentioning the skating with my father was more evocative than chess playing and – for what it was worth – I did have a recurrent dream of skating with my father. I’d been having it since leaving the island as a kid, but when I’d told my mother, she wasn’t interested, so from then on I’d kept it to myself.

  Fredriksson wanted to make a brief but vivid speech and thought talking about the skating was an excellent idea. It was something I’d kept close to my heart and something Henrik had always loved. Unbeknownst to each other, we had kept a joint passion for skating in spite of our 20-year separation. And Fredriksson was right, the skating was a good metaphor for life – going against the wind, mixing blissful moments and blizzards, wide horizons and menacing skies.

  There was something nagging at the back of my mind, something I wanted to ask the pastor, but couldn’t remember. The conversation stalled as we looked out over the icescape, which had been transformed overnight by the snowfall. The slush had been coated with fluffy white powder to make it one of those sparkling days that don’t exist in London, one of those days that almost make it worthwhile enduring months of boreal darkness. Meanwhile, the ringing of the church bells travelled across the silent ice. Even the Baltic wind was quiet. I’d forgotten how quickly the weather changed in the archipelago, how quickly it went from one season to another, and not necessarily the next. Winter always retained the capricious power to interrupt spring when least expected.

  It was a perfect day for skating and – like a Pavlovian reflex – it triggered the scratching sound of skates against ice in my head. I gradually warmed up as I started rocking gently from side to side. Fredriksson left me to it and headed back into the church.

  11

  I never knew my father had been into yachting. I would have remembered, because this wasn’t yachting in the classical sense. Arriving at the club, I saw the ice yachts zipping over the ice like the wind. They looked like miniature catamarans on blades, sailing at over 100 km/h, their thin frames reminiscent of mechanical pond skaters as they shot past in a frictionless state. Once I managed to take my eyes off them, I asked a Viking with a leathery face for Thor.

  ‘That’s me. You must be Magnus.’

  He gave me his paddle of a hand.

  ‘Sorry about your father. Henke was a great guy, the best mate you could imagine, always there when you needed him.’

  I hadn’t seen much of my father’s generosity, but I could dwell on that later. I was there to gather information, not to judge or argue. Not yet. Thor was a gentle giant, a roughed up, Scandinavian version of Steve Redgrave. He took me to the back of the club house, where he’d shared an office with my father. This was my father’s den, stuffed with skating equipment and much messier than his house. In addition to the old Viking skates back home, he kept newer ones and high-tech clothing here for serious skating expeditions. Thor had something else to show me and took me back outside. Again, my eyes were immediately attracted to the nimble movements of the ice yachts.

  ‘Did my father go on those?’

  ‘He lived on the ice.’

  I followed him into the boathouse, where he led me to my father’s yacht. It was totally black, sails and blades included.

  ‘The Black Pearl. Henke was mad. Once he even raced a ferry to Sweden and back.’

  ‘What, across the ice?’

  ‘A bet with a club mate. The ferry didn’t stand a chance.’

  The way Thor became absorbed in the story made me think he’d really admired my father’s guts.

  ‘There was a strong tailwind and he was lucky to come out of it alive. Unfortunately, the ice isn’t what it used to be. When the winters were colder, people crossed the ice to the Swedish mainland on horseback or sleds. In the 1950s there was even a man who drove to Sweden across the ice in his car. Life Magazine wrote an article about it.’

  It sounded incredible.

  ‘Today it’s trickier. The ferry traffic between Sweden and Finland is so intense that the ice barely freezes between ships. It’s impossible to get to the mainland without crossing a ferry route. And when it’s biting cold, the channels are kept open by icebreakers.’

  ‘How did he get to Sweden then?’

  Thor looked at the yacht.

  ‘The cockpit works like a floating survival cell, not exactly ocean-going, but enough to paddle over the two channels he had to cross. You have to be a good paddler though. If you don’t keep moving, you sink.’

  I knew my father had loved the outdoors, not that he’d been an adrenalin junkie.

  ‘There used to be a postal route between Sweden and Finland. In winter, they crossed the ice, but the rest of the year they rowed, which was much slower, and many men drowned trying to deliver the post. In the early 19th century, 400 Russian Cossacks even made it to Sweden on horseback, not to mention people escaping across the Baltic during the October Revolution.’

  I was captivated. The ice had connected the Baltic populations and maybe even constituted a threat from possible invaders. It must have been crucial in Baltic war strategy and I could see how my father’s Black Pearl descended from a long history of winters joining up Sweden, Finland, the Baltic countries and the Åland archipelago. Had the ice been the secret behind Sweden’s 17th century greatness? Had climate change altered power relations around the Baltic? I was no historian – I was an accountant – but being half Scandinavian, I’d always been fascinated by the history of the region.

  When we came out again, a ferry appeared, mirage-like, from behind a tree-covered island, while another ice yacht shot off towards the horizon at dazzling speed. The scene was surreal – the ice, the wind, the silence and the knowledge that in six months this winterscape would have melted and morphed into a glistening sea. When I looked up again, I saw the mechanical insect become a dot and vanish.

  ‘Want to have a go?‘

  ‘Maybe another time.’

  My time was limited and I needed to keep clearing my father’s house.

  ‘There’s a yacht ready. Come on.’

  In the end I couldn’t resist. When I’d first stood next to the ice yacht by the shore, it looked so fragile I thought it would collapse the moment I squeezed into it with Thor, especially as these crafts were designed for solo rides and he must have
weighed well over 100 kilos. But these yachts were using the latest materials, combining strength and feather-light weight. I needn’t worry.

  Once we’d shoe-horned ourselves into the cockpit and raised the sail, I expected us to speed up like an F1 car, but we barely moved and I felt ridiculous – like having my backside stuck in a bucket with another man. It was nothing like the yachts I’d seen whoosh past earlier and I was ready to give up, until we reached the end of the peninsula and the wind suddenly grabbed the sail. The acceleration was so fierce that I screamed as if on a roller-coaster. It was unbelievable, so much more intense and aggressive than skating, with the high speed and the need to anticipate the wind accurately keeping us on edge all the time. The lightness of the yacht meant that it reacted instantly to any change in wind direction or roughness in the ice.

  How Thor could read the ice at that speed was a mystery, but it was second nature to him. There was no way anyone could react consciously at that speed, it had to be intuitive and based on years spent on the ice. Thor didn’t need to think, he was one with the wind and the yacht. The whistling of the wind and the blades rattling against the ice was so ear-deafening that we had to shout to make ourselves heard. When Thor finally let me steer, he warned me to be very gentle, but it was in vain – we immediately flipped over as I tried to avoid a bump in the ice. The right-hand blade lifted off the ice and we landed on the side. There was a slight rip in the sail and I banged my shoulder heavily, but Thor took over the steering again and headed for a quick spin around the islands. It was the most exhilarating thing I’d ever experienced. I could see why this was addictive.

  ‘How do you know the ice will hold?!’

  Thor steered away from the wind and the yacht slowed down as he answered my question. Suddenly we were moving across the ice effortlessly and without a sound. The contrast was mind-blowing.

  ‘It’s so fast and the weight distribution so good that you can usually escape thin ice.’

  It didn’t sound reassuring.

  ‘Usually?’

  ‘The kids use GPS to see who’s gone the furthest and every winter there are unofficial records in all directions. They speak in latitudes and longitudes. Some are even nicknamed after their most daring performance.’

  ‘That can’t be legal.’

  Thor shrugged and I regretted my stupid comment.

  ‘There’s no law on the ice, only the laws of nature. That’s the whole point – when you drown you drown. There’s no law against breathing in polluted London air, is there?’

  No, and he was right, there was no law against heading out in the deadly London traffic either.

  ‘Every year MPs petition for a limitation of the maritime traffic in wintertime. Imagine being able to race from the Arctic Circle to Poland, The Baltic Sea as a giant arena, Ben Hur on ice…’

  ‘Could there really be ice all the way?’

  ‘Rarely. All the more reason to cut the traffic when there is.’

  The buzz of the yachting almost made me forget why I’d come to the club in the first place. This was living in the present, an escapade that put me in touch with my father. Being out here on the ice had given me a rush and I was starting to creep under his polar hide. I didn’t know if he’d been an adrenalin junkie or if cold water swimming even triggered any form of dopamine production, but my father certainly seemed to have been obsessed with physical sensations. Was it a need to feel alive? Was he compensating for an everyday numbness? I should have known these things about my father, but didn’t.

  After the sailing we sat down at the club bar, where Thor insisted I try my father’s favourite brew – the Stallhagen lager from the local brewery. We finally got round to talking about Henrik’s death. Thor wasn’t surprised by the cold water swimming. Henrik had always liked physical challenges. Whatever the time of year, he wanted a dip. That was what he was about and every time he returned from a swim he’d have that gleam in his eye.

  ‘I just find it hard to grasp. Why swim in such a remote place?’

  ‘It tames the beast, stops you going berserk.

  ‘Are you saying my father was an animal?’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  Thor smiled.

  ‘Henke was the sweetest man imaginable. He taught the kids ice yachting, but not in a traditional way. He pushed them, encouraged them to flirt with danger. They love him…’

  He paused half-sentence, maybe wondering whether to say they loved him, but they still did.

  ‘… it led to some clashes with the parents and lately he wasn’t allowed to do any coaching. ‘

  ‘How come?’

  ‘A kid drowned last year and the parents blamed Henrik.

  ‘Were they right?’

  Thor shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Henrik saw yachting as a school for life and the kids were inspired by his exploits, but he was very clear about the risks. He couldn’t be held responsible for what the kids did on their own.’

  ‘So the drowned kid wasn’t under his supervision when it happened?’

  ‘No, but the problem is today’s parents demand a risk-free environment. The opposite of life. They want the image of danger, not the danger itself. In a computer game you can always get a second or third life, but in reality we only live once. Henke was always hammering on about this – don’t take any unnecessary risks when your life’s at stake. Never overestimate yourself.’

  ‘How was he as a person?’

  ‘We had great laughs together.’

  Thor fell silent for a moment before continuing.

  ‘He wasn’t a happy man though.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘He avoided being alone.’

  It surprised me. I’d been under the impression that my father was a loner.

  ‘But he was alone on the yacht.’

  ‘That’s different. You’re up against it, defying the odds, evading death. There’s an enemy and it defines you. You might be in bad company, but alone you’re not. You’re caught up in the intensity.’

  ‘But except for you and the kids there seems to have been no one in his life.’

  ‘He fled into activities, always busy, but doing alone is very different from being alone. When I say he was alone, I mean that he never stopped to reflect or to look himself in the mirror. His camera lens focused on trees and animals, never on himself.’

  So my father didn’t take the time to think or feel. Hearing this, I had to ask the question that kept creeping up in the back of my mind:

  ‘Do you think he could have committed suicide?’

  ‘And then climbed out of the hole?’

  ‘I just can’t understand how he could climb out if he had water in his lungs. Lisa Forsman told me the police thought his death was caused by a combination of drowning and hypothermia. He would have been unable to cough up the water because of being so frozen.’

  Thor frowned.

  ‘Could be. Once something goes wrong in the cold, the margins are very small. If for some reason he struggled to get out, he would have weakened very quickly. I don’t get why it would be so hard to get out though, unless his heart failed or something.’

  I hated not having an answer, but Thor seemed to partly agree with Lisa’s explanation. My father’s death was still less straightforward than I’d hoped. I wanted a clear-cut answer, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘Did he seem depressed lately?’

  ‘Not that I know. I didn’t see him though. He was too busy searching for Anna.’

  ‘Who?’

  Thor explained that Anna was an Eastern European who’d been hanging out at the yachting club. He wasn’t sure where exactly she was from, but she was crazy about London and planned to go there, which had reminded Henke of his lost son. Thor went back into the office to fetch a photo of Anna. She smiled at the camera and oozed warmth – her cheekbones, the dimples.

  ‘Amazing eyes.’

  ‘Henke was a great photographer.’

  ‘Could
he live from it?’

  Thor nodded.

  ‘The nature magazines couldn’t get enough of him. He had to refuse work to keep time for yachting and swimming.’

  From the look of the photo, Anna liked the photographer and it felt good to think that it had been my father. She had left without saying goodbye and he’d been convinced that something bad had happened to her, but Thor disagreed.

  ‘She was young. She probably left because she felt like it, because she could. In fact, she texted to say goodbye the day after he was found dead.’

  ‘Texted who?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Did she know about my father’s death?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell her?’

  ‘I left a message but never heard back.’

  She must have been upset. Keeping Anna’s photo, I walked away partly relieved. Maybe my father hadn’t been 100% happy, but so what, who is? At least he’d embraced life. He’d lived and tested his limits. What Thor told me about my father escaping into activities made sense and it also made the cold water swimming more understandable. The extremer the activity, the further removed my father would have been from his daily life. Anything to avoid facing himself.

  The yachting confirmed this. At first I didn’t want to do it – I hadn’t come here to play around, but then I’d realised that if I didn’t slow down and switch to my father’s time, I’d never get him, especially as he’d practically lived on the Black Pearl according to Thor. Thanks to the yachting, I tasted something my father had loved and it felt like I’d made a first vital connection. I wanted more.

  The lingering question was why he’d been looking for Anna, although Thor didn’t seem to think there was anything to it. She’d just happened to be on Henrik’s mind. On second thought, I found it odd that she’d sent Thor a text without even bothering to call or come round to say goodbye in person, even more so after he’d left a message about my father. I was disappointed that Anna had disappeared without a trace, because I would have liked to talk to her. If my father had looked for her, they must have had a special bond, but I would never know. I had to get back to Carrie.