‘She seemed to be floating between you.’
‘Frei,’ I moan. ‘At last.’
‘I feel her energy again now,’ Merethe continues, drawing out her words, as if they are painful to articulate. ‘Stronger, more insistent, as if she’s pressing forward and wants to break through.’
‘Do you see her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell her I need to speak to her. Tell her I’ve made up my mind. I’m coming, if that’s what she wants.’ All of a sudden, I can hear Merethe grit her teeth, so hard that they are grinding together.
‘She’s freezing.’ Merethe’s teeth are chattering, and now I feel the room grow colder, as if someone has opened a door and let in the winter chill. ‘The darkness, she wants to show me something in the darkness,’ Merethe says, shivering, and turns to face the window. ‘Out there.’
‘Where? At the lighthouse?’
Merethe does not answer: just sits, trembling, on the floor beside me.
‘Ask her about me,’ I plead. ‘Ask her why she won’t come any more.’
‘She’s floating.’
‘Yes,’ I say dreamily, blinking. ‘We’re both floating.’
‘So dark.’
‘Do you see the moon? Do you see it?’
‘It’s cracking,’ Merethe whispers. ‘I hear rumbling and beating on metal all around me. My God, I’m freezing.’
‘The crash,’ I gasp. ‘Oh my God, the crash!’
‘Water. I can hear it all around me; feel the taste of salt well up inside me.’ Unexpectedly, Merethe starts to cough, long, heaving bursts, as if she is being choked to death. ‘So cold,’ she says, shaking, as she gasps for breath.
‘Let her in. You have to let her in so that I can talk to her.’
‘Oh my God!’ Merethe suddenly touches her chest as though struggling to breathe. Her voice has changed, and there is something in it, something that wasn’t there a few seconds ago. ‘This isn’t how it’s supposed to be,’ she groans, her eyes darting around the room as if searching for something.
‘No, wait,’ she adds, still trembling, ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
‘Frei?’ I cry, ‘Frei, are you there?’
‘No, no.’ Merethe whimpers at my side. ‘I don’t understand.’ I feel her hand fleetingly brush my arm. It is as cold as ice.
‘Frei?’ I try to get up, but my body is nailed to the floor, and I can’t move a muscle. The sense of calm within me has dissipated, and panic is starting to spread through my body. ‘Why don’t you answer?’
‘Hush.’ At once I am aware of Merethe’s frozen hand on my arm again. ‘You have to stay still, Thorkild.’
‘What? No, let me go. Frei! Wait for me, I’m ready. Ready to come with you.’
Merethe’s ice-cold hand slides over my arm and shoulder before she presses the flat of her hand on my lips. ‘Now I understand,’ she whispers, closing her fingers on my mouth. ‘It isn’t Frei. It’s somebody else …’
CHAPTER 34
Merethe’s hand has drifted from my lips and is trailing awkwardly on the floor as she kneels in front of me. In the end I manage to wrench myself out of the medicine-induced stupor in order to sit upright.
Merethe gazes at me with a faraway expression, then gets to her feet and turns to the curtains behind the sofa, where she whispers into the darkness: ‘Who are you?’ She reaches her hands out as if she were blind and has just encountered a stranger. ‘Why are you here?’
Cold air seeps from her lips and nose. She rocks gently from side to side, shaking her head and squeezing her eyes shut. ‘I don’t understand.’ Her eyes open again and more cold breath billows from her mouth.
‘What does she say?’
Merethe shakes her head once more. ‘I don’t know. I don’t understand.’
I move to stand up, but Merethe holds out a hand to keep me seated.
‘She is pointing at you,’ Merethe tells me. ‘I can’t understand what she’s saying. She’s talking gibberish – or some different language.’
‘Frei.’ I stare at the curtains behind the sofa where Merethe’s eyes are pinned. ‘Is it you?’ I stagger to my feet and skirt round the table to the window. ‘Please say something. I can’t wait any longer. I need an answer. Do you want me to come?’
A bitter taste of salt water spreads through my mouth and down my gullet as I approach. The cold draught hits me full in the face as I make a move to catch the curtains and pull them aside. Simultaneously, I hear Merethe break into screams behind me.
I wheel round to see her chest heaving noisily as she gasps for breath. Her eyes are black with fear, her body shaking.
‘What is happening?’ I ask in desperation. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening!’
Now she is tensing again, thrusting out her chest and spreading her arms. ‘Mne xólodno.’
‘What?’ I put my hands on her shoulders. ‘What did you say?’
‘Mne xólodno!’ Merethe repeats, her voice rising. ‘Mne xólodno! Mne xólodno! Mne xólodno!’ I try to place one hand over her mouth, but she slaps it away and starts to scratch and scrape the inside of her mouth with her fingers as if there is something in her throat that she is desperately trying to remove. Her face is drenched with sweat, seeping from every pore.
‘Loser!’ Merethe spits out. Fear fills her eyes, and a rasping, gurgling noise rises in her throat. She wheezes and gasps for air, as if drowning in her own saliva.
‘Stop!’ I beg her, struggling to pull her fingers from her mouth.
‘Mne xólodno! Mne xólodno!’
All at once I see her. Not Frei, but a woman without a face or jawbone, merely a hood of flesh surrounding a bare skull stained green with algae. She twists and turns, weaving in and out of the black shadows in Merethe’s terror-stricken eyes as she screams at the top of her voice.
‘I see her!’ I exclaim in amazement, and stumble back. ‘My God, I see her! There, inside your eyes. She’s here. The woman without a face. She’s here!’
The screaming stills. Her hands slump down to her sides. Merethe seems to be about to say something, but instead she simply stands there, her body swaying gently from side to side.
The next moment she collapses in a heap, but her head strikes the edge of the table as she falls.
I scramble across and, as I go to pull her on to my lap, I see there’s something wrong with her jaw. I try to close her mouth, but her lower jaw simply falls back into this freakish, gaping position. I spot a gash in the skin beside her ear, bone gleaming white through the tear.
‘Wait a minute, Merethe,’ I whisper, ready to run for assistance, when a loud knock sounds at the door.
It swings open to reveal Siv, the nurse, standing there with a younger care assistant. ‘What has happened? The residents in the apartment next door phoned to complain about a disturbance.’
Merethe whimpers in pain when I release her jaw to sit up straight. ‘Phone for a doctor!’ I cry. ‘Now, at once!’
‘What have you done?’ Siv asks in horror, as the care assistant takes out a mobile phone.
‘She fell and dislocated her jaw,’ I answer. Siv dashes across to help me turn Merethe into a stable position, on her side, on the floor.
‘They’re coming right away,’ the care assistant tells us as he returns his mobile to his pocket. He kneels down beside Merethe and Siv, while I haul myself up on to the sofa, fish out my mobile and call Harvey.
CHAPTER 35
‘Harvey, you’ve got to come!’ I say, frantic, when Harvey picks up the phone. ‘Something’s happened to Merethe.’
‘Merethe?’ I can hear the noise from the boat engine being turned down before his voice comes back again, louder, sharper now: ‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s had a fall, here, in the apartment. We’ve called for an ambulance. They’re on their way. Hurry.’
‘I’ve just been out to the mussel farm. Don’t leave before I get there.’ The engine roars again and Harvey hangs up.
I set the
phone down on the table and sit watching Siv and the care assistant on either side of Merethe. Siv has fetched a blanket and tucked it round her, as well as folding a towel snugly under her head so that her jaw is resting on the soft padding. Her entire lower jaw seems to have been torn out of alignment, the bone unhinged from its socket and now held only by facial tissue.
Merethe’s breathing is a husky gurgling, as though her breath is constricted. Sometimes she whimpers softly. Siv is holding her hand and the care assistant gently strokes her hair. Ten minutes later, we hear a vehicle turn in outside and brake to a halt just in front of the apartment. Soon Harvey rushes into the room, with dark, scared eyes, and throws himself on to his knees beside Merethe.
‘How did it happen?’ he asks, sitting with his back to me, leaning in close to his wife.
‘We had a crystal-therapy session,’ I start to explain. ‘Merethe was going to help me with my stomach problem, as you suggested, when she, we, suddenly saw something, a person, who … who—’
‘A séance?’ Harvey abruptly turns to face me. ‘You held a séance?’
‘Y … yes, I think so,’ I answer in confusion. ‘I’m sorry, Harvey. I didn’t know that … She fell. Just suddenly collapsed and hit her head on the table.’
Harvey sits staring at me for a long time, until in the end he forces the shape of a smile. ‘Thorkild, take it easy.’ He turns to his wife again and kisses her forehead, before whispering: ‘It’ll be fine. Do you hear me? We’ll get through this, honey.’
In the distance, sirens wail. Soon the car park is filled with powerful beams of light. The care assistant sprints outside to welcome the paramedics and returns in an instant with a man and a woman carrying a case and a stretcher between them.
‘Her jaw is dislocated,’ Siv tells them. ‘You can see the mandibular condyle sticking out here.’ She points at a wound above Merethe’s ear and the man nods before placing his hand warily on the patient’s shoulder. ‘Hello, are you awake?’ he asks, squeezing her shoulder gently.
Merethe moans at his touch and then falls silent again.
‘OK then,’ the paramedic says, withdrawing his hand before turning to face Siv again. ‘How long ago?’
‘About twenty minutes.’
‘Fine. And she’s been unconscious the whole time?’
Siv glances briefly at me before nodding her head.
‘OK.’ The male paramedic begins to examine Merethe’s head and neck, while the woman checks her chest, stomach, upper arms, thighs and legs. At each point they stop and ask whether she feels any pain, and Merethe whimpers softly in response before they continue.
The moment they’re done, they carefully place a compress on the wound at her ear and the man shines a light into her mouth to examine the bleeding. Finally, he checks her pupils before sitting back and looking in our direction.
‘We’ll give her pain relief before moving her on to the stretcher. It’s important to keep her lying in a stable position on her side, to check the bleeding in her mouth and make sure that nothing enters her throat. We don’t want to intubate because of her jaw, but we have to be prepared to do that if anything should change as we move her.’
Once the woman has administered the painkilling injection, the man turns to Siv and asks: ‘Are you a nurse?’
Siv nods in reply.
‘Could you hold her jaw while we move her?’
Siv nods again.
‘OK.’ The female paramedic takes out two smooth boards that she carefully places between the floor and Merethe’s body so that they can shift her in a single move straight across to the stretcher from where she is lying.
A fine string of blood hangs from her mouth as they lift her across to the stretcher. On the towel and the floor where Merethe has been lying, I can see a larger dark patch of more coagulated blood. The paramedics arrange for Siv to accompany them in the ambulance to Blekøyhamn and on by helicopter to the University Hospital in Tromsø, and for the care assistant to pass on information to the staff of the centre about what has taken place.
‘I’ll phone the police from the ambulance,’ Siv says, her stern look alternating between Harvey and me. ‘I don’t know what this guy’ – she points a stubby finger at me on the sofa – ‘has been up to here, but he’s obviously high on something or other, and … and—’
‘What on earth do you think I’ve done?’ I ask.
‘Look at her!’ Siv yells. The paramedics also stop in their tracks for a second and they all look straight at me. ‘Do you mean to tell us that she just fell?’
‘Relax,’ Harvey says, interposing between Siv and me. ‘I was the one who asked him to visit Merethe. He’s got stomach problems, she was going to help him, that’s all.’
Siv is about to say something, but instead takes a deep breath and starts over again: ‘Considering everything that’s happened here lately, I’d prefer to phone them all the same. Anyway, I’d like to bring this up again, Harvey – we can’t rent out care-home accommodation to just anybody and whenever it suits us. I’ve made that clear to you before now. Get him out and away from here. As soon as possible.’
Siv marches the two or three steps across to the stretcher, where she and the paramedics hoist it up carefully to the proper height and set off. As soon as they have left the apartment, Harvey approaches me.
‘I … I …’ I start to speak, and stand up.
‘My God, you saw her,’ Harvey says, gasping. He pulls me into his arms, grabbing my T-shirt by the neck, and gives me a big hug. ‘Did you see how scared she was?’
I lack the energy to say anything, and simply hang apathetically in Harvey’s arms as I struggle to shut out what has just occurred. Finally Harvey lets go and stands in front of me, swaying. ‘They just phoned me.’ His voice is hoarse, and only a whisper.
‘Who?’
‘Police Headquarters in Tromsø. They want me to come in tomorrow morning. At first they asked if I could come this evening, but I managed to postpone it till tomorrow.’
‘I see,’ I say, suddenly exhausted, as I wipe my face with my arm.
‘They want to know about you, Thorkild. About when you turned up here, where you were living, and how you seemed when I took you out to the lighthouse.’
‘So they’re buying the scenario with Bjørkang and Arnt coming to the lighthouse the night I was there,’ I clarify. ‘And that something happened to them.’
‘But for God’s sake,’ Harvey mutters.
‘Yes, it’s crazy, isn’t it?’
‘Well,’ he says. Outside, we can hear gravel crunch as they trundle Merethe’s stretcher across the car park to the ambulance. ‘I hadn’t intended to say anything, but now I feel I must.’
‘What is it?’
‘Not long ago, when you phoned – I was on my way out to the mussel farm, and had only gone a kilometre or so beyond the lighthouse.’ He hesitates. ‘Well, when I passed the island on the way back, I spotted something.’
‘What?’
‘A figure. Or maybe two, I’m not sure. It was so dark, and I was some distance away. But she was sitting—’
‘She?’ I note that I have to make a strenuous effort to prevent myself from shaking.
‘I don’t know who it was, but it was a woman, I’m certain of that. I didn’t see her face, just her hair blowing in the wind. I only saw her for a split second before the boat’s angle to the boathouse made her disappear. I’m not even sure that what I saw was a woman, and not just flotsam washed up against a wall, but the door to the boathouse was open, and I had this tingling feeling, when I looked inside the opening, that there was someone standing there. Someone hiding just inside, waiting for me to go past.’
We hear the rear door of the ambulance slam shut, and immediately afterwards the lights that had glared through the living-room windows vanish and are replaced by the deep blue of evening. ‘I have to go,’ Harvey says as he watches the vehicle lights fade. It seems as if he has suddenly been brought back to life and reminded of the peri
lous state of things. ‘I have to collect my son, then we must go to Merethe.’
Harvey leaves without a backward glance. He strides across the car park and clambers into the pickup. As soon as the truck has gone, I open the curtains wide and let the evening darkness into the room. I stand there thinking about how rapidly things will tend to go to hell once you’ve set out on the wrong track, whether you are sitting at the kitchen table with someone you love, or in your life as a whole, when you’re left simply hurtling towards your own destruction but unable to apply the brakes or change course.
The snowflakes whirl around in the light cast by the streetlamp in the car park. Somewhere far out there at the lighthouse, a flock of birds is circling beneath a rift in the clouds, and a slender moonbeam streaks down through the gap to strike the island. All of a sudden, I glimpse a light at one of the windows in the main building, a square lighthouse lantern enclosed by all the cold blackness.
‘Harvey is right.’ I press my face against the glass. ‘She’s waiting for me out there. It’s time to get away from here.’
CHAPTER 36
I am breathless by the time I reach the car park. I drive towards the boathouses at the foot of the bay and draw to a halt where the local police chief and his sergeant had stood when I first came here to take a look at Rasmus’s boat in Harvey’s boathouse. As soon as I’ve parked, I jump out of the vehicle and dash below a wind-warped fish frame, zigzagging between turf embankments and slick pebbles.
The birds in the sky look like marionettes in a shadow theatre as they tilt and dive, slowly gliding on near-motionless wings above the former keeper’s residence. I can also see birds in the sea around the lighthouse, black with white neck plumage, bobbing on the waves around the rocks on the shore.
The boathouse is divided in two, with a net room at the far end, where you can see various bits and pieces of fishing equipment, green glass floats and tubs and boxes. There is a green plastic dinghy suspended front and rear from two hooks on the wall. It is so small and light that I manage to lift it off and drag it down to the water without any difficulty. I push off and hop on board.
I Will Miss You Tomorrow Page 15