CHAPTER 56
‘What do you think that was about?’ I ask Johannes once the vicar has finished and people rise to their feet. The pallbearers advance to take their positions beside the coffins. Only once they have hoisted them and are standing in line does it dawn on them that it will be impossible to convey the coffins up the crowded aisle. They stand looking at one another but no one seems to have any idea what to do.
A couple of care assistants from the residential centre see at once how serious the situation is and give a signal to the rest of the staff. They start to wheel the residents out, while others collect crutches and walking frames for those still seated. The two care assistants who brought Merethe have returned. They take hold of her chair, one on each side, and push her out with the others.
‘He’s been through a lot just lately,’ Johannes says once the aisle is clear and the first of the pallbearers have come up beside us. Johannes gives a reverent nod while they slip past. ‘After all, you were there yourself when his wife had that attack. It can’t be easy for him.’
‘It wasn’t an attack.’ I take a few short steps to one side, ready for our own turn to join the slow-moving mass of people.
‘Well,’ Johannes mutters, nodding once more as Harvey nears us. He is oblivious, staring vacantly into the middle distance as he walks mechanically by, holding hands with his son.
Johannes gives his tobacco pouch a firm squeeze when we finally step into the river of sorrow. His eyes flicker over the people ahead of us in the burial procession as it turns to the left outside the church and sets off towards the graveyard.
Outside, the sun is shining. Its warm rays bathe the car park, church and the procession that has now gathered around the freshly dug hole in the ground at the end of the graveyard where the burial will take place.
We stand some distance away in the outer circle and can barely hear the vicar who has embarked on yet another bible reading. All at once a shadow stretches out towards me, and Harvey’s grey face appears.
‘Have you seen her?’ He nods towards a rise beyond the last graves where the two care assistants stand flanking Merethe’s wheelchair. She is sitting with her hands on her lap watching their son play beside a stream that runs alongside the churchyard fence. He is scooting up and down the bank, dragging a stick behind him with the tip immersed in the water, splashing in all directions. ‘Her jaws are screwed tight, and they’ve stitched the muscles so that she has to be fed through a tube.’
‘I’m sorry, Harvey,’ I say, turning to face him. ‘I—’
‘No, Thorkild.’ Harvey’s eyes meet mine. ‘I’m the one who should apologise. I was so upset when we last spoke, so frightened, but I should have seen the state you were in and insisted that you come with me to the hospital. Instead I started babbling about the lighthouse and ghosts.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ I clear my throat. ‘I’m the only one who can do something about that business. How is she?’ I ask in an attempt to change the subject.
‘Well, we’re talking. At least, I talk, and she writes notes. In a week or two they’ll let her home. The doctors say she will improve – things will sort themselves out in good time. I just hope she manages to make a recovery before the filming of her show starts. She’s been looking forward to that for so long.’
The congregation has come to the end of the prayers, and the ritual lowering of the coffins has begun.
‘You found the Dane,’ Harvey says as the vicar performs the ceremonial scattering of earth before opening his bible and beginning to read aloud from it. ‘When you were out there … in the sea,’ he stammers. ‘Tied to a woman’s arm?’
I nod. The vicar closes his bible and moves on to the final blessing. ‘Now at least nobody can claim that she doesn’t exist.’
‘Do they know who she is?’
I shake my head.
‘Any news of Bjørkang and Arnt?’
‘The police in Tromsø have requisitioned a mini-submarine and asked Kripos for assistance. Reinforcements are due this afternoon.’
‘Do they still think you have something to do with it?’
‘Very much so,’ I answer. ‘I’m going for another interview later this afternoon. There are just a few things I need to sort out in advance. See what’s what, if you get my drift.’ I take the apartment key from my jacket pocket and hand it to Harvey. ‘Thanks for the loan.’
‘No problem.’ Harvey stuffs it into his trouser pocket. ‘The relatives are clearing it out later today.’
‘By the way, how did things go for you? Were you called for interview yesterday?’
Harvey shakes his head. ‘I haven’t been there. I can’t manage yet. There’s such a lot to attend to because of Merethe now. My God.’ He bites his bottom lip and turns away: ‘I’ve been so afraid for her.’
The burial is nearing its conclusion, and the assembled people are folding their hands in preparation for the final psalm. I place a tentative hand on Harvey’s shoulder. ‘May I speak to her?’
‘Yes,’ Harvey replies. Merethe has hidden her fingers in her jacket sleeves. She is watching the singing crowd with a fixed gaze. One of the care assistants produces a woollen blanket that he unfolds and places over her knees. ‘Of course you can.’
We set off towards Merethe as the crowd begins to disperse, Harvey leading the way, with Johannes and me following behind. Above us the sky is clearer. The sea lies shining and still beyond the bay.
‘Hi,’ I say in an uncertain voice when we reach Merethe in the wheelchair. The care assistants withdraw a few steps, and one lights a cigarette as they turn to face a grove of trees behind the graveyard. ‘I … I …’
Merethe holds a hand up, signalling me to stop. She opens one of the pockets of her suit jacket and takes out a notepad. While she writes, I steal a glance at the metal contraption again. Her lips are dry, with a gap between them. Her lower lip juts out beyond the upper one, making her resemble an assault victim with deadened nerve fibres and paralysed muscle tissue in her face.
Merethe hands me the notepad and looks at me. It was not her is written on the note. She nods her head very gently as I read.
It was so painful, it says. As if my mouth was filled with more and more water with every breath I took. It felt as if I was drowning.
‘I tried to help you, but I didn’t have the strength to hold …’
Merethe shakes her head before writing something and hands me the notepad again.
It wasn’t your fault. I was the one who let her in.
‘I saw her too.’
Merethe nods as she writes. She was speaking to you.
‘To me? What do you mean?’
Merethe writes again, and then tears off the note and places it on my open hand. ‘I don’t understand,’ I whisper, staring at the letters that form two incomprehensible words, wondering whether she has suffered some kind of seizure that has led to her not knowing what she has written, nothing but random lines and letters laid out in a row.
‘Looks like Russian.’ Harvey looks down at the note. He is pale and his body is swaying slightly from side to side as if he is feeling faint. He has to take a step to one side, towards the wheelchair, to avoid falling over.
‘Do you know what it means?’ I ask.
Looking at us both, Merethe leans forward in the wheelchair. ‘I’m freezing,’ she wheezes through clenched teeth.
‘What?’
Merethe grabs my hand and squeezes it hard. Her fingers are abnormally warm, so warm that I can feel the heat rise up my arm to my neck and face. Her chest heaves every time she gasps for breath, guiding my hand to the notepad and the two words written there. ‘I’m … freezing.’
‘Did she say that? I’m freezing?’
Merethe nods and exhales. Letting go my hand, she writes something else on the pad and tears it off when she is finished, then passes it to me with a sorrowful look.
Goodbye, Thorkild.
‘Goodbye,’ I say, folding the note. I tuck it into my trou
ser pocket before we all exchange polite phrases and go our separate ways.
Johannes and I head off towards the car together with stragglers from the burial. The sun has now broken completely through the cloud cover. In front of us the last car rolls out of the car park and on down to the main road.
‘Johannes,’ I say as we approach the hire car. ‘Arnt told me about a steady rise in narcotics and prostitution in Tromsø on the first day I arrived here.’
‘Yes,’ Johannes answers. ‘You have only to read the papers, you know, then you can see where things are going.’
‘Do you know where these women come from?’
‘Yes,’ he says, laughing bitterly. ‘The same place as the booze, cigarettes, tobacco and the rest of that shit. From Russia.’
‘Yes, true enough,’ I concede, and get into the car and start the engine.
CHAPTER 57
‘What are you hoping to find out there?’ Johannes asks when we park the hire vehicle beside the boathouses.
‘Answers,’ I mumble cryptically, surveying the still bright sea between the bay and the lighthouse.
‘To what?’
‘Who the woman without a face is. Who murdered Rasmus. Where Bjørkang and Arnt are, and maybe confirmation of whether I’m crazy or not,’ I tell him before I open the door and step out.
‘Is that all?’ Johannes chuckles to himself.
The salt sea wind brushes over my face and lightly pricks my skin. I stride quickly back to the car, open the boot and change my clothes again.
It takes just a few minutes to cross. Johannes steers the boat in towards the quay stump beside the lighthouse and goes alongside. Grabbing a coil of rope, I clamber up and tie the boat to a rusty reinforcement iron sticking out of the bedrock.
Johannes looks at me on my return to haul the old fisherman ashore. ‘What now?’
‘The main building. The disco is in the basement. After the séance with Merethe I came out here.’
He comes to a halt at the front door of the renovated keeper’s residence. The crime-scene tape I tore off last time I was here is lying crumpled beside the wall.
‘Séance? What séance?’
‘There was someone in the room with us, inside her. She was talking, screaming.’
‘What do you mean?’ Johannes stammers, as he stands frozen in the doorway while I step into the foyer. ‘A … ghost?’ he calls out after me.
I come to a standstill, looking at him, aware of the rustling plastic and smell of old mildew and foul air filling my senses. ‘You must have known that Merethe is clairvoyant?’
Johannes spits and sniffs loudly. ‘I don’t like that sort of stuff,’ he says, treading reluctantly into the foyer. ‘That kind of thing gives me the creeps. Some things are not meant for us to fool around with.’
We pass the plastic-covered walls of the foyer, heading to the staircase. ‘What did she say?’ Johannes asks when we get there.
‘Sorry?’
‘You said she was talking.’
I take out the note Merethe gave me and hand it to Johannes. ‘Mne xólodno,’ I say.
‘What?’ He looks quizzically at me. ‘What did you say?’
‘Mne xólodno,’ I repeat. ‘It means I’m freezing in Russian.’
Johannes’s face blanches. ‘It’s impossible,’ he whispers, staring vacantly into space.
‘What is it?’
‘No, no,’ he mumbles, almost in a daze, as he grabs at the banister for support.
‘What is it, Johannes?’ I put a hand on his shoulder.
‘I …’ he starts to explain and then his gaze returns to me. His eyes are wide open and his mouth is trembling as he speaks. ‘It’s just that I think I’ve heard this before.’
‘Where?’
Johannes takes a deep breath before straightening up again. He digs out his tobacco from his jacket. The first cigarette paper tears as he tries to extract it. ‘There was a boat,’ he explains, screwing up the paper in his hand. ‘A Russian boat that went down here a few weeks ago – I don’t know whether you’ve heard about it?’
‘Bjørkang mentioned it. What about it?’
‘It had engine trouble en route to Tromsø. There was a terrible storm, and the boat went down. All the crew managed to get ashore and they were taken to Tromsø that same night.’
Johannes produces another paper and fills it with a strip of tobacco. He rolls the paper slowly and methodically, the cylinder shape emerges, and he lifts his creation to his lips to moisten the adhesive. The roll-up sticks to the tip of his tongue and it tears. ‘I heard them on the walkie-talkie,’ he says in a musing voice. ‘First there was just a lot of shouting and cursing in Russian, and then they changed to speaking in English – a few short sentences when they made contact. Then it all went quiet.’
‘Do you know who they were talking to?’
‘No. Too much interference on the line, and just after that it went completely quiet.’ His tone turns sombre, as if what he wants to say is scaring him. ‘Until later that same night. That was when I heard it.’
‘Heard what?’
He takes out a fresh cigarette paper while he talks, and adds a strip of tobacco. ‘I had just been out to lay a heavy stone on the cellar hatch so that the wind wouldn’t blow it open and rip the whole thing off. When I came in again, I heard a crackling noise from the living room. I took off my boots and went inside. The green light on the walkie-talkie was flashing, as if somebody was sending a message, or had at least pressed the send button, without saying anything.’
‘Someone from that boat?’
Johannes observes me with eyes that are narrow and black. His lips curl down, as if trying to turn away from the rest of his face. ‘I stood there in front of the walkie-talkie, waiting, to see if the person sending a message would try again. I was wondering who it might be.’ He looks at me with that strange expression on his face, a mixture of fear and amazement. ‘I mean, it sometimes happens that someone sitting on one of those godforsaken rocks out here gets a bit down in the dumps in the wee small hours, and you can expect to hear anything at all at that time of night. But something was different; I could feel it every time the green light came on. It wasn’t until I tried to answer, that … that—’
‘What?’
‘I heard a voice. Up until now I’ve told myself that I’d just put a drop too much of the hard stuff in my coffee that night, or else that it was the feeling you get sometimes when you’re sitting there on your own in the house while storms and gales blast and tear at the walls; that what I heard was just atmospherics, or wind or whatever. But now—’
I realise that I have gone cold inside. As if my brain already knows what Johannes is going to tell me, and is warning my body that I will soon be feeling even colder. ‘What?’
‘It was a woman’s voice.’ Johannes’s face contorts into a grimace of pain. ‘She was whispering, so softly that if it hadn’t been for the green light it could just as easily have been the wind sighing. Two words in a foreign language, and then the light was switched off, and I didn’t hear anything more from her.’
‘My God,’ I exclaim, taking a deep breath. ‘What are you telling me?’
CHAPTER 58
‘Are you sure you want us to go down there?’ Johannes has finally managed to light his roll-up. He looks anxiously at me through the tobacco smoke.
‘Yes. I have to know,’ I answer, leaning down over the banisters in an effort to see the foot of the stairs, where the door was left open a crack last time I was here. The line between fantasy and reality ran down there. ‘There’s no other way.’
We linger there for a while, each lost in his thoughts, as we both stare into the darkness below. In the end Johannes stubs out his cigarette and tucks the butt away inside his matchbox. We swap glances one last time and then descend.
The metal door at the foot of the staircase stands open. Inside is darkness and utter silence. I take out my mobile phone and switch on the flashlight function as we ent
er the corridor with the bird-display cases. The footprints from my last visit are covered in a fine layer of dust, and I follow them along to the wall with the stuffed birds on show. In the dim light they resemble stage props in an American horror movie from the seventies, their dead glass eyes squinting out.
‘I’ve never been here before.’ Johannes shudders as he approaches and catches sight of the exhibits.
‘It’s not exactly your type of place,’ I mumble, continuing past the glass cases and across to the disco entrance, where I pause in the doorway. Total silence envelops us. The music, disco ball, strobe light and smoke machine are all switched off. The odd particle of dust continues to swirl around beneath the ceiling. The strong pastel colours on the concrete walls are patched with the same grey damp: a desolate moonscape.
‘Come on,’ I say, pressing further on into the disco. ‘She was sitting over there.’
We pass the DJ booth and stop in the centre of the dance floor, where I can barely make out the green glass with the male figure pointing in the direction of the emergency exit.
I feel my heart sink as I come closer. ‘Empty,’ I say, stopping in front of the booth where the table is covered in dust and the jam jars with tea lights are gone. The air is rank and oppressive. ‘She’s not here.’
‘Thank God,’ Johannes gasps in relief. ‘For a moment there I was really feeling my heart start to pound.’ He fumbles to find the cigarette stub in his matchbox, but changes his mind and puts it straight back again. ‘What a stink.’ His lips curl, and he raises the hand with the matchbox to his face, as if it were a pomander.
The light from the mobile torch encounters an indentation in the flattened dust on the sofa, where I sat last time I was here. In the opposite booth there is a patch of dark dried matter on the seat where the woman with no face had sat. ‘But she was,’ I murmur, squatting. I can make out a puddle of sticky, rancid paste that looks as if it has run out from under the table. Covering my nose with my free hand, I breathe through my mouth as I stoop closer. ‘She was here that night.’
I Will Miss You Tomorrow Page 25