I Will Miss You Tomorrow

by Heine Bakkeid

  I can still smell the scent of her hair and feel our dance moves as I cast about for the mouthpiece and force the water from my mouth, all the time struggling to hold my breath.

  After a couple of rounds of fumbling, I catch hold of the mouthpiece at last and insert it again. I hang with my arms outspread like an angel as I concentrate on regulating my breathing once more. Just after that I feel my feet touch bottom.

  Kicking out to avoid sinking into the clay, I check the dive computer and pressure indicator. I’ve reached a depth of eleven metres now, flanked only by a couple of dead fish partially buried in the soft clay on the seabed with one or two crustaceans nibbling at them.

  The bed slopes down at an incline of roughly thirty degrees. In between, I can make out the occasional stone or piece of scrap metal protruding from the mud, providing a home to small colonies of sea algae, starfish, sea urchins, mussels and sea snails in the sediment.

  I am still freezing, but have hit upon some sort of rhythm as I drift slowly down into the darkness. The seabed must be the loneliest place on earth: barren, murky and alien. I’ve never felt more lost and alone than right now, as I drag myself across mostly featureless mud towards a dark wall looming in front of me, jutting out from the seabed. A grey cloud of agitated sediment blankets the wall, and it is not until I’m inside this cloud that I realise that the wall, far from being a wall, is in fact the wheelhouse of a boat.

  The wheelhouse is lying upside down, resting on boulders or bedrock under the mud. From a gap in the top where the wheelhouse has been severed from the rest of the boat, I can see thick pipes, fragments of cables and other wreckage sticking out.

  I swim all the way over and up along one of the walls until I’m poised just above the opening. I can see that it would be extremely tricky, not to say hazardous, to attempt to wriggle through the cluster of pipes, cables and wreckage inside.

  I move on past a flight of rusty stairs. Already, mussels, algae and other forms of sea life have begun to stake their claim to the white metal walls containing the row of windows on the wheelhouse’s bow end. Above the windows, I can make out big Russian characters that must display the name of the trawler.

  Brushing scum from one of the windows, I peer inside. The first objects I catch sight of are the chairs projecting from the ceiling that had previously been the wheelhouse floor. A coffee mug floats in an air pocket just above the instrument panel. Further back, I see the outlines of an international sign displaying the on-board locations of the lifeboats and how to don lifejackets.

  I hang with my diving mask pressed firmly against the glass as my eyes slide over the loose items swirling inside. Suddenly I glimpse a flat-headed fish with a prickly dark-green back and bulging eyes emerge from a hole in the instrument panel. It propels itself slowly up towards a paper cup and tugs at it before swimming around and trying again from the other side. Our eyes meet for a fraction of a second, before the ghastly creature turns and darts between the joints on the wall panel.

  Backing away, I check the pressure indicator before scanning the area for a way out of the fog churning around the wreck so that I can read the measurement. I catch sight of a thick cable, seemingly attached to the wheelhouse base, that plunges further into the darkness.

  I swim across and put my hand on the steel wire. The threads vibrate with the tension caused by whatever is pulling at the other end. I check the pressure indicator and safety valves one last time before using both hands to grab the wire and start to haul myself down into the gloom towards whatever awaits me at the other end.

  CHAPTER 62

  Gradually as I descend, more dead, rotting fish and increasing amounts of wreckage appear, scattered across the seabed. I can also see something that looks like one of the stern beam-trawl nets protruding from the mud. The boat must have rolled down into the depths, scattering tackle, plastic drums and flattened freezer boxes on the way.

  At a depth of twenty-seven metres, I stop to check the depth gauge and pressure indicator one more time. In front of me, another wall of dark steel emerges from the sea floor. The trawler is lying with its keel upturned and almost straight. It seems as if the cable is the only thing preventing it from rolling farther down into the depths. The whole area is enveloped in the same grey fog as the wheelhouse farther up.

  Cautiously, I swim closer and stop immediately in front of the keel where an enormous trawler net is spread out. The boat must be about forty metres in length. The keel is covered in small wart-like protuberances, a scattering of grey-green tassels of seaweed, and the occasional cold-water coral. I can also see sporadic colonies of dead man’s fingers with yellowish-white and cream-coloured nodules waving at me from the underside of the wreck.

  The only sound is the bubbles emitted by the valves at the side of my head each time I breathe. The murk surrounding the wreck has captured both the trawler and myself in its own world down here on the seabed – a cloudy, greyish-brown, algae-sprinkled fog that pushes and pulls on you from all sides, testing you, as if to see whether you and your armour will really hold out and can bear the strain.

  The entire ship has lurched dangerously forward and might roll farther still at any moment. It is open between the bow and the sea floor, so that I can swim round and come out on the deck side. All the same, I choose to swim up and across the hull for fear that something will give way and the whole metal monster will shift and crush me under its weight.

  I start to heave myself up from the keel until I reach the jutting upturned windlass on the port side. The anchor is gone and only the chain remains, stretching out from the spool and disappearing down into the depths together with the front mast.

  A swarm of algae drifts past the wreck just beyond the patch of fog, moving up towards the surface, as if fleeing from the darkness down here. It would have been so easy, I think as I continue past the anchor winch in the bow, progressing astern along the side of the vessel. So why am I suddenly so afraid? Why is my body suffused with an intense fear of not returning to the surface now, when I am finally aware that all I need to do is to yank out the mouthpiece and inhale? It suddenly registers that this is what it looks like, the end of the line that I’ve been imagining for so long. As cold, colourless and desolate as this trawler at the bottom of the sea.

  I grab a piece of metal by the railing as I close my eyes and try to breathe calmly. In the end I regain control over my respiration and swim onwards. Ahead of me I see the front of a shattered lifeboat sticking out from underneath the railing on the trawler’s starboard side. Part of the cold-storage plant is suspended from a large hole where the metal has cracked, forming a broad split across the deck. Onwards, Thorkild. Only onwards.

  The seabed is almost white with dead fish, some still contained in freezer boxes or packed in plastic blocks. It seems as if the pile is alive, changing colour from chalk-white to deep-green, ruby-red and shades of yellow. Glittering streaks of silver shoot between the pulsating lower layer when small shoals of fish fry scurry past the heaps of crabs, starfish and sea urchins that have arrived to join the feast.

  I continue backwards, past the trawler ramps, rows of filleting stations, nets and loading hatches towards the stern, where the wheelhouse once stood. In the murk, huge frayed metal edges jut out from the deck as well as pipes, cables and other wreckage.

  At the stern I remain poised above the opening and the two gaping holes beneath me, each with a rusty metal staircase leading into the bilges of the ship. One goes down to the cabins and galley and the other to the engine room and technical areas.

  The winch – the wire I followed down from the wheelhouse was part of this – is hanging in front of me. The mounting is broken, and the winch arm is bent down towards the deck, while the spool itself is still attached to the supports in front of the wheelhouse remnants. The bolts on one side are torn loose and there are two black holes where the brackets would once have been located. The cable winds down from the spool across the deck on the starboard side, beneath the boat and out a
t the back. As soon as the last two bolts tear off or manage to twist their way out of the metal that encircles them, the entire trawler will continue its journey down into the darkness.

  I am aware there is a real risk that the wire will give way or shear off, and that the wreck will then tilt over on one side to lie with its keel up, or will simply slide down the slope, and that I risk being trapped inside if I dare to approach any closer. None of these propositions seems especially attractive as I hover above the two staircases, but at the same time something draws me into the gloom.

  I try to look beyond the cloud of dust and sediment up towards the surface of the sea, but all I perceive are faint shadows of grey and blue. ‘Bloody fool,’ I mutter to myself in faultless submarinish, without detaching my mouthpiece, while I lower myself carefully towards the wreck below. When I am close enough, I begin to swim across to the staircase leading down to the engine room, where I stretch out my arm and reach for a length of rail to hold on to.

  I direct the flashlight beam into the darkness and see that it is impossible to advance any farther than the end of the staircase. Heavy pieces of metal, engine parts, cylinders and other debris have collected just inside the cavity, blocking access.

  I continue across to the other cavity and shine the light inside: an orange raincoat and a boot are floating around in the cramped stairwell that slopes upwards into the bilges of the ship. The way to the cabins is open.

  Tentatively, I start to haul myself up the steps towards the aperture, concentrating hard on breathing well and keeping my cool. As soon as I have negotiated the stairs and thrust my head in through the door, I am faced with clothing and personal belongings floating around in the corridor ahead of me.

  I feel remarkably peaceful as I move from one door to the next, looking at bed linen, books and framed photographs of women and children. Everything is swirling around in the bunk alcoves, peopled by the occasional tiny fish that has strayed in here. As if I am no longer so alone.

  In one of the cabins, a pink bag drifts around under what had earlier been the floor, as well as a hooded sweater and a pair of trainers. There are no little family photos or pictures of naked women pinned on the door of this cabin. Toiletries, a pocket mirror and a few Russian fashion magazines, and a book with a picture of a man and woman locked in passionate embrace on the cover, are what glide between my legs in here. This cabin does not belong to a man.

  I check the manometer to see how much air I have used. I realise my body temperature has dropped, and that working my way through these narrow passages is feeling more cumbersome now.

  I pivot round and swim back out of the cabins, and as soon as I am out again, I swim down to the base and centre of the boat deck where the hatches for the cargo tanks and the fresh-water tank are situated. One of the tanks is open.

  I haul myself across the deck, over to the open hatch, and peer inside. There are more dead fish, huge stacks of boxes packed with dead fish, and sheets of transparent plastic hanging from massive reels fastened to the wall. Tiny bubbles rise from the heaps of rotten fish still piled up inside the tank.

  The next hatch is closed on the outside. I open the lock and hoist myself up so that I can press my whole body against the handle. In the end I manage to turn it far enough down so that the hatch springs open. I kick out to rise above the hole in order to avoid being buried in this tank, which is also full of fish.

  I remain there for some time before thrusting the hand with the flashlight into the opening and taking a peek inside. As soon as I come close enough, I have the uncomfortable sensation that I am about to intrude on someone else’s privacy.

  The tank seems to be open. Even though I have both the hand-held flashlight and a smaller LED light attached to my diving mask, it is as if the darkness in here can smother the light in some special way. It feels as though I am peering into a reservoir with walls of oil or tar.

  Cautiously, I descend into the tank. As soon as I’m inside, I hear a series of knocks resound throughout the wreck. A cloud of air bubbles drifts past, enveloping me so that for a moment I cannot see anything at all.

  My body aches to get out of here, and every stroke and kick inside this gloomy fish tank fills me with panic and anxiety. As soon as the bubbles have passed, I continue my journey up through the tank. Below me, the light from the opening diminishes, as fine rust flakes loosened from the bottom of the wreck rain down through the water.

  I stop halfway through the tank and hang there suspended as I focus on controlling my breathing, which is becoming erratic again. As I hover, with my head tilted up slightly as I watch the shower of rust, I glimpse something above my head. I straighten up and check the oxygen gauge before adjusting the LED light on my diving mask. Then I lunge towards the lifeless body above me.

  The water sparkles faintly with myriad bright rainbow colours where the torchlight strikes it, as if contaminated with petrol, diesel or oil. The sparse layer of colour clings to the corpse rocking lifelessly in the rhythm of the water’s motion.

  It appears to be floating in thin air against the rusty backdrop flaking off and raining down on us: a black underwater angel with head, arms and legs reaching down towards me as in a greeting between two disparate states.

  But everything is completely different now that we meet again.

  CHAPTER 63

  I did not think that he would be the one I found down here. Arnt Eriksen, the local police sergeant, still carries a bottle of air on his back as he drifts around the tank in full diving gear. His face is wrinkled and bloated, and his bulging eyes stare vacantly out. His mouth gapes open and his lower jaw trembles slightly when I move closer. A tiny brown sea creature is trying to hide in his trim moustache, but eventually gives up and slithers inside the dead sergeant’s nostril instead.

  I kick out yet again to reach the same level as the dead body, and next minute I break the surface to find myself inside an air pocket between the hull and the water in the tank.

  The flashlight beam and the fine layer of petrol or oil on the surface make the confined space shine, almost as if we are in a lagoon surrounded by sun and white beaches. Not until I look up at the rusty keel a metre and a half above me is the illusion shattered.

  I dive and carefully grasp the sergeant’s shoulder, letting the torchlight slide over his spine and the back of his head, but there are no signs of external injuries. Then I embark on the difficult job of turning the body round to examine the underside. This proves almost impossible: the body simply reverts to the same position each time I try, and in the end I decide to remove the diving bottles before I move him round.

  I twist the body into place before hauling the harness off on one side – an exhausting task. Not only is the body heavy and tricky to manoeuvre, it is also extremely arduous to keep working my legs to stay afloat at this level and at the same time struggle with the heavy body, on top of the exertion involved in avoiding gasping for breath or relinquishing the mouthpiece as I do so.

  Following a lengthy pause, when I simply lie quietly beside the corpse, I turn the body, and after a great deal of back and forth and complicated manoeuvring, finally succeed in removing the other harness. Another period of rest ensues before I manage to haul the body with me up to the surface.

  Somewhere behind me I hear hollow clanking from the air bottles bobbing on the surface as they jostle against one of the tank walls. As soon as I ascend to the glittering air pocket beneath the rusty dome, I start to drag the sergeant over on to his back to examine him in more detail.

  My thighs ache and my arms and shoulders feel numb. It is awkward to get a good grip on the slippery diving suit and simultaneously keep the body above water. As I struggle to rotate it all the way round, I let go and the corpse sinks rapidly through the film of oil or petrol under the water again.

  I grab the flashlight and am about to dive down to bring him up again when I glimpse something farther off. I hover here for a short time with the light directed at the silhouette. It dawns on me
that I have made a mistake as soon as I swim towards the other body ahead me. A big mistake.

  Police Chief Bendiks Johann Bjørkang is wearing a raincoat with a hi-vis vest and boots. The jacket is open, and underneath he has a blue shirt and tie. His eyes and mouth are closed, as if he is lying fast asleep here in this cocoon of water.

  A cluster of starfish has collected around a point on the top of his head, just the same as the one evident on Rasmus Moritzen’s body during the post-mortem. I carefully brush some of them away with the flashlight. The spiny creatures jostle their arms and suckers against one another as they drop to the bottom.

  The grey indentation at the top of the skull is surrounded by hair and torn skin where someone has battered the skull with a hard instrument. There is little doubt that Bjørkang was dead when he landed in the water. I can see that his hands are joined with cable ties, the same kind of white plastic strips as on Rasmus.

  One did not murder the other, or engineer their joint disappearance. They had never run around manipulating evidence and trying to put the blame on me or anyone else. Warily, I turn the local police chief’s body round again so that he is lying flat and face down.

  Suddenly I spot a movement all the way down at the entrance to the tank. At first it looks like the shadow of a big fish sliding in through the hole, before it stops for a second, turning round and then shining a bright beam of light up through the water to where I am suspended near the surface.

  The figure is trailing a rope or line of some kind. At the end I see a human-sized bundle being dragged through the opening before he releases the line again. He hovers here for a moment, motionless, and then grabs the flashlight and shines the beam straight up at me.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I groan, still floating here on the surface, waiting for the figure as it swims up through the tank towards me. ‘What an idiot I’ve been …’