CHAPTER 64
‘Now this is what we call a real clusterfuck,’ Harvey gasps once he has moved up beside me inside the tank and removed his mouthpiece. He aims a harpoon and flashlight at me. ‘Of epic proportions, am I right?’
I yank out my own mouthpiece and cautiously inhale some air. Oppressive, almost suffocating, it tastes bitter on my tongue. ‘My friend,’ I say, spitting in an attempt to get rid of the acrid flavour.
Our voices sound hollow when we speak. Behind Harvey, air bubbles rise from the bottom, bursting in the confined air pocket in which we are located. Immediately afterwards, the dead body of the woman without a face appears on the surface at his back. He has tied her to a line knotted around her waist. Her torso and the hair on the back of her head are visible; the rest hangs underneath, dangling in the murky water.
‘So it was you who came to take her from the lighthouse that first night I was there.’
Harvey turns round and shines the flashlight on the corpse floating on the surface behind him. I can just make out a hood of short black hair and shreds of skin swirling around her skull. ‘Yes,’ he says, turning back again. ‘For a minute or two I was actually afraid you were going to jump in after us.’
‘Who is she?’
‘I think she’s called Elena. From Archangel, Murmansk, or one of those cities there.’
‘A sex worker?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was she doing on board the trawler?’
‘Money, money, money.’ Harvey tries out one of his self-confident grins. This time he fails. The anxiety and stress are too close to the surface, and the corners of his mouth refuse to obey, instead simply quivering faintly without budging an inch. In the end he says: ‘I have some bedsits in the city, six bedsits that I rent out to women from Russia who come here to work for a few months in the year.’
‘Why could no one find her?’
‘Well, here’s where it gets a bit tricky.’ I am aware of my fingertips and toes growing numb with cold. Harvey too is white around the lips and eyes. ‘Arkady, the trawler captain, and I have this arrangement. He transports a few things for me from Russia, plus he brings the occasional girl to do some work in the city.’
‘What things?’
‘Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,’ Harvey answers. ‘Booze, amphetamines, steroids – you know, things that help to pay the bills. The trawler went down so fast, the crew just had to jump on board the lifeboats. It wasn’t until they’d left the trawler that they realised they’d forgotten the girl.’
‘How can you forget something like that?’
Harvey shrugs. ‘Those Russians. They drink, take dope and keep going, no matter whether there’s a fucking storm or not. Maybe she too was high as a kite. Who knows?’
‘Then Rasmus found the woman.’
Harvey nods. ‘Wrong place at the wrong time, man. That’s all. Exactly like you.’
I remain mute and he goes on: ‘The storm that took the trawler seemed to go on for ever. A nor’wester – they blow directly through here, and make it almost impossible to dive or manoeuvre the crane on your own in this particular spot, just beyond the tip of the island. So I had to wait. And when the weather finally relented and I headed out here with the catamaran to haul the stuff out, who do I find anchored right above the wreck in his RIB? Yes, the Danish guy. He’d already been down twice and dragged some of my packages as well as the woman up from the depths. I didn’t know what to do, and then all of a sudden he was standing there with his back to me, and I hit out. He just toppled over, plunged overboard and lay there without moving a muscle.’
‘He didn’t die from the blow to his head,’ I tell him, struggling to stay afloat. ‘Rasmus drowned.’
Harvey nods silently.
‘You shouldn’t have tied them together with the cable ties.’ We can hear water sloshing against the walls every time the currents outside rock the boat.
‘My mistake,’ he says, with a sigh, and shakes off a cold shudder as another noise sounds from somewhere outside the tank. ‘I brought them both with me and sank them under the water at one of the mussel poles out at my farm. They must have become separated when the poles came adrift during the storm and were carried off by the tide. My God, I searched high and low for them.’
‘The local police chief and his sergeant never reached the lighthouse that evening, did they?’
Harvey shakes his head, as if trying to peel off images from his subconscious. ‘Bjørkang phoned and told me you had found her out by the lighthouse. I realised as soon as anyone found the Danish guy as well, and saw that they’d been tied together—’
‘So you killed them?’
‘I asked them to pick me up before they headed out to the lighthouse, and hit Bjørkang on the back of the head with a lifting block as soon as their boat came alongside at the farm quay.’
‘And Arnt?’
‘Arnt and I had a semi-professional relationship as a result of our shared interest in hunting and fishing. He knew that I sometimes carried Russian liquor in the containers I brought back to the city. Arnt realised what we had to do, as soon as I’d managed to calm him down. I told him about Rasmus and about Elena and convinced him there was no way out, that we had to hide Bjørkang’s body in one of the tanks. We could say that their boat had foundered in the storm, and that Arnt had made it to dry land, but that Bjørkang had vanished into the waves.’
‘Arnt would never have been able to live with what you’d done.’ My thighs are smarting with pain after all the exertion involved in staying afloat, and I carefully jiggle loose a couple of the lead sinkers under the water and let them go, without taking my eyes off Harvey and his harpoon.
At first Harvey says nothing, and just nods faintly to himself before starting to talk again – a bit more quietly now. ‘I saw him in front of me in the tank opening after we’d dumped Bjørkang’s body. Before I had the chance to reconsider, I had pushed him all the way inside and closed the hatch.’
‘You let him freeze to death down here in the dark.’
‘There was no other way. No other way!’ Harvey raises his voice. The reverberation causes more rust to loosen and rain down over us.
‘Harvey the Merciful,’ I spit out. ‘When did you decide to get me mixed up in all this?’
‘The perfect scapegoat,’ he hisses. Harvey’s face is suddenly greyer, either because of the cold and the oppressive, foul air, or perhaps there is something else: recognition of what circumstances are transforming him into. ‘I brought Bjørkang’s cap out to the lighthouse the next day and made sure the police found it and the bloodstains in the bar. Mostly just to see what would happen.’
‘Oh, a police cap,’ I say, forcing out a burst of unconvincing laughter. ‘You knew that would get the bloodhounds moving, I guess.’
Harvey gives me a probing look as I laugh again. ‘Murderers and the stories they tell, eh?’ I shake my head, and continue when Harvey makes no comment. ‘Do you see how difficult it is to admit the simplest, most insignificant things, even to yourself? You didn’t bring a blood-soaked police cap at random, or just to see what would happen, as you say. That’s a lie. One you are telling to protect yourself from … yourself.’
‘Really?’ Harvey sniffs dismissively. ‘How riveting.’
‘The human brain is programmed to alter or adjust reality sometimes – an ancient defence mechanism, a ghost in the machine, intended to help us handle and work through trauma and agonising sense impressions. You tell yourself an alternative story, in which you distort details to make them fit your own self-image.’ I feel the urge to laugh, even though my teeth are chattering. ‘That’s why you use language like “suddenly, before I knew it, he just fell,” and so on. That’s pure bullshit, Harvey. The truth is that you staged a game with me, a scenario you were working on as early as that morning when you took me out to the lighthouse, when you told me that story from your childhood about the child crying out in the swamplands where your family had a cabin. I�
��m not saying that you’d planned in detail what the outcome of this scenario would be, but you knew how far you were willing to go, as soon as you worked out what kind of person I was—’
‘What? Substance-dependent?’ He flings out his arms – the flashlight is pointing one way and the harpoon another. ‘A drug addict?’ For a split second I consider lunging at him in an effort to grab the harpoon, but the distance is too great, and in a flash they’re back again, the torch and the harpoon, aimed straight at my chest.
‘Among other things,’ I continue calmly. ‘Nor do I believe that Bjørkang phoned you that night after I’d found the woman. That’s another one of these falsifications that your brain has come up with. Maybe Arnt, but not Bjørkang.’
‘Does it make any difference?’
‘Of course. Not for me, but for you, Harvey. Arnt was jittery, maybe even scared, when he called me. Probably he realised that the woman’s body came from that trawler. Maybe he even suspected you of having something to do with Rasmus’s disappearance. I think he wanted to tell me about it, but then he chose instead to rely on you and hung up. After that he phoned you and you persuaded him to come out to the farm where you were waiting, ready to kill. No chance event, just two more cold-blooded, premeditated murders.’
‘Lies,’ Harvey snarls.
‘No one believes this wrong place at the wrong time crap of yours,’ I add. ‘Just as we’re both absolutely aware that you didn’t turn up here with a harpoon because you were in the area totally by chance and wondered whether we might dive for catfish together. You’re a calculating killer who’s ready to destroy human lives … and you’re here to commit another murder.’
A loud crack sounds through the hull, followed by a shower of rust flakes drizzling down on us. The water takes on a reddish sheen where our flashlight beams meet the oily mixture. Harvey looks at me. His eyes are dark and hollow and his mouth half open. It is as if we are both dreading the next scene in this tableau at the bottom of the ocean.
‘It couldn’t end any other way, Thorkild,’ he finally whispers.
‘And that elaborate spectacle in the disco? Why couldn’t you just kill me the way you had done with the others?’
The water is sloshing against the metal sides of the tank. The ripples cause more rust to flake off from the roof and hail down over us, followed by a series of hollow echoes that force their way through the sunken bones of the boat.
‘I had to go out to the farm with Elena again, and had thought to hide her in the old sheep shelter until things had blown over. After all, I couldn’t have her lying in the elk freezer in the garage all through the winter either,’ Harvey says when the hammering and rusty rain have ceased. ‘I heard you in the bar: you were talking on the phone as you struggled to down enough pills and alcohol to do the job properly. I decided to help you on your way. Hold one last party for you and Elena. God knows, you both needed one.’
At last his laughter is authentic. The noise rebounds from the walls, sending more flurries of rust down on us while the cold courses through my body. ‘I stood watching you both from beside the billiard tables. My God, you were totally gone, man. Wasted. Worst of all,’ Harvey continues, shaking his head in mock despair, ‘was how you managed to jump into the sea and land on the only piece of flotsam for miles around. It’s quite a feat to fail so fundamentally.’
With a shrug, I try to force a facial expression to convey contempt: ‘What can I say?’ The gesture brings on a spasm of pain and cold in my cheek. ‘Some people are just born lucky.’
Playing it safe, Harvey puts his flashlight aside, leaving it drifting in the murk between us. He lifts his harpoon and aims it for my chest. ‘Thorkild,’ he whispers hoarsely. ‘Your luck is about to run out …’
CHAPTER 65
Elena’s corpse is floating on the surface two or three metres behind Harvey. The water ripples around her body and hair as the link between her and Harvey tightens.
‘So you’re thinking of shutting me in here too, together with these other bodies of yours? Your own private graveyard? Some killers keep charnel houses for their victims, so that they own them eternally. I spoke to several of that sort while I was in the States.’
‘I landed in a fucked-up situation, that’s all. When all you can do is either accept it or else throw in your hand. A man will fight back when he’s pushed into a corner.’ He flashes me an oblique look before rounding off: ‘Most men, at least.’
The way our voices echo around the hull, the sharp reverberation and creaking from the vessel, the cold, the rusty rain and the oppressive air invading the walls of my lungs, these all make me nauseous and dizzy.
‘I’ve heard many confidences from murderers and criminals, Harvey,’ I say in an effort to regain some sort of control over the conversation. ‘Too many. I know all the words, the mechanisms they use to justify their actions, both to themselves and the rest of the world. I also know it doesn’t matter what you say. The ghosts you’re trying to conceal down here on the seabed, they won’t go away. They’re going to haunt you for the rest of your life.’
Harvey looks at me. This time he is not even trying to smile.
‘There are two kinds of murderer, did you know that? No, probably not. It doesn’t matter how many people they kill – that’s not what defines which of the two categories they fall into. Do you know what it is? The key factor that distinguishes the two types from each other?’
‘No,’ Harvey answers, still with the harpoon aimed at my chest while I speak. I’m so cold now that it is a trial to talk, but nevertheless I press on, forcing it out between chattering teeth and ferocious muscle convulsions. Simply because I know that when this conversation is over and everything has been said, what awaits is the cold steel of Harvey’s harpoon.
‘What distinguishes the two,’ I press on, ‘is that most murderers are weighed down by guilt over what they have done. They will spend time after each episode trying to forget, suppress and hide. But there are some, a special race of killers, who are different. They are reflected in their crimes. People who collect dead bodies – in fact, they are their trophies. The yardstick for all their achievements. But you, Harvey. You’re no trophy hunter, are you?’
Harvey shakes his head gently without speaking. ‘It harms you, what you have done. You’ve already embarked on the painful journey – I can see that in your face.’
Harvey is totally still now: his shoulders have dropped and the hands holding the harpoon are swaying on the surface of the water.
‘You just don’t know it yourself,’ I labour the point. ‘Because you are still in the midst of the whirlwind – adrenalin and shock, after all you’ve been through recently, are all boiling in there, and you’re acting in panic. Hitting out at everything and everyone that reminds you of what you’ve done, because you still believe that this is something you can wash off, something you can escape from.’
I inch a cautious fraction closer to where Harvey is floating, talking all the while and stealing forward on this razor-thin knife-edge. ‘You fucked up,’ I whisper. ‘We’re on the ocean floor on board a shipwreck that you’ve filled with dead bodies. You could have filled every single tank in this boat with your skeletons, and that would still not be enough. You can never escape from this. Kripos is in town, and they’re going to check mobile-phone traffic, see who has talked to whom, and when. Soon their mini-submarine will come to trawl the seabed and find this wreck.’
‘It can still work out,’ he answers weakly.
‘Stop all this bullshit and look around!’ I splutter, and then am overtaken by a violent coughing fit. Splashing around, I thresh my hands as my body is racked with the strain of breathing. ‘You’re floating,’ I gasp when I catch sight of the tip of the harpoon as it breaks through the water between us. ‘You’re floating around here in this tank, inside a wreck on the bottom of the sea, with a corpse trailing after you on a fishing line, and then you tell me that you still believe everything can be OK again? That you, Merethe and
your little boy can continue just like before? You’ve trapped yourself in a delusion, Harvey – I know that. I’ve been there myself.’
‘You’re the one who’s deluded,’ Harvey replies coldly, tightening his grip on the harpoon. ‘Who believes that this scenario can have more than one ending.’
I know Harvey is right. But all I can do is plough on, moving in ever-decreasing circles as I search for a way in. ‘They will turn up again, those ghosts of yours.’ I stop advancing. ‘When you’re alone, when you’re eating dinner with your wife, or when you’re putting your son to bed at night. Then they’ll be there. You will have to share them with the people you love. With Merethe and the boy.’
‘They’re never going to know about it.’
‘Your wife sees dead people. It’s her job. And you believe in all that stuff yourself, you already told me that.’
Harvey blinks hard several times over. ‘They’re never going to know about it,’ he repeats mechanically.
‘What about your son? What if he possesses that ability too? What if he’s the one the ghosts come to when they don’t get what they want from you?’
‘Wh-what?’ Harvey reels back through the water, forced to spread his hands to keep his balance.
‘I saw her, Harvey,’ I say, pointing at the greyish-black lump of flesh hanging behind him, suspended from a fishing line. ‘Elena. In your wife’s eyes. I heard her screams.’ I’m no more than a metre distant now, and drop my voice: ‘Don’t you get it?’ I say, in a milder tone. ‘That I know. I know what is waiting, that’s why I’m telling you this. You can’t escape this. It has already locked itself deep inside you and will never leave you. All you can do is to come forward, admit what you’ve done, and take responsibility for it. For your sake, and for Merethe. And for your boy.’
Harvey is at a complete standstill again. Behind him the water spills over the dead body as it bumps against one of the tank’s inside walls. It looks as if he is thinking, mulling things over and sorting out the chaos inside him. In an interview situation, we try to find our way towards a crossroads such as this, at which point the subject is forced to choose whether he can continue with the lie or change his statement and admit what he has done, let go of the falsehoods and take personal responsibility. All the same, I am painfully aware that the consequences will not be the same here on the ocean bed, with a man who has already committed several murders, and who holds a harpoon in his hands, if the outcome doesn’t turn out as I wish.
I Will Miss You Tomorrow Page 28