Devil's Fjord, page 10
It came. The boat fell back to the sea like a brick hitting ground. The crash was so loud he wondered if his ears might burst. Freezing water soaked the two of them, ran inside his oilskin, down his neck. Still Haraldsen clung on.
A long time it took for him to dare to look up. Despair there and joy. Ganting was still in the cabin, dealing with a wheel that seemed less crazed than before. Silas Mikkelsen was with him, a broken form slumped on the floor, not moving, perhaps unconscious, dragged there somehow.
Haraldsen waited until he was sure the world was calming. When he dared he raised up his neck and peered over the side. The Skerries were close by and with them calmer water. Along the line of cliffs he could just make out the outer wall of Djevulsfjord’s little harbour.
The raging waves fell back into a steady, more familiar rhythm.
‘Baldur,’ he cried at the tall man in the wheelhouse. ‘How is Mikkelsen?’
‘I am busy!’ came the angry cry in return.
Ganting turned from the wheel and gazed at him, a mixture of both pity and contempt in his craggy fisherman’s features. Then he nodded back the way they’d come. Haraldsen plucked up the courage to raise himself a little and stare over the stern.
A black wall of storm sat on the churning waters, running straight out from Freyja’s Pool, something from a nightmare, a line of darkness that might have been the very edge of the world. He knew then it was a miracle they’d survived this cruel and vicious tempest at all, and that every breath he took from now on would be witness to Ganting’s wondrous talent as a mariner.
‘The father’s hurt bad,’ Baldur Ganting said simply. ‘What about the boy?’
Haraldsen still held the child in his arms, young pale face streaming with water turned to the deck. There’d been no sign of movement, not the slightest indication of life since he’d scooped him from the rocky ledge.
‘The boy!’ Ganting cried again. ‘Does he live?’
‘I think not,’ Haraldsen said softly, almost to himself, and plucked up the courage to turn the little body towards him.
The boat’s passage seemed almost normal. The horizon ahead, the village, the harbour, no longer bucked up and down beyond the sharp prow.
He placed his fingers on the lad’s neck, feeling for a pulse. The pale skin there was as cold as ice. Two blue eyes stared blankly at the grey sky, as if surprised, rain on the pupils. A bloody bruise marked his forehead. He wasn’t breathing.
‘Which child is it?’ Ganting bellowed again, his voice close to cracking.
‘The younger …’ Haraldsen let go, feeling some strange object pressing against him from the child’s chest. ‘I don’t …’
Words deserted him. They were close in to land, in the lee of Árnafjall which protected them from the harshest of the weather. Ganting seemed to know this without thinking. He jammed a piece of wood into the ship’s wheel to lock it then stepped across the still form of Silas Mikkelsen and stumbled across to where Haraldsen and the child lay on the deck.
‘Oh, child,’ the old fisherman moaned, his face wet with the sea, his eyes glassy with salt water and a sudden burst of tears. ‘The poor little bugger.’
The longliner was free and rolling loose in the swell. Ganting seemed lost. Haraldsen stood up and went swaying against the swelling tide to the wheelhouse, determined to keep it under some kind of control. He knew what he’d seen anyway. There was no point in looking at it more.
Behind him Baldur Ganting let loose a wail so full of pain and grief it sounded as if the world itself was crying.
From Jónas Mikkelsen’s chest, hard fast in his rib cage, protruded the same whaling knife the child had stolen the day before, seemingly prompting this present tragedy.
Haraldsen knocked out the wooden lock on the wheel and turned the boat for home.
EIGHT
Five hours later the last blue flashing police light left the quay. Two ambulances had made their way through the Árnafjall tunnel, one to remove the body of Jónas Mikkelsen, a second to take a semi-conscious Silas Mikkelsen to the hospital. He had a broken arm, a broken leg, internal injuries yet to be determined, and by all accounts a shattered mind. A puzzled Hanna Olsen who’d staggered down from the hills was treated by a police doctor brought in by Aksel Højgaard then sent home to Sørvágur to recuperate from a minor head wound.
Tristan Haraldsen had watched all this in helpless silence, shivering inside his yellow oilskins on the harbour side. One sight in particular would stay with him from the moment they docked with the sad corpse of Jónas on the deck. Alba, the mother, the wife, had wailed like a banshee when they brought the bloody little body off the boat, throwing herself at Jónas’s corpse in a manner so hysterical Haraldsen thought the dour and equally upset Ganting, compressing all that pain inside himself, might hit out at her before long. When she saw the injured Silas being taken off on a stretcher it looked as if she might lose what little composure she still possessed. Yet not a soul came to speak to her, to offer a word of comfort, and when Elsebeth tried the young woman rejected her furiously as it were an insult.
Of the missing Benjamin Mikkelsen there was no sign, though already the whispers had begun. It was no great secret that the older, slower brother had often been taunted into violence by his younger sibling. The assumption was that Jónas had jeered at him once too often. That Hanna Olsen had somehow stumbled upon the argument and been attacked by Benjamin from behind. Since she had no idea who’d struck her this seemed, for most of those gossiping quite openly by the harbour, to make some sense. After all … who else could it be?
Haraldsen thought the idea questionable at the very least and was glad to find Elsebeth of the same mind. A child killing his own brother, even an awkward, bullying one. Such things didn’t happen, not much in the outside world let alone in the Faroes where crime was as rare as Catholicism. Besides, though he did not elaborate on this at the time, he had seen something, someone by the rock puffin hide, a shape behind Hanna as she fell. A shape he felt to be too tall for Benjamin Mikkelsen, and too full of a deliberate violent intent. A man it was surely. Though who, he couldn’t begin to imagine.
Still he kept his thoughts to himself. The people of Djevulsfjord were closing in on themselves, drawing a veil around the little village by the water. There was no energy left to mount another search for the elder boy. That would wait until daylight and from the sound of it the effort would now be more a formal criminal investigation. From what he understood and had briefly witnessed, poor Benjamin Mikkelsen was a child who probably suffered from a developmental disability like autism, one that might go unnoticed and unchecked or simply see the lad labelled ‘thick’. But slow was not the same as stupid. If Benjamin had fought his brother with such terrible consequences he’d surely feel himself hunted with greater ferocity. Even more so if he wasn’t the one responsible since, whoever the third party was, the fellow would surely have the boy in his sights too.
These ideas roamed and fought and argued in his head until it ached. To no good purpose. There was nothing else to be done or said by the quay. The Haraldsens had wandered the cold damp night trying to talk to the locals with little success, feeling more and more like dazed spectators trapped in a continuing nightmare they could not begin to comprehend.
‘We should go home,’ he said eventually when there seemed nothing else to be done.
She didn’t say a word.
‘Elsebeth. We must cope. We always cope, don’t we?’
Again the silence, so he asked, ‘Is something wrong? Beyond the poor waif and his brother?’
‘No,’ she said very quietly. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘It’s just …’ He didn’t know. They never hid things from one another. That was a bargain they’d made from the very start. Honesty above all else, even if it was uncomfortable on occasion. Like him being told he could no longer smoke his pipe. And the niggles from time to time about his heart, which were nothing really.
‘Soup. That would be nice.’
‘We have none,’ Elsebeth replied in a low and mournful voice that was not like her at all. ‘And it’s time you got out of those oilskins of Ganting’s. You don’t even know you’re wearing them, do you?’
‘A few other things on my mind,’ he said rather hastily.
But it was true. He’d quite forgotten he had them on. So there and then, on the quayside, he stripped them off and found his own clothes mostly dry beneath. The longliner was empty as he stepped on board to replace the yellow fisherman’s suit in the cabin. The boat seemed badly damaged, broken timbers, shattered fittings everywhere. Haraldsen didn’t linger long on deck.
‘The shop will have some soup,’ he said. ‘Surely.’
George Thomsen was restocking the shelves when they arrived.
Elsebeth was in a quandary. She wanted to tell her husband about the strange visit from the woman called Inga Dam, and the even stranger gift she’d found on the desk. But a boy had died. Another was missing. And Tristan Haraldsen seemed confused, exhausted, lost for what to do except believe that some of this was his fault. Now was not the time.
‘Soup, if you will,’ she said taking the lead as they entered.
Dorotea winked at her husband.
‘There. See. I was right. Told you there’d be custom. My ears for business are as good as ever. I knew it was worth staying open on this lively day. Whatever goes on in the world outside people must always eat.’
‘Soup,’ Haraldsen repeated with an unaccustomed vehemence. ‘I would not call it lively. A young boy has died.’
‘Tristan …’ Elsebeth whispered. ‘Tread lightly.’
‘I am treading lightly,’ he insisted. ‘Thank you very much.’
Thomsen cleared his throat then went back to stacking the shelves with flour and detergent.
‘Yes,’ Dorotea noted. ‘The bright young Mikkelsen boy’s gone. They’ll bury him next to that wicked uncle of his, I imagine. Two or three days at the most. No one waits on funerals in Djevulsfjord.’
‘If the police allow it,’ Haraldsen pointed out.
She gazed at him, baffled.
‘Why wouldn’t they? Aksel Højgaard knows who did it. The superintendent is well familiar with that pair. Saw him talking to the younger one only yesterday morning before the grind. That stupid big brother of his slew him. He may be still at large but that shouldn’t stop us putting the young one in the ground, should it?’
‘The lad has only just died—’
‘Dead is dead,’ George Thomson declared, staring at the soap powder. He was picking off an old price and putting on a new one.
‘You two doubtless won’t have noticed,’ his wife added. ‘You haven’t been here long enough. But that pair were always a nightmare, headed for trouble. It was in their blood. The times we’ve had trouble with them in here—’
‘Only Jónas,’ her husband interrupted from the shelves. ‘A terrible thief and a liar to boot. The older lad never did us any harm. Just stood back with that stupid look of his as if he didn’t know what to do next.’
‘Well …’ She laughed. ‘He’s surely made up for that now, hasn’t he? I have tomato or mixed vegetable only by the can. It may be out of date but I doubt you’ll notice.’
‘Vegetable,’ Elsebeth said before Tristan could speak.
Dorotea Thomsen shrugged and passed it over.
‘What a day. We never have them like this except when outsiders come.’
‘Which means what?’ Haraldsen asked.
‘What I said. Was it unclear somehow?’
‘Benjamin’s still out there …’ It was rare for Tristan to lose his temper. But not unknown. ‘He’s as much a victim as anyone surely …’
‘At the risk of repeating myself I must say I never thought for one moment he might be up to harming that awful brother of his.’ George Thomsen seemed finished with the shelves. Everything he’d stacked very neatly. ‘Not seriously. Lord knows the evil little bastard used to torment him enough. He loved to get that poor simpleton ticking. Did it to everyone round here and the rest of us boxed his ears enough. Not that it did any good. All the same …’
‘And the hoodlum clouted a grown policewoman round the head as well,’ Dorotea added.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Thomsen went on. ‘Benji isn’t a bad lad at heart. Only when that brother of his got him going. Maybe it was Jónas bashed her and his brother him after. Seems more likely.’
‘Then why’s the idiot gone running?’
He came back to the counter and slapped his hands together to shake off the dust. Everything he’d been stacking seemed to be old and covered in it.
‘Because, wife, he’s an idiot. Look at the parents. Silas isn’t the brightest button in the box and as for Alba—’
‘If he was the father,’ she interrupted. ‘With that one who was to know?’
There was a prolonged and awkward silence. Elsebeth could see Haraldsen was close to fury.
‘I believe we shouldn’t speculate,’ she said. ‘Thank you for the soup.’
‘No need for that tone of voice,’ Dorotea Thomsen told her. ‘We know Djevulsfjord. You don’t. Children grow up quick round here. They’ve got to. This isn’t Tórshavn. With all your niceties.’
‘I had a word with Aksel Højgaard,’ her man added. ‘He’s sure as sure can be it was down to the older lad.’
‘Strange,’ Haraldsen said with a shake of his head. ‘How would he know anyway? He wasn’t there.’
‘Højgaard was adamant.’ Dorotea was sensing victory. ‘It’s Benjamin they must find. Though he’s a Djevulsfjord lad so he could live up there for weeks on his own if he wanted.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Haraldsen objected. ‘He’s a child.’
George Thomsen stuck his feet out. He was wearing a pair of sturdy hiking boots caked in grass and mud.
‘A child of ours. He’s as much at home out there as he is in front of his own hearth. We all of us used to go out for nights on end in them hills when the summer’s on us. You can find food, berries, eggs, hunt for hares and birds and roast them. Plenty of water. I done it often enough when I was their age. Gets you out of the house and away from your father wielding a belt when he’s full of beer. Those Mikkelsen boys went up to Lundi, Selkie, Árnafjall often enough. Even that idiot lad could hide up there as long as he likes till the weather turns. No one’s going to find him if he don’t want it. Got to look out for the holes mind. They’re everywhere. Fall down one of them and no one’s going to see you again.’
Elsebeth Haraldsen didn’t know what to say, any more than her husband.
‘Besides,’ Dorotea added, ‘who else could it be? There was just those two brothers up there. Them and that police girl who says she didn’t see a thing till one of them whacked her.’
‘There was someone …’ Haraldsen began. Then stopped himself for some reason.
‘What do you mean … someone?’ Dorotea Thomsen demanded.
‘Tristan?’ Elsebeth said quietly. ‘We should go.’
He didn’t move.
The boat was bucking beneath them at the time. The binoculars were old and far from clean. When he worked in the police he’d sat in on a few interviews. Officers always asked witnesses for hard detail, for certainty, and often became frustrated when they couldn’t get it. Now he understood why. Memory and vision were flimsy, unreliable things. He wasn’t sure what he’d witnessed at all and certainly wouldn’t be able to attest to much in court if it ever came to that.
‘I saw something,’ he murmured all the same and knew on the instant how pathetic that sounded.
Elsebeth packed away the soup in her bag, a clear sign it was time to leave.
‘Good night,’ she said and shoved him through the door.
The rain had turned to drizzle with the scent of ice in it. The wind had fallen to little more than a steady breeze. It was as if the weather felt it had done its work for now and was saying, like the rest of Djevulsfjord: enough.
NINE
The evening was long and filled with awkward silences. When he worked, and she did part-time teaching in a Tórshavn school, the days had mostly taken care of themselves, and holidays, lately in the Ace Capri, were always busy too. But now they had no jobs – the district sheriff wasn’t much of a post at all. These uncomfortable, unwanted hiatuses in their hours together were becoming common, and neither knew what to do with them. Finally Haraldsen grew embarrassed by his inability to make interesting conversation so he retired to the study he’d made next to the kitchen. Questions kept dancing all around his head. They would stay there until he did something to quell them.
Sitting at the desk in front of his laptop, reading glasses on, waiting on the sluggish internet connection, seemed as good a way as any to pass the time. Outside the chickens were clucking happily in their coops. The sheep had been checked. In their little haven just outside the village all seemed still. Or distant. Or simply unfathomable.
One other thing appeared out of place. The printer was bleating to have a cartridge changed. He couldn’t recall using it in days, not since he’d churned out some fishing reports forwarded from Tórshavn.
By habit and nature, without talking this through at all, they’d always reverted to the same response when life brought them challenges. A quiet stoicism shared gently and then filed away as ‘one of those things’. It had been like this when Tristan’s heart had, as he’d put it, ‘started to act up’. She’d listened to the news from the doctor, and how it meant early retirement, and said, ‘Ja’. It was the same when their parents died, when friends were lost or filed for divorce. Even, in the early days of their marriage when cash was hard to come by and money problems reared their head.
The two of them went through the facts, ruminated over them in silence, said whatever was necessary, then retreated inside their own thoughts. In some odd way this was more reassuring – more loving – than the alternative of endless discussion that led nowhere except, perhaps, to the unwanted conclusion of argument.
