Devil's Fjord, page 12
As evening fell she left the quayside, walked up to the priest’s timber cottage and stood outside looking at the place. It was like the man himself: gaunt and bare. The brightest part was the downstairs windows freshly-painted with white frames, a contribution he’d demanded of one of his parishioners during the summer. Ryberg levied his parishioners like a minister of old. He scrounged food and favours constantly, nudging his flock into acts of reluctant generosity they would never bestow on one another.
Respect for God meant respect for his priests. Or so the lean bachelor always said.
And respect came in many forms.
But he had his bony fingers on the purse strings of the church. There was money there somewhere. There had to be.
Haraldsen went back to the computer and pulled up the cutting he’d found earlier. It was from the previous summer and headlined: ‘Djevulsfjord man dies in tragic cliff fall’. Then a line in smaller type beneath that read: ‘Father finds him during boat search’.
He scanned it again and said, ‘Remember. This is written from Tórshavn. A reporter they sent to the scene the following day. As much a foreigner as us. Everything reported third-hand at best. From whatever the locals … and Aksel Højgaard chose to say.’
Elsebeth dragged her chair right up to the desk and started to read the piece out loud.
‘Kaspar Ganting, a much-loved son and brother of Djevulsfjord, was pronounced dead yesterday after his body was recovered by his own father in Freyja’s Pool, a cove at the foot of the Lundi Cliffs, one of the remote area’s most scenic natural features. He was twenty-five, a fisherman and jobbing labourer in the village. His father Baldur Ganting farms and owns the longliner Alberta on which Kaspar worked regularly. The young man had lived at home since leaving Vágar College seven years before.
‘Father Lars Ryberg, priest in the village, paid tribute to Kaspar yesterday and asked for his family to be left in peace to mourn him. He described the dead man as a “paragon of virtue” who had contributed to every local social activity with a selfless and dedicated enthusiasm. A much-loved brother to Alba and uncle to little Jónas and Benjamin.’
Haraldsen tapped the screen.
‘But that isn’t right, is it? Not if Dorotea Thomsen is telling the truth. The man was a rascal. How a priest can …?’
‘What do you expect him to say?’ Elsebeth asked. ‘The poor creature had just been found dead. Is the man with the Bible supposed to add to the family’s misery by spouting out the truth about him to the world at large?’
Haraldsen nodded and agreed this was a good point.
She read on.
‘The circumstances of the death have now been established after a thorough investigation by Vágar police. The dead man, like many a Djevulsfjord local, was fond of walking the hills of a summer night. At nine in the evening Kaspar announced that he was minded to go looking for puffins and eggs above Freyja’s Pool and afterwards, given the fair weather, to sleep out on the hills, a habit many in the fishing village have at this time of year, so pleasant is the summer climate. It was not the first time he’d taken such a decision so none in his family thought this unremarkable.
‘Kaspar then took his puffin net and walked alone to the cliffs that lead across the seaward foothill of Árnafjall towards Selkie Bay. Somewhere along the path it appears he lost his footing and tumbled more than eighty metres onto the rocks at the base of the outcrop.
‘His family were sure he had decided to stay out on the hills for the night. So his absence was unquestioned. However the following morning locals in Djevulsfjord were alerted when gulls were seen in frantic activity near the area. A boat captained by the man’s own father went out to investigate.
‘After a dangerous and demanding sortie into the treacherous waters and rocks near the cliffs Kaspar’s body was recovered around midday and immediately returned to his home village where the police were called. Father Ryberg paid tribute to the many local men and women who have called upon the Ganting family – parents Baldur and Eydna and a married sister Alba – to offer their condolences. The funeral is due to take place in Djevulsfjord next Wednesday, with a respectful turnout from the village expected for such a popular fellow.’
Haraldsen closed his eyes. He couldn’t begin to imagine the agonies Baldur Ganting must have gone through revisiting this same nightmare that very day, and finding the body of his grandson in the process.
‘So was this nosing about worthwhile?’ Elsebeth wondered. ‘Does this fit in with your role as district sheriff?’
‘I may know very little about habits here in Djevulsfjord. But I’m sure as sure can be no local man goes hunting puffins and eggs at nine o’clock at night. And the idea a fellow like that …’
‘You don’t know what he was like! You’ve only Dorotea Thomsen’s word for it!’
‘I may not be a detective, wife. But I recognize the improbable when I see it.’ He gazed at her over the glasses he needed for the computer. ‘And so do you. Ja?’
She scowled. Then shrugged.
‘Now you may wish to leave me because what I am about to do is, in theory, beyond the law.’
‘Oh, Tristan! Leave this and for pity’s sake come to bed.’
He didn’t answer, just hammered on the keys.
The address for the internal website of the police headquarters in Tórshavn was one he knew by heart. As office manager there he’d used this same laptop when working from home.
‘What in God’s name are you doing now?’
‘Seeing how efficient our technical people are when it comes to removing retired colleagues from the system.’
The logon form came up. He typed in his old password.
‘This is shameful,’ she said. ‘Prying into matters that are none of our business.’
Haraldsen found himself looking at the page that had greeted him every day for most of the last five years, ever since someone from Copenhagen came over and installed the new network, then found a young man fresh out of the Faroes university computer department to run it.
His inbox contained three emails from colleagues wishing him good luck on his retirement and offering invitations for beer. All of them had arrived after his departure from the building.
A few keystrokes took him into the records section where he typed in: Kaspar Ganting.
There were two files there. One listed a series of seven complaints lodged within the space of four months, the last just two days before his death. They accused Ganting of theft, aggressive and threatening behaviour and logged three reports of sexual harassment at dances in Vágar. But since the accusations had arrived anonymously in the form of paper printouts sent by post to Tórshavn there was, the report concluded, little the police could do.
‘They must have interviewed him,’ Elsebeth said.
‘If they had it would be here.’
She hesitated then asked, ‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘All these charges …’
It was hard to explain.
‘They’re not charges, love. They’re accusations. Without a name to put to them.’
‘And no police officer would even have had a word with him? What about one of your beer-drinking mates? If one of them had been on the case?’
Haraldsen thought about that.
‘If anyone should have been looking at this it was the station in Sørvágur. Aksel Højgaard.’
He knew what was coming next.
‘So you are going to raise this with him?’
‘Perhaps your new friend Hanna …?’ he suggested.
‘Hanna Olsen wasn’t there at the time. And this is none of her business.’
‘Never mind. Let me take a peek inside the Sørvágur records then.’
‘Tristan!’
There was very little to look at. Simply a document stating that the complaints had been handed to the responsible superintendent to consider and he had recommended no action due to the lack of evidence and witness names.
A noise outside disturbed them. The sheep stirring for some reason. Elsebeth leaned forward and looked at the screen.
‘Well, well. Signed off by Aksel Højgaard. So your friend from Tórshavn knew about this all along.’
‘I never said Højgaard was my friend.’ Haraldsen scrolled down the screen but there was nothing more to see. ‘Merely an acquaintance. They dispatched him to Sørvágur five or six years ago, I believe. His family come from Vágar originally if I remember correctly. There were manning problems or something. He never came back.’
Haraldsen then looked at the second file on Kaspar Ganting. It was the autopsy performed after Baldur Ganting had identified his son. The conclusion was clear: accidental death caused by multiple injuries due to a fall.
‘See,’ Elsebeth said triumphantly. ‘This is where your suspicious nature leads you. Nowhere.’
He read the details carefully. As the paper predicted there was no sign of illegal drugs in his corpse and little trace of alcohol, insufficient, the medical examiner said, to impair his senses.
Ganting had fallen a long way to his death. His body suffered terrible injuries meeting the cruel hard rocks of the cliff near Freyja’s Pool. The pathologist suspected he might well have been dead from an impact along the way before reaching the bottom. A head wound that showed clear signs of rock fragments would have rendered him unconscious if not killed him, even without the dreadful lacerations to his chest that came from the ledge on which he landed.
‘He must have hit himself on the way down,’ Elsebeth suggested.
‘Or someone hit him. Much the way someone struck poor Hanna Olsen today.’
‘You don’t know that, Tristan.’
He scrolled to the bottom of the document.
‘And they never found a puffin net,’ he said.
It would be wrong to reply to the emails from his former colleagues. All that would do would be to alert them to the fact the young man recruited to run their system from the university was a little lax when it came to maintenance. And deny him entry another time, of course.
‘Kaspar Ganting was a Djevulsfjord boy,’ he pointed out. ‘He would have clambered those cliffs chasing puffins and their eggs as soon as he could walk. Crossed them like a mountain goat, like those two nephews of his did yesterday. He was a strong and agile young man from all accounts.’
He pulled up some photos on the laptop. Elsebeth had taken them the previous summer when they took the Ace Capri to Vágar for a walking holiday and become so entranced by the scenery they’d begun to dream about moving there when retirement came.
‘This is the footpath,’ he said, finding the sequence he wanted. ‘The one where I saw Hanna Olsen. Probably the one Kaspar Ganting took too.’
There Elsebeth was, pretty as a picture, on what looked like a scorching summer day. Sunny blue sky, peaceful azure sea. Not a cloud anywhere. This being the Faroes the weather was never quite that kind, of course. So she wore a navy windcheater and a headscarf and stood arms folded, beaming at the camera, happy as a lark.
The track was broad grass, clearly-marked. It ran a good six steps back from the cliff edge. A cautious man, not fond of heights, he remembered walking it and recalled thinking about that precipitous drop, determined that neither he nor Elsebeth would go near.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘tell me please. How does a man like Kaspar Ganting, as sure-footed as a goat, sober, intent on something – though I doubt it was birding – how does he fall to his death in a place like that? Truly, Elsebeth. How?’
She didn’t answer.
‘And how can it be, one year later, that his own nephew should die in the selfsame spot? Supposedly at his brother’s hand?’
Elsebeth looked set to cry which made him feel deeply guilty, though determined nonetheless.
‘Oh, Tristan. We’re both tired and overwrought after this terrible day. Two terrible days …’
Her hand went to his head again. Elsebeth’s eyes were bleary, with exhaustion and, he realized, the beginning of tears.
‘Do you not feel something’s wrong?’ Haraldsen asked.
‘Everything can seem wrong if you look hard enough. The wrongest thing I see right now is my dear husband.’
‘Jónas Mikkelsen ran away from the strand because of me. Had I not—’
‘This isn’t your fault. We should leave it.’ Elsebeth bent down and kissed his cheek. ‘Please. No more.’
Not since the time they got lost on holiday in Jutland – entirely due to Haraldsen’s faulty map-reading as he later realized – had they been so close to a genuine, heartfelt squabble. The very proximity of that pained him.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said.
She reached out and closed the laptop lid.
Haraldsen got to his feet, stretched and said, ‘If I were a praying man I’d put my hands together for that poor lad out there somewhere now. And his father in hospital.’
‘I’ll make some bedtime tea. And get you clean pyjamas. The red ones. The black ones are in the wash.’
‘The black ones are more comfy …’
‘And covered in grass cuttings since you insisted on mowing the roof in them. I had to brush a load of clippings out of the bed thank you very much.’
‘Ah.’ That seemed a long time ago. ‘I must finish that some time. A tidy roof is a necessity …’
‘But not in your pyjamas this time …’
Haraldsen pulled the empty pipe out of his cardigan pocket and sucked on it.
There was something more she was about to say. But Elsebeth stopped and they both knew why. It was the noise from outside again. The sheep in their pen were bleating their little hearts out, a sad refrain of fear and puzzlement the likes of which neither of them had heard before. Then the chickens joined in too with a chorus of worried clucking.
‘Stay here,’ Haraldsen said and went for the door.
TEN
Father Ryberg was at the fireplace in his tidy living room when Alba Mikkelsen came in.
‘You didn’t knock,’ the priest complained.
She stood on the threshold of the bare, bachelor room, puzzled. When she came to clean he’d never asked her to announce herself before. Just watched her walk in, thinking. Looking. He was a priest. He was a man as well.
‘I thought you’d be out searching for that lad of yours,’ Ryberg said.
‘They said they’ll start again tomorrow. Police. Like he’s a murderer or something.’
She hadn’t seen him out with the teams that afternoon. Only the first night when they went missing.
‘I don’t know where the money’s going to come from. Not for anything. Dorotea Thomsen’s bloody hovel. I’m not going back in with Mum and Dad. Not if I can help it. No room there for Benji when they find him …’
Ryberg sighed as if she were stupid.
‘Your boy will go into one of the homes in Tórshavn if they find him. Maybe across the water in Denmark. You don’t need to worry about that.’
‘I’m not worrying. He’s my son. He should be with me. So I can look after him.’
He had cold eyes but she knew exactly what he was thinking at that moment. Probably what most of Djevulsfjord was thinking.
You couldn’t look after the boys when there were two of them. Now the youngest’s dead you think they’ll let you screw up raising the daft one who can barely dress himself as well?
‘I can look after him,’ she insisted. ‘Benji’s just slow. You need to be patient. Jónas never was which is why they fought …’
‘He killed his brother.’
No, she thought. She still couldn’t believe that. Not that there was any point in saying that to Lars Ryberg. Or probably anyone else in Djevulsfjord at that moment.
‘I’m going to need some money. For the funeral. For Benji when they find him. For the bills. Dorotea Thomsen—’
‘She sent you here, did she?’ he snapped behind the beard.
‘She said the church is about … charity. About looking after the flock.’
‘Some flock,’ Ryberg grumbled. ‘They get back what they put in. Not been much of that since I came here.’
‘I need to earn more money,’ she begged. ‘I’ll work for it. Do more cleaning. Whatever you want. I got all the hours in the day. Got no pride either. This place beat that out of me long ago. You just say …’
That came out wrong, she thought, and regretted it immediately.
He was grinning, white teeth breaking the silver whiskers.
‘Well, you know how to earn it, don’t you?’ he said tugging at his belt.
The priest walked back into the hall, then did something so strange she wondered if she were dreaming. Father Lars Ryberg took the old, long key off its hook beneath a painting of Christ on the cross, and nodded upstairs.
‘I’ll be going now,’ she said and did.
Elsebeth was there before Haraldsen could go outside, hands outstretched, flapping. ‘Enough, Tristan. It’s just a stray dog or something.’
He stopped by the door, hands on his hips.
‘I know this has been an odd day, dearest. But truly to see you in this state simply because I desire to check our chickens …’
‘Discuss these matters with our young policewoman friend,’ she added. ‘Let her set your mind to rest. Your heart—’
‘My mind, I believe, is in much the state it’s always been. My heart, as I keep saying, is nothing serious.’
Outside the sheep bleated again. There was a puzzled, half-frightened cackling from the hens cooped up for the night next to the butchery.
‘For me then,’ she pleaded.
‘This is our home,’ Haraldsen said with a sternness he did not truly mean. He grabbed the torch from the kitchen sideboard and his jacket off the hook. ‘I shall see what’s out there.’
‘You do not even have a gun!’
The shrill nature of her voice was quite foreign to them both. And the thought that they of all people might need such a weapon. Common as it might be among the locals who would shoot as much game as they could – they’d heard evidence of that often enough – the possession of a shotgun was something the two of them had never discussed for a moment. They might as well have discussed the acquisition of a spacecraft.
