Devil's Fjord, page 27
Elsebeth placed the bike on the ground and looked around. The trail did end in that perilous cliff. But there was a narrow ledge running by the side of it. Cigarette ends were stabbed into the rough brown earth by the side, like spent trophies. She turned sideways and edged along the ridge, making sure not to look down. Soon the rock broadened and she could walk more freely. Ten metres along the way turned behind a spike of basalt and there it was: a cavern, the mouth half in shadow.
‘Hello?’ she said and walked straight in.
There was a smell she recognized. Not a pleasant one. Humanity cornered, sweat and worse. The way ahead lay in darkness and she knew what she needed. The phone again. The torch app she’d used in the tunnel when Tristan so very nearly ran her down.
‘If there is someone here …?’
No answer. The dim light of the tiny screen cast a weak beam ahead of her. Elsebeth’s foot stopped as it hit something tinny, sending it scuttling across the floor.
A camping gas stove. Next to it a sleeping bag. Some pans and a hiker’s dish with a handle, food in the bottom, a dirty knife next to it. A packet of cigarettes and some clothes in a bundle. A hoodie sweatshirt with a roaring blue lion’s head and the logo, ‘F.C. København’.
‘Oh, Hanna,’ she whispered.
Whoever had worn the shirt of Copenhagen’s football team had done so recently. Perhaps that very day.
She took a photo of it with her phone then, step-by-step, shaking a little, she made her way back along the ledge, never looking down again, flattening herself against the rock wall at the narrowest part, until she reached the bike.
The sun was so bright it hurt her eyes. The stink of tobacco from those extinguished cigarettes made her feel a little nauseous.
Still she took out her phone and made the inevitable call.
It took a while for the policewoman to answer and when she did there were voices in the background.
‘Yes?’ was all she said.
‘Hanna. It’s Elsebeth Haraldsen. I’ve been on the fells. We need to—’
‘I cannot … I cannot deal with this now.’ She sounded close to breaking. ‘I have a job to do, Elsebeth. I’m outside Alba Mikkelsen’s place by the harbour. Can you come, please? Can you come quickly?’
‘This is important.’
A pause, then: ‘So is this.’
‘Of course,’ Elsebeth said and climbed on her bike.
By the time she arrived a small crowd had gathered outside the tumbledown shed that was Alba Mikkelsen’s home on the cobbles by the harbour. Two cars, black, shiny, new, unlike anything in Djevulsfjord, were parked along the sea wall, Hanna Olsen’s motorbike with them. The policewoman was at the door looking harassed. There were three people with her, two middle-aged women and a silent man, big, with the physique of a boxer, all in grey work clothes, officialdom written all over them.
She marched straight over, looked Hanna in the eye and realized why she was there. A conflict had arisen and Elsebeth was supposed to be the policewoman’s support in the fight.
‘How can I help?’ she asked.
‘You can’t.’ It was the woman in grey at the front. She waved a piece of paper. ‘I have a court order to take Benjamin Mikkelsen into protective custody. I expect the police to back me up in this. Not stand in my way.’
With that she banged on the door, which only generated a tirade of foul-mouthed shrieks from Alba on the other side.
‘They want to take the boy,’ Hanna said and didn’t move an inch.
‘We have to take him.’
‘Piss off out of here,’ Alba yelled from inside.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ the woman said a little more quietly. ‘These things are difficult enough without making them harder. We don’t want to drag the child out ourselves.’ She nodded at the crowd, Dorotea Thomsen at the front, arms folded, watching as if this were entertainment. ‘Discreet is best.’
‘Was Alba Mikkelsen forewarned?’ Elsebeth asked. ‘Did she receive legal advice?’
The women rolled their eyes. The big man with them said, ‘Are you listening? We have a warrant to take the child. Take the child we will. One way or another.’
Elsebeth rapped on the door and asked if Alba would let her and the policewoman in.
No answer.
‘We must talk. Please. I … I know this is difficult. But these people will not go away. Alba!’
There was a sound. A latch getting lifted. The door was just timber planks hammered together. You could push your way in if you wanted. But it opened and when it did she walked inside, Hanna Olsen behind her.
Alba was at the table, eyes glistening with tears, face stony with fury. Benjamin sat on an ancient sofa, a book on his lap as if nothing had happened. Eydna, her mother, was next to him looking lost.
‘They will not take my boy. I won’t allow it. Benji’s my son. How …?’ She slammed a fist on the table then glared at Eydna. ‘Where’s Dad? He can stop them.’
‘I said. Your father had to go to Tórshavn to get some things for the boat, love.’
‘Those bastards waited till he was gone, didn’t they?’
Hanna sat down at the table. Elsebeth didn’t. She wandered round the little shack then went over to Benji, not that he seemed to notice.
‘They’re not taking him …’
Hanna put a hand on Alba’s.
‘They have the right. They’ve got papers.’
‘Mum? You tell them.’
Eydna Ganting looked lost.
‘Tell them what? These are big people from Tórshavn, love. You can’t argue with them. You know that. We never could.’
‘He’s my son! Look …’
She went over to him, sat next to the boy. He wasn’t even looking at the book in his lap.
‘Tell them, Benji. Tell them you want to stay here. With me. We’ll be alright.’
Silence.
‘For fuck’s sake, Benji, will you tell them?’
A longer silence then Hanna went to the door, opened it and spoke to the woman in grey, the one who seemed to be running things.
‘I don’t want to use force,’ she said. ‘The child has been through enough.’
‘You don’t know what he’s been through?’ Alba was halfway to her when Elsebeth intervened and held her back. ‘Haven’t a clue.’
The woman waved an ID card from the social services department.
‘Do you, Mrs Mikkelsen? Has he said a single word since we left him with you?’
‘I’m his mother.’ Her voice turned weak. There was a note of defeat inside it, one they could all hear, Alba too. ‘I just need time.’
‘Your son is ill. He needs a secure home and specialist treatment. Edvard …’
The big man barged through in a flash, the other woman behind him. Before anyone could stop them they raced round the room, took hold of Benji who didn’t even protest as the fellow got him in his strong arms, began to drag him to the door.
‘Let me be with him!’ Alba was on her feet.
‘You are not part of the cure,’ the woman said, blocking her way.
‘I will come,’ Eydna Ganting strode to her grandson. ‘I will come or I will make sure those people out there never let you leave this village. Benjamin! Take my hand!’
Tight in the man’s grip the boy did that. The fellow relented. Alba tried to force her way to kiss him but they wouldn’t let her and nothing Elsebeth Haraldsen could do or say was going to change that.
Benjamin Mikkelsen just looked blankly at the little crowd as they led him to the car.
‘When will he be back?’ Alba bleated as they drove off. ‘You’re the police. You should know.’
Hanna checked her phone for messages. It seemed there were none.
‘Why ask me? I didn’t even know they were coming till the last moment. They had to notify me. Didn’t mean they wanted me here.’ She glanced around the room. ‘I can make you a cup of tea—’
‘Don’t want a cup of tea. Don’t want anything people like you got. If I don’t have my Benji what …?’ She screwed her eyes tight shut and clenched her fists. ‘What point’s there being here anyway? Just a slave of Dorotea’s …’
Elsebeth took Hanna Olsen to one side and said what she thought was obvious: Benjamin wasn’t the only one in need of care. His mother deserved it just as much.
‘I don’t think she should be left on her own.’
‘I been on my own ever since Silas dumped me,’ Alba snapped at them from across the room. ‘Before that as well. Don’t think I can’t hear you.’
The place was too small for a family, cramped with ancient, worn furniture so jammed together it was hard to walk around without bumping into things.
Elsebeth took hold of Hanna’s police jacket and tugged her into a corner.
‘We need to talk.’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t leave until I’m sure she’s OK. Or looked after.’
‘Up on the fells. I found something. A man’s been living up there. Maybe still is and he was out or something. Look …’
She retrieved her phone. There were two photos there and she switched between them as Hanna watched, wide-eyed. The football club sweatshirt she’d found on Árnafjall. And the one worn by her brother in the photo from the harbour the year before, found on Inga Dam’s wall, with Djurhuus and the Gantings in the background, the remains of the grind behind them, white skeletons on the strand.
‘It’s the same,’ Elsebeth said. ‘Older but the same, surely. A man’s been living there. Inga said she saw him head for here from time to time as well.’
‘Søren …’
Hanna Olsen had a firm voice, low and hard almost, but at that moment it was close to breaking.
‘Søren,’ Alba repeated in a hard, sarcastic tone from the table. They turned to look at her and she stared back, an expression of defiance in her bleak, sad eyes.
‘My brother,’ Hanna began.
‘I know who Søren Olsen is.’
She screwed her eyes tight shut for a moment. There was so much pain in this woman, Elsebeth realized, and nothing one could do to lessen it.
‘Do you …’ Hanna hardly dared say the words. ‘Do you know where he is?’
Alba laughed, no joy inside it.
‘Maybe.’
Nothing more.
‘No games, please,’ Elsebeth said. ‘Where?’
‘They took my boy. And you talk about games.’
‘Where?’ Hanna demanded.
Alba got up and went to a sideboard beneath the window, pulled open a drawer, found an envelope, brought it to them, spilled three photos on the cracked wood of the table.
It was a summer’s day on the ferry to Jutland. Three selfies. Søren in that same sweatshirt. Alba next to him. Both happy, both smiling as if nothing in the world could harm them.
‘Where is he?’ Hanna repeated.
That mirthless laugh came again and Elsebeth Haraldsen found herself shivering in the dark, damp shed that was Alba Mikkelsen’s home.
‘You lot come here. From outside. Thinking you own us. Thinking you know everything.’
She spread the photos out so they could see them better.
‘You don’t know nothing at all.’
The cottage was empty when Haraldsen got back. She might have left a message. He could always ring. Except the meeting with Højgaard and his old colleague Rasmussen had left him rattled. And angry, a feeling he found foreign, one he hated. Getting kicked out of the district sheriff’s job didn’t worry him at all. But their dismissal of his objections and ready willingness to accept facts he believed questionable in the very least – these things offended him.
Haraldsen had always believed himself a firm supporter of justice, of a kind and benevolent meritocracy in the world, one in which some prospered more than others but never at their expense. This, it seemed to him now, was nothing more than naivety. There was an arrogance in folk like the men he’d just been talking to, a superiority they felt given to them by who they were and the positions they held. The people of Djevulsfjord didn’t count for much at all. That struggling fishing hamlet was nothing more than an anachronism, a hidden blight on the backside of Vágar they wished would go away.
‘Dammit,’ he said and knew where he was going.
The day was bright and chilly. He shivered a little as he walked to Ryberg’s cottage. Two days and a long night after he’d broken down the door only to find himself stumbling against the dead Ryberg’s naked legs, the investigators appeared to have finished their work. A few scraps of yellow police tape blew in the wind along the weed-strewn path that led to what was once the village priest’s home. The place stank of smoke and destruction but he was surprised to see that it was not a complete wreck. True, the front was almost destroyed and the blackened staircase from which that dreadful thing had swung was now nothing more than a carbonized shell. But the back of the house, the kitchen and another room, for laundry perhaps, was almost intact though covered in the white powder of the fire engine’s foam.
‘I saw that thing,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I held it in my hands.’
A poker that looked like a whaling spear. Sticky with blood. Fire might blacken it. That’s all.
A deep breath then he walked on, over the sooty threshold. The pumps of the firemen had left filthy dark puddles everywhere. The supporting timbers of the front of the house were twisted like bones from an upturned whale skeleton. The smell was intense and upsetting, bringing back those few moments when he’d burst through the smoke and flames crying out for Lars Ryberg, wondering where he was.
Then Elsebeth’s kind and troubled face looking down at him as he lay on the grass in the churchyard, wheezing fit to burst from all the muck he’d inhaled. A foolish thing to do. Out of character. But necessary.
He thought he heard a noise.
‘Hello?’
Just the word brought back the memory of him saying that as he fought his way into this place when it was in flames.
No answer, then or now. The sound seemed to come from the back of the house, the part that was largely intact behind a blackened wall covered in dried foam, beyond a door marked by the rips of a fireman’s axe.
‘Hello?’
Nothing. A dog perhaps, scavenging in the ruins.
Haraldsen looked down at his feet, rummaging with his boot end through the debris: burned carpet, shards of unidentifiable wood, broken crockery, the charred remains of curtains and sheets. A bible, the pages seared so badly it was hard to make out the print. Priests must have lived here a hundred years or more. Now there was no one to wear the dog collar. Perhaps the church would think it uneconomic to send one to a community failing so visibly. Lars Ryberg could scarcely be described as the heart of the village. But Djevulsfjord still had a church and a church needed a priest. So, he felt, did its people.
‘I saw a poker,’ he reminded himself out loud, and jabbed his foot through the detritus on the ground, around where he believed it might have been.
Somewhere out back there was that noise again.
‘If there’s anyone there please announce yourself. Police? Fire brigade? I am Tristan Haraldsen. The district sheriff.’
There was no poker fashioned out of a whaling spear. Perhaps someone had taken it as a souvenir. Or maybe he did imagine it in all the confusion and smoke and flames. Though a piece of metal sticky with blood was an odd thing for the mind to invent at such a moment.
Haraldsen wandered into what was once the living room. The fireplace he could still make out, the dark red brickwork the only thing in the room that wasn’t entirely a sooty shade of black. A couple of old chairs, the collapsed frame of what must once have been a dining table, a standard lamp leaning at a crooked angle against the back wall where the pumps had finally doused the blaze. The house was made of wood. It must have gone up like tinder. He was amazed they’d managed to save this last section at the back at all.
The noise again. There was someone there. Footsteps, unmistakable.
‘Hello!’ Haraldsen cried and strode directly for the inner door.
It fell off its hinges when he pushed it, and just that brought back again the memory of that terrible moment he’d stumbled into the house two nights before, barging into the hanging Ryberg, suspended from his own banister.
‘Who is this?’
It was the kitchen, only half-damaged by smoke. Empty, he thought, until he walked into the middle and a hand came and tapped directly on his shoulder.
Baffled, frightened a little, he turned and found himself facing a tall man of perhaps twenty-five or thirty, burly, with an athletic physique enclosed in a grubby tracksuit. He wore a beard that varied between blond and brown, eyes that were blue and seemed more than a little cruel. His mouth curled in a smile that was not pleasant at all and he possessed a strong and earthy stink to him as if he’d climbed straight out of the ground. There was something that seemed familiar, though in his confused state at that moment Haraldsen found himself quite unable to understand why or how.
‘I …’
It was so very hard to think and his heart, the damned heart, was pounding now.
‘I—’
‘I heard tell you were looking for this.’
The whaling spear that doubled as a poker, now as black as most everything else in the rest of Ryberg’s house, he gripped in his right hand like a weapon.
‘I believe I was.’
‘Well, district sheriff.’ The fellow slapped the long shaft of iron hard in his left palm and then again. ‘You’ve found it now. Haven’t you?’
TWENTY-TWO
She wasn’t really sure why she ran that summer. Silas hadn’t been beating her any more than usual. The kids were just the same, Jónas sly and always getting into trouble, with Kaspar usually. Benjamin quiet, lovable, useless.
The Tórshavn bus was there that morning, a notice saying it was going to be thirty minutes late because of roadworks. She had money in her pocket. It only took a few minutes to sling a few clothes and some toiletries into a couple of carrier bags, then slide on at the last moment, sit at the back, head down, the only passenger the driver had.
Not that the idea was new. The week before she’d phoned the ferry company and asked them if it was possible to work a passage to Denmark. The man on the other end of the line had laughed and said: no, but if she wanted a job cleaning she could maybe then save up enough one day for the fare.
