Devil's Fjord, page 6
The boy took fright, snatched one quick and careful look around, then ran for the mouth of the cave where the blue sky shone and a single gull wheeled idly against the brightness.
Just a few steps from freedom a leg came out and tripped him. Benjamin fell hard to the rough, rock floor.
‘Where you going, goat?’ Jónas asked, clambering to his feet out of the shadows. ‘And don’t you think of fighting back, either. More than me to deal with if you start trouble.’
Three kilometres away, past the Lundi Cliffs and a steep-sided cove the locals called Freyja’s Pool, by the ribbon of coal-black sand that defined the fringe of Selkie Bay, Hanna Olsen stood in uniform, rocking back and forth on the soles and heels of her heavy trainers.
Along the headland flocks of puffins swooped and rose in clouds of black-and-white dots set against the sea and sky. The Atlantic seemed peaceful on the surface but animated by a constant swell, as if the ocean resented the loss of the sleek black creatures stolen the day before. A few fishing boats dotted the horizon. Somewhere, she guessed, the white skeletons of the grind were being picked clean in the cold, clear water. Food feeding food. Elsewhere in the Faroes the clean-up after grind was more organized and controlled. But this was Djevulsfjord. The isolated little fishing hamlet ran to its own rules while the rest of the island barely noticed.
The police helicopter from Sørvágur skirted round the corner of the cliffs, banking low. Wheeling puffins scattered like dust clouds ripped apart by the force of its rotors. Then the machine turned seawards, following the line of headland out to Djevulsfjord.
Hanna had left the search party to take a look around on her own. The locals regarded her as an intruder twice over. Not one of them and police besides. She’d dressed in civilian clothes: thick wool sweater and jeans. She was lost to what to do, where to go next. Then she heard footsteps not far away and saw Superintendent Højgaard striding across the hard shore grass. It looked like he’d been talking to George Thomsen among the men scouring the footpath along the beach. Højgaard didn’t seem to be treated as an outsider at all. But then Vágar was his territory, his fiefdom. Everything that happened here must have run across his desk. Not that she’d talked to him about that much. There’d never seemed the opportunity or perhaps she lacked the courage.
He marched on until he was next to her.
‘You know the weather forecast?’
Weather never interested Hanna Olsen much. There seemed little point. It always did what it liked.
‘Can’t say I have.’
He pointed to the western horizon. A line of puffy clouds was gathering there, grey-bottomed, innocent from afar.
‘There’s a storm out there. If it comes inshore we’re done.’
‘The Mikkelsen boys?’ Hanna asked since this seemed more important. ‘Any news?’
Højgaard grunted something unintelligible underneath his breath.
‘If they’re still out on the fells somewhere when the weather turns—’ she added.
‘No news my end,’ he interrupted. There was a cold, hard smile on his face. ‘Other than all the customary parties are out looking. What about you, Officer Olsen? Anything you want to tell me?’
Baldur Ganting asked one question only before allowing Haraldsen on the longliner.
‘Are you fine with the sea, man? Because you’re best ashore if not. There’s a swell on the way that’ll get to the weak. It’ll be worse as the day wears on. By night we’ll be lucky if the ocean’s fit for a boat at all.’
Then he rubbed some snus beneath his stained upper lip and waited for an answer. No, Haraldsen told him. While he had proved himself hopelessly unskilled when it came to dispatching pilot whales, he was not in the habit of falling seasick. From Tórshavn he’d used boats aplenty. The ferries to Denmark. Local pleasure craft.
‘This ain’t pleasure,’ Silas Mikkelsen muttered. ‘You had women nearly crying at the pain you put that young blackfish through.’
Nearly crying. That didn’t happen easily. Not a mention of his boys. Perhaps this was the Djevulsfjord way. Avoid the obvious and the awkward always.
‘I can only apologize for yesterday so many times. I’d like to help find your sons if I can.’
‘The police have sent parties up in the fells,’ Ganting said. ‘George Thomsen is taking some men up beyond the Lundi Cliffs. Anything to get away from that evil wife of his—’
‘If you don’t want me,’ Haraldsen interrupted. ‘Just say …’
Ganting looked up from the open wheelhouse.
‘The boat’s best with three men. You’ll find spare oilskins in the cabin. Do as you’re told and if you feel sick make sure you puke over the side. Any of it on the deck and you clean it up yourself.’
Haraldsen said thanks and stepped on board. The two men watched as he found the heavy yellow fisherman’s garments in the cabin and put them over his everyday clothes. When he came back to the deck Ganting glanced at the churning waves, and said, ‘The ones in the hills look for living things. If we find something out on the sea it’s likely to be bad. You understand that?’
‘Ja.’ Haraldsen nodded. Then, before he could think found himself saying, ‘I gather it’s not the first time. I mean … one hopes there’ll be no more reoccurrences of what happened with your …’ Stumbling over his words, shocked by the fiery gaze in Baldur Ganting’s eyes, he still couldn’t stop himself. ‘With your son …’
‘Cast us off,’ Ganting barked at Silas Mikkelsen.
Five minutes later they were sailing past the Skerries, Freyja’s Pool on their left, swelling open ocean ahead, the Alberta bucking up and down, side to side, like a drunken horse.
Not a word did the men say. They just scanned every inch of cliff and coastline as they went.
Tristan Haraldsen wondered if he’d be true to his word about throwing up. The chop of the police helicopter’s rotors came and went, a mechanical racket above the growing howl of the wind and the low roar of the angry waves.
‘Look,’ Mikkelsen said eventually.
He was pointing out to sea, a gesture which, through its direction, made Haraldsen’s heart sink.
Black fins sheared through the distant waves. Up and down, almost serpent-like in their gleaming sinuous motion.
‘A grind lost,’ the younger man moaned. ‘We could have used the money them blackfish bring. This year’s cursed all round.’
A sharp stone caught Benjamin as he careered to the floor. All he had were cheap hand-me-down shorts too small, a year too young for him. Jónas always got the better clothes like the strong denim jeans he wore now. In the bright summer light streaming through the cave mouth the older boy could see the damage the sharp flint had wrought on his bare knee: a long cut across the skin, blood welling up, dark and thick.
No crying. It was important Jónas never saw that. Tears only egged him on. Then Benji would fly at him with his fists. And lose. He always did. Always took the bait as well. Couldn’t stop himself.
‘Going home to see Mam now,’ he muttered all the same. ‘You said we could.’
The night before, getting more and more lost as they wandered up the steep fell, Jónas pushing him on, kicking him when he slowed, he’d got that half-promise out of his brother. Down the steep incline they could see the lights of the search parties, the torches sweeping everywhere, across the tough arctic grass, out to the stone hides of the puffin hunters on the cliff. Benjamin heard the men and women calling their names over the whistles of Scops owls and the timid cooing of rock doves.
The sea had been a kaleidoscopic flood of colours. Green and red from the Northern Lights. Shimmering silver from the starry sky. A few boats busied around the harbour, the beams of their lamps sweeping along Djevulsfjord, past the Skerries, out to the ocean, round to Selkie Bay. For a while he could see the lights of the village itself. There was a dim and waxy yellow glow behind the window of the old shed where they lived near the quay. Mam must have been there, crying probably. That almost made him mad enough to use his fists. But Jónas had cut someone, the newcomer, the district sheriff. They both would get the blame. They always did. So he kept up with his brother as he walked and after a while even the lights of Djevulsfjord were gone.
All that was left then was the night, the sea with its odd colours, the crisp fell with its scent of herbs and mountain water and above them the steep hillside of Árnafjall where the sharp peak cut a ragged tear out of the disc of a bright full moon.
Jónas knew where they were going. It was an hour of hard, steep walking before they came to the cave. The place was empty but hadn’t been for long. There was a pile of clean, warm straw and the faintest smell of a cigarette. Jónas took most of the makeshift bed and threw a little damp hay his way. His brother somehow knew where to look for water too and recovered two packets of crisps from a hole in the rock near the back.
They had to stay hidden, or so his brother insisted and he had a kind of reason why. That way the folk down the hill, their mother, their father, all of Djevulsfjord, would know what they might lose. All those people would weep and cry for their return and hug them more tightly, love them more deeply, when they walked back down Árnafjall the next day, wide-eyed as if it were all a dream.
It seemed, to Benjamin, a high price to pay for a little affection that might soon turn bad. And he wondered who’d been in this dismal cave before, smoking a cigarette, leaving a little food behind.
The night came on. The sound of people searching the paths below receded.
‘They give up easy,’ his brother grumbled, then told him to sleep and never think of going outside.
Benjamin had tried to get comfortable on the hard ground, struggling to make the best of the straw he’d been given. The day had been long and odd. He was tired and still he couldn’t take his eyes off the starry sky outside. Finally exhaustion closed his eyes. No dreams came. Only the bright morning and that ill-fated dash for the door.
Scrabbling on the floor now, knee bleeding, pain all down his leg, he stared at the cave mouth ten steps away. It might have been in faraway Tórshavn for all the use it was.
‘Eat,’ Jónas ordered. ‘There’s meat. Be still and take what pickings I left you.’
The smell of charred hare from the fire made his stomach rumble and ache. Jónas was good with snares and traps. He’d catch anything that moved. Mice. Rats. Sparrows. Starlings. Even once a young seal pup on the black sand of Selkie beach.
They never died quickly or easily. Not unless Mam caught him and then there was a spanking. All the same Benjamin understood there was more to this than his brother’s handiwork. Someone else had brought that hare, maybe built the fire and the spit.
He rubbed at his knee to still the blood and pain and crawled across the cave floor. Most of the creature was gone, ripped in caked shreds from the carcass. There was just a bit of leg left. Jónas watched, quietly laughing, as Benjamin tried to retrieve a few shreds of dry flesh from the long charred bones.
‘When do we go home?’
‘When I say.’
‘Need to go outside.’
‘You pee and shit at the back of the cave like the goat you are. Hear me?’
It smelled as if someone had done that already.
‘Mam’ll be mad.’
‘Mam can go screw herself. Know what that means?’
Benjamin fell silent at that. His brother might have been the younger one but all the same he’d been party to knowledge that was still beyond him. Uncle Kaspar had told him things. The two of them had been so close. There were grown-up matters Jónas understood and whispered about sometimes. Benjamin knew one thing about them only: they were dark and no good ever came from darkness. Grandpa Baldur said that and he was a man who knew right from wrong.
‘When can we go home?’ he asked again, trying not to sound as if he was pleading.
‘When you’re told,’ Jónas answered, staring at the sky beyond the cavern mouth. ‘And don’t think you can come at me with those skinny fists of yours. I’ll maybe let it look like you win when Mam’s around. Not now. I’ll kick your stupid head in.’
That, he realized, was true.
‘Who tells us?’
‘Shut your mouth.’
His brother seemed almost frightened by that question. Just a little. But that was enough to be worthy of note. Nothing scared Jónas Mikkelsen normally. Not a whack from Mam or a scolding from their dad when he could be bothered to show.
Benjamin looked at the scrap of hare meat in his hand. Leg, all sinew and leathery muscle. These tough creatures that lived on the hard bare fells could run as fast as a horse or so Grandpa Baldur always reckoned.
He could see a mark in the fibrous tissue. Maybe from the whaling knife Jónas had stolen. Or the cruel tether of the wire snare that brought this animal to their fire.
‘I want to go now …’
‘Shut up! Shut your stupid trap!’
His brother was on him straight off, scuttling across the hard rock cavern floor like a spider chasing a trapped fly.
The shiny blade of the whaling knife flashed in Benjamin’s face.
‘Be quiet, goat. Or you’re the next I cut.’
The only noise then was from the world outside. A strange and distant racket, a thunderous chopping roar of rotors.
‘That’s us they’re looking for,’ Jónas said.
The boy bit on his meat and stared at the black wood embers of the fire. He watched his brother go to the mouth of the cave and pick up something from behind the rocks there.
It was a phone. An old one. As Benjamin watched it began to ring.
Hanna Olsen folded her arms and went quiet as the helicopter swooped overhead. Then it vanished round Árnafjall and the clamour diminished.
‘The money that thing’s costing,’ Aksel Højgaard moaned. ‘All for those Mikkelsen toerags.’
She suspected he’d been watching her down by the harbour the day before when she was making out that was a social visit. In any case it was none of Højgaard’s business. Those hours were hers, gifted to … what exactly? A pipe dream. A grim dark itch that refused to go away.
‘Do you think those kids are dead?’ he asked.
That was what some of the locals were muttering already. She’d talked to George Thomsen, a nervous man in thrall to a wife with a vicious tongue and a bullying nature. But Thomsen had grown up in Djevulsfjord. So he knew these parts, much better than she. The Lundi Cliffs, he said, were criss-crossed with wells and dangerous potholes. There were the occasional signs warning people to keep to the path. But sometimes people strayed, chasing puffins, looking at the stone mounds that were the hunting sites, all of them close to the precipitous, unguarded edge. Still, no bodies had been found. Had the brothers fallen onto the rocks below they ought to have been spotted either by the craft running out from the Djevulsfjord quay or the police helicopter that kept scanning the coastline. The gulls feeding on their corpses would surely show the way.
But on occasion it took time to locate lost parties on Vágar. Days. Weeks. Sometimes, Thomsen said, and she wondered if there was an edge to his words then, they were never seen again.
‘Why did Tristan Haraldsen move here?’ she wondered.
The question appeared to offend Højgaard.
‘You’re asking me?’
‘He doesn’t seem particularly suited. A town man in a place like that.’
‘If he’d asked my advice I’d have told him to steer clear.’ He frowned. ‘Djevulsfjord doesn’t take kindly to incomers. You go in that place and the way they look at you … They can’t wait for strangers to turn round, go back through that grubby little tunnel and leave them to whatever it is they’re up to. Wasting away mostly. The place is as good as dead.’
‘They seem content enough with you.’
‘I’m the closest thing to law they know. They don’t have any choice.’
‘What about me?’
He laughed. It wasn’t kindly.
‘I asked, Højgaard. What about me? I’m supposed to be the district officer.’
‘You’re a woman and a foreigner.’
With a bold swift gesture he moved closer, reached out and felt the fabric of her sweater between the thumb and finger of his right hand. The gesture was so unexpected she wasn’t sure how to respond.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘They make good sweaters here on the Faroes. Black wool from black sheep. Nothing dyed. All organic and sustainable, I gather. Not this cheap Chinese shit.’
‘I know what they make here,’ she snapped. ‘And they cost a fortune.’
‘What else do you have to spend your money on? No man. No life. You could at least dress better, Hanna. You’re half good to look at. You seem to wish to hide that.’
She was blushing and hated that he was seeing this, amused by it.
‘Have you found any trace of him yet?’ Højgaard asked.
The helicopter had returned, sweeping up and down the coast once more. The roar of the engine blanked out her thoughts. Either that or Højgaard’s unexpected question did the job.
‘Him? You mean the Mikkelsen boys?’
He shook his head and sighed.
‘Your brother Søren. Who else?’
Elsebeth Haraldsen soon found that no one wanted her assistance in Djevulsfjord. Eydna, the missing brothers’ grandmother, seemed a kind of recluse, only opening the door to her cottage to explain that she was about to close it. The village women were content to leave the search for the boys to their menfolk. The general expectation everywhere was that this was a prank on the part of Jónas Mikkelsen, a rascal with a dark streak, known for his mischief.
So she returned to the quayside and watched Baldur Ganting’s longliner disappear past the Skerries out to sea, Tristan at the stern, scanning the craggy coastline. It was tragic and disturbing that Ganting’s son had died the year before. Life was cruel with its coincidences sometimes.
She hoped this would not prey on her husband’s mind. He was a gentle, sensitive man. The way the Mikkelsen boys vanished and his cack-handed stabbing at the poor whale the previous day had got to him.
