Devil's Fjord, page 7
To her astonishment it seemed the latter that dismayed the locals the most. Missing boys appeared to be one of life’s hazards. Clumsy attempts at dispatching whales during the grind, an act Tristan Haraldsen had never considered before in his life, were of an altogether more serious nature.
‘Perhaps we will never understand this place,’ she muttered to herself as she walked up the steady incline back to their cottage.
Tea, she thought. Some work in the garden. Washing grass cuttings from black pyjamas with a quiet curse under her breath. There was always plenty to do.
Five minutes along the way she found the boys’ mother outside the church, crouched on the verge of the gravel lane, hands round her knees, eyes pink with tears, long fair hair all over her damp cheeks.
Elsebeth had never spoken to the woman. Now seemed a poor time. Nevertheless it would be wrong to avoid her. Ignoring bad in the world never got you anywhere. So she walked over.
‘Can I help? Is there anything I can do?’
‘Such as what?’
She didn’t look up. The voice was that of a hurt child.
‘I can make you a cup of tea if you like. We can talk.’
Alba Mikkelsen clambered to her feet, straightening her crumpled grey skirt as she did so.
‘You wouldn’t want me in your house, missus. I’d leave a black mark on it.’
‘Nonsense. I …’
She stopped. Father Ryberg was marching down the path, seemingly a man in a hurry. He flew through the gate, stroked his silver beard and eyed the mountain. The fellow had his boots on and looked ready for a walk.
‘No news of them, I presume?’ he asked.
‘What do you think?’ Alba asked.
‘I think that was a reasonable question. Worthy of a reasonable and polite answer.’
‘Not that we know,’ Elsebeth said.
‘My boys …’ Alba whimpered.
‘In God’s hands …’
‘Are you going to look for them?’
‘My business is my own,’ Ryberg grunted then set off at a pace down the lane.
Still Elsebeth persisted.
‘Alba. Please. There must be something I can do to help …?’
Her blue eyes glinted with anger.
‘And what would you know about helping people here? You and your man turn up like it’s a holiday or something. Him the district sheriff and he can’t even kill a whale. Maybe if he’d done that my boys wouldn’t be missing …’
‘I’m sorry. We both are. Though to be honest I don’t see how—’
‘Sorry? Lot of use to me that is.’
Then, uncertainly, like someone in pain, she walked, half-hobbled back towards the quay.
Elsebeth thought of following but realized she was out of words. Sometimes there was nothing to be done and thinking otherwise made matters worse, not better.
There were three men in the police helicopter that had flown out of Sørvágur airport that morning. A pilot and two policemen as observers.
Trained officers, used to checking for missing boats in the choppy seas mostly and the occasional tourist lost in the remote green hinterlands where visitors sometimes wandered.
Over and over they scanned Djevulsfjord and the surrounding fells, seeing nothing of interest.
A final pass from the harbour, over the cliffs, on to Selkie Bay.
‘What’s that?’ the pilot asked, pointing out to sea.
The two officers put their binoculars to their faces and looked out at the swelling ocean. On the western horizon the familiar anvil shapes of cumulonimbus clouds were building. Air traffic control had been in touch already warning that the meteorological office was predicting thunderstorms before the end of the day. Perhaps they would come inland. Perhaps not. In any case the helicopter would need to return to refuel soon.
‘Foul weather coming,’ one of the officers said.
‘To hell with that,’ the pilot muttered and turned out to sea for one last sortie.
‘We are supposed to be looking for those boys, Karl,’ the second policeman cried. ‘And I doubt they are swimming so far beyond the Skerries.’
‘True,’ the first officer agreed. ‘I believe we’re owed another perspective however.’
The pilot did what pilots sometimes liked to do with awkward passengers. He put the helicopter nose down and set the craft into a steep dive down towards the water.
‘Throw us around and we will be sick,’ the first policeman warned.
‘You know the rules,’ the pilot reminded him. ‘All puke belongs to those that puke it. Besides …’
He levelled out fifty metres above the swelling ocean, turned a lazy leftward curve. Then the helicopter rose abruptly, engine roaring, the pilot’s keen eyes set back on the fells.
‘The rules about puking will alter if this continues,’ the officer closest warned.
‘No time for that now.’
The pilot cursed himself. He should have thought to fly out to sea earlier. The distance and the change in position opened up new views of Árnafjall. They revealed something he hadn’t seen before.
‘Use your eyes,’ he said, pointing ahead. ‘Get your glasses there. Two shapes high up, moving through the grass. Coming down hungry I’ll be guessing. You’d think Djevulsfjord would take care of its kids better than that. Can’t be many of them left in that dump.’
The men did as they were told.
‘There’s them lads,’ the first said and soon the second agreed.
‘Well, at least they live,’ the pilot muttered. ‘Though I’ll bet someone will be giving them a good hiding before the night’s over.’
The first officer was on his radio straight away, to Aksel Højgaard as they’d been ordered. The second was idly staring back at a curious sight in the sea.
It was the half-scavenged corpse of a whale, white bone, black and bloody flesh still clinging to its skull.
‘They got plenty of meat, I reckon,’ he murmured, almost to himself as the helicopter flew towards the peak, establishing a firm line of sight to the Mikkelsen boys. ‘I’d have been down for that grind myself if it wasn’t for duty.’
‘Enough yakking,’ the pilot told him. ‘We’re going back.’
He turned for Sørvágur.
The first officer took the glasses away from his face.
‘I believe we’re supposed to maintain sight of those little lads.’
‘We cannot,’ the pilot replied. ‘This bird does not run on an empty belly. Note their position. Tell Højgaard.’
‘No signal,’ the first officer said, waving his phone.
‘Then …’ He pointed the nose back towards safety and fuel. ‘Radio back to base and ask them to do it. Now.’
Højgaard came up to her so close she could smell the tobacco on his breath.
‘Oh come on. You were doing so well in Aalborg. Not a blemish on your record. I checked. If you’d stayed there you’d have been promoted by now.’ A wink. ‘You had a boyfriend. A fiancé, I believe.’
The thing in the sky retreated once more.
‘I never realized you were so interested in me,’ she said finally.
Of course he’d know about Søren. She was stupid to think otherwise.
‘I was on holiday when that fool Rasmussen gave you this posting. You were here by the time I got back. This is unfortunate. We should have had a conversation. Perhaps I would have sent you elsewhere.’
‘A conversation about what?’
‘About motives. You give up your career. Your life,’ Højgaard continued. ‘All to come to this dump. To arrest drunk drivers and the odd wife beater. It doesn’t take a genius to realize why.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t. My brother came here and then … vanished. He sent me a selfie against the beach.’
Højgaard clearly didn’t know this and asked if he could see it. Hanna kept the picture with her always. She found her phone – a new one now, not the one that received the shot – and showed him.
A smiling figure, clean-shaven, handsome with long fair hair. Behind his muscular torso stretched the coal-black sand of Selkie’s beach. The only other living thing in the picture was the flashing outline of a puffin vanishing off to the right. She’d looked at this photo so often trying to understand. In a way this was all that remained of him. Dots on a screen. Bits and bytes stored somewhere she could never picture. They never changed, unlike the image she had of him in her head. That metamorphosed constantly, shifted, faded, then returned looking different. It was hard to place the real Søren at all.
One day, she understood, that shadowy memory would make the inevitable transition from painful present to melancholic past. He’d be a headstone that was never erected. An obituary that remained unfinished. Gone.
‘He was younger than you.’
‘Eighteen months. Kid brother. I used to look after him.’ A smile then and she looked him straight in the eye. ‘If anyone touched him at school they paid. I saw to that.’
‘And then he grew up.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning he went and lived in that drug den in Copenhagen for a while. Christiania.’ He pulled a sour face. ‘The free state. Do what you like. Forget the consequences. As if that’s possible. Is that why you never raised him with me? Embarrassment?’
She put the phone away.
‘You must spend a lot of time in front of the computer, Højgaard. Let me raise him now? Is there anything new you can tell me?’
‘Only the little you read already thinking no one would see you’d been going through the files. I notice, Hanna. Trust me.’ He closed his eyes for a moment as if pretending to remember something. ‘Søren Olsen. Just out of jail for—’
‘I don’t want to hear this!’
He smiled and said, ‘So I gather.’
The police in Denmark had been understanding. Not her fault they said.
‘Søren strayed,’ she said. ‘That’s all. He was young. Naive. Easily led.’ The memories were coming back. ‘I paid for the ticket to Vágar to get him away from those creeps. He wanted to reconnect with his roots.’
‘I’m sorry. The lack of certainty must be—’
‘Three weeks he was supposed to be on the road. The picture’s the last thing I got.’
‘You won’t find him here,’ he said very firmly. ‘If there was anything to be known about your brother I’d know it.’
‘You seem very sure of that.’
Højgaard smiled.
‘I’m trying to help. Your brother must have gone his own sweet way a year ago. There’s nothing for you to chase here. Not even his shadow. Why not go and be useful picking up halfwit tourists in Tórshavn. More your kind of thing. I’ll fix it. No reason for you to be here. Not today. Not tomorrow. Wherever your junkie kid brother washed up it wasn’t Vágar. My guess is you’d be better off looking in Copenhagen. Dopeheads don’t hang around a place like this long.’
Hanna Olsen walked away, back to her mountain bike.
‘I trust you’re listening,’ he said, catching up. ‘I’ve another officer who can move to this patch. Someone born and bred who’s lived in Vágar all their life. Someone—’
‘Someone you can boss about?’ she cut in. ‘Tell them what to do?’
‘No need to change an officer for that.’
‘Søren never flew out of Sørvágur. There’s no record of him taking the ferry to Denmark or Iceland.’
He shrugged.
‘Your brother knew enough people, didn’t he? Plenty of little boats shuttle between the mainland and Vágar. There’s smuggling goes on. Coastline like this. People like these. Not a lot you can do to stop it. Maybe your brother didn’t use the airport and the ferry for a reason. Junkies. You never know what they’re up to.’
‘He was better,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘He’d given up all that shit. He was going to take a few weeks holiday here, then come back and start again. I was helping him.’
Højgaard wasn’t even listening, just scowling at the black beach. Looking for missing kids appeared to be beneath him.
‘It must be killing you,’ he said.
‘Shall we get on with our work?’
‘Such as it is. But you have to wonder.’
‘Wonder what?’
The smile once more, cruel and mocking.
‘What if you were to come across something? An answer? And what if that answer turned out worse than not knowing after all?’
She climbed on the bike, was about to hit the pedals and head for the path.
‘Wait,’ Højgaard barked.
‘Why?’
But no answer. He was on the phone.
High on Árnafjall Jónas Mikkelsen followed the helicopter moving against the rolling clouds on the horizon like a giant iron bird. It was veering off to the right as he tugged his brother’s arm and dragged him behind some grey rocks.
‘Hide that big, stupid head of yours, lump,’ he ordered.
‘Why?’ Benjamin asked.
The bunched fist came up. Then, in his left hand, the whaling knife.
‘Because I said.’
‘Mam’ll be waiting for us.’
‘Ja. And the rest of them. I’m not done yet.’
The sound of the helicopter changed. Jónas popped his head out from behind the rock and looked. It was heading back down the coast, towards Sørvágur. Perhaps the thing hadn’t seen them at all.
He waited a minute or two then stood up. Benjamin did the same.
‘Follow,’ Jónas ordered.
Benjamin didn’t move.
‘The path’s over there,’ he said, pointing back towards Djevulsfjord.
‘What path?’
‘The way home.’
‘You piss off if you want, goat. I’m not going yet.’
The rock hides for the puffin hunters were a good kilometre below them. Close to the edge, high walls, well-built with dark stone, a place no one could see inside.
‘Third hide on the left he reckoned.’
‘Who?’
Jónas chuckled.
No answer.
‘Mam said we weren’t to be alone up here.’
‘Mam said. Mam said. Mam take off my shitty britches.’
He headed off towards the cliffs.
‘Who?’
‘Come and maybe I’ll tell you. Your choice, goat. I got stuff to do.’
Phone clutched to his ear, Højgaard turned towards the horizon. The helicopter was there already, returning to Sørvágur. He listened, then walked away from her and seemed to tap a message into the phone.
‘They’ve spotted two boys,’ he said when he came back. ‘Close to the puffin hides above Freyja’s Pool.’
He pointed to the eastern end of the bay. A single footpath wound up from the rocks at the end of the beach, turn upon turn, to the closest end of the Lundi Cliffs.
‘You can get there on your bike. I’ll walk back to the harbour and round up a team. Get onto those fells as soon as you can. When these boys are found I want an officer there. Not just locals.’
This sudden show of concern surprised her.
‘They won’t harm them, Højgaard. They’re just … kids.’
‘I want someone there.’
Hanna Olsen looked up the path. It seemed to her the wrong one to choose and she said so.
‘There must be a more direct way surely—’
‘You know these hills better than me?’ he snapped. ‘You take that track. I’ll go another way, back to the harbour. If you see something you get on the phone to me.’
‘Your way might be shorter. If I’m on my bike I could get there—’
‘Like all the Danes, aren’t you? Presumptuous. Convinced you’re dealing with simpletons …’
‘I come from here!’
‘No. You think you do. Get moving.’
She watched him go. Perhaps he was right. The route she was taking was more hilly but possibly less circuitous. Either way one of them would find the Mikkelsen boys. This strange saga, at least, would be brought to an end.
SIX
Baldur Ganting’s longliner pulled out to sea, the better to get a view of the slopes of Árnafjall. Højgaard had called with a rough approximation of where the boys had been spotted from the air. Silas Mikkelsen was scanning the area with the only pair of binoculars the boat had.
‘Nothing,’ Mikkelsen said.
Ganting grabbed the glasses from him.
‘There can’t be nothing. That helicopter saw them.’
Tristan Haraldsen stayed close to the wheelhouse awaiting instructions. The rollers were turning choppier by the minute. A wind had come up seemingly from the ocean itself, cold and strong. Haraldsen remembered a little of his meteorology from school. This was the thunderstorm’s gust front, a boundary between hot and cold air. Dangerous for shipping, especially for a boat this size not far from the rocky coast.
‘Well … is it nothing for you too then, Baldur?’ Mikkelsen demanded in a petulant voice, a tone above its normal register.
‘These boys shouldn’t be out there in this weather,’ the older man grunted. ‘We’ll have lightning within the hour and all manner of downpours.’
He handed the glasses to Haraldsen and told him to try.
They weren’t the best binoculars. Old and poorly maintained. The district sheriff set about the task methodically, as was his habit. He started at the point where Árnafjall’s slope slackened beneath the rocky outcrops at the summit, then worked the glasses down, moving his vision horizontally from Selkie side to the Djevulsfjord direction. He could see the gorse bushes struggling with the growing wind. There were sheep in places, wild probably. The odd black mouth for a cavern and then, at the ridge of the cliffs, several puffin hides set quite close together. From this distance they looked like stone moles on the face of the peak.
‘I see …’
Something moved, close to one of the largest hides, built directly above the sharp-edged cove of Freyja’s Pool.
‘What?’ Ganting demanded, snatching the glasses from him. ‘Where?’
The policewoman, Haraldsen thought. Hanna Olsen, blonde hair flying behind her as she pedalled a mountain bike, hard off the seat.
