Black Ice (4 page)

That surprised me. She'd  gone  international since  I'd  last seen her. She'd been picked  up by one of the agencies  who fix models for the top glossies. Once or twice I'd  been surprised to find her staring up at me from an airport bookstall. She'd  done well on the glamour circuit  too, and there was talk of her  having a go at the Miss World  nonsense- and also a few whispers that she'd  win it if she did.  But she dismissed  the whole  thing  in a way that  had nothing to do with modesty.

'That's a shame,' I said. 'I was hoping one day you'd  throw me a krona  as your  Rolls swept  past.'

'Only so you could sell your story to that awful newspaper of yours,' she protested.

'You've heard  of cheque-book journalism -we do joke-book journalism,' I said.

'Anyway,' she let her head slump back and  closed her eyes, 'it  will not happen.'

'What?' I said, trying to sustain the jokey tone. 'Not even for the honour of your country?'

I always  used to tease her about  the way Icelanders almost snapped to attention when you mentioned anything to do with national pride.

'No,' she sighed,  not moving.  'Not even for that.'

'Serious?'

'Serious.' After a pause, she added: 'You know that if l could do something- even something as silly as a beauty contest- to help my country, I would do it. But I cannot. Honestly, Sam, it is not possible.'

'I believe you. Why not?'

She scratched her fingers deep  into  the carpet  as though  it was a rival's  face. I was about  to repeat  my question  when she opened   her  grey-blue eyes  and,  in  a  finish-it  voice, said:  'I cannot. That is all.'

Unexpectedly, after  another short  pause,  she  asked:  'And how is your little girl? Sally? Am I right?'

Not only did she remember her name, she even knew her age, her birthday, and that she used to have her hair in bunches. At some  time,  I  realised  with  growing  shame, I must've hit  her with a walletful of snaps and a bellyful of maudlin-dad rubbish. It was a wonder  I ever saw her again.

'Do  you love her and  are you a good father?'

'Yes and  no, in that  order.'

'Why?'

'You  know why. They shouldn’t'-t let people like us have kids. Hell,  they shouldn't let us have goldfish.  Not without  passing exams  first, they shouldn't.'

I looked down  into  her gleaming eyes. 'Don't include  me in this,'  she said,  nipping my leg. 'I think  I will be a marvellous mother. Don't you?'

'Well,  you won't  be short  of applicants for daddy, that's for sure.'

'Swine,' she said. She patted  the carpet  and  I slipped  down beside  her. 'What do you remember best about  me?'

'Let  me think.  I know. You are the only woman  I have ever met who doesn't sneak a quick look in a shop window to see how big her bum looks.'

'Do women do that? Really? You understand that all women really believe they are ugly- that's why you are so dangerous.' She nipped me again,  so I had to put  my palm over my coffee.

'Do you think we would have been good together?'

'We were good together.' I knew what she meant.  No matter how adept you are at keeping emotions  locked up in the attic, you still wonder what it would be like if you let them out to play.

'You  know what  I mean,'  she replied.  'Properly.'

'I don't think  I'm  a very proper  sort of person.'

'Have you found a wife then?'

'Yes.'

'You  have?' Her  tone was just  too uncaring.

'Yep.  But then  her husband found  me .. .'

She laughed, more  naturally this  time.  Then  she snuggled up, the low lamps  buttering her legs with yellow light.

'You  know I was saying  how sorry  I was that  I cannot  win those beauty  titles and  things  for my country?'

'Yes.'

'Well.  Tell  me, you read  books and  things ... who was the famous  Englishman who said about  choosing  between  friends and country?'

'I think it was a gent called  Forster.'

'Who  was he?'

'Not  your  type for a start.'

'Ah.  And is that  what  he said?  If you must choose  between friends and  country, you must choose friends?'

'About that.'

'Is he right?'

'I don't know. If I had to choose between  the two, I think I'd emigrate and find new friends.'

Even as I answered, I thought it was odd. In my entire life I'd had  exactly  two  conversations about   patriotism and   they'd both been in the last twenty-four hours. Statistically that was a clear concentration.

Gently, I held her to me and  breathed in the subtle  Solrun scents  that  were  being  funnelled  out  of the  top  of her  robe.

'What's the problem? What's all this serious talk about? You're not going intellectual on me, are  you?'

She gave a small sigh. 'No.  Not really.'

'A man?' With  her, that was always a fair guess. I felt her nod her head.

'Two,' she whispered, sinking deeper into the silk. 'Two  men who say they love me. Two  men who want  to take me away.'

'That's what  free enterprise is all about- choice. And your choice not to go if you don't want  to.'

Then, in a voice no louder  than  the soft brush  of my fingers on her skin, she said:  'I think  perhaps they will kill me.'

Her  pretty, sing-song  voice faded  and  left a black chasm  of silence.  I didn't say a  word.  Even though  I was sure  it was Solrun  overacting, the  moment  was still as delicate  as porcelain,  and  I feared  my own clumsiness.

Still in a whisper, still half-buried, she said: 'That was why I thought you'd  come, Sam. To take me away.'

I coughed. The frightened  man's   mood-changer. Then   I made  my speech.  'You can't  go away from things, Solrun,  you know  that.  It doesn't work.  You can only go towards  things. And  I haven't got anything to take you towards.'

Even as I said  it, I hated  myself.

This time the silence didn't last a second, and  it was Solrun who smashed the mood.  She sprang up, grabbing me by the hand  and  failing  to hold the robe together  as modestly  as she might.

'You   haven't? You  have  a  very  bad  memory.   Before you always  took me towards  the bedroom.'

There didn't seem much I could say to that. Not with the way that  robe  was falling open.

Suddenly,  it  was  the  old  Solrun,  outrageous,  extrovert, shaking every  last  ounce  of fun out  of every day.  And  if that seems a bit much, you've got to remember that  they were road testing  sexual  freedom  in Iceland  when  the English  were still putting skirts on piano legs. And she was an exquisitely crafted specimen of the non-shaving half of the human  race. And it was late. And  I didn't need any excuses. That's the truth.

Later, bleary  with sleep,  I remember her lips touching  my forehead   and   hearing  her  say   'Bless'.   Funny,    I  thought, through the mists of sleep. 'Bless'  doesn't mean goodnight. It means goodbye.  Then  when I woke all there was beside me was the scented dent  she'd  left.

The  chance had gone. The  chance I had  to save  her. There aren't any excuses to cover that. And that's the hard and  bitter truth.

8

When  I got back upstairs, I tried to search  my misty thoughts for any reason why she'd  taken off like that. I'm sure I'm lousy in bed but it doesn't usually  drive  people  to move house.

I lifted one of the blinds to let in a little light. The living room had somehow  lost its mysterious hot-eyed intimacy of the night before. The  coffee cups  were still on the table  where  we'd  left them  when  she  took  my  hand.  I looked  at  my  watch.   Five minutes  past four. In the morning.

Remember, remember, remember. There  were  the  things she'd  said  about  the two men. There was the nonsense about them killing her that I'd  taken for wild talk. After all, she was a hell of a drama queen, was Solrun.

So. So let's  have a look round.

For some  reason  I could  no longer  remember, my clothes were all over  the  bedroom  floor.  I opened  the wardrobe and immediately regretted  it.  Anyone  who  believes  that  women belong to the same species as men should  look inside a woman's wardrobe. You could've taken  away six train-loads of clothes without  making  any impression on it. I was just going  to close the door again when I saw the photograph albums. There were a stack of them, and I took them all through to the half-light  of the living-room.

I was going  to flick through the last  one  first - the  theory being that recent history was more likely to help me- when the book  automatically  fell open  at  the  last  page.  It  fell  open because jammed  between  the pages was a metal  badge.  I took it out  and  looked at  it.  It  was gold-coloured metal,  about  an ih  and  a half across;  in the centre  was a circle bearing  the initials AC, with eagle wings on either side.  It had been pinned through the page, but had  ripped  loose.

Immediately above it was a photograph of Solrun playing at proper grown-up ladies.  She  was wearing  an off-the-shoulder number, which,  together with the glitter at her throat and ears, made it something of a special  night.

The bloke next  to her certainly thought so. Cats  which had got  the  cream  would've looked suicidal  alongside  him.  If his smile had got any wider, it would've met around the back of his neck.

And   why  not?  He  had   his  right   hand,   in  light  but  unmistakeably proprietorial fashion,  resting on Solrun's bare shoulder. And if he lost her he could always spend  the evening looking  in the mirror: he was quite  something.

He  was  cowboy-shaped: wide-shouldered and  narrow waisted, in that  way that few men ever achieve outside Hollywood. He had a carefully coiffed collection of black curls and  an  open  confident smile  that  stopped just,  but only just, this side of vanity. With the sweet cut of his dinner-jacket, and the general air  of a  man  who'd   be  handier with  a  cocktail shaker than  a pick, he looked more Italian  than anything else. Only  an  Italian can carry  that  much style without going bow legged.

He was wearing evening  dress.  An official function  maybe?

Not necessarily. He looked as though  he'd wear a dinner-jacket to bring  the coal in.

It was  a head-and-shoulders picture  so there  wasn't  much

background to go on. All you could see was a display  cabinet immediately behind  them. As far as I could see, it contained the usual  collection  of silverware that  you find  in  low-class golf clubs  and  pretentious suburban homes.

Then I saw the horse-chestnut on top of the cabinet. Only it wasn't a horse-chestnut. It was round, with spikes sticking out, but the spikes were much longer than a chestnut. And it  as set up on a small  stand - the whole thing  looked like plastic- as though it was flying through space.

I knew what it was. I'd seen photographs of it before. I knew exactly what it was, but I couldn't remember. Not just then, anyway.

Any chance  there was of remembering then vanished when  I heard  the ping of the lift. I wasn't ready to do any entertaining. I  nipped  to the  window  and  when  I saw  what  was standing outside  I experienced  a small  but unpleasant heart-leap.

One  white  Volvo. One  Harley  Davidson motor-bike. Even when they choose vehicles for their police force, the Icelanders try to show  no favouritism  between  their  American and  their Scandinavian friends.

I heard  footsteps  and  voices. With  the sort  of cool reflexes that we spies develop after years of training, I went into a blind panic  and  jammed   the  album  down  the  back  of the  nearest radiator.

9

At Kopavogur I had two hours  to sit and contemplate what  the descendants of the Vikings  might  consider  a suitable punishment for someone  who'd  misplaced  one of their  women.  None of the possibilities sounded much fun, so I sat on a plastic scoop in a long empty  corridor hoping  that  Christopher Bell would get my message.

I didn't understand any of it.  I didn't understand why I'd been brought  to a brown three-storey box of a building in what looked like an industrial estate. The police headquarters I knew was down in the middle of the town.

I'd asked the cops who brought me in, but they treated me as though  I was Jack  the Ripper  after an intensive  training course with  Black September. Nervous  wasn't the  word.  They  may have   looked   dashingly  ornamental   in   their    black-belted uniforms with white-topped caps, but they never took their eyes off me, even when I left the message for Christopher at his hotel reception.

At Kopavogur, they emptied my pockets in plastic sacks, and then an English-speaking officer took a lengthy statement, without all  the  usual  come-off-it-sonny  stuff. He  took it, and went.

Then a door  down  the corridor opened  and  a meaty  young face under  a thick thatch  of white-blond hair beckoned me in. Cop-shops all over the world retain  mementoes of their trade in scarred woodwork  or messages of goodwill on the walls. But this place,  with  its  concealed   strip  lights,  pale  beige  walls, polished  wood-block  floors, and  laundered air, was more like the VIP  lounge  at an airport. Only  I wasn't  a VIP.

Looking back on it now, I'm sorry  I took the attitude I did to Blondie.  But  when  I'm  bullied  I get skittish, and  this some times comes across  as impudence.

As if I'd  be impudent to a bobby ...

He nodded  me into another scoop by the door and  ignored me while I had  a good look round.

It was  a  rectangular room.  The  far end,  to my right,  was mostly  window.  Through it I could see the distant mountains black against the bright  sky.

An older man- I could tell that by his thin creamed hair and his seamed  neck- faced  out  of the  window.  He was making notes.  He didn't turn  when  I came in.

Blondie  was opposite me, a couple of yards  away,  behind  a small   metal   desk.  He was frowning   as  he  read  through   a typescript.

Lots of people make the mistake of thinking  that in relatively crime-free countries the police are not much  more than  an extension of the boy scouts.  Don't you believe it. True, Scandinavia isn't  like one of those Soviet countries where they chuck  you  in  the  loony-bin, and  mark your   mail  Unknown  At  This   Address,   or  those  equatorial places where  they  give  you  a spin  in a cement-mixer  before river-bathing. But  up  there,  they  half-expect  you to laugh  at them,  so they have more to prove: they're intelligent, and  they can  be exactly  as tough  as you like.