Fall Hard (21 page)

Back at my flat, in clean dry clothes and with my hair probably ridiculously fluffy from over-vigorous towelling, I warmed my hands on a mug of coffee and thought about calling Viggo. But it was an odd time of day, late afternoon, and an untidy heap in the corner of the living room reminded me I still had several boxes of things to unpack. It was time I stopped putting it off. Determined, I grabbed the nearest box by one edge and pulled it to me.

More clothes—underwear, this time. At this rate, I wouldn’t have to do laundry for a month. I was relieved to discover that, unless I’d suddenly become a boxers man during my previous stint in Iceland, I could tell my things from Sven’s this time. Wearing his shirt had been bad enough. Wearing a dead man’s underwear seemed beyond creepy.

Socks too were easily divided into his and mine. Apparently Sven had been a bit anal about his undies. His socks were all folded neatly together in pairs; Gretchen would have loved him. My socks, by contrast, were a haphazard jumble of lone garments divorced from their partners.

Picking up a thick walking sock in cheerful red wool, I cast my gaze about in vain trying to find any sign of its mate. I was about to chuck it back in the box when I noticed a hard lump in the toe. Curious, I upended it. A USB memory stick fell out. What the hell was that doing in there? I couldn’t imagine how it could have got there by accident, so presumably someone had tried to hide it.

And that someone, presumably, had been me. Hiding it from Sven. God, what had I felt it necessary to hide in a bloody sock? Hard-core porn? Dodgy financial dealings? Re the former, I appreciated a dirty movie as much as the next man, but I’d always been pretty vanilla in my tastes. And I couldn’t imagine I’d been in a position to try the latter. Academia didn’t exactly pay a fortune, and the money I’d inherited from my parents was sewn up tight in trust funds and investments, so where would I have got the stake money?

There was one way to find out, of course, but I felt a curious reluctance to plug the USB stick into my laptop and open up the files. If I’d been up to something unsavoury, did I really want to know? Was I even that person now? I tossed the memory stick down on the cushion beside me, but a voice in my mind that sounded uncannily like Gretchen nagged that I’d lose it down the back of the sofa any minute now. Sighing, I grabbed my keys and attached the stick to the key ring. There. I could forget about it now. I switched on the TV, turned the volume right down, then riffled through the box of books until I got to a Dan Brown.

Three hours later, I woke up on the sofa with a crick in my neck and a head spinning with absurd conspiracy theories. “Thank you so much, Mr. Brown,” I muttered and shoved the book back in the box before heading off to bed.

Chapter Eighteen

It was a bit embarrassing when I arrived at the institute on Monday morning to see Alex loitering in the foyer. Thinking he’d be even more uncomfortable about the encounter than I was, I gave him a tight smile and tried to walk on by, my stick tapping a sharp beat on the floor, but he followed and even grabbed my arm.

Startled, I turned, shaking myself free of his grasp. “Alex…”

His face was serious. Determined. “Listen, Paul, there’s something I think you should know. It’s about Gudrunarson.”

I stared at him. “Viggo? What do you know about him?” I couldn’t think of a single reason why he’d know anything about Viggo. Katrin? But it had been me she’d targeted, not Viggo. “Have you been, I don’t know, stalking me or something?” I took a step back, my earlier suspicions of Alex forcing their way back to the forefront of my mind.

Alex gave a humourless little smile. “Are you sure you don’t remember him from before your, uh, accident?”

“You know I don’t.” I could hear the exasperation in my own voice.

Apparently Alex could too. His face hardened. “I know what you told me.”

“Just what the hell are you implying?” My grip on my stick tightened until it was almost painful.

Alex heaved a sigh, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I got access to the police files, okay? The ones on Sven’s death. It didn’t make the papers, but did you know your pal Gudrunarson was questioned about the
accident
?”

God. That image in my mind, of Sven and Viggo at Gullfoss. Had that been real? The room spun crazily, and I put out my free hand to the wall to steady myself. “Police files? What? Who
are
you?” I couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask about Viggo. It was a mistake, or Alex was lying.

It had to be that.

Had the police asked me about Viggo, when they took my statement? All I could remember was a blur of unfamiliar faces against white hospital walls, and questions that made no sense through the fog of pain and drugs.

“We should sit down,” Alex said more gently. “Come and get a coffee, and we’ll—”

“No.” I took a step back as he reached out to me. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

Alex looked around. There were people around us, some of them even looking over curiously, but I guess he realised I didn’t give a damn. “Fine. Sven was a friend of mine, okay?”

Of course. That was how he knew Katrin. It
had
been she I’d seen talking to him. “Why… Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because that amnesia of yours is too damn convenient, that’s why.”

I stared. Too convenient? Did he think I’d made it up? That I was keeping secrets about Sven’s death? Christ, did he think I’d
killed
him? I almost laughed at the way he’d mirrored my own suspicions of him so exactly.

“Shit…” Alex looked away from me. “I believe you, okay? Now. But you’ve got to admit, that whole story is all kinds of fucked up. People don’t just fall down waterfalls.”

“What the hell do you know about it?” I wanted to walk off, leave him with his ridiculous conspiracy theory or whatever it was. But my feet wouldn’t move. And I had to know about Viggo.

“It’s not just me, okay? Like I said, the police were suspicious about it too. They questioned your boyfriend—did you know he was seen in the area that day, at around the right time? And did he mention he’s got a record?”

I wished I’d let Alex take me to the bloody cafeteria. I leaned hard against the wall, but it felt like a poor support. “What?”

“Drugs. And assault.”

I felt sick. No wonder Viggo had wanted a new start.

Alex was hovering, looking concerned. Suddenly I was furious with him. “What makes you think you’ve got the right to go snooping around, digging up the dirt on Viggo anyway? If there had been any evidence he’d been involved, the police wouldn’t have let him go, would they? So why drag it all up again now?”

He backed off, hands raised. “Hey, I just thought you ought to know, that’s all. Don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Don’t give me that. You lied to me. To everyone.” I spat it viciously, my hand trembling on my stick. Maybe he was still lying now.
Had
he killed Sven? “Is your name even Alex Winter?”

“Yes, okay? Look, I’m not here to try to trick anyone. I just wanted to check out a few things, that’s all.”

“Like me,” I said bitterly. “And my convenient amnesia.” God, all that bloody flirting—what had all that been about? Easier to keep an eye on me, make an excuse to talk to me, I supposed. I felt like an idiot.

“Hey.” Alex had moved closer again, and now he placed a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you, okay? Like I said, I believe you, now I’ve gotten to know you. And for what it’s worth, it wasn’t all an act. When I… In your car, that was real. You’re a great guy, Paul. Whatever happened that day at the waterfall, I don’t blame you for it. Gudrunarson, though… Seriously, I think you ought to take care around that guy. I’m worried about you.”

It was my turn to back away. “You think he killed Sven and tried to kill me? That’s insane! Why would he do that—and why the hell would he want to be with me now, if that’s what happened?”

Alex gave me a long look. “He wouldn’t be the first guy who lashed out in anger and then regretted it. Maybe he never meant to hurt you that day. Maybe it was only Sven he was after, but you got in the way.”

“No.” I shook my head. “That’s not what happened. It was an accident, that’s all.”

“Then why was Gudrunarson in the area?”

“It’s a small country! People are always bumping into people they know around here.”

“Maybe
bumping into
Gudrunarson was what got Sven killed.”

“You’re crazy. Obsessed. I’m not listening to any more of this.” I walked off, pounding my stick into the floor.

To my relief, Alex didn’t follow. But when I was halfway across the foyer, he yelled after me, heedless of the raised eyebrows it caused. “You need to steer clear of that guy!”

I tried sitting down with my notes, but I could barely read them, I was so furious. In the end I stomped over to Mags’s cubicle.

“Paul?” she asked, her forehead creasing at the sight of me. “What’s wrong?”

“That
bloody
…American!” I took a couple of deep breaths. “He just accused Viggo of killing Sven.”

Mags’s face drained of colour. “No!”

“Yes. He said… He said he’s got a criminal record. And that he was at Gullfoss the day of the accident.”

“Oh.” She took a sharp breath. “Well… I’m sure lots of people were there that day. Have you asked Viggo?”

She was so quietly reasonable, it doused the flames of my anger. I subsided onto a corner of her desk. “No. I haven’t had a chance.”

“I think you should. Let him tell his side of the story. But how on earth did Alex find out about it?”

My mood darkened once more. “He’s been lying to us. He didn’t come here to learn about the sagas. He came to rake over the dirt on Sven’s death. He said he thought my loss of memory was
convenient
.”

Mags looked stricken. “I can’t believe it.”

“It’s true. He admitted it. Just now.”

“But he seems so…” She made a helpless gesture. “So
nice
.”

“He said Sven was his friend. Mags, do you remember anything about Viggo after the accident? Did the police ask you about him? Did he come to see me in hospital?”

“I’m sorry. The police didn’t ask me anything. It’s possible he went to see you. I mean, I didn’t see him there, but I wasn’t there all the time.”

Of course she hadn’t been.

“Paul,” she said cautiously, while I was still struggling to think. “Are you sure Alex isn’t just trying to, well, put you off Viggo? I mean, I can’t imagine he’d do such a thing, but then I can’t imagine any of the things he told you being true.”

I gave a harsh laugh. “You mean, because Alex is so bloody besotted with me? That was all pretence. He was just trying to get close enough to see if I’d killed Sven and made up the whole amnesia thing.” Or to find out how much I could remember, if in fact Alex was the guilty one. But his story made sense. I knew that. God, was there anyone here I could trust? Besides Mags, of course?

“Oh, Paul!” Her face was twisted in distress. “Surely not. He didn’t say that, did he?”

“I… No. Not exactly,” I admitted.

“You need to talk to Viggo,” she said decisively. Then she frowned and worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “But be careful, won’t you?”

“You think he’s dangerous too?” I asked—snapped, rather. There was a bitter taste in my mouth.

Her eyes flew wide. “No! No, really, that’s not what I meant. I just meant, you should try and be tactful about it, that’s all. If he’s got a past he’s, well, not too proud of, he probably won’t want to talk about it. Especially not to you.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “You’re right.” Of course she was. Growing up with an alcoholic single mother, was it any surprise Viggo had had some dealings with the police? But that was all behind him now, I was sure of it, and it was understandable he might not take kindly to having his past thrown in his face. “I’ll tread lightly.”

“Paul…” Mags had picked up one of her trolls and was winding its shock of red hair around her finger so tightly she was within a whisker of scalping the grotesque little thing. “You don’t think he’s dangerous, do you?”

“Of course he’s not,” I said, but the words sounded forced even to me.

Chapter Nineteen

Back at my desk, I tried calling Viggo, but the phone went unanswered. He was probably out on the river, unable to hear his ringtone over the roar of the engines. Probably just as well—there were too many ears around me for the conversation we needed to have. I sent him a quick text asking to see him tonight and wondered what the hell I was going to do in the meantime. I was still far too wound up to work.

Then I remembered what I’d found last night. I pulled out my bunch of keys and stared at it for a long moment before plugging the USB stick into my computer and opening it up.

There were only two folders stored on it: one named “Notes” and the other “Draft”. I opened up the Draft folder and found a list of files named for chapters numbered one to thirteen. I double-clicked Chapter One. As I’d begun to suspect, I’d found a copy of Sven’s book, as far as he’d got with it. And his notes to continue, I presumed. I must have copied them secretly. Unease prickled at my spine. Why had I found it necessary to do that? Surely I hadn’t been trying to steal his ideas? My stomach twisted at the thought, and I found myself glancing around guiltily.