ICEHOTEL (20 page)

‘Thanks, but I won’t.’ I looked past her. ‘Good timing.
Here’s your bus.’

She hesitated, her eyes drifting to the path to the
Excelsior. ‘Remember, Maggie. Look at the statues.’

I watched the bus till it disappeared behind a bank of snow,
then turned and walked slowly up to the hotel.

I examined the statues. The clown was still crying, his
bowler pushed back off his face, his arms lowered, the sticks touching the skin
of the drum. The ballerina stood
en pointe
, one arm above her head, the
other lowered. The juggler was staring balefully at the clown. Was this how I’d
seen them that first day? I could no longer remember. I continued up the path.
Jane was mistaken. Ice statues couldn’t change. Not unless the staff slipped
out in the morning, partially melted the ice and rearranged the figures for the
amusement of the guests.

I stopped at the front door. Fear clawed its way up my
spine. The lion was one figure I did remember. But he was no longer crouched
beneath his master’s whip, ready to leap. He was standing proud, on all fours,
his head turned in my direction.

‘Miss Stewart.’ The manager was
hurrying towards me.

I was in the foyer, pulling off my boots, watching the lion
through the window.

‘Inspector Hallengren wishes to speak to you,’ he said.

I unzipped my snowsuit. ‘Inspector Hallengren? But he’s
already interviewed me. What’s this about?’

‘The Inspector didn’t tell me.’

‘Is he here?’ I said quietly, hoping this didn’t mean a trip
into Kiruna.

‘He’s in my office. I’ll take you now.’

I glanced at my snowsuit.

‘I’ll take that, Miss Stewart.’

I struggled quickly out of the suit. The manager sped along
the corridor to his office. I padded after him in my stockinged feet.

The door was ajar. The manager knocked hesitantly before
pushing it open.

Hallengren was at the window. He turned as I entered. I
wondered how long he’d been there. Had he watched me scrutinising the statues?

I felt the door being closed behind me.

‘I believe you wish to speak to me, Inspector.’

He motioned through the window. ‘I have always loved the
view from this office.’

‘I can understand why.’ I went to stand beside him. ‘You see
all the way to the forest.’

He looked at me with interest. ‘Have you been out to the
forest, Miss Stewart?’

‘There’s something about snow-covered trees I simply can’t
resist.’

He smiled easily. ‘Then you should try cross-country skiing.
There are tracks through the forest, and they are well signposted.’

I thought of the loudly-dressed man I’d seen the previous
day. ‘I’m sure it’s harder than it looks.’

‘That is true of most sports. But skiing cross-country does
not take long to master.’

I looked into his eyes. ‘I still think I’d need a master to
show me.’

After a silence, he said, ‘Miss Stewart, I asked to see you
because I have some further questions concerning Wilson Bibby.’

‘But I’ve told you everything I know.’

He nodded towards the desk. ‘Please sit down.’

I ignored the hard-backed chairs and sat in one of the
maroon-coloured armchairs: if Hallengren wanted to question me further, I
intended to be comfortable. He hesitated for a second, then sat on the sofa.

‘My questions are not about what happened in the Icehotel,’
he said, turning the pages of his notebook. ‘They are about your conversations
with Wilson Bibby.’ He looked up. ‘You sat next to Mr Bibby on the plane to
Kiruna.’

‘That’s right,’ I said slowly, wondering how he would know.
We hadn’t been allocated seats so he wouldn’t know from the plane’s manifest.

He must have guessed what I was thinking. ‘One of the
passengers told me you and Mr Bibby sat together.’

‘What do you want to know, Inspector? What we talked about?’

‘Can you remember?’

‘Why is it so important?’ I said in exasperation.

‘It may not be important.’ He hesitated. ‘Shall we just say
it is part of a line of enquiry?’

‘What sort of a line?’

‘When there is an unexpected death, we establish the
circumstances leading up to it. So, can you remember what you talked about?’ he
said patiently.

‘Oh, the usual stuff you talk about to strangers on a
plane.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Specifically?’

‘Wilson gave me his family history. That more or less took
up the entire flight.’

The corners of his mouth twitched. So, he did have a sense
of humour . . .

‘He opened up to you remarkably quickly, Miss Stewart. Do
you not find that strange?’

‘Americans are always quick to talk about their Scottish
roots, Inspector,’ I said, with a tilt of the head.

‘What else did he tell you about himself?’

‘It was just social chat.’ I paused. ‘He told me that
Marcellus acts as his bodyguard.’

He looked surprised. ‘He told you that straight out?’

‘I can’t remember what led to it. He mentioned being
stalked.’ I looked at my nails. ‘I was rather rude to him. He’d snubbed Harry
in Stockholm, and I told him so in words of one syllable. Once I get started, I
find it difficult to stop.’

He nodded, a half smile on his face.

‘Inspector, what exactly is this about? If you gave me some
hint of what you’re after, I might be able to help you.’

‘Did Wilson Bibby tell you anything about his business affairs?’

‘To a complete stranger? Why on earth would he?’ I said in
amazement. ‘Hold on, are you talking about this schools’ exchange thing?’

‘Possibly.’

‘He told me nothing. I learnt about it from Marcellus after
we arrived here.’

‘So Wilson said nothing about what he was doing in Stockholm
last week?’

‘Only that he’d be returning to continue whatever it was.
Come to think of it, he told me that later.’

‘I understand Wilson showed you his diary.’

‘Your spies are well-informed, Inspector. Whoever this passenger
is, he’s observant.’

He waited in silence.

‘He showed me his diary,’ I said, my voice level. ‘What of
it?’

‘What exactly did he show you, Miss Stewart? Think
carefully.’

‘The cover, in his family’s tartan, which he was very proud
of. And he showed me the pages.’

He leant forward. ‘Did you see pages with writing? Or
carbons?’

‘He showed me the pages at the back, for December they must
have been. They were blank.’

‘You definitely did not see the date on the last page which
had writing on it?’

‘I’ve just said I haven’t.’ I studied his face, but he was
giving nothing away. ‘Look, Inspector, I don’t understand this line of
questioning. If you’re so interested in Wilson’s diary why don’t you look
through it yourself? It’ll still be in his locker.’

His eyes were without expression. He rose suddenly. ‘Thank
you, Miss Stewart, that will be all for the time being. If you do remember
anything about the diary, anything that you have not told me, please get in
touch immediately.’

He held the door open.

I stepped into the corridor. And then I had it.

‘You’re asking me these questions because you haven’t got
the diary, have you, Inspector?’

His eyes were steady. ‘Thank you for your time, Miss
Stewart.’ He closed the door softly.

I leant against the wall, my mind buzzing. Wilson’s diary
was missing. What did that mean? He’d mislaid it? Hardly. Given what he’d said
on the plane, he never let it out of his sight. He may even have kept it with
him in the Icehotel. The only explanation was that it had been stolen. So what
could have been in his diary that had made someone want to steal it?

But, more to the point, why
would a detective be so interested in the diary of a man who’d died of a heart
attack?

I ran into Harry on the stairs.

‘Lunchtime, dear girl. Man cannot live by champers alone.’

‘You haven’t been hitting the Bolinger already?’ I said in
mock disapproval.

‘Far too early.’ He winked. ‘But I must confess to having
had a small hock and seltzer by way of aperitif.’

I took his arm. ‘Tell me what you’ve been up to this
morning, Harry.’

‘I went for a long walk with Liz and Mike.’

How quickly Mike had become a part of our group.

‘I didn’t see you on the river,’ I said.

‘We went in the opposite direction. There are several
cross-country ski paths behind the Excelsior.’

‘Don’t tell me you went skiing.’

‘Surprised?’ he said in a playful tone. ‘It was great fun.
And good exercise, specially for the waistline.’ He patted his stomach. ‘I must
keep it up when we return to Edinburgh. Liz tells me there’s that kind of
skiing somewhere in Perthshire.’

‘How is she today?’ I said, my anxiety for her returning.

‘Much better. But I do wish she’d lay off the cigarettes.
Smoking will ruin her complexion. She and Mike are waiting for us in the
restaurant.’ He dropped his voice. ‘We’re going for the early sitting in an
attempt to avoid the jackals. I think they’re in Kiruna.’

‘By jackals, I take it you’re referring to the gentlemen of
the press.’

‘If they’re gentlemen, I’m a Dutchman,’ he said, pulling open
the dining room door.

Liz and Mike were at the long central table, leaning into
one another, talking quietly. Marcellus had abandoned his window seat and was
sitting a little way from them. Aaron Vandenberg was absent. Perhaps it was his
turn at the coroner’s office. That’s what lawyers were for, I thought with
satisfaction, and Marcellus would be needing a break.

It was the first time I’d seen Marcellus since the police
interviews. He looked tired and ill at ease, shoulders sagging, head bent over
his plate. His mouth was fixed in an expression of hopelessness. I went to
speak to him, but he rose as if from a deep sleep and left the room.

‘I take it you’ve met the lawyer, Mags,’ Liz said, watching
him go.

I reached for the chicken salad. ‘When he told me his name,
he seemed to expect me to recognise it.’

‘Well, I’d never heard the name Vandenberg till I read it in
the papers last week,’ said Mike.

‘And what did the papers say about him?’

‘He’s the architect of this schools’ thing. He’s Wilson’s
right hand man, been with him these last few weeks, doing the deal.’ He piled
pasta onto his plate. ‘So what’s this about his sister overdosing?’

‘That was in the papers too?’ I said, not surprised.

‘And can someone tell me the rest?’

Liz filled him in briefly.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said in a puzzled voice. ‘If he’s
related to Marcia, who Marcellus may or may not have killed, doesn’t it strike
you as odd he’s the Bibby lawyer?’

I put my fork down firmly. ‘That’s the least of it.
Everything about what’s happening here is odd.’

I described my recent conversation with Leo Tullis,
specifically Sven’s theory that the snowmobile brakes had been deliberately
loosened. I left out that he’d concluded it was with the intention of killing
someone.

Harry was staring blankly.

Liz’s face was ashen. She would have come to the same
conclusion I had. She was one of the people beneath the overhang.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ said Mike under his breath. ‘I
don’t believe it.’

‘That there’s a nutter going around loosening brakes?’ I said.
‘And that’s not all. Hallengren told me that Wilson’s diary has been stolen. So
what’s that all about?’

Mike sneered. ‘It’s obvious what’s happened. Now he’s dead,
some journalist wants to publish the grand man’s ramblings.’

‘It’s not just a diary. His business decisions are recorded
in it. And signed and witnessed, which I suppose makes them legally binding.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘So someone wants to know what he’s
been doing in Stockholm? But the whole world knows. Why steal his diary, then?
I don’t get it.’

But I got it. I got it in a flash. It was nothing to do with
what Wilson had been doing last week. It was what he was intending to do.
Someone had stolen his diary with the express purpose of uncovering his next
business move. But who? A reporter wanting to expose his plans? The diary might
well be of interest to someone like Denny Hinckley, who’d probably not be above
a little judicious thievery. Yet the reporters hadn’t arrived till the
afternoon, and the Locker Room was out of bounds by then. Whoever had stolen it
had taken it on the night Wilson died, or early in the morning before the
police were called. I kept coming back to it: why would the theft of Wilson’s
diary be of such interest to Hallengren that he’d come to the Excelsior to
interview me?

Harry leant forward, his cowlick flopping over his eyes.
‘Maggie, getting back to the snowmobiles, if there’s a nutter on the loose as
you so eloquently put it, then don’t you
think Leo
should tell the police?’

‘I think he’s been to see Hallengren.’

‘You don’t suppose the brakes were loosened with the
intention of killing someone?’ said Mike.

‘Of course not,’ I said vehemently. ‘It was a prank.’

I was only half listening. My mind was still on the diary.
If Hallengren hadn’t found it by now, he was unlikely ever to. It was too
recognisable for a thief to keep it long. My bet was that it was at the bottom
of the river. But if Hallengren was so interested in the diary, why hadn’t he
taken the Excelsior apart searching for it?

‘We’ve the trip to the
Sami
village
this afternoon,’ Liz was saying, brushing at the tablecloth. ‘Are you coming,
Mags?’

‘I think I’ll go to the church. I’d like to check out that
tower.’ And I wanted somewhere quiet to sit and think.

She didn’t even try to dissuade me. She turned to the
others. ‘I’ll see you in the Activities Room.’ Without waiting for a reply, she
left the room, avoiding our eyes.