The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) (25 page)

I took a glass of water from the tap. As I was glugging it down, there w
as a sound from the living room and
I went in to check. The television had turned itself on.
Th
e first images were abstract and
I co
uldn’
t distinguish any body parts
yet
. I couldn’t understand what
it was
. I noti
ced that the DVD player was on, so i
t wasn’t a television programme.
Once the images became clearer, they
hit me like an iceberg.
Of course,
I should have known. I should hav
e learnt from my Åland nightmare
so far.
None of it had been comical or
light
-
hearted. It wasn’t meant to be.

The first images were of
a dart hitting a moose.

Cut to the moose running and lying down, sedated, h
a
ving lost its ability to fight.

Cut to my father in his bath tub.
This is a
handheld shot and h
e
speaks
to the camera.
The film is silent but
he
is
cle
arly protesting about something, until
his attitude changes
and t
he camera becomes static, accentuating
the fear in his eyes
.

Cut
to a dart pistol being loaded and p
ointed.

Cut to
my father, agitated, screaming i
n silence.

Cut to the moose slashed open.

Cut
to
a close
-
up of
my father
lying in a metal cage
.
At first he appears to be dead, but then
he slowly comes to and r
aises his hand.

The camera p
ull
s
back to reveal that the cage is hanging mid
-
air. It looks like a sha
rk cage
–
the cage I’d seen in the museum.

Cut to the
cage being
lowered
.

Cut to my father’s
panicking eyes
.

Cut to
the cage
being submerged.

Cut to
m
y father
caged
under
water.

He climbs
the cage t
o stay out of the water
,
but it
continues to sink
,
until the only part of m
y father above water is his face squeezed against the
top
of the
bars
. His body is
trapped
in the freezing water
, the suffering is endless
and the silent screams
louder than ever.
There isn’t a single cut i
n the footage until his death
.

A
20
-
minute static sho
t of a man dying of hypothermia
–
m
y father. I watched it with the chilling thought that
all that time
–
every unbearable second
–
someone had held the camera
and chosen not to stop
filming
;
someone had
edited this. I’d been right
all along
.
My
father didn’t commit suicide. H
e’d been tortured to d
eath and a
twisted mind had recorded
him dying without intervening
–
a murderer, a monster
.

It was a shock, t
he first time in 20 y
ears that I saw my father alive, and n
ot being able to hear his
voice made
the horror of watching his death even more painful
. His voice, his warmth, his life, his spark
, they’
d
all been taken away, stolen.
I picked up the DVD player and threw it agai
nst the wall. I
was destroyed, unable to
unde
rstand why anyone would do this.
What could be so important it demand
ed an innocent man’s execution?

‘
Happy now?
’

I jumped and l
oo
ked round to face Boeck
sitting in the armchair in the corner
holding the remote
. He must have b
een sitting there since I came in
, a peeping Boeck delighting in my reaction. I was speechless.
Only a sick man c
ould do this, show it and f
launt it.
Boeck was more insane than I’d ever imagined.

‘
WHY?
’

He didn’t reply. I stood up, s
hot over and
went for a punch in the face, but he blocked me with his longer arms before standing up, c
almly.

‘
I thought you wanted to know.
’

Briefly, I
was paralysed by his detachment, but t
hen I went ballistic, kneeing him in the crotch and
adding a punch to
the head
when he
leaned over
to hold
his groin. Controlling th
e pain, he took a deep breath and l
ooked me in the eye.

‘
Sit down.
’

‘
Where’s
Anna?
’

I threw another punch and a
nother kick. Boeck was furious.

‘
SIT DOWN!
’

When I didn’t,
B
oeck picked me up like a doll and dumped me on a chair that immediately
crashed
under my
weight. S
itting o
n the floor amidst chair debris,
I scrabbled to my
feet.
I had to do something. My father had be
en murdered and
Anna was in danger
–
i
f she was still alive. I picked up
a chair leg and threw it at him but
missed
and smashed
the window
in
stead
.
When
Boeck pushed me back down
again
,
I exploded.

‘
DON’T TOUCH ME!!
’

I tried to push him
but landed on the broken chair again.

‘
WHAT DO YOU WANT??!!
’

I got up but he pushed me over again, more v
iolently
this time, making me bang
my nose against the floor. It started bleeding.

‘
Who have you talked to?
’

I couldn’t
speak
.

‘
Who have you told about the film?
’

I wiped the blood with my sleeve. In my mind, images of my father
clinging to the cage
mixed with
vision
s
of me murdering a man in the snow
. Everything was fucked up.
As
B
oe
ck pulled me up by the hair
,
I looked up, re
-
emerging from my visions.

‘
ANSWER THE QUESTION!
’

I was apathetic, numb, but
Boeck kept going.

‘
Who have you talked to?
’

This
had gon
e too far and t
here was no safe way out.
He
was
mad, c
apable of anything.
What did he want?
Was Anna still alive? I had to find out.

‘
What have you done to Anna
?
’

‘
Who is Carrie
?
’

I froze and
Boeck grinned at my reaction.

‘
When you use a phone, you leave a trace.
’

How could he track my phone calls? I’d used the landline. Was he really that resourceful? Or was he bl
uffing? Had he simply found Carrie
’s name?
I regretted not telling her about my suspicions.
I’d thought about asking her to go and stay with her m
other
.
I hadn’t because s
he would ha
ve told me to go to the police
. S
he would have been right
of course
, but a
t that stage, it had only been s
peculation. I was a fantasist and u
sually, my fantasies remained figments of the imagination.
For once
,
they turned out to be
life
-
threatening,
n
ot
just
to me,
but also to the woman I loved. A
nd t
o Anna.
Whatever I said
,
Boeck wouldn’t believe me. Carrie
was far away, but considering
his
ruthlessness and resourcefulness, geographical distance
wasn’t much of a reassu
rance. How could I protect her?

‘
I didn’t tell her.
’

‘
You’re lying. You rang her after coming to the film set the second time.
’

He was dangerous and p
repared to kill in the name of his p
roje
ct. The only way to protect Carrie
was to tell the truth
.

‘
I
wasn’t sure if it was real or acted. Besides, s
he’s pregnant and
I didn’t want to worry her
.
’

Boeck looked amused
,
but that didn’t mean I’d convinced him. He was unlikely to take any ris
ks and
Carrie
would be in
danger
until he was neutralised. H
ow could I warn her?

47

Still under the shock of Boeck’s
revelations, I was shoved into the backseat of a
Volvo SUV
,
while
Boeck
chucked the smashed DVD player with the footage of my father’s
into the boot
.
Sitting
next to
the ponytailed henchman
with m
y hands tied under my legs, my head was thrown against the cold window as t
he car
spun
onto the ice and i
nto the dark. All I could see was the
ice
scape
illuminated by the headlights and t
he speedometer
hitting
140 km/h.
When I asked where we were going,
Boeck
turn
ed
on the
car stereo
–
Bach blaring
.

Having seen my father’s fate,
I knew that
Boeck
could
have k
illed me
then and there
, but he didn’t want to. N
ot yet.
F
irst he
wanted to
milk my reaction to his atrocities
. He thrived on it and I was sure he had plans for me.
This wasn’t your run
-
of
-
the
-
mill si
ght
seeing tour of the archipelago.

There must
have been
mo
re to him than sadism. I
t was cl
ear from the museum that he
was an educated man with
a
sharp
sense of aesthetics
. S
o
w
hat
had
triggered the evil in him? Why would he risk everything for the sake of torturing people?
Was it a death wish
? I didn’t think so.
There was a touch of megalomania
, but
there
was more,
something else. H
e really believed in what he did. I
t went beyond personal ambition and h
e was prepared to sacrifice everything
, possibly
even
himself
.
It was the fact that he was a believer that
made him so terrifying
.
Unfortunately, there was nothing insincere about his belief.