The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) (38 page)

7
8

I hadn’t. Ha
lfway through the helicopter journey, she la
psed back into unconsciousness.
Her temperatur
e sank
back to 29°C
and t
he doctor’s spontaneous diagnosis was that the increased flow of cold blood from the limbs to the heart had caused a heart problem. Too late did he realise that the relapse was due to the warm air inhalation unit’s battery going flat. Its air te
mperature and flux had fallen, which meant that t
here had been insufficient warm air to keep Eva stable. She would ha
ve been fine
–
if
the charger
hadn’t
been taken in for repair the pr
evious night
,
and
if
the back
-
up battery
hadn’t been flat. If only
…

Without the warm air,
Eva deteriorated rapidly
and
didn’t regain consciousness
. T
he doctor k
ept applying mouth to mouth and
we were only
minutes away from the hospital, so t
here was still hope. Hypothermic patients weren’t considered dead until
back to normal body temperature
,
and t
hey often regained consciousness as the temperature went up.

The helicopter landed on the hospital roof and Eva was rushed into the building on a stretcher. I followed,
never taking my eyes of
f
her,
but
I
was stopped as we reached the doors of the operating theatre. I’d watched ER
on television and t
his was nothing like it. This was a Swedish emergency unit in a provincial hospital. Their purpose was not to create added dramatic tension in people’s lives. They remaine
d calm and considered life and death
natural
phenomena
that
didn’t require
additional
dramatisation.

The television set in the waiting room was turned onto a
Swedish
regional channel. Being a Londoner, Swedish life seemed to happen in slow
-
motion.
The presenter announced that a
new motorway was being built. Where to? What for?
Sweden
was vacant. There were reports of an unidentified smell of broccoli
in a town
. Or was it cauliflower? The interviewed locals weren’t sure. Another town protested against EasyJet opening up a new route. The concern seemed to be noise pollution.
Who would hear it? The moose?
I couldn’t help thinking that it was to do with the cauliflower. English bullies smell blood, Swedes cauliflower. When the smell of cauliflower is a menace to society,
it might have become too safe.

Someone switched channel
s
to
news
about the King coming to Mariehamn
to open
the
multicultural festival
.
Once again,
I
was amazed by
the Scandinavian
s’
splendid isolation. Another bomb had probably exploded in
Baghdad
, a bus disintegrated in Tel
-
Aviv, a Palestinian village had
been bombed flat in retaliation, but
Scandinavia
remained in Pippi
-
Longstocking
-
mode.
That’s why
I cherished the expression ‘Meanwhile in
Sweden
’
. It
suggested that whatever crises erupted on the rest of the planet, Swedes were unperturbed in their skinny dipping and moose riding.
B
ut m
y image of
Sweden
was changing.
In spite of the Swedish f
airy tale of King’s and Queens and
the innocence displayed on television,
I’d
landed in a Swedish nightmare,
a
parallel
Sweden
, which seemed to have lost its
cloud
-
cuckoo dimension
.
It was a
Sweden
questioning the idyll, a
Sweden
where
I had to wait over
an hour before hearing
from the doctors
about Eva
.

79

Andri was only supposed to ring if
there was a problem, and there was
–
t
hey were alive.
The local guy
had tracked
them
down
, but
Andri
found him with his head bashed in
.

Driving inland, Andri talked to an old lady who’d seen them
too
. Eva had
been rushed to hos
pital in a helicopter
and
definitely wouldn’t interfere any more
, but
Magnus was
still alive
. Andri
was closing in on him and
promise
d to elim
inate him once for all, which was
all
Boeck needed
to know.

He would rather have tak
en care of it personally, but Boeck
had no choice. P
riorities were priorities
,
and h
e had an important termination to attend to. Essential change couldn’t be achieved democratica
lly. Violence was a necessity a
nd his
exhibition
would
gua
rantee
it wouldn’t be a gratuitous act. His
tory would be Boeck’s judge
–
he
knew he
acted in the best interest of the nation
. Most people were ants working away in their limited realities, without any grasp of t
he wider or longer term picture, whereas h
e’d spent his life developing his national sense. He knew what he was doing.
And
Sweden
was going to benefit.

Although h
e h
ated the Ber
nadottes,
this
wasn’t really about them. They were only the symptom. He’d come to realise that the monarchy was fundamentally flawed. By definition the only eligible
bride for a Swedish King was
fore
ign,
as m
arrying Swedish
commoners
watered
down the royal blood. However, t
o marry ro
yalty
,
Kings had to marry overseas
. This
was understandable in the past
–
for d
iplomatic and strategic reasons
–
but monarchy in its present incarnatio
n was past its sell
-
by date and
needed to be re
-
evaluated.
Did it still have a function
? Boeck thought it did, but qu
intessential Swedish values had to be
brought back to the fore
. When
the Frenchman
Bernadotte was made Kin
g, all
basic principles were ignored
. B
eing
the Swedish King became a joke,
a
job, not the symbol of a great nation
.
History was soiled.

8
0

I couldn’t believe I was going to lose
Eva
and that o
ur helli
sh journey had been for nothing
.
The female doctor who came out to tell me looked like she
’d barely passed her A
-
levels, n
ot a day over 18.

‘How is she?’

The doctor
paused to look me into the eyes. Was she really there or was she thinking about her next patient? Maybe I was unfair
,
but I felt she was only going through the motions. Why did she even pretend to care? Next.

‘
It’s too early to say. We’re doing our best, but it’s not looking good.’

I didn’t know what to do or where to go. It was if I’d suddenly been emptied of everything. I didn’t know what to say.

‘We need to be able to notify the family and
would appreciate if you could give us their details
–
just in case
.
’

Not the most reassuring line
and I ignored it. Eva was critical, but she wasn’t dead yet, was she? Besides, I
didn’t know how to get hold of Riita and I certainly wasn
’t
going to give her Boeck’s
number.

‘How bad is she?
Tell me.
’

‘
She’s still extremely cold and h
ypothermia puts ever
ything on hold
.
We’ll know once she warms up.
’

‘
Can I see her?
’

I’d asked
automatically
, but did I really want to see her?
Of course, i
t r
eflected my de
sire to see her
, to
be with her,
t
he living Eva, n
ot the dead.
Although she wasn’t dead,
the doctor had given me little room for hope
and I was afraid of what I would see
.
I was dazed and confused.
If she died it
w
ould be
the fifth dead person I faced
in a couple of days
.
They were falling like dominos.
After my father, the church
guard, Anna a
nd the snowmobile driver,
Eva’s turn
was approaching
ominously
. It wasn’t right.

The
young
doctor guided me to
Eva
, who
was lying
on a
bed
sur
rounded by equipment
–
warm air inhalat
or was attached to her face,
a
warm air blanke
t
covered
her body. At first I thought I could hear h
e
r breathing, b
ut it wasn’t Eva. It was the blanket
puffing warm air onto her skin. Blood was
also being
taken from her arm and
circulated through
a heat
-
e
xchanger before
being returned
to her
body. The display on the heat
-
exchanger showed 30°C and I knew by now that
this meant
she was in deep hypothermia.
The ECG curve was flat, except for some irregular glitches that seemed due to more to
defective equipment
than any
real sign
s
of life. I put my head next to hers, listening out,
feeling for any breathing and
suddenly I thought I heard
wheezing, but the next second it was gone. I must have imagined it.
She was looking at peace as I
caressed her cheek.

‘
I’
m sorry
.
’

Speaking the words, I realised tha
t
although the doctors hadn’t declared Eva dead yet,
she was already slipping away.
What we
’d been through
together
was so different from my daily life that it would soon seem unreal. There
wouldn’t be any tangible traces, which
made me even more determined to remember her always
. I mustn’t lose her,
but
I wasn’t sure how to do it.

While t
he doctor was standing by
the door, awaiting my farewell,
I stood still, looking at Eva, or not looking at all, simply s
taring into space.
I felt empty, lost, torn, panic
ked
,
angry,
everything and nothing at the same time. There was a
storm raging inside, but
I was calm on the surface, almost apathetic, a
s if resigned to accepting fate. I
could have stayed there forever:
days, weeks, months, centuries.
I felt no urge to leave, because e
verything seemed so
pointless after the
struggle to escape the killers and t
o save Eva.