The Last Refuge (34 page)

Now there was no going back, for either of us, and we were in this together whether we liked it or not. Our tacitly understood pact was an uneasy one. Tunheim was stretching his code of ethics to overlook the fact that I had buried the
grindaknivur
and tampered with evidence. I had to accept that he wouldn’t tell the Danes about the piece of evidence that would show my innocence.

The inspector and I were up shit creek without a paddle between us.

‘Are you in a hurry to get back to town, Mr Callum? A hot date, perhaps?’

I jumped slightly at his words, a twitch that he couldn’t have failed to notice. I must have been staring at the clock on the dashboard, watching the digital display race round, and willing the car to keep pace.

‘Eh? Yeah. Something like that. A date.’

‘With young Karis? A very pretty girl for sure. How does her father feel about it? Esmundur might not be too pleased, I’m thinking.’

‘You know her father?’

Tunheim laughed at me. ‘This is Torshavn, Mr Callum. Of course I know him. Everyone does. He is a leader in the community and a man of considerable influence. Esmundur Lisberg is a very well-respected man, but he does have . . . what you might call old-fashioned views. An outsider dating his beloved daughter? I am thinking he would not approve – even if that person hadn’t been accused of a murder.’

‘I’m thinking you’re probably right.’

Karis. I didn’t know when or if I’d see her again. She was volatile at the best of times, but now . . . She obviously had no idea whether she could trust me or not, and I couldn’t entirely blame her. She had been placed at the heart of this whole mess with Aron, and it was the talk of the town. When I’d seen her last it was obvious how on-edge she was. I couldn’t know what she would do.

‘The Danes will want to speak to you again. Nymann is like a dog digging for a bone. And you are the only bone that he can see. Let me sleep easy tonight, Mr Callum. Tell me that there is nothing else that I need to know. Nothing else that Nymann can find.’

I glanced over at him but his eyes were fixed on the road ahead. He was aware that I’d looked, though; I had no doubt about that.

‘There’s nothing, Inspector. The sooner that you or Nymann find out who killed Aron Dam the better.’

His response was slow in coming. He raised his eyebrows in slight surprise and pursed his lips.

‘Interesting, Mr Callum. But you disappoint me.’

I didn’t dare look. Or breathe. Tunheim had an annoying habit of knowing more than he was letting on. I had to keep my voice level. ‘Why’s that, Inspector?’

Another infuriating pause. ‘Because after all we have meant to each other I thought that you would want
me
to find out who murdered Aron Dam. No? Very disappointing.’

We were on the outskirts of Torshavn and all I wanted was to get out of that car. Having Tunheim as my only ally was like sailing the ocean on the back of a shark. I needed to find a way out of this situation that didn’t involve being drowned or eaten.

‘Could you just drop me off here please, Broddi?’

‘Really? I can drive to near your house. It is no problem.’

‘No. Thank you. I am going to go for a drink first.’

‘Ah. Okay, I understand. And I take no offence at you not inviting me to join you. A police officer is rarely a welcome drinking companion. Particularly if you are on a murder charge.’

‘How insightful. Do they teach you that at police school?’

Tunheim smiled. ‘Police school? Ah, if only we had the luxury of such things here. Everything I know I learned at my father’s knee or by watching the tide. No matter how much the wind blows, Mr Callum, no matter how hard it rains, the tide will go out and it will come back in again. It is all you need to know.’

‘You’re full of shit, Broddi.’

He popped his glasses back on with a satisfied chuckle to himself. ‘Not at all, Mr Callum. Much of it is shit, as you say, but some of it is wisdom. The difficult bit for you is working out which is which.’

‘Yeah, I get that. Okay, here is fine.’

Tunheim pulled in at the kerb and turned to look at me. ‘Don’t go far, Mr Callum. And remember who is on your side.’

I waited until the car had pulled out of sight then changed direction, my stride lengthening, towards the street where I’d parked the rental Peugeot, desperately resisting the urge to break into a run.

The rutted track to the old whaling station was overgrown and bumpy, testing the Peugeot’s suspension and my nerves. I could see the three washed-out red buildings growing larger against the background of the rutted hillside across the fjord. Their fading corrugated-iron walls and peeling green roofs were testament to a time lost. Further evidence to its abandonment lay on the approaches: corroded pieces of hulking machinery, cogged wheels and handles rusted fast. Tarnished metal supports lay where they had fallen, propped up by lichen-covered rocks.

Everything reeked of decay, from the obsolete machinery and crumbling, mossy walls to the discarded jawbones of the sea giants whose bodies had been processed here. Oxidized canisters as tall as the roof and a huge orange-coloured boiler as big as a double-decker bus. Massive chain links, great blackened cylindrical tanks and an enormous rusty contraption that I took to be a steam-powered bone saw. Everything was whale-sized.

Hojgaard told me there had been plans to turn the place into a maritime museum but they had been shelved. There had once been over two hundred of these whaling stations around the world, all built to the same Norwegian model. This was the only one left standing in the northern hemisphere.

Inside, I knew there were the blubber tanks, steam engines and the lingering stench of death. And inside the middle building was Nils Dam.

I forced open the heavy iron door as slowly as I could, but it only had to budge an inch before iron echoes rang through the building. It creaked and groaned like a haunted castle, where every ghost was the swimming carcass of a whale. Only the dead wouldn’t be able to hear it.

His shadow loomed against a wall, thrown there by the sinking sun. The still figure of a man on the end of his noose, either awaiting or having met his executioner. He hadn’t stirred at the raucous opening of the door, nor at the sound of my footsteps across the stone floor. I’d been away too long. I’d left him freezing and without food or water.

His head slumped like a day-old baby. I reached my arm out towards him fearfully and placed a hand flat on his chest. I had to hold it a few moments to be sure it wasn’t just my own pulse I was feeling, but then I knew. His heart was beating.

I slapped his face. Not too hard. Cruel to be kind. After a second slap, he stirred, a wet whimpering sounding in his throat.

I’d picked up bottled water on the way over and held it up to his lips. His eyes were still closed but when I gently poured the water into the corner of his mouth, an instinct kicked in and he opened up to receive it, his dry tongue seeking it out. I let him have a mouthful and he choked it down, spluttering into life.

After a minute or two I gave him some more, this lot going down easily and greedily. I felt his wrists and the chill of him crept into me; it was like shaking hands with a corpse. Turning away, I busied myself with the oil drum, placing some more wood inside and preparing to relight it while he slowly regained his senses.

‘Fuck you,’ he managed hoarsely, the words barely travelling the few yards to where I stood.

I shrugged. ‘Up to you. Do you want me to light this for you or not?’

He looked at the drum longingly through heavy-lidded eyes and gave the faintest of nods.

I dropped a match and the wood soon crackled, heat building in the old drum. Picking it up, still cool enough to touch, I placed it near to Dam. He swayed towards it, seeking the warmth and arching out against the pressure of the rope that kept his hands above him.

I’d bought sandwiches along with the water and tore one of them into chunks, offering the bread, ham and cheese up to his mouth. He bit at them, at once resentful and grateful, wolfing down the lot and eyeing up the other sandwich hungrily. I didn’t let him have it.

He was alive, and although that answered one question it led to others. What the hell was I going to do with him? How was I going to get out of this mess? I had brought him to this place because I needed information that would prove my innocence; now I needed information that would allow us both to escape from this situation.

He was staring at the remaining sandwich. ‘Give it to me. I am hungry. You cannot starve me.’

‘Can’t I?’

‘Please.’

I placed it in its plastic wrapping on the floor in front of him.

‘Nils, you need to tell me what I want to know. You want the sandwich? You want to be warm? You want to ever leave this place alive? Then tell me.’

I saw the look on his face when I mentioned him not getting out alive. It scared him. Almost as much as it scared me. I still had to push it further.

‘There are some things I’m sure of and some I’m not. You’re going to tell me everything. If you lie, I’ll hurt you. Understand?’

He glared at me, sullenly and silently. I got closer and louder, roaring in his face. ‘Understand?’

Nils nodded wearily, his eyes sliding over in resignation. It wasn’t enough for me though.

‘Then say it!’

His eyes flicked open again, his loathing clear. ‘I understand.’

‘Okay. Good. Let’s talk about your brother. About why he took against me the way he did. It wasn’t just jealousy about Karis. Aron didn’t like me, did he? He didn’t like me at all.’

‘No. He did not like you.’

‘So here’s what I’m wondering, Nils. Why? After all, I had barely spoken to him. Yet he set out to get me. And you carried it on. Or were you in on it from the start?’

His eyes closed over and his head moved slowly, wearily, side to side. ‘No.’

‘Just Aron, then? But you knew about it.’

He nodded reluctantly. It wasn’t enough, I needed to hear it. ‘You knew what he was doing. Tell me!’

‘Yes.’

‘You know he vandalised the house that I live in, the one that belongs to the Hojgaard family.’

Nils looked hard at me, making a decision. He made the right one and nodded.

‘Okay. So you know that Aron cut my water supply and left the dead sheep and the raven. Right?’

After a faintly defiant pause, he let his head bob in agreement.

‘Good. And you know why he did it, don’t you?’

He just shook his head dismissively, sneering at me. I took a step towards him, my face fierce. It was enough.

‘Okay. Yes. I know,’ he said.

‘So why?’

‘He wanted to scare you away. Make you leave.’

My voice hardened, my frustration obvious. ‘
Why?
’

He hesitated, the answer stuttering on his tongue, and I had to resist the temptation to grab him by the throat and choke the words out.

‘He . . . he think you should not be here. You are an outsider. A foreigner. He hated you.’

‘He hated me because I’m an intruder? A foreigner?’

Nils nodded, but I knew he was lying. My foreignness might have been part of it, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Something rang false and I knew what it was.

‘So what about you, Nils? You feel the same way about outsiders? Hate them? Not trust them?’

He glared at me through his discomfort and fear. ‘Yes. Yes I feel same.’

I felt a familiar rush of anger surge through me, a rage borne of frustration and injustice. Stepping forward, I crashed the back of my hand across his face, my knuckles groaning as they caught his cheekbone.

‘I told you not to lie to me. Don’t do that again.’

Nils yelped in surprise, the pain leaping out of him suddenly and pitifully. I felt a surge of guilt, but swallowed it down quickly like bitter medicine, to get it past my throat before I gagged on it. Before he could recover, I drew my hand back the other way, my open palm slapping hard against his other cheek.

‘If you don’t like foreigners then why are you so thick with Serge Gotteri? All those secret meetings that you think no one knows about. It’s true, isn’t it?’

He stared, maybe trying to work out if I was simply guessing. His eyes were narrowed and he chewed at the corner of his lip. If he was trying to decide whether or not I was serious then I could help him with that. I slapped him again, harder this time, catching him just under his left eye.

‘Yes!’ he yelped before I could repeat the question. ‘Okay. Yes. I had meetings with Gotteri.’

Part of me breathed a sigh of relief. Another part wanted to hit him again.

‘Now you’ll tell me the truth about Aron, too. About why he hated me.’ I paused. ‘About Karis.’

His eyes widened and I saw fear flash across his face before he could hide it. There was something else, something that was scaring him even more than I was. Resentment rose in my stomach like bile, its bitterness alarming me. I had no choice but to up my threat.

‘You will tell me, Nils. The only question is whether you tell me before I hurt you or after. Do you understand?’

‘Fuck you.’ It was defiant but feeble. I doubted that he’d even managed to convince himself. I willed him to give in and tell me, not to force me to go beyond myself. Out of necessity, I kicked him hard, on the point of his ankle bone.

‘
Do you understand?
’

He recoiled at the pain then gave a slight nod, shamefaced and hurt. In turn, I nodded my head more forcibly, displaying satisfaction that we were getting somewhere. I was making a show of being more confident about that than I really was. Inside, I knew it was time to gamble.

‘Now tell me, Nils. Tell me what happened between your brother and Karis.’

His eyes slid closed as if he were trying to hide from me. Hide from the question and the answer. I wouldn’t, and couldn’t, let him. My right leg shot out and booted him in the shin, forcing his eyes wide open. ‘
Tell me.
’

I couldn’t quite read his face. There was fear and loathing of me – that much was obvious. But there was more, much more. Guilt? About what he knew, perhaps – or, I hoped, about what he was going to tell me about his brother. Whenever I mentioned Karis’s name, I could see a reaction in him.