The Last Refuge (35 page)

He looked at me and I knew he was close to cracking, I could feel it. There was some argument going on in his head, but he was on the verge of spilling his guts. His mouth opened and he hesitated, my heart pausing, but then his trap closed again. He let his head slump onto his chest, swaying side to side as he did so. Hope shrivelled inside me, giving way to anger.

Don’t make me do this, Nils. Don’t make me.
I went up close, close enough that my mouth was just a couple of inches from his ear. Last chance. ‘Last chance. Tell me. I know you want to.’

He shook his head, eyes screwed closed, knowing what it would mean. I took a step behind him so that he couldn’t see me even if he did open his eyes. My head was in my hands, my fingers pushing through my hair; I was silently screaming, wishing the inevitable away.

Forcing myself to be furious at his stubbornness, I hurried to the other side of the room before I could change my mind. I picked up the items one by one, the metal and the wood scraping across the floor, the noise carrying directly to Nils, as I’d intended. His eyes shot open.

I advanced on him, slower now, giving him time to take it in, to understand the consequences of his silence. When I was in front of him, I held the items up, quite unnecessarily. Then dropped them noisily at his feet, before returning to fetch the next one.

The harpoon. The metal oar. The corroded chain. The rusty knife.

They bounced and rattled and rang when they hit the floor. My face was as impassive as I could manage. I wanted him to read on it whatever he feared most.

Inside me was different. Inside I was churning to the point of vomiting.

This man was standing between me and what I needed to know. He could have given it up so easily and saved us both a lot of pain, but instead he was choosing selfish, pointless resistance. He was making this harder than it needed to be. Harder for me, worse for him. I hated him for it. The son of a bitch was actually going to make me do this.

It was growing inside me. The rage and the readiness to act on it. My mind was becoming black, a darkness closing out the light like a dirty fog snuffing out a church candle. I could feel myself hurtling reluctantly toward a place I’d sworn never to visit again.

When I spoke I barely recognized my own voice, and I didn’t like what I heard.

‘You can stop me at any time. But only stop me if you really intend to tell me the truth. If you stop me and disappoint me then it will be worse. I told you that you could tell me before or after the pain. Now, it will be after. After how much is up to you.’

I reached down and picked the knife from the floor, its blade having lost the edge that would once have sliced through whale as if through butter. Still, its jagged, tarnished frame would serve my purpose, even if all it did was produce an uglier wound.

Nils began mumbling dissent, incoherent pleas that were wasted on me. I couldn’t hear him above the quarrelling voices in my own head.
Do it. Don’t. No choice. Don’t be that person. Not again. No choice. Don’t do this to him or yourself. Hurt him. Slice him.

Nils had been switching his gaze fearfully between the knife and my eyes, but my face must have changed, betraying my decision.
Hurt him. Slice him.
I knew he’d recognized me for what I was; that he had seen inside me and understood what I was capable of. He was suddenly terrified. Almost as frightened of what I might do as I was.

In a matter of seconds I would be either the person I wanted to be or the one I had tried to run away from. Images tumbled through my head, faces fighting for space in a waking nightmare.
Do it. Don’t. There is no other choice. Be better than this. You’re better than this. I
am
better than this. But there really isn’t any other way. No way out.

I drew the blade across his throat, its leading edge dull with golden browns, rusty and old and ragged against his skin. Pressing harder, I watched it bite his flesh and saw his eyes widen before my mind closed over, the last remaining light choked out by the darkness inside.

Chapter 53

The beer in the Manhattan was cold, wet and alcoholic. It was all I needed it to be.

I’d only ever been in the place twice before, and on those occasions had found it dark and depressing, but on this night it fitted the bill just fine. My head was racing, my thought-processes out of control, with a dangerous edge that needed to be blunted with booze. Beer would do for starters, then I’d see what whisky or vodka could do to quell the nausea in my stomach. There would be no sleep otherwise, no rest either.

In the blink of an eye, the beer was gone and I needed another. I handed over a ten-krónur note, a slight tremor obvious to me, if not to the barman. Downing a third of the pint before I returned to my corner didn’t seem to help. I sat, hands on the table, back against the chair in contemplation. I thought about holes that I’d dug and whether I’d ever learn when to stop digging. I wondered, too, if this current hole was too big to climb out of.

‘Do you mind if I join you?’

I looked up and saw Nicoline Munk. The petite forensic examiner was holding a pint of beer in her right hand, a generous mouthful already drunk. Her curly auburn hair was tied loosely behind her and she wore a jumper under her waterproof jacket. She must have seen the doubt on my face in reaction to her question. She wasn’t a cop, but she was cop enough to scare me. But maybe a cop was what I really needed.

‘It’s okay,’ she held the beer up in front of her and reading my mind, ‘I’m off duty. Can I get you one?’

In my panic, I thought maybe she had followed me from the whaling station; but that made no sense. I’d already be in handcuffs and she’d be extracting DNA not offering beer.

‘I’d rather be alone, and anyway I’ve just got myself a beer.’

Munk looked at my glass and then my face. She must have decided that I looked thirsty. ‘I’ll get you another one.’

She took off her jacket and dropped it onto the chair opposite and made for the bar before I could say otherwise. She returned quickly, two drinks in hand, and placed them in front of us as she sat down.

She offered her glass in a toast, but I kept mine firmly in front of me.

‘I hope you don’t mind me joining you.’ She was fiddling with her hair. ‘No one in town seems very keen to talk to me, because of who I am or what I do. I don’t think they dislike Danes, they just don’t like Danish police coming in and taking over. I saw you coming in on your own and figured that we are probably two people that no one else wants to drink with, so maybe . . .’

‘Are you not in breach of some regulations by talking to me?’

She shrugged. ‘Only if we talk about the investigation. And we’re not. And anyway, no matter what Inspector Nymann might think, I am very thorough at my job. If you had been at that scene, I would know it.’

‘I thought we weren’t talking—’

‘We’re not. We’re talking about how thorough I am. It is different.’

‘Okay. But just so you know, I wasn’t at the scene.’ My mind was flashing to Tunheim and the webcam and the
grindaknivur
. Being innocent of the thing everyone thought I had done didn’t necessarily make me blameless. Then I thought of Nils Dam. I was far from innocent.

‘Like I said,’ she was looking at me curiously, ‘I know you weren’t there. If you had been, I’d have found you.’

All I could think of was the evidence I must have left littered across the whaling station. Footprints. Fibres of clothing. Fingerprints on a rusty knife. Bloodstains.

Sitting next to this woman, I felt exposed. My fingers slowly curled into balled fists so as to hide from her view and my feet tucked behind me.

‘How long have you been a CSI?’ The words were out of me before I knew it, the kind of banal opening meant for a dull dinner party or an awkward date.

‘Seven years. It’s the only job I ever wanted to do so I feel lucky.’

‘Examining crime scenes and dealing with dead bodies. That’s what you always wanted to do?’

She took a sip of beer with a shy grin. ‘Yes. Is it strange? I grew up watching
CSI
on television and thought “Wow. That is for me”. So I did it. I love my job. How many people can really say that? You work at that fish farm, do you love it?’

This conversation was driving me crazy. Surely she could see I was unravelling as I sat there.

‘No. it’s just a job. It’s not what I do.’

‘You were a teacher, right?’

My eyes narrowed and Munk shrugged apologetically. ‘I read your files.’

I emptied my glass and slammed it noisily back onto the table. ‘Yes, I was a teacher. Another drink?’

It was asked out of nerves, and a courtesy that I couldn’t afford, but the offer was out and couldn’t be taken back. She nodded so I pushed my chair back, picking up her glass as she drained it, as well as my own. I held them up in front of me so the barman could see, and he began pouring two fresh pints.

What the hell was this all about? I didn’t want to talk to this woman, tonight of all nights. I knew I should make an excuse and do my boozing elsewhere or not at all. She wouldn’t need a magnifying glass to see my guilt. It was written all over my face. I had to pull myself together. Think. At least if she was here then I’d know she wasn’t filling evidence bags at the whaling station and running DNA tests that would lead to me. I recalled advice about keeping your enemies closer.

Seeing a bottle of Lagavulin single malt behind the bar, I pointed at it. ‘Two whiskies,
takk
. Large ones.’

There was a look of surprise on Munk’s face when I turned up with the whisky as well as the beer, but she shrugged acceptingly. ‘Sure, why not? Is it good stuff?’

‘The best you will find on the Faroes.
Sláinte!
’

‘
Skål
. But that’s not saying much, is it? There isn’t much of a selection here. It is the middle of nowhere.’

‘It’s not that bad. You get used to it.’

‘I guess you can get used to anything. So did you love being a teacher?’

I sipped at the Lagavulin, savouring its huge tangs of peat and barley, and letting it sting the back of my throat. The hints of seaweed and smoke took me back to a school outing I’d supervised to Islay, where the malt is distilled, sitting round a campfire with singing kids and longing for a quiet dram once they’d all turned in for the night. ‘Yes. I loved it. But that’s past now.’

‘I can hear in your voice that you did.’

Maybe she could hear that, and maybe she was just saying what she thought I wanted to hear. Either way, if she was playing me, I’d play along. For now. A diversion might help keep my mind from festering on things it shouldn’t. Either that, or it would make everything worse.

Nicoline took her first sip of the Lagavulin and choked a little. ‘Wow. That is so powerful. It tastes very . . . I don’t know what it is. ’

‘It’s peat.’

She sipped again but managed not to cough or choke this time. ‘I like it. It is very smoky. And it is strong. I can handle it though. Do you miss teaching?’

Her questioning was driving me to distraction, tightening the wires even further. ‘Yes. But like I said, it’s done now. There’s no going back there.’

‘Because of what happened to the boy?’

I stopped halfway through a mouthful of beer, placing my glass back on the table. ‘You ask a lot of questions.’

She heard the resentment in my voice, she couldn’t fail to. ‘I’m sorry. But I told you. Off duty. Want me to prove it?’ She picked up the Lagavulin and threw it down her throat. She gulped down the last fiery drops and wiped her lips with the back of a finger. ‘Do you want another one? Those were doubles, right?’

Maybe this hole was already so deep that I could dig no further. I picked up my whisky glass and nosed it, letting the peat and the sweetness tingle my nostrils. Then I followed her example and downed it.

‘Do you know why I don’t want to socialize with Nymann and Keilstrup?’ She had returned with pints of beer and large whiskies. ‘Two reasons. One, all they want to talk about is work and football. The case, the case, the case. And football. Two, they will try to get me into bed. Not together, you understand, but separately. No way. That is
not
going to happen.’

‘You could report them. For harassment. Men shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that kind of behaviour.’

She snorted in derision. ‘No. That’s not me. I can handle them. They are just little boys playing at being policemen. If they pushed it too hard I would cut their balls off. I have the equipment in my case.’

‘Maybe you would, but it’s not like that for other women.’ I knew my voice was louder now. ‘Maybe they can’t fight back so easily.’

She looked at me oddly. ‘Okay. That is true. Well, in that case, I’d cut the guy’s balls off for them.’

I took a large mouthful of beer to drown my response and wash away a little of my growing rage.

A bell chimed at the front door and we both looked up to see a man blown in on the wind, a familiar, thirsty, unthreatening face that I’d seen propping up the bar in the Natur. Nicoline and I had noticed one another’s wariness, the way we had both jumped at the noise, wondering who it was.

For a few moments, we fell into an uncomfortable silence, until she spoke again, words bursting out of her as if they’d been held captive.

‘Okay, tell me something. If you want. You and Karis Lisberg. Is that still on?’

The question was so ridiculous in the circumstances that it almost made me laugh. Part of the answer hung in the stale air of the whaling station, a dilemma unresolved. I decided to give her the answer that would work best.

‘Yes.’

I could hear my own lack of conviction. A deaf man could have heard it a mile away.

‘Okay.’ She nodded slightly and sipped long at her whisky. ‘Just thought I’d ask. So I know where I stand. Here we are, two foreigners in a strange land. No one else to talk to.’

My paranoia level lifted another notch while my sense of certainty decreased by the same margin. My mind was in a mess and in no fit state to deal with this. I needed yet more deflection.