The Last Refuge (37 page)

I placed the plastic carrier bag a few feet from him and his eyes devoured it, desperate to see what was inside. I was going to make him wait though. Wait, and work for it.

Reaching round behind him, I freed his hands and then the binding round his ankles. Placing an arm under one of his, I hauled him unsteadily to his feet.

‘Where are we going?’ He sounded scared.

‘Nowhere. But you are going to walk or you will seize up completely. And don’t try anything stupid or you know what will happen.’

Nils was a little bigger than I was but he was weak, hungry and slow, with rusty limbs and no fuel to fire his belly. He was in no state to flee or fight, but I still had to remind him not to do so for both our sakes.

We did four slow circuits of the room, a marathon for Nils in his debilitated condition, dodging the paraphernalia of the whaling station: cogs, cans, ropes, boxes, tools and pulleys, all set solid with rust and time.

When I returned him to his place on the floor, with his back to the ancient freezer, he collapsed gratefully to the ground and made no fuss as I tied him up again, this time leaving one hand free. Reaching into the bag, I pulled out a bottle of water, seeing his eyes light up. He greedily tipped some of it into his open mouth and I heard the gurgling as it rushed down inside him.

I then produced two ham-and-cheese sandwiches, an apple, a slice of chocolate cake and a bottle of beer. I placed them one by one on the plastic bag, laid out in front of him like a banquet. Nils stared at them ravenously, eyes bulging and mouth open. ‘Give me.’

‘No.’

His face fell, a child told that there would be no Christmas this year.

‘Please.’

‘No. Not until you tell me what I want to know. And I mean everything.’

The beaten dog found a little last defiance. ‘I tell you. And you did not like.’

I swung the back of my hand at his face and slapped off the smirk that was beginning to appear there, drawing fresh blood from the corner of his mouth. He was right though. The night before he’d begun to tell me what I’d asked of him: he had managed just three words when I could take no more. I’d hit him before he could say anything else.

‘I want to hear it. All of it. Not just your edited version of it. Start talking.’

‘Food.’ He spat the word at me. ‘I need or I not strong enough to talk.’

I gave him one of the sandwiches and he wolfed it down, tearing at the bread with his teeth, choking on it. He eyed up the rest but I eased the makeshift tablecloth back, indicating that the remainder was off the menu.

‘Now tell me. What happened between your brother and Karis? From the beginning.’

Nils wiped the last of the crumbs from his mouth with his free hand, carefully scooping them into his mouth. ‘Aron always liked Karis. He was crazy about her. Never talk about any other girl. Always her. She like him too, I think, but maybe not so much. They went out together here. Like boyfriend and girlfriend. But she always think she too good for him. She and her artist friends and him just a fisherman.

‘They both went to university in Denmark, in Copenhagen. She learn art and Aron learn management for to run family business. Aron could have had lots of girls. Any girl. But he like Karis. But Karis she like Copenhagen. She like her new friends and art galleries and museums. And she like the boys who want to go to these. Water, I need more water.’

I gave him the bottle and let him slip some more down his throat but pulled it away just before I judged he would be finished. The glare that I received told me I’d judged right. ‘Go on.’

‘So Aron would go to her place and ask to see her. He would meet her in bars she like. Sometimes she speak to him and sometimes she too busy with her friends. Like she was embarrass to be seen with him. The daughter of the preacher. The artist. Too proud to be seen with my brother. She
should
have been proud to be with him.

‘But she not tell him to go. She still like him. Still want him, Aron say. Just she too proud because he fisherman. They have dinner in restaurant one time and he knows she still feel the same as he. They both drink. Lots. He tell Karis he love her but she laugh and say he not mean it. But he did.

‘He walk her home. He tell her again but she say she not love him. Aron he . . . he get angry. He want to show her how angry. And show her how much he love her. Give me food.’

‘No.’

‘Give me food or I no tell.’

I booted him hard in the stomach and he doubled over, choking out breath. He clutched his free hand to his empty stomach, massaging the pain.

‘You will get food once you have told me everything. Now talk. He wanted to show her.’

It took a full minute before Nils could lift his head, hatred all over his face. ‘Yes. He show her. He show the bitch how much he want her. You want to hear?’

My stomach knotted worse than his, clenched in anticipation, steeling myself for the words to come.

‘He fuck her. Aron fuck her.’

As the anger boiled inside me, I needed to hear the words he’d used the night before. Words that he’d used then as a weapon against me, but now shied away from. I needed to hear them even if I had to say them first.

‘He
raped
her.’

‘He fuck her.’

‘He
raped
her!’

‘Yes. He rape her!’

Chapter 56

‘He rape her and she liked it.’

I booted him again, my foot slamming into his knee and then his thigh in quick succession, causing him to scream. When his mouth was wide open, I grabbed the apple from the floor and rammed it in as far as it would go, jamming it on his lower teeth, leaving him like a pig set to be roasted.

He screamed again, furiously trying to dislodge the apple, panicking when he couldn’t do so, not helped by me pulling his head back by his hair. I let him squeal for a bit, enjoying his discomfort and glad beyond belief not to be hearing him any more. But the absence of words didn’t stop them from bouncing around in my head, crashing into my brain. Rape. Karis. Rape.

And the consequences of those words. What they meant and what they might mean. The stomach-churning awfulness of it. But also what it might have left her with. Motive.

Jesus Christ, I couldn’t even think it. I had to take it out on Nils.

‘Your brother raped Karis. Because she wouldn’t have him, he raped her.’ I was screaming at him. ‘Your brother was a thug. An animal.’

He roared behind the stuck apple, a muffled, incoherent rant, in defence of the indefensible. I put a hand under his chin to support it and battered my fist down onto the top of his head, forcing him to bite clean through the fruit and nearly breaking his jaw in the process.

He choked and sobbed but I couldn’t and wouldn’t let him rest. I couldn’t let myself rest either. Much as I dreaded it, I had to know.

‘So what happened next?’

Nils’s words came out in a stream of self-pity and resentment. ‘He took Karis home. So she was safe. She not tell anyone. Not one person. Aron thank her for not tell. Everything was okay.’

‘Okay?’ I burst out laughing, incredulous. His head slumped so that his eyes avoided mine. ‘Okay? He rapes her and you think it was okay? He thought it was okay? What is wrong with you people?’

‘I mean okay because no one know. Aron sorry. Very sorry. But then . . .’

My guts tightened, hearing something in his voice. ‘Go on.’

‘Then Karis pregnant.’

The words echoed round the room of metal, rattling and clanging, reverberating and ringing off rusted iron and green copper. They rang in my ears and I felt sick.

I myself had no words, and Nils lifted his head to look at me. I dared him to show some satisfaction at my shock: I would rip his head off with my bare hands. Maybe he sensed it, because he just stared at me sullenly.

‘What happened?’

‘Karis have abortion. She not tell Aron. He very angry. He wanted baby. And he wanted her.’

‘What a fucking shame for him.’ The words fell from me in a whisper. Since I’d heard about Aron’s murder, I’d spent every waking moment, and a few sleeping ones, desperate to find out that I hadn’t done it. Now I was wishing that I had.

I kicked Nils on the ankle, a vicious knock that startled him and made sure he got the message. Talk.

‘Karis finish her study and come back to Torshavn. Aron too. But not together. They not talk. But still Karis not tell what happen. She not want any person to know. Aron feel bad but he leave her alone. When she meet boys, Aron not like it.’

‘And then she met me?’

‘Yes. Aron very angry. You not from here and you with Karis. He very unhappy. He say to me that he make you go away.’

I could feel my hands forming fists, knuckles whitening as the skin tightened around them. I watched Nils Dam’s teeth as he spoke. I pictured the white of my knuckles on the white of his teeth, smashing through them until they hit the back of his throat.

‘Did you help him to try to make me go away?’

Nils looked fearful.

‘Tell me.’

‘A little. He broke your water pipe. I help him get the sheep to your house. He break in and leave bird inside. He sure you leave.’

‘Yeah, well I didn’t. Your brother was a bully. A thug. A rapist. You must be very proud.’

‘He my brother!’ A tear was streaming down his face. ‘My brother!’

‘I didn’t kill your brother. But you know what? Whoever did it deserves a round of applause.’

Nils tried to spit on me but I saw it coming and easily moved my head to the side. ‘I didn’t kill your brother, Nils. So who did? You?’

His eyes screwed closed and fresh tears formed. ‘No! Fuck you!’ He shouted and strained against the ties that held him, wriggling like a madman, and I couldn’t help but think he was protesting too much. While he was railing against that accusation, I thought it was a good time to try another.

‘I know about you and Serge Gotteri. I know all of it.’

His head snapped up, eyes wide and his jaw slack. What I’d said was partly bluff, with little to back it up, but I knew I’d just hit a bullseye.

‘I not know what you mean.’

I laughed in his face, making it clear it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.

‘Nils . . .’ I laughed again. ‘How stupid are you? Do we need to do this every time? Do I need to prove to you that I mean what I say?’

‘I . . . no. No. But I cannot speak about . . .’

My head tilted to one side, examining him. ‘You remember how I told you that you would tell me what I wanted to know. And that you could tell me before or after the pain? Nothing’s changed. The deal is still the same. You will tell me everything. You and Gotteri.’

Chapter 57

When I picked up the rusty knife that I’d previously drawn across his throat, it was hard to miss the look of fearful familiarity that appeared in the man’s eyes. Maybe he thought that it would be easy for me to cut out the tongue that had spoken those words about Karis. Slice away the word
rape
as if it had never been spoken.

I’d made the decision that I wasn’t the kind of person who would carry out the threat embodied by the rusted blade, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Nils still believed that I was.

I knew, too, that it would help if Nils learned that I had knowledge. Knowledge that he couldn’t imagine that I’d possess. Thanks to Tummas Barthel, I was armed with just that.

‘You will tell me everything about you and Gotteri. And everything about your fight with your brother.’

His mouth dropped, fear temporarily overtaken by surprise. I let the knife turn in my hand, making sure it caught his eye.

‘Tell me all of it, Nils. And not a word of a lie. You’ve no idea what I know and what I don’t know. Don’t take the gamble of trying to guess. For starters, Gotteri is not here working for
National Geographic
. We both know that. Right?’

He nodded dumbly, confused and uncertain. I could see him trying to work things out and failing. I let the knife turn in my hand again.

‘So why is he here?’

‘Gotteri is here for the whale hunt.’ Nils let the words slip quietly into the stale air of the station.

Tummas had been right. He said that all he had on Goterri were suspicions and guesses but they’d been accurate.

‘Speak up. And tell me everything.’

‘He is here for the
grindadráp.
To photograph it. To wreck it. He wants to destroy it all.’

I remembered Gotteri’s over-the-top reaction at being late for the whale hunt at Hvalvik, his fury when we arrived only in time to see the bloody carcasses lined up on the quayside.

‘Go on. I told you I wanted to hear it
all
.’

‘He not work for
National Geographic
. He work for the Marine Machine. The crazy eco people. They send him here to photograph it from inside. So he pretend. He say he here to photograph birds but he a liar.’

Nils paused and nodded at the bottle of water. I grabbed it and tipped some into his mouth so that he could continue.

‘He want photograph of the
grind
. To make it look bad. He want to see rules broken. Laws broken. He want it to look . . . brutal and cruel.’

‘So you helped him.’ I tried to make it sound like a statement rather than a question.

He nodded sullenly. ‘I know fishermen and boats, so I know when whales are coming. Before anyone else. So I tell Gotteri.’

‘Like when you told him about the hunt at Hvalvik.’

‘Yes.’

‘And he paid you for that information.’

‘Yes.’

‘Gotteri didn’t just want to photograph the
grind
, though, did he? He wanted to make sure some of the hunts didn’t happen. And you helped him with that too.’

Nils grimaced but nodded. ‘He told Marine Machine and they got there in time to scare away the whales. Make
grind
not happen.’

I was struggling to focus on what he was saying. As much as I wanted to know about Gotteri and his dirty tricks, I couldn’t drag my mind away from what Nils had already told me. Images of Karis were bombarding my head. Karis and Aron. I was drowning in rolling waves of compassion, rage and worry.