The Last Refuge (42 page)

‘There are prints, some quite clear. Those on the blood are sharp but . . . well, let’s see. It is definitely the murder weapon?’

‘I wouldn’t want to tell you your job, but you will find that is Aron Dam’s blood on there. And, by my own memory of
CSI
, the blade will fit the entry wounds.’

She scowled at me. ‘Very funny. But you are right, I will test all that for myself. You sure you won’t tell me where you got it?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘And you won’t tell me how I can rule out your fingerprints?’

‘No.’

‘It is a dangerous game you play.’ She paused and sipped her orange juice. ‘The national DNA database, the one that you wanted me to tap into?’

‘Yes?’

‘I think I’m getting the go-ahead. Some people are very unhappy, but that is their problem. I will be allowed to run the DNA I found at the scene against what they stored.’

‘So you might not need the knife then?’ I began to wonder if taking it, and the inevitable consequences of doing so, had been necessary after all.

‘Oh no. Putting someone at the scene is one thing. Putting him on the murder weapon is something else entirely. I need this. And thank you.’

I nodded, still wondering what the hell I had done.

‘So . . . Nymann’s witness . . .’

I sat up anxiously. I had a list of names in my head. Would it be the one I expected?

‘I spoke to Kielstrup. Men are so easy. Well, most of them. He was not keen to speak, made a big deal out of how Nymann would not be happy. He was overdoing his hand, like a bad poker player, trying to get the most out of a little. Which is always the way I’ve thought of Kielstrup.’

‘Nicoline, are you going to tell me?’

She tilted her head forward in mock admonishment. ‘Did no one ever tell you that patience is a virtue? And being so impatient for . . . what do you call it . . . instant gratification, yes, that’s it . . . not a good sign at all.’

‘For fu—’

‘It is Serge Gotteri.’

‘What?’

‘The Frenchman, Serge Gotteri. He is Nymann’s witness against you.’

Chapter 64

I had phoned Gotteri’s number three times and got no answer. The fourth time, I got an engaged signal. And the same on the fifth.

Nicoline had left, the prize of the plastic bag and the
grindaknivur
in her possession. I trusted her to keep its provenance a secret. I had more trust in that than in my own ability to act with restraint, having heard what I’d heard.

The Frenchman was a liar. I would drain every drop of truth out of him – I knew there was more to come. The fact that he was in so thick with Nils Dam complicated matters hugely though, particularly as I had no idea where Nils was.

I went to Gotteri’s rented home on Hamarsgøta and banged on the door for long enough that a neighbour appeared and asked what the problem was. I told her I was looking for my friend Serge and she informed me that he’d left a couple of hours earlier, but no, she had no idea where he’d gone.

He could be anywhere on the islands, I knew that, and could easily be away all day. Waiting for him to return wasn’t an option, though; it would take time that I didn’t have.

Hurrying back into town, I decided to check out some of his regular haunts. He wasn’t having lunch in the brasserie at Hvonn, or sitting having a coffee in the sun outside Cafe Karlsborg at the port, or gazing out to Nolsoy with his camera round his neck. I charged back up past the cathedral, round the fringe of Tiganes that led to the Natur, to see if he was there.

There were only a handful of people inside, and Gotteri clearly wasn’t among them, just a few tourists and couple of girls giggling over coffee. Oli was on duty behind the bar and he seemed as likely to know the Frenchman’s whereabouts as anyone. He hadn’t noticed me enter the bar and seemed preoccupied with his mobile phone.

‘Hey, Oli.
Hvussu gongur
?’

He looked up distractedly. ‘Hey. Good, thanks. And you?’

‘Yeah, okay. Listen, have you seen Serge Gotteri around?’

Oli shrugged. ‘Not today, no. I thought you guys were not talking so much?’

‘Where did you hear that?’

He grinned sheepishly. ‘It’s my job. I hear things.’

‘Well, if you hear where he is let me know, okay? It’s really important. I need to know where I can find him.’

Oli studied me, seemingly making his mind up about something. His phone beeped again and he dropped his head to read whatever message had arrived. I saw his eyes widen. When he straightened up again he looked round the bar before speaking quietly to me.

‘Okay. I might know where he is. Or where he will be going. Him and everyone else.’

‘What do you mean?’

Oli raised his phone so that the top of it peeped above the level of the bar. ‘I am on Facebook, keeping up with something about to happen. But it is being kept quiet until the last moment. You understand? To keep away the wrong people. But Serge, he will definitely be there, as long as he knows about it.’

‘Oli, I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘A
grindadráp
,’ he hissed at me. ‘There’s a
grind
about to take place. They are watching the whales now.’

‘Christ. Where?’

‘Here. Torshavn. The boats are off the southern tip of Stremoy. They say Skopunarfjordur is heaving with pilot whales. The ocean is alive with them. As many as a thousand, they say.’

‘Where will they bring them in?’

‘At Sandagerd, of course. They are waiting for the current to change, then they will drive them onto the beach. They won’t be able to bring them all in, it just isn’t possible. But there will be many, many more than we have seen in a long time.’

‘How long? When will they arrive?’

‘They are whales not buses. Things can change. But if the current and the whales do as they should, then . . .’ He glanced at his phone again. ‘Half an hour. Maybe a little longer.’

He leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin. ‘Then the killing begins.’

The beach at Sandagerd, just before Argir, was three kilometres away. By the time I got back to the car, I could be halfway there on foot. I would walk. Or run.

Chapter 65

The road to Sandagerd was due south of town, beyond the end of the western port. I strode back over the hill, past the cathedral and the Hotel Torshavn, out past the boats bobbing on my left and the hulking keel of a ship being worked on. I climbed the circular hill past little cottages and neatly tended gardens, across the corner of the road that plunged downhill towards the industrial part of the port and onto the long, straight road out of Torshavn towards Argir.

As I bustled along, I tried phoning Gotteri again but got no answer. I was actually glad. Oli was right, Serge would be there. I remembered his fervour when we were at Búgvin and he got word of the whale hunt at Hvalvik. He had been desperate to get there and was furious at being late. A fury that all made sense now.

There was much more traffic on the road than usual, all seemingly heading in the same direction as me. Looking both back and ahead, I saw men walking in groups of twos and threes, all swarming towards the beach. The further I got along the road, the more I became aware that a small army was on the march. Its uniform was jeans, boots and either thick checked shirts or traditional local sweaters.

Their numbers grew as the word of the hunt spread, increasing with every step, until the road and pavement were thick with people advancing on Sandagerd. I was after Gotteri, but I’d become part of something else: an unwitting recruit in a body of men with fixed stares and set, determined jaws.

After the hospital, the hill tumbled down below us towards the sea. A flank of golden green that fell away quickly, with a long stretch of people already standing by the crescent shore. The tide was bringing white peaks rushing on to the small sandy beach, with the white walls and green roofs of the houses of Argir above them on the opposite shoreline.

As we funnelled down the narrow path towards the beach, a murmur of excitement went through the ranks and we all looked up as one to see a line of dots on the horizon, coming round the bend past Nolsoy. It was the boats.

Somewhere immediately in front of them, as yet unseen among the white horses that danced at the bow of the armada, were the whales. God knew how many of them.

The boats were strung out in an arc, slowly but steadily pushing towards the shore. I remembered that Martin Hojgaard, in his passionate defence of the hunt, had talked of how important it was to drive the whales in at the right speed. If the boats panic the pod, then the whales will turn and get away. If they either drive them for hours or try to get the job done in minutes, the whales will be stressed. This is bad in two ways, Martin told me. First, no one wants unnecessary suffering to the animals. Second, stress damages the meat. He said that when seventeenth-century kings hunted deer with horses and dogs, they would throw the meat to the dogs, as it was not seen as suitable for humans. The purpose of the
grind
was to get meat to feed the family.

As we marched, the boats got nearer. The dots became distinct and soon crafts of different sizes could be identified. In front of them – my heart jumped at the sight – I could see inky black dorsal fins rising and falling with the waves. There were hundreds of them.

The side boats hemmed them in and those behind pushed them on. They would be upon us soon, no place for them to run.

I was on the sand now, standing at the back of the beach alongside other men, some of them looking at me curiously, but most staring straight ahead. I tried to drag my eyes away and search for Gotteri, but was rapt at the sight of the advancing boats and whales and by those I stood guard with.

It was like they were in a trance. They were gaping at their prey, readying themselves for what was ahead. For what they had to do. They were preparing themselves to kill.

Barely a word passed between them. What little I heard them say was to themselves, oaths of intent muttered under their breath, vows to do what their fathers and grandfathers had done. They had walked away from jobs when they got word, left cars or boats, banks, factories and fish farms. Now they stood, grimly waiting, psyching themselves up, as if the execution was to be their own. They were soldiers, ready to go to war.

The rules of the
grind
were simple and ancient. Harpoons were banned, as were spears or guns. It was man against beast, except that man was armed with a hook called a
sóknarongul
, and a knife, the
grindaknivur
. And that the beast, the gleaming black leviathan, was denied the benefit of its natural habitat. These were not whalers in the vein of Ahab and his pursuit of Moby Dick, this was a battle to be fought in the shallow waters of the shoreline.

They were much closer now, the hunters and the hunted. Speedboats and motorized dinghies dodging between sailboats and small yachts. Before them, fins sliced through the water.

The men along the shore held a thick rope that was fed from one man to the next, an umbilical cord that each held for dear life. In the other hand, and attached to the line, each man grasped a heavy iron hook, the
sóknarongul
. It was this hook that would bring each whale to them.

I looked around me, a final desperate attempt to see Gotteri before everyone was swept up in what was to come. There were so many people now; it was hard to pick out faces among the spellbound. They lined the shore and packed the beach. It was hard to see where one group finished and another other began. There were hundreds of people, maybe even a thousand. One for every pilot whale believed to make up the pod.

As I scanned the ranks of grim expressions, I was brought to a crashing halt by one that I recognized. Not Gotteri but Toki Rønne. The short, wide frame of the fish-farm worker was unmistakeable, as was the scowl that scarred his face under heavy, furrowed brows. He stared out to sea with murderous anticipation, and had no eyes for anything or anyone else. I couldn’t help but shudder at the relish with which Toki would tackle the task of killing the incoming whales.

There was an intent in him that was different from the other faces lining the beach. Maybe it was just my knowledge of his character, but I could see a want in Toki that was absent from his fellow sand soldiers. They were steeling themselves for what was to come. He hungered for it.

My eyes moved on beyond Toki, seeing most of the adult males of Torshavn standing ready, the blood of their Norse ancestors pulsing through their veins. Instincts, centuries-old and centuries-deep, rising to the surface. I saw Tummas Barthel, a hand rummaging doubtfully through his white beard. Just yards from him was Martin Hojgaard, and further on Oli was there now too, his normally carefree countenance locked firm.

Then I looked back, my attention tugged by something, someone, out of place. A man looking not out to sea but directly at me. Features haggard, drawn and marked by recent battle. A face that made me jump. Nils Dam. He stared at me through the crowd, the hatred in his eyes visible from thirty yards away. His brows low, glowering, as if he was trying to kill me with his glare. Did he get here before me or follow me on the road from town? There were so many people between us that I didn’t think I could quickly get to him or he to me. Then the crowd swelled like the ocean and he was swept out of sight.

Everything moved at once. The men beside me began to step forward, a hum of intensity rising among them, earnest and determined. My head whirled back to the boats and saw that the ocean boiled with whales.

The great beasts were thrashing in the shallows, broad flanks of black and flailing fins causing the water to churn into heaving sprays of white. As one, the men were on their way to meet them, striding into the sea until it was quickly to their waists, their generals to the fore, pointing this way and that, both leading and carrying the line.

My eyes cast along the advancing islanders, sensing the awfulness of the collision that was to come. I could feel my own adrenalin pumping, blood surging through me as I felt the most primitive of impulses taking over.
Do it. Join them.
That’s when I saw him. Gotteri.