Wild Shores, page 16
‘We’, she notes. So Sigrid is still there.
‘Do you want me to pick anything up on the way?’
‘We went to the shops this morning, so we’re good. We figured you might be back. But we forgot to buy milk.’
She can hear Leo talking to someone in the background. Then he’s back on the line.
‘Sigrid says we’re running out of washing-up liquid, too.’
They finish the call and Karen turns the radio back up. The last notes of something she doesn’t recognise are just fading out and the familiar intro to a Fugees song takes over.
Ready or not, here I come, Karen thinks.
Then she speeds up, just a little.
30
‘What you need is a hideout,’ Marike says and starts to pull on tights. ‘Bloody hell, these are neat all of a sudden.’
They’re sitting in the room behind her studio. Karen looks out the window at the silent snowfall and shivers. The temperature has dropped another few degrees and the kilns haven’t been used in days. Or maybe she’s feeling cold because she’s wearing a sleeveless dress for the party. Fascinated, she watches the six-foot-tall Marike’s futile attempts to make her tights reach all the way to the crotch.
She’s a good listener, Karen thinks to herself. Marike has let her ramble on for forty-five minutes about how frustrating it is to have Leo and Sigrid on top of her. About how she wants them there one minute but then just wants to be left alone the next. About the thrill she’d felt a few hours earlier, coming home to the sound of voices and the smell of food cooking on the hob.
‘Welcome home,’ Leo had said and held out a bottle of beer.
She had stared at the floor to hide the mix of panic and joy that surged through her as she took the bottle. Life would be so much easier if they weren’t there. So much quieter. ‘Welcome home . . .’ His words had been like a hockey puck to the gut.
And after dinner, Sigrid had asked the question. Would it be OK if she moved into the guest room? She’s considering going to university and if she sells the house her mother left her she won’t need to take out student loans.
‘I’ll pay rent and I’ll be studying every night. You won’t even know I’m here.’
She had just sat there, dumbstruck. And she’d seen disappointment take hold in Sigrid’s eyes as she waited for the words Karen couldn’t get out: ‘I’d be happy to have you.’
Now, Marike pushes her dress down with a sigh and turns around. She continues, ‘Like a secret lair. A refuge you can retreat to when things get overwhelming at home. An overnight flat. Here, in Dunker. Comprende?’
Karen responds with a grunt.
‘That way you can spend more time with me, too, without having to drive home after one measly glass,’ Marike continues.
‘And where am I supposed to find an overnight flat?’ Karen says gruffly. ‘Practically all the buildings in this town are co-ops these days. I don’t have the money to buy a second home. Or are you saying I should rent a studio up in Gaarda or Moerbeck?’
‘Mm, I can see it now,’ Marike says with a wicked laugh. ‘Or right here’s nice, in the harbour.’
Marike Estrup’s ceramic studio is located at the western end of the promenade, where it occupies the ground floor of an old stone building that, in its long history, has housed, in chronological order: a smithy, a sheet metal company and a shop selling boat engines and parts. Previously a dingy neighbourhood full of derelict buildings, it has recently gentrified. Karen has made a habit of borrowing the keys to the studio whenever she’s too tired or pressed for time to drive back to Langevik. The sofa bed is reasonably comfortable, and the fridge is always well stocked with gin, vermouth and olives. In the winter, the heat from the kilns is a welcome feature but in the summer you have to sleep with all the windows wide open to make it tolerable.
Marike herself lives in a house she’s had built on a narrow strip of land just a few miles north of Dunker – land she’d purchased because it made her the owner of a rich deposit of the shimmering, supple, green clay she moved to Doggerland for. And it had been through her property purchase that she and Karen met eight years ago. Marike had announced that she would buy the plot at any price. Torbjörn, one of Karen’s cousins on her mother’s side and the owner of the worthless piece of land, had seen his opportunity to fleece the peculiar Danish lady. He hadn’t been best pleased when Karen, who had happened to be present, had stuck her big nose in and pointed out that the muddy field wasn’t worth anywhere near the ridiculous price Torbjörn was asking for it. But Karen had stood her ground and had also made sure a small adjacent plot of buildable land had been included in the purchase.
Granted, it had taken her over a year to repair her relationship with her cousin, but on the other hand, she’d found a new friend in Marike. And Marike had stayed in her new home, surrounded by forests and mosquitoes and with a muddy field as her closest neighbour. She digs the clay and processes it before bringing it to her studio in Dunker, where it’s turned into the sculptures that have made Marike a world-renowned ceramic artist.
She’s a good friend, Karen muses, but she has no idea what it’s like to live off a police salary. She decides to change the subject.
‘Are you almost done so I can call a taxi? Eirik will go nuts if we’re late.’
She knows she sounds brusque. All the talk about an overnight flat, a place to retreat to, has ruined the festive mood, leaving her feeling despondent. Now she knows exactly what she needs and that she will never be able to get it. A hideout.
‘Fine, go ahead and call,’ Marike says and resumes tugging on her tights.
*
Half an hour later, they ring the doorbell of one of the biggest villas in Thingwalla. The house, built for a wealthy shipowner in the mid-Twenties, was, judging by the size, intended to accommodate both a large family and servants. Two foreclosures and sixty years later, it had begun to fall into disrepair, an eyesore in the otherwise posh neighbourhood. Over the years, buyers have come and then quickly gone again after realising just how much work it would take to bring the house back from the brink. Kore and Eirik had won the bidding process with alarming ease and, at almost twice the cost of the property itself, had replaced the plumbing and had the whole house rewired.
To the exasperation of Kore and Eirik’s new neighbours, fixing the peeling exterior has been put on hold until spring, but on the inside, the house is already unrecognisable. A number of walls have been knocked down, turning the six normal-sized bedrooms upstairs into half as many of twice the size, each with its own opulent en-suite bathroom. On the ground floor, the result of the demolition is an open-floor plan with enough space to make the black grand piano in one corner look no bigger than a fly speck.
And just as their hosts look like they’re from different planets, so the décor on the two floors differ so markedly it’s hard to believe the same two people live on both. The bedrooms upstairs bear the mark of Eirik’s conventional tastes, while Kore has gone all out on the ground floor with a clear nod to industrial design. Instead of plaster and wallpaper, the walls have been stripped to reveal the red brick underneath and the steel beams that had to be installed when Kore insisted on knocking down a loadbearing wall have been turned into permanent design features. A stainless-steel butcher’s bench has been pressed into service as a kitchen island, the dining table is a one-hundred-square-foot behemoth made of thick oak boards and the twelve chairs surrounding it are cast iron, but surprisingly comfortable thanks to large white and grey sheepskins.
‘The first half of the evening is mine,’ Eirik had told them when they were first invited. ‘Then Kore will take over and I’m not responsible for what happens after that.’
That’s how they make it work, Karen thinks as she sits down on one of the sheepskins and studies the table décor. Instead of compromising, her two friends make sure they both get what they want. This part is Eirik’s traditional New Year’s soirée with folded napkins and a passed-down damask tablecloth to hide the rustic oak boards. An artful arrangement of white lilies and roses, which probably took hours to perfect, even for a trained florist like him, runs the length of the table.
Seated around the table are the usual suspects: Marie, Harald, Stella, Duncan, Aylin, Bo, Gordon and Brynn. The mandated dress code is lounge suit but Karen suspects a few of the men will be undoing their ties the minute dinner is over.
He looks stressed, Karen observes, studying Eirik’s rosy cheeks as the first course is served and he raises his glass in a welcome toast.
‘This is the first of many parties we will be throwing in this house and we wanted to start by inviting our closest friends,’ he says.
‘Unfortunately, none of them could make it, so we had to make do with you lot instead,’ Kore adds.
Looking mildly annoyed, Eirik grudgingly joins in the laughter and the dinner commences.
As expected, the food is conventional and delicious in equal measure. The cheese soufflé is light as a summer cloud, the lobster thermidor a symphony of cream, tarragon and cognac, and the sun-yellow saffron panna cotta delightfully wobbly. The champagne is dry, cold and flowing freely and every time another cork is popped things get livelier. Even Aylin looks like she’s enjoying herself, though her smile invariably winks out whenever her husband Bo leans over to whisper something in her ear.
Karen recalls Marike’s words a few months earlier.
‘I think he’s beating her. She’s always cooped up in that house. When was the last time she came out for a glass of wine with us?’
Karen had protested. Aylin and Bo had young children, of course she couldn’t go out as often as she’d used to. And yet, she had felt the need to bring it up with Aylin. She had stopped by her house one day when she knew Bo wouldn’t be home, posed the question point-blank and been laughed at in response. Sure, Aylin had said, Bo has his failings, but he doesn’t hit me. Of course not.
Of course not.
And yet, on this festive occasion, Aylin is the only woman wearing a long-sleeved gown with a high neck. Karen turns her attention from her friend to her husband. When Bo notices her contemplating him, he raises his glass in a toast.
‘Cheers, Karen,’ he says, fixing her with a level stare. ‘I hope you’re not thinking about unpleasant things on a night like this? That just wouldn’t do.’
‘Go to hell,’ she mouths with a smile and raises her glass back to him without taking a drink.
31
The rest of the night belongs to Kore.
Almost before they’ve had time to finish their coffee, the house is taken over by a second wave of guests. The moment the clock strikes ten, the elegant piano sonatas that accompanied dinner fade out and deafening rock music starts to blare out of the speakers instead. The living room turns into a dance floor. Karen looks on as Aylin laughingly tries to turn down a man who’s insisting on a dance. In the end, she gives in and follows him out onto the dance floor, gesturing apologetically to Bo. He does not look pleased.
Apparently, there’s going to be live music, too, Karen notes, studying the small stage installed at the end of the giant room. There’s a drum kit set up there, and amplifiers, a double bass and two racks of semi-acoustic guitars.
All the lights have been turned off, even in the kitchen and the two bathrooms. Now, the only source of illumination is a couple of dozen large candelabra that set the brick walls aglow. Karen suspects electric lights would reveal things her hosts don’t want her to see. When she was waiting to use the bathroom earlier, the man ahead of her had furtively run his index finger under his nose when he finally emerged. She had suppressed the impulse to run her finger across the closed toilet lid. She doesn’t want to know.
Out in the garden, behind a lit bar, two young men in old sheepskin coats and fingerless gloves are mixing drinks, their breath like clouds. Large infrared heaters are apparently making conditions tolerable out there, because some of the guests are lingering by the bar instead of scurrying back inside with their glasses.
Karen recognises several of them. Some she has bumped into at Kore’s production company, KGB Productions, which he co-owns with the Swedish-Doggerian brothers Gordon and Brynn Englund. Others she knows from newspapers and TV. Musicians for the most part, but also an acting couple, the female half of which recently landed a roll in a big Hollywood production while her partner hasn’t been cast in anything for years. The rising star, surrounded by of a gaggle of admirers, tilts her head back and laughs uproariously. The gossip rags have been speculating about the marriage being on the rocks and, judging by the looks the man is giving his wife, Karen is forced to conclude the rumour must be true.
She walks up to one of the sheepskin-clad bartenders, orders a gin and tonic and turns her back to the bar while she waits. Aylin and Bo are walking toward a dark corner of the garden. He has a very firm grip on her upper arm but removes his hand when he notices Karen watching. They stop and seem to be discussing something. Bo is looking back and forth between the bar and Aylin, who is listening with bowed head. Karen turns her head but continues to watch them out of the corner of her eye. After a few minutes, they walk back toward the house. Bo has put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and smiles when they pass Karen. Aylin looks away.
Further down the long bar, Gordon, Brynn and Kore have been joined by a newly arrived guest. Karen is startled to realise who it is. Apparently, there was more truth than Kore cared to admit to the rumour claiming a certain Los Angeles based band that had topped the charts two years previous are now working with KGB Productions. Karen has long since stopped paying attention to what’s trendy in the music business, but not even she can fail to recognise Jason Lavar. There’s no mistaking the tattoos that cover the singer’s shaved head and snake down around his eye and across half his cheek. Come to think of it, she’s not actually that surprised; in the past three or four years, more and more international artists have been seeking out Kore’s remote production company with its growing stable of chart toppers. That success is what has made it possible for Kore and Eirik to buy and refurbish one of Thingwalla’s largest houses.
She surreptitiously watches Jason Lavar and notes that although he’s considerably shorter than she imagined, his charisma is palpable.
‘Star-struck?’
The low voice and the puff of hot air against her neck makes her jump and whip around. Leo Friis holds up a bottle of IPA and clinks it against her glass with a mocking grin.
‘By you? It’s been years since you were famous, hasn’t it?’ she says with feigned surprise.
She instantly regrets the quip. The fact that Leo Friis was the frontman of The Clamp is something they never talk about. She was obviously aware of the Doggerian band’s international success, even though she had lived in London back then and had other things to think about. She couldn’t have missed The Clamp if she’d tried.
The band’s abrupt breakup, the news of the rift between its members and the speculation about Leo Friis’s sudden disappearance from the scene, on the other hand, had completely passed her by. Starting at the horrifying moment when her own life had been smashed to pieces, everything had passed her by. By the time she returned to the world of the living, the media had long since lost interest in the fate of Leo Friis. And it had taken her a long time to realise the filthy homeless person she’d come across while working on a case was the Leo Friis.
She has never pried into what happened to him after he disappeared from the spotlight and before he returned to Doggerland. What matters is that he has somewhere to live now and that he seems to be telling the truth when he says he’s not doing drugs anymore. And Kore has arranged for him to fill in as a studio musician on occasion, which in turn means Leo Friis is able to contribute toward his room and board. What was supposed to be a temporary arrangement has, like so many other things in Karen’s life, turned out very differently from what she planned.
‘Touché,’ Leo replies and shoots her a crooked smile. ‘So what’s your secret New Year’s wish? Other than for me to finally move out, I mean?’
He holds out a packet of cigarettes and she takes one.
‘Have I said that’s what I want?’
‘Not in so many words, perhaps, but I recognise a cornered woman when I see one. It’s that look on your face, halfway between deer in headlights and chimp behind bars, that gives you away.’
‘How flattering.’
‘The problem is,’ Leo continues, ‘that half the time, you look like a contented pig. If it weren’t for that, I would have moved out ages ago.’
Karen lets out a snort of derision.
‘Where would you go? Back to your loading dock in the New Harbour?’
Leo shrugs.
‘I’d sort something out. Seriously, Karen, if you really want me to . . .’
He spreads his hands and trails off. She opens her mouth, then closes it again. They stand there in silence, stomping their feet in the cold while they finish their cigarettes.
He should just move out, she thinks to herself. Just get out of my life, as quickly as he came into it.
‘Want to head back inside?’ Leo says and flicks his cigarette into the snow.
Nothing has been said, and yet, she knows. Unless she does something right now, he’s going to be gone the next time she gets home. Things are going to go back to normal. She will have the whole house to herself again. Nice and peaceful. And quiet.
Before she can make her mind up, she hears herself say, ‘I don’t mind if you stay.’
But Leo has already turned to go back inside.
32
The first thing she notices is the smell of the rug. A stale, dusty whiff of wool finding its way into her mouth and nostrils. A familiar smell of sorrow and stillness, the unworldly calm after the storm. And then she realises there is no after, no reprieve. No time to relax, no tranquil cove or harbour for her to shelter in, no time to recover and mend what was broken. No after, just a before. Just the same deceptive calm that lasts only until the church bells start to toll for the next storm. It may be days or even weeks until the next one.
