Wild Shores, page 34
He had considered flashing his badge but had stopped himself at the last second. They were all in the same boat here, so to speak, and he refuses to behave like the provincial doctors scattered across the islands, who invariably get out their passes and bypass the queue, whether they’re on their way to see a patient or going to the supermarket for their weekend shop. Everyone knows they do it but no one ever speaks up. Because one day it could be you lying there, grateful there’s a doctor in your town at all.
Karl looks at the ferry that’s finally coming in, then glances up at the rear-view mirror. The line behind him is so long now only half of the cars are likely to make this departure. Another glance at the ferry, which has now docked and is pitching wildly in the choppy waters, and then one at the staff waving their arms at the cars disembarking. Through the window, Karl can see them shouting at each other and pointing up at a part of the ferry hidden behind the noticeboard.
Just then, it lights up again:
Service cancelled until further notice. Technical problems.
Abuse of power or not, Karl opens the door and climbs out. The snow has stopped, but the wind has picked up more than he realised. The gusts are powerful enough to take his breath away.
‘How long?’ he shouts, approaching one of the orange vests with his police badge held out in front of him.
‘No bloody idea. See for yourself,’ he replies and points. ‘The whole thing’s coming apart.’
And when Karl turns around and looks at the ferry, he realises it’s going to be a long time before Ingrid forgives him. The bridge is listing visibly, buffeted this way and that by the wind, looking as though it’s about to topple.
‘They’ve redirected one of the Frisel ferries, but it’s going to take hours to get here in this weather. You’re all going to have to turn around.’
Karl turns to look at the queue; the people at the back have given up and are putting their cars in reverse. With a sigh, he walks back to his car, climbs in behind the wheel and stares up at the rear-view mirror.
Nothing happens. None of the cars behind him are moving. But he can hear an increasingly strident chorus of horns and angry voices. With a stream of curses, Karl Björken opens his door and climbs back out. This time, his badge receives a warmer welcome.
‘Great, can you get some of your people over here to help out?’ one of the orange vests asks.
‘What the fuck’s going on? Why can’t people just back up?’
‘Because there’s a big bloody Ford blocking the way. Some woman lost it and just took off, apparently. And she took the keys with her. I guess we’re going to have to call someone to come tow it.’
Karl peers down the line of cars, but he can’t see a Ford from where he is.
‘Or hot-wire it,’ he says. ‘It’ll be a lot faster.’
With a sigh, he starts walking toward the back of the queue, picking his way down the narrow space between the steel railing, open car doors and annoyed drivers.
Thirty seconds later, Karl Björken freezes mid-step. At the very back of the queue, effectively plugging the space between the steel railings, is a green Ford Ranger. The driver-side door is open and the dent is clearly visible even from where he’s standing. He has been badgering Karen about fixing it for six months now.
76
Helena Tryste walks straight ahead, unseeing. Voices had yelled at her, cursing, asking what the hell she was doing, but no one had tried to stop her. She hadn’t said a word. What could she say? She doesn’t know what she’s doing. Doesn’t know where she’s going, doesn’t know what’s going to happen now. She has never known; William is the one who knows.
He always knows what’s going to happen next.
He had dealt with that detective – Karen something-or-other – turning up at the house without missing a beat. Well, maybe one beat, just at that moment when he came up from the wine cellar and heard her talking to Alvin, that moment when Karen turned around and gave him that strange look. Yes, he’d been rattled there for a few seconds, she’d seen it. Just for a few seconds, then he’d known what to do.
William always knows what to do.
I think he enjoyed it, she muses. That brief moment when he was forced to rethink, that little shudder of fear he must have felt at the risk of being exposed, of everything falling apart. And then the thrill of finding a way around the problem. Yes, he had enjoyed it. That’s who he is, I’ve always known that. I walked into his life with my eyes open.
‘You fit together like two pieces of a puzzle,’ his mother had said. ‘William is the opposite of his father; he has ambition, reaches for the stars. But he needs someone to ground him.’
Her own parents had not been as delighted. Even though William had been so charming the first time they invited him over for dinner, kissing both her mother’s and grandmother’s hands, bringing a bottle of eighteen-year-old whiskey for her father and singing the food’s praises, they had seemed awkward and uncomfortable. But so what? William’s mother thought they were made for each other, and she if anyone should know her son, right?
But her grandmother had taken her aside, gently put her hand on hers and given her a look full of concern.
‘Be careful, sweetheart. Or he will gobble you up.’
She had laughed, then.
Now she keeps her eyes on the ground and walks on without knowing where to. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over, she’s ruined everything. He’s never going to forgive her.
What was I supposed to do? something inside her screams. I couldn’t stay in the car, not with the ferry service cancelled. Someone would have recognised Karen’s Ford eventually and they might have decided to come over to say hi. And they would have seen it wasn’t her behind the wheel.
You could have gone back, another voice inside her replies. William’s voice. You could have just turned the car right around and driven back home. I told you to call me straight away if anything went wrong. Why can’t you ever do what you’re told?
Because I’m at my breaking point. You should have known that.
Maybe she says that last part out loud, maybe she shouts it into the wind, she doesn’t know. I don’t know anything, she thinks to herself and feels her mind racing faster and faster until she can’t hold onto her thoughts anymore. It makes no difference now. All she can do is keep walking.
She slips on the packed snow and staggers into the road. A car honks loudly as it narrowly misses her. She has time to feel frightened before the realisation sinks in, before a single irrefutable truth cuts through the chaos.
Somehow, William is going to come out on top. He always does. It’s who he is.
77
She is greeted by a solid wall of darkness. Complete and utter blackness and the smell of stagnant damp. And something fusty. She hesitates for a second. Surely there must be another exit somewhere? Maybe more than one? She had come across tunnel entrances in the woods all the time as a child when her aunt took her mushroom picking. Sometimes hastily boarded up, sometimes meticulously sealed with bricks. She can still hear Ingeborg’s warning. No one who goes in ever comes out again.
Karen looks back over her shoulder at the wine cellar, at the devastation of smashed wine bottles and the steel door at the far end. She might be safer staying there than aimlessly wandering around an abandoned mine. Not a mine, she corrects herself, a tunnel that leads to the mine; the mine proper is several hundred feet further down.
Then she squares her shoulders and takes a first step, raises the heavy brass candelabra and stops. It’s too heavy, it’s going to slow her down. She checks to make sure her lighter is still in her pocket. Then she blows out six of the seven candles and pushes them into the waistband of her jeans. Holding the seventh candle, she drops the candelabra, which lands on the floor with a heavy thud. A few more steps, then she notices the flame flickering. She stops again to think. Unless she wants the candle blown out by the draught every few feet, she needs to find a way to shield the flame; a cupped hand won’t be enough. A screen, or a shade of some kind. She steps back into the wine cellar.
Ignoring the cuts to her hands, she rummages through the piles of broken glass. Eventually, she finds something that will have to do. The top of the bottle is in one piece, but the edge where the bottom used to be is razor sharp. She needs something to protect her hand, like a piece of cloth. My T-shirt, she thinks. I can wrap my it around my hand. Walking around in just my bra will be cold, but I can do it. I can do it.
‘Goddammit!’ she screams in helpless frustration. ‘I’m just going to stay in here where it’s warm and drink myself into a stupor. I can’t take anymore!’
Just then she spots the white rag on the whiskey barrel.
Karen wraps the thick cloth around her hand and up her forearm, gently lowers the broken bottle over the candle. Moves her hand back and forth a few times. It works; the flame is steady.
With the candle in one hand and the other on the rough stone wall for support, she takes a few steps into the tunnel. With an effort, she forces down her fear and moves forward. One step at a time, she tells herself. Just keep moving forward; this is as bad as it gets.
Twenty minutes later, she realises it wasn’t.
Karen Eiken Hornby has never been claustrophobic. Until now. The compact darkness in front of her, behind her; the sudden realisation that she can feel one wall against her shoulder while touching the other with her outstretched hand; the certainty that she could reach the ceiling if she reached up. There is impenetrable rock all around her, layers of soil and snow on top of that.
She wants to flail her arms about, scream. But terror at the way the narrow tunnel envelops her and the thought of the stagnant air seeping even deeper into her lungs stops her. Instead, she presses on – moving forward is the only way to keep the panic at bay. There has to be an exit, she tells herself over and over again. There has to be.
Then the wall comes to an abrupt end and she fumbles around blindly.
She holds up the candle and realises she has come to a fork in the road. She carefully reaches around the corner, hesitates. The tunnel she’s in looks as if it continues straight ahead, but further down there’s another passage branching off to the left. With mounting panic she tries to figure out in which direction she has been walking. The entrance to The Complex is east-facing and she saw the stairs down to the wine cellar on her first visit – they must have faced north. But they might not be straight. They probably aren’t. Or . . . ?
I have no idea, she admits to herself and feels her throat burn with held-back tears. And what fucking difference does it make anyway?
With her hand on the wall, she rounds the corner and sets off down the perpendicular passage. It seems wider than the first one and for a while her claustrophobia subsides slightly. Moments later, she pulls up short. Even with the candle, she almost walked straight into a wall in front of her. It’s a dead end.
Then the candle goes out.
78
Karl Björken peers into the front seat of the abandoned car and whatever hope he’d had of being mistaken is instantly dashed. It’s definitely Karen’s car – her handbag is on the seat.
But there’s no sign of Karen herself. He straightens up and looks around.
Without taking off his gloves, he opens the handbag and digs around, without finding what he’s looking for. He pulls out his phone and dials Karen’s number. Two seconds later, he hears the familiar ringtone from somewhere inside the car. As he fishes Karen’s phone out from the space between the seats, he hears an annoyed voice behind him.
‘Fucking bitch just opened the door and left. She didn’t seem right in the head.’
Karl turns around.
‘What did she look like?’ he asks the man who is standing behind him, craning his neck to see inside the car.
He’s dressed in a dark blue down jacket that looks like it’s puffed itself up in the strong wind. His eyes express a mix of anger and curiosity.
‘I don’t know,’ he says slowly. ‘Dark, I think. Long hair, yeah, she had long hair. I remember it whipping in the wind.’
‘Did you see which direction she went in?’
‘Are you simple or something? Isn’t there just one possible direction unless you’re planning to go for a swim?’
The man nods toward the terminal building.
‘I meant after that,’ Karl says, gritting his teeth. ‘Did you see which way she went after that?’
The man shakes his head and Karl turns away. He slams the door shut and turns to the young man in the yellow vest who has now joined them.
‘You’re going to have to call a tow truck. I’m not letting anyone into this car.’
‘I though you said we were going to hot-wire it?’
‘No one’s allowed in it,’ Karl repeats. ‘Consider it a crime scene.’
The guy stares at him in disbelief.
‘A crime scene? It’s just some lady who cracked up.’
No, Karl thinks to himself. This is something else entirely.
*
Half an hour later, Karl Björken leaves the police garage in Lysvik in a patrol car. While running the half-mile back to the station, he’d called Cornelis Loots, cursed when he got put through to his voicemail and then moved on to the next number.
Thorstein Byle had picked up immediately.
‘I’ll send some guys down there right now,’ he’d said when an out-of-breath Karl was done explaining the situation, ‘but I’m not sure what you think might have happened.’
‘I have no fucking idea!’ Karl had bellowed. ‘But something’s wrong. Karen would never just up and leave everything.’
Ellen Jensen had been absolutely certain when Karl burst into the pub. There had been no sign of Karen since that morning. If he wanted to, he could go upstairs and check her room himself, of course. And he had, climbing the stairs two steps at a time. Where the hell was she? Definitely not in her hotel room, that much he knew for sure.
Now he’s methodically driving up and down the streets of Lysvik, using the car’s headlights to illuminate every nook and cranny. He goes down the same back street he and Karen used to escape a pack of reporters just a few days ago. No Karen. The blustery streets are deserted.
Karl doubles back, pulls over outside Rindler’s Hotel and runs up the front steps with snow building up under the thick soles of his boots. The receptionist looks up in surprise when a tall man bursts into the lobby, loses his footing on the slippery floor and only just manages to right himself before taking a pratfall. Wasting no time, Karl urgently fires off question after question and feels hope fade with each answer. No, no one by that name has checked in. No, no other dark-haired woman either.
‘No woman of any description has checked in today. Not a single one,’ the receptionist tells him eventually in a tone that reveals her patience is wearing thin.
When Karl climbs back in behind the wheel of the patrol car, he forces himself to acknowledge the thought he has been doing his best to stamp out. Karen wouldn’t do something like this. Just get out of her car and walk away. Not normally. But then he remembers her face at the lunch restaurant in the harbour when he cajoled her into telling him about her past, forced her to talk about something she had wanted to keep to herself.
‘Consider it a crime scene,’ he’d told the guy at the ferry. But the truth is that, deep down inside, that’s not what he’s worried about.
Karl Björken jumps when his phone rings. A second later, he feels his throat contract with relief.
‘We’ve found her,’ Thorstein Byle says. ‘A car heading south picked her up on the motorway. They’re bringing her in now.’
79
Karen pulls another candle out of her jeans. It’s cracked and wobbles ominously when she carefully lowers her improvised shade back down over her hand, but the flame burns bright. Then she turns around and starts retracing her steps. Stops, suddenly unsure: I’m supposed to turn left, aren’t I? Or is that where I came from?
Oh my God, I don’t know.
Just think, damn it!
Fear is making her brain foggy; she clings desperately to reason. Any attempt to breathe slowly and think positively is immediately swallowed by a maelstrom of terror as she keeps moving forward, step by step, inch by inch. Hour after hour? Or has it only been minutes? All sense of time and space seems to have been devoured by the darkness.
And now the dam bursts and the forbidden question forces its way through. How long can I survive in here if I don’t find an exit? What is it they say? Three days without food? Three days without water? And suddenly, it’s no longer a fear of dying that’s making it hard to breathe, it’s the thought of what awaits her before then. Three days in hell before she finally succumbs.
Horror sets her heart racing and her arms and legs seem to go numb. Losing control of where she’s putting her feet, she trips and falls to her knees. She instinctively catches herself with her left hand and holds her light up with the other. The impact sends a jolt through the candle, which goes out. In the darkness, everything becomes a tangle of pain without beginning or end. Everything hurts now there’s no light. This plan was doomed to fail from the start; she shouldn’t even have tried. Aunt Ingeborg was right.
I’m not going to make it out of this mine alive.
The realisation hits her like a cudgel. The thought of lighting one of the candles, getting to her feet and carrying on is drowned in a flood of liberating resignation. I’ve reached the end of the road, she thinks and pulls her legs out from under her. She leans back against the wall and carefully puts the broken wine bottle down, feeling its sharp edges against her fingers and the hard outline of the corkscrew in her back pocket. Hard, sharp objects – a way out, after all. William Tryste is not going to kill her. She’s going to take care of it herself.
I can slit my wrists, she reflects. Or my throat. The thought is unexpectedly reassuring; she lets out a sob of relief. Suddenly, she can breathe again. Knowing that she has a means of escape is enough to make her heart stop racing. There’s a way out. Not a tunnel entrance in the woods, but still, a way out. It’ll be quick, she tells herself and closes her eyes so she won’t have to look at the darkness. Then, only my body will be stuck in this hell.
