In the Name of Love (28 page)

They were coming back towards the seaward coast when he suddenly asked her to stop.

‘There’s Ek’s house. He’ll surely be awake by now. Let’s go and see if he’s heard anything from Lena. If not, there’s only one place left.’

‘You go,’ Nahrin said. ‘He not like us.’

Dan didn’t argue.

When Ek opened the door to Dan’s knock he immediately whispered, ‘Come in. But we’ll have to be quiet. Pernilla got to bed at five o’clock this morning. The ferries were blocked half the night because of the fog.’

Dan followed him down a corridor. His study was at the back of the house and once they were there Ek asked if he’d like a coffee. Dan said no, he didn’t have much time.

‘Is Anders Roos staying with you?’ Ek asked suddenly. The question took Dan by surprise. He said, ‘No. Why?’

‘Just wondering. Pernilla thought she saw him in a car queuing at the quay but there was a lot of confusion because of the fog. People were trying to turn around and head back home, others trying to get into the queue. Anyway he wasn’t on the boat. Not many people stuck it out. Lena arrived all right?’

‘Yes. But she left before midnight. I was hoping she’d be here.’

Ek seemed perplexed. He said, ‘I understood she was stay­ing with you.’

‘Do you mind my asking what time she left here?’

‘Around eleven, I’d say. We got here fairly late. The ferries were off schedule because of the fog. In fact the one we got on was the last. Pernilla arrived at the quay thirty minutes later and had to wait until four this morning.’

‘Lena went straight to my place?’

‘Yes. She asked to make a call and we had a coffee while I waited for Pernilla to ring. Then some young man called back for Lena. After that I drove her over and came home.’

‘She’s missing. And so is Gabriel Rabban. Gabriel’s grandaunt is worried.’

‘I see.’

‘Can you think of anything that might help me look for her? Anything she said?’

‘No. I assumed she spent the night at your place. Anders rang here late last night. He was very angry. Maybe he was drunk. Is there something wrong?’

‘He’s changed. He seemed to think you were having an affair with Lena.’

‘To me he said they’re going to get married. Is that true?’

‘No.’

‘I told him she’d gone over to talk to you and then she was going to meet someone from the Arab family to discuss business with them. I thought that would calm him down but it didn’t. He said he didn’t want her meeting any Arabs, she couldn’t handle them, that he’d already told her that. I said goodnight and hung up.’

‘If she comes here would you ask her to go to my place and stay there until I get back?’

‘She has a key?’

‘The kitchen door isn’t locked. She knows that.’

In the pick-up Dan decided it was time to tell Nahrin what he knew about Lena’s plan, despite his promise to keep it to himself.

‘She said if you came after Gabriel they’d go to Svartholm.’

‘Why Gabriel go to Svartholm? No!’

When they got back to the farmhouse she spoke with Josef. He nodded and took Jamala with him into the kitchen. Jamala looked anxiously at Nahrin but there was no time to explain anything. Nahrin and Dan went down to the water. A tarpaulin sheet lay on the jetty where it had been thrown. The boat was gone.

‘She get him to do it,’ said Nahrin grimly.

Dan didn’t answer.

‘And why he not tell us?’

‘I don’t know, Nahrin.’

‘But
why
?’ She stared at him. Her small fists were clenched and her breathing was heavy, uneven.

‘It hurts!’ she said. ‘She do it to take him in her power again. Like earlier. Wicked woman!’

Dan asked her if they had another boat. She said there was an old rowing boat in the stable.

‘You row to the island?’ she asked, surprised.

‘It’s worth a try.’

‘You must wait.’ She looked out over the ocean where thin clouds spread like an ink blot torn apart. ‘Storm high up,’ she said.

But Dan did not want to postpone it any longer.

‘We’ll go and get the boat,’ he said.

The boat was an old-fashioned, flat-bottomed rowing boat, built with overlapping planks. The wood smelt sour. Nobody had scraped it down and re-tarred it in years. A neglect that surprised Dan. Gabriel would surely have seen that it risked going to pieces.

Nahrin switched on the floodlight in the barn and he saw that the boat was in a worse state than he thought. The rowlocks were worn and decayed. The oars lying in the bottom were grey, their ends were cracked. The paint had flaked along the gunwales, exposing the wood beneath. No wonder Gabriel hadn’t bothered to re-tar it. It was fit for nothing but a bonfire.

‘I hope it doesn’t take in too much water,’ he said.

Nahrin shook her head but whether it was in answer to his question or at the boat he didn’t know and there was no point in asking. Even if the boat leaked the island lay only five or six kilometres across the sound. It should last that far at least. Especially as he saw there was a good-sized bailer in the bottom.

‘We’ll need Josef,’ he said, as he tested lifting the fore. ‘I can take the fore but you’ll have to be two to carry the stern.’

Nahrin said she did not want Josef to lift anything. His back wasn’t good.

‘You think Gabriel go to Svartholm?’ she demanded. ‘He not go since the day she lie about him. He is not stupid! He not go!’

‘Nahrin, get Josef and the truck. We don’t have any time. We’ll use the truck to pull the boat down.’

Nahrin looked at him.

‘I come with you,’ she said.

‘No.’ Something in his voice, some tone that wasn’t usually there, convinced her that he meant it. She didn’t argue. She turned and walked towards the stable door.

As he watched her go he thought he caught a sorrow hang about her now. Living here might not, after all, be enough to keep her family safe.

It proved easy to drag the flat-bottomed boat down the meadow behind the pick-up. They heaved it through a break in the reeds and let it float on the shallow water. All three of them were silent then, looking over towards Svartholm.

It was already half past nine but the sky was covered with dark clouds making the light dull. The water lay still, a gloomy jewel between two black-green forests. There were tiers of silence in the eerie calm until a new breeze touched the trees behind them, bringing the dry whisper of autumn to the topmost foliage.

‘Best I set out,’ Dan said.

The other two didn’t protest. When he stepped into the boat it careened from side to side.

‘Sit! Sit!’ Nahrin called sharply. ‘You want drown?’

He sat on the middle seat and used one of the oars to push off from the muddy bottom until he floated out into the clear water. It was a heavy boat and it took time to get even a jerky rhythm to his rowing. Josef and Nahrin stood watching. He wished they wouldn’t but they obviously weren’t going to leave. He gave a single wave and after that decided to ignore them.

It took about twenty clumsy strokes before he found a rhythm and then he had to rest. Despite the gathering morning cold his shirt was already damp with sweat beneath the parka. While the boat floated forward he twisted round on the seat to make sure he was still on course. All that was visible of Svartholm from here was the rocky coastline and the dark forest.

As the sweat dried on his skin he began to shiver. The temperature was cooler out here. The curtain of rain still hung somewhere beyond Söderöra Island to the north. Even with his poor rowing, he assumed that getting to Svartholm wouldn’t take more than half an hour or so. He told himself that he would be there well before the rain reached it. He started to row again.

He tried to concentrate on what he was doing and not think of Lena. He pulled harder on the oars and the foot support gave way, exposing rotten wood at the break. He kicked forward the front part of the flooring to act as a support but it too broke almost at once. Water had begun to seep in at the bottom and pieces of wood floated by his feet. He stopped, took off his boots and tied the laces around his neck. He took off his socks and pushed them into his trouser pockets. Then he rolled his trousers to his knees and went on rowing.

After no more than a few minutes his feet began to ache with the cold of the water. He made four fast strokes and then lifted his legs in the air. As the boat continued to move forward he looked over his shoulder and made sure he was still headed in the right direction before he started rowing again.

The beginning of a colder sea breeze began to reach him. As he continued to row he found that the further out he got, the more the breeze struck the boat in erratic gusts. The rhythmic forward motion he’d managed to find starting out from Bromskär changed to crabby sideways jerks. After a while the port side had come parallel to the island. He rested a bit, letting the boat drift, while he tried to work out what he should do. The best idea seemed to be to change his rowing and row so the boat swung round with the fore to the north, and then let the rising wind correct the course. That way he would be using its force while he rested.

The leak was worse than he had thought. The water that had been taken in already reached his ankles. He laid up the oars again and used the bailer as fast as he could before the boat drifted off course. The wind was beginning to sound like a banshee calling under the storm-darkened sky.

The pain in his arm muscles went deeper with each stroke. Again and again he feathered the oars and lifted his feet free of the water. The bases of both his thumbs stung and when he looked at them in the pale light he saw that the skin was red and tender. Soon it would come off. He took his socks from his pockets and put them over his hands, first doubling, then tripling them.

The pain soon got worse when he rowed but he didn’t fight it now. All of the wood grating floated freely over the floor. He bailed out again. The air was growing sharply colder and the sky was altogether covered with black cloud. Each time he grasped the oars he felt the blisters that had come up on his palms beneath the socks. The boat began to roll a little with the waves. When he twisted his head to check where he was, he saw that the curtain of rain already fell on the island he was heading towards.

He stopped again when his back muscles seized up. The boat kept drifting with the breeze and time after time he had to right it. He felt a sharp pain in his hands and he knew the blisters had burst. He wasn’t yet halfway there and even blacker clouds were approaching fast from the open Baltic. When he turned his head to take his bearings he could see the rain strike the surface of the sea ahead. He rowed again until his right hand slipped suddenly on the oar and he realized that the blood had soaked through the three layers of sock.

He rested a moment and tried to think as clearly as possible. His clothes were wet to the skin but turning back was impossible. He’d have to grip the oars tighter so that his bloody hands didn’t slip so much.

The breeze had grown to a squally wind and the sea chopped and slapped against the sides of the boat. Although blood kept coming through and dripping from the oars he didn’t feel anything in his hands any more. Metre by metre he pulled the heavy boat forward, taking longer pauses until the cramp in his back loosened enough for him to be able to start again.

When he was three-quarters of the way across he laid in the oars and rested, letting the boat drift. His eyes had begun to water from the cold wind. He used his sleeve to wipe them dry. He was sweating freely from his face but his cramped back felt frozen. He started to row again.

By the time he came close to Svartholm his rowing was markedly slower. After each stroke he had to feather the oars and rest. The rain was growing heavier now and the black clouds had soaked most of the day’s light. In a final effort he took five then six then seven strokes and collapsed forward as he felt the flat bottom of the boat rasp over mud.

Once he had tied the front rope to a bush he stood still a long while, letting the rain run down his face and his bare hands, cooling the skin. Nothing showed beyond the dark silhouettes of the trees.

He squeezed the blood out of the socks and put them on. His feet were numb with cold. When he had fumbled his boots on he straightened up and listened as the rain eased. The sound of it was moving towards Blidö. He started to walk. After ten minutes or so the last of the rain was gone. He stood still again to listen. In the silence that followed he heard nothing but the whisper of his own breath. Then gradually, in front, he sensed another sort of breathing, huge, cold, omnivorous, as though the darkness of the forest itself was waiting.

He was deep into the trees now, where the undergrowth was thick and the light poor. The muffled sea sounds grew fainter behind him. He heard the snap of every broken twig and the rustle of last year’s leaves beneath his boots. Then he was into a thicket of brambles that he couldn’t see properly in the poor light. Doggedly he pushed his way through, using his torn hands to grasp and pull aside the thorny branches. Pausing he caught the tangy smell of smoke. He went towards it. Within minutes he saw a pale glow among the trees. He stopped when he saw the outline of a window. The light behind it was weak and some sort of makeshift curtain hung inside the glass. He put his face up close and, at the side of the piece of cloth, saw that the weak light came from a battery-driven lantern knocked over on the floor.

He walked round to the front. A burst of wind came into the forest and rushed past his ears. While it was still making noise he pushed hard. The door gave at once. Inside there came a brief scuttle, as though a small bird was trying to get out. Then he realized that it must have been rats or field mice racing to escape. He picked up the lantern and in its weak light regarded the two narrow bunk beds, the wooden table, the two chairs. A body lay on the floor at the far side of the table.

The face wasn’t visible but the body looked peaceful and still, like someone deep in sleep. He went around and bent down with the lantern and saw Lena’s face badly discoloured. One side was black with what was clearly blood. Blood matted her hair to the wooden floor.