Fall Hard (23 page)

“He wasn’t himself.”

I’d lurched blindly after Sven.
“That’s it. It’s over between us.”
Grabbed him. Shouted in his face.
“You’re insane, and your book’s a load of baseless drivel. Just the deluded ravings of a jealous inadequate.”
A fierce stab of regret.
“God, I’m sorry…”
Then he’d yanked me back with far more force than he should have possessed. Taken me with him as he’d gone over the edge… I could see him now, tumbling in slow motion, the rocks below us getting larger, the river wider. Something had caught me, jarred me, but only for a moment. Separated us. But not saved me.

Sven, my lover, my partner, had tried to kill me.

Chapter Twenty

My vision went patchy as my stomach lurched. I barely managed not to throw up, found I was half lying in Viggo’s arms. The wetness of the ground was soaking through my jeans, my bad leg a block of ice being gnawed by wolves. I remembered…everything.

“I’m so sorry,” Viggo whispered.

I shook my aching head, trying to dislodge the mists in my mind. “No. It wasn’t your fault. He was crazy. Jealous. And I provoked him. Taunted him.” I felt empty inside. “It was my fault. I should have died too.”

Viggo’s hands tightened on my arms. Startling me. Hurting me, even. “No.
No
. You think because you were angry at him, you deserve to die? That’s as crazy as he was.”

I nodded mechanically, my gaze on the rocky ground. “What did you do…after?”

He was silent for so long, I stared at him. I was about to repeat the question when he spoke. “I didn’t do what I should have done. I thought you were dead. Both of you.” I waited for several breaths before he carried on. “I ran away. I saw some tourists down below. They went to help you. I knew they would call 112. I thought there was nothing I could do. So I drove away. I thought, when the police came, they would think I killed you both. I don’t know why I thought that.”

He’d panicked. But why wouldn’t he? His past experience of the police couldn’t have been good. “Alex said you were questioned.”

Viggo nodded, his lips tight. “Some tourists had recognised me from the riverjet, but they weren’t certain. I said I hadn’t seen you there. That I didn’t know you very well. I don’t know if they believed me, but they couldn’t prove I was lying.” He sighed and lifted me to my feet. “You shouldn’t be here. Come, I’ll drive you home.”

“What about my car?”

“Leave it here. It will be all right until tomorrow. And I don’t think you should drive.”

He was probably right. I let him walk me over to his Land Rover, his arm still around my waist. We didn’t speak much on the journey back to Reykjavik, and I was glad of it; I felt drained, bereft of words. I was grateful beyond measure that Viggo understood.

I didn’t deserve him. I could remember now how I’d felt about him before. How I’d thought of him. It hadn’t been love—at least, I hadn’t allowed myself to call it that. If I loved him, I’d thought, wasn’t it as good as cheating on Sven, even if we hadn’t slept together? And I’d been scared too. What if I’d left Sven for Viggo, and the relationship had turned out just as badly? I’d known about Viggo’s past. Known of his childhood and his struggles with the addictions that had claimed his mother. Used it as an excuse to be cautious, to hang back and not commit myself.

“I should have broken up with him,” I whispered into the silence. “I wasn’t fair to you—to either of you.”

Viggo took his hand off the steering wheel to grasp my knee. “That’s not true. You were always honest with me. I knew you couldn’t leave him until he’d finished his book, and I told you I would wait. I understood. I thought it was honourable of you, that you didn’t want to disrupt his work.”

“Made a bloody fantastic job of that, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t know what would happen.”

I’d known Sven was getting too caught up in writing his book, and I hadn’t done anything. I’d been relieved, in fact. At least, at the start. It had made it easier to pretend, given me more time to myself. Time I’d spent with Viggo. Pretending to myself that we were just friends and stringing him along with talk of Sven “needing me”. Later—much later—when I’d started worrying, had copied Sven’s files on the sly, I’d run out of time.

“I don’t know why you’re even with me,” I whispered.

Again his hand warmed my leg. “I know why,” was all he said.

The drive back to Reykjavik seemed to take forever, although it was still light when we drew up outside Viggo’s flat. I had no idea what time it was, and looking at my phone seemed like too much effort.

“I’ll take you home later, if you want,” Viggo said with an apologetic shrug. “But Loki needs food. And a walk.”

“Here is fine.” I was selfishly glad he hadn’t taken me back to my place. He was less likely to drive off and leave me here.

Loki greeted us with dignified enthusiasm. “I’m sorry. I should take him out straight away,” Viggo said. “It’s late. You’ll be okay here? Ten minutes only, I promise.”

So much for not leaving me. I sat on the sofa and stared at the blank screen of the television until Viggo appeared in front of me and thrust a mug into my hands. “Drink.”

I blinked at it. Smelled it. “Milky tea?”

“With two spoons of sugar. Just like your sister makes, right?” He smiled, and I could remember telling him about her awful tea and how I always complained but secretly found it comforting. He switched on the TV. Stöd 2 Sport was showing an Italian football match. “Okay?” he asked.

I nodded. Viggo clipped Loki’s lead to his collar and left.

I lifted my mug to my lips. The first mouthful was hard to swallow, but gradually, the drink warmed me, and I’d finished the mug before I knew it. My leg was still aching, so I kicked off my shoes and put my feet up on the sofa, the edge of the bright orange throw tucked around my legs. I wondered if Viggo had come to see me in hospital at all before they’d shipped me back to England, or if he’d been too scared. He wouldn’t even have known I was leaving the country, probably.

I stared at the football match more or less blindly until Viggo and Loki returned.

“Okay, now we eat,” Viggo said. Loki padded over to lick my hands, and I petted him while Viggo forked dog food into a bowl and shoved a couple of frozen pizzas into the oven. I hoped he was hungry. I wasn’t sure I could eat a thing right now.

Viggo didn’t ask, just laid a plate full of pizza slices on my lap. By the time we’d watched the end of some dire imported comedy, my plate was empty. Viggo put his arm around me and Loki rested his head on my lap, warm and comforting like a heavy, tawny blanket.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” Viggo asked, startling me a little. I realised I’d been half dozing, my head on his shoulder. The skies outside the window had begun to darken.

“If that’s okay.”

“You don’t have to ask. Come, let’s go to bed.”

“You’re sure you want me to stay?” I asked as I rose, my bad leg stiff and awkward. “I could get a taxi—”

“No.” Viggo cut me off, pulling me to him, one hand on my hip and the other softly stroking my hair. “You stay with me.”

Loki padded to his basket and settled down as we went into the bedroom, and Viggo shut the door behind us. He turned on the bedside lamp and closed the curtains on the small window, exchanging grey twilight for a warmer glow. The bed looked soft and inviting, and I sank down to sit on the end almost without conscious decision. Viggo came to sit beside me, and I turned to take hold of him, to pull him closer, suddenly needing the contact, the warmth of his touch.

He began to unbutton my shirt. I let him undress me, feeling a sort of mild astonishment I’d been so worried before about him seeing my scars. As if they were the worst part of me.

“Hey, what are you thinking of?” Viggo’s voice was gentle. “You think too much. It wasn’t your fault. I was the one who should have known something wasn’t right.”

“That’s crazy.” Hadn’t he said the same of me? “You couldn’t have known Sven sent that text. It wasn’t your fault he died.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “It was an accident. A terrible one. You couldn’t have foreseen it.” But maybe I could have.

“I think…” Viggo paused, rubbing his hands up and down my bare shoulders. “He was crazy, in the end. But I think if he was in his right mind, he wouldn’t want you to be unhappy.”

“Easy to speak for him now, isn’t it?” I sighed. “I didn’t love him. Not at the end. Not the way he loved me.”

Viggo gave a crooked smile. “I’m not sure that was a good way to love.”

No. Maybe not.

Viggo used one hand to tilt my face up for a kiss. His lips were warm, and tasted of cosy evenings and simple meals in front of the television. The rasping of his beard against my chin was as familiar as breathing, and as necessary. My tongue dived into his mouth, mapping it against all possibility of forgetting.

I shivered.

“We should get in bed,” Viggo said, his eyes dark.

“Yes. Now.” I undid the buttons of Viggo’s shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. My fingers stalled when I uncovered his tattoos, my vision overlaid with memories of Sven. Yes, I’d desired him.
Intense
, Mags had called him. It was what had drawn me to him—that, and a feeling of brotherhood, of common purpose. False, as it had transpired. I took a deep breath.

“Shh,” Viggo whispered. “We’ll just sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, but when we slipped under the duvet and he spooned up behind me, his hardness pressing into my back, a flood of need and want overcame me. I twisted in his arms, our lengths meeting heat with heat.

We made love with no finesse, just a desperate, mutual hunger, rubbing up against each other with primitive passion. Viggo came first, gasping softly as he spilled against my belly, and I quickened my pace, desperate to follow. When I climaxed, it was with a relief so profound I felt tears pricking at my eyelids. Viggo cleaned us off with a handful of tissues, and we clung together, sliding quickly into sleep.

Next morning I blinked awake to the old-fashioned ringing of Viggo’s alarm clock. He leaned over me to shut it off, then returned with a whiskery kiss. “Work,” he said, his voice pragmatic but with a touch of regret. “I can take you to the institute if you like, or back to your flat?”

“Not the flat,” I said, trying to rub sleep out of my eyes. And my brain. I felt fuzzy-headed, rested yet still drained. I wasn’t sure what use I’d be at work, but I was damned if I’d spend the day alone with my thoughts, my oppressive memories. “Lend me a clean shirt?” Mine had lain on the floor in a crumpled heap all night.

Viggo grinned. “Of course.”

My jeans weren’t in the best of shape either, but after I’d brushed them down a bit, they were more or less presentable. If you didn’t look too closely, at any rate. Viggo’s shirt was too big for me, but with the sleeves rolled up, it was passable.

I took a quick shower. As I stood looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying to work out how I felt about the man looking back at me, Viggo came up behind me and put his arm around my waist, pressing a soft yet scratchy kiss to my neck. “You look good.”

“Liar. Am I making you late?”

“No, but we need to go now. If you’re ready?”

“I’m ready.” Maybe saying it out loud would make it true.

It felt odd, more than odd, both of us driving off to work as if nothing had happened yesterday. As if nobody but us cared about the revelations that had rocked my world so cataclysmically. Which, of course, they didn’t—why should they?

It was stranger still, walking into the institute again, my memories intact. I felt uncomfortably like two different people forced to share one body. I could remember the first time I’d come here, full of naive optimism and complacency. I nodded a greeting to Yrsa on reception. She’d been friendly when I’d been here before, I could now recall. Since I’d returned, she’d been acting like we’d never met before, as if amnesia might be contagious. If I told her now my memory was back, would she want to be friends again? I wondered it with a trace of bitterness. My steps slowed.

I remembered too, meeting Sven here for the first time. He’d heard of the arrival of a new Egil scholar and, with typical American forwardness, come to introduce himself. I’d been intrigued from the word go by his dark intensity and single-mindedness.

“Paul? Is everything all right?” A hand touched my elbow, and when I turned, Mags’s concerned, motherly face looked up into mine. I felt a rush of warmth for her.

“Yes.” I had to take a deep breath. “I’ve remembered things. Everything.”

“Oh, that’s marvellous!” She looked genuinely delighted for me. “How did that happen? Was it all at once?”

“Yes. Well, sort of. I went to Gullfoss.”

“And you’re all right? It must have been, well, a bit emotional for you.”

“I… Yes. A bit.”

“Look, why don’t we go and get a coffee? In the cafeteria, I mean. I’ll just go and dump my things at my desk.”

My skin felt too tight under her searching gaze, and I felt heat rise in my face. My lack of “things” to dump was obvious, as must be the fact I was wearing a borrowed shirt. Get a grip, I told myself. I wasn’t sixteen, and Mags wasn’t my mother. “I’ll see you there,” I said.