ICEHOTEL (43 page)

Oh Denny, I thought bitterly. You idiot. You sad, sad idiot.

She turned the glass in her hand. ‘He didn’t see the stone.
I hit him on the side of the head, not enough to kill him, really, just to stun
him. I pushed him into the water and held him up by the ankles. His head was
under the surface and there was nothing he could do. He drowned in a matter of
minutes. You see, I wanted them to find water in his lungs if they recovered
his body. A small bump on the head would suggest he’d slipped on the ice, hit
his head, then fallen into the river and drowned.’

My blood grew cold. How little time she’d had to think up
this scheme, but it was perfect.

‘I removed the memory card from his camera,’ she said,
lifting the glass to her lips. ‘It was rather difficult with gloves on, but I
managed it somehow. Then I took his room key. I ran back through the fire door
and up to his room. I packed all his stuff, including the camera, into his
rucksack. That was the hardest bit, you know. I was terribly afraid someone
would hear. I took the rucksack to the river and pulled it onto his back. It
must have weighed as much as he does, he had so much stuff with him. I pushed
him into the water and he just slipped under. I didn’t want there to be
footprints so I swept the area with branches. I even thought of taking my boots
off, you know, before sneaking back.’ She drained the gin. ‘A bit of an
overkill, I decided in the end. The bank behind the Chapel is popular with
hikers. By the time anyone realised Denny was missing, it would be covered with
footprints.’

‘They’ll find his body,’ I breathed. ‘Denny will get washed
up somewhere. They’ll see him in the shallows.’

‘You weren’t listening to Marita, were you, Mags? The strong
current when the snows melt? Remember all that? A few weeks later, you see,
Denny’s body would be halfway to the Gulf of Bothnia. And goodness knows where
it is now.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Everyone thought Denny had done a runner to
avoid paying his bill. And that girl, Jane, supplied the icing on the cake when
she told us he had more than one passport. I rather think no-one went looking
for him.’

Poor Denny, unloved and unlamented. He hadn’t deserved this.

She set the glass down. ‘Later that morning, the workmen had
a fire going. I warmed my hands at the brazier, then slipped the memory card
in. After that, things moved rather quickly. There was a chance we’d be getting
our passports back, so I had less than a day left.’

My head was spinning. Once she told me the rest, it would
all be over. My eyes drifted to the door. Only now did I notice she’d left the
key in the lock. I moved my legs cautiously. To have any chance, I’d need to
get her away from her chair.

‘Could I have a fag, Liz?’ I said weakly.

She threw the packet and lighter. The lighter struck my arm
and landed on the carpet, along with the cigarettes. I reached for them,
catching a sharp whiff of vomit through the blanket. I lit up, sucking
greedily, my actions studied as though I were doing this for the first time. O
ut of habit, I took several cigarettes from the pack and
stuffed them into my jeans. I was about to pocket the lighter when Liz motioned
to me to leave it on the sofa.

She was watching me, waiting to continue her narrative. How
much more was there to tell? Yet the longer I could keep her talking, the more
the odds increased in my favour. Perhaps the twins would tire of television and
come down, demanding attention.

‘And Marcellus?’ I said. ‘He has a part in this story too,
doesn’t he?’

‘That’s perceptive of you, Mags.’ She settled back. ‘It was
after that shopping trip to Kiruna. You returned to the Excelsior, and I went
to pick up Harry’s death certificate. While I was waiting in the café there,
Marcellus came in.’ She examined her nails. ‘He sat at my table and bought me a
coffee. He seemed awfully depressed, said the police weren’t telling him a
thing. Then he started to talk about you. He’d heard you nearly drowned. My
mind wasn’t really on what he was saying, and I let slip you’d returned to the
Icehotel after it was placed out of bounds, and it was afterwards you fell in
the river. He said he’d heard different. People were saying you’d fallen
through the ice watching the aurora. That’s when I had my lightbulb moment. I
said you were lying. I knew you’d gone back to the Icehotel, and it was somehow
to do with Wilson’s murder. He swore under his breath and nearly spilt coffee
over himself. I knew then that I could turn things around.’ She raised a tense
face. ‘I could make it look as though Marcellus was the killer all along.’

‘Why? Marcellus was already the prime suspect.’

‘But, you see, I wanted him to be a suspect beyond shadow of
a doubt. If I sent him to the church, it would look as though he’d gone to
murder you, wouldn’t it? The police would conclude he was the killer – why else
would he climb after you at dead of night? – but more importantly,
you
would conclude that he was the killer too.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘I knew you
simply wouldn’t be able to resist one last look at the aurora. Specially if I
came as well. I was going to suggest we go to the tower but you did it for me.’

‘But how on earth did you persuade Marcellus to go to the
church?’

A look of anguish appeared on her face. ‘First, I really
need you to understand that I had to do it.’ Her voice broke into
a hoarse sob
. ‘I tried so hard to find another way. I
absolutely did. I wanted you to stay my friend.’

I looked at her in disgust. ‘You’d have had an innocent man
convicted just to keep our friendship?’

She wiped her eyes. ‘I told Marcellus you were telling me
nothing, so if he wanted to uncover the truth, he’d need to talk to you
himself. He was convinced Hallengren was going to arrest him that evening and
charge him formally with murder. Once I knew time was running out, it was easy
to bait the trap.’ She looked directly at me. ‘
I told
him it wasn’t just that you’d gone back to an out-of-bounds crime scene. You’d
been acting really strangely ever since Wilson had died. As though you were
feeling terribly guilty about something.’

‘But if he knew I’d gone back to the Icehotel, why didn’t he
tell Hallengren?’

‘I think he wanted to present him with evidence that would
clear him. And he had to be sure of that evidence before he walked into a
police station.’ She paused. ‘You didn’t see him, Mags. He was like a wild man.
He hadn’t shaved, his eyes were bloodshot, and there was a dreadful look in
them I can’t describe. Don’t get me wrong, though, I don’t think he meant to
harm you.’

I thought back to my encounters with him. No, whatever he
may have thought about my actions, I didn’t think Marcellus would have hurt me.

‘He said he was sure he could persuade you to go with him to
see Hallengren.’ She sighed deeply. ‘You know, the way he talked about Wilson,
I think he genuinely loved him. He told me he’d even agreed to sleep in the
Icehotel at Wilson’s request, although he wimped out at the last minute and
went back to the Excelsior. He only got as far as the Locker Room. He was
really gutted by his father’s death. Would you believe, he nearly broke down?
It was quite awful to watch, actually. I mean, who’d have thought Marcellus was
such a marshmallow?’

So Marcellus had only got as far as the Locker Room. After
leaving Wilson’s room, Liz had dumped her outer suit in the washroom. If
Marcellus hadn’t returned to the Excelsior, he might have run into her. And how
differently things would have turned out.

‘He told me he had to wait for his father’s death
certificate,’ she was saying, ‘and there was some mix-up over paperwork, so he
wouldn’t be free for ages. The timing simply couldn’t have been better. I said
our passports had been returned and we were flying out in the early hours. If
he wanted to see you, he’d have to go to the tower, where you’d be watching the
spectacular aurora predicted for that night.’

Poor Marcellus. He must have been frantic to prove his
innocence if he was prepared to follow me to the church and confront me there.
And instead of uncovering the truth, he’d slipped and fallen to his death.

‘I pointed out that he’d probably be under arrest shortly.
That really did the trick. He left quickly, didn’t even bother to pay. I had to
pick up the tab,’ she added, irony in her voice.

I fell back against the sofa
. My
cigarette had burnt down and ash spilt onto the front of my sweater.
Liz
had had little time to formulate this plan, yet it was staggeringly simple. And
it had worked. Hallengren had come to the conclusion that the murderer was
Marcellus. I was seeing her in a new light: the grandmaster, moving her pieces
over the board, mating in one decisive move.

She mixed another drink, and swallowed it greedily. ‘You and
I were leaving for the church when I got that phone call from Siobhan. It
turned out to be nothing really, but it gave me the opportunity I was looking
for.’ She looked hard at me. ‘I’d intended to cry off once we got to the
church. You see, I needed you up that tower alone.’

My heart hammered against my ribs. ‘Why alone? Because
Marcellus was coming?’

She didn’t answer immediately. ‘I put on a second suit, and
left by the fire door. My plan was to slip into the Ice Theatre afterwards and
return to the Excelsior with the crowd. That would give me the perfect alibi.’

‘What do you mean by “afterwards”, Liz?’ I said slowly. ‘An
alibi for what?’

‘I reached the church just minutes before you. Gosh, when I
think about it now, it was a miracle you didn’t see me.’

I cast my mind back. I’d seen no-one. How could I have
missed her on the road?

She was enjoying my confusion. ‘I took that other route to
the church. You know? The path inside the forest? It’s faster, and I had a
torch. The guide took us that way on the tour, and he told us about the side
door at the top of the tower, the one you reach by climbing up the outside.’

There was a strange taste in my mouth. ‘What did you do,
Liz?’ I breathed.

‘You know, for a moment I did think about just pushing you
off the top and being done with it. If you didn’t break your neck, you’d freeze
to death before anyone noticed you were missing. It would seem like a dreadful
accident.’ She looked away. ‘But there’d still be those unanswered questions
about Wilson and Harry.’

‘Where were you?’ I said in a whisper. ‘Outside?’

‘When you come in through that side door, you step onto a
wide ledge with a safety rail. It’s tucked out of the way. Anyone climbing up
the inside simply won’t see it’ – her eyes rested on mine – ‘specially in the
dark, after they’ve dropped their torch.’

So, she’d been there. As I was climbing.

‘You came past me, so terribly close I could have touched
you. After a while, I heard the creak of the front door. A few minutes later,
the door into the tower opened and someone started to climb. It could only have
been Marcellus.’ She gripped the chair. ‘He came level with me. And I pushed
him hard. He lost his balance and fell.’

‘My God, Liz – ’

We sat in the thick silence, watching each other. Liz had
killed an innocent man to throw the police off the scent, purely to keep our
friendship. Liz, my best friend, someone I thought I’d known all these years.

I had to ask. ‘What would you have done if Marcellus hadn’t
come?’

She was fidgeting with the hem of her sweater. ‘I’d have
gone to the top and pushed you off. Or done it as you came back down.’ She
raised her head. ‘It was jolly lucky for you that he arrived.’

I saw the scene in the tower: the candlelight flickering
over Marcellus’s twisted body, the staring eyes, the dark blood seeping into my
boots . . .

‘When I heard him hit the ground, I slipped outside and
climbed down the ladder. I took the path through the forest and hurried to the
theatre. I stayed there till the end of the play.’ She drew out a thread from
the sweater. ‘I came home with the crowd, making sure I removed my mask so
people could see my face. And having watched the rehearsal, I could discuss the
play over breakfast.’

‘When did you change, Liz?’ The words caught in my throat.
‘When did you stop being the person I knew?’

She looked at me in bewilderment. Her face crumpled and she
pressed trembling fingers into her e
yes.

‘What do you want?’ I said sadly. ‘Forgiveness?’

‘Don’t think this hasn’t affected me, Mags,’ she wailed.
‘You’re not the only one who’s had nightmares, you know. I feel as though I’ve
exchanged one kind of hell for another.’

‘And I’m supposed to cry bitter salt tears over you?’

She wiped her face, sniffing
loudly.
‘At breakfast, we heard something about an accident in the
church. You weren’t there, of course, you were fucking your detective.’

I looked away, unable to meet her eyes.

‘Leo Tullis told us a body had been found in the tower,’ s
he said, pulling viciously at the loose thread. ‘T
he
police were treating it as accidental death. He announced we were getting our
passports back. He looked awfully relieved. Poor Leo, I bet he’s never had a
week like that before.’ She was unravelling the hem of her sweater. ‘On the
plane back, you told me that whole story about Marcellus and Aaron and the
diary, and what Hallengren thought had happened. And how you wanted to forget and
move on. I really thought it was all over and, if I kept my nerve, things would
go back to the way they were. I knew there was absolutely nothing to link me to
Harry’s death.’

‘Only Denny,’ I said quietly.

She looked up sadly. ‘You know, Mags, I often wonder where
he is. In the Baltic, perhaps, some faceless corpse. Those first few weeks, I
kept checking the papers, but there was no mention of him. There was just the
one article in the Express, saying he was missing and if anyone knew of his
whereabouts to contact the editor. I was jolly lucky. There was an outside
chance he’d downloaded his photographs before meeting me.’