The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) (16 page)

‘
Boeck, Rudolf Boeck.
’

‘
Magnus Sandberg.
’

‘Henrik’s son?’

I nodded.

‘
S
orry about your father.’

If a handshake was any indication o
f character, Boeck’s was solid.

‘
You knew him?
’

‘
He was a friend.
’

‘
How did you know him?
’

‘
He worked for me at the museum.
A superb photographer.
’

I looked at him questioningly.

‘
The
National
History
Museum
.
He
was one of the
talents behind the exhibition.
’

‘
What e
xhibition?
’

‘
Isn’t that why you’re here?
’

‘
I’m trying to retrace my father’s last days. Get a grip on his life.
’

‘
What a lovely idea. Are you an artist?
’

I wasn’t sure if he was
serious or
taking
the piss
, so I replied with a straight face.

‘
An accountant.
’

‘
The greatest artists of our time.
’

I smiled
–
Boeck clearly wasn’t a man of understatements.

‘
So what’s going on here?
’

‘
We’re working on the final
bits of material for our exhibition for the
Ma
rik
ulti Fest
–
Mariehamn
Multicultural Festival
.
It’s t
he most
am
bitious project
we’ve ever undertaken. People are coming to the festival from all over
Scandinavia
,
so we want to get it right.
’

‘
Do you know when my father last came here?
’

I knew from the GPS tag but wanted confirmation.

‘
Why are you asking?
’

‘
Just trying
to
backtrack his last couple of days.
’

Boeck laughed.

‘
Ever the accountant…
let me think…
’

He looked out over the
infinite icescape
, squinting because of the sun.

‘
It must have been Tuesday… yes,
the day before he was found.
’

Boeck stared into the darkness for a moment.

‘
A great loss.
’

I wasn’t here to get sentimental.
The last thing I wanted was another manly hug.

‘
What did he want?
’

‘
We discussed the photos he took for the project
–
photographic vignettes of the archipelago.
’

‘
Would it be possible to see them?
’

I could probably find them on the backup site, but I
wouldn’t know what to look for.

‘
Of course. Just drop in at the museum
in
Mariehamn
.
’

‘
Great.
’

I didn’t quite know wh
at else to say and wasn’t
English
enough to start on the weather.

‘
I just wanted to ask if you’ve seen this woman by any chance.
’

I handed him the photo of Anna
.

‘
Charming.
’

‘
Her name is Anna.
’

‘
I would have remembered.
’

This had been yet a
nother dead end.
Before driving ahead on his snowmobile to show me the way back
through the labyrint
h of islands,
Boeck
told me the interview
location
ha
d been chosen for its isolation, because t
oo many
visitors stopped the workflow.
He also
believed the serenity
of the setting would rub off on the interview.
Even if he hadn’t given me any
real
answers
,
Boeck had surprised me.
I
really
hadn’t expected to encounter such sophisti
cation in the middle of nowhere
.
W
ithout hi
s guidance
,
I would
never have found the main island again
.

3
0

The last GPS tag on the way to Thor’s was a flat barge moored in a rocky cove.
I went on board and called out but t
h
ere was no reply, so I
climbed
through
the unlocked hatch.

‘
Hello?
’

There
was still no response
.
T
he
main
living
space
looked like it hadn’t bee
n inhabite
d for quite some time. The kitchen corner and the bunk were
covered in dust.
I wasn’t sure how long it had been empty
,
but
I couldn’t believe dust
accumulate
d
that quickly around here
.
When
I climbed back
up on deck
,
I couldn’t see anything
at first
,
but once my eyes
adjusted to the dark again
,
I spotted a white spiral mounting through the night sky. It was
rising smoke reflecting
the
moonlight.

I jumped back on the snowmobile
to
check it out
. As I got closer, I could distinguish the outlines of a little cabin standing in the middle of the ice
,
pumping out smoke
. In
London
, I would have called it a she
d
,
but I
couldn’t remember the local name
.
What was
burning inside?

I turned
off the engine
as
I arrived
at the windowless shed
. An old moped trike with
skis strapped to the front wheels stood
parked outside.
I listened but there was no sound e
xcept
for
a
faint
crackling. A fire?
A stove? I could also hear something akin t
o hollow gurgling
.
Just a
s I was about to
knock at the door, a
deep
voice spoke
from inside:

‘
Come in.
’

I
carefully pushed the door open.

‘
Watch the step.
’

There was a high threshold, probably to keep the snow out
, and w
ithout
the man’s
warning, I would have
tripped and fallen flat on my face
. It was pitch
-
dark inside and t
he first thing that hit me
before I could see anything
was a strong smell of fish.

‘
There’s a bench on your left.
’

I felt with my hand and s
at down.

‘
Shut the door.
’

I did and
waited. I didn’t know what for and
was itching to fire away my questions, but this was the way with the locals. To understand them an
d my father
,
I had to be patient, t
ry not to impose my urban rhythm.
This
time there was a reward
as I
gradually
started to see light
seeping through a hatch
in the floor. Under
neath it was a matching hole
in the ice and t
hanks to the moonlight filtering through the ice around the cabin we could see
the
Baltic herr
ing swimming below
. And I could finall
y see the man.

‘
Hungry?
’

‘
Starving
.
’

I’d been
going for hours without eating and my sto
mach had spoken. The man
fiddled over a
woodstove in the corner before passing
me a plate of fish.
I didn’t know
what it was
,
but i
t
had a
delicious
smoky flavour
. He h
anded
me
a glass that
immediately
made me cough
as I drank it
. I’d
expected water, i
t was whiskey.
I hadn’t seen the
amber
colour
of the liquid
.
He laughed.

‘
I worked in
Ireland
w
hen I was your age and never looked back
.
’

I started to relax because t
here was no agenda.
It was cosy and warm and he
was in no rush to get me out, or
to get me
in for that sake
. I was
there,
I was. T
hat was it
and that was enough
. As a Londoner, I was so used to having a rationale behind every
thing, q
uantifiable objectives, accountability and a systematic approach, e
verything but life as it comes.

Once I’d finished my fish, I looked down into the Baltic again. It w
as spellbinding and
I don’t know how long I sat there
staring
, but my impat
ience eventually seeped through
.

‘
Have you had any visitors recently?
’

He ignored my question
. I
t reminded me of the Swedish motto during the war: ‘A Swede keeps silent’. In Swedish, the verb ‘to keep sile
nt’ is homonymous with ‘tiger’ and t
he motto was illustrated with a tiger. Shutting up was associated with a strong and brave animal, when in fact the Swedish ‘tiger’ was everything but brave or strong. Choosing a tiger to represent cowardice or what some, with a more cynical mindset, would call pragmatism, had always struck me as sin
ister. Whatever the designation
, i
t meant looking the other way, b
ending over and allowing German troop trains through
Sweden
to inv
ade less consenting neighbours.

Had the fisherman been silent during the war? Had all Swedes gone fishing? Technically
, the man
was a Finn, but in spirit
he was a Swede. I’d grown up in
Mariehamn
and always felt closer to
Sweden
.
Ultimately,
w
e were neither nor – I was an Ålander and so was the man.
He
held up the bottle and
I held up my glass for a top up.

‘
Are you lost?
’

‘
Do I look it?
’

‘
Usually
it’s
the only reason people come here.
’

‘
I’m retracing the last days of my father.
’