The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) (24 page)

She wanted
the truth
. A
ll I had was a hunch.

‘
There’s something wrong with my father’s death.
’

‘
You have to stop making allegations.
’

‘
The burglary, the absence of
an
ice
drill, Anna... and I haven’t even told you about her passport.
’

I showed it.

‘
I found it i
n Thor’s desk. She wouldn’t have left without it.
’

Eva glimpsed at it, suddenly interested.

‘
Did you ask him?
’

‘
He didn’t put it there. I believe him.
It m
akes no sense.
’

‘
Don’t
jump to
conclusions
too quickly
.
’

‘
Are y
ou saying he’s lying?
’

‘
All I’m saying
is that
you never know
what’s going on in people’s
minds.

Can I keep it?
’

She pocketed it.

‘
Do you believe me now?
’

‘
I’ll look into it.
’

‘
Good, because something’s wrong
.
’

‘Of course
– your
father is dead.
’

She wasn’t listening, but I wasn’t giving up.

‘
Who
do you think
drilled the hole?
’

‘
A fisherman?
’

‘I
t looked staged, as if someone had laid him there.
’

‘
It was a combination of hypothermia and heart failure. He just happened to fall like that.’

‘It still doesn’t add up. Why would he go to an isolated bay for a cold dip
when he was
searching for Anna?
’

‘
What’s this got to do with the museum?
’

‘
I t
hink it’s linked to
Boeck.
My father must have
discovered something.
’

She went silent and
I saw
it as an invitation to continue
. M
y eyes lingered
a few seconds
too long on her.
There was something intriguing about her
.

‘
I’ve never seen anything so real. Acted fear and real fear are totally different.
’

‘
How do you know?
’

‘
I watch a lot of bad movies
.
’

She almost smiled, o
r so I liked to think.

‘
What do you think happened to your father?
’

‘
He returned to the church
bay
at night.
’

‘
And?
’

‘
I don’t know, but it doesn’t make sense.
’

‘
Death rarely d
oes. He died a natural death, a
stupid death. The same would have happened to you if I hadn’t found you.
’

It wasn’t the same because
I’d had a clear motivation. I’d gone to the bay to follow in my
father’s fo
otsteps, to look for communion,
and
I
certainly
hadn’t been found sunbathing next to the hole
. That wasn’t the point though
.
I sensed there was something dodgy about Boeck
and
I had to convince her.

‘
Then w
hy did Boeck say he didn’t know Anna?
’

‘
He’s a busy man.
Maybe he didn’t recognise her
on the photo
, or m
aybe he had other reasons for not telling you. There could be lots of explanations.
’

‘
He knew I was desperate to find her.
’

‘
He’s a respected citizen. He may be a nationalist, but
that doesn’t make him a rapist.’

‘
It’s not the kind of thing people tend to boast about…
’

She
obviously
didn’t like Boeck being criticised. I’d forgotten that everyone knew each other in
Mariehamn
.

‘Look, I did call Boeck after your call last night to check what he was filming and he confirmed they were working on a period re
-
enactment.
He said there were some hint
s
of sexual violence, but nothing graphic.
’

I wasn’t surprised
–
he wasn’t going to tell a policewoman that he was filming a woman being abused
by his men
.

‘Did you ask him about Anna
?’

‘He’s
never heard of any Anna.’

‘He’s lying
, she was there
.
I saw her.
’

’
You’ve never met her.’

‘Who was it then?’

‘
Make sure you keep away from the museum.
’

‘
I’m
just
trying to understand my father’s death.
’

‘
Doesn’t justify breaking in. Don’t do it again.
’

She stopped the car by a remote far
m house to check on an old lady while
I waited in the car.
O
ne
of the lady’s dogs had a tumour the size of a tennis ball hanging from its hindquarters and needed to be put down. Eva had been trying to conv
ince the woman for months
,
but s
he wouldn’t listen.
Her three dogs were everything, only they understood her and
–
most importantly
–
d
idn’t contradict her. Her children lived in
Stockholm
and
always
stayed in a bed and breakfast
when they visited,
in spite of their mother having a huge house
. She
simply
couldn’t handle people, o
nly her dogs. The old lady considered Eva
almost on a par with the dogs. She was a
n honorary
Labrador
.

W
h
e
n
w
e
pa
ssed the funeral home
on the way back,
I finally remem
bered where I’d seen Sven. He was the man who’d
slammed the door in my face as
I was leaving. He m
ust have gone to see my father
’s body
. D
id this mean he was off the hook?
Not necessarily, he co
uld have gone to see my father
out of guilt, but guilt for what? I didn’t even know what
–
if anything
–
had happened and whether Sven had anything to do with it.
I still didn’t know why my father had taken a photo of his shop.

I tried picking u
p the conversation about Boeck.

‘
Maybe he let me go because he doesn’t want
my suspicions to become public.
’

‘
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
’

‘
He’s hiding something.
’

It was snowing when she dropped me off outside
my father’s house. I didn’t look back
, but I
felt her
sharp
eyes on my back as I walked into the house.

45

He sat in Henrik’s
empty tub with his clothes on, r
emembering why he liked the man, or why he didn’t dislike him
–
he didn’t really like anyone. It was because
Henrik
was o
ne of the few people who’d never shown
him
any contempt. Henrik ha
d bee
n an observer. They’d connected, partly thanks to
Henrik
’s capacity to see
through him
, to see
the hidden frailty of his
youth
.
He saw the
open wound
s but never
judge
d
.
H
is photography
had b
een like him
–
full of integrity, empathy
and
an ability to see beyond
appea
rances. They revealed a truth and h
e’d ended up focusing on nature because
his portraits had become
too overwhelming. He
nrik
hadn’t been able to c
arry
other people’s suffering
any longer
.

In the end it was the empathy that
killed Henrik
.
When he’d helped
a few
Eastern refugees to
Mariehamn
on his ice yacht
,
a
ll
he asked from the cockroaches
was to let him take their portrait. Henrik us
ed an old
-
fashioned
35mm
Olympus
OM
-
1
camera and
developed the photos in his basement. He would make one large print of each person and throw away the film.
It made each photo unique, l
ike the person it represented. He’d glued them into a scrap book and spent hi
s evenings looking at the faces, r
eading the lines in their faces
, the depth in their eyes, recalling their voices and
their shivering in the Baltic wind. They
became
his friends, h
is people
, his family.

Sitting in the
kitchen
one evening
,
Henrik had
pulled out the scrap book, told
the refugees’
stories
and
shared
their hopes and f
ears
over a bottle of aquavit
.
It was too good an
opportunity
and h
e’d offered Henrik his
help –
m
aybe he could give them work.
T
his was his chance to combine cultural cleansing and training for the cause.
He
knew
that
it would
inevitably
lead to a clash
and that
Henrik would t
ry to stop him if he ever
found out, but he’
d
had
no choice. It was fate.
When Henrik eventually
discovered
how he ‘helped’ the cockroaches
,
there had been no choice. He had to sacrifice the
photographer
even if it meant losing the closest thing he had to a friend.
H
e was prepared to lose e
verything and more
to complete his mission
.
This
wasn’t a
bout him. He was only a
facilitator.
Sweden
’s future was at stake.

46

Although I was convinced I’d locked up, the front door was open when I returned.
After calling out to check there was
no one there, I walked through the house scanning
the rooms
for any signs
of a repeat burglary
.
Maybe I’d simply left the door open
after all. I found it hard to believe
,
but nobody’s perfect. I’d been in a rush after what I’d witnessed
in the church, upset after
killing a man
and wanting t
o get to the museum as quickly
as possible. There was no visible change
in the house
. The Mexican film star was still staring at me from the living room wall. What had she
seen? Her face looked scratched
,
but I couldn’t recall if the scratches had
been there before.
Was she trying to te
ll me something? I wasn’t sure, because
my
f
ear put
e
verything in a different light.