The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) (7 page)

‘
That can’t be legal.
’

Thor shrugged and
I regretted my stupid comment
.

‘
There’s no law on the ice, only the laws of
nature. That’s the whole point
–
when you drown you drown. There’s no law against breathing in polluted
London
air, is there?
’

No, and
he was right
,
there was no law against heading out in the deadly
London
traffic either.

‘
Every year MPs petition
for a
limit
ation of
the maritime traffic in wintertime.
Imagine being able to race from the Arctic Circle to Poland, T
he Baltic Sea as a giant arena,
Ben Hur on ice…
’

‘
Could there really be ice all the way?
’

‘
Rarely. All the more reason to cut the traffic when there is.
’

The
buzz of the
yac
hting
almost
made me forget
why I’d come
to the club in the first place. This was living in
the present,
an escapade that
put
me in touch with
my father.
Being out here on the ice had given me a rush and
I was starting to creep under his polar hide.
I didn’t know if he’d
been an
adrenalin
junkie or
if
cold water swimming
even
trigger
ed any form of dopamine production
, but m
y father
certainly
seemed to have been obsessed with physical sensations. Was it
a need
to feel alive? Was he compensating for an everyday numbness? I should have known these things about my father
, but
did
n’t
.

After the sailing w
e sat down at the club bar
, where Thor insisted I try
my father’s favourite brew
–
the
Stallhag
en lager from the local brewery.
W
e
finally got round to talking about Henrik
’s death
. Thor wasn’t surprised by the cold water
swimm
ing.
Henrik
had
always liked physical challenges. Whatever the time of year
, he wanted a dip. That was what he was about and every time he returned from a swim
he’d have that gleam in his eye
.

‘
I just find it hard to grasp. Why swim in such a remote place?
’

‘
It t
ames the beast, s
tops you going berserk.

‘
Are you saying my father was an animal?
’

‘
Aren’t we all?
’

Thor smiled.

‘Hen
ke was the sweetest man imaginable. He
taught the kids ice yachting, but not in a traditional way. He pushed them, encouraged them to flirt with danger. They love him
…
’

He paused half
-
sentence, maybe wondering whether to say they loved him, but they still did.

‘
…
it led to some clashes with
the
parents and lately he wasn’t all
owed to do any coaching
.
‘

‘
How come
?
’

‘
A kid drowned last year
and the parents blamed Henrik.

‘
Were they right?
’

Thor shrugged his shoulders.

‘
Henrik saw yacht
ing
as a school for life and
t
he kids were inspired by his exploits
,
but he
was
very clear about the risks. He
c
ouldn’t
be held responsible for what the k
ids did
on their own.
’

‘
So the drowned kid wasn’t under his supervision when it happened?
’

‘
No, but t
he problem is
today’s parents
demand a risk
-
free environment. T
he opposite of life. They want the image of danger, not the danger itself.
In a computer game you can always get a
second or third life, but
i
n reality we only live once. Henke was always hammering on about
this
–
don’t take any unnecessary risks when your life’s at stake.
Never overestimate yourself.
’

‘
How was he as a person?
’

‘
We had great laughs together.
’

Thor fell silent for a moment before continuing.

‘
He wasn’t a happy man though.
’

‘
What makes you say that?
’

‘
He avoided being alone.
’

It surprised me.
I’d been under the impression that my fathe
r was a loner.

‘
But h
e was alone on the yacht.
’

‘
That’s different.
You’re up against it, d
efying the odds, evading death. There’s an enemy and it defines you. You might be in bad company, but alone you’re not.
You’re caught up in the intensity.
’

‘
But except for you and the kids there seems to have been no one in his life.
’

‘
He
fled into
activities, always busy, but d
oing alone is very
different
from being alon
e. When I say he was alone, I mean that h
e never stopped to reflect or to look himself in the mirror. His camera lens focused on trees
and
animals, never
on himself.
’

So
my father didn’
t take
the
time to think or
feel.
Hearing this, I had to ask the question that kept creeping up
in
the back of my mind
:

‘
Do you
think he could have committed suicide?
’

‘
And then climbed out of the hole?
’

‘
I
just can’t
understand how he could climb out
if he had water in his lungs.
Lisa
Forsman
told me
the police thought his
death was
caused by
a combination of drowning and hypothermia. He would have been unable to cough up the water because of being so frozen.
’

Thor frowned.

‘
Could be. Once something goes wrong in the cold, the margins are very small. If for some reason he struggled to get out, he would have weakened very quickly. I don’t get why it would be so hard to get out thoug
h, unless his heart failed
or something.
’

I
hated not having an
answer, but Thor
seemed to partly agree with
Lisa’
s explanation. My father’s death was
still less straightforward than I’
d hoped. I wanted a clear
-
cut answer, b
ut that wasn’t going to happen.

‘
Did he seem depressed lately?
’

‘
Not
that I know.
I didn’t see him
though
. He was too busy searching for Anna.
’

‘
Who?
’

Thor explained that
Anna was a
n E
astern European who’d been hanging out at the yachting club
. He
wa
sn’t sure
where exactly
she was
from,
but
she was crazy about
London
and planned to go there, which
had
reminded
Henke
of his lost son.
Thor went back into the office to fetch a photo of Anna. Sh
e smiled at the camera and
oozed warmth
–
h
er cheekbones, the
dimples.

‘
Amazing eyes.
’

‘
Henke was a great photographer.
’

‘
Could he live from it?
’

Thor nodded.

‘
T
he nature magazines
couldn’t get enough of him. He had to refuse work to keep time for yachting and swimming.
’

From the look of the photo, Anna liked
the
photographer
and it felt good to think that it had been my
father
.
She
had left without saying goodbye
and he’d
been convinced that something
bad
had happened to her, but
Thor disagreed.

‘
She was young. She probably left because she felt like it, because she could.
In fact, s
he texted
to say goodbye the day after he was found dead.
’

‘
Texted who?
’

‘
Me.
’

‘
Did she know about my father’s death?
’

‘
I don’t know.
’

‘
Didn’t you tell her?
’

‘
I left a message but never heard back.
’

She must have been upset.
Keeping Anna’s
photo, I walked away partly relieve
d
.
Maybe my father hadn’t been 100% happy, but
so what,
wh
o
is? At least he’d embraced life.
H
e’d lived and tested his limits.
What Thor told me about my father escaping into activities made sense and it also made the cold water swimming m
ore
understandable. The extremer
the activity, the further removed my father would
have been from his daily life. A
n
ything to avoid facing himself.

The yachting confirmed this.
At first I
didn’t want
to
do
it
–
I hadn’t come here to play around, but then I’d realised that if
I
didn’t
slow down and
switch to my father’s time, I’d never get
him, especially as
he’d
practically lived on the Black Pearl according to Thor.
Thanks to the yachting,
I
tasted something my father had loved
and
it felt like I’d
made a
first
vital
connection.
I wanted
more.

T
he ling
ering question was why he’
d been looking for Anna, although
Thor didn’t
seem to
think there was anything to it. She’d just happened to be on Henrik’s mind.
On second thought,
I found it
odd that she’d sent
Thor
a text witho
ut even bothering to call or
come round to
say goodbye
in person
,
even
more so
after
he
’d
left a message
about my father. I was disappointed that
Anna had
disappeared
without a trace
, because
I would
have liked to talk to her.
If my father had
looked for her, they must have had
a
special bond, but I would never
know. I had to get back to Carrie
.