The Last Refuge (38 page)

I had to force myself to stick with it, concentrate on learning about Gotteri.

‘That must have made you popular, Nils. People were very angry at the hunts being disrupted. And you made that happen. You were the traitor.’

He looked away, shame heaped up on top of everything else. When he turned back, I could see that he had made a decision – a decision forged on defiance.

‘Not traitor. Not all like that. I tell Gotteri more. Much more.’

I nodded, as if armed with more than I was. ‘Go on.’

‘From my work. With oil company. I tell him about the report that company do on the whales. Secret report. It made Gotteri very happy. His eyes become like lights when I tell him.’

Nils had the ghost of a grin on his face.

‘Company do tests and find whales are full of toxins. If people eat then it poison them. Mercury. More than they think before. And much lead and chromium. Enough to make brain and liver not work. I tell him this and he give me money. Lot of money.’

I kept my face expressionless, forcing him to continue.

‘He want copy of report but it not easy to get. So I tell him some information each time and he pay me each time. He kept saying “Whole report. I want the whole report.” But you know somehow I just not get the whole report.’

Nils burst out laughing. A manic uncontrolled burst that seemed to cause him pain.

‘I not get the report because there was no report. No poison. No lead. No chromium. No brain-failure. Ha. Gotteri, he so excited he not see when he be lied to.
Helvitis spassari!
Fucking moron.’

‘You made the whole thing up.’

‘Yeah. All of it. I make sure Gotteri pay properly for information I give.’

‘Does he know this?’

‘No.’ Nils laughed again, with as much bitterness and pain as before. ‘Aron though, he . . .’

He let his words trail off, catching himself, but too late.

‘Aron knew you had lied to Gotteri and made up the fake report. And knew you had told him about the hunt.’ I was guessing.

The glare was weak, pitiful really. The truth was too much for him. So too was the sight of the knife that turned slowly in my hand.

‘Aron find out about Gotteri. About how I tell him about the
grindadráp.
He angry. Very angry.’

‘Of course he was. He was furious at you and at Gotteri for betraying the hunt, betraying the local way of life. That is why you fought. Beat each other up, almost. And you both swore you’d kill the other.’

Nils’s eyes widened. Words got stuck in his throat.

‘So what did Aron do? About Gotteri.’

‘He threatened him.’

‘When.’

‘A week before he was . . .’

My heart quickened. Possibilities of something better, something less terrible than I’d imagined.

‘What kind of threats?’

‘He said he would beat up Gotteri. Let everyone on islands know what Gotteri do. Unless he pay him money.’

It was my turn to laugh. ‘You Dam boys are two of a kind. Blackmailing bastards. Did Gotteri pay?’

I wanted to hear ‘no’. I wanted a reason to feel relief. To be dealing with only one horror rather than the possibility of two.

Nils shrugged. ‘I do not know. I really do not know.’

Chapter 58

I didn’t know what I was going to say to Karis, but I knew we had to speak. I abandoned the Peugeot at the foot of Landavegur and climbed up the pretty street with its stream and succession of waterfalls. The stream ran alongside, round and even, it seemed, through houses on its way back down to the sea, pausing only briefly to surge over one waterfall then another.

At the top of the hill was the dramatic Vesturkirkjan, the western church, a modernist building that dominated that part of the skyline with its high triangular roof and giant three-sided glass front-piece that soared towards the heavens. In its gardens a stone pillar stood in the middle of the stream as it wound its way downhill, and on top was a statue of Jesus, arms outstretched and head bowed. I stared at him in passing, and thought of a time I might have looked to him for answers. A lot of water had fallen towards the sea since then.

Her studio flat was just another few minutes’ walk away, and I braced myself for what was to come. Nils Dam’s confession on behalf of his brother had been ugly and shocking, producing an overwhelming anger in me that had no outlet. A villain that I could not reach. A wrong that I could not right.

Still I found myself second-guessing Karis. Did what had happened to her explain her volatility, her mood swings? Or had they always been there? Was the angry, reactive Karis a product of what Aron Dam had done to her, or was it just a part of her that existed already? She shouldn’t have to explain her personality on the basis that that bastard abused her. Every thought made me angrier, and I was trying to get that anger under control before I knocked on her door.

Outside the flat, I stood still and breathed deep. I so wanted to talk to her, but a voice in my head kept telling me to be careful what I wished for. It seemed an age before I got up the courage and discipline to knock.

No response, but I waited, ignoring the cowardly part of me that felt relieved. I knocked again, louder. Still nothing. My hand was lifting to strike the door a third time when it was halted by a voice from behind me.

‘Get away from there. Away, I say.’

I spun to see Esmundur Lisberg advancing on me, his face a furious red. He wore a different sweater to the last time I’d seen him, this one dark brown with white snowflakes, but he had on the same brown cords and the same boots with flashy buckles. His everyman preacher’s uniform.

This was all I needed.

‘What are you doing here? My daughter does not want you here. I do not want you here. Go. Go now. Do not disgrace my daughter.’

‘Mr Lisberg—’

‘No.’ The man was livid. ‘I told you before. I asked you to respect me and you did not. You disrespect my wishes and my position. Get away from here. Leave.’

‘I am not disrespecting anyone but I need to speak to—’

He cut me off again. Physically, this time, barging right up into my face and getting between me and the door. I wondered whether he was actually going to try to hit me.

‘Look, I need to speak to Karis.’ I was determined not to back down. ‘She’s a grown woman. Let her make her own decisions.’

His eyes widened and his face contorted. If we had been in a cartoon then steam would have been coming out of his ears.

‘She is not a grown woman. She is my child. You are not a parent, are you? No, so you will not understand. You are accused of murder. I cannot have you near my daughter. Do you understand that?’

I did. Of course, I did. Teaching those kids was the nearest I’d ever been – ever likely to come – to being a parent. I understood the parental responsibility that I myself had failed to show when I’d left Liam Dornan alone with those thugs. This man was protecting his child in a way that I hadn’t done. I could hardly blame Lisberg for that, and yet I wasn’t ready to walk away.

‘I do, but, Mr Lisberg, I am not here to hurt your daughter.’

His face darkened.

‘Hurt her? You will answer to me if you do. In Mark 9, verse 42, the Lord says “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” Believe me, I would throw you in the sea.’

I swallowed what I really wanted to say. ‘I am here to help Karis, not hurt her.’

He laughed bitterly. ‘By shaming her? By making everyone think that man’s murder was her fault? If you think that is helping her then you are a crazy man. Karis has not slept since that happened. Leave this place now.’

The man was bristling with a fury that no words of mine were going to soothe. This was achieving nothing.

‘I am going, Mr Lisberg. But not because you are angry or because you are ordering me to. I am going simply because Karis is not at home. I will return though. If you see her, you can tell her that from me.’

The man was still blustering and quoting scripture when I turned away. His lecturing voice followed me down the street, but his feet did not; he was satisfied, for now, that I was no longer darkening his daughter’s doorstep.

I had met him three times now, and I had yet to see him anything other than angry. For a man of God, he seemed to carry little contentment in his soul. What was it that Karis had said at the Etika restaurant, the time he came inside to confront us? ‘The sainted Esmundur Lisberg. The most Lutheran of the Lutherans. The keeper of all our consciences.’ The job didn’t seem to make him happy.

The Etika. Memories came back to me. Karis and I eating sushi. Her father staring in through the window. Him standing by our table. Karis looking anxious and alarmed. Sitting opposite me with her raincoat hanging over the back of her chair.

The memory nearly made me choke.

Chapter 59

I didn’t have room for my daily check-in at the police station. My head was full of so many people, possibilities and problems, it was the last place I wanted to be. I needed to think about Karis, Nils Dam still tied up in the whaling station, Gotteri and Nicoline, not the fat cop Demmus and his paperwork. Yet there was no choice: I had to sign in and go through all the necessary bureaucracy, consigning me to the station for far longer than I wanted.

Demmus was going through his near-silent routine, grunting and checking boxes and identification as if he’d never seen me before. It was a procedure that had got old after day one. It was physical confirmation of my inability to leave these islands, the padlock on a cell with no doors or windows.

As Demmus laboured at the desk behind his counter, I fretted to leave. The voice that dropped into my frustration was instantly familiar. Nervy, out-of-breath tones that signalled pressure, anxiety and a lack of fitness. Elin Samuelsen. My lawyer knew when I was supposed to be at the cop shop, and had met me there a couple of times to keep me up to date with the progress of my case.

‘How are you, John? We should talk.’

Alarms bells rang. Surely there wasn’t more bad news. There was only so much I could handle.

‘What’s up?’

‘Let’s go outside. We can walk and talk.’ She rattled off something in Faroese to Demmus and he grunted in reply, presumably meaning I was done and free to go.

We pushed our way out of the front door and headed downhill towards the fort, a watery sun offering us warmth. Samulesen took off her round, amber spectacles, dropping them into the top pocket of her jacket, and replaced them with the sunglasses that had been acting as a hair-band for her blonde mop. She had heels on today and was only an inch or two shorter than I was. She was nervous: there was obviously no correlation between her increased height and confidence. Nicoline, all five-feet-nothing of her, burst with self-assurance, but my lawyer didn’t seem to have enough to spread on a slice of bread. Given her daring work in the courtroom, her lack of confidence baffled me.

‘So John, is there anything else that you need to tell me?’

I didn’t like where this was going. There was so much that I could have told her, but there was no way I was sharing any of it. Yes, she was on my side, but how the hell could I tell her about the knife, and the fact that Tunheim knew about it? Or my chat with Nicoline? And I feared that if I told her about what I’d done to Nils Dam she would have a heart attack on the spot.

‘No. Nothing.’

‘Are you sure, John? I cannot do my job unless you tell me everything. If the police have surprises for me then I will not be ready for them. I will not know how to fight them.’

I didn’t look at her, couldn’t. Elin got hot and flustered just being asked her name, but I’d already seen how sharp she was. I had even wondered whether the nervousness was a front to disarm people – judges, lawyers or clients. I looked straight ahead and lied to her.

‘Miss Samuelsen, there is nothing else. What has happened?’

She sighed theatrically and raked her hair with her right hand. ‘I have heard that the police have a new witness. Someone who is prepared to testify that you spoke of doing harm to Aron Dam.’

I stopped in mid-stride. Nymann’s words when he visited the shack came back to me.
Did you ever publicly threaten to harm Aron Dam?
He had been doing more than rattling my cage. He’d been testing the water. I had no choice but to look at her, even though I couldn’t control what was on my face. ‘What? Who?’

‘That is what I want you to tell me. I do not know. All I hear is that they have someone who will go into court and say how you hated Aron Dam and you wanted to hurt him badly.’

‘Elin . . . I don’t . . . there can’t be . . .’

‘Are you sure?’ The nervousness seemed to have vanished, replaced by accusatory but controlled anger. ‘They have a witness. It may be enough for them to go back before Judge Hammer shaimb, even without forensic evidence. I have spoken to a colleague in Copenhagen and he says it would go very badly against you.’

‘But I didn’t . . . I did not kill him.’

‘That is not what I’m asking you. Whether you killed him or not does not matter. What matters if someone can say you declared intent. Who could say that?’

I remembered Toki talking to Nymann at the station, but knew I’d never spoken to him about Aron. But then again I had spent plenty of time in plenty of bars. I’d drunk plenty, too.

‘I don’t know. Honestly.’

Samuelsen frowned intently. ‘I have spoken to Inspector Nymann but of course he is saying nothing. But he is so pleased with himself. So smug. So arrogant. I do not like that man.’

She narrowed her eyes at me, the pussycat finding her claws. ‘You think, John. And you think well. I do not want that man to laugh at me. Think he knows what I do not. If there is something, you make sure you tell me. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

She nodded at me, her eyelashes fluttering furiously. Was she angry at me or at Nymann, or at herself for acting so out of character? ‘Okay. Good. Now tell me something else? What is going on with you and Inspector Tunheim?’

Shit. This place was a village. I had to lie again, and she could see it coming.