The Last Refuge (40 page)

‘To end what?’

She stalled, not wanting to give the answer that came first to her lips. ‘Just all of it.’

‘Karis, that night in the bar. I heard you threaten Aron. You said that you’d told him what you would do. That you meant it and you would do it. What did you mean by that?’

She froze, looking at me with her green eyes moist, pleading for help. I couldn’t give her it. I needed her to tell me the truth.

‘What had you threatened him with? What did he fear you would do?’

‘I can’t . . .’

‘Karis, come on. I know he was hassling you. And me. But you must have had a good reason to want him dead.’

‘He raped me!’

The words finally burst from her in a scream of anger that shamed me for goading her. Words that still managed to shock me as if I’d heard them for the first time. Hearing them from her mouth made it worse. Hearing the pain in her voice.

‘Aron raped me.’ Quieter now, almost ashamed. ‘Okay? He raped me.’

Her hands flew to her face, and she sobbed loudly. I went to her and tried to hold her but she fended me off, her shoulder turning against me, stopping me from comforting her. I couldn’t blame her – I’d forced this out of her.

Her hands finally fell away and there was a renewed defiance about her. Eyes red but mouth set firm and angry. She was steeling herself to tell me more.

‘Aron was always keen on me, but it was one-sided. He was always too aggressive for my liking. A bully, really. I did date him once, but it was nothing serious, he just wasn’t my type. It was a mistake, as he thought it meant we were a couple. Boyfriend and girlfriend. And of course, when it was over, he would become a crazy person whenever I was with anyone else.

‘I went to Copenhagen and Aron went too. He basically followed me. I loved university, a new way of life, new friends, new places to go. All the things that Torshavn wasn’t. But then Aron started showing up, ruining everything. He would hang out in bars that I went to. Even go to my classes. And at nights he would show up drunk, really drunk. Hassling me and embarrassing me.

‘I tried to ignore him but he was everywhere. He kept demanding that I go out with him, give him another chance. He wasn’t going to leave me alone until I did. I was sick of it and I made the same mistake again. I told him okay, we would go out for dinner once. If I then said that was it, then it would be over and he would respect that. Of course he said yes.

‘Dinner was okay, but Aron was loud and overbearing, trying too hard. I felt uncomfortable and it showed. He was walking me back from the restaurant when he asked when we were going to go out again and I told him we weren’t. He got mad but I reminded him about the agreement he’d made. He was shouting. He told me that he loved me. I said I was going home on my own.

‘He followed me. Getting angrier and angrier. I told him to leave me alone, but he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me off the street. Down this alley. His eyes were . . . crazy. I tried to shout but he put his hand over my mouth and . . .’

She stopped, trying to compose herself, bracing her hands on her thighs to stop the shaking. It didn’t work. She jumped to her feet and made for the kitchen.

‘Wine. I need more wine.’

‘Karis . . .’

She whirled. ‘Do not tell me to be calm or whatever it is you were going to say. I will decide what I do or feel or say. I have kept all this inside me for so long and have only ever managed to tell one other person. This is not easy for me.’

I let breath escape from me when she turned her back, blowing it out in a futile attempt at getting rid of some of the tension that was eating me from within.

When she came back, she sat gripping the wine glass, holding on to it for dear life. When some of it had slipped down her throat and had the desired effect, she continued. ‘Aron took me down that alley and he raped me. That was it. He . . . held me and he forced himself on me. It was . . .’

The effort her admission had taken suddenly showed, and her face crumpled, eyes and mouth locked tight, her chest heaving. My movement towards her was repelled by an outstretched arm. The last thing she needed was the unwelcome touch of another man.

When words came they were soaked in tears, choked out one by one. ‘It got worse. A few weeks later I discovered I was pregnant. It was . . . terrible. The hardest thing I ever had to do. I could not keep it. Not after . . . So I did it. I had an abortion.’

The word tasted sour in her mouth – I could see it on her face. Just saying it made her burn with guilt and hatred.

‘I hate myself. And him. Him most of all. I came back to Torshavn because I wanted to paint here. Get it all out of me. Make this place better, so that it wouldn’t produce another Aron. But then I realized it was not Torshavn that made Aron like he was. Aron made Aron like that. And he made me the way I became. After it.’

Her hands were shaking, wine shimmering in the glass.

‘But you see I was determined that he would not dictate the rest of my life. I would not be the person he made me. I would become
me
again. Live life on my terms. He would not have the satisfaction of breaking me. I have my friends here. And my painting. And my father. And then you. But when you came, Aron threatened everything again. So the night in the bar, when I was drunk and the two of you fought, and you became as bad as him, I let Aron know I would tell people what he had done. I needed a way to keep him away, to get him to stop.

‘But it was only a threat. I would never have done it, because the last thing I wanted was for people to know. When he left, I panicked. I went to my flat, but I could not settle. I knew what he was like and that he would turn the threat round. He would not care if people found out. Under pressure, he would tell people himself, and everyone would know. I was very drunk. I did not think it through. So I went out again. After him.

‘I caught up with him in Tinganes, near the Prime Minister’s office. I knew he liked to go there at night, hang out at the water’s edge. Of course, he thought I was there because I wanted him. I realized it was the first time I had been alone with him since . . . since it happened. I tried to talk to him, reason with him. Said it would be better if he left you and me alone and no one knew about Copenhagen. He got mad and said he would tell you how he fucked me. He would tell everyone and see how I liked it then. Then he said that, as everyone would know soon anyway, maybe he should just fuck me again.

‘He came at me, tried to grab me. I knew what he meant to do, but I could not let it happen again. I had a knife. A
grindaknivur
. I pulled it out and he just laughed. He lunged at me but I stabbed him. Then again. He fell to the ground and I just kept stabbing him. It was like it was that night in Copenhagen, except I was able to stop him.’

When she stopped talking, there was complete silence again. It crept into the room and fed on the tension, gorging itself on anxiety. I could feel my pulse throb and my heart beat and could hear absolutely nothing.

‘Then I got scared. Terrified. I stood up and saw what I had done. It had been like someone else was doing it. I ran. Just had to get away. Then, going home, I saw you. Lying there drunk. And I saw you as part of the problem. I’m sorry. But I was thinking if you had not fought with Aron this wouldn’t have happened. I panicked. I needed to get rid of the knife and . . . John, I am sorry. So sorry.’

I reached for the wine glass that I’d placed on the floor. It was my turn to take a hearty gulp. I chewed at the wine, unhappily biting at it and swallowing it down.

‘And when I was arrested . . . ?’

There was a long, restless pause. ‘I kept telling myself you could not get charged because there would be no evidence. They couldn’t prove you killed him, because you didn’t. But it was too late.’

‘You could have gone to the police. You could have told them it was you.’

She looked away, not willing or able to look me in the eye.

‘It was too late and I was frightened. If they had sent you to trial I would have confessed. Believe me, I would never have let you go to jail.’

‘Well, I might still be going there. Someone has spoken to the police and said they will testify that I said I would hurt Aron. A court would think it was premeditated.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Me? You think that was me? No, John. Please. I swear. I know nothing about that. Nothing. You must believe me.’

‘And what else do you know about the knife?’

‘What?’ I saw the look on her face. Caught.

‘You heard me. What else can you tell me about the knife?’

‘I took it.’ A confession sneaking out between tight lips.

‘Go on.’

‘When I left you. After I stayed at your place. I went to where you’d buried the knife and took it. Dug it up.’

‘How did you know where it was?’

‘You were dreaming. Talking about it in your sleep. I could not understand all of it, and some of it scared me, but you said where you buried the
grindaknivur
. The three stones. I knew I had to take it. To . . . protect myself.’

‘Really? So where is the knife now?’

Her eyes moved away. Couldn’t look at me.

‘I threw it in the sea. I had to get rid of it.’

‘Where?’

‘What?’

‘Where did you throw it in the sea?’

‘Off the western port. But the swell was high. It could be anywhere.’

‘Christ, Karis. What the hell were you thinking?’

She looked shamefaced. Scared. ‘I don’t know. I just wanted it gone. I know . . . I am sorry.’

When I closed my eyes, I could hear the sound of near-silence in my head. Like television static once a station goes off air. It sounded like loss.

She looked up at me and I could see another thought occurring to her and forcing itself out.

‘He said he was going to tell people what he did to me, but that is not why I killed him. It was because of what he did to me. Not because of what he might say. Because he raped me.’

A door closed inside me. Karis and I were finished. Or at least we could never be what I had wanted us to be, I knew that now. What she was, what she’d done. I couldn’t be part of any of that. The doubts that had pursued me had been replaced by certainty.

Despite that, though, I knew I’d dragged the information and pain out of her, forced it to the surface and made her confront it. I owed her something for that. I was going to help her, whatever the cost.

‘Don’t blame yourself. Blame him. He did it, not you. You remember how you used to ask me why I came here? And I never properly answered you?’

She nodded, confused and anxious. ‘Yes.’

‘I did something I shouldn’t have done, and I had to get away from it too. I did something for the wrong reasons and regretted it. You . . . well, if there’s ever a right reason to kill someone, then what Aron did to you is one.’

‘What . . . what did you do?’

‘When I was a teacher, there was a kid in my class who got himself into trouble. I was walking home and saw four other kids, older boys, beating him. They basically scared me off, threatening worse for me and him if I didn’t leave. So I walked away. I left him there. Eventually, and too late, I did what I should have done in the first place and went back for him. But they’d killed him. Tortured him and killed him.

‘I went to court and testified, but of course that couldn’t bring the boy back. And it didn’t even put the killers in jail. There wasn’t enough evidence and they walked. The boy, Liam, his parents blamed me. Hated me for not protecting their son. And they were right. I hated myself for it.

‘So I did something about it. I hunted down the four thugs and hurt them the way they’d hurt Liam. I didn’t kill them, couldn’t bring myself to go down to their level. But I scared them and hurt them badly. No one could ever prove that I did it. In fact I have never admitted to anyone that I did it. Not until now.’

She was teary. ‘So why are you admitting it now?’

‘Because I did what I did to those kids for the wrong reason. I told myself it was because they’d killed Liam. Stabbed him. Burned him. That I was doing it because they deserved it. An eye for an eye. But I know that wasn’t really true. I was doing it for me. To make up for my guilt. To try and make myself feel better about leaving Liam. I had walked away, and I was massaging my own guilt by hurting the thugs that hurt him.’

‘You are too hard on yourself. You did what you thought was right.’

‘But it wasn’t right.’

Karis flinched.

‘What I did was wrong. And the reason I did it was wrong. If you killed Aron because of what he did to you, I can’t say that was the wrong reason.’

She collapsed again, crumpling into her seat and dissolving into tears. This time, when I went to comfort her, she let me. Her head fell under my chin and she shook as I hugged her.

‘Don’t tell anyone. Please.’ Her words were spluttered out from beneath me. ‘Please, John. I beg you. Don’t tell anyone.’

‘I won’t. I promise you.’

I held her, wrapped her in my arms and in my flawed assurance. Helping Karis by keeping her confession a secret made me a prime candidate for prison. Would that be so bad? If my conviction meant she went free, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

She and I couldn’t be together, whatever happened, that much was certain now. But I’d already committed crimes worthy of prison when I’d taken revenge on Liam’s killers, and maybe now was the time to pay the price.

Suddenly, something that Tummas Barthel had said came back to me, a whisky toast laden with meaning.
To lives lost and lives saved.

I had to save one more.

Chapter 62

I’d left Karis an hour earlier, safe in the knowledge that she was in some form of reconstructed stability. The crying had eased, then ended; the shaking had gone, externally at least. She was going to visit her father. That would force her to behave rationally, rather than succumbing to the emotional disintegration that would be so easy within her own four walls.

She would be forced to put on a front of normality that would at least carry her through part of the night, a temporary scaffolding that was better than none at all.