Don't Wake Me

by Martin Krüger

  ‘Really? Thank you, that’s very kind. I’ll make sure I do, Mr Sandvik.’ Jasmin glanced at her list. ‘Do you sell those big torch batteries here?’

  Sandvik gave her a thoughtful look, as if he knew what was going through her mind.

  ‘We do,’ said a voice from behind her. Jasmin found herself looking at a small, grey-haired woman in her seventies, who was approaching them both in a wheelchair. ‘Grit Sandvik,’ she said. Her hand was covered in calluses. ‘Don’t pay too much attention to that old eccentric. He loves boring visitors with his stories.’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t at all bored,’ she replied with a smile. ‘I actually found it rather interesting.’

  Karl Sandvik gave her a broad grin. ‘You shouldn’t flatter old men like that, young lady. We both know she’s right. Old men like to talk, and occasionally the stories they tell even manage to be entertaining.’ His laugh was as rough as the sea. ‘But only occasionally. Don’t pay it any mind if folk are a little gruff with you. The people here are hard. You can’t survive in a place like this if you aren’t hard. If you don’t have the cold Norwegian Sea flowing through your veins.’

  ‘All the same, I think you and I are going to get on very well.’ Jasmin picked up the rest of the supplies she needed, went over to the counter and paid.

  ‘Did you tell her about the rumours?’ Grit Sandvik asked.

  Her husband shook his head. ‘There’s no need. She’s only been here a day, we should let her—’

  ‘Are you living alone down there?’ Grit interrupted.

  ‘Just me, my dog Bonnie and my son Paul.’

  ‘Your son?’

  ‘Yes, he’s—’ Jasmin turned around. Paul wasn’t in the shop, but she spotted him outside by the car, where he was kneeling in front of Bonnie and getting her to put her paw in his hand. The grey paintwork of the Volvo sparkled in the sunlight. ‘He’s already outside.’

  ‘I think you ought to know,’ Grit Sandvik continued. ‘Especially given the circumstances. All on your own out there.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Jasmin sensed this would be an uncomfortable topic, but after yesterday’s events, she was on the alert. Better to know too much than too little. Knowing things can’t hurt. ‘You can tell me. But I don’t want to force either of you, of course.’

  Karl Sandvik shot a look at his wife as if to say, I told you so. ‘There’s a – hmm, what should I call him exactly? A drifter. Yes, I think that’s the right word. Or a vagrant, perhaps. He’s been spotted in various places over the last few weeks. Jon from the boat hire place says he’s been lurking around the warehouses. He carries a grey plastic bag around with him and wears a long, grey trench coat or a sort of oversized windcheater that’s full of holes.’

  ‘Oh,’ Jasmin replied, thinking of the figure at the forest edge. ‘It’s good that you told me.’

  ‘Like I said,’ replied Grit Sandvik, ‘you can’t be too careful nowadays.’

  ‘Boeckermann has it all under control. But what I can’t work out is how he got here in the first place.’

  ‘On the ferry, man!’ said his wife, shaking her head slightly. ‘You know how it goes. How easy it is to stow away on board.’

  Jasmin picked up her purchases. ‘Who’s Boeckermann?’

  ‘Arne Boeckermann is our policeman, the only one out here. The island constable, in a manner of speaking.’ Karl Sandvik closed the drawer of the enormous cash register, which jingled quietly. It was an old till, of a kind you seldom saw nowadays, and like everything else in the shop it lent the place an old-fashioned and homely atmosphere. Just like its owners. As if time has stood still here, in a very pleasant way, thought Jasmin.

  ‘You’ve seen him, haven’t you?’ Grit Sandvik leaned forward and her wheelchair squeaked softly.

  ‘Boeckermann?’

  ‘Not him,’ she snorted. ‘The vagrant. Forgive me, but you seem a little . . . hmm, nervous? Is that right?’

  Jasmin closed her eyes for a moment and recalled the previous night – all those shadows and fast-moving clouds in the sky; all that darkness, which seemed so endless, as if it would never lift. But Bonnie’s wet nose had woken her up early in the morning, and after breakfast, Jasmin had fetched a hammer and some boards from the shed. The door had jammed, like the caretaker had told her, but she’d solved the problem with a firm kick. Armed with nails and oak boards, she’d returned to the house and sealed the door leading to the cellar. After that, she’d felt a good deal safer.

  Maybe you’re overdoing things a little here, she’d thought to herself as she hammered the finger-length nails into the wall. No, you’re definitely overdoing it. A man died down there, but that’s all.

  You could leave the door permanently open.

  There’s nothing in the cellar.

  And yet she’d nailed board after board into place until the door couldn’t open an inch.

  ‘How will you get down there now?’ Paul had asked her. She’d let him hammer in the last two nails and he’d managed it very well.

  ‘There’s still the door at the back beside the shed,’ she’d replied. ‘We can always clear the woodpile out of the way if we need to get in. We’ll need the wood anyway – the two stoves use a lot of fuel. But there isn’t actually anything in the cellar that we’ll want.’

  Nothing at all.

  ‘I . . .’ She cleared her throat. ‘I did see somebody. There’s a path behind the house that leads down to the beach, and there was a man standing there last night. He might have been wearing a coat like the one your husband just described. But I’m not sure. Not entirely, anyway.’

  ‘Oh my dear, that isn’t good.’ Grit Sandvik gave her a sympathetic look. ‘Are you quite sure you want to stay out there?’

  Absolutely, she wanted to reply, but then changed her mind. ‘It might have been a bush that looked like a man in the moonlight,’ she answered instead. ‘I can’t be sure.’

  Karl Sandvik tore a sheet of paper from a notepad lying beside the old cash register and wrote down two phone numbers in his large handwriting. ‘You might need this. The top number is Boeckermann’s, and the other one is ours – the one for our house over there. You should call us if you see anybody else.’

  ‘Do you have a gun?’ asked Grit Sandvik in a worried tone.

  ‘My husband has a hunting gun.’ Jasmin looked out at Paul and saw him pressing his nose against the window of the neighbouring shop. ‘It’s still in the house.’

  ‘Do you know how to use it?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘That was always too . . . It was never my thing.’

  ‘And I say it’s never too late to learn something new. If you do call at the lighthouse, ask Berger to show you how it works. In fact, let me write down his number for you too. I’d show you myself, but my back . . .’ Karl Sandvik muttered.

  ‘It’s never too late to learn – unless your name is Karl and you don’t know how to iron your own shirts.’ Grit Sandvik nudged her husband in the ribs. ‘But he’s right. I mean, not that I’m trying to tell you what to do.’

  Jasmin tucked the sheet of paper with the phone numbers into her purse. ‘I won’t forget,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘You’re a doctor, aren’t you?’ Karl Sandvik asked.

  Jasmin furrowed her brow. ‘Surely you can’t tell just by looking at me.’

  ‘No, but Jüting mentioned he’d taken some keys out to a doctor, down by the beach.’

  ‘Village gossip,’ Grit Sandvik interjected. ‘The same old story.’

  Jasmin felt sure Karl was asking for a reason. ‘How long have you been having trouble with your back?’ she asked him, but it was Grit who answered.

  ‘It’s been especially bad over the last few weeks.’ She seemed relieved and at the same time extremely thankful to Jasmin for asking. ‘Sometimes – sometimes it’s even worse than it is today. Like rusty nails being hammered into his back.’

  ‘I can take a look, if you like. It isn’t really my specialism, but—’

&n
bsp; ‘No, there’s no need,’ Karl Sandvik mumbled.

  ‘Come now, I think there is.’ Jasmin saw Grit Sandvik give her a thankful smile and a meaningful nod, though it was so slight that her husband didn’t notice.

  ‘It’s no problem,’ she added. ‘How about tomorrow, what do you say?’

  ‘He says yes,’ Grit answered for her husband. ‘And he’s very grateful.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Karl Sandvik nodded to Jasmin as his wife wheeled herself out from behind the counter and showed her to the door. ‘He’d never admit it,’ she said in an undertone. ‘He’s such a grump and he doesn’t normally listen to anyone. And then all the fuss of travelling to the mainland, just for his back.’

  On her way out, Jasmin noticed a painting in an alcove. It was an atmospheric evening scene depicting the lighthouse, its bright beacon shining far out to sea, and a man standing in front of it looking out over the waves, as if waiting for a ship to return.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘It’s very pretty. I don’t know much about art, but yes, it’s really striking.’

  ‘It’s local, too.’

  ‘That must be the lighthouse, right?’

  Grit Sandvik pointed at the bottom corner of the picture, where there was a signature that Jasmin couldn’t decipher. ‘The artist has been living on the island for many years now. Up on the northernmost tip, by the big cliffs. Gabriela Yrsen.’

  ‘Unusual name.’

  ‘Isn’t it? She’s a real hermit. Yrsen doesn’t spend much time around other people these days. Something happened to her that means she’s not all that pleasant to look at now. She was in a fire, and she’s been living alone out there in the wilds ever since. We’ve hung this painting up here because people occasionally come looking for her, and – well, there’s still a bit of business sense left in our old heads, you know? But after everything that’s happened—’

  ‘Grit?’ her husband called from the back of the shop. ‘Do you have a moment?’

  The woman turned around, her hands gripping the wheels of her chair. ‘I expect he’s forgotten where he put his glasses again, the blind old bear.’

  ‘See you soon,’ said Jasmin. ‘It was really nice chatting with you.’

  Karl Sandvik appeared behind the counter, emerging from the doorway that led to the back of the shop. ‘I have something else for you,’ he announced, and Jasmin stopped. She had the impression Grit Sandvik hadn’t told her everything she’d wanted to as her husband had interrupted her at the wrong moment. We’ve hung it up here, but after everything that’s happened . . . What did that mean? Before Jasmin knew it, a small package had been pressed into her hands.

  ‘Two security cameras. And two motion sensors. A couple of tourists once ordered them for their holiday home and then never collected them, after I spent ages phoning around and trying to get hold of the things. I’m sure you can make more sense of them than we can. Besides, we don’t need them anyway, whereas you, out there on your own . . . Well, here you go.’ Sandvik waddled back into the storeroom as if he didn’t want to hear any objections.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jasmin said to his wife. ‘And please tell him—’

  ‘Ach, forget it. You don’t need to thank us. But Ms Hansen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Please look after yourself and your son.’

  ‘I will.’

  Jasmin loaded her shopping into the boot and went to buy a few crates of bottled water from the nearby supermarket. Just as she was about to put them in the car, a shadow fell over her.

  ‘Hang on, let me help you.’

  Jasmin found herself looking at a blond man with stubble on his cheeks. ‘New here?’ he asked in a deep, husky voice – like a cheese grater dipped in honey, she thought – as he took one of the crates from her.

  ‘Is it so obvious?’ She was starting to get tired of strangers striking up conversations with her every two minutes – and besides, this guy made her nervous. ‘I’m starting to think it’s written on my nose.’

  ‘It’s a pretty nose, though.’ He put the second crate beside the first and gave her his hand. ‘Jan Berger.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s you. The lighthouse keeper.’ She shook his hand. Another one covered in calluses. An island of hard workers, she thought. Nature makes the locals as rough as herself.

  Berger laughed and shook his head. ‘I’m not the lighthouse keeper. I’m basically the local tour guide, and the lighthouse is the main landmark around here.’

  ‘And you’re an expert in firearms, from what I hear.’

  Now it was Berger’s turn to furrow his brow and look confused. You’ve got a real knack for giving a weird turn to every conversation, Jasmin thought, her face flaming with embarrassment. ‘Karl Sandvik mentioned it.’ She pointed her thumb uselessly at the grocery shop.

  ‘Hang on a minute, are you the doctor?’

  Jasmin sighed and brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. ‘Yep, that’s right, and I’m down there all alone with my son.’

  Berger smiled and Jasmin realised he was damn good-looking. The wind tousled his hair and for a moment, she imagined what it might be like to run her fingers through it and . . .

  ‘Don’t listen to the rumours. And above all, don’t worry.’

  ‘Somebody was outside my house last night,’ she replied. ‘Maybe it hasn’t got around the whole village yet, but actually I just want a little peace and quiet.’

  ‘I’ve heard there’s a stranger on the island. A stowaway on the ferry.’ Berger looked north towards the harbour, his hair whipping back and forth in the breeze. ‘Sandvik is right. I am an expert in these things. If you like—’

  ‘Thanks for your help, but I have to go now,’ said Jasmin quickly, starting to feel flustered. She walked round the car, her cheeks bright red, furious with herself, and sat down behind the wheel. Paul gave her a curious, mischievous glance before looking back at his games console, while Bonnie stuck her head out of the window.

  You really botched that up, didn’t you?

  Chapter 6

  A few miles outside Skårsteinen, Jasmin found a pleasant spot by a stream under the shade of some birch trees and stopped for a little picnic with Paul. She laid out the treats she’d bought in the village on her red-and-blue checked blanket.

  ‘Do you like it here?’ she asked him.

  ‘It’s pretty. But I miss Daddy. Why can’t he be here? With us?’

  It was one of those questions Paul asked from time to time that cut straight to her heart. Yeah, why can’t he? Why don’t you just call him and ask him to join us?

  ‘There’s something I need to figure out first,’ she replied. ‘It won’t take long.’

  ‘It’s about the accident,’ said Paul. He’d taken a sheet of paper out of the glove compartment and was busy with his origami again. ‘You don’t need to tell me any fairy tales. I know when you’re doing that, I’m not a baby.’

  Jasmin gave him a long look, gazing at his blond hair. ‘Another few years and he’ll be turning all the girls’ heads at school,’ her grandmother had said.

  That had been five months ago.

  She’d died soon after.

  Jasmin still felt a wave of grief whenever she thought of Ingvild. At least Paul had met her before she passed away.

  ‘Look, Mummy.’ Paul pointed northwards along the white gravel path. Around fifty yards from their picnic spot, it curved around the foot of a finger of rock that reared up from the grass like the needle of an enormous sundial. A woman came into view, walking towards them.

  She doesn’t look like a local. And it’s odd that there are so many people around, considering this island is so remote.

  The woman was wearing a broad-brimmed white hat, a moss-green woollen cardigan and baggy cloth trousers in a dark burgundy-red. A striking outfit, if not downright eccentric. Jasmin squinted her eyes and held her hand up against the low sun, and saw that the walker was carrying an object under her arm. Was it a book? Or something else?

 
The woman drew nearer, and Jasmin could see that her gait was rather cumbersome, as if she had hip trouble or another injury that limited her movement. The book wasn’t really a regular book either, but a kind of notepad.

  Or a sketchbook, Jasmin suddenly realised.

  What was it Grit Sandvik said? Yrsen doesn’t spend much time around other people. Something happened to her that means she’s not all that pleasant to look at now. She was in a fire, and she’s been living alone out there in the wilds ever since.

  By now, the woman was so close that Jasmin could see her face under the brim of her hat. It was her. It had to be.

  Yrsen’s face was covered with burn scars, and although Jasmin could tell she’d undergone several operations, the doctors hadn’t been able to fully repair the damage. Her skin looked slightly waxy, like a mask.

  For a moment, she felt as though she’d seen this woman before, in a place where she’d also seen the sign she was looking for. The upside-down triangle.

  For a fraction of a second, she thought she caught a glimpse of something being carried by the wind – a kind of smoke that curled over the grass like thin fog.

  ‘What’s wrong with her face?’ Paul whispered.

  ‘Shh,’ Jasmin hissed. ‘Be quiet.’

  The woman was now passing where they were sitting, and to Jasmin’s surprise, she stopped. Her voice was quiet, a whisper, as if she didn’t use it very often – or, Jasmin thought, as if she was trying not to give herself away. ‘Beautiful spot, isn’t it?’ The brim of the hat cast a broad shadow across her eyes, but Jasmin could just make out a dark-green gleam. Like light falling through a piece of jade. Notwithstanding her injuries, the stranger looked even more unusual and eccentric from close up.

  ‘It’s a beautiful day,’ Jasmin replied. She kept blinking, as the sun was shining in her eyes.

  ‘Simply magnificent,’ the woman replied. ‘The whole island is.’ She drew nearer once more. ‘My name is Gabriela Yrsen. I haven’t seen you here before,’ she said.

  Jasmin glanced at Paul, who was studying Yrsen with interest. He’d made a small origami figure of a four-pointed star that was lying in front of him on the picnic blanket. ‘Jasmin Hansen. I think we’ve seen your painting. The one on display in the Sandviks’ grocery shop.’