The Near & Far Series

by Serena Clarke

  Things to do…Zoe smothered the thoughts rising in her imagination. You’re here on business, she reminded herself.

  “A snowmobile safari sounds like fun.” She was no skier, but she did have a secret fondness for high-powered vehicles that she never got to indulge, apart from watching replayed episodes of Top Gear. The Underground and London buses were her main form of transport, and neither of those made the grade.

  “It is fun,” Bengt said. “Maybe you’ll join us one day.”

  “Yes, that would be great. Well, only if I have time,” she added, remembering that she was supposed to be here to work. And in her spare time, she had a little Claire-related detective work to do too.

  “Ah, well, tomorrow we can talk more about the work,” Bengt said. “It’s not difficult. For now, let’s relax. You must be tired.”

  She had been, but the coffee had worked its dark magic. She hadn’t expected Sweden to be so…Italian with its coffee. Greta offered her more, but she shook her head.

  “I’d better not, thank you. It’s really good, but I won’t sleep tonight if I have too much.”

  Greta nodded. “We love our coffee.”

  They ate dinner, the conversation flitting from English to Swedish and from topic to topic. When they asked about her work, she gave a loose description of her job in ‘communications’. Then the subject of family came up, and under the gaze of the two little girls, she found herself telling the Nilssons about her own childhood. The edited version, anyway. First world problems, and all that. Yes, it was an amazing experience to travel the world as a child. Yes, her parents were very impressive. No, she hadn’t seen them lately, but they were always very busy, so…

  It was enough.

  After dinner, Lena and Ebba went off to play while the adults sat by the fire and chatted. Soon though, they came back in, looking full of determination. Ebba nudged Lena forward towards Greta, and the little girl bit her lip, then asked something, bobbing hopefully up and down as she spoke.

  Greta replied, then switched to English. “Maybe.” She turned to Zoe. “The girls want us to take them ice-skating on the big lake tomorrow, but I don’t think Malin will agree. They are in love with ice skating, but they usually skate on the rink in the village. Do you skate?”

  “Not really. I mean, I did a few times as a kid. But I spent most of my time sitting on the ice, I think.”

  Bengt laughed. “I think you have sat on our ice enough already.”

  “I think so too.” She grinned ruefully, and listened as Greta translated for the girls. They laughed too, then Lena said something to Greta, who smiled.

  “Lena says she’ll teach you to ice-skate.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Zoe said. “I mean, tack,” she corrected herself, trying out her second Swedish word of the night.

  Lena giggled, probably at the terrible pronunciation, but it was nice to make a connection across the language barrier. She wished she’d had time to learn more before she came. Then little Ebba yawned, and Zoe caught it too—a huge yawn that made her jaw click and her eyes water.

  Maybe that coffee wasn’t as powerful as she’d first thought.

  “You’re tired,” Greta said. “Bengt, we should let Zoe rest. And it’s nearly bed time for you girls.”

  She looked at the little ones, and they must have recognised either the word ‘bed’, or Greta’s meaningful expression, because they turned and scampered out of the room.

  “Of course,” Bengt said, getting to his feet. “Three girls to bed.”

  “They’re so sweet and happy,” Zoe said.

  “They are,” Greta agreed. “We’re old, but we’re not too boring, I hope.”

  Zoe laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  “Come now, Zoe,” Bengt said, with one firm clap that made her jump. “Come and see your Swedish home.”

  There were goodnights all round, then Zoe dug her sturdier boots out of her suitcase and put her coat back on. The offending slippery boots were stuffed into a plastic bag, probably never to see the light of day until she returned to London.

  Bengt took the suitcase, and she followed him out of the house and along a path that ran though the trees. There was no need for a torch—the clouds had cleared enough to let the stars and moon illuminate the landscape, and the glow reflected back off the snow. Tiny lights lined the path as far as the turnoff to the guesthouse, which sat in a large clearing overlooking a frozen pond. Just like so many of the houses she and Jakob had passed on the way here, it was painted red, with white window and door frames. Smoke came from its two chimneys, and warm light spilled from the windows. It looked like a cosy place to be a guest.

  “The cabins are this way,” Bengt said, turning and leading her down a side path, until they came to another clearing. “The lake is about five minutes that way, and Lillavik is around the coast a little way.”

  His voice was hushed in the cold night air, muffled by the snow that sat deep on the ground and softly dressed the branches of every tree. Then he pointed across to a little dwelling on the other side of the clearing. “That’s where Jakob is staying. And this one is yours.”

  She turned to look. It was small but perfectly formed, a miniature version of the main guesthouse, but painted cornflower blue. There was a narrow trellis on each side of the front steps, and she imagined some tangly flowering vine framing the entranceway in spring. Candlesticks sat in the front windows, and on the door was a fat wreath, which she guessed was woven from willow. Bengt opened the door for her, and she touched the wreath as she went in.

  “Greta leaves them there all year,” he said. “At Christmas she adds mistletoe, and in the spring and summer she fills them with flowers and leaves.”

  “How gorgeous.”

  Inside, she took off her boots, hung her outerwear on the hook Bengt pointed out, then looked around. It was small, but it was much more than a cabin—with its comfortable-looking sofas, heavy curtains, perfectly appointed kitchen, and a wood-burner set into a full-sized stone fireplace, it was a cottage in miniature. On the other side of the main room she could see through to a bedroom, and next to that was a small bathroom. Everything was Scandinavian in the way that people aspired to in the UK, but never quite seemed to pull off. Pale wood furnishings were set off with traditional textiles, there were tons of cushions, woven rugs, and candles, and the tall, carved bookshelf in the corner was full of magazines, books, and antique trinkets.

  “This is gorgeous. And it’s so warm.”

  Bengt nodded. “I asked Jakob to light the fire for you before he went to bed.”

  “Thank you. This is so nice, just for volunteers to stay in.” She walked over to the French doors on the other side of the room, and peered out. She could see the light from Jakob’s cabin, but his curtains were drawn. “Is the other one as nice as this?”

  “We think so.” He came over and pulled the curtains across, blocking out her view of the snowy forest, and her mysterious neighbour. “We built them when Oscar was young, for his friends to stay in. He’s in Australia now, so…the volunteers have somewhere nice to stay.” He shrugged.

  “Oscar is your son?”

  “He is.”

  He bent down and opened the wood-burner door, and tossed in a new log. She waited as he shunted the wood around with a poker, but he didn’t say anything more about Oscar.

  “Well, this must have been a wonderful place to grow up.”

  He secured the latch, and turned back to her. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “I really do.”

  He smiled. “There’s food in the kitchen for your breakfast. Sleep well now. God natt.”

  “Thank you. Good night. Um, god natt.”

  She saw him out, and closed the door. Then she opened it just a crack again, to see him stride back down the path and disappear between the trees. She looked across to the other cabin, not much more than a decent stone’s throw away. The lights were still on. She wondered what Jakob was doing in there…and what he thought of her. He�
�d certainly made an impression on her. She just couldn’t decide if it was a good one or not.

  Then she shivered, and went back into the warmth. Bengt had left her suitcase on a rack in the bedroom. The bed looked squishy, and the comforter looked downy, and suddenly she was desperate to be lying down. She got changed into her pyjamas (unsexy but snug flannelette), cleaned her teeth and washed her face in the tiny but cleverly designed bathroom, and slipped into bed. Oh, bliss. Well, apart from the lingering ache in her bottom.

  She closed her eyes. Bengt and Greta were so nice, she felt a twinge of guilt that she wasn’t really here for the reason they thought. But she’d squash her qualms and help in the guesthouse, count golden eagle sightings, catalogue wolf poo or whatever, and be the model conservationist, while doing her undercover duty. Then she’d take what she found back to Vertex, and prove those snobs wrong about her.

  And while she was here, she’d see what she could discover about Claire. Claire, who had made it perfectly plain that she never wanted to see Zoe again. Who had walked away from her home and family without looking back.

  Zoe was the one who found the letter. In it, Claire spelled out exactly why she was leaving, and told them not to look for her. And because she was nineteen, officially an adult, the police had no interest in helping to search for her. Sarah and Paul—who’d become like Zoe’s adoptive parents by then—were so broken by the whole thing that they seemed to simply let their daughter go. They didn’t talk about her, at least not when anyone else was around. Zoe had tried, but they clammed up so completely at the very mention of Claire’s name, it became pointless to keep on. After a while, she wondered whether they even thought about their daughter any more. Sometimes she had to remind herself that she’d had a best friend…a friend who’d become like a sister. And you don’t just let a sister go, no matter what she might have written in the heat of anger. Well, Zoe couldn’t, anyway.

  And that, even more than her job, was why she was here—south of the Arctic, north of nowhere, in the middle of a white landscape and a not-so-white lie.

  Five

  The snowmobile seemed to buck underneath them, and Zoe let go of the hand rails at the side and clutched onto Bengt’s waist, possibly a little too tightly.

  “Just a little bump,” he called, over his shoulder. He sounded apologetic enough, but judging by the way his shoulders were shaking, she was sure he was laughing. That ‘little bump’ felt pretty big to her, and especially to her tender bottom.

  In the warm safety of the barn that morning, the snowmobile had looked like a positively sedate mode of transport—padded seats, a broad, heavy front, and two ski blades sticking out at the front like a couple of mechanical clown feet. She hadn’t expected it to move this fast. But as she started to get used to it, the excitement of the ride over-rode her nerves and the ache of her bruise.

  “I’d love to try driving this myself,” she yelled, over the roar of the engine.

  “You can do it,” he shouted back. “It’s not difficult.”

  After their conversation the night before, Bengt had decided to give her a snowmobile tour of the property and surrounding country before showing her what was involved with the conservation work. To give her her bearings, he’d said, but when they struck out into the forest that surrounded the complex of buildings, she almost instantly lost track of where they were.

  “Our land ends here,” Bengt told her, crossing some line that only he could see. “From here to the lake, and right around to Lillavik, is government land.”

  “Okay,” she called back, but she knew she’d never remember where that supposed boundary was. It was nothing but trees and snow as far as the eye could see, a beautiful trap for the unwary. Right then, she resolved to always take her phone with her when she went out. Assuming you could get any reception in this distant wild.

  They took a sudden turn to the right, and she tightened her grip again as they powered up a slope. At the top, he stopped, letting the engine idle.

  “There you are. The long lake, Långasjön.”

  She tried to pronounce it the way he did. “Long-i-shun? Long-uh-shurn?”

  “Not too bad,” he said. “But the most important thing is to admire it, not pronounce it.”

  She laughed. “I’ll work on it.”

  She looked down at the lake, frozen and sparkling white in the bright morning sun. No wonder Lena and Ebba wanted to skate on it—it was almost hypnotically inviting, even to her, who knew she’d probably come to instant grief if she stepped out there on blades. Out from the shoreline, she could see someone on the ice. It looked like he or she was sitting in the shelter of a little tent.

  “What’s going on there?” she asked, pointing to the tiny figure.

  “That’s Hakon Halvarsson. He fishes on the lake all the time. He’s retired, and he’s not very strong any more. But his wife still makes him leave the house every day, and he can’t think of anything else to do.”

  “Poor Hakon.” She laughed. “Does he ever catch anything in that freezing water?”

  “Oh, yes. There are lots of fish in there.”

  “Frozen fish?”

  “Very strong Swedish fish,” he said with a grin, flexing a bicep. “Sometimes he sells them at the Sunday market in Lillavik.” He gestured towards the other side of the lake.

  “So Lillavik is in that direction?”

  “Yes. At night you can see the lights.”

  She strained her eyes in the direction of the village, the only clue they had to Claire’s whereabouts. It would have seemed an inexplicably random place, except for Defrost Digital, the software and app development company that had started there.

  It made sense that Claire—an avid gamer, self-taught coder, and aspiring app designer—would end up at some super-techy place. Zoe just never imagined that place could be so very, very far from anything resembling Silicon Valley, despite Claire’s prediction of a snowy tech future. But then she prided herself on doing exactly what people didn’t expect of her. It was one of the things Zoe had liked so much about her.

  Down by the lake, another snowmobile emerged from an opening in the forest. It stopped at a tree near the shore, and the driver got off and opened what looked like a box attached to the trunk. She squinted, but at this distance she couldn’t be sure…

  “Is that Jakob?” she asked Bengt.

  He nodded. “He’s checking a camera. Sometimes the cold affects them. The wolves are not usually in this area, but we heard them howling last week, so he put a camera there.”

  She felt that prickle on the back of her neck again. “So they’re close.”

  “There is no danger,” he said, reading her expression. “If we see them near, we’ll tell everyone. But they don’t want to see us, you know.”

  She was half relieved, but half disappointed too. There was something compelling about the idea of them, something elemental, roaming out here in the wild.

  “Now we should go and talk about work,” he said. “But let’s take the long way, and give Jakob time to get back too.” He revved the engine, betraying a little of the boy racer that she guessed he’d been in his youth.

  She nodded and put her arms around his waist again. “Sounds good to me.”

  * * *

  The snowmobile swooped to a stop behind the guesthouse, sending up an arc of snow, and Zoe whooped in exhilaration and delight. The ride back had been the most fun she’d had in ages, and her cheeks were tingling pink from the freezing cold air. At that moment she almost thought she could get used to the chill—on a crisply sunny day like this, you could probably call it invigorating, even. And Bengt really was great company. It made her wish she was here without complications, just for fun. And for conservation, of course.

  “I think you’re a bad influence on me,” he told her, as they got off the snowmobile.

  “Are you sure? I think it’s the other way round,” she laughed, her heart still beating fast.

  He grinned. “My lovely wife would probab
ly agree.”

  There was a line of other snowmobiles parked along the wall, ready for the lodge guests, and she itched to jump on one and have a go herself. But she dragged her gaze away—she was here to work, after all. Tucked against the side of the guesthouse was a tiny annexe, not much bigger than a playhouse and just as charming. Bengt led her up the steps. Under the steeply-roofed porch, a Swedish flag hung on the door, the gold and blue brilliant in the late morning sun.

  “And this is the nervous centre of the operation,” he announced grandly, as he opened the door for her.

  She had to laugh. “Um…do you mean nerve centre, maybe?”

  “Ah, yes, nerve centre,” he agreed good-naturedly, and they went on into the warmth, a cheerfully companionable feeling between them.

  All at once, nervous centre seemed an apt description after all. Inside the little office—which she now realised it was—two MacBooks sat on a long table, under a window that ran the length of one wall. And at one of the computers sat Jakob.

  Her heart instantly returned to the same tumbling, racing pace brought on by the adrenaline-filled snowmobile ride.

  Jakob turned to look at them, and nodded a curt greeting. “Good morning.”

  It would be a stretch in the extreme to say he looked pleased to see them. And yet, her heart continued at its omg gallop.

  Which was annoying, actually. She’d never been keen on the dark-and-angsty type, and Jakob seemed like he could qualify as the poster boy for the breed. Or maybe it was just that famous Swedish reserve everyone in the office had warned her about before she left. She’d thought they were just rubbing it in, enjoying the chance to gloat about all the ways she’d be miserable here. But maybe they were right.

  “Good morning,” she replied, wondering if last night was the first and only smile she’d see from him. This office was going to feel very small if they had to spend much time in it together.