The Red Mitten

by Stuart Montgomery

  “Okay, let’s pretend you’re right. But so what?”

  “So, in this morning’s presentation we learned that Hawkeye was also involved with Norexploration in the past. I think we can assume he was in a privileged position at that time, too. So what’s the chance that he was also selling information back then – information about the mineral wealth on the shore of Olstappen, for instance?”

  “Morten, if that was the case, then you would have known about it at the time. Hawkeye would have tried to sell the information to you. Because as the owner of Vesterheim, you would have stood to gain from it.”

  “Yes, I would have stood to gain. But Hawkeye would never have approached me. He and I have been enemies for years – and it goes back long before he started poaching my reindeer. We were good friends at school. But then I worked overseas for a couple of years, and when I came back to the valley, he hated me, for no obvious reason. And he has hated me ever since.”

  “Morten, where are you going with this?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about the history of Vesterheim. You and Elin bought it in the autumn of 2012, if I’m correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the investment company that sold it to you had bought it from me in the autumn of 2010.”

  “I know that.”

  “But what you might not know is that, before the investment company came along, I had been trying to sell Vesterheim for ten years.”

  Gunnar tried to hide his surprise. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, it’s true. A long time ago I came to the conclusion that mountain hotels had no future. North Sea oil was killing them. So I put Vesterheim on the market. And in ten years I didn’t get one serious enquiry. Not one. Everybody seemed to agree with my own view that the place was now too big to be viable – too expensive to run. But then, out of the blue, there came an approach from a development company, a company that had only just been set up, and whose directors had no experience of running hotels. Even at the time I wondered what was motivating them. And now, this morning, I discover that the development company had sprung into life - as if by coincidence - at exactly the same time as Norexploration was finding minerals under my land. And by further coincidence, I learned this morning - from the CEO’s graph - that all this was happening at a time when the price of nickel had tripled in the space of a couple of years and the price of cobalt had almost doubled.”

  “So you wouldn’t have sold Vesterheim if you’d known it was sitting on mineral deposits?”

  “Of course I would have sold it. But I would have asked a higher price.”

  Gunnar had never realised that Morten was such a cold-blooded businessman. However he wasn’t entirely prepared to accept the old man’s story. “If you were so keen to get out of the hotel trade,” he asked, “why did you then invest in the new company?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “My sources tell me you did.”

  “Gunnar, your sources tell you whatever they think you want to hear,” Morten said. “The truth is that it was me who started the rumour that I had invested in the new company, and that I had lost a lot of money as a result.”

  “You started the rumour?”

  “Yes, I did. I wanted to buy some land for the reindeer, and I knew I would get it cheaper if everyone thought I was poor. I absolutely did not invest in the development company - though I was approached.”

  “Approached by whom?” Gunnar asked, now genuinely intrigued.

  “By someone who was involved in it. Someone I’d once been close to.”

  “But you refused?”

  “That’s right. Quite apart from anything else, I was concerned that the directors were putting up hardly any money of their own. Everything was to be funded through shareholder subscriptions, which meant that the directors were taking none of the risk. And now, after listening to this morning’s presentation, I think I know why.”

  “Go on.”

  “I think they wanted it to fail.”

  “Why on earth - ”

  “ - Because if it failed, Vesterheim’s land would be re-designated as forestry and then the minerals could be exploited.”

  “But if it failed, the development company would go bankrupt - and would lose the title to the land.”

  “So the land would come on to the market. And nobody would want it, because it is steep and the soil is poor. So the people behind the development company would be able to buy it back, and would pay peanuts for it.”

  Gunnar felt as if he was in a chess match against a much better player. But he persevered. “You are forgetting that Norexploration knew about the minerals. So they would have stepped in and bought the land.”

  “No they wouldn’t - because by then they had been acquired by Lamechson. Lamechson would have been keen to show their shareholders that they had made a good acquisition. But by the time the development company went bankrupt – as the CEO’s graph also showed – the commodity prices were falling again. So the Espedalen minerals were only a good investment for someone who was prepared to wait for the prices to recover.”

  Gunnar had just one more move to try, and although he was reluctant to try it - for he knew what the counter-move might be - he went ahead. “But there was always the possibility that someone might come along and buy Vesterheim with the intention of running it as a hotel – not as a piece of real estate.”

  Morten looked as if he was trying to make his expression seem like a kindly one. “As I said, Vesterheim had been on the market for ten years before the development company bought it. And I expect they were gambling on the very strong possibility that, once they had ruined its reputation, no one would be silly enough to want to run it as a hotel again.”

  “Until Elin and I came along, you mean?” Gunnar asked, not really expecting an answer.

  But even if Morten had given an answer, Gunnar would not have heard it. For at that moment there was a very loud bang. Instinctively the two men crouched down. Then everything fell silent and they slowly stood up and looked at a pall of black smoke that was rising up above the trees. It was coming from just a little way down the valley, from the area of Helvete canyon.

  * * *

  In Lillehammer hospital, Neep was trying hard to get out of the main ward and go back to his side-room. He had quickly eaten some cereal and toast, and had accepted a mug of tea. But then, when the nurse came to offer him some more food, he said, “No, thank you. I’d like to try and sleep again.” He yawned and stretched in an exaggerated manner and then yawned and stretched again.

  The nurse got the message but had to attend to another patient first. After a few minutes she returned and said, “Come on then. Let’s get you back into bed.”

  She walked Neep back to the side-room, making sure he took it nice and slowly. When he was in bed she checked his drip bag then made some notes on his chart. Then, finally, she left.

  As soon as the door closed, Neep checked his phone for missed calls. There were two, both from the same number. He was just about to call it when the phone started to buzz.

  “Matt. I’m sorry,” he said. ”But I couldn’t take your calls. What have you found?”

  “It looks like you’re right about short-sellers manipulating Lamechson’s share price. There has just been an incident in Norway, an explosion at a canyon called Hell that was due to be visited by analysts attending a teach-in given by Lamechson. The analysts immediately tweeted lots of pictures of smoke rising from the canyon. It seems that no-one was hurt. But in their news feeds, Reuters are giving it top spot and are headlining it Analysts almost blown to Hell. An extreme right-wing group has already issued a webcast claiming responsibility and saying it wants to punish Lamechson for its involvement in Muslim areas in Africa.”

  “And - let me guess - Lamechson’s share price has fallen?”

  “Tanked. I’m watching it now. Down almost fifty percent and still dropping.”

  “Matt, look out for some hefty purchases when the pri
ce hits its floor. The shorters will need to buy a lot of cheap shares to cover their positions. They have probably set up automatic orders, and they’ll want to get in early in case trading in the shares is suspended. Do what you can to record and trace those purchases. And try to record the webcast. Is it still online?”

  “No. The authorities took it down right away. But I guess it’ll appear again soon on a different website.”

  “Any news about the identity of the shorters?”

  “My contact in the City is working on it. But the shorters seem to have set up a real onion-ring, with layers of nominees and off-shore companies. They’ve tried very hard to stay hidden. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “How about the development company that used to own the hotel? Any sign that my Mr Kumar was involved?”

  “No. But listen to this. The website of the Norwegian equivalent of Companies House shows that the development company was run by directors who had previously owned another company. A Mrs Agnes Kumar was listed as a non-executive director of that other company.”

  “Good man. Keep on it, Matt. You might get a Press Award out of this.”

  “I’ll settle for a bottle of Glenmorangie.”

  Neep ended the call and looked up at the clock. Cally had been gone for a very long time. He hoped she was alright.

  * * *

  In the middle distance, and slightly off to one side, Cally could see an isolated ski resort, with a piste coming down the single smooth flank of a craggy-sided mountain. Elin changed direction and took the helicopter over the mountain. She reduced speed, checked the compass mounted on the windscreen in front of her and then accelerated over another long expanse of hills.

  “That mountain was my navigational aid,” Elin said. "I was looking out for it.”

  “How long before we get to Vesterheim?” Cally asked.

  “Ten minutes. Maybe more. It depends on the wind.”

  Soon Cally could make out a line of power cables in the distance. Probably the ones that went past Vesterheim, she thought. She expected that Elin would turn and follow them to the hotel.

  She considered asking Elin what her plan would then be, when they reached the hotel, but she stopped herself.

  How could there possibly be a plan?

  Suddenly Elin said. “Look!” She pointed to a column of dark smoke. It was straight in front of them but beyond the cables. She kept on course toward it, going over a narrow ridge of hills after which the ground beneath them fell away abruptly.

  They had reached the Espedalen valley. Cally recognised the lake and the main road running alongside it.

  Elin slowed to take a closer look at the smoke. It was rising from a narrow gorge that lay beneath them, a twisted gash in the snow.

  “Maybe we were wrong, and this was the target, not your hotel,” Cally said hopefully.

  The aircraft was now pitching around and Elin was struggling to hold it in a hover. She persisted a little longer but then gave up, and instead she made a slow circuit of the canyon. Cally could see two police cars near the entrance. Further along the road there was a hotel with a group of people standing outside, looking up at the helicopter.

  Elin said, “I can’t understand why anyone would bomb the canyon. There is nothing of any value in it - and nothing that would produce such a large amount of smoke. It is just an icy canyon.” She made another circuit, and as they came round she pointed to another police car, driving at speed along the road, its blue light flashing.

  “I think this has been staged,” Elin said. “Someone has exploded an oil drum - or something like that - just to produce a lot of smoke. It’s a diversion, to bring the police away from Vesterheim.”

  Without waiting for a response, Elin swung the machine round hard, taking it close to the hotel where the people pointed cameras and waved. Cally saw one person, a man wearing a red jacket, walk quickly away from the group and go toward the hotel car park.

  Then they were flying level once more and Elin was steering the aircraft along the valley, above the lake. Toward Vesterheim.

  Cally looked for the cabin that she had destroyed yesterday. It couldn’t be far away. At the edge of an expanse of trees she thought she could see its charred remains. On the hills above it she could certainly see the notch in the ridge where she had stood and watched Neep. And where she had heard a helicopter.

  A thought struck her, something she should have considered before. Something that didn’t fit.

  She said, “Neep and I were in a fight in a cabin over there. I think Ash was involved in it. Is there a place big enough, in the trees, where he could have parked the helicopter?”

  Elin glanced back and said, “No, not by the look of it. The forest is too dense.”

  “So where else would he have left it, while he was in the cabin?”

  “On the lake, I guess.”

  Elin was clearly trying to concentrate, but Cally persisted. “No, it wasn’t there. I would have seen it.”

  “Well, then maybe up on the track above Vesterheim.”

  “But then you would have seen it. And surely he wouldn’t have left it there, unguarded, if there had been three bodies in it?”

  Elin had stopped listening. She had reduced altitude and was flying very close to the surface of the lake. All her focus was on controlling the helicopter.

  Cally saw a church, a dark triangular building half-hidden in trees, and thought of Richard. She held out her hand and looked at his thermometer.

  Elin turned her head quickly and said, “I can land on the lake, before we get to the hotel, and let you out, if you want.”

  “No,” Cally said. She put the thermometer in her pocket.

  Elin nodded, then took the aircraft up in a steep banking climb, first above a thick band of trees and then over Vesterheim’s ski piste, the piste that Cally and the men had skied happily down on the first day of their tour, when Cally had felt a huge sense of satisfaction just for sliding down a hill faster than her companions.

  At the top of the piste there was the familiar big building. Its car park was empty.

  No, it was almost empty. There was one vehicle parked close to the hotel, near the side door. It was the big red car that had taken Neep down to the lakeside cabin and had then been in its garage. Otherwise the whole area was deserted except for one other car, parked up on the road, maybe a hundred metres from the hotel, where the cross-country ski track started up to the eastern hills. It must belong to a skier, Cally thought.

  The red car’s tail-gate was raised and a man was carrying a box toward the hotel’s side door. It was a big man, dressed in green. Cally knew him well. Even at a distance his face showed signs of injury. She had been hoping that the hammering she had given him had killed him. Maybe it would at least slow him down.

  He looked up at them in surprise, then put down the box and started to run toward the archway that linked the main building to the ski stall. Under it, near the door to reception, Cally could see that a rifle was propped against the wall - and could see that the man would get to it long before they reached him.

  Elin cut her speed then swung the helicopter sharply around, so that they were flying in front of the hotel and it was shielding them from the gunman.

  Cally expected her to retreat, to climb to safety, to see sense. Not to turn the aircraft abruptly round the other end of the building, then drop into a steep and reckless dive and accelerate toward the narrow archway.

  “Cover your face!” Elin shouted, as the skids bounced on the hard-packed snow. Then the machine surged forward, its rotor tilted down, the noise from its engine screaming back at them off the walls.

  The big man seemed to react in slow motion. He could obviously hear the helicopter, but by the time he realised it was coming from the wrong direction it was too late.

  He dropped the gun just as the rotor hit him. Cally recoiled as she saw his body disintegrate and a red spray spatter over the snow and across the wall of the hotel. There was a violent judder and a loud m
echanical protest from the top of the machine.

  They skidded to a halt and Elin cut the motor. Cally jumped out on the snow, keeping her head down, and ran to pick up the gun, averting her eyes from the scattered lumps of flesh.

  She gave the gun to Elin. “Take it. I don’t know how to use it. Quickly! Your boyfriend will be out any second.”

  Elin pulled Cally behind the corner of the ski stall. She checked the rifle then aimed it at the hotel entrance. “They say you never forget how to shoot,” she said quietly, as if to herself. “But it’s been a long time.”

  They waited. Cally was shaking with fright but Elin seemed composed, determined.

  Now that the helicopter’s engine had stopped, everything seemed very quiet, the only sound coming from the car that was parked up by the road. Its motor was running. The skiers must have come back. Cally hoped, for their own safety, that they hadn’t heard all the noise, and that they would not come down to investigate.

  The two women watched the hotel doors - the main entrance opposite them and the side entrance where the red car was parked. But no-one appeared. No shots rang out.

  “Maybe this man was on his own,” Cally said.

  “Maybe. But Ash could still be in the building. If he is, he must be in the bar. It’s the only place where he wouldn’t have heard us – it’s soundproofed because of the music system.”

  Elin moved away from the ski stall, her gun raised. Cally followed close behind, feeling vulnerable away from the shelter of the wall. Her hands were damp with sweat, and she felt a familiar unwelcome acidity in her blood. She hoped the new pills would soon start to take effect.

  Elin stopped at the red car and looked in the back where there were several boxes containing plastic bags sealed with gaffer tape. She said, “I saw a box like that in Ash’s car earlier this morning.”

  “Explosives?” Cally asked.

  “I expect so.” Elin gave a bitter laugh. “It’s what we’ve come to expect of these people. They seem to be determined to blow up our entire valley. And this time it looks like there is enough explosive to do some real damage.” She reached in through the driver’s window and took the key from the ignition.