by Karen Swan
Anders shrugged as though he saw the logic in it. ‘How did you meet him?’
‘Luck really, it was just a chance thing. We were in Sumatra and Zac got playing in some volleyball game on the beach; Lenny was on the team and they started chatting afterwards, hit it off, went for a beer . . .’
‘What was he doing in Sumatra?’
‘You mean, apart from bumming around, living on 75p a day?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He was out there looking for some iconic bass guitarist in a band from the Seventies; he’d heard the guy was living out there and Len wanted to do a photo shoot with him. He was convinced Rolling Stone would make it a cover story and give him his big break.’
‘And did it?’
She sighed. ‘Poor Len couldn’t even find this guy; he’d been out there for weeks by the time we met him and he was running out of money, so when Zac mentioned we were looking at getting a photographer, he put his hand up for it.’
‘So he wasn’t a blogger too?’
‘Nope. He’d never heard of us. But Zac realized he was exactly what we needed – someone with no ties, who would travel anywhere and everywhere with us, plus who could keep up with him on the mountain. That’s a pretty big ask.’
‘Does he mind following you both around? What about his own life?’
‘We’re pretty much his family now. Life’s not been particularly easy for him.’
‘Is it easy for anyone?’
‘Well, no, but—’
‘Is it easy for you?’ The question seemed to have an edge to it.
She hesitated. ‘There have been dark moments, of course. But Lenny was badly bullied at school. His father OD’d. He’s had a tough time.’
‘So this is his escape?’ Anders asked.
‘Yes, maybe,’ she agreed.
‘And you?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘Why do you do this?’
‘Do what?’
‘All the non-stop travelling. You are escaping something too?’ It was a typically forthright comment.
It was a moment before she could speak. ‘Actually, I think of it as embracing new adventures. It’s a positive decision, not a negative, and I consider myself very lucky to lead the life I live. I’m basically paid to do what I would otherwise be paying to do.’
He nodded fractionally as though in agreement, as though his previous question hadn’t been combative. ‘Good for you.’
But still she felt pricked by his comments. ‘And besides, friends are the family you choose, right? I love my parents and I speak to them regularly. We FaceTime every week, but I want to lead a different life to theirs. I don’t want to live in the same street, with the same neighbours, doing the same job day-in, day-out. Zac and Lenny understand that, they’re my family now.’
‘But if you and Zac are engaged, doesn’t that make him a raspberry?’
‘You mean a gooseberry,’ Bo corrected, pleased he’d got something wrong with his otherwise faultless English. ‘And how do you know we’re engaged anyway?’
‘He called you his fiancée earlier.’
‘Oh. Yes . . .’ she mumbled. ‘Well, yes, we are although it’s not official yet.’
‘You’re not wearing a ring. Is it a secret?’
‘No,’ she fibbed, not wanting to have to explain to him Zac and Lenny’s double-bluff.
‘Did your fans go mad when they heard?’ he asked and she heard the wry note in his voice.
She bridled. ‘Actually, that’s what I mean by it’s not official yet. It’s not a secret, per se, but we’re keeping it to ourselves for a little while. We’ll go public with it when he’s got me a ring.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Sometime soon I guess.’
‘Out here?’
‘Maybe.’ She shrugged.
‘Don’t you want to tell people about it? In my experience, women always want to talk about their engagements and weddings.’
‘Well, we’re happy keeping it private. I don’t want nine million people congratulating me just yet.’
‘Why not? That would be a nice thing, surely?’
She gave a snort. ‘Trust me, not everyone out there is nice.’
Anders took another sip of his beer, watching her. ‘No?’
‘Of course not.’ And when he kept staring at her, she added, ‘You’ve heard of trolls, I take it?’
‘There are plenty of trolls in Norway,’ he smiled, his eyes softening.
His joke diffused her indignation too. ‘I don’t mean in folk tales,’ she grinned, before sighing heavily as she remembered what she did mean. ‘No, I mean the sad bastards who hide behind a screen and can’t feel complete in themselves without tearing me down in some way.’
Anders’ eyes narrowed slightly. ‘And you have many of those?’
‘The law of averages means I must have several hundred, if not thousands, lurking in a crowd of nine million.’
‘What kind of things do they say?’
‘Oh . . .’ she sighed. ‘It’s usually just bitchy comments like they hate my top or my hair or my bum looks fat, or I’ve got an annoying voice, or Zac’s too good for me.’ She shrugged. ‘Nothing serious. Just stuff that . . . brings you down a bit really. Mostly it doesn’t bother me.’
‘Mostly?’
‘Well, of course, some of them are worse than that.’
‘How?’
She stared down at the half-empty soup bowl. ‘I’ve had a few death threats . . . Dick pics. They’re pretty bad.’
He frowned. ‘What does Zac say about it?’
She inhaled sharply. ‘Oh . . . well, I don’t . . . I don’t really tell him about them. I just delete them immediately.’ She gave a shudder. ‘There’s no point.’
‘But why not?’ Anders looked stern now.
‘Because it’s just . . . par for the course really. We all know a certain amount of abuse is unavoidable.’
He looked incredulous. The colour had flared on his cheeks. ‘You accept harassment as a norm for your job?’
She swallowed. When he put it like that . . . ‘But it’s remote. Faceless. The threat is . . . theoretical. I don’t know these people. I’ll never meet them.’
‘So they have never tried to make actual contact with you?’
‘No – well, I mean, one did. Once. But it was a while ago now. I can handle it. I won’t let him frighten me.’
‘Him? So then you’re being harassed by a man?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you haven’t told Zac about him?’
‘No.’
‘You must,’ he insisted.
‘No.’ Her voice was firm now.
‘Why not?’
She stared down at her plate. ‘Just because.’
But Anders dipped his head lower, tangling her gaze insistently with his. ‘Because?’
Bo looked at him. ‘Because nothing can be done. I tried once before. I went to the police but they can’t get his details from Instagram without a warrant and for that there needs to be an actual crime committed.’
‘But if you told Zac, he could scare him off.’
‘How? By thumping his chest?’
Anders looked away, frustrated. They both knew she had a point. ‘This guy who tried to make contact with you. What did he do?’
She bit her lip, resenting the cold sweat even just the memories brought out in her. ‘. . . He broke into my hotel room when I was taking a bath. He took some of my stuff and left a photo – a Polaroid – on my bed for me to find.’
‘Of himself? You’ve seen him?’
‘No. It was a pomegranate cut in half, with all the seeds coming out. He took it from the fruit bowl.’
Anders frowned. ‘Why?’
‘I’ve no idea what it’s supposed to mean, but it’s the image in his avatar,’ she shrugged. ‘It was his way of showing me it was him.’
He stared at her for a long moment. ‘That is intimidation.’
‘Not technically a crime, t
hough.’
‘Breaking and entering then?’
‘There were no signs of forced entry and I couldn’t prove what had gone missing.’
‘And what did go?’
‘A piece of jewellery. Some . . . underwear.’
Anders sat back in his chair, watching her, and she looked away again. ‘Did he do anything after that?’
‘Nothing so . . . direct. There were a few comments of course – did I like the gift? Was it lavender bath lotion I’d used? When was I going to wear the new dress I’d left out on the bed?’ She bit her lip. ‘Anyway, I met Zac pretty soon afterwards and that seemed to scare him off.’
‘So then he was intimidated.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is he dropped out of my life again – no more comments, no more gifts. I even thought he was dead for a while. Until he made contact again a few days ago.’
Anders frowned. ‘When?’
‘Just after we got here.’
‘But when exactly?’
Why did it matter? ‘Uh . . . it was the night before we went to the waterfall.’
Anders stared at her. ‘And that was why you were so quiet that morning?’
She nodded, amazed he’d noticed.
‘But you still haven’t told Zac?’
‘I told you, there’s no point. It would only frustrate him. And besides, there’s no need. I take precautions now – I make sure that every post we upload doesn’t reveal our location. I won’t let him find me again.’
‘And Zac and Lenny know to do that too?’
‘Of course. It was Lenny’s idea. He said it’s a good safety measure anyway. We’d be mobbed if our followers knew where we were. We once did a store opening in Kyoto for a Japanese brand we’d endorsed and the authorities had to shut the street. We couldn’t even get a coffee. It was terrifying.’
‘But this . . . this guy . . . he must know you’re in Norway right now.’
‘Sure, but Norway is a big place, right? He could follow me here and spend ten years looking and never find me.’
Anders inhaled deeply, sitting back in his chair and looking back at her with an expression not so much of sympathy, as pity. ‘This is fucked-up.’
‘I know.’
‘There are maniacs everywhere. Much less, ones that have fixated upon you.’
She pressed her lips together. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you? It seems to me you were wrong about what you said to me at the waterfall.’
She frowned. ‘What did I say?’
‘That you needed a guide, not a bodyguard. If you ask me, a bodyguard is exactly what you need.’
It was a moment before she realized the scream was her own. That it had come from her. That her body was still trembling from the terror.
The door burst open, bright light from the landing falling in gracelessly as Anders’ wild silhouette filled the door frame.
‘What is it?’ he asked, dashing in, looking around the room as though he expected to find an intruder in there. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I . . . I . . .’ she panted, looking at him vacantly. Was she okay? Why was she crying?
‘You were screaming.’
She stared at him, open-mouthed. She didn’t know what had happened, only that her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might leap from her chest. She closed her eyes, trying to remember; and she felt it again: the trace of the nightmare, the old one she thought had gone – the sensation of rolling, landing upside down, the growing darkness, his fixed, unseeing eyes . . .
‘Here, drink this.’ He was holding out the glass of water.
She sipped it, realizing how dry her throat felt.
‘Better?’
She nodded.
‘Do you know what happened?’
She kept her eyes on the duvet, feeling ashamed that she had woken him, that she had let her carefully lidded fear escape. ‘A bad dream, that’s all.’
He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. ‘You’re burning up.’ He walked into the bathroom and she heard the sound of a cabinet being opened, the rustle of tin foil. ‘Here, take this, it’ll reduce the fever.’
She swallowed it down with water and he took the glass, setting it back on the bedside table.
‘Try to get back to sleep.’
She nodded, her hair rustling against the pillow. But as he went to shut the door again, pushing back the light, she felt the terror surge again like a wave, the darkness trapping her. The dream was still waiting for her, the menace a shadow that lived behind her eyelids. ‘No!’
The door flew wide open. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Not . . . not the dark,’ she mumbled but her heart was pounding again. ‘Leave the light on. Please.’
He stared at her for a moment, his shoulders dropping an inch.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, feeling the tears come, the panic too big to push back tonight.
‘It’s fine,’ he said after a moment. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said again, feeling humiliated. Pathetic.
He came and sat on the end of the bed. ‘Don’t be. Just lie down. I’ll stay here until you go back to sleep.’
She stared at him, gratitude suffusing her. ‘You will?’
He nodded. ‘It’s fine, you’re safe now. Go back to sleep.’
Safe now.
She slid down the pillow, its cool crispness soothing against her hot skin. She closed her eyes again, the light from the hall spilling over her like sunlight and Anders sitting beside her in silence, keeping watch.
Chapter Thirteen
Morning oozed like a cracked egg, the weak light spreading and touching every corner of the room. Bo stirred, her eyes moving rapidly behind closed lids before she sensed the difference somehow – this was not her bed, not her room, not her boyfr—
Her eyes flew open. Anders was asleep on the bed, lying on his stomach, his head turned towards her. He was more off the bed than on it, his long legs dangling over the ends as he occupied the bottom third of the mattress, as though trying to keep his distance. He was lying on top of the duvet, wearing just a pair of blue checked flannel pyjama bottoms. How had he slept through the cold? And why was he sleeping here?
More to the point – she looked around, suddenly realizing they were in his room again – why was she sleeping here? She tried thinking back but last night felt foggy, indecipherable. She remembered . . . she remembered the bad dream. He had been helping her. Promised to wait till she fell asleep . . .
She looked at him as he slept now; it was the first time she had studied him properly and it was like seeing him for the first time. All her impressions of him till now had just been composites of scruffy, wind-tangled blonde hair and orange rubber hoods, angry eyes and hostile reserve. But in sleep, there was a softness to him that he cast off in the day; she saw his lashes were black and thick, with a pronounced curve; that his brows were perfectly straight, his lips a full brownish pink. In fact, get past the thick stubble and the wild hair, he was almost beautiful. Animalistic.
His eyes opened – as though sensing her scrutiny – and for a moment, it was like looking into the stare of an eagle: a superior, unknowable creature, wild and free. He blinked into full alertness and pushed himself up. ‘Did you sleep?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, thank you.’
He dropped his head again and sighed, a bone-aching weariness in the sound. ‘Good.’ He rolled his shoulders back, pressed his ear to the shoulder and repeated it on the other side. He looked back at her. ‘How are you feeling now?’
‘Actually . . . better.’ She felt amazed by the realization.
‘Yeah?’ He reached up and pressed a hand to her forehead again. ‘Your fever’s broken at least.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, I feel better.’
‘Annika said the antibiotics would start to kick in today. Although you are not out of the woods yet.’
‘No.’
‘It is important you continue to rest.’
She looked around the room. ‘Why am I in here again? Didn’t you say this was your room?’
‘I figured seeing as you had slept in the sheets already, you were better to stay in here. I didn’t want your germs.’
Bo couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t the most chivalrous reason she’d ever heard. ‘Well, no.’ She gave an apologetic wince. ‘Sorry you ended up sleeping in here anyway.’
‘. . . It’s fine.’ He stared at her for a moment and she felt that odd sensation that always came when their eyes met – as though the mountains were pushing back, tectonic plates suddenly shifting. She couldn’t shake the feeling that, although near-strangers, they somehow understood each other, like old souls that had met before in another life. ‘. . . Well, I’ll go and get your medicine. You are due another tablet.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
‘Can you manage a coffee?’
She smiled. ‘A coffee would be amazing.’
She watched him get up, his bare back lean and surprisingly tanned for a man who didn’t take holidays. He shrugged on a sweatshirt from the chest of drawers and walked out of the room, his footsteps heavy on the stairs as he went down.
Bo looked around the room again, finally taking in all the little details she had been too delirious to notice yesterday – the pile of dirty clothes spilling out of the laundry basket, the vintage Bullitt poster on the wall, the push-up bars on the floor. And on the bedside table, a small square of dust where the photo had been of him and the beautiful smiling brunette. She wanted to slide open the drawer and look at it again, but she knew it would be a violation of trust, and after everything he had done for her last night . . .
She heard him come back upstairs after a few minutes, carrying a tray of his freshly ground, freshly roasted coffee, honey toast, fresh water and her pills. ‘Eat,’ he said, setting it carefully on her lap. ‘I’m going to shower.’
He disappeared into the bathroom next door and she heard the water come on, the low hum of him singing quietly – singing! – reverberating through the walls. She smiled to herself as she ate her toast and she was still smiling several minutes later when he wandered through, wrapped in a navy bathrobe and towelling dry his hair. ‘What?’ he demanded, casting a quizzical look her way as he walked over to the chest of drawers again.
