The Ice House

by John Connor

  Right now she was sitting on a chair about two metres behind him, watching him watch the street. Earlier she had talked a lot, but now it was more of a shocked silence. She had cried too, though less than he would have expected. He had tried to ask her questions about herself, her family, her mother, their past, trying to tease away at any information that might help solve the big question – why someone wanted her dead – but also to keep her mind from fretting about things, to stop her asking questions about the dead people.

  She had told him the policeman at the house was the first dead person she had ever seen. She had those images in her head now: bullets striking bodies, dead people, head wounds. Whilst she was in danger the images weren’t important – he knew exactly how it worked – but now the adrenalin was wearing off, the images would get a life of their own, along with the thoughts surrounding them. They would grow quickly into little mental malignancies if she didn’t keep her mind off it until everything was more secure. He had no idea when that was going to be.

  There was a TV in the room but she hadn’t wanted to watch it – too nervous, she said. He had wanted to scan the news channels to see if there was any kind of big search for her going on, complete with photos, but he didn’t want to do that with her in the room. And there was no way he could let her out alone, though at one point she had asked if she could go out and buy a Coca-Cola.

  ‘Did you always do this?’ she asked him now. ‘Protect ­people?’

  He felt the hairs on his neck prickle. There was a hint of sarcasm in her question, he suspected, because she had already made a remark about him being so good at ‘this’, meaning shooting people. To which he had curtly pointed out that there hadn’t been much choice – he had killed to protect her.

  He picked up the spotting scope and braced it against the door frame, used the integral low magnification finderscope to find the car and then scanned very slowly along the cars parked facing it on the same street, checking through the windscreens to see if there were people watching it.

  She had asked almost as many questions about him as he had about her. He didn’t mind answering, for the same reason – it kept her thoughts occupied. He lied where necessary, but that wasn’t easy. He didn’t like lying. ‘I used to be in the army,’ he said.

  ‘Is that what you always wanted to do,’ she asked, ‘go in the army?’

  ‘No.’ He started on the square below them, checking each car in turn. ‘My father was in the army. He was an army nurse. So I wanted to be a doctor when I was your age.’

  ‘Because your dad was a doctor?’

  ‘Because he was a nurse.’

  ‘I thought only women were nurses.’

  He could see nothing on the square. He switched to the border area, again just using the finderscope, to see if there was any increased activity. ‘It used to be like that,’ he said. ‘But not any more.’

  ‘So why aren’t you a doctor?’

  ‘Because I’m stupid.’ He took the scope off his eye and winked at her. ‘Too stupid for that, anyway. I didn’t study hard enough. Take note.’

  ‘My mum is always telling me to study more.’

  ‘She’s right. What about your dad? What does he say?’ He’d noted that all her contact worries so far had been centred on her mother.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘He says the same.’ It sounded like she didn’t want to talk about him.

  There was a steady queue of cars on both sides of the border post, plus a line of pedestrians nearer the buildings where they were doing passport checks. That was an option too – to simply walk over. ‘And what will you do – when you’re older?’ he asked. He was running out of harmless things to ask her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Too soon to choose. You’re right.’

  ‘I wanted to be a vet for a long time. Nearly all my life, in fact.’ She said it like she was three times her age. ‘We had a few ponies and I used to look after them. But they all died. Then I wanted to be an artist.’

  ‘You good at drawing?’

  She didn’t answer, so he had to look back at her, check she was OK. She was frowning hard. ‘My dad isn’t really my dad,’ she said, out of the blue.

  He raised an eyebrow, considered why she might say that, now, to him. Nothing sprang to mind. But it might be important information. ‘You just find that out?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I’ve always known. My mum married him after I was born. He’s always been my dad. But not my real dad.’

  Well, he’s dead now, he thought, with that heavy feeling in his gut again. ‘You like him?’ he asked. He wanted to ask who her real dad was – that too might be important information – but maybe that would upset her too much.

  She shrugged. ‘Not much. Not at the moment.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘I told you already. He helps my mum.’

  ‘Did he always do that?’

  She sat in silence, her lip stuck out a bit, her legs folded under her on the chair. He asked her again: ‘Did your dad always do that – help your mum?’

  ‘He plays guitar as well. He was in a band. But he’s not my dad. I told you that. I don’t know who my real dad is.’

  That was that, then. He went back to the scope, counted the police up near the crossing. There seemed to be uniformed police in the post itself – a building with a flat concrete awning spanning the roads, with booths for cars to pull up to and hand their passports through the usual windows. That was on the Spanish side. There were similar structures a little further on, on the British side. Then a short stretch of road before the airport runway cut across, with barriers and lights for when they needed to close it. That had happened once in the last two hours.

  He looked back at her and saw she was beginning to brood again. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You’re going to be OK.’ He wished it were true. But sooner or later the truth about today was going to sink her. She shrugged her shoulders, didn’t look at him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if he isn’t your real dad,’ he tried. ‘My dad died when I was your age. I hardly remember him. You’re tougher than you think. You can do without parents.’ Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ she said. ‘I want to see my mum.’

  ‘I know. But life throws all sorts at you, and you can live through it all. Whatever happens you always get a choice. You can choose.’

  ‘Choose what?’ She didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t really know what to say to you. I’m not used to talking to ten-year-olds. I told you that. I mean you can choose between right or wrong. That’s all that counts. The rest – whether you’re happy or sad, a vet or an artist or a doctor, with no dad, a fake dad, a dad and mum, whatever – none of that matters.’ It sounded too harsh, he thought. Where had the speech come from? From his mother, he assumed – straight out of her mouth into his. So much for free choice. Did he even believe those things? He hadn’t followed his own advice, that was for sure. Except for today, perhaps.

  ‘If I ever see my mum again,’ she said, ‘I’m going to try harder to do what she says.’

  He put the scope down on the empty chair next to him. He was about to say ‘You will see her again, you have my word’, but then couldn’t tell that lie. He felt his insides twisting with the responsibility.

  15

  The guardia civil were now involved, and the older man who had jabbed his finger at Molina, a colonel called Arroyo, insisted on questioning her personally. Or so Molina told her. He seemed unhappy about it. Molina was with the national police, the guardia civil were a quasi-military organisation. She had heard bad things about them, but she’d heard bad things about the national police too.

  The female officer had driven her down the valley to Marbella, to the police station there. She was still there now, two hours later. She was in what
they called an interview room, a three-metre-square, airless space, without windows, cork tiles on the walls, scribbled with lewd graffiti, two microphones hanging from the ceiling above the single table they had fitted in there. One table, four chairs, all fixed to the floor, but only two of them occupied. She was at one side – the side furthest from the door – Arroyo was at the other. He was ‘interviewing’ her, recording everything through the microphones.

  They had been at it for over an hour – endless questions about her personal life. All the people she knew, all the details about the shop, her daily schedule, the school Rebecca went to, her routine, her likes and dislikes. Most of it seemed like background probing to her, but some questions came out of the blue. Did Rebecca have a boyfriend, did she use drugs? Did Juan go to any political meetings? She answered in a kind of daze, automatically, wary only that he would start on her past – the real past, ten years before. But that hadn’t happened so far. He would get there, she supposed, then she would have to lie.

  So far, there had been no attempt at anything but a kind of formal sympathy. She had lost her husband, her daughter was kidnapped, yet it felt like she was being forced to be here, forced to talk to them, though she was repeatedly told that wasn’t the case, that her status was of someone assisting them, not a suspect.

  As Arroyo spoke to her he sat with his elbows on the table, one hand continually straying up to the side of his face to finger a nasty burn scar. When he took his military cap off and placed it on the table she saw that some hair had been scorched away too. Whatever had caused it had just missed his eye. The skin at the right temple looked glossy, plastic. It was impossible not to focus on it, despite her best efforts. His touching it didn’t help. She kept thinking of Juan, poor Juan, who had been killed by a bomb blast. Had he been burned too? She hadn’t looked at his body long enough to know. Where was he now? Where had they taken him? She got that thought mixed up with Rebecca and sat there quietly crying, completely powerless. But Arroyo didn’t seem to notice the tears. Molina had been warm, by comparison.

  ‘Terrorists,’ he said to her now. His voice had a kind of rasp, like he had laryngitis. ‘You understand me? Terrorists.’

  She shook her head, not sure what to say. In the beginning she had tried to look him in the eyes, but he was too intent on doing the same, no doubt to intimidate. So now she mostly looked at the table, deliberately seeking to avoid eye contact. His eyes were unpleasant – brown, with black pouches of skin beneath, as if he hadn’t slept in months.

  ‘A device.’ He opened his big hands, palm upwards. ‘It was undoubtedly an explosive device – it killed two people, and an officer was then shot. So we have to assume the worst. That is why I need to ask you these questions. This is obviously the work of terrorists.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, feebly. ‘Why would terrorists target my family?’

  ‘That’s what we need to work out. Right here, right now.’

  ‘I understand that, but—’

  ‘I have requested a unit come from Madrid,’ he interrupted. ‘A specialist anti-terror unit.’

  ‘OK. Good. But what about my daughter?’

  ‘She is our number one priority.’

  He sat staring at her in silence. Waiting for some response? She wanted to ask him how Rebecca was the number one ­priority, what they were actually doing, but when she opened her mouth to say something he put a hand up to silence her. ‘You have to help me,’ he said. ‘There has to be a political connection. If not you, then your husband, or even the woman he was with.’

  The woman he was with. Stated like it meant nothing at all.

  ‘You think a political group kidnapped my daughter?’ she asked. ‘Like ETA, you mean?’

  ETA was the Basque terrorist group he had probably spent his entire career fighting. He smirked at that though. ‘Not a Spanish political group. But there are others. Many others. They come over from Africa. Jihadists. There is a war on terror, an international war, and we are part of it. No one is exempt.’

  ‘So you think fundamentalists kidnapped her?’ She could barely believe he was suggesting it.

  ‘It can happen.’ He reached in his pocket and pulled out a phone. He placed it on the table. ‘I have the impression that you are reluctant to help me,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. I’m doing everything I can.’

  He nodded, staring at her. ‘Your phone,’ he said. ‘We have copied the card, read your messages. Your daughter said a police­man tried to shoot her. Did you read that message?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell us about it,’ he said. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I gave the access code when asked. Molina read the text.’

  ‘Why did you not tell Molina immediately? Surely it was important?’

  ‘Because I trust my daughter.’

  He frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘She’s not stupid.’

  ‘But she was mistaken, surely?’

  ‘Was she? I wasn’t there. She texted me that a policeman tried to kill her.’

  ‘And you believed that?’

  ‘Like I said, she’s not stupid. She wrote that he shot at her. Hard to make mistakes about that. Even if you’re ten.’

  ‘He might have been shooting at the man she was with.’

  ‘OK. Yes. You’re right. But will talking about it help find her?’

  ‘Is that why you did not trust Molina? Because your daughter wrote that? Because you think his men are involved?’

  ‘Involved? Again I don’t know what you mean. Involved in what?’

  ‘In the explosion, the kidnap. What else?’

  ‘You’re suggesting Molina is involved?’ She was confused now. Was he being serious, or was this some ruse?

  ‘I’m not suggesting that. Only that you don’t trust him. You withheld information from him.’

  ‘I trust my daughter.’

  ‘Of course. But you should trust me too. I am not Molina. I am nothing to do with the national police. You can say things to me, give me information, and it will not go back to them. The guardia civil is separate. You understand?’

  ‘I don’t understand. No.’ She dragged her sleeve across her eyes, wiping them.

  ‘She wrote the man was called Carl,’ he said. ‘Do you know anyone called Carl?’

  ‘No. I already told your colleagues that.’

  ‘It’s important that you strive to assist me. Forget what you told Molina. I am different.’

  ‘I am assisting you. She’s my fucking daughter, remember? My husband was killed.’

  That just bounced off him. ‘Why would this “Carl” say you had hired him to protect your daughter?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Is it true? Did you hire a man to protect her?’

  ‘I told you already – it’s not true. Maybe he said it to get her trust.’

  ‘But you think he did actually protect her from one of the local police? You believe that?’

  ‘That’s what she wrote. If you find her we can ask her what she meant. We shouldn’t be sitting in here, we should be out looking for her.’

  ‘That is all being dealt with—’

  ‘What is it you want to know? I don’t understand this. Am I being questioned as some kind of suspect? That’s what this feels like.’

  ‘I’ve already made your status clear.’

  ‘Do I get a lawyer? Do I have rights?’

  ‘You’re not a suspect. You’re helping us to try and locate your daughter – remember?’

  ‘Are you doing anything to locate her? Are you actually doing anything?’

  ‘Talking to you, now, is part of what I’m doing. Be reassured that she is my priority, you are not.’ He smirked again. She could feel her stomach tightening, the emotion coming to the surface.

 
The door opened. Molina put his head into the gap and said something very quickly to Arroyo. He needed to speak to him.

  ‘Can I have my phone back?’ she asked. ‘You’ve copied the chip. I need it in case Rebecca calls me.’

  Arroyo put a hand up, to silence either her or Molina, she wasn’t sure which. Molina paused a moment, looking at her, then withdrew, the door left open a little. Arroyo pushed himself out of the fixed metal chair, standing so that his head almost touched the ceiling. He straightened the belt at the waist of his tunic and she saw large patches of sweat under his arms, a gun on the belt, hands with bony knuckles. ‘I think not,’ he said. ‘This whole inquiry has been handled badly before my arrival. You should not have been permitted near the scene. Nobody should have. It should have been treated from the outset as a terrorist attack. There could have been a second device.’ He stepped sideways, opened the door and walked out without looking back at her or offering anything else. She heard the door snap shut, but not the lock, which meant it was open. She stepped quickly round the table, determined to simply open it and walk out. She wasn’t detained – he had made that clear. But she could hear them talking just behind the door – Molina and Arroyo. She moved closer, tried to make out individual words, but then the door opened, almost hitting her in the face.

  Molina stepped in. ‘They are in La Linea,’ he said. She felt her heart kick in her chest. La Linea was the town on the border with Gibraltar, only about forty-five minutes away.

  ‘How do you know?’ she asked. ‘Have you spoken to her?’

  ‘No. But we triangulated her phone signal – it’s no longer transmitting, but it was on about an hour ago, briefly. We can plot locations to within about half a kilometre …’

  ‘Half a kilometre from La Linea?’