The Ice House

by John Connor

  23

  The mobile phone he had given her told Rebecca it was 9.30 – in the morning, she assumed. She sat on the wooden jetty in an exhausted trance, staring at the sun, low over the line of pine trees at the other side of the bay, or sea, or river – or whatever it was the jetty stuck out into. The water was still and dark all the way over to the other side, everything very quiet. She could hear only a very gentle rustling in the banks of tall grey-green reeds growing either side, fringing the water. How far was it to the other side? Too far to swim, and too cold, probably.

  But why would she want to do that? He hadn’t hurt her, he had told her that her mother was safe and that his brother – who was rich – was sending people right now to bring her here, to be with her. He had promised her that her mother would be brought here. He had given her this phone – it was safer than her own, he said – and said she could try her mum as much as she wanted, and to shout for him if she got her, so that he could speak to her too.

  But her mum wasn’t answering. Her phone wasn’t even switched on, it seemed. She had tried her dad’s as well, same result. She didn’t know her cousin’s number – in London – and didn’t even have it in her phone. She knew her best friend Louisa’s mobile and had left her two messages now, asking her to call her back straight away. But maybe this phone didn’t auto­matically send its number with a message, so she would need to ask Carl for the number of the phone, then leave another message, and she wasn’t sure he would let her call Louisa. She would ask him later.

  He had told her it was OK to use her mother’s normal number now that they knew her mum was safe, and she had called it almost every minute for the time she had been out here. How long was that? She couldn’t remember. They had come here in a helicopter – another one – and a car, and he had given her something to eat and drink in the kitchen of the house, then told her she could go wherever she wanted, but to be careful at the water’s edge. So she had come down the pathway through the garden to here. The trees in the garden were birch trees, already bare, with leaves all over the grass. She knew how to identify birch, pine, oak, sycamore, chestnut and a few other kinds of tree, because her mother had taught her all that while they were out walking. Birch was easy, because of the white bark.

  She was wondering if it was possible that it was 9.30 at night, that the low sun was actually sinking, not rising. How long had the plane journey taken? She had been asleep the whole way, then felt sick during the bumpy helicopter ride.

  They were in Finland, he had told her, near a city called Helsinki. Finland was north of Spain, she knew, and could tell, because it was freezing. He had given her his jacket on the trip, then a fleece that was too big for her, once they got here. She had it wrapped around herself, but was still shivering a bit. Soon she would have to get up and go back into the house.

  The house was huge, built of wood and painted pale blue and white. All the rooms she had passed through looked like something from one of her mum’s magazines – with posh-looking furniture, everything glass and wood and silver. There were only a few pictures on the walls, very big things, mostly abstract, so she didn’t understand what they were meant to be. Everything was very neat and tidy, not like her house at all. ‘I’m guessing no kids live here,’ she had said to him.

  ‘Viktor lives here,’ he had said. ‘As much as he can. It’s the first house he built, when he first made some money.’ Viktor was his brother. When they had arrived he had been out. There was meant to be someone here to ‘look after the place’, but they couldn’t find him either. ‘You’ll be safe here,’ Carl said. ‘Until your mum arrives.’

  She pressed redial on the phone again and listened to the same message in Spanish, telling her the number was unavailable. She frowned and felt her chin twitch, tears pricking at her eyes. She had cried so much she was sick of it, but couldn’t do anything to stop it. She cried even when there was nothing immediately upsetting her.

  What was happening to her was so odd she felt like she was suspended, floating through something that was all stretched out and weird and gave her a headache. She didn’t understand any of it. Not really. It was like her life had stopped – everything that she knew and was familiar with – but not like it had ­vanished completely. She thought her old life must still somehow be going on somewhere else, over there where she was from, in Spain, continuing like it always did, but without her. Like there might be another girl called Rebecca who was right now on her way to school, with nothing unusual happening at all, her house still standing, no dead people with blood running out of their heads, her mother kissing her forehead as she left to get the bus. Probably that Rebecca had eaten pizza the night before, made with her mum, in the kitchen there – because Monday night was always pizza night.

  She had been split off from that person, had slipped into this place where nothing at all was real, where a man kept telling her that people were trying to kill her. It was like a computer game, and she was trapped inside it. She’d read a book like that once. Maybe seen a film about it too.

  She heard someone shouting to her, in English. ‘Has he left you out here? Come in. It’s too cold. Come in.’ She turned and looked. There was a large man at the end of the jetty, waving to her. For a moment she thought it was Carl, but the voice wasn’t the same. It would be his brother, she guessed. But maybe not. Maybe it was the man who looked after this place. She stood and walked towards him.

  ‘You’re Rebecca?’ he said, when she was nearer. ‘You should come in. It’s not so warm out here.’ He was smiling at her, looking very intently into her face. He looked very like Carl, though was wearing different clothes. She had to look twice, as it were, to be sure it wasn’t him. The voice was different and the face older, rounder. He had on a thick grey overcoat, unbuttoned, beneath it a dark suit, with a white shirt and polished black shoes. He looked like a politician or a businessman, because of the suit. He had one of those earpieces in his ear, and was as tall as Carl, with the same wide shoulders and big hands. Same short blond hair. He had a nice smile. He smiled with his eyes – more with his eyes than his mouth, different from Carl. The skin around his eyes wrinkled up and the eyes were a beautiful blue – quite startling.

  All her friends said that she either liked someone or disliked them immediately – she made her mind up before they spoke to her, before they even looked at her. It was like a joke about her, and not true, she thought. But she smiled back at this guy. He looked OK. He held out a hand for her to shake. She took it and he barely touched her fingers. ‘I’m Viktor,’ he said. ‘It’s nice to meet you, finally.’

  She walked back up to the house with him. He asked her if she was OK, if she wanted anything to eat, or wanted to sleep. She said, ‘Have you found my mother yet?’

  ‘They might have found her,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. I’ve ­arranged for someone over in Spain – a good friend of mine – to find her and get her to you. They’ll bring her here. Don’t worry.’ A pause as he glanced at her. ‘I’ll let you know when I find out things. I’m sure it will be OK.’ He sounded like he was telling the truth. ‘You shouldn’t worry about it,’ he added. ‘Try to relax and rest. My brother tells me some pretty bad things have been happening.’

  She nodded.

  ‘He’s a good man, my brother. He’ll make sure you’re OK.’

  They reached the house and he held a door open for her. They went into a room with black sofas and a glass coffee table. It was warm and smelled faintly of pine smoke. The walls were all wooden panels. There was a big fireplace, but it wasn’t lit.

  ‘My chef’s not here,’ he said, taking off his coat. ‘Usually I have some people who help me out, cook for me. I don’t know how to do much by myself. They’ll get here by Thursday, I think. Meanwhile, we have to look after ourselves a bit. You know how to cook things? I bet you know how to cook already.’

  She knew how to cook a few things, but shook her head.

 
He laughed. ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘I can’t even fry an egg. Maybe my brother can cook us some breakfast. He’s good at that kind of thing.’

  ‘Or we could order in pizza,’ she suggested.

  He smiled. ‘We could do that, yes. What do you want?’

  ‘What is there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t even know where the nearest pizza place is, or if it’s open. If it’s back in town then the pizzas might be cold when they get here. They might not even deliver this far out. We’re quite a way from any other houses and shops and things. But I can try.’ He threw his overcoat onto a sofa and took a smartphone from the jacket pocket. ‘Pizza for breakfast. Why didn’t I think of that?’

  24

  Carl was in the room they had once used to watch TV when he had been here. It was on the first floor with windows facing onto the inlet and the boat jetty. There was a flat screen that covered a whole wall – the biggest Carl had ever seen – plus a bar enclosing a corner of the room. He had watched an ice-hockey match with his brother here, maybe three years ago, and hadn’t been back since. The flat screen was new.

  Carl didn’t like this place. Too many uncomfortable mem­ories. They had been here when Liz had vanished, ten years ago.

  From the window alcove he had watched Rebecca talking to his brother down by the jetty, watched them walk up towards the house. He had set up a laptop on the interior window sill, got online and started searching for news stories from Spain. He found nothing about Rebecca or the explosion at her house. There was coverage of the unrest in La Linea, but not much. There was no mention of the three men he had killed, one of whom had been police. There was something about a stabbed policeman in intensive care, but that had nothing to do with him. The silence was odd but due to a lack of Spanish he was only getting the English language hits, so maybe there was more. He couldn’t find the coverage Viktor had referred to.

  Before trawling the news he had made several calls, to people here, or in Russia, people who might be described as part of his network. He was waiting for them to get back to him, waiting for answers.

  He closed the laptop and decided to go down, to make sure Rebecca wasn’t in tears again, but then Viktor came through the door.

  ‘I met her,’ he said.

  ‘Is she OK?’

  Viktor nodded. ‘I think so. She’s handling it.’

  ‘Do I need to check on her?’

  ‘She’s fine. I’ve left her with my phone, looking for pizza places. She wants pizza for breakfast.’

  ‘She doesn’t speak Finnish. How will she find a pizza place?’

  Viktor frowned. ‘Right. I didn’t think of that. But she’ll be all right. I gave her a credit card, told her to order what she wants. If she speaks English they’ll understand. She’s ten, she seems smart – she can handle it. Anyway, nowhere will be open.’

  ‘Where’s the staff?’

  ‘They’ll be here later. I think I’ll be safe for a few hours without them. Things are not so dangerous as they used to be.’ He winked at Carl. ‘You’ll understand when I explain what’s happening. Be patient. We can go to the gym. We need to talk.’

  The basement gym was screened constantly for surveillance devices. As they walked there Viktor removed the cellphone earpiece and switched the phone off, leaving it upstairs and reminding Carl to do the same. A side effect of the automatic detection and screening system built into the gym structure was that the phones wouldn’t work down there in any case.

  The room was full of the usual machines, plus a boxing ring. Carl had never seen anyone actually get in the ring, but Viktor wanted him to now – ‘We can spar as we talk,’ he suggested, but Carl refused. Getting his head thumped for fun wasn’t his idea of an effective way to unwind.

  ‘I think better when I’m moving,’ Viktor said. ‘I’ll hit the bag a bit, blow off some tension.’ Carl shrugged. He was about to get a lecture from Viktor, he assumed, a brotherly reprimand. That was OK, as long as they could get to a solution afterwards.

  Viktor stripped to the waist and pulled on a pair of practice gloves, then walked over to one of the bags hanging from the ceiling. He started to punch, rights and lefts, quick combinations, short jabs mainly. Carl leaned against the counter at the opposite wall, reached over the other side of it, found a bottle of mineral water and took a long drink. He felt very tired.

  After a few minutes Viktor paused, then started to speak at the same time as he punched. His face was already red, his brow damp with sweat. He spoke in short sentences, taking frequent breaths, punctuating the words with big, heavy punches.

  Carl listened, though it didn’t seem to have much to do with his problem. It was a ramble about families and power, honour and greed. It moved on to politics and business, and all the while Viktor kept punching away, slow, methodical blows, never looking at him.

  Mostly the speech was in a language Carl didn’t understand – the language Viktor had learned on the way to making all this money. But when the Zaikov family started to feature, Carl paid more attention. There followed a lot of stuff about the Zaikov clan being men of honour, men to be trusted, and so on. They were men who could forgive and forget, men Viktor could do business with – because there was no real black history between their two families. That was the crucial thing – they were not natural enemies. All of this was surprising to Carl, though he could see where it was leading.

  ‘We are all from the same part of the world,’ Viktor concluded. ‘We are Karelians first, Russians or Finns second. We have learned the same ways to survive, in the same schools of necessity and poverty. We are here because events forced us here.’ He stopped punching and turned to face Carl.

  ‘You’re doing business with Zaikov,’ Carl asked. ‘Is that it?’

  Viktor nodded, a light in his eyes. ‘There has been contact. Yes. And there will be a deal, a big deal. The past will be forgotten.’ He unveiled it like it was something triumphant, of historical significance.

  But Carl couldn’t see it. ‘Just like that?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Not just like that.’ Viktor started walking towards him, a different expression on his face. ‘It has taken time and investment to build trust. But what I want you to understand is that Zaikov’s fight isn’t with us. It isn’t with our family. The bad blood is between Mikhael Ivanovich and Zaikov.’ He spoke his uncle’s first name and patronym as if the words were something filthy, yet Carl could only remember Viktor being treated like an adopted son by Mikhael. Mikhael was Viktor’s father’s brother. If it weren’t for Mikhael taking him in as a spotty eighteen-year-old, then Viktor would have nothing today. Mikhael was the Russian relative who had welcomed him back with open arms, passed on all his connections, promoted Viktor’s rise to wealth and status, treated him as his own. And as for their immediate family, he and Viktor were the sole survivors. There was no dynasty, no tribe, no organisation that he wanted to be part of. They had grown up in Finland, with a Russian mother. They were from nowhere, belonged nowhere. In London Carl lived with a girlfriend – a Swede called Annika – but he felt little for her and tolerated her mainly to boost his cover. And the nearest Viktor had to an extended family were the people he paid.

  ‘The past was only a barrier because Zaikov never knew what happened,’ Viktor continued. ‘That had to be dealt with.’

  Carl felt suddenly very uneasy. ‘So how did you deal with it?’

  Viktor smiled. ‘He needed to know who killed his son. I told him.’

  Carl stood straight, took a breath. ‘What did you tell him?’

  Viktor laughed, put a gloved hand out and shadow boxed towards Carl’s chest. ‘Not the truth, little brother. Don’t worry. I gave him the two dead bodyguards. I gave him the whole story, with proof. And the names of the bodyguards.’

  ‘And he took that?’

  ‘Of course. He needed closure. We all did. It was ten years ago. Time to
move on.’

  Carl couldn’t believe any of it. Zaikov was the type who never forgot, never moved on. ‘Are you sure Zaikov was behind this contract?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sure. Federov will be here later and you can get the details off him. But he traced the funds. The money you’ve been paid originated with one of Zaikov’s companies.’ He stepped back towards the bag. ‘You’re lucky it’s Zaikov,’ he said. ‘Because right now we are on the brink of something. There is goodwill between our families. A year ago and things would have been very different. I don’t think I would have been able to help.’

  ‘So you can talk to him, get him to cancel it?’

  Viktor smiled. ‘I’ve started already. Your problems won’t get in the way of what we have planned. We’ll find a price to cover it. We’ll pay. That will be that.’

  25

  Julia crouched soaking wet in the rain, shivering. Below her – beyond the road and over the edge of a short cliff – an expanse of still water, the western rim of the Guadalteba reservoir, ­vanished into the curtain of rain. Across the other side, she knew, there were houses and people, holiday homes, resorts for water sports – but the rain had come suddenly half an hour ago and was thick in front of her, reducing visibility to a matter of a hundred metres or so. She couldn’t see the other side and hoped no one over there could see her.

  She had brought Rebecca here on a drive, during the summer, two years ago. From Malaga, over the sierra, it was a little over an hour to reach this place. It had taken her a lot longer just now, using whatever back roads she could find, coming via the pass that took you to Ronda, further to the north-west.

  She was learning on her feet, she thought. There was an urgent need to learn quickly. That was what she was trying to focus on. Not on Molina, or his body, or his family. She couldn’t let her thoughts go near Molina. She was here again, right back where she had been ten years ago. And it had happened again, exactly the same. She had thought she could disappear, escape the past. But it had hunted her out, the consequences dragged around behind her like a secret trace of entrails.