The Island

by Ben McPherson

  ‘Thirty minutes?’ said Dan.

  ‘An hour would be good,’ said Elsa.

  We drew the bed away from the wall, but Vee had hidden nothing there beyond the dress. I pulled the sheet from the mattress, pulled the cover from the duvet. Elsa rifled through Vee’s diary. I searched Vee’s school bag. We searched every drawer, opened every jewelled box.

  Nothing.

  Elsa stood on a chair and ran her hand across the tops of the wardrobes. Nothing more than dust.

  We put everything back exactly as we found it. We agreed that I would speak to her, but when Vee returned something went wrong. I heard shouting from the kitchen, and when I walked in Vee was in tears and Elsa’s eyes were white with fury.

  ‘Fucking hypocrite,’ Vee spat at her mother. She turned on her heel and strode out.

  ‘I’ll take this,’ I said.

  ‘I think that might be best,’ said Elsa.

  Vee was sitting on the bed. I sat down on the floor, facing her.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ she said. ‘Can you believe she would do that?’

  ‘Do what, love?’

  But Vee was looking around at the bed, at the bookcases, at the wardrobe. She could tell.

  ‘She searched my room, Dad.’

  ‘We searched your room, love.’

  ‘Oh.’ She sat for a time examining her foot, rubbing her thumb across the side of the arch. Her voice, when she spoke, was very small. ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Vee, you know what we found.’

  She nodded as if to herself.

  ‘I know I have to take the dress to the police,’ she said, her voice small.

  Then she got up and sat down beside me on the floor. I put my arm around her and we sat for the longest time, saying nothing.

  At eleven, when Dan and I sat drinking whisky in the living room, and the sun was still up, and the sky was red and the clouds feathered to grey, when we heard Elsa’s footsteps in the hall, heard the front door sliding open, my brother looked at me as he shouted ‘Elsa?’ And Elsa walked into the apartment, and through the dark space that we called the library. And she stood there at the edge of the room in the pool of light from the spotlight and said very simply, ‘Maybe you can manage to get Vee off her computer. I’m meeting Hedda.’

  Dan looked at me, and I could tell he expected me to say something, so I said, ‘Sure,’ because I didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘Want to go with her, Cal?’ said Dan. ‘I can hold the fort.’

  I looked at Elsa. ‘Better not,’ she said.

  As we watched, Elsa stepped out of the light and I saw her shadow move through the library and into the hall, and Dan was looking at me all the while.

  ‘You OK with that?’ he said, as the door swung shut.

  And a part of me was running after Elsa, asking her not to go, but I said, ‘Price of a good marriage. Bit of give and take.’

  ‘So your marriage is good?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He reached across, began to pour himself another whisky. ‘I don’t buy that you’re OK with the bars and the late nights.’

  ‘Drop the concern. It’s what we do.’

  ‘Elsa goes to bars while you sit at home, seething.’

  ‘Do you see me seething?’

  ‘And I mean, these pictures of hers.’ He gestured up at the print above the sofa. ‘All those huge swaths of Rothko red. All those purples. I’ve never known what they mean. I’m not even sure that I like them. But they express something for fuck’s sake … Some kind of inner landscape …’

  I looked up at Carmine 34. So young she had been when she had taken it. So full of confidence. So certain that this would be the picture that would make her name. And it did. For a time.

  ‘They’re American crime scenes,’ I said.

  Dan laughed. ‘Aye, right.’

  ‘No, they actually are,’ I said. ‘Elsa had this agreement with the PD. She would travel out with the detectives, hang back until the crime scene technicians were done.’

  My brother stopped laughing. ‘OK.’

  ‘Once the body was gone she would photograph what was left without a lens, using their lights.’

  ‘Blood,’ said Dan.

  ‘And the other stuff. You know, transforming the viscera and the ooze and just the unbearable fucking cruelty of murder into something better, I guess.’

  ‘She actually said that?’

  ‘No, she said if she knew what her pictures were about, she wouldn’t have needed to make them.’

  ‘Wow. That is some hinterland your wife has there. When did she last take a picture?’

  ‘It’s been years, mate.’

  ‘So Elsa has this whole churning inner world,’ said Dan. ‘And it’s no longer finding expression. And now with Licia gone …’

  ‘Missing. Important distinction.’

  ‘Missing,’ he said. ‘Aye. But, Cal, are you surprised that your wife goes to bars without you?’

  At five I woke to Elsa’s arm, trailed carelessly across my chest, her hand grazing my right nipple. I lay for a while, watching her face, listened to the gentle wheezing of her breath.

  In. In. Out.

  Smiling now, eyes closed. Beautiful in sleep.

  ‘Elsa,’ I said.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Elsa, I love you.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said.

  I lifted her arm carefully from my chest. I sat for a while looking out from the terrace towards the trees, watched as a cat chased butterflies on the lawn.

  I searched through my phone, found the video files that Tvist’s people had undeleted. That female figure in darkness, breathing in-in-and-out, beautiful and indistinct. But if the figure was Elsa, and surely it was, what did the files actually show? The first was timestamped 03:01 on the twenty-third, an hour before Elsa returned home. Perhaps then she had betrayed me with another man. Perhaps that man had filmed her as she slept. But the timestamp on the second file was 02:57 on the twenty-fourth, while Elsa and I stood waiting on the slipway for news of Licia.

  I unblocked the number and rang it. No longer in use.

  I sat for the longest time, watching the files and watching my wife, wondering what this was. Was it evidence of betrayal, or of something else?

  What am I not seeing, Elsa?

  Stupid really, because all I had to do was ask. But some instinct warned me that catching my wife in a lie would be the end of us.

  15

  Chief of Police Ephraim Tvist sat, hands clasped, watching my daughter, his thumbs resting on his chin. He looked down at the plastic bag on the desk in front of him. He leaned forward, turned it so the opening faced him. He examined the dress, then let go of the bag.

  ‘It’s already contaminated,’ said Vee.

  Tvist tilted his head away. Hands still clasped, he traced a line from temple to crown with his right index finger. ‘It’s contaminated, you say …’

  ‘I wore it. To the memorial service. My dad didn’t know. And I do realize that this compromises its value as evidence. It was impulsive and immature of me. I truly am very sorry.’

  ‘Viktoria, it sounds as if your parents have already had with you the discussion I was planning to have.’

  Vee nodded, sniffed hard, blinked twice. ‘They have.’

  Tvist looked at me. ‘Then perhaps we don’t need to have that discussion a second time.’

  ‘She gets it,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve learnt my lesson. I swear. Is it true you don’t send children to jail?’

  Tvist looked at Vee, amused. ‘I would expect your parents to know this.’

  Vee pulled her chair forward. ‘So you can murder someone here and your family stays together?’

  ‘Vee,’ I said. ‘Don’t go getting any ideas.’

  ‘No, it’s cool.’

  Tvist smiled very broadly.

  ‘All right,’ she said, sitting up. ‘First, I need to declare that I was the one looking at the Tactical Brigades’ stuff on the Internet.’
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  Tvist’s smile did not leave his face. If anything it broadened, becoming kinder and more open. ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘They had some answers I sort of agreed with. Not the violence, though.’

  Tvist turned to me, still smiling. But there was a question in the look he sent me.

  I said, ‘We work hard to transmit our values to our daughters.’

  Vee said, ‘Being politically incorrect isn’t a crime, Dad. And I didn’t agree with everything they said about black people and Muslims.’ She turned to Tvist. ‘Back in DC my best friend is black. He’s really not trying to pollute the white race. I’m pretty sure he’s actually a virgin.’

  Tvist was looking at me with his dark, dark eyes, an eyebrow half-raised.

  Vee said, ‘If you’re thinking I’m a fascist, Mr Tvist, I’m not.’

  ‘Why would I think that?’

  ‘Because if I was, would I be helping you, right?’

  The look on Tvist’s face: somewhere between disbelief and amusement.

  ‘She’s fourteen,’ I said. ‘Figuring stuff out.’

  ‘Dad,’ said Vee, ‘don’t apologize for me. I really do not view violence as a solution to complex social problems, Mr Tvist.’

  ‘Good,’ said Tvist.

  ‘Some of what they’re saying isn’t so extreme, though. Lot of people are against immigration.’

  Tvist pressed the tips of his fingers together. ‘Are you against immigration, Viktoria?’

  ‘In America we have whole cities that are run by black people, for the benefit of black people.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken,’ said Tvist, his expression unreadable.

  ‘I mean, look at Gothenburg in Sweden. Look at the East End of Oslo. They’re practically no-go areas. Ordinary white people are scared to cross the Aker river. The police won’t go there.’

  ‘Won’t we? That’s news to me, Viktoria. Perhaps you should spend a little time down there, take a look.’

  ‘Vee,’ I said, ‘you don’t think maybe you’re letting the prejudices of people in our neighbourhood inform your judgement?’

  ‘You’re the one who wants us to live in a white neighbourhood, Dad.’

  ‘That is not why we chose the apartment.’ I turned to Tvist. ‘It’s set in parkland. We thought it was for six months.’

  Was that disappointment in Tvist’s smile? Very hard to tell. ‘Viktoria,’ he said, ‘what makes people like the Tactical Brigades difficult to investigate is that there actually is no physical brigade. Most of them never meet in real life. They exchange ideas on discussion forums and recruit people who seem receptive to those ideas. We call it radicalization, but it’s a slow and painstaking process, and it takes months. Beginning with ideas that don’t seem so very far from the mainstream. They’re watching for shares and for likes. Then they invite you to private discussions. They’re especially interested in people of your age.’

  Vee looked down at her feet, weighing her thoughts, wide-eyed. ‘I never shared anything. I swear. I may have liked some stuff.’

  ‘Oh Vee,’ I said. ‘Love.’

  ‘It gets exhausting, always having to say the right-on thing all the time, you know, Dad. But I swear on my life I didn’t think I was putting anyone in danger.’

  ‘All right,’ said Tvist. ‘Lesson learnt. Why don’t you tell me about the dress, Viktoria?’

  Vee brightened. ‘I took photos of where I found it. Here.’ She reached across the desk, handed him the phone that Edvard had given her. ‘I’d like my actual phone back, by the way.’

  ‘And you may have it when you leave.’ Tvist began scrolling through the photos. ‘You tell me you think this is Alicia Curtis’s dress?’

  ‘It is her dress.’

  Tvist sent me a questioning look.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think it is.’

  His eyes returned to Vee.

  ‘But you can see there’s one bullet hole.’ Vee turned, tapped herself on the back just below her right shoulder blade. ‘About here. Surrounded by blood.’

  ‘Possible bullet hole,’ said Tvist. ‘Possible blood.’

  ‘I know you have to say that. But a bullet wound like that would be survivable. Wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Hard for me to know.’

  ‘It would,’ said Vee, as if the fact were non-negotiable. ‘So you know she was alive, on the island, probably after the massacre.’

  Tvist had his elbows on the desk again, was sucking at the joint of his right thumb.

  ‘Vee,’ I said, ‘that’s not really something you or I can judge.’

  ‘But this moves the case forwards, doesn’t it? Because it’s not a fatal wound. And your people didn’t find the dress, Mr Tvist.’

  ‘Viktoria, I don’t think we can exclude the possibility that she took off her dress before she got in the water.’

  Vee’s face fell. She seemed to shrink in on herself. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I see what you’re saying. God, I can be stupid. But it does show she was there, on the island, at least.’

  ‘Vee! Can you go fetch the ice cream?’

  Vee sloped into the kitchen. ‘If you and Dad want to talk, tell me. You don’t need to lie.’

  ‘Vee,’ I said, ‘don’t call your mother a liar.’

  ‘If it’s about me being a fascist, Mum, I’m really not.’

  ‘No one believes for a moment that you’re a fascist.’

  ‘Dad does. I’m going to play Battle Royale.’

  Elsa watched as Vee sloped from the room. She turned to me. ‘Well, at least we know it wasn’t Licia.’

  For a moment I thought I’d misheard, that Elsa could not possibly mean what she had said. But her eyes told me I had not misheard.

  ‘You seriously thought it could be Licia on those sites?’ I said.

  ‘I’m relieved it wasn’t. Vee’s so smart and so cynical. She’ll figure out the problems with what those men believe. With Licia I would be truly concerned. She is too easily overwhelmed by other people’s arguments. She’s so out of place in the modern world.’

  ‘Licia’s not one of life’s losers, Elsa.’

  ‘Really? I’m not sure that’s how she feels about herself, Cal. The modern world is cruel to the unexceptional and the un-beautiful.’

  ‘She’s both beautiful and exceptional.’

  Elsa was looking at me candidly. She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘She’s a doer, not a thinker.’

  ‘She has twenty-three followers on Instagram. That tells you how the world sees her, Cal.’

  We had tried to push Licia towards rebellion, but she had remained dutiful and devoted. She helped about the house; she carried out the trash and washed the dishes and did her homework, always diligent, always slow. She completed not only her own chores but Vee’s too, singing all the while, though Vee would not let Licia near her schoolwork.

  When Licia first began to attend a house church, in the northern DC suburbs, we wondered if she was growing away from us. But if anything it made her more devoted. She would come into my study while I was working, empty my wastepaper from the basket, then ask if there was anything she could do to make my life easier, if her attitude was all it could be.

  ‘At her age, I was lying to my parents and hanging with the bands at the Rockefeller,’ Elsa said.

  ‘And we should be glad she isn’t living your life.’

  Licia only ever fought with Vee, and every time it was Vee who provoked her. Little Vee, to whom everything came so easily, who at fourteen knew so much more about the world than her older sister. ‘C-minus,’ she would whisper into Licia’s ear. ‘D-plus.’ And Licia’s eyes would fill with furious tears, and she would fly at her sister, and tear at her, and Vee would give as good as she got.

  Ten minutes later they would be the best of friends again.

  16

  The next day we sat on the stiff white chairs of a studio behind a white table covered in a grey linen
cloth. We wore clothes that were formal but not excessively so. On Elsa’s lap Franklin gurgled happily, gnawing at her thumb. We would answer the same three questions for the BBC, NRK, WSJ, NBC, FOX, CNN, TVZ and a Christian rock station from Richmond, Virginia. Four minutes each, plus three minutes for turnaround. Elsa had balked at Christian rock, but Dan had insisted it was a key demographic. And so we answered eight sets of identical questions, exactly as he had briefed us:

  – Tell us about the moment you first realized Licia was missing, Elsa.

  – Well, as a mother my first thought was …

  – Cal, what kind of person is your daughter, Alicia Curtis?

  – Licia is the kindest, funniest, and sweetest child a father could wish for …

  – Viktoria, do you have a message for your sister?

  Vee paused when the Christian rock journalist asked her that final question. She sent me a look that said, Do I really have to?

  ‘Go on, Vee,’ I said.

  Vee looked at Elsa. She looked at me. She looked at the camera. ‘I know I’m not the best sister you could have, Licia. I know I should be more like you. I know I could be kinder, and sweeter, and funnier, and when you come back I promise that I will be all of those things. But this is all just so …’ She looked at the cameras, at the lights, at the vase on the table with its single white lily.

  The journalist smiled encouragingly from beneath a black beanie hat. She was dressed in a black singlet and a long black jersey skirt. Nothing about her said Christian rock, except for the steel crucifix that hung on a looped leather thong from her left wrist.

  Vee’s gaze shifted from the journalist to the camera. ‘We’re no good at this, Licia. I mean, look at us. You can see we’re close to falling apart.’ Angry tears were forming at the corners of her eyes. She smudged them away with the flat of her hand.

  I looked at Dan, who was standing close by. Surely he would step forward, crouch down and whisper to the journalist, suggest a break and a sip of water and a second take? But Dan simply nodded at me, then nodded towards Vee.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Vee under her breath. She turned to me. ‘I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry.’

  I reached out, put my hand on hers. Elsa did the same.