The Island

by Ben McPherson

  ‘Come here.’ I stepped forward and she threw her arms around my neck, clung to me, though she did not cry.

  ‘Vee,’ I said, ‘you know what we have to do?’

  She let go of me. Her jaw seemed to lengthen, her eyes took on an adult look. ‘Dad, you have to understand that the police are going to think—’

  ‘No, Vee. No.’ I took her head in my hands. ‘Vee, listen to me: no one is going to believe for a moment that you did this.’

  I rang the police from the platform.

  The train home seemed to take forever. Mikkel Hansen was waiting for us outside the apartment building, with his stained jacket and his hangdog face. He said no to coffee. He sat on our sofa looking nervy and dirty and out of place, reading notes from a typed sheet.

  I looked at Vee. Vee raised an eyebrow.

  Mikkel Hansen put his notes on the floor, sat up. ‘Mr Curtis, where is your wife?’

  Where was Elsa? Her phone had been off for hours.

  Hansen sniffed heavily, head on one side, as if clearing a blocked sinus. ‘You don’t know where she is?’

  ‘I do not run my wife’s schedule.’ I meant it as a joke, but my voice sounded flat, resigned. Hansen nodded and took out his phone. He stood up, walked out on to the terrace, spoke quietly to a colleague, looked anxiously in through the window.

  ‘What did Mum do?’ Vee asked, her voice full of intrigue.

  ‘She didn’t do anything.’

  ‘So, what do you want me to say?’

  An uneasy pause. ‘The truth, Vee,’ I said.

  ‘Only, I don’t mention that I don’t know where Mum is.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  Hansen was watching me. He shook his head, said something about me that I couldn’t hear.

  ‘Vee, before he comes back, did you take anything from Pavel’s house?’

  ‘I know you think I’m a thief.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then I didn’t take anything. I swear.’

  Hansen returned. ‘My colleagues agree that this will be easier tomorrow.’

  ‘Why?’ said Vee.

  ‘I can’t interview you without a guardian present.’

  ‘Can’t that be my Dad?’

  ‘You and your father have appointments for the same time.’ He turned to me. ‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Curtis.’

  Vee watched as he walked through the living room and out into the hall. She listened as the door swung open, waited for the mechanism to slam it shut.

  ‘You didn’t do anything,’ she said, her eyes full of angry tears.

  ‘And that will come out in the questioning.’

  ‘But Dad, what if somebody’s setting you up?’

  At one, Elsa switched her phone back on. On the bedside table my own phone vibrated. I checked the screen, saw that she was standing outside the apartment building. I put my phone face down, switched off the bedside light. The front door swung open; Elsa’s shoes hit the floor; I heard her padding through to the bathroom next to Franklin’s room.

  She showered for ten minutes. When she came into the bedroom I was lying on my side, eyes closed, feigning sleep.

  ‘Cal?’

  She lay down behind me, reached out, put her hand across my thigh. And though a part of me ached for my wife, I lay still and did not respond.

  ‘I went to see Pavel Lisowski,’ she said, her voice very small.

  I sat up. Elsa sat up too, naked and vulnerable, all elbows and knees.

  ‘You went to see him?’ I said.

  ‘And now he’s dead.’

  We talked for hours. She had visited Pavel. She had let herself into his apartment. She had not gone downstairs. She had heard about his death on the news.

  I must have drifted off. At six I felt an absence. The bed was empty, the window open. A thin plume of cigarette smoke curled from the terrace. I walked through to the living room. There was Elsa on the edge of the concrete planter, cigarette in hand, the terrace door open. I believed her – of course I believed her – and yet her story was weak.

  She heard me approach. She did not turn. ‘A little peace,’ she said. ‘Before the chaos of the day.’

  Already it was hot. Twenty-eight Celsius, maybe thirty. The driest summer in years.

  ‘We need to talk about how we play this,’ I said.

  ‘Shall I fetch you a cup of coffee?’

  Her hair hung wet down her back. She had showered again, pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts.

  I said, ‘Coffee would be good.’

  There was something sober and reflective in the way she looked at me. She put a hand on my shoulder, steadying herself as she stood. She smiled, then disappeared into the living room.

  A dragonfly flitted into view, all iridescent reds and blues, riding the warm air. It hovered above the planter, turning gently, then lowered itself on to the concrete edge. I made myself still. Slowly, very slowly, I leaned forward in my chair, cupping my hands. The dragonfly stopped. Its head swivelled. Its right foreleg tapped on the concrete of the planter, twice. The strange compelling stare of its compound eye.

  ‘Here.’ Elsa handed me a cup.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So, how do we play this?’ she said.

  ‘The police want to speak to Vee, and they don’t want me to be present. They want you.’

  She frowned. ‘Why can’t you be present?’

  ‘I imagine they don’t want me to influence Vee’s answers. I don’t know what sort of trouble I am in, but I think it may be serious.’

  That surprised her. For a moment her eyes were all pupil; her irises were tiny rings bleeding out into the surrounding whites. Then her pupils contracted; her grey-blue wolf stare returned. ‘I don’t know if I can do this,’ she said.

  ‘They won’t ask you much. Not in front of Vee.’

  ‘That’s good. Because my day yesterday doesn’t look so good, you know. Cal, I went to the pistol club.’

  I know, I wanted to say. I know that, and I shouldn’t, and I’m sorry for not trusting you. I should tell her I had tracked her. I should swear on my life never to do it again.

  Instead I said, ‘Why did you go there?’

  ‘Good question.’

  She could barely meet my eye.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘It’s like I had those men’s image imprinted on my retinas. Their smiles. Their laughter. And I realize this is something I shouldn’t say to the police. That my frame of mind was vengeful.’

  A long silence. She looked broken. I took her in my arms, held her close.

  ‘Did firing your gun erase the image?’ I could feel her nodding. Her cheek was wet against my neck, her breaths shallow.

  ‘Did anyone see you?’ I said. I felt her shaking her head. ‘I mean, if no one saw you, could you find a way of telling the police a version of the truth that isn’t the full truth?’ I said. ‘Because you know that’s what everyone else does. All the time.’

  ‘That’s not really how I’m built. But we agree, in the circumstances, that this doesn’t paint a sympathetic picture of me? I go to the range, then I visit Pavel …’

  ‘Just promise me that there’s no hammer waiting to fall.’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you everything that happened.’ But I could see the trouble in her eyes and a part of me did not want to believe her.

  30

  Tvist took my right hand in both of his, all professional charm. ‘You’re exhausted, of course. This has been a shock for you; for Viktoria.’

  What must it have been like for Vee? For a moment my mind flashed the image of Pavel, his brains seeping darkly into his carpet.

  Tvist sat behind his desk and switched on the recorder. ‘I’ve ordered coffee. And some rather good cakes.’

  On the desk in front of him was my statement, the two sheets placed side by side. He sat, scanning the first sheet, nodding to himself, tracing his finger down the edge of the paper as he went.
/>   He stopped halfway down the first page. ‘What made you follow Viktoria, may I ask?’

  ‘Something a bit off about her behaviour.’

  He leaned forward in his chair, began to write on a pad of Post-its. ‘Something … a bit … off … OK.’ He peeled off the note and attached it to my statement. ‘And your understanding of why Viktoria went to see Pavel Lisowski?’

  ‘She thought he had information about the disappearance of Licia.’

  ‘What kind of information?’

  I took out my phone, opened the picture of the red rubber boat.

  ‘Oh.’ Tvist frowned at the image. ‘You’re a strange man, Cal Curtis. Just when I think you’re on the back foot, you go on the attack.’ He handed me my phone. ‘How did you come by this?’

  ‘Anonymous source.’

  ‘Not a police source, I hope.’ Those dark, dark irises looking first at my left eye, then at my right. ‘You have, of course, a friend here.’

  ‘No reason for you to think it’s Edvard,’ I said.

  ‘All right.’ He smiled, wrote a careful note on a Post-it and attached it to the blank side, then turned the picture over and continued to read.

  Tvist came to the end of the second sheet. He kept his right finger by my signature, as if making a point, looked up at me.

  I sat, preparing the answer to the question that I knew must come.

  ‘You were looking for your daughter Viktoria.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘And yet you searched the apartment before you went downstairs?’

  I looked at him, at the intelligence behind those keen brown-black eyes. My resolve broke.

  He knew.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I don’t really understand why I did that.’

  He made a bridge of his fingers. ‘You are wondering if you are a suspect in this man’s murder. Because you had an angry exchange with him in a bar the night before. In the presence of your daughter, who is fifteen.’

  The kindness in his smile; the sheer patience of the man.

  He knew.

  ‘Did Vee tell you that?’

  ‘Your family does not trust the police, and that is understandable. We were slow to respond on the day. We have not yet located Alicia. We understand that we have to work to rebuild your trust. But without your trust, without your family’s trust, we cannot do our job, Cal. And perhaps next time you are presented with such a situation, you will speak to me about your suspicions. Because if you had spoken to me we could have protected Pavel Lisowski. Because, despite his obvious faults, I do not believe Pavel was a bad man.’

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  He laughed. ‘I could raise a charge of obstruction, I suppose, but the courts here are reasonable, very humane. The judges would understand that you thought you were doing the right thing for your missing daughter. I would be wasting my time. And as for breaking and entering? The door, as I understand it, was open.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tvist leaned forwards and switched off the recorder.

  ‘I’m going to phrase this very carefully, Cal. Have you at any point felt that I have treated you as a suspect?’

  ‘Haven’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So I’m not?’

  He smiled. He wasn’t going to answer the question directly.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘All right.’ Tvist switched on the recorder. ‘Here I must be blunt with you, Cal. In future you will stay out of my investigation. Next time I shall be obliged to charge you, because I am putting you on warning, and the courts will take this warning seriously. Fair?’

  ‘Fair.’

  He switched off the recorder again. ‘So now you are free to go.’

  I got up. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Unless you would like to wait for the coffee and the cakes.’

  ‘I’m relieved, obviously …’

  ‘But you have a question …’

  ‘How can you know?’

  ‘That it wasn’t you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You have an alibi, though you don’t know it. Pavel Lisowski was shot sometime between 7.30 a.m. and 10 a.m.’

  ‘Not bludgeoned?’ I said.

  ‘No.’ He grimaced, as if remembering a detail. ‘Shot twice through the back of the head with a 9mm pistol. Rather traumatizing. Especially for my less experienced officers. You might expect the neighbours to have heard something, even with all that soundproofing. But no. Only when someone found an open door …’ Then his smile returned. ‘Neither you nor your daughter knew any of this. And of course you have a corroborating witness – me – who saw you at the kindergarten and at the courtroom, and observed that your behaviour on this day was normal. So for this murder, and for you, this is a good enough alibi.’ He was smiling broadly. ‘We both know you are not a killer.’

  ‘OK …’ I said. ‘Though how?’

  ‘There’s a look,’ he said. ‘Very hard to explain. But when you meet someone who has killed, you see it in them.’

  I opened the door, stepped through, let it close behind me.

  ‘Well now …’

  Bror in his grey robe, standing by the water cooler, perfectly poised.

  ‘What …?’ I said.

  He smiled.

  I found myself smiling too, relieved to be in his presence. ‘I mean …’

  ‘What am I doing here?’ he said. ‘Is that your question?’

  I nodded.

  ‘There are no accidents.’ He stepped towards me, embraced me. He took a half-step backwards, his hands loosely holding my forearms. Healing hands, I thought, radiating warmth. Kind eyes. ‘We are here at the same time, which means Mr Tvist wishes us to meet …’ He nodded towards Tvist’s door. ‘You do understand this, no? Ah. There. You see?’

  I followed his gaze to the office door, open now. Tvist was watching us, though I could not read the look in his dark, dark eyes.

  ‘Mr Police Chief.’ Bror took his arms from mine. ‘You are ready for me.’ He turned towards me. ‘This man is highly intelligent,’ he whispered. ‘You must not underestimate the lengths to which he will go. He must protect his carefully constructed lies.’

  31

  On the news was an interview with the immigration minister, in Norwegian. Arrest photographs of dark-skinned people. Cameras roaming through dusty African towns. Handcuffed figures being led up aeroplane steps. The minister in a studio, all bottle-blond hair and rouged cheeks, like a child’s drawing of a white woman.

  We sat on the sofa, Elsa and I, drinking hastily made martinis. Elsa reached across, took my hand in hers. ‘How do you get them so perfect?’ she said.

  I moved to the far end of the sofa, turned towards Elsa. Had something changed in her? There’s a look.

  ‘Cal?’

  ‘Too much vermouth,’ I said. ‘Not enough brine.’

  I turned to face the TV. The immigration minister’s job appeared to be sending refugee children back to Afghanistan and Central Africa. A Facebook page full of love-heart emojis celebrated successful repatriations.

  ‘Tell me about the olives,’ Elsa was saying.

  I answered sharply. ‘You just … buy the right olives. There’s nothing mystical about it.’

  The interviewer asked the minister if she was as sceptical about immigration as the Andersen brothers.

  ‘What’s going on, Cal?’

  The minister used the word ghetto. She said something about Sweden.

  I glanced at her. ‘Elsa,’ I said, ‘did you stop seeing your therapist?’

  ‘Months ago. You didn’t know?’

  ‘So what do you do instead?’

  She became serious. ‘I just kind of cope, I guess. Isn’t that what you do? We all just kind of cope, no?’

  I had stopped seeing my own therapist months ago. Was Elsa calling me out? Impossible to be sure.

  On screen the interviewer was asking the minister precisely how her views differed from the Andersens’. The minis
ter replied that her views were nothing like the Andersens’.

  Something about Elsa had changed. That much was true. There was a purposefulness to her these days, something cold and hard and sharp as new-forged steel. Surely though the change in Elsa had not been abrupt. Surely it had been glacial, imperceptible until Tvist had come sowing doubt …

  I knew that Tvist was a man of agile mind; that with every kind word and gentle compliment it was as if he were experimentally slipping a knife between vertebrae, looking for the place where the blade would slide clean in, with only the merest touch. Is your wife lying to you? At least entertain the thought …

  On screen the interviewer was quoting the prime minister’s words from the memorial service at the immigration minister. ‘More democracy. More openness.’ His tone, I thought, was sarcastic. An argument broke out.

  But all the time, growing inside me, was a single thought; a thought that seemed to push all other thoughts aside.

  There’s a look, Tvist had said. When someone has killed …

  Elsa, love of my life: what have you done?

  I should have asked her. The question was a simple one.

  Instead I went out. I went to a bar with a stage where Mark Steiner and His Problems were playing. The songs were slow and melodic, the guitars full of discord and Nordic pain: ‘Insomnia’; ‘Fortitude’; ‘Sea of Disappointment’; ‘Don’t Explain’. With your voice of gravel and honey, I thought, you could be singing for me.

  Beside me a woman leaned in. ‘Guy can really move.’ The warmth of her breath on my ear. Her dancing eyes.

  I nodded. She must have caught the look in my eye.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Why so sad?’

  I had no answer to that, though we sat and we talked for hours on the steps outside. And if Elsa had been watching, I know she would not have liked it. Though I swear to you that nothing happened.

  Vee found me on the terrace. She looked at the cigarette butts that littered the soil of the planter, at the bottle of gin on the table in front of me.

  ‘You woke me up when you came in.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I put an arm across her shoulder, and we sat, father and daughter, looking out from our strange oppressive apartment into the black trees and the purple hills beyond. The night was at its darkest, though there was colour in the sky. A cat roamed the long grass behind the apartment building, blue-grey and shadowless in the grasses below the trees.