The Island

by Ben McPherson

  The Andersen brothers were looking directly at the father of a murdered girl, checking his response. The man sat rigid in the front row, listening to the brothers’ account.

  I turned to look at Tvist. I could see the cleverness of the man. The way in which he used the truth – because he was right about the Andersens – to throw me off the scent. And Tvist smiled his smile, and gave nothing away.

  I nodded and turned towards the Andersen brothers.

  Paul Andersen continued speaking. I heard the word for angle, and the word for bullet.

  Tvist leaned forwards. ‘Is he really saying that? That his greatest worry was that the girl’s arm might deflect the round from its trajectory?’

  ‘I guess he is.’

  ‘This is an outrage, no?’ Tvist leaned very close to me. ‘Even as they are watching this poor soul you can feel them seeking out the next family with their eyes. Because our laws say these men must have access to the media. And so they familiarize themselves with photographs from the newspapers.’

  The father of the girl had turned his face from the men. Such quiet dignity in the face of their unrepentance.

  ‘How does he do it?’ whispered Tvist. ‘How does that poor man keep from screaming his hatred and his contempt for these men and what they have done to his family?’

  I looked at Tvist. He was staring levelly at me, waiting for a reply. I stared levelly back.

  ‘Right?’ he said again.

  ‘Right,’ I said quietly.

  ‘These brothers, though. They’re very caught up in the detail of what they have done. They are not planners. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Then you do wonder what kind of logistical help they must have needed.’

  ‘Isn’t it your job to answer that question?’

  He laughed quietly to himself, folded his fingers together in front of his face as if thinking. He said, ‘Who is your source?’

  I leaned in very close, whispered into his ear, ‘I’m not going to tell you.’

  Tvist’s turn to whisper: ‘This is an issue of national security.’

  I half-laughed. ‘I genuinely don’t know the identity of my source.’

  ‘But you have your suspicions? No?’

  I looked about me. People were reacting to our whispered conversation. I turned to Tvist. ‘The internal meanderings of my brain are not the business of the police.’

  ‘Very satirical.’ He got up, brushed himself down, sniffed. ‘Have you thought about how you will bear it when the time comes for these men to talk about Alicia?’

  He had spoken the words loudly and deliberately.

  ‘No,’ I said just as loudly. ‘I haven’t thought about that.’

  People were turning towards us.

  ‘Perhaps you should,’ he said.

  Some nagging voice told me that taking on Tvist was a mistake, that perhaps he was neither corrupt nor incompetent, that he was simply playing the long game. But a year had gone by and we were no closer to finding our daughter. I watched him go, doing nothing to disguise my anger.

  When I turned towards the court I found Paul Andersen trying to lock his gaze on to mine.

  That smile. As if the two of us shared some horrible secret.

  34

  After twenty minutes I could bear no more of the men’s cruelty. I took the train home.

  I stood outside the apartment building, looking in. No sign of movement. No trace of Elsa’s phone on my screen. Why had she switched off? Was she out buying gin and olives at the mall? Perhaps the simplest explanation was the best.

  On a terrace two floors up a woman was polishing shoes, stopping from time to time to examine the sheen. She noticed me watching, raised a hand in greeting. I waved back. Then I went down to the garage and drove out to Garden Island.

  I had come to remember. I had half-expected to be alone but the road was filled with cars parked all the way down. I had to walk the last kilometre on foot.

  One year.

  People filed along the grass at the side of the road. Most were in their twenties. Many were younger. Some cried as they walked. Some spoke to each other in hushed words, as our shoes scuffed the path and our breathing filled the air around us. Some of us smiled private smiles, as if lost in thoughts of our loved ones. Many of us carried flowers. Had they, like me, simply felt the call?

  At the slipway people were scattering their flowers on to the surface of the fjord: tulips and roses, chrysanthemums and lilies. The current today was strong. The flowers fanned out in a swath that reached halfway across the sound. I sat, my legs overhanging the water, watching as others paid their respects. Five hundred of us, maybe more.

  Grief welled up in me. The tears seemed to come from nowhere, huge racking sobs from a place deep within.

  My Licia.

  My little girl.

  I thought of the time on the mountain at Whistler, and of the moment when Licia returned, laughing, full of joy at surviving the snowstorm. I thought of the mirror in her bedroom, of her empty bed, of the dust that had settled over the fingerprint powder in the year since she had gone.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, at the edge of the slipway, hands pressed hard against my eyes. When I could cry no more I took off my clothes and folded them beside me. I stood for a moment at the water’s edge. I jumped, piked in the air, straightened first my arms, then my legs. I felt the shock hit my torso as I dropped below the surface. I pulled myself downwards – one stroke, then the next – into the chill peaty dark, tasting salt on my lips. After a time I sensed a darker shade of black. I slowed. My fingers found the branch of a tree. I gripped it gently.

  I turned on my back, looked up. I could not see the surface, though I could sense light far above. I exhaled, watched as my breath gathered in a bubble that rose slowly away from me, contours disappearing into the gloom.

  My calf muscles brushed against rock. My back came to rest in the soft silt. I was calm now, calmer than I’d been in months.

  I emptied my lungs, saw my breath plume and join into a single vast bubble, watched as it rose directly above me, softening and disappearing as it went. If I did nothing, if I did not push myself towards the surface, then I would stay here. I would merge with the water, become one with the fjord.

  Calm.

  I could feel the beginning of the ache in my stomach, and in my throat, could feel my body preparing to inhale.

  Perhaps Licia was down here? Perhaps Licia too had merged with the water? Perhaps she was waiting for me, just out of sight. Perhaps she wanted me to stay.

  I was very, very calm, though I could feel my body fighting me, trying to force me to open my lungs and breathe.

  Calm.

  If I stayed, perhaps I could merge with Licia?

  For a moment I thought I saw the surface of the water, saw above it the faces of Elsa, and of Vee, and of Franklin, seeking me out. All was light and colour and laughter.

  I looked about me. All was dark.

  ‘I’m sorry, Licia,’ I said with the very last of my breath.

  A tiny bubble rose swiftly through the dark.

  Gone.

  Nothing now but the sound of blood pumping in my ears, of my heartbeat slow and strong.

  But Elsa. But Franklin. But Vee.

  I can’t stay, Licia.

  I curled my knees in to my stomach, crouched for a moment, feet planted on the fjord’s rocky bottom. I raised my arms above my head. I pushed hard, upwards, towards the world of the living, swimming for my life, fighting to keep the water from spilling down my throat.

  Three strokes and the water began to lighten. I saw shadows above me. Two more strokes, and the shadows resolved into shapes. Arms. Legs. Bodies in motion.

  I was at the surface, breathing gratefully, surrounded by light and by people, laughing now. United by something more than grief, as we swam together in a sea of flowers that reached almost to the island.

  Milla was waiting at the gate, as if she had known I
would come.

  ‘He’s at the barn,’ she said as I got out of the car.

  I walked past fruit trees where turtle doves billed and cooed. There he was at the side of the red-painted wooden building in his grey shirt and his grey robe, kneeling beside Arno. On the ground before them four rabbits were laid out, each bleeding delicately from a tiny wound in the shoulder. Two small-bore rifles stood nearby, barrels pointing towards the sky.

  Arno saw me first. He smiled. He tapped Bror lightly on the shoulder, staring at me all the while. The dark rings around his eyes were gone.

  Bror followed Arno’s gaze. He jumped lightly to his feet. ‘The hero returns.’ He stepped forward. We embraced.

  ‘You … are less troubled, Cal Curtis.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like me.’

  He held my forearms, scanned my eyes. ‘No, something in you has changed.’

  ‘You saw the broadcast?’

  ‘Very good it was. And yet …’ His eyes were searching mine. ‘I feel it is more than this.’

  ‘Maybe …’

  He looked back at Arno. ‘The boy’s mother will be coming for him soon. You don’t mind if we continue?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Bror returned to the rabbits. He knelt. From a pocket he took a roll of canvas which he unfurled on the grass. A set of cook’s knives, black-hilted, eight in all. Arno looked down at the knives.

  ‘Choose,’ said Bror.

  The boy’s hand floated towards an eight-inch blade.

  ‘You need a four-inch knife.’

  Arno looked at Bror. Bror took Arno’s hand, guided it towards the shorter knives at one end of the roll. ‘This,’ he said. ‘Or even this.’

  Arno looked at him again, then reached for a blade with a slight curve.

  ‘Good choice,’ said Bror. ‘Very good.’

  Arno smiled, briefly, and Bror returned the smile, an enveloping smile full of warmth and kindness. ‘Here’s how you hold it.’ Guiding the boy’s movements, gently and with confidence. ‘And here’s how you make the first cut.’

  He must have seen me turn away.

  ‘Not a fan of blood, Cal?’

  ‘In my world meat comes from the supermarket.’

  He laughed. ‘You disapprove?’

  ‘Not judging. Just not my thing.’

  ‘I like your honesty,’ he said. ‘Take a short walk.’

  I glanced at Arno. He had made a neat cut on the abdomen of one of the rabbits.

  Bror caught me looking. ‘Or stay,’ he smiled. ‘It’s really not so bad.’

  Arno nodded at me and smiled too. Unthinkable a year ago. Even a few months ago his eyes had been lifeless and empty. I smiled at the boy, and he nodded at me and picked up the next rabbit.

  ‘I will go for a walk,’ I said.

  ‘Introduce yourself to my dogs.’

  I began to walk towards the low black-painted farm building.

  A dog gave voice. Then another.

  ‘Hush!’ said Bror from behind me. That same reassuring gentleness. The dogs fell silent. I saw a yellow eye in a gap between the black-painted slats. A second eye appeared. Watchful and poised behind thin wood. No sound now beyond a low, hoarse panting.

  I crouched down, held out the back of my hand. A snout appeared, black and very close. I saw an open jaw lined with heavy teeth, felt the dog draw my scent in through its mouth. ‘Hey there,’ I said. ‘Hello.’ I pushed my hand closer to the slats, and a pink tongue appeared, lapping at my wrist.

  ‘The door is around the side,’ said Bror. ‘They really are very friendly.’

  I opened the door to the barn, heard the rasping of breath and the clanking of chain on concrete, saw their dark lurking shapes in the gloom. Three dogs, all haunch and shoulder and pointed snout. Muscular, like sprung steel.

  At this end of the barn light fell through the slats and from the open door. I could make out a wall at the far end, and in that wall a door. I hunkered down, held out a hand, but the dogs kept their distance, pacing just out of reach. I took a half-step towards them, heard the smallest of them growl in warning.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I’m one of the good guys.’ But none of them would greet me now that I was inside.

  When I returned, the rabbits were laid out in a row, their entrails stacked in a neat pile by the fence. Arno was gone.

  Bror smiled a disarming smile. ‘There’s a definite spring in your step today.’

  I looked at him. ‘You want to guess Tvist’s reaction to my piece?’

  ‘Misdirection?’

  ‘He asked me who might have provided the Andersens with logistical support.’

  Bror gave a cynical little laugh. ‘And whom did you suppose him to mean?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Well, I’m an easy target, am I not? We’ve established that.’ He gestured at the rabbits. ‘Shall we carry two each, my friend?’

  I looked at him. He was not exactly my friend, I thought. But he listened. A part of me almost wanted to confide in him.

  I bent down beside him. The rabbits were still soft, their fur silky, their bodies warm.

  I said, ‘I’ve come to understand that the police and I are not on the same side.’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I see, I think.’ He smiled, as if he found an answer in my eyes. ‘You, Cal Curtis, are … a man reborn.’

  ‘Is that a blessing?’

  He raised his right arm, his forefinger and middle finger held almost straight, ring finger and pinkie curled. ‘Would you like it to be?’

  I stood up, a rabbit in each hand. ‘Actually, I had an almost religious experience. In the waters of Garden Island.’

  He picked up the two remaining rabbits in his left hand. He stood up beside me. He laughed gently, walked to where the rifles stood, knelt and picked them up in his right hand. ‘And did you see the face of the Godhead?’

  ‘I saw the faces of my family.’

  ‘Good. Very good indeed.’ He was nodding, as if to himself, serious now. We began to walk towards the farmhouse. ‘There is something heroic at your core. You did not believe me when I hinted at it before. But you are beginning to discover what I meant.’

  ‘Am I?’ I laughed. He turned and looked at me almost gravely. I stopped laughing.

  ‘Follow.’ He marched into the house, along the stone-flagged hall and on into the kitchen, where he laid the rabbits on the workbench by the sink.

  I said, ‘Arno seems …’

  ‘… better? Much, though he hasn’t uttered a word since he arrived. And the girls terrify him. We quarter as many as eight at a time. All of them exceptional. So hard to be a teenage boy these days. Even without Arno’s additional challenges. I say to Arno, you may open any door, enter any room, but you must not climb the stairs to the girls’ dormitory! Because even in the land of equality, men are still men.’

  ‘You’re schooling him in the chivalric virtues?’

  ‘All very chaste. Though I imagine that’s not easy for a pubescent boy either, and I can see that a part of you wishes to satirize me for it. But a young man must know how to behave in the presence of women. You’re a father to two daughters. I know that at heart we agree.’ He looked at me, smiled a wise smile. ‘What we teach is really not so old fashioned. Me-too, and all that. Think of our girls as a new template for womanhood, and Arno as a new template for manhood. The modern world wants to use women and cast them aside. We do not, and Arno will not.’

  ‘So Arno is your little knight …’

  At this he became very serious. He put a hand on my arm, looked me in the eye. ‘Cal, friend, even a good man knows how a bad man thinks. Surely it’s better that he respect women?’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Yes. And I do see the change in him.’

  ‘Now …’ He gestured to the rabbits in my hands, which I passed him. ‘Let us talk instead about this change in you, Cal … I’m tempted to say it’s an acceptance of calling.’

  ‘I have no calling.’

  ‘Oh, but yo
u do. You spoke truth to power, and with such angry clarity. This is what the fightback looks like, my friend. And you know now for whom you are fighting.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Your tribe, of course. You must not deprecate yourself. This is a huge achievement. And now that you have identified your enemy – with startling clarity, may I say – you are declaring war upon him with the truth as your shield and the pen as your sword.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For helping us get this far.’

  ‘Oh, but you mustn’t thank me. Not yet. You must go home to your wife and your children and prepare for something utterly wonderful.’

  35

  Elsa was outlining her eyes with kohl, naked from the shower. In the bathroom mirror I saw how her eyes flicked to the crystal glass as I set it beside her, then flicked back to me. There was an openness to her, an expectancy that I hadn’t seen in months. She had left the doors open between the bedroom and the bathroom, remembering, perhaps – reminding me of a time, perhaps – when I would watch her as she prepared to go out.

  I walked past her and into the bedroom, lay on the neatly made bed, glass in hand. I looked up to find her watching me, her own glass half-raised. She loosed her hair with her left hand. It hung heavy around her shoulders, glinting dully, the ends curling inwards, trailing against her breasts.

  She turned the glass in her hand. ‘Alchemy, Cal.’ Sunbeams cut the heavy viscous liquid. Tiny golden shards of ice, disappearing fast.

  We held each other’s gaze in the Norwegian way.

  ‘Skål.’

  ‘Skål.’

  My phone rang.

  I put down my drink, untouched. Elsa watched me, her glass still by her lips, intrigued.

  ‘Do you need to get that, Cal?’

  I looked at her: at the keen intelligence in her wolf eyes; at the implied question in her gently parted lips. I looked down at the water droplets on her breasts, at the exhilarating angle of her thigh. I switched off my phone.

  For the first time in a year we fucked. It was slow and intense, far too full of expectation and longing to be satisfying. Neither of us came, but there was an intimacy to it that I thought we had lost. Something simple and overwhelming and beautiful.