The Island

by Ben McPherson

  ‘Interesting theory.’ He stared at me, an unreadable look in his eye.

  ‘How long has he been a suspect?’

  He shook his head. He wasn’t going to discuss procedure with me.

  ‘Have you at least issued an arrest warrant?’

  ‘We have,’ he said. ‘I can give you that assurance.’

  47

  The apartment was secure. Electricians had fitted a panic button and a camera in every room. Everything was professional, everything reassuringly neat. But really, if someone wants to harm you, they will find a way.

  I drove south. By eleven thirty I was at the beach by the harbour. I dragged the rowing boat across the stones and into the water, rowed slowly across the sound. The water was ink-black, the sky red, streaked through with white.

  I tied up the boat in front of the cabin. Elsa had placed Franklin’s crib on the wooden veranda that gave on to the shore. She heard my footsteps on the shingle, came out to meet me, stood beside the crib as I approached, watching over our sleeping son. Franklin lay on his back on his giant sheepskin, covers thrown off, arms raised, the tips of his fingers gently exploring each other as he slept.

  ‘We have to talk,’ I whispered as we kissed. Elsa nodded, looked meaningfully at Vee, who was watching us intently from the doorway.

  Not yet.

  They had dredged mussels from the bay with a snow shovel. Elsa laid the shovel straight on to the fire to cook the mussels, turning them with steel tongs, then scooped them on to plates filled with seagrass and new potatoes. We poured a small glass of wine for Vee, which she did not touch, and a larger glass of wine for each of us. Together we sat on a wooden bench that faced out across the fjord, Vee between us, watching as the last of the sun’s rays played on the brow of a far hill and the sky above us faded purple-black. Water lapped at the shore. Oystercatchers gathered in small flocks, swooping and soaring, calling out across the sound.

  The mussels were sweet, the wine dry, the seagrass salty and delicate.

  ‘Vee,’ I said, ‘you’re barely eating.’ But Vee did not reply.

  Elsa looked across at me, smiled. Vee’s eyes were closed. She was asleep where she sat, upright, breathing gently. That slow, familiar in-in-and-out. Her mother’s daughter.

  ‘Vee?’ I said gently. ‘Vee, I’m going to lift you, and carry you into bed.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Vee.

  ‘Want me to help?’ said Elsa.

  ‘I’ve got this.’

  I hoisted Vee as gently as I could, a hand on each side of her chest, below the arms, her head lolling on to my right shoulder. Little Vee. This has been far too hard on you, I thought. I carried her into the cabin and over to the divan by the kitchen window, laid her gently down on top of the sheets.

  Elsa was standing in the doorway, watching.

  ‘Elsa,’ I said. ‘Licia’s with Bror.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know.’

  I frowned. How could she possibly know?

  ‘Tvist rang me himself this time,’ she said. ‘Fuck, Cal.’

  ‘Those videos,’ I said. ‘I was so caught up in my jealous thoughts that I was sure it was you.’

  ‘I guess I thought it was me, also. I fell asleep at Hedda’s a bunch of times. I kind of assumed she was gaming us, seeing how far she had to push before it broke us apart.’

  ‘When in reality it was Licia. Before and after the attack.’

  She bent down, kissed Vee on the forehead. ‘Let’s go outside.’

  I nodded. I took a bottle from the fridge, found an opener in the drawer, carried them out and set them beside the fire.

  We sat there, cross-legged, staring into the flames. Elsa took a long slug of wine. ‘Can I share with you a thought I’m not proud of, Cal?’

  ‘You know you can.’

  ‘I used to look at those grieving women in their headscarves,’ she said. ‘With their daughters gone to marry foreign fighters. Because there’s a definite urge – don’t you have it? – to say you radicalized your daughter … you and your husband must have … something in your family cannot be right … You know, they chose the wrong mosque, or they put the wrong holy texts in front of her, or they beat her or I don’t know what they did … And that’s what people are going to think about us.’

  ‘We didn’t do anything wrong.’

  ‘Most likely, neither did those poor grieving women.’ She took a long slug of wine. ‘Ninety-one counts of accessory to murder, Cal. How is this possible? She was this … average girl.’

  ‘I guess maybe average wasn’t good enough.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, quiet as breath. ‘Cal, did we do that to her? Did we make her feel not good enough?’

  ‘We’re never going to know.’

  ‘That’s an unbearable thought.’

  We sat for a while, barely touching.

  ‘Elsa,’ I said, ‘that girl who welcomed Licia to the house church that time … was she wearing grey clothes?’

  ‘A grey shift dress. A belt tied at the waist.’

  ‘That day when I sent you back to the boat, did you get a look at the woman I met?’

  She shook her head. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder if they could be the same person. I think Milla recruited her.’

  We drank wine and watched the fire and did not speak. Neither of us would say it, but I could see she was thinking it too: that we had failed Licia; that these people had stepped in to provide something we could not. In Licia’s own eyes she had become something exceptional.

  After a time I took my wife in my arms. Elsa cried then, a long, keening wail that rang out across the fjord. And I cried too, silently, as men are taught. We cried for our family, and for Franklin and Vee, and for what the last year had done to them. Most of all we cried in mourning for our daughter Licia, who was lost to us now; who was never coming back.

  For five days we barely spoke. We caught fish in the fjord, we collected wild strawberries, and we slept in the sun. None of us spoke about Licia – not once – though we were locked into place by her crimes. On Monday the Andersens would speak about her. Then the world would learn what she had done.

  On Saturday Tvist rang to tell me he had arrested Bror personally. ‘We’ve got him this time,’ he said.

  All we could do now was wait.

  48

  I was standing naked outside the cabin, spitting toothpaste and water on to the grass, when Tvist rang again. I picked up my phone. It was five fifteen on Monday morning.

  ‘We’re up,’ I said. ‘Thanks for checking.’

  ‘This is about Bror.’ I could hear the strain in his voice.

  ‘Have you charged him?’ I said.

  ‘We don’t yet have enough. The case we are building will be strong. I give you my word.’

  ‘Please tell me you haven’t released him?’

  ‘We expect to re-arrest him soon.’

  Vee had breakfast on the table. She looked burnt out, pale, a little shaky.

  ‘Nice outfit,’ she said as I passed.

  ‘I’ll get dressed.’

  ‘You OK, Dad?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I dressed. We ate with the door to the cabin thrown open. We could see through the window the headlights of a police Volvo as it drew up by the harbour. And as we crossed the fjord in the rowing boat I sat in the bow, vibrating with rage, watching the police driver as he smoked a cigarette down by the dock. Vee rowed carefully, turning regularly to check her position, dutiful and cautious, while Elsa sat in the stern with Franklin in his car seat, her stiff grey bag at her feet. The motion of the boat had lulled Franklin to sleep again. He was smiling as he slept, fingers exploring the contours of his cheeks.

  Henrik was there on shore, leaning on the bonnet of the police car, his own car doors open, speaking easily to the driver. As we approached he got up.

  ‘How is my most excellent grandson?’ he said, looking down at Franklin. ‘Ready for a day of soft play and as many smoothies as he can eat?
’

  ‘You know those things are basically just sugar?’ said Vee.

  ‘Thanks for doing this, Henrik,’ I said.

  He stepped forward and bear-hugged me. ‘Just … don’t hand these men any sort of victory.’

  ‘We won’t.’

  Elsa was leaning down, strapping Franklin’s seat into her father’s car.

  I turned to the police officer. ‘I need our car for after the island. I’ll follow you.’

  Elsa sent me a questioning look. Please, I thought at her. Don’t ask me why.

  Elsa nodded.

  Vee stared at me for a moment, but got dutifully into the rear seat of the police car.

  ‘See you there, love,’ I said.

  When we hit the two-lane highway I dropped my speed, let a pair of Teslas fall in between me and the police Volvo. After five minutes I let myself fall out of sight.

  By seven I was parked across the road that led to the farmhouse. There were the doves, turning lazy circles in the air above. And there was the Landcruiser. I had guessed Bror would be here, that he was weary after a weekend of questioning, that the farmhouse would have seemed the easiest option. He would be no match for me now. But there he was, striding across the yard to his car.

  I walked to the gate, opened it.

  The Landcruiser drifted forwards. Bror glared out. I waved him past, closed the gate.

  He came to a stop beside me. ‘Your car is impeding my car’s progress,’ he said.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Perhaps you are more stupid than I realized.’ Any charm, any hold he ever had over me was gone.

  ‘Perhaps I am,’ I said. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Do I not make myself clear?’

  ‘You made an implicit threat. Where’s my daughter?’

  He got out of the Landcruiser, stood staring into my eyes. ‘Move your car.’

  ‘Was that Milla you sent? Standing over my son like that?’

  ‘Move your car.’

  I folded my arms across my chest. ‘Was it Milla who recruited Licia?’

  ‘Weak little believe-nothing centrist cuck scum.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He smiled. ‘That was Licia’s verdict on you, Cal. Her actual words when we spoke on the phone. I had tried to warn her that she wouldn’t like what she found, but she needed to see for herself.’

  I thought of Licia behind her bedroom door, mumbling words that we could not hear. I thought of Bror advising her to apologize to her sister. But then I thought of Licia’s tears when we visited the tree we had planted in her memory: surely those tears at least were genuine?

  Bror smiled. ‘Licia was pregnant and broken when she came to me. Not unlike her mother at that age … Very receptive, desperate to be heard, delighted to find me a good listener …’ That same easy, charming smile that had comforted me a year ago. The sledgehammer blow of his words. ‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, none of that’s true.’

  ‘Tempting to think, though, surely? Would that bring you some closure, an explanation of how she ended up believing what she does? She’s her mother’s daughter, after all, and to be pregnant at fifteen … Oh, so she was traumatized. Oh, so she was brutalized. Oh, so she was brainwashed. Maybe that’s how we did it?’ He adjusted his stance, made himself tall. ‘Now move your car.’

  ‘No.’

  He looked me up and down. ‘Or perhaps she despised you, Cal, and everything you stood for. What if she simply looked at us and liked what she saw?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  We taught her right from wrong.

  Still, the accusation caught me off guard.

  Bror made a scoffing sound at the back of his mouth. ‘Oh, I can see that’s an unbearable thought to the great Cal Curtis …’

  ‘Fuck you, Bror.’

  Bror laughed. ‘Let’s not forget I fucked your wife. What if Licia were my daughter all along? She found that argument very persuasive. Father Bror.’

  I tried to slow the racing of my mind. I made a point of laughing, of looking him in the eye.

  I said, ‘The dates don’t work.’

  ‘If your wife is to be believed, they don’t …’

  ‘And you told Licia that?’

  ‘You’ll never be sure exactly what I told her. She isn’t coming back, Cal. Sorry.’ He stepped away. ‘Now, why don’t we take my implicit threat and make it explicit? There are no safe countries any more. Wherever you think you will find sanctuary, there we will find you.’

  ‘Except that I’m not afraid of you.’

  ‘Your son will not see his second birthday.’ He spoke the words so quietly. For a moment I thought I had misheard.

  ‘Say that again,’ I said.

  ‘Victoria will not see adulthood. Your children are as good as dead. Your only legacy will be Licia Curtis and the Garden Island massacre, and even then people will argue over whose daughter she is.’

  My right arm swung towards his left temple.

  I saw a moment of panic in his eye. He tried to lean away from the blow.

  Too late.

  His jaw moved towards me as his temple moved away. I struck him with all the anger and the frustration and the grief of the past year.

  He remained on his feet, took half a step backwards.

  He ran his tongue experimentally around his mouth, spat blood on to the yellowed grass. He smiled. ‘That’s assault.’

  ‘It is.’ I smiled back.

  He looked down at the blood, then looked up at me, locking eyes. ‘Here, assault is a grave offence. The police take it very seriously.’

  I laughed.

  Bror laughed too, holding my gaze, eyes full of revenge.

  I said, ‘Are you going to murder my family before or after you report me to the police?’

  ‘Very satirical.’

  I knew we were in danger; I knew the threat was real; I would not be cowed.

  I laughed again.

  Bror’s laughter stopped. Mine did not. I could hear it echoing across the courtyard. Something in his gaze, though, as if he were trying to send a signal. His eyes flicked. I turned, and in the upstairs window I saw a thin male figure in a black suit.

  Edvard, caught as if in a spotlight.

  Time stopped.

  Of course.

  Oh, you traitorous man.

  I thought of Edvard and of the help he had provided. Of the Post-it note that he must have passed to Milla, of the photograph of the boat that had fallen into our hands, of his own lost uniform, for which he had blamed Jo. All that evidence of a failing police culture. And all of it was true, and all of it was damning. That was the brilliance of the scheme. Brick by brick Edvard had helped build a narrative of police incompetence at the best, of a conspiracy at the worst. Bror had fed that narrative to me in tantalizing morsels, and each time I had reacted as he guessed I would.

  Edvard returned my gaze, level and unblinking. How could he feel no shame? He had betrayed us; he had betrayed Jo; he had betrayed the memory of all those children on Garden Island. I thought of him down on the shore, collecting information about the missing. I thought of the anonymous grey telephones he had given us, and the anonymous grey telephone that Licia had carried. I thought of the eight police uniforms in the room off the corridor in the farmhouse. And while I was watching him and wondering at his treachery, Edvard nodded and he smiled his shy smile.

  The betrayals were not over. Edvard and Bror were enacting a plan.

  Edvard stepped away from the window. Bror was walking stiffly to his car. Had Edvard known who he was aiding? Or had Bror convinced Edvard that he too was a teller of great truths?

  I welcome the fallen. Bring them back to the fold.

  Bror was sliding himself into the driver’s seat, pulling his door shut behind him. He wound down the window. ‘You, Cal Curtis, are a dead man.’ Then he drove across the stones at the side of the path, past my car, and on to the single-track road.

  My pul
se beat heavy in my ears, and in my throat. Soon, perhaps, the fear would come. But for now my blood was up.

  I got into my own car. I drove forwards, turned in the courtyard, set off along the single-track road. A sworl of dust hung like a spirit in the morning air. Bror was gone.

  I pushed the car as hard as I could along the dried mud and gravel, felt stones kicking up into the wheel arches as I turned.

  At the main road I made a guess, joined the four-lane highway heading north. Trucks lined the inside lane, but the outside lane was empty of cars and I cruised easily past the trucks.

  As I passed Sharif’s tyre warehouse I wondered if I had miscalculated. I slowed to the speed limit, began to consider my options.

  I dialled Elsa, held the phone jammed between my neck and my shoulder as I drove.

  The line rang twice.

  ‘Hey. Where are you?’

  ‘Elsa, tell your dad to get Franklin to a police station. Tell him not to stop en route.’

  ‘I’m going to have to tell him a bit more than that.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  Because there was a silver Landcruiser, standing alone on the forecourt of a petrol station.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said, and again, ‘fuck.’

  ‘Cal, what’s going on?’

  ‘Tell him that, Elsa.’

  I dropped the phone on to the seat beside me, began looking for a break in the inside lane. I accelerated till I saw a gap in the wall of trucks, pulled across the lane and on to the shoulder, braking hard. Angry horns sounded. I came to a stop. To my left, an endless flow of trucks; to my right, fields and sky. I looked behind me. From here I could see only the petrol station roof, red against the dark trees beyond.

  Was I sure I had seen Bror’s Landcruiser? I sat, watching the flow of traffic to my left: the endless parade of trucks driving north, and in the outside lane the occasional car.

  There, in a gap between the trucks, a silver flash. So brief that I barely saw it. I kicked the car forward on the narrow hard shoulder, pushed it up to 110. To my left, a truck driver sounded his horn, warning me off. There was a gap in front of his cab, barely large enough for my car. I swerved in. The driver sounded his horn again, flashed his lights as he braked to avoid me. ‘Thanks, friend,’ I said under my breath, and pulled into the outside lane. Empty space, then Bror, disappearing over the brow of a hill. I pushed the car forward.