The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy)

by Nilsson-Julien, Olivier

  There were thousands of photos, mainly nature pics. I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for. I just wanted to see the last things my father had seen by focusing on the last few days from the moment of Anna’s disappearance. It was hard to tell my father’s mood from the photos or if they had any significance in relation to Anna. He practically lived in the archipelago and its manifestations probably had other meanings to him. The most banal things can be special to lovers, whereas they look like rubbish to outsiders. What was it that the photos didn’t show? What had he seen that I couldn’t spot? Even when limiting myself to his last couple of days, the number of photos was endless.

  I asked Sven for a map and most of the photos appeared to have been taken in a five-kilometre radius around the boathouse bay. I didn’t know for sure, but I assumed he’d been searching for Anna. These were his last movements and they were all I had to go on for the moment. I needed to take a systematic approach. Working my way backwards, starting from the last photos seemed to make most sense. Sven offered to lend me a GPS camera with a direct link to the backup system to facilitate my search.

  27

  Knowing that she always stayed on for some extra laps, he’d waited in the girls’ changing room. The benches along the walls were empty except for her clothes. Her leather boots were standing neatly under her spot and her puffer was hanging on the hook. He picked up her blouse and was inhaling her scent as she came in. She snatched it from him.

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘I just...’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘Give me a chance to finish my…’

  ‘PISS OFF!’

  He walked up to her and pleaded.

  ‘Marja.’

  She slapped him.

  ‘Bloody perv.’

  He realised she would never let him near and this made him even more determined to have her. She was a better swimmer, but he was stronger and he’d brought a hunting knife. He held it against her throat, determined to own her, but she’d glared at him with the same contempt as the others. She knew he’d never dare to use it. She made him feel self-conscious and childlike. She despised him and he was unable to change that. He’d had no choice but to suffocate her with her own towel. He pulled her down on the floor and sat on top of her until she stopped moving.

  He’d acted on an impulse and dumped her in the steaming sauna. Afterwards his whole body was shaking, terrified but also excited. It empowered him and made him feel stronger. He’d snipped off some of her hair to add to his hunting trophies. He’d turned on the cold shower and left it running. No one was surprised when the police concluded it was a case of heart attack. These were frequent in Finland with its tradition of combining steaming saunas and freezing water.

  28

  I returned to the yacht club to ask Thor for the best way to travel between the different GPS points. He suggested I use his snowmobile. He talked me through the routes likely to have the best ice and taught me how to drive it, encouraging me to read the terrain and work the throttle rather than the brakes in the bends. I should see the snow as water on a river – use it and let it carry me like a kayak; otherwise it would only drag me down.

  The throttle was a lever on the right-hand side of the handlebar controlled with the thumb. In soft snow the braking was done by letting off the throttle. In case of hard-packed snow, I simply had to pump the brakes – a lever on the other side of the handlebar. Apart from these points, balance was the main issue. I would be fine as long as kept my feet well tucked under the stirrups and leaned into the turns. Thor made it all pretty clear. My only problem was the throttle, as the pain in the stump left after my pinkie became unbearable whenever I pushed the acceleration. I would just have to take it easy.

  I spun round on the ice for a good half hour until I got the hang of it. He was right, it was about reading and feeling the terrain, and the snow was my best ally as long as I went with it. If not, I wouldn’t stand a chance. When Thor finally let me go, he told me to be careful with the snowmobile. He’d had it for over 15 years and was attached to it, especially as they didn’t make them like this any more. On newer models everything was electronic and you needed a space lab to fix them. Thor’s machine was straightforward mechanics without nerdy input. Leaving him behind, I drove in slow-motion for the first half hour, but soon started relaxing in the never-ending icescape. The missing finger was still hurting but the excitement of the driving outweighed the pain.

  I spent the whole day checking out locations, but they didn’t reveal anything that wasn’t on the photos. They showed trees, rocks and ice and that’s what I found. There were no off-screen surprises or enlightening visions and I didn’t see what role these places could have played in my father’s death or Anna’s disappearance. Considering these were his last, the photos seemed so pointless, unless it was me, my inability to see what he’d seen when he took them.

  Only at the end of the afternoon did I find something I could get a grip on and take further. It was at the location of one of the last two photos, which I must have missed at first, because my intention had been to start with the last and I hadn’t seen these. I’d probably pressed the wrong button on the camera, but hopefully I hadn’t lost any other photos.

  The first of the two had been taken in the vicinity of a house. Again, I struggled to track down the location and when I arrived, it took me a while to work out the angles, as the photo had been taken from a concealed position. It was as if my father had been spying on the house. If the inhabitants were home they must have heard the snowmobile, so I decided to be blunt and tell them why I was there. I had nothing to lose, but when I knocked on the door there was no one home. I peeped through the window without seeing anything out of the ordinary. It was when I jumped back on the snowmobile that I noticed the post box. It was one of those long metallic American ones, but what caught my eye was the hammer. It was decorated with a Troll-like figure holding a giant hammer. I got off the snowmobile, looked inside the box and pulled out a couple of envelopes addressed to a Thor Torstensson. I didn’t know Thor’s last name, but one of the letters was from the Finnish Ice Yachting Society. It must be my Thor.

  The second photo was different. It showed a window and according to the GPS on the camera it had been taken in downtown Mariehamn. I had the GPS location and thanks to the architecture I recognised the street. When I went there to look for the window, it was impossible to find. The photo was too blurred. I stood right outside a café and I went in for a coffee. As soon as I sat down, my eyes fell on Sven’s camera shop diagonally across the street. I hadn’t looked at the shop fronts, only at the first floor windows, because the photo was of a room window and not a shop. Then I saw the curtain’s being drawn in Sven’s first floor window. That was it. The curtains were closed on the photo too and they were the same colour. Had my father been spying on Sven too?

  Apparently my father had been watching two of his friends. Maybe it had nothing to do with Anna and maybe he was just a peeping Tom who liked to spy on his mates, but it did seem strange. I went into the shop to ask Sven about the photo. This time he’d had his siesta and was in a better mood. I tried resisting his aquavit but inevitably ended up having a glass. He had no idea why Henrik would have taken the photo. Besides, it looked accidental – he didn’t do blurred photos. Henrik wasn’t the arty farty type. He documented reality as it was. His reality was never out of focus.

  ‘Did he use to come to the café?’

  I eyed the café across the street.

  ‘We’d usually have our coffee in the shop, but maybe he went on his own.’

  ‘Do you know Thor Torstensson?

  ‘I know who he is.’

  ‘Henrik took a photo of his house too.’

  ‘Thor is a bit of an odd fish.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He keeps to himself.’

  Didn’t they all in Mariehamn? As for being odd, both Thor and Sven had lied to me about Anna’s disappearance. I wasn’t sure who was the
least trustworthy of the two.

  When Sven got the photos up on the PC, he confirmed that they didn’t look like Henrik’s usual work. Although they’d been taken with his camera, the low angle and use of long lens in the photo of Thor’s house were atypical. Henrik preferred a standard lens and never tried to dramatise the composition of his photos, which the suggestion of concealment did. And night photography wasn’t his thing either. He was up at the crack of dawn with the bulk of his work done before lunch time. In the afternoon he’d go to the yacht club and then fiddle with the photo files back home at night, except when he stayed on at the yacht club for a pizza and a game of chess. He had a routine and that last just night didn’t fit into it.

  Sven was adamant he hadn’t seen my father on the day he died. I already thought the swimming at night was peculiar and now Sven claimed my father was a morning person, not a night photographer.

  ‘Then why hasn’t anyone reacted to the night swimming?’

  ‘Maybe the cold dip was his way of thinking. If he was using his camera to record his search for Anna, it could explain the difference in style. It was an unusual situation.’

  Sven could be right about my father being driven by concern, something slightly outside his usual mindset. Even if the photo of Sven’s window had been accidental, it meant that my father had been standing across the street with his camera. What was there to do here at night? Maybe he’d been forced to take a furtive photo. Unless someone else took it.

  ‘Did he know anyone in the neighbourhood? Was there a pub or restaurant he used to go to?’

  ‘Henke only went to the yacht club.’

  Was Sven telling the truth? I didn’t know what to think. I’d showed him the photo of Anna during our first encounter and he’d said he’d never seen her. He’d also said he didn’t like sports and never went to the yacht club, but I was sure I’d seen him somewhere before. My father taking photos of both his mates’ places on his last night was too much of a coincidence. There must be something to it.

  I was going to do another day of location checking and then I’d give up if I didn’t find anything. I couldn’t leave Carrie alone any longer. I’d already kept her waiting too long. I still had to ask Thor about the photo of his house. He hadn’t mentioned anything about my father visiting him on his last day. Or should I have gone to the police? What would have been the point of telling them that my father had taken a photo of his friend’s house? I still had no idea what was going on. I was fumbling in a blizzard.

  29

  Thor was out when I arrived at the yacht club. I phoned him, telling him I needed to speak to him, but he wanted to talk over the phone. When I insisted on meeting face to face, he said he’d be at least another hour.

  While waiting, I looked through my father’s desk. Above it hung a photo of Thor and my father squeezed in together on an ice yacht. It looked like they’d been great friends, but I couldn’t resist snooping in Thor’s desk. Although father had taken a photo of his house, Thor hadn’t mentioned anything about my father visiting. He even claimed he hadn’t seen much of my father during his last days. Had it been a secret visit? Did my father suspect Thor of anything? And why had Sven called him an odd fish? The top drawer was a morass of ice yachting photos. The second one was an equal mess but crammed with stationery. I’d almost shut it, when something at the back caught my eye.

  A passport, a Ukrainian passport in Anna’s name. What was it doing in Thor’s desk? If her passport was here, she definitely hadn’t left the archipelago and Thor had known all along. It wasn’t the first time he’d lied to me. He hadn’t told me about upsetting Anna or the ensuing argument with my father, and now it turned out he had her passport all along. I spent two hours waiting at the yacht club without any sign of Thor. When I rang him again, he said he couldn’t make it. He was getting a part for his broken boiler and then he had to go home to fit it. He suggested meeting at the club the following morning.

  It was late but I couldn’t wait. I needed to speak to Thor now and in person. I didn’t tell him I decided to drive out to his place. I could squeeze in two location checks on the way to his place. One of them was a detour, but it would give Thor the time to get home. I wanted to see if there really was a problem with his boiler.

  Even with the GPS tag, the first location was almost impossible to find. It was hidden between islands and peninsulas. I couldn’t make sense of the map and ended up driving into several coves to find a passage. Anna’s passport being on my mind did nothing to improve my orientation. I had to control myself not to go straight to Thor’s.

  Eventually, I pinned down the GPS location. It was an isolated bay with a timber church built on the waterfront. Further down the bay was a boathouse sticking out over the ice and behind the church was what must have been the vicarage. A man with a video camera was filming an old craftsman sitting on the church steps carving a wooden figure. I went up to them. The craftsman nodded at me before getting on with the carving – not the type to waste time on superfluous chit-chat. I could see he was born and bred in the area and quite different from the cameraman, who was tall, wearing a smart cashmere coat and minimalist rectangular glasses. His long grey hair was swaying in the wind and the wildness of the beard contrasted with his immaculate clothes and hair. His clothes and ZZ Top tribute seemed to belong to two different people, but the overall impression was of elegance. How did anyone manage to remain so smart in these harsh conditions? He took off his glove and gave me a hand.

  ‘Boeck, Rudolf Boeck.’

  ‘Magnus Sandberg.’

  ‘Henrik’s son?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Sorry about your father.’

  If a handshake was any indication of character, Boeck’s was solid.

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘He was a friend.’

  ‘How did you know him?’

  ‘He worked for me at the museum. A superb photographer.’

  I looked at him questioningly.

  ‘The National History Museum. He was one of the talents behind the exhibition.’

  ‘What exhibition?’

  ‘Isn’t that why you’re here?’

  ‘I’m trying to retrace my father’s last days. Get a grip on his life.’

  ‘What a lovely idea. Are you an artist?’

  I wasn’t sure if he was serious or taking the piss, so I replied with a straight face.

  ‘An accountant.’

  ‘The greatest artists of our time.’

  I smiled – Boeck clearly wasn’t a man of understatements.

  ‘So what’s going on here?’

  ‘We’re working on the final bits of material for our exhibition for the Marikulti Fest – Mariehamn Multicultural Festival. It’s the most ambitious project we’ve ever undertaken. People are coming to the festival from all over Scandinavia, so we want to get it right.’

  ‘Do you know when my father last came here?’

  I knew from the GPS tag but wanted confirmation.

  ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘Just trying to backtrack his last couple of days.’

  Boeck laughed.

  ‘Ever the accountant… let me think…’

  He looked out over the infinite icescape, squinting because of the sun.

  ‘It must have been Tuesday… yes, the day before he was found.’

  Boeck stared into the darkness for a moment.

  ‘A great loss.’

  I wasn’t here to get sentimental. The last thing I wanted was another manly hug.

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘We discussed the photos he took for the project – photographic vignettes of the archipelago.’

  ‘Would it be possible to see them?’

  I could probably find them on the backup site, but I wouldn’t know what to look for.

  ‘Of course. Just drop in at the museum in Mariehamn.’

  ‘Great.’

  I didn’t quite know what else to say and wasn’t English enough to start on t
he weather.

  ‘I just wanted to ask if you’ve seen this woman by any chance.’

  I handed him the photo of Anna.

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘Her name is Anna.’

  ‘I would have remembered.’

  This had been yet another dead end. Before driving ahead on his snowmobile to show me the way back through the labyrinth of islands, Boeck told me the interview location had been chosen for its isolation, because too many visitors stopped the workflow. He also believed the serenity of the setting would rub off on the interview. Even if he hadn’t given me any real answers, Boeck had surprised me. I really hadn’t expected to encounter such sophistication in the middle of nowhere. Without his guidance, I would never have found the main island again.

  30

  The last GPS tag on the way to Thor’s was a flat barge moored in a rocky cove. I went on board and called out but there was no reply, so I climbed through the unlocked hatch.

  ‘Hello?’

  There was still no response. The main living space looked like it hadn’t been inhabited for quite some time. The kitchen corner and the bunk were covered in dust. I wasn’t sure how long it had been empty, but I couldn’t believe dust accumulated that quickly around here. When I climbed back up on deck, I couldn’t see anything at first, but once my eyes adjusted to the dark again, I spotted a white spiral mounting through the night sky. It was rising smoke reflecting the moonlight.

  I jumped back on the snowmobile to check it out. As I got closer, I could distinguish the outlines of a little cabin standing in the middle of the ice, pumping out smoke. In London, I would have called it a shed, but I couldn’t remember the local name. What was burning inside?

  I turned off the engine as I arrived at the windowless shed. An old moped trike with skis strapped to the front wheels stood parked outside. I listened but there was no sound except for a faint crackling. A fire? A stove? I could also hear something akin to hollow gurgling. Just as I was about to knock at the door, a deep voice spoke from inside: