Black Ice (11 page)

'What do you want  to talk about?'

'You  were looking for me, remember?'

I did,  but  that seemed a long time ago now. Abandoning all thoughts of subtle  interrogation, I swallowed  hard  and  went straight for it.

'You  married Solrun, I believe?'

'Who  wants  to know?'

'Me.' I  took his silence  as  the next  question. 'I'm  a newspaperman from  London. I'm   writing   some  stuff  about her.'

He turned  his eyes away in disgust. 'Why'd you think I 'II buy that shit?'

'You want credentials .. .'I reached inside my jacket,  but he was already  shaking his head.

'You wouldn't pull that one unless you'd got the paperwork.'

'So how do I convince you? I was a friend of hers. You can ask people. I knew her a couple of years ago when I was on a press visit.'

To  my relief he was nodding his head  this time. 'I got you.

The  Brit. The  shmuck  in the photographs.'

This  was no time to be proud. 'That's right,' I said,  beaming with  bonhomie.

A silence welled up between  us as he studied  me. If I'd  had

all day  to think  about  it, I still couldn't have guessed  his next question.

'You  lay her?' he suddenly snapped out. The silence spread to  the  other   tables. A  tall  man  in  a  suit  who  was  halfway through the door,  glanced  around, and  went out again.

'Yes,' I said,  after a lifetime's  pause.

This time  he leaned  further forward  and  pushed  his crude colourless face towards me. 'You fucked my wife?' he said, in a soft whisper.

'Yes.' My voice bent a bit in the middle but I managed  to say it.

He  sat  back,  threw  his head  back  and  blew smoke  at  the

ceiling.  'If  you'd  said  you hadn't, I'd  have torn  your ears off, man,' he said,  his eyes, bright  with  amusement, returning to mine.  'I must  be  the  only  goddam guy  on  this  island  who hasn't.'

I concentrated on stirring my coffee. There was no sugar in it to stir,  but it did seem a fairly neutral activity.

'You  wanna  write that down for your readers? C'mon, that's a great  story  - ain't that  what  you call  it,  a story?'  I  had  a sudden thought then  of Grimm  and  his ideas  about  the Sexy Eskies and  I wondered what  he'd make of reality when it came in this form.

Very gently,  I inquired: 'And  why was that?'

'Why  didn't I get to screw her?' He took delight in spelling it out.  Euphemisms weren't needed  round  here for the moment.

'Maybe she only  liked  you classy  Brits  and  the way you say "bloke" and  "bloody" all the time. Or  maybe she was a real patriot and  only  kicked  up her heels for these  big dumb fish stinkin' Icelanders.'

He'd  lifted his voice for the last few words and he turned  and looked around to see if anyone  else wanted  to contribute to the debate. They  didn't.

He was a puzzle. There was a pride in his bitterness, a violent and  defiant  pride,  and  I couldn't see where it came from.

'Course,' he went on, pleased with the discomfort  he was causing, 'maybe she didn't like Uncle Sam too much. Some of the folks round  here don't. Ain't  that  right?'

Two  stone-faced housewives  rose and  left. A workman  in a donkey jacket  followed.

'See what I mean? No, they don't all love the Americanos on this little  island. Now I wonder  why that  can  be? I really  do wonder  about that.'

'But  you're not American, are you?'

The smile sank and I was left looking at the hollow emptiness of his eyes. Casually he reached  out and  took my right hand  in his left. He held it softly, without  force. Then, with  the finger and  thumb of his right  hand, he took hold of the  thin  web of flesh between my own finger and thumb. He began  to squeeze.

'I know a hundred ways to give you pain.' He watched  me with real interest.

At first I felt nothing. I watched  his thumb, thick as a truncheon, go into  rings of white and  red as he increased the pressure. He ground the sliver of tissue until my whole hand felt on fire.

'Well, well, we got a toughie,' he said.

He moved his shoulders forward  to get more pressure and he squinted  up  at  me  from  beneath   his  bare   brows.   He  was watching me  with  the  detached curiosity   of a  professional. Inside, everything I had was screwed  up into a tight  ball in the middle of my chest to stop my face breaking open with the pain, and  to stop  the shouts  from flooding out.

Behind  me,  I  heard  one  of  the  waitresses  say  something which  caused  a wary  look to move across  his face. Gently, he released  my hand  and  set it down  as though  it was a meal  he didn't want any more. The pain surged in, white and red lances of it, as the blood moved  back.

'I know about  pain, friend,' he said, in a quiet, careful voice.

'I was well trained.'

I was nursing  my hand, but  nothing could stop  the feeling that  it would detonate with pain.

'You said you weren't American,' I said.

'Did  I say that?'

I got up, chucked down some money for the coffee and shook my head at the waitress  who was poised  to dial for the police.

'Where the hell do you think you're  going?'

'A long way from you. I thought you wanted  to talk to me, to help  me. If you don't, that's fine with  me. But what  I'm  not going to do is to play stupid  bloody guessing  games  with you while you show the world what a big tough boy you are. Now, if you want to go ahead  and stamp on my toes and pull my ears off until  the cops come and  beat some sense into any brain you've got left under  that  bristle,  you'd  better do it now- because I'm going.'

I walked out and left him there. I don't know how. Running would've been much  easier.

I'd  got  about  two  hundred yards  up the road  by the Tjornin when I heard  the big-drum thunder of his bike. The only person near enough  for a Mayday call was a small boy in horn-rimmed specs  who was shelling  the ducks  with crusts.  He looked nasty enough   to  handle Palli  but  not  quite  big  enough. Anyway, without his crusts  he was probably nothing.

Palli  came  up alongside my left shoulder and  throttled the engine  back to a funereal  popping sound.

'Hey,' he shouted over his shoulder. 'You wanna  know about the wedding?'

I  walked   on.  He  wobbled,   swung   the  front  wheel  for  a balance he failed  to find, and  then  tore down  the street  with a mighty grunt of the engine,  braked  hard, spun round, and came back.  He turned again  behind  me and  came  up once more on my shoulder.

'Guess I was out of  line back there,' he said, shouting over the engine.

I stopped. He put  his foot down.

'You  were.'

He  put  his head  on one side and  ran  his nails  through his stubble of hair.  'Guy  comes along, says he's a fucking writer or something, starts asking  all sorts of questions .. .'

'Forget it,'  I said,  and  I'd  begun  to move off when he called

me back- politely.

'Let's talk. Don't be so goddam nervy.'

'Where?'

'Not  now. Tonight. Seven.  You good  for a coupla  drinks Icelandic prices?'

We arranged to meet that evening at one of the few hotel bars - all  the  bars  are  hotel  bars.  As he  roared  off, I  nursed  my throbbing hand  and  hoped  it was going  to be worth  it.

21

When  I walked into  Ivan's room,  he was holding  the bedside phone out  towards  me.

'Excellent timing. Your guru,  I believe.'

It was Grimm. Hulda had put him on to the hotel. "Ere, was that   that  bloody  Russian   who's  always  hanging round   the industrial boys?'

'Mr Ivanov, that's right.'

'You  want  to watch  him, he's a spy.'

'So he says.'

That one flew straight past  him.

'I've just been looking at today's paper and you know what's wrong with it?'

'No.'

'Adjectives.'

'Adjectives?'

'Sodding bloody adjectives, stupid  useless bloody adjectives. I've  told 'em all here. Anyone else uses adjectives and  they're up for the chop. So remember it when you write your stuff. No bloody adjectives.'

'I will.'

'Oh, aye,  and  that  pic of the  bird  and  the  igloo.  You  can always bung  her five hundred if it'll  help.'

'Five  hundred pounds?'

'Well,  I don't mean  five hundred snowballs, do I? Ciao.'

Ivan  was silent  and  withdrawn on  the  way  up  to the  Stone Village. We'd arranged to have another go at Solrun's mother. Even my account of Grimm’s phone-call didn't raise more than a thin smile.

'Tell  me,'  I asked,  because  I'd  had  time  to think  about it, 'why did you tell me about  Solrun's Russian  boyfriend?'

He kept looking straight ahead, his face drawn. 'Because you asked,' he said,  with a funny little shrug.

We  could  hear  the  noise from  Asta's  house  as we walked down  the street.

'Yes, folks, those super  singers  from Oklahoma City will be at the Top  Four Club tonight at twenny-hundred hours  ... the menu  for  the  enlisted   men's  dining facility  is corn  chowder soup,  shish  kebab  or southern fried chicken  ... make a note, our  calligraphy class is due  to start  again  soon at  the Hobby Shop  and  anyone  who's  interested ...'

It was the radio from the NATO base out at Keftavik and it poured   out  from  the  now  half-open  door  of her  house.  The woman with the broom came to the door of her  house and called out  to us, but Ivan  and  I just exchanged glances.  I knocked on the door.  By the third  time, with  no answer  still, I pushed  the door  gently  open  and stepped inside.

It was the home of a house-proud woman. You could see it in the gleaming paintwork, the shining  windows, polished tan furniture, the kitchen  in which every appliance nestled  cosily on its hook and every substance had a labelled  tin. Judging  by the condition of the carpets, the occupants had  mastered  the mystery   of  flight.   If  a  germ   had  got  through   the  door,   it would've died of loneliness. Everything was in its place. There was no sign that  the perfect order of this dusted  haven had been disturbed.

But  there  was no sign of Solrun's mother  either.  And  fear hung in the air as unmistakeable as the smell of stale gun smoke. I'd  switched off the parroting American  voice, and we stood looking at each other  in the perfect silence of her home. Then  a soft gust  of wind  blew over  the  carpet  and  I saw something move.

At first sight you'd  have taken it for thistledown. It was only when  I bent down  and  held it between  my hands  that  I could see it was a ball of hair. Silver hair, curled  up, so that  it rolled like a puffball on the lightest  breath  of wind.

Kneeling by the living-room door,  I looked out into the hall and  saw  two  more,  then  another one,  another three  or four drifting over the green  carpet. I chased  them and picked them up.

The  specks  of blood on the end  were still wet.

I must've ripped  open every door in the house  before I saw the cupboard in the hall. It  was set into the wall and  painted white so you'd  hardly  notice it.

When  I opened  the door,  she didn't fall out  like they do in

films.  It  took  me a  few seconds  to see  why.  They'd used  a snapped-off broom handle,  three-foot of it, wedged wall-to-wall across  her  chest  to hold  her jammed  against the  back  of the shallow cupboard.

They must have got her out of bed  because she was wearing a pretty cream-and-white nightie with white lace trim and a matching housecoat  over the top. It wasn't the sort  of thing  a middle-aged woman would buy herself: perhaps Solrun  had got it as a present, and her mother would have said it was too young -and been delighted.

The   blood   had   soaked   through    both   garments  on   her shoulders and all down the front where her head hung forward. There were splashes  all  over  her  bare  feet and  on  the  floor where it had gone on dripping. I'd  never seen anything like her head. Jesus. Nothing, ever, not like that. At first glance it didn't even look like a head. It looked  more like an  Easter egg that some kid had inexpertly daubed with paint and decorated with fur and  fluff. It was only when you saw  the face beneath that you realised it was a head, and the decorations were blood and the few sad sprouts that were all that was left of her hair. Those, and some gummy strands glued  to her head by the congealing blood.

I had to say the words to myself to make myself believe them.

'Dear God,' I said,  'she's  been scalped.'

I kept saying  that  to myself, over and  over  again,  when  I heard  a faint  bubbling sound. With  my left hand  under  her chin,  I lifted  that  dreadful   head,  and  I felt like Salome  with John  the  Baptist. I  heard   the  scrape   of  air  in  her  throat. Incredibly, she was alive.

'Get  the doctor.  The  police, anyone- she's  alive!'

Then  I heard  Ivan  in the kitchen  and  I knew he was being sick. I made  the call  myself and  when  I'd  finished  Ivan  was leaning  in the kitchen  doorway. He looked  as though  he was dying  himself.

'Your  shoe.'  He put his hand  up to his mouth  again.

When  I looked  down,  a tendril  of silver  hair  had  attached itself  to my shoe.  I  bent  down  and  brushed it off. It was the blood at  the roots  that  made  it stick.

'I've never  seen  anything so terrible.' For  the first time he sounded like a foreigner. He  patted  his mouth  with a hankie and  muttered to himself in Russian.

I soaked a towel in the kitchen and tried to clean up her nose and  mouth  to help  her breathe. I didn't try to unfasten  her. I was scared  of what would happen if l did. She was still hanging there  when  the  police arrived, and  in  the disturbance I saw those  balls  of white  hair  rolling  like  tumbleweed across the shining blue tiles of the kitchen. I hadn't the heart  to go over and  pick them  up.

'She  was young  to have white hair,' Ivan  said. It was one of

those fatuous things  you do say when you're in shock.

22

As afternoons go, that  one didn't. It lasted  about  a month. Back at  the  hotel,  Ivan  lay on his bed with his arms  folded across  his chest  like a crusader on his tomb.  I hardly  liked to speak  to him in case his brimming brown eyes overflowed and embarrassed both of us. He was an old softie.