The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) (2 page)

Arriving in
Mariehamn
was familiar but unfamiliar
. T
he feeling reminded me of my first trip to
New York
, with the difference that I knew Åland from memories, not from film or imagination.
Mariehamn
had changed
and so had I. After 20
years of transformation
e
verything except the ferries looked smaller. They were
even larger than I remembered
and i
t was odd having a Tate
-
sized ferr
y stopping only to drop me off.

In the summer there would be hundreds if not thousands of tourists coming off the ferry with me, but this was the low season
. O
ne thing hadn’t budged
–
the weather. The rain was po
uring and
the streets were icy.
It was p
erfect
weather for hip replacement surgeons
. N
ot for
me
,
I was soaked
in
minutes and
definitely hadn’t
missed this side of Mariehamn
.

Although t
he ‘homecoming’ had triggered expectations
in me
, no one was waiting at
the ferry terminal.
T
his had been my home town, m
y
birth
island. I’d spent
the first 10
years of my life
here
. So what?
Clearly, no one cared.
I was left to my own devices.

My father
’s solicitor
had told me to give him a ring as soon as I a
rrived, but t
he line was busy
and
Dahl had no voicemail.
I’d been naïve to think that
all Finns had
a Nokia transplant
at birth
.
It was still busy when I tried again.
I decided to walk to his office. It couldn’t be far in a small place like
Mariehamn
.
Thanks to well
-
meaning but clueless locals, it took me half an hour of
slipping and sliding to find Dahl’s address
.
Although I spoke Swedish,
I had
the nagging feeling they’d put me through this icy schlep on
purpose, o
nly because
of my
English accent
. Given half a chance
,
they would probably have
blamed me for the
weather too
.

Dahl’s secretary was on the phone g
ossiping about
Expedition
Robinson
, the Swedish format that had spawned
Survivor
and other remakes across the world. It must have been a very serious matter
,
because she was totally absorbed
, just about managing to give my dripping clothes a disapprovin
g glance before finally turning to me
. Obviously there were more important matters at hand.

‘Yes?‘

‘
I’m Magnus Sandberg, son of Henrik…
’

‘
Why didn’t you call
?
’

So much for heartfelt condolences. She
did a quick aside to the phone.

‘
Hang on, I’ll be quick.
’

Glorious. I’d just lost my father, b
ut she was going to fob me off.

‘
I’m here to see Dahl.
’

‘I
f you’d rung, you’d know he won’t be in for another couple of hours.
’

‘
I did.’

She ignored that.

‘
There’s a café across the street with great sandwiches.
’

I’d just stuffed myself with the ferry
smörgåsbord, so I went straight to the point.

‘
Do you have the keys?
’

She
told me where I could find them
,
which was p
robably the only bit of work
she would do all afternoon.

4

As i
t turned out I
didn’t
even
need
the
keys
–
my father’s
front door
stood ajar.
I peeped in.

‘
Hello?
’

When there was no reply
,
I pushed the door and put my foot over the thr
eshold.

‘
Anyone here?
’

The only response was the
reassurin
g tick of a wall clock, the rest of the place was
upside down: drawers emptied onto the rug, books pulled out of the shelves, pictures unhooked from the walls, DVDs s
cattered over
the floor boards.
Funnily enough,
the stereo and the televi
sion were still standing, but t
hat was the last
thing
I remembered;
that and a movement out of the corner of my eye.

I came to
with a thudding headache
,
not
knowing where I was,
until the orange cloud hovering above came into focus
.
I recognised the orange lamp that had
hung over my head t
he first 10
years of my life
. It was in
plastic
and shaped like
a witch’s hat
.
My
London
friends would have killed fo
r it, because to them it stood for
the ultimate
in
design. My father had
probably
just seen it as a light
-
giving device
that had lit his dinners for three decades,
regardles
s
of
1970s
nostalgia. But I was losing my
thread
– I wasn’t here to
study kitchen paraphernalia
.

When I finally sat up,
I felt lik
e I’
d been pummelled by an
ice bear
.
Who the hell would do this in Mariehamn?
A junkie? The worst thing was that he
(I assumed it was a man,
it didn’t seem like a female thing to do
)
must have known that my father had died.
W
hy didn’t he take the telly?
Maybe he’d
been after
the painkillers I couldn’t find
in the bathroom cabinet
.
I hadn’t seen my father for over 20 years and
the bloody vultures
didn’t
even
have the decency to let me see his house the
way he’d left it, let alone leave me a single Paracetamol.

I had no clue what was missing
in the house
, but there must be a way to s
ee through the mess of
the
burglary and
picture
the house as my father had left it.
I had to try t
o put the pieces back together, but f
irst
I needed to call the police
.
I
didn’t have the number, so I rang Dahl without expectin
g him to be there.
M
y head was pounding and
I skipped the small talk
–
could he help me? He could. Within
five minutes a squad car
with a female police officer behind the wheel
p
ulled up outside my father’s house.
Dahl had promised to drop by later
with some pain relief
.

The police woman
looked friendly enough from the top of the front door
steps, but she pulled her gun as soon as she saw me
. What happened t
o ask first and shoot later
?
Back in
England
th
e police didn’t even have guns. They tasered
innocent people to death
instead
–
a much more civilised approach.

‘
Don’t move.
’

‘
I’m the victim here
.
’

She walked round the stairs, keeping her gun pointed at me through the metal banister.

‘
This is my father’s house.
’

‘
Hands on the railing.
’

I obliged
–
anything to s
top her waving that death tool
–
and she cuffed my hand to the railing.

‘
Other hand.
’

When they were both attached, s
he
finally dared to co
me up the stairs to
frisk
me.

‘
ID?
’

I couldn’t reach
my passport
.

‘
Can you…?
’

She
pulled it out
of my pocket
and examined
the
photo. I had to look over my s
houlder to see her.

‘OK.‘

She undid the hand
cuffs while having a
good stare at my forehead. For a moment
,
I thought she was cross
-
eyed.

‘
You should put some ice on that
.
’

‘On what?‘

I felt my head. The bump explained the
pain.

‘
Sorry about this
, but I can’t take any risks, especially on my own. We get a lot of Eastern cowboys these days. T
hey don’t ask
, t
hey shoot.
’

‘
Might account for my bump.
’

S
he pick
ed up a handful of snow and shaped it into
a ball, but I really wasn’t
in the mood for a snowball fight.
Hopefully she wouldn’t mind.

‘
Hold this against it.
’

Of course, I should have guessed. I took the snow ball
,
put it against my forehead. I was shivering and the last thing I wanted was to catch a cold, but she was right. I needed to cool the bump. She
took out a notepad and
asked me what I’d
seen.

‘Nothing.’

‘
Try to remember.
’

I paused, trying to think back.

‘
I was standing looking at the mess, thinking it was strange they’d left the television and DVD player
untouched.’

‘
Then what?
’

‘That’s it.’

‘
Anything missing?
’

‘
I haven’t been here for 20
years.
’

She made
a
last scribble before pocketing her notepad.

‘
Give us a ring if you think of something.
’

She handed me a bu
siness card: Eva Mikaelsson.

‘
And put on some dry clothes.
’

She’d aimed a gun at me, frisked me and cooled my bump. Now she wa
s telling me to change clothes.
I nodded. I could never tell anyone anything without feeling bossy, but it came naturally to her. Her orders made common sense.

5

Looking through the mess left by the burglary, it struck me how tidy my father had been.
I found neither piles
of dishes in the sink, nor
mouldy food in the fridge
. The kitchen table was clean and t
here was no knick
-
knackery
in the house
. It was as if he’d been expecting visitors or cleared up before dying. Even the orange kitchen lamp was dust
free.