The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) (37 page)

The peninsu
la was longer than it had seemed
on the map and
I thought it would never end. When we finally rounded it, a l
arger island appeared
.
The sun was rising and in
the distance I
could distinguish
a small harbour with a dozen houses
. By the time we reached it
, Eva
had stopped
respond
ing
. There were boats in the wharf, but the place was dead silent
. What if it was the snowmobile driver’s village?
I’d been t
o
o busy trying to escape to think of searching his pockets.

If this was his village
,
I should
probably
be careful about talking to locals, but t
his was no time for dithering.
Eva wouldn’t last another night if she
didn’t receive treatment soon
. I
knocked at all the doors and
peered in
,
but there was no sign of life.
I started again
, knocking harder this time
–
there must be someone.
The houses were low wooden buildings with lace curtains in the window
s. The paintwork was immaculate as was t
he iconic red
paint
with white corners.
Without maintenance
,
houses would never last i
n this c
limate, n
or would t
heir inhabitants. Eventually, an old woman opened her door. She came over as strong and w
eather
-
beaten.
She was p
robably 10
years younger than she looked
. I asked
her
for a doctor.

‘
We don’t have one.
’

I nodded towards Eva, who
was slumped over the s
nowmobile handlebars.

‘
She went
through the ice.
’

The woman followed me to the snowmobile. When she saw Eva’s state, she
got
her
mobile
out immediately
and dialled. I grabbed Eva under her arms.

‘
Leave her!
’

I jumped. She’d
shouted
,
and she
explained why:

‘
When you have
hypothermia
,
t
he slightest change in the bloodstream can be fatal. The last thing you want is cold blood going to the heart. It’s essential to rise the core temperature slowly to avoid temperature shock.
’

‘Core temperature’
, ‘temperature shock’
?
Rattling off the explanation like that, s
he certainly sounded like a doctor to me. She talked on the phone
,
while looking at Eva’s apathetic eyes

‘
It’s Margit on Norrsten. We need a chopper. A
young
woman… she’s gone through the ice.
S
emi
-
conscious.
’

There was a moment of silence. The person at the other end of the line was obvious
ly giving Margit instructions
.
She
was trying to
find Eva’s pulse.

‘
F
eeble.
’

She paused to listen.

‘
I’ll do my best.
’

She hung up and carefully laid Eva on her back on the snowm
obile, then
rushed back into the house. I’d never been so frightened in my whole life.
Did she
really
know what she was doing? Eva’s life depended on a BBC accountant and an old lady lost in an unforgiving icescape. There was no way Eva could survive without professional help. Margit returned wit
h two tent mats, a sleeping bag
an
d a couple of blankets. She put
the
mats on the ground
with the blankets and sleeping bags on top
.

‘
Give me a hand.
’

We
slowly
lifted Eva onto the sle
eping bag, zipped it up and wrapp
ed the blankets around her.

‘
We call it a wrap, k
eep
s
her from getting any colder.
’

‘Are you a nurse?’

‘
As near as it gets in this godfo
rsaken place. Out here you need to learn to take care of yourself
.
There’s no backup.
’

‘
Will she be OK?
’

Margit didn’t answer. She g
ave Eva a gentle mouth to mouth, looking
up
at me between breaths, but keeping
her mouth close to Eva’s.

‘
Why are you doing that? She’s already breathing.
’

‘
To warm her up from the inside.
’

I nodded.

‘
What’s her name?
’

‘
Eva.
’

‘
Your wife?
’

‘No.’

‘Girlfriend?’

I shook my head.

‘What then?’

I wasn’t sure what to say, especially as o
ur relation
ship
was the least of our worries
at that point
. The priority w
as to save her
life.
I looked at her
as
Margit resumed the
mouth to mouth. Eva
was motionless and
whiter than a sheet
.

‘
She’s wounded.
’

The woman looked up.

‘
What do you mean
?
’

‘
In the stomach.
’

‘
Is it bleeding?
’

‘
I think it has stopped.
’

‘
Let’s wait for the chopper.
’

‘
I don’t want to lose her.
’

‘
She
’s
very cold.
’

‘
She’s alive.
’

‘Barely.’

‘
Why don’t we take her in? It’s warmer.
’

She’d already told me
,
but
instinctively I
still wanted
to get her inside.

‘T
he helicopter shouldn’t be long.
I just hope the weather holds up.
’

‘S
he looks dead.
’

I was paralysed by panic. One second I said she was alive, the next that she was dead. Sh
e was on the cusp and I’d dragged her into this.

‘
Where did it happen?
’

‘
What?
’

‘
Going through the ice.
’

‘
Coming over from Åland.
’

‘
You crossed on a snowmobile?
’

‘
On an ice yacht.
’

‘
Whose snowmobile is this then?
’

She was bec
oming nosy. I’d been too honest, t
oo exhausted
to lie.

‘
A man lent it to us.
’

‘
Who?
’

She was still
looking at the machine.

‘
Don’t know. When he saw Eva’s state, he just told us to leave it here. We’d never have got here without him.
’

At least the last bit was true. The woman
scrutinised me
and I could tell she didn’t believe me, but saying
I’d terminated the man
with a rusty spade
certainly wouldn’t have earned
me any brownie points.

Eva barely reacted when I rearranged
the wrap. I wanted to make sure the least possible heat was lo
st. Her eyes were hardly moving and
I wasn’t sure if the minute life signs were real or
my imagination
. I couldn’t bear having to wait passively
for the chopper
. I’d fough
t like never before to
save her, l
ike a tiger, not a Swedish tiger, a real tiger, a
Siberian tiger. I wasn’t going to lose her now.

77

The helicopter landed on the ice after the longest 20 minutes in my life. Eva was transported to the chopper on a
stretcher. When
h
er te
mperature was take
n in her
ear i
t was only 28°C
and
s
he was
immediately
hooked up to a warm air inhalation unit. I
pointed to her wound and t
he doctor turned to me wh
ile examining it.
I couldn’t hear a word of what he was saying,
because of the
ear
-
splitting
engine noise. He had to shout.

‘
WHEN DID IT HAPPEN?
’

‘
Yesterday!
’

He instructed his assistants and barked something into the cockpit
, but
I couldn’t hear what the medical team were saying. The events were surreal. How had I ended up in this?
I was in a daze, with t
he deafening noise
of the military helicopter distancing
me
even more
from the situ
ation. I bit my lip very hard, u
ntil there was blood.

The iced
-
in archipelago unfolded beneath us as t
he giant mechanical dr
agonfly lifted over the trees into the brightness of this perfect day. As far as the eye could see there was an
infinit
e icescape dotted with islands. The blue sky was immaculate, the sunshine flawless
, but
I was blind to the scenery.
I didn’t see that
the Swedish mainland had been hit by bad wea
ther and that the helicopter was being
diverted.
I was locked in a dark tunnel, s
taring at Eva being treated by the doctor. I
t could have been a dream trip
, a happy ending
, but i
t was a ni
ghtmare.
I was so focused on Eva that
I
completely forgot where I was
.
All I could do was hold
her hand and l
ook
into her
eyes.
I was c
linging on to her as if my own life depe
nded on it.

The flight to
the
hospital
only took about 20 minutes and
she
should have been fine. Her temperatur
e was taken every five minutes and although t
he warm air inhalation gave her violent
, back
-
arching convulsions,
she relaxed as her temperature went up.
Attempting to connect the IV fluid, t
he doctor
couldn’t
push the needle i
nto her cold, collapsed veins, but t
he warm air briefly brought her back to consciousness
and s
he opened her eyes without speaking. The doctor had predicted that a basic recovery could take
up to an hour and h
er temperature
had
already
gone up from 30 to 35
°C
. Sh
e was critical but on the mend, even having
the odd sip
of blueberry soup.

I smiled for the
first time in two days
–
s
he was going to make it. I was rel
ieved, my body invaded by pain. The ph
ysical agony
had been blocked out by
my
survival mode, but
I didn’t care
about the pain returning
, because i
t was nothing compared to what I’d
felt at the idea of losing her.
I would never have forgiven myself for leading her to her death. I didn’t care if I lost a foot in the process. I’d been prepared to g
ive anything to keep her alive
.
I’d done it.