* * * * *

  With Maura’s face screened by the hood of her parka, and my hair rinsed back to its natural blond, I saw her onto an early afternoon flight to Rovaniemi, capital of Lapland province. It was a relief to get her away from the immediate area. The blizzard had abated and transport was running much as normal. No sign of Wharfe or his pals, but then they didn’t know where to look, and in any case Wharfe was due to fly back to the UK via Helsinki today. I made sure Maura’s flight didn’t coincide with any Helsinki flights. It was the Supo we had most to fear from. I had already switched to another rental car, with a different outfit.

  Tony Dimeloe had re-transmitted his text twice, and finally phoned while we were breakfasting in our room. When I saw his number on the screen of my cell phone I let it ring out. Maybe I wouldn’t ever speak to him again. When Wharfe showed up in London alive and well, my former friend would get the message.

  ‘Promise you won’t start anything without me,’ Maura said, just before she headed for the gate.

  ‘I promise. I even kept that woman’s gun for your personal use. You didn’t really mean to throw it away, did you?’

  Her laugh was a tonic to my sombre mood. We kissed goodbye and off she went, to await my call.

  My next move was as yet unclear. It was made clearer for me when I almost ran into my two friendly fans, Niklas and Lenni. They were scrambling into a Ford Explorer in the parking lot, as I pulled away; Niklas sported a large Band-Aid on his cheek. Still tailing me then. It struck me that they might after all be useful as a source of information about Maximov’s castle. If they couldn’t lead me to Jacqui’s prison, they surely could lead me to the big man himself. Either would do.

  I returned along snow-bordered roads to the Kultahippu Hotel at a leisurely pace to make it easy for them to keep up. Snow ploughs were still out and slowed my progress somewhat. When I finally drove back into the hotel parking lot, the sky in the west was already darkening. Above the horizon a narrow band of saffron sky, interwoven with strands of pink and purple.

  Instead of entering the hotel I walked around the side of the building down towards the river. My boots sank into the snow all the way to their tops on the uncleared footpath. The river was iced over along the edges, with only a narrow strip still flowing. I reached a paved area that had been shovelled free of snow and nipped behind a convenient spruce tree to wait.

  I heard them before I saw them. They made a lot of commotion for two guys who were supposed to be tailing me discreetly. They were talking in an undertone. I understood none of it. As they came alongside the tree, I called ‘Niklas’ very softly.

  They both came to an abrupt halt and two heads rotated towards the tree. I stepped out, Beretta in full view.

  ‘Looking for me?’

  They wanted to run for it, but couldn’t quite bring themselves to call my bluff, in case it wasn’t a bluff.

  ‘Maximov call again,’ Niklas said, glowering. ‘He wants speak with you.’

  ‘That goes for me too. Meanwhile, I want speak with you guys.’

  ‘Why?’ Lenni mumbled.

  ‘Because you’re going to tell me how to find Maximov’s castle.’

  Lenni spat a couple of words in Finnish at me, probably the equivalent in colloquial English of ‘Fuck off.’ I wasn’t going to waste effort arguing the subject. In any case, a demonstration was overdue. I smacked him hard across the temple with the barrel of the Beretta. He crumpled up with a sigh, and subsided into the snow on his backside, more like someone sitting down for a rest.

  Niklas made no move to provide his buddy with aid and succour. He just stood rooted, his eyes blinking very fast and his mouth working, as if he were masticating gum. No words came from it.

  ‘Location of the castle,’ I said, very calmly.

  ‘What is kairsel?’

  ‘The place where Maximov is keeping the woman.’

  He shook his head so violently his cossack hat fell off.

  ‘I not know. I not know.’

  ‘Yes, you do know, Niklas. Now tell me like a good boy and save yourself some pain.’

  His limited English didn’t compute what I was saying. Sign language was more likely to lubricate his vocal chords. I tapped him gently on the nose with the gun barrel.

  ‘Where is it?’

  Again the violent headshake.

  I wasn’t feeling patient. Jacqui had been in Maximov’s care for the best part of a week. It was a week too long, and it was wholly up to me to save her.

  My knee went up into Niklas’s crotch, hard and fast. He let go a highly satisfying shriek. I just hoped nobody else heard it. He would have collapsed to join Lenni if I hadn’t hung onto the front of his parka with my free hand.

  ‘Where is it?’ I repeated.

  His eyes were watering.

  ‘Not … know,’ he croaked.

  I figured he was terrified of Maximov and the repercussions if he squealed. It was up to me to make him more terrified of the damage he might sustain if he held out. Pain now or pain later. It was up to him. I drove my knee into his balls again, hoping he wouldn’t pass out on me.

  This time his dead weight was too much for me. I let him sag to his knees. His mouth was gaping, his face sweaty.

  ‘Where?’ I said, and shook him.

  It sounded like ‘Porro-sarry.’ He whispered it, and I couldn’t be sure I heard aright.

  ‘What?’ I screwed the gun barrel into his ear. ‘Say it again!’

  ‘Porro-sarry.’

  With that his eyes rolled up, his head lolled, and he went under. I straightened up, and he fell over on his side like a skittled tenpin.

  I didn’t feel sorry for him. Even if he was no longer able to father a child. If you run with the bad guys you can expect the good guys to catch up with you one day. Not that I was claiming good guy status. I was just trying to save a good woman, and in doing so I had temporarily crossed over to the side of the angels.

  Porro-sarry. Back in the warmth of the hotel I googled the name. Google sniffily rejected it. I phoned the front desk.

  The delightful female clerk with the impeccable English picked up.

  ‘May I help you?’

  ‘I hope so. Ever heard of a place called Porro-sarry.’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Andrews. It’s an island south of here.’

  ‘How do you spell it?’

  She spelled it Porosaari. I thanked her, hung up and returned to Google. It was about fifty kms south-east of Rovaniemi. Nearest town – village more likely – Kantoniemen-Tuvat. The island itself was one of a number in the Pielinen Lake, and about six kms long by less than two wide on average. Zooming in on Google Earth showed it to be well-supplied with trees, like the rest of Finland. Access by boat only. Just the sort of isolation a man like Maximov would appreciate. No roads, only tracks, and they didn’t amount to much either as far as I could tell from the rather indistinct image. If there was a castle there it was either well-camouflaged or no bigger than a log cabin.

  Progress. I now had the probable location of Jacqui’s prison. All I had to do was get there, get onto the island unseen, and break into the Castle Maximov without the aid of a battering ram. Oh, yes, not to forget the garrison, whose quantity and quality were unknown.

  As for Maura. An idea was germinating that might make her presence really useful, instead of optional. I selected my UK cell phone and tapped out her number.

  The easy part was collecting Maura from her hotel in Rovaniemi. She pretended to be scathing about my replacement rental, which was a Nissan, the only SUV available.

  ‘Coming down in the world, aren’t we?’ was her tongue-in-cheek comment after we had kissed hello and loaded her baggage.

  ‘Don’t be such a snob.’

  She was sheathed in the leather pants with a bulky sweater to keep out the cold, under her navy-blue parka with the fur trimmed hood.

  ‘Just as long as you know, I’m not used to riding in a truck.’

  I jabbed her with my elbow and got moving. It was a little before noon.

  The next easiest part was the journey to Porosaari Island. Snow was in the air, but the flakes were fine and infrequent. To begin with we travelled east-ish on Highway 81. At intervals I checked the rearview for unwanted adherents. None appeared. We took a break at a village called Vanttauskoski, and bought provisions at what Quebecers call a dépanneur store. We left the 81 in mid-countryside and went south on the less important 942. The road, if you could call it that, hadn’t been cleared of snow, but it was well travelled and the snow was bedded down. After a half hour, a lake showed up on our left and stayed with us when we split off to an even lesser road, with no number at all.

  ‘God, this is a desolate country,’ Maura said, as we ploughed on into more nothingness. ‘Trees and lakes, and more trees and lakes.’

  ‘I expect it’s prettier in the summer.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I read about it. If you can stand being bitten to death by bugs.’

  She had a point. But then I wasn’t here as a tourist.

  A pick-up rumbled past travelling towards Rantapaolo. The driver raised a hand of greeting, to which I responded in kind. Up here in Lapland, traffic was so sparse greetings between road users would be a ritual. Somehow it made you feel a bit less lonely.

  It was after one when we reached the nearest point between the island and the road, and I only deduced that from the GPS. A track with an unpronounceable name ran down towards the lake on which the island sat. It wasn’t much used to judge from its condition. I parked off the road, in the trees, about a hundred metres from the lakeshore. Hand in hand, like the lovers we were, Maura and I crunched through snow for a closer look. The lake was not yet frozen over, though it was starting to whiten around the edges. A narrow stretch of it separated the mainland from Porosaari. We stood on the foreshore and surveyed it, in my case through binoculars. No signs of dwelling or life from here.

  ‘The wilds of Finland give me the shivers,’ Maura said, hands thrust in pockets, hood down, her hair stirred gently by a chilly breeze wafting in off the lake.

  ‘It’s just trees and empty space. No Dracula’s castle.’

  ‘No,’ she said with a snort. ‘But there’s Maximov’s castle. It’s likely to be just as bad.’

  ‘No bloodsucking though.’

  ‘Maybe not, but there’s probably going to be bloodletting.’ She stroked my arm. I was still scanning the island. ‘You know, it’s sort of history repeating itself. You remember you were going to storm Carl Heider’s castle – only it wasn’t a castle of course. Then the victim was Lindy, so it made more sense. To me.’

  ‘You don’t have to be involved.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, darling. I do love you so, and I have to share everything with you. Not just the nice stuff, but the hardships and the dangers too. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, expelling a big breath of air. ‘I know where you’re coming from.’

  She plucked a bottle of water from her pocket and swigged from it.

  The binoculars had been no help. ‘Can’t see any tracks, or the famous castle,’ I said. ‘I hope that little shit hasn’t sent me on a wild goose chase.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late to go today. We can’t wander about the woods in the dark.’ She offered the bottle to me. ‘Want some?’

  I discovered I was thirsty. It was only a 33cl bottle and I polished it off in a few gulps. With the advent of night, the air was chilling fast. We returned to the car. I started the engine and turned the fan on full blast.

  Maura opened the Michelin map of Lapland and studied it, eventually announcing, ‘There’s a sort of lodging house a few kilometres up the road. We must have passed it on the way here.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll check it out.’

  We retraced our route to the Kantonieman-Tuvat, a sort of B&B Finnish-style. Condemning Jacqui to yet another night at the mercy of the Big Man.

  * * * * *

  The Kantonieman-Tuvat was a collection of five buildings in a clearing encircled by trees, with a view over the lake and a banana shaped island. It was basic but served its purpose. It was run by a man whose name I couldn’t get my tongue around, let alone remember. It can best be described as a bar with bedrooms. We were the only guests.

  Cell phone coverage was excellent here, which surprised me. Maura was able to talk to Lindy, and I got in on the act. She was bubbly and happy and wanted to know when Mommy was coming home, and when they were going to live with me, etc etc.

  Maura stalled as best she could, but came away from the call with moist eyes. I consoled her, and the consolation graduated to lovemaking, which was as good as ever, despite the uncertainties that faced us tomorrow.

  While we were changing for dinner, another call came through from Tony D. Five minutes later, a text. I didn’t respond to either.

  ‘Put him out of his misery,’ Maura said. ‘Tell him he’s … how do you say it, blown?’

  It wasn’t such a silly idea. I decided to let him have it with both barrels. Just four words of text would do.

  I know the truth.

  If that didn’t stop him pestering me, he was too thick skinned to be human.

  Dinner was served in a sort of canteen, open to the kitchen. The food was plain, but cooked properly: blini savoury pancake for openers, and vorschmacht for mains, a salty minced meat dish best eaten with beer to wash it down, we were advised. I took the advice, Maura played safe with water. After we had eaten I cornered the barman, a young guy, stubble-cut blond, very tall and scrawny, name of Harri, and quizzed him about the castle.

  He confirmed its existence. It was on the east side of the island and therefore unseen from the road.

  ‘It is owned by a Russian man,’ he said in his very passable English.

  ‘Is it open to visitors?’

  He pursed his lips, wagged his head. ‘No, I think not. It is private.’

  ‘Is the island private?’

  Again the lip pursing and head wagging.

  ‘No, think not. But the Russian man owns some of it, I think.’

  Big on thinking was Harri.

  ‘How can we get to it?’ Maura chipped in.

  He gave this question serious consideration to judge by the extensive chin massaging.

  ‘The ice is not yet thick enough, I think. You need a boat.’

  ‘How does the Russian man get to the island?’ I asked.

  His face brightened.

  ‘He has airplane that floats on water.’

  A floatplane! That would make sense. Finland having almost as many lakes as dry land, it was a logical method of getting around.

  That was all we could extract from Harri, except an offer to rent us a rubber dinghy and a pair of paddles. He knew how to drive a bargain too.

  We had to go outside to return to our room. As we crossed the paved driveway we lingered to gaze skyward. The sky was clear for once, the stars in random clusters, more of them than you ever see farther south. The pole star was twice its usual size. On the horizon to the north a pink glow pulsated – Aurora Borealis, when it wasn’t really trying.

  Maura said, ‘Drew darling … are we going to pull it off?’

  ‘Sure to.’ Flippancy helps inspire confidence in the face of danger, I’ve found, so I went on, ‘I’ve got a Heckler & Koch sniper’s rifle, one of the best in the world. Plus a Beretta with fifty-four rounds, and your cute little revolver, and let’s not forget my secret weapon.’

  ‘Secret weapon?’ She was wearing boots with flat soles, and had to crane her neck slightly to look up at me. ‘What secret weapon?’

  ‘You, my love. We can’t fail.’

  Her arms went up around my neck; mine went around her waist and might have slid down a few inches.

  ‘That’s one of the things I love you for – your optimism.’

  ‘Are there other things?’

  ‘Oh, only about a thousand or so.’

  Twenty-one

  We woke early. I pumped iron as best I could in the absence of any iron, and with Maura alongside me some of the time, her hair caught up in a bunch at the back. Without make-up she could have passed for ten years younger. By 9am we had breakfasted, said we loved each other, and were back on the road to Porosaari Island. From 9.30am we would have five hours of daylight ahead of us in which to locate and storm the castle. I was resolved that this would be Jacqui’s last day as Maximov’s plaything.

  The inflatable boat was about six feet long, with a maximum permissible payload of a hundred and fifty kilos. Harri had provided a foot-operated blower-upper, which did the job in about ten minutes.

  It was a bright clear day, a pale sun doing its best to heat up this part of the planet, but the temperature stayed stuck well below zero. We were wrapped up like Innuits. Sounds carried a long way in the still air, and we would need to exercise caution once we landed on Porosaari.

  We came to the water’s edge opposite the island’s nearest point, a small promontory, bare of tree. I stepped warily out onto the ice, ordering Maura to stay on terra firma – no sense both of us falling in. I pushed the inflatable ahead of me. Ominous crackling noises under my feet gave due warning, and I scrambled into the boat, which immediately broke through the thinner ice ahead. I backed until the stern end was in touch with the firmer ice. I checked the depth of water by thrusting the handle of a paddle through the ice. It was less than two feet.

  ‘Come on, love. It’s not deep anyway. Worst that can happen is wet feet.’

  She came towards me, carrying the rifle. ‘And a mild dose of frostbite.’

  It was good that she could joke about it.

  The lake was placid, and we covered the hundred metres of clear water in a couple of minutes. As we nudged the ice on the far side I went up to the front of the dinghy and broke through with the paddle, which was enough to see us to the shore without getting our feet wet. The land lay under a coating of snow, making it impossible to tell the nature of the terrain. Sand or grass most likely, up to the inevitable treeline.

  We pulled the inflatable clear of the ice. The frozen snow provided a good foothold and we made it up the slope without mishap, Maura declining a helping hand. Until we reached the trees I felt exposed, though we were only really visible from the air. If the floatplane was aloft somewhere and came back, we would stand out like … well, like people in olive green and navy-blue parkas on an expanse of white.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40