The Fire Pit Page 8

  “All right, sit down,” Berthelsen said, gesturing to a scuffed leather armchair. For himself he dragged a tall wooden stool over the flagstone floor then leaned his weight against it, more as a prop than a seat. “So why would I remember a missing person from that long ago?” he asked.

  “Well, for a start the enquiry came from the Norwegian police,” Annika said. “And it concerned a mother and daughter, Astrid Hege Dam, aged thirty-three, and Else Elisabeth Dam, aged ten. They were believed to have been living at the Colony commune at Múli.”

  Gunnar Berthelsen gave her a slow, calculating look. “Which body did you find?”

  “Well, I can’t—”

  Berthelsen cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Yes, you can. I heard about the skeleton being dug up, and it must be one of them or you wouldn’t be here. So you might as well tell me – or do you think I’ll go blabbing to the newspapers?”

  “No, of course not,” Annika said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “So, who is it?”

  “Astrid, the mother,” Annika said, although the moment she did so she felt that she’d given up any kind of control over the way this conversation would go from now on.

  Berthelsen straightened up off the stool and crossed to the large canvas. With his back turned towards Annika he stood still for a few seconds, then picked up a brush and used the point of the handle to make several harsh, angled scratches through the shapes of the houses.

  “Do you remember any enquiries from the Norwegians?” Annika asked, attempting to gain traction again.

  Berthelsen was weighing up the scratches he’d made and didn’t reply. He added some more.

  Annika tried again. “As an ex-police officer yourself I’m sure you—”

  “I don’t remember any enquiry,” Berthelsen said. “But that shouldn’t be a surprise. In 1974 I was Superintendent. An enquiry like that wouldn’t have gone higher than the duty sergeant, or perhaps the inspector. Someone would have been sent out to see if the mother and daughter could be located and if not, that would’ve been that.”

  “Can you tell me who the inspectors were at that time?”

  “Jørgensen, I think. But he’s dead. And probably Karl Weihe.”

  Annika took out her notebook and wrote down the names. Berthelsen didn’t look away from his canvas except to pick up a palette knife, which he used to slice through the oils.

  “What about the sergeants at the time?” Annika asked.

  “I don’t remember. Look in the records,” Berthelsen said, his back still towards her.

  Annika could read all the signs, but what she couldn’t work out was why the ex-superintendent had chosen to take this uncooperative attitude. It might be that he was just naturally obdurate, or that, given the opportunity, he felt like asserting his old authority again. Whatever the case, Annika knew he wanted to put an end to the interview, and for that reason alone she chose not to. She could be stubborn, as well.

  “So what can you tell me about the commune at Múli?” she said, standing up and going across to position herself by Berthelsen’s painting.

  The old man glanced at her briefly then reached high on the canvas and carved a broad stroke from top right to bottom left. “They were foreigners,” he said. “Outsiders. As bad as those anti-whaling protesters you’ve had to deal with.”

  “You mean they caused trouble?”

  “No, I mean they came here without knowing anything about us or how we live. They just think they can come and inflict their views on to us.”

  Annika wasn’t certain whether he was referring to the AWCA protesters now, or to the commune, but she didn’t want to get sidetracked. “Was there any trouble at the commune?” she asked.

  “Not as such, no.” Berthelsen made a last slash at the canvas, then tossed the palette knife onto the nearest table. “Most of the time they kept themselves to themselves, but there were some complaints. The Hvannasund tunnel was still fairly new then, so you could get to the north side of the Borðoy more easily than in the past. Some people from Klaksvík said the commune was a bad influence on young people and attracted them away from the town.”

  “But there was nothing more serious than that?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Berthelsen wiped his hand on his overalls and crossed to the windowsill where a single cigarette lay beside a disposable lighter. He lit the cigarette, staring out at the sea, then turned back. “This is ancient history. Whoever you talk to, their memory isn’t going to be any better than mine, not after more than forty years. In my opinion the best thing you could do is give the woman you found a decent burial and leave it at that.”

  “Even if we suspect a crime was committed?” Annika said.

  “Of course a crime was committed,” Berthelsen snorted. “How else would her body be there? But you’ve no chance of proving who did it any more than I’d expect your commander, Andrias Berg, to come here and ask me about it himself. He’s got more sense. All he’ll want is to be able to say that he’s conducted an inquiry and no further action can be taken.”

  “Is that what you’d have done in your day: just given up?” Annika asked.

  She’d intended to sting him, but instead Berthelsen just chuckled humourlessly as if he was wise to that trick. He drew on his cigarette then waved it towards the door.

  “You’d better be on your way, Officer Mortensen. I can’t help you,” he said.

  11

  IT WAS A TWO-HOUR DRIVE FROM THE AIRPORT TO DANNEMARE and the satnav that came with the rental car – a Suzuki – didn’t speak much: there was no need. The dual carriageway undulated its way more or less due south in bright sunshine that made me reach for sunglasses for the first time in weeks.

  In the Faroes you’re overshadowed by mountains wherever you go, and now – in their absence – I realised I’d got used to their overbearing presence, like a stern father, always looking on disapprovingly. The Danish countryside was gentler and more forgiving, though: rounded hills and sculpted, ploughed fields; trees still greenly in leaf despite a loose fall of orange and brown on the verges. There was blue, open sky and white clouds and I savoured the warmth as if it was something foreign. I had a strange feeling of release, too: I couldn’t think of a better word for it. Perhaps it was just because I was a stranger in a strange land again; or perhaps it was simply that I could drive for close to a hundred miles without turns, without mountains or tunnels. Whatever it was, for the first time in several days the sunlight and space chased the grey pall from the edge of my thoughts and I felt better for it: focused on what I wanted to know.

  A productive interview starts with good planning. The more you know before you question a suspect, the more you’ll get when you interview them. Rasmus Matzen wasn’t a suspect, though, so I knew I’d have to be tactful and that talking about the body under the sheepfold would not be a good starting point. I didn’t mind asking Hentze’s questions, but it wasn’t my primary interest. Matzen was the only person I’d been able to locate who might have some direct memory of Lýdia from just before she abandoned the Faroes and what I wanted was anything he could tell me about the time she – and presumably I – had spent at his commune at Múli.

  Most of what I knew about the place came from the newspaper clippings Tove Hald had found in the library in Tórshavn and translated for me. It was those I’d read again on the flight out, starting with the first mention of the Colony commune in an edition of Sosialurin from May 1973. In less than two column inches the news report said simply that land and houses at Múli had been rented by a group of young people from Denmark who wished to live close to nature as a commune. Their leader, as the report called him, was a man called Rasmus Matzen from Flensburg in Denmark whose age was given as twenty-six.

  After that there was nothing more until August 1973, when a series of letters in the islands’ two newspapers were published, voicing concern that the commune was attracting unsavoury elements from Denmark.

  What followed was an art
icle with the headline “A Visit To Múli”, written by a journalist from Dimmalætting who appeared to have been sent to investigate what he referred to as “the recent questions and concerns about the Colony community at Múli”. There was no direct reference to what those concerns might have been, so I could only assume that they were so familiar to the locals that they didn’t need explaining.

  The article spread to a generous page, with a photo of half a dozen hippyish men and women in their twenties standing against the backdrop of the houses and hillside. What it said, by and large, was what you might expect from any feature article even today. It seemed fairly well disposed towards the “Colonists” who, the reporter said, were young men and women who had come to the Faroes as an escape from the city life. They hoped to build a self-sufficient and peaceful community where artists would want to live and work in a cooperative and inspirational atmosphere.

  It was all good, flower-power stuff: wholesome, wholegrained, vegetarian and woolly, but it didn’t appear to appease the locals very much because the following week the article had prompted another flurry of letters questioning why the Faroes should play host to Denmark’s drop-outs, whether there was drug use and criticising the newspaper for making the commune seem like a viable alternative to hard work and a God-fearing life.

  It was difficult to tell how much this was all a “storm in a glass”, as the Faroese would say. In close-knit communities small things take on larger significance than they would anywhere else, but all the same there were sporadic complaints via the letters page for several more weeks. Then there was nothing until the following November, 1974. This time it wasn’t a letter but a short news report, as brief as the first, saying simply that the last residents of the commune at Múli had left earlier that week and gone back to Denmark. It also noted that fifty sheep, owned by the residents, had been bought back by the man who originally sold them. He said they were in poor condition. The commune had lasted seventeen months.

  * * *

  I suppose I’d expected Rasmus Matzen’s house to be rustic and old. Instead it looked as if it had been built in the fifties: red brick, square and angular, with dormers in the roof. It sat in isolation about quarter of a mile from its nearest neighbour on a bend in the road, surrounded by a gravelled area at the front with a rack of vegetables for sale beside a sign, Lokale Økologiske Grøntsager. There was a dilapidated Volvo estate on the gravel and after a pause to assess the place, I pulled off the road and parked next to it.

  Getting out of the car, I stretched my legs and looked the house over again. Closer to, it was tatty and clearly needed attention. There was flaking paint around the windows, loose mortar between bricks and the old panelled door had a crack in its glass.

  There was no reply when I knocked so after waiting a minute or so I went around the house to the back where a wire fence marked out a square patch of land. It was planted with geometric precision and a woman in her sixties was raking one of the herb beds. She was about average height, dressed in work clothes, and when she sensed my arrival she looked up. I raised a hand in greeting.

  “Hi,” she said and her face moved to an easy smile, as if she was used to greeting strangers.

  “Hi, goddag,” I said, matching her smile. “Taler de engelsk?”

  “Yes, sure, of course.” She nodded. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Rasmus Matzen. Does he live here?”

  “Yes, he’s my husband, but he isn’t here at the moment.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said. “Do you know when he’ll be back? My name’s Jan Reyna. My mother was—”

  “Lýdia.”

  As she said it she seemed momentarily surprised at herself for making the connection, but then the frown was gone and in its place there was a look somewhere between incredulity and incomprehension as she looked me over again. “Min Gud… I can’t believe this. You are Jan. I’m Elna, Elna Eskildsen.” For a second she looked to see if my recognition matched her own. “But of course, you won’t know me.”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  She waved it away. “No, it’s not important. You were too small: only four years the last time I saw you. How are you here?”

  “Well, I’m trying to find out about Lýdia,” I said. “I wanted to talk to people who knew her.”

  She shook her head, perhaps still getting to grips with my appearance out of the blue. “I can’t believe it is you,” she said again. “You must come in. Please.” She gestured to the house. “Would you like to have coffee?”

  “Sure, tak,” I said, not to pass up the opportunity. “Coffee would be great, as long as I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “Nej, nej. Come in. Please. Come.”

  * * *

  Inside the house the kitchen was very warm, the heat coming from a wood-burning range and despite the north-facing gloom Elna didn’t switch on any lights. A long table sat at the centre, piled with papers, a basket of potatoes and two oil lamps.

  “We live off the grid,” Elna told me, as if anticipating a question. “No oil or gas, and just solar power for a few things. But we always have hot water for coffee.” She tapped an enamel kettle on the stove plate. “Please, sit down anywhere.”

  I took a chair near a clear area of the table, and she talked almost without pause as she made coffee. By the time she brought two mugs to the table I knew that she lived here with Rasmus Matzen, that they ran an organic smallholding and that sometimes Rasmus ran courses for people who wanted to start their own self-sufficient plots. Elna herself taught people weaving so when I’d arrived she’d thought I might have come to enquire about that, but of course not, she said now, “You don’t look like a man who likes plants or makes things.”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “Only mistakes.”

  She laughed. “But not today, to find me,” she said. “That is so good.”

  Given her unreserved pleasure that I was there, it wasn’t surprising that I found myself liking her. But now that she’d settled across the table from me it was my turn to talk, answering her questions about where I lived and what I did with a potted history of my life since she’d last seen me.

  ‘My father, Signar, died in the Faroes a couple of weeks ago,” I told her. “And while I was there I talked to a few people about Lýdia, too. I don’t remember anything very much from when I was small – when Lýdia died – but when I was told that she’d been involved with Rasmus and the Colony commune at Múli I thought I’d see what else I could find out about her.”

  Elna nodded, as if to acknowledge that I’d brought us back to the nub of the thing. “I met Lýdia for the first time at the Colony, in 1973,” she said. “It was also where I met Rasmus. I was there for six months and Lýdia stayed with us often at Múli: for a few days – sometimes longer. And you were with her, of course.”

  “What did she do there?” I asked. “I mean, was she just a visitor or did she get involved?”

  “Oh, ja, she was involved,” Elna said. “She was very, er… enthusiastic about what we were trying to do. And because she was Faroese she could sometimes help when we talked to local people for work or to buy things. To some of the group she gave lessons in Faroese, and she also helped with the cooking and garden and animals, too. Whatever was needed. That was just how it was there: we lived as a group and all did a fair share.”

  “Do you think she would have liked to be there all the time?” I asked.

  Elna considered for a moment, then nodded. “I think maybe so. At Múli she always seemed joyful, you know? But at home with your father I don’t think so much.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  She shrugged, perhaps reluctant to pass judgement. “I can’t say for sure. I never met your father, but I don’t think it can have been so good for Lýdia or why would she want to come somewhere else – to the Colony – so much?”

  “Were you at Múli until the commune closed down?”

  She shook her head. “Nej, for only six months. My father was ill, so I had
to come home to Denmark. The next year, when the Colony ended, I met Rasmus again and we have been together ever since. I didn’t see Lýdia again until she came to stay with us in Christiania, the freetown in Copenhagen.”

  The jump forward caught me by surprise. “We stayed with you? When was that?”

  She thought about that, working it out. “It was 1976,” she said then. “Maybe januar – January or February. I’m not so sure, but one day there is a knock on the door of our apartment and there is Lýdia with you holding her hand. You are both looking very tired and cold, I remember that very well. So, of course, we took you inside and gave you some food and Lýdia told us you had left the Faroe Islands for good. She wants to live in the freetown, she says: to find a place to stay and to work. And because we have space in our house we all had a meeting and we gave you a room.”

  The place – more of an old warehouse than apartments, Elna said – was shared between half a dozen people: a communal squat, just like all the other buildings in the abandoned military base that made up Christiania. And from the way Elna described it, the house operated in a kind of organised chaos. No one was in charge and decisions were made by the inhabitants who also cooperated with day-today chores like cooking, cleaning and childcare. They shared basic necessities and a communal fund to which everyone contributed either in cash or in kind. They didn’t reject the idea of paid work and earning a living, Elna said; they just chose to live as a group – a family, she called it – and be stronger together.

  The whole set-up sounded impossibly idealistic and naïve to my cynical ear, but I reminded myself that those were different times, and maybe shouldn’t be judged by what had come afterwards, which had hardly been better. Whatever the case, in order to contribute to the household Lýdia got a job in a city restaurant and I was left in the care of either Elna or anyone else who happened to be around, which led me to ask another question.

  “While we were living in the house with you, what was Lýdia like?” I said. “I mean, was there anything odd – strange – about the way she behaved?”