‘Like, aren’t friends supposed to be there for each other if one has depression?’
I leave the room and immediately start calling Madeleine, but she doesn’t pick up.
Thirty-Five
Storm
Storm stands at the window and watches the sun rise above the eastern forests, its bright light dropping onto the fjord outside the window. From here he can see most of Oslo, held snug in its grey hollow. In the winter the city centre is often covered entirely by a lid of smoke and when he used to train up at Holmenkollen Ski Centre it would look as though the capital had been swallowed whole by a murky brown cloud.
His father has flown to Oslo and is coming here to pick him up, he just messaged to say. Storm doesn’t want to leave but knows he has little choice. He’ll have to get creative to get himself out of all the trouble he’ll be in.
‘The thing you should remember is that Bianka really loved Mia,’ his grandmother said last night, when he sat closely beside her on the sofa, drinking hot chocolate and looking through the photo albums again. ‘Maybe more than we realized,’ she added softly. ‘I think her death must have broken her completely.’ This makes some sense to Storm, though he still can’t understand why Bianka’s always so angry. He just hopes his father hasn’t brought her to Norway, and that he and his dad will have the chance to spend some time together, just the two of them. There’s a knock on the door, and then Frida pokes her sweet, weathered face into the room and lights up at the sight of him.
‘Your father will be here any minute, Storm,’ she says. He glances out the window again and now he spots Emil’s Tesla coming to a stop at the end of the road leading to his grandparents’ house. He waits for Emil to emerge from the car and walk up to the house, but he doesn’t, and when several minutes have ticked past, Storm realizes he isn’t going to. He understands, suddenly, that Emil is embarrassed to come face to face with his grandparents.
He goes downstairs and hugs Frida and Einar goodbye, promising to come back soon. In the car, nobody speaks, though Storm can sense that Emil is frustrated and probably angry about everything he’s done. He can only imagine the hell Bianka must have given him.
Finally, Storm breaks the silence. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. Uh—’
‘It’s okay, Stormy. I didn’t mind a weekend in Oslo and I wanted to make sure you’re okay. It seems like a lot has been going on and I need you to tell me everything.’
Storm nods.
‘Let’s sit down together this evening and you can talk me through your decision-making over the past couple of weeks.’ Storm catches a glimpse of what his mellow father must be like at work; kind but firm.
His phone beeps, and it’s a message from Madeleine. He perks up. He messaged her a couple of times last night but didn’t get an answer, which is unusual – he guessed she fell asleep.
Hey do u know if something weird has happened between my mom and Bianka?
Nope. Why?
My mom’s being extra crazy.
Ok will try to find out.
Same. She says I have to come straight back to London.
What?? When? Can we meet later? At the lake?
No response. The whole rest of the day and afternoon passes without a response from Madeleine, even though Storm messages her twice more and they’re marked as read. He feels irritable and restless and even a long run up to Kobberhaugen, deep in the woods, fails to take the edge off. After a shower, he attempts a game of Fortnite but can’t concentrate at all, Mio and Felix’s laughter hollering down the earphones as he misses shot after shot and they beat him for once.
He knocks on his father’s bedroom door and waits. He knows he’s in there because he bumped into him earlier in the hallway, and Emil had looked dishevelled and stressed and pointed to the earbuds in his ears as he headed down the corridor saying ‘uh-huh,’ and ‘no, we stay on one-seven-five,’ and ‘yes, I’ll be in KL on the twentieth.’ He’d felt sorry for his dad for a moment – he’s a busy man and now he’s had to drop everything to fly here to deal with his wayward son. He must have popped out because when Storm eventually pushes the door open after more knocking, the room is empty, the bed messy and unmade.
In the end he can’t stand it anymore, and cycles over to Madeleine’s uncle’s home on Frognerseterveien. He knows the route, because he’s walked Madeleine there several times, kissing her goodbye by the gatepost. The gate is locked but Storm can see two identical, gleaming black Range Rovers in the driveway. He presses the intercom button but nobody answers for a very long time. Then the gate swings open with a soft whirr. Thankfully it’s Madeleine herself who comes to the door, but not the Madeleine he has come to know. This is someone else entirely, a nervous, sad being who looks ready to bolt back into the huge house.
‘Hey,’ she whispers, glancing behind her, as though someone is standing in the shadows, listening. ‘You can’t just turn up here, Storm.’
‘You haven’t answered my messages. Sorry, I felt worried, can we talk—’
‘No. I’m sorry.’ Her eyes are wet with tears and she looks like she’s having to use every ounce of her energy not to start sobbing. ‘I can’t see you anymore, Storm. I’m sorry.’ She glances dramatically around again, then lowers her voice to an almost inaudible whisper. ‘My mom is so fucking crazy. I’m positive it has something to do with what’s happened between her and Bianka. I think she’s going to make me fly back to London tonight or tomorrow. I’m sorry, Storm.’
‘Madeleine?’ calls a voice from inside the house. Madeleine quickly shuts the door after another ‘I’m sorry,’ and Storm stays there for several minutes, staring at the oiled, dark wood with its ornate brass knocker like a creepy little hand. Then he walks slowly back over to his bike, as if in a daze. He bikes all the way uphill back to Slemdal, his feet pedalling furiously. He’s humiliated and upset and his heart feels like it might stop in his chest. He’d started to thaw ever so slightly toward Bianka, mostly because of what Lone and his grandmother had said, about the gentle way she’d looked after him when he was small and motherless. But every time he even remotely entertains the idea that she’s not so bad, she goes and shows him that she is, in fact, worse. And whatever it is that Bianka has done that’s cost him his relationship with Madeleine, she’s going to fucking fix it, he’ll make sure of that.
*
His father is back from wherever he went when Storm walks back in. He takes one look at his son, then pulls him into a close embrace.
‘How about you and I drive up to the cabin?’ Emil says. ‘We haven’t been there since the snow melted. And we can get some training in, too.’ Storm ponders this for a moment – a whole weekend away with his father. When Storm was a little boy, he realized that the only way to get his father to himself was to ask to go to the cabin because Bianka hates it there. He consciously went for the ski team when his friends were choosing sports and put all of his efforts into it when he realized that the training it would require to get really good meant he got to spend most weekends away from Bianka. So, really, it’s thanks to his stepmother that he became a pro skier.
He pictures the cabin sitting on its own, overlooking the narrow valley, and in his mind its roof is laden with a thick layer of snow, the jagged peaks of the Jotunheimen mountains tearing at the sky in the distance. The cabin was the last place his mother had been seen alive. In this moment, Storm feels the discombobulated parts of his life grow clearer and he has the sensation of almost being able to grasp a memory lurking in the depths of his mind. What his father has suggested is just right – they need to go there, now.
Thirty-Six
Charlotte
I’m working from Caffe Nero in the village today, looking through shades of pink samples for the packaging tube of my upcoming seed-oil-free béarnaise sauce. I’m here to show myself that life moves on; it has to. Soon, everything will feel totally normal again, and I’ll slip back into my routine of work, calorie restriction, and family life. Before that I’ll need to get through the gruelling social schedule of the Wimbledon tennis tournament with all its wild parties, and then several weeks at Can Xara with my family, but I won’t focus on what that might feel like now. I need to decide between ‘ballet slipper’, ‘blush’, or ‘taffy.’
My phone begins to vibrate on the table. It’s a Spanish number. I’ve prepared myself mentally for this. Of course they were going to call me at some point; I’m the next door neighbour. I might have heard or seen something. Over the course of the last twenty-four hours, numerous news articles about the ‘disturbing disappearance’ of Maxime Dubois-Joseph have appeared online, though mostly in the same vein, focusing on his suspected connections to Sicilian mafia, as well as previous drug convictions now uncovered by the media.
I knew this was coming; all I have to do is answer and make my voice friendly and slightly surprised. But I can’t do it. Though I thought I was prepared, shock and panic washes over me and I can’t move a single muscle. The woman at the next table shoots me a quizzical then annoyed glance; my phone is making a grating repetitive sound against the wooden tabletop. Then it stops. I’ve barely caught my breath before it starts up again. And again, I don’t answer.
‘Excuse me,’ says the woman in an American drawl. ‘Your phone is ringing.’
I manage to flip the button on its side to silent, then quickly stand up and gather my laptop and the colour samples together before rushing out the door. I’ve parked around the corner on Lancaster Road and I throw my things onto the passenger seat and slam the door shut. I wait several minutes before looking at my phone, doing the single-nostril breathing routine Linda has taught me for moments of severe stress. There’s one new message, from the same Spanish number.
Hi, can you please return my call at your earliest convenience?
Inspector Juanes Fuentes, Comisaria de la Policia Nacional de Ibiza.
