‘She’s obviously been sitting somewhere.’
‘Not just sitting, it’s deep in the fibre. She’s been rubbing. Hard. Like this.’ He thrust his hips backwards and forwards.
‘I see. Any theories as to why?’
She put on her glasses and looked at Holm as his mouth distorted into a variety of shapes to articulate expressions his brain generated and immediately rejected.
‘Dry humping?’ Beate asked.
‘Yes,’ Holm said, with relief.
‘I see. And where and when does a woman who doesn’t work at a hospital wear hospital gear and dry hump on PSG?’
‘Simple,’ said Bjorn Holm. ‘At a nocturnal rendezvous in a disused PSG factory.’
The clouds parted, and again they were bathed in the magic blue light in which everything, even the shadows, became phosphorised, frozen as if for a still life.
Kolkka had gone to bed, but Harry presumed the Finn was lying in the bedroom with his eyes open and his other senses on maximum alert.
Kaja sat by the window with her chin resting on her hand looking out. She was wearing her white jumper as they only had electric radiators. They had agreed it might look suspicious if smoke was coming from the chimney all the time when apparently there were just two people there.
‘If you ever miss the starry sky over Hong Kong, look outside now,’ Kaja said.
‘I can’t remember any starry sky,’ Harry said, lighting a cigarette.
‘Isn’t there anything about Hong Kong you miss?’
‘Li Yuan’s glass noodles,’ Harry said. ‘Every day.’
‘Are you in love with me?’ She had lowered her voice only a fraction and was looking at him attentively while tying an elastic band around her hair.
Harry examined his feelings. ‘Not right now.’
She laughed, her face expressing surprise. ‘Not right now? What does that mean?’
‘That that part of me is tuned out as long as we’re here.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re damaged goods, Hole.’
‘About that,’ Harry said with a crooked smile, ‘there is little doubt.’
‘And what about when this job is over in -’ she looked at her watch – ‘ten hours?’
‘Then I may be in love with you again,’ Harry said, placing his hand next to hers on the table. ‘If not before.’
She looked at their hands. Saw how much bigger his were. How much more delicately shaped hers were. How much paler and how gnarled his were, with thick blood vessels twisting and turning all over the back of his hand.
‘So you could be in love before the job is over after all, eh?’ She placed her hand on his.
‘I meant the job could be over before-’
She withdrew her hand.
Harry looked at her in surprise. ‘I just meant-’
‘Listen!’
Harry held his breath and listened. But heard nothing.
‘What was it?’
‘Sounded like a car,’ Kaja said, peering out. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘Unlikely, in my opinion,’ Harry said. ‘It’s more than ten kilometres to the nearest road open in winter. What about a helicopter? Or a snowmobile?’
‘Or what about my overactive imagination?’ Kaja sighed. ‘The sound’s gone. And, on reflection, perhaps it was never there. Sorry, but you can easily become a bit oversensitive when you’re afraid and-’
‘No,’ Harry said, getting up. ‘Suitably afraid. Suitably sensitive. Describe what you heard.’ Harry took his revolver from his shoulder holster and went to the second window.
‘Nothing, I keep telling you!’
Harry opened the window a fraction. ‘Your hearing’s better than mine. Listen for both of us.’
They sat listening to the silence. Minutes passed.
‘Harry…’
‘Shhh.’
‘Come and sit down again, Harry.’
‘He’s here,’ Harry said, half aloud as though talking to himself. ‘He’s here now.’
‘Harry, now it’s you who’s being oversensi-’
There was a muffled boom. The sound was low, deep, sort of slow, no forward thrust, like distant thunder. But Harry knew that thunder seldom occurred with a clear sky at seven degrees below zero.
He held his breath.
And then he heard it. Another roar, different from the boom, but this too was a low frequency, like the sound waves from a bass speaker, sound waves that move air, that are felt in the stomach. Harry had heard this sound only once before, but he knew he would remember it for the rest of his life.
‘Avalanche!’ Harry yelled and ran towards Kolkka’s bedroom, which faced the mountainside. ‘Avalanche!’
The bedroom door opened and there was Kolkka, wide awake. They could feel the ground shaking. It was a big avalanche. Whether the cabin had a cellar or not, Harry knew they would never have been able to make it there. For behind Kolkka fragments of glass from what had once been a window flew past, forced in by the air that avalanches push ahead of them.
‘Take my hand!’ Harry shouted above the roar and stretched out his hands, one to Kaja and one to Kolkka. He saw them race towards him as the air was sucked out of the cabin, as if the avalanche had breathed out first and then in. He felt Kolkka’s hand squeeze his hard and waited for Kaja’s. Then the wall of snow hit the cabin.
58
Snow
It was deafeningly quiet and pitch black. Harry tried to move. Impossible. His body seemed to be cast in plaster, he couldn’t move one single limb. Indeed, he had actually done what his father had told him: held a hand in front of his face to make room for an air pocket. But he didn’t know if there was any air in it. Because Harry couldn’t breathe. And he knew the reason why. Constrictive pericarditis. What Olav Hole had explained happened when the chest and diaphragm were packed together so tight by snow that the lungs were unable to function. Which meant you had only the oxygen that was already in your blood, about a litre, and with normal consumption, at around 0.25 litres a minute, you would die within four minutes. Panic struck: he had to have air, had to breathe! Harry tensed his body, but the snow was like a boa constrictor that responded by tightening its grip. He knew he had to fight the panic, had to be able to think. And think now. The world outside had ceased to exist; time, gravity, temperature didn’t exist. Harry had no idea what was up or down or how long he had been in the snow. Another of his father’s wisdoms whirled through his brain. To find your bearings and determine which way you are lying, dribble saliva from your mouth and feel which way it runs down your face. He ran his tongue around his palate. Knew it was fear, the adrenalin that had dried out his mouth. He opened wide and used the fingers in front of his face to scrabble some snow into his mouth. Chewed, opened again and let the melted ice dribble out. He panicked instantly and jerked as his nostrils filled with water. Closed his mouth and snorted the water out again. Snorted out what was left of the air in his lungs. He was going to die soon.
The water had told him he was upside down, the jerk had told him it was possible to move after all. He tried another jerk, tautened his whole body in a spasm, felt the snow give a little. A little. Enough to escape from the stranglehold of constrictive pericarditis? He breathed in. Got some air. Not enough. The brain must already have been suffering from a lack of oxygen, nevertheless he clearly recalled his father’s words from the Easters up in
