Devil's Fjord

David Hewson

Description

A remote island. An isolated community. A terrible secret. If the new District Sheriff, Tristan Haraldsen, thought moving to a remote village on the island of Vagar would be the chance for a peaceful life with his wife Elsebeth, his first few weeks in office swiftly correct him of that notion. Provoked into taking part in the village's whale hunt against his will, Haraldsen blunders badly, and in the ensuing chaos two local boys go missing. Blaming himself, Haraldsen dives into the investigation and soon learns that the boys are not the first to have gone missing on Vagar. As Tristan and Elsebeth become increasingly ensnared by the island's past, they realise its wild beauty hides an altogether uglier and sinister truth.

Sujets

• Northern Europe
• Scandinavia
• Thriller
• Scandinavie

Informations

• Publié par: Canongate Books
• Date de parution: 05 août 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838853778
• Langue: English

Extrait

David Hewson is a former journalist with the Times , the Sunday Times and the Independent . He is the author of more than twenty-five novels including his Rome-based Nic Costa series, which has been published in fifteen languages. He has also written three acclaimed adaptations of the Danish TV series The Killing .
@david_hewson | davidhewson.com
Recent Titles by David Hewson


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THE VILLA OF MYSTERIES
THE SACRED CUT
THE LIZARD S BITE
THE SEVENTH SACRAMENT
THE GARDEN OF EVIL
DANTE S NUMBERS
THE BLUE DEMON
THE FALLEN ANGEL
THE SAVAGE SHORE
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CARNIVAL OF DEATH
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The paperback edition published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2021 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West
and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada
First published in 2019 by Severn House Publishers Ltd, Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY
canongate.co.uk
This digital edition first published in 2021 by Canongate Books
Copyright David Hewson, 2019
The right of David Hewson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 83885 376 1 eISBN 978 1 83885 377 8
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Author s note
ONE
He was on the roof of their little cottage mowing the thick and umber turf, briar pipe clenched tightly in his teeth, happy and a little lost in his own thoughts, when his wife called from the front porch to say the killings were on the way.
Tristan! Grind! Grind! Are your cloth ears listening? All those cars a-tooting in the village! They are here! You must come! Come now, man. Oh, what a time to be mowing the roof! What will people think?
A strong man of fifty-five. Not tall, not short. Not fat, not thin. Clean-shaven with a good head of sandy-coloured hair edging towards grey. It went with a friendly, freckled face, pale since Haraldsen was by trade and nature a man for the office, never the country. Eight weeks out of police headquarters in T rshavn. A civilian latterly responsible for systems, newly-retired on medical grounds - his mild cardiac arrhythmia failed to pass the adjusted health diktats put in place by the government health officer - he had now only the part-time job of district sheriff for the fishing to occupy a few working hours each week.
I do not hear you moving, husband.
It was a sunny September day. A brisk easterly wind from the Atlantic buffeted Tristan Haraldsen as he went about his work on the shallow turf roof of the cottage. Four fat sheep grazed in the back yard next to a flock of white-and-brown chickens picking for worms in the grass. Out on the water, framed by the two high cliffs on either side of the fjord, past the line of snag-toothed rocks called the Skerries, a small flotilla of multi-coloured boats dotted the bright horizon. Fishermen often gathered at the mouth of the snaking, narrow inlet to the Atlantic from which Djevulsfjord took its name, searching for cod, haddock, redfish and mackerel, anything they could catch and transport down to the market in S rv gur for ready cash.
The vessels flocked together, like sharks slyly closing on the prospect of prey. This was the end of summer. The season the pilot whale pods were on the move, coming close to land. He was the district sheriff. It was time - the first occasion - to earn his keep.
Ja, ja, ja, Haraldsen cried, his attention still caught by the view.
And I shall be most cross if there is tobacco in that pipe of yours. The very thought you must go and mow the roof to suck on that thing
Elsebeth! Elsebeth! I am coming. Of course. The roof needs mowing. The pipe is empty. But I must dispose of the machine first. Mustn t I?
One hand on the shiny new rotary he d bought for the move, Haraldsen edged towards the lip of the gently sloping roof. The timber cottage had stood on this gentle hill above the village for more than a century. The couple who owned it before were so traditional they d let the chickens live inside, roosting on the open rafters above the living room, right next to the attic where the two of them were to sleep. One of the birds had pooped on Elsebeth s head when they came to inspect the property. An omen, his wife had said giggling, then announced she wanted the place.
He was content with this on two conditions. The whole of the interior would be enclosed, none of it open to the rafters. The hens were to live in a coop outside which he would build himself, along with the new ceiling, every last piece.
They were the first jobs he finished when, the month before, they moved from the relative bustle of the Faroese capital to the remote village, a place they barely knew, on the western island of V gar, an hour away by car. Not an easy drive either. V gar was shaped like a dog s head. Djevulsfjord sat stranded near the eye, accessible only by a lengthy sea voyage round the profile of the hound or a journey by road that ended after a damp-smelling single-lane tunnel cut through rnafjall, Eagle s Mountain, emerging close to their new home.
Prices in Djevulsfjord were as low as they might find anywhere in the Faroes. No one wanted to live in such a remote spot it seemed. The population had dwindled to fewer than eighty, scarcely any young couples or children among them. The modern world regarded it as too remote, too locked in the past. Tristan and Elsebeth Haraldsen, childless, with no living relatives to look after or look after them when the time came, relished the challenge. Besides, the lump sum from the police authority pension more than covered the modest purchase price. The small salary of the district sheriff gave them the freedom to travel if they so wished, something neither of them had raised since that early summer day they decided to move from busy T rshavn to silent, beautiful V gar and embark upon a new chapter in their lives.
Furthermore you must get out of those pyjamas, she added. Why a grown man is wearing his bed things at ten o clock of the morning is beyond me. I know you re half-retired. But if one of the neighbours should see you. The district sheriff of all people. In this condition
The cottage lay above the small and straggly fishing village. A good ten-minute walk from the nearest house and the harbour where cars and bikes and people on foot now congregated like bees swarming on summer flowers. Even set as their cottage was, on the rise of a moderate green slope, it was not, it seemed to Haraldsen, a likely spot for a man to be seen from afar in his pyjamas.
Elsebeth walked out from beneath the cottage porch. The sight of her never failed to cheer him. She always said of late she wasn t so slim as when he courted her at the T rshavn dances. He didn t notice. To him she was slender still and young too, just not as much as before. And her face was strong and beautiful, more so now she cropped her brown hair short, not long and girlish, the way it used to be.
I do not wear these things to go about what little business I have, Haraldsen informed her. Only for the comfort of my own home.
The roof was a tradition hereabouts and needed attention. In spring, he believed, daffodils would sprout and bloom in the turf above their heads. In early summer came daisies and buttercups and other wild flowers Haraldsen recognized but could not name though they must have died in the early August drought.
His pipe was empty, merely a comforting thing to suck on, with a familiar taste. The doctors had had their say about tobacco and in the end he d listened.
His eyesight was clear and strong just like, he felt, his mind. He d know if anyone was watching and might be offended.
I am waiting, Elsebeth declared firmly from below. And so are your whales.
GRIND.
J nas tweaked his brother s arm so hard, so insistent he kept on until Benjamin screeched and pulled away from him.
Remember what that means, goat? Or you too stupid now?
Silas Mikkelsen had thrown their mother Alba out of the house the summer before. When he did he was adamant there was no room for the brothers in the fisherman s cottage he d inherited at the edge of the village. So the youngsters had to move with her into the minuscule shack by Djevulsfjord s harbour. The place was all Alba could afford since Silas was rarely forthcoming with the maintenance. In a sense it wasn t a home at all, just a flimsy wooden lean-to tacked onto the sheds where the fish were boxed and the nets and buoys stored by the tiny and dwindling harbour fleet. The smell of dead, dry fish never left the place. In winter it was freezing. In summer the place felt like an oven.
Don t call me goat, Benjamin Mikkelsen muttered.
Goats grunt and groan and stink. They re thick and stumble everywhere. Goat.
After that he leaned down and laughed in his older brother s face. Ten and twelve. Eighteen months separated them on paper. But the divide seemed much greater, to them, to their mother, to all who knew the sad little family.
Goat. Goat. Goat. Goat
Benjamin punched him hard on the arm.
Mam! J nas raced to the door and flung i