The Unexpected Find Page 17

  “Stefan, it’s him! It must be. The man who has been following us.”

  Stefan was totally confused.

  “What man? Now we will sit down and you will tell me all about this. He herded both Judy and Karl over to the pile of fleeces, and they sat down. William had already snuggled into the bearskin, but now he sat up. In the dimly lit room they listened as Judy explained about the social worker, and being chased all the way to the docks, and getting away just in time. But it seemed he had chased her all the way to the North of Sweden.

  Stefan said,

  “In Sweden the social people work very hard, but not this hard.”

  Karl snorted and said something.

  “He says that he is not a social worker. He is probably a kidnapper. Or a murderer, like in the films. But of course not – Karl likes exciting stories,” he added hastily, when he saw William’s face.

  Judy’s mind had been racing, trying to fit the pieces together. She remembered her father saying that Rashid was not just anybody, that he might be followed, that there was danger. And there was Soheila, too, at the museum, saying that Rashid had given her the letter for safety’s sake. And now her father, disappeared somewhere, looking for Rashid. There was only one logical answer. This man thought that she knew something, that she could somehow lead him to Rashid, or her father, or both. He didn’t know that she hadn’t heard a single word from either of them. Karl had obviously seen too many action movies, but still… Stefan broke in on her thoughts.

  “Well he will find you soon. It is not hard to know where you are.”

  Thoughts tumbled into Judy’s head. She would have to run away again, and this time there was no Mr Balderson to help them. And what about William? And where could she go?

  “It is very good,” Stefan went on. “We do not have to look for him, he will find us.”

  “Good, how is it good? I have to get away.”

  “But we must stop him, of course. We must make him go away. Anna says he was quite a small person, and all alone. You told me this too.”

  “But…”

  “Judy this cannot be very hard for you to understand. Are you going to run away all the time? Then you are not that person that I thought: the person who stops, and turns around, and goes to meet the problem. I saw you on the bridge, and so did Anna.” He smiled happily at the memory. “But now we do something together. This man you can tip into the river if you wish and I will not be cross. But first we must talk to him.”

  Judy saw then that Stefan was right. Completely right. It was all so obvious to him; he didn’t have to think about it at all. If there was one tiny little clue left about her father, one thing that connected her to him, then it was this man.

  “How will we do that?”

  “We will sit on him, and push snow up his nose.” Stefan laughed happily. “But now we must go, quickly,” said Stefan. “He may know already where we are living.” There was one thing that Stefan did not take so light-heartedly, and that was the thought of the stranger turning up at the farm in the middle of the night, where Farmor was all alone. Snatching up the wolfskin, Stefan made his way down the stairs and out on to the porch, with Judy and William close behind.

  “Wait here please,” he said, and he disappeared in the direction of one of the outhouses.

  After a while they heard a raucous engine, and a snowmobile roared into view, driven by a helmeted Karl in full winter gear with Stefan, also helmeted, riding pillion. The snowmobile was dragging a high-sided sled. It stopped in front of the porch.

  “Get in please, and cover yourselves,” called Stefan. Judy and William did as they were told.

  The snowmobile shot off at a ridiculous pace, bumping and swaying across snowbound ditches and frozen streams, and although they were no longer in the grip of midwinter temperatures they had to burrow down to get out of the chill wind of their passage. They soon found out that for warmth there is nothing in the whole wide world that beats the pelt of a wolf. In half an hour they were already at the bottom of the farm track. They climbed out. Stefan got off and took off his helmet, throwing it into the sled and saying, “Tack.” Then a slight argument followed. It was clear that Karl, having got this far, was not going to miss the fun. Stefan gave in, and all four of them started off up the track.

  The light in the farmhouse porch beckoned. The kitchen, the parlour with its tiled stove, Farmor. William wasn’t really conscious of it, but he had a warm feeling somewhere in the region of his stomach, which, if he had only known it, was what it feels like when you are coming home. Judy felt safe, oddly enough. They were both, in their different ways, comforted just by being there.

  Then they all saw the small car parked in front of the house.

  “He’s here!” gasped Judy. Stefan was already running up the last bit of track, with Karl at his heels.

  “Stefan, wait…” Judy hissed, but Stefan had no time for thinking or planning. If this person had done anything to upset Farmor then he would regret it, and Stefan would see to that personally. He made his way up to the kitchen window in complete silence, and motioned to Karl to go around the back of the house. As he looked in the window, Stefan saw that Farmor was alone in the kitchen, energetically scrubbing the kitchen table. He beckoned to Judy and William, and they crept up to join him. Karl came round the house, shaking his head.

  “I can’t see him,” said Stefan. “Farmor is alone. He could be anywhere. But she must have heard his car, I don’t understand. You must stay out of sight, Karl and I will go in.”

  But Judy wasn’t having any of that.

  “If he is outside somewhere we will be safer indoors, won’t we?” Judy spoke in a low whisper. “We can’t just stay out here until he finds us; he might even be watching us now.” As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn’t – suddenly every shadow had eyes. William was clutching her arm. “If we go in there will be four of us. What can he do?”

  Stefan could imagine quite a lot of things, setting the house on fire for starters, but he didn’t mention them. Judy was right – he couldn’t leave William and her outside in the dark. So they all moved quietly towards the front porch, expecting that at any moment some dark shadow would separate itself from the wall of the woodshed or the barn and spring at them. Judy saw to her horror that Karl had his hand on the hunting knife that hung at his belt, calmly loosening it in its sheath. They reached the door and stepped into the hall, Stefan calling out quickly and loudly to Farmor so as not to frighten her; she came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Oh, Stefan! And Judy and William, what a lovely surprise. And Karl too—”

  Stefan interrupted her with a hail of questions, and she calmed him as best she could.

  “Stefan, I am perfectly all right, I am well. But where is Mr Balderson? I didn’t hear the van coming.”

  But there was something in the way that Farmor spoke that made them take notice. She was just a bit too cheerful.

  “Farmor…”

  “Stefan – all of you – come into the kitchen, please. No, Stefan,” she said, as he tried again to find out what was going on. “In the kitchen. Then I will explain.”

  Farmor was definitely on edge. She smoothed down her apron and kept touching her grey hair. They trooped into the kitchen.

  “Please, Farmor,” said Stefan. “Is the man here or not? We have to know. He might be dangerous.”

  This seemed to cheer Farmor up considerably.

  “You don’t say! Oh good, that is good,” she said as she beamed at her grandson.

  Then Farmor took a deep breath.

  “I was resting in the living-room, very tired after blacking the stove, and I fell asleep. I was woken up by the car, and I saw him get out and look around, then he came towards the house. I saw him clearly, so I had some time to think. He called out – it wasn’t Swedish, it wasn’t English – so I knew. Then he opened the door and stood there. It was easy, I was ready.”

  “Ready, Farmor? Ready for what?”

/>   “I shot him, of course.”

  20

  Farmor’s words didn’t have the effect she had been hoping for. She hadn’t been expecting applause or backslapping exactly, but something on the lines of “Well done, Farmor, didn’t know you had it in you” would have been nice. Instead she was met by silence, and wide-eyed, opened-mouth faces that looked at her as though she had just landed from outer space. Karl found his voice first, the only one of them who seemed impressed, uttering the Swedish equivalent of “wow”. Then Judy and Stefan spoke almost in unison,

  “You SHOT him?”

  “As I said, I shot the Russian. I didn’t have the elk-gun, it’s locked away and there wasn’t time, but the shotgun was in the kitchen for the magpies – only birdshot, but it had to do. My grandfather would be proud of me,” she ended firmly, and she stuck out her bottom lip stubbornly, suddenly five years old again.

  Stefan and Judy were speechless, but William wasn’t.

  “Is he dead? Where’s the body? Did you bury it?”

  Farmor felt that Stefan was not as pleased as she was, and Judy was white as sheet. But of course, they had been brought up in peaceful times. They knew nothing of what she had lived through. She spoke to William.

  “No, William, he is not dead. He was breathing and moaning when I last looked.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the root cellar. It has a good door, and I’ve put a poker through the latch just to be sure.”

  “How do you know he’s Russian?” asked Judy.

  “Judy, dear, I saw him. That long grey coat, the hat, fur-lined, with the ear-flaps, and the little red star on the front – and the bad footwear; they were always badly equipped, you know. I was only a child, but I never forgot. Now I am not a child, now I have done something to help you. When the Russians are after you, you must have help.”

  Farmor had come to care for Judy a lot. She had cried a bit when she left. It wasn’t just that she had done so much for Stefan – changed his life, actually – it was also that Farmor had never had a daughter or a granddaughter, and Judy reminded her a bit of herself at that age. So if something that had troubled the girl had been got out of the way, then Farmor was glad. And if that something was Russian, so much the better. But now it was time to get things neat and tidy again.

  So armed with a couple of torches they set off for the root cellar. There wasn’t much to see as they approached it, only a mound of snow to one side of the barn, but as they got closer Judy saw the stone steps leading downwards to a small wooden door. The cellar was vaulted, below ground, and built entirely of well-fitted blocks of granite. It could have been the crypt of a mediaeval church, or an Etruscan tomb. Even in the depths of winter it kept a constant temperature just above freezing, and it was correspondingly cool and dark on the hottest summer day. Stefan went down first to remove Farmor’s poker from the latch and open the door. Inside there was a small space and then another door that was also set in stone doorposts. Carefully he opened the second door; a faint light glowed inside. Farmor had placed a candle on the sandy floor – just enough to raise the temperature a few degrees without putting her cabbages at risk. Shelves along the walls held jars and bottles, all neatly labelled with contents and date – bilberry, wortleberry, wild raspberry, garden raspberry, cloudberry, blackcurrant. One shelf was for the precious red cabbages, carefully positioned so as not to touch each other. Hemp sacks on the floor held potatoes, carrots, beets. And, lying on his back with his head supported by a half-empty sack of parsnips, was the man who had come all the way from England to find them. They could indeed have been back in the world of Farmor’s childhood, or even, thought Judy as she ducked under the lintel and followed Karl into the cellar, the First World War, in some dugout in the trenches of Flanders – the weak guttering candlelight, the figure lying in his greatcoat, sleeping, wounded, or dead. William crowded in after them, but Farmor waited outside. She had a firm grip on the old double-barrelled shotgun, prepared for any breakout attempt on the part of the wily Russian.

  “Is he still alive?” she called.

  Stefan moved closer and shone his torch on the face of the prone figure. He heard fast shallow breathing, as the man’s eyelids fluttered in the torchlight.

  ”Yes, he’s alive.” Stefan bent down to feel the man’s forehead; in the cold damp air of the cellar it was a surprise to find that he was hot. “He won’t last much longer down here,” Stefan added, looking at the shot-riddled right shoulder of the greatcoat and the dark clotted blood.

  “Well, I can’t have a Russian in the house. It’ll have to be the sauna.”

  The man parted his dry, cracked lips and tried to wet them with his tongue. His jaw, covered in dark stubble, moved slowly as he spoke. It was barely a whisper.

  Judy caught only a single word, but that was enough. “Ab,” he croaked. Water. “He’s not Russian, Farmor,” she called.

  It was a lot easier to get him out of the cellar than it had been for Farmor to get him in all on her own. Stefan and Karl fetched the tailgate from one of the old farm wagons, manoeuvred him on to it, and carried him back to the house. Then they said goodbye to Karl, who was a bit disappointed about having missed the best bit but still felt he’d had a good outing. The wounded man was soon ensconced in the kitchen settle, his greatcoat carefully removed and his shirt cut off with the kitchen scissors so that Farmor could study the damage. She wasn’t exactly feeling guilty. Accidents will happen with shotguns, and even if he wasn’t Russian he had been following Judy and might have been planning something very nasty. But for now he was helpless, and she felt that the thing to do was get him cleaned up. As they removed his outer clothing and got a better look at him, it was hard to believe that he could be dangerous. There were no concealed weapons, Stefan had made very sure of that.

  Judy and William were sent out of the kitchen while Stefan and Farmor got to work with the tweezers, removing birdshot from his shoulder and upper chest. Stefan held him still, while Farmor in her reading glasses poked carefully around, finding the small lead pellets and dropping them with a little plinging noise into a tooth glass. There were some moans, and once he cried out, but whoever he was he seemed to be no stranger to pain; Farmor remembered once removing birdshot from her husband’s left buttock, and he had made a lot more fuss. Farmor even found that she was starting to warm to the man, not only because of his stoicism, the old scars on his chest and arms, and his thin weak body, but because it is just very difficult to dislike someone whose wounds you have tended, and whose suffering you have eased. Perhaps that’s why it’s a good idea to do it. Anyway, when they were done poking about he got a good dollop of her very special ointment, and a clean neat bandage. When Judy and William came back into the kitchen Farmor was carefully dribbling thin gruel into the man’s mouth with a teaspoon.

  “He should sleep now. And so must we. Tomorrow we will ask some questions.”

  “But what if he wakes up, and just leaves in the middle of the night?”

  “I don’t think he will wake up.”

  “And even if he does,” said Stefan, entering the kitchen from the hall and holding up a handful of cables and a distributor cap, “he won’t get far.”

  They went to bed, leaving the stranger well tucked in and breathing quietly.

  Judy lay on the parlour sofa under her duvet. She was exhausted, but her head was far too full of thoughts and questions for sleep. It was all she could do not to get up again and go to the kitchen and shake the wounded man until he spoke. At least the boot was firmly on the other foot now. From the hunter to the hunted – he was in their power thanks to Farmor and her shotgun, and tomorrow there would be answers, it was no good worrying at it now like a puppy with a slipper. And yet … now that she had actually seen him, with his thin face and skinny arms, he just didn’t seem to be equipped for a kidnapping. He was very determined, anyway, doggedly following her all the way here.

  Judy heard the parlour door open in the darkness.

 
“William?” He wasn’t much of a sleeper, and sometimes he had very important questions to ask in the middle of the night. She had never been able to get into his head that some things could wait until morning. She reached out and found the switch of the standard lamp. Standing just inside the room, clutching at the door frame to keep himself upright, stood the wounded stranger, his face a pale mask, the half-grown beard a black shadow, the eyes staring at her, in some form of delirium.

  “Judy Azad.”

  “What do you want? Keep away from me.”

  She opened her mouth to yell and bring Stefan and Farmor running.

  “Please, I beg of you, I must talk to you alone.”

  Well, this was what she had wanted. She could always yell later, if it turned out to be necessary. Right now he looked as though a faint breeze would blow him over. She threw her duvet aside and stood up as the man let go of the door frame and staggered to the sofa. Slumping on to it, he leant back for a few moments with closed eyes, then gathered himself again, and looked up at her.

  “My name is Rashid. I am your father’s friend.”

  “No you’re not.” He couldn’t be. Rashid had never made it to Europe. This man clearly had no idea of her meeting with Soheila; he didn’t know that she knew. This was some kind of trick, but it had failed. “I am Rashid,” he said again. “Your father… He told me to say something to you.”

  Judy said nothing.

  “He told me to say, ‘Only two cupcakes.’”

  Judy closed her eyes.

  She was back in the houseboat on a rainy Sunday evening. It was her father’s birthday, and she had prepared a surprise for him. The little stove was lit, and the rain pattered quietly on the roof. She had made cupcakes, a whole tray full of them, icing letters on each one so that they spelled his name, and her father was overwhelmed. He had given her a huge hug and danced a little dance, bumping his head on the overhead locker as usual, and had said that he was going to eat at least ten cupcakes. She had given him two. He pretended to be deeply hurt, and complained that she was starving him, on his own birthday. She replied, “But I’m counting in binary code – I gave you ten.” It was the kind of joke that he loved. He was like that; he had chuckled about it for days.