The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) Read Free

photo lab had been set up in one of the basement rooms. It looked like my father had been using a 35 millimetre film camera. There were still chemicals in the baths, but no trace of any photos .
    I found a freezer crammed with large chunks of meat. At first I thought it looked like human flesh, but my father was neither a serial killer nor a cannibal. I remembered t hat he used to hunt. T he meat must be moose .
    By the time I’d changed into dry clothes and ga ve Carrie a ring, I was tipsy and emotional. I’d left her in our Holloway flat at the crack of dawn. I really didn’t like leaving her alone, espe cially as she was pregnant and due the following week. I didn’t tell her about the burglary or the bump on my head , because I knew she’d go bonkers an d tell me I had to have a scan.
    Of course she would be right, but I couldn’t face spending half a day in a hospital waiting room to end up being to ld to wait for the bulge to go. What bothered me more though was that by being in Mariehamn, I risked missing the birth. I really wanted to be there with her. W e’d been through so much together, including three miscarriages before getting this far .
    I’d been watching Carrie like a hawk for the past few months, checking everything she ate, every step she took. I’d kept her locked up in the flat for most of the pregnancy and w e hadn’t spent a single night apart since I’d moved in. I had to control myself not to ask her what she’d eaten.

 
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    Dahl found me cuddling my old skates with glazed - over eyes . Once he spotted the bottle on the table , he gathere d I was on a sentimental slide.
    ‘ Time travelling are we? ’
    My father’s solicitor was tall with the look of some one on dairy, beer and aquavit – square with bloodshot eyes, bulky but not floppy. He nodded as he reached out for my hand.
    ‘ My condolences. ’
    I shook his.
    ‘ Aouch! ’
    He ’d just seen my bump .
    ‘ Here , this should do it . ’
    He handed me a pack of painkillers. I took two and flushed them down with the aquavit.
    ‘ You need to id entify the body before we can talk about the will. Are you ready to go now ? ’
    T he question caught me off - guard . U ntil then it had been as if my father didn’t exist . He ’d been an imaginary character from a distant past . I wasn’t prepared to face his body. Subconsciously, I’d assumed I would be going straight to the funeral – that’s what u su ally happened in the movies. It simply hadn’t occurred to me to think abo ut what would happen to it before . It was the first time I was dealing directly with a person’s death and I didn’t particularly want to see my deceased father. I would have preferred to hold on to what was left of his living memory , but Dahl w as waiting patiently for my decision .
    He stayed in the car while I went into the funeral home , where t he receptionist had me sit in an armchair until the undertaker came to greet me. He le d me down a long corridor and stopped at the last door. The place was dead silent and immaculately clean . Did I want to be left alone with my father? I did. A priest was available if I wished but although I didn’t , t he man seemed to insist. I wasn’t sure who he felt sorrier for , t he priest or me. I didn’t care. I wanted to go in on my own. I didn’t need a priest to tell me what to feel.
    My father’s body was lying in the middle of the room . He was covered by a white she et , except for his face and arms . There were three candles burning on a table along the wall. So t his wa s what they called a show room – the last chance for mourners to see their loved one. The candles a nd the sheet reminded me of the Saint Lucia day celebrated in the Nordic countries , when a – usually blonde – girl in a white gown with a crown of candles on her head leads a procession through the winter darkness. But my father made for an unlikely Lucia – he was neither girl, nor blonde. L ooking at his body from a