THE BLUE

PLACE

by

Nicola Griffith

THE BLUE PLACE

AVON BOOKS INC 1350 Avenue of the Americas New York,

New York

Copyright © 1998 by Nicola Griffith

Interior design by Kellan Peck

Visit our website at http://www.AvonBooks.com

ISBN 0-380-97446-0

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce

this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except

as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information

address Avon Books, Inc

First Avon Books Printing July

AVON TRADEMARK REG US PAT OFF AND IN

OTHER COUNTRIES MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO

EN USA

Printed in the U S A

FIRST EDITION

~ 1 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jan Berg, Eddie Hall, Holly Wade

Matter, Mark Tiedemann, Cindy Ward, and my editors,

Jennifer Hershey and Charlotte Abbott, who each in their

own way helped make this a better book; my agent,

Shawna McCarthy; and Dave Slusher, webmaster

extraordinaire.

~ 2 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

for kelley, my pearl

~ 3 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Chapter One

An April night in Atlanta between thunderstorms: dark and

warm and wet, sidewalks shiny with rain and slick with

torn leaves and fallen azalea blossoms. Nearly midnight. I

had been walking for over an hour, covering four or five

miles. I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t sleepy.

You would think that my bad dreams would be of the first

man I had killed, thirteen years ago. Or if not him, then

maybe the teenager who had burned to death in front of me

because I was too slow to get the man with the match. But

no, when I turn out the lights at ten o’clock and can’t keep

still, can’t even bear to sit down in my Lake Claire house,

it’s because I see again the first body I hadn’t killed.

I was twenty-one, a rookie in a uniform so new it still

smelled of harsh chemical dyes. My hat was too big. My

partner and I had been called to a duplex on Lavista. It was

me who opened the bathroom door.

As soon as I saw that bathwater, I knew. Water just doesn’t

get that still if the person sitting in it is alive: the pulse of

blood through veins, the constant peristaltic squeeze of

alimentary tract, the soft suck of breath move the liquid

gently, but definitely. Not this water. It was only after I had

stared, fascinated, at the dry scum on the bar of soap, only

after my partner had moved me gently aside, that I noticed

~ 4 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

her mouth was open, her eyeballs a gluey blue-grey where

they should have been white.

I wake up at night seeing those eyes.

The sidewalks around Inman Park are made from uneven

hexagons, mossy and slippery even without the debris of

the recent storm. I walked in the road. A pine tree among

the oaks smelled of warm resin, and the steam already

rising from the pavement brought with it the scents of oil

and rubber and warm asphalt. I smiled. Southern cities.

People often say to me, Aud, how can you stand the heat?

but I love it. I love to feel the sun rub up against my pale

northern skin, love its fingers reaching down into muscle

and bone. I grew up with subzero fjord winds edged with

spicules of ice; to breathe deep and feel damp summer heat

curling into delicate bronchioles is a luxury I will never tire

of. Even during the teenage years I spent in England, when

my mother decided the embassy could get along without

her for a week or two and we all went up to Yorkshire to

stay with Lord Horley, there was that endless biting moan

over the moors, the ceaseless waving of heather and gorse.

The American South suits me just fine.

Atlanta is lush. The gates and lawns and hedges I walked

past were heady with the scents of trumpet honeysuckle

and jasmine, the last of the pink and white dogwood

blossom. By June, of course, all the small blooms would

wilt in the heat, and the city’s true colours, jungle colours,

would become apparent: black-striped tiger lilies, orchids,

waxy magnolia blossom. By the end of August, even those

would give up the ghost and the city would turn green:

glossy beryl banana trees with canoe-sized leaves, jade

~ 5 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

swamp oak, and acre upon emerald acre of bermuda grass.

And as the summer heat faded into the end of October, the

beginning of November, the green would fade with it. In

winter Atlanta became a pale black and white photograph

of a city with concrete sidewalks, straw-coloured grass and

bare, grey trees.

Thunder rumbled to the southwest and lightning turned the

clouds the pink of Florida grapefruits: a long, long wait

until winter.

I lengthened my stride, enjoying the metronomic thump of

boot on pavement, the noisy sky, and when I took a corner

wide walked smack into a woman running in the opposite

direction.

We steadied each other for a moment—long enough for me

to catch the expensive scent of her dark, rain-wet hair—

then stepped back. Looked at each other. About five-seven,

I’d say. Slim and sleek. Face smooth with wariness: after

all, I’m big; I’m told I look frightening when I want. And

that made me think how fragile she was, despite the hard

muscle I had felt under my hand. It would be so easy—a

step, a smile, swift whirl and grab, and snap: done. I even

knew how she would fall, what a tiny sound her last sigh

would be, how she would fold onto the pavement. Eight

seconds.

She stepped back another pace. It was meant to look casual,

but I noted the weight on her back foot, the set of her

shoulders. Funny the thoughts we have at nearly midnight.

I clasped my hands behind my back in an effort to appear

less threatening, then nodded, stepped to one side, and

~ 6 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

walked away. All without a word spoken. As I moved past

the big houses shrouded by dripping trees I fought the urge

to look over my shoulder. Looking back would frighten her.

I told myself there was nothing unusual about a woman

walking the streets at midnight—I did it—but my hindbrain

was stirring.

Thunder rumbled again, and water sluiced down in sheets

as sudden and cold as spilled milk, beating itself into a

froth on the sidewalk. The air was full of water and it was

getting difficult to breathe. Lightning streaked down to my

left just a bit too close for comfort. I turned for home and

started to jog. No sense drowning.

The road jumped under my feet. Transformer, I thought,

but then the sound hit, batting at me from both sides like

huge cat’s paws. My eyes widened and promptly filled with

rain. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the ringing in my

ears, but the world jumped again, pavement slamming the

soles of my feet, only this time the sound was as solid as a

punch in the gut, and this time I recognized it—explosives.

Then I was turning and running back to where I had just

come from, back to the corner, towards a house unfurling in

orange flame and black smoke, a brighter yellow at the

center, like a gigantic tiger lily. I skidded to a halt in

confusion. It’s too early for lilies…

I stood helpless, face getting hotter and hotter. I lifted my

hand to shield my eyes but it didn’t help much. I had to step

back a few yards. The flames roared. People began to

appear in their doorways. Blinds twitched. I did nothing.

Let the neighbours look their fill; if there had been anyone

in that house, they were beyond aid, and no doubt someone

~ 7 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

had called the fire department. Not that there was much

point: the fire burned very neat and clean; the neighbours’

houses were safe; I doubted even that the garage would

catch.

It was far too good a torch to be the work of an amateur

firebug who wouldn’t be able to resist sticking around to

watch their work, but I looked anyway. No sign of the

woman with the rain-wet hair.

My hindbrain was beginning to stretch and snuff now, so I

thought about that woman. What was it about her that put

my senses on red alert? She hadn’t done this: most

accelerants had very particular scents, difficult to hide, and

besides, she had been running towards the house, not away.

Sirens whooped in the distance. The police and firefighters

would be all burly and adrenaline-harsh in their uniforms.

They wouldn’t want me there, wouldn’t know how to act

around me, and tonight I could not be bothered to put them

at their ease just so they would call me Lieutenant out loud

but wonder silently what I was doing wandering the streets

alone at midnight.

The flames were dying quickly, leaving dark images like

shrivelling leaves on my retina. I backed into the shadows.

I stripped off my wet clothes and sat cross-legged on the

silk rug to rub my hair dry with a towel. Rain beat on the

windows. Blood beat in my veins. Turning the corner

wide…

~ 8 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

It’s a simple thing. If you walk tight around a corner, you

can be surprised by anyone who is waiting on the other side.

It’s like sitting with your back to the door, like chambering

a round and leaving the safety off, wearing a dress that will

restrict your legs, or walking with your hands in your

pockets: stupid. But so many people do it. Every now and

again I go into a school to teach self-defence classes to

young women. I ask: How many of you know which way to

look before crossing a busy street? And every single hand

will go up. So then I ask: Who knows the fire drill? And

most of the hands stay up. Even if I ask who knows CPR,

or what to do if you smell gas, there are a lot of hands. But

if I ask how many know how to walk around a corner

properly—or escape a stranglehold, or find out if the man

behind you really is following you— they lower their hands

in confusion. Yet these are all sensible precautions. It’s just

that women are taught to not think about the danger they

are often in, or how to prevent it. We’re taught to feel fear,

but not what to do about it.

I’m used to people thinking I’m paranoid. I just tell them it

doesn’t take any extra effort to walk around a corner

properly, or sit with your back to walls in strange places,

because it becomes automatic, like looking left then right

then left again before crossing the road, and it could save

your life. It’s saved mine more than once. I’m used to being

the only one who believes that, the only one who takes

these routine precautions.

But that woman last night had also been taking the corner

wide. And she had remembered to do it while she was in

enough of a hurry to run.

~ 9 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

There was no trace of the rain when I woke next morning.

The tree outside my bedroom window was golden green

with sunshine and birds were singing blithely. I stood under

the shower a long time, letting the water quench lingering

thoughts about that house burning like a hot lily.

I have a big kitchen; square, with a terra-cotta floor. French

windows open onto the deck I built last year. In summer the

whole thing is in shade but when the leaves are still small

with spring, sunlight shivers lightly over the planking. I

took my toast and tea outside and cut up an orange while a

cardinal landed on the bird feeder. Someone burnt down a

house practically under my nose. My curiosity was piqued,

but it wasn’t my problem. My problem was to beat the

morning traffic and get to the Spanish consulate in time for

my nine o’clock appointment.

I ate my breakfast and thought about the second daughter of

the Spanish Cabinet minister, who was coming to Atlanta

for four days next week. I hoped she didn’t want

conversation. I dislike clients who try to be my friend. The

Spanish hadn’t told me, yet, the reason she was visiting. I

hoped it was something boring, and safe. I like excitement

but only in situations I have planned and can control. I

don’t like to risk my life, or anyone else’s, to protect those I

don’t know and care about even less.

I wiped my hands on a napkin, put the napkin on my plate,

carried the plate and cup into the kitchen. Napkin in the

laundry, dirty dishes in the dishwasher, butter in the fridge.

Orderly house, orderly life. I dressed carefully. Although

Philippe Cordova would have checked me out thoroughly

before calling about the job and no doubt knew I didn’t

~ 10 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

need the money, it never did any harm to emphasize that

fact. It saved time down the road. So I picked one of my

handmade Kobayashi suits in soft grey, put gold at my ears

and moussed my white-blonde hair behind my ears. Boxy

European shoes. Pearl choker.

I felt sharp, rich, very good looking. It pleases me to wear

silk couture and gold and pearls. I like the way it feels on

my skin, the way it fits.

The jacket I wore last night was on a hanger in the

bathroom, still drying. I transferred the leather fob of the

car key to my pants pocket, the house keys to my jacket,

dipped into the inside breast pocket… and found it empty. I

checked again, then in all the other pockets. My wallet was

gone.

I knew it wouldn’t be on the table by the door, or on the

dresser, or on the floor or behind a cushion on the couch,

but I checked anyway. I caught sight of myself in the long

mirror in the hall. I looked utterly calm. I strode over to the

phone, dialed Cordova’s private line at the consulate. While

it rang I remembered the smell of the woman’s rain-wet

hair, her wary face.

“Philippe? Aud Torvingen. How is your schedule? It looks

as though I’ll be twenty or thirty minutes late.” I didn’t

offer an explanation, he didn’t ask. People don’t, usually.

I put the phone down, breathed hard through my nose.

Others hate the mess of crime, and the pain, the loss and

bewilderment and anger, but what I resent is the

inconvenience. Driver’s license, gun permit, insurance

~ 11 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

card… I looked at the phone again but didn’t pick it up.

Something told me I wouldn’t have to make all those phone

calls this time, and if I was wrong, well, two more hours

wouldn’t hurt.

Whoever had my wallet had my address. When I left the

house I set the alarm system.

Outside the birds still sang, the sun still shone. Trees

shivered in a light breeze, dropping clouds of pollen. The

screened porch was thick with it. My maroon Saab had

turned greenish gold. It looked like a small furry hill in the

driveway. I backed out into the road and left the motor

running while I went back up the driveway and placed a

few twigs and leaves in unobvious places. I memorized the

pattern of footprints and car tires in the pollen.

The wallet was poking out from under a bush about four

feet from the corner. I squatted down but didn’t touch it. It

was clearly visible to anyone looking. The arson inspectors

would have looked.

I touched the leather gently with a fingertip. Dry. I leafed

through it. Nothing missing. I tucked it away in my inside

breast pocket and stood.

I have a strange kind of face; people trust me. More than

that, they see in my face what they want to be there. One

old man I pulled from a car wreck said I had a face like a

holy angel. Some think I’m the girl next door—the way she

should have been if only she didn’t hang out with the

wrong crowd, if she didn’t drink, if she hadn’t gotten

pregnant when she was sixteen. Those I have killed have

~ 12 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

never expressed an opinion, though several did look

surprised. My face is my most useful tool.

The uniformed officer standing by the tape around the

burnt-out shell was young. He had no idea who I was.

Wearing any other clothes I would have smiled and

pretended to rubberneck, and he would have thought I was

just like him and ended up telling me things he shouldn’t

have. But I was dressed for the Spanish consulate. I walked

up briskly and nodded at the figure in protective gear

poking about in the ashes behind a wall thirty yards away.

“Who’s the fire inspector?”

“Ma’am?”

I smiled pleasantly. “Bertolucci or Hammer?”

He slid his eyes sideways, unsure how to deal with this

pushy civilian who was obviously more important than she

seemed. Perhaps my impatience showed through. He

stepped back uneasily.

“Never mind.” I stepped to one side. “Hoi!”

The figure in the hard hat jerked upright and scowled.

I knew that expression. “Bertolucci?”

“Yeah, who wants to… Torvingen?”

“The same.”

~ 13 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

He took off his hat and wiped his forehead and stepped

over the rubble towards me. “Been a while.”

“Yes.” Bertolucci had never liked me; he’d never disliked

me, either. He was just cautious.

“Heard after you were kicked out you took a job in some

podunk town north of here.” He waited, looked at my

clothes. I said nothing. “Your name came up last night.

Some woman told us you were walking around here just

before show time.” He looked assessingly at the rubble.

“You’d know how.”

A compliment. It had been a beautiful job. Fast and clean.

Nothing touched but the target. “I watched it burn for a

while. Did it reach the garage?”

“Funny you should ask that.” This time the assessing gaze

was turned on me. He made up his mind. “Come and look

at something. Mind your clothes.”

I stepped under the tape, past a late-model Camry that took

up the driveway. “I’m thinking about getting one of these,”

Bertolucci said. Too massive for my taste.

The garage was brick, unusual in Atlanta. The door was

open. The walls were cluttered with the usual stuff: caked

paint rollers; a rake and shovel, with red dirt still on the

blade; a hose that had been badly coiled and was

permanently kinked. Why were Americans so careless of

things?

~ 14 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The inside was unfinished: raw bricks with mortar

squeezing between them like cake filling. The mortar was

grey and crumbly with damp and age. Spider webs

smoothed all the corners. Bags of potting compost that

looked about fifteen years old were piled against one wall.

There was a lazy humming over my head—some kind of

hornet nest. It was an ordinary garage. I wondered what I

was supposed to see.

“When that woman came by and talked about you,

Detective Nolan laughed and said, ‘Oh, Aud used to be one

of us,’ and sent her away. But you know he had to have

wondered.” I bet they’d all wondered. I knew my

reputation. “He didn’t wonder long, though. Not after what

we found in here.”

“So what did you find?”

“Coke. A lot. Six, seven keys.”

“Coke?”

“What with that and the professional torch, and the guy

who died, he figured it for a drug hit. Revenge, or a lesson.”

It sounded plausible, until you stopped to think about it.

“Recognize the torch?”

“Nope. Haven’t come across this one before.”

“Who died?”

“Name of Lusk. Jim Lusk. Some kind of art professor.”

~ 15 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Any close relatives show up yet?”

“Nope.”

“He was found in the house?” He nodded. “And the coke

was in here?”

“Right here.” He patted the shelf that ran the length of the

garage. “Interesting, don’t you think?” It was, very. “I have

to get back to work. Feel free to take a look around.” He

grinned, a hard grin that said: You owe me a favor now.

I took a closer look at the shelf. Swollen with damp, pulling

away from the wall at one end. Powdery holes and termite

wings. A faint outline of white powder crisscrossed with

silvery snail trails. It made absolutely no sense. No one in

their right mind would store coke in a damp, insect-ridden

garage. And if the torch had known the drug was here, he

or she would have taken it.

I knew what Bertolucci wanted: someone outside to know

that he knew the obvious explanation didn’t make sense. It

would make him feel better when the APD accepted the

obvious explanation and shelved the case. There was too

much work to keep chasing after a murder that already had

an explanation, even such a flimsy one. Politically, too, it

made sense. Mayor Foley was fighting hard to get a special

federal grant for the war on drugs. The APD, being smart

enough to know that the war was unwinnable, would take

the money and use it on something that might make a

difference: five new cruisers, six months’ worth of

ammunition, a week-long training course for half the

SWAT teams. Jim Lusk’s death was just another ledger

~ 16 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

entry on the grant form, something to be used as a weapon

in the increasingly bitter fight for money. The detective

second grade who was in charge of the investigation would

have four other homicides and dozens of assaults to deal

with. His lieutenant would spend most of her time juggling

meetings, writing duty rosters, dealing with an increasingly

angry public. The precinct captain would be faced with a

nightmare of budget stretching, trying to decide whether

the squad room should have new terminals, which it needed,

or that new air-conditioning system to replace the one that

was responsible for the sick-building syndrome that meant

officers on his precinct were overrunning their sick time

and bringing down the wrath of the city accountants.

Lusk’s killer would never be found.

But that wasn’t my concern. I wanted to know about the

woman who thought this was something I had done, but I

wasn’t in any particular hurry. Let her come to me.

I was halfway to the embassy when the car phone rang. It

was Denneny. “Denneny. I was just thinking of you. Made

that decision between the air-conditioning and the new

terminals yet?”

“Terminals this month. Air-conditioning in June. I hear you

were at the scene of the impromptu Inman Park barbecue

last night. I thought we could observe the formalities and

get a statement.”

“Do you have any plans for lunch?”

“Not so far.”

~ 17 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“How about Deacon’s at eleven-thirty?”

A very young man in button-down shirt and silk tie was

waiting in the sunshine outside the consulate. He opened

the Saab door for me smartly, and I handed over the leather

key fob. He was practically salivating at the prospect of

hopping inside.

“It has quadraphonic CD sound, too,” I said.

An uncertain blink, pink lower lip caught between his teeth.

“Ma’am?”

I just smiled, and hoped he would have to drive around for

a long time to find a parking place. He was probably some

kind of admin intern who would be spending the next three

months chained to a workstation freezing to death in the

air-conditioning, all to pad out his resume. I was willing to

bet he’d never parked a car for anyone but his parents in his

life. Consulates don’t usually provide valet parking. Most

people don’t ask for it. I always ask for as much as I can

get. It’s a matter of principle.

I hummed as I went through the heavy teak and glass doors.

The carpet was a beautiful deep green. Much nicer than the

cold marble of the English consulate. “Aud Torvingen,” I

said to the woman behind the desk. Her hair was sleek as a

seal’s and though she had the dark skin and eyes of Sevilla,

her grooming was Southern: big nails, gold jewellery, an

unnecessary bow on her blouse. As jarring as a beard on a

drag queen.

~ 18 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I sat down in a comfortable chair. She glanced up at me

once, then got on with her work: probably wondering who I

was, probably also sure she would never find out. That’s

what life is like in a consulate. A series of closed,

comfortable rooms that most of the help never get to sit in.

Philippe came to get me himself. I would have been

surprised if he hadn’t. He had deep gold hair and very long

limbs. According to the check I had done on him after his

initial phone call, he liked to play racquet sports—squash,

racquet-ball, tennis—and was pretty good at it. I imagined

he surprised a lot of his opponents who expected his arms

and legs to tangle and clutter together, but his walk was

efficient, fast. I rose.

“Glad you could come.” We shook hands. My mother once

showed me a dozen different handshakes. This is the one

that means I don’t think you’re worth my attention: a quick

shake, with her hand already sliding from mine before it

was properly finished. This one shows I hold you in great

contempt: a snakelike up and down, bending at the wrist,

fingers stiff as though she couldn’t wait to shake off my

sweat. There were others. Cordova’s was a mixture of

reserve and haste: fast, light, whippy.

His office had a beautiful oak floor. We sat opposite each

other on surprisingly comfortable Georgian chairs. He

handed me a manilla folder. “Beatriz del Gato.”

Consular officers love details: dates, times, places; mother,

father, lovers; education, employment, illnesses. I took the

folder and put it down next to me unopened. “Why haven’t

you informed the Atlanta Police Department of her arrival?”

~ 19 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

He folded his hands onto his lap. “Miss del Gato will only

be here for four days. She wishes to remain incognito and

believes her visit is a matter of some… delicacy.”

I smiled, understanding. “She’s doing something that she

would find personally embarrassing to have reported in the

press, but that you wouldn’t, particularly?”

His mouth gave away nothing but there was a smile in his

voice. “Miss del Gato wishes to work in an advertising

agency. She wishes to be offered a job without her

prospective employer giving her any special favours.”

“Why didn’t she try New York?”

“She did.”

“Ah.” Beatriz was too stupid, or unimaginative, or

something, to be offered a job on her own merits. “I still

don’t see why you can’t tell the APD.”

Now he did smile. “I did. They have no objection to you

taking the job.” Why should they? It saved them money.

Besides, I doubted Miss Beatriz really was important

enough for either the consulate or the police department to

go to any trouble. But Philippe was only doing what the

diplomatic service of any country does best: saving

everyone’s face.

I leaned back. “Tell me, what’s she like?”

He rolled his eyes. “Earnest, boring, and unreasonably

stubborn. Would you like some coffee?”

~ 20 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I gave the admin intern who wished he was a valet parker a

ten-dollar tip because he had polished the pollen off my

wing mirrors, and because it really was a beautiful day.

There was still a slight breeze and the humidity was below

sixty percent. Even the etiolated young birch trees that were

spaced as carefully as nursery seedlings every ten yards on

the concrete sidewalk looked fresh and clean.

I played Diamanda Galas all the way to Deacon’s. I got

there five minutes early. Denneny was already there.

Years ago, when he still wore a uniform, when his wife was

alive, he would have been joking with the women dishing

up the fried chicken and greens behind the counter, talking

them out of a free side of cornbread, inhaling the rich steam

of grits and gravy and grease until his ruddy complexion

darkened to plum; but this morning he was sitting at one of

the rickety Formica tables, looking around at the clientele

as though he were a stranger, out of place in his city suit

and silk tie.

“You look more like an executive than a cop,” I said.

He stood. “I am, these days.”

“Anything good on the menu today?”

It was an old joke—Deacon and now his heirs had always

served exactly the same thing—but Denneny just shrugged.

We stood in line and loaded up our trays with chicken and

greens and potatoes and gravy and bread and iced tea. I

paid for both of us and got a handful of paper napkins. I

took the seat facing the door.

~ 21 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“You look as though you’re doing well. Watch your clothes

with all this grease.”

“That’s why napkins were invented.” I tucked two around

my neck, draped one across my lap, and picked up a

chicken wing. The best fried chicken in the city. “So. You

wanted a statement.”

He took one of those miniature tape recorders out of his

pocket, put it on the table and looked at his watch. “I forgot

to pick up a fresh cassette, so there’s only about half an

hour’s worth of tape left.”

“That should be plenty.”

So in between bites of hot chicken and forkfuls of mashed

potato loaded with enough cholesterol to stun an elephant, I

told him about crashing into the woman, about the

explosion, and the flames. I gave him times, descriptions,

even a weather report. He didn’t ask any questions, just

nodded and ate. When I’d finished he turned the machine

off and slipped it back in his pocket. “I’ll get it transcribed

this afternoon. You can come in and sign it anytime. That

should take care of the formalities.”

“Any leads?”

“Just the drugs.”

“Surprising, that.”

“I’ve passed the point of being surprised by anything those

people do.”

~ 22 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“I don’t think it was drug dealers.”

“The drugs were there, and there isn’t a single other angle

to pursue.”

“And why even try when there’s a nice, neat explanation?”

“Something like that. You know how things stand,

Torvingen. If we don’t get our share of the fed payout, not

only won’t there be any air-conditioning in June, we won’t

even be able to afford batteries and tapes for this little

machine.” He tapped his pocket. “So unless you have the

address and confession of the guy who did it, butt out.”

I shrugged. “Just making conversation.”

He wouldn’t let it go. “Do you have some special interest in

the case?”

“Not particularly.”

“Good, because I’d hate to get our wires crossed on this.”

“Why should I care who killed whom and over what? I’m

not a police officer anymore.”

“And you never cared much even then.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.”

He applied himself to the potatoes for a while. “Do you

miss it?”

~ 23 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“No.”

“Not even a bit?”

“Not even a bit.”

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t take that liaison job

I offered you when you were pulled off the streets.”

“You know as well as I do that the mayor would have had

kittens at the thought of me still walking around with a

badge and gun in an election year.” I had better things to do

with my life than be photogenic for the police department.

“True. So if you don’t miss being a cop, why did you take

that job in Dahlonega?”

“It was work. Only now I don’t need to work.”

“Lucky you.” It came out sounding bitter.

“Sounds as though you could do with a vacation.”

“I’m taking one. Two weeks in the Napa Valley starting

Saturday. Nothing but sun and the scent of the vine.”

When I’d first known him, he drank only beer and bourbon.

There again, he wouldn’t have known a silk tie if it had

bitten him. People change.

We looked at each other. I realized that his spectacle lenses

were bifocals. He wiped his fingers carefully on a napkin.

~ 24 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Well, it’s been good talking to you. Come in to sign this

thing tomorrow, after you finish with the rookies.”

“Anything in particular you want me to cover with them?”

He stood. “Nah. Just tell them how it works in the real

world, so they don’t get themselves killed the first time

they step out of the car.”

The real world. We had always disagreed about what,

exactly, that meant. He had always believed in the rules,

but rules are useless when lives are in danger. He never

seemed to understand that.

~ 25 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Chapter Two

There used to be several distinct kinds of gym. When I was

growing up, school gyms—in whatever country—were

sunlit and silent, the air dead and dusty with the scents of

climbing ropes, ancient pommel horses sweat-soaked and

bare on the handles, and a thin, greasy overlay of plimsoll

rubber scraped off on the wooden floor during countless

skiddings and bumpy landings. All very genteel and closed

off. Working gyms in the city were meatier, more burly,

with dim overhead lights, chalk dust, labouring fans, and

metal everywhere: clanking Nautilus, ringing free weights,

clinking dog tags. Male sweat and Ben-Gay. Hoarse huff-

huff of pumping, the occasional burst of loud boy

conversation: the game, the fight, the conquest. Dojos, on

the other hand, were defined more by body sounds: the slap

of open hands on arms, thud of bare feet on kick bags, the

heavy, almost soundless impact of a rolling fall… and the

voices, karate kiais like the cry of a stooping hawk; the

very particular half-swallowed hut-hut, like a gun with a

sound suppressor, of a whole school of people going

through their katas; the endless, rhythmic susurrus of breath

as half a dozen students meditate in zazen. The precinct

gym in City Hall East was less than a year old: beautiful

sprung-wood floor, whispering air-conditioning, full-

spectrum lighting. The sweet, cloying scent of new plastic

and rubber grips on the weight machines vied with cologne

and a very faint perfume. Rookies smelled different these

days.

~ 26 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The fourteen newly minted police officers were wearing a

variety of tees and shorts. I had told them to wear long

sleeves and sweatpants. It doesn’t matter how nice the floor

is; if you miss the mat, it’ll skin your knee. Two were very

young but most were in their mid- to late twenties. One

man had some grey at his temples. They all looked freshly

showered. It was six-thirty in the morning.

“None of you are stretched out and ready. I have ninety

minutes today. We don’t have the luxury of using any of

that time on something you could do on your own. Take

five minutes now.”

I watched them. How they chose to warm up told me a

great deal about their experience and personalities. The

older man started jumping jacks, probably what he had

learned at school, which was probably the last time he had

done any structured physical activity, apart from the

mandatory classes at the academy. Two well-muscled men

paired up and stretched each other’s hamstrings. A big

woman was doing what looked like the kind of thing track

athletes do in the last moments before an event. None of

them looked very competent.

“Gather round. The first rule of survival is: pay attention.

Usually that means paying attention to what’s going on

around you. Today it means pay attention to me. Very close

attention. I won’t tell you twice. You can call me

Lieutenant.” I wasn’t, anymore, but I found it got me a

faster response time. That and the Red Dogs sweatshirt I

was wearing. “This isn’t the academy. Today you’re here to

learn how to protect yourselves, first, and how to restrain a

perp without injuring him, second. You can’t protect

~ 27 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

yourself from someone when you don’t know where he or

she is. If they’re in cuffs and on their belly, you’re a bit

more safe. You,” I said to a wiry man with red hair who

looked as though he was supple enough to not hurt himself.

“Pretend you’re trying to pull me off balance and run away.”

I held out my right wrist. He reached for it.

If this was real and I knew my attacker intended to hurt me,

I would have crippled him without thinking: a kick to the

knee, an elbow slammed into his floating ribs. But this was,

perhaps, an elderly drunk who didn’t deserve to be hurt, so

as Red grabbed with his right hand, I turned my wrist, drew

it back just enough to pull him off balance, stepped behind

him on the diagonal, and whipped his right arm straight and

against the joint. He froze in pain and I swept his feet out

from under him. He went down on his belly.

“If you keep hold of his arm like this, he won’t struggle,

because if he does, you can pop it out of its socket as easily

as pulling the wing off a turkey. Make sure you keep his

palm turned up, like this.” I moved it just enough to show

them and Red squealed. “As soon as it starts to hurt, slap

the mat and your partner will stop.” Red slapped the mat. I

eased off. “Your grip will be firmer if you keep your thumb

on the back of his hand, and your elbows close in to your

body.” I pulled cuffs out with my left hand and snapped

them on. “You should practice with the cuffs until you can

do this with either hand. Keep him on his belly while you

pat him down, and when you let him up, keep that

wristlock on until you can get him in the car.” I unlocked

the cuffs, tucked them back into my waistband.

“Questions?”

~ 28 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“How did you turn your hand over his, right at the

beginning?”

So I showed them; in a group, singly and in pairs. Over and

over. Some of them were quicker to grasp the concept than

the others. Some didn’t bother with technique at all. The

big woman was relying on her strength to simply

overpower her opponent.

“You. Yes, you. Over here.” We stood eye to eye. I took

her wrist. “Try with me.” She tugged. I shifted easily. She

tugged harder. “Don’t use your muscles. Besides, what if I

was a seven-foot biker on PCP?”

“I’d shoot you,” she said, looking around, playing for a

laugh.

“Guns are vastly overrated,” I said mildly. “Go get your

weapon and belt.” She smiled uneasily, obviously

wondering if she’d heard right. “What’s your name?”

“Miebach. Linda.”

“Miebach, go get your weapon.” I let her see I meant it.

She practically ran and came back with the heavy belt with

gun, cuffs, baton and extra clips. “Put it on.”

She buckled on the belt.

Everyone was watching. “The only safe place to be when

someone is about to draw a gun is behind them. Everyone

stand behind Miebach.” They did, looking nervous. “Now,

Miebach, draw your weapon. Eject the clip.” She tucked

~ 29 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

the clip into her belt. “I’m glad to see you have the safety

on. Now take it off.”

“But—”

“Take it off. Reholster the weapon. I want you to draw and

try to shoot me.”

“I—”

“This is not the police academy. This is what it’s like out

there. Do it.”

So she tried, and I took it away from her and put her down

and touched the cold metal ring to her forehead. “Better not

move, Miebach. You didn’t check to see if the chamber

was empty.” A bead of sweat trickled into her eye but she

didn’t dare blink. I don’t think anyone in the room breathed

except me. I stepped away and worked the chamber. A

round shot out and tinkled on the wooden floor.

There was absolute silence. “She could have shot you,”

someone said in a shocked whisper.

“No. But I could have shot her. Remember that. Never

draw your weapon when the perp is within reaching

distance. Miebach, put that belt away and collect yourself.”

I fished out my watch. Twenty minutes to go. “You.” One

of the muscle guys. “Come here.” He stepped up warily.

“Miebach seemed to think that her weapon would protect

her from anything. Guns can be taken away. Now let’s take

a look at strength. This man is bigger than me.” He was

certainly wider. I held out my wrist. “Try manhandle me.”

~ 30 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

He didn’t want to, I could tell, but he tried anyway. I slid

my hand over his, sidestepped past him on a diagonal and,

going to one knee, brought him down in a back-arching

bow over my thigh. He breathed fast and shallowly, toes

just touching the floor. “If I sneeze, I break his back. He’d

never walk again. If I move him a few inches higher…” he

gasped, “he’d never feed himself.” I rolled him off and

looked around the white faces. “There will always be

someone bigger than you. Muscle is not the answer. All of

you, try it again.”

The two most inept rookies had paired up. It usually

happened that way. I watched them flailing uselessly at

each other and wondered why I bothered doing this.

“Break,” I said. “Let’s take it one step at a time.” I held out

my wrist. I gestured for the pale-haired one with the

freckles to take it. He looked terrified. “We’re going to do

this in slow motion, one stage at a time. I won’t throw you.

I won’t hurt you. Reach for me slowly.” He grabbed

nervously. I just smiled encouragingly and moved my arm

as slowly as treacle, twisting up and over his. I stopped just

as the tendons began to pull tight in his forearm, before he

started to hurt. “See how I’m keeping my elbow tucked into

my waist? All the movement is in the lower arm. And the

pressure goes on there, on your wrist. Remember, where

there’s a joint there’s a weakness. Again.” I showed him

twice more. “Now you try it.” I reached for his wrist. He

jerked in panic. “Slowly for now. Let’s try again. That’s

right… no. Let go a second. Have you ever drawn a circle

using a pin and a piece of string tied to a pencil? Well,

imagine your elbow is the pin at the centre of the circle.

Your forearm is the string, and you have a pencil fixed to

~ 31 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

the tip of your middle finger. Keep the elbow still, tucked

in, and draw that circle perpendicular to the floor.” I

demonstrated. “That’s the basic movement. Let’s try again.”

And on the third try, he got it. He smiled tentatively.

“Good. Very good. Now let’s try a bit faster, about a third

speed.” It was still right. “Half speed.” It got a little

raggedy as he tensed up. “Remember to keep those

shoulders relaxed. A bit faster.” He did it as fast as he could

and got me in a very respectable arm lock. He grinned like

an idiot. “You can let go now.”

He did, and swung his forearm in a circle a couple of times,

as pleased as if he had discovered a cure for AIDS.

He was wearing a Braves T-shirt. “It’s a bit like pitching:

get your elbow in the right place and everything else

follows. Now show your partner how it works.”

I surveyed the room. They all seemed to have the basics,

now.

“Okay, people. Now that you understand how it’s supposed

to work, let me tell you that it often doesn’t. When you get

someone who is dusted, or a certifiable lunatic, they don’t

care whether you rip their arm off. They don’t feel it. So

when you’re faced with someone like that, you disable

them.”

I had their attention.

~ 32 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Captain Denneny wouldn’t approve of what I’m going to

say but he’s not here. If you’re not sure you can handle a

suspect, hit them a good one in the stomach. About here.” I

pointed to my solar plexus. “It won’t bruise or swell so you

can deny it later if you have to. Use the tip of your baton. If

you’re too enthusiastic you could damage them. Then you

say they fell onto the corner of an open door of your

vehicle as you were trying to restrain them.”

Red was looking around uneasily. The two muscle guys

were impassive. Miebach seemed to be listening to her

internal organs.

“If you want to knock someone senseless without leaving a

bruise, go for a palm strike to the forehead. Then there’s

the knee. They can’t run after you if they can’t use one of

their legs. Some places you must never hit: the throat and

neck, the eyes, the back of the head, the genitals. If you get

hauled up on a case with the perp showing injuries in those

areas, you don’t have a chance. And remember this.” I

smiled. “Any perp could be someone important. If you hurt

them, their lawyers could take your badge or maybe even

put you in jail. And we all know what happens to police

officers in jail. Be clear on this point: if they’re not crazy or

dusted and you hurt them, you’re incompetent. All your

fellow officers will know that. They won’t want to work

with you because if you’re incompetent you won’t be any

good in a situation. So don’t hurt a perp if you don’t have

to. And if you have to hurt them, don’t hurt them more than

necessary. And don’t get caught.”

~ 33 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I looked at my watch. Seven fifty-five. “Okay, people,

that’s it. Next time I want you warmed up by the time I

arrive.”

I sent them on their way. They wouldn’t have time to

shower before reporting to the squad room for day shift.

Too bad.

When they had gone, I took off my shoes, stood in the

middle of the floor and closed my eyes. Soft hiss of air-

conditioning. Faraway rumble of East Ponce traffic. Slow-

turning thump of my heart. I breathed deeply, in and in

until my belly swelled with air, out again through my nose,

in, out, letting my hands rise a little with each inhalation.

Then I stretched up, and up farther, held it, came down,

palms to the floor. Held it, held it, and on the outbreath

bent my elbows farther.

I moved through my routine automatically, stretching

tendons and ligaments and muscles, and after twenty

minutes I was as flexible as a whip.

There are only four schools of Shuto Kai karate outside

Japan. I had learned it in England, on Tuesday evenings

and Sunday mornings in an old community centre whose

concrete floors were always still sticky with spilled beer

and cigarette ash from the event the night before. I had

studied with five men under the instruction of a truck driver

with a sturdy Yorkshire accent and a real love of the art. He

taught me the way of the empty hand. I would kneel in

zazen on that unheated concrete floor in the middle of

winter and extend my arms. He would lay a heavy pole

across my wrists, and the battle would begin, the battle of

~ 34 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

breath and pain and will. The first five minutes were easy,

the next ten just about bearable, the next thirty a nightmare.

Sweat would roll down my neck, and Ian’s voice boomed

from the walls and rattled the children’s drawings pinned

there. “Breathe through the pain! Breathe! With me, in and

out. In and out.” And my shoulder muscles, which had

already taken me through two hundred push-ups and an

hour of sparring, burnt dully, then sharply, then with pain

bigger than the world. And the only way through it was the

breath. In and out. Falter and you are lost.

And after forty or fifty minutes, the endorphins kick in and

the childish drawings on the wall assume a crystalline edge,

the colours deepen and bloom, and my face relaxes utterly.

All there is, is a tide of breath, sweeping up and down the

beach of my body, until each cell is as distinct as a grain of

mica and I feel washed clean. I sometimes wondered what

would happen if I just… stayed there; whether the

endorphin high would burn itself into my cells permanently

and for the rest of my life I would smile gently around the

edges, even when I was breaking someone’s legs. But then

Ian would take the pole away, shout, and we would run

around and around the hall. Twenty minutes. Two or three

miles, usually. Then we would do a kata.

Katas are choreographed series of fight moves against one

or more imaginary opponents. Done well, they are a

meditation and a dance. They range from the most simple,

railway-straight line moves against only one opponent

where you use nothing but punches, to the flying, whirling

battle-an-army dance of the Basai Dai. You don’t learn the

Basai Dai until you get your black belt.

~ 35 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

The first few months I studied, the katas were my reward:

the fluid dance, the grace, the hot whistling power of

punching tight air, of using my whole body. It was only

after my blue belt, the second kyu, that I learnt that the real

reward of Shuto Kai was understanding my will. I learnt

that pain is only pain: a message. You can choose to ignore

the message. Your body can do a great deal more than it

wants you to know.

And so, although for all practical purposes Shuto Kai is not

a particularly good martial art, I still dance its katas.

I did the fourth, which has all those difficult kicks, and the

Basai Dai. My breathing was as smooth as cream, my blood

oxygenated and rich. I was probably smiling.

I moved on from karate to kung fu, a Wing Chun form, the

Siu Nim Tao, or Simple Idea. I was on the second round of

pak sao, the slapping hand, when the door opened. Even

with my eyes closed I would have known who it was. Her

scent was a little more pronounced today, even though her

hair was dry. I nodded very briefly but did not stop. Ding

jem. Huen sao. She started stretching. Bill jee. Moot sao,

the whipping hand. She was wearing black spandex pants

and an emerald body sheath. I concentrated on the form.

When I took the last slow breath and released it, she

straightened. “First form?”

“Yes.”

“Want to chi sao?” It was a challenge.

~ 36 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Take off your shoes.”

“My shoes?”

“I value my feet.” That angered her. It was meant to.

Always take the advantage. I extended my right leg, and

my right arm, elbow down and in, wrist level with my

sternum. She did the same. The backs of our wrists touched.

Well-shaped nails, no wedding ring. Her skin was dense

and fine-grained, taut over smooth muscle, and her bones

slender. She looked the sort of woman who has studied

ballet for twelve years. Her eyes were blue, the deep blue

of still-wet-from-the-dye denim, with lighter flecks near

pupils tight with concentration. Her hair was in a French

twist. A French twist for the gym.

Chi sao means sticky hand. The wrists stay touching. All

moves are in slow motion. It’s a game of chess using

balance.

I moved my hand forward, the first inch of what could have

become huen sao, the circling hand, but she stepped

smoothly to the side and, without even moving her arm,

countered. But the counter of course became her own move,

which was to keep stepping, trying to lead my arm away

from the centre of my body and leave me unbalanced. So

far, all beginner’s moves. Her baked-biscuit skin slid back

and forth over her collarbone. As the pace intensified, I

wondered how women got those tans. The colour was

delicate, never too heavy, never too light, and they had it in

February and November yet they never seemed to use

tanning salons. Their eyebrows always arched perfectly and

their hair was never out of place.

~ 37 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Who are you? Blank concentration for a reply.

She was good: well balanced, smooth, knowledgeable

about the connections between feet and belly, wrist and

elbow and shoulder. She centred well and breathed

unhurriedly.

I wanted information, and stepped back, signalling a pause.

“Sern chi sao?”

She merely nodded and extended both arms. Double sticky

hands.

We moved faster this time, our legs bent lower, circling

around the gym in Jong tao, a deadly waltz. A woman’s

centre of gravity is generally about two inches below her

navel, just where the belly rounds. No matter how fast you

travel across the floor, that point should move in parallel. I

was taller than her but having one’s centre of gravity higher

is a disadvantage, so I moved in a lower stance. We were

both sweating lightly now, and our breath came faster. Her

skin felt marvellously alive beneath mine. We moved back

and forth, and my belly warmed, and I knew hers warmed,

too, as we revolved around the gym and each other, a

planet and its satellite turning about the sun.

Time to let her know which was which, to show her I didn’t

much appreciate having my wallet stolen at the scene of an

arson and murder. I moved more strongly, breathed in great

long gushes, as though my breath alone would move her

aside. Her body sheath was dark under the arms. My belly

burned hotter. She began to move just a little out of balance.

I made a slow biu tze, the shooting fingers, up towards her

~ 38 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

eyes, with my left hand, and a going under hand with my

right. Being out of balance, even so slightly, meant she had

either to let me through or speed up to regain the advantage.

To speed up meant it would become almost a sparring

session.

She sped up.

Differences in skill become more apparent with speed. I

harried her round and round the gym, in no hurry, enjoying

testing her. She began to spar in earnest. She snapped a

punch at my head, which I palmed away easily enough,

then launched into a series of battle punches, hoping to

drive me off balance. I centred, then stepped right through

her with a double circling hand—and in my head, for a split

second, moved over both her wrists and dumped her on the

floor— but in actuality let the moment pass.

She felt it, felt the moment when I could have thrust the

heat of my belly against hers and taken it all, and now the

whole character of our sparring changed. I led, she

followed.

It became a dance, teacher and pupil. I would ask, she

would answer.

When we came to a halt, wrists still touching, in the centre

of that beautiful gym, her face was as smooth as butter. We

bowed to each other. I waited.

“Can I buy you coffee?”

~ 39 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

The Beat Bean on Monroe is the kind of place I hate:

seamless period decor of the fifties, orange chairs and

Formica tables, the goateed servers wearing all black. The

confectionery she bought for herself looked dry enough to

be forty years old, too; the coffee determined and without

grace. I like French roast, myself, but there are few places,

these days, that serve it.

She chose the mustard vinyl sofa, I took the distorted

design nightmare opposite.

“My name is Julia Lyons-Bennet.”

I wasn’t a bit surprised. “I gather you already know mine.”

She flushed, a quick hard colouring that turned her high,

golden cheeks the colour of Madeira. “I hope you found

your wallet.”

“Yes.”

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”

“You want something.”

“I want to know why you were lurking fifty yards from

Jim’s house, in the rain, after midnight, five minutes before

his house exploded.” It came out as a challenge. She was

breathing hard with some righteous emotion and her

flushed cheeks made her look quite, quite determined.

“I was out for a walk.”

~ 40 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“That’s about as informative as telling me you were

breathing!”

“Like saying the cause of death was heart failure,” I agreed.

“What?”

“Look, Julia, I was out for a walk. Nothing more. I

understand that the deceased was a friend of yours, and you

must feel terrible, but I had no more connection to his

murder than the fact that I was outside his house when it

went up. I’m sure the police have already told you that

drugs were found on Mr. Lusk’s property, that they believe

his death was some kind of message to the drug fraternity

in this city.“

“Don’t tell me you believe that garbage!”

“Not particularly. But I still want to know what you want

from me.”

“I found out about you. You used to be in the police, but

then your father died and left you money. I read your

record.”

My record. Lists of deaths, the innocent and the guilty, and

she had been paddling about in it. I stood.

“Please. I want your help.” She pushed her coffee cup to

one side and lifted a worn pigskin briefcase onto the table.

“Can you just spare ten minutes to listen?”

~ 41 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

The briefcase was old, worn and comfortable. It spoke of a

real person with a real life, real feelings.

“Please?”

Ten minutes is a very small fraction of one’s lifetime. I sat

down.

“I run an art acquisitions and security business: buying and

selling for corporations, mostly. Sometimes I set up

corporate museums; on occasion I advise on the transport

and security of travelling exhibitions. Two weeks ago I was

approached by a man, a banker. He had a valuable painting,

a Friedrich, to ship to France. Discreetly. Normally, of

course, I don’t do that penny-ante stuff, but he was referred

by a very good client of mine—the man to whom I had

brokered the Friedrich in the first place. And so, as a

gesture of goodwill, I agreed. In fact, I oversaw the packing

personally.” She reached for her coffee, then changed her

mind.

“I’m going to order some mineral water. You?”

“Thank you. Yes.”

The water came, we fussed with slices of lemon.

“Now, as you can probably appreciate, I very rarely do this

kind of work myself, but I was in the building when the

painting was delivered, so I went to take a look at it before

it was recrated. It’s a lovely painting, lovely. I watched as

my assistants took it out of its old packing case. They

barely glanced at the painting, but I did. As I’ve said, it was

~ 42 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

a lovely painting. Luminous work. I had brokered it to the

client I mentioned, the one who sold it to this banker. I

wanted to see it again.” In this light her eyes were the rich

blue of twelfth century stained glass. “I looked at it, and it

made me uneasy. I brokered it two years ago. I know more

now than I did then. I looked at this painting and knew it

wasn’t a Friedrich. What I don’t know is if it was the same

painting I had sold as a Friedrich two years ago.”

“What made you think this one was a forgery?”

“A fake. A forgery is a piece passed off as a previously

undiscovered original. I don’t know. The brushwork, I

think. It… well, it’s hard to describe, but it didn’t have the

precision I associate with Friedrich.”

“You’ve seen a lot of his work?”

She looked troubled. “No. More in the last twelve months

than ever before, but the German Romantics aren’t really

my field of expertise. I’m much more familiar with work

from the last thirty years. My specialty is investment. For

small investments, anything under a million, you get the

highest returns for contemporary paintings.”

“But you brokered the Friedrich anyway.”

“Its provenance was impeccable. The original seller’s

reputation was unimpeachable. I had absolutely no reason

to doubt either.”

“But now you do?”

~ 43 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I don’t know what to think. All I know is that I don’t think

the painting I was supposed to be crating to ship discreetly

to France was a Friedrich.”

“That’s the second time you’ve described the shipping as

discreet.”

She looked surprised. “Art is almost always shipped that

way to France. The French government enforces rather

punitive tax laws that make it desirable for art owners to be

somewhat secretive about their acquisitions.”

“Ah.”

“What do you mean, ah?”

I shrugged. She would not want to hear that she was aiding

and abetting what amounted to smuggling, especially from

someone who didn’t even know the difference between a

fake and a forgery.

“Anyway, seeing that painting made me very nervous. So I

took it over to a friend, an art historian and appraiser. I

thought about calling the original client, but decided not to.

After all, I didn’t know whether it was a fake or not and,

besides, he had sold it for a good profit. It wouldn’t hurt

him either way. But I had to tell Honeycutt, the banker, that

there would be a bit of a delay. Of course he wanted to

know why so I told him I had some doubts regarding the

painting’s provenance. He was concerned, obviously—we

are talking about a considerable investment for an

individual—so I tried to reassure him. I told him how

reliable and discreet my appraiser was; how he was doing

~ 44 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

all this on a rush basis for me; that I had an appointment at

eleven-thirty that evening to get the definitive answer, one

way or another.”

“An appointment with Jim Lusk.”

“Yes. With Jim. I was supposed to be there at eleven-thirty.

But some things came up at work. And I know Jim. He’s…

he was… a night owl. He wouldn’t mind if I was a few

minutes late. But I was even later than I thought, so I’d

parked and was running to his house when I bumped into

you.” Her back was pressed flat against the back of her

chair, creating an extra two or three inches between us.

Probably reliving the look on my face as I had mused on

breaking her neck.

I thought about that writhing tiger lily of flame, and the

bright stamen at the centre of that flower; the burning,

curling Jim Lusk.

“You walked away, his… the house burned, and I saw your

wallet. It must have dropped when we collided.” I would

give her the benefit of the doubt. “So I looked through it.

And I went to the police. They more or less laughed at me.

‘Aud!’ they said. ‘Oh, not Aud! She was one of us!’ The

odd thing was, underneath their bluster, they sounded

uncertain, as though they thought you just might have been

involved somehow. Then one of the uniformed ones came

running to the detective in charge, and he sighed, and he

told me he was pretty sure, given the new evidence, that

this was a drug killing. I said it wasn’t. Jim always found…

well, let’s just say that not only did he not take drugs, he

found those who did rather amusing.” She shook her head.

~ 45 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I know people say this about their friends and family all

the time, but believe me, I knew Jim.”

Ah, but we never really know even our best friends. Even

the spouse who snores next to us every night. We can never

see behind those glistening eyes, never get beneath the skin,

venture inside that shining ivory bowl to the dark dreams

and slippery lusts that slide through the crocodile brain

without regard for civilization or religion or ethics.

“He was murdered for a reason. If there were no drugs, it

was something else.”

“There were drugs. Several kilos of cocaine.”

“Then they were just window dressing,” she said

impatiently, “a way to twist the truth.”

“Very, very expensive window dressing.” Which of course

played both ways: why hadn’t the firebug taken the

merchandise?

She shrugged away the importance of several hundred

thousand dollars worth of evidence. “Yesterday,

Honeycutt’s insurance adjuster showed up, which is normal

for a claim of this size. Honeycutt had said nothing to her,

of course, about the question of provenance. He would

have been a fool to. I told her that, yes, everything was fine.

That I had merely taken it around to the appraiser’s to get a

second opinion as a matter of course.“

“You lied.”

~ 46 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Yes. And I hate that. I resent it. But I did it because I have

to consider my reputation. People trust me. It’s my job to

be utterly reliable. I can’t afford clients thinking: She was

the one who muddled up that Friedrich. I just can’t.”

“Honeycutt won’t say anything—after all, he wants his

insurance. The previous owner won’t say anything because

as far as you’re aware, he doesn’t know anything. The

picture can’t talk because it’s now no more than a few

greasy atoms in the stratosphere. So explain to me what

your problem might be with this.”

“My conscience.”

We looked at each other in the artificial fifties gloom.

Conscience. Such a high-minded kind of word. In my

experience, people used the word “conscience” when what

they really meant was, Oh god I shouldn’t have done that it

was stupid what if they find out? “Conscience” sounds

better to their internal censors. “Conscience is a matter for

a priest.”

She gave me an odd look. “You would look good in the

old-fashioned clerical garb, the long black coat and dog

collar. Those pale, pale eyes, the way you nod intently and

sit so still…” She laughed then, a brittle vocal shimmer that

tried to hide the loss and bewilderment, tried to turn it all

into an amusing game. “So here I am, confessing my sins.

But what I want isn’t forgiveness. Or penance. It’s

information.”

“You know as much about all this as I do. More.”

~ 47 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I want you to help me find out who did this to Jim, and

why.” Her voice was raw, believable. “You would be paid

by my company, Lyon Art. You would be paid well. Not

quite as well as your investments, perhaps, but surely it

would be bet- ter than… than grubbing about in the police

gym with nervous rookies. Much more exciting.“

I wondered what excitement meant to her. A frisson, a brief

hormonal thrill to flutter the muscles and pull tendons tight

for a moment. Excitement is the product of facing

something dangerous. I like excitement from danger that is

carefully controlled: the bungee jump, skydiving, free

diving off the coast of Belize. Danger of the uncontrolled

variety has a nasty tendency to lead to people with guns or

knives appearing out of the dark and a split second to live

or die. Danger is that place where the space between one

breath and another decides your fate, where your life and

theirs are like two ice cubes sliding down a hot blade and

the fulcrum is speed, where survival means the ability to

move from one state to another faster than thought. It

means suspending consideration and just being, acting and

reacting, moving through a world where everything but you

cools and slows down so you can glide between the blows

and bullets and take out someone’s heart. Danger is

desperately seductive.

“No. Thank you. I’m perfectly happy as I am.”

She leaned back in her chair, until the top of her head was

almost touching the hideous orange shade on the hanging

lamp and strange shadows pooled on her face. “If you’re so

happy, why did you resign from the police? Why do you

walk the streets in the middle of the night looking haunted

~ 48 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

by demons? Why do you hang out with dangerous, filthy

people in loud, foul-smelling night clubs where no one

would even give you the time of day if they knew who you

are, knew that your mother is King Harald’s ambassador to

the Court of St. James?”

My face is my most useful tool. I made it smile. “Did you

practice that?”

Her high cheekbones stood out sharply in the light but the

shadow hid her eyes and mouth. “I’m not a trained

investigator like you, but Jim was my friend. I’m going to

try to find out what happened. I’ll do it on my own if I have

to—I’m smart and I learn fast—but you could help me, and

I’m willing to pay.”

I know police work and death, I understand the intricacies

of diplomacy and the strange sharp angles where

performance art and outlaws, tattoos and high society meet

and mingle. I also knew what she didn’t: that stalking a

professional killer is not a game, not a hobby you can learn

at the weekend. Not when the stakes are your life.

The lamp was warming her sleek, French-twisted hair, and

through the brown bitter smell of coffee I caught a quick

scent of her shampoo, light and sunshiny and sharp, the

way cloudberries on the fjord smell when the sun comes

out after a quick summer rain, and I saw her clearly. An

innocent who believed herself a cynic, one too innocent

even to understand that the timing of that incendiary device

had been carefully planned; that she had to have been as

much the target as Lusk or the painting. Someone had tried

to kill this woman who had read my record and asked for

~ 49 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

my help, and if she blundered around making noise, they

would try again. So I surprised myself, and said yes.

While I read through my transcribed statement, Denneny,

immaculate in white linen short sleeves, leaned back in his

chair on the other side of the desk and polished his

spectacles.

“There is no ‘e’ in lightning.”

He ignored me. The spectacles had left deep indentations

on either side of his nose and he had to bring the lenses

very close to check for blemishes. His expression was

utterly focused, as pure and concentrated as that of a boy

studying the dissected body of his first goldfish.

I signed and dated the statement. “You should really pay

for better-educated clerks.”

He slid the spectacles back on and his face was a man’s

again. He picked up the statement, looked at my signature,

and put it on the top of a pile on his left.

“Your new rookies were particularly raw this time.”

“I hope you didn’t hurt anyone,” he said, more distracted

than concerned.

“You should take a session yourself.”

“I’ve spent too much time lately sitting behind a desk—”

The lack was more in his soul than his body.

~ 50 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“—besides which they wouldn’t listen to a captain. They’d

say, ‘Yessir!’ but their eyes would glaze and they wouldn’t

really hear a word I said.” Just as he wasn’t hearing a word

I said, not really.

I stood. “If any of them don’t measure up, I’ll let you

know.”

“Yes.” He made an effort. “I appreciate this, Torvingen.

The department can’t afford to pay warm bodies to spend

time in the hospital instead of patrolling the streets.”

His rookies had once been more than entries in a ledger,

cogs in his cost-effectiveness machine. I tried to remember

the last time I had seen him shout or laugh. I failed. Twenty

years in the police force had killed everything, bit by bit:

his ambition, then his passion, then his wife.

~ 51 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Chapter Three

I don’t like being surprised, especially by my own

behaviour, and I had no idea why I had taken Julia Lyons-

Bennet’s card and agreed to be at her office tomorrow

morning at eight-thirty. When a machine acts oddly, it’s

easy enough to take it apart and look for the fault. If it’s a

computer, say, which freezes while you’re online trying to

read e-mail, you just shrug and hit the reset button.

My preferred reset button is adrenalin.

Revolution is not the hippest women’s dance club in

Atlanta, but it’s the biggest, a huge building in Ansley Mall.

When I slid the Saab into a parking slot, the place was

already filling with the vehicles so loved by Southern dykes

with money: apple-green Samurais, blood-red Jettas, peach

Cabriolets, dignified gold Camrys, two silver Isuzu

Troopers. It was only ten o’clock and the air was still soft

and sooty with rush-hour fumes. Dogwood blossoms lay

underfoot, and the parking lot smelt of rubber and asphalt

and perfume: an exciting, urban scent. I made sure I was

wearing my open, friendly face.

On Tuesdays, there is no cover. I slipped in unnoticed and

got a Corona from the bar. There were already about two

hundred people in the club: half on the dance floor, the rest

drinking and talking. Two of the three pool tables were

occupied. The third had money lying on the side. I put

~ 52 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

down my own quarters, looked around a little, and took a

pull of my yellow beer. Lovely cold bite.

“Toss for the break,” said a clear-skinned, long-haired

woman who looked as though she were just off the farm.

I smiled. “Sure.”

We exchanged names—she was Cathy—and played the

first round amiably. I let her win.

“Another?”

“Why not?” I got another beer, too.

This time I won, and there were more women in the club. It

got warmer. I got another beer.

Cathy left and was replaced by Ellie. I didn’t much care. I

was waiting, enjoying the beer, taking the pulse of the

audience because there is always an audience. Of the

women at the small tables surrounding the pool area, some

were talking, drinking and watching, but some were just

drinking and watching.

When Ellie was replaced by Jodie and I realized the club

was nearly full, I decided it was time. I smiled at Jodie,

tucked my hair behind my ears—to show my jaw and the

small muscles in my neck—and opened myself to the

audience. As I racked the balls I held the last one in my

palm, the way you cradle the weight of a breast when your

lover moves over you and your breath is searing in and out,

in and out. As I leaned over the cue I let the yellow light

~ 53 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

hanging low over the table slide over the hollows in my

wrist, up the long smooth muscle of my bare arms and lose

itself in the dip and shadowed curve of collarbone and

breasts. As I drew the cue—the long beautifully polished

warm strong cue—back over the sensitive webbing

between thumb and index finger, I enjoyed the sensation,

and let my face show it, and then I thrust with my hips with

my arm with my cue into the ball, through it, and the

pretty-coloured triangle exploded into a dozen rolling

pieces. I threw back my head and laughed as the balls

dropped in the pockets: one, two, three. Around the table

with the cue now, picking up the chalk—stroke it rub it

over the tip, the rounded, velvet tip, cherish it, make sure

that not a millimeter is ignored— laying my left breast

plump against the felt and stroking that cue back and forth,

back and forth, calculating, measuring, waiting as my

breathing quickened and the moment trembled then

thrusting again, and round the table and again, and again

and again and again until the felt was all green and clean

and I straightened, nipples hard against the silk of my

waistcoat, and smiled a slow, satiated smile. And then she

smiled back at me from a table and stood and stepped

forward like a young deer leaving the shelter of the trees.

I ordered us a beer each. She was Mindy, up from

Birmingham for two days, interviewing with Coca-Cola for

a job in their budgeting department. She was staying in a

nice hotel downtown but didn’t know anyone and was I

here on my own? Oh yes, I said, and touched her lightly on

the wrist, and now I had her scent, light and flowery but not

innocent, and she brushed against me with her hip, her just-

a-bit-old-fash-ioned-from-Alabama-jean-clad hip, and she

lifted her chin a little and blinked and I kissed her.

~ 54 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Such pale, pale eyes,” she said.

And we had another beer and played more pool and drank

more beer and danced, and at one o’clock I took her back to

the hotel and took off her clothes and, to the sound of a

late-breaking thunderstorm, took my time. I kissed her, and

stroked the soft planes of flank and thigh, teased with

fingertip and breath and gaze, and when she was

shuddering like a kite on a long line, when she began to

whip and plunge, when she begged me, I turned her and

steadied her and let her loose.

It was always the same. They flew and I flew, but to

different places.

Later, she stroked my cheek drowsily. “Your eyes are

different in this light. No colour at all. Like cement.”

The Bedouin definition of day is when the light is strong

enough to tell the difference between a black hair and a

white hair. There are no colours in the dark.

Eventually she slept. I listened to the rain and contemplated

the relaxed face, smooth and fine and very young. No doubt

she thought herself worldly, sophisticated, but what would

she think if she knew she was sleeping next to a woman

who had killed for the first time when she was just

eighteen? What did she know of that blank look that always

touched their eyes before they spat blood or tried to rattle

out one last breath?

I looked at my hands, turned them over in the tarnished

shine of streetlights seeping through a crack in the curtains.

~ 55 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

They were long; strong and competent with nicely shaped

nails; hard enough for a palm strike, soft enough to trace

gentle arabesques on a taut trembling stomach or along a

soft inner thigh. The stains did not show.

I woke up just after dawn, lying on my side, with a greasy

headache and a craving for eggs and the bite of grapefruit

juice. She scootched up behind me, tucked her belly against

my back and ran a hand up my thighs. I stopped thinking

about eggs. This time it was simpler, more straightforward,

with grins on both sides. Angst was for the dark.

She moved away from me then, and I understood she was

done: it was six-thirty, time to resume her job-seeking mask

of brisk, detached efficiency. After I showered I was not

surprised to find her encased in a business suit and hiding

behind impersonal makeup. She didn’t have time for

breakfast, but I was to feel free to use her room number in

the hotel dining room. I thanked her politely, we nodded

instead of touching, and I left.

The corridor to the elevators was long. I wondered why

Atlanta hotels kept their public spaces so cold.

The Saab still smelled faintly of her perfume and the after-

club effluvia of smoke and beer, and I told myself I was a

fool. I drove back to Lake Claire very fast, with all the

windows open, and found when I returned that the clocks

were blinking 88:88—there had been a power hit in the

middle of the night. The thunderstorm, no doubt.

I gave the homeless man in front of the Marquis Tower

Two a dollar bill that was nearly whipped away in a gust of

~ 56 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

warm April wind, and went into the lobby which was all

black marble and chrome. A very good, hidden sound

system played Satie. The piano notes glided around the

hard walls and polished floor, warming and humanizing the

space, but not enough.

Thirty-four floors up, I headed towards the Lyon Art suite,

expecting more sleek surfaces, with perhaps some

uncomfortable furniture and elegant but indifferent staff.

Instead the door swung open to laughter, bright colours and

the earthy, welcoming scent of French roast. The woman

who was laughing— comfortably plump, about sixty—

turned at my entrance, scooted her chair under the beautiful

pine reception desk, and smiled. “Good morning. How can

we help you?”

The four or five people in the cubicles to the left were on

the phone or tapping away at their keyboards. I smiled back.

“Aud Torvingen. I have an appointment to see Julia Lyons-

Bennet.”

She frowned. “Oh. She said… Didn’t she call you? I

distinctly remember her telling me she was going to call

you last night.” She swung her chair around again and

called to a man who was munching a cinnamon bun by his

computer. “Ricky, tell me I’m not losing my mind.

Yesterday afternoon, when Julia got that message from

InterCom, she said she was going to call Ms. Torvingen?”

“Sure did.”

She turned back to face me. “Well, somebody got their

wires crossed. Julia’s not here. She had to go to Boston

~ 57 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

yesterday. She said she would call you and let you know

last night.”

I remembered the storm battering the hotel window.

“I apologize on her behalf. I hope you haven’t been too

inconvenienced. I know she particularly wanted to talk to

you.”

Her look of genuine distress made me want to reassure her.

“I think I know what happened. She probably left a

message but I had a power hit last night. I bet the machine

reset itself, and when I got in, there was no blinking light so

I thought there was no message. No one’s fault.”

“I get so tired of the power company, don’t you? Every

time there’s a storm, phht, the power goes. Still, at this time

of year it’s not so bad. But when it goes in August, I just go

crazy without my air-conditioning. The heat!”

“I know what you mean. When is she expected back from

Boston?”

She looked surprised. “This morning. Didn’t I say? No, I

don’t suppose I did.”

“Well, perhaps you could ask her to call me.” I reached for

one of my not-very-informative cards.

“Oh, heavens, keep that. She’s got your number. Besides,

there’s no need for you to rush off. Her plane lands in”—

quick glance at her watch—“less than an hour and I’ll page

~ 58 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

her to make sure she’ll come straight here. Do you take

sugar? In your coffee,” she added kindly.

“No. Thank you.”

She started bustling about. “How about cream? Yes? I wish

I could get Julia to take some cream. Nothing but skin and

bone. I tell her she could do with some padding, no one

dates skinny girls, but she just gives me that look.” She

handed me the coffee, directed a piercing look at my

ringless left hand, and nodded to herself. “Dating can be

hard for career women.”

I thought about Mindy, probably already smiling efficiently

at her prospective employer.

She gave me a sly smile. “Well, come along, let’s go see if

we can find that file she wanted you to see.”

I followed her past Ricky, who flashed me a sympathetic

look, behind the cubicles and past a large room full of

strange crates and bags of foam peanuts, into what I took to

be Julia’s office. “Here we go.” She held out a maroon

folder. I hadn’t seen where she had taken it from. “Well,

don’t just stand there like a lamppost. Sit, sit.” I allowed

myself to be chivvied into a comfortable chair. “You read

that and drink your coffee and I’m sure it won’t feel like a

minute before Julia gets here.”

I felt like a seven-year-old being comforted by a friend’s

mother, but managed to regain my poise enough to smile

and say, “I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

~ 59 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

She gave me a roguish twinkle, said “Mrs. Miclasz, but you

should call me Annie,” and closed the door behind her.

I sipped the coffee. It was delicious, perfectly prepared, as I

imagine anything prepared by Annie Miclasz would be.

One of those formidable women who felt they had to hide

their efficiency behind a soft, caring front; who hid for so

long that the front became real; one of the women who kept

the world turning; one of the women it paid to never, ever

cross.

The office was large, and obviously made for use rather

than show. Two large drafting tables, one with sheets

clipped down; a computer; four filing cabinets; three

different Rolodexes; rough iron statuary in the corner near

a huge picture window; two lush green plants that I

couldn’t identify; and lamps everywhere, mostly unlit. I

had expected art on the walls, but they were covered with

graphs and charts. No doubt the view of the city at night

would be more than fair compensation.

I opened the folder. Fastened to one side were scrupulous

records of billable hours (I lifted an eyebrow at her rates);

phone calls; packing materials; special transport; estimated

costs of airport tax; a list of security measures to be

engaged to and from Atlanta and Orly—all subcontracted; a

muddy Polaroid of a strangely angular picture of what

looked like a ship crushed between ice floes, with Caspar

David Friedrich, 39 x 51, oil pencilled on the bottom…

I mused on the relative value of things. The homeless man

outside begging for dimes. Thousands of dollars to ship a

~ 60 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

single piece of canvas that was not even big enough to

shelter a person from the wind and rain.

I looked at the photograph again. The pencilled writing was

angular, too; that of a Lyons-Bennet more than a Miclasz, I

decided. The items attached to the other side of the folder

were more interesting: partly typed, partly handwritten

memos detailing phone calls between Lyons-Bennet and

the banker, one Michael Honeycutt; between Lyons-Bennet

and James D. Lusk, Ph.D., ASA, ISA; between Lyons-

Bennet and Paulette Ciccione, who turned out to be the

insurance adjuster.

I took notebook and pencil from my jacket pocket and

made notes as I read. Phone memo: on April tenth, David

Honeycutt asked Lyon Art to ship the Friedrich to Mantes-

la-Jolie (a careful annotation in Julia’s hand read: twenty-

five miles from Paris), to provide insurance and security,

and to have the painting in France before the end of the

month. Receipts indicating that Honeycutt handed the

painting over to Lyon Art on the twelfth. I jotted, Who

brought? What transportation? Directly hand to hand? and

went back to the notes.

Perhaps half an hour later the door opened and Annie came

in. “I’ve paged her. She should be here soon.” She picked

up my empty coffee cup, nodded with approval. “More?”

My forehead felt tight from lack of sleep and too much beer.

Not something caffeine could fix. “No, thank you.”

Julia’s later notes were all handwritten. The prospect of the

painting being a fake, of her having made a mistake, had

~ 61 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

understandably led to a desire for privacy. Handwritten

notes were much more secure than any computer hard drive.

I was willing to bet, though, that Annie Miclasz already

knew everything in this folder.

When I had read everything I went to the window and

stared out. Peachtree Street was, architecturally speaking, a

virtual John Portman fiefdom. Typical of his New Atlanta,

One Peachtree Center rose diagonally across from the

window: arrogant, too big, erected without any

consideration for neighbours, its open metalwork spire

glinting wasteful and golden in the late morning sun. To the

left was another of his monstrous towers with its buff-

coloured stone and mean, prisonlike windows, linked—by

those silly glass sky bridges that Dornan, a friend of mine,

refers to as gerbil tubes—to the Mariott Marquis and the

Gaslight Tower. People scurried back and forth looking

nervous; below, the streets seethed with traffic even though

it was not remotely near any kind of rush hour or even

lunchtime. I wondered idly what kind of damage a couple

of antipersonnel mines would do to those tubes and the

street below.

Atlanta was a big city getting bigger every day: three

million people living, breathing, working, cutting down

trees and spewing out waste. This week there was one less

than there had been: Jim Lusk, Ph.D., ASA, ISA. Where

did he fit in the story of the fake painting, the very

suspicious cocaine, and the banker? The police were no

longer looking; they were only too happy to believe the

soured drug deal story, but drug dealers would not leave

several hundred thousand dollars worth of product lying

around for the police to pick up.

~ 62 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Murders are committed for a variety of reasons but, given

the supposed worth of the painting, and the cocaine, I

would bet on money, power, or a warning—or a

combination of all three. The question was, whose money,

whose power, and who was being warned, and about what?

Ask any airline attendant and they will tell you that the

worst passengers are always from first class: corporate

CEOs who defecate on aisle trolleys and wipe themselves

down with linen napkins when their third bottle of wine

isn’t brought fast enough; the seventeen-year-old daughters

of Arab sheiks who pinch and slap attendants who can’t

provide Belgian chocolates. They have money and power

and are used to the world conforming to their every whim.

Lusk’s murder, like every other, came down to the same

thing: someone out there believed that the rules everyone

else obeyed did not apply to them.

The door opened behind me. Julia. No coat, hair in a

French braid so tidy that either the wind had stopped or she

had taken the time to replait it after arriving. She was

sipping from a large coffee mug: probably already briefed

by Mrs. Miclasz.

“I’m so sorry you have had to wait.”

I nodded over the file still on the chair. “It’s been fruitful.”

“I imagine you have questions.”

“I do. But let’s discuss them over lunch. I didn’t have time

for breakfast.”

~ 63 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Certainly, but there is one formality we should attend to

first. The fee.” Here on her own turf she looked different:

more whole and competent; denser somehow.

I had no idea what private investigators charged. “One

twenty-five an hour, plus expenses, with a three-thousand-

dollar advance.”

“The advance is fine, but I can’t pay more than eighty an

hour, and the only expenses I’ll allow are travel.”

“One hundred, travel and food.” I smiled and added, “I’ll

buy lunch.” I didn’t need the money but, judging by the

rates she charged for her own services, she could afford it.

She gave in gracefully enough and asked Mrs. Miclasz to

draw up a contract. It appeared in suspiciously short order.

“Do you hire investigators often?” She shrugged, which I

interpreted as no. I read it carefully—it seemed

straightforward enough—and we both signed. Mrs. Miclasz

then cut a cheque, one of those oversized corporate things

that I had to fold twice to get in my pocket.

The old Murphy’s Restaurant had reminded me of the

lower decks of a nineteenth century sailing ship: hot and

airless, with cramped alcoves and no headroom. Five years

ago, they had moved to specially built quarters just across

the street, and Julia and I took a table by one of the many

long, open windows where the spring air—softened, now

that we were out of the canyon streets of downtown, to a

gentle breeze—wafted pink and white dogwood blossom

over the flagged floor, and where sunlight made me want to

blink and stretch like a cat.

~ 64 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I ordered mixed greens with oregano garlic dressing,

followed by lemon chicken and wild rice. “And please

bring some bread meanwhile.” Julia pondered the menu,

her blue eyes the colour of faded ink in the strong sunlight.

I sipped idly at my water, felt a sudden flush of desire as a

bare-midriffed waitress eased by and reminded me of

Mindy’s pliant body under my hands.

Never mix business with pleasure. I thought deliberately

about the fire, what it would have done to a human being.

“Somebody out there killed Lusk for a reason. Do you have

any ideas?”

“No. But the whole drug idea is ridiculous.”

“Yes.”

“You agree?”

“The cocaine was a plant. Did Lusk have any enemies—or

any friends, lovers, ex-spouses who might want him dead?”

“No. Or at least not to my knowledge.”

“How good a friend was he?”

“Good.” A pause. She made a visible effort to let down her

barriers. “Getting better. We met ten years ago, at

Northwestern. He was one of my teachers. We kept in

touch. When I moved to Atlanta six years ago, we had

lunch. We had lunch regularly. Sometimes we had supper

at his house when he had a rare painting or sculpture for me

to look at. It doesn’t sound like much, but for him it was.

~ 65 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

He was a kind, gentle man. Shy. I think it took him all

those years to realize I didn’t want anything from him

except friendship, to share his knowledge and love of art.

But he was beginning to unbend. We’d been talking about

maybe going to Memphis together this summer to see that

Moderns exhibition. He doesn’t like to travel, but he was so

excited…” She looked fixedly out of the window.

I didn’t want her to cry before I’d had something to eat.

“Were you romantically involved?”

“No.” It came out clipped and glacial. I could imagine the

half-formed tears freezing across her cornea.

“What do ISA and ASA stand for?”

“The International Society of Appraisers and the American

Society of Appraisers.”

“That’s how he earned his money?”

“Yes. As I said, he didn’t like to travel very much, he hated

to fly, so he told me he made his travel rates quite

ridiculous, but every now and again there would be a

particularly difficult identification problem somewhere like

New York or Vancouver and a client would be willing to

pay his huge fees plus the expense of travelling by train,

first class.”

“When you say ‘ridiculous,’ just how much?”

“I don’t know, but probably something like four thousand

dollars a day.”

~ 66 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

A day. “So he wasn’t under any financial pressure.”

“Not that I know of. But he was a very private person.”

I pulled out my notebook, made a note to check out Lusk

and to ask a few questions about the recovered cocaine.

The salad came. I paid attention to the food for a few

minutes, then flipped back a couple of pages for the notes I

had made reading Julia’s file.

“Tell me about the transfer of the painting from the banker

to your premises. One of your staff picked it up from an

address in Marietta—was that Honeycutt’s home or an

office?“

“His home. He works downtown, at Massut Vere.”

“Was the painting received from his hand, or from one of

his representatives?”

“Ricky and Maya—that is, Ricard Plessis and Maya Hall—

who have both worked for me for a long time, took one of

our trucks to Honeycutt’s house at ten in the morning and

took delivery of the painting from his housekeeper. It was

already crated. They gave her a receipt.” Fast, clear,

detailed: she had obviously been through all this herself

before talking to me.

“Did they unwrap it to check what it was before giving the

receipt?”

“No.”

~ 67 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Did the fact that it was all crated and covered up not make

Ricky or Maya suspicious?”

“No. It’s usual to protect such valuable objets.”

“Yet you uncrated it to check.”

“No. That is, yes, I uncrated it, but that’s usual, too. If I’m

to be held responsible for the safe transportation of a

painting, I like to pack it properly from scratch in-house.

Owners sometimes have very odd ideas about wrapping

pictures. I’ve heard horror stories of Old Masters wrapped

in newspapers and arriving with ghostly copies of the

funnies imprinted on a stately old forehead.”

“Do you think the clients know you will unpack their

careful work?”

She considered that. “I don’t know. Those that ask are told

we carry our own packing materials to protect the work

during the transfer from client to Lyon Art, but not many

do ask, so I suppose they assume we’ll just crate up around

their packing.”

“How well was the Friedrich—or the fake Friedrich—

packed?”

“Very well. Clean linen wrappings. Properly measured

wooden frame crate with the correct filling. Actually, it

came wrapped in the same packing I used when I first

brokered it to the original owner, Charlie Sweeting, two

years ago.“

~ 68 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I made a note to ask for Sweeting’s address. “Tell me about

the painting.”

Apparently Caspar David Friedrich was arguably the most

important German Romantic. His technique was

impersonal and meticulous. The picture was painted in

1824, insured for three million dollars. “It would probably

fetch a little less than that at auction, of course. Two years

ago, when I first brokered it to Sweeting, it sold for one and

a quarter.”

“And you were quite persuaded of its genuineness two

years ago?”

“I was.” Her pupils were tight and small.

I said easily, “I don’t know as much about art as I need to

for this, so if I ask questions that seem to question your

expertise or, even worse, your integrity, chalk it up to my

ignorance, but please answer them. I need the information.”

She nodded infinitesimally. “What made you so sure, then,

that it was genuine, and equally sure now that it was not?”

“There is a certain quality in Friedrich’s work, a haunting,

prismatic loneliness.” She didn’t sound the least self-

conscious. “It doesn’t editorialise. It doesn’t try to

manipulate the emotions the same way, say, Turner did

with his tinted steam.”

“Tinted steam?”

“Something that Constable said about Turner. Anyway,

when I first saw Crushed Hope it seemed to me that this

~ 69 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

clarity was present. When I saw it again, ten days ago, it

was not.”

Interesting, the way her speech got more formal as she

discussed art. “So, if pushed, would you say you might

have been mistaken two years ago, or that there were two

different paintings?”

Our entrees arrived then and she used them as an excuse to

delay her reply, but after a while, she sighed and said, “I

don’t know. I think they’re different paintings, but I don’t

know how to prove it.“

We ate for a while longer. If it was the fake painting that

had gone up in smoke, where was the real one? “When you

first brokered the deal to Sweeting, did you check the

painting’s provenance?”

“I took a look, of course. The then-owner had had

possession for more than thirty years, and he showed me

the provenance he had been given by the auction house in

the sixties.” I frowned, but before I could say anything, she

said, “A provenance from a reputable auction house is a bit

like the deed to a house, like a bank note. You just… accept

it.”

“Do you have a copy of that provenance?”

“Yes.”

“I think we need a division of labour. I’ll check on the

people, you take the painting.” She needed to be clear about

the provenance; doubt about her own judgement was eating

~ 70 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

her up. “Find out everything you can. Check back more

than a hundred years if you have to. I’ll need addresses for

Honeycutt and Sweeting. And Julia, when I say division of

labour, I mean it. Stay away from Honeycutt and Sweeting.

Stick to the painting. Can you do that?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m making it a condition of working with you.” I

took the oversized cheque from my pocket. “If you don’t

agree, I’ll tear this up now and we’ll part on friendly terms.”

“But why—”

I held the cheque up. “Yes or no.”

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I? Yes, all right. I’ll stay

away from Honeycutt and Sweeting.”

We talked some more but said nothing useful. I paid. We

walked out into the sunshine, stopped by our respective

cars. After chi sao, it seemed ridiculous to shake hands.

“I’ll call,” I said.

“Benny? It’s Torvingen. Yes, I know it’s been a long time

but why would I want to spend my days hanging around the

evidence locker when I don’t have to? Pretty good, pretty

good. Listen, Benny, just curious: What can you tell me

about the coke that was fished out of that Inman Park burn

earlier this week? No, Benny… Benny, I don’t need to

know everything. Just tell me if it was the real thing or

dreck cut a hundred times. It was? You’re sure? Yeah, me

~ 71 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

too. How about later this week? There’s a new Katherine

Bigelow coming out.”

Ben Heglund was a movie buff. He would do anything to

get a free pass and see a film a week before the general

public. He was also five-foot-eight and thin as a rail and

could eat more junk food at one sitting than anyone I have

ever known.

So the cocaine was pure. Hundreds and hundreds of

thousands of dollars worth of it left to be found by the

police. Why? It no more fit the drug killing scenario than

the murder itself.

Drug killings generally fell into two categories: simple,

gang-related turf warfare—who controls what parts of the

neighbourhood, who decides on the volume of product; and

struggles among the real power brokers which usually led

to the spectacular executions of whole families and

sometimes even friends and acquaintances, executions

gruesome enough to serve as a dire warning to other little

fish who were tempted to grow bigger. The burn that killed

Lusk, though, had been surgically precise.

Three names: Lusk, Honeycutt, and Sweeting. Lusk was

dead and out of the game, and it wasn’t to Sweeting that

Julia had talked about Lusk and her doubts about the

painting’s provenance. There was no hurry. Honeycutt

would have no reason to think anyone suspected him of

anything, and complacent people are rarely dangerous.

I mulled it over. I had spent more time as a member of the

Red Dogs, the hit squad of the APD, than I had as a regular

~ 72 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

detective, but the basics were very simple: gather

information, assimilate the evidence, make an arrest—or, in

this case, give everything to the police so they could make

the arrest. But information was the first step.

Although I had Charlie Sweeting’s phone number, I looked

him up in the book. He was listed under Charlie Sweeting,

not C. or Charles, and the number matched the one Julia

had given me. One face for all comers. I phoned. He agreed,

in the kind of Southern accent that seems to embarrass the

inhabitants of the New Atlanta, to see me just as soon as I

could get there.

He lived ten minutes from me, on Spring Street, where the

servants’ cottages in the back gardens were bigger than my

house. I pulled up before a mansion with a sweeping front

lawn that was probably planted sixty years ago, bright with

thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of perfect tulips.

They would not last much longer in this heat, no matter

how many gardeners he employed. One of them was out

there now in threadbare summer chinos, clipping busily.

He stood up as I approached the door and I realized

immediately that he was not the gardener. “Miss

Torvingen?”

White moustache beautifully trimmed, greyish blue eyes,

thin, freckled arms with crepey skin, liver spots showing

through the thinning yellow-white hair. Old enough to be

stubborn about the ways to address women. “Yes.”

~ 73 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

He stripped off his work gloves and held out a long,

beautifully kept hand that looked absurdly young and able.

“How do you do?”

“A little warm.” I wasn’t, particularly, but I am tall and

move too easily, and old-fashioned Southern men never

relax around me until they can convince themselves that

they are physically superior. It speeds things along a little if

I help them out. He led me into the airy entrance hall and

then a sunny drawing room. Air-conditioning whispered in

the background. He spent some time pulling out the chair,

ordering me iced tea from his housekeeper, asking me if the

temperature was agreeable.

“Lovely tea,” I said when it arrived, and it was: brown and

strong as a tennis player’s arm, and cool, with just the right

touch of lemon.

“Thank you. Bessie’s been making it for the family to that

same secret recipe for twenty years.”

I smiled, and we complacently admired our exchange of

information: I had the breeding and manners to not rush, to

appreciate his hospitality; he was rich and settled enough to

have an old family retainer and to putter about in his own

garden if he chose.

“Now then, Miss Torvingen—”

“Aud, please.”

“Then you must call me Charlie. Miss Lyons-Bennet tells

me there’s been some unpleasant business with the painting

~ 74 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I sold to Honeycutt. Something about a fire, and now

questions about the insurance.”

“Yes.”

“And you think I can help?”

“I do. I’d be grateful if you could tell me first why you

decided to sell.”

He looked at the European cut of my clothes. “I don’t know

how long you’ve lived in Atlanta, Aud, but it’s a thrusting,

hot-blooded place. Fortunes to be made, even now.” He

knew as well as I did that Atlanta fortunes were now made

by real estate reptiles with cold eyes and flickering, forked

tongues. “I’m a hot-blooded man myself, and that Friedrich

was a cold piece of work to wake up to, day after day,

every brushstroke just so, making the ice look like a bunch

of stacked bricks. I just got tired of the darn thing.”

“You didn’t start to wonder whether or not it was

authentic?”

His face stilled for a moment, then stretched in a grin that

was wide enough to draw what was left of his widow’s

peak an inch closer to his eyebrows. “So that’s what this is

about! No wonder Julia was so goddamned coy on the

phone. Looks like I got rid of it in the nick of time. They

think my Friedrich’s a fake?”

“Actually, it depends on who you mean by ‘they.’ ”

~ 75 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Oh, let’s quit fencing, shall we?” He was full of good

humour now: he hadn’t been skunked in any deal. He was

still a top dog. “So what you want to know is: was I a dupe,

or was I trying to dupe someone else?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“All I can tell you is that I bought a painting from Julia

Lyons-Bennet in good faith, and sold that exact same

painting in just as good faith three months ago. I

believed—still do, as a matter of fact—that it was genuine.

No one but a poker-faced German with a high pucker factor

could have painted such a humourless thing. No, no,” he

said genially, “the only thing I can’t tell you is why I

bought it in the first place.”

I switched direction. “How did you come to offer the

painting to Honeycutt?”

“He made an offer to me.”

“How did that come about?”

“We were at one of those damn charity dinners, for the zoo,

I think, or maybe it was the symphony. Anyhow, he was

asking about reputable dealers in the city. I told him about

Julia—how she got me a good price on the Friedrich even

though I now hated the damn thing. Then a few months

later we bumped into each other in Turner’s box at a

Braves game.” He was much too well bred to wait to see if

I had picked up on the fact that he had been Ted Turner’s

guest, but I obliged him with raised eyebrows anyway.

“He’d remembered our conversation. We talked some more

~ 76 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

about other things, investments and so on. It’s always good

to know another banker, so I invited him to the party I give

every year to pay off all my social obligations—kills about

a hundred birds with one stone. Anyhow, he accepted.

During that party—and I remember particularly because we

were just about to start serving the food, and goose goes

cold so fast—he asked to see the painting. It used to hang

in the upstairs dressing room, so I told him to take a look

but not to be too long if he wanted any of the bird. When he

came down, he said he’d like to buy it. I told him he could

have it and welcome if he paid what I paid for it two years

ago, plus ten percent—art goes up all the time, you know,

even stiff Germanic mistakes like that—plus any expenses.

And that was pretty much that.“

“When was your party?”

“January nineteenth.”

“And the Braves game?”

“That would have been September or thereabouts.”

“Tell me what you think of Honeycutt.”

His eyes gleamed with amusement. “He speaks well and

knows the right people but I wouldn’t put my money in his

bank, and I sure as hell wouldn’t trust him to be able to

shoot his own dog if he had to.”

I considered for a moment. Good old Charlie Sweeting

liked me, probably thought I was a smart, sweet thing. “I’d

like to ask you a favour.”

~ 77 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Fire away.”

“I’d like to meet Mr. Honeycutt, but I don’t want him to

know why I want to meet him. It’s all very delicate, with

Ms. Lyons-Bennet’s reputation involved and so on. Perhaps

you could think of a way?”

“Well, now, I might just at that. Give me a day to chew on

it.”

I gave him my card and left him feeling quite pleased with

himself.

When I built the deck and the master suite, I turned one of

the original two bedrooms into my work space. It is a big,

square room, with a heart-of-pine floor, large windows and

a skylight. Up against the two white walls farthest from the

door are my benches and vises, the mitre, jig, and radial

arm saws, the sanders, well machined, efficient and

reasonably new. I use them when needed and forget about

them when not. The wall on the right as I enter the room is

where I keep my hand tools, some of which I have had

since I was a teenager. I found my brad-awl, for example,

in a junk shop in a small Yorkshire town; it was probably

made in the 1920s; its smooth wooden handle nests

perfectly in my palm. I have several planes, different sizes

and types. Their handles are painted sober, strong

colours—navy blue, hunter green, chocolate—their blades

all gleam that particular oily grey of quality steel. The

chisels, with their matching pale oak handles, are a

complete set that belonged to one of my mother’s uncles. I

know the foibles of every single tool, how each shapes the

wood to which I set it.

~ 78 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Wood is an endlessly adaptive material. You can plane,

chisel, saw, carve, sand, and bend it, and when the pieces

are the shape you want you can use dovetail joints,

tenpenny nails, pegs or glue; you can use lamination or

inlay or marquetry; and then you can beautify it with

French polish or plain linseed oil or subtle stains. And

when you go to dinner at a friend’s house, the candlelight

will pick out the contours of grain and line, and when you

take your seat you will be reminded that what you are

sitting on grew from the dirt, stretched towards the sun,

weathered rain and wind, and sheltered animals; it was not

extruded by faceless machines lined on a cold cement floor

and fed from metal vats. Wood reminds us where we come

from.

When I want to use my long muscles, feel arms and legs

flex and bend, the sweat run down my neck and get in my

eyes, I build something big. Framing in the master suite

extension had taken me two weeks, the deck another six

days. But after talking to Sweeting, I wanted something

more exacting than energetic, something to free my mind.

I had been working for the last two weeks on a chair of

English pine. My hand plane slid down the wood, zzst zzst,

and buttery shavings curled to the floor. Zzst zzst. English

pine is darker than its acid-yellow American cousin, so rich

it makes you want to reach out and put it in your mouth.

The grain is finer, denser, a little less spongy, such a joy to

plane that when I first started working it I often took off

more than I needed in the sheer pleasure of watching the

blade slide through it. Zzst zzst. The shavings piled up.

Sunlight, shivered and greened by the foliage outside the

window, warmed the heaps, filling the room with the

~ 79 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

simple, uncomplicated scent of fresh-cut pine. Zzst zzst. I

could feel my face relaxing, the muscles around my ribs

letting go.

The phone rang. I listened with only half an ear as the

answering machine stopped clunking and the caller started

to talk. Helen and Mick, telling me about the performance

artist and body sculptor who would be at the King Plow

Arts Center on Thursday night, and asking if I wanted to go

with them. I hadn’t seen Helen and Mick for two or three

weeks. I might enjoy it.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. “Ms. Torvingen,

this is Philippe Cordova. Our client is arriving in two days

and I would like to go over some of her intended activities

with you before then. At your convenience.”

Less than fifteen seconds. Very European: no hello-how-

are-you, no extraneous information, blessedly uncluttered.

I put down the plane, twirled the brass handle of the vise,

lifted the thick oblong of wood. Coming along nicely. I

resecured it. Set the plane to the wood, stopped when I

realized this side needed slightly less pressure, then began

again until I was back in the unhurried, endless rhythm.

Zzst zzst. This was the kind of work I understood. I knew

where the wood came from, that for every tree cut down,

another was planted, that I could make a chair both

functional and beautiful. I was adding to the world, not

taking.

Did Julia ever feel this kind of inner satisfaction? I had

only ever seen her look tense or worried or irritated. I could

~ 80 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

not imagine that face in contented repose, or that the fierce

competitiveness of collecting might induce such a frame of

mind. But everyone has a private and joyful hobby, even if

it’s just bobbing about in the bath playing with yellow

rubber ducks. I smiled at the thought of Julia talking to her

ducks, hair pulled up in a topknot, soap bubbles clinging to

the damp skin just below her bare collarbone… Zzst zzst.

Little Five Points is Atlanta’s East Village, the

hipcoolfunky heart of the city where the two most recent

commercial buildings are a tattoo parlour and a leather and

fetish rummage store called The Junkman’s Daughter. I

don’t know if there’s a special tenants’ committee, but the

uncool are not allowed. Even the pharmacy is run by a man

called Ira who knows everything about everybody and flips

pills and salves and prescription printouts with the pizzazz

of a cocktail waiter. Here is where you’ll find Charis, the

city’s only feminist bookshop, and Sevenandah, the whole-

food cooperative. Here is where Atlanta’s musicians and

poets and artists hang out to reassure themselves that, yes,

they really are right to starve for their art.

The two triangular patches of grass at the nexus of the five

converging roads were as usual full of long-haired men and

short-haired women trying to look drawn and anguished

and tragic and succeeding only in looking a little muddled,

rather young and tolerably well fed. Dornan calls them the

Oh-I’m-so-depressed-I’ll-paint-my-room-black-and-purple

crowd. He takes their money with great delight.

Dornan owns the Borealis Cafe chain. There are seven

stores in Atlanta and its suburbs but the L5P store was the

first, and Dornan spends most of his time there. Today, it

~ 81 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

smelled of dark, bitter coffee, frothed milk, red wine and,

very faintly, pot—as always.

“Torvingen! Luck smiles on you as usual. A second or two

later and I’d be away to Marietta to pay a little visit to the

newest addition to our cafe family. But now that you’re

here, perhaps I’ll stay a minute or two.“

He was always just about to leave, always about to pick up

the phone, and he always persuaded himself to sit for a

minute or two that stretched into thirty, into two hours, all

night. We go back a long way.

“And what’s new in your life?” he asked as we took our

usual table in the corner where he could lean over and

beckon a server, watch the other tables, and look through

the window all at the same time.

“This and that.”

“Ah, now, don’t be coy. You’re wearing your hunting face.

Two lattes, tall, and biscotti, Jonie, if you please.” The

long-suffering barista was already lifting cups and spoons

onto a tray. “Thank you, my dear.” As always, he looked

delighted, but I knew if she had not known what to prepare,

those merry blue Irish eyes would have glinted cold as

Galway Bay in February. He sipped, sighed with pleasure

as though it were his first coffee of the day, and leaned over

the table. “So tell me about your hunt.”

I told him about bumping into Julia, the fire, Denneny

poking his nose in, and Julia’s offer. “So unless it’s all one

big coincidence, I’m looking for someone who can find a

~ 82 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

professional torch at six hours’ notice, who thinks nothing

of leaving several keys of pure cocaine behind as false

evidence, and who is somehow tied in with a valuable piece

of art.”

“Is that all,” he said comfortably.

“And she doesn’t even realize that the burn was as much

directed at her as Lusk, or the painting.”

“You haven’t told her?”

“No. She doesn’t need to know. The painting was burnt, the

art historian is dead, and she told the insurance adjuster she

had no doubts about the painting’s genuineness. She has no

evidence and has already undermined her own credibility

by lying to the insurance company. She’s not in danger.”

“So what is it that’s making you think you want to be a

detective again instead of a nice, boring personal security

consultant?”

I ignored him but, as usual, that made no difference.

“Well, maybe it is the boredom. Ah, but then why don’t

you just go risk your life rock climbing or skydiving or

hang gliding, in your usual way?”

He didn’t really expect an answer, which was good because

I couldn’t give him one.

~ 83 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

~ 84 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Chapter Four

I wore a light linen suit. It was going to be a hot one today:

only ten-thirty and already in the high eighties. I opened all

the Saab’s doors and windows and waited while the oven

heat gushed out. A small redheaded woodpecker, a male

with black body and white stripe across its back and wings,

was thwacking its beak industriously against the siding

under the eaves. No doubt the resonant drumming would

sound impressive to the brown females in the area and they

could take turns feeding him when he was too addled to

catch beetles.

I left the air-conditioning off, the windows down, and

enjoyed the fat heat that snaked through the car as I drove.

What kind of car did Michael Honeycutt, banker, drive?

What did he look like, how did he sound? I wanted to see

him, to weigh the fabric of his suit, smell his cologne, judge

his haircut, watch his body language, listen to the way he

shaped his vowels.

One of the first times I had been called on the carpet as a

police officer had been back when Denneny was still a

lieutenant, back in the days when he could still tremble

with fury, or laughter, or worry for one of his people. I

couldn’t even remember the details of the incident; all I

remember was him pacing up and down his office, shouting

at me: “You can’t just break in and start banging heads,

~ 85 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Torvingen! Knowing isn’t good enough. You need proof,

because our justice is legal justice, not street justice.” So I

would need to assemble my proof, I would need to bide my

time. Besides, while personal indicators would tell me

things that no dossier could, they would also give me

nothing like the whole story.

People are twisty animals. I have met unpleasant men and

women whom I do not like because I suspect they are at

heart cruel, or take absolutely no joy from life, or believe

some sections of society are little better than vermin and

should be exposed at birth; but I have trusted some of these

same women and men with my life because they have

learnt to bind their natural inclinations with cages of rules

and ethical behaviour that I know will hold and guide them

under almost any circumstance. Equally, I have met people

whom I have liked instinctively, on sight, but would not

trust because they have never been tested, not even by

themselves, and have never had to formulate rules to get by.

Think about two young adults who go to college. One is

brilliant, a genius who floats above her colleagues like a

cirrus cloud, the other is merely a plodder: dogged,

determined, competent. Throughout their education, the

genius has always been able to leap obstacles as though

they’re not there while the plodder has, through necessity,

learned patiently to climb walls. One day, say in the second

year of their Ph.D. programme, that genius will come

across a wall so high even she can’t jump it. But she

doesn’t know how to climb. The plodder, on the other hand,

rubs his hands, checks his equipment, and starts hammering

in the first piton. Who do you think will reach the top first?

~ 86 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

So although there were certain things I could only learn

about Michael Honeycutt by meeting him face-to-face,

there was a great deal I could find out by looking at his

track record, his habits, and his job.

At the Ponce de Leon branch of the Fulton County Library

I parked carefully under the pathetic sapling in the middle

of the lot. Better than nothing. There was a minivan four

spaces down. The sliding door was open. A man was lying

back in the driver’s seat, eyes closed, keys dangling from

the steering column. Probably waiting for his wife. It would

be so easy to slip into the passenger seat, break his neck

with one twist, bundle him into the back and drive away.

Less than forty seconds. No witnesses. People are so stupid.

“Anthony,” I said to the plump, balding man blinking in the

sunshine leaking through the enormous skylight over the

reference desk, “I need some information on Massut Vere,

investment bankers.”

He sighed—he always sighed and acted like a fifty-year-old

who had been forced to get out of his cosy fireside

armchair and shuffle off in his slippers on some unpleasant

errand, even though I doubted he was a day over thirty—

and repeated, “Massut Vere.”

“Corporate structure, personnel, specialist interest, political

flavour, anything that would give me a feeling for what

kind of institution they are. Pay particular attention to any

mention of a man called Michael Honeycutt.”

“When do you need it by? Yesterday, I suppose.”

~ 87 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I didn’t smile; Anthony thought smiles frivolous and out of

place in a library. “I’ll be here for forty minutes or so.” He

would have a first cut for me in less than half an hour. The

more he looked forward to a task, the more he grumbled.

At the New Fiction section I skimmed the rows of E. Annie

Proulx, Anne Rice and Robert James Waller and moved on

in disgust to Non-Fiction. There was a new biography of

Albert Murray that looked interesting. Farther down was

something called Gender Critique in Body Modification.

Helen had said something about that performance artist

being into “gendered body art,” so I picked it up. I took

those and a text on cults to a carrel and started flipping

through. An index can tell you a book’s parameters.

Everything I looked up in the Murray was there: Romare

Beardon, Malcolm X, Count Basie, Ralph Ellison, The

Omni-Americans, Wynton Marsalis, geopolitics. The cult

book, on the other hand, was less promising: Cohesiveness,

Conditioning, Controlled Drinking, Conformity… The

body modification volume had something it called a

hyperindex, no doubt put together by someone who thought

they were designing a web page. I flipped through

charmingly obtuse text and stomach-churning graphics.

After half an hour I took the Murray and bod-mod books to

the reference desk. Anthony was presiding over a pile of

books, catalogues and printouts looking sour: his version of

smug complacency. “These you can check out”—he

pointed to the books—“these you can keep”—a handful of

still-warm photocopies—“and this is a list of files, some of

them more general than I would like, that I’ve pulled from

a quick electronic search. Just two references to Honeycutt.”

~ 88 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I didn’t thank him—he would start to stutter—but I would

as usual send a cheque for the library’s Children’s Books

fund that was Anthony’s particular passion. Maybe I’d put

that one on expenses.

I stared past my monitor and into the back garden. A

chipmunk picked up an old, old pecan, threw it down in

disgust. Two cardinals trilled liquidly at each other, bright

red against the emerald green. One of the neighbour’s cats

slunk belly down through the grass towards them. Snakes

in fur coats, Dorothy Parker had called cats. Sometimes I

could see why.

Anthony’s references had not been much help. I had

tedious details about Massut Vere, who, despite the

unlikely name, were one of the oldest and richest merchant

bankers in the South, with interests in everything from

tobacco, cotton and railroads to bioengineering, cable

television and pizzas.

Michael Honeycutt had been with them for just under two

years, coming to the company from a bank in California.

There was a small black and white photograph that could

have been anybody.

The cat stopped, twitched its hindquarters to and fro, and

pounced; not at the birds, but something hidden in the grass.

Probably a shrew. The garden teemed with them. They dug

burrows all over the lawn and if you crouched motionless

on the grass, sooner or later you would hear them rooting

about under what was left of last year’s leaves. They were

always there, even in the rain. Shrews can’t store or

metabolize fat. If humans ate proportionally as much as a

~ 89 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

shrew, we would have to consume the equivalent of two

pigs, thirty chickens, two hundred pears, three pineapples,

and twenty bars of chocolate every day. Busy life.

I turned off the computer. Time to go to the second leg of

my plan.

I called Eddie, the special assistant and researcher to Elaine

Merx, a popular columnist at the Atlanta Journal and

Constitution.

“Hello, Eddie.”

“Aud. Good to hear from you. And how are you?”

“Good.”

“Let me guess, you want some help on something.”

“Of course.”

“There’s a new restaurant I’ve discovered. The Horseradish

Grill…”

“Anytime after next week.” It would be expensive—it was

always expensive when he picked—but the food would be

wonderful, the service even better, and we would both

enjoy ourselves immensely. I have known Eddie for a long

time. “I want to know everything about two different

people. Charlie Sweeting, who lives—”

“In his seventies? Lives off Ponce? I know Charming

Charlie. And the other one?”

~ 90 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“A banker with Massut Vere, Michael Honeycutt.”

“Hmmn.” A long drawn-out contemplation as he tick-

ticked at his keyboard. “Ah. Hmmn. There’s a fair amount

here. And some of the information on Charming Charlie

isn’t in the electronic archive, so perhaps you should come

down and take a look. I’ll be here until seven tonight.”

“I’d like to come now if it’s convenient.”

“Of course.”

I found my way around the big AJC building on Marietta

Street and to Eddie’s cubbyhole with the ease of long

practice.

“Aud, lovely to see you!” There was no way to describe

Eddie’s voice except to call it lugubrious. He was almost

six feet tall, built like a dancer, with tight nappy hair and

mournful brown eyes that could light up with bright, clean

joy at the slightest provocation. We hugged. “You look…”

he tilted his head to one side, “engaged.”

I lifted my eyebrows.

“As in engaged with life, rather than engaged to be married.”

“I’m trying to find out who burned someone to a crisp in

Inman Park last week.”

“A crusader at last.”

“At last?”

~ 91 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Don’t tell me it’s for the money, or for the thrills and

spills that you’re taking on a drug case.”

“It’s not a drug case.”

“The police found cocaine.”

“Yes.”

“But it was a white boy art historian who died and not some

crack dealer.”

“Eddie…”

“Sorry. It’s a habit I get into around here, pointing out the

obvious. So, you think Charming Charlie, and Honeycutt,

patron of all the most boring Big Culture groups in the city

and darling of the downtown gallery owners, are involved

in this nondrug drug murder?”

“Darling of downtown galleries?”

“Oh, indubitably. Take a seat.” Click. “Top bidder for this

jade piece in November.” Click. “Purchaser for an

undisclosed price of not one but two Faberge eggs.” Click.

“This rather indifferent sculpture by a local artist.” Click.

“Owner of these recently discovered Roman coins. Hmmn.”

“What?”

“Remarkably catholic, don’t you think?”

“Explain.”

~ 92 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Most collectors have a specialty, a burning passion: silver

snuffboxes of the seventeenth century, British

Commonwealth stamps pre-World War II, that kind of

thing. These items don’t seem to have anything in common.”

“Are there more?”

“Many.” He clicked through the rest: a ten-inch jewel-

encrusted icon; a rare stamp; a pair of Judy Garland’s ruby

slippers from The Wizard of Oz (“There are at least six

pairs of those floating around that I know of,” Eddie said);

a messy explosion of an oil painting by someone I’d never

heard of… “He has bought these over a period of just two

years.”

“How much has he spent?”

“Some of the prices were not officially disclosed, but at a

conservative guess I’d say somewhere between twelve and

fifteen million. That’s all of them. You want to see them

again?”

I nodded. Fifteen million. Fifteen million on such a wild

collection that was part odd, like the painting and sculpture,

but mostly precious. “What else?”

“He goes to dozens of fund-raising balls, dinners and

speeches. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce

and two or three other professional organizations. Gives

parties. He’s not married but often photographed in the

presence of beautiful young women from Atlanta and from

out of town.”

~ 93 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Gay?”

“Don’t think so. There was a rumour last year that some old

girlfriend was threatening to sue him for battery and

emotional abuse but that the case was settled before it got

to court. He’s forty-two—”

His photographs showed a lean, tanned, smiling man with

short dark hair and wire-framed glasses. “Older than he

looks.”

“Indeed. Previously employed by California Mutual

Holdings and, before that, Bay Banking. No arrests here or

in California. Not even a parking ticket. House in Marietta,

one on Lake Lanier.”

“Tell me about his job.”

“Vice president, but I don’t know what of. Several articles

mention meetings with foreign business managers, and I

think he was involved in helping North Carolina get that

BMW plant. Travels to various offshore tax havens such as

the Bahamas, Bermuda, and—three times last year—the

Seychelles. Also flies to Mexico and Los Angeles fairly

regularly.”

“Give me the names of the galleries he patronizes most.”

“Easy. Cess Silverman at Hye Galleries.”

I frowned. Cess Silverman. “Isn’t she one of Georgia’s

Democratic Party movers and shakers?”

~ 94 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“The same.”

I thought for a while but could not make any of it hang

together. “How about Sweeting?”

“Ah,” he said with approval, “at least he knows how to

collect.” He handed me a one-page printout.

“This is his obituary.”

“Yes. As a precis of his life so far, it’s hard to beat. We

have them on file for all prominent Georgia citizens,

updated every four months.” I wondered if they had one on

me.

I ran through it quickly. S. Charles Sweeting III. Born in

Covington, Georgia, in 1922. Son of congressional

representative S. Charles Sweeting, Jr. Purple Heart in

World War II. Married Jonetta Marie Sturton in 1947.

Three children… Worked in radio. Inherited. Bought radio

station. Bought second. Bought TV station. Divorced.

Remarried. Patron of High Museum of Art, Atlanta Ballet,

the zoo… “It all looks very straightforward. What’s not on

here that I should know about?”

“He’s said to have been a real son-of-a-bitch to his first

wife. None of his children can bear to live in the same state

as him. The closest is in Virginia, I think. He’s on the board

of the TV station still, but can’t influence programming.”

“Reputation?”

~ 95 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Straight shooter: worked hard for what he’s got, doesn’t

take shit from anybody, gets what he wants when he wants

it, no matter who he has to run down. And he’s run down

quite a few. Earns a lot, gives a lot. What’s not on there are

contributions, the very hefty contributions I’m pretty sure

he makes anonymously to the Atlanta Society for the Deaf.”

“If they’re anonymous, what makes you think he gives?”

“One of his mistresses gave birth to a son after she caught

measles while pregnant. The son was deaf; retarded, too, as

I recall. I talked to one of the ASD’s finance assistants last

year— you remember that piece the paper did on Southern

noblesse oblige?—and he told me that every July for the

last seventeen years they get a cheque for one hundred and

fifty thousand dollars. They’ve come to rely on that money,

but because they don’t know who gives it, they worry about

the golden goose just… flying away one day. So they did

some research on past beneficiaries of their services,

looking for rich relatives, and my friend discovered that

Sweeting’s son was born in July seventeen years ago. A big

coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

I nodded. “You said he was a real collector?”

“He buys publicly and in a big way, always makes sure

everyone knows what he paid. Representational art:

landscapes and portraits. Nothing more modern than the

1920s. He displays the art on his own walls—no bank

vaults for Charlie Sweeting. He takes the same kind of

pride in owning beautiful things as being a man of his

word.”

~ 96 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Have you met him?”

“Once. Briefly.”

“Would you trust him?”

He thought about that. “Sixty years ago he and his buddies

would probably have spent their summers setting their

hunting dogs on folks like me, but, yes, I’d trust him to do

what he said he would do. Or to not do what he said he

would not. His honour is who he is.”

I sat on the deck sipping a Corona, watching the last bloody

footprint of the sun fading from the sky, listening to the tree

frogs and crickets, thinking idly that I really should cut

some flower borders at the back one of these days.

A murder, some cocaine, a fake painting. Sweeting and

Honeycutt.

Sweeting was ruthless, no doubt about it, but I agreed with

Eddie: faking a painting did not fit his profile, nor did an

anonymous murder. Which left Michael Honeycutt, as I’d

known it would.

Roman coins. Unmarried. Jade carvings. No parking tickets.

Faberge eggs. The Seychelles. Democratic Party. Cocaine.

I could not see a connection.

A huge barred owl ghosted silently across the garden to

land in the pecan tree overlooking the deck. It turned its

head this way and that, intent. Somewhere on the lawn a

shrew crept through the grass in a desperate search for juicy

~ 97 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

insects to stoke its ever-needy metabolism. The owl

focused for an instant, dropped into a shallow glide. It

dipped once and I heard the tiniest squeak, then the soft

wingspan and full talons were lifting over the hedge,

blending with the darkness to the east.

That night I dreamt of a man in a bathtub. He looked dead

but he wasn’t, he kept sitting up. Every time he sat up, I hit

him: palm strike to the nose, thud and splinter of bone

slamming into his already dead brain; knife hand to the

larynx, crushing it like cardboard; double fist to the temple,

fingers sinking in to the second knuckle. But he kept sitting

up. And then he smiled and opened his mouth, and out flew

an owl, clutching a small jade statue in its taloned fist.

I woke at six with my muscles pulled tight as guy ropes and

my mind flapping like a split sail in a high wind. My hands

kept flexing of their own accord, remembering hitting his

face. I pulled on shorts, boots and muscle-tee, took a bottle

of water from the fridge, and went out into the back. The

air was still and quiet, heavy with morning damp and the

scent of jasmine. The shed I had built under the deck was

dark. The spade hung from the opposite wall. I took it

down and unwrapped it. It took a while to locate the

tarpaulins.

Cutting flower borders through healthy sod is hard work

but my body needed to sweat for a while, and I have never

understood the wasteful American pastime of running. Why

not direct your muscles towards something useful? After I

had laid out four overlapping tarps, I set the gleaming edge

of the spade against the damp turf, put my boot on the rim

and pumped, taking great satisfaction from the slide and

~ 98 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

grit of steel through dirt. I turned the sod onto the tarp. Set

and pumped and turned, set and pumped and turned. After

half an hour, I switched feet.

An hour later the muscles of thigh, calf and lower back

were warm and supple and the tarps full. I switched to the

fork, bending my knees, letting my triceps and shoulders

power the tines through the topsoil. Birds were singing now,

and in the distance I heard the chunk of a car door and an

engine turning over. At some point the background had

filled with the hum of traffic streaming down McLendon

three blocks away. I worked on.

By the time I had all the borders cut and the dirt turned, had

cleaned and oiled the garden tools and put everything away,

it was nine-thirty, and though my skin was slick with sweat

and muscles burning, I felt calm and refreshed. I had a

leisurely shower, an enjoyable breakfast of cold rice and

smoked fish with hot, fragrant tea, then called my banker.

“Laurence, it’s Aud Torvingen. Very well, thank you. And

you? Catherine and the children? Good. Laurence, I wonder

if I might impose upon your goodwill for a few minutes

this afternoon. I find myself floundering for information on

a subject far outside my area of expertise. I hoped I could

persuade you to share some of your experience on these

matters.”

It was a very small branch, and my deposits were

substantial. He said yes, of course, and how did one o’clock

suit?

~ 99 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

From the Spanish consulate downtown, the drive to my

Decatur bank along Piedmont and then North Avenue is

about twenty minutes if you ignore the speed limit. I

whipped along, letting the slipstream take care of the pollen

on the Saab’s paintwork, enjoying the power under my

hands, the smooth glide of the stick as I shifted into fourth.

Traffic was surprisingly light and I cut through it like an

otter knifing playfully through the water. I opened the

windows. Nina Simone sang “Feeling Good” in her

chocolate and cream voice. A wonderful morning to be

alive.

I had Beatriz del Gate’s proposed itinerary weighted open

on the seat next to me. She wanted to visit a Spanish-

speaking school in Duluth then go on to a community

centre in Buford. Just as Philippe said: boring. Other places

on her list—apart from the half dozen ad agencies

downtown—included Underground Atlanta and a Catholic

church. She was twenty-three, reasonably good looking if

the photo was anything to go by, well educated, and all she

wanted to do in the historic South was visit a mediocre mall,

go to Mass, and try to get a job.

I made it to the bank in fifteen minutes.

Laurence is about fifty, one of those African-Americans

from the North who heard that Atlanta, the City Too Busy

to Hate, was a paradise of opportunity. He applied for a

corporate transfer and moved his whole family, hoping for

big things. He had been here nine years now, long enough

to realize that the good old boy network was even stronger

here than in Pittsburgh. He had managed this bank for all of

those nine years. He no longer expected to be promoted out

~ 100 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

of there. Once a year I met his wife and children at the stiff

Christmas function the bank held for its more important

customers. We treated each other with unfailing politeness.

Today he looked a little more formal than usual as he

ushered me into his office. We sat in two comfortable easy

chairs near the silk rubber plant whose leaves shivered in

the hissing air-conditioning. “Perhaps you would like to tell

us how we can help you.”

He almost always said we. I don’t think I had ever heard

him say anything personal, ever use I. “The matter I wish to

discuss is rather confidential.” He simply nodded. “I need

to know what kind of responsibilities and authority would

be expected of and given to a particular banking position.

The position I am talking about is as a vice president with a

very well established investment bank in this city.”

“Do you have any additional information? It could…” He

pushed his glasses up. “Well, it’s a little like you being

asked by someone: What does a police lieutenant do?”

“I take your point.” A lieutenant could be on a SWAT team,

could be a PR person, in Internal Affairs, homicide… “The

banker in question may or may not have been involved in

the effort to persuade a foreign automaker to build a plant

in North Carolina; he flies to the Bahamas, Bermuda and

the Seychelles. I could tell you what sort of authority and

accountability a lieutenant in the APD would have, but I

have no idea about bank VPs.”

“Given that he is a vice president, he is to some extent

legally responsible for the affairs of that company and can

~ 101 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

be held liable. To the same extent, he—depending on the

decision-making policy of the company—would be able to

commit the company to a certain amount on his own

recognizance.”

He wasn’t giving me anything I didn’t already know. I

wondered what he would do if I leaned forward and said:

Larry, I don’t belong here, either. It’s a beautiful day

outside. Let’s go get a six-pack and watch the ducks on the

pond. It would never happen. He had so many defenses

because he needed them. No doubt he saw armour glinting

around me that I was not even aware of. He probably hated

being called Larry. “So he wouldn’t necessarily be checked

up on a great deal?”

“It would depend on the size of the bank. If he’s a VP of a

large national organization, then it’s probable he would

have considerable personal authority. The fact that he

travels frequently to the Bahamas and Bermuda is

interesting.” He paused. “That he travels to the Seychelles

even more so.”

“How so?”

“The Bahamas and Bermuda are tax havens, as you

probably know.”

“Aren’t the Seychelles?”

“Oh, yes. But they’re also eight thousand miles away. He

wasn’t just taking a vacation?”

“Not three times in one year.”

~ 102 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Again, he paused, and I knew that he wanted something

from me, a sign, an indication that if he offered me

something he wouldn’t be rebuffed for stepping beyond the

bounds of manager and client.

“It might help if I told you something of the context for all

this. You know I am no longer with the Atlanta Police

Department, of course, but I have just undertaken to

investigate a murder on a private basis for a third party

because the police think it’s a drug case, and the third party

and I don’t. It… I saw the victim’s house burn, Laurence, I

felt the heat on my face, and whoever did it is going to get

away with it unless I can find him. I don’t even know if this

banker has anything to do with it, but he might, and I have

to run every possibility, no matter how wild, to ground. So

if you have any ideas, please help me.”

“What’s the bank we’re talking about?”

“Massut Vere.”

He took his glasses off, leaned back in his chair, polished

them awhile. There was the faint shininess of burn scar

tissue at his right temple that I’d never noticed before. He

stared into the middle distance. “Apart from the fact that

the Seychelles are eight thousand miles away, they aren’t

generally used as a haven by what I’d call respectable

banks.”… what I’d call respectable banks…

“Why’s that?” I asked obligingly.

~ 103 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

He put his glasses back on and this time when he looked at

me I think he really saw me. “What do you know about

international banking?”

“Probably about as much as you do about tactical hostage

rescue.”

“It’s amazing what you can learn from watching TV.” A

joke. Well, well. “It used to be that the Swiss were the

people who took money, no questions asked, and held it

against all comers. Then they changed their laws so that the

money of any depositor who was proved to have earned it

illegally was liable to be returned. A lot of unsavoury

characters switched to money laundering and the tax

havens off the East Coast. Then three years ago the

Seychelles declared that anyone who wanted to deposit ten

million dollars or more with them would be entitled to

protection from extradition and from seizure of assets, as

well as… Hold on.” He jumped up, looking ten years

younger than when he had ushered me into his office, and

pulled open a file drawer. He rifled quickly through a buff

folder. “Here we are. Apart from the extradition and seizure

protections, big depositors would also be entitled to

‘concessions and incentives commensurate with the

investment.’ ” He shut the folder, put it away, slammed the

drawer shut and dropped back into his chair. There was

something familiar about the way he moved. “In other

words, they held up a great big sign saying, ‘Welcome All

Criminals.’ ”

The implications were staggering, especially the

extraordinary entitlements. The Seychelles government had

~ 104 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

written a law that made it possible to issue diplomatic

passports to terrorists, the mob, drug traffickers…

“You’ve just made my life a lot more complicated,” I said.

“You’re welcome.” And he smiled. The scar tissue by his

eye crinkled.

“Laurence…” When an imago first pushes free of the

binding chrysalis and unfolds its still-damp wings, anything,

even something as ephemeral as breath, can deform the

final, glorious insect. A crass question now could crush this

fragile new understanding. I asked anyway. “Where did

you serve?”

He touched his face and sighed. “Two tours in Vietnam.

The Rangers.”

We sat silently, contemplating the ghosts we had created

between us, and the difference between our world and that

of most people.

Beatrix del Gato arrived on the four forty-five flight from

Madrid. I met her in the international arrivals terminal at

Hartsfield Airport. Either the photograph in her dossier was

a very expensive special effects shot or it had been a truly

terrible flight. Beatriz del Gato was a small, ferociously

plain woman. Her features were symmetrical enough, in

proportion and in roughly the right places, but she seemed

weighed down, pulled out of shape by a relentless dullness.

Brown hair was tugged back gracelessly from a face that

looked white and puffy next to the glowing tans of other

passengers. Her hands hung at her sides as though she did

~ 105 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

not know where they came from or what to do with them

now they were here. Her brown eyes looked very small

behind thick glasses.

“Ms. del Gato?”

“Yes?” The way she lifted her head and looked at me side-

ways reminded me of an adolescent, not a woman of

twenty-three.

“Philippe Cordova asked me to drive you to your hotel this

evening and get you settled in. My name is Aud Torvingen

and I’ll be escorting you during your stay in Atlanta.”

“Thank you.” So low I could hardly hear.

I got her and her luggage—surprisingly little—to the Saab,

held open the rear door for her, then got behind the wheel.

As she was finding the seat belt I slid the Walther PPK

from the underarm spider harness to a lap holster that I

clipped to my belt, handy in case I should need it while

driving. When we were both strapped in I pulled out

smoothly into the streaming traffic.

I glanced in the mirror. She had slumped like a bundle of

abandoned knitting. “How was your flight?”

“Quite pleasant, thank you.” Four whole words. Perhaps a

tightly modulated contralto, it was hard to tell. Soft, gliding

Castillian accent.

“Traffic will be bad at this time of day but I hope to have

you at the Hotel Nikko in forty or fifty minutes.” She

~ 106 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

nodded without looking at me. “Philippe gave me your

itinerary, of course, but I’d like to go over it with you to

make sure there are no errors or misunderstandings.”

“Certainly.”

“And I would like to know how inconspicuous you want to

be.”

A pause. “Perhaps you could explain.”

“Philippe tells me you are interviewing at the ad agencies

we’ll be visiting tomorrow. If I am obvious as a bodyguard,

it might be a little off-putting for your potential employers.”

“Yes. I see.” The knitting was straightening, just a little.

“What would you suggest?”

“That you call me Aud and I call you Beatriz, and we take

the parts of strangers put in touch by a mutual acquaintance

while you are visiting a foreign city.”

“Very well. Aud.” Her trace of accent made my name

longer and softer.

“It would mean I don’t hold doors open for you or carry

your things.”

“By all means.” She seemed to be sagging and fading again.

Probably exhaustion. I concentrated on driving.

~ 107 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

The first thing I did when I got home was take off the gun

and stretch. The next four days were going to be very, very

long.

There were two messages on the machine. The first was

Charlie Sweeting sounding conspiratorial.

“Miss Torvingen? Aud. I haven’t forgotten your request. I

think I might have something for you in a day or two.”

Beep.

“Hey, Aud, it’s Mick. Are you there? Oh. Well, listen, we

got a call an hour ago from Helen’s father. Her mother’s in

the hospital. I don’t know if it’s serious or not. Well, it’s

got to be fairly serious or she wouldn’t be in the hospital so

suddenly.” Get to the point, Mick. “Anyway, we’ll be

flying to St. Louis first thing tomorrow, so we won’t make

the performance tonight. Sorry about that. I think it’ll be

wild. Tell you what, let’s go out for a beer when we get

back and you can tell us all about it. We’ll call you. Bye.

Oh, forgot. The thing tonight? It’s been moved from King

Plow to the Masquerade. Same time. Bye.”

Helen’s mother had been ill for a while. At least she had

Mick with her.

The last time I’d seen my mother had been the three days I

had spent in London on my way to Kirov. We had both

been busy—she with embassy functions, me trying to get in

touch with the guide who was supposed to be travelling

with me to the steppes—too busy to spend much time

together. Story of our lives. Not always unintentional.

~ 108 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

She’s never really forgiven me for choosing to live in my

father’s country. “You’ve no one there, Aud. No family.

No job. Nothing to keep you.”

On impulse, I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?” Clear and sharp, so unlike Beatriz del Gato.

“Julia? It’s Aud.”

“Have you found out something?”

“Yes and no. That is, nothing spectacular, and that’s not

why I was calling. How broad is your definition of art?”

“Why do I get the feeling I shouldn’t answer that one?”

“There’s a performance tonight that you might find

interesting.”

“What kind of performance?”

“You’ve got me there. She’s a performance artist into body

modification. That’s all I know.”

“Okay… Hello? Aud, are you still there?”

“Yes, yes. I was just trying to remember what time it starts,”

I lied. “How about if I pick you up around nine-thirty?”

“Why don’t I pick you up? After all, I know where you

live.”

~ 109 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Fine. And don’t dress up. It’s at the Masquerade.”

“The what?”

“Never mind. Wear something casual. And if the CD player

in your car has one of those removable face plates, remove

it.”

She must have got the message. She arrived at nine-thirty

wearing just the right clothes: wide-legged jeans with a big

belt, tight low-cut button tee that exposed her flat, tanned

belly, and big boots. She’d even done something with her

hair, wearing it casually upswept with thick wings hanging

at each side so that it didn’t look quite so sleek and

moneyed. Two silver studs gleamed from her left ear and

her fingernails were painted a red so dark it was almost

black. The effect was to make her seem both younger and

more worldly. I slung my leather jacket in the back and got

in the passenger seat. It had been a long time since I had

been driven anywhere; door locks and seat belts all seemed

the wrong way around.

“North Avenue,” I said, and after a while I began to relax.

The hands on the wheel were competent.

We drove in silence. The only things we knew about each

other revolved around the death of a man who had been her

friend and I didn’t want to talk about that, didn’t want to

think about murder and men with money.

“So. What am I letting myself in for tonight?” Orange

streetlight glided across her right cheek and disappeared

through the back window.

~ 110 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Diane Pescatore has spent the last eleven years of her life

surgically and cosmetically altering herself to look like a

Barbie doll.”

“Barbie? Those shoulders and hips and legs aren’t

physically possible!”

“I believe that’s the point. According to a book I got from

the library this week, Pescatore is one of several well-

known artists and/or body sculptors who try to draw

attention to the way women’s bodies have been objectified

by the patriarchy et cetera, et cetera.”

“You mean she actually does this stuff on stage?”

“Please watch the road. No. At least I hope not. I think

she’s put together some kind of multimedia… thing.”

“Thing?” She sounded amused.

“Performance, then.”

The car passed under a railway bridge and slowed down by

a garishly lit, dilapidated warehouse. “Is this it?” She

swung into the lot, parked automatically under a light. It

was strange, being with a woman who thought about these

things, who remembered to take corners wide, even when

she was running.

The Masquerade is an odd venue in the middle of an

industrial wasteland. It looks a bit like a cross between a

castle and a wooden fort from the Old West, with huge,

chained freight doors on the third story and a massive iron-

~ 111 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

bound front entrance. We showed ID, paid, and walked into

the gloom. Julia had her hands out of her pockets and all

senses on red alert.

“It’s not dangerous. It just likes to pretend it is.”

“If you say so.”

“Let’s find out where this performance is.”

The Masquerade is divided into three spaces: Heaven,

upstairs, for the larger bands; Purgatory, a sort of coffee

hangout for those who don’t get up until after dark; and

Hell, down a series of ramps where the lighting gets

gloomier and gloomier and music louder and more

unsettling. As we headed down I could feel my face

stretching into a smile and my stride loosening and

lengthening. The sharp scents of dance sweat and tequila

cut through the hip haze of handrolled cigarettes. Julia’s

eyes glittered. I had to put my mouth to her ear and shout to

be heard. “Want a drink?”

She nodded, pulled my head down to her level and touched

her lips to my cheekbone just by my ear. “Beer and a

tequila shot.”

“Aud!” A young, thin woman cut through the crowd. Metal

gleamed from forehead, shoulder, nipples, even the

webbing between thumb and fingers. Thin chain threaded

from nose to ear to temple. “Aud, how are you doing!

Helen with you?”

Julia stepped a fraction closer.

~ 112 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“No. Cutter, this is Julia. Julia, Cutter. An old friend.”

“Hey, Julia. Nice to see you around.” She reached a thin,

strong hand to Julia’s face, touched the corner of her upper

lip. “Little topaz would look good here. Very fierce. Aud

likes fierce. Think about it. If you like the idea, Aud can

give you my e-mail. Gotta go get ready. Aud—later, okay?”

Julia, finger on the place Cutter had touched, watched her

slide back into the crowd. She turned to me. “ ‘Aud likes

fierce’?”

“Let’s go get that drink.”

Even though Hell was full, there were not many people

waiting at the bar. Julia ordered, and gave me a warning

look when I made a move to pay. “You’ve known Cutter a

long time.”

“Eight years.”

“Eight? She doesn’t look old enough.”

“She was fourteen, living on the street.”

“Was she…” She pointed to her temple and nose.

“Yes. When I first met her she had seven studs in each ear,

one in her nose, a ring through her tongue. She’s got them

everywhere now. And scars.”

“Is it the pain she likes?”

~ 113 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I’ve never asked.”

“What about her family?”

“What about them?” They wouldn’t be bothering her, not

anymore.

“It’s just…” She changed tack. “All that metal, it seems a

bit excessive.”

“If wearing all the hardware stops her jamming herself with

heroin and makes her feel good about who she is, then I’m

all for it. She even makes a living at it. As you’ll see

tonight. From what she said, it looks as though we’ll be

getting a live demonstration of body mod after all.”

She sipped her beer and licked the foam off her lips. “Who

is Helen?”

“Another friend.”

“Like Cutter?”

“There’s no one like Cutter. Helen is a professor in the

Sociology Department at Georgia State. She and her

husband would have been here but they had to go to St.

Louis because her mother’s in hospital.”

“So I’m here with you instead.”

I tossed down my shot, turned back to the bar and said,

“My turn to buy.”

~ 114 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

After midnight and we were sitting with Dornan in the

Borealis. A dozen or so other customers dotted the place.

Dornan and I were drinking red wine, Julia had coffee.

“But what was interesting,” she was saying to Dornan,

“was the Q&A they did afterwards, how seriously they took

everything. They were talking about what gauge metal to

put through the penis the same way student drivers ask

what kind of gas to put in their car.”

Dornan blinked a little more rapidly. “Through the penis?”

“Through everything: penis, scrotum, nipples, labia, tongue,

nose, eyebrows, navel, clitoris. It made me feel so… old.

The only holes I have are the ones I was born with, and one

in this ear, two in this.”

“That’s one more than I have,” I said.

“Well, you’ve both had me beat since birth,” Dornan said

mournfully, and Julia laughed. I had not heard her laugh

before. It was subtle and warm as swirled brandy.

“And then there was the cutting,” she said. “I’ve never seen

anything like it, have you, Aud? They had this stool, just an

ordinary wooden stool on stage, and Cutter got this man to

sit on it and strip to the waist. He only looked about twenty.

She washed his pecs with surgical alcohol and picked up a

scalpel. It was like watching someone cut into a radish to

make those fancy patterns. Her tongue stuck out of the

corner of her mouth as she concentrated. They looked like

children playing with red paints. At least she wore gloves.

And he smiled the whole time she was cutting this big

~ 115 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

spiral round his nipple, cutting through his lovely soft

golden skin. Cutter said that skin like that is prized because

you get a nice thick white raised scar. And then she taped

gauze to his chest, he put his shirt back on and everyone

just chatted normally. People do very strange things for

kicks.” She stood up. “Excuse me a moment.”

She walked like a thoroughbred towards the bathroom. I

turned back to the table to find Dornan smiling slightly.

“Very nice, Torvingen.”

“It’s business.”

“You’ve never introduced me to one of your business

acquaintances before.”

I shrugged. “Always a first time.” We sat in companionable

silence until Julia came back.

“So,” Dornan said, looking from her to me, “you paid good

money for the privilege of watching this primitive blood

ritual?”

“Ah,” I said. “Cutter was just like the previews you get at

the start of a video, an unexpected bonus. The main feature

was truly strange.”

I told him about Diane Pescatore and her performance,

about the banks of video screens showing tapes of various

operations she had undergone to sharpen her cheekbones,

clip out her floating ribs, remove her molars, shape her

nose, fill out her lips, carve her belly and lengthen her legs.

Throughout the tapes, she had chanted peculiar verse about

~ 116 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

the subjugation of women, their hopeless quest to look like

the women of men’s dreams, to look like Barbie. “Yes, the

doll,” I told a disbelieving Dornan. “She said, quite

seriously, that she’s trying to find a surgeon who will try to

narrow her shoulders and maybe even shave her pelvis

down.”

“But what does she look like?”

“Crazy. As though the only thing holding her together is

this fierce will to show people, to make them understand

what it’s really like, in the face of the realization that her

audiences only come to see her because they’re horrified by

what she’s doing to herself. I think she knows she’s made a

terrible, irreversible mistake but she can’t stop because if

she did, she’d have to acknowledge the mistake and the fact

that people really don’t care. They just think she’s a freak.”

“Do you?” Julia had her chin on her fist and was looking at

me intently.

I shrugged. “Who am I to judge?”

She decided to dig in another direction. “So how long have

you two known each other?”

“A long time.”

“You mean she hasn’t told you how we met?” Dornan shot

me a sly smile. “It was a summer afternoon, at ten thousand

feet. You see, it was in the nature of a bet I had with an old

girlfriend…”

~ 117 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

He loved to tell this story. I excused myself and headed for

the bathroom. He was still telling it when I got back.

“… hurtling through the air and nothing was happening,

nothing, and I thought, Mother of God, I’m going to die,

and I was spinning around like a top, one minute seeing the

ground rushing at me like a drunken rhinoceros, the next

seeing the sky and all these tiny dots that were open chutes,

and I was tugging on that bloody parachute cord and

nothing was happening. And then I saw one of the dots…

split, and this body came bulleting down at me. It was Aud.

She’d cut her chute loose and was swooping down on me.

She didn’t even know me!”

“I knew you were a fool who was panicking and had

forgotten he had an emergency backup chute.”

“I hadn’t forgotten, I don’t know how many times I’ve told

you that, but I hadn’t forgotten: I’d never been told about it

in the first place! So there I was, and she came bulleting at

me, arms all folded in like a human cannonball, and

smacked into me hard enough to take my breath away. And

you should have seen her face! Lips skinned back and eyes

like a demon. I swear she was laughing. She clamped her

legs around me so hard she broke two of my ribs.”

“I fractured one, slightly.”

“It’s just that the doctor at the hospital didn’t look at the X

rays properly. So, anyway, she had her thighs clamped

around my chest like a vise but did she pull the cord

straightaway? Oh, no. She had her mouth to my ear and

was yelling, ‘Do you feel it? Feel it, feel it!’ and I thought I

~ 118 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

was going to die. But then she tugged on something and

flump, we were floating. It seemed to last forever, but it

was only about eight more seconds before we hit the

ground, she’d cut it so close. And then we landed. She left

me all tangled up like a kitten in a ball of wool and strode

off to find the instructor, who was screaming at her for

being a dangerous lunatic. She talked to him—”

“You were only half trained. He should never have let you

up.”

“—but she never raised her voice, she rarely does, you

know. And that’s when he made his big mistake. He smiled.

She broke his jaw.”

Julia’s expression gave nothing away, but she did try to sip

from her empty coffee cup. “And how long ago was this?”

I never got to answer that. The door banged open and in

breezed a woman of around twenty-five with black hair,

lips as red as her press-on nails, and an astonishingly

pneumatic figure. Dornan jumped to his feet, and all the

intelligence drained from his face to be replaced by an idiot

grin. He held out his arms. “Tammy, darlin’!”

I sighed and stood up, too.

“Mmmn, Dornan, I’ve missed you. Mmmn.” Then she

stepped back and smiled her heavy-lidded smile—“Aud,

how nice to see you”—and raised her eyebrows at the table.

“Julia, this is Tamara Foster. Tammy, this is Julia Lyons-

Bennet.”

~ 119 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Julia stood and they shook hands in that brittle Southern

girl-girl squeeze of limp fingers; the one that says, When

did they start letting people like you in? Dornan, of course,

noticed none of this. His world was full of Tammy, his girl,

his fiancee, the light of his life. “Sit, darlin’, sit. We were

just swapping stories. Aud and Julia here have had an

extraordinary evening. Jonie, Jonie!” he shouted at the

barista. “We’ll have another carafe of this red, and bring

four fresh glasses.”

“No, Dornan, not for me. I’m sure you and Tammy want

some time on your own. Julia and I will be getting out of

your way.”

Julia stood up. “I had a really good time, Dornan. Thank

you. And it was lovely to meet you, Tammy.”

Dornan merely beamed.

In the car, Julia drove as though she had not been drinking

at all. “You don’t like Tammy.”

“No.”

“Let me guess. She’s really a multiple murderer.”

“She’s a manipulative schemer who picks Dornan up and

puts him down whenever she feels like it. She flies hither,

thither, and yon doing what she calls business development

for a local company and is only ever in town for four or

five days at a time. Sometimes less. Dornan thinks they’ll

get married one day.”

~ 120 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“She wears his ring.”

“It’s worth a lot of money, and that’s all that interests Ms.

Tammy Foster. She’s one of those women with a body like

a magnet who just keeps trolling until rich fools clang up

against her sides. I’ve seen her around town with different

men when she’d told Dornan she’s in Baltimore or Chicago.

She’ll drop Dornan like a rock the moment she has a better

catch.”

“You sound very certain.”

“She’s very good at what she does, but if you watch her

long enough you’ll see that she can’t help positioning

herself sexually for every man who walks through the door.

It’s an instinct. She’s been trained since childhood by her

rich daddy in Connecticut to believe that who she is or

what she does doesn’t matter nearly as much as who she

marries.”

“You sound almost sorry for her.”

“That doesn’t make me like her. And when she realized

Dornan’s best friend didn’t like her, she tried to win me

over by propositioning me.”

“You mean… ?”

“Yes.” I would rather go to bed with a python.

“And you haven’t told him.”

“No.”

~ 121 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Why haven’t you frightened her off? I imagine that would

be easy enough for you.”

“She makes him happy, and it won’t be forever.”

“You do like to play god.” She sounded thoughtful more

than judgmental.

We drove half a mile in silence. “Turn left on Leonardo.

It’s a bit quicker.”

When we pulled up, she leaned across me to unlock my

door. “Thank you. It was an interesting evening.”

“Interesting in the Chinese sense?”

“No. I mean it. Thank you.”

There was a slight pause. We both just sat there, facing the

velvet dark beyond the windscreen, breathing the same air,

then I was outside the car leaning in, nodding, saying good

night, telling her I would call sometime very soon to give

her an update on my investigations. After she drove off I

stood outside for a long time, listening to the tree frogs.

~ 122 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Chapter Five

It was one of those Atlanta mornings when you step outside

and the heat and humidity seal around you like shrink-wrap.

The air is as thick as potato soup and you have to breathe in

sips. I drove to Buckhead with the windows closed and the

air-conditioning on and even the Mozart seeped limp and

dispirited from the speakers.

I picked Beatriz up at the Nikko. She had replaced her

glasses with contact lenses, her hair was sleek and groomed,

and the unhealthy puffiness of her face was gone, or at least

masked by professionally applied makeup. She wore a

beautifully cut business suit, designed to show off a

surprisingly generous figure, and instead of a purse carried

a large leather portfolio. The way she did not meet my eyes

when I said good morning was just the same, though, as

was the facial spasm that passed for a smile.

Traffic moved south on Piedmont in fits and starts. Drivers

in some of the cars around me began picking up cellular

phones and calling in to explain why they were going to be

late. Horns blared. We crept forward. With the engine at

idle speed, the air-conditioning lost some of its bite. The

car began to warm up. Just ahead, flickering red and blue

lights across two lanes funneled vehicles past a car with its

roof ripped off and a white-sheeted figure on the melting

asphalt. I knew how a haemoglobin-carrying red corpuscle

must feel as it squeezes through the hardening arteries of a

~ 123 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

fifty-year-old executive running about the tennis court in

one-hundred-degree weather trying to impress his secretary,

knowing that at any moment everything could jam up and

stop forever. But then I was past the accident and traffic

sped up and we all survived to hurtle endlessly along our

paths for another day.

The sweat beneath the gun harness could not evaporate.

With its seven-round clip full, the Walther PPK weighed

less than a pound and a half, but it felt like more, an

unaccustomed and unbalancing weight. Guns can be a

distraction, a dangerous focus of one’s authority, a crutch.

Many come to depend upon them: take away the gun and

you take away their identity. Once I saw a police officer

deprived of his weapon stand uselessly, dazed and

uncomprehending, when he could have been calling for

backup, chasing the perpetrator or helping me staunch the

blood pumping from his partner’s thigh.

I wear a gun when the occasion demands it. I was being

paid well to ensure that during the next three days strange

little Beatriz del Gato came to no harm. Philippe Cordova

would expect me to wear a gun. I wore one.

As we neared the centre of town and Atlanta’s one-way

system we travelled west for a while on Tenth. The sun

poured into the car through the rear window, and in

moments the interior was swollen and thick with heat. I

glanced in the rear-view mirror. Beatriz did not seem

affected. South again on Juniper, and into the cool shadow

of the Peachtree Medical Building. The interior temperature

dropped fifteen degrees. Beatriz stared out of the window

and did not move a muscle the whole time.

~ 124 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I parked on Courtland and prepared for the long, long

morning of appointments.

It was after she came out of the first office, face stiff, that I

understood Beatriz del Gato was wasting her time. No one

was going to employ an advertising executive who did not

seem to understand the meaning of small talk and whose

expression was as impervious as pottery glaze. She was

utterly self-involved, did not acknowledge my presence at

all but simply followed me doggedly through the

hydrocarbon heat of downtown Atlanta to the sterile chill

of another office tower for the second appointment. I

waited in the reception area while she went off to some

inner sanctum to show her wares. I tried to imagine her

talking to one of these potential employers, and failed.

As the morning progressed, her expression began to change.

She got paler, and there was a disturbingly gelid cast

around her eyes and cheeks, as though the pottery glaze

were on the verge of melting.

As we arrived at the offices of Perrin & Norrander, her

fourth appointment, I found myself holding my breath,

willing her to hang on. It was the usual Atlanta advertising

agency: hand-knotted silk carpet, blond wood inlay (a

competent assembly of ash and maple), men wearing Hugo

Boss, women good jewellery, both with far too many

clothes for this kind of weather; an ultimately self-defeating

attempt to prove that advertising in the capital of the South

was every bit as aggressive and cutting-edge as Madison

Avenue. There is one thing Margaret Thatcher said that I

agree with: if you have to tell people you’re important,

you’re not.

~ 125 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

The secretary was one of those sorority sisters from Ole

Miss who didn’t believe in pronouncing L’s when they

appeared in the middle of a word. She was on the phone.

“Would you please ho’d one moment?” Efficient punch of

button with terrifyingly red nail followed by professional

smile at us. “How can I he’p you?”

“Beatriz del Gato to see Anthony Perrin,” she said, like one

of those old-fashioned porcelain marionettes.

The Taloned One ran her finger down a screen, then

favoured us with another artificial smile. “If you would

take a seat, Mr. Perrin will be with you shortly. How do

you like your coffee?”

I answered for both of us. The waiting room was frigid and

the three chairs built more for looks than comfort. They

were arranged under a horrible painting that looked like a

television test card. Beatriz sat, portfolio on her lap; I didn’t

bother. Even if the chairs were worth it, the painting hung

so low I wouldn’t be able to lean back.

A moment later, the secretary came in carrying two cups of

coffee on a tray.

I took one. She turned to offer the second, just as Beatriz

stood up to take it. With a flap and squawk they collided.

The secretary leapt back to avoid the cascade of scalding

coffee. Beatriz didn’t manage as well. She hopped into the

chairs, knocked her open portfolio onto the now-sodden

floor, then overbalanced and toppled into the painting,

which slid down the wall and landed on the polished

~ 126 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

wooden floor with an emphatic crack. Glass fell out of the

frame.

“Goodness,” the secretary said.

Beatriz stared at her. Her eyes were like black holes burnt

in stiff paper and the hand wrapped around the back of one

chair was white at the knuckles. The mask had finally

slipped.

The secretary took a step towards the chair. “Let me he’p

you with that.”

Beatriz trembled like a deer. I stepped smoothly between

them. “Perhaps you could direct us to the bathroom so we

can see what we can do about Ms. del Gate’s clothes.” I

gestured at the dark splash down Beatriz’s skirt.

“Oh, goodness. Of course. Two doors down on the right.”

I took Beatriz unobtrusively by the elbow. “Let go of the

chair,” I said into her ear. “It’s all right. Everything will be

all right. Let go of the chair.”

“Yes, fine,” she said, inanely, brightly. I led her through the

reception area, through the door, down the corridor, to the

bathroom.

“Here we go.” I parked her between the sinks and paper

towel dispenser. It would have been a waste of time trying

to get her to sit. Her body felt like wood. “I don’t think you

need to take the skirt off. Let’s try blotting it first, and soap

if that doesn’t work.”

~ 127 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Her trembling turned into shaking. “I understand,” I said, as

I dabbed and blotted. “You’re in a strange country. You

have jet lag and probably didn’t get any sleep at all in your

hotel. Everyone is talking in a foreign language. Even the

light switches seem upside down. They expect you to know

what to do and you don’t. But that’s why I’m here. I can

show you how things work and tell you where to go, and

when.” I talked on and on, wondering how long she had

been this afraid, so afraid that she had closed herself up like

a fan: nothing in, nothing out; running around inside her

head frantically plugging chinks in her armour, closing

openings through which she might have to reach out and

the world might reach in.

“There. That should do it for now.” The shaking had

become long, rolling shudders and I thought she might

shake herself to pieces. I took one of her cold hands. “Let it

out, Beatriz, you’re safe here.”

An indrawn, juddering breath.

“No one will see you. No one will know. Just let it go.”

And she did, in a torrent that was equal parts rage, fear, and

despair. She wept bent over, gasping and whooping, then

stood straight and howled, face to the ceiling. When the

gate was wide open, she leaned both fists against the

mirrors and coughed up great chunks of grief and

disappointment and broken dreams. She wept on and on

until her face was swollen, and shiny with mucus and tears.

After a while she settled down to an exhausted drone. I

handed her yet another paper towel, stuffed six or seven in

my pocket, and picked her up like a child.

~ 128 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I tucked her face into my shoulder so she wouldn’t see the

stares, and carried her to the elevator, down fourteen floors,

through the lobby, into the street, and across to the parking

lot. I lifted her into the front seat, got a blanket from the

trunk, tucked her up and fastened her seat belt.

“Warm,” she said.

“Yes, I know, but you need to be warm and I’m going to

put the air-conditioning on high.” She needed the comfort

more than the warmth, but I didn’t tell her that. “Sleep if

you like. I’ll drive you back to your hotel.”

“No.” It was a drowsy whisper. “I hate my hotel. Hate it.”

She wasn’t in a fit state to be seen in public and wouldn’t

go back to her hotel. While I waited to pull into traffic I

called Happy Herman’s and ordered enough food for a

picnic.

The remains of the meal lay on the blanket in the middle of

my back lawn and the woman who sat like the Copenhagen

mermaid in the too-big shorts and cut-off tee, peering at the

base of the pecan tree trying to catch a glimpse of the turtle

I’d seen, looked nothing like the Beatriz of that morning.

Her eyes were alive, if shy, and the two smiles she had

essayed had been quick, but not crippled. I had carried her

and the blanket out to the back, fed her, and talked to her

about nothing in particular, simply pointing out different

birds, squirrels, naming the trees, explaining what all the

different condiments on the sandwiches were made of.

She’d eaten mechanically at first, then with real attention,

and then fallen asleep as I was telling her quietly in my

~ 129 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

rusty Spanish about the bluebells I used to look for in the

Yorkshire woods. She slept for nearly an hour, and when

she woke up I showed her the bathroom and found her my

smallest tank top and shorts, and now she was all clean and

freshly scrubbed and watching the leaves under the pecan

tree.

“You’ll have to go back to the hotel barefoot.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure they’ve seen worse. There, there’s the turtle.” I

pointed at the blunt leathery head poking cautiously from

under a pile of nature’s debris.

“I see it.”

I told her about shrews, about the constant war going on

between the various squirrels, the chipmunks who could

leap three feet straight into the air when cornered by the cat

that lived next door. Sometimes I had to mime the animal

with bushy tail or pointy ears because I didn’t know the

Spanish for all that flew and scurried in the Southeast. I’m

still not sure she got “chipmunk.” It’s hard mimicking a

tiny rodent with big cheek pouches when you’re six feet tall.

“And you have no pets?”

“No. I can watch things in my garden and I don’t have to

feed them or take them for checkups, or worry about

looking after them when I go away.”

“And they don’t worry about you.”

~ 130 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

A bird burst into song among the jasmine. A plane droned

in the distance. After a while I said, “Do you want that job

at Perrin & Norrander?”

She blinked, then turned away and mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you really mean it?”

“Yes!”

“Then we need to get you another appointment.”

“They won’t—”

“I’ll talk to them. Blame the secretary. After all, she spilled

coffee all over you. How could you be expected to continue

with a scalded leg?”

“But I don’t—”

“You do now.” I was implacable. “Your flight to Madrid

leaves on Monday afternoon. If we get you a ten o’clock

appointment, I can have you at the airport just after midday.”

“They won’t give me the job.”

“No, they might not. But at least you will have tried.”

“What about my clothes?”

~ 131 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“We’ll go shopping.”

I discovered that under her plain exterior beat a flamboyant

heart. She wanted to buy dresses and blouses with puffed

sleeves and high waists that would be more suitable for a

teenager. Fortunately she also wanted them in blood red

and flaming orange instead of the available pastels. I

steered her towards more practical clothes, made the

occasional suggestion. We ended up with flax-coloured

linen suit, shorts and T-shirts and sandals, and one stunning

sleeveless dress in brain-bursting colours. Whatever made

her happy. Then it was her turn to make suggestions. Under

her direction, we bought dozens of flats of just-budding

impatiens, petunia, and marigold, as well as two long

troughs, and sacks of potting compost. “You’ll need seeds

and cuttings for later-blooming flowers. These won’t last

much beyond June.” She gave them a professional look.

“We’ll transplant them tomorrow.”

It was a quite different woman I took back to the Nikko at

seven o’clock that evening: smiling, competent, almost

pretty.

At midnight I was cruising Cheshire Bridge Road, checking

the parking lots of the nude bars. I spotted the primer-

coloured 1972 Corvette in the lot of a low-slung building

with bricked-up windows, but drove another quarter of a

mile until I reached the well-lit Cheshire Strip. I parked in

front of the Science Fiction and Mystery Book Shop where

odd but harmless customers were happily choosing fat

paperbacks, and walked back.

~ 132 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

It was good to feel muscle bunch and stretch in my thighs,

good to thump my boots on the cement, feel its

imperviousness and my strength. I checked the cars. The

hood of the Corvette was cold. I looked around the back of

the building. One door, unlocked. I went around to the front.

The turbine in my chest began to hum. The night air felt

greasy and electric on my tongue. The weather was about

to change.

The front bar was shadowy. A pool table was pushed up

against one wall, underneath a labouring air-conditioning

unit that did not quite drown out the thump of music from

the more private back room. The bartender polished glasses

and concentrated hard on not seeing the three men in the far

booth. I leaned against the bar near him, shook my head

when he lifted his eyebrows.

Buddy Collins was the kind of man who looked as though

his neck was too thin for his shirt collar, though it and the

expensive jacket fit perfectly. An untrained witness would

probably not be able to describe him as other than a

slimeball. Buddy Collins had fooled even trained

witnesses—of which he had been one, once.

Right now, Buddy Collins was swallowing a great deal. He

was pressed up against the wall on the inside of the booth

by a man who had his back towards me. That man had his

hand resting on Collins’s forearm. It was a very big hand.

Equally big legs were jammed under the booth table; he

wouldn’t be able to move out fast. He was leaning forward,

talking at Collins. The one on the other side of the booth

was mean and whippy-looking. He was trying to clip the

~ 133 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

end off a cheap cigar, and listened with only half an ear to

the big man. He had heard it all a thousand times before.

“I can’t,” Collins said. “Not all of it. Not tonight.” The big

man said nothing. “If you could just give me—”

The big man hit him, just a slap, but it was loud, and a bead

of blood formed in the corner of Collins’s mouth.

“Gentlemen,” I said, moving in. They all swung around,

astonished. “Don’t damage Mr. Collins too severely. He

has some information I need.”

“You some kind of weirdo?” the big man asked, and turned

back to his conversation with Collins without waiting for

an answer.

The whippy one, who seemed to have clipped the end of his

cigar to his satisfaction, pulled out a book of matches. “Butt

out, lady.” He put the cigar in his mouth and struck the

match. His eyes crossed in concentration. I hit him, twice,

on the left temple, right hand left hand, and without pause

stepped backwards and put all my weight behind an elbow

strike to the big man’s nose. It burst like a pinata and

spilled brightly, and he screamed, so I let my arm follow its

automatic one-two training and hit him again, this time a

knife-hand chop to the forehead. He sighed and slumped

over the table.

The cigar was still hanging from Whippy’s mouth. “Do I

need to hit you again?”

~ 134 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

He did not seem to hear. I looked at Collins and gestured at

the big man, draped all unconscious across the bench and

table. “Can you squeeze past or should I pull him out?”

“I’ll manage.” He climbed up onto the table.

I turned to the bartender. He backed up a step. “There’s

nothing much wrong with them, but you might like to have

an ambulance here soon, get them taken off your hands.

They won’t be very happy when they wake up.”

“You—” He cleared his throat, then thought better of it and

just nodded.

Collins jumped down from the table. “Time to get out of

here.”

In the parking lot, he looked around. “Which is your car?”

“We’re taking yours. I’ll drive.”

“Look, Torvingen. That car’s my pride and joy—”

I held out my hand. He stared at me then yanked keys from

his pocket, slammed them into my hand, and went round to

the passenger side. The car smelt of dirty leather and coffee.

He watched me sideways as we pulled onto Cheshire

Bridge.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just wondering why you suddenly appeared,

where you’re taking me, things like that.”

~ 135 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“We’re going to have a nice talk. You’re going to tell me a

few things I want to know.”

“Jesus, Torvingen, you’ve screwed up everything. Those

two guys won’t take kindly to you—”

I pulled into the Cheshire Strip lot and killed the engine.

“You owe them money. You’ve defaulted. They seemed

about to get very unhappy. I’ve just accelerated the process

a little. I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Collins had

been a Vice cop until his spending had led to such

excessive graft that even the APD could no longer turn a

blind eye. He had been turned out when I was a rookie.

Now he earned his money selling information from one

street interest to another, and sometimes to law

enforcement.

“You’re not on the force anymore,” he said.

“No. So now I can afford to pay more.”

“I don’t like you.”

“You don’t have to like me. Just tell me about the burn in

Inman Park five days ago. Who ordered the job? Was the

victim, an art appraiser called Lusk, known? And where

does the big money go these days?” The Big Money, the

money raised from the wholesale dealers who sold to

midlevel hustlers.

He reached up and turned on the dome light. “You don’t

have the money for that last answer. And if you did, and I

told you, I’d never live to enjoy it.”

~ 136 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

His eyes were still shifting, but he wasn’t swallowing. A

quick cost-benefit analysis of forcing him was not

promising: he probably didn’t know. “Fine. Then tell me

who would be capable of this burn. Bertolucci didn’t

recognize it. How do I find them, and who have they

worked for in the past?”

“How much?”

“How much do you think it’s worth?”

“Two thousand.”

“I’ll give you five hundred.” I pulled the money out of my

pocket and counted off five hundreds but didn’t hand it

over.

“Guy from Boston. You don’t know him.”

“Name.”

“I don’t know his name! He’s just some technician hired in,

like you’d pay someone to check your brake fluid.” He was

getting agitated.

“Then tell me who he worked for.”

“Arellano.” He practically spat it out.

Arellano. The Big Money man of two years ago, the

representative of the Tijuana drug cartel here in the South.

Only no one had been able to prove it. “He’s been dead for

two years.”

~ 137 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“This technician worked for him two years ago.”

“I don’t know what you’re telling me here, Buddy. Did the

technician work this time for Arellano’s replacement?”

“Maybe.”

“ ‘Maybe’ doesn’t cut it.”

“This time he worked for a guy who might work for the

guy who took over from Arellano. Okay?”

“What do you mean by ‘might work for’?”

“The guy washes money. He washes a lot of money. He

hired the technician.”

“Give me his name.”

“I don’t know his name.”

I was pretty sure I did. “Another hundred if you tell me

why he paid the technician.”

He hesitated, craned his neck to try to look up the road.

“Another two hundred.”

“One hundred.”

He touched the blood at the corner of his mouth with a

fingertip and sighed. “The fire was to clean up some

evidence.”

~ 138 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“And did the evidence get cleaned?”

“A guy died.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

His eyes shifted.

“The truth, Buddy. If you don’t know, just say so and you

get to keep fifty.”

“I heard some of the evidence is still walking around. But

the technician got paid, okay? And no one is pissed off, and

no one is talking about trying again. So it doesn’t make

sense, okay?”

It made perfect sense to me, or part of it did. Julia was no

longer important: she had no evidence and, after lying to

the insurance investigator, no one would even begin to

believe her without it. With the painting gone, Honeycutt

thought he was safe. The question is, what was a money

launderer doing dabbling with fake art? It was a stupid

extra risk. That made no sense. Nor did the drugs on the

scene.

Buddy could not make up his mind which was more

interesting: the road or the money I still held. “Those

sharks’ll be awake now, Torvingen. Just give me the

money. Look, here’s a freebie for you. That evidence that

got burned? Two old friends of yours know where it came

from.”

“Tell me.”

~ 139 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

He held out his hand. “An extra hundred.”

“Free.”

He shook his head and got stubborn. It wasn’t worth

pushing. My job was to work out who had tried to have

Julia killed, and now I knew. I handed over the money.

“Get out of the car.” I climbed out after him and tossed him

the keys. He was screeching out of the parking lot before I

was halfway to the book shop.

Taeko Jay has worked for the DBA for as long as I’ve lived

in Atlanta. Longer. Her coarse black hair is streaked with

grey and she wears it long, with no apology. She came over

to America twenty years ago—fell in love with a member

of the CIA in Tokyo, got married, and had her citizenship

papers two days later. The rules are different for some

people. Her husband died ten years ago and now she lives

with a skinny game designer half her age. She smiles a lot.

Her teeth are white and pointed. A Japanese vixen.

Saturday morning at seven we were eating sushi.

“Arellano’s successor? Well, here’s the funny thing, we

don’t even know if there is one. There haven’t been any of

the usual killings you would expect during a power struggle

and we haven’t found any evidence of an organizational

nexus here in town. Though they are using the same money

man.”

“Honeycutt.”

She paused, with what looked like raw squid halfway to her

mouth. “How did you know that?”

~ 140 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“I hear he’s not being so smart.”

“Is that so?”

“Playing both ends against the middle. I think you can

expect trouble at some point.”

She looked thoughtful. “Two years ago, maybe. Now?

Whoever is in charge is very savvy. Very, very savvy. And

very low profile.”

I ate some raw tuna rolled up around something cold and

spicy. “You sound as though you approve.”

“Well, the stuff’s going to get in no matter what we do, and

if fewer bodies pile up, the citizens don’t complain as much,

which means the people in Washington don’t breathe down

our necks. Though politically speaking coke is old news.

Smack’s the thing now, and with its traditional tie-ins with

organized crime, everyone in Washington is jumping up

and down and getting very hot under the collar. Smack is

only just reemerging and the lines of supply are still new

and reasonably clear. The politicos see this as their big

opportunity, a chance to crush the drug trade—or one of

them, anyway—and bang behind bars all those crime

bosses they’ve been after since Gotti went down. And the

heroin trade doesn’t use street gangs.“

“Not that gangs seem to be much involved in Atlanta’s

coke trade.”

“That’s another strange thing— Are you going to use that

lemon?”

~ 141 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I passed it to her. “Another strange thing?”

“Yeah. You look at, say, San Diego, and all the enforcers

there are gangbangers, little sixteen-year-olds who see

hundreds of thousands in cash and coke pass through their

hands every week.” She squeezed the last of the lemon over

her salmon. “No, smack’s the flavour of the month, and I’m

glad. A smack habit is something you have to work to

acquire, and when a user goes wild on smack, they just nod

out, they don’t go psychotic. Did you know that heroin is

actually beneficial to the body in small amounts? Like

alcohol.”

“Think how much tax money the government would make

if they legalized it.”

“But they never will. Lot of campaign contributions these

days—especially in California—being made by pot

smugglers. They want it to stay illegal. They make a very

nice living, thank you very much. It’s all— Sandy,” to a

passing server, “can I get some more lemon? So, yeah, it’s

all becoming more or less respectable, like bootlegging

during Prohibition. Hell, it already is respectable in Mexico.

The Tijuana cartel owns the federal police and everyone

knows it, even the politicos, but so few people are getting

killed, and those mainly gringos, that none of them care.

Just like no one cares here when big American corporations

ship thousands of tons of baby formula to the third world

and kill all the children. Deadly white powder, but this time

wrapped in pretty boxes and the official cooperation of the

government. So we have the commander of the federal

police openly being the liaison man for the Tijuana cartel,

and people down there just shrug. Blood pressures in

~ 142 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Washington are, if you’ll pardon the expression, shooting

up.”

We both grinned. I applied myself to the ahi.

“Hey, Aud, interesting case last month.”

“Yeah?”

“We helped bust a Nigerian heroin smuggling ring run—

get this—by women. Apparently it’s traditional in Nigerian

culture for women to run all the business stuff, and they’ve

somehow got hooked into the opium pipeline that runs

from the East, through Africa, and up to Seattle. I went up

to Seattle with the task force. Got them all in one swoop.

God, I love my job.”

I drove through the morning traffic, trying to think. Tijuana.

Low-profile successor to Arellano. Honeycutt and the torch

from Boston. But where did Honeycutt get the coke, and

why would he want it there in the first place?

Beatriz was wearing the new sandals and shorts and tee

when I picked her up again at half past ten, and her hair

was up in a loose twist. She looked young and bright and

fresh. She climbed into the front passenger seat.

“It’s safer for you in the back.”

“But I have never really been in any danger, have I?”

“No.”

~ 143 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“And you are wearing your gun?”

I lifted my jacket to show her the Walther. She put her seat

belt on and that was that.

We ate brunch on the deck. Beatriz made pencil sketches as

she ate. “The front needs some colour. If you cut another

trench in front of the porch, we can plant some impatiens

out there. Some around the tree, too.” Then she ate a

croissant with quick, precise bites and picked up her pencil

again. “While you dig the new beds, I’ll start on the tubs.”

She sipped at her coffee, stared out at the back. “I wonder if

the bed at the end needs widening…”

It was my job to keep her safe, and I was getting free help

for my garden.

Two hours later, the new bed was dug, the old one widened,

and there were bright flowers dotted around the beech tree

and in two three-foot troughs beneath the front windows.

Beatriz had a smudge on her left cheek. Her skin was

beginning to darken after hours in the sun. It made the

whites of her eyes seem faintly blue. She looked healthy,

energetic.

“What do you think?”

My house had looked efficient, well maintained and clean.

Now it was inviting. “Lunch,” I said.

I turned on the air-conditioning and we ate at the kitchen

table. Halfway through the smoked salmon, bean salad and

~ 144 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

beer, the phone rang. It was Charlie Sweeting. He was

excited.

“Hope you don’t have plans for tonight. Honeycutt’s giving

a party. Black tie. I can get you an invite.”

I thought fast. “Charlie, can you hold a moment?”

I pushed the SILENT button, turned to Beatriz, who was

trying not to listen. “Do you want to go to a big party

tonight?”

She plucked at her T-shirt. “We would have to shop again.”

“Charlie? Yes, I can make it if I can bring a guest. And

Charlie, when you give our names, just say it’s the daughter

of a Spanish Cabinet minister—”

“Which one?”

“Luis del Gato, Minister of Labour.”

“Pity it’s not trade.”

“Indeed. The daughter is Beatriz del Gato. I’m to be her

nameless escort.”

“I’ll have to—”

“Just say ‘and bodyguard.’ And if you’re going to the party,

don’t acknowledge me.” Beatriz had now given up all

pretense of not listening.

~ 145 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Don’t you worry about me. It’s at his house in Marietta,

eight until he thinks he’s impressed everyone. Are you

really a bodyguard?”

“More of an escort. Thank you for this, Charlie.”

I put the phone down and turned to Beatriz. “I want to meet

a man, but I don’t want him to know I’m meeting him.”

“What kind of man?”

“That’s what I want to find out. The party will be a formal

affair, and very public. There will be no danger to you, at

least no more than in any other situation.”

She looked at me steadily. “You have helped me. I will do

this for you.”

I picked up the phone again. “Will those flowers need

watering before we transplant them tomorrow?”

She took the hint at once and went to water the flowers. I

called Julia. “It’s me. Sweeting got me two invitations for a

black tie party at Honeycutt’s tonight.”

“What time?”

“Eight.”

“That doesn’t give me much time to get ready.”

“It wouldn’t be prudent for you to go.”

~ 146 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Don’t be silly. All our business was by phone. He’s never

even seen—”

“I’ve already invited someone else.”

“I see.” Her tone was icy. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have a

lovely time.” Click.

They don’t sell things in bad taste at Saks, so that’s where I

took Beatriz. And after she had picked out a deep red silk

sheath and even darker red backless pumps, I took her to

the cosmetics counter where a woman like a lizard helped

her select the things to go with her dress. Then it was on to

Hairanoia.

While she was having her hair washed I beckoned Douglas

over. “She’ll want something… excessive. If you keep it to

the merely dramatic, I’ll be appreciative.” He nodded

politely. I would hate to be a hairdresser, always being told

what to do by amateurs who think that just because they’re

paying they should be in charge.

She changed in the bathroom then chattered at me through

the bedroom door while I got ready. This would be her first

big party.

“What about all the parties in Madrid?”

“I lived all my life in a small town called Cuenco, about a

hundred miles from the city. It was only after Papa was

offered the Cabinet post that the family moved.”

~ 147 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

When I stepped out of the bedroom in a tiny black Vera

Wang dress, she stared at me.

“It’s not polite to be too surprised.”

“What? Oh, no, it wasn’t…It’s just…” I let her flounder.

“You’ll carry the gun in your purse?”

“I never carry a purse.”

“Then…”

I walked into the living room, put my left foot up on the

couch and turned towards her. My dress rode up and

exposed the black stretch neoprene thigh holster attached

garter fashion, with black elastic to-the-waist strap and

waistband attachment. Her blink rate went up. I slid out the

little Sig Sauer P230, showed it to her, then put it away.

“Time to go.”

By the time we were on 1-75 her excitement was back.

“Who will be there?”

“Everyone who is anyone. Politicians, media moguls,

bankers, that kind of thing.” Money launderers, crooked

politicians, murderers.

She didn’t say anything to that but began to root around in

my CDs. She stopped and swore softly in Spanish.

“What?”

~ 148 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“My purse. I left it at your house.”

“Do we need to go back?”

“No,” she said, and smiled. “Besides, what do I need for a

party?”

A gun. Car keys. Credit card and five-dollar bill for the

valet parking. Bodyguard to carry it all. She went back to

sorting through the music. We listened to Skunk Anansie,

very loud, all the way to Marietta.

Honeycutt lived in a neighbourhood of oversized Georgians

with gravel drives and half-grown hedges that went up five

or six years ago when the land out here in the middle of

nowhere was cheap and you had to drive three miles to pick

up a pint of milk. Now the land is expensive and stuffed

with houses that all look alike and belong to neighbours

you’ll never meet—and you still have to drive three miles

to get a pint of milk. There were people all over the lawn:

women wearing little jewel-encrusted silk slippers, men in

midnight tuxes with brilliant cummerbunds. Four men in

white shirts and black trousers parked cars. I noted the cut

of their trousers around the ankle, pocket, and waistband.

No weapons.

To the smooth-eyed man with the list at the door I

announced, “Ms. del Gato and escort,” and we were in. A

server glided past bearing a tray of martinis and Beatriz

grabbed one, eyes sparkling. The roar of conversation and

shimmer of diamonds was overwhelming.

~ 149 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

A woman I recognised from Eddie’s pictures as Cathie

Tyers, Honeycutt’s latest girlfriend, was standing before a

huge wall aquarium, playing host. She greeted us with the

pursed vowels of a Canadian accent, usual generic smile

and Pleased-you-could-come, and unwilling handshake,

then turned her attention to the sudden stir behind us. Cess

Silverman had arrived, along with Georgia’s Secretary of

State. They were greeted then wafted discreetly by one of

the staff towards the back of the house.

I glanced about at the walls, as if admiring the moulding,

following the wiring, the phone lines. No sensors on the

hall windows; probably specially designed glass, fitted by

the security company. I edged Beatriz towards a sideboard

groaning under hors d’oeuvres. “For tonight, I’m not Aud.

I’m your escort, Torvingen. Treat me like hired help.”

“I will try to remember.”

“Try hard. You’re the one with the invitation. No one here

has any reason to believe I would be here except as your

escort.”

“No one except Charlie.”

“Except Charlie Sweeting. Who is the white-haired

gentleman heading our way.”

He was holding out his hand but remembered himself just

in time and pointed it at Beatriz. “Miss del Gato. Charlie

Sweeting. A pleasure indeed.” He shot a bushy-browed

look at my legs. He was too well bred to lick his lips, but I

could see him revising his opinion of my intelligence. Why

~ 150 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

is it that some men equate the size of a woman’s brain with

that of her dress?

I gave him an up-and-down and let him see my professional

dismissal of him as threat. When he recoiled with injured

vanity, I dropped him a wink. He recovered with aplomb

and turned to Beatriz. “Ah, Miss del Gato—may I call you

Beatriz?”

“Certainly.”

“Allow me to advise you on some of this food. A

sophisticated European woman like yourself might not be

familiar with our plain country fare.”

She glanced at me. I nodded fractionally.

“Very well, Mr. Sweeting. It looks quite delicious. What

are those green vegetables?”

“Okra, I believe. Now, I once heard a story…”

I trailed after them as he exuded courtly charm and she

giggled. She was in safe hands for a while. I excused

myself.

I trawled the party. Music was playing in the reception

room; no one was dancing, but the conversation was loud

and fast, with a high laughter quotient. I beckoned to a

passing server for a glass of whiskey, and sipped. Not

cheap. I passed through room after room, smiling my

Goodness me, look at all these people! smile, which always

gets a response. In thirty minutes I talked to an insurance

~ 151 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

broker from Los Angeles; some drunk old photographer

with a very handsome face who wanted to tell me all about

her work and snarled at her husband when he came to find

out who she was talking to; one of the bigger building

contractors in the city; and the lieutenant governor’s wife—

who turned out to be a civil engineer. I asked her the usual

questions about her job, and she was happy to tell me all

about the design of the elevated MARTA tracks and why

the support arches were the shape they were.

“Heavens!” I said, looking at my watch. “Is that the time?

My poor husband will be wondering where on earth I’ve

gotten to. So nice to meet you!”

I was drifting through the back parlour when I caught sight

of a man and woman I recognized, sitting on a sofa,

looking like successful executives in love. Lois and

Mitchum Kenworthy. Or at least that’s what they had been

calling themselves last time we ran into each other, three

years ago, when they were up on embezzlement and fraud

charges. Two old friends. Now I knew who had provided

the fake Friedrich. I edged into another room, where I could

watch them without being seen.

No sign of Cess Silverman, the Secretary, or Honeycutt, for

that matter. No doubt they were huddled in the treehouse

with the rest of the secret club.

Parties are like life—you think that what you see is all there

is, until you discover the next layer, a whole other culture

that’s going on all around you but you never knew existed.

About three months after Helen married Mick, she called

me up and we went to the Vortex. Somewhere around the

~ 152 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

fourth drink, she stopped talking and stared at her wedding

ring. “It’s just a piece of metal, but it’s weird. It’s like a

funny handshake. All of a sudden I find myself part of this

club that I never even knew existed. With this ring on my

finger, I’m visible, I’m real to other members of the club.

They treat me differently. Even my mother treats me

differently. She calls up and starts telling me all this stuff,

about her and Pop, about their marriage. As if I’ll suddenly

be able to understand. I was thinking the other day, my god,

if I’d never married, I would never have learned all this

about my own mother and father. Mind you, sometimes it’s

not stuff I want to know. Then again, you know, it makes

me feel good. To belong. To be one of Them. I mean, I’m

thirty-eight, and for the first time in my life I’m being

treated like a grown-up by the grown-ups. Even my dental

hygienist treats me like a real person now. It’s frightening. I

mean, what other clubs are there out there that I don’t know

about?“ She wasn’t looking for an answer. ”My god, last

time I was in the airport, some kid offered me his seat.“

“And you liked it?”

“Well…”

“Mostly?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“And that makes you feel guilty, sorry for all those people

like me who’ll never belong to your marvellous club.” She

stared. “Don’t worry about it. I belong to the big bad butch

club, where only dykes who have broken people’s noses are

welcome. Then there’s the tough cop club. And the ex-pat

~ 153 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

club. Not to mention the filthy stinking rich unemployed.

You should be writhing with jealousy, not guilt.”

She burst out laughing. “You’re so refreshing. Let’s get

drunk.”

And what I hadn’t told her was that you could be accepted

as part of any club if you pretended you were already a

member. The hard part was working out the fact of a

particular club’s existence.

But I knew all about Cess Silverman’s secret club, the

cronies sipping whiskey and talking about who to make or

break in state politics. I’d been born into the Norwegian

version, but declined to take up membership as an adult.

Ten years ago, Denneny would have been at this party,

fighting to gain entry to the club. He had even tried to use

me. “Inside information would be very useful,” he said.

“With your background and smarts you’d be a natural.”

What he’d meant was, You’ll do well, and you’ll be seen as

my protégé, and then I’ll do well. And I’ll be informed. He

always had been ambitious. He’d been very bitter for a

while when he was refused that promotion to commander,

but perhaps that was partly because his wife was drinking

herself to death. Now he no longer seemed to feel anything

at all.

I waited until the back hallway was clear so no one would

see me go upstairs. I cruised the upper floor. Sensors on the

windows, no motion detectors in the corners of rooms. This

time the wiring ran along the baseboard. He needed a new

cleaning service.

~ 154 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I found the breaker box in the closet of what looked like a

guest bedroom. I put a chair in front of the door, so anyone

coming in would knock it down and give me warning, and

flipped open the box.

He had made it too easy: everything was neatly labelled. I

slid the screwdriver from its snug leather band on my thigh

and hummed as I worked. He had what he thought was a

good system: sensors on all windows and doors, battery

backup in case someone cut the mains. I simply

disconnected the battery from the mains so it could not

recharge, and switched the alarm hookup over to the circuit

labelled HALL: a few hours’ extra life for the fish in that

fancy aquarium in case there was a power hit. No booby-

trap lines to the phone. Good.

I closed up, put the screwdriver away, and went back to

wandering. The carpet in the hallway was the particular

shade of deep red that men favour when there is no woman

around to tell them any better. It was wonderfully thick. An

elephant could probably jump up and down outside

Honeycutt’s bedroom and he wouldn’t hear a thing. Just

made to be burgled. There was a reasonable amount of art,

but nothing like the quantity Eddie had shown me. I

recognized a particularly ugly sculpture in one of the

bathrooms, and the large Day-Glo painting on the wall. No

icons, no precious statuettes, no display cases. Given the

shoddy electronic security, I doubted he had anything that

small and precious in the house at all. They were too easily

hidden in a pocket or… smuggled. Of course. Part of the

money would be washed that way. Use dirty money to buy

art quietly. Ship art abroad where it’s sold for clean money

that can come back quite legally.

~ 155 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I opened the door to what seemed like a den, but the air was

empty of the scents of use: no paper, no hot plastic from

faxes and computers, no smoke or alcohol, no late-night

sweat. The desk had a pile of papers on it, but they were

tidy and curling at the edges. This was a front.

At the end of the hallway was a second, smaller stairway

leading to the third floor. I walked up two stairs and tilted

my head back. From above my head came a creak and sigh,

the sound of a bored man on a chair outside a room. A

guard. Another time, then.

The music from below was louder, a lot louder, and now it

had a pronounced beat. People were dancing. I started

downstairs.

Charlie Sweeting met me in the hall. “There you are. I

think your young charge might have had a bit too much to

drink.”

“Where?”

He stepped back. “It wasn’t my—”

“Where?”

“Dancing.”

He had to almost run to keep up. People peeled from my

path like sod before the plough.

One of those party songs from the early eighties was

thumping from the speakers and the dance floor was half

~ 156 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

full. Beatriz was being whirled around by some young man.

Her hair was loose, eyes brilliant, cheeks flushed. She was

laughing. People were watching. But her feet were sure and

her energy high.

“She’s not drunk. Just having the time of her life.” I smiled

at Charlie, as much to make everyone in the room relax as

to reassure him. He muttered something I didn’t hear over

the music, and headed for the quieter back parlour. I

watched him walk past the Kenworthys, who were talking

to someone with his back to me, then turned again to the

dance floor. I watched for a long time, unseen.

Whoever Dancing Boy was, he was energetic. He was still

twirling Beatriz around, and she was still laughing, when

Charlie come back in with Michael Honeycutt. They were

heading straight for me.

I did that subtle straightening thing that makes people pay

attention, and Beatriz saw me, and waved, and dragged

over Dancing Boy.

“Ms. del Gato,” I said deferentially, “I believe Mr.

Sweeting wants to introduce you to your host.” And then

Charlie was there, booming genially over the music, and

Beatriz was shaking hands with a clean-boned man of

about forty whose tux hung beautifully and whose gray

eyes looked as guileless as a child’s. He was wearing some

kind of cologne I couldn’t identify, a pleasant scent—not

too strong, the way many men wear it—and seemed the

kind of man who would do well mediating disputes: very

little of that overt male body language that delineates the

hierarchy. It seemed he and Dancing Boy, whose name

~ 157 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

turned out to be Peter Herrera, already knew each other,

and the latter’s painfully obvious drawn-in elbows and

slightly lowered eyes made it plain who was the alpha male.

Honeycutt’s smile was affable, and he said all the

appropriate things, but he was on automatic pilot, mind

elsewhere, and after a minute or two, he excused himself.

He moved well through the crowd, quite at home. I

imagined that if someone faced him with his crimes, he

would frown and say he was sorry, anything to avoid bad

feeling or confrontation, but underneath would wonder

what all the fuss was about. A man like that will often do

what he thinks will please others; the trick is in predicting

what he thinks. From the back, I recognized him as the man

who had been talking to the Kenworthys. Beatriz led

Dancing Boy back onto the floor. It was nearly eleven

o’clock and I had everything I had come for, but Beatriz

was as happy as a child at her first birthday party, so I let

them dance.

She chattered about Dancing Boy all the way south on I-75.

He was ten feet tall, very kind, and could speak Spanish

with such a charming accent. I didn’t interrupt until we

were on Ponce, three miles from the house.

“What does he do?”

“He is an intern”—she sounded a little unsure of the

word—“at a firm of attorneys. Lawson and Walton.”

“What kind of things does he do?”

“He’s some sort of liaison,” she said vaguely. “With a bank,

I think.”

~ 158 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Massut Vere?”

“Yes. Is it, then, a very important bank in the city?”

“Important enough. How long has he worked there?”

“Not very long. He doesn’t like it very much.” A point for

Mr. Herrera. “He says that after he finishes his law degree,

he wants to work with poor people.”

How very nice. I turned right on Clifton. She yawned.

“Two more minutes. You can stay in the car while I get

your purse. We’ll have you at your hotel in less than half an

hour.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“I wasn’t dancing half the night.”

She smiled again.

“Here we are.” I turned into my street. There was a car

parked in the driveway. Julia’s. Julia was in it. As I pulled

into the curb, she got out. “Stay in the car,” I told Beatriz.

“There you are!” Julia said, heading towards my screen

door, assuming I would let her in. “I called but there was no

reply. And I remembered what happened with your

machine last time. I’ve been… Never mind. I’ve got things

to tell you. Earlier today I—“

~ 159 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Whatever she was going to say was lost in a thud as she

walked into one of the flower troughs Beatriz had filled this

morning. Julia grabbed at me just as I caught her under the

arms and for a moment we were frozen in an awkward

tableau somewhere between Gone With the Wind and a

game of Twister.

I hauled and she scrabbled up my body. She froze as one

hand touched the bulge at my thigh and the other the

harness around my waist.

Beatriz chose that moment to get out of the car. “Aud? Are

you all right?”

Tousled, flushed, shoes in hand, she looked about sixteen

and well used. Julia picked my hand off her shoulder like a

dead bug. “Taken to packing in public for your sweet

young thing?”

One in the morning. Two strange women in my driveway

with even stranger ideas. I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Julia

turned and walked with great dignity to her car.

“Julia. Wait. What is it you have to tell—”

But she started the car, shot me a contemptuous look, and

drove off with a roar.

~ 160 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Chapter Six

I woke at seven but slid back into the warm depths of sleep

before I could make myself move, and then I was drifting

through a slow swell of dream images: bullets bursting

through flesh, skin opening like heavy silk under a cold

razor, a child begging for me to help as her sister went up

in flames. I finally heaved myself out of it and woke to a

bedroom shimmering with morning, light and luscious as

meringue. Sunlight turned the red rug into a patch of

raspberry and the old oak dresser to Viking gold.

I got up, automatically began to make the bed. I

straightened the ivory linen top sheet, then pulled the quilt

up, folded the sheet down, tugged it taut. The quilt had

been hand-pieced in the Netherlands sixty years ago and

the colours were still as rich and mysterious as a nineteenth

century oil painting. I smoothed it, remembering finding it,

putting it on the bed for the first time. No one but me had

ever seen it. No lover, no friend, no family.

I had breakfast on the deck. Everything was very distinct.

Sunshine turned the deck rail into a long, continuous stick

of butter. Cardinals appeared in the oak tree, bright and

round. My grapefruit juice smelled like another country.

With food before me and sunshine on my skin, the dreams

and strange mood faded, as they always did.

~ 161 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I threw a piece of bread down onto the grass. Two shrews

came across it at the same time and fought, squeaking and

shrilling and single-minded, like two crackheads

quarrelling over a dime bag. I threw another piece. The

noise stopped.

I wondered what Honeycutt was doing this morning, what

he was planning to do about his money problems. He was a

deeply stupid man. If you wash money for the Tijuana drug

cartel and one of your pipelines is buying and selling art,

you don’t draw anyone’s attention by faking that art. He

was risking everything by splitting the pipeline in two: real

art smuggling, clean money proceeds to the cartel; fake art

smuggling, proceeds to his own account. But as far as I

knew he lived more or less within his means, did not take

drugs, did not gamble, so where was it all going? Some

would be funnelled off into a secondary account in the

Seychelles, but no one played both ends against the middle

unless they were desperate. So what would make a man

like Honeycutt desperate?

But that information was not necessary. I knew who had

ordered Lusk’s death, and that the Friedrich had indeed

been faked after Sweeting had sold it to Honeycutt. I even

knew who had provided the fake. That was all I needed

because I was working for Julia, and that was all she

wanted to know.

There was no proof, but Julia had not asked for the kind of

evidence you could take to court. I would turn over what I

had to Denneny and let him deal with it. It would be up to

him to decide whether or not he tried to get admissible

~ 162 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

evidence, or just let Lusk’s death go as a drug-related

homicide. But there was still the question of all that cocaine.

It was almost ten o’clock. I stood and stretched, imagining

the look on Julia’s face when I told her she hadn’t made an

error of judgement over the Friedrich. Instead, all I saw was

her contempt last night.

The phone rang. I picked it up. “Julia?”

“No. This is Beatriz.”

Peter had invited her out for lunch and she didn’t want me

along and was that all right? I listened to her chatter and

watched a bee humming around the forsythia bush just

below me. Much more interesting than any phone

conversation. “Beatriz, just call Philippe. If it’s fine with

him, it’s fine with me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The bee was gone now.

“I… Did I wake you up?”

“No.”

“And you will drive me to my appointment tomorrow?”

“Yes.” I made an effort. “I’ll be there at eight-fifteen

tomorrow to pick you up. Enjoy your lunch.”

~ 163 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“And you don’t mind that I won’t be there to help with the

flowers?”

I told her I didn’t mind. Eventually she went away. When I

dialed Julia’s number, it rang and rang and rang. She had

even turned her machine off.

To many Americans, dirt exists only to be eroded with

four-wheel drive or mountain bike. The great outdoors with

its fragile systems was created for the convenience of fools

who tear into the heart of a wilderness area to gawk at the

grizzlies, get indignant if one gets too close, and roar off in

a cloud of noxious exhaust, trailing Rush Limbaugh at

ninety decibels and leaving behind their sewage.

If only they looked, they would see a world in their own

back garden.

Gardening, the English vice. Kneeling on the grass, I could

see a microcosm in a yard of dirt. Ants, ranging from lone

black soldier ants with mandibles the size of my little

fingernail, to the pale streams of fire ants like tiny amber

necklaces.

A glistening pink roll and wriggle of earthworm; beetles

like apple seeds. Ladybugs—which the English call

ladybirds—sitting like spatters of wet enamel on the

underside of leaves. Black wasps with their menacing

dangle of legs. A daddy long-legs trundling like some

strange Mars Rover over granular soil flecked with specks

of mica, then waving front legs at a pecan shell turning soft

as rotting cardboard.

~ 164 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Sometimes I used my fingers, digging down into the rich

dirt, feeling it push under my nails. No doubt I’d regret it

later, but it was good to feel so much life under my hands. I

dug, tapped an impatiens or marigold free of its PVC pot,

dropped it in the hole, brushed dirt back around the pale

green stem, pressed firmly until the young plant stood on

its own. I wondered if there was a group anywhere in the

state that planted trees in deforested areas. I could volunteer

for that as soon as Beatriz was on her plane and I’d

prepared a report for Julia.

I straightened, took a look. Bright, welcoming colour filled

about half the beds. The back garden now looked a place

for people as well as wildlife. I wondered if Julia liked

flowers.

It took a while to clean up enough to eat lunch. I tried Julia

again. Ring, ring, ring. I went back to the garden.

Evening. I called Julia. Ring ring ring. What had she found

out that she wanted to tell me on Saturday night?

I tried to settle to a book by some philosopher called

Roszak who declared ecology and psychology were the

same thing. According to his bio he wrote fiction; god

knows what it was like.

I had no way of knowing if leaving the answering machine

off was one of Julia’s normal habits. Maybe she had found

something out and done something stupid.

Her house was in Virginia Highlands, a brick tudor with

roses outside. She liked some flowers, then. I parked down

~ 165 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

the street. There were lights on, one upstairs, one down.

Her car was in the drive, and I could hear music. Light jazz.

I watched for a while. Eventually the light upstairs went out

and another came on in what might be the dining room. I

saw the swing of shadow hair against the blinds. I drove

away.

I was running around the corner in Inman Park, only this

time she didn’t take the corner wide, we didn’t bump into

each other, she went on to the house and had her flesh

blown off her bones when it went up, nothing left but a

standing skeleton surrounded by chunks of what looked

like raw pork.

I got stuck in morning traffic a mile from the Nikko. I tried

Julia’s home number. Ring ring ring. I called information,

got her office number. Her voice told me to leave a

message for Lyon Art.

“Julia? Aud. This morning I’ll be with my client, whom

you met Saturday night. I drop her at the airport at midday

but will be free after that. I have the information you want.

Call me at home or on my cell phone.” I gave her the

number.

Beatriz was full of beans when I picked her up. She

chattered at me all the way back to the city, and walked

into Perrin & Norrander full of confidence. Afterwards, she

smiled all the way to the airport.

I parked in a no parking zone and helped her carry her bags

to the first-class check-in. “I think they’ll offer me the job,”

~ 166 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

she said suddenly as the clerk stamped various things and

put tags on her luggage.

“Congratulations.”

She looked down at her shoes, suddenly shy. “It means I’ll

be back in a month or so. Will you… I mean, you’re

probably busy… but…”

“Someone will have to advise me about what flowers to

plant.” She gave me a tentative smile, and I found I was

smiling back. “Call when you’ve booked your flight.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I think you are a very kind woman.”

I zipped east on I-20. Honeycutt may have given the order,

but he was not the one who actually lit the match that was

supposed to have burned Julia Lyons-Bennet to a carbon

carcass. All of a sudden I wanted that name; a little tidbit

for Denneny. Perhaps it was time to have a little chat with

Michael Honeycutt.

I was following the hairpin bend of the Moreland exit by

the time I got through to his secretary. “I’m Katy Willis,

personal assistant to Charles Sweeting,” I told him in a

brisk, impersonal voice. “Mr. Sweeting would like an

appointment to see Mr. Honeycutt at his earliest

convenience.”

“Mr. Honeycutt left very early this morning for a six-day

trip to the Seychelles. If it’s urgent, perhaps I could help?”

~ 167 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“No, I believe it’s a personal matter. Perhaps we could go

ahead and schedule an hour for, say, next Tuesday?”

“I could manage to squeeze him in for forty minutes on

Wednesday at ten.”

“Thank you.” At five minutes past ten next Wednesday

morning Michael Honeycutt would go grey under his

Indian Ocean tan. By the time I was finished with him, he

would want to cancel the rest of his appointments that week,

but I would have that name.

When I got home I spent half an hour watering the flowers.

The cheerful pinks and yellows and violet in the two front

troughs reminded me of something: the window boxes

lining the smart Mayfair mews where my mother had lived

the last two years. She had never seen my house.

When making a rocking chair it is extremely important for

the runners to curve in exact symmetry. I hummed as I

checked one against the other; shaved; sanded. Perhaps

when it was done, I would ship the chair to my mother.

Perhaps I would go visit her for a week this summer.

Birds sang their evening chorus. The harsh screeching of a

blue jay drowned them out for a while, then I heard again

the trill of a cardinal, liquid as the sunset spreading like

cranberry juice along the cloud line between the trees.

When I had the runners shaped to my satisfaction, I started

on the armrests. I wanted them wide and comfortable, but

not so wide that they overwhelmed the balance of the piece.

I went over to the far wall, ran my fingers over a few pieces

~ 168 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

of pine, thinking. Eventually I selected one, brought it back

to the table vise.

The doorbell chimed. I leaned the wood against the table,

knocked my boots against the table leg so I wouldn’t

trample sawdust through the house, and went to answer it.

It was Julia, lips like sunset, hair like evening shadow.

“Will you let me in?”

I stood aside and gestured her in.

“This place is so quiet.” She looked around, down at the

silk Persian rug, then up. “My god. This is beautiful.”

I had removed the ceiling last year and replaced the

inadequate two-by-four rafters with antique oak four-by-

sixes I had rescued from an old Ponce de Leon mansion

and carved myself. A fan turned lazily overhead. “Thank

you. Can I get you something? Iced tea? Beer?”

I got us both a beer. She was still standing in the dining

room, craning upwards.

I handed her the beer. “The height makes it very practical

in hot weather.”

She nodded absently, then recalled her manners. “I’m sorry.

It’s just…” She took a sip of the beer, then looked at the

bottle. “What is this?”

“Lindeboom. It’s a Dutch lager. Would you like to sit?”

~ 169 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

She surprised me by ignoring the couches and folding

herself down onto the rug, the way I would if I were alone.

“Was she really your client?”

“Her name is Beatriz. The Spanish consulate hired me to

protect her while she was in Atlanta for a four-day visit.

She needed a babysitter more than a bodyguard, but she

was useful as cover. I went to Honeycutt’s party as her

utterly anonymous escort.”

“You’re six feet tall and were wearing a dress no bigger

than a napkin. How were you anonymous?”

“By acting exactly the way each individual I encountered

expected me to act, and by lying.”

She looked at me curiously, at my boots and cut-offs

stained with glue and varnish. “Don’t you ever get… lost,

pretending to be so many people?”

I shrugged. “It’s just like being an actor.”

“No. No, it’s not. Actors follow other people’s scripts. You

follow your own.”

Verbal chi sao. “Call it improvisation, then.”

A beat of silence. “Do you know many actors?”

“None. Some performers.”

“Like Cutter?”

~ 170 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“There’s no one like Cutter.”

She grinned. “You said that before.” Then she stretched

and seemed to relax. “And your… Beatriz has gone back to

wherever she came from?”

“For a month or so. She met a harmless law intern called

Peter at the party and is probably somewhere over the

Atlantic even as we speak, dreaming of having his babies.

So what was it you were so hot to tell me Saturday night

that you drove out here at midnight?”

“The Friedrich provenance is impeccable. There’s a fifteen-

year gap not long after it was created, but I talked to a man

who is considered to be the foremost Friedrich scholar—

you wouldn’t believe my long-distance phone bills—who

examined the painting thirty years ago and would stake his

reputation on its genuineness. Apart from that, the

provenance was perfect. And I found out from a dealer that

there was a rumour last year that Honeycutt was trafficking

in fake art. Something to do with an Anglo-Saxon armring.

After a lot of discreet calls, I’ve discovered there are now

two armrings in private collections—one in Argentina, one

in Italy—that look exactly the same. I got the owners to fax

me pictures late Saturday. So it was Honeycutt, the bastard.”

She took a long, fierce swallow of her beer. Her throat

moved once, twice, three times.

“When I thought about those phone calls I made, assuring

him there was nothing to worry about, not really, that we

were having just a little teeny problem, I got furious. He

knew all the time. The asshole knew all the time! But what

~ 171 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I want to know is, how does he expect to get away with it?

Does he think we’re all fools, that we’ll lie down and take

it?”

Her beer was gone. I held out my hand for the empty. She

followed me into the kitchen and looked around at the

cherry cabinetry, the white counters, pine floor.

“This is nice, too.”

I popped the top off another Lindeboom and handed it to

her, reached into the fridge for mine.

“So, anyway, I called him. I told him—”

I paused, hand still in the fridge. “When did you call him?”

“This morning. I told his machine—”

“What time this morning?”

“What does it matter? I said… You look very odd.”

My hand was getting cold inside the fridge. I took it out,

closed the door. “Tell me exactly what time you called.”

“Before breakfast. About eight.”

… left very early this morning for a six-day trip… What

did that mean? Five? “Tell me what you said in your

message. Exactly.”

~ 172 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Oh, I was careful. I told him that I didn’t want his business

anymore, and that I was sure he knew why, that I hoped he

would avoid unpleasantness and never try to contact me

again or use my name in a business context. I’m sure he got

the message.“

“Nothing else?”

“I told you, I was careful. I said nothing actionable.”

I ignored that. “You called his home number?”

“Yes.”

“Was it fuzzy, like a tape, or clear, like digital voice mail?”

“A tape, I think. What’s wrong?”

“Honeycutt is the one who ordered Lusk’s death.” She

blinked and held her beer with two hands. “He ordered

yours, too. You were supposed to go up along with the

painting.” She started twisting the bottle. “Honeycutt left

for the Seychelles this morning. With any luck, he left

before you called and hasn’t heard the message.”

“Honeycutt was… Honeycutt tried to kill me?”

“Yes. I want you to call the airport and find out what flight

he was on.”

Her blink rate went up, and her skin colour greyed to pearl.

~ 173 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Julia, it’s very important that you call the airport and find

out what flight he was on.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to change.”

As I stripped and changed, I heard her voice rise and fall

and finally harden as she jousted with the airlines. When I

emerged, her colour was back.

“The most likely flight was through Lisbon. It left at eight-

fifty. He would have had to check in two hours before

departure.” She looked at my charcoal silks and black

Kenneth Cole shoes. “I don’t understand.”

“When I break into Honeycutt’s house, I don’t intend to be

seen. If I am, I don’t want to be remembered. The best way

to be invisible, unmemorable, is to blend in.”

“Do my clothes pass muster?”

“You’re staying here.”

“No. He tried to kill me. I have to do something about that.

It’s me he’ll be after if he gets that tape.” She flushed, as

though suddenly self-conscious. “I know it’ll be dangerous,

but I’m a grown-up. I know what I’m getting into. I can

handle myself.”

She stood there with her hair in a chubby braid, makeup so

perfect you could hardly tell she wore it, smelling faintly of

European beer. What did someone like Julia Lyons-Bennet

~ 174 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

know about danger? She knew martial arts as an art and

self-defence as theory. Hers was a world of board rooms

and galleries, auction houses and banks. She had lived her

whole life in civilized enclaves and believed the universe to

be an essentially civilized place. Danger to her was just

another game that her smarts and good looks and privilege

would see her through safely, but danger is not a game.

Danger is a casually violent Viking. It doesn’t care about

motivation or intention or explanations. When it sits

opposite and offers you the cup and dice, you either walk

away or play full throttle. Danger, with its well-used axe

and huge ham hands, is out to take you for all you’re worth.

Luck can work for or against you, but danger loads the dice,

it cheats, and when it does you have to pin its hand to the

boards with a knife, no hesitation. She wasn’t ruthless

enough, she didn’t understand enough.

“He tried to kill me,” she said again.

She was a grown-up. She wanted this. “Come, then. But

don’t get in my way. Meanwhile, in my office, through

there, there’s a pine cabinet. Key is in the kitchen, hanging

below the clock. In the cabinet there’s a satchel. Bring it,

please.”

How big was that battery? Small enough to have drained in

just twenty-four hours? Honeycutt’s house was laid out

cleanly enough. I knew where the den was, I knew where

the breakers were. Most people put their alarm boxes

somewhere easily accessible. Kitchen, probably, or hallway.

There should be time.

~ 175 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I went into the office. Julia was holding the thigh harness

and holster. She blushed bright red when she saw me. I put

a tape in the answering machine, then switched on the fax

machine and dialed.

“That’s your number.”

“Yes. Did you find the satchel?”

She lifted it. I nodded. The phone rang, the machine took it,

the fax whined and shrilled and beeped. I dialed again, and

again, until I had nearly five minutes’ worth of electronic

noncommunication on tape. I slipped the tape and a Sony

Walkman into the satchel.

“We should go now. Eight in the evening is the best time

for breaking and entering.” Our break-in would have to be

traceless if Honeycutt’s suspicions were not to be aroused.

I carried the satchel out to the Saab. We took Highway 280

instead of the interstate.

“Take your jewellery off and put it in the glove

compartment. You don’t want to lose an earring at

Honeycutt’s and have to go back.” She complied silently.

The road surface was just-laid blacktop and we’d left

streetlights behind a mile or two back. The drive was

smooth; the night rushed by like water. Everything was

black and white. We could have been exploring the bottom

of the sea. Julia seemed to have withdrawn into herself.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked after a while.

~ 176 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Jim was my friend.”

“There’s more to it than that. More than his death on your

conscience. Most people would mourn and leave it at that.

Look at your life. You have money—not as much as you

grew up with, I suspect, but you’re more than comfortable.

You’re an art dealer, a corporate art dealer. You don’t even

deal with the artists direct, just galleries and auction houses

and agents. Yet you have studied at least one martial art; at

some point you took a self-defence course that you regard

seriously enough to make changes in your everyday life;

you’ve obviously studied defensive driving. Why?”

“To be prepared. For violence.”

Not nearly the whole truth. “And are you?”

She looked at me then. In the backwash of the headlights,

her eyes were sheened like a Persian cat’s. “I don’t know.”

There is never any way to know. It happens so fast. A snap

of your fingers and the world is different. Most encounters

are decided in five or six seconds and if you freeze, you can

die. I wasn’t sure there was a way to explain.

“Have you ever been in a situation?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been shocked? I mean had terrible news or

seen something awful happen right in front of you?”

“Yes.”

~ 177 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

There was pain in that answer. “That’s how it feels when

everything goes wrong. It’s as though someone with a knife

tried to slice your mind free of your body and everything

just automatically starts shutting down. Surprise, shock,

whatever you want to call it. The trick to surviving is to

believe what your body is telling you, instantly, and then

act. Don’t stop and think. There simply isn’t time. In the

first split second, getting moving, reacting, is what counts.”

She was nodding, and I knew she wanted to understand but

I didn’t think she did. “Put your hand palm down on my

thigh.”

To her credit, after a barely perceptible hesitation, she

started to lay her hand on my thigh. Without looking at her,

without giving her a hint of what I was about to do, I

slapped it, hard.

She whipped the hand away, incredulous.

“Your first reaction is to pull away, and glare, but imagine

if I really meant it. You can’t afford to stop and wonder at

it, to try work out why, you just have to accept it and take

steps to make sure I’m not going to be in any state to do it

again.” She sucked at the back of her hand. Her breasts

were rising and falling, faster and faster. Now she was

angry. Adrenalin. “That slap hurt but it won’t leave a bruise.

If I’d given you a black eye that would have hurt, but no

permanent damage. A two-by-four across the ribs might

crack a few but you would still be able to run or hit

someone. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?

Pain is just pain. It’s a message. You don’t have to listen.

Sometimes you can’t afford to listen.“

~ 178 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“The Nike school of martial arts. Just Do It.” Her face was

perfectly smooth, unreadable, but then she huffed down her

nose, half amusement, half cynicism. “Nike was the winged

goddess of victory. How appropriate.”

“We hope.”

“Are you expecting trouble?”

“Not particularly.”

We were driving through Smyrna now. I pulled into the

parking lot of a strip mall. “Time to apply some

camouflage.”

We walked to a party store, where I bought two bunches of

Mylar balloons, then to a wine shop. “What champagne do

you like?”

“Why ask me?”

“I could buy something cheap and throw it away, or get

something nice and you could drink it afterwards. It’s a

legitimate expense, so you’ll end up paying, whichever

way.”

She chose a Mumm’s brut. I paid and we bobbed with the

bottle and balloons along to a pharmacy. I asked the

pharmacist for latex gloves. He gave me, the bottle and

Julia a knowing look. Julia blushed very, very slightly, and

lifted her chin. She moved like a cheetah as we left.

~ 179 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

We put the balloons in the backseat and draped my jacket

over them so they wouldn’t float about.

“In a perfect world, how would you hit that pharmacist?”

“Jern,” she said without hesitation. Palm strike. “Right to

the nose.”

I like a woman who knows her own mind.

We left the lights of Smyrna behind and once again were

whipping through the dark, the Saab following the white

line like a tracking dog. The night was alive with scents: jet

fuel from Dobbins Air Force Base just over the rise, fading

heat of blacktop, the musk of Julia’s hair. There was a

sharp, smoky undertone to her scent now; adrenalin was

pumping and she was beginning to tense up. My muscles

were loose and warm and my heartbeat steady and strong.

“Almost there. Get some gloves on.”

She shook out the gloves and her breathing quickened as

the faint aromas of talc and latex filled the car. The sense of

smell is the most primitive of all, wired directly into the

crocodile brain that knows only the basic urges of sex and

survival. It conditions very quickly.

I steered with one hand, punched Honeycutt’s home

number into my phone with the other. It rang until the

machine picked up. I hung up. No one home, or at least no

one was answering the phone. And then we were there,

pulling into the driveway, crunching over the gravel. It

looked smaller without all the people milling about on the

~ 180 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

lawn and dim light showing only from the kitchen and one

upstairs room. I turned off the car, snapped on gloves,

turned to Julia.

“Look happy, in case there are observers.”

She carried one bunch of balloons and the champagne. I

had the other bunch in one hand, satchel over my shoulder.

I looked around, up at the windows, at the door, as if trying

to work out if this was the right address for the party. No

neighbours’ lights were flicking on.

The entryway had two steps and was lit with soft yellow,

two locks, both at waist height. He had made it very easy.

“Keep close.” The lock gun’s rubber-sheathed handle was

slippery against the latex gloves. I had to steady it against

my ribs. Using Julia’s body as a shield, I shoved the prongs

into the first lock.

“Pretend to ring the bell.” The lock clunked, I moved to the

second. “Pretend again.” Julia obliged. The second lock

thunked back. “When I open the door, follow me in, and

smile, just in case. I’ll disable the alarm. You push the door

to, and stay just inside. Be very, very quiet.”

I looked at my watch, pushed the door open silently, and

stepped inside. The air was cool; he hadn’t even turned the

air-conditioning down. I listened for five seconds. Apart

from the preliminary warning beep-beep-beep of the alarm,

there was nothing except the distant hum of air-

conditioning and faint burble of the aquarium. In the light

of the entryway, the fish glided ghostly and golden. I put

~ 181 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

my finger to my lips and pointed at the floor. Julia nodded.

I trod softly to the wall by the kitchen where the alarm box

sat at chin height. Ten seconds down, twenty to go. I pulled

out two lengths of black-jacketed wire, one with crocodile

clips, the other with soft-tack connectors. I popped the lid

off the box, took one look, clipped on one wire, cut another.

The beeping stopped. I looked at my watch. Seventeen

seconds. I ran up the beautifully carpeted, silent steps to the

guest bedroom, opened the closet door, and opened two

breakers. The air-conditioning stopped. If I had done this

wrong, I only had eight seconds to find out and cut the

phone lines.

From the top of the stairs I saw a faint, very faint light from

the aquarium. No noise of bubbles. I relaxed. The battery

was almost drained, which meant the alarm system wasn’t

getting any power at all. Terrible security.

I padded downstairs, put the screwdriver, wire clippers and

extra wire back in the satchel, hung the box cover back on,

but loosely, and beckoned to Julia.

The kitchen was clean and empty and shadowy beyond the

single dim lamp. A Sony answerphone blinked greenly

from a countertop. I flipped up the lid, popped out the tape,

and handed it to Julia. She opened her mouth. I put my

finger to my lips, then took out the Walkman, and gestured

for her to use it to listen to the tape. She nodded. I pointed

to myself and the doorway, to her and the floor. She

nodded again.

A quick check around the ground floor behind wall

hangings, in desk drawers turned up no safe, no cache of

~ 182 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

interesting papers. I hadn’t expected it to, but it was always

best to be certain.

Back in the kitchen, Julia was tugging the earphones out

and giving me the thumbs-up. I put one plug in my ear,

played the tape back. Some man talking about the lawn;

another leaving a message to call Harry; then Julia; then his

sister. I wound it back to the very last phrase from Harry,

then played it again, timing Julia’s message. I rewound

back to Harry and stopped it. I pulled my tape, connector,

and a piece of paper from the satchel, scribbled, Record my

tape onto his for exactly two minutes and twenty seconds.

Listen to check. Wind tape to end of current messages, put

back in machine. She had to hold the note up to the light

coming through the windows to read it properly. She

nodded. I pointed at myself then at the stairs and before I’d

finished she rolled her eyes, pointed at herself then at the

floor. My turn to nod.

I ran up lightly, listened at the foot of the second flight.

Nothing. What I wanted was the inner sanctum, the room

where Honeycutt and his cronies had gathered Saturday

night. It had to be up there.

The third floor was very dark. A short hallway and four

doors. I opened the first. Cold, hard floor, scents of soap

and toilet cleaner: bathroom. The second led to a dark

space with the empty feel and dead air of a guest room. The

next was a storage closet. Then scents of leather, very faint

expensive perfume; thick carpet underfoot; utterly dark. I

stepped inside, pulled the door to behind me, and Move!

shouted my crocodile brain, just as my skin registered the

~ 183 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

warmth of a body standing to one side, the light swirl of air

that was another stepping towards me.

It unfolded like a stop-motion film of a blooming rose:

bright, beautiful and blindingly fast. And I wanted to laugh

as I ducked and lunged; wanted to sing as I sank my fist

wrist deep in an abdomen, whipped an elbow up, up,

through a fragile jawbone, slid to the side of a thrusting arm

and took it, turning it, levering it, letting the body follow in

an ungraceful arc. My heart was a tireless pump, arteries

and airways wide. I was unstoppable, lost in the joy of

muscle and bone and breath. Axe kick to the central line of

the huddled mass on the floor; disappointment at the sad

splintering of ribs and not the hard crack of spine. Mewl

and haul of body trying to sit; step and slam, hammer fist

smearing the bone of his cheek. Latex slipping on sweat.

Body under my hands folding to the floor, not moving.

Nothing moving but me, feeling vast and brilliant with

strength, immeasurable and immortal.

A bellow from downstairs and the world snapped and

reformed and I was running, running, taking the steps three

at a time, four, and a woman was standing in the hall,

bathed in the yellow entry light because the door was wide

open. Her head was back and her eyes huge. A woman.

Julia.

“I hit someone.”

“Yes.” I stopped four feet away.

She shook her hand at her side, lifted it, looked at it. “I hit

him. He came down the stairs and I hit him. I really hit him.

~ 184 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I’ve spent years wondering if I could, wondering what I’d

do if it happened to me, if I’d been the one in front of that

theatre…” She looked at her hand again, fascinated. “I hit

him, and he ran away.”

The realization of what she had done, the exhilaration of

her own strength rushed into her, like champagne rushing

to fill lead crystal. She shimmered with it, she fizzed. I

wanted to lift her in both hands, drink her down, drain her,

feel the foam inside me, curling around heart, lungs,

stomach.

I stepped closer. She lifted her chin. Closer still.

“Wolf eyes,” she whispered, and I could feel her breath on

my throat, “so pale and hungry.”

A car roared into life behind the house and headlights

sliced through the window and doorway, then away and

towards the road. She turned slowly, blinking in their light,

their undeniably real light, and the exaltation faded. My left

wrist ached slightly and breath was harsh in my throat. Just

under the ribs on my left side, my shirt was cut and wet.

“The tape?”

She shook her head.

“Finish it.”

I ran back up the steps. The den door was open. I closed the

curtains and found the light switch: thick green carpet; two

men, both in dark clothes, one still holding his stained

~ 185 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

knife; a desk, under which lay the other knife and on top of

which sat a computer, screen blank and dead. A drawer

hung broken and empty from the middle. I knelt, felt for a

pulse in the first body, found it. The second one was

breathing audibly so I didn’t bother. I checked them over.

Gloves, clothes with brand labels cut out. In one jacket

pocket a small sheaf of papers covered in strange-shaped

letters. I tucked them inside my own jacket to examine later.

No scars or other identifying marks. Both knives were

broad-bladed, serrated on the upper edge, black composite

handle: standard manufacture, available in any catalogue. I

wiped the thin thread of my blood from the blade still in

one man’s hand.

Something bleeped, and bleeped again. The computer. A

red light on the minitower flickered. I felt around for the

screen switch and pushed. The cursor blinked by the c:

prompt and the cheery message Reformatting complete.

Hoping it didn’t mean what I thought it meant, I tapped in

dir /p. Nothing. All gone, wiped in the hard drive reformat.

No sign of any diskettes.

I searched the rest of the room quickly but methodically.

No safe. Filing cabinets full of personal papers, each

hanging file carefully labelled in blue ink, presumably by

Honeycutt. Two hanging files labelled BANK and

INVESTMENTS were empty. Honeycutt’s doing, or the

man who got away? I pulled off the first one’s gloves,

dabbed his hand on the arm of a chair upholstered in leather,

put the glove back on. Took off the gloves of the second

man, pressed his hands, one at a time, against the broken

drawer.

~ 186 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The door creaked. I whirled. Julia, swaying. “Are they… ?”

“No.”

She watched in silence as I put his gloves back on. “The

tape’s clean.”

“Back in the machine?”

“Yes.”

I finished and stood. “Get the Walkman, the balloons and

champagne, and wait by the door.” She straightened. Her

march down the hall was wooden but not wobbly. She’d

make it.

I turned the light off and stood at the top of the steps. When

she was by the door, balloons bobbing, I went back into the

spare room and reconnected the battery to the alarm,

checked my watch, then closed the breakers and ran

downstairs. Six seconds. I stripped the wires from the alarm

box, clipped the cover back on, accepted the Walkman

from Julia and put everything back in the satchel. Nineteen

seconds. “Out,” I said. She stood there, balloons bobbing,

as I closed the door behind us and relocked it. Twenty-

seven seconds. Free and clear, with no sign of our passage

but the two unconscious men in the third-floor study.

She was shaking by the time we got to the car. I opened her

door, gave her the balloons. “Hold on to those.” I pulled my

jacket from the backseat and settled it over her shoulders.

~ 187 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I drove for about five miles. She was still shaking, though

not as badly. One eye on the road, I handed her the satchel.

“Use something in here to burst the balloons.” She looked

at me as though I were crazy. “It will be easier to dispose of

them.” And it would give her something to do. “There’s a

brown paper grocery bag in there, too. When you’re done

with the balloons, put them in it.”

It took her a while.

“Now your gloves. Carefully.” She complied, peeling the

left right down to the fingertips, then using the left to peel

down the right, and dumping the whole lot into the bag.

She flexed her bare hands, studied them. Graceful, clean

hands. Made for holding, not hitting. After a while, she said,

“How about you?”

“One more thing to do first.”

I pulled up at a phone box. Dialed 911. When they asked

whether I wanted fire, police, or ambulance, I just said,

“4731 Fallgood Road, Marietta,” and hung up.

Back in the car, I stripped off my gloves and dropped them

in the paper sack. We drove in silence for a while. The wet

patch on my shirt was spreading and with it a cold ache.

“Who were they?”

“I don’t know.”

“It might be important.”

~ 188 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“I’m sure it is, to them. Not to you. You have the

information you wanted. You know who ordered Lusk

killed. You know you didn’t make a mistake brokering the

painting. Now that we’ve fixed the phone tape, no one

knows you know.”

Her face was pale and set. “Can you find out who they

were?”

“It’s over, Julia. Done.”

“Can you?”

She looked small and fragile and alone. I wanted to take her

hand, tell her everything would be all right, that no one

would ever hurt her again because I would track them all

down, tie up the loose ends, make the world safe. But there

is no perfect safety. “Jim Lusk is dead. He’ll stay dead

whatever you do. You are not to blame. The police will

take it from here. Let it go.”

She looked at me as though from a great distance, then

turned away.

She stared out of the window all the way back. When I

pulled up outside her house, she thanked me nicely, smiled

at me gently and without depth, and said she would be by

to pick her car up in the morning. Just as though we had

been carpooling from the PTA meeting. Partially shock,

partially a need to distance herself from blood, and burglary,

and attacks by strange men dressed in dark clothes. I would

have gone in with her, made her something hot and sweet

to drink, but I belonged to that world she didn’t want to

~ 189 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

think about right now, not in her nice little house in

Virginia Highlands with roses climbing up the trellis.

I drove myself and the bottle of Mumm’s champagne back

to Lake Claire. I put it in the pantry, not the fridge. I had a

feeling it would be a long time before I drank it.

The knife wound was not too bad, a shallow four-inch gash

across a lower rib. I cleaned it, pulled the edges together

with butterfly Band-Aids, covered it with gauze, then

started wrapping a crepe bandage round my torso. If it

hadn’t crusted over by the morning, I’d get it seen to. The

emergency room staff would believe the fake name and a

story about a mad, jealous husband with a steak knife, and

a terrified wife who didn’t want to face the truth and call

the police. Happened all the time. As usual, the bandage

finished in the small of my back, where I couldn’t reach to

pin it. I had to fold it back and pin it at my right side.

I swallowed some ibuprofen and broad-spectrum antibiotics,

then took the papers from Honeycutt’s house into my office.

They were stained with my blood but in clear halogen light

their nature was plain: blackmail notes. They were

photocopies of messages made by cutting out words and

phrases from magazines, with careful annotations—in the

same blue ink, the same handwriting, I’d seen on

Honeycutt’s files—in the top right hand corner: date, time,

and method of arrival. All but one had come by U.S. mail.

The first was from March last year. It was straightforward:

I know who you work for. I know how much you wash: I

want some. I’ll call.

~ 190 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Interesting. No problem saying “I.” No problem with

grammar: the colon had actually been written in using a

black marker. Obviously not stupid: a photocopy meant no

saliva, no magazine subscriptions to trace.

I assumed whoever it was had called. The next one was

dated May last year:

Same place, same method, same amount.

The next dated just a week later:

Don’t ever try that again. The rate just doubled. Every time

you try something, it will double again. I know how much

you can afford.

What had Honeycutt tried? Whatever it was, the

blackmailer didn’t seem too perturbed. They obviously

thought of themself as rational, reasonable, and aimed to

keep Honeycutt controlled by simultaneously reassuring

him and laying down simple rules. The next note was two

words:

Thank you.

I had a sudden flash of a networking cynic. Grip and grin.

Be nice. Say the right thing…

After that, the notes came regularly, every month; identical

copies of the Same place, same method, same amount note,

followed a week later by the Thank you. Until January.

~ 191 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

A new year, a new rate. Fifty percent more, with penalties

for late payment.

January, just when Honeycutt had shown interest in the

Friedrich. Say two weeks to track down someone to

commission the fake, another few to paint it… But

obviously no outward complaint from Honeycutt; the usual

Thank you note followed on schedule. More Same place

notes followed by more Thank yous. Until an April date

two days after Lusk’s death.

You are a fool. What would you have done if I hadn’t

cleaned up for you? No more independent action. I’ll call.

I would love to have listened in on that one. The

blackmailer obviously didn’t care for Honeycutt’s creative

solution to the rate hike, and seemed to understand that if

the drug cartel found out about Honeycutt’s playing both

ends against the middle, the source of extorted cash would

dry up. You can’t blackmail a corpse.

That was the last note. I put them all back in order and read

through them again. A smart, cynical blackmailer,

apparently in it for the long haul and willing to play by

clear rules. Someone who liked rules and order, liked to

plan ahead but could act swiftly. What would you have

done if I hadn’t cleaned up for you? But it had been

Honeycutt who had ordered the burn, so what had been

taken care of?

The ibuprofen wasn’t working. My ribs flared every time I

moved. I put the notes in the folder labelled LYONS-

~ 192 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

BENNET, found some codeine in the bathroom, and took

myself off to the bedroom of raspberry and Viking gold.

Chapter Seven

I was up early and waiting for the paper the next morning. I

scanned the main section. No mention of anonymous

burglars in black found hurt at banker’s home. Honeycutt

was a prominent citizen. If they’d been found, they would

have been reported. They must have dragged themselves

away before the police got there. Given how hard I’d hit

them, it was more likely the uninjured one had returned

with reinforcements and carried them off. The Cobb

County police would have noticed the mess upstairs but

that wouldn’t be big enough news to hit the main section,

and my local news section was all Dekalb County, not

Cobb. I shrugged, and it hurt. Muscles going from rest to

full output in less than a second felt sore the next day no

matter how fit or ready you thought you were. I wanted a

long soak in the bath but the cut on my ribs was crusting

over nicely and I didn’t want to get it wet. I lay flat on my

back on the living room floor and did Chi Gung breathing

until all I could smell was the wool rug, and I ran with

sweat, and the tightness eased. Then I called the zone six

precinct house. Just like the man himself, Denneny’s voice

~ 193 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

mail is pleasant, relaxed, and gives away nothing. “This is

Brian Denneny, zone six captain. Let me know how I can

help you and I or an assistant will get back to you very

shortly.” It was a masterpiece of misdirection. “Very

shortly” could mean anything, and his assistant was never

allowed to listen to the messages on pain of

excommunication. Denneny made it sound as though he

were open to inquiries from all and sundry but in fact his

secretary was instructed to give the extension to no one, not

even his children. He had given it to his lieutenants, and the

police chief, and the mayor. Everyone else went through

the chain of command or left messages with the desk

sergeant—but it didn’t do for one’s message to sound

unwilling before the great voting public if someone like the

mayor called.

“Brian, it’s Aud. While you’ve been sampling the produce

of Napa Valley and basking in the gentle breezes, I’ve been

doing your job. Remember that arson and murder case in

Inman Park, corpse name of Lusk—the one you’ve

classified as a drug case? It’s not. Or at least only partially.

It turns out that the torch was from out of town and was

brought in by one Michael Honeycutt, a banker with

Massut Vere who appears to be washing money for

Arellano’s successor.

“Here’s what I know. Honeycutt has been laundering for a

year or more. To my certain knowledge, he’s washed more

than twelve million in the last few months but I imagine the

real total is several times that amount. Some of the dirty

money is turned into art: small, precious and smuggleable.

Mostly he gets this from public dealers, but recently he

went to a private source, which is when things started to go

~ 194 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

wrong. It turns out that in the last few months our banker

has developed a little sideline of his own, faking some of

this art, then selling both the original and the fake. Proceeds

from the genuine article find their way back to whoever is

running Honeycutt, those from the fake go straight to

whoever has been blackmailing him for the last year or so.

Apparently the blackmail rate went up at the beginning of

the year. He probably no longer has enough money to stash

in his personal bank account in the Seychelles.

“Honeycutt acquired a fake painting from our old friends

Lois and Mitchum Kenworthy. My client suspected fraud

and sent the picture to an art appraiser, Lusk. Honeycutt

ordered the torching of Lusk’s house, Lusk, and the

painting. You can add attempted murder to the murder,

conspiracy and arson charges: my client was also supposed

to die in that fire. However, I doubt she’s in much danger at

this point. The evidence is gone, and Honeycutt doesn’t

know she’s been interested— and whoever is blackmailing

Honeycutt seems to be smarter than he is. I think he’ll keep

him under control. At least for now. One thing that doesn’t

fit in all this, though, is the coke found in Lusk’s garage”—

I wasn’t quite sure where the three men who had been at

Honeycutt’s house last night fit, either— “but luckily

finding out is not part of my job description. Nor is it in my

job description to prove any of this, so I’m not going to

bother trying. Let’s just say I got the information from a

reliable source.” He would probably figure it out. “And you

could always haul in the Kenworthys. Whatever you decide

to do, I’m done with this. Once I write up the invoice for

my client, I’m taking off for a week or two to plant trees in

north Georgia.” Or the Carolinas, or anywhere where

people had stripped the earth and I could forget myself,

~ 195 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

forget all this while bending and planting, forking the rich

dirt back over roots, making something instead of breaking

it. “Send me a case of something good from one of those

wineries.”

He always did. I always wrote him a cheque.

I got up and went into my office, turned the computer on,

and pulled up the template I used for invoices. A warm

breeze sneaked through the screened window and ruffled

my papers. I typed in the Lyon Art address, Attn. Julia

Lyons-Bennet. Denneny would not be pleased at my news,

he liked things clean and clear and simple, but he was a

good cop and, besides, he might see some political hay to

be made by the connection of a prominent banker with the

drug trade. Once he got started, he would be thorough. Let

Denneny find out who had left the coke in Lusk’s garage,

and why; let Denneny work out who was blackmailing

Honeycutt. Maybe he’d give the blackmailer a medal. Julia

had the information she wanted; my job was done.

I added up dates, times and expenses, and started

transferring totals to the form.

A receipt fluttered out of reach. When I reached for it the

scab over my ribs stretched and cracked. I pressed the

gauze tight with my right hand until the warm trickle

stopped. Who carried knives these days? Someone who had

reason to be quiet. Someone who had been ordered to be

quiet by a man or woman who had a lot to lose. The

blackmailer. Find the man with the knife and he would lead

you to someone else. Someone interesting. But Denneny

didn’t know about the men in black who had tried to slip a

~ 196 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

knife between my ribs and I couldn’t tell him anyone had

even tried. That evidence was not only inadmissible, it was

illegal, and he had given me a hard time about breaking

rules in the past.

Who or wherever the men were now, they would be

needing a doctor. I could tell Denneny to canvas the

accident and emergency rooms of five counties to find two

men brought in on the same night: one with displaced ribs,

shattered cheekbone, and—depending on how much my fist

had slipped on his sweat—compressed cervical vertebrae;

one with a broken jaw, dislocated shoulder and probably

concussion. But it was a lot of work, and Denneny

wouldn’t start for a few days, and, meanwhile, whoever had

sent them probably had a good description of Julia from the

man she had hit.

What could that third man say? White, five-foot-seven, a

hundred and twenty-five pounds, blue eyes, long dark hair,

a pale imitation of the real Julia standing there, head

thrown back, glorious in her triumph. It might be a generic

description, but if they worked for Honeycutt it would be

enough. But why would Honeycutt employ people to sneak

around his own house? It had to be the blackmailer. And

one of them had seen, had most definitely seen Julia’s face.

I saved the file for later and went back into the living room

for the phone.

“Eddie? Did any of your reporters hear about a break-in at

the Cobb County home of Michael Honeycutt, Fallgood

Road, last night? Good. Give me the details.”

~ 197 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

There was little enough: police, in response to an

anonymous call, had proceeded to the Marietta home of

banker Michael Honeycutt only to find that the burglars

had left some time before. Officers were reported as being

puzzled at traces of blood found in an upstairs room.

Honeycutt could not be reached for comment; he was

believed to be out of the country. Convenient, but it meant

nothing one way or the other.

I promised Eddie we would have that dinner very soon,

then hung up and dialed again.

“Benny? I need the crime scene report on a disturbance last

night at the Marietta home of Michael Honeycutt, banker.

The address was Fallgood Road. Yes, yes, I know it would

have been Cobb County but didn’t you once say computers

were born to talk to each other?” His response was definite

and inflammatory. “Well, I’m sure you and NCIC between

you know how to persuade them. And when you do, look

for any reference to fingerprints and blood typing… Yes,

yes, I know Cobb County has to input the information

before you can access it. I’ll wait… Well, how about a full

pass to the Atlanta Film Festival next month?”

Eventually he agreed. He always does.

When I got up to the fourteenth floor, the Lyon Art office

smelled just as strongly of coffee, the air was bright with

noise, but this time Annie Miclasz knew my name.

“Aud!” Her look of surprise was swiftly hooded. She

nodded back towards Julia’s office. “She didn’t tell me you

were coming.”

~ 198 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“No,” I agreed.

She studied me, then made up her mind. “You’ll want it

with cream again, no doubt.” She beckoned me to join her

as she poured and added and stirred.

“How is her schedule?”

That hooded look again. She carried my coffee to her

computer. I followed. She pulled up a screen of calendars

and deleted all but Annie and Julia. She studied the mosaic,

then with a few keystrokes she moved several chunks

around, one from Julia to Annie, and one to tomorrow. “It

looks pretty uncrowded for the next hour or so.”

I smiled at her. “Isn’t that lucky?”

Her voice was round with approval. “I imagine you

remember the way. She’ll probably want some coffee, too.”

I carried both mugs in one hand to Julia’s door, knocked,

and went in.

She was at her desk, brilliant with the sunshine streaming

through the big picture window, staring out at the Atlanta

skyline. In quarter profile I could just see the tip of her

right ear and the glint of gold at the lobe. A lavender shirt

collar softened the grey silk suit. Her head was very still.

“I’ve brought coffee.”

She swung around. “I thought you were Mrs. Miclasz.”

~ 199 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

There seemed no point responding to that so I just put her

mug on the desk. “No sugar, no cream. Annie doesn’t

approve.”

“No.” She ignored the mug.

“I brought you an invoice.”

“You could have left it with Annie.”

“The thing is, I don’t think we’re done. There are a few

more things to be said. To be considered.”

“I have a lot to do this afternoon.”

“I took the liberty of checking with Annie. I believe you’ll

have time to talk for a few minutes.”

She picked up the phone. “Mrs. Miclasz? What do I have

on my plate this afternoon? I see. Thank you.”

I sat down in the sofa near the window and assumed an

unthreatening pose, legs crossed at the knee, hands folded

in my lap. She watched me, like a bird with a broken wing

backed into a corner.

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“So talk.”

“I’d rather know you were listening. Perhaps you’d like to

tell me what is disturbing you.”

~ 200 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“You. This is my office.” She seemed to realize that did not

make much sense. “You walk in here, cool as glass, you

conspire with my staff to rearrange my schedule… This is

my office.”

“When did it happen, Julia? Who was in front of that

theatre?”

She looked at me as though she hated me.

“You’ve spent the last few years preparing yourself for this.

It happened. You responded. You did the right thing, only

now you’re not sure.” She said nothing. “Maybe you

should have let him hit you after all, then run back upstairs

and help his friends to finish me off.”

“He was running, trying to get past me. I should have let

him.”

“He might have killed you—”

“You don’t know that!”

“—his friends were certainly trying to kill me. One of them

had a knife. Very sharp, very businesslike.”

She shook her head stubbornly. I sighed, put down my

coffee, and unbuttoned the bottom of my shirt. She stared at

the bandage.

“It’s a knife wound.” I unfastened the safety pin.

“Don’t.” Her face was dirty white. “I don’t…”

~ 201 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“No. I want you to see. I want you to see what might have

happened to you if you hadn’t hit that man.”

She watched, mute, as I unrolled the bandage. When I

peeled back the gauze, she stood, took a half step, then

slumped like a melting column of ice cream onto her knees.

Her eyes were black, but whatever she was seeing, it wasn’t

me.

“It’s about four inches long. If I hadn’t moved, it would

have slipped right into my stomach. You can bet they

wouldn’t have called an ambulance. I would have died,

Julia. If you hadn’t been there, ready to hit that man, he

might have come back upstairs before I could disable the

other two.”

“My brother,” she said. “My brother, Guy. I was nineteen.

He was knifed to death in front of a Cambridge theatre. In

the middle of the day.” She stretched out her hand.

“No. Don’t touch it.” I started to cover it up again.

“Please. I have to see.” She crept closer on her knees, like a

child; so close I could feel the heat of her breath on the cut.

“It’s so thin.”

“It was a very sharp knife.”

“Guy was stabbed eleven times. My mother wouldn’t let

me see his body. His face was all cut up. There were no

cuts on his arms or hands, and it was only later that I

realized what that meant, that he hadn’t even tried to

defend himself, and I promised I would never, ever let

~ 202 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

someone do that to me. Never just stand there and let them

hurt me. But I never knew what it was really like…” She

settled her weight back on her calves and looked at her

hand, open on her thigh. “I can still feel the shape of his

face on my palm. I think I might have broken his nose. And

I liked the fact that I had hit him. I knew I wouldn’t have

died without fighting if I had been in front of that theatre. I

really knew. And I spent all night wondering—why people

do this in the first place, why Guy didn’t fight, what makes

me capable of violence and not him. Part of me wants to

feel like a bad person because I could.”

“Was your brother a saint?”

She blinked. “Guy? Not even close. What’s that got to do

with anything?”

I laid the gauze back over the wound and starting winding

the bandage back around my waist.

“Tell me what you— Please, let me do that.” She wrapped

me gently, started to pin the bandage neatly at the back.

“I won’t be able to reach that.”

She repinned it. “You should get it stitched.”

“It’s already healing.”

She accepted that with a nod, then kept nodding.

Eventually she said, “I understand, I think.”

~ 203 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

And I think she did. Being capable of using violence to

defend yourself did not make you a bad person. Being dead

because you couldn’t did not make you a good one. I

buttoned up my shirt and she waited for me to lean back

and get comfortable, handed me my coffee, then trundled

her desk chair over to the sofa. “You said it wasn’t

finished.”

“I think you may still be in danger.”

“That’s not what you said last night.”

“No. Think. Did you get a good look at the face of the man

you hit?”

“Yes. Ah. He probably got a good look at me, too. If they

find out I’ve been pursuing this…”

“They’ll want to know what information you have. They

might be frightened. Honeycutt tried something very stupid

last time he was scared. Who knows what he’ll try this

time?”

“We should go to the police.”

“That’s in hand, but given that the police think they already

have an explanation for Lusk’s death—”

“Jim. He was my friend. Call him Jim.”

“Jim,” I acknowledged. “Given the fact that they think it

was a drug-related murder, they’re not going to be eager to

dig. The only one I trust to get things going is out of town

~ 204 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

at the moment. As soon as he returns, you can relax. Until

then, you might like to think about going away somewhere.

The farther the better. Do you have any jobs abroad

waiting?”

“Yes.” Her pupils dilated briefly; a strong reaction to a job.

“There’s a foreign glass-making corporation that wants me

to set up a sculpture garden for them. I could call them. I’m

sure they’d be delighted if I arrived tomorrow. I’d be gone

a week or two. Could you get everything sorted in that

time?”

Sorted out, tidied up, ended.

A hundred feet below, a siren wailed. People streamed

endlessly back and forth in their gerbil tubes. Empty city.

“Aud?”

“Yes, I could get everything sorted.”

She leaned forward, coffee balanced on her knees, and

studied me as though I were a hieroglyph. “Why do you do

this?”

“It’s a job.”

“You don’t need the money.”

“No.”

“So why?”

~ 205 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I’m Norwegian.” I didn’t care if she understood or not.

“Are you?” she mused. I had no idea what she meant by

that. If she’d read my file, she knew about my mother. She

sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “Do you miss it, being a

police officer?”

I had no idea where she was going. “No.”

“Always so definite. But if you didn’t miss the APD, why

did you take that job with the Dahlonega police? You

resigned after thirty-eight days.” Her voice was neutral. “It

must have been pretty different from the big city.”

“Not really. The same kind of people thinking the same

thing: that the rules don’t apply to them because they’re

special.” She seemed to want me to talk. I had seen her

vulnerable, now she wanted to see me. “The last man I

arrested was beating a lamb. There was a show. A taut, firm

body is one of the things judges look for in prize livestock.

This man was beating a lamb so its body would swell and

feel more firm. I arrested him. The district attorney refused

to prosecute. They kept saying to me, ‘Officer Torvingen,

Bubba here is a fine, upstanding citizen, and you want to

spoil his reputation, for a lamb?’ ”

“I don’t blame you for resigning if your superiors didn’t

back you up.”

“That wasn’t my reason. I had to drive him back to his

house, and all the way I was thinking I should have just

taken him behind the woodpile and beaten him until he

swelled up, nice and firm, then maybe he would learn.”

~ 206 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“And wanting to beat him bothered you?”

“Bothered me? No. It was just that I realized I didn’t want

to work for people whose rules got in the way of being

effective. I resigned immediately in my head, and then it

wasn’t my job anymore to do anything with this man. He

was no longer my responsibility. I stopped the car and

tossed him out in the middle of the road. I’ve never worked

for anyone but myself since.”

“You said you never wanted to work for anyone whose

rules got in the way of doing your job. Will you… I mean,

if… Will you work with me again?”

“This one’s not finished yet.”

“If I’m out of the country, there’s nothing urgent, is there?

So would you?”

“It depends on the job.”

“The glass corporation who want the sculpture garden,

they’re in Norway. In Oslo. I’d need someone to translate.

And we could take a few days to…” She went on in a rush,

“What I mean is, I’ve never seen the country. Perhaps you

could show me some of it. Introduce me to some people.

You could see your mother.”

“She’s in London.”

“We could stop off on the way, or the way back. Will you

come?”

~ 207 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Norway. It had been eleven years. Norway: a solid world

against which to lay myself and make a mark that could be

examined, could be held up in comparison with who I used

to be, before. Norway. And my mother. Perhaps it was time.

“Yes,” I said.

It was a cool day for the end of April, in the low eighties,

but I drove straight up I-85 with the windows closed and

the air-conditioning on because of the ’90 Margaux, duck

terrine, boxed sandwiches and assorted delicatessen

goodies on the back seat. I put on a CD of Ella Fitzgerald

who sang about it being too darned hot.

The first time I’d driven this road to my new apartment in

Northwoods Lake Court, Duluth, it had been a lot hotter.

The roads had been a lot less crowded. I had never seen a

human body fall and spasm and relax its sphincters.

I took the Pleasant Hill Road exit, heading for Duluth. At

the top of the ramp was a man holding a WILL WORK

FOR FOOD sign. Thirteen years ago I would have stopped

for him. I drove past. Ella sang about oysters in Oyster Bay.

I sighed, did a U-turn, parked, walked over to the man. He

was wearing black pants, white shirt, and a jacket that was

far too big for him. Perhaps once it had fit. His feet stayed

in one place, but he couldn’t seem to keep still.

“Hey, there,” I said. His head wobbled as he turned. “I’m

on my way to the grocery. What kind of food do you want?”

~ 208 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

It took him a while to work out what I was saying, then he

smiled. Most of his teeth were missing. I doubted he was

even my age. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”

“I’ll spend up to twenty dollars. What kind of food?”

“Just give me the twenty dollars.” It was beginning to get

through to him that this wasn’t going the usual way. He

started moving from side to side.

“No. Tell me what kind of food you want.”

“Can’t,” he said sullenly. Even in his jacket and the sun, he

did not seem to be sweating. I wondered when he had last

remembered to have a drink of water. “Can’t point at

something that’s not here.”

“I’ll drive you to the store, then.”

“It’s all white person’s food. Can’t eat that. Give me the

money.”

“I’ll drive you to any store you want as long as it’s within

ten miles. I’ll buy you food. I won’t give you money.”

“I need money!” Three steps one way, three steps the other.

“So you don’t want any food?”

“I want money!” Now he was shambling along the verge,

this way and that, in the lolloping, loose-limbed gait of the

crack addict.

~ 209 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“If you want food, I can get you food. If you want to go to

a shelter, I can drive you. I won’t give you money.”

He started shouting, waving his arms about. I walked back

to the car, retrieved a bottle of mineral water from the

cooler, and took it back. I put it on the grass two yards from

where he stood.

“You should drink this.” I waited until I was sure he’d seen

the water, then left. A mile up the road both lanes were

clogged with mall traffic and the asphalt under their tires

was still streaked red with runoff from last night’s rain. The

strip mall developers might rip out trees and gouge the

earth flat but it refused to die completely, it just bled its life

away, rainfall by rainfall. Ella sang about saying goodbye,

and then I was out of the bottleneck and shifting through

the gears.

The park appeared suddenly, as it always had. One minute I

was doing sixty, the next I was in a small, crunched

limestone parking lot shaded by a stand of towering

Douglas firs. The engine ticked, birdsong wove through the

wood. Nothing had changed in thirteen years.

I carried my basket to the lake, where I could watch the

white geese and mallards paddling around. Some were

trailed by lines of tiny chicks, cutting wobbly V-shaped

wakes behind their parents. I pulled the Margaux cork,

picked up an enormous turkey sandwich, and ate my picnic,

sunshine warming my face and wine and the grass, making

my world smell like French countryside. On the far side of

the lake, by a fallen tree trunk, two geese started a honking

competition. I poured more wine. The honking competition

~ 210 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

ended in a flurry of feathers and a swift, sharp arc of water

from one to the other that glittered in the sun like a

diamond necklace.

Why do you do this? Julia had asked, and I didn’t know. I

would be better off working as some kind of park ranger or

planting trees, and instead I had agreed to accompany Julia

to Oslo. I was going to go on and find out more—the

identities of those men, who they worked for, why they

carried knives— when really I could not care less. What

did it matter? They had no idea who I was and all Julia had

to do to be safe was stay out of the way for a few weeks

while Denneny and maybe the DEA sorted out the whole

mess. But I’m Norwegian I had told Julia, and Norwegians

were supposed to tidy away what they had disarranged,

finish what they started.

And Are you? she had asked. In Oslo, perhaps I could find

out.

I put the remains of the picnic in the trunk and had to

search a minute or two before I found the head of the trail.

It was laid with mulched bark weathered by sun and rain to

a crumbly punk, soft enough for bare feet.

Under the trees it was another country, with sounds and

scents from another age. The air was rich and still. If you

stood quietly, you could imagine the trees were breathing,

the soft sigh of ancient forest. But this wasn’t an old wood.

Through the thick foliage of mature birch and yellow

poplar, the sun was bright on the fresh new green of

sycamore saplings and young birches. The flash of thrush

wings stitched bronze-black threads between tree trunks. A

~ 211 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

busy clutch of finches twittered, green-patched heads

turning this way and that, while somewhere over my head a

cardinal fluted.

Such small birds for a such a big sound. I had a sudden

vision of yellow beak opening to show startling red and

pink throat and tongue, feathers swelling as the tiny

creature tried to fill the world with song, tried hard enough

to shatter its fragile, hollow bones, and all it was singing

was, This is my tree, my tree, my tree. Keep away or I’ll

break your wings.

A twitch of movement up the bark of a white pine: a lizard

with a blue belly and tiny glittering eyes that would not

have looked out of place as a jewelled pin on a woman’s

evening coat. It skittered around the other side of the trunk.

The trail dipped. To the right the ground was boggy.

Swamp oak loomed over reeds and a stand of yellow iris.

Damselflies hummed in and out of the shade like tiny

titanium helicopters. Some bird flashed through and

snipped a couple out of the air. Beauty and innocence never

saved anything.

Just past the dog violets on the right, on a crumbling log,

sat a salamander: five inches long and fire-engine red with

black speckles. I watched it sunning itself for five minutes

before something I couldn’t see or hear startled it. It moved

so fast it seemed to disappear. Perhaps thirteen years ago

there had been salamanders in the woods on the northeast

side of the apartment complex at Northwoods Lake Court. I

hadn’t been there long enough to find out.

~ 212 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The trail was just over a mile. It came out above the lake,

less than a hundred yards from where I had picnicked. Full

circle.

Northwoods Lake, the first place I had lived in this country,

was less than a mile up the road, but no friends, no family

had ever seen it. It was only two minutes’ drive; perhaps it

was time to make the journey, go back, find out for myself

what I had missed. But perhaps they would have cut down

all the trees by now, drained the ornamental lake and

leveled the brushy slopes to squeeze in a few more units.

Perhaps I would find that my memory had played tricks on

me. Perhaps I would find I had not lost a wonderland, that I

was who I was not because I had killed someone but

because that’s just the way I was born. I had never talked to

anyone of what had happened there. Not even to my mother.

No doubt the consulate had apprised her of events, but we

had never spoken of it.

I stood by the lake for a long time, through the full heat of

afternoon, through a light shower of rain whose big drops

felt unrealistically light, as though they were hollow. I

stood while the mall traffic turned to rush-hour traffic, until

the sun started to bloody the horizon. That’s when a blue

heron glided in over the lake. With head tucked back on the

long neck and legs dangling, it looked impossibly

prehistoric, a pterodactyl with feathers. It alighted on the

dead limb of a white oak hanging over the water, where it

immediately assumed the pose of a Japanese painting: a

single vivid brushstroke, stark against the gold and orange

of the sky. It edged forward a little and turned its head this

way and that, watching the lake intently. It stood nearly

four feet high; its beak—a dead-looking thing of yellowed

~ 213 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

ivory—must have been ten inches long. Its plumage was

slate blue with a powdery pinkish undercast, the topknot of

four or five head feathers—like a silly chapeau—almost

white. After a while it gave a little skip and a jump and

hauled itself back into the air in a clutter of legs. With a

couple of powerful wing beats it was gliding once again,

sure and silent. Its shadow rippled over the darkening water

and it headed southwest towards the city, the opposite

direction from Northwoods Lake Court.

I watched it awhile, then drove back towards the interstate.

The water bottle lay broken open on the road. There was no

sign of the man or his board.

A fax from Benny waited for me at home: no matches on

the blood type or fingerprints found at Honeycutt’s house

from local files. It would take several days to run them

against the FBI’s enormous file but the preliminary results

were interesting: professionals who were not yet known to

local law enforcement. Interesting but ultimately

uninformative. I called Denneny’s voice mail again. “Brian,

my client and I are leaving the country for a week or two.

We leave the day after tomorrow, arriving Oslo on the first

of May, and will be back midmonth, depending.”

Depending on a lot of things. “You might be interested in

the reported burglary at Honeycutt’s house last night.”

He should have everything taken care of by the time we got

back.

I called my mother, who stayed up all hours. I talked to her

secretary. It was a new one. “This is Aud Torvingen. Her

daughter. Can you tell me what her schedule is like later

~ 214 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

this week? No, no, I’m in America. I’m… No, no, I’m Her

Excellency’s daughter. Yes. Aud. I’m flying into London

the day after tomorrow, from America. I want to find out

when Her Excellency will be free so I can perhaps arrange

an overnight stay before completing my journey to Oslo.

No, no, I’m not in London now.” I switched to Norwegian.

After two sentences she let me know that Her Excellency

was in fact fully booked for the next ten days. “Then will

you tell her to please call me?” I gave her the number, then

repeated it just to be sure. “Tell her… tell her that I hope

she can rearrange her appointments. That if she can’t, I’ll

be passing back that way a week or two later and will be

happy to fit in with her schedule. But I do want to see her.

Please make that clear. Say I particularly asked to talk to

her properly. Yes. Properly.”

Properly. We had never really talked to each other after I

was nine years old. She had been busy and I had been

resentful. I had grown up independent, and then she had not

known how to find her way back to me. I wasn’t even sure

she wanted to, or what she might find if she did.

The nights were getting hotter. The dogwood blossom was

gone, azaleas in full bloom, and the air cupped my cheek as

softly as a woman’s hand. I strolled through Little Five

Points, careful not to swing my left arm too much and pull

the healing cut over my ribs. The tables outside cafes and

bars were full. Four different sets of street musicians

competed with traffic and the ecstatic shirring of crickets

and tree frogs. One woman on six-foot stilts was trying to

play the harmonica. As I crossed the street, some man with

sideburns and an apron was waving frantically at

Stiltwoman. No doubt he was trying to point out the power

~ 215 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

lines that ran quite low near his bar. I stepped into the

orange glow of Borealis.

Dornan beamed. “Ah, Aud, don’t you just love the

beginning of summer? So wonderfully good for business.

Lattes here, Jonie, please.”

“What is that thing you’re wearing?”

“This?” He flicked a finger under the gaudy purple

bandanna around his neck. “Tammy gave it to me. She says

it makes me look wicked.”

With the red shirt, colour-blind was nearer the mark. “She’s

gone again?”

“Some godforsaken place in the Midwest. But she’ll be

back in time for the grand opening of the Smyrna cafe.”

“Another one, Dornan?”

His beam stretched even farther. “Yes, indeed, business is

good. You’ll be coming?”

“When?”

“What other day is there for an opening but Saturday?

Saturday, when we can snag all the young mothers going to

the Y to work out; all the teenagers coming out of the mall;

all the angry young things who are too young to go to a bar.”

“I’ll be in Norway.”

~ 216 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Norway? What’s in Norway but a miserable wasteland of

snow?”

“Blossom on the fjord, spring sunshine in Vigeland Park, a

country waking up from a hard winter. I’ll be there a week

or two, depending.”

“On what?”

“How long it takes Julia to get her business done, whether

I’ll fly via London on the way there or back to see my

mother.”

“Julia, is it, and for two weeks? And no doubt seeing your

mother was her idea.” He nodded wisely. “Always the first

step. Tammy wanted to meet my mother, too.”

“Dornan, it’s business.”

“Two weeks isn’t business, it’s a holiday.”

“I’ll be translating for her.”

“Of course you will,” he said.

There was a message from my mother when I got back.

“Aud. How nice to hear from you. I’m afraid this week I

am fully booked. The embassy is hosting the acid rain

negotiations.” The Norwegian government was protesting

about the acid rain damage to their forests caused by British

power station effluent. “My government also wants me to

open dialogue with regard to a touchy North Sea oil matter.

~ 217 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Of course, if it is imperative that we meet, I can cancel one

or more appointments. However, I would very much look

forward to seeing you on your way back. And if you will be

taking a holiday while you’re over there, please remember

the seter. If you see Tante Hjørdis, give her my regards.” A

slight pause. “Aud, it is good to hear from you. Please let

me know, when you can, what date you will be returning

through London.”

She spoke in English.

I got changed and went to the workroom. The chair was

done, but raw. It needed finishing. I studied it. It was plain

and graceful and strong. Not varnish, which could be hard

and brittle when dry, and not paint, which would be cold in

winter. Oil, then beeswax. I hummed as I pried the lid from

the linseed oil and soaked the rag. I rubbed glistening liquid

onto the armrests and imagined the hands that would touch

the wood, perhaps resting there between turning the pages

of a book, perhaps stroking the smooth wood, absently at

first, then slipping a bit as the owner slept.

~ 218 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Chapter Eight

Some wield money like a blunt instrument, bludgeoning

their way to what they want. Others hold it up like a

flashing light: Look! See how important I am! I prefer to

employ it as a lubricant, to ease the wear and tear of daily

living. The first time I had crossed the Atlantic as an adult I

had spent nine hours folded up like an accordion in coach

class, surrounded by children coughing up their childhood

diseases into air that was changed only five times an hour.

So this time, when dinner was served, about an hour into

the flight, we were sitting in business class, on leather seats

with footrests and individual screens. The cabin attendants

were slightly older, with the expert makeup and extra

pounds that come from confidence and efficiency. There

was even room for our attendant to hand the tray directly to

me in my window seat rather than resort to the pass-along

method used back in steerage. My steak and Julia’s salmon

were presented on real plates, and we had a choice of wine.

Julia had mineral water. Afterwards, we sipped coffee.

Julia’s was decaffeinated. She was the one twisting

restlessly in her seat.

“Perhaps you should try to sleep.”

“Yes.” She didn’t sound convinced.

The cabin attendant whisked away my empty cup and I

pulled down my window shade, dug out blanket and pillow,

~ 219 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

and prepared to get comfortable, which was more difficult

than usual because of the healing gash along my ribs.

“Won’t you be too hot?”

“My body temperature will drop when I’m asleep.”

“What about your sleep mask?”

“They’ll dim the lights soon enough.” Wearing something

over my eyes in public has never struck me as particularly

safe. I reclined my seat, pulled up the blanket, and listened

to the muted roar of the plane as it hollowed through the

night.

I woke up five hours later to find Julia looking at me. There

were dark circles under her eyes. “I don’t understand how

you do that. I just can’t relax with all these people around.”

“Your body would wake up if necessary.”

“At least you’re not claiming it’s a Norwegian thing.” She

looked better than the other passengers, most of whom

were far gone down the red-eye, puffy face road to

transatlantic hell.

I stretched, carefully, folded away my blanket, and pulled

up my window shade.

Imagine a blood orange, torn open, and a highly polished

mahogany desk. Smear one over the other and add a wash

of light blue: dawn over Ireland; rich, unearthly colours that

reached past my eyes and stole part of my soul. People

~ 220 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

were not designed to see such things. I felt the cellular hum

of four hundred people as they dreamed or worried or

rehearsed speeches in their head in this steel and aluminium

shell thirty-three thousand feet over the sea, hurtling

through air that is just that, thin air, and knew we were

remote from the world, separate, aloof, supported by

nothing but speed and physical laws I could recite but have

never really believed.

A few minutes later lights were going on, the smell of

coffee seeped back from the galley, and people woke and

murmured to their companions. A full English breakfast

brought me back to the real world, then we started the ear-

popping descent.

I joined Julia in the noncitizen immigration control line.

She said nothing when I got out my American passport,

though I knew she must be wondering. I was wafted

through but they asked Julia a dozen questions. She was

smart enough to keep her temper but by the time they let

her go her eyes were snapping.

“So, do you suppose they have X-ray eyes and can see

through your hand luggage to your UK passport?”

“It’s the smile. Make it sympathetic but mechanical, as if to

say: Jeez, bet you’re as bored with your job as I am with

you doing your job, again. Let’s be quick and efficient and

pleasant about this.”

Her irritation lightened to amusement. “It’s nothing to do

with the smile. It’s the eyes. They say: Nothing personal,

but delay me and you die, old bean.”

~ 221 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Old bean? They stopped saying that a decade before the

war.”

“Which one?”

“Here, ‘the war’ means only one thing: World War II.”

“You’re a chameleon, you know that? Ten minutes on

British soil and you’re already in their mind-set.” She eyed

me speculatively all the way to the SAS gate. It was a

three-hour layover, so we waited in the business-class

lounge. I pulled out an Iain Banks novel but every time I

looked up she was watching me.

Eventually I put the book away. “Give me your ticket.”

“Why?”

“I want to check something.”

To my surprise she didn’t argue but handed it over. I

wandered out to the concierge, who was very helpful and

did a lot of telephoning on my behalf.

Julia contained herself until we were aboard and tightening

our seat belts. I made sure she had the window seat this

time. “Okay. I give in. What were you checking?”

“The flight path. That we were seated on the left-hand side

of the plane. That we could get our luggage sent on to the

hotel at the other end so we don’t have to wait.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

~ 222 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“They don’t offer, but if you ask, and pay, they can be

persuaded.” Another of those clubs that you have to know

exists before you find out how to join.

The plane taxied for takeoff. The pulse in Julia’s neck beat

faster. “And what about the flight plan, and seats?” The

plane jerked a little as the pilot braked. The huge Rolls-

Royce engines turned now in earnest and one of the

overhead bins began to rattle. It was an old plane. The

rattling got louder and faster. Julia’s nostrils were pinched

and white.

“Just after takeoff, there’s something I think you might like

to see.”

The engines suddenly roared in release and we lumbered

down the runway. A bump, a lift, and we were airborne, the

pilot hauling back on the stick so hard I thought he was

trying for a loop-the-loop. Julia’s fingers dug into her

armrest.

“Look down now. It’s Windsor Castle.”

We flew just a few hundred yards above the now-gracious

showpiece of robber barons turned monarchs: the

cathedral-sized chapel; the huge hall built by Edward III to

bolster his new order, the Knights of the Garter; the vast

outer ward.

The plane groaned. Julia breathed very fast. “Edward

rebuilt everything in stone, starting about 1350,” I said.

“Trouble is, that was just after the great plague. There

weren’t really enough stonemasons, carpenters and other

~ 223 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

artisans to go around, so Edward scoured the whole country

and brought them all to Windsor. They demanded bigger

wages because now demand outweighed supply. Edward

outwardly railed against it, but privately paid them what

they asked. Medieval inflation.”

We were leaving the castle behind. Julia’s breathing had

evened out a little. “I’ve never seen a castle before.”

“We’ll have a couple of days in London on the way back.

While I see my mother, you might like to visit Windsor,

and there are numerous cathedrals, ruined abbeys, manor

houses…” We were up among the clouds now. She still had

not let go of the armrest. I sighed. This could be a long

journey.

“When I first started living in the U.S., I would drive along

interstates and country lanes, along highway and freeway,

and I would constantly scan the countryside. Every time

there was a ridge or a hilltop or a bluff, I found myself

looking up, expecting to see… something. It was years

before I realized what I was searching for: evidence of the

hand of humankind. In England, every hill is topped with

the weathered remains of some Iron Age fort, of ruined

manor houses, or abbeys staring naked and roofless at the

sky. Sometimes it’s just the faint outline of ancient

earthworks, but there’s almost always something, some

indication that people once lived there. You can look out of

the window of a plane and see fields and hedgerows that

were first laid out in the ninth century. The hills have been

smoothed, the rivers banked, the woods coppiced for

thousands of years. And then I moved to Georgia. To

Marietta, where a railway that’s barely a hundred years old

~ 224 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

is trumpeted with huge signs demanding that the poor

motorist visit the Historic Railroad. To Duluth, where I

lived in an apartment complex called Northwoods Lake

Court, surrounded by old-growth pine forest, but where an

eleven-year-old child now might go and look around and

ask her mother: ‘Why did they call this place Northwoods,

because there aren’t any trees?’ To Atlanta, Atlanta which

they say Sherman burnt to the ground, but which is really

destroyed every ten years by greedy developers who rip

down beautiful buildings that have stood for decades and

replace them with tissue-walled condominium boxes not

even built to code. In Georgia, you drive ten miles outside

the city and all you see is bare red clay and huge signposts

declaring ‘Land For Sale’ to the highest bidder. It feels cold,

sometimes, inimical and empty.“

“So why do you stay?”

“Because despite everything developers are trying to do,

there is still a lot of natural beauty. For instance, there’s a

park near Duluth. It has a lake with geese and ducks and

fish, and it’s fringed with duckweed and cattails. The

woods are full to bursting with birds. Cardinals and three

different kinds of woodpecker, nuthatches, warblers,

bluebirds… Have you ever seen a bluebird? They’re

extremely sensitive to pollution. They’re always the first to

go. But this park has bluebirds— they’re the colour of blue

powder paints in the sunshine. In the woods are

salamanders, lizards, mice, voles. There are yellow iris and

tiger lilies, trumpet honeysuckle, swamp oak and white

pine. And no one is ever there. It’s always empty.”

“You sound angry.”

~ 225 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I’ve lived most of my life in London and Leeds, in Bergen

and Oslo, and most of the time in those cities the only birds

are sparrows that cough themselves awake on phone wires

in the morning, and if you see a squirrel it’s a big nature

day. Americans have no idea how lucky they are.”

She was quiet for a while. “I was brought up in

Massachusetts,” she said, “with winding country lanes,

blackberries that have grown along the mossy walls for

three hundred years, the occasional Cape Cod that has

weathered storms off the Atlantic for a hundred and fifty. I

had no idea I missed them until now.”

And so for the next two hours, I told her about Yorkshire—

the towns there with Roman walls; the pubs in the Dales

that were built as farms in the fourteenth century—and she

talked about the private school she attended in Boston.

As the western coast of Norway drew near, I glanced out at

the sea every few minutes. The captain announced we were

beginning our preliminary descent. Then I saw it.

“Look down there,” I said.

We were about two miles out from the coast but the North

Sea below us, usually a steely grey, looked like an estuary:

huge currents and swathes of what looked like mud.

“Oh, the assholes! What caused that?”

“It’s not pollution.”

“Then what is it?” She was quite belligerent.

~ 226 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Herring, on their way north, lay so many eggs and release

so much milt that it clogs the water.” I imagined their cold,

muscular bodies glinting silver in the freezing water,

thrashing and ecstatic with the urge to procreate, releasing

their vast, living milk tide. “There are so many eggs that

they wash up on the rocky northern shores like snowdrift.

Then massive flocks of birds dive in to feed. It used to be

that massive flocks of people would appear to bring down

the birds. Puffins are very tasty. But that doesn’t happen

much anymore.”

“Much?”

I just smiled.

The plane turned southeast, the captain struggled bravely

with the intercom but remained incomprehensible, and we

made our final approach. Beneath us, at the head of the

swan-shaped neck of water that is Oslofjorden, Oslo

glittered in the spring sunlight like a broken-open geode.

International airports usually smell of jet fuel and stale

clothes but at Fornebu, on the peninsula that pokes into

Lysak-erfjorden just six miles west of Oslo, those scents

are swept aside by sharp sea air and the fragrance of pine

trees. The scents of home.

The immigration officers were courteous and efficient and

spoke English. The people striding past us on the concourse

all wore bright sweaters and swung their arms as they

moved.

“Why do they all walk so fast?”

~ 227 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Because they’re healthy. Because they don’t work ten

hours a day. Because it’s not ninety degrees outside.” It

was odd, after being swaddled in Southern languor for

years, to be surrounded by so many white smiles that were

not strained, people moving at speed because they liked it,

not because they were late or afraid. We walked past an

Avis desk.

“Aren’t we going to hire a car?”

“Not while we’re in the city. We can take a taxi to our hotel,

and everything you want to see is walking distance from

there.”

She looked at the striding natives. “Norwegian walking

distance, or American?”

Then we were outside in the taxi line. Like everything else

in this country, it moved forward efficiently. The sea

breeze fizzed on my tongue like sherbet.

“It’s colder than it looked from inside.”

“It’s sixty degrees,” I said, surprised. “Warm for the

season.” Winter had lasted a long time this year. It seemed

that nature had turned up the thermostat in an effort to

make up for the late start. But Julia was from Atlanta,

where sunshine on the first of May meant ninety degrees.

Her eyes and her skin were telling her different things.

The driver of the cab that pulled up in front of us had the

smooth cheeks and tilted eyes of someone with Sami blood.

“Where to?” he asked in English.

~ 228 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Hotel Bristol,” Julia said. Telling him the street address

would have been like telling a New York native how to get

to the Empire State Building.

We drove east along Drammensveien. Julia was quiet. As

Drammensveien crossed Bygdoy Alle, I pointed north to

the park. “Three blocks that way to Vigeland’s sculpture

park. What kind of art do the glass corporation want?”

“Whatever it is, it’ll have to resist the elements. How far to

the hotel?”

“Another mile.”

But it took a long time to get there. The streets were full of

parades, people holding banners and placards, men and

women marching along behind bands.

“It’s May the first. Labour Day.” I had forgotten. “A public

holiday when trade unions and political parties hold rallies.

All very dignified when compared to the seventeenth of

May, National Day, when everyone runs the flag up the

pole and parties to celebrate the anniversary of the

Norwegian constitution.” By the seventeenth we would be

by the still green waters of Lustrafjord, two hundred miles

from the crowds of screaming children waving their flags,

smearing their best clothes with mustard from their pølse

and spilling fizzy brus on innocent passersby.

The driver, who had been nosing his cab patiently through

the crowds, sighed, pulled on the brake, and told us he

could go no farther, and that would be a hundred thirty

krone, please. We climbed out and Julia shuffled through

~ 229 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

her money, trying to decipher the unfamiliar notes. She

found hundred-Nkr and fifty-Nkr notes but I leaned

forward and said quietly, “Give him more. Another twenty-

Nkr.”

She did. He smiled. “Takk skal du har.”

“Ingen arsak,” I replied.

He drove off slowly through the crowds. “I thought

Norwegians didn’t believe in big tips.”

“He was Sami. What Americans would call Lapp. The fare

from the airport should be at least a hundred fifty-Nkr.

Perhaps he charged less because he couldn’t get us to our

exact destination, but perhaps it’s because he expects to be

treated badly.”

“So Norway isn’t perfect.”

“Just cleaner. The hotel is that way.” Out in the early

afternoon sun, I could see that her skin was stretched and

tight, and the circles under her eyes had darkened from

tobacco to charcoal.

Inside the doors of the Bristol, Julia stopped and stared. Jet

lag, a strange country, and now the exotic cinnamon and

gold arches of a Moorish-style lobby.

“I’ll check us in.” I left her on an ottoman recovering her

poise.

~ 230 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The Bristol is one of the few good hotels left where getting

two rooms with a connecting door is possible without

breaking the bank. I asked for two keys to each room, two

for the connecting door. The clerk obviously thought I was

eccentric but given the amount we were paying, he didn’t

seem inclined to argue. I told him to send our luggage up

when it arrived.

Julia smiled at me as I approached, still looking tired but

now as relaxed and unfazed as though she had spent her life

sitting on Turkish couches in Moorish lobbies in

Norwegian cities. Such a relief after babysitting Beatriz. I

sat next to her. “This is the key to your room, this is the key

to mine, here’s the one that fits the connecting door, though

I think we should keep that unlocked.” I handed them over.

“I have a complete set, too.”

“Just in case?” She smiled but sounded more fatigued than

amused. “God, I need to sleep.”

The elevators were small, and elegant with brass and

mahogany. Julia peered at the buttons, which appeared to

be made of ivory. “I just hope my room’s not got out like a

harem or something.”

It wasn’t. It had a slate blue carpet with rosewood armoire

and escritoire dating from the 1880s. The headboard was

beautifully inlaid. Simple, elegant, warm. She opened the

connecting door to my room, which was carpeted in moss

green, with walnut furniture. “Very nice.”

I checked the windows, then went into her bathroom. Huge

tub, shower stall with faux nineteenth century hardware.

~ 231 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Mounds of white towels. A second phone. I brought the

robe out with me.

Julia was sitting on the bed, bouncing lightly. “The

mattress, at least, is new. What’s that for?”

“Our luggage won’t be here for an hour or two. If you want

to sleep, you might like a robe handy.”

She held out her hand for the robe. “If I’m not stirring by

five, will you wake me?”

“Five,” I agreed, and left her to it.

In my room, I called the front desk to make sure they

delivered both our bags to my room. Just in case they

processed my request with less than usual Norwegian

efficiency, I took my DO NOT DISTURB sign, went out

into the corridor and hung it on Julia’s door. My bathroom

was blue and gold. I unwrapped the bandage around my

ribs, dropped it in the bin, and looked at my ribs in the

mirror. The skin was clear, not red, and when I touched the

hard scab the pain was minimal. It didn’t need to be

wrapped up again. I dressed and went back to my room of

tasteful moss and polished walnut.

From the chaise longue by the window I could see clouds

scudding over the harbour. The sea would be beginning to

chop, the temperature dropping by the minute. The crowds

would soon start thinking about going home to eat middag.

By five I would have the pavements to myself. I could taste

the air, listen to the gulls, reacquaint myself.

~ 232 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

There were trees throughout the city, scattered here and

there on the streets, lining the harbour walk, gathering in

dense growth in the parks. From up here, Slottsparken,

surrounding the Royal Palace, looked like lime-green felt,

fresh and vigorous with new foliage. It seemed all wrong. It

should be autumn, with a gale whipping leaves from the

trees, swirling them underfoot, so my strides would crunch

gold and russet and brown, scenting the air with the

pungence of loss and regret. But it was spring, late spring

that was trying with a vengeance to become summer, and

my solitary walk would have to wait for a while, because

Julia was asleep and I had promised to wake her at five.

And I was uneasy.

I made a phone call. I read Iain Banks.

At five, I knocked on the connecting door. A murmur. I

knocked again. Nothing. I went through.

She had pulled the thin curtains closed but not the heavy

drapes. The room was in light shadow, just enough to bring

the richness out of the wood and make the blue carpet deep

and mysterious. She slept on her back, arms over her head,

mouth open, shoulders showing bare. Her breath was short

and fast and cross. How easy it would be to step closer and

put a hand over her mouth, pinch shut her nostrils. She

would struggle, of course, but under the duvet and hotel-

tight sheets, under the slippery silk bedspread, she wouldn’t

stand a chance. Her heart would beat under her ribs, frantic

as a bird, and her muscles would bunch like tight little

apples.

~ 233 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

All that stood between her and death at the hands of a

stranger was a door, but all one had to do was bribe the

desk clerk, or trick a chambermaid, or pick the lock, and

then all her training would be for nothing.

But this was Oslo, not Atlanta. Honeycutt had no idea she

was here. Nor had his blackmailer.

“Julia.”

She turned away. The scent of sleepy, warm woman drifted

from the bed.

“Julia.”

“Mmmn.” She turned back towards me, face soft and

unfocused. Still asleep.

“Julia. It’s five o’clock.”

The essential Julia flowed back into the body on the bed,

reanimating the flesh, sharpening the face, focusing the

gaze, and I understood why some people believe in

possession.

“It’s five o’clock,” I repeated. “Our luggage arrived. I’ll go

get yours.” I also went back out into the corridor and

retrieved the DO NOT DISTURB sign. Then I waited an

extra minute or two.

She was standing by the window in her robe, curtain drawn

back. Her skin looked soft and warm and alive against the

white towelling. “It all looks so fresh and clean, as though

~ 234 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

people here don’t even sweat.” Her hair fell forward over

her eyes. She tucked it back behind her ears. “What time do

people eat in Oslo?”

“Early, though not as early as they used to. But there’s

someone I should visit before dinner. You are welcome to

come with me, unless you prefer to stay in the hotel and

rest.”

“Someone who takes precedence over dinner?” She studied

me. “A relative.”

“My great-aunt, Hjørdis.”

“A relative… Yes, I’d love to meet her. But I need to

shower, then work out my travel kinks. How about a walk?”

“Norwegian or American?”

“Norwegian. I’ll dress appropriately.”

“I’ll be in my room.”

When I looked up forty minutes later she was standing in

the doorway, wearing stretch twill pants, light boots, and a

thick sweater the swirling colours of sunset over the sea.

“Nice room,” she said, then: “I’m not a vampire. If you

invite me in you can always get rid of me later.”

I stood. “I’m sorry. Please, come in.” It sounded wooden

and overly formal. Her boots made deep imprints on the

carpet. Walnut and moss, not raspberry and Viking gold. I

wondered how long they would be visible.

~ 235 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Ulleval Hageby, where Xante Hjørdis lives, is almost three

miles from the centre of the city. I walked between Julia

and the road. It was a beautiful evening. The sky, cloudless

now, arched overhead like a fragile eggshell painted blue so

long ago it was beginning to fade, and the sun slanted

across the pavement like a glass sword. Trees absorbed the

traffic fumes and the world smelt deliciously of green sap

and distant ozone. I walked fast, letting my blood pump

through veins and wash away the travel toxins and rush

oxygen to my scalp and fingertips and retina, and all the

time scanned the trees automatically, listened for following

footsteps. Nothing. This was Oslo. Julia kept up, moving

easily, alert, enjoying herself. She seemed to have shed her

city skin, or perhaps just a layer of armour. Red squirrels

jumped from tree to tree ahead of us. “It’s like walking

through a garden.”

“Hage means garden, and by is town. Hjørdis has lived here

ever since I can remember.”

“Do you like her?”

That surprised me. “She’s my aunt.”

“But what’s she like?”

I thought for a while. “Older than she seems.”

Julia laughed and picked up the pace and for a while we

swung along in opposite step, hip to hip, her right leg

moving out with my left, so I could feel her boot hit the

ground, feel it through the soles of my feet, up my calves,

in my pelvis. It didn’t last, of course. My legs are longer.

~ 236 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Tante Hjørdis’s house is made of wood, in a row of wooden

houses painted bright colours. Hers is red. We climbed a

short flight of wooden steps and I lifted the brass knocker.

I’d always loved its tidy, bright rat-tat-tat sound as a child.

The door opened so fast Julia took a step back and there

was Tante Hjørdis, still tall, still with that iron-grey hair in

a short bowl cut. The sweater was brighter than usual.

There was no Hello, no Aud, how lovely to see you!, but her

eyes were bright, and she said, “You’re the only person

these days who doesn’t try hammer that thing through the

wood.” She turned to Julia and said, in English this time,

“Everyone else thinks I’m going deaf.”

She held out her arms and we hugged. I remembered when

she used to engulf me. Now I was an inch or two taller,

though her bone and muscle still felt like granite.

I stepped out of the embrace and spoke in English. “Tante,

this is Julia Lyons-Bennet. Julia, this is my great-aunt,

Hjørdis Holmsen.”

Julia held out her hand and they shook heartily. Hjørdis

nodded approval. “Come in. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

The vindskap was dry and tidy now, nothing like the

muddy, wet and cold room of my childhood winters when

my mother and I pulled off boots, down jackets and

sealskin hats, and leaned skis up against the wall. Even

though it was dry outside, I wiped my boots carefully on

the mat and Julia copied me. There was a large mirror on

the far wall. I ran my fingers through my hair, more

because it was expected than necessary. Julia shook her

~ 237 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

hair loose, combed it with her fingers, and tied it back

again. Like Hjørdis, she looked impossibly young.

The vindskap led into a hallway whose walls were lined

with family photographs; a painted wooden staircase lay at

one end and a single door in the middle.

The sun would be up for another two or three hours but the

living room blazed with candles. I smiled at the familiar

warm scent of beeswax.

“It must run in the family,” Julia said, pointing at the

polished wooden floor and big French windows in the

dining area that led to the back garden. The dining table

was draped with a linen cloth and sparkled with three

places of crystal and sterling flatware. I sighed.

We nearly ran into Hjørdis in the kitchen doorway. She was

carrying an enormous tray. “You take this one,” she said to

Julia—in Norwegian, but her intent was perfectly clear.

“Aud, you come in here and help me carry the rest.”

I had told her we were on our way out to dinner, but she

had laid out plates of geitost and crackers, home-cured ham

and rømme and lompe, salmon and cucumber salad… I

followed Julia to the dining room table. Hjørdis brought

homemade wine and fresh, very strong coffee.

“When did you get here?” In English, this time, directed at

Julia.

“About four hours ago.”

~ 238 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

She handed her a steaming cup of coffee. “You don’t look

tired.”

“Aud persuaded me to take a nap.”

“She’s good at that.” They both turned to look at me and I

wondered how a person could become the outsider so fast.

“So you want the key to the seter.” It was still in English

but this time addressed to me.

“Yes.”

“When will you be there?”

“Julia will be doing some business in the city tomorrow and

perhaps the day after. Then we will go on to Lustrafjorden.

If Julia likes it, we’ll stay for a week or two.”

“Or longer.”

Julia smiled and said, “No, I can’t take too much time away

from my business.”

“Oh, people always say that, then they see the fjord for the

first time, they smell the sloping fjell and taste the water,

and suddenly their very important job in the city fades to

meaninglessness, and I nearly have to send in the army to

evict them. So let’s say four weeks, just in case, and then I

won’t have to be cross if you stay longer than you intended.

Now, Aud, why don’t you explain to your polite friend

what all this food is and I’ll go get the key.”

~ 239 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

We watched her stride out of the room. Julia smiled.

“Better do as she says or she’ll eat you.”

“A few years ago I believed she could. So. Pass me that

plate with the cheese on it. This is geitost, goat’s cheese.

You can put it on these crackers. It has a toasty, caramel

flavour. I think you’d like it. The salmon you eat with the

cucumber salad. You might find that a bit sweet. This ham

you can wrap in lompe, which is that soft flatbread over

there.”

“And this?”

“Gravadlax, buried salmon. A great delicacy.” Only

Hjørdis would serve it along with geitost. “Try it if you feel

brave.”

“And this?” She lifted a dish of little, pale round things.

“Rolled cod’s tongues.”

The dish went back on the table with a bang, but then she

picked it up again. “How do you eat them?”

“With one of these.” I held up a long-handled silver fork

with three tiny tines. “Pass the pickle castor. That crystal

and silver thing on wheels.“ She trundled it over. I used the

tiny silver tongs to transfer a few of the silverskin onions to

my plate, then skewered one with the fork, then a cod’s

tongue and popped them in my mouth. I savoured the

texture and bite. ”You dip them in rømme, that sour cream

there.“

~ 240 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

She spooned some onto her plate and was just dipping a

tongue when Hjørdis came back. Julia, wearing her poker

face, put the whole thing in her mouth and chewed. After a

second or two, she looked relieved. Hjørdis laughed. “Such

a pleasant surprise to see an American enjoy good,

wholesome food. Now. Aud.” Julia heard the suddenly

formal tone and sat up straight. “Here is the key. You’re

lucky. Your mother phoned up yesterday and told me you

might be wanting it. I phoned Gudrun at the farm and she

will be airing everything out for you, so you will be

comfortable, but next time try give me a little more notice.”

She handed it over. It was big and made of black iron, and

very cold. She probably kept it in the cellar. The business

of the key to the family seter was purely ceremonial—the

back door and windows did not even have locks— but

Hjørdis took her duties as eldest family member quite

seriously. “Now, eat, and Aud can tell me why she has

stayed away so long, and you, Julia, can tell me all about

this business of yours.”

We never did get out to dinner. I listened for hours as Julia

talked about art; about Atlanta and how she had come back

to the city, where her mother now lived, from Boston. I

watched Hjørdis absorbing Julia with those bright eyes;

agreeing with sharp nods and the occasional emphatic ha!

when Julia talked about discrimination against women in

business in the South. We drank homemade tyttebaer wine

with the meal, and Hjørdis’s face flushed, and Julia relaxed

and talked with her hands. As the sun went down and left

candlelight wavering over brow and throat, wrist and

mouth, it seemed for a moment that they could be almost

the same age: two women, enjoying a conversation.

~ 241 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

We walked back to the Bristol, but slowly. There was very

little traffic, and a sharp breeze blew in from the fjord. No

unusual sounds, no unusual scents. “You were quiet

tonight,” she said.

“Yes.”

Sound of breath and boots. “I liked Hjørdis. And she seems

to mean a great deal to you.”

“She’s my aunt.” Hjørdis had always been part of my life,

always there in her wooden house when my mother was

busy and my father out of the country. When I was in

England, I wrote to her every week, and every week she

wrote back. “My father told me once that she had fought in

the Resistance during the Second World War.”

“You’ve never asked her?”

“If she had wanted me to know, she would have told me.”

“Is everything in Norway left so… unspoken? I’m glad

you’ll be with me tomorrow when I go to Olsen Glass. You

can tell me afterwards what each particular silence really

meant.”

“Nothing is unspoken in business. It’s all very

straightforward. Telling the truth, and nothing but the truth,

is the cardinal rule.”

“What about the whole truth?”

“That, too.”

~ 242 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

A momentary silence. “And do you believe in that, Aud

Torvingen?”

“It depends on who I’m talking to.”

“You’re doing it again. I don’t think you’ve lied to me,

exactly, but you keep information back.”

“What do you want to know?”

“You’ve been tense all the time we’ve travelled. I hadn’t

even realized that until this evening when I saw you relax

at Hjørdis’s house. Do you think I’m in danger even here,

in Oslo?”

“I don’t know.” And that was what filled me with deep

unease. “Reason tells me you are safe.”

“But you don’t believe it, do you?”

I had no idea how to explain that behind every tree,

looming beyond every building I sensed the shadowy

outline of Honeycutt’s puppet master, the blackmailer.

We were walking a little faster now, and Julia’s shoulders

were hunched. “Ever since Honeycutt’s house, you’ve been

different. I’ve seen the way you eye the doors, gauging

their sturdiness, the way you check shop windows as we

pass to make sure we’re not being followed. I’ve noticed

that you always walk on the curb side of the sidewalk, and

you make sure cars have fully stopped before you cross a

street. Especially here, even though you told me I’d be safe

in Norway.”

~ 243 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Reason dictated that I say, You are, but what came out was,

“I’ll protect you,” which puzzled me, because it was not the

same thing at all.

~ 244 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Chapter Nine

It was only a mile and a half from the Bristol to Vigeland

Park but it was a sunny morning and our route along

Bogstadsveien was lively with galleries and art shops. Julia

seemed to find them amusing. Even so, we still had to cross

traffic and tram tracks every few meters to look through yet

another shop window: “If I’m going to design a sculpture

park for a Norwegian corporation I have to get some idea

of what Norwegians like.”

She looked at the displays, I scanned the crowd.

“A lot of Neo-Romanticism,” she said.

“You should look in museums, not these tourist traps.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You need to look at both

sides. I couldn’t learn about Americans’ taste for art, and

that art’s history, by touring MoMA. To explain sixties pop

art, for instance, I’d have to know about Disney World and

Coney Island and network television as well as the formal

canvases that hang on museum walls. That’s what helps me

understand what will become valuable in a few years, what

will be a good investment.” And then she was distracted by

a collection of dolls dressed in bunad, bright red traditional

costumes with tiny silver buckles and earrings. “They’re all

different.”

~ 245 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Each region has its own traditional dress.”

“Do people really wear them?”

“Sometimes. On national holidays.” I didn’t like standing

here with people brushing by on both sides.

“Did you have one?”

“Yes.”

“Did you wear it?”

“When I was confirmed.” She wasn’t going to move along

until I gave her what she wanted. “I was thirteen. I wore it

once. Lutheran church though, no, I’m not particularly

religious. It was and is more of a cultural event. I have no

idea where the bunad is now.”

“Did you have long hair?” She fingered the doll’s braid.

“Yes.”

“And did you wear it in braids, with ribbons?” She was

grinning.

It took us ninety minutes to reach the massive wrought-iron

gates of Vigeland Park. Julia stood there for a while, just

looking. “I’d like to look at this on my own for a while, I

think.”

She was wearing a peach shirt; easy to keep track of in all

the green. “An hour, then. Back here.”

~ 246 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The centrepiece of the park is the monolith. Standing

before it, I understood why, when Vigeland was first

working on these monuments, half of Oslo hated him. It is

huge, made of whitish granite probably sixty-five feet tall,

and depicts more than a hundred human figures twined and

writhing about each other, some standing on and others

clambering over their neighbours to reach the top. Not a

very Norwegian sentiment. Around its base, on plinths on

the steps leading up to it, are Vigeland’s vision of humanity

teaching, playing, fighting, loving, eating and sleeping: a

woman combing another’s hair; a man with children; a

child having a tantrum. Massive figures, all naked, all

gazing down at Norwegians with truth in their eyes.

I was still there when Julia climbed the steps. “I’ve just

read in the museum that that piece of granite weighed two

hundred and sixty tons and in 1926 took three months to

transport to here from the harbour through the streets of

Oslo.”

“Another reason for them to hate it.”

She gazed up at the figures, shading her eyes from the sun.

“Hate it?”

“The primary tenet of Norwegian social life is something

called the Jante Law: Don’t believe you are better than

anyone else. We’re all equals.”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about egalitarianism.”

“You didn’t go to school here in the early seventies. They

were ruthless: Don’t do better than anyone else. Coming

~ 247 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

here was such a relief to my eleven-year-old self. Vigeland

may have been an egotistical monster, but at least he

sometimes showed the truth.”

We studied it silently for a while. “The earlier work in the

museum is quite different,” she said. “There’s one

particular wall relief of emaciated figures. It’s disturbing,

very powerful.”

“I like this better. You can see emaciated, tormented people

anytime, in any city, especially the civilized ones.”

“Why do you suppose his work was so large?” she said to

herself as we descended the steps slowly. She stopped

before the woman washing another woman’s hair. “It’s

intimate, almost sexual, and yet quite ordinary. I suppose

that’s what he was trying to say: everything is ordinary.”

“He was saying everything in life is special. Every moment

is a gift.”

She looked at me for a long, long time. Her eyes were

sunlit, the colour of bluebells, and still shadowed very

faintly with fatigue. She turned away. “We should get

moving.”

We caught the number 2 tram back down Bogstadsveien.

The meeting with Edvard Borlaug of Olsen Glass was on

the ninth floor of their new corporate building in the heart

of the revitalized eastern side of Oslo. I briefed her on the

way up.

~ 248 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Don’t ask about his family. That will be seen as intrusive.

He probably won’t indulge in small talk but will want to

get right down to business. He will speak English, but may

not always understand what you’re saying, though he’ll be

too proud to admit it. I’ll do my best to step in when I think

that’s happening.”

It was an austere office, good furniture but quite plain.

Borlaug was younger than I had expected. Even though she

had been warned, I think his briskness took Julia aback. He

strode out from behind his desk, shook Julia’s hand firmly,

and announced in basic English that he was a vice president

of the corporation and fully empowered to make final

decisions and that the corporation hoped to open the park

next spring. I suspected he had been made vice president

last week.

Julia introduced me as her “associate.” He stepped back

behind his desk and gestured at the two chairs in front of it.

I sat between Julia and the window, and turned my chair to

have a view of the door.

Now it was Julia’s turn. She became grave and deliberate.

“I don’t know if it’s possible to open the park by spring. A

lesser project, perhaps, but if as you indicated in previous

communications you want a lasting monument to the

corporation’s importance and achievement, it may take

longer.”

He seemed to relax: she was not some silly American out to

make impossible promises. “How much longer?”

~ 249 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I think we should leave estimates about time and money

until later in the discussion. Right now, we need to know

what ideas you have had about what you want.”

He pulled out a file folder. Opened it, closed it. Nervous

behaviour, for a Norwegian.

Julia became even more steady and deliberate. “Why don’t

we run over several possible avenues of approach and see if

any of them seem appropriate?“ He assumed the half smile

people do when they don’t want anyone else to know

they’ve missed something, especially when they think

others might think they are too young for their job.

I cleared my throat. “Perhaps,” I said in Norwegian, ”you

will allow me to translate the more abstruse concepts.“ He

appreciated ”abstruse.“ No one would speak to him that

way if they thought he was stupid. I repeated it in English.

They both nodded. I translated.

The meeting lasted two and a half hours. Julia was very

patient. She explained to Edvard Borlaug the various

options: monumental outdoor parks, like Vigeland; indoor

installations; traditional or interactive; representational or

abstract.

A great deal depended, she said, upon their client base.

“Who is it that you want to come and see the sculpture?”

“Everyone. All of Oslo.”

“Fine, very commendable. But let’s start from the

beginning. We’ll need information on who uses your

~ 250 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

building—corporate clients, the general public, others?—

and how they use it—which doors and so forth. Where

would the most natural installation be? How would we

funnel people there? How long would you like them to

stay? We’ll need to know if the park is intended purely for

enjoyment or whether its proposed function is more

educational. For example, would you like to see schools

bringing busloads of children to trample through the

installation”—her prejudices were showing; I changed

“trample” to “wander”—“or would they be under the feet

of your corporate clients?”

I translated with half my mind, and used the rest to assess

the room. The chairs were solid Norwegian pine; awkward

as weapons, not strong enough for a shield. The desk,

though, was probably a good inch of heart-of-pine, which

would offer some protection from a small-calibre handgun.

He pulled pieces of paper from his folder: plans, columns

of figures. Julia read them with approval. He started to

warm up. After forty minutes he seemed quite enthusiastic.

They started to talk about glass—how a vitreous sculpture

might hold up under the extremes of the Oslo climate. They

got into maintenance questions: long-term care of the

individual items of the installation; short-term care, such as

keeping the grass mowed—if they decided they wanted

grass because they could, of course, go with gravel. With

glass and granite sculpture a gravel surface would be very

evocative of the ruggedness of the Norwegian landscape. If

he wanted representation of Norwegian sculpture, then,

naturally, he would want something from the abstract

pioneer Haukeland. And what did he have in mind for

children?

~ 251 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

He became almost animated. Perhaps representations of

figures from myth and legend—a bridge, complete with

troll and billy goats Gruff; Sampo Lappelil, the little Lapp

boy who defeated the king of the trolls, with his reindeer;

The Woman Against the Stream. I obligingly gave Julia

condensed versions of each tale. Edvard drew sketches.

They were surprisingly strong-lined and clean.

“Edvard,” Julia said suddenly, looking at one, “where did

the idea for this sculpture park come from?”

He blushed, and spoke in English. “The company made a

big, a large profit last year. Which is good. But it was so

large, it felt… it was felt we should not keep it all. We

talked about giving it to a charity, but there are so many.

And then we thought we could…” He pulled his thoughts

together. “This part of the city is being built again. For a

long time it was…”

“Desolate,” I supplied.

“Yes. Desolate and empty. We can help to make it better, to

give the people something good. And it will help to make

more money, too.”

He glanced at his watch and his face fell. “It’s five minutes

past four o’clock.” He stood abruptly. “Thank you. Thank

you. Perhaps we can meet again tomorrow?” Julia looked

surprised at his haste but she stood. “Certainly. The same

time?”

“Earlier,” I suggested. “Perhaps the morning.”

~ 252 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Yes,” he said. “Eleven o’clock?”

The corridor was crowded. There was a queue for the lift.

We took the stairs. Unlike an American stairwell, it smelled

fresh and well ventilated; often used.

“So what happened?” Julia asked on the way down. “It all

seemed to be going so well then suddenly, phhtt, he wants

to get rid of us.”

“Norwegians finish their workday at four sharp. He

probably considered it very bad manners to have kept you

past that time.”

“Ah. Did you see how he blushed when I asked whose idea

the park was? He seems a bit young to be in charge.”

“He’ll live or die by this project. If it fails, his career fails.”

“Then we’d better make sure it doesn’t.”

We. How odd.

Outside, the streets were busy with home-bound office

workers. “Would you like a walk before dinner?”

“Only if it’s an aimless American stroll. And only if we get

a taxi back to the hotel first so I can change out of this

corporate drag.”

When we got to the hotel, Julia suggested I wait in the

lobby: It wouldn’t take her a minute. I read Dagbladet, a

name that translated pragmatically to The Daily Newspaper.

~ 253 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Julia came back down in jeans and the sunset-coloured

sweater.

We wandered up Karl Johansgate, now almost deserted, to

Slottsparken.

We walked under the trees. “In winter this is all white, and

crisscrossed by ski trails.” Strangers are easy to see. “Tante

Hjørdis bumped into King Haakon, literally bumped into

him, over there near that statue.”

“No security people?”

“The royal family are very informal.”

“So how old is she?”

“In her seventies, I think. And she skis every day in winter.”

“You come from good genes. How about your mother—is

she like you and Hjordis?”

“And how is that?”

She looked me up and down slowly. “Tall. Strong. Hidden.

But Hjørdis’s eyes are more blue. And she is less

complicated, I think. Still very Norwegian. I don’t think

you are.”

Under the tree shadow, I couldn’t read her face. “My

mother’s eyes are more blue, also. She’s shorter than

Hjørdis. About your height, but wider. She is… subtle.”

~ 254 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“You must have learned it from her.” We reached the statue,

which was surrounded by an ironwork fence resembling

bare winter branches. Before I could stop her, Julia climbed

over it and strode to the bronze statue. “Camille Collett,”

she read from the plaque. An early Norwegian writer. She

beckoned me over. There was no English translation, but

instead of asking me to tell her what it said, she touched my

arm and said, “Aud, I want you to be less like your subtle

mother and more Norwegian. I want you to tell me the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—everything you

know about Michael Honeycutt. Tell me what he’s up to,

who those men might have been in his house. I need to

know why Jim really died and if I’m… if they’re likely to

come after me when we get back to Atlanta. I need to

know.” She stood straight, unconsciously graceful, utterly

serious.

“Let’s find somewhere to sit.”

The bar was only half a block from the Bristol. It had a

Wurlitzer jukebox, a reasonable-looking menu, and table

service. The music was loud, and the server had a sneer due

more to a pierced upper lip than essential attitude.

“Ol,” I said, “and akevit.” The shots and beer chasers came

swiftly. “Just bring us refills when you see our glasses

empty.” I picked up the akevit. “Skal.” We drank it down.

Julia breathed heavily through her nose, and her eyes

watered. “Not unlike grappa.” She folded her hands

together before her on the table. The formal effect was

spoilt by her having to shout above the music. “I know

~ 255 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

you’ve told me what I paid to find out, but I would like the

rest, with no evasions, no elisions, and no sugarcoating.”

“I don’t have all the pieces.”

“Then give me what you have.”

I sipped my beer, considering. “When you first asked for

my help, you were adamant that the arson and Jim’s death

had nothing to do with drugs. You were right in that Jim

was just an innocent bystander, but you were wrong in that

the case has everything to do with drugs. No, just listen.

Honeycutt has been laundering money for the Tijuana

cocaine cartel. Don’t confuse the Mexican cartels with

those from Colombia. They don’t produce or process, all

they do is ship or sometimes simply allow passage.”

I used the salt shaker to pour an outline of central and north

America onto the formica. I put my thumb across Mexico.

“The Mexicans, here, are middlemen: the Colombians can’t

get their product to the western U.S. if the Mexicans don’t

allow it.” I lifted my thumb. “The Tijuana cartel employs

Federal Police, U.S. border inspectors, local police on both

sides of the border, and San Diego and Los Angeles gang

members. For U.S. drug enforcement, it used to just be a

western and border states problem, but according to the

DEA and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation the influence

of both Tijuana and Sinaloa cartels has been marching

steadily east.” I drew a salt arrow. “Atlanta passed quietly

into the hands of the Tijuana people three years ago. And I

mean quietly.”

~ 256 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The server brought us more akevit. I brushed away the map

and sipped the icy liquor.

“These cartels have a lot of power and influence. They are

almost immune from the law. They own the Mexican

Federal Police, and they own the politicians, and the

Mexican voters think that’s fine because the only people

getting hurt are Americans—and the few Mexicans who

don’t play ball. They are smarter, more attuned to the rest

of the world, and higher up the business evolutionary tree

than the Colombians.“

“What?”

The music was getting louder. “I said, they’re a leaner

organization. There’s no Tijuana guy in Los Angeles or San

Diego, just his consultants—gang members who act as

enforcers and hit men without any of the usual benefits,

like protection. The key to the success of these cartels is

their relatively low profile: the bloodshed can be passed off

as gang warfare; which means the bribes are easier for

those in authority to stomach. Money moves to and fro

smoothly. Only there’s a great deal of money, and unless

the cartel’s bankers can clean it up sufficiently, the heads of

the cartels can’t really use it.”

“Money laundering.”

“Precisely.” Behind Julia, someone was smoking hash. I

wondered if there were Moroccan cartels. “Honeycutt is

laundering tens of millions a year. Some of it must go

through his bank, probably in shell accounts, but some gets

~ 257 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

cleaned up by buying artworks, selling them overseas, then

banking the sale money quite legitimately.”

“Like the Friedrich. But that was a fake.”

“This is where it gets interesting. Honeycutt uses dirty

money to buy one legitimate painting or sculpture—”

“Or Anglo-Saxon armring.”

“—sells it for clean money, and banks it openly. But then

he sometimes also gets a copy, a fake, made, and sells that,

too. This time, the money goes into his own personal

account. I suspect he was using the money to pay off a

blackmailer. When you spot the fake, he panics: tries to

have you, your colleague and the evidence all go up in

smoke. But the good news, the very good news, is that the

cartel doesn’t know about it.” Just the blackmailer.

In the dim light, surrounded by swirls of sweet hash smoke,

she was as clear as a cut-glass figurine. “Explain.”

“Honeycutt hired in someone used by the man who used to

run the drug trade in the Southeast—not someone who the

Tijuana cartel would employ. Besides, the cartels pay a lot

of money for good, quiet, loyal service. They don’t want

their employees or consultants drawing attention to

themselves by silly stunts for personal gain.”

“So Honeycutt is terrified the cartel will find out…”

~ 258 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“And we can assume, for now at least, that they know

nothing of you, or me.” And I would dearly like to keep it

that way.

“Then if the cartel doesn’t already know…” She tapped her

fingernail on the table while she thought. I couldn’t hear it.

“Who planted cocaine in Jim’s garage?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could it have been Honeycutt?”

“I doubt it. He is strictly a money man. He probably

wouldn’t have had access to the drugs. And that coke was

worth a lot of money. He would rather have pocketed the

proceeds.”

“Then who?”

“The blackmailer. Those three men at Honeycutt’s house

were there to remove any evidence of a link between him

and the blackmailer. They didn’t succeed. It might have

been better for us if they had. I have no idea who the

blackmailer is, or how much they know about you, or what

they might do about that. The whole operation smells of

calculation and organization and money.” Which, of course,

made absolutely no sense: where would someone who was

blackmailing for money get the cash to pay for several kilos

of cocaine? Assuming that it was, in fact, the blackmailer

who planted those bags.

“They’re going to come for me, aren’t they?” She could

have been talking about a taxi pickup.

~ 259 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I don’t know.”

“How would they do it?”

When I had been three months in the APD, my partner and

I had pulled over two men on a routine traffic stop. Officer

King had stepped up to the car and asked for some

identification. They had backed up their car and run him

down. I still remember the crunch the tires made going over

his left arm. I shot out the perps’ rear tires, called in their

license plate, and drove King to the Piedmont emergency

room. He had sat there, perfectly composed, while the

doctor and nurses clipped away his uniform, cleaned up

torn flesh and muttered over X rays. When they told him

they were going to have to operate, to put all the bones

back inside the flesh and then screw on a steel plate, he had

pursed his lips, nodded, and said curiously, “What size

screws do you use?” Partly shock, partly genuine curiosity,

partly a need to drown the reality of the whole in a flood of

incremental and essentially useless details.

“There are as many different methods as there are killers.”

“I thought we agreed no evasions, no elisions, no sugar-

coating.” She folded her hands again, a neat, tidy package

between the empty glasses, beer rings, and salt.

“I would be guessing.”

“Then guess.” Her gaze was unwinking.

“Death is not something I like to play guessing games with.”

~ 260 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“I don’t consider obtaining information in order to stay

alive a game.” Her voice was suddenly savage. “I feel as

though I’m spinning in a greased barrel here, with nothing

to hang on to!” She picked up her brimming glass of akevit,

swallowed it down in one gulp, and slammed the empty

glass down. “So help me out.”

“If I were the mystery person who sent those men to

Honeycutt’s house, I would kill you in Norway. Less

chance of it being connected back to Atlanta. There again,

no one knows you’re here, so that’s unlikely.“

“I gave Mrs. Miclasz the name of the hotel. But she

promised not to mention it to anyone else.”

Promises were useless in the face of torture. “You might

want to give her a call, just to make sure everything’s all

right.”

Her hand tightened around the glass until the webbing

between her thumb and index finger was quite white. “They

wouldn’t!”

“Probably not. Just a precaution.” But I was still uneasy.

Why? What had I missed?

“Go on.”

“Supposing he knew you were here, it would be child’s

play to bring you down from a distance with some kind of

scoped hunting rifle, and those would be easy to get hold of

in Norway. You were a perfect, stationary target in the

park.” I imagined her folding down in surprise, eyes wide,

~ 261 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

hot red blood splashed on bronze. “But it’s not hunting

season, there’s no way to make such a shot look like an

accident, and that’s what he’ll want this to look like. He

might shoot you, but if he did it would be with a World

War II relic, an old Lahti pistol maybe, and it would be set

up to look like an accidental discharge while you were

cleaning it.” No. A tourist wouldn’t be cleaning a gun.

“That’s unlikely.” I sipped at my beer. So much depended

on how much time he had, what kind of person he was. I

had a sudden image of an iceberg: cold and unwinking,

nine-tenths hidden. “If he thinks he can afford to wait to

bring in professional talent, then it would be an elegant

accident: a drowning in the harbour”— Julia, hauled blue

and swollen from the cold fjord, winch chains dripping,

onlookers gawking—“maybe electrocution in your hotel

bath”— thrashing water, hum and sizzle, stink of sphincter

letting go. “But if he was in a rush, then it would be local

talent with less finesse. A mugging gone wrong might be

the way to go. Have you ever seen a body that has been

bludgeoned to death?“ Her face was pale and set but I

couldn’t stem the flood of words. ”The body is remarkably

resilient. Take skin, for example. It has to take a blow over

a bone before it will split.“ Those lovely cheekbones,

gaping wide. ”And you can live with a dozen broken bones,

with the loss of a kidney or lung, pierced by one of those

splintered ribs.“ Hiss of air like a punctured tire. ”The

surest method would be a blow across the throat, then the

larynx swells and death by asphyxiation follows in two or

three minutes. Most likely they would just beat you around

the head for a while. The skull, though, is designed to take

punishment. If they hit the wrong places you’d be

conscious for quite a while…“

~ 262 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

She watched me, eyes soft as a doe’s, and I imagined a

hand lashing out, a fist reddened by working on an offshore

trawler, pulping her cheekbone, tearing open her cheek,

ripping loose one of those eyes, and my throat tightened

around the ugly words.

“… there’s always fire. The way Jim went. Only if it’s a

fool doing the setting it will be in a place where it won’t be

fumes that take you but the flame itself…”

My voice went on and on, harsh and brutal, and the pictures

in my head flickered like a series of Technicolor slides:

Julia, blackened like charbroiled steak, bits of clothing

sticking to raw muscle; Julia, butchered like a goat; broken

like a painted doll on the rocks… I couldn’t stop talking,

and I couldn’t stop the pictures. Those beautiful hands,

folded so neatly before her on the table, would lash out but

he would have her from behind in a garrotte. When she fell

she might have five seconds’ strength left, which she would

spill out scrabbling against the pavement, tearing out her

nails.

“… or they could smother you in your bed. Is it real enough

for you yet? Is it? Because this might be a foreign country

for you but people still die here. They still leak blood.”

Their bright eyes still fade. Her nostrils were wide and

although her fingers were still folded, they were white

around the knuckles.

“It’s real,” she said. The words were squeezed out, the way

you squeeze air from a Ziploc bag before you seal it. I

wondered if she might faint.

~ 263 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Julia…”

She breathed for a moment. “If you were trying to scare me,

you succeeded.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“Yes, you were.” She stood. “I’m going to call Annie. I can

find my own way back to the hotel. It’s only half a block.

Good night.” Her back was straight; she moved with

enormous, fragile dignity.

Had I been trying to frighten her? Yes. Yes, because she

had to see, she had to know, because she had to stay safe,

had to, because someone—someone I didn’t know,

someone I couldn’t see or hear or smell—was waiting back

in America, and maybe their reach didn’t extend across the

Atlantic and the North Sea to Norway, but maybe it did. I

watched through the window as she entered the Bristol.

“Another akevit over here!”

The corridor was quiet, the lights muted. The hotel

hummed in shut-down, nighttime mode. There was a tray

outside Julia’s room. I squatted down to look: the remains

of a hamburger and fries. Upset enough to revert to familiar

food, but not upset enough to lose her appetite. I touched

the bun. Stone cold. Not surprising. It was two in the

morning.

The door to my room seemed narrower than it had been. I

clipped the doorjamb with my left shoulder as I went in. I

did not turn the light on; there was enough illumination

coming through the gauzy inner curtains to make out the

~ 264 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

tightly made, impersonal bed, the chaise longue, the

connecting door. I stood for a while and listened. I was

breathing heavily through my mouth. I shut it. Nothing.

I took off my jacket and threw it on the bed. Sat down.

Stood up again. Still no sound from Julia’s room.

I eased the connecting door open. It was warm, much

darker than my room. I closed the door behind me, listened.

Nothing. I crept towards the bed. Still nothing. My heart

began to pound like an asymmetric crank. There was a

shape on the bed, very still.

My eyes were adjusting. I could make out her head, the

spill of hair across her pillow. I reached out, held my hand,

palm down, just above her face. Warm breath, steady and

strong. I blinked hard. She slept on.

She knocked on the connecting door just before eight. “Aud,

are you awake?”

“Come in.”

She was still in her robe, hair tucked behind her ears. She

seemed surprised to find me still in mine, drinking coffee

on the bed. She smiled tentatively. “That smells good.”

I picked up the phone, talked to room service.

“What did you say?”

“They’re bringing more coffee, another cup, and breakfast.

I asked them to hurry.” She hovered. “Please, sit. Or we

~ 265 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

can sit over by the window if you would be more

comfortable.” I felt ridiculously formal. “Julia, I want to

apologize. Last night—”

“No. I came to apologize to you. I asked.”

“There was no need for me to go into such detail.”

“No, it was me who— Oh, give me some of that coffee will

you?” I handed her my cup. She took a sip, then a gulp,

made to hand it back but I made a keep it motion. She

finished off the coffee, despite the cream. “That was good.

You know what frightened me more than the details? The

way you talked about it. Your face was… I’ve never seen

anything like it, except maybe some African sculpture. All

implacable planes. Almost inhuman. And your voice, harsh

as a broken engine. And I looked at you and thought: Oh,

that’s what he’ll look like when he comes for me. I’ll just

be a thing, a problem to be solved, and it doesn’t matter

that I’ve eaten cod’s tongues, or that I really don’t much

care for akevit, that I like roses even though they have too

many thorns, and hot coffee in the morning. I felt

inconsequential.”

Room service rapped on the door before I could say

anything and I had to attend to the usual ceremony of

pointing out a table—by the window—signing the chit,

wishing him a good morning.

“Come and eat.” In the light by the window her hair was

more sable than black, rich as a bear’s winter pelt. I

wondered how it would look flung back in pleasure. We sat

opposite each other at the tiny table and though they did not

~ 266 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

touch, I felt the heat of her bare leg on mine. We pulled off

lids.

“Bacon!”

And eggs, and juice, and toast. “I thought you might like

something familiar and comforting. It’s Danish bacon—

more like Canadian than American. Less fatty.” I realized I

was in danger of babbling and poured coffee for us both.

We ate quietly.

“I called Annie. She’s fine.”

“Did you tell her to be careful?”

“I didn’t have to. As soon as she worked out I thought

something might have happened to her, she pestered me

with questions. I told her I’d explain everything when we

got back. She said she’d be careful.”

“Good.”

We ate some more. “I was looking through the What To Do

In Oslo pamphlets. The National Gallery sounds interesting.

I thought we could go this morning. That is, I’d like to go,

and I hope you’ll come with me. And maybe later we could

get that dinner we should have had last night. Oh, unless

Borlaug wants to take us out to celebrate the finalization of

the park contract.”

“He won’t. In Norway one never mixes business and

pleasure.” Dornan smiled at me from the back of my mind,

and raised his eyebrows.

~ 267 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Early morning shoppers sipped coffee in the outdoor cafes

of Kristian VII’s Gate. Along Universitetsgata, students in

bright colours stood on the grass talking in groups of two

and three. Everyone looked splendidly healthy. They had

probably had more than three hours’ sleep.

We had to wait outside the gallery for it to open. Julia was

restless. She was wearing another silk shirt, this time in

deep blue. It pulled to and fro over her shoulders and

breasts as she shifted her weight from heels to toes and her

briefcase from one hand to the other. Her hair was in a fat

braid, tied back with brown velvet that matched her pants,

and hanging over her right shoulder. She looked at her

watch. “How long will it take to get to Olsen Glass from

here?”

“Fifteen minutes if we take the tram, but allow thirty.”

The doors opened. In the lobby, she checked her briefcase

and looked at the signs. “So the question is, do we do a

lightning tour of the whole place or concentrate on one

area?” She nodded decisively. “We’ll just do the section on

Norwegian painting. This way.”

We were the only ones in the Norwegian gallery. The first

thing that caught her eye was one of J. C. Dahl’s huge

paintings of fjord light and water. She stood before it and

her restlessness dropped away. She became as still as the

deep dark waters of the fjord. Her chest moved gently as

she breathed, her eyes unfocused. I knew that if I put my

hands on her shoulders, they would be soft and relaxed.

This was a Julia I had not seen before: distant, analytical,

expert. The minutes passed. Suddenly she cleared her throat

~ 268 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

and moved on, walking past the works of Tidemand and

Gude with a quick glance and a nod, as though confirming

a theory. She spent a little longer with a series of etchings

depicting barn dances and summer village scenes. “Well,

here are some people at last.” She leaned closer, then

stepped back, looking from one to another. “I can

understand that Dahl wouldn’t want to put people in his

paintings—they would be dwarfed by the scenery— but

these artists seem to think people do nothing but dance

around and put flowers in their hair.”

She was not really talking to me.

“Now look at this,” she said, in front of a big abstract

canvas of purples and greens. The nameplate read

WEIDEMANN. “Even this is about nature.” I wondered

how she could tell but I kept my doubts to myself.

More paintings.

“Full circle,” she said. “Neo-Romanticism. This painter

may as well have been a Romantic who watched television.”

We went back to the Dahl that had so interested her. “It

reminds me of Hjørdis.”

Mountainside, cloaked in fir, falling straight into water as

smooth and reflective as glass. You knew, looking at it, that

it was a mile deep. Lush spring flowers, laughing sky. But

changeable, and everywhere bones of rock. Good country

in summer, but dangerous if approached without caution

and, in winter, utterly isolated from the next valley by

mountains suddenly cloaked in ice and mist. Troll country.

~ 269 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I’m beginning to understand.” She reached out as if to

touch the painting, then drew back. “So… untrammeled.

Uncompromising. This is how you all like to see yourselves,

isn’t it? The consensus of the national psyche: clear,

uncomplicated, immovable as granite.” She looked at me

with the same concentration she had directed at the painting.

I felt her gaze on my bones, the cant of my eyebrows;

weighing the line of jaw and length of neck; noting colour

and shadow. “But these paintings don’t tell your story, do

they, Aud? These paintings don’t have bad dreams.”

We stood there for an age, facing one another. A light

above one of the paintings began to hum.

“These paintings show sunshine,” I said. “They show

spring and summer, and when there is snow it glitters white

and bright.” I held out my left hand. She gave me her right.

It was cool; I held it carefully. Neither of us said anything

as I led her from the room, down a corridor, through a door.

“This is the Munch Room.”

Self-portraits of Munch bleeding from gunshot wounds.

Paintings of the sick and dying. And Skrik, with its sky

swirling lower and lower, a long bridge whose planks

aren’t quite clear because there’s not enough light to see, to

make out anything clearly, but that doesn’t matter because

the world is grey and you don’t care; wavy lines of

nightmare; the face of one so utterly alone they scream to

shake the world.

“This is how it is during m0rketiden, the murky time, the

lengthening nights of winter. The sky is so low you feel as

~ 270 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

though you could reach up and touch it, but even if you

could, you couldn’t, because everything is so grey you

can’t tell where the ground ends and the sky begins. There

is wind, but it can’t get through the unreality, the

knowledge that it will get darker and darker, day after day.

You go to bed at night and pray that tomorrow the cloud

will clear and the sun will shine, just for a little while, but

you wake up and it’s dark, and it’s raining, and it’s only the

first of December.”

Her hand stirred in mine, then she had my hand in both of

hers, was lifting it to her cheek for a moment, letting it go.

Neither of us said anything.

A sudden gaggle of noisy children clustered in the doorway

while their teacher marshalled them into pairs. They held

hands and giggled and pointed at the paintings. The Munch

gallery was once again just a room in a museum.

“Ask them whether they would prefer an abstract or

figurative sculpture park,” I said to Julia in an undertone.

She huffed with quiet laughter. The teacher gave us an

apologetic look as we left. We smiled at her with sympathy.

Outside, the students in their bright colours no longer

seemed so gaudy, and I found my fatigue was gone.

The meeting with Borlaug went well but they were still

mired in details at one o’clock. They agreed to a forty-five-

minute break for lunch. We wandered down

Dronningensgate. She stopped outside Cafe Tenerife. “Do

you suppose it would be the act of an Ugly American to eat

Spanish food in a Norwegian city?”

~ 271 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Have you ever been to Spain?”

“No.”

“Then think of it as a two-for-one experience.”

We ordered a mountain of food.

“There’s still so much to be decided,” Julia said as she

divided the tapas onto two plates, neat as a cat. We both ate

ravenously. I was careful not to let my leg touch hers under

the table.

“Do you need me this afternoon?”

She tilted her head, considered. “No. I think he’s past the

shy stage. He’ll ask if he doesn’t understand.”

I walked her back to the building—she swung the briefcase,

the way an adolescent, caught between girlhood and

womanhood, might—and stopped outside the plate-glass

entrance.

“I’ll return at four. Please wait in the lobby, even if you

finish early. If you’re ready very early, call the hotel. I’ll

check for messages.”

The concierge at the Bristol had bulging, oyster eyes and an

encyclopedic knowledge of business in the city. I told him

what I wanted and in ten minutes had a confirmation

number for a four-wheel drive Audi and a cellular phone, to

be delivered tomorrow at eleven-thirty. I tipped him and

asked him to tell the front desk that I might be expecting

~ 272 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

messages but would be calling in for them from outside the

hotel.

The harbour smelled of sunshine on cold water, the wet

wood and diesel fume of boats, and the shrimp the crews

cooked and sold from the deck in little white paper bags,

heads and shells still intact. When the breeze changed

direction it brought the scents of warm city stone, flowers

bursting into bloom in the hills and the wildness of spring. I

walked faster, drawing the heady mix deep into my lungs.

Two buskers with guitar and electric violin played some

folk tune with fierce underpinnings, careless of the fact that

no one seemed to be listening. I stood there awhile, letting

the music prod at me and work its way under my skin.

They nodded when I tossed some coins in the hat, and

launched straight into an idiosyncratic reworking of Grieg.

Away from the harbour, the streets turned to neoclassical

nineteenth century buildings and glass and steel towers

built in the last two decades. Fire had done as much

damage to Oslo over the years as Sherman did in Atlanta. I

wandered, paying no particular attention, just absorbing the

city through the soles of my shoes and the taste on my

tongue.

I am used to being alone, used to autonomy, the freedom to

stop when and where I want, be as I please. I could walk

into a shop, like this one—chat earnestly to the girl behind

the counter about a friend’s birthday, and which were the

best chocolates she possessed, how much was that gorget;

pay for them; ask for them to be wrapped—and the other

customers would remain untouched by my presence, I by

~ 273 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

theirs. No one knew me; there was no one to compare my

behaviour in the shop with my behaviour at other times. I

could be fluid and responsible only to myself.

In my imagination, Julia snorted: Very Norwegian!

The image made me smile as I angled north and east. Half a

mile or so from the Olsen Glass building the pavement was

torn up and cordoned off. Below street level, a handful of

people in cut-offs and work boots sweated away earnestly

with pickaxes and shovels. They were young, and all cut

from the same mould: plump tan muscles, fair hair, soft

cheeks. Archaeology students. What looked like rotting

foundations were partly exposed. One man was using a

trowel to slice away clay, rasher by rasher, from what

looked like a support post. He stretched, saw me watching,

and nodded.

“What is it?” I called down.

“Remnants of the old city. Fifteenth century, we think.”

It would be good to jump down into the pit, roll up my

sleeves and swing a pickaxe on a spring day.

“This was a large building—look at the size of this post—

perhaps with some kind of ritual or civic function.”

He seemed hopeful rather than sure. Ritual or civic function.

He made it sound so alien, but the men and women who

had cut the trees, dug the post holes, woven the hangings,

would have had the same concerns as us: hunger, love,

irritation. It was probably something utterly prosaic: the

~ 274 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

fifteenth century equivalent of public toilets, or a tavern,

or—given the unchanging nature of humanity—a

combination. I could almost see a local burgher, drunk

from celebrating the return of some trading ship and a

handsome profit, staggering outside, twitching aside his

velvet and pissing against the corner post.

The archaeology student went back to his task, nose just an

inch away from the wood.

The western side of the Olsen Glass building looked like a

slab of gold in the slanting sunlight. The entrance and

lobby were on the south side. I was five minutes early. I

stayed on the pavement.

When the lift doors opened and Julia stepped out, I watched

her through the plate glass. It must have been warm in

Borlaug’s office; the top buttons of her shirt were undone,

the sleeves rolled above her elbow and her hair pulled up

into a topknot. She looked alert and lithe, a dancer with a

briefcase in the wrong building. When she turned her head

this way and that I saw the movement of smooth muscle

under her skin. I stepped inside the door. Her face lit, softly,

like a candle.

“All settled?”

She patted her briefcase. “Signed, sealed and delivered.

The preliminaries, anyway. Ah,” she said, as we hit the

pavement, “what a lovely afternoon! I want a bath, a drink,

and dinner. Followed by another drink. I feel like

celebrating. It’s the start of my vacation.”

~ 275 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

We were sipping our coffee and contemplating a liqueur.

Well-fed, well-bred conversation hummed round us lazily.

Julia sighed and leaned back. Light poured over her face,

dividing at her nose and spilling over her bare shoulders

and arms. Her dress, of a heavy grey silk, gleamed like

oiled chain mail, and the tiny hairs on her forearms could

have been made of platinum.

“This is when I would kill for a panatella.” Her laugh was

low and rich and adult; it fumed under my nose like a fine

Armagnac. “No need to raise your eyebrows like that. I

gave up smoking six years ago, but this is when I miss it

most. And the smell of cigars is delicious.”

“But, like coffee, they never taste as good as they smell.”

“True.”

I lifted my jacket from the back of the next chair and took a

flat box from the inside pocket. “Your native guide decided

you ought to have a souvenir of Oslo.” I laid it on the heavy

linen tablecloth in front of her.

She touched the velvet lightly. I imagined how it might feel

against her fingertips. The moment stretched, then she

opened the box. She said nothing. I couldn’t see her eyes.

She tilted the open box this way and that so that light ran

over the polished pewter. “Aud, it’s beautiful.”

“Then it should suit you.”

She lifted it out, draped its supple links over her forearm. It

was as though someone had turned woodsmoke into metal

~ 276 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

and laid it against her skin—which suddenly seemed darker,

more mysterious and infinitely alive. “It’s heavy.” She ran

it up and down her arm, playing, enjoying the sensation.

“The maker assured me that it’s been designed for comfort

as well as beauty. The swan’s neck is also meant to

represent Oslo.” The lines were simple and dramatic, the

swan more suggested than actual.

“I have to try it on.” She stood.

“The bathroom is that way.” I pointed behind me.

While I waited the waiter came and asked if there was

anything else we wanted. I ordered brandy for me, more

coffee for Julia, and the check. I waited some more. No

other diners were missing. She was just admiring herself in

the mirror.

The check and brandy came. I paid one and sipped at the

other, let it hang a moment at the back of my tongue until it

seemed I would swallow more fume than liquid, and then

Julia was sliding back into her seat, the gorget lying around

her throat: swan’s neck around swan’s neck. She was right,

it was beautiful.

She leaned forward until I could almost have kissed her.

Her eyes were brilliant. “You have to tell me why. No flip

answers. Why did you buy me this?”

“I don’t know.” I had said I don’t know more times since I

had met this woman than during the rest of my life put

together. “I saw it in the shop. The sunlight caught it. I saw

~ 277 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

it and thought of you.” Thought of you in Borlaug’s office,

the way your lip sometimes almost catches on your bottom

incisor when you smile, how much I wanted to see you

smile. “I thought of how it would look on you. I bought it.”

She listened with an odd, patient expression on her face

that I could not interpret. I had not given her what she

wanted to hear. I did not know what that was.

She stood suddenly. “Finish your drink. I want to go

dancing.”

We walked the long way round, south along

Akershusstranda, the last glimmers of twilight on our faces.

The sky was indigo and ink and the people walking laughed

with a shiver of excitement: it was spring, and Friday night

in the big city. Julia’s dress slid back and forth over her

hips and her gorget gleamed. She seemed on the edge of

something—restless, unsettled. As we neared the club, the

bass thump thrust a hand in my belly and stirred. My heart

accelerated.

There was a line. The flashing neon sign over the doorway

caught on piercings and leather and smooth faces. The

music was a wall of sound. Julia lifted her face to it, as

though it were the sun. She smiled, then laughed aloud.

The line moved slowly. Julia hummed to herself, moved

with the music. The air felt wild.

When we reached the head of the line, the man at the door

held out his hand.

“How much?” I asked.

~ 278 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Sixty krone. And ID.” ;

I reached for my wallet.

“What did he say?”

“He wants to see ID.” I found my driver’s license.

“What do you mean, he wants to see ID?” She turned to

him, and suddenly all that restlessness was focused. “Oh,

come on. Just how old do you think I am?”

He just held out his hand a bit more emphatically. I gave

him my license. He scrutinized it carefully.

“Oh, that’s just great. How old do you think she is?

Sixteen? And I suppose you think we’ve flown all the way

to this country and faked ID just so we can get into this

club!” Her voice was fierce.

“Julia, he’s just doing his job. This is an over-twenty-six

club.”

“A what?” Now it was my turn under those unwinking eyes.

I looked right back at her.

“You have to be over twenty-six. How is he to know you’re

twenty-nine?”

“Indeed,” he said, with a formal little half bow, “you look

much, much younger.”

~ 279 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I thought for a moment she would hit him. She restrained

herself visibly. “That, I suppose, is meant as a compliment.

I don’t take it as such. Here is my license. If you won’t let

us in here, just say so. Now give me that back and either let

us by or not.”

He gave back the license and she brushed past him. I paid

and followed. The music was like a living stream, pulsing

between bodies, collecting thickly in dark corners,

vibrating bone so hard it might have been cartilage.

She was already at the bar. “I ordered you beer.” She tossed

down the shot next to the two glasses of beer and lifted a

finger to the bartender—a big woman, all fat and muscle

and chipped front tooth—who brought her another. “That

pompous bastard.” She drank half the second akevit. “God,

I hate this stuff,” then finished it anyway. “Why do people

do that with ID? They make me feel… It’s the way they

look at you, as though you’re trying to cheat them

somehow. Look, look at my face. Is this the face of a

twenty-four-year-old? No. Of course it’s not. It’s all

bullshit, this show me your ID crap. Do I look like the kind

of person who would lie just to get into this lousy club? I

hate being accused of being a liar, of trying to get

something I don’t deserve. And as for that crap about, ‘Oh,

you look so young, ma’am… ’ Ha! Compliment my ass.

Why do you suppose anyone would think it was a

compliment to be told you look young and unmarked by

experience, that is, naive and an easy mark? Well, I am not

flattered. I’ve earned this face!”

~ 280 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The gorget rose and fell as she breathed through her nose;

the long muscles in her bare shoulders slid over each other

as she reached for her beer.

“God, I hate this, too. Bartender, bring me a glass of

Chardonnay.”

She was fierce and wild as a hawk. I could imagine her

wheeling between cliffs, sun glinting from her talons, harsh

skree echoing down the canyon.

“So. You’re very quiet.”

She would lift those wings, thrust herself from the ledge to

beat the hot air, rise and rise, and when her marigold eyes

caught tiny movement down below she would stoop: crack

of wind under the pinions, tiny rodent squeak of terror,

snap of vertebrae, then the beat-beat-beat upward, hare

hanging warm and limp from her talons. And suddenly I

understood all those I don’t knows. Understood why I had

come with her to Norway and taken her to visit Tante

Hjørdis; why I had stood in that shop and bought the

gorget; why I had shown her the Munch Room. I knew how

the hawk’s mate felt when she returned with the hare and

they ripped its flesh from its bones and swallowed the raw

muscle and skin and stared into each other’s eyes. I

understood why when she had asked Am I safe? I had said

I’ll protect you, because I would protect her, from anyone,

anything. The realization was shocking, like the taste of a

copper penny in my mouth, like the taste of blood.

~ 281 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

She laughed. “You have the oddest look on your face!

Forget my pissing and moaning, ignore it. We’re here now.

Drink some of your beer!”

The music was sinuous, insistent. She was moving with it

again, swaying silver like a sleeping fish in its current.

“Dance with me,” I said, and held out my hand, and when

she took it, it was not like before, not like the Munch

Room; it was like closing a circuit and the current ran

straight through my bones and began to heat my belly.

“Ah,” she said, and a flush bloomed under her cheekbones.

The floor was small and crowded with dancers, each their

own private country as they moved belly to back, or wildly,

like dervishes. Julia danced more with her body than her

arms, more with her hips than breasts, and I could almost

see the heat gathering below her navel, heat to match mine,

like the molten core of a planet. This time we moved

around a common centre of gravity that was suspended

between us. It pulled us in, closer and closer, until the swell

of her silver dress moved nine inches from mine, eight,

seven.

“Aud,” she whispered, “Aud…”

I put my arm around her waist and swept her through the

crowd. She stumbled once, legs uncoordinated and

uncaring, all attention fixed on the heat gathering between

my arm and her back, between the flats of my fingers

where they curled over her hipbone and brushed her belly. I

~ 282 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

thrust two hundred kroner at the man at the door. “Taxi,” I

said.

It appeared between one moment and the next and though

the cab drove fast on empty roads, inside everything was

still. We hardly breathed. My arm was still about her waist

but neither of us moved as the heat built.

I must have paid him, must have ridden up in the elevator

because suddenly we were in the familiar corridor and she

was reaching for her doorknob and I was saying, “No, my

room, it has to be my room,” and we were inside and I was

locking the door.

She stood in the middle of the room and waited. I stopped

two inches in front of her and reached out with my

fingertips, fluttered them across her lips, down her throat

where a great pulse beat, across the bare skin above her

dress, and she began to moan, a deep rhythmic moan with a

huff, until I stepped closer and my thigh pushed against her

belly and she spread her feet wider and groaned into my

mouth. Holding her to me with one hand behind her head, I

used the other to slide down her zipper. When I stepped

away an inch, the dress began to slip and she started to

writhe. With the same hand, I unbuttoned my shirt and

unzipped my trousers and now it was like trying to hold

down a hurricane, and then she was straining against me

and we were on the bed.

She was strong, lithe and fit and wild past civility. I

stripped her naked and she literally tore the shirt from my

back, and when I pushed her down and straddled her she

had my pants yanked down to midthigh and her arms

~ 283 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

around my neck, and we were breast to breast and I could

feel the muscles in her stomach flexing under mine. Her

eyes were black as basalt. I ran my hands down her flank,

bumping over ribs, curving over her hipbone, and then she

was pushing herself up against me and the cords in her

arms and shoulders stood out as she pulled me down

against her, and we were moving over each other, sliding

skin to skin, spinning a cocoon of wet trails, breathing each

other’s breath, gazes locked, and the heat between us built,

and she was muttering, “In me. In me.” And we moved

harder and faster, and the heat built and built and now she

was shouting and her arms were knotted behind my back

and the heat was a blast furnace, red yellow white hot, and

then it came roaring out over us, filling the world with hot

air, hot metal, and flesh and bone dissolved to nothing in its

path.

Julia lay on her back, smiling. I stroked her head, still

tasting the shock of realization. It was just like that time

when I was nine years old, and I had been playing in the

autumn-wild gardens of Horley House, running and

jumping for the sheer joy of being alive, and my mother

had leaned from one of the big sash windows and called for

me and I had run and run, full of joy and energy and vigour,

leaping over rocks, over low gorse bushes, over the pile of

deadwood and brambles that the gardeners had pulled

together for a fire. I remember the smoky Yorkshire air, the

heat of my cheeks in the rushing cool twilight, the way they

burned as I finally skidded to a halt in the hall, eyes bright,

and my mother looked at me, went white, and said, “What

have you done to your leg?”

~ 284 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

And I looked down and thought: Oh. My left leg was

sheathed in red from the knee down, as though I were

wearing a bright red sock. Then I could smell it: sharp and

coppery. Blood. I twisted and peered at the back of my leg.

One inch below the fold of my knee was a gaping cut.

“Lucky you didn’t hamstring yourself,” said the young,

acne-riddled doctor at the hospital as he put in the final

stitches.

I still have that four-inch scar today. I still wonder how it

was that I got a wound like that—from the brambles,

perhaps, or the nail in some old fencing—and not feel it,

not feel the skin part, then the fat beneath it, and the plump,

pink muscle beneath that.

Julia sighed and smiled some more. How had she managed

to get inside me, slip between my ribs and rest against my

heart, without me feeling it?

I stroked her up and down; so long and slim and fine. My

stiletto. This is where the fear had come from, the

unconscious knowledge that I was vulnerable. “I love you,”

I said. Her smile broadened: she had known all along. I

laughed, and it was my laugh, not one designed to cover

anything. I laughed again at the sound. She laughed at my

pleasure. The world is a strange and splendid place.

~ 285 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Chapter Ten

We were packed and eating our second breakfast, this time

in the hotel dining room, when the hire company delivered

the car and phone. I had the driver bring the papers and

phone to our table. I finished the smoked salmon while

Julia called Edvard Borlaug to give him the number and tell

him where we’d be, “Just in case.” When she was done, I

talked to Tante Hjørdis, who said she would be delighted to

see us on our way out of the city.

I pushed the food aside. “We should leave room. She said

we can’t be there for an hour. She’s making koldt bord.”

“Does that mean what it sounds like it means?”

I nodded. “She always makes the same things, and always

the same amount—whether she expects a horde or just two

people.”

While Julia oversaw the transfer of our luggage into the car,

I checked us out. I had the absurd urge to lean

confidentially towards the desk clerk and tell him what a

marvellous day it was; to tip everyone obscenely; to sing. I

restrained myself.

The sun was hidden behind low grey cloud, but the world

was still a bright and exciting place. The Audi was about

two years old but its four-wheel drive did not seem to have

~ 286 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

been much abused, though the sedate drive to Ulleval

Hageby at the prescribed fifty kilometers per hour was not

an exacting test. Julia’s hand rested on my thigh as I headed

into the suburb.

We parked just down the street. Julia climbed out of the car

and looked up into the trees. “Is it my imagination or have

the leaves grown in the last three days?”

They were bigger. Julia was beautiful beneath them.

I knocked. Tante Hjørdis opened the door and hugged me.

Just as she was stepping back she stopped and held me out

at arm’s length to study for a while. Then she let go and

shook hands vigorously with Julia. She gave Julia the same

extra moment’s scrutiny, then opened the door wide, and

said over her shoulder as she headed for the kitchen, “The

sauce needs watching.” Inside, the table groaned with food,

and the scent of fish and sauce drifted through from the

kitchen. We followed it to find Tante Hjørdis stirring a tiny

saucepan with a wooden spoon that had been old before I

was born, adding flour, pouring cream. In another pan,

round white balls bobbed in boiling water.

“Fiskeboller,” Hjørdis said to Julia. “Pass me the cream,

please.” Then, in Norwegian, “Aud, you can unload the

tray in the dining room and bring it out.” I did. “Coffee,”

she said, which is coffee in any language. I filled the kettle

and put it on the modern halogen stove to heat.

Julia was now stirring the sauce while Hjørdis fished the

fish balls out of the water with a slotted spoon.

“Norwegians make good spouses,” she said out of nowhere.

~ 287 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Tidy, sensible, efficient. If you plan and budget and work

hard—but not too hard the way you Americans do—life is

steady and pleasant. There! We’re ready to eat.”

We started with the spekesild. Julia seemed to enjoy it. She

told Tante Hjørdis her idea about a children’s enclave at the

Olsen Glass sculpture garden. Hjerdis put her fork down.

“Now, if he and his family were proper Norwegians, they

wouldn’t be making so much profit that they had to spend it

on gardens. Money, everything is money these days. Oat

flour costs twice as much today as it did two years ago.

Twice. And do you know how much these Greenland

prawns”—gesture to the shrimp lying abjectly in their

mayonnaise—“cost? And work! Work, work, work. I call

your mother, Aud, and I say, ‘When do you come to visit?’

and she says, ‘Oh, Hjørdis, there’s no time for a visit,’ as

though it’s me who is being foolish. No time for family.

Imagine that. But at least you have come to visit. And you

have brought Julia.”

We ate salad and thinly shaved reindeer meat. Julia asked

Hjørdis what she did with her day when she wasn’t

preparing delicious lunches for guests. Hjørdis snorted. “I

work with young people—and not so young—who should

know better. Those who…” She looked to me for the

English phrase.

“Drug addicts.”

Julia looked only mildly surprised, but her right leg, lying

close against mine under the table, jerked.

~ 288 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“I help with the…” Another look.

“Needle-exchange programme,” I supplied.

“Yes, and facts about AIDS. Though they know more than

I do, I’m sure. Personal knowledge.” For a moment, her

ruddy face stilled but then, with native pragmatism, she

shook the sympathy away. “And I represent them, no”—

this to me, as I opened my mouth again—“I advocate on

their behalf with social services and so on. A lot of work,

though less in summer. All this is since I retired, of course.

Before, I used to work in a chemist… a pharmacist’s.”

“She was the pharmacist at Jernbanetorgets Apotek.”

“Yes. It stayed open all night. I didn’t have to work at night,

of course, I could have asked one of the younger people,

but it is only fair for everyone to take their turn sometimes.

That’s when I met all the young people, so thin, so pale. So

sad…“ Again, that head shake. ”Come along. The

fiskeboller will be getting cold.“

We ate the fish balls. Soft and milky, so unlike anything

else.

“You used to get that look on your face when you were

only as tall as this table,” Hjørdis said, smiling. She turned

to Julia. “She and her mother used to come here every

Saturday for my koldt bord, and every holiday.” Sometimes

my father came, too, but not often. “And Aud, who was

sometimes not a well-behaved child, would try to steal

some fiskeboller before we’d even eaten our salads. Eat, eat.

~ 289 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I made enough for two helpings. But save some room, there

is still the cheese, and dessert.”

We started on the cheese. Julia and I sat so close our arms

rubbed together when we reached for the crackers or the

nuts. Her leg was still against mine. I retold the story of the

Nigerian heroin ring I’d heard from Taeko.

“Now, we need berries for the dessert. Aud”—I stood; it

had always been my job, from the time I was seven or so

and strong enough to carry up the big glass jars from the

cellar— “a jar of…” she looked from me to Julia and back

again, “the molte, I think. Yes, the special molte,” she

repeated with a certain satisfaction.

I hadn’t been in Tante Hjørdis’s cellar for years. As a child

it had been a wonderland: past the laundry with stone

troughs, which I imagined might have been used during the

war to cut up captured Nazis; past the mysterious sheeted

shapes in the storage room; to the cavern of treasures, a

long room, narrow and dry, lined with row after row of

shelves, each bending under the weight of pickled gherkins

and canned tomatoes, of sauces and preserved berries, that

glowed with muted colour— red and gold and emerald—

like precious jewels under the dust of centuries. I ran my

hand along the shelves, remembering being eight, fourteen,

nineteen… It was different. It took me a moment to work

out that the difference was illumination: the single,

swinging bare bulb of my childhood had been replaced by

two halogen floor lights. It only made the colours richer.

The last four jars of special molte were on the top shelf. I’d

heard the story of their picking: during the war, when there

~ 290 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

was no sugar to be had, she had picked them and put them

whole into two-litre jars with fresh water only, sealed them,

and put them in a cold stream to chill. I expected to have to

stand on tiptoe to reach the big jars, but that was a child’s

memory; the top shelf barely came to my chin. I lifted one

down, held it to the light. Fifty years old. They looked like

golden raspberries. Perhaps Hjardis exaggerated for effect

and they were indeed preserved in sugar or some kind of

syrup, or perhaps there was just a kind of magic in her

cellar, where time and dreams stood still. I would not have

been surprised to find myself three feet tall again, with both

front teeth missing.

When I got back upstairs, Julia and Hjørdis were in the

kitchen; Julia poured coffee into cups, Hjørdis whipped the

cream.

“You always did spend a long time in that cellar, even as a

child,” she said, when she saw me standing there with the

jar. “Bring that through to the dining room.”

I put the jar on a placemat. Hjørdis, still standing, put one

hand on the glass lid and the other around the wooden

handle on the wire fastening. She pulled, then pulled again

more firmly. “You have to seal them tight,” she said. She

had told me when I was a child that sometimes the rubber

lining between lid and jar started a chemical reaction with

the fruit and fused to the glass. She was having none of that.

She put her strong back into it, and the lid came free with

an audible pop. I shut my eyes and breathed. Lazy late

summer sun, warm grass, the cold, bitter scent of the

glacier half a mile away. Hjørdis ladled a good pile into a

metal bowl and took it back into the kitchen. Over the

~ 291 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

sound of the food mixer, I said to Julia, “These are molte.

Called cloudberries in English. Families guard the location

of their favourite patch as closely as national secrets. More

closely.” I dipped one out with a spoon. It lay, still and

golden and perfectly formed in its pool of liquid. I held it

out. “This is how your hair smells.”

“Ah-ah,” said Tante Hjørdis from the doorway, “don’t eat

that. The only way to taste cloudberries for the first time is

in Angel’s Stew.” She put the bowl of sweetened whipped

cream and berries on the table and plucked the spoon from

my hand. “Aud, dish that out while I go get the coffee, as

Julia seems to have forgotten to bring it with her.”

We sat. I dished the delicious mixture into three small

bowls. “The last time Tante Hjørdis brought out her special

molte was when my cousin Uta brought her fiance to lunch

with the family and then announced she had already

married him that morning. She brought out a jar, too, when

my mother married my father, though she told me once she

should have known he would leave her and regretted ever

letting him taste them.”

Julia’s hand was cool and soft on mine. “She will never

have cause to regret this.” A statement of fact. She will

never have cause to regret this. The sun will rise in the east

and set in the west. Two and two is four.

We took E16 north. Julia drove. “At least they drive on the

same side of the road we do, even if we do have to keep to

this snail pace.”

~ 292 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“You can go up to eighty a little farther on, and past that,

ninety.”

“What’s that in real money?”

“Fifty and fifty-six miles an hour.”

Pensive silence. “How far is it?”

“About two hundred and fifty kilometers. But the last fifty

are on very small roads.”

“The road gets smaller?”

As she got used to the car, and traffic thinned, she relaxed.

“So, now I’ve eaten Tante Hjørdis’s cloudberries.”

“Yes.”

“She’s pretty smart.”

“When I was little, I used to believe she knew what I was

thinking.”

“That’s just guilt. I used to think that about my mother

whenever I’d done something wrong.” The city was behind

us now and we began to gain altitude. The speedometer

needle inched forward. She looked at me sideways. “When

we get back to Atlanta, I’ll have to introduce you properly

to my mother.”

“Properly?”

~ 293 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“You’ve met her, you know. Twice.”

Sitting in Julia’s office, feeling like a child in a friend’s

house, waiting for them to come out and play…

“Annie,” I said. “Annie Miclasz…” She nodded. “I

wondered why you never called her Annie. Always ‘Mrs.

Miclasz.’ Did you know she asked me if I was dating?”

“No! Did she?”

“More or less. Told me carefully how you liked your coffee.

Just in case I needed to know, I suppose. Watch the road,

please. So, what’s it like working with your mother?”

“Good, usually. She’s been working for me for about four

years. She used to be an office manager with GE but when

she remarried six—no, god, it’s more like ten years ago

now—she didn’t have to work. But she got bored, so when

I left Boston and moved back to Atlanta to start my

business, I offered her a job. It was more to prod her into

getting a life, you know. I never dreamed she’d actually say

yes and work for me.”

“She’s very good at her job.”

“Do I hear the word ‘formidable’ lurking in the

background?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, you charmed her socks off.”

~ 294 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“It was quite deliberate.” I put my hand on her thigh.

Muscle bunched and relaxed as she speeded up to pass an

ancient Volvo then slowed again to eighty kph. We passed

a sign for Hønefoss. “The road is going to fork in a

kilometer or so. Highway 7 on the left, 16 on the right.

Take the right.”

I tried the radio. There was a lot of jazz, of course, two

classical stations, and a Norden pop station pumping out

thin, metallic stuff like recarbonated generic cola. Then I

found Radio Norway. They were playing a folk tune I

remembered from my early childhood, with simple words

and handheld percussion. It was the first time I’d heard it

sung by adult voices. I sang along.

“What’s it about?”

“A troll who lives under a bridge.” I translated as I sang.

Julia laughed at the troll’s stupidity.

Now that we were past the fork in the highway, Julia’s

interpretation of the speed limit was liberal. When we

drove the twenty miles along the vast lake of Sperillen, I

turned the radio off. Unlike a fjord, it was not sheltered by

the steep plunge of mountains, and its gray-green waters

were choppy. So different from the artificially flooded

valley that had formed Lake Lanier just north of Atlanta—

where during dry summers the stumps of trees and drowned

homes occasionally ripped the bottom out of pleasure boats

driven too fast by their too-young, too-stupid owners who

saw a water as a surface, a water road, unaware of depths

and currents and the life that dwelt there.

~ 295 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

North of Sperillen, we started to climb. The river on our

right, the Begna, began to tumble and show white here and

there.

Julia glanced from the road to the river. “Does anything

live in there?”

“Trolls. Trolls live everywhere in this country. There are

homes here where if you say, ‘ Faen tar deg’—‘The devil

take you‘—or ‘ Fy faen’—which is ‘Shoo, devil!’—you

won’t be invited again, nor will your friends. Words

associated with the devil are trollskap, trollmagic. They

open the boundary between this world and magic, and no

good will come of it. These days, city people will laugh if

you talk about trollmagic—but only if it’s during the day

and it’s summer. Away from the city, they don’t laugh at

all. When you see the fjells and the fjords, you’ll

understand. This country’s bones and flesh are made of

rock and its blood is the ice-cold water of glacier melt. The

world is a dark place, and three of the four seasons are

winter: autumn winter, high winter, and spring winter. The

summer, with its green trees, lush grass, flowers and berries,

is a very thin skin over the realities. During mørketiden,

when candlelight flickers on the walls and half the country

hasn’t seen the sun for a month, trolls walk the streets and

grin at sleepers in their dreams.“

“Tell me a troll story.”

“The Billy Goats Gruff is a troll story.”

“Tell me another one.”

~ 296 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I considered. “When I was eight, I had tonsillitis. I had a

fever that came and went and I didn’t sleep well. The line

between reality and dream was strange and wavery. One

night, when I felt as though I had been awake for years and

my throat hurt so much I couldn’t swallow, my mother

came and sat on my bed in the dark. She stroked my head.

‘A thousand years ago,’ she said, ‘in Oppland there was a

family, a hardworking man called Tors and his strong-

minded wife, Astrid, and their sandy-haired daughters Kari

and Lisbet, better off than most…’”

I was surprised at how easily the rhythms of that long-ago

night came back, how drenched through it was with all

things Norwegian, complete of itself and needing no

adapting. Julia was a good listener. It began to rain. Julia

found the windshield wipers and the headlights. I settled

back and, in my mother’s words, told her how Tors had

hired a man named Glam as winter shepherd.

Glam was a master of herding: the sheep seemed terrified

of him, and all he had to do was call out in his terrible

hoarse voice and they huddled at his direction. One night,

while Glam was out with the sheep, the snow flurries

became a blizzard. No man could step forth and live. That

night, Lisbet had strange dreams of dark shapes battling in

the snow on the fjellside.

In the morning the family woke to find that Glam had not

returned. They walked up the mountain and found him in a

bloody, levelled place. His skin was mottled and bloated, as

though he had been dead a long, long time. Huge tracks, the

size of barrel hoops, filled with frozen blood, led off to a

deep and narrow gully. “Troll tracks,” said Astrid. She

~ 297 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

peered into the gully, looked at the blood, and said,

“Nothing, not even a troll, could have survived that.”

They tried to move Glam’s body, but it was as if his bones

had turned to stone and he would not shift. In the end they

covered him with stones where he lay.

Three days later, Lisbet woke in the middle of the night and

ran to her mother. “Glam walks in my dreams!” The next

morning, they found a dog—or what was left of a dog—on

the stoop.

Astrid went to Tors. “Glam is not easy in his grave. You

must burn him, husband.”

But upon toiling up the mountain with faggots and tallow,

and heaving aside the stones, they found nothing. Astrid

said, “The troll lives in his bones and walks abroad wearing

his skin, even under the sun.”

And as the nights grew longer, Glam spread terror: running

on the rooftops until the beams buckled, rolling great

boulders down the fjell, crushing the spirit of men and

driving cattle mad.

Now, it happened that at this time, a ship came into the

fjord and Grettir the Strong, who was tired of adventuring

in foreign lands, heard of Tors of Torsgaard and his dead

shepherd, Glam. He went to Torsgaard and saw Kari

milking the cow, saw how her sandy hair turned to gold in

a shaft of rare winter sunshine, and agreed to stay and deal

with Glam, for he was curiously unwilling to leave Kari

Torsdottir to the anger of the troll.

~ 298 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

On the eve of his first night, Astrid gave him a plan.

And so, as the sun went down that evening, Tors found

himself strangely sleepy and he snored. Astrid directed

Grettir to pick up her husband and bundle him into the bed

at the far end of the hall, away from the passage that led to

the door. Then she dressed Lisbet in her warmest clothes,

and the two of them stole out to hide in the barn. Then there

was only Kari and Grettir. They stood opposite each other

by the hearth. Grettir, forgetting himself in his fear for her,

took her by the hand. “It’s not too late to hide with your

mother and sister.”

“You will need me,” she said. “We must bring Glam inside.”

When the embers began to die, Kari lay down on the wall-

bed by the inglenook. Grettir wrapped himself like a

sausage in an old, heavy fur cloak and settled himself on

the wall bench opposite Kari’s bed. In front of the bench

was a bench beam, a huge ancient thing set into the floor

when the farm was built. He set his feet against it and

straightened his legs so he was firmly braced between the

beam and the wall. And then they waited.

Sudden as an avalanche, something leapt onto the roof and

thundered about, driving down with its heels, until the new

beam buckled and splintered and the roof almost fell in.

Glam. The walls shook and Glam jumped down, and the

earth trembled as he strode to the door. A sharp creak as he

laid his huge horny hand on the door and suddenly it was

ripped away, lintel and all, and moonlight briefly lit the

hearthroom before Glam blocked out all light as he thrust

his huge head through. The whites of his strange eyes

~ 299 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

gleamed like sickly oysters, and Grettir felt his heart fail

him.

“Glam,” said Kari. “If you want me, I will come with you,

but I must have a bearskin to lie on. Bring that old cloak on

the bench by the fire. I’ll wait for you outside.”

Glam strode over to the sausage-shaped bundle of fur and

tried to pick it up with one hand. Grettir was braced and

ready. He made no sound and the fur did not move. Glam

pulled harder, but Grettir braced his feet more firmly. Glam

grunted, and laid two hands on the bundle, and now a

titanic struggle began. Grettir was dragged towards the

door. Finally, with a furious wriggle, he eeled around in

Glam’s grip until his back was to the awful face and bull-

like chest. He dug his heels against the threshold stone and

with a strength that was equal parts fear, determination and

desperation he leaned in towards the last breath of warm,

indoor air. As Glam hauled backwards with all his might,

so, too, did Grettir thrust backwards, and his last strength

and the inhuman force of Glam’s heave hurled them both

outside. Glam, with Grettir still clutched to his breast,

landed spine down across a rock. The loud crack of his

backbone parting would live in Grettir’s mind for the rest

of his days. And then Glam spoke, hoarse and horrible in

his ear.

“You will live, Grettir the Strong, but you will never be the

same. You will always look into the dark and see my face,

hear my voice, and know I will come for you. You may kill

me, but I will live on in your mind.” And the troll laughed,

dark and full of wickedness. At the laugh, Grettir sprang to

his feet, pulled free his sword, and swung. Glam’s head,

~ 300 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

like some vile rock, rolled free, and Grettir did not laugh,

but wept.

They burnt Glam right there, outside the hall. And then

they burnt the ashes. And when the ashes were cold they

were gathered in the torn cloak and wrapped tight, and

Astrid saw to it that it was thrown into a chasm, and huge

boulders hurtled down on top of it.

Torsgaard celebrated all day and into the evening, but

eventually the fire dwindled and the torches were doused.

Everyone slept. In the middle of the night, Kari was woken

up by a strange noise, like a child crying. It was Grettir,

trying to light a torch and rocking back and forth. “He will

come for me. He will come for me.”

“He is dead, beloved.”

“I am all alone and he will come for me!”

“You will never be alone again.” But he would not hear her,

he just rocked and rocked, back and forth.

And the story goes that though Kari stayed by his side

every living minute and married him not long after, his fear

grew worse and he began to rock back and forth and light

torches even in the daytime. In the end, they say he ran out,

barking mad, and Kari was left without a husband and the

hall at Torsgaard gradually declined. No flowers ever grew

in the chasm where they had thrown Glam’s ashes.

~ 301 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Kids around here must have strange dreams,” Julia said

finally. “So the moral of the story is that the troll will

always get you in the end.”

“Even if you think you’ve won. Just like the land itself.” I

peered through the rain, which seemed to be easing. “We’re

in Oppland now.”

“It certainly looks like troll country.”

Just to prove her wrong, the rain stopped, and above and

ahead wind thinned the clouds, sending them fleeing in

tatters over the endless coarse grass and wildflowers. “The

road gets narrower here.”

“Your turn to drive.”

We stopped the car and got out. The air was as cool and

fresh as dew-laden grass. Julia stretched by the left-hand

side of the road and I put my arms around her from behind.

I kissed the back of her neck and she rested against me and

we looked out over the uplands. A perfect rainbow arched

over the undulating ground.

“You can see both ends,” she said. “There are fairies as

well as trolls in this country.” We got back in the car. I

rolled my window down. “It reminds me of the Yorkshire

Moors,” I said as I drove. ”They stretch like this for miles.

Every mile or so, in the wilder parts, there are these waist-

high stone walls that form a circle with a section cut out.

When I was eight years old, I thought they were

windbreaks the farmers had built for their poor sheep. I had

visions of little friendly groups of the woolly creatures

~ 302 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

huddling behind the walls while the world turned white

with snow, and the nice farmers driving along in their

wagons and unloading hay and turnips and other sheep

treats. When I was a teenager, I found out they were hides

for pheasant hunters. Beaters walk the moor in a line,

whacking at the brambles and heather while His Lordship

and his weekend friends crouched behind the wall with

their matched Purdeys and silver hip flasks, waiting for the

birds to burst out in a rush of frantically beating brown and

cream feathers. In spring and summer it’s green and dotted

with tiny wildflowers. Autumn turns it into a haze of purple

heather. Then the farmers burn it off and it turns into a

blasted heath, desolate and destroyed. It stays that way all

autumn and into the first hard frost of winter. Then there’s

the wonderful, softening white blanket, and by spring it all

starts up again. It can be hard to believe that anything could

come to grief in such a lovely place, but every year hikers

die there. They forget that the world can hurt them. They

wear silly little English T-shirts and street shoes and think a

bar of chocolate is all the emergency equipment they need.

Norwegians don’t die out here, because they understand.

They know about trolls.“

“Do you think hobbits are the tame English version?” The

sun was bright now, and the air seemed thinner. We were

the only car on the road. As Julia talked, I watched her.

I could not imagine driving this road without her in my car.

I could not imagine going back to Atlanta without her

turning restlessly in the plane seat next to mine. I could not

imagine how things would have been if I hadn’t turned that

corner in Inman Park.

~ 303 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

At Tyinkrysset I turned off the highway and five kilometers

along the unmarked surface I pulled off the road.

“Where are we?”

“The lake below is Tyin.”

“My god, it’s green.”

“Glacier water.” But that was not why I had stopped. “Look

north.” We were above the tree line, and ahead lay a vast

range of peaks, studded with green lakes and moraine-

strewn flats. Jotunheimen, home of the giants. “This is my

country. Before we enter it I want to tell you that I was

wrong. If we were back in Atlanta, we might have

something to worry about, but not now, not here. I think I

was so uneasy because I didn’t know what was happening.”

I took her hand. “I didn’t understand just how much I

needed to be sure you were safe, or why. I just knew I felt

vulnerable. Well, now I do understand. And we don’t have

to think about Atlanta, about Honeycutt or his blackmailer

anymore. They don’t know we’re here, and by now the

police will have the situation well in hand. It’s time to leave

it all behind.”

Her eyes were as blue and mysterious as the bottom of the

ocean, her smile like the sun. “I left it all behind in Oslo,

stepped out of it and left it in a crumpled heap on your

bedroom floor.”

~ 304 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Chapter Eleven

The boat was old—Hjørdis had said she remembered the

same carved prow from when she was a girl—and with the

oars shipped it floated motionless in the middle of the

glassy waters of Lustrafjord. Julia slept in the bow; I held a

fishing line, utterly relaxed, mind as still as the water.

There was no traffic, no machinery, just the occasional

warble of the little dumpapers nesting on the far bank, and

the creak of sun-warmed oak. It could have been another

millennium.

The family seter was not quite that old, but Hjørdis thought

its basic design dated from the fourteenth century. It and

the loft were all that were left of a rambling farm, and our

family had owned all the land I could see on the east bank

of the fjord. We still owned a great deal, but the working

farm had moved north and a little downslope, and instead

of sheep it was now cows and pigs and, in the summer,

berries. Old Reidun and her daughter Gudrun, and

Gudrun’s husband, ran the place. They also owned half of it.

Once or twice a year when Hjørdis called, they would make

sure there was fresh linen and firewood at the old seter, that

the power was turned on, and the cupboards bulged with

staples. We had driven to the seter, unloaded our bags, and

found a note from Gudrun asking us to go down to the farm

for middag. I thought it was more likely that Old Reidun

wanted to meet Julia, but we went.

~ 305 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

We were greeted by Gudrun and her husband, Per, who

were about forty. “Velkommen til Norge,” they had said to

Julia, and we had been ushered into the huge farm kitchen,

where Reidun was supervising. We all shook hands, then

she told us to go get a home-cured ham from the stabbur.

“It’s her way of saying we’re family, not her landlord,” I

explained to Julia on the way to the curing house.

“But you own half the farm and don’t put in any labour.”

“We also don’t take out any profit, which in some years is

considerable. This farm is one of the prime spots for molte

cultivation. But our side of the family, who owned the farm

originally, moved to the city more than a hundred years ago.

In return for half ownership and all the profits, Old

Reidun’s father agreed to work the farm and keep up the

seter for our use.”

Even after so long, it worked well. The two sets of

honorary cousins regarded each other warmly but with a

shake of the head that said: They’re not like us.

Middag eight days ago had passed pleasantly with fiery

homemade redberry wine, trout, the ham, rømme, new

potatoes and salad. We had left loaded down with fresh

milk, cream, butter, eggs, bacon and bread. Gudrun

promised to resupply us every three or four days.

Julia, since we had been here, had eaten an astonishing

amount. “It’s just so good,” she always said when she

served herself seconds. We had walked, and napped, and

eaten, and talked, and walked more, and now we bobbed

~ 306 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

about on the fjord because she hoped we could catch some

perch.

She slept on. I cast again, watched the lazy ripples. If I

squinted, I could just make out the flowers growing in the

sod roof of the old loft half a kilometer away on the east

bank. The seter itself was hidden by an outcropping of the

fjell that plunged straight into the fjord and formed its

eastern bank. Beyond the fjell was Jostedalsbreen, the

largest glacier in Europe. When the wind was right you

could smell the almost chemical bite of the ice but today all

that filled the air was the scent of Julia’s skin, like dusty,

sun-warmed violets, and, even two kilometers beyond the

bank, the pagan smell of the earth’s skin: millions of

hectares of birch breaking into leaf at the same time. There

was nothing like it; it woke parts of me that usually slept.

“You look pleased with yourself.” Julia was awake and

watching me, her eyes a startling, sheened blue against the

green lake.

“I’m breathing air like wine, I have money and good health,

and I’m in a boat on green water with a beautiful woman.

There’s nothing I can’t do.”

She gave me a lopsided affectionate look. “Except catch

fish.”

I twitched at my line. Nothing.

“Let me have a go.”

We traded places carefully. She cast expertly.

~ 307 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

“Massachusetts. Guy taught me.” Her mouth stretched in

old grief and her eyes glittered. A bird sang from the woods

far away on the west bank. Its call was heartbreakingly

pure.

I held out my arms and, careful of the rocking boat, she

came to me.

It never ceased to amaze me how she could feel as wild as a

living hurricane one minute, and delicate, almost bird-

boned, the next. I cradled her to me, felt her heart beating

through her ribs. So fragile. I stroked her hair, over and

over, and hummed a lullaby. Eventually she sat up and

wiped her eyes.

“It’s been nine years. I used to weep for him every day. It’s

less often now, and sometimes there are days, even weeks,

when I don’t think about him at all. Then I’ll think of my

other brother, Drew, or Carmel, my sister, and I remember

I’m the eldest now, and I feel… They live so far away now,

but I feel so responsible for them. And then I miss him.

Missing him is like a hole inside me, a gaping wound,

wider than the hands of anyone who would try staunch the

bleeding. A hole so big it could swallow the world.“

“I have big hands.”

“I know.” She tried a smile, and it worked pretty well. She

took a deep breath and I could almost see her step aside

from her grief and thrust it behind her. “There don’t seem

to be any perch biting in this part of the lake.”

~ 308 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Then I’d better row you to another part.”

It was good to bend my back to the oars, to watch the boat

scooting over the fjord and see Julia laugh in delight at the

miniature bow wave I managed to throw up.

At some arbitrary spot that seemed no different from the

one we’d left, she told me to stop. I shipped oars and

watched her cast, and cast again. I lay back in the thwarts

and listened to the sing and plop of the line.

The sky teemed like the Serengeti: herds of cloud antelope,

springbok, even rhino with cloud horns, racing in the same

direction; with a bit of imagination I could make out a

warthog and a line of anteaters trundling nose to tail.

Farther down, a cautious tortoise couldn’t decide whether

to creep north or south, and right at the horizon, three

pearly gray porpoises seemed to leap from the water.

“I don’t miss the Atlanta sky,” I said.

“No?”

“No. You get up in the morning and the sky is blue. Later

in the day you glance up and it’s blue. While you eat dinner,

you look out of the window and it’s… blue. There are

occasional days when you get up and it’s blue, you eat

lunch and it’s blue, but when you have dinner there’s a

thunderstorm, and, admittedly, those skies are something,

cloud as pink as an alligator’s mouth, that gorgeous violet

around sunset if the storm is on its way, the occasional

green flash of a transformer going out—taking the power

with it, of course—and it’s nice to have the road freshly

~ 309 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

washed, but when you get up in the morning, it’s blue again.

You can’t lie on your back and watch another world form

and dissolve and dance minuets over your head. Unless you

count contrails.“

“Do you?”

The cloud tortoise was slowly being ripped apart by its own

indecision, or maybe some haematovirus of the African

plains… “Um?”

“Do you count contrails?”

“If they have had the time to evolve. Sometimes I think of

planes as seeding the skies with new life…” We

contemplated the clouds for a while.

“It’s odd,” Julia said at last. “You talk about life so much,

yet you’ve been around a lot of death. I asked you before

why you did this, and you said it was because you’re

Norwegian. So now I’ve seen Norway. It’s a land that

doesn’t know compromise. It’s snow, ice and darkness in

the winter; and endless midnight sun, bright meadow

flower and sweet green grass for two months in the summer.

Black or white. On or off. Yes or no. It explains some of

the way you react to what life throws at you, the pragmatic

immediacy, the readiness—you never forget that there are

trolls in the hills. But it doesn’t explain why. Why you keep

throwing yourself into the path of the pain in the world.”

“No.”

She waited.

~ 310 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“The pain of the world doesn’t follow paths. It blunders all

over the place. It ran smack into my bedroom, carrying a

gun, when I was eighteen years old.” She waited again.

“It’s a long story.”

The antelope still galloped overhead, the dumpapers

warbled, Julia seemed perfectly happy to sit there with that

rod, waiting, until the Ice Age came again and we travelled

around the world on a tongue of green ice. I sighed, and

started at the beginning.

“I was born in England, where my mother was a consular

officer, and didn’t see Norway until I was two. The bit of

English I spoke was a strange cross between the Chicago

accent of my father and the south London of my nanny. We

split our time between Oslo and Bergen until I was six,

when we went back to the U.K. My mother was now an

attaché. My father was busy with his business, flying back

and forth between London and Chicago. I was either at

school or up in Yorkshire, spending vacations with Lord

Horley’s children. I hardly ever saw my mother but I learnt

not to miss her. I learnt to expect her to be a long way off, a

presence who always came on the important occasions—

birthdays, Christmas, school sports days—but who moved

to a holy schedule arranged long in advance and never to be

interrupted.” The boat creaked as I leaned forward. “My

mother is one of those people who always knows how to

act, how to dress, even how to do her hair. She never, ever

looks out of place. She could be at a bonfire night party in

an ancient Berber jacket, cutting up parkin and treacle

toffee for my friends, pulling charred potatoes out of the

fire embers with hair all tousled and nose just the right

shade of red from the cold November air one day, and the

~ 311 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

next she would be in cashmere and pearls, hair in a chignon,

taking tea with Lady Horley. Everyone thought she was a

perfect mother. But we were strangers to each other.

Perfectly polite, perfectly willing to try to be a model

mother and daughter, but unsure how. I think it upset my

father.”

“Did it upset you?”

“No. Not really. It’s just the way my world was.”

“But you want to see her when we go back through London.

What changed?”

My whole life. “I’m curious. I think she is, too. And I think

we’re both ready to treat each other as real people, not

some personification of a role. We went back to Oslo when

I was eleven, then back to London, then back to Oslo. That

is, my mother and I went back. My father left and went to

Chicago when I was thirteen. I went back and forth

between England and Norway until I felt that both were my

home, and neither. I hardly ever saw my mother. I finished

school when I was seventeen. That summer my father

wrote and asked me to visit him in Chicago. I didn’t want

to spend summer in Chicago, but his invitation set me

thinking. I was an American citizen who had never set foot

in that country. And I thought: I could go to university

there. So I applied to all kinds of schools, and I chose

Georgia Tech.”

“You’re smart and well connected. You could have gone

anywhere: Yale, Harvard, Smith. Anywhere. So why

Georgia?”

~ 312 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Because they said yes first. And because it’s warm. So I

made a few phone calls, flew to London, told my mother

where I was going, and caught the plane to Atlanta the next

morning.”

“The next morning, just like that?” Her hair shimmered as

she shook her head, then cast again. Hiss, plop.

“I flew economy on Delta, landed at five in the afternoon,

local time, and got into a broken-down taxi whose driver

had no idea where he was going.”

“None of them ever do,” she said, one eye on her float.

“Should have rented a car.”

“I was used to English and Norwegian airport taxis.”

“Rude surprise.”

“Yes. Anyway, the only map I had was the one faxed to me

in Norway by the manager of the apartment complex in

Duluth where I had decided to rent—”

“Duluth? That’s a forty-minute drive from Georgia Tech.”

“I know that now. All I knew then was that… You’ve got a

bite.”

She began to reel in. “It’s a big one.”

She landed a glistening perch, and while it flopped, cast

again—and immediately got another bite. “Fish convention.

Here we go. And another.”

~ 313 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“I’ll smoke them over an alderwood fire,” I said, and my

mouth flooded with saliva.

“Do it now,” she said, and I rowed us back.

We built the fire near the back door and sat on the stoop to

eat them out of the pan, hot and oily. We wiped the oil up

with bread. Julia stood, pan dangling from her hand. She

smiled, and the line of her back, the crumb of bread at the

corner of her mouth, struck deep. I caught her free hand

and pulled her back down, kissed that slippery mouth, felt

her breathing quicken under my hands. We were the only

people for miles. I slid her shirt over her head and her pants

down around her ankles, and when she came she tore out a

handful of daisies with the grass and her cry was fierce as a

hawk’s.

She lay in my arms and smiled her slow, creamy smile.

“More. But this time in bed.”

This time it was slow, slow as the fall of night in northern

latitudes, as the unfurling of a leaf in spring. My north, my

springtime.

We drowsed for a while, sun streaming through the

southern windows onto the rugs below the sleeping gallery.

I stroked her long, tanned fingers. She pulled the quilt up

around her shoulders. “I can’t get used to the fact that

seeing sunshine doesn’t necessarily mean it’s hot. Does it

ever get hot here?”

“It gets warm in July and August, but not hot, and not

humid.”

~ 314 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Not like Atlanta.” She settled more comfortably against

my shoulder. “You were telling me how it was when you

arrived in the U.S. Duluth.”

I buried my face in her hair. Cloudberries and frying fish.

“Well, for one thing, before I came to Atlanta, I didn’t

know what humidity was. I’d read about it, and Christie

Horley told me how awful it had been in New Orleans

when she’d been there the year before, but verbal

information isn’t the same as somatic. You have to feel it

on your skin, touch it, smell it, run your fingers lightly

through the sweat that never evaporates to understand.” I

felt her nod against my shoulder. “So I got to Atlanta and

took a cab for Duluth in August. The cab had no air-

conditioning and the air was thick and sweet, like peach

juice. I knew I wasn’t in Norway anymore. I was alone in

an exotic foreign country at the start of a fine adventure.

Anyway, the cab driver couldn’t seem to understand what I

was saying half the time. Even though I’d told him I was

Norwegian, he insisted that I was German—then wanted to

know if I knew his son, Dan, who was in the army in

Germany, in Mew-nick. I told him I was very sorry but that

I didn’t know his son, and would he please head north on I-

85 here, instead of south? His driving worried me.”

Eighty miles an hour without seat belts, windows open to

scoop up the viscous air, him steering with one finger and

leaning back to talk to me about his son in Munich, careless

of the fact that the other drivers hurtling along the interstate

seemed as oblivious as he of the rules designed to keep

people alive on the road.

~ 315 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“The apartment complex was called Northwoods Lake

Court. It was brand-new, frame units built around a lake. I

don’t know how many buildings because they were all

hidden by trees, but according to the manager there was

only me, at the northeast end, and one family due to move

in the next day at the extreme south end. The rest wouldn’t

fill up for a month or so. The lake had fountains. The only

luggage I had was two suitcases. I’d intended to take

another cab into Duluth and buy necessities—bedding,

kitchen things, lamps, because it was one of those

apartments with no overheads—but the place was so

beautiful I just wandered around until it was dark.”

I couldn’t begin to describe to Julia the wonder of that

place: swamp oak and bluebirds, swallows and bullfrogs,

white oak and birch, my own private playground for a

month.

“My apartment was built on a slope so that although the

front door was at ground level, the only possible access to

any of the windows would be via ladder. And the apartment

complex was empty. Besides, this wasn’t real life. This was

the start of a grand adventure, like sleeping on the beach in

Mauritius. All I had in my two suitcases were clothes, an

old flashlight my father had had as a boy and had given me

when I was seven, and a few books. That night I slept

naked on the bedroom carpet, flashlight by my head and

screened windows open to the sound of the fountains below

and the chirring of tree frogs.” I had felt perfectly safe,

cradled by air so soft it was tangible.

“I fell asleep early; it must have been about ten o’clock but

it seemed a lot later because of my six-hour jet lag. I don’t

~ 316 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

know what time it was when I woke but all of a sudden I

was lying there, staring at this strange ceiling, lit by sodium

light slatted by the window blinds, listening to the fountain.

I was absolutely still, rigid, and I knew something was

wrong. My heart ratcheted like an asymmetric crank. I

listened hard, but all I could hear was the creaking chorus

of tree frogs, the scratch of crickets across the velvet night,

and the endless fountain. But I knew I had to keep still,

there was this little voice in my primitive hindbrain

whispering, Don’t move, don’t move, so I tried to look

around the bedroom without turning my head but all I could

see was shadow the colour of lead and those strips of

yellow light. I was sweating, slick with it, and my heart felt

like a vast, runaway engine, but I tried to think.”

I could still remember the faintest metal touch of the

flashlight against the middle finger of my right hand, the

sudden itching of the carpet as I sweated, the way a car

changed gear in the distance, the voice in my crocodile

brain saying, Don’t move, don’t move, and the restless red

turbine in my chest beginning to whine and overheat. “And

then a man’s voice said, ‘Don’t move, I have a gun.’ ”

“Jesus!” She sat up.

“It was an unremarkable sort of voice, very quiet and

steady, but I couldn’t see him. The voice was so ordinary

and the whole thing so surreal I thought that maybe he

wasn’t there at all, that maybe it was a dream, but then

there was a faint, oiled clicking from the shadow, and I

knew it wasn’t a dream, my breath started to come in great

gusts, and the muscles in my arms and legs coiled so tight

and ready my bones hurt. Then he stepped forward, and

~ 317 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

suddenly in the slatted light there was a gun, ugly, clumsy

looking. He kept coming forward and the light inched along

a bare forearm, a white-shirted shoulder, up a lightly

muscled neck to a reddish gold moustache.” I closed my

eyes. “I can see it now, like a series of photographs. And

that’s when it happened. It was as though this veneer fell

away, as though I stepped aside from a mask, and it felt as

though my heart slipped its bearings and hurtled loose. I

came off the carpet without thinking, without even blinking,

holding the flashlight—and it must have weighed three

pounds—like a piece of kindling. It was so light in my

hands. I surged off that carpet, muscles whipping like

hawsers, swinging that flashlight up and out, and I was so

sure. It was so easy. I swung up and out, unstoppable. He

started to blink—that’s how fast everything was moving for

me, I even noticed that the whites around his eyes looked

bluish in the light—he started to blink but then three

pounds of bright steel travelling at brutal speed caught him

under the chin. His head snapped back and he fell. His

body made a sort of lolloping thump on the carpet, like a

big sack of potatoes.”

I opened my eyes. It was odd to see the bedroom loft, the

seter, the cool sunshine. I could remember the sweat on my

skin, the blood roaring in my ears; humming with a sense

of power; feeling huge and pure and fierce and filled with a

wild, hot joy at being alive.

“I was still holding the flashlight. I flicked it on. It worked.

The gun was in his hand, his left hand, but it wouldn’t do

him any good. He was staring at the ceiling, head bent

sideways—the expression on his face was odd, a kind of

gentle amusement. All of a sudden I couldn’t get my breath.

~ 318 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

There was a dead man in my bedroom. My first night in a

strange country and there was a dead man in my bedroom.

I’d killed him, and I didn’t even know his name. I

remember staring at the flashlight, at the light streaming

through my fingers, making them blood red. I turned the

flashlight off. He disappeared. I turned it back on again. He

reappeared. This time he seemed a long way off. This is my

apartment,” I told him. ‘You had no right.’ The light

shining on the carpet began to wobble. I was shaking. My

breath came in little pants. There was a strange noise

coming from the living room. Ringing. The phone. I

walked across the carpet of the bedroom, the tiny hall, the

rug in the living room.”

I could still feel the carpet on my feet, the different textures

of the two acrylic weaves, and the new smell of rubber

carpet pad and harsh, foreign cleaning fluids.

“The phone was on the pass-through counter between the

dining room and the kitchen. It felt slippery and big,

difficult to hold in my left hand. A voice at the other end

said, ‘Is this Aud Torvingen?’ and I said yes, and he went

on to say that he was Lieutenant Wills, of the Duluth Police

Department.” I closed my eyes again. “ ‘Please listen

carefully,’ he said. ‘We are aware that you are probably

speaking under duress. We are in control of the situation.

Please remain calm.’ It was a very soothing voice. ‘Now, if

you can, ask him to talk to us on the phone.’

“ ‘He can’t talk to you,’ I said. I felt dizzy. Blinding light

filled the apartment. Then there was another voice from

outside, with a bullhorn, harder, eager, you could hear the

adrenalin in it, shouting that the building was surrounded,

~ 319 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

that he should pick up the phone. ‘No, you don’t

understand,’ I said, but then realized I wasn’t holding the

phone anymore. The receiver dangled from its cord, near

the floor. I picked it up. ‘You don’t understand. He can’t

talk to you because he’s dead.’”

“There was silence, then a faint muttered conference on the

other end, then, ‘Ms. Torvingen? There have been no

reports of gunshots in the last half hour.’

“ ‘What?’ I said. I had no idea what that had to do with

anything.

“ ‘Ms. Torvingen, if he shot himself we certainly would

have heard it.’

“ ‘He didn’t shoot himself,’ I said.

“ ‘No,’ said the soothing voice, only now it was full of the

there-there syrup of a parent talking to a child. ‘Ms.

Torvingen, can you speak English well enough to

understand what I’m saying?’ I said yes, then thought:

Haven’t I just been speaking English? ‘Good,’ he said.

‘Now, are you all right, Ms. Torvingen? Can I call you

Aud?’

“ ‘No,’ I said, and then he got all urgent.

“ ‘How are you hurt?’

“ ‘No,’ I explained, ‘you can’t call me Aud because I’m

eighteen and you’re treating me like a child and not

listening to anything I’m saying. The man is dead. I killed

~ 320 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

him with my flashlight. He had a gun and I killed him. He’s

in my bedroom. He had no right. He still has his gun but

he’s dead. I’m fine.’

“This time the silence on the phone was longer and I

wondered if I’d been talking in Norwegian after all. ‘Aud,

Ms. Torvingen,’ he said, then sort of trailed off. He cleared

his throat and started again. ‘You say he’s dead, that you

killed him. Are you quite sure?’ At least he didn’t sound

patronizing anymore.

“ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘his eyes are open and his neck’s bent, and

he hasn’t moved from my bedroom floor,’ but all of a

sudden I thought: What if he isn’t dead? What if this is like

one of those horror films and he’s lurching to his feet,

covered in blood, and bringing his hand up with that gun,

with an evil lopsided grin. I dropped the phone and ran

back to the bedroom. He was still there, of course. Still

dead.”

Julia’s hand crept across my stomach to find my hand.

“The police arc lights had bleached his face white and a

pool of urine and faeces spread under his body. The whole

scene was grainy, like an old black and white newsreel. I

noticed that his hair was thinning on top but in that light I

couldn’t tell the colour of his eyes. It bothered me. Then I

thought: the gun, they’ll believe the gun even if they don’t

believe me. So I squatted by his gun hand, but the weird

thing was I couldn’t make myself let go of the flashlight

first. I tried, but my fingers wouldn’t move, so I had to

fiddle for a while with just my left hand before I could pull

the gun away. I went back to the living room, all bright

~ 321 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

now with the police lights, put the gun down on the pass-

through and picked up the phone. ‘I’ve got his gun,’ I said.

I’m going to open the sliding glass doors in the living room,

step onto the balcony, and toss the gun down onto the

grass.’

“ ‘Aud, I think—’

“This time I put the phone firmly back in its cradle—I was

getting sick of that syrupy voice—and picked up the gun. I

walked towards the sliding doors and would have stepped

out there naked if I hadn’t seen my reflection in the glass.

Oh, I thought, I’ll have to do something about that. The

police lights didn’t reach inside the bedroom closet and I

tripped over one of my suitcases just inside the closet door.

I had to put the gun down on the floor to pull on jeans one-

handed. The flashlight wouldn’t fit through sleeves, so I

chose a vest. When I was done, I stuck the gun in my back

pocket. It felt good. The flashlight felt better.

“The glass doors slid open easily. The balcony was one of

the reasons I’d chosen that apartment. Three hours earlier

the night had been quiet, soft with fountain spray drifting

over the lake. Now the night gleamed with light and metal

and well-polished boots. I stood up there and looked at the

revolving lights, at the trees and lake beyond them, and

thought: This is my new country, new apartment, new life;

all stained, like my bedroom carpet. I took the gun out of

my pocket and threw it into the crowd below. Then I leant

over the rail and vomited on their heads.”

~ 322 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Julia put on a towelling robe and made us blackberry tea. I

drank mine in the bath, she sat on the floor and stroked my

arm, shoulder to elbow to wrist to fingertips and back again.

“You’ve never told anyone about this before, have you?”

“No one. I suspect my mother was briefed on the situation

via the consulate, but we’ve never spoken of it.” I

remembered the ambulance ride, being met at the hospital

by overly polite administrators, and knowing that someone

somewhere had gone beyond the call of duty and found out

who I was, or at least who my mother was.

“Take me there.”

“To Northwoods Lake Court?”

“Yes. Take me there when we get back.”

It was such a private thing. No one even knew I had ever

lived there, never mind what had happened, or how it

looked. Such a beautiful place. “I was only there a few

days.”

“Take me anyway.” Her hand came to rest just below my

triceps. “Promise me we’ll go when we get back.”

“Very well. I promise.”

Her hand resumed its stroking. “So who was he? How did

the police know he was there?”

~ 323 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“The police had had a call from the apartment complex half

a mile down the road, an intruder. Apparently they had a

car in the area and followed him to Northwoods Lake Court.

They did a foot search and saw my front door ajar. His

name was Tim Schultz, an out-of-work carpenter. Married,

two children, but separated. He was thirty-four years old.

No one could tell me why he did it.”

I soaped myself thoughtfully.

“I thought knowing the details was important, but it isn’t

really, because the important part wasn’t what happened at

the apartment, it was what I realized later, on the way to the

hospital. The police and EMTs came bursting into the

apartment and bundled me up in a blanket without so much

as a by-your-leave and threw me in an ambulance. I was in

a daze. I remember the police sergeant and EMT were

arguing about the flashlight—the sergeant was saying it

was evidence, the EMT said I was in shock, that if holding

it made me feel better he wasn’t going to take it away from

me. That’s when I realized: the shivering and vomiting had

stopped, and the strange detachment I felt wasn’t shock but

the dawning realization that this was real, that I had killed

someone. I had taken a life. He had had a gun, I had had a

flashlight, but I had taken him, and in the moment of doing

so I’d felt faster, denser, more alive than ever before.

Killing him had burned me down to a pure, uncluttered

core, to my essence. It was all real and it felt… Well, you

tell me how it felt when you hit that man at Honeycutt’s

house.”

“Good. It felt good. I felt… bigger.”

~ 324 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“It’s the adrenalin. When everything slows down and my

muscles are hot and strong and the blood beats in my veins

like champagne I feel this vast delight. Everything is

beautiful and precious, and so clear. Light gets this bluish

tinge and I feel like a hummingbird among elephants,

untouchable.”

She reached out and flicked water against the pink welt that

ran over my lower ribs. “But you’re not.”

“I’ve played with adrenalin, almost every dangerous sport

you can imagine, but that’s not the same as violence, not

the same as coming up against someone who wants you

dead, where there’s no room for one misstep, where it’s all

or nothing. Feeling that bungee cord whip you up just two

seconds from the ground is one thing, looking into the eyes

of a man with a knife is another. It’s the ultimate

competition—there’s one life between us, and it’s mine.

You feel how fine life is. It’s a sort of possessiveness. A bit

like sex. Just as you can’t suddenly rip someone’s clothes

off in public when you have the urge, you have to train the

urge to violence. It’s like always singing sotto voce when

all you want to do is take a great breath and let it rip.

Violence feels good. It’s so simple and clear. There’s no

mistaking the winner. I like it, but I avoid going there,

going to the blue place, because I think I could get lost,

might not find my way back, I wouldn’t want to find my

way back because it’s seductive.” I dabbled my fingers in

the warm water. “I said before that I left the police force

because I didn’t want to work for anyone else. That’s true,

but it was also because the blue place called too strongly. It

had become all I wanted, all there was.”

~ 325 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

She sat back on her heels and studied me with cool, slatey

eyes. “Past tense?”

I thought about the blue place, about my life then, about

Julia. “Past tense.”

She kissed me. I unfastened her robe. My cup fell in the

water. We ignored it. I wanted to be inside her.

Later, when she was sitting between my legs and I was

soaping her back with the washcloth, she put the soap back

on its sturdy wooden shelf and said, “So what happened in

the ambulance with the flashlight?”

“I hefted it in my hand—”

“Bet they edged away.”

I smiled, remembering the EMT’s undignified scramble to

the back of the ambulance. “Yes. I hefted it. It was heavy

and smooth and, Oh, I thought, so is the oxygen cylinder by

my stretcher, so is the drip stand, the officer’s baton. I was

surrounded by objects I could use as weapons. I told the

sergeant he could have it. And I’ve never worried about

carrying a weapon since. They’re everywhere.”

“Mostly, anyway.”

“Always.” I dipped the washcloth in the water, folded it

over and over on itself lengthwise, doubled that in on itself

and twisted it, but not hard enough to get rid of most of the

water.

~ 326 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“That?”

“Instant blackjack.” With one flick of the wrist I smashed

the wooden shelf off the wall.

She grinned. “Now you’ll have to fix it.”

“There’s still soap on your back,” I said, and changed the

blackjack back to a washcloth by dipping it in the water.

I woke in the dark with Julia’s hand on my shoulder. “Aud,

it’s all right. It’s all right. Wake up. It’s just a dream.”

“I’m awake.” The dream images began to drain away.

Her breath was soft and sleepy on my face. Her hair fell

across my throat. I breathed in the scent of cloudberry and

violet and warm woman. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“It’s a recurring dream. About a dead woman in the bath.

Her eyes are like unpolished marble and she is still. So very,

very still. The water is still, too, and cold. And then I

realize I’m not breathing, my heart is not beating. I’m still,

and I’m cold, frozen. I’m dead.”

Julia slid on top of me. “Feel. That’s my heart. It’s beating.

Yours is beating. Wrap your arms around me. There. Feel

my ribs move up and down. I’m breathing. You’re

breathing. It was just a dream. We’re alive. Just listen.”

I did. I listened to the fist-sized muscle that beat valiantly in

her chest, lub-dub lub-dub, atrium-ventricle atrium-

ventricle, pumping thick red blood through her arteries,

~ 327 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

sucking it back tired and thin, sending it out again refreshed,

over and over, like some comfort-station cheerleader at a

marathon handing out water and banana chips to exhausted

runners and sending them on. Alive.

~ 328 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Chapter Twelve

The stave church of Urnes, the oldest in Norway, lies five

kilometers south of the seter. We tramped along the grass

and through the flowers, water glinting green and glassy

below and to the right.

I pointed down the slope. “There, between that rock to the

left and the treetops, that’s the spire. We can either walk

round, which is another kilometer or so, or we can head

straight down.”

We scrambled down like children before they realize they

are mortal, when the worst thing they can imagine is falling

down and someone kissing everything better, maybe the

smell of antiseptic and a Band-Aid—or, even better, the

glory of a white bandage—but nothing permanent, nothing

real, and like children arrived at the bottom red-cheeked

and feeling physical, in charge of the world. There was no

one else there, not even anyone coming or going from the

handful of village houses clustered west of the tiny

churchyard.

“It’s smaller than I expected.”

The church, even without its spire, was taller than it was

long. The churchyard, bounded by an ancient stone wall,

was a lopsided rhomboid half the size of a soccer field. The

grass was smooth, as if cropped by sheep, and two large

~ 329 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

birches shaded part of the northwestern wall. Three or four

dozen headstones on the north and south sides were all very

plain. One was quite recent. It was quiet enough to imagine

the soft hiss of worms gliding under the turf and old bones

settling. It was the perfect place for a church, high above a

headland that jutted out into Lustrafjord, and before

Christianity it had probably been the site of the village hov.

In the ninth and tenth centuries, womenfolk would have

gathered on the headland, looking south, eager for the boat

bearing their menfolk returning from a-viking. They would

have seen the sail first, a faded yellowish white where once

it had been bold blue stripes, taking the left fork from

Sognefjord and into Lustrafjord, perhaps parting from a

companion boat that would go on up Årdalsfjord to the

women of Naddvik and Ofredal. Then the whole boat

would be visible, and you would count the shields, look for

the familiar crimson boss or the green rim, and you would

run with the others down to the jetty, hoping some brother

or son would bring back a fancy armring, or a bolt of fine

Irish linen, but mainly just that he would be there with his

familiar laugh and smile, not the awful strained blinking

and bloody stump like poor Unn’s son, the winter before

last…

“Aud?” Julia, on the bottom of the five steps leading to the

door. I joined her.

Urnes church smelt of wood, old but hale Scotch pine,

beeswax, and fresh flowers. Light shimmered through

windows three stories up, drenching the upper tiers of wood,

turning them to gold, softening the second tier to rich

honey, and dimming on the dark, massive uprights of the

bottom tier. Here and there red or yellow or blue or green

~ 330 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

paint caught the light where centuries ago craftspeople had

painted the carvings for the greater glory of god.

“I had no idea wood could be so beautiful,” Julia said. “So

simple and pure. And it looks… well, it doesn’t look a

thousand years old. I can’t see any cracks or woodworm.”

I laid my hand on one of the massive staves. “The people

who built these churches understood wood, and they were

not in a hurry.” Carpenters would have gone into the forest

to select several Scotch pines, but they didn’t fell them, just

cut off the tops and branches. While the trees still stood, the

outer sapwood was scraped off. The trunks were left

standing for five to eight years. The trees died gradually

and the remaining heartwood became impregnated with

resin—proof against damp and pests and aging. They built

to last, which is why everything is made from wood. The

brackets between stave and plank are made of birch. Most

of them are taken from where the root joins the stem, so the

curve in the grain is natural, and very strong. All the pins

and other connectors are juniper, a dense softwood. There

is no iron to rust and to rot the wood. I thumped the stave.

“This church has stood for a thousand years and there’s no

reason it should not stand for a thousand more.”

Julia looked at the flowers, at the new hymnal someone had

left on one of the pews. “It’s still used.”

“Hjørdis brought me here to services several times.”

She sat at the end of a pew. “I can’t imagine how it must be

to grow up with history all around you. To walk the same

path your fifty-times great-grandmother walked, to baptise

~ 331 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

your child where you were baptised, and your mother, and

her mother. To see life continue so clearly, to know that

your child will see the same tree, fish in the same fjord,

pick the same flowers at the same time of year.” She

reached for my hand. “Most of us stumble along, making

up the rules as we go along, but we’re missing so much…

When I was little, the Tutankhamen exhibit came through

Boston and I went to see it. Wow, I thought, look, those

pieces of jewellery are thousands of years old! I couldn’t

even touch it, but it thrilled me to know that people whose

bones turned to dust and blew away and was maybe

reincorporated in some tree that died hundreds of years ago

to make some boat or other, had made something I could

look at. But this, this is something else. It’s part of the

everyday, it’s part of ordinary life.“ She turned my hand

palm up, traced the lines there. ”I’m beginning to

understand, I think. All those things that make you you,

your clarity and solidity and certainty, come from this. You

can actually reach out and touch your past. It’s in the wood,

in the cold, clear water of the fjord and in the hard rock of

the mountain. And the wood and the fjord and the mountain

are in you, clear and strong and massive.“ She looked at me

then, reached to trace the line of my cheekbone, my nose,

my jaw. “Aud, Aud, Aud.”

A shoal of clouds, faintly violet on their undersides, swam

slowly up the fjord behind us as we walked back to the

seter. At this time of year I didn’t know if that meant rain.

Over a lunch of salad and cold cuts, Julia asked me what

my name meant.

~ 332 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Haven’t a clue. But I was named after Aud the Deep-

minded, who was born not far from here, in Sogn, in the

ninth century.”

“Oh, good, another story.”

The phone rang. We looked at each other blankly. There

had never been a phone at the family seter. The noise was

so alien it took me a moment to identify, and then another

moment to find the phone. It was up in the loft, in my

jacket pocket. I answered it.

“It’s for you,” I called to Julia, then walked it down and

handed it over. “Edvard Borlaug. He sounds rather

agitated— for Edvard.”

She took it. “Edvard, how are y— Slow down, slow down,

I don’t understand. Wednesday? But— No, of course I can

be there. Of course I understand.” What day is it? she

mouthed at me. Monday, I mouthed back. “It will be—

Edvard, take a deep breath, please. I’ll talk to them, I’ll be

more than happy to talk to them. Once they understand the

general concept I’m sure everything will be fine. I’ll drive

in tomorrow and we’ll cook up a plan of action. Tomorrow.

Yes. Oh, about two o’clock. Yes, I’ll come and see you

then. Yes. Don’t worry, Edvard. Tomorrow at two. You’re

more than welcome.”

She clicked off. “He was practically hysterical.”

“For Edvard.”

~ 333 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“For Edvard. The board met yesterday and he’s heard that

his proposal might not get approval.”

“So I gather we’ll be going back to Oslo for a day or two

for some hand holding.”

“You don’t have to come. I’ll drive down, see Borlaug

tomorrow afternoon, stay at the hotel, have an informal

meeting with one or two of the board in the morning, and

be back early afternoon Wednesday.” She slid onto my lap.

“Will you miss me?”

“No. I’m coming with you.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s an easy drive. I know the route, know

the city and hotel, know my way to Olsen Glass, know my

way back. I’ll be busy the whole time and all you’d do is sit

around in waiting rooms. You’d be crazy to do that when

you could be here. If you come with me I’ll feel selfish,

spoiling your vacation.” She hugged me, then held me at

arm’s length. “Is that okay?”

She was my hawk, built to soar above it all. You don’t

chain hawks. At some point you let them go and watch

them rise, and stand there with your fist out hoping they

came back, that they don’t run into a keeper’s gun, or a

bigger hawk, or a vast shadowy hand stretching across the

ocean from Atlanta. No. A hawk’s job is to fly, not be

afraid. I made my face smile. “I’ll just have to walk that

glacier on my own tomorrow.”

“I’d forgotten about that. We could call Gudrun—”

~ 334 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“No need. I’ll go on my own, and when you get back, I’ll

be able to show you the wonders of the ice. Just… come

back quickly. And take the phone with you, just in

case.“ She felt so light on my lap. So precious.

“If I take the phone, I can’t call you.”

“Very true.” I kissed the side of her neck where the pulse

fluttered. Skin was so thin, so fragile. One nick and her

heart would pump that thick red blood all over the floor.

She arched and the pulse under my lips thudded. “Just think

of the reunion,” she whispered, and outside the grass began

to bend under fat raindrops.

Julia wore a grey-blue cotton dress and tucked her rich hair

up behind a matching bandeau. I wanted to tear it off, let

her hair fall over my hands, and carry her inside to bed.

Instead, I held the door of the Audi while she climbed in,

and closed it behind her. She poked her head through the

window, kissed me on the cheek and started the engine. In

two minutes, all that was left was a curling trail of dust up

the track.

I shouldered my backpack and walked down to the farm.

The veal calves in their wooden pens were fractious, and

Gudrun when she appeared was distracted.

“I didn’t hear the car,” she said.

“No. Julia’s taken it to Oslo until tomorrow.”

“You’re still going to the glacier.”

~ 335 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if I have the time to drive you—”

“I can walk to Nigardsbreen. It’s a lovely day.”

“Nigardsbreen?” She gave me a dubious look. “Walking

tours have been postponed until June, because of the late

spring.” When spring came late, so did the thaw, when the

ice is at its most unpredictable. The small tongue of the

great Jostedalsbreen glacier would be less stable and so

more dangerous than its more massive parent. I just waited.

Eventually she waved a hand towards the south sheds. “The

equipment’s in the usual place. I looked it over.”

“My thanks. Don’t let me keep you from the work.”

She gave me a quick nod and disappeared in the direction

of the feed sheds.

The south sheds were cool and dry. Skis, boots, ropes, ice

picks, skates and a jumble of other equipment took up the

whole of the north wall. I selected a coil of blue nylon

rope— it smelled of must but was essentially sound—an

ice pick with a bound handle, gloves, a folding ice probe,

and crampons, and stowed them next to the water, cheese,

chocolate, flask, and thermal compresses in my pack.

The rains of the night before had washed the whole fjell

clean. Flowers poked through the glistening grass: bright

gold, vivid red and lush purple; birds twittered happily

from clean-scented aspen and birch as though it didn’t

matter about the washed-out nests; even the stones that

~ 336 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

began to litter my path seemed fresh and new again, even

though for some it had been tens or even hundreds of years

since they were plucked from their beds and scoured clean

by the glacier. I crunched over the silt and gravel of till

washed out by recent melt and began to kick my way

through the bare, fist-sized rocks still unclothed by moss,

enjoying the solid chunk against my boots. Julia would still

be bumping along the track towards the one-lane road that

would take her to another track, and then the highway.

There were no trees now, no flowers, just hectares of

sliding scree, the glacial moraine, a jumble of pebbles and

stones and boulders; unsorted, unstratified rock of every

colour and age, but all round, all smoothed by the action of

ancient ice. Here and there moss clung bravely, and insects

whirred over puddles formed in rock dimples that would be

gone by late afternoon, but the barrenness overshadowed

the life around it. I imagined the moors of Yorkshire when

the Roman engineers first arrived: the heather and gorse,

the pheasant, grouse and harebells flattened by the road

builders who lay down a straight arrow of crushed stone in

a straight path that sliced from one camp to another, the

stonemasons following with the carefully cut limestone

blocks, building so well that even today if you walk up to

Goathland you can see a line in the turf stretching to the

horizon, where nothing bigger than buttercups and daisies

grow. Foss Way, the locals call it.

These stones had not been here that long. Most of them

only dated back to the Little Ice Age, the deterioration in

climatic conditions that had made Jostedalsbreen grow,

sending its tongues, like Nigardsbreen, thrusting down the

valleys, licking up farm and field and fjell. The Little Ice

~ 337 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Age had culminated 250 years ago, and when the tongues

shrank back, they had left behind ridges of the moraine

deposited at the tips and sides of the ice. Every year the

moss crept farther up the old path of the tongue; every year

the tongue shrank back even farther. But now I had passed

the moss and was among stone deposited thousands of

years ago by the ice sheet that had covered the whole

country, the ice sheet that had gouged out the fjords

connected by the North Way, the sea path that made life

possible in this part of the world, that had created Norway.

I could smell it now, the bite of green ice, sharp as the cut a

blade of grass can make across an unwary tongue. The sun

was bright. I took off my sweater, folded it into my pack,

and scrambled up and farther up the scree.

Julia would have run the twelve kilometers of real road and

be turning right to drive south and east along another track,

passing the massive Skagastølstindane, one of the highest

peaks of Jotunheimen. I wiped the sweat from my forehead

and kept climbing.

Now my boots rang on bedrock, raw, bare, the colour of

pâté, and there it was: the side of the glacier tongue.

Old ice looks like meringue, folded and layered by a giant’s

wooden spoon over air pockets; fluffed egg white standing

ten meters over my head and tinged here and there by

different berries. But these weren’t the beautiful, true ice

colours, just a surface layer of pollution, a grey pretending

to be pink in the late morning sun, brought by last winter’s

snowfalls.

~ 338 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I studied the ice. I wouldn’t need crampons yet. I put on

gloves and began to climb. It was almost midday and I was

sweating lightly, but when I bent low to the ice for

handholds, my breath plumed. As I spidered diagonally up

the side of the tongue, the only sounds were the crunch of

snow like spilt sugar under my boots and the rush of air in

and out of my lungs. Most years at this time there would be

small parties of expert climbers training the less expert to

be guides for the tourists who would arrive in droves at the

end of the month, and the ice would be dotted with figures

in bright red Gore-Tex and Day-Glo orange nylon, figures

who sported lime-green and hot-pink plastic logos on boots

and gloves as they planted flags to show safe paths;

crisscrossed with ropes in designer colours, like brilliant,

unnatural snakes. Today when I reached the top I was alone

with the sky, the rock, and the ice stretching ahead of me

like a photographic negative of a giant’s broken twelve-

lane freeway.

Glaciers start from the snow that falls above the snowline

and collects in depressions in the rock. Some of the snow

melts and refreezes, recrystallizing to form a granular

aggregate called névé. More snowfalls compact the névé to

ice. The ice builds. Eventually the weight of the ice

squeezes the lowest level out of the depression and gravity

forces it downhill. It takes the path of least resistance,

following valleys if there are any, forming them if there are

not: gouging wide U-shapes from the rock, smoothing the

huge chunks to vast round boulders, or crushing the softer

sedimentary rock to sand that is washed out at the tip and

edges, spilling out nutrients and fertilizing the lower valley,

leaving behind strange rocks sometimes balanced

precariously one atop the other. But the rock over which

~ 339 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

they grind is not uniform, and some parts rip out more

easily than others. Over time, the moving glacier falls into

pits it has dug itself and deep cracks form in the ice. These

crevasses or sprekker are often hidden by recent snowfalls

and most people who die on the ice fall down one of these

cracks, especially in spring before the snow has melted. But

the sprekker are why I come here, the sprekker and the ice

caves and the lake.

Before the end of the Little Ice Age, the snow that fell

would have been pristine, not like today, but if you find a

fresh sprekk and the sun is at the right angle, you can look

down through time and see the glacier as it used to be, the

clean, brilliant colours deep in the ice.

Sunlight bounced off a thousand white and almost-white

surfaces. I took off my pack, found my sun goggles, ice

pick, a small bottle of water, a banana, and the ice probe. I

put on the goggles, drank the water, ate the banana, put the

peel inside the empty bottle and the bottle back in my pack,

and shouldered it, then snapped out the probe. Probe in left

hand and pick in right, I started walking. It had been nearly

three years, but the automatic step, diagonal probe, two step,

probe came back easily. It wasn’t foolproof, of course.

That’s what the pick was for: if I started to fall, I would

twist and swing it back at the ice and pray it held.

Sometimes the walking was easy, sometimes I had to put

away the probe and use the pick to scale ice cliffs and, once,

a sheet of ice like a frozen waterfall. When I started to step

up the slope diagonally I sat down in the snow and clipped

crampons to my boots. Judging by the sun, it was about one

in the afternoon. Julia would be on E16, driving above the

~ 340 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

speed limit by the grey-green waters of Sperillen not far

from the junction with E7, and Oslo, windows open and the

radio on, slapping the steering wheel with her right hand in

time to the music. I stood up and kicked myself another

foothold on the glacier.

~ 341 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Chapter Thirteen

As they are heated, most molecules become less dense and

expand so that the solid that barely fills half a cup will, as it

melts to form a liquid, overflow that cup. If heated enough

to vaporize, the gas will take up half a room. Water is

different. For one thing—unlike, say, nitrogen—it has

different names for all its states: water when liquid; steam

when a vapour; ice when solid. And when water freezes, it

doesn’t contract but expands. Against all reason, ice will

float upon water. Ice has always fascinated us.

Climbers, when asked why they want to climb, say, Everest,

reply: Because it’s there. A more true answer might be:

Because it’s got ice on it. Ice is alluring, mysterious, alien.

In the Western world, ice and science are regarded in the

same light: cold and clear, ordered and deeply rational,

apparently plain yet ultimately unknowable. I doubt that

it’s a coincidence that the very first science fiction novel,

Frankenstein, mixes both: the monster is brought forth in

cosmic fire and marooned on ice. Ice cannot bring forth life

but, used properly, it can preserve it. Think of all the food

in our freezers. Think of all those kidneys and livers and

hearts thrown in coolers and helicoptered out to save the

lives of transplant patients. Anyone knows that if you

happen to cut your finger off when peeling potatoes, you

should keep the finger cool—but not frozen, because then

water molecules inside the cells of skin and connective

tissue and blood will begin to form tiny ice crystals that

~ 342 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

will expand and expand and eventually rupture the cell

membrane, spilling protoplasm to the wind, destroying it.

Those who believe in cryogenics are dreaming. They have

seen too many rump steaks come out of the freezer as solid

as hoary planks and yet two hours later sit luscious and red

and mouthwatering on the countertop; but when something

living is frozen, it dies. Only those organisms frozen before

they are fully formed—gametes and embryos—can be

brought back to life by thawing.

Ice is dangerous, but people keep climbing those mountains

and walking the glaciers because, beyond all else, it is

beautiful.

The sprekk lay open at my feet, exposing jewels unseen for

thousands of years. I put my sweater back on, went down

on my stomach, and squirmed to the edge. The Grand

Canyon carved from ice. Inches from my nose, the top

layer, sooty with hydrocarbons, gave way to one of dirty

yellow, then one of heavy cream. These layers glistened,

slick and icy, melted and refrozen several times by the

spring sun. Below that, beyond the reach of both my arms

and direct sunlight, the true colours began. The crevasse

was over fifteen meters deep, and further down the light

was milky and subtle, shaded and heightened in strange

places by irregular outcroppings from the ice walls. Here, a

bulge glittered blinding white, while the edge of the

shadow it cast shimmered pale mauve, and the deeper

shadow dusky indigo. Down, and down, and now the

colours lost all hint of the organic and the crevasse became

stern and ordered, a cathedral of ice. Striations of amethyst

and aquamarine, deep, deep strata of pale emerald. My

body heat and the slanting afternoon sun ricocheting down

~ 343 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

warmed the ice and lifted the biting, mineral scent of water

that had fallen as snow eighteen thousand years ago, when

mammoths still walked and breathed and scooped aside

drifts with their tusks, millennia before human beings even

set foot upon the land that would be Norway. That water

would not be good to drink. Every year, there was always

some stupid tourist who decided to drink from the lake or

dip themself a handful of meltwater and came down with

violent diarrhea, and mouth sores that lasted for ten days.

But there was nothing wrong with smelling it, and for a

while I lay lost in the scents and interplay of light and

colour.

I had to get up when my thighs got so cold I could no

longer feel them. Too long, I’d been lying down too long.

Careless. My pants and sweater were damp, but they were

made of wool and beneath that I wore silk, which, unlike

cotton, dries fast and still traps heat while wet. Where the

snow was level, I did some katas, slowly at first, then faster,

and faster still, until the movements were mere lightning

sketches of killing blows and someone watching from a

distance would have thought there was a whirling dervish

on the ice. When I stopped, I was warm, but I sat on my

pack and poured myself a cup of hot, sweet coffee and ate

some cheese and nuts. Staying safe was a matter of

prevention.

I munched peacefully. The sun warmed my back and the

sweater began to steam. It was about three o’clock. Julia

would be in Oslo now, being very American with poor

Edvard Borlaug. I got out my map. It was not a good idea

to stay on the ice once the sun was slanting enough to send

strange shadows stretching out from even small hillocks of

~ 344 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

snow. There was no longer time for the ice cave, but if I

planned a careful route I could still spend a few minutes by

the lake.

It was a fair hike north to the lake, but it was along the edge

of the glacier, where in some places the moraine was

almost nonexistent or so old that it had long since been

invaded by moss and lichens, then grasses and the nodding

heads of the rare pale Pasquale flower and the delicate

cinnamon rose, by birch and aspen and pine and all that

flew and hopped and crawled in and on them. The

transition from white to full colour would have been

impossibly abrupt but for the silvery trunks of birch and

carpets of white-petalled mountain avons.

The lake, its surface brilliant with long, late afternoon

sunshine, lay in a vast basin carved by the glacier ten

thousand years ago. Nigardsbreen now lay at a tangent to

the irregular circle of tarn, and its moraine formed the

pebble and rock shore on which I stood. On the other side

lay sedge and moss freckled with purple saxifrage and,

behind that, woodland. Birds sang, an endless weave of

bright trill and warble.

The lake itself was glacier melt, barely above freezing, and

it was so still it seemed to be holding its breath, thick and

green and mineral. I touched the surface with a fingertip,

very gently, and the water dimpled but didn’t break, only

heaved slightly, turning parts of the surface gold in the sun,

part almost black in shadow. Grendel might have lived

somewhere like this, deep and gelid and secret.

I sat on a rock and shut my eyes.

~ 345 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

There is nothing like the smell of glacier and fjell in April

and May, the fecund earth, rich and dark after a long winter,

the warming, papery birch bark, and leaves unfurling new

and tender in the depths of the wood. I lost myself, utterly

relaxed, until the light began to fade and birdsong changed

to evensong.

The birds stopped singing.

I opened my eyes and listened harder. Footsteps, crunching

up along the glacier behind me and to my left, between me

and the setting sun. I turned, preparing to give him or her

my I’m just leaving smile, but there was no one there. My

breath came fast. No rock, no trees I could use as cover.

The footsteps stopped. My heart changed up a gear. He or

she had to be on the glacier, but I couldn’t see anything.

I stood up and waved. “Hei!” Gave a big grin. Stood on

tiptoes to stretch my muscles, flexed my hands, turned my

face slightly so the fattening, setting sun didn’t blind me. In

the heartbeat of silence took two steps toward the glacier—

cut his line of sight.

A slide and scuffle of snow overhead.

“Hi there!” American voice, male. He came to the edge of

the glacier and waved. Medium height, snow on his chest,

gloved right hand, bare left. “Wait there, I’m coming down.”

He stooped for something but I was already turning,

already running the three steps to the lake, when I felt a

punch on my back. I heard the phud of a suppressed rifle at

the same instant I leapt out along the sunpath on the lake,

and the water closed over my head. Blind, I stroked deep.

~ 346 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Ice water stops your breathing, sends your diaphragm into

spasm, and convulses every muscle, but the choice was

simple: remain hidden, or die. He would be scrambling

down the glacier, rifle in hand, padding to the edge of the

water, sights trained, ready. I spasmed downward to avoid

thrashing at the surface. I’d been in the water five or six

seconds, but could fight to hold my breath another two at

most. Think! Sun. Setting sun: dazzled water. It might be

enough. I let myself rise gently. A quick fin of my right

hand sent me into a roll, and I broke the surface for a split

second, like a floater, exposing only my shoulder and lower

face, but long enough for one huge suck of air, blessed air,

then back down. My eyes stung with the minerals and the

cold, but I could see the cloud of blood, brown in the green

water, trailing from my shoulder. The cold would soon stop

the bleeding. He would think me dead. I dived, but slowly,

gently, and stroked towards the shore. He had the gun, but I

had the sun: he wouldn’t be able to see beneath the surface

reflection, but I would see his shadow. Gloved right hand

for the barrel, bare left for the trigger: he was left-handed. I

felt along the lake bed until I found a smooth round stone

that fit my palm.

The blood had made him careless. He was standing right at

the edge of the water, one foot actually in it, rifle held only

loosely to his left shoulder. I finned my way gently to his

left, counted to three, and roared up out of the water, stone

swinging—

—only it was more of a stumble than a roar, and the rock

that should have slammed into his temple crunched into his

left knee instead. He went down with a splash, face first. I

was on my knees, heavy and useless with water. I swung

~ 347 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

the stone at his head, but slipped and thumped him between

the shoulder blades. He thrashed and convulsed in the cold.

I couldn’t summon any strength; it was as though someone

had pulled the plug and everything had just drained away. I

dropped the stone and shoved him, boatlike, out into the

lake, only just retaining the wit to hang on to his rifle. He

spasmed, swallowed water. I pulled out the clip and put it

in my pants pocket, jacked out the round he had already

chambered, then used the rifle as a crutch and heaved

myself to my feet. I was so numb with cold I couldn’t tell

where I’d been shot.

Think. Think fast. I swayed and closed my eyes, opened

them again. He was definitely moving more slowly now.

Very well, then. I tossed the rifle alongside my pack.

The water was just as cold when I waded back in, but I only

had to go up to my thighs. He was barely conscious. It

affects some people that way. I caught the neck of his

jacket— some quilted cotton thing, sodden—and dragged

him to the shore. Hauling him up was hard. I got him most

of the way out and his eyelids started to flutter. I dropped

him, found my stone, and hit him on the forehead, but not

too hard. I wouldn’t need long. I dropped the stone back in

the water, which rippled heavily, the murky brown cloud of

my blood still clearly visible, and finished dragging him out

onto dry ground. A quick search gave me his wallet, keys

with Volvo logo on the fob, and sodden cigarettes and

lighter. I flicked the lighter. Nothing. I held it up to the

failing sun—half full of liquid—flicked again. Nothing. His

driver’s license said John Turkel; so did the Blue Cross

Card. Careless. No rental papers for the car. I pushed the

keys into my pocket and everything else back in his.

~ 348 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

My muscles were like lumps of wood stuck haphazardly

onto cardboard bones. Nothing worked right. My fingers

hung from my hands like thick, stupid bunches of bananas

and I kept falling down because I couldn’t feel my feet. It

took five tries to strip off my sweater, more for my pants

and shoes, and then I half stumbled, half ran to the glacier,

where I rolled in what snow I could find to absorb most of

the excess water from my bare skin. Patches of bright red

stained the snow here and there but it wasn’t too much. I

stretched and flexed and staggered in circles until feeling

returned to my torso, to thighs and wrist, and then I ran

some more while I squeezed as much water as I could from

the sweater and undershirt and pants. The trot back to my

pack was reasonably steady but the shadows were so long I

shied at pebbles, thinking they were boulders.

When I got to my pack, all I wanted to do was sit down, but

I didn’t dare. I fished in it, standing, tilting it this way and

that until the slippery plastic compresses slithered out into

my clumsy hands. They were cold as eels, but two quick

twists started the catalytic reaction and they began to warm.

I held one compress against my chest with my right hand

and tried to use my left to wrap the other tight inside my

wet sweater and pants but my arm wouldn’t work properly,

just flopped about. Try again. Slowly. I managed, one inch

at a time. The bullet had hit something important. No time

to think about that; there were more urgent things to deal

with: getting my body temperature back up, warming the

wool sweater and pants enough to put back on and trap

what heat I could coax my body to produce.

In the gathering twilight the rocks near the lake looked like

comfortable brown cows settling down for the night. I

~ 349 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

walked from one to another, found one that was still warm

from the sun, and spread my undershirt out on it. An inch at

a time.

I put the compress between my teeth and dragged my pack

over to another rock, sat down, and dropped the compress

across my thighs. I had to balance the plastic thermos cup

on the turf to pour the hot, sweet coffee, and it wobbled

precariously. I drank a whole cup, poured more, dug out

some chocolate, chewed and swallowed, chewed again. My

hands ached around the hot cup, the right just with cold, the

left with more. Another ache bloomed high up on my back.

Later.

More chocolate, the last of the coffee. Put it all away in the

pack. Walk to gunman. Turkel, John Turkel.

Walking felt strange, as though someone had removed my

arms and legs and then reattached them using odd

connections. I squatted a few feet from the man, who was

shaking convulsively with his eyes closed, and tossed a

pebble at him. When he opened his eyes and saw my

nakedness, his pupils dilated, then contracted.

“Talk,” I said in English.

He stared at me.

I didn’t have time for this. “I imagine your knee hurts, if

you can feel it at all. You’ll need several hours’ surgery

before you walk on that leg again. You are soaked through

with freezing water and are in the first stages of

hypothermia. Perhaps your thought processes are becoming

~ 350 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

cloudy. Let me make it clear: you will tell me everything

about who sent you to kill me and why, or you will die out

here.”

I watched him gather his pitiful resources—two quick

breaths, flare of nostrils, tightening of muscles around his

mouth—and when he lunged, I swayed to one side and hit

his already bruised forehead with the meaty side of my fist.

He went down like a punched-open inflatable doll.

This was taking too long. I rooted around a bit in the grass

until I found another rock.

While he was still groaning, I smashed his other knee. He

screamed. I waited until he had finished. “I’m in a hurry.

Can you understand what I’m saying?”

A groan. I slapped his knee lightly. Another scream.

“John, answer me. Can you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Listen carefully. Both your knees are smashed. It’ll be

dark in a few minutes. The only way you will survive

tonight is with my help. I will only help you if you help me.

Where is your car?”

His shaking had changed to long, rolling shudders and he

didn’t seem to care about his car. I lifted my hand. “No!

It’s… it’s…” He had to clench his jaw to stop his teeth

from clacking together. “Miles, three maybe, valley.”

~ 351 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“In the Nigard Valley?” There was still enough light

reflecting from the water to see his nod, or what seemed to

be a nod amid all the jerking and shaking. “North or south?”

“North.”

The compress was cooling. My muscles began a light,

internal tremble and the pain high up on my back grew,

sending out shoots, twining like a liana down my left side,

up my shoulder and down my arm. I backed away, looked

around in the dark for a cow with a white coat. Found it.

Lovely, lovely almost dry silk. “Tell me where you got the

car.” Cautiously, I reached around my ribs with my right

hand and touched my waist with my fingertips. Dried blood

but whole skin. I worked my way up slowly, had to fight to

silence a hiss when my fingers met the ragged furrow along

my shoulder blade.

“Gothenburg,” the man said, and it took me a moment to

remember what I’d asked him.

“Who told you to get the car in Sweden?” I felt along the

bony top of my shoulder, nothing; around the back of the

top of my arm. Ah. So the bullet had hit the bone at just the

right angle and ploughed along skin and bone and along the

top of my arm as I dived. Felt as though it had chipped the

elbow. The nerves would be damaged, but perhaps not

irreparably. Lucky. But I had lost blood, and the pain was

going to get worse. “John, who told you to get the car in

Sweden?” I plunked my left hand like a piece of meat on

the cuff of one sleeve and used my right to wind the other

sleeve over the first into a knot. I had to use my teeth to

pull the knot tight. As soon as I dropped the improvised

~ 352 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

sling over my head I realized my mistake and took it off

again.

“John?” No sound. No movement. He had passed out. I

hurried.

My sweater was still damp but it was warm, and warmth

was more important now than avoiding pain. I rested my

left arm on my left thigh, spread the sweater over my right

thigh, then threaded my left arm through the sleeve as

though it were a stick, nothing to do with me. Pain is just a

message. It was easy to get my right arm in the sleeve. I felt

the wool dragging over the open furrow, sticking to clotting

blood. Deep breath, just a message, pull sweater over head

and down. Breathe. Just breathe. I didn’t even pause with

the sling: over my head, pick up left arm, shove it through.

Pants next; socks, boots; check car keys and clip in pocket,

tuck compresses inside waistband. Good for another few

minutes. Moonlight seeped from behind heavy cloud.

Back to John. His cheek felt cool and solid, like clay. I

slapped it. He whimpered. I slapped him again. Faint

glimmer as he opened his eyes.

“You’re not shivering anymore. You’ve entered the next

stage of hypothermia. Unless you get warm very soon, John,

you’ll die. I’m all that stands between you and death. Tell

me what I need to know. Who sent you?”

“Man.” He looked surprised: talking was easier without the

shivering. “Man in Atlanta.”

“Who?”

~ 353 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Don’t know. Really don’t. Just sent us money, wired it to

the bank.”

“Us? How many?”

“Three.”

Julia. I had to get to Oslo. But even if I could protect her

there, what then? I needed information to stop this at the

source. “How did you find me here?”

“Edvard Borlaug. Called him from Gothenburg. He said

other woman, Julia? Julia.” The sound of her name in his

mouth made my fingers stiffen with the need to punch

through his eye to his brain. “Said that Julia was coming in.

That you probably coming too, but not sure. So. I drove

here. Asked at… at farm. They drove… Oslo. Kill her.”

Three. “What do they look like?”

“Ugly.” He thought that was funny and laughed, hoarse and

high.

“Describe them. Tell me their names.” Hurting him would

not help at this point.

“McCall’s tall. McCall’s tall.” He seemed quite taken with

his little rhyme. Typical hypothermia confusion.

“How old?”

“Forty?”

~ 354 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Tell me about the other one.”

“Ginger. Because of his hair. Don’t know his real name.

Medium. Thin. Young.” Not the ones from Honeycutt’s

house.

According to his license, John Turkel was thirty-two.

“Early twenties?”

“Younger.”

“Tell me again who sent you.”

“Don’t know. Man. From Atlanta.”

“How do you know he was from Atlanta?”

“I feel real bad.”

“How did you know?”

“Asked him… how know where to find you. He said. Call

us from here, from where he was. Then he yelled…

someone. In his office. ‘What’s time difference between

Atlanta and Sweden.’ Something like that. Atlanta.”

“What did he say? What did he sound like?”

“Said: kill art bitch. Julia. Kill her. Kill you.”

“Did he want it to look like an accident?”

~ 355 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Didn’t care. Just make them dead. That’s what he said. I

feel real bad. Weird.”

“And that’s all? Do McCall and Ginger know where Julia is

staying in Oslo?”

“Didn’t. Might now. Help me.” He tried to lift his hand but

the hypothermia had him now and only a couple of fingers

twitched. The air smelt like rain.

“Help me,” he said again.

I ran through events in my head: all my possessions,

anything to link me to a body, were in my pack, and the

bootprints would wash away in the rain. Just my prints on

the rifle, then.

“I’ll need your jacket.”

It was sodden, and he couldn’t even move an arm to help

me. In the end, I just tore off the collar and took that over to

my pack. I had to grope around for the rifle. I wiped it free

of prints and used the collar to carry it to the water. It made

a thin, flat splash.

“What?” he said.

The clip followed. I knelt by John Turkel and put the torn

collar in his hand. I don’t think he even felt it.

“Please. Help me.” Barely a whisper.

I picked up my pack. “There isn’t time.”

~ 356 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The clouds parted and I stood up into a suddenly

monochrome world: water sleek and black; sedge leached

lithium grey; moonlight lying like pools of mercury on the

upturned faces of graphite flowers. Nature, thinking there

was no one to observe, was letting slide the greens and

blues, the honey yellows, and showing her other face: flat,

indifferent, anonymous.

Only trolls, fools and desperate people walk the fjell at

night when all is shadow and deeper shadow. I knew that I

could not walk down a mountain along a trail I didn’t know

with muscles already cold and screaming with toxins and

fatigue after the icewater of the lake, expecting my foot to

twist on an unseen stone or skitter down scree, to any

minute tumble into a gully or thump into a tree; knew I

could not carefully place one foot in front of another for

three or four miles with a hole punched in my back and a

slow leak. So I ran.

Cloud closed over the moon and the rain came down,

gentle and light, almost like mist. I ran like a deer, snuffing

the scents lifted by the rain, veering away from the pine or

wet stone that warned of danger and towards the safety of

wet grass and opening flowers, relying on the tiny sound of

a pebble rattling under my boot and tumbling away down to

my left to warn me of a gully, ran like a deer that ignores a

bullet through the shoulder because the wound is not the

urgent thing, the urgent thing is the adrenalin stride, the run,

covering the ground, the need to keep going, to never stop,

to leap brooks and low-lying branches, to crash through

brush, to weave through trees and skitter and fall on loose

stone and get up without pausing, without thinking, without

missing a beat. The branch whipping across the face, the

~ 357 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

slow hot leak of blood down the back and deeper tear of

skin where the pack pulled open the wound, did not matter,

because pain is just a message. I ignored it, washed it away

with adrenalin and endorphins and the rhythm of breath and

blood and bone.

Three miles, Turkel had said, but that was in daylight with

map in hand, when you could plot the perfect diagonal. I

was going to have to run farther; to get down into the valley,

then run north. Five miles, perhaps. More. The rain came

down harder, the underbrush thickened. My boots began to

slide in mud. I shortened my stride a little and ran on.

Breath whistling in and out through nostrils and mouth,

thigh muscles pumping—contract, relax, contract, relax—

toes gripping inside boots and wearing raw against wet

wool. Sweat running down my belly.

It was when each stride started coming shorter than the last

and the pressure was on calves, not quadriceps, that I

realized I had reached the floor of the valley and was

starting up the other side. I turned left and ran north.

The valley trail under the trees was so dark I would have

missed the place but for the suddenly alien scent of tires

and good-quality leather getting wet. Then there it was,

windshield streaming in the rain, both front windows open.

It was when I sat down on civilized leather, when I turned

the key and the dark and the rain were outside, that the pain

snapped like a gin trap on my back, biting down so hard it

seemed to drive its teeth into my lungs and tear my breath

apart. The headlights shining into the rain started to recede,

~ 358 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

as though I were on the back of a train heading into a long

tunnel.

I slewed the Volvo to a stop outside the seter and stumbled

in. It was two o’clock in the morning. The phone was on

the table. I couldn’t remember the phone number of the

Hotel Bristol. I called information. They could not

understand me.

“Oslo,” I repeated. It sounded muddy and slurred. I shaped

the next words carefully. “Hotel Bristol. Kristian VII’s

gate.”

They gave me the number. It sounded like surf crashing in

my ears.

“Again. Please. Give me the number again.”

“22 41 58 40.”

I had no pen, no paper. 22 41 48… no, 58. 22 58… I called

again. The same woman. She gave me the number again.

22 41 58 40. I tapped it in carefully. It rang and rang and

rang. Blood dripped down my back.

“Hotel Bristol.” Bright, young, male.

“I need to talk to one of your guests, Julia Lyons-Bennet.”

“Perhaps I could take a message.” His voice started to slide

away. I breathed deep.

~ 359 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“No.” I had to hold on. Just another minute, another two. “I

have to speak to her, now.”

“It is after two o’clock. In the morning.”

“I am not drunk. I am not in a different time zone. This is

an emergency. Please put my call through.”

“After ten p.m. it is our policy that guests—”

“I wish to speak to the night manager.”

“Ma’am, the—”

“Get the night manager.”

He put me on hold. Pain pulsed like a candle under a glass

sucking in oxygen and flaring, using up the oxygen and

dying, sucking more and flaring; heating my nerve to a

white-hot wire. I walked, very slowly, very upright, to the

kitchen. Hold on. Hold on for just another minute, another

two. I had to tuck the phone under my chin while I opened

the cupboard and pulled out half a loaf of bread and a pot

of sweet jam. I couldn’t cut the bread with just one hand, so

I jammed it between my hip and the counter and tore off

chunks, which I dipped straight into the jar. It tasted like

dirt, but I chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed.

Still on hold. The refrigerator yielded a wedge of yellow

cheese wrapped in wax paper. My hearing came back in a

tumble of discrete sounds: the prickles in each exhalation

as it left my lungs, the creak of bone in my elbow as I

shifted slightly, soft slap of white paper against cheese. The

clarity of delirium. Just another minute, another two.

~ 360 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The phone suddenly seemed to open out as the night

manager punched the hold button to off and the myriad

hums of a computerized office on standby filled the

earpiece. He—and I could tell it was a he from the

harmonics of his inhalation— drew breath, but I spoke first.

“My name is Aud Torvingen. To whom do I have the

pleasure of speaking?”

“Rolf Lothbrok, the night manager.”

“Rolf, if you check your records you will find that Ms.

Lyons-Bennet and I stayed with you two weeks ago. It is

vitally important, urgent, that I speak to Ms. Lyons-Bennet

now. Not later, or soon, but now.” The carbohydrates were

metabolising now, hitting my bloodstream, and everything

sparkled. Even my words seemed clear: cool, measured,

precise. Rolf must have thought so, too.

“Very well, I’ll put your call through.”

A click. Purring electronic ring. Another. Again. On and on.

Endless. The carbohydrates were cascading through my

system. I disconnected, pressed the redial button.

“Put the manager back on,” I told the flustered young night

clerk. “Rolf, she must have turned off the ringer. I want you

to go knock on her door.”

“Ms. Torvingen, it is absolutely against our policy to

disturb a guest.”

“This is an emergency.”

~ 361 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Then may I suggest you call the police?”

He had reached the place where the officious become

immovable, and the telephone was not a sharp enough tool.

I switched tactics. “Rolf, this really is terribly urgent, but I

think I know a way you can help me, if I may presume

upon you for a favour.” Julia was safe in bed in a well-run

hotel. I could be there before breakfast. “If you’re not too

busy, perhaps I could persuade you to take down a note and

slip it under her door where she will see it as soon as she

wakes in the morning.” Where she would see it, bright and

incongruous against the carpet if she got up to answer the

knock of a strange man in the middle of the night. “Please,

Rolf, could I ask you to do that?”

“I… well, perhaps I could do that.”

“Oh, thank you. The message is to read: ‘Very urgent, take

all

precautions,

call

Aud

immediately,

repeat,

immediately.’” He scribbled industriously. I was very, very

thirsty. I wanted to say more, but I knew the Rolfs of the

world. Any mention of blood, of danger or bullets on the

fjell would prompt an immediate withdrawal because it

would mean I was a crazy woman: such things did not

happen in Norway. “Please add…” What? Don’t talk to two

men called Ginger and McCall who have been sent to kill

you? “Please add my love. Please underline the words

‘Very’ and ‘all.’ ”

“Very well.”

“And… Mr. Lothbrok”—make him feel big and clever and

in charge—“you will see to that right away, won’t you? I

~ 362 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

just couldn’t sleep until I know she’s got the message.

You’ll put it under her door?”

“As soon as I put the phone down, Ms. Torvingen.”

“Thank you, thank you very much.”

Then I suggest you call the police. Oslo police are typical

Norwegians—everything one at a time, in the right order,

by the book. They would show up at the hotel, ask a few

questions, maybe wake Julia and talk to her. Julia would be

safe—for tonight. The police would also show up here.

They would surround me. They would want to know how I

got shot. They would ask whose car it was. They would not

let me talk to Julia. And when they stopped surrounding

Julia because they thought I was crazy, I would be in a

hospital cell, unable to protect her. No, not the police. Julia

was safe for the night; Rolf and his staff were sticklers for

protocol, wouldn’t tell anyone her room number; and she

would see the note when she woke up in the morning.

I needed water, painkillers, heat, more food, in that order,

but they would have to wait. I needed to think. A man from

Atlanta had hired three Americans to kill Julia. It had to be

Honeycutt, or his blackmailer. If it was Honeycutt, he had

to be acting on his own; the cartel would have used their

own people. Locals. But how had Honeycutt—or the

blackmailer— known we were in Norway, and how had he

known where to start looking? I should call Annie, but she

would have questions and I had no answers. Nothing made

sense.

~ 363 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Think about it later. What mattered now was Julia, and for

that I would need help. Local help who were not too fussy

about the law.

It was nearly three in the morning, an hour earlier in

London. I picked up the phone again and called a number

my mother had given me when I first left home, one I had

never had to use. She answered on the third ring, alert.

“Yes.”

“It’s Aud. I need your help.” I could almost see the

lightening then sudden stilling of her face as she

understood that it was her daughter, not World War III, but

that I was in trouble. There was a click on the line.

“A tape,” she said, “so you don’t have to repeat anything.”

Norwegian. I couldn’t remember the last time we had

spoken our native tongue together.

“I’m at the seter, on a cell phone.” I gave her the number.

“I need the phone number of the Federal Police commander

in Tijuana. A private number, or home number if possible.

And the number of someone else, someone he might know,

whom he could call to confirm my identity.”

She must have had a hundred questions but she asked only

one. “How urgent?”

“It… Julia, a woman I love, it might mean her life.”

“I’ll call you back within an hour.”

~ 364 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Until she called, there was nothing more I could do. Now

was the time for the water, painkillers, heat and food.

I took the old tin box that was the seter’s first-aid kit down

from the bathroom shelf and ministered to myself with

grim efficiency. Strip off damp pants. One syrette of

morphine in the upper quadrant of right thigh. Pull on clean,

dry pants. Drink water while that takes hold, fill kettle with

water and put on to boil. Lay out compresses, antibiotic

cream, peroxide, bandages. Think how I want to appear

tomorrow in Oslo. Find clean dry knit silk tunic. Strip off

damp, bloody sweater. Pick up peroxide.

It was messy, it hurt, I passed out twice. I ended up having

to use a doubled-over pillowcase as well as the compresses:

I could not afford to bleed in public tomorrow. I made

instant coffee, very strong, and wished I had some soup that

was not in cans. I ended up tearing chunks of ham from the

bone with my teeth, and pulling the rest of the loaf to

pieces. The morphine was laving my torn muscles like

warm milk, swaddling my nerve sheaths in cotton wool. I

could move my left hand well enough to steady a hot-water

bottle, which I filled from the kettle in my right. It took

four trips to assemble writing paper, ballpoint pen, coffee,

hot water bottle and phone on the table in the living room.

The embassy in London would be a hornet’s nest, my

mother rousting everyone out of bed, having them in turn

rouse people in other embassies who owed her favours;

tracking down the information I needed. I had seen her

work before.

~ 365 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

The pen was an old one, its clear octagonal plastic barrel

chewed at the end, and when I put the tip to paper, it left a

blot. I wrote the date, then paused. This must have been

how Vortigern the High King felt when the last of the

Roman legions withdrew, leaving fourth century Britain

open to the prowling Saxon seawolves, and he had gambled,

had picked a few from the pack and befriended them, gifted

them with land along the south shore in return for a

promise to defend the country from their hungry, landless

cousins. Classic strategy, divide the enemy and hold the

two opposing camps in perfect tension, only Vortigern had

not known the sheer weight of numbers pressing up against

the Saxon shore; the tension was unequal; his gamble had

failed. The might of the Tijuana cartel and of Honeycutt

were decidedly not equal, but when the cartel crushed

Honeycutt and wanted to turn on me, this letter would be

my Roman Legion in the hole.

I wrote steadily.

The phone rang. It was my mother. Fifty minutes. “The

Tijuana Federal Police commander’s name is Luis Palma. I

have his home number, his private work line, and the

general office number. The name of the man in Tijuana

who can confirm your identity is Hector Lorca, a television

anchor. I have already called him, and he has agreed.” He

must owe her a tremendous favour. Well, now so did I.

“Thank you.”

“Bring Julia to London to thank me.”

~ 366 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Four a.m. Still yesterday in Mexico, where Luis Palma

would be sitting down to dinner with his family while

outside the sky turned red.

I dialed. It didn’t have a chance to ring before it was picked

up and a smooth male voice said, “Palma residence.”

“I wish to speak to Senor Palma.” My Spanish had been

learned in England and Spain a long time ago. It was slow

but, thanks to the few days’ practice with Beatriz,

reasonably good. The European accent, too, would stand

me in good stead.

“Senor Palma is a busy man and this is his family time. No

doubt he would be delighted to speak to you tomorrow,

from his office.” Unctuous as guacamole.

“Tonight I do not wish to discuss police business. Tonight I

wish to impart some information about the cartel’s money

launderer in Atlanta.”

“But that, of course, would be police business. However, as

you have been kind enough to call with this information for

Senor Palma, I will take a message.”

“No message. I need to talk to Senor Palma. Now. Tell him

Michael Honeycutt is deceiving the cartel and stealing

money.”

“If you will give me the details—”

“I will speak to Senor Palma only. Tell him my name is

Aud Torvingen, that my mother is Else Torvingen,

~ 367 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Norwegian ambassador to London. Tell him I am to be

trusted, but that if he needs to check that I am to be trusted

he may call Senor Hector Lorca at his home. Senor Lorca

awaits his call. I will call back in twenty minutes.”

The knuckle bones were cast, the game with the bloody-

handed Viking begun.

I wrote faster.

I covered three more pages with terse, blotched writing,

then called again. The same smooth voice answered.

“Senor Palma will talk to you, Senorita Torvingen.”

“Thank you.”

“This is Luis Palma.” His voice was smooth, too, but

smooth like a Rolls-Royce, secure with power and money

and the kind of arrogance that does not even have to

display itself. “You have some information for me.”

“Information and a request for your help.”

“I am of course happy to help a young lady if it is in my

power, but I am just a humble policeman in a poor country.”

“Of course, senor. You have no doubt heard of the Tijuana

business cartel and their business of shipping the produce

of certain people in Colombia. No doubt it is already

common knowledge to you, as a policeman and well-

informed citizen of the region, that a portion of the revenue

from this business is administered in Atlanta. Some of the

~ 368 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

money is put to work immediately, investing in works of

art which are bought and sold in this and other countries.

The proceeds of these sales should of course find their way

into the bank accounts of the Tijuana businessmen who

brokered the product, and naturally the banker who

oversees these deals should be a very prudent man. He is

not. Quite by chance I have discovered that the Atlanta

banker, Michael Honeycutt, is”—I didn’t know how to say

playing both ends against the middle in my rather formal

Spanish—“deceiving these businessmen. He is also

drawing attention to himself and therefore the cartel

through various illegal activities, including the forging of

these works of art, so that he may pocket money for

himself.”

“I am sure that these businessmen would like to hear proof

of their colleague’s disloyalty.”

“I have proof. I know the names of the people who supplied

the forged art to Honeycutt; I know about his accounts in

the Seychelles. So does someone else. Senor Palma, I

believe someone in Atlanta has discovered Honeycutt’s

activities, including his work for the Tijuana businessmen,

and is blackmailing him. Honeycutt has made many, many

mistakes. Many innocents have become entangled in his

web. Many innocents, including myself and a friend whose

name is of no importance.”

“And you, of course, have spoken to no one about this.”

“No one. But I have taken the precaution of writing down

all that I know and mailing it to my lawyer, to be opened in

the case of my death or disappearance.”

~ 369 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“A very foresighted precaution.”

“Thank you. I am now, of course, worried that this banker

in Atlanta, Michael Honeycutt, may succeed in his attempts

to kill me and my friend, and that this information, this

confidential information, may be loosed prematurely and

damage the reputation and livelihood of this Tijuana

business association. Today, one of the banker’s men came

very close to succeeding, and there are two others in Oslo,

just waiting for me. I thought perhaps that if these

businessmen understood my predicament, they might be

willing to put me in touch with some associates. They

might offer some local assistance, and perhaps the

temporary use of some of their office equipment.”

“A reasonable request. But I am not sure if the business

association has an office in your area. Perhaps I could find

out and telephone you in, say, one hour?”

“That is acceptable.”

“I will need your phone number.” I gave it to him. “In one

hour, Miss Torvingen.”

By five-thirty in the morning I had finished my long letter.

I put it in an envelope, which I sealed carefully, then wrote

a note to my attorney, which I put, together with the sealed

envelope, inside a second envelope, which I addressed to

the law firm of Spirkett and Clowes in Atlanta. I had no

idea how much international postage was, but ten domestic

stamps should be plenty. One little envelope. It wasn’t

enough insurance. I started another sheet of paper.

~ 370 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

This time it went faster. When I’d finished, I addressed it to

myself, in care of Dornan, at Borealis. For the first time in

twelve hours I was not cold.

The cotton wool around my nerves was wearing thin and

the milk that lapped my muscles evaporating. There were

two syrettes of morphine left. It would have to wait.

Outside, the rain had stopped and the sun was coming up. I

smeared mud on the Volvo’s license plates, just in case it

had been stolen and reported to the police, and drove like

an old woman to the post box three kilometers down the

bumpy track. The first pickup was at seven-thirty. I slid the

envelope addressed to my attorney through the slot, then

drove another five kilometers to post the second.

The phone rang as I pulled up outside the seter.

“Miss Torvingen.” It was Guacamole Voice, the assistant.

“Senor Palma has asked that I pass on the phone number of

a business associate in Oslo who will be waiting for your

call.” He gave it to me. It was another cellular number.

“Senor Palma also asked me to tell you two things. First of

all, that the banker of whom you spoke, Senor Honeycutt,

was shot to death at a New York airport ten days ago.”

Honeycutt was shot ten days ago. Ten days ago.

“… association was of course most upset at the time, but

given your information, they are not as upset as they had

been. They do, however, wish they knew who had set such

a thing in motion.”

~ 371 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

Someone unknown to the cartel had killed Honeycutt.

Honeycutt was dead. The man from Atlanta had killed

Honeycutt. Honeycutt was not the man from Atlanta.

“… second item to convey is that despite the death, Senor

Palma will honour his agreement. And, of course, should

you discover who might have intended harm to Senor

Honeycutt, Senor Palma would be most grateful for that

information. He also hopes that given your diplomatic

contacts, you might be persuaded to act as a goodwill

ambassador in the future. Good evening, Miss Torvingen.”

A silky threat. You owe us. We will collect.

~ 372 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Chapter Fourteen

I drove like a berserker up the track to the secondary road

at the tip of the fjord. Honeycutt was not the man from

Atlanta. Honeycutt was dead. I should have paid attention

to my unease. I should have listened. The morphine sliding

slick as ice through my system could not dim the fear that

kept my foot down on the accelerator even though the

Volvo was already fishtailing on the loose grit and holding

the wheel steady was agony. Someone hidden in the

shadows was reaching out with a pair of shears to cut the

strings.

I skidded onto the secondary road and brought the Volvo

up to a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour. That lasted

for ten minutes, then I was back on another twenty

kilometers of track but it was a straight stretch, and it was

empty. I risked taking my good hand off the wheel to punch

in the Bristol’s phone number and tuck the phone under my

chin. It was nearly seven in the morning. The desk clerk put

me through to Julia’s room without demur. The phone rang

and rang and rang. I disconnected and called again. When

the desk clerk answered I asked for Rolf. “Ms. Torvingen.

What can I do for you?”

“There’s no reply from Ms. Lyons-Bennet’s room and she

hasn’t called me. Did you leave the note?”

“Indeed. I took it up personally.”

~ 373 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“And you’re sure she’s there?”

“A moment.” Ticking of keys. “Yes. She came in late last

night and told the desk clerk she would be checking out

after lunch.”

“Thank you, you’ve been most helpful. But if you see her,

please tell her I’ve been trying to contact her. Please also

tell her to stay in the hotel. I should be there in under two

hours.”

“I will pass on your request.” There was nothing more I

could do.

I took the hard left onto E16 without slowing and as soon

as all four wheels were on the highway, I pushed the

accelerator flat to the floor. Like the secondary road, the

highway was deserted. My heart was a sledgehammer,

driving the car forward. Without taking my eyes off the

road, I punched in the number of the cartel’s local contact.

“Hei.” A coffee-grounds voice, dark and used. “Torvingen.”

“You can call me Sampo.” Sampo Lappelil—the Little

Lapp Boy who saves the world from the king of trolls and

permanent winter. A bitter man.

“I’ll be there in two hours. Less. You have something for

me.”

“Yes.” He gave me an address near the Akershus. “Be here

before nine.”

~ 374 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I called the Bristol again, but here in the Oppland my signal

just bounced from rock to rock.

I tore south, never easing up, letting speed and adrenalin

flense away dread and pain and all feeling until I was bone

clothed in muscle moving forward with deadly purpose.

As soon as I hit the outskirts of Oslo and saw the flags

fluttering from every flagpole, I understood why the roads

had been empty. It was May 17, National Day, a public

holiday when proud Norwegians flocked from their houses

to commemorate the anniversary of the constitution of 1814,

clogging the streets with processions and ceremonies and

celebration.

I cursed steadily and aimed the car for the city center.

It was eight-thirty. The boulevards and avenues were empty

and silent but for hammering as carpenters put the final

touches to speaking platforms, and the shrieks of

microphone feedback as techs tested the public address

systems. The workers all swung around, astonished, when I

screeched by. Good Norwegians all, at least one would call

the police.

I pulled up in a no-parking zone in front of the Bristol and

brushed aside the doorman and his protests. The man

behind the desk literally stepped back a pace when he saw

me.

“Tell me what room Julia Lyons-Bennet is in.”

~ 375 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

He swallowed. “She’s… I’m sorry. She checked out half an

hour ago.”

“Where is Rolf?”

His eyes bugged like boiled eggs. “Rolf?”

“The night manager.”

“His… his shift ended twenty minutes ago.” But his eyes

shifted towards a door marked STAFF ONLY.

I vaulted over the counter and slammed open the door. Rolf

was a big, soft thirtyish man who leapt out of an easy chair

and spilled his tea.

“Where is she?” He shook his head. His left hand cupped

his genitals. I don’t think he even knew he was doing it.

“Tell me what you said in that note.”

“I kept a copy.” Such a small, tight voice for a soft man.

A copy. So Norwegian. “Show me.”

He edged past me as though terrified I might rip his guts

from his belly with my bare hands. He pulled open a

drawer under the counter and extracted a sheet of paper. He

checked it carefully. What he saw gave him confidence; he

blinked but did not shake as he handed it over.

It was written in Norwegian. I crumpled it slowly in my fist.

Rolf stepped back. Stupid. I was so stupid. I should never

~ 376 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

have let her go. So many mistakes. I fought to keep my

voice level. “Did you speak to her before she checked out?”

He shook his head. Once started, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“No. But don’t you see,” he pleaded, “it was after my shift.

After my shift!”

“Give me the phone book.” I looked up Olsen Glass. Dialed.

After seven rings a cheery recorded voice told me to call

again tomorrow and to have a happy National Day.

When I slid into the car, the phone was still hanging from

the counter, the two men standing like figures from a

tableau.

Ten minutes to find Sampo.

It was a modern warehouse building. Sampo opened a

loading bay and motioned the Volvo inside. He was

compact and brown and much younger than I had expected.

A man and a woman emerged from the concrete corners.

“Your army stands ready to serve,” Sampo said. He spared

me the ironic salute. From the bench that ran around half

the bay, he picked up something wrapped in dirty cloth and

handed it to me. I unwrapped it. A massive old Lahti, nine

millimeter. Full clip. “It’s old. Unregistered.” He held out

his other hand. It clinked. “Extra rounds but no extra clip.”

I dropped them in my pocket, tossed the Lahti onto the

front seat of the Volvo, and took Julia’s passport from the

glove compartment.

~ 377 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“This woman is Julia Lyons-Bennet.” Unsmiling, hair

pulled back. Beautiful. “She was registered at the Bristol

Hotel. She has an appointment with the board, or some

members of the board, of Olsen Glass this morning at ten

o’clock. It’s an informal meeting, and this is National Day,

so it may not be at the Olsen building.” They passed the

passport around. “There are two men who want to kill her.

You will stop them. Their names are Ginger and McCall.” I

gave their descriptions.

“Find them. When you find them, get information on who

sent them, then kill them. Protect this woman. That is your

first priority. That’s all.”

“That’s all,” Sampo mused. “And we don’t even know

where to begin.”

“You’re not a fool. Check the Olsen Glass building. Find

out who is on the board, find out where they live and check

there. Find the woman. You have my phone number. Keep

me informed.”

I was going to find Ginger and McCall.

In the bathroom of the Rainbow Hotek Stefan I flexed my

face a few times and studied it in the mirror. A slightly

nervous and rather young woman looked back. Good.

At the reception desk I smiled shyly. “Hello?”

Answering smile. “How can I help you?”

~ 378 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Well, it’s… it’s silly, really,” I said in a rush, looking over

my shoulder, “but, you know the Internet? I’m expecting to

meet… well, to meet a man. He’s called Ginger. At least

that’s what he tells me. He’s from America. We talked such

a lot online. He says he’s young and unmarried and has

ginger hair and, I don’t know, I said last week we could

meet here this morning. ‘On National Day,’ I said. Only

now, now that it’s the day…”

“You think you might have been a bit hasty.” She was only

in her early twenties, but she was stern, playing the older

and wiser woman of the world.

I nodded, shamefaced. “I thought maybe you could tell me

if he’s here. Then I could get a look at him first, before I

introduce myself. Just in case.”

“Much more sensible,” she said approvingly, and opened

up the guest register screen.

“He was supposed to come here with his business partner, a

man called McCall,” I said helpfully.

She ran down the names. “No. No, I don’t see anyone of

that name.”

“Have you been on duty all week?”

“Yes.”

“And you haven’t seen a thin man with red hair?”

“No.”

~ 379 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I let my face fall.

“Perhaps it’s for the best.”

“I suppose so. Well, thank you.”

On to the Majorstuen, on Bogstadsveien. This time the desk

clerk was an older woman who told me bluntly I was a fool

and if I knew what was good for me I’d go home to my

parents and forget this foolish nonsense. But she did tell me

there was no one called McCall and no thin young man

with ginger hair. When I left I realized how close I was to

Vigeland Park and for one wild moment I thought: Julia

will be in the sculpture park. But she wouldn’t be. She

would be meeting with Edvard Borlaug and one or more

members of the board. Somewhere. It was Sampo’s job to

follow that trail.

The phone in my pocket remained obstinately silent. I

pulled it out and called information, called four different

Borlaugs before I heard Edvard’s brisk voice telling me to

leave a message. “Edvard, it’s Aud. I need to talk to Julia.

If you know where she is, call me. Immediately. It’s very

important. You have the number.”

I had a sudden vision of Edvard lying on the carpeted living

room floor, neck broken, while blood leaked from his eyes

and my voice echoed from his machine. Perhaps Julia was

lying next to him…

I called information again, this time gave them Edvard’s

name and number and got his address in exchange. I called

Sampo. “Send one of your people to this address. Break in

~ 380 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

if necessary. Make sure she’s not there. Check any

schedules or calendars or address books.” It was ten-thirty.

How long would the meeting last? “If you haven’t heard

from me by eleven-thirty, put someone on E16, just past

Nordehov.” She might come to it via some scenic route, but

it would have to be very circuitous to join the highway

north of Nordehov. “It’s a dark blue Audi.” I gave him the

licence plate number.

This was all wrong. We were in too many places, like four

people standing in the corners of a vast field full of horses

with our hands spread. Too many gaps.

The second syrette of morphine was wearing off.

On to another hotel. McCall and Ginger had to be staying

somewhere.

After I had exhausted the least expensive places, I started in

on the moderately priced. Time was running out and the

streets were beginning to fill with holiday crowds.

At the Continental on Stortingsgaten I gave the doorman

two hundred Nkr to leave my car right by the entrance. The

desk clerk was a young man, so this time when I gave my

story I was a slightly older woman who had seen just a bit

too much of the world and hadn’t liked the way it had

treated her.

“Why, yes,” the young man behind the counter said. “They

checked in this morning. I remember. They were here very

early. They seemed tired. They were most insistent that

they be given a room immediately. I thought they’d sleep.

~ 381 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

They certainly looked as though they needed it, but”—

tapping of keys, nod of head at screen—“all they seemed to

do was make a lot of phone calls.”

“Are they still here?”

“Oh, no. They left about twenty minutes ago.”

I beckoned over the doorman. “The two men who left here

twenty minutes ago, what were they driving?”

“Dark green Toyota 4Runner.”

I nodded my thanks and he resumed his post by the door.

The only other person in the lobby was a fifty-year-old

woman sitting on a couch with her eyes closed. I slid a

hundred-Nkr note over the counter towards the clerk. “Can

I see who they called?”

He pocketed the money and turned the screen slightly.

Olsen Glass at 8:08. Edvard Borlaug at 8:09. That call had

lasted ten minutes, too long for a message. What had

Borlaug told them? Then information, followed by a local

number I didn’t recognize. I tapped the number into my

own phone, disconnected when the machine told me I had

reached a sporting goods shop that was closed for the day.

Short of ammunition? If so, they would stay short.

Everything was shut on National Day.

Outside, the pavement was drenched in sunshine. The

warmth on my arm and shoulder, even swaddled as they

were, was almost unbearable. The Volvo was stuffy. I

~ 382 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

rolled down the windows and nosed out into the road,

which was clogged with people in the bright red and white

of national costume, all beaming in the sunshine, happily

eating pølse and drinking fizzy brus, heading good-

naturedly towards the square for the speeches that would

begin at midday. I called Sampo— “They’re in a dark

green Toyota 4Runner”—and concentrated on not running

down any of the herd.

It was eleven forty-five. Julia’s meeting would be over by

now.

Think. I tried to put myself in her head, imagined stepping

out of an office or home, pleased with myself because I’d

persuaded Olsen to fund the sculpture garden. The sun

would be warm on my hair, my dress light around my

thighs. Stepping to the car, thinking of the drive back, of

the beautiful day. People having a good time. Celebrating.

Being with family…

And I knew where Julia would go, knew what Borlaug had

told McCall and Ginger, knew where I must go.

I dialed the numbers. The phone rang and rang and rang.

The sound was quite unreal. Eventually I was answered by

a rather cross and breathless, “Hei.”

“Tante. Is Julia there?”

“Aud? No. But she will be any minute. I was just in the

cellar. I have to go back there now. She’s coming for lunch

before driving back to the seter. There’s a note she wants

me to translate for her. It might be personal, she says. She

~ 383 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

tried to read it out to me over the phone but the line was

bad and she makes Norwegian sound like German, and then

that man, Edvard, came and told her the meeting was about

to begin. Would you like me to ask her to call you when

she gets in?“

“Tante, listen. I’m in Oslo. I’m on my way to your house.

Don’t let anyone in. No one except me or Julia. No one.

And if you see a dark green four-by-four on your street, call

the police.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Two men are on their way there to kill Julia—”

“Julia? In Oslo? Why should—”

“One of them shot me yesterday on the glacier. Two are on

their way to your house. They are armed. Keep the door

shut. Keep a lookout for Julia. When she gets there, leave.

Head straight up E16. Use your Saab. Do you understand?”

“But why do they—”

There was a roaring in my ears like the sea. “Do you

understand? Will you do as I say?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there very soon.” Click. Dial. “Sampo? Tell your

man on E16 that he’s now looking for a red Saab driven by

an older woman. Julia will be with her. When he sees them,

he’s to keep them both safe. I know where Ginger and

~ 384 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

McCall are heading. I’m going there now. Meet me.” I

gave him the address, disconnected, and put the phone

down gently on the soft leather of the passenger seat.

My shoulder no longer hurt. My mind was stropped clean

and sharp as a razor. The muscles in my face were perfectly

relaxed and the world outside hardened and slowed until I

saw everything with crystal clarity and there was time to

notice every detail: the untied lace of a three-year-old’s

sneaker, the beautiful deep amber of the traffic light I

ignored. My heart was no longer a combustion engine,

thumping with explosions deep in its chambers: it was

silent, smooth, and I was a maglev train flying effortlessly

down its single track, my only purpose the journey, my

destination fixed.

Buildings got smaller and moved back from the road. Stone

became brick and wood and now there were fences, and

front doors, and trees. Each clean, shining window, each

green leaf with its delicate tracery of veins filled me with

joy. I moved through it all like a ghost, as easy as a breath.

Hjørdis’s street appeared magically on my left and I turned,

and there it was, events unfurling like a brightly coloured

pennant: Julia in her blue cotton dress walking back up the

street on the right-hand side, towards Hjørdis’s door—the

car keys are still in her hand and she hums to herself; the

doors of a dark green Toyota opening and two men

stepping out, guns in hand—guns suddenly held close to

their thighs and hidden as they hear the Volvo engine.

Unhurriedly, smiling slightly, I drive sedately down the

street. Level with them, face to face, past them. They flick

~ 385 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

me a glance, dismiss me, relax. I flip on the cruise control,

open the door, and roll out into the street. They don’t notice.

They are watching Julia, one crossing the street behind her,

one staying on this side. Time slows and stretches, and I

glide like butter up behind the man raising his Glock. The

grey polymer barrel doesn’t even gleam in the sun as he

lines it up on the woman in the blue dress.

It is too easy. My elbow flashes out and docks perfectly

with the soft spot at the base of his skull just as he squeezes

the trigger, and he hits the pavement, dead, at the same time

as his bullet hits the steps that lead up to Hjørdis’s front

door. Then we’re all moving: the woman in the blue dress

turning, mouth open, the man across the street to look at me,

then back at the woman. His arm rises, a tiny tongue of

light like a second, little sun jumps from the tip of the

barrel, and I laugh as I sweep him off his feet, laugh as I

land with my knees in his stomach, laugh as I take his fist

in mine and turn it, laugh at the shock on his freckled face

as I squeeze that tight warm hand and the freckles

disappear in red ruin.

I stretch and smile. All done. I am still smiling as I walk

over to the woman, who is lying on the pavement, one arm

stretched up the steps. From the waist down, the blue dress

is red. She begins to writhe and mewl. I kneel, touch the

brown hair coming loose from the bandeau, then frown and

start to get up when I realize I’m kneeling in something wet,

but there’s something about the smell of the woman’s hair,

something…

Cloudberries. Julia. This woman in the blue dress gushing

her life out on the pavement and insane with shock is Julia.

~ 386 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I ripped off my tunic, wadded it, pressed it against her

abdomen. It turned red immediately and she was moving so

much I couldn’t keep the pressure on. I knelt on her

shoulders. “Julia. Don’t die. You can’t die. Julia. Stay with

me! Julia.”

Footsteps. Hjørdis, cradling her hunting rifle. “I called an

ambulance. It was so fast! Oh, dear god, Aud.”

“Come here. Hold this down. Press hard.” She did. I started

unwinding the bandages from my shoulders and arm.

“But you’ve been shot!”

I stripped off the bloody mess and wadded it. Blood

trickled freely down my back and arm. “When I count to

three, lift your hands and put them straight back. One, two,

three. Press hard.”

Squeal of tires. Slam of car doors. Running feet.

“They’re dead,” I said to Sampo and the woman. “Drag that

one”—McCall—“across the road. Put him over here by the

other one.” Ginger. “Make it look as though they killed

each other. There’s a gun in the Volvo with my fingerprints

on.” The gun I didn’t use. The gun I should have used. “Get

rid of it.”

“Aud, I can’t hold her.”

Julia was thrashing like a wild thing, as mindless and

limber as a beast in her shock, throwing off Hjørdis, who

~ 387 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

was a big woman, long enough to twist over onto her

stomach. No exit wound.

“Sit on her legs.” I wrapped my arms around her head.

“You,” I called to the woman with Sampo, “come and pin

her shoulders. Tante, I’ll take over the compress.”

“… a gaping wound, wider than the hands of anyone who

would try to staunch the bleeding. A hole so big it could

swallow the world.”

“I have big hands.”

She writhed, like a run-over kitten with a broken back.

“Julia. The ambulance is coming. Just stay alive a few more

minutes, then they can do it for you. Stay alive.”

Everything under my hands was red.

~ 388 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Chapter Fifteen

She stayed alive until the ambulance arrived. I had to help

the EMTs keep her still so they could get shunts in both

arms. When one suggested I ride in the second ambulance

that was pulling up, spilling red light over Hjørdis’s

street—red the exact colour of the bunad—I took him by

the throat and shook him a little.

She stayed alive until we got to the hospital. She was still

alive as they wheeled her into surgery.

“She’s strong,” I told the three nurses and one doctor in

surgical greens who stood with me by the swinging doors.

One of the nurses held a hypodermic. “Shouldn’t you be in

there, helping her?”

“We’re here to help you.”

“Oh, no,” I said gently. “I’m fine,” and I plucked the needle

from the nurse’s hand and squirted the drug onto the floor,

but then something bit through my pants and three of them

were nodding in satisfaction as the fourth stepped out from

behind me and capped her own syringe.

“We need to take a look at you,” one of them said. I backed

up against the wall.

“Julia.”

~ 389 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“There’s nothing you can do to help her now.”

The wall was cool and solid against my skin. It also seemed

to be moving upwards. All I could see were four pairs of

green-clad legs and white scrub shoes.

“Go get a gurney.”

One of the pairs of green trousers walked away down the

corridor, then all I could see was the floor.

The room smelled of clean sheets and the lemons Hjørdis

had left.

“The police are accepting the story that those two

American men were fighting over a woman and you got hit

in the crossfire,” said Sampo.

“Not easily.”

“No. But what other explanation is there? Especially as

your prints were on neither weapon and you are such a

respectable citizen. The wound helps, of course.”

“Yes.”

We measured each other. If it wasn’t for my letter

insurance, I would never have woken from that sedative.

“What’s your real name?”

“Harald.”

~ 390 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Like the king.”

“Just like the king.”

We didn’t shake hands before he left.

A nurse came in with a tray full of needles and scissors and

bandages. She worked quickly, with that lack of tenderness

endemic to the profession. “You have another visitor

waiting to see you. I told her you had already talked to too

many people today.”

“Who is it?”

“I didn’t get her name. She’s American.”

“Tell her she can come in when you’ve finished.”

It was Annie. No longer laughing, eyes circled with jet lag

and worry. She took a chair by the bed but did not seem to

know what to say.

“When did you get here?”

“Two hours ago.”

“Are her brother and sister coming?”

I thought for a moment she didn’t understand me. “Oh. No.

Drew… well, Drew can’t come. And Carmel is at the U.S.

Research Station in McMurdo Sound. In the Antarctic. I

haven’t been able to get through to her.” She sat there

helplessly.

~ 391 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“You’ve talked to the doctors?”

“Yes. They tell me she’s critical but stable. A lot of internal

damage. Her liver—” She stopped abruptly. “I was going to

say it’s shot to pieces. A figure of speech. But it really is. It

really is shot to pieces. They had to take out four inches of

colon, too. And one of her kidneys. It was the bullet, they

said. A special bullet that bounced around inside.”

“The only irreparable damage is to her liver.”

“She… she’s strong, isn’t she?”

“Very strong.”

“And a liver transplant would make her as good as new

again, wouldn’t it?”

“Almost.”

“Why won’t she wake up? She just lies there and there’s no

sound but that beep beep beep of the machines.”

“It’s her body’s way of focusing its attention on what’s

necessary. She’s fighting to stay alive the best way she

knows how. When she regains strength, she’ll wake up.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. You know Julia, she can’t bear to miss

anything that’s going on.”

~ 392 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

She started to smile, but the stretch turned into a quiver. “I

can’t do this.”

“You’re tired. I bet you didn’t sleep on the plane. Julia

doesn’t sleep on the plane, either. A few hours’ rest will

work wonders.”

“But I have to see to her things. Insurance. Her clothes.

Make arrangements.”

“Hjørdis, my aunt, is already dealing with getting our

things from the seter—the farm where we’ve been staying.

Everything is being taken care of. And Julia is safe now.

She’s in good hands. Get some sleep, Mrs. Miclasz.”

“Annie.” A ghost of the former roguish smile, gone in a

moment. “You saved her life.” I should never have let her

go. “You love her, don’t you?”

My hawk with broken wings and matted feathers. “Yes.”

“So do I. If we join forces, she’ll have to live.”

“She’ll live.” She had to.

“The doctors tell me you were hurt, too.”

Cracked scapula, chipped elbow, nerve damage. Infections

had meant they had snipped away bits of skin and muscle; I

had had a blood transfusion; and there were enough stitches

to make my arm look like that of a child’s clumsily sewn-

up teddy bear.

~ 393 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Nothing that won’t mend.”

She stood. “When I come back tomorrow I’ll bring some

vitamins. I want you to get well quickly. Julia is going to

need us both.”

A nurse brought in a phone. It was my mother.

“Hjørdis has told me what you told her happened.” A

diplomat’s nicety of language. “I take it your trip to

England will be postponed?”

“Yes. I’ve chartered an air ambulance and will accompany

Julia and her mother to Atlanta tomorrow. They’ve found a

donor they can keep alive until we get there.”

“Will she survive the operation?”

“The odds are about even.”

“Keep me informed. And if you need anything, anything at

all, call.”

I held Julia’s hand all the way across the North Sea, across

the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, even though this was

one flight during which she would not be afraid. When I

had to release a hand to let the nurse be about his business,

I rested my palm against her thigh. Somewhere deep down

in her crocodile brain I wanted to register the fact that she

was not alone, that she never would be.

Annie sat on the other side of the bed. Sometimes she held

her hand, too; mostly, she just looked.

~ 394 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

Over the Irish Sea, the plane lurched a little.

“I hate turbulence,” she said.

“It must be genetic.”

“You should be resting that shoulder.”

“I’m fine.”

The plane droned through the arid reaches of the afternoon

sky.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“She’s too young, too beautiful to die.”

“I won’t let her die.”

“I saw it from the beginning, you know.”

“Saw what?”

“That you two were right for each other. She was so upset

about Jim’s death, all to pieces. It was quite unlike her. I

haven’t seen her like that before, well, not since…”

“She told me about her brother.”

“Oh. Well, I couldn’t understand it, why she fell apart like

that. Almost as if she was blaming herself. And then you

~ 395 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

came along, out of the blue, and suddenly she wasn’t in

pieces anymore.” She smiled. “Did she ever tell you she

thought you’d done it at first?”

“The police told me.”

“She went to the police about you?” She shot Julia a

startled glance.

“It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. He was

her friend. I was there when it happened. But the police

didn’t take her seriously.”

“Well, I’m glad she didn’t get you into any trouble.”

Any trouble. Any trouble. I wanted to laugh, but did not

know if it would escape as a howl.

Annie said softly, “But what am I saying? I’m not a fool.

The Norwegian police don’t really believe your story about

two men attacking each other and Julia getting shot by

mistake.”

“Do you?”

The engine note climbed as the pilot tried to find his way

out of the turbulence.

“I’ll believe that rather than believe Julia might have been

at fault somehow.” Her face was set and so pale that the

blusher seemed almost garish, the kind of work mortuary

beauticians do.

~ 396 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Julia was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. No,

not just in Oslo. It started in Atlanta.”

“When Jim died.”

“Before then.” I told her what I knew, up to breaking into

Honeycutt’s house and taking information to Denneny. She

didn’t need to know about that, or my deal with the cartels.

But as she had said, she was not a fool.

“So you killed them. No, don’t say anything. I’m glad. If I

thought asking you to kill a hundred times would keep Julia

safe, I’d ask you to do it.”

And I would. A hundred times. A thousand times.

“But we don’t need to worry about that now, do we? The

Atlanta police will take it from here. They called, you know,

while you were away. They have some new evidence. They

wanted to talk to Julia again. I told them she was in Oslo,

consulting with Olsen Glass.”

“What did they say?”

“They wanted the name of the person she would be seeing.

I gave them Edvard’s number. He came to the hospital, you

know.”

I nodded. He had visited me, too.

“He was so young, and he seemed to take Julia’s injury

personally—kept apologizing on behalf of his country. I

didn’t know what to say, so I just hugged him until he shut

~ 397 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

up. He cried. I had to mop up his tears. At least it gave me

something to do, something that made a difference.”

We both looked at Julia lying still and silent and beyond

our care. The engines resumed their steady hum. We were

above the turbulence.

“That sculpture garden he and Julia were planning, are

planning, sounds lovely. All those story characters and

settings for the children. The adult version sounded

challenging and exciting, too, but I think it was the

children’s garden he really wanted. Wants. Oh, god, Aud,

I’m talking about her and the garden in past tense.”

We landed just before six in the evening, Atlanta time. The

air was thick and hot and flavoured with diesel fumes. The

ambulance drove to Piedmont Hospital along streets

crowded with convertibles full of tanned people in shorts

and pastel polo shirts, eyes blank and anonymous behind

shades. The trees were heavy and green with full summer

foliage, the sky an impersonal, bland blue. I insisted that

the EMTs give Julia a second blanket; the air-conditioning

was fierce. By seven, she was being prepped for surgery.

The surgeon came to talk to us in the visitors’ suite before

he scrubbed. “The operation will take several hours, and

you won’t be allowed to see her for hours after that, but I

don’t suppose there’s any point telling you to go home and

get some sleep? No. Well, I’ll call in again after the

operation and let you know how it went.”

I pulled two armchairs together for Annie, and two for

myself, and found us both blankets. We curled up. When I

~ 398 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

woke at two in the morning, Annie was staring at the

ceiling.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“May as well,” she said.

Hospitals at night are strange places. The floors gleam in

the dark and the air is too dry and hot. In a few hours,

gurneys trundled by hospital porters spiriting away those

who had died in the night would squeak down these

corridors, past doors behind which frightened people lay

awake, listening. I passed a vending machine on the way to

the nurse’s station, but ignored it.

Annie sat up when I came back with fresh coffee. “Where

on earth did you find this?”

“I told the nurse that if she let me into the nurses’ break

room to make some fresh, I’d not only make a generous

donation to the hospital children’s fund, I’d bring her a cup,

served any way she liked. You’ll be pleased to know that

she takes cream and sugar. And she likes cookies.” I passed

her the plate.

The coffee was long gone and we were playing

backgammon when the surgeon returned. He was one of

those men who needed to shave three times a day. He was

wearing slacks and sports jacket. On his way home.

He was frowning when he came in, but smiled when we

stood up.

~ 399 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Let’s all sit down again, shall we?” Always we with

doctors. “You’ll be pleased to know that the operation went

smoothly and the patient is stable. But as you know,

recovery can be a slow process.” He couldn’t remember her

name.

“When can we see her?” Annie asked.

“She’s not conscious yet.”

“When?”

“In the morning? Yes, in the morning. A quick peep around

ten o’clock. But very briefly. Yes, I think that would be

best.“ The man was so tired he was talking more to himself

than to us. He started to get up.

“But someone will let us know how she’s doing?”

“The nurses’ station just down the hall will have all that

information. Just ask. As I’ve said, the operation went very

smoothly.”

Annie just nodded. He left. I got up. “I’m going to get some

more coffee.”

I caught up with him at the nurses’ station, where he was

commenting on some blunder on a TV hospital show the

night before. They both laughed.

“Doctor.”

“Ah?”

~ 400 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Another question, about Julia Lyons-Bennet, the woman

you just gave a new liver. When will we know if she will

reject the liver or not?”

“At least twelve hours. Tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps even

later.” He just wanted to go home.

“It must have been a complicated operation.”

He made a vast effort and dredged up a smile. “Well, yes,

she’d been shot and there were one or two things that we

don’t normally encounter but, given that, everything went

very well. Very smoothly. As I said.”

“But she’s still not conscious. What were the one or two

things?”

He let his smile fade. “We had to resection her colon, and

there are indications that her remaining kidney is under

strain. But I can’t stress enough that she is currently stable

and doing very well under the circumstances. It was a good

organ match. We have high hopes.”

“How high?”

“High,” he said firmly. He was lying.

When I got back to the visitors’ suite with more coffee,

Annie was crying. “She’s going to be all right, Aud. She’s

going to be allright. I know it. Oh, please god she’s going

to be all right.” She wiped at her eyes and sipped her coffee.

I had put extra sugar in it. “He was very thoughtful,

~ 401 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

changing out of his bloody clothes before he came to see us,

don’t you think?”

More likely he had needed the time to think of the phrases

that would reassure without actually lying.

“Ah.” She put her cup down. “I think I can sleep now.” I

stayed awake, thinking. Julia, facing me that first time in

the street in the rain. Julia, telling Dornan about penis

piercing. Julia, in my arms at the fjord. Julia, Julia, Julia.

So many mistakes.

After I had seen Julia, I took a cab back to the house. The

flowers were all dead from lack of water and the house

smelled of air-conditioning. The chair sat empty in the

centre of my workroom. I called Benny. “I hope you don’t

have any arrangements for lunch because I need some

information, and I need it now. Anything you can find on

the death of Michael Honeycutt in New York. The

Bridgetown Grill at twelve.”

I showered, changed, unpacked, and dumped the dirty

clothes on the floor by the washing machine. I knelt to sort

them. Hjørdis had packed; Julia’s clothes were jumbled in

with my own. I held a soft blue shirt to my cheek,

remembered Julia’s sly smile as I had unbuttoned it at the

seter one afternoon, remembered her laugh and wave as she

drove off down the track, beautiful in her blue dress. I

couldn’t bear to wash away her scent. I left the laundry on

the floor.

~ 402 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I drove with the windows down, and the humid, sinewy

heat fisted down my throat and fattened the ugly thing that

pulsed under my sternum like a feeding leech.

The Bridgetown Grill was hotter still, flaring with the spit

and sizzle of Jamaican cooking in the open kitchen that ran

the length of the narrow gallery painted with palm trees and

crowded by fast-talking dental hygienists whose glasses

kept steaming up, and by white rastas whose dreads

drabbled through their blackened fish and hot sauce

unnoticed. Benny, skinny as a rail, was already eating,

Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like the red bauble on

a blood pressure monitor.

“Jamaican jerk chicken,” he said by way of greeting.

I beckoned the waiter and ordered the first thing I saw on

the menu. “Tell me about Honeycutt.”

“Gee, and how are you, too, Torvingen? I gut NCIC in fifty

minutes flat and get out here in fifteen more and all the

thanks I get is—”

“Honeycutt.”

“Shot clean as a whistle in the back of the head in the

men’s bathroom at Kennedy with a .38 at about three-thirty

p.m. on May eighth. No one saw anything, no one heard

anything. Best for last: he hadn’t even cleared customs and

immigration.”

~ 403 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“Someone with access knew his schedule.” Someone with

access to privileged information; who could get inside

international airport security.

My food arrived just as Benny finished his. He looked from

his empty plate to my full one. I pushed it at him. “Help

yourself.”

“Not hungry?” He was already cutting the fish into bite-

sized pieces, the better to shovel it down in record speed.

“By the way, that coke from the Inman Park arson that you

were interested in? It’s gone. Um, that’s good.”

I felt as though someone were squeezing my head. “When?”

“Not sure. Oh, this fish is delicious!”

“Then when did the department find out?”

“Well, they haven’t, yet. But I like to check on things that

interest me. Sort of look at them, like trophies. Well, not

look at them exactly, just sort of test them. Every now and

again. So I went to check on the coke—and it’s gone. Well,

not gone. Changed. The bags are the same, and the seals,

but it’s not the same coke. It’s not coke at all, anymore.”

“But it was before?”

“It was what the lab report said: ninety-nine percent pure

Colombian coke. It’s not now, though.”

“How do you know?”

~ 404 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“I just, well, you know, tested it.”

“Before and after?”

“I just took a bit. Really. Just a bit, to see. It’s not like it’s a

habit or anything.”

“Never mind that. You’re sure, absolutely sure that what

came in was pure, but that what is there now is not?”

“Yes.”

He’d never swear to it in court—why should he lose his job

and risk prosecution?—but I didn’t need a court. The leech

under my sternum swelled. I stood.

My phone rang. “Torvingen.”

“Aud?” It was Annie. “Aud, you’d better get here. She’s

rejecting.”

Annie was waiting for me outside ICU. “The doctor says

she isn’t rejecting. They say she has to have another

operation. No one will explain.” Her once-round cheeks

sagged, and she looked like a sad caricature of the Annie

Miclasz I had met just a few weeks ago.

“Is she in the theatre now?”

“No, they’re about to prep her.”

“If she’s not rejecting, why are they going to operate?”

~ 405 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

“The liver’s stopped working, and her kidney. And she’s

got an infection. But I thought she was getting better. I

don’t understand it. She woke up, and—”

“She woke up?” I went utterly still.

“Just for a minute. I’m sure.”

“I have to see her.” Before they prepped her and she ran

away again into coma.

“I’ll go get coffee and be back in fifteen minutes.”

“If you see the doctor, send him to me.”

In ICU everything—the walls, floors, bed linen, even

Julia’s bedspread—was white, against which crystal red

and green lights blinked on and off, slowly, like lizards’

eyes. The air was full of the hiss and suck of oxygen, the

peristaltic pulse of IV units squeezing god knows what into

her veins, the hum of a dozen machines.

Julia’s hand in mine was mustard yellow, like her arm, like

her face. I lifted it to my face. It smelled strange, of drugs

and pain. The scent of one who has met that cheating

Viking with the great ham hands. One who has played and

lost.

“Your nails need trimming,” I told her.

Hiss, suck, blink.

~ 406 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“They must have grown a quarter of an inch in the last few

days.” I sounded like a fool. “Julia, I want you to listen to

me. You’re ill, but you mustn’t give up. I want you to start

thinking about what you want to do when you get out of

here. Have I told you about Whitby Abbey, on the

Yorkshire coast? There’s a ruin there that dates from the

twelfth century, very haunting, very gothic, but the first

abbey there was founded in the seventh century by Hilda.

There’s a power there. You wouldn’t think to look at it

from the outside. But then you cross the track and walk

over some turf, and… ah, Julia, it’s suddenly there before

you, and it’s as though the breath of the earth drives up

through the soles of your shoes and into your bones. I want

to hold your hand, this hand, and watch your face when you

step onto the turf at Whitby Abbey.”

Hiss, suck, blink.

“Or we could take a boat to the Lofoten Islands in late June

when even at two in the morning the sea is silver, like ghost

water, and you can read the newspaper without a light. Or

if you’d rather go in autumn, we could make troll cream

from whortleberries.”

I told her about crushing the berries, about whipping up egg

whites, folding the one into the other; how it would feel in

her mouth.

Hiss, suck, blink.

“But it might take a while before you can travel far, so

before we sail to Lofoten, before you see Whitby, I’ll show

you Northwoods Lake Court. As I promised.”

~ 407 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

I had also promised I would keep her safe. I touched her

cheek, very gently, with my fingertips. Dry now, but still

soft. Her eyelids flickered.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

“Julia?” I touched her cheek again. “Julia?”

“Fuck. It hurts.”

“I’m here. I’m right here,” I said, squeezing her hand with

both mine, then stroking her hair from her forehead.

Her eyes opened. The whites were pink, but her irises were

brilliant as a clear evening sky. She blinked quickly, like a

camera shutter. “I’m here,” I said again.

“I’m dying, aren’t I?” Her voice was light and dry, an

insect running over a newspaper.

“You’ve had a liver transplant. It’s not going too well.

They’re going to operate again this afternoon.”

“Promise me you…”

She shut her eyes.

“Julia?”

She tried to lift her hand. I lifted it for her, put it against my

cheek. “When we met,” she whispered, “you were frozen

inside. Empty. Now you’re not. Don’t go back. Even if I

die. Stay in the world.”

~ 408 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

I could not imagine a world without Julia. “You will not

die.”

She opened her eyes. This time she didn’t blink. “My

mother… she’s not always brave. I hate machines. Don’t

let machines keep me alive. Don’t let them.”

“I won’t.”

“Stay in the world, Aud. Stay alive inside. Promise me.

Stay alive.”

I whipped through the night as the ice crept through my

veins. I stopped once at a strip mall, where I called

Denneny’s office number, disconnecting as soon as he

picked up. Then I filled my spare can with gas and bought

some gloves. My mouth tasted of copper and blood.

At Cheshire Bridge Road I cruised the sex bars until I

found the car I wanted, a dark, late-model Volvo with

multiple air-bags and antilock brakes. This time I parked in

the lot of another bar and walked back. A quick thrust with

a shim and I was inside.

I understand Denneny. He works late because he has

nothing to go home to and when he looks inside himself,

there is nobody there. I parked a block down the road from

the precinct house, adjusted my headrest for maximum

safety, and waited. I watched the stars. Tonight I didn’t

recognize any of them; they were cold and alien. I thought

of abbeys on headlands, of Norwegian islands in a sea

breeze, of Northwoods Lake Court, where the air would be

~ 409 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

utterly still but for the creak of tree frogs and the endless

patter of fountains. Then for a while I thought of nothing.

He emerged just after eleven p.m. I let his Lexus get a

block ahead before I pulled out.

When we first met, he had lived in Candler Park. When he

made captain he moved to Morningside, a neighbourhood

where all the houses were built of dusty rose brick on

winding little streets and fronted by velvety, floodlit lawns.

No doubt he had thought he would soon be promoted up to

commander and the giddy heights of the Prado mansions.

At an intersection I tightened my seat belt and turned my

lights off before following him up a long, empty hill. He

had been driving the same route for eight years and took it

faster than was really safe in the dark. Half a mile from the

top of the hill, the road would take a wide curving left, then

a sudden right alongside one of those pretty rose-coloured

walls. His speed picked up. Fifty, fifty-five, sixty.

He took the long left curve without slowing down, as I’d

known he would. Time for me and the Viking to play one

last round. I smiled, shifted, and punched the gas. The nose

of the Volvo touched his right rear bumper just as he would

have been thinking of feathering the brakes and threading

the wheel through his hands to take the car to the right.

Brake lights flared and stained the night red. I eased my

foot down a little more. Tires squealed, metal screeched.

My heart was an anvil. The Lexus wobbled, then slewed,

then seemed to straighten. I hummed to myself as I floored

the gas and drove him into the wall at sixty miles an hour.

~ 410 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

The noise was huge and seemed to last forever and then the

night turned white as airbags bloomed and the cars bounced

and my head walloped back into the head restraint. The

wound along my shoulder pulled at the stitches. Nothing I

hadn’t anticipated. I slashed the airbags and kicked my way

out of the Volvo. The night smelled of honeysuckle and gas

and hot rubber and seemed to turn very slowly.

His airbags had inflated, too, and like a good policeman he

had been wearing his seat belt, but the impact had been a

surprise, and he was still stunned. I pulled open his door,

felt around his belt for his cuffs and gun. I shot the bag,

then clipped his hands to the wheel.

“I never liked you, Denneny, but I trusted you. You had

rules. What happened? Was it the death of your dreams or

that of your wife? Nothing to work for, no one to go home

to, nothing inside. Nothing except your rules. You should

have clung to them, Denneny, they might have saved you.”

Metal ticked. Somewhere an owl screeched.

“You know why I’m here, don’t you?”

He turned his head slowly. Blood trickled from his left

nostril. I pulled back the hammer.

“Don’t you.”

He closed his eyes and nodded.

“Good.” And I shot him in the abdomen.

~ 411 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

The frame of the Volvo had buckled a little with the impact

and it took me a moment to get the trunk open. My head

hurt. When I got back with the gas can, he had started to go

into shock.

I unscrewed the cap and laid it carefully on the grass verge.

I sloshed gas inside the car, over his body. Judging by the

way he squealed and thrashed, it stung on that wound.

“I was stupid, Denneny. Who warned me off this case in

the first place? Why would someone leave all that coke at

the scene of a crime unless they could get it back from the

evidence locker whenever they wanted? I should have

known, but I trusted you. Trusted your rules. But you broke

all those rules, for money. When did you stop caring,

Denneny?”

The can was heavy; my shoulder burned.

“Who could have called Lyon Art to get the information

about Olsen Glass? Who took his holidays in California,

where Michael Honeycutt used to work? Who knew where

to find three men who would kill for money?” He choked

on the gas. “Who might be expected to find out Honeycutt

was laundering cartel drug money? So simple. All I had to

do was put it all together, Denneny, but I didn’t. I didn’t

ask that last question: who was the only person—the only

one, Denneny—that I trusted to help me with this?”

I should have remembered: the Viking never plays by the

rules.

~ 412 ~

THE BLUE PLACE

“Did you laugh when you pulled the strings? Did you think

I was funny, running around like a dumb but faithful dog,

bringing you bones? No, because nothing amuses you

anymore, does it? And nothing annoys you. Nothing fills

you with joy. It’s all gone. You’re dead inside. Empty.”

I stepped back and looked at him. Drenched to his skin. I

tore off his shirt and twisted it, then knotted it into

something I could throw. My head pounded, and when I

bent down for the gas can the grass verge swooped. The

cap got cross-threaded when I tried to screw it back on. I

had to take it off and start again. I carried it back to the

Volvo and returned with matches.

I tossed his gun into the backseat, then pulled a penny from

my pocket. It was warm in my hand; bright and sharp. I

held it up between finger and thumb. In the headlights it

could have been gold. “All for this, Denneny. All for

money.” I put it back in my pocket. My fare for the

ferryman, not his.

I stepped back and struck a match. It burned electric blue at

the centre but its wavering tip was the yellow of every

torch ever used to light a pyre, that most human of fires that

roars against the night to keep the ice from our hearts. I

touched the match to the shirt, which I whirled over my

head until it was a great orange wheel. I threw it into the

car.

At Little Five Points, the night was full of the noise and

laughter of people who don’t know that the trolls always

get you in the end, who when they look up at the night do

not understand that the beauty of the bright stars turning

~ 413 ~

NICOLA GRIFFITH

overhead, though vast, was created by a universe utterly

indifferent to their fate. These young, healthy innocents

understand only enough to be a little afraid, so they fill

themselves with pot and beer and in the light of a myriad

cafes listen to inept street players trying to drive back the

dark.

I walked into Borealis. The tables seemed to get in my way,

and the chairs were not where they should have been. Don’t

let machines keep me alive, she had said. Don’t let them.

And I had promised.

“Aud! What in the world is the matter?” Over his shoulder,

he called, “Two lattes over here, Jonie, please. Sit, Aud. Sit,

for the love of god.” He led me to a corner table. “What is

that terrible smell? Gas, is it? You’ve been in some

accident? No? Well, never mind. You’ll live. How’s Julia?”

Julia, with the indigo eyes and the laugh like Armagnac.

Julia, who had thought she was ready. I took the penny

from my pocket. Fare for the ferryman. But Stay in the

world, she had said. I spun the penny on the table and,

while it turned, stared past him, past the innocents with

their light and their noise, and out into the night.

“She died.”

She died, but Stay in the world, Aud, she’d said. Stay alive

inside. Promise me. I closed my fist around the spinning

penny. Just a coin. The world fractured; meltwater ran

down my face.

~ 414 ~