The Red Mitten Read online

Elin stopped him. “It’s not a problem. It just means I need to make sure the three of you have an enjoyable stay. And then you can tell your friends to come next year.”

  She set two plastic key-cards on the desk. “As I’ve explained to your friend, Mr Slater, you asked for one of our group rooms but we are quiet until the weekend so I’ve given you three single rooms instead. And I’ve put you on the south side and up on the top floor, so that you have the best view. There is no extra charge. We have a lot of rooms here, so there are usually some to spare.”

  Then she held out the key-cards, together with two sheets of paper, and said, “Miss Douglas, you are in the middle of the three rooms. Mr Slater said you would prefer that.”

  Cally squeezed out a smile.

  “And I need to ask you both to fill out these forms, with your passport details”.

  Neep picked up his form and peered at it in a way that made Cally suspect he was slipping into his journalist persona.

  He said, “This is an old-fashioned system. I thought hotels stopped collecting passport information years ago.”

  “Normally we don’t do it. But we have a big sports weekend coming up, to help the children of immigrant families learn about winter activities, and nowadays the police take extra precautions with events like that.”

  “Nowadays?” Neep said. He seemed to be fishing for something.

  “Yes, the world can be a dangerous place.” Elin wasn’t biting.

  But Neep was clearly in a persistent mood. “Yes it can be dangerous. We saw some police with weapons at Oslo airport, and I wasn’t surprised by that. But I would have thought that up here in the mountains everyone would feel safer and more relaxed. Or is it only events for immigrants that make the police take extra care?”

  “The passport form is just a precaution -”

  “- But we are obliged to fill it in?”

  “Yes, you are. Otherwise I will have a problem with the police.” Elin was managing to keep hold of her smile, but only just, and the warmth had gone from her voice.

  Neep seemed to realise he had strayed on to sensitive ground. As usual he looked for a humorous route back to safety. “Sorry for all the questions,” he said. “But I’ve been reading some Scandinavian novels lately to get myself ready for this trip - and I’m a bit worried that your whole country might have been overrun by Mafia hoodlums and incompetent police.”

  Elin relaxed visibly. She said, “And serial killers, don’t forget.”

  “I thought the biker gangs had taken care of all the serial killers.”

  “Not all of them. The corrupt politicians stopped them.”

  “Ah, the corrupt politicians. Of course. But I imagine the computer hackers managed to sort them out and save the day.”

  Cally had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. But she could see that Neep was attracted to Elin, and she had the feeling that if their conversation went on much longer he would start licking the sodding woman’s face. Maybe - probably - she let it show in her expression, because the hotelier snapped abruptly back into her professional persona and said, “Anyway, you don’t need to fill in the forms right now. You can do them in your rooms and bring them back when you come down to dinner.”

  Then Elin looked appraisingly at Neep’s bulky rucksack. “If you have any belongings that you don’t need for your ski-tour, you can leave them here until you get back. They will be kept in a locked store-room in my own house.” She treated Neep to a fine smile. “All the mountain cabins are stocked with food and firewood, so you don’t need to carry much. If your backpack is too heavy then you can leave as much luggage here as you want. Dinner isn’t until seven, so you have plenty of time to repack.”

  As subtle hints went, Cally thought, it was a bit short of an essential ingredient. But Neep smiled and blushed and smiled again and said he’d get right on to it. He seemed delighted, as if his whole life had been a quest to find a bossy lady who was approaching her sell-by date and he’d just realised the goal was in sight.

  Once upon a time Cally had entertained a secret hope that Neep might consider a romantic involvement with a younger woman, a long-term involvement. But she had fucked up any possibility of that. Well and truly.

  Chapter 2

  At about five o’clock the blue and white Robinson R44 helicopter rose away from the power cables it had been following for most of the afternoon. It gained enough height to clear the line of hills that formed the east flank of the Espedalen valley and then continued westward over the white expanse of a lake. Very soon it was above hills once again and the pilot-instructor, Ash Kumar, eased back on the cyclic stick and brought the machine to a static hover.

  “This should be far enough,” Kumar said into his mouthpiece. “And if we go any farther we’ll get complaints from those skiers down there.” He pointed to a line of people, about ten of them, travelling in single file. In their wake they had left a distinctive track, the solid lines cut by their skis fringed by the fainter imprints of their planted poles. “I’m always super-careful with skiers now. They’ve got themselves so worked up about snow-mobiles, and I don’t want to turn them against helicopters as well.”

  His student, Lars Hagen, said, “I don’t think you need to worry. In my ski club everybody hates the prospect of more snow-mobiles driving over the mountains. But they don’t mind seeing a helicopter now and then – especially if it is taking care of their electricity supply, like we are.” He looked down at the skiers. “I think those people are going to the DNT cabin at Storkvelvbu. Have you ever stayed there?”

  “No. I never learned to ski. My mother was opposed to it. She was worried I might meet some unsuitable Norwegian girl.” Kumar paused, as if caught up in the memory. “I had disappointed her enough by refusing to go to medical school, so I thought I’d better give in to her over the skiing.”

  Even over the sound of the engine the Asian man’s laugh sounded a little forced. But if Hagen noticed it he showed no sign. He said, “I wish my mother had kept me away from Norwegian girls. I’d now have time to go ski-touring to places like Storkvelvbu, rather than working to pay off a mortgage.” It was his turn to laugh. “It’s been a few years since I stayed there. It’s a nice cabin. But it’s not very big, and it’s going to be cramped tonight with all those people.”

  Kumar touched a foot-pedal and rotated the helicopter through a half-turn. “Okay – back to business. I’ve brought us over here to talk about tomorrow.” He raised one hand and pointed straight ahead. “Beyond those hills in the foreground are the power lines we’ve been working on today.”

  He then turned the machine a little to the left. “Tomorrow morning we’ll pick up the lines again near the hotel at Vesterheim, which is straight ahead now, beyond the lake. And then we’ll follow them round the back of those mountains there.” He rotated the aircraft still more to the left, until they were facing a group of peaks that rose steeply up from the Espedalen side and then flattened into a plateau before falling steeply down to the west. “We’ll find a spot where you can have some practice with the de-icing equipment.”

  Kumar then nudged the aircraft around so that they were again looking along the tracks left by the skiers. “Then we’ll stay with the power lines for a little while longer, maybe going as far as the flat ground in the distance, part way toward the Jotunheim mountains. We’ll do some work with the thermal camera and then go back to your base for a final debrief.”

  Hagen nodded, writing in his notebook.

  Kumar continued, “So your desk-work tonight is to check the maps and charts and calculate our safe flying range with a full load of de-icing fluid. Tomorrow you’ll have the sticks for most of the day, but I also need to give you a minimum of five sessions with the de-icing lance. Does everything make sense?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Right, let’s get back to Vinstra before it falls dark. I’ll give you the sticks now while I get on with my paperwork. I’ve got a big date tonight and I don’t want to keep her waiting
.”

  Hagen closed his notebook. “Would your mother approve?”

  “Approve of what?”

  “The date.”

  Kumar let a long moment pass before replying. “Yes and no,” he said with a shrug. Then he raised a hand and prepared to release the cyclic stick. “Okay, you now have control.”

  “Affirmative. I have control.”

  There was the usual bumpiness while the new pilot got the feel of the cross-winds. Then Hagen gave Kumar a moment to unclip his chest harness and retrieve his folder from underneath the rear seat.

  “Hang on!” Kumar said. “What’s that down there - the small animal beside that cabin? Is it a wolverine?”

  “Let’s go and see.” Hagen released the collective control lever to lose height, then held the aircraft in a hover about eighty feet above ground level. There was definitely an animal down there, but it was in the shady corner of the L-shaped cabin and all they could tell was that it was small and dark, and that it seemed to be trying to dig its way into the building.

  Hagen descended again, this time stabilising at fifty feet. He said, “It might be a wolverine but I doubt it. It would be very unusual to see one in daylight.”

  He did a slow circuit of the cabin. Finally the animal looked up at them, only for a second, and then turned back to its digging.

  “Just a fox,” Hagen said.

  Surprisingly the animal showed no sign of running away. Clearly its fear of the noisy machine was weaker than its desperate need to get into the cabin.

  “I wish we had time to watch this,” Hagen said. “The fox is going to get a big fright very soon. Look over there – can you see a second group of skiers going up to Storkvelvbu on the other route, coming up from the lake? They’ll pass just uphill of the cabin in a few minutes.”

  He pulled up on the collective lever, ascended to five hundred feet above ground level and then put the machine on course for Vinstra.

  As they were crossing over the lake a thought struck him. “Storkvelvbu is going to be really busy tonight, and I won’t be surprised if some of the skiers decide to sleep outside. That could be a big mistake with a hungry fox in the neighbourhood.”

  Chapter 3

  When she got up to her hotel room Cally Douglas was relieved to see a TV on the wall, and she switched it on right away. An old habit. She used the changer to move through the channels but could find only two. One was showing what seemed to be a news programme, with half a dozen people sitting at a table, talking. On the other a cross-country ski race was in progress: fit young women in lycra suits hammering round a hilly course, not giving a tin shit about the snot that hung like veils from their faces. They were carrying guns, so it was biathlon. Cally had watched some TV coverage of that during the Sochi Olympics in Russia.

  Was that really a year ago – already?

  Back then, even though she was doing the cleaning job at Crombie House and had officially made the change from resident to staff, she would still have had some remnants of her old punk-child persona, all moody and deep. Maybe the Olympics had influenced her decision to start using the fitness room, to start playing the new role properly?

  Maybe they had, but she couldn’t remember. Much of that period was now a bit of a blur. The cleaning job that she started on her eighteenth birthday had given her some steady, legitimate income for the first time in her life, and for several weeks she had treated herself to a little too much alcohol and a few too many benzodiazepines, all consumed in the privacy of a room with a door she was now able to lock.

  What she could remember was that the weather in Sochi had been abnormally warm, and that some competitors had cut the sleeves and legs off their race suits. It had somehow made them look very young, even to her. Too young to be carrying deadly weapons.

  Now she watched as the TV coverage switched to the shooting range, where the racers came to a halt, took a few deep breaths to get their heart-rates down, then unshouldered their rifles and fired at tiny targets. The excited Norwegian commentary rose to a ridiculous level, as if the race outcome would settle the future of the entire solar system. The spectators joined in the clamour, giving every successful shot a loud cheer, every miss an audible groan.

  A display at the top of the TV screen showed that the first athletes were twelve kilometres into the race even though only forty minutes had elapsed since the start. It was a different world. The route that Cally and the men would start on tomorrow was just fifty kilometres long but it would take them five full days. A baby-tour. Good for first-time visitors to Norway or skiers whose technique has yet to develop, as the guidebook quaintly put it.

  Or, as Cally herself might have put it, good for people who want a way to convince the world they have now fully recovered from a long and unfortunate psychiatric condition.

  She muted the sound but left the TV switched on.

  She had never stayed in a hotel before and gave the room a professional once-over, starting in the bathroom. Everything seemed clean enough, but the way the shower had been set up was stupid. No tray and no enclosure panel, just a plastic curtain. So the water would splash over the whole bathroom floor. In Crombie the other cleaners would have a proper bitch-fest about that.

  The room itself reminded Cally of her staff apartment: equally small and equally impersonal. A place for transient people. But it smelled nice - lavender fabric-conditioner.

  As well as the main ceiling light, the bedroom had three wall lights, all fitted with plugs rather than wired-in. At Crombie that would breach health and safety, as would the swivel window - four floors up but no restrictor.

  But the view was good, down to a pisted slope then over a lake to a line of hills that reminded Cally of Scotland. The sun had gone down and the afterglow was colouring the snow red. It was nice to think that tomorrow night she would sleep in a remote DNT cabin on the far side of those mountains.

  She had first heard of DNT - the initials stood for something unpronounceable - at a ski club talk in Aberdeen. “Think of the Youth Hostels Association in Britain,” the speaker had said. “And then imagine it had a Provisional Wing”. He told them that most of the DNT cabins don’t have a warden. You let yourself in with a key they give you, and then you help yourself to food and firewood and you sleep in a bunk with proper bed-clothes. Then in the morning you work out how much you owe them and leave a direct-debit slip in a hole in the wall. “Hands up if you can imagine such a system working in Scotland,” the speaker had asked, and had got the response he was expecting.

  On a table below the TV there was a thick information folder with sections in Norwegian and English. Cally thought it might be useful for her report to the charity that was funding her trip, and she made a mental note to ask the hotelier for a copy. Flicking through it she saw stuff about meal times and about how to use the phone and the Wi-Fi. She smiled at a paragraph that said, in bold type, that dogs were only allowed in the “dog-friendly” bedrooms and MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO ROAM FREE IN THE HOTEL!! She wondered what kind of incident had provoked the capital letters and the exclamation marks. Then there was a map of the ski tracks. With a finger she traced tomorrow’s route, or at least the first half of it, as far as the place called Slangenseter that was right at the edge of the paper. Beyond Slangenseter they would be off the map. It seemed a bit more exciting when you thought of it like that.

  There was a knock at the door. Of course it was Richard. He said, “I’m just letting you know I’m going down to glide-wax our skis for tomorrow. I’ve got an idea that might help us go a bit faster. But Neep is in his room, if you need anyone.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine. This is good for me”.

  He handed her two pairs of ski boots. “One pair is your normal size and the other is half a size bigger. Try them on. If you think one pair feels okay then wear them around the hotel for the rest of the evening, just to make sure.”

  When he had gone she put on the boots. The bigger ones were better. She kept them on and went back to the informati
on folder. There was a leaflet about wild reindeer and how you shouldn’t go near them. Then a leaflet about snowshoe trips in a canyon called Helvete. A sheet stapled to it explained that Helvete is the Norwegian word for Hell, and then said “Help us put Hell on the map”. It must be what Richard had been talking about earlier; with his churchy background he’d be bound to see the humour in that. She skimmed through the sheet and saw that the locals were campaigning to get Unesco to recognise it as a World Heritage Site.

  Through the wall she could hear a rumbling in the pipes and then the sound of someone singing. Neep was taking a shower. She listened for a little while; she hadn’t known he was such a good singer. Then there was another sound, a low beeping, and it took her a moment to realise it was coming from the telephone on her table. She lifted the receiver and said, “Hello?”

  “Hi. This is Elin at reception. Is Mr Newton with you? He’s not answering his phone.”

  “No. He is in his room but I think he’s in the shower right now.”

  “It’s just that he came down a few minutes ago to buy some beer. And he has left his wallet behind. If you see him, please ask him to come and get it. I’m taking a break soon and I’d prefer to hand it over before then. Unless maybe you could come down for it?”

  “No problem,” Cally said. Then she put the phone down and wondered if it had been the right thing to say. She thought back over the day, counting the hours on her fingers. So far she’d had two pills, and the second one had been at about ten o’clock. That was a long time ago. But on the other hand this batch was pretty high-octane, and when she had taken the second pill she had still been buzzing from the first. And there were none of the obvious warning signs, like the sweating hands or that acidic tingling of the blood. So she should be okay.

  Anyway there was no point in having another benzo now - it would take too long to hit.

  She had heard that the drug companies were working on a new fast-acting form of benzodiazepine, a nasal spray. She looked forward to that – a discreet puff and she’d be good to go. Right now the only quick option was a rectally-administered gel, and she had always drawn the line at that. Not suitable for polite company. I say, would you all be good enough to avert your eyes while I drop my pants and squeeze some of this paste up my backside? I need to go out on my own soon and it’s just to stop me thrashing about in a manner that passers-by would probably find disagreeable.