The tunnel was six kilometres long. They made the other side with teeth chattering and Kirsti whooped as she drove into the fractured sunlight outside. The temperature upgrade soaked into Carla’s body like tropical heat. The chill seemed to have gone bone-deep. She tried to shrug it off.
Get a fucking grip, Carla.
She was already missing Chris, a lack for which she berated herself because it felt so pathetic alongside her mother’s cheerful self sufficiency. The anger at him that had driven her out of the house was already evaporating by the time her plane took off, and all she had by the time she arrived in Tromsö was maudlin drinking talk of distance and loss.
Now, out of the mess she had laid out for her mother the night she arrived, Kirsti had snatched the possibility of meaningful action. Carla wondered vaguely what you had to do to attain operational pitch like that – have a child, write a book, lose a relationship? What did it take?
‘There it is.’ Kirsti gestured ahead, and Carla saw the road was dropping down to meet one side of a small, stubby fjord. On the other side, institutional buildings were gathered in a huddle, lit up shiny in a wandering shaft of sunlight. It looked as if the road ran all the way up to the end of the inlet and then back round to the monitoring station.
‘So this is all new as well?’
‘Relocated. They were based in the Faroes until last year.’
‘Why did?’ Carla remembered. ‘Oh, right. The BNR thing.’
‘Yes, your beloved British and their nuclear reprocessing. Gjerlow reckons it’s contaminated local waters for the next sixty years minimum. Pointless taking overview readings. None of the tests they do will stand the radiation.’
Not for the first time, Carla felt a wave of defensiveness rising in her at the mention of her adoptive home.
‘I heard it was just heat exchanger fluids – not enough to do much damage.’
‘My dear, you’ve been living in London too long if you believe what the British media tell you. There is no just where nuclear contaminants are concerned. It’s been a monumental disaster and anyone with access to independent broadcasting knows it.’
Carla flushed. ‘We’ve got independent channels.’
‘Does Chris buy off the jamming?’ Her mother looked interested. ‘I didn’t think you could do that effectively.’
‘No, he’s exempted. Under licence. For his job.’
‘Oh, I see.’ There was a studied politeness in Kirsti’s voice that didn’t quite shroud her distaste. Carla flushed again, deeper this time. She said nothing more until the wheels of the Volvo crunched across the gravel parking lot beside the monitoring station. Then, sitting still in the passenger seat as Kirsti killed the engine, she muttered, ‘I’m not sure this is such a good idea.’
‘It was a good idea when we had it on Friday night,’ said her mother emphatically. ‘It’s still a good idea now. One of my best. Now, come on.’
Kirsti’s Tromsö University ID got them in the front door, and a quick search of the building’s locational database at reception told them Truls Vasvik was up on the top floor. They took the stairs, Kirsti leading by a couple of steps on every flight. Good for the buttocks, she flung over her shoulder in response to her daughter’s puffed protests to slow down. Only five levels. Come on.
They found Vasvik in the staff café. He was, Carla thought, a classic Kirsti type – gaunt and long-limbed, radiating self-sufficiency like the effects of some drug recently injected. He wore a crew-neck sweater, canvas work trousers, walking boots and an uncared-for heavy black coat that he somehow hadn’t got around to removing. The clothes hung off him, incidental drapings on his lean frame, and his silver-threaded black hair was long and untidy. He looked to be in his early forties. As they approached, he got up and offered a bony hand.
‘Hello Kirsti.’
‘Hello Truls. This is my daughter, Carla. Carla, Truls Vasvik. It’s good to see you again.’
Vasvik grunted.
‘Have you seen Gjerlow yet?’
‘About an hour ago.’
‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t realise—’
‘Shall we all sit down. There’s machine coffee over there, if you want it.’
‘Can I get you one?’
Vasvik indicated the cup in front of him and shook his head. Kirsti went off to the bank of self-service machines across the café and left Carla stranded. She offered Vasvik an awkward smile and seated herself at the table.
‘So, you’ve known my mother for a while.’
He stared back at her. ‘Long enough.’
‘I, uh, I appreciate you taking the time to see us.’
‘I had to be here anyway. It wasn’t a problem.’
‘Yes, uh. How’s it going? I mean, can you talk about it?’
A shrug. ‘It isn’t, strictly speaking, confidential, at this end anyway. I need some data to back up a case we’re putting together. Gjerlow has it, he says.’
‘Is it a British thing?’
‘This time around, no. French.’ A marginal curiosity surfaced on his face. ‘You live there, then?’
‘Where, Britain? Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘Doesn’t it bother you?’
She bit her lip. Kirsti arrived with coffee cups and saved them both from the rapidly foundering conversation.
‘So,’ she said brightly. ‘Where are we up to?’
‘We haven’t started yet,’ said Vasvik.
Kirsti frowned. ‘Are you okay, Truls?’
‘Not really.’ He met her gaze. ‘Jannicke died.’
‘Jannicke Onarheim? Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Truls.’ Kirsti reached out and put her hand on Vasvik’s arm. ‘What happened?’
He smiled bleakly. ‘How do ombudsmen die, Kirsti? She was murdered. I only got the call this morning.’
‘Was she working?’
Vasvik nodded, staring into the plastic-topped table. ‘Some American shoe manufactury up near Hanoi. The usual stuff, reported human rights abuse, no local police cooperation.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘They found her car run off the road an hour out of town, nowhere near where she should have been. Looks like someone took her for a ride. Raped. Shot. Single cap, back of the head.’
He glanced up at Carla, who had flinched on the word raped.
‘Yeah. It’s probably good you hear this. Jannicke is the third this year. The Canadians have lost twice that number. UN ombudsmen earn their money, and often enough we don’t get to spend it. From what Kirsti says, your man might not suit the work.’
The implied slight to Chris, as always, fired her up.
‘Well, I doubt you’d last long in Conflict Investment.’
The other two looked at her with chilly Norwegian disapproval.
‘Perhaps not,’ said Vasvik finally. ‘It was not my intention to insult you or your man. But you should know what you are trying to get him into. Less than fifty years ago, this was still a comfortable, localised, office-based little profession. That’s changed. Now, at this level, it can get you killed. There is no recognition of the work we do – at best we are seen as fussy bureaucrats, at worst as the enemies of capitalism and the bedfellows of terrorists. Our UN mandate is a bad joke. Only a handful of governments will act on our findings. The rest cave in to corporate pressure. Some, like the United States and so, of course, Britain, simply refuse point blank to support the process. They are not even signatories to the agreement. They block us at every turn. They query our budgets, they demand a transparency that exposes our field agents, they offer legal and financial asylum to those offenders we do manage to indict. We shelve two out of every three cases for lack of viability and,’ he jerked his chin, perhaps out to wherever Jannicke Onarheim’s body now lay, ‘we bury our dead to the jeers of the popular media.’