Ian Hamilton - The wild beast of Wuhan

“At the Skaw.”

“Pardon?”

“ The Skaw.”

“I did hear you. I just don’t what the Skaw is.”

“Come with me,” the woman said, walking towards the door. She opened it and pointed to the left.

“See that hill at the end of street? If you climb it you can look down on the Skaw. Jasper goes there every morning to paint.”

“How will I recognize him?”

“He wears a red anorak.”

The rain had thankfully let up, but the closer Ava got to the hill, the brisker the wind. It was a good ten-minute walk, which she found invigorating. Steps had been built into the side of the hill, which was actually an enormous sand dune. Up she went, leaning into the wind, glad she had worn her running gear. A roaring noise was coming from the other side of the dune, and the closer she got to the top the louder it got. She couldn’t imagine that it was just waves rolling in; the wind wasn’t that strong.

She spotted Jasper Kasten squatting on a camp stool, a canvas on an easel in front of him. His back was to her, his focus on the scene below: a huge expanse of beach. But it wasn’t the beach that seemed to hold his attention, and very quickly she saw why. The sea beyond was being whipped into some kind of frenzy, the water spewing into the air like a geyser. The roar she was hearing came from the same source, but now that she was closer she could hear a distinct screech coming from what seemed to be the centre of the geyser.

The cloud cover had broken, streaks of blue now appearing where there had been only a grey shroud. The clouds were moving quickly, leaving gaps for the sun to peek out, and when it did, it created a pattern of rainbows over the water. Ava was a city girl, most comfortable when she had concrete under her feet, but even she found the seascape breathtaking.

He didn’t hear her coming and she had to move into his line of vision to get his attention. He looked up, annoyed. He had pale blue eyes, thin lips, a pointed chin, and huge jug ears. “Mr. Kasten?” she said.

“Do I know you?” he asked in English, his manner easing.

“No, I was referred to you by one of the women in town.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“I’m looking for someone and they said you might be able to help me.”

“Who?”

“Jimmy the Sandman.”

“Good God, I haven’t heard that name in a while.”

“So you know him?”

“Of course,” he said, looking out at the sea as if he had already lost interest in the conversation. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ava said.

“That there on the right, that is the Kattegat strait. It flows up from the southeast and the Strait of Denmark. And there on the left, that is the Skagerrak. It comes from the North Sea. They meet here, crashing into each other in some kind of perpetual war, neither of them ever making headway, just smash, smash, smash in futility. Some days are better than others. Today is almost perfect. The wind is strong; the light flickers.”

She looked at his painting. “You come here every day?”

“I do.”

“And you paint the same thing?”

“It is never the same. That’s why I find it so beautiful.”

“I was told Jimmy painted scenes like this too.”

“He painted this one, except he couldn’t resist sticking in those ridiculous characters of his.”

“On driftwood?”

“Yeah, the crazy bastard.”

“What do you mean?”

“You would have thought he’d invented the idea of painting on driftwood. He used to scour this beach every morning looking for what the tide had brought in. He used to go nuts if anyone else got there first or was looking when he was. There was more than one fight down there.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“Why are you interested?”

“I’m looking for him. It’s business-related.”

“Business? That’s a word I’d never associate with him.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“He left.”

“When?”

“Four or five years ago.”

“Why?”

“His wife, I think. She found it too crowded here.”

“Crowded?” Ava said in disbelief.

“In the summer we get overrun by those fucking German tourists, but most of the time it’s like this. Me, a couple of other painters, and a few guys on the beach throwing sticks for dogs to chase. The wife was a bit of a nut job, used to nag him something awful. Though when you think about all the kids she had to look after, maybe she had a reason.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“No.”

“Do you think anyone you know would know?”

“I don’t know him, but Jimmy had a brother in Hirtshals.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ronny. He owns a fish plant, Sorensen Fiske. It’s right on the main pier in Hirtshals.”

“Is that far from here?”

“Straight west about forty kilometres. Just follow the concrete bunkers.”

“Bunkers?”

“During the Second World War the Germans dotted this entire coastline with them, to defend themselves against an attack that never came. The walls are so thick we can’t rip them down. That’s why some of the fuckers come back here every summer — to relive the old glory days.”

“Thanks for the help,” she said, not particularly wanting to hear a rant about the Second World War; she’d heard them often enough when Chinese spoke about the Japanese. Different continent, different occupiers, same hatred.

She punched Sorensen Fiske into her GPS and up it popped, a half-hour drive if she kept to the speed limit.

Hirtshals was smaller still than Skagen, and she had no trouble wending her way through town to the harbour. There was one large jetty that, according to signs in Danish and English, handled ferry traffic. The others seemed devoted to fishing boats. Ava was surprised to see so many of them in port. Around the outer perimeter of the harbour were a number of what looked like fish plants, and at the far end she saw the sign sorensen fiske.

She parked the car at the far end of the harbour lot and started to cover the two hundred or so metres to the plant. She had walked about a hundred metres when the smell first became noticeable. She couldn’t identify it at first, but the closer she got to the plant, the more intense it became. And then she realized what it was: urine.

She gagged and began to breathe through her mouth. Every four or five breaths she would try her nose again, hoping the odour had abated. It just got worse — the raw, overpowering smell of piss. She felt as though she were walking in a cloud of it and the pale overhead sun was causing it to ripple up from the pavement. It reminded her of a street corner, a block from her hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, that served as a toilet for street vendors and drunks. She had to walk past the corner twice a day, and she could smell the urine from at least twenty metres. Ho Chi Minh was child’s play compared to Hirtshals.

She was breathing entirely through her mouth when she got to a wide-open plant door, from which the urine smell was obviously escaping. She looked inside and saw six men labouring. They were picking up grey fish that looked like small five-pound torpedoes. They lifted each one by the tail and then drove the head onto a spike that was attached to a bench. They then cut across the back of the fish’s neck, gripped the skin with pliers, and ripped it off.

All the men were in rubber boots and overalls. None of them of them wore shirts. Their chests were massive, their forearms even bigger. One of them spotted Ava standing in the doorway and yelled something at her in Danish.

She stepped inside, trying not to breathe. “I don’t speak Danish,” she said.