Ian Hamilton - The wild beast of Wuhan

“We already have a Chinaman who buys our fins,” he said in English.

“I don’t want to buy fins.”

“And we have a contract in the U.K. for all the meat.”

“I don’t want the meat.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I’m looking for Ronny Sorensen.”

“He’s in the office,” he said, pointing to a cubicle on the right.

She walked to the door and knocked. She heard something in Danish and assumed it was Come in.

A short, fat, bald man looked up at her when she opened the door. “Erik told you, our fins are all sold,” he said.

“Are you Ronny Sorensen?”

“I am.”

“My name is Ava Lee. I’m trying to locate your brother, Jimmy.”

“You mean Jan?”

“Yes, the one and the same.”

“Why?”

“Business.”

“Jan doesn’t do business.”

“Painting business.”

“That’s not business. This is business,” he said, motioning to the plant.

Uninvited, Ava sat in a chair across from the desk. “What are those fish anyway?” she asked.

“Sand sharks, dogfish, rock salmon, whatever you want to call them. Every market puts its own name on them.”

“And that stench?”

“Uric acid. It is natural to the fish — nothing to do about it. If you want to process dogfish, you have to learn to cope with it. Me, I don’t notice it anymore. The men, the same, though it’s hard on us when we leave here. The smell gets into your clothes, which is why the men work in as little as they can. Still, my wife swears it gets into your skin. Nothing to do about that either. It puts money in the bank, and in this town we’re about the last fish plant still in full production.”

Ava wondered if her nylon Adidas jacket would absorb the urine smell, and was thankful she hadn’t worn her good clothes.

“Where do the fins go?”

“New York, to a Chinaman, and from there God knows. Probably China. The meat goes to the U.K., to the fish-and-chippers. They don’t have much cod anymore so they use the dogfish. They call it rock salmon. Sounds better, I guess.”

“Yes, it does,” Ava said. “Mr. Sorensen, I was asking about your brother.”

“Haven’t seen him in years.”

“But do you know where he is?”

“Why?” he repeated.

“I have a client who bought several of his paintings. They’re in the market for more but haven’t been able to locate him.”

“Jan’s paintings were never in any great demand.”

“Times change; things get trendy.”

“Jan is trendy?”

“He has a growing following.”

“Son of a bitch! I’m surprised.”

“So, Mr. Sorensen, do you know where I can find him?”

“He’s in the Faeroe Islands.”

She had heard the name but just couldn’t place it. A vision of travelling to some South Pacific atoll surfaced in her head. “Where are the Faeroe Islands?”

“In the middle of absolutely fucking nowhere,” Sorensen said.

“That’s helpful.”

He laughed. “It’s true — the middle of nowhere. They’re about 800 kilometres southeast of Iceland, 650 kilometres north of here, and 800 kilometres northeast of Scotland, in the North Atlantic. The Faeroes are the kind of place you don’t arrive at by accident, unless of course you’re some stupid Viking who got shipwrecked there two thousand years ago.”

“Why did Jan go there?”

“Helga.”

“His wife?”

“The fat cow is from there, never wanted to leave, and she nagged him all the time about going back. He finally gave in to her.”

“How can I contact him?”

“You can write him a letter.”

“Do you have a phone number for him, a house number or a mobile?”

“He doesn’t have a phone.”

“Email?”

“Don’t be stupid. This is my brother we’re talking about, a man who doesn’t have much use for the outside world. He’s living in a fishing village about half an hour from Torshavn, the capital. It isn’t enough that he wants to live in one of the most isolated countries in the world; when he gets there, he has to isolate himself even more.”

“Do you have an address for him?”

“Yes.”

“Can I get it?”

“I’m not sure he would appreciate that.”

“Mr. Sorensen, all artists like to know their work is appreciated. I’m not trying to sell him a magazine subscription or a mobile phone plan; I want to buy some of his work.”

He searched her face for a lie. Ava tried to smile, but it was difficult to make it natural when she was still breathing through her mouth.

“Okay, I guess it can’t hurt,” he said. He wrote the number on a yellow Post-it pad, tore off the sheet, and passed it to her.

She read, “Jan Sorensen, Tjorn, Faeroe Islands.”

“The village has fewer than a thousand people. You can’t fart without everyone knowing. I write to him, I send him things, and I know the letters always get through because he always replies.”

“He still has a bank account in Skagen,” she said.

“How would you know that?”

“When we were trying to trace him, my client still had that information from their last transaction.”

“The statements come here. I bundle them and send them every six months or so.”

Ava saw a tiny opening. “I may actually go to the Faeroes to see him. Would you like me to deliver his mail for you?”

“No,” he said.

So much for that, Ava thought. “If I were going to the Faeroes, Mr. Sorensen, what would be the best way to do it?”

“There is a ferry from Hanstholm.”

“And how long a journey is that?”

“Close to two days.”

“Ah, how about flying?”

“You can fly.”

“From?”

“I’m not a travel agent,” he said.

“That’s true,” Ava said, standing up.

“Tell me,” he said, looking up at her. “Those shark fins, what do they do with them?”

“They make soup.”

“I know that, but what kind of soup?”

“What do you mean?”

“I hear that it is a special kind.”

“Well, it’s traditionally served on special occasions: weddings, birthdays, honouring someone.”

“So it’s expensive, huh?”

She wondered what he was selling the fins for — maybe a couple of dollars a kilo. How would he react if he knew that a bowl of shark fin soup with only a few shreds of meat in it could cost anywhere from ten to fifty dollars? “I don’t know. I’m not in the fish business.”

Ava left the plant as quickly as she could, breathing through her nose every ten paces or so to test the air, but this time the odour didn’t abate even when she had reached her car. She climbed inside and the smell came with her. She had no doubt that it had penetrated her hair. It was starting to rain again, a cool, steady drizzle. She rolled down the driver’s-side window and drove away.

It was eleven thirty, still early morning in Toronto, and her travel agent wouldn’t be up yet. She found an Internet cafe on the outskirts of the town. The place was empty. She went online to search for flights to the Faeroe Islands. There was a direct flight from a place called Billund at two thirty. She checked a map; it looked like a two-hour drive. She couldn’t make it. The only other option was to fly from Aalborg to Copenhagen and catch an evening flight from there.

Ava drove from Hirtshals to Aalborg with the window still down. She was getting wet, but it was preferable to the stench. The flight from Aalborg left at three, and that gave her just over two hours to kill. She checked back in to the Hvide Hus, only too happy to pay the full day’s rate for a chance to shower.

The first thing she did in the room was strip off all her clothes. She found two plastic laundry bags in the closet, packed her clothing and running shoes into one, and then double wrapped it in the second bag.