Nicola Griffith - The Blue Place

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 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 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.”

“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 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?”

“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?”

“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.”