31

‘Olaf Haugen? He’s big …’ Cal held his arms away from his body to give an impression of Olaf’s size and muscularity. ‘And his hair, it’s white, wouldn’t have been cut for a while. He collects wood from the beach. Olaf Haugen?’ Cal talked in that fractured, ungrammatical manner people adopt when they’re trying to communicate with people who speak another language. ‘He lives here.’ Cal looked around. ‘Somewhere. Do you know where?’

The response to Cal’s inquiry was the same whether he asked shoppers exiting the Lidl supermarket or, after crossing Nikadel, at the bus stop where two mothers talked while their children, a boy and a girl, stared sullenly and silently at each other. Everyone in De Koog recognized the description of Olaf.

‘Do you mean Olaf the strandjutter?’ they replied using the Dutch word for beachcomber. ‘Yes, of course we know Olaf. He’s very familiar in De Koog and at the beach.’

Also, everyone knew the general direction in which he lived, in one of the streets behind the Catholic church, most likely in Strijbosstraat, though perhaps in Wintergroen or Zeekral.

In Strijbosstraat, a man walking beside his bicycle was adamant. ‘Wintergroen,’ he said.

‘Not Zeekral?’ Cal asked.

The man insisted, ‘No, no, absolutely Wintergroen. Go past four houses.’ His left arm extended, his hand bent further left at the wrist. ‘That side of Wintergroen, on the left.’

Wintergroen, Cal discovered, was a quiet, residential street of two-storey houses with small front gardens. Cal imagined the residents being polite, solicitous and neighbourly. Perhaps that was the cause of his discomfort. Living here would be a daily reminder of his differences and failings. How un-neighbourly he was. How careless he was about people. How contentment for him was to be disconnected from people and property, from commitments and obligations, from community.

Olaf the beachcomber.

Cal, the misanthrope.

The only sound in Wintergroen was the thud of his boots. He walked past four houses, counting them off and looking for signs of Olaf. He stopped at the fifth. A drive-in at the side led to a passageway and a covered area – an awning – which jutted from a single-storey extension to the neighbouring house. A workbench was outside, as well as a tricycle with a large wooden barrow. Driftwood was stacked against the gable end of a lean-to shed and graded by length. He was surprised at Olaf being able to live within such constraints, in such a habitat, being able to be tidy.

What happened? Why had he abandoned his farmstead?

As Cal wondered about Olaf’s change of circumstances, the door of the extension opened and two women came out. The first was five six, wearing a thigh-length waterproof coat and walking boots laced to her calves. Her wiry corkscrew hair was tied back. Her face was thinner and her skin better than in the photograph on the wall of Mikey Jones’s basement, but there were enough similarities for Cal to recognize a grown-up version of Ruth’s friend Sarah Pauling; the difference was maturity. Also, her name had changed. Now she was Sarah Allison.

Cal registered another likeness between this Sarah and her younger version. In the photograph, Sarah’s female companion – Ruth – was taller and better-looking. This new companion was too. Her hair was ash-blonde, attractively dishevelled. Her jersey was coral-coloured and she wore expensive-looking black trousers with coral and black trainers. Although older than Sarah, she appeared sleeker, richer, more coordinated.

Another contrast was their expressions. The other woman looked unhappy. She was pulling away, but Sarah held on to her arm as she talked to her. The companion seemed difficult to console. Her eyes were either cast down or darting towards the open door behind them, anywhere but at Sarah. Both women were so involved in their private drama they were oblivious to Cal. When, after a few moments, he still hadn’t been noticed, he said ‘Hello’ and the women looked at him, startled.

‘Is this where Olaf lives?’ Cal tilted his head towards the table, trike and driftwood. ‘I suppose I know the answer to that already. Is he about?’

His question produced another odd response. The reaction of both women was to glance at the open door behind them, then at each other before answering, as though neither knew quite what to say or do. As if they had been caught. Caught doing what?

‘Is this a bad time?’ Cal asked. ‘Should I come back?’

‘No, it’s all right, we’re …’ Sarah glanced at the other woman, then at Cal. ‘You know Olaf, do you?’

‘Yes, we share an interest –’ he tilted his head once again, at the driftwood – ‘in beachcombing and flotsam. I’ve known him for a while.’ Cal took a few steps towards them. ‘I’m sorry, I should have said. My name’s Cal McGill. Olaf might have mentioned me. Or not, since Olaf’s not exactly talkative.’

‘The name’s familiar, at least the McGill part is. Caladh?’ Sarah tried. ‘That’s what I’ve heard him call you. You’re that sea detective, aren’t you?’

Cal nodded.

‘I’m Sarah, Sarah Allison.’ There was a slight pause as though Sarah thought Cal might say, Oh, Olaf’s talked about you too, some.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘And this,’ Sarah said, indicating Lotte, ‘is Lotte Rouhof. She’s Olaf’s landlady. We’re neighbours. I live there.’ Sarah pointed to the wall on her left. ‘And friends.’ She glanced at Lotte. ‘I think we’re still friends, don’t you, Lotte?’

Lotte folded her arms.

An awkward silence followed which Cal broke by repeating, ‘Olaf, is he about?’

Instead of answering, Sarah said to Lotte, ‘Why don’t you go on inside?’ She extended a reassuring arm, but Lotte was already walking away and passing Cal without acknowledging him or looking up.

After Lotte turned the corner of her house, Sarah said, ‘I’m sorry …’ She glanced at the open door behind her. ‘Lotte’s upset because Olaf’s gone off somewhere, disappeared, since yesterday and Lotte thinks I blame her. Which, I suppose, I do, a bit. Lotte said something not very sensible to him.’

She spoke in bursts, as though nervous. ‘Look, we don’t usually go into Olaf’s room when he’s not here.’ She looked behind her again. ‘In fact, we never have before. It’s just that we’re worried about him and Lotte’s upset … upset about what she said and Olaf taking off like that. She’s got a key. She thought he might have left something … a note, an address, something.’

Cal frowned in puzzlement: why was she explaining to him? He asked, ‘Why, what did Lotte say to Olaf?’

‘She questioned him about his driftwood men … Have you seen them?’

‘Yes. I’ve got one.’

‘Does it have a mouth?’

‘It does, yes.’

‘Really?’ Sarah looked surprised.

‘Not much of one, but a mouth, yes. Why?’

‘I’ve never seen one with a mouth. I wonder why yours has got one. Mine hasn’t.’

Cal shrugged. ‘Does it signify anything apart from Olaf deciding to give one driftwood man a mouth and another not?’

‘Probably not,’ Sarah said, ‘but Lotte has a peculiar theory that Olaf’s driftwood men are really a tribe of little Olafs and that none has a mouth – apart, that is, from yours – because Olaf has a secret, something he can’t talk about, something that might explain Olaf.’

‘Explain Olaf?’ Cal sounded doubtful.

‘Lotte’s sure she can get to the bottom of Olaf, why he is as he is, if only he’ll talk to her about his past …’ Sarah let out a nervous laugh as if to say Lotte didn’t know Olaf very well if she thought that. ‘Yesterday, for reasons best known to Lotte, she decided to ask Olaf why his men don’t have mouths. Olaf didn’t answer. Well … surprise, surprise! Instead he went to his room and, later, he went off somewhere, God knows where, and hasn’t returned. We don’t know if he’ll be coming back.’ Again Olaf’s open door took her attention. ‘We thought … Lotte thought … there might be something in his room … a clue to where he’s gone.’

‘There wasn’t?’ Cal asked.

‘No … though …’ She looked at Cal as though she was deciding whether to tell him. ‘A bed, nothing much else, except …’

‘Except what?’

‘Some driftwood … I don’t know what they’re supposed to be.’ A worried expression crossed her face. ‘Not like his driftwood men. They’re not men. They’re not running. Their legs and arms are straight.’ Her arms went rigid. ‘Like this. And two of them are big, life-size. I think they’re supposed to be women.’ With a shudder, she added, ‘The others are smaller. I think they’re children.’

A bizarre tableau confronted Cal. Three driftwood figures were grouped together close to the head of a pale-wood bedstead which was in the middle of Olaf’s room. Two were about five feet ten, Cal’s height. The third was smaller, less than four feet. All three were clothed. Despite the room being in semi-darkness – the curtains were drawn tight across the window – the figures appeared purposeful but in a different way to Olaf’s driftwood men. Their limbs weren’t in motion. But they were slightly leaning, their heads hanging over Olaf’s pillow. The sight was so odd, so arresting, that Cal halted abruptly inside the door.

‘What are they?’ Sarah whispered from behind Cal’s right shoulder. ‘Olaf’s family?’

‘I don’t know.’ Cal whispered too, as though he’d intruded on a scene of intimacy and wondered whether he should turn away, lock the door and leave.

Instead he went further into the room. ‘Is there a light?’

Sarah pressed a switch by the door. A bare bulb cast a stark glare, revealing two other smaller figures, holding hands, against the curtains. ‘Why are they over there?’ Sarah said. ‘Why are any of them here? What are they? Who are they?’

Cal examined the two groups before approaching the two tallest figures by the bed. One wore jeans and a T-shirt, the other a dress with short sleeves. He recalled Mikey Jones’s photograph on his phone. The colour of the T-shirt was not quite the same, bottle green rather than turquoise. The style and colouring of the dress were similarly approximate, pale yellows and white, though stripes, not flowers. Were they the best matches Olaf could find? Cal’s attention moved to another feature, their hair, long and dark for the one in jeans; lighter, redder, shoulder length for the other. Cal touched each. Both times his hand recoiled. Human hair.

‘What’s wrong?’ Sarah asked.

He didn’t reply or turn round in case she saw how shaken he was. Did Ruth have hair when she washed up? Had he just touched the hair of two women who died twenty-three years ago? He looked closer and noticed a mesh. ‘They’re wigs, professionally made by the look of them.’ He managed to add in evident relief, ‘You’d be surprised how many wash up on beaches. I’ve often come across one. Olaf would have picked them up.’

Now he was paying attention to the smaller figure by the bed. The top of its head was made from upturned brushes with the bristles trimmed to give an impression of cropped hair. It was dressed in short grey-coloured trousers and a white shirt – Cal was reminded of the clothes in the suitcase and of the boy in the photograph. Were these the clothes the boy had been wearing or similar clothes?

Cal looked from one figure to the next. They were finer than Olaf’s driftwood men. Their limbs were longer, more like mannequins than recycled seaside curiosities, more human in their demeanour. Their faces were less boxy. Their noses were made of colourless thin plastic tubing, which was more elegant than the multicoloured noses which usually adorned the men. Another difference was their eyes. Instead of being made from sea glass, as the eyes of Olaf’s men were, they had round black stones.

He glanced at each one in turn, saying under his breath so Sarah couldn’t hear, ‘Ruth … Christina … the boy.’ His eyes stopped on the boy. ‘Who’s the boy?’

Cal noticed how each stared with those black eyes at the single pillow. It was still indented with the impression of Olaf’s head and the duvet was folded back as though Olaf had just risen. Cal knelt by the bed, placed his head on the pillow. Looking up into the three faces was disturbing. The two with wigs – the females – stared back as though accusing. The boy appeared frightened. Yet, as Cal looked from one to the other, he was unable to identify the feature or features that gave them individual expressions and emotions. Their eyes were similar and the same distance apart. None had mouths.

‘What are they?’ Sarah asked again as though she would prefer not to know. ‘You don’t think they could be …?’ The thought made her voice tremble. ‘Well, you know … People he’s harmed, his guilty secrets, his conscience? That’s what Lotte thinks they are.’

Cal said nothing. He approached the two figures by the curtains. One was smaller than the other, and both had red hair like the adult figure by the bed. Both wore girls’ summer dresses, which were water-stained. Scattered around both, on the floor, were wood shavings which had been painted to give the appearance of flower petals. Cal picked up a handful and let them fall. Then he studied their faces: both had longing expressions and looked in the direction of the group by the bed.

Cal remembered Helen’s description of Kate and Flora Tolmie scattering rose petals at Gravelines after their mother’s disappearance. Olaf would have seen the same photograph in newspapers. Cal said under his breath, looking from one driftwood girl to the other, ‘Kate … Flora …’

Still crouching, he glanced at the far end of the long room. A table, a chair, a bedside table and a chest of drawers, all in the same pale wood as the bed frame, were pushed against the back wall. A rug was rolled up under the table. The room, Cal realized, had been made to appear bare. Space had been cleared for the bed and driftwood figures, as though they were exhibits in an art gallery. Except this wasn’t an art gallery. It was Olaf’s bedroom, Olaf’s temporary home.

Lying in bed, all Olaf would see, on one side, were the longing faces of the two driftwood girls and, on the other, three figures looming over him. They hemmed him in, tormented him. They wouldn’t let him forget. But forget what? Were they the trophies of a killer or the conscience of a tortured man?

To the right of the furniture was a shut door. ‘What’s in there?’ Cal asked.

‘Kitchen, a bathroom.’

Cal went to look. Two dishes and a cup were on a drainer by the sink. Beyond, Cal saw a shower and the rim of a toilet seat.

‘When did Olaf move in?’

‘End of February, two months ago. I asked Lotte to let him stay, as a favour. The room wasn’t being used by anyone else. So …’

Cal closed the door. He dragged a finger across the top of the chest of drawers. A line was left in the covering of dust. ‘Has Olaf always had the room arranged like this?’

‘I don’t know. He hasn’t asked Lotte or me in. The curtains are never opened. Lotte can’t see in from her garden. That’s probably just as well.’ Then: ‘Poor Lotte. I think she might have been becoming rather too interested in Olaf – that’s why he took off. Now she’s discovered he’s been living with two driftwood women and these … these children. Do you know what she said to me? “Men like Olaf always turn out to have dirty little secrets.”’

Cal went to stand by the adult figure with red hair. ‘I wonder,’ Cal said, ‘did Olaf ever mention a woman called Christina or –’ he glanced at the two girls by the curtain – ‘or her daughters, Kate and Flora?’

‘No, not to me,’ Sarah replied. ‘Is that who they’re supposed to be? How do you know?’

Instead of answering, Cal gave an impression of being absorbed by the three driftwood figures by the bed, peering into their faces, touching their clothes. After studying the female with long dark hair, he asked. ‘Did Olaf mention anyone from his past? If not Christina, another woman? A younger woman? Do you have any idea who this is supposed to be?’

‘No.’

Cal watched Sarah before turning towards the figure of the boy. ‘Or this?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘You think they’re all people Olaf knew?’

Her surprise seemed genuine, Cal thought. Perhaps she didn’t know about Olaf’s connection to Ruth. Perhaps he hadn’t ever told her. Cal wasn’t sure if he should trust her. Not yet. ‘Yes, that’s what they are,’ he said. ‘Ghosts from his past.’