Ryker didn’t leave Blodstein for long. A further forty-minute drive north revealed nothing but twisting road and snow and ice, with no indication of where the next town lay, or what it would contain. His brain whirred with conflicting ideas for what he should do next. One of the most compelling options was to simply keep driving. Don’t return to Blodstein. Ever. He had no business there. He hadn’t come to Northern Europe to ingratiate himself into other people’s lives and problems.
Yet he wouldn’t be true to himself if he walked away knowing that he could have helped. Could have helped people who needed help.
And it wasn’t as though he was pressed for time. He sacrificed nothing of his own plans by staying in the area longer than originally intended.
So he drove back to Blodstein. He scoped out the two hotels. One was a new and sleek aluminum and glass structure, operated by a chain name that Ryker recognized and which, given its proximity to the waterfront factories and warehouses, was surely catered toward corporate use, on the odd chance that Blodstein ever received out-of-town businesspeople. The other was a much more traditional-looking affair, comprising a slightly grimy-looking and blocky four-story brick structure just off the main shopping street. Drab-looking, it had shoddy signage and a parking lot at its side with space for only six cars, with much of the space taken up by ugly-looking steel vents and trash cans.
He chose the latter – the unimaginatively named Blodstein Gjestehus. He was no corporate type.
He parked up in one of the available spaces and moved inside. Gloomy, a smell of old wood and grease. The aging bespectacled man sitting behind the scratched-up reception counter wore a waist jacket and shirt with bow tie, though managed to make the look scruffy and unkempt.
‘God morgen,’ Ryker said.
A raised eyebrow as the man looked up from his newspaper.
‘You want a room?’ the man asked, switching to English. Once again, sound instincts, and a decent grasp of the language.
‘Your cheapest will do,’ Ryker said.
‘That’s all we do. You have credit card?’
‘I’ll pay cash.’
‘How many nights.’
‘One at a time.’
The man sighed. ‘A thousand kroner a night.’
Ryker whistled. The man looked unimpressed. Ryker palmed the notes onto the countertop while the receptionist chose a bulky-looking key from the pigeonholes behind him.
‘Room three,’ he said, placing the key next to the money.
The man took the notes, stuffed them into a drawer, then picked up his newspaper again.
‘That’s it?’ Ryker asked. ‘You don’t need any details or—’
‘What details would I need? You’re the only person staying.’
‘Do I get any food? Breakfast?’
The receptionist glanced up from the paper and glared at Ryker like a patriarch would at a disappointing son.
‘Breakfast? You want me to do you a buffet? Freshly squeezed juice. Eggs, bacon?’
Was he actually offering that?
‘This isn’t the Hilton,’ he added before Ryker responded. ‘The kitchen’s closed for the winter. Sorry. We don’t get many visitors.’
‘Glad to be doing my part, then,’ Ryker said.
The receptionist gave a quizzical look but said nothing more.
‘Any recommendations then for food around here? Things to do?’
‘Have you really come here for a holiday?’ the man asked in a way which suggested Ryker was crazy if the answer was yes.
Ryker’s smile seemed to soften the man a little.
‘There’s an Italian along the street. I can’t promise it’s as good as Rome, but it serves pizza, which is probably the most exciting food we can offer here. Things to do?’ He sighed and shrugged. ‘Do you like fishing?’
‘Not really.’
He shook his head. ‘You came here, not my fault.’
Ryker held his smile. The man took no notice and got back to his reading before Ryker walked away.
* * *
Half an hour later Ryker was on the move again. The hotel room was basic, a little worn, but perfectly useable. Together with its own mini bathroom, the space was a huge step above many places Ryker had stayed over the years, even if he’d also on occasion been afforded the chance to stay in ultra-luxury. All he needed here was somewhere warm and dry. Though he wouldn’t want to spend hours on end inside there either. And so he headed out.
Through the morning he’d become more and more curious about the attitudes of the locals in this far-flung region. Not unfriendly, exactly, but certainly very wary and questioning of outsiders. Not hostility, but more surprise and almost shame.
In a strange way, Ryker’s affinity toward the place, and its people, was slowly growing. As though he found solace and meaning in this closed-off, lost cause of a place.
Ryker didn’t return to his car on leaving the hotel. The town was hardly sprawling so he decided to explore on foot, the slower pace allowing him to take more in.
He headed to the waterfront first. Industrial was the key word to describe the area. He found no shops or bars or outdoor dining options, simply a run of businesses, stretching along the water in both directions, way past the residential hub of the town. Some were small, little more than simple warehouses with berths onto the water, fishing nets and crates stacked high on the grounds. Others were much larger, comprising multiple units on sprawling manufacturing sites. Many were basic-looking and a little downtrodden, like much of the town, but one or two were more modern and sleek and quite clearly had seen recent investment. Clues were given here and there as to the purpose of the businesses from their names, which, as far as Ryker could gather, largely centered around the exploitation of everything the North Sea had to offer: fish, hydropower, solar and wind, and, of course, oil and gas.
Ryker paid a brief visit to the local library, which provided free internet, as well as a records room that held access to reams of old documents, and microfiche records, detailing the area’s history. It had been years since Ryker had seen something so antiquated, though in many ways he relished the chance to sit himself down in there and see what he could find.
Not today.
Having completed his self-guided tour of Blodstein by early afternoon, Ryker decided to get on the move again. He got into his car and headed south, out of the town, retracing his route from earlier in the day when he’d been stuck behind the log-carrying lorry. He’d lost both the police car and the pickup truck then, but he wasn’t sure either had headed into Blodstein. At least not to stop. He surely would have seen them there. Even though Wold had later turned up at the café, where had he been in the interim?
Ryker recalled the few turnings he’d seen from the main road, heading into the forests. It was those roads he would explore. He’d figured from an earlier perusal of a map of the area on his phone that a factory of some sort was located out there. Nothing that was labeled on the map, but satellite images clearly showed a cluster of buildings a few miles from the town, deep in the pine forest.
Even as he approached where he believed those buildings to be, he saw no indication on his GPS screen as to what lay ahead, no signage on the roads to indicate a town, village, or even a business in the forest.
What he did see, after traveling along the first of the tracks outside of Blodstein for just over two miles, was the first signs of logging. Piles of huge pine trunks, several trees high and wide, stacked in the forest. Stumps jutted out of the ground here, there, and everywhere like a giant-sized whack-a-mole.
The whir of machinery drifted. The grind of chainsaws. The sickly, sharp smell of sap.
Ryker glanced off to his right where a hydraulic crane arm hoisted up a pile of trunks from the forest floor with the ease of a man picking up toothpicks. The crane arm opened and unceremoniously dumped the huge trunks onto the trailer of a waiting lorry with a calamitous boom. A little further along came the mammoth machinery of the fellers – tracked beasts with cutting arms that clasped around tree trunks like shackles.
Men in bright orange coats were dotted about. Hard hats, boots, all of them looked big and bulky, stereotypical lumberjacks, even if all of the hard work was being carried out by machine rather than man. At least, as far as Ryker could see.
A few of the workers looked over at Ryker’s Volvo as he slowly passed, though he didn’t spot anything or anyone that piqued his interest. He soon reached what he was sure was the cluster of buildings he’d spotted on the satellite images earlier. Not a factory at all. The buildings were all timber and corrugated steel structures. Temporary-looking, perhaps used only as long as this area of forest was being cleared, and which consisted of little more than shells to house machinery and trunks that were waiting to be transported to cutting shops. Ryker pulled over on the road, fifty yards away from the cluster of buildings, and watched the operation with interest for a few moments.
He heard it before he saw it. A tractor, its huge wheels rumbling across rough ground, its diesel engine churning. It came out from Ryker’s blind spot, from the trees behind him. The driver slowed as he passed and Ryker looked up to see the guy gesticulating and mouthing off, though he couldn’t translate any of the angry Norwegian above the din of the motor.
The tractor, lifting arm attached to the front, rattled away, into the forecourt area and over to a pile of logs where it came to a rocking stop with the lifting arms inches from the wood. The cab door opened and the driver jumped down, still shouting and gesticulating as he marched toward Ryker. He was mid-height but plump with a rounded face. Glasses, stubble, bright red cheeks. Ryker could tell from his shouting that he was out of breath as he strode.
Ryker stood from his car and hung on the open door.
He caught a few of the words from the man. Mostly centered around ‘get out of the way’ and the like, interspersed with a few choice swear words.
‘Actually, my mother’s dead,’ Ryker shouted in retort.
The man stopped walking, stopped talking too. Then started up again.
‘I thought you were the new guy,’ he said, English now, voice still raised, as he moved within a few yards of Ryker. Hardly such a distance to require him to shout. Perhaps his hearing was screwed because of the constant din of machinery which echoed around them even with none of the beasts in sight. ‘I was about to send you back where you came from.’
‘I’m not your new guy,’ Ryker said.
The man checked his watch. Whoever the new guy was, he was in trouble all right.
‘You’re English?’ the man said.
Ryker nodded.
‘You shouldn’t be out here.’
‘I was passing through.’
A dubious look now. ‘Going where? There’s nothing out here but us.’
‘There’s no road through here?’
‘Does it look like there is? I need you to move. We have trucks coming through all the time. If you cause an accident—’
‘I’ll move. But perhaps you can help me?’
‘With what?’
‘You’re in charge here?’
‘Not really.’
‘Then who is?’
‘He’s not here. I guess… Yeah, today I guess I am in charge.’
‘I’m looking for someone.’
‘Who?’
The doubt in his eyes grew. He looked seriously uncomfortable now. Behind him, two other figures – it looked like a man and a woman – over by the largest of the buildings, had stopped what they were doing and were looking over.
‘I don’t know that yet,’ Ryker said. ‘They drive a Nissan pickup.’ Ryker rattled off the license plate. ‘I’m sure they’re local.’
The man’s face twitched. His eyes flicked off to his left, as though searching for someone there. Ryker glanced, too, but could see nothing but trees.
‘Do you know who owns that car?’ Ryker asked.
‘Why do you want to know?’
Ryker held his hands up. The man’s defensiveness was clear.
‘It’s nothing bad. I was just in the café in Blodstein. You know the one?’
‘There’s only one.’
‘The two guys were in there. One of them dropped some money outside.’
The man said nothing now.
‘Can you help me?’
‘You drove out here just for this?’
Ryker shrugged. ‘I’m sure they came in this direction.’
‘You could have left the money with the café.’
‘Or I could keep it. I just thought I’d be nice.’
Ryker went to get back into his car.
‘How much?’ the man asked.
Behind him, the man and woman edged forward. Smoke billowed out around the woman’s face from a cigarette. The man next to her shouted over. Are you okay? Ryker thought the words meant.
‘Ja,’ was the simple response from Mr Red Cheeks.
‘How much?’ he asked Ryker again.
‘How much did they drop?’
‘What else would I be asking?’
‘Ten thousand.’
An even more dubious look now.
‘That’s quite a lot where I come from,’ Ryker said. ‘Would probably only buy me a few beers around here.’
He laughed at his own quip. The man didn’t. The two others joined him, one on either side. The woman, on the left, was the youngest of them but had a hard look in her eyes. Tattoos covered her bare arms. The choice of puffer vest and high-vis jacket rather than a full overcoat was obviously designed to show the tats off. The man on the opposite side was huge – a good two or three inches over Ryker’s six foot four frame, and bulkier too – with a long beard like a Viking warrior. He spat on the ground and mumbled something under his breath.
‘What about you two?’ Ryker said. ‘I’m looking for—’
‘We don’t know anything about it,’ the boss said. ‘So can you please go back the way you came so we can get on with our jobs?’
Behind the three workers, the rumble of machinery grew as one of the beasts approached from the forest beyond. Ryker spotted a flash of yellow behind the warehouse before an almighty boom and crash sounded out. Logs falling, it sounded like. The thumping noise pulsed through Ryker and echoed into the distance. Birds screeched and flew from the pines into the sky. Silence for a few moments before all manner of shouting from the warehouse.
The boss turned to the Viking and rattled off an angry tirade. Perhaps telling the two of them that they should have been over there helping.
The man turned back to Ryker.
‘Sorry, but you can see what it’s like here. It’s dangerous, even for us. You need to leave.’
Ryker remained where he was.
‘I can’t help you. Now go.’
With that, the man finally turned away and stomped off. His two wingmates remained but no further words were exchanged. Ryker sat down in his car seat and shut the door. He turned the engine back on, swung around in the road, then slowly drove away. He kept his eyes flitting to his mirrors as he went. The boss had already reached the warehouse, ready to scold whoever had caused the mess, or perhaps to call the ambulance to save whoever had been injured. His two workers remained, watching Ryker. When they were just about out of sight, the Viking took his phone out of his pocket and placed it up to his ear.
Ryker was sure at that point that his trip into the forest hadn’t been a waste after all.