I hesitated for just one second more, and then I saw the policeman replace the radio receiver and reach for something in his glove compartment.
I had no idea what to do. But I had not believed Carrie before, and it had nearly cost me everything.
Screwing my courage for the pain I knew was coming, I began to run—not up the road as before but down, cross-country, scrambling headlong down the vertiginous side of the fjord.
- CHAPTER 35 -
It was growing light when I realized that I could go no farther, that my muscles, exhausted beyond endurance, just simply would not obey me. I was no longer walking, I was stumbling as if I were drunk, my knees buckling when I tried to climb over a fallen tree stump.
I had to stop. If I didn’t, I would fall where I stood, so deep in the Norwegian countryside that my body might never be found.
I needed shelter, but I had left the road a long time back, and there were no houses to be seen. I had no phone. No money. I didn’t even know what time it was, although it must be close to dawn.
A sob rose in my dry throat, but just at that moment, I saw something loom from between the sparse trees—a long, low shape. Not a house—but some kind of barn, perhaps?
The sight gave my legs a last shot of energy, and I staggered out from between the trees, across a dirt track, through a gate in a wire fence. It was a barn—although the name seemed almost too grand for the shack that lay in front of me, with its rickety wooden walls and corrugated iron roof.
Two shaggy little horses turned their heads curiously as I trudged past, and then one of them returned to drinking from what I saw, with a leap of my heart, was a trough of water, its surface pink and gold in the soft dawn light.
I staggered to the trough, falling on my knees in the short grass beside it, and cupping the water in my hands I drank great gulps of it down. It was rainwater, and it tasted of mud and dirt and rust from the metal trough, but I didn’t care. I was too thirsty to think about anything except slaking my parched throat.
When I’d drunk as much as I could, I straightened up and looked around me. The shed door was shut, but as I put my hand to the latch, it swung open and I went cautiously through, shutting the door behind me.
Inside there was hay—bales and bales of it—some tubs that I thought might be feed or supplements, and, hanging on the wall on pegs, a couple of horse blankets.
Slowly, drunk with weariness, I pulled the first one down and laid it over the deepest pile of hay—not even thinking about rats or fleas, or even Richard’s men. There was surely no way they could find me here, and I had got to the stage where I almost didn’t care—if they would just let me rest, they could take me away.
Then I lay down on the makeshift bed and drew the other blanket over the top of me.
And then I slept.
“Hallo?” The voice in my head spoke again, painfully loud, and I opened my eyes to a blinding light, and a face gazing into mine. An elderly man with a full white beard and a strong resemblance to Captain Birdseye was peering at me with rheumy hazel eyes, and a mix of surprise and concern.
I blinked and scrambled backwards, my heart thudding painfully, and then tried to get to my feet, but my ankle gave a wrench of pain and I stumbled. The man took my arm, saying something in Norwegian, but without thinking I jerked it savagely out of his grip, and fell back onto the floor of the barn.
For a few minutes we just looked at each other, him taking in my scrapes and cuts, me looking at his lined face and the dog barking and circling behind him.
“Kom,” he said at last, getting painfully to his knees and holding out his hand with cautious calm, as if I were a wounded animal that might snap at any provocation, and not a human at all. The dog barked again, hysterically this time, and the man shouted something over his shoulder that was clearly quiet, you! or something to that effect.
“Who—” I licked dry lips and tried again. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“Konrad Horst,” the man said, pointing at himself. He pulled out his wallet and flicked through until he found a photo of an elderly lady with rosy cheeks and a bun of white hair, cuddling two blond-haired little boys.
“Min kone,” he said, enunciating slowly. And then, pointing to the children, something that sounded like “Vorry bon-bon.”
Then he pointed out of the barn door at an extremely elderly Volvo standing outside.
“Bilen min,” he said, and again, “Kom.”
I didn’t know what to do. There was something reassuring about the photos of his wife and grandchildren—but even rapists and killers had grandkids, right? On the other hand, maybe he was just a nice old man. Maybe his wife would speak English. At the very least they’d likely have a phone.
I looked down at my ankle. I didn’t have much choice. It had swollen to twice its usual size, and I wasn’t sure I could even hobble as far as the car, let alone make it to an airport.