CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ben had the phone in his hand before he realised firstly he didn’t know the number for the police in Denmark and secondly he couldn’t call them, Nikolas didn’t exist legally. He ran up to the bedroom and searched through Nik’s bag until he found a plane ticket for a Christian Beck. He rang Kate instead of the police. She took at least four rings to answer. “Where were you?”
“Just about to go down on James Caviezel. Where were you?”
“What?”
“Ben! I was asleep. I was dreaming, thank you very much. My one chance, and now he’s probably going to go all Jesus Christ on me again.”
“What? Kate, Nik has disappeared. He’s been taken, I think. I don’t know.”
“What? Fuck. Where are you?”
“In Denmark still, but I need you to do a check on one of his aliases, Christian Beck. Is it good? If I call the police, will it hold up?”
“Jesus, Ben, give me some credit, yeah? I wrote all his aliases. Christian is a particular favourite of mine. He’s an art dealer.”
“Nikolas came here from Russia on Aeroflot 2658 on the twenty-eighth of November. Can you check his flight out from London, get details on what he’s been doing in Russia officially as Christian?”
“I’m at my mum’s, Ben! Hello? Christmas? I’ll be able to get home in about two hours. I’ll get there as soon as I can, okay? Anything else?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know! We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, he had no clothes on, we had this big argument, and now he’s just gone!”
“Is this anything to do with the message he left on my phone earlier? To check a number for him?”
“I don’t know! What was the number?”
She told him and then added, “He sent it from your phone.”
Ben cursed. “No, that was an argument we had earlier.”
“Uh-huh. As interesting as the image of Sir Nikolas standing stark-bollock naked in the snow and arguing with you is—and it’s almost better than my last image of Jim Caviezel—you maybe want to think about not arguing so much?”
Ben wasn’t in the mood for anything but his rising panic. “Call me back as soon as you can, yeah?”
It was the longest three hours of his life. Eventually, she called back. “It’s good, Ben. He flew out of London as Christian, too. I’ve boosted up his profile in Russia, had him at some art galleries and the like. Christian is Danish by nationality, so no problems with a foreign national going missing. He’s not lived in Denmark for about twenty years, and his profile here in London is rock-solid. He’ll be good to go.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Ben, give me your address.”
“I’m not sure what it is. Why?”
“Because I’m coming over. I’ll be there some time the day after tomorrow.”
“No, it’s okay, Kate. I’ll―”
“Address, Ben!”
He gave her Ingrid’s. It was the only one he knew. “Kate, can you do me a favour? I know I don’t deserve one.”
“Ben, don’t ever say that. I owe you for saving me from a disastrous marriage.”
“What? When? To who?”
“You, you moron. Now, what’s the favour?” He told her.
She laughed. “Okay, I’ll try. See you soon.”
Ben clicked off. He went back outside to check around one more time just in case Nikolas’s very odd sense of humour had taken an even odder turn, but there was still no sign of him. There was no sign of very much. He called the police. They arrived an hour later, two cars and four officers, two in uniform in the first car and two plain-clothes detectives in the second.
Ben ushered them in. He told them the basics of what had happened—that he and a friend were staying in the lodge. He said the last time he’d seen Christian he’d been in the tub. Christian had suffered a nosebleed and had climbed out, slipped on the deck and fallen into the snow. He’d gone in to fetch his friend a towel, and when he’d come out, Christian was gone.
Naturally, this story piqued the interest of the detectives. It was so full of holes they practically fell in them. They had many questions—why were they holidaying together? Had they argued? Why was he, Ben, bruised with a swollen, split lip?—all very valid questions. They took him to the station.
Distraught and distracted, Ben agreed to an examination. He was badly bruised all over, had rope burns on his wrists and ankles, and had clearly been punched in the face. He was too depressed and anxious to worry too much about admitting, yes, he and Christian were lovers and assuring them all of the wounds—the bruises and rope burns—were voluntary. Which was all very well for him to say. He had no one to collaborate these claims. The examination became more intimate, and it then rather invalided his claim of voluntary sex when they discovered signs of what they associated with rape, internal tearing and extensive bruising. Ben got angry with them and tired to explain he was a soldier and Nikolas…but Nikolas didn’t exist, and Christian wasn’t a solider, he was an art critic. And for the first time, he realised just how limited his Danish was. He didn’t know half the words he needed; who knew he’d ever need to say such words to such men? He switched to English. To his embarrassment, they knew all the words for sex just as well in English as they did in their own language. They asked if he knew anyone who could verify his story. He didn’t. Ingrid knew Nikolas as Aleksey. It got worse and worse.
They put him in a holding cell. It was almost morning now, and he’d not slept all night, had drunk nearly a bottle of vodka but not eaten since he’d left Ingrid’s. He threw up the food they gave him. It was with a profound sense of relief, therefore, he heard the bolt in the cell door being slid back and a policeman came in to tell him Nikolas had been found—was waiting for him in the interrogation room. As Ben went into the room, which was much larger than he remembered, he could smell damp saltiness in the walls. Nikolas was waiting for him. He was soaked and cold for he’d been swimming, but his arms were warm when they enfolded Ben in their strong grasp. Ben could smell the sea. He buried his face into the crook of Nikolas’s neck, his favourite place in the world. He was crying, but the arms were so strong they took the pain of the tears, absorbing it—until he woke. He lay on the hard bunk heartsick and desolate. He’d not felt like this since he was eight, searching desperately for someone he wouldn’t find again in this life. The sense of being with Nikolas again stayed with him through the rest of his time in the cell. Nikolas’s arms were more real in his memory than the rough pad of the bunk; the scent of Nikolas’s cool skin stronger than the real stink of the cell.
Eventually, he was released and warned not to leave Denmark; although, obviously, had he wanted to go, he would’ve. He didn’t want to.
He went straight to Ingrid’s and told her most of what had happened. He told her Aleksey was travelling under an assumed name and didn’t explain why. He told her the police would contact her, as would a woman called Kate Armstrong from England. She immediately forced him to go to bed for a few hours. He didn’t want to sleep, but he was shaky with exhaustion. He agreed to lie down for short while and in his familiar room with the familiar sound of the sea, he felt calmer. He was incredibly relieved he’d stayed at Ingrid’s when he saw Nikolas coming out of the waves across the little strip of garden that separated him from the beach. Nikolas had been searching for his mother. Ben laughed and told him he’d been searching for him and wasn’t it too cold to be swimming this time of year? Nikolas smelt so good. Ben couldn’t hold him tight enough. Naked skin soon warmed under his roving hands. Their hearts thumped in their chests, strong and reassuring, but when he opened his eyes, it was only thumping on the door of the old house, which was not so wonderful or so reassuring.
When he went into the sitting room, a man was sitting with Ingrid. She introduced him as Jans LaCour, a lawyer. She told Ben to tell Jans everything and left them to their privacy. Jans spoke better English than Nikolas, so it wasn’t hard to communicate. What was hard was Ben couldn’t tell him the truth. He was still disorientated from the dream. It was still more real to him that Nikolas was found than that he wasn’t, and this confusion coloured his story, affected his coherence in the telling. The truth was hard enough to tell anyway. He’d argued with a man called Aleksey Primakov who’d been called Aleksey Mikkelsen who was living the life of his brother Nikolas under an assumed name, Christian Beck. They’d gotten very drunk and had a stupid argument they didn’t know they were having about a woman who was probably a figment of Nikolas’s warped imagination. He’d accused Nikolas of incest with his twin, Nikolas had attacked him, and then he’d gone. What was the most likely reason for Nik’s disappearance? Ben hadn’t admitted it to himself all night—not during the examinations, not during the extensive and aggressive questioning, not during the long hours he’d spent on his own in the cell—but now he couldn’t help but face it; Nikolas had left of his own accord. Perhaps he’d taken other clothes while Ben was in the shower. Ben didn’t know exactly what Nikolas had with him. Perhaps he’d just dressed and walked away into the snow, fed up at last at having his past eviscerated by someone who’d once respected him as a boss and called him sir.
“You don’t get to say that. Whatever you are.”
He’d known in his heart just how fragile Nikolas was, but he’d pushed him to the very edge—and then over it. He hadn’t even taken the time to reassure Nik where he’d been that night. After all Nik had revealed about his brother and his death, he just had to push him even further.
Aleksey, it appeared, had now fallen off his own balcony—for real. He’d just walked away from it all. From me.
Jans LaCour didn’t get much from Ben that morning. The story was incoherent and utterly unlikely, fragmented, and on occasion, broken with ranting, swearing and, once, with crying. What he did appear to get from it, however, was that Ben wasn’t involved in his lover’s disappearance. Jans was clearly a man who’d studied human nature, one who knew genuine distress when he saw it. He promised to speak with the police about Ben’s legal requirement to remain and whether he was free to return to the lodge. Ben was left at the table with Radulf staring at him and whining. The dog seemed to sense his best friend was distraught. He returned to his basket and dragged his blanket into the living room to Ben’s feet. The dog couldn’t speak, but his gesture said it all.