But then, Gaia vanishes. Aurelia looks into the space between her arms, which are encircled in the water as though she’s doing ballet. She’s standing, too, her feet no longer adrift in the depths but on shale, the water reaching her chest.

‘Gaia?’ she shouts. Her cries echo off the cliffs. The reindeer are gone. She stares into the jaws of the fjord. ‘Gaia?’

But there is no Gaia. There is only Aurelia in the fjord. The mists all around watch on, a silent, waiting congregation. And when she wakes, they are in the room with her, portentous, watching, whispering their omen.

   32   

THE DISCOVERY

Now

Tom, Clive, and a handful of the workers stand around the pit of dark clay and look down at what the digger has revealed.

It’s a body.

A few of the men cross themselves.

Clive and Tom share a look.

Tom finds he is ambushed by the memory of identifying Aurelia’s body in the morgue. His knees buckle, but he manages to lean on the digger and hold it together.

Clive jumps down into the pit, his feet almost landing on the corpse.

‘Clive,’ Tom finds himself saying. They ought not to touch it. More signs of the cross are made as Clive leans over the remains.

He can see the body has been in here a long time. The skull is most visible of all, leering up at the men, the jaw tilted forward and the teeth bared. There is some clothing too, made of dark coarse fabric, stained in places from the earth. He swallows back a mouthful of vomit before taking out his phone to snap a few shots before climbing back up the bank of earth and approaching Tom.

‘This isn’t good,’ he says. Tom is pale. He shakes his head in response. Clive looks over the workers. They are muttering amongst themselves in Norwegian.

‘I think this is a good time for a lunch break,’ he calls out to everyone, signalling that they should disperse while he and Tom figure out the next steps. Tom seems to have lost all strength in his arms and legs, and is panting. After a good deal of wondering what’s wrong with him Clive remembers that Aurelia isn’t dead a year, and that perhaps the sight of the body has proved too much for Tom. He wraps an arm around him and helps him to his feet.

‘Let’s go for a smoke,’ he says. It’s the first acknowledgement he’s made of Tom’s filthy, environmentally-toxic habit. Tom nods.

They smoke in the kitchen while Clive summons the words to say to Tom. ‘Look, I don’t want to freak you out any further,’ he says. ‘But we need to act fast.’