‘Consider it a crime scene,’ he’d told the guy at the ferry. But the truth is that, deep down inside, that’s not what he’s worried about.

Karl Björken jumps when his phone rings. A second later, he feels his throat contract with relief.

‘We’ve found her,’ Thorstein Byle says. ‘A car heading south picked her up on the motorway. They’re bringing her in now.’

Chapter 79

79

Karen pulls another candle out of her jeans. It’s cracked and wobbles ominously when she carefully lowers her improvised shade back down over her hand, but the flame burns bright. Then she turns around and starts retracing her steps. Stops, suddenly unsure: I’m supposed to turn left, aren’t I? Or is that where I came from?

Oh my God, I don’t know.

Just think, damn it!

Fear is making her brain foggy; she clings desperately to reason. Any attempt to breathe slowly and think positively is immediately swallowed by a maelstrom of terror as she keeps moving forward, step by step, inch by inch. Hour after hour? Or has it only been minutes? All sense of time and space seems to have been devoured by the darkness.

And now the dam bursts and the forbidden question forces its way through. How long can I survive in here if I don’t find an exit? What is it they say? Three days without food? Three days without water? And suddenly, it’s no longer a fear of dying that’s making it hard to breathe, it’s the thought of what awaits her before then. Three days in hell before she finally succumbs.

Horror sets her heart racing and her arms and legs seem to go numb. Losing control of where she’s putting her feet, she trips and falls to her knees. She instinctively catches herself with her left hand and holds her light up with the other. The impact sends a jolt through the candle, which goes out. In the darkness, everything becomes a tangle of pain without beginning or end. Everything hurts now there’s no light. This plan was doomed to fail from the start; she shouldn’t even have tried. Aunt Ingeborg was right.

I’m not going to make it out of this mine alive.

The realisation hits her like a cudgel. The thought of lighting one of the candles, getting to her feet and carrying on is drowned in a flood of liberating resignation. I’ve reached the end of the road, she thinks and pulls her legs out from under her. She leans back against the wall and carefully puts the broken wine bottle down, feeling its sharp edges against her fingers and the hard outline of the corkscrew in her back pocket. Hard, sharp objects – a way out, after all. William Tryste is not going to kill her. She’s going to take care of it herself.