GROKEN CHAPTER FOUR - ROBERT ELDON

The Land Rover follows Bron out onto the highway that leads to the capital.

The man in the passenger seat takes out his mobile ‘phone and dials.

Back by the fjord, the watcher takes the call.
‘He’s heading for the capital. What should we do?’

‘Is the tracker on that bike working?’

‘Yes’

‘Then pull back. He’ll be going to see Joansen, get someone outside Joansen’s office ready for when he arrives. We do have the office bugged I take it?’

‘We do indeed.’

The watcher settles back. It’s good that Bron’s going to see Joansen. Rationally, that should have been his first port of call on the islands. But rationality is not a trait he often shows. Still better late than never. The watcher looks across the fjord. Soon Bron will go to Huldegarde. The watcher needs a plan.

An hour later, Bron disembarks from the small, rattling ferry that’s brought him from the Thörsvik island. Although the travel distance was small, the change is major. Here in the capital, he’s in a vibrant, thriving town. There are banks and shops and hotels, everything he might expect. He rides down to the waterfront and parks the bike next to the old harbour wall. Sitting on the wall looking at the sleek white shape of the ferry to the mainland, he realises he never got Joansen’s address from the land agent. Still, bustling though it is, it is a small town, how many lawyers called Joansen can there be? He heads for the Post Office to find a directory. Thirty minutes later he realises that just about every lawyer in the town is called Joansen.

He rings Arnesen’s office, the secretary answers.

‘It’s Bron Turner,’ he says, ‘can you give me Joansen the lawyer’s address please?’

 'Oh, dear,’ she sneers, ‘don’t you have it? I’ll see if I can find it.’

 After what seems to Bron a ridiculously long wait, she finally comes back.

‘You want old Mr Joansen, Nils. He’s at 9, Hafnsgatan.’

‘Thank ….’ starts Bron but she’s already cut the connection.

‘What’s eating you?’ he wonders.

Bron sets out to find Hafnsgatan. It’s almost the next street.

He enters the entrance area, where another receptionist, another Miss Hansen look-a-like looks down her nose at him, as if he’s got dog shit on his shoes.

‘Do you want something?’ she says.

‘I want to see Mr Nils Joansen, old Mr Joansen.’

‘Mr Nils is rarely in the office these days, and he certainly doesn’t see people who just wander in off the street with no appointment.’

‘I hope he’ll see me,’ says Bron, trying a winning smile. It fails.

‘My name is Bron Turner, he was, is, my mother’s lawyer or at least her family’s lawyer.’

‘And your mother is …. ?’

‘Anna Turner, she was Anna Frandsen, from Alvanaes, Mr Joansen manages her affairs.’

‘Well, Mr Nils isn’t available today. Leave me a contact number and I’ll ask his secretary if she can arrange an appointment for you with one of his junior colleagues.’

‘I don’t want a junior colleague,’ snaps Bron, ‘I need to speak to Mr Joansen. Arnesen the land agent at Thörsvik said it was important.’
‘Give me your mobile number. I’ve told you, I’ll pass your request to Mr Joansen’s secretary. Now please leave or I’ll call security.’

Bron scribbles his number on a card and gives it to the woman who takes it and drops it into an in-tray, as if afraid it’s infectious. Then he storms out through the front door onto Hafnsgatan. Through a third floor window, an elderly, silver haired man watches his progress. He is Nils Joansen. He mutters to himself, ‘So that’s Bron is it? I will have to see him, of course. Perhaps tomorrow. I wonder how long he’ll last before Thomas Youngman or Eric Krol sends him packing.’

Bron walks through the streets of the capital. Why are people treating him this way? Back home, as the son of a respected academic writer and his beautiful wife, he has always felt accepted. At university, he’d been popular, his reputation in Tae Kwon Do and his lesser ability at sports like rugby and athletics, gave him an entrée of sorts into all sorts of groups. And of course there had been Ciara. Where was Ciara? She’d make sense of this for him, she’d know, with her lawyer’s mind and her psychology degree, what should be done. But Ciara has vanished.

He wishes his sisters were with him. They have inherited their mother’s quiet calm and determination. They always seem in control. As, he muses, his mother had seemed to be, according to his father’s account, on that flight from the islands all those years before. He still finds the story hard to believe, Adam seems such an unlikely knight errant riding to the rescue of his lady. But true it must be, for Adam never lied.

As if wishes could make things happen, he looks up the street, and sees a tall girl with pale blonde hair weaving her way towards him. He rushes forward but a few feet from her realises it’s not his elder sister, but a girl who looks extremely like her.

The girl looks at him in distaste. ‘Get out of my way,’ she says, ‘how dare you approach me!’

‘I’m sorry,’ he stammers, ‘I thought you were someone else, my sister actually.’

‘Do I look like one of your kind?’ she sneers. ‘I’d heard your people had come back to the islands. You’re trying to create a new Huldagarde. But you won’t succeed, my father will stop you.’

‘Your father?’ asks Bron.

‘Birger Krol,’ she snorts, ‘even you must have heard of him.’

‘I’ve heard of him, he married my mother’s sister. You must be Freya, we’re cousins.’

The girl looks horrified.

‘So my mother’s suspicions are true!’ she says. And she rushes past him through the crowded street towards the harbour.

Bron’s mind is racing. Too many people seem to know too many things about him that he doesn’t know. He needs some answers, and he wants them quickly. Who can he turn to?

‘Hello,’ says a voice behind him, ‘can I speak with you?’

He turns to find a small, brown-haired girl looking up at him.

‘You’re one of the Huldegarde folk, aren’t you? I’m Rachel, I’m really interested in your project.’

‘So, talk to Thomas Youngman,’ snaps Bron, still angry at two rejections in one hour.

‘Mr Youngman won’t talk to me, he doesn’t like journalists.’

‘So why should I talk to you?’

‘Well, you’re out of Huldegarde on your own. That makes you unusual. And you’ve just had a run-in with Freya Krol. That makes you interesting. And you look like you need someone to talk to ….’

‘And what does that make me?’ says Bron.

‘Attractive?’ says Rachel. ‘Well, shall I buy you a coffee?’

‘I’d like that,’ says Bron, smiling despite himself. It seems hard to be angry with this girl. ‘But I should tell you I’m not from Huldegarde. My name’s Bron Turner, I’m from the Isle of Man. You’ve probably never heard of it. And I’m currently camped out near Alvenaes on the Skarafjord. Still want to buy me a coffee?’

‘More than ever,’ says the girl.

Ten minutes later the pair are sat in a harbour-side café, eating cinnamon buns and drinking coffee.

‘So,’ says Rachel, ‘sing for your supper, or at least your buns and coffee. What’s your story?’

‘I don’t think I know all of it myself yet,’ says Bron, ‘but I aim to find out. I told you, my name’s Bron Turner and I was brought up on the Isle of Man. My Dad was Adam Turner, he was a writer on archaeology and ancient languages and my mother was Anna Frandsen, who was brought up at Alvenaes.’

‘You say was,’ asks the girl.
‘They were both killed in a car crash a couple of months back. A real shock. I’d just finished uni and ….. well it knocked me back really….

And then it turns out that I’ve inherited this huge tract of land out here from Mum. It’s on both sides of the Skarafjord, it includes Alvanaes and Huldegarde. So I’ve come over to find out more.’

‘Your parents hadn’t told you about the land?’
‘No, not a word. I just found out from a journal my Dad left and a pile of legal documents that their solicitor handed me after reading the will. I’ve tried to ask Mr Arnesen, the Land Agent out at Thörsvik about it all, but he just said I had to speak to Nils Joansen, the lawyer here in the capital. But Joansen won’t see me, I have to wait for a phone call.’
He pauses, then asks, ‘Why am I telling you all this?’

‘Maybe I’m just an easy person to talk to?’

‘You remind me of someone. But then everyone here seems to remind me of someone else, but then they never are that person. I mistook Freya Krol for my sister, that’s why I was rushing towards her. They’re very alike, I suppose because their mothers were sisters.’

‘Your mother was Sigyn Krol’s sister? You get more interesting all the time. And you’re the heir to Huldegarde, curiouser and curiouser.’

‘So, why are you interested in Huldegarde?’

‘Thomas Youngman is trying to establish some kind of community out there. He’s started bringing back the scattered remnants of the ‘Hidden Folk.’ They’re starting to retake Huldegarde. But his project stands in the way of Birger Krol. Krol has an idea for a place called ‘Ny Asgard’ – a new paradise, a new heaven, a leisure and tourism place for birdwatchers and naturalists. It’s likely to get interesting, few who challenge Birger Krol seem to survive.’

‘You seem to like the word “interesting”!’

‘I do, don’t I? Why don’t we work together then? Between the two of us, we can find out more than working alone.’

‘And then you’ll write your story? But about what, and for whom?’

‘Let’s wait and see shall we? That’s the good thing about stories, you never know how they’ll end.’ smiles Rachel. ‘Now where will you sleep tonight?’

Around six o’clock that evening, the watcher on the hill gets a text.

‘Gröken staying in capital tonight. He’ll see Joansen tomorrow. Have an early night.’

The watcher texts back ‘Take care, sister dear, take care’.