The Mischievous

One

The Mischievous

Copyright (c) 2025 by I.A.Scott

All rights reserved

Book One

Prologue

50 miles off the A Costa do Marisco, Galicia - 879 AD

He swung the axe, bringing it down as hard as he could on his target. The planks loosened and seawater started to spray into the boat. He took another swing, this time breaking all the way through the hull.

It was a dark night. No moon. They were becalmed and Olaf had ordered his men to take the opportunity to get some rest, suggesting that they would need to build up their strength for the more testing times that lay ahead of them. Soon, they'd be entering the less forgiving waters of the Bay of Cantabri.

During their outward passage it was there that they'd encountered some of the worst storms any of the men had ever seen. On more than one occasion they'd been close to losing the ship and its valuable cargo. Something that would have been a catastrophe not only for them, but for an entire community that had entrusted them with the task that they'd spent the past year completing.

The stress had been almost unbearable. So much was at stake. Even if the crew had survived a wreck, there'd be no point in going home. There'd be no home left to go to. At least that was what they believed.

Now the atmosphere was much more relaxed. They'd done their job. And although all of the men were keen to get home to their loved ones, they'd been glad of the lull in the wind that night and the opportunity to get some sleep. But something was disturbing their slumber.

Some of the men stirred and lifted themselves from their makeshift bunks on the ship's deck, each turning towards the source of the noise as they did so. Olaf sighted on a new spot alongside the now gushing hole and swung the axe again. The wood shattered and a length of plank, almost a metre long, broke away. Water poured through the gap.

The ship was already listing. More of the crew were awake and they were shouting. Confused. They wanted to know what was happening.

When they caught sight of their leader, Olaf, standing soaking wet at the stern holding an axe, they understood. The boat fell silent except for the rush of the incoming water. Within minutes the ship had disappeared beneath the waves. The last of the crew followed it down a few hours later.

Now, no one could follow the trail.

50 miles off the A Costa do Marisco, Galicia - 1939 AD

"Fy faaan! Var ar min javla anteckningsbok!?" Nils Berg was pulling clothes out of a tattered khaki duffel bag. Looking down into its opening he gave the bag a shake. Tools rattled around inside. Where had he seen it last?

Now he remembered. He'd put it down in that last cave. In their rush to leave he'd forgotten to pick it up. "Fan ocksa!"

They'd spotted the formation of British cruisers on the horizon coming out of the north. Abandoning the site, the team had raced back to the ship that was lying at anchor in Santa Cruz's harbour and set sail. Initially steaming south, they'd then made a wide circle to the west of the island to avoid the British before eventually heading north and home.

Nils took a deep breath. There was nothing he could do about his notebook now. No point in giving himself a coronary over it. He caught a glimpse of himself in the small mirror above the sink in his cabin. He hardly recognised his own face. Months of working outside in the near tropical sun had bleached his hair almost pure white and weathered his skin, making him look considerably older than his thirty six years.

The outbreak of war had come at a particularly bad time for Nils. He was sure there was more to be found on the island. What he and his team had found so far had been incredibly exciting. Exciting enough to force a major rewrite of history thought Nils. But as war broke out to the north, the university had sent a message telling him to pack everything up and come home.

They'd also told him to avoid encountering the British at all costs. He hadn't understood why. As far as he knew, Sweden hadn't yet taken sides in this stupid war, and so he'd delayed leaving the island for as long as possible. Almost too long as it turned out. He smiled at the memory of their rather inelegant, panic filled departure.

Nils's thoughts were disturbed by the noise of people running along the corridor outside his cabin. Then a loud knock. "All hands on deck!"

He opened the door and stuck his head outside. Something serious was happening judging by the commotion. Nils grabbed the arm of a passing crewman. "What's going on?"

"There's a ship steaming towards us. Captain doesn't want to take any chances."

"What? It's British?"

"Don't know, but you'd better get a move on."

Nils looked back towards the bag lying on his bunk. He grabbed a lifejacket, closed the door, and headed towards the rear deck of the Convalleria. He joined his colleagues, who were all standing against the rail, squinting out towards the west at the silhouette coming out of the setting sun.

"Friend or foe?" asked Nils.

Without taking his eyes from the approaching ship one of the men replied, "We don't know. Hopefully whoever it is will understand that we're neither."

Nils's attention was caught by a shout from the bridge. "We've made contact! They're friendlies! Stand down!"

As he turned his gaze back towards the ship, Nils could now recognise it as a German Zerstorer destroyer. A puff of smoke silently erupted from above its bow. For a second Nils wondered what it was. Then the whoosh and 'B-' of the exploding shell provided clarity. He didn't live long enough to hear the rest of the bang.

Central Hospital, Vaxjo, Sweden - 1973 AD

Eight fifteen. That's it. They'd been there for exactly twenty-four hours. He looked down at the long list of times scribbled in the notepad lying open on the bedside table. It was also almost twenty-seven hours since the contractions had begun. He was tired. Not sleepy tired, which surprised him, just exhausted. If he felt this bad, how must she be feeling? A full day of labour. It must be true he figured, women are the hardier sex.

The thought shamed him into perking up. He squeezed her hand. "Are you hungry darling? Can I get you anything?" As he finished his sentence, her eyes widened and she sat upright on the bed. Her voice was filled with urgency.

"The midwife. Now!"

Panicked, he pressed the red call button by the bed and then ran out of the room to make sure the woman who'd been tending to them during the past few hours was on her way. She emerged from a side door and strode purposefully along the corridor towards him, raising a calming hand as she approached.

She was a woman in her late fifties. Heavy set, stern looking, but comforting. She gave off an air of experience. Moving around the maternity ward with the confidence of someone who'd spent many years there. She clearly loved what she did, and was good at it. He figured that she'd probably brought half the population of Vaxjo into the world, but she showed no sign that theirs was just another delivery. She'd made sure they were well cared for. Felt special on what was one of the most special days of their lives. The birth of their first child.

"Something's happening," he said, his voice a little too loud and tinged with fear.

The midwife bustled past him into the delivery room, placing a hand on his forearm as she passed. "Let's take a look shall we." She moved towards the bottom of the bed and took a look between his wife's legs. "You're right, something is happening. This little person's been keeping us all waiting, but I think now he or she's decided to make an appearance." Moving to the head of the bed she spoke to his wife. Questioning, informing and consulting. She adjusted the bed's position and then beckoned him over. "Now you come and take care of your wife Mr Ericsson while I get the nurse."

Within seconds, she was back. There then followed thirty minutes of grunting, instructions to push/don't push, sounds of encouragement, and some rather disturbing primal screams he'd never imagined he'd ever hear from the woman he loved. He longed for it to be over for both of their sakes. To hear the baby's cry and the words of congratulation from the staff.

But as the ordeal seemed to come to an end. After the final push and the squelching sound as the child finally slipped out, the room went quiet. He caught a glimpse of the nurse as she looked at him with deep concern in her eyes. What had happened? The baby started to cry, so it was alive. What was wrong with it? He moved down the bed to take a look. The nurse backed away a little. She seemed scared. The midwife nestled a tiny wrinkled baby in her arms. He leaned in to take a closer look and went cold. The blood seemed to drain from his body. He had to steady himself. And then he had to get out of there. He ran.

Chapter 1

"Didn't you see that thing..?"

"What was tha...?" The words got caught in Mats Gildersson's throat as the plane pulled out of the dive and the g forces piled on.

"What's that you say?" The voice in Mats's headphones sounded relaxed, almost disinterested.

Once they were flying level, and Mats could untense his body, he tried again. "What was that?"

Mats heard the voice of his friend, John Auric, in his headphones once again. "Just a plain vanilla loop."

"No, not the manoeuvre John. Didn't you see that thing back there?"

Sitting behind his friend in the plane, John followed the direction of Mats's gaze and turned his head. Looking up and over his left shoulder he scanned the upper edge of the U-shaped valley that they were flying along. It was late in the day and the sun was low, its light picking out only the highest parts of the valley's cliff like wall. "See what? I can't see anything."

Mats pointed over his shoulder, twisting his body as far as the tightly fastened seat harness would allow. "Back there on the left. There was a whole bunch of lights that flashed on and off just as we went over the top of the loop." Mats waited for a response from John. Nothing was forthcoming. The plane wobbled a bit. And then.

"Shit."

A wave of fear swept through Mats's body. A single unexplained 'shit' was the last thing anyone wanted to hear from their pilot. Especially while barreling along at warp factor nine just above a very rugged and inhospitable part of the Swedish wilderness. Mats urgently wanted that 'shit' qualified. "What's wrong John?"

Mats looked around at the structure of the tiny plane, trying to find the source of John's concern. And then they dropped out of the sky, Mats's backside losing contact with his seat as they headed rapidly towards the ground. Now it was his turn to swear.

As the ground rushed up to meet them, Mats's fear was replaced by irritatation at not knowing what was going on. He was more angry at John for not keeping him informed than he was scared of being snuffed out on the sharp rocks below.

The intensity of the situation he now found himself in brought his thoughts into sharp focus. The rush of adrenaline giving him a heightened level of awareness. He immediately understood that the illogical mixture of emotions that he was experiencing in these, his last few moments on Earth, were a symptom of the way his life had developed in recent years.

He wondered whether this was what was meant by having your life flash before your eyes. A spotlight on the rights and wrongs. Magnifying regrets. Revealing all of the issues that had held him down, preventing him from being the person he wanted to be. Things that he could never resolve because he'd supressed them. Ignored them and pretended they weren't there. But now, here they were. Front and centre. Unavoidable, screaming at him and bathed in bright light.

Then he felt his body being crushed, and the lights went out.

*

Recently Mats's world had seemed to contract. A better word might be shrivel. He felt as though he was living within a compound where he was only allowed to do things that benefitted others, never himself. His employers, his kids, his ex-, his parents, his friends, the government.

Some form of compound had always been there, but until recently he'd always been able to find a low spot in the wall. A place where he could jump over now and again and forget about his commitments. Do something that pleased Mats and Mats alone. Like the weekly karate lessons he used to attend where he could lose himself in the physical and mental exertions of the sport. Or the trips he would take on his own to the wildest, most remote destinations he could think of. But not any more.

Mats had just turned forty. A combination of increased responsibilities and reduced energy had gradually bricked up all of his escape routes, turning the compound's walls into insurmountable fortifications.

Unable to find the exits any more, Mats had resigned himself to the painful monotony of his life within the enclosure. And just like any other prisoner, who sees no way out of his cell, he'd adjusted his routines to reduce the pain. He no longer had any thoughts of escape. He'd bide his time and cling on to the hope that maybe one day he'd be given his freedom before he got too old to enjoy it.

But then, a few days ago, without warning, Mats's friend John had smashed a hole in the compound's wall and dragged Mats out for a weekend of pure, self-indulgent fun.

It hadn't been easy. Mats's initial excitement at the prospect of a few days respite from the monotony of his daily routine was quickly replaced by the worry that going AWOL for a few days would only serve to land him in trouble with his various jailers.

John had noticed Mats's retreat into what John had called his ever decreasing circle of comfort and had decided to do something about it. He knew that he might encounter resistance, and he'd been prepared. His planning had been meticulous. He'd spoken to Mats's ex-girlfriend, calling her under the pretence of needing Mats for a job. "Is Mats over there with you Pia? I can't get through to him on his mobile."

"No John. I haven't seen him since he dropped the girls off after swimming practice on Tuesday night."

"Damn. I've just been with one of our biggest clients and they want us to have a new campaign ready to run on Monday."

"But it's Thursday now."

"I know Pia. Could you be a star and have the girls this weekend?"

Mats wasn't happy about being railroaded like that, but he'd live with it.

Mats both admired and disapproved of John. Though deep down he knew his disapproval was coloured green. John seemed to have achieved the perfect balance between doing things that he wanted to do, and things that he had to do to keep the wheels turning in his life.

He earned a good living running a small ad agency that Mats often did jobs for, doted on his wife and two young children, and yet still managed to find plenty of the time and energy to indulge in all of his other interests and hobbies. One of which was throwing small aeroplanes around the sky.

*

"Are you okay Mats?" From somewhere in the distance, Mats could hear a voice. He recognised it, but wasn't sure. It was muffled. Then it rapidly got much louder and clearer. "Mats, are you awake?" The lights suddenly came back on, making him jump.

"Whathefu...?" Mats blinked a few times and wondered where he was.

"I think I might have put you to sleep. Sorry about that. I forgot you're not used to the g forces yet."

Mats looked around. His senses were back on and he remembered where he was. And he was alive, but he didn't feel good.

They were flying fast, close to the bottom of the valley. A wave of nausea washed over him and his mouth started watering uncontrollably.

"Get me on the ground John." He reached for the barf bag tucked inside one of his shoulder straps. "What happened?"

"Just wanted to get out of sight as quickly as possible."

"Why?" Mats still sounded confused.

"I think we might be in some sort of restricted airspace. You didn't see anyone on the ground next to your flashing lights did you?"

Mats composed himself, he took a couple of deep breaths and tried to relax in his seat before speaking. "I don't think so, but I only caught a glimpse. Do you think someone might've been trying to signal us?"

"Probably trying to tell us to fuck off out of their firing range. I think we'd better get back on the ground as quickly as possible and hide this thing before the police show up."

As the aircraft reached the end of the valley, the landscape opened out and the ground fell away towards an oblong lake with its long sides oriented more or less east west. It was fed by a wide, slow moving waterway that entered at its western end. The river had once been used to float logs felled in the vast forests that still stretched west as far as the eye could see, down to the sawmills of the small town nestled on the northern shore of the lake.

Jarlsten was one of Sweden's oldest settlements. The sawmills had long since been silenced, however the town had not suffered. Quite the opposite. Over the past two decades its inhabitants had found new and even greater wealth by exploiting the steep slopes that rose up behind the town. Jarlsten was now one of Sweden's largest ski resorts.

John pointed the small airplane towards a finger of land that jutted out into the lake just north of the inflowing river. On the surface of the peninsular was a thin strip of black asphalt surrounded by a few small hangars. They approached the runway from the lake. As soon as the smooth, dark water below turned to tarmac, John put the wheels down and allowed the airplane to roll to the far end of the runway where he turned off onto a narrow taxiway. Easing to a stop in front of a small corrugated iron hangar, he cut the engine.

"Right, let's get this thing hid."

John opened the aircraft's canopy and both men quickly undid their harnesses and climbed out. They pushed the airplane into its hangar, closed and locked the building's doors and then hopped into a Land Rover that was parked nearby. John gunned the engine.

Ten minutes later they were outside a small log cabin that John rented whenever he was in the area. "Let's get the kettle on."

"Hang on a second John. What just happened?" Mats didn't sound happy.

John looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" Then, assuming that Mats was referring to the escape and evade operation that John had just pushed him through, he continued. "Well, I think we just busted someone's airspace and we're trying to save my license by minimising the amount of evidence. If they don't collar me in the plane, then they can't prove that I was the driver. Case closed."

"I'm not talking about that John. I mean how did we end up in restricted airspace in the first place? Didn't you check before we took off?"

"Take it easy Mats. We didn't get caught." John was confused by his friend's agitation.

"That's not the point. If we were, in fact, flying around within an active firing range we could have been blown out of the sky. Isn't it marked on the map?"

"We're still in one piece aren't we?"

"It was irresponsible John. You could have got us both killed."

John looked at Mats sideways. The scolding his friend was giving him was starting to irritate him. Mats sounded like a primary school teacher lecturing a naughty child.

Mentally counting to ten, John put on the most serious voice he could muster. "Look Mats, I can't remember seeing anything on the charts." Mats just looked across at him and frowned. Looking at his friend's face John fought the urge to laugh. He bit his lip and said in a conciliatory tone, "Then again, mine are a little out of date. They might've set one up in the past few years. I'll go and ask Anders if he knows anything about it. He volunteers as a mountain ranger in his spare time. Knows the mountains around here like the back of his hand."

The cabin they were staying in was one of a cluster of wooden buildings standing in the centre of a farm that sprawled across the lower slopes of a tall ridge located about ten kilometers southwest of Jarlsten. The farm was run by Anders Gustavsson, the latest in a long line of Gustavssons who had struggled to make a living from the place. Though the rent from the cabin, now that Jarlsten was a popular tourist destination during the farm's lean winter months, did make life a little easier.

By now the winter's covering of snow had disappeared from the fields, but many of the peaks along the ridge were still white. As Mats stepped down from the Land Rover the sun dropped below one of the tallest. He pulled up the collar of his coat. He was still upset with his friend. "Jeez it's cold. Why didn't you get a car with a heater that works?"

John tried to keep the mood light. He patted the bonnet of the jeep. "Nothing wrong with old Betsy here. She might be lacking a few of the basic comforts, but she gets you from A to B. And she's free." The old Defender was a spare farm vehicle that Anders lent out to regular renters of his cabins. John smiled at Mats. "Anyway, you can't talk. When are you going to get a car with any kind of heater?"

"Touche," said Mats, he let slip a smile. Not only did Mats not own a car, he didn't even have a driving license.

The two men walked up to the cabin. As John fumbled for his keys he noticed Anders feeding his dogs outside his house a hundred metres or so further down the track. "There's Anders, let's go and ask him about that restricted area."

"Be my guest, I'm going inside to get the tea on, I'm freezing."

The cabin was small, but comfortable, and more than adequate for a short stay. Two good sized bedrooms, a bathroom, and a larger room that functioned as a combined kitchen/living/dining area. It was warmed by a wood fire, which Mats got busy lighting after firing up the kettle. Ten minutes later, as Mats was settling into an armchair next to the fire, John entered the cabin followed by a flurry of snowflakes.

"I can't believe it. It's bloody snowing out there. On -," John looked at his watch, "- the twenty first of April! What kind of a country is this?"

"I guess they're all outside in shorts and T-shirts getting a tan in England are they?" replied Mats and sipped his tea.

"No, probably pissing down with rain. Why didn't I emigrate to the Bahamas rather than the frozen bloody wastes of Sweden?"

"Totty." A word Mats had learned from John.

"True," John said as he fished the tea-bag out of the mug of tea Mats had made him and flicked it into the bin under the sink.

"So what did Anders say?"

John pulled a second armchair closer to the fire. "Well, he says there aren't any firing ranges or any other form of military area anywhere near here. And definitely not where you saw your lights. It's all commercial forestry land up there."

"Did he have any idea what it might have been then?"

"No idea. The only thing he could think of was maybe someone out walking and flashing a torch at us for some reason."

"But there was more than one light. There were, I don't know, about eight or so. And in a definite pattern."

"Formation ramblers?" asked John. "Let me have a look at the charts. Anders is a lovely bloke, but a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. He might've got it wrong."

John placed his mug on the floor and stretched towards a pile of papers and books sitting on the window sill to his left. He couldn't quite reach them so, tentatively, he tilted the armchair to one side balancing it on its two left legs. As his finger tips made contact with the papers, there was a sound of splintering wood and the chair slumped to the left as its legs gave way.

"Shit!" John jumped out of the chair before the entire package rolled over.

"Oops," said Mats, grinning.

John tipped the chair upside down and looked at its broken legs.

"Bollocks. Anders isn't going to be too pleased is he?" He tried to bend the legs back into position. One broke off in his hand. "Arse."

"Bit of glue and it'll be as good as new," Mats laughed.

"No, I can't do that. I'll have to come clean," said John. "He'll be over later for his usual snifter. I'll tell him then. Hopefully the alcohol will soften the blow."

*

Anders Gustavsson liked a drink in the evening, never during the day, but most definitely during the evening. Every night, once the kids had been put to bed at seven o'clock, the bottle came out. On special occasions, the bottle was a recognisable brand of whisky, but most of the time it was a plastic 7-Up bottle containing a clear, unnamed, homemade brew that could probably strip paint.

His wife, Paula, understandably wasn't keen on Anders's drinking. After a number of unfortunate incidents, she'd set a limit of one drink a night unless it was a special occasion. Anders, being a typical alcoholic, managed to find ways around Paula's rules. One of his favourites was to 'check up' on any guests that may be staying in the cabin. Most of their regular visitors got used to Anders's visits and had a bottle ready and waiting. The rent was cheap and Anders was good company, even when drunk, so it was worth it. Those that objected weren't regular guests for long.

True to form, at around eight o'clock, there was a knock on the cabin's front door. "How is everything boys?"

Anders was probably only a year or two older than Mats and John, but he referred to everyone, including women, as either boys...or wonkers. His English was far from perfect, though he did have an excellent grasp of English swear words. These were taught to him a number of years previously by a guest from London one boozy night at the farm. Anders liked to impress his English speaking guests with these whenever he could. Unfortunately, his teacher had played a rather cruel joke on him that evening by purposely mispronouncing all of the words. Anders's favourite word was wonker. As he talked about his day with John and Mats, it seemed that everyone he'd met or spoken to was either a wonker or a buddy wonker.

That evening, while waiting for the offer of a drink, he told John and Mats about what he'd just had for dinner with his family. Apparently he'd enjoyed a plate of dog shit on toast.

Intrigued, Mats asked how he'd prepared the dog shit.

"Oh, Paula just opened the tin and spread it on the toast."

"Tinned dog shit?" wondered John aloud. "Where do you buy that?"

"Norway. I've been over there today." He jumped up from his seat. "Wait I'll bring you some. You'll love it."

Anders was out of the door and jogging back to his house through the gently falling snow before Mats or John could say anything. As soon as Anders was out of earshot, John turned to Mats. "Okay, whatever this canned dog shit is we eat it, smile, and say it's great. Then I'll hit him with the news about the chair."

"You broke the chair, you eat the dog shit," said Mats, sinking lower into his seat and cradling a glass of whisky against his stomach.

John pleaded with Mats. "Oh come on. It's not going to go down well if you knock him."

"Knock him?" asked Mats.

"You know, refuse his hospitality. He could get upset, especially after a couple of these." John held up his glass and then looked out of the window to check on Anders's whereabouts.

Mats started speaking in the pious tone he'd used when reprimanding John about his 'irresponsible' flying earlier. "John, I realise Anders is putting us up here and everything, but he's a hopeless alcoholic. I really don't think he could tell the difference if I knocked him or got out the flags and cheered. The man is a disaster. He eats dog shit for God's sake."

John looked sternly at his friend. "What the fuck's happened to you Mats?"

"What do you mean?"

"Listen to yourself. You sound like my mother. Yes, Anders likes a drink in the evening, but he's a mate, and a good one at that." John looked hard at Mats. "Let me tell you something about that disaster." He pointed in the direction of Anders's house. "He pretty much runs this farm on his own. On top of that, in order to keep the wheels turning, he holds down another two jobs that I'm aware of. And it's not because he has some strange masochistic need to work his arse off. His old mum lives in one of those houses at the top of the farm along with Ingvar, his autistic brother. If it wasn't for Anders, they'd probably both be in some godawful home somewhere. Instead, they have an active life here, with their family, on their home farm that's been in the family for generations." John paused to check Mats's reaction. Mats tried to appear defiant. John continued.

"On top of that, he probably saves dozens of lives each year as part of Jarlsten's volunteer mountain rescue team. And he'll do anything for his friends. Who came and picked us up at the airport?" Mats gave a slight nod. "Who's out there right now getting us dog shit on toast?" John smiled at Mats as he said this.

Mats smiled back. "Sorry John. I was out of order."

"You've got to lighten up mate. We're here to have some fun." John took a peek out of the window. "He's coming back. Be nice." He quickly stepped away from the window and stood in front of the broken chair.

Mats spoke in a loud whisper. "Okay John, but I'm not promising anything. If the dog shit looks tasty I'll give it a go, but if it really is dog shit you're on your own."

John gave Mats a thumbs up as Anders pushed open the front door.

"Here it is. All the way from Norway."

The dog shit turned out to be a type of fish paste made from a mixture of crab meat and cod's roe, and despite looking remarkably like dog shit, did taste pretty good on toast. After they'd finished the tasting, and Anders had polished off two more large glasses of John's whisky, the subject of the broken chair was broached. John claimed that it'd just collapsed when he sat down on it. Joking that maybe he should go on a diet.

"Don't worry about it you fat wonker," said Anders slurring his words a little. "I can fix it. But you owe me another drink." John filled his glass.

"John tells me you're an excellent carpenter," said Mats. Hoping to further ease the bad news about the broken chair with a little flattery.

"Built this place." Anders looked around the room. "But this is nothing. You have to come and see my baby." He pushed himself out of his chair, wobbled a little, and addressed his audience with a flourish. "My masterpiece! Come with me."

He started herding Mats and John out of the cabin. They both grabbed their coats and slipped their feet into boots on the way out. The snow had stopped and the sky had cleared, revealing a dazzling dome of stars. John and Mats pulled their jacket collars up against the biting cold. Anders wore only a thin shirt, open at the neck, yet didn't appear to notice the chill at all. He led them along a path towards a small wooden building that John had seen Anders working on for as long as he'd known him. Anders had explained to John a long time ago that it was a hobby project of his.

Anders loved to build things out of wood and he used his skill to supplement his farming income by working on construction projects. Though most of the paying jobs he worked on only involved putting together pre-fabricated houses which barely scraped the surface of his wood working talents. As an antidote to this he'd been constructing this small wooden house the old-fashioned way, using all of the skills at his disposal, even to the extent of making the planks used in its construction from trees he'd felled and seasoned himself. The building was a work of art. Every piece of wood, regardless of size and function, fitted alongside its neighbour with fantastic precision. All over were beautiful carvings reflecting an ancient Nordic style long forgotten in Sweden's modern society. The house was a labour of love.

Anders led the two men inside and then up a steep, narrow staircase that twisted around on itself as it made its way to the upper floor, which was a single large room. The ceiling sloped sharply, being directly under the roof, and all of the beams were ornately carved. On the far gable wall was a large, circular construction, also made entirely from wood, that looked like a ship's wheel.

"Watch this," said Anders, and started to turn the wheel. As he did so, a large section of the roof started to swing upwards, opening the room to the vast star filled sky outside. "Sit there." He pointed towards a large black bean bag situated a little way in from the bottom edge of the opening. Mats lowered himself tentatively into it. The view was magical.

Because the slope of the mountain that the farm was built on fell away from the house down to a wide lake below, Mats had an unbroken view of the sky from where he sat. The only land within the frame was the far end of the lake and the flat land beyond, and this was barely visible having no inhabitants and, thus, no artificial lights.

"Wonderful isn't it?" said Anders. "Did you know that the Earth moves around the Sun at about one hundred thousand kilometers an hour?" Mats shook his head. "What you see out there is probably the same as what a buddy astronaut can see from a spaceship traveling at that speed. Maybe he sees more stars, but the air is so clear up here that probably not so many more."

Mats looked out at the sky which was thick with stars. He was lost for words. Stunned into silence both by the view and by Anders. A man he'd dismissed as a hopeless case less than half an hour before, but who was able to not only create extremely beautiful things, but who also had a much deeper appreciation of beauty than Mats had ever had.

"My turn." John's voice shook Mats from his thoughts and he got to his feet. Flopping on to the bean bag, John was equally taken aback. "Wow! Do you get to see the northern lights very often from up here Anders?"

"All the time. I never get tired of this view. And I keep a little something up here to keep out the chill." Anders reached behind one of the roof beams and pulled out a bottle of cheap whisky. Uncapping it, he took a swig.

"You never cease to amaze me Anders," said John as he took in the scene laid out before him.

"Wonker," said Anders, and passed the bottle to Mats.

Chapter 2

Passionate about finding a passion

While lying in bed that night Mats couldn't sleep. His conscience was troubling him. He didn't feel like a very nice person. He felt bad about the way he'd behaved with John earlier, and he felt bad about how he'd passed judgement on Anders without knowing anything about him.

John was right, Mats had turned into a grumpy old man. He didn't understand how, or why, or even when it had happened, but it seemed the transformation was almost complete. The realisation scared Mats. Was it a symptom of getting older? Of getting old? Could the process be reversed? He knew he couldn't go back to being the carefree, party-going Mats of his twenties and early thirties. He had responsibilities now, people who depended on him, but so did John and he hadn't become so bitter.

Mats tried to rationalise why he was now so cynical compared to his friend. John was the same age as him and had similar responsibilities. Yes, he could be wary of people, but John was nowhere near as judgemental as Mats had become. He told himself that it was down to their different incomes. Arguing that because John earned more than he did, he didn't have the financial worries that Mats had. Worries that were bound to make anyone question the motives and actions of the people they met, especially new people. But then how to explain Anders? He managed to look after far more people on a fraction of Mats's salary and still managed to see the good in people before the bad.

Mats tossed and turned with his thoughts before finally giving up on the idea of getting any sleep with such a troubled mind. He got out of bed wrapped in his duvet, tiptoed into the kitchen and switched on the kettle.

As he sipped his tea, Mats flicked through an old flying magazine that John must have brought to the cabin on an earlier trip. Looking at the pictures illustrating an article reviewing a new aerobatic aeroplane, it dawned on Mats how both John and Anders had managed to maintain their positive outlook on life.

It was because they set aside time in their lives to immerse themselves in things that they loved to do. Activities that gave them an opportunity to escape their responsibilities and be themselves for a while, either alone or among others who shared their passions. It gave them something to look forward to. A little extra to live for.

Mats didn't have this. Sure, he had a few interests, but nothing that he spent much time with any more. Since the kids had come along, pretty much the extent of his participation with his old hobbies involved buying equipment that never got used, or reading magazines.

He concluded that the way to reverse the process of becoming a grumpy old sod, a process that was clearly already well advanced in his case, would be to find something that he could get passionate about. Something that involved more than simply trying to get to the end of his time on the planet without upsetting anybody. But what? He considered his old hobbies, but decided he'd been there, done that. Mats wanted something completely new. Something to freshen up his stagnating life.

After several minutes of trying, and failing, to come up with anything, he finally decided that, for now, he would become passionate about finding a passion. On reaching this conclusion, Mats immediately felt happier. He finished his tea and shuffled back to bed. His mind was calmer than he could remember it ever being, free from the jukebox of worries that usually played inside his head at night. Seconds later he was snoring.

*

Mats awoke to the smell of frying bacon mixed with the faint whiff of wood smoke. He could hear John moving around the kitchen outside his door. John was an early riser. A by-product of being a father of two young children. It was light outside and, through a crack in the curtains, Mats could see that the slope running up to the top of the hill behind the cabin had a thick covering of snow. He spent a few minutes enjoying the comfort and warmth of the bed before finally dragging himself out from beneath its covers and into the chill of the bedroom. He pulled on some clothes and tiptoed across the cold floor towards the door.

"It lives," said John, looking up from his breakfast. "There's fresh tea in the pot and coffee in the jar."

"I slept like a log," Mats said, stretching and shuffling towards the fridge. "I feel so rested. We've got to come back here again."

"I hate to say I told you so, but..."

Mats turned towards John. "Yes John, thanks for dragging me up here. I also want to apologise for being a such a twat yesterday."

"Oh, don't worry about it. You're obviously well on the road to recovery, which is the key thing. Hopefully by the end of the weekend you'll be fully de-twatified."

Mats smiled as he fished a packet of bacon from the fridge and launched a few rashers into the still hot frying pan. The cabin was unusually quiet apart from the sounds that the two men made as they prepared and ate breakfast, and even those seemed muffled. A sure sign that there was a lot of snow outside.

John pointed a loaded fork in Mats's direction. "Mind you, you'll need to continue the treatment if you're to avoid a relapse."

"Is that so?" asked Mats while giving his bacon a prod.

"Yes, the doctor will be prescribing regular therapy sessions down the pub once we get back to Stockholm."

"I think I can live with that."

Mats moved over to one of the cabin's windows and wiped the condensation from the glass with the back of his hand. He squinted at the brightness of the snow covered scene outside and shivered.

"Looks like it dumped more snow overnight. Do you think we'll be able to fly?"

"I think so," replied John. "I called Jens who looks after the airfield and he says they'll be ploughing the runway at around ten. And the weather is forecast to stay as gorgeous as it is right now for the next couple of days so the flying should be exceptional. Put your thermals on though."

The scene outside the window was pure Christmas card. Underneath a cloudless blue sky, the fields of the farm were covered in an untouched white blanket and each of its buildings wore a softly rounded white snow beret. Beyond the farm, the lower slopes of the ridge now matched its dazzling white peaks. The pine trees covering its flanks now painted with fat blotches of white.

Mats moved back over to check on his now gently sizzling bacon and cracked a couple of eggs into the pan. "Good. I'd like to see if we can find those flashing lights again." He picked up the teapot and carried it to the table. "Do you want more tea?"

"Be rude not to. Pour away." John held out his mug. "Though I'm not sure we'll find much today. They must be under at least half a metre of snow by now."

Mats stopped pouring and suddenly looked deflated. "Oh God, you're right." Then perking up, he resumed filling John's mug, "I'd still like to have a look though. Maybe something's visible. Where's the map? Maybe I can try and pinpoint where it is."

Mats poured a cup for himself and then retrieved the chart from where it lay on the recently broken armchair. He studied it while sipping his tea. He had no idea what he was looking at and asked John to show him the area where they'd been flying the day before. John pointed to the spot where they'd performed the loop and Mats managed to find the mountain slope where he'd seen the light formation.

"What exactly did these lights look like?" asked John.

"They were white, very bright and laid out in three vertical rows that sort of made up the shape of a triangle lying on its side." Mats drew what looked like an arrow head made up of dots on the back cover of one of the magazines that were littering the table.

"Weird," said John. "Maybe it's an old aircraft navigation aid like the checkerboard at Kai Tak." John explained to Mats about the large red and white sign that was built on a hillside in Hong Kong. It was used to help guide airliners around the tight approach into the old airport there. Mats looked at the chart again, but his arrow didn't seem to be pointing towards any airfields. It just seemed to point southeast into increasingly barren looking terrain. "Maybe it once said 'Norway this way'," John said and smiled.

"Points the wrong way," said Mats. "Wonder why it flashed on and off?"

"Could have been someone flicking the wrong switch in some military installation somewhere, realising their mistake, and flicking it off again."

"Could be," said Mats scratching his head.

*

Out at the airfield one of the local farmers was ploughing the last of the taxiways clear of snow while John and Mats strapped themselves into the aircraft.

"Clear prop!" shouted John, and the machine shook itself into life. After completing the pre-take off checks, John released the brakes and the sleek aircraft seemed to prowl onto the runway. "All set?" he asked over the intercom. Before Mats could respond, John poured on the power and the engine let out a roar as it launched them along the asphalt.

Within seconds they'd left the ground and were climbing into the blue at a dizzying angle while gently turning south towards the U-shaped valley where Mats had seen his lights.

"Perfect day for flying. You can see forever," said Mats over the intercom.

"And the plane performs brilliantly in this cold air. It feels like I've got another hundred horses under the hood." As he said this, John pulled the airplane's nose up into a loop. The view of the snow covered landscape above their heads as the plane sailed over the top of the circle was spectacular. "Sorry about that. Couldn't resist. How's your breakfast?"

"Still there. Where's our mountain then?" asked Mats.

"Right on the nose. The peaks on the other side of that ridge are the far wall of the valley. Your lights are somewhereabouts on this side. It all looks very white though, I wouldn't hold your breath." All around them what were brown, green and grey mountain slopes the day before were now a featureless white.

Mats looked down, scanning the snow covered slopes above the valley, hoping to see something that he might recognise as the light formation he'd seen the day before. As they flew over the upper edge of the valley's northern wall he felt a little giddy with vertigo as the ground suddenly fell away more than three hundred metres straight down. He quickly lifted his gaze towards the horizon to steady himself.

John noticed his friend wobble. "Freaky, eh?"

"I wasn't expecting that."

"You okay?"

As Mats nodded, John banked hard, pulling the plane around into a tight turn to the right. He flew along the valley, keeping them just above a line separating the white, snow covered upper slopes that ran along the south-facing wall from the vertical grey cliffs that fell away below. Mats stared at the almost featureless snowfield, trying to find any sign of the shape he'd seen the day before.

"I can't see anything."

"I've got an idea." John increased the power and dipped the aircraft's nose. It accelerated before he pulled up into a vertical climb. "See anything?"

"Nothing," replied Mats, sounding disappointed.

As the plane slowed at the top of its climb, John looped it around until it was pointing straight down towards the valley floor. After building a little flying speed, the view ahead rotated a half turn and the nose came up until they were flying straight and level back in the direction that they'd just come from. Nearing the end of the valley, Mats gave up scanning the granite walls off to his right and slumped down in his seat. "I can't see anything, we might as well go back."

"Not so fast Stevie Wonder. What was that line of bumps in the snow just above us?"

"Where?" Shouted Mats into his microphone, almost giving himself whiplash as he threw his head around to look over his shoulder.

"Hang on. I'll show you." John looped the aircraft around to reverse their direction once again and flew back along the valley with the left wing dipped to give them a clearer view. "See there, about ten o'clock off the nose, there's four bumps in the snow in a line just below that triangular peak."

Mats scanned the cliff. "Can't see anything."

"Over there. Look. Below the peak. The top one is about a hundred feet or so from the top of the ridge, and they run diagonally away to the right at about forty five degrees. See them?"

Mats found the peak, and then, yes, there they were. "You're right." Mats felt a pulse of excitement flow through his body. "I think I can see a couple more below." By now they'd flown past the spot again. "Go back!"

"Yes sir." John looped the plane around again. "Here it comes."

"I'm pretty sure that's it," said Mats. "Though the bump at the bottom looks to be too low for it to be part of a triangle."

"Could be a dead climber under there," joked John.

"Well it can't be a rambler." Mats noticed that the spot where the bumps were laid out would not be easy to reach. Just below them was a vertical drop of around three hundred metres and the slope that they were on looked very steep indeed. Climbing equipment would be needed by anyone who tried to reach them. It definitely wasn't a ramble. "Let's do one more pass and I'll take a photo." Mats unzipped a pouch strapped to his thigh and retrieved a small digital camera. John made a more gentle turn back towards the bumps and Mats started taking pictures. "Okay, I think I got it. Let's head home."

"No way my friend. We've still got about two thirds of a tank of fuel left. I intend having a little fun up here."

"What are you planning." Mats didn't sound so sure.

"Don't worry. Daddy won't hurt you. Is that camera zipped away?"

"Roger."

John laughed at Mats's response. "We'll make a pilot of you yet. Let's fly this thing like we stole it."

As John finished the sentence, he pulled hard on the joystick and they went ballistic alongside the formation of bumps. Mats felt the sudden and violent onset of just over seven g and his vision dulled. Once the aircraft was flying vertically straight up, and both the g forces and his head had cleared, Mats strained his eyes to focus on the bumps. He was hoping to see a flash, but it never came.

Twenty minutes later, they landed back at the airfield. After taxying to the hangar, John killed the engine and opened the canopy.

"Very cool indeed," said John exhausted.

"I could definitely get used to it," said Mats, his face one huge grin.

"Fun isn't it?"

"It is. And I'm very pleased that I still have an unused barf bag." Mats leaned back in his seat and looked up at the few small white puffy clouds that were starting to form in the sky above them. "I also feel a lot better now that it seems I wasn't just seeing things yesterday" He lowered his gaze, staring towards the mountains they'd just been flying over. Quietly, almost to himself, he said, "I want to find out what that thing is."

Chapter 3

"Can I help you?"

The museum looked particularly unimpressive from the outside. A large red box with a black corrugated metal roof. On the overgrown lawn flanking the path running up to its entrance, stood a motley collection of 1960's era jet fighters. Paint peeled from their corroding metal skins and weeds sprouted from every nook and cranny.

By contrast, the aircraft inside the building were spotless, and there were scores of them filling every available space. Machines ranging from the very latest jet fighters to some of the earliest wood and fabric flying contraptions covered the floor and hung from the ceiling. Crammed in between the aircraft stood dozens of display cases jammed with aviation odds and ends. Helmets, oxygen masks, pieces of engine, instruments and hundreds of strange looking objects that once fulfilled a vital role in keeping some intrepid aviator safely airborne.

Mats wandered among the exhibits, ducking every now and then to avoid braining himself on a wing or a propeller. The place was deserted, not surprising for a Thursday lunchtime in early May.

He'd managed to engineer this trip to the Swedish Air Force Museum in the southern Swedish town of Linkoping under the pretext of visiting a potential client. No one asked any questions at the media agency he worked at. He spent most of his working life in meetings of one sort or another, so people were used to not seeing him at his desk. In fact, Mats had recently realised that he didn't really do much actual work any more. He just sat in endless meetings, saying as little as possible. He'd worked out long ago that the less he said in these gatherings, the more the agency's clients seemed to value his contribution.

Since returning from his trip to the mountains with John, Mats had been using the few hours he spent each day at his desk surfing the internet, trying to find out anything he could about the formation of lights he'd seen. He was convinced that they had something to do with the military, and the air force in particular. Mats figured that they would be the only organisation that could have any use for such a structure, possibly as some primitive navigation aid.

So far, his online search had turned up very little beyond suggesting that his most likely source of an answer lay somewhere within the building he'd travelled down from Stockholm that morning to visit. After half an hour of searching among the exhibits, it became obvious that he was going to have to ask a member of the museum's staff for help. The place was huge, and although Mats felt sure that its layout probably made sense to someone, he knew it wasn't him. It would take hours to find anything on his own, especially as he didn't really know what he was looking for.

As he dipped beneath the bent orange wings of an immaculately restored world war two fighter, Mats caught sight of a blonde haired woman in her mid-thirties. The way she strode purposefully across the hall, expertly forging a path between the exhibits, indicated that she worked at the museum. Mats jogged after her, swerving around various pieces of aircraft that jutted into his path. Soon he was within speaking distance.

"Excuse me."

The woman jumped, startled, and turned around. Mats thought she looked lovely. She had blonde hair swept back from her forehead that framed a pair of blue eyes, and below them a mouth that looked as if it had been specifically designed for smiling.

"I'm sorry, you frightened the life out of me. I didn't realise there was anyone in here." Regaining her composure, she continued. "Can I help you?"

Mats approached her, smiling. "Yes, I was rather hoping you could. My name's Mats Gildersson. I'm trying to find out some information about aircraft navigation aids." Mats paused. "Well, no. Not necessarily just navigation aids. Anything really that may have been used to signal to aeroplanes while they were in the air."

The woman stepped back a couple of paces. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't know much about that subject. However, we do have a man on the staff who I think could help you." She backed slowly away from Mats, moving in the direction she had originally been heading. "Unfortunately he won't be back until about four o'clock. Could you come back later? His name's Lars Svensson."

Mats groaned inside. It was now eleven thirty. He'd got up at the crack of dawn to catch the early train down to Linkoping so that he could complete the trip inside a day. If he had to hang around until four it would be touch and go whether he'd be able to catch the last fast train back to Stockholm. He quickly figured that it would make more sense to get this Lars Svensson's phone number and give him a call from Stockholm. Mats looked into the beautiful blue eyes of the woman in front of him.

"Yes, no problem. I'll be back at four."

She nodded, turned on her heel and continued on her way. Mats watched her disappear though a door marked 'Staff Only' and wondered how on Earth he was going to kill the next four and a half hours.

The answer turned out to be a drawn out lunch in a small basement cafe in central Linkoping reading an old Hemmingway novel he'd found while poking around a second-hand bookstore nearby. Lunch was followed by a meandering walk around the city, sightseeing. After failing to find any sights worth seeing, Mats hopped on a bus that took him back to the museum.

Despite his lingering, he still managed to arrive half an hour early. He asked a young woman who was busy filling leaflet racks inside the entrance whether she knew if Lars Svensson was available. She said no, he wouldn't be back until four o'clock. Mats thanked her and asked whether she minded if he took another look around the museum while he waited. Mats thought that maybe he might still stumble across something that could solve the mystery of the lights, but mainly he hoped he might stumble across the lovely looking woman he'd met earlier.

Mats wandered aimlessly between the rows of planes. He stopped next to a large fabric covered biplane sporting a huge wooden propeller. Reaching out over the lower wing, he ran his finger tips over the tight skin and then drummed them on it.

"Don't touch the exhibits Sir." Mats quickly withdrew his hand and spun around to see a thin, long necked man standing directly behind him. The man's dark hair was slicked back from a hairline that had receded almost to his crown and he was wearing a brown warehouse coat.

"S-sorry."

"You wouldn't like it if I were to come to your house and touch your children would you now?" said the man, who, at least to Mats, looked as if that could potentially be one of his hobbies. "These are like mine." The man made a circular gesture with a finger that indicated that he meant all of the museum's exhibits.

As Mats considered his response to this somewhat disturbing statement, he heard a familiar clicking of heels and turned towards the source of the sound.

"Sven, I need that list of exhibits now. Not tomorrow."

The thin man mumbled something under his breath and stalked off as the lovely looking woman approached Mats. She was shorter than he was, but Mats felt she somehow managed to look down on him. "Have you found Lars yet?" She looked at her watch. "You're a bit early".

"No, and yes, I know," replied Mats, irritated by the combination of her lofty tone and the Sven character's comments. He walked on.

"Wait a minute," said the woman, jogging over to Mats. "Sorry, that came out wrong. You must excuse me. Sometimes it's a bit difficult switching between trying to get things done around here and serving our guests."

Mats seized on the opportunity to start a conversation. "So you're the boss around here?" he asked, feigning upset.

She put her hand out. "Eva Ericsson." Mats took her hand and shook it. It felt good. The grip was firm, but the skin was soft. "No, I'm not the boss here. I work for the museums department within the Ministry of Culture." She took her hand back. "My job is to help our museums make the most of their exhibits. Sort of a museum designer if you will. Right now I'm trying to help the folks here." Her eyes panned the room as she spoke. "And it's not always easy." She looked towards where the man she'd called Sven was disappearing through a door. "Well, must be getting on. Sorry again for being so rude."

"No harm done," answered Mats.

Eva started to move on, but then halted and turned to face Mats again. "Are you doing anything right now?"

"Not really. Just killing time until Mr Svensson shows up."

"I wonder if you wouldn't mind helping me with something?" asked Eva.

"Of course," said Mats.

"Well, I was wondering if you might give me some input on what you think of the museum as it is now?"

"Sure."

"And maybe any thoughts on how the experience could be improved?"

'Well, you could start by keeping that Sven bloke's cage door locked,' thought Mats. He smiled and looked into Eva's eyes. "I'll try."

"Eva, Johan said you mentioned that someone wanted to see me." A tall, bookish looking fellow in his sixties appeared from behind a highly polished silver jet near the rear of the room and marched towards them.

"Yes Lars. Here he is. Mr Gildersson wasn't it?" she looked at Mats with raised eyebrows.

Mats was impressed that Eva had remembered his name. He looked into her eyes, and then turned to address the advancing figure. "Yes, Mats Gildersson."

"Aha, what can I help you with Mr Gildersson?" asked Lars Svensson as he came to a stop in front of Mats. The stink of a monumental case of halitosis hit Mats like a club and he took a step backwards. Lars Svensson moved forward, closing the gap.

"I'll leave you to it," said Eva and backed away towards the middle of the room.

'Don't go,' pleaded a small voice inside Mats's head as he watched Eva retreat. His eyes betrayed his thoughts. Eva gave him a sympathetic smile before turning and heading towards a gaggle of fabric covered biplanes at the far end of the museum.

Mats resigned himself to the stench that was Lars Svensson. He recounted his story about the lights on the side of the mountain. Once he'd finished, Svensson launched into a monologue on the various signals and systems used by the Scandinavian civil and military aviation organisations. Throughout the speech, Mats leaned back and turned his head left and right trying to find fresh air while continuing to look at Svensson out of the corners of his eyes. Without realising it, he was also slowly edging himself backwards. Svensson's idea of personal space was much smaller than his own and every time Mats would open a comfortable gap Svensson would move forward and fill it again. Eventually Mats backed into the highly polished wooden propeller of the biplane he'd earlier been told off for touching and bumped his head against it. Svensson interrupted his lecture.

"Careful," he said, looking concerned.

"I'm okay," Mats said, rubbing his head and moving away from the aircraft. Though Svensson wasn't looking at Mats. He was inspecting the area of the propeller blade that had struck Mats's head.

Svensson turned back to Mats. "Where was I? Oh, yes." And launched back into his lecture.

Mats tried to listen to the information coming at him thick and fast, but it was hard to stay focused. He couldn't recognise his lights among any of the systems that Svensson mentioned and after almost twenty minutes of speaking, Svensson himself concluded that what Mats had seen had nothing to do with any aircraft guidance system he'd ever heard of. And he assured Mats that an aviation system didn't exist that he didn't know about.

Though he was desperate to get away from this toxic man, Mats forced himself to ask Svensson if he was absolutely sure. He'd come a long way and had invested a lot of time in his quest to find out what the lights were. It would be very disappointing to have to return to Stockholm no wiser than when he'd left that morning.

"Do you have a couple of minutes?" asked Lars.

Mats didn't. His train was due to leave in less than half an hour and he'd need all of that time to get to the station.

"Yes....I do," he heard himself say. Mats felt he needed to stick this one out and complete the task he'd set himself. Lars Svensson led Mats into one of the museum's back-rooms where he took a pair of large, musty smelling volumes from a shelf.

After opening one at the contents page, he fumbled in his jacket for a pair of reading glasses. Positioning them on the end of his long nose, Lars ran his bony index finger slowly down the long list. On reaching the bottom, he emitted a low 'Hmmm', licked his finger and turned the page. He repeated this procedure until he came to the end of the several pages long contents list. Sometimes replacing a 'Hmmm' with an 'Uh-huh', or a quiet 'Yeeeess'. Each time Mats heard the latter he leaned forward expectantly, hoping Svensson had found what Mats was looking for, but each time Svensson would turn the page and continue his slow, painstaking scan.

Finally, Svensson reached the end of the contents list and carefully closed the book. He then repeated the process with the second volume until he said, 'Aha'. This shook Mats from the torpor he'd started to fall into and he focused on the book. Svensson turned the pages one by one trying to find the section he wanted. Mats looked at his watch. His train left in twenty minutes. Inside his head he was screaming at Svensson, 'Just pick the fucking thing up and flick through it to the page we need'. He looked at his watch again and began to tap his foot. Mats was close to grabbing the book from the table and doing the job himself when Lars looked up.

"Here we are." He smoothed down the pages of the chosen spread with the palms of his long hands and turned the book towards Mats. "Do you recognise any of these?"

Mats looked at the rows of black and white photographs that covered the pages. Each depicted various elaborate structures made up of arrays of lights, antennas, and painted symbols. None looked even remotely like what he'd seen on the mountain. He flipped through the following pages, scanning each picture carefully, until he came to the end of the section. Mats looked up at Lars. "It's not here."

Lars sighed, nearly knocking Mats over with the foulness it produced, "I'm sorry Mr Gildersson, but in that case I don't think we can help you. What you saw was not an aviation or military signal." He turned and placed the books back on the shelf.

"Okay, but thanks for your help anyway." Mats tried not to sound too disappointed, but inside his heart sank. He'd not only failed in his quest, but to top it all, he'd now missed the last express train to Stockholm. Unless Mats was prepared to suffer a five hour journey aboard a succession of uncomfortable local trains that would wind their way around the patchwork of lakes that covered the landscape between Linkoping and the capital, stopping at just about every village along the way (which he wasn't), he was stuck in Linkoping for the night.

Chapter 4

The urgency to find answers increases as our time runs out.

Mats caught a bus into the town centre, found a hotel and checked in. Without going up to the room, he headed back outside to find a shop that might still be open. He needed to pick up a basic overnight kit. Socks, underwear, toothbrush, deodorant. By now it was almost six o'clock. He'd have to hurry.

A few blocks from the hotel he recognised the familiar illuminated sign belonging to one of Sweden's large department store chains. He started jogging towards it, hoping that it would still be open. As he reached the front doors, a fat, pink-faced man, threatening to burst out of a far-too-small polyester security guard's uniform, stood in his path.

"Sorry, we close at six." It was two minutes to six.

"Just give me two minutes," pleaded Mats. "I missed my train. I'm stuck here overnight. I just need to pick up a few essentials."

"Sorry sir. We're closed."

"Not for another two minutes." Mats pointed at the clock on the wall behind the guard. "It'll take me less than that."

"We need to empty the store of shoppers. I can't let you in." Mats looked past the guard. The store was deserted except for a bored looking cashier flicking through a magazine.

"Come on. A pair of pants and a toothbrush."

"Sorry sir. Come back tomorrow. We open at ten."

Mats was bursting inside. He looked the guard in the eye and quickly realised that the man in front of him was relishing his moment of power far too much to have a better side worth appealing to.

Mats weighed his options. He considered rushing the door, but that wouldn't achieve much except maybe a night in the cells. Biting his lip, Mats turned and continued along the street, keeping his eyes peeled for an open shop he knew he wouldn't find. After a further half an hour of aimless wandering, he began to feel quite hungry and looked around for somewhere nice to eat. He needed a little pampering after the day he'd just had.

Looking down a narrow side street leading off the main shopping drag, he spotted a small restaurant with a French sounding name and decided to investigate. A warm, welcoming glow diffused through its windows. He could see the tables were filled with animated diners. The delicious smell of frying meat, of sauted onions and the rich aroma of red wine sauce drew him in. Stepping through the entrance into the restaurant's warm interior, the buzz of happy conversation and the clinking of wine glasses and cutlery made up his mind. This was where he wanted to spend his evening. He'd settle in with some comfort food, a bottle of velvet smooth red wine and a couple of chapters of Hemmingway for company.

Making his way through the tightly packed maze of tables to a long, well stocked bar, he spoke to a deeply tanned waiter who was pouring drinks.

"Excuse me, can I get a table for dinner?"

"Let me see." The waiter opened a large, leather-bound book to a page filled with roughly scribbled names. "Sorry, we full 'til nine o'clock. Maybe you come back later?"

'Shit, this isn't my day,' thought Mats. "No thanks. I'm starving, I need to eat now. Can you suggest anywhere else?" The waiter scribbled a name on a piece of paper and gave Mats directions. Mats thanked him and started to weave his way between the tables back towards the door. On the way, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Looking over, he spotted Eva Ericsson waving at him from a table next to the window. Changing tack, he made his way towards her.

"Hello again," said Mats.

"Couldn't get a table?"

"No," replied Mats.

"Why don't you join me? The food here's great."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. I'd like the company." Eva gestured towards the vacant seat on the opposite side of the table and Mats sat down. "I've been down here a week and I'm getting a bit bored of eating with Zadie Smith every night." Mats spotted the copy of White Teeth lying open face-down on the table cloth.

"The guys over at the museum don't get out much then?" asked Mats, only realising how that statement sounded after he'd said it. "Sorry, I didn't mean..."

Eva raised a hand and grinned. "No, don't apologise. You're right."

The waiter came over. "Will Sir be joining the lady?"

"Yes he will," interrupted Eva. "Could you bring another menu thanks?"

The waiter retreated to the bar. "So you haven't ordered yet?" asked Mats slipping his jacket off his shoulders and onto the back of the seat.

"Yes, but only just. I'll ask him to turn the heat down on mine." The waiter returned with the menu. Mats asked him to wait a second and quickly scanned the page, choosing the meatiest thing he could find. He looked up at Eva.

"Would you like some wine? My treat."

"Love some," was Eva's short answer. Mats chose a bottle of Chateau Eugenie and the waiter left them.

"So where are you from?" asked Eva.

"It's that obvious that I'm a stranger here?" replied Mats.

"The bewildered look kind of gives it away."

Mats sat back in his chair disarmed. There was clearly no point in trying to put on any kind of act to impress. He relaxed and replied, "Stockholm."

Eva smiled. "Snap. Well, almost. I'm just outside. Varmdo."

Mats nodded. "Nice. I'm in the city. Kungsholmen."

The waiter appeared with the wine. Mats took a sip from the small puddle the waiter poured into his glass. It tasted great, a couple of glasses of that would hit the spot. "Delicious," he said to the man who smiled and proceeded to fill their glasses.

Eva took a sip from hers. "Mmmm, that's good." She put the glass down and looked at Mats. "So why are you trying to find out about aircraft signals? Are you a pilot?"

"No. I'm not, but I have a friend who is. We were flying over the mountains near Jarlsten a couple of weeks ago and I spotted something on one of the slopes. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it before, but we figured it must be some kind of signal for aircraft."

"What did it look like?" asked Eva.

"It was a formation of lights that flashed on and off."

"What? Continuously?"

"No, just once," said Mats. "I spotted it out of the corner of my eye as we flew past. And it was big. The formation of lights seemed to cover a large area of the upper slopes of the peak it was on. Maybe a hundred or so metres high and wide."

"That is big. How was it built?"

"I don't know. After the flash we couldn't find it again. We went out again the next day, but by then whatever I'd seen had been buried under a new layer of snow. We did see some bumps in the snow that seemed to match the shape that I'd seen, but that's all."

Eva looked dubious. "Doesn't sound like a very good aircraft signal to me if it can be knocked out by a single night's snowfall. Especially considering its location." Mats nodded. "Did Lars know what it was?"

"No, we couldn't find anything in his books that matched it."

"I guess it could be an old artillery firing range target," said Eva. "You could check with the army." She took another sip of her wine and looked across the table at Mats with a quizzical look. "Why are you so interested in finding out what it is? Linkoping's a long way to come to satisfy a passing interest."

Mats looked out of the window. "Good question." He paused, seemingly lost deep in thought. "I'm not completely sure. All I know is that I want to know." Another pause. He turned his head back towards Eva, "You know?" Eva looked back at him with a puzzled expression on her face. "Sound like a berk don't I?"

"No, not at all," replied Eva. "It's just -" she seemed to struggle to find the words, "- you don't strike me as a museum type."

"Museum type?" It was Mats's turn to look puzzled.

"We get them all the time in the museums. Obviously. Treasure hunters I guess you could call them, though the treasure they're after isn't usually gold and jewels. They're trying to gain an understanding about something that's been bothering them. You know, a local legend that they might have heard about when they were kids that has always intrigued them, or the history of some local ruin." Eva paused and smiled, "Or people who see strange things on mountain tops and need to have them explained."

"Museum type?" repeated Mats. "Interesting."

"It's not a negative thing being a museum type. God no. I'm a museum type. I work in a museum, so I have to be. I wish more people would question their situation and surroundings. Understand where they come from and how they fit in. It provides perspective. Depth."

"So you're saying you thought I was shallow?" Mats was grinning.

Eva smiled back, looking slightly embarrassed. "No, it's just the people we usually get on these quests are often much older. I suppose the urgency to find answers increases as our time starts to run out."

"Or when we run out of surprises," said Mats. A look of sadness crept across his face. "I guess the thrill of the chase adds some much needed excitement to an otherwise dull existence."

Eva decided to change the subject before things got too heavy.

"So what exactly did this thing look like?"

"What thing?" asked Mats. He was still pondering the idea that he was a 'museum type'. He snapped out of it. "Oh, the formation on the mountain?"

The food arrived.

"Yes, what shape was it?" Eva asked.

"Hang on. I'll draw it." Mats searched his pockets for a pen. Not finding anything, he asked the waiter if he could borrow his. Mats pulled a taxi receipt out of his wallet and drew the shape on its back side. He slipped it across the table. "There." Eva looked down at the shape Mats had drawn.

Mats breathed in the meaty, garlicky, buttery aroma coming up from the plate in front of him. He looked up at the waiter who was standing next to the table waiting to get his pen back. "Smells fantastic." The waiter nodded.

Eva pushed the receipt back towards Mats. "I've no idea what it could be. A witches hat?" She smiled.

"Thurisa."

Eva and Mats looked up at the waiter who was also looking down at the receipt.

"Excuse me?" Mats asked the man.

"Thurisa," repeated the waiter and turned the receipt through ninety degrees so that the symbol stood upright.

Mats looked puzzled. Eva slapped her forehead.

"Of course. It's a rune," she said and held up the piece of paper.

The waiter made his way back to the kitchen. Mats pointed towards him with his thumb.

"He's getting a very good tip."

"Museum type," said Eva. There were rune stones scattered all over central Sweden. This French waiter had obviously been curious enough about them to find out what they were. "Where was it you said you saw this exactly?" Eva turned the figure towards Mats.

"Fairly close to Jarlsten. Just south of it on one of the peaks near Bavfjallet."

Eva leaned forward, her increased level of interest in Mats's discovery clearly visible.

"We've got to find out what this thing is," she said.

"We?" asked Mats, his eyebrows raised.

"Yes, we," replied Eva. "This is intriguing. I'm a museum type remember. A giant Viking rune laid out on the side of a mountain. I've never heard of such a thing."

"Viking?" asked Mats.

"This rune -" Eva placed an index finger on Mats's drawing, "- was mostly used by Vikings. At least in the region you found it."

"So you think what I saw might have been put there by the Vikings?"

"Possibly, but they didn't have electric light bulbs."

"Good point," said Mats. "Maybe it's some kind of weird art installation."

"Maybe, but I've never heard of anything like that. Have you?" Mats shook his head, "I'm pretty sure something as big as the thing you've described would've received some publicity. An internet search should turn it up."

Mats dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. He pressed a button and the opening page of an internet search engine appeared on its screen.

"Let's check," he said and typed in the words 'rune' and 'Bavfjallet'. After a second or two the screen came up with a message which said, 'Your search did not match any documents.' Mats turned the screen towards Eva.

"Try 'art installation' and 'Bavfjallet'," she said.

Mats typed in her suggestion. "Nothing again." After trying as many other relevant words as they could think of, without success, Mats turned off the device and laid it on the table. "So it's probably not modern art."

"Doesn't look like it."

They ate in silence, both searching their brains to come up with a new theory to explain the giant rune. Lost in thought, Eva picked up her wineglass and stared down at the dark red liquid that rocked back and forth inside, its surface shimmering with the light reflected from the many antique lamps dotted around the restaurant. A look of excitement spread across her face. "In which direction did the slope face?"

Mats thought for a while and then replied, "South....west...yes southwest, why?"

"They weren't electric lights you saw. It was the sun."

"The sun?" asked Mats, sounding a little confused.

"Yes, reflected off something shiny. Like this." Eva picked up her knife, angling it so that the blade caught the light coming from the candle that stood on their table, reflecting it into Mats's eyes.

"Genius," said Mats.

"Which means what you've found doesn't need to be modern. It could conceivably be quite old. The area where you spotted it has been a pretty well travelled trade route going way back. It was the main thoroughfare through the mountains between the sea-going communities living on the Norwegian coast and those living inland on the lowland regions around Storsjon. Both produced different types of goods and they'd trade. It was especially important during Viking times."

"Isn't that a bit far north to live if you don't have access to GoreTex and four-wheel-drive?"

"No, not at all," replied Eva. "The coast up there was always ice-free because of the Gulf Stream, and the Trondheim fjord was one of the most easily settled because it's not surrounded by sheer cliffs."

Eva went on to explain why the area around Storsjon was also such a good place for Viking communities to settle despite the climate. Something to do with excellent hunting, farming and fishing grounds combined with the multitude of interconnecting lakes and waterways peppering the area that allowed the Vikings to move around easily. During the summer by boat and in the winter by sled.

Mats listened, but found it hard to concentrate. His mind was racing with the idea that he might have found the Swedish equivalent of Stonehenge. Fame and fortune filled his head. Suddenly, something Eva said stunned him out of his reverie. "What?" he asked.

"I'll need to inform the National Museum," said Eva. "They'll want to investigate this."

"I don't think so," said Mats.

"Excuse me?" asked Eva, taken aback.

"I said, 'I don't think so'," repeated Mats. "I don't want the government cordoning off the site before I've had a good look at it myself."

"But this site could potentially contain information of national importance. It could provide the solution to all kinds of unanswered questions. If it's Viking it's certainly unique."

"Well those answers will still be there after I've taken a look at it myself first." Mats knew he was acting a little childish, but he felt justified. He'd discovered the thing. He'd spent the hours in libraries and museums (or at least on the internet). He'd dragged his arse down to Linkoping and hung around waiting for Mr Halitosis to show up. He'd missed his bloody train. Why should he hand everything over to a government institution that would undoubtedly restrict his access to the site before they'd picked it clean. A bit like his pay packet he thought. No. He found it. He would be first in. They can be second.

He changed tack.

"Tell you what Eva. Why don't you come and check the site out with me?" Eva was sitting back in her chair glaring at Mats. "You can come and make sure I don't desecrate anything. You get to be the first historian to document it, and you get to present a confirmed historical site to the museum authorities if we find anything."

He paused to see if he was getting through to her. "I mean, we don't even know if what I saw isn't just a random formation of rocks." He thought of the lights. "Or something." Eva's body language softened and she looked away. "And you wouldn't want to waste museum resources on scree," continued Mats. "Would you?"

Eva looked at Mats again.

Chapter 5

"Go to Hell"

"Come on John for fuck's sake!" Mats was standing on the steep face of a mountain in the pouring rain. Next to him, dressed from head to toe in bright yellow rain clothes with streaks of blond hair plastered across her face, stood Eva.

A few metres above them, Anders, similarly packaged in wet weather gear, looked over his shoulder down the slope.

"Hurry up you wonker, we're nearly there."

"Fuck off!" came the faint reply through the thickening mist. "I'm wet, cold, knackered, and miserable...and I need a fag." Things were getting serious thought Mats. John had quit smoking over ten years ago.

"Let's wait for him," said Eva. "I don't think we should get split up in this fog. There's some pretty severe cliffs to either side of us, and that massive one just below the rune on the other side of this slope."

Anders came down to join them. "Coffee break?" he said, pulling out a steel Thermos.

It was early June, and enough snow had melted from the mountain peaks to make them passable. Since their dinner in Linkoping, Mats had introduced Eva to John and the three of them had had a number of meetings in Stockholm to decide a plan of action for investigating 'the rune' as it had become known between them.

Mats had become rather smitten with Eva, but as she hadn't given him even the slightest indication that any such advances would be reciprocated, he'd decided to keep things as professional as he could. Hoping she might eventually thaw as they became closer working together on their project to discover what the rune was.

They'd hoped to visit the site a few weeks earlier using snowmobiles to reach it. However, Anders had told Mats that they wouldn't be able to handle the gradient. He also asked Mats if he really wanted to excavate a metre of snow to get to the site. A metre of snow that the frequent blizzards in the area, even during May, could replace in a matter of hours, wiping out the results of each day's digging. Mats decided to wait.

In the meantime, Eva had been busy. She'd been using the resources available to her at the Swedish Museums Authority to try and find out what the rune was. Her best guess so far was that it was a tribute to one or more of the old Norse Gods. The thurisa rune was closely associated with Thor. Maybe the structure was built by an ancient tribe to honour him.

She also found that the rune meant 'gateway'. When Viking shaman would cast runes to tell a person's future, or advise on a course of action to be taken regarding important tribal decisions, the thurisa rune, if drawn, would advise a person to reflect on and learn from their past before making a decision about their future. Could the rune have been a place where members of the tribe would go to meditate on their past in order to gain inspiration for the future?

Eva hoped that they would find clues at the site that would indicate what its real purpose was. She also hoped that she'd find something that would accurately date the site. Its shape indicated that it was built sometime between 500 and 900 AD, which was when the thurisa rune was still in use, but then again it could just as easily have been put in place more recently for some reason. During the climb up the soaking wet mountainside, Eva had mentally crossed her fingers and hoped that the former, more ancient, scenario would turn out to be the correct one.

Beside herself with excitement, despite the miserable conditions, Eva desperately wanted to push on to the rune and get on with her investigation. She'd started her career working on archeological digs, enjoying the thrill of discovery that they provided. As she moved into more senior management positions at the Museums Authority, the only digging she now seemed to do was through piles of paperwork. She was looking forward to getting her hands dirty again at a real, live archeological site.

Sipping her coffee, Eva stared hard into the mist enveloping the slope that fell away below them. "Here he is."

Out of the murk appeared an orange clad figure breathing heavily and muttering to himself as he stumbled through the tussocky grass. On reaching the others, John dropped his backpack and collapsed against the slope. "Someone call me a cab."

"Come on, it wasn't that bad," said Mats.

"It was, believe me. It was worse," wheezed John.

"Here's a coffee." Anders handed him a steaming cup.

"Anything in it?" asked John. He'd started to get his breath back. "You know, to keep out the cold?"

"Afraid not. It's not good for you," replied Anders.

The other three all raised their eyebrows and turned to look at Anders.

"Up here I mean. It's not good for you up here."

"That's a relief. I thought I'd entered some kind of parallel universe during the climb," said John sipping his coffee. "On the other hand, I guess it'd be rather nice if this rune thing turns out to be some kind of portal that can transport me away from this place and into another dimension where it's warm and sunny."

Just as he finished his sentence, the fog suddenly cleared from the mountain top and they were bathed in bright, warm, late spring sunshine. The sky above them was a crisp, cloudless blue, and to the side they could see the retreating wall of cloud that still had grey curtains of rain hanging from its underside.

Mats squinted up at the sun. "That was a bit spooky. Maybe your wish is coming true John."

John looked at his surroundings. "Nope. Still in the middle of fucking nowhere as far as I can see."

"Come on you miserable wonker," said Anders getting to his feet. "Let's get moving, it's only a few more metres to the top."

With the fog now gone, the four of them could see that they were almost at the summit. This, along with the now glorious weather and incredible views, lifted their collective mood. Even John seemed to receive an energy boost. After swinging his backpack over his shoulder, he joined the others as they headed uphill.

Once at the top, the four of them looked down the slope on the far side and into the steep sided valley below.

"The gradient is pretty severe," said Mats with a hint of apprehension in his voice.

John also sounded concerned. "And there's a serious cliff at the bottom of this slope. Are we sure we want to do this?"

Anders had pulled a metal peg from his rucksack and was hammering it through the thin covering of vegetation and into a crack in the rocks below. He then pulled out a coil of rope, tied on a carabiner, and clipped it to the peg.

"Hang on to this just in case. You should be okay, it's not as steep as it looks, but it's wet and if you slip this will help to stop you from sliding down too far."

Mats scanned the area below them. "The top part of the rune should be about thirty metres or so below us." He stood on tip-toe to see further down. "In fact, I think I can see a hump down there." Mats pointed towards a small raised area in the grass below them. "Let's check that out." He grabbed the rope and started down the slope, making sure he had a firm foothold with each step. The others followed, with Anders bringing up the rear.

They gathered around the lump in the slope and Eva got down on her knees. She began searching among the clumps of grass and moss covering the raised area.

"I've got something here." She pulled away a layer of spongy moss, revealing the smooth, flat surface of what appeared to be a slab of glass about a metre and a half square. It was more or less rectangular and almost perfectly smooth underneath the thin layer of grime that covered its surface.

Eva took off her backpack, fished out a cotton T-shirt and started rubbing the surface of the glass with it.

"Muscovite," she said.

"What? It's Russian?" asked John.

"No, it's a type of quartz. It's full of mica which makes it appear silvery. Look." They all looked over her shoulder at the spot where she'd been rubbing. It was almost like looking into a mirror, but grainy because of its crystalline structure.

"I guess that explains the lights then," said John.

"But I've never seen anything like this before. It's such a big piece, and so finely polished."

"Let's take a look at the rest of this thing," said Mats, and started backing down the slope holding the rope. John and Anders followed while Eva stayed with the first stone to make a closer inspection.

"Don't touch anything," she shouted after them.

"Okay!" they shouted back together. 'Bollocks to that,' they all thought in unison.

The three men reached the next stone. It had a slightly thicker covering of grass and dirt than the first. After clearing it away they found the same thing. A large, rectangular, polished, mirror-like stone. Mats was beginning to feel a little disappointed. He'd invested so much of himself in this project. Not just time and money, but mental and emotional energy too. For the past couple of months his imagination had run away with itself, imagining all of the things that the rune could be. By now he almost believed that it did have some kind of supernatural power. He'd laughed at John's comment on the way up about the rune being a portal, but how he hoped it would be true. That it would have the power to lift him out of his ever shrinking world and into something more exciting. Like something out of a movie. The funny thing was, it already had.

In the short space of time since he'd first spotted it, the rune had caused quite a radical change to Mats's life. He'd become absorbed in subjects he'd never had any interest in before, like history and archaeology. He'd travelled across the country and made new friends, one of which was a beautiful woman. And now, here he was, perched on the side of a mountain conducting an improvised archaeological dig. Quite a change from days spent staring at a computer screen in his Stockholm apartment.

"I wonder how much they're worth?" said John.

"Probably less than it'd cost to move them off this mountain," said Anders. "You can find that stuff everywhere around here. I've never seen it polished flat before, but there's plenty of it lying around."

"I'm wondering who put them here?" said Mats. "And why?" It looked like his find wasn't going to make him rich, or send him into a B-movie adventure, so he consoled himself with the prospect of discovering some new, unknown history.

"Good question," said Anders "I've never seen anything like this before, or even heard of such a thing. It's certainly very old, but it's difficult to tell how old because old things don't get covered over with mud up here. There's hardly any top soil. Everything, whether it's ancient or brand new, sits on the rocks exposed. I guess your friend Eva knows."

Just then, Eva came down to join them.

"They're old. Not sure exactly how old, but by the way they've been worked, definitely Viking. Somewhere around eight, nine hundred AD." She looked at the second slab. "I've never seen anything this large before though."

Eva sat down next to the three men. "There's so much work involved here." She ran her fingers over the stone's smooth surface. "This was built by people who were much more used to working with wood than stone. It must have taken a huge effort for them to polish it this smooth." She looked up. "Another thing, all of these stones must be precisely positioned to point towards a single spot in space."

"What do you mean?" asked Mats.

"Well, if you saw the entire formation of lights at once, then all of these stones must be aligned in such a way as to reflect the sun onto a single point," replied Eva.

"How difficult is that to do?" asked John.

"How would you go about it?" replied Eva.

"I'd hire a consultant. But I take your point. We're talking primitives here aren't we?" answered John.

"Well, not primitives, but a pretty basic community compared to modern society. To work out how to arrange these stones, up here, on this slope, with such precision would have been a major undertaking. This thing was important to these people," Eva said.

"How important?" asked Mats.

"Life or death important," answered Eva. "This is a major Viking find. You guys are going to be famous."

"Amongst the tweed and leather elbow protector set," said John. Eva frowned at him.

Mats got to his feet. "Let's take a look at the rest of this thing." He headed diagonally across the slope, out towards the hump where he guessed the stone making up the apex of the rune's triangular portion lay.

Anders shouted after him. "The rope!" He ran towards Mats holding it in his hand. The two men continued towards the furthest hump in the grass. John remained with Eva at the second stone. He fished a Mars bar out of his backpack and laid back against the slope eating it.

"I see you're not quite as excited about this find as the rest of us," said Eva, while picking more moss away from the surface of the second stone.

"Oh, I am. Terribly excited. Just wish they were made of diamond rather than Moscovites."

"Muscovite," corrected Eva. "Hoping for a Viking hoard were you?"

"Well, I didn't drag my arse up the side of a freezing cold mountain in the pissing rain for a passing mention in some future history textbook."

"Philistine."

"How did you know my middle name?" John propped himself up on one elbow and looked across at Eva. Over her shoulder he could see the other two lifting something up out of the grass. "Do you think they should be doing that?"

Eva looked puzzled. "What?" She followed John's gaze and turned her head to see Mats and Anders balancing a large flat slab of muscovite on its edge and staring down at the newly uncovered earth. "What are you doing? Put it down!" she shouted. The two men ignored her cries. Eva started getting to her feet. "Shit, we need to make all kinds of measurements and forensic investigations before we move anything."

"I guess you should have told those two before you let them off the leash," said John.

They then heard Mats shouting. "Come here! We've found something!" He sounded excited. Eva started moving across the slope towards where Mats stood. John looked on without getting up. As Eva reached the spot where the others stood he saw Mats stretch out his open palm to show her something. It gave off a metallic glint. His interest piqued, John stood up and tentatively made his way over to see what it was.

Suddenly a loud "FUCK!" echoed around the mountain. John lost his footing in the wet grass, fell flat on his back, dropped the rope and started sliding down the slope.

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"

He tried to roll over on to his front in order to get a better grip on the ground below him. His legs kicking wildly as he started to pick up speed, accelerating towards the edge of the cliff.

The others looked on helpless. It looked comical. A bright orange man, arms and legs flailing madly, slithering down a rain soaked slope. The problem was, this sketch wouldn't end in a laugh if John didn't manage to get himself stopped before it reached its conclusion.

John managed to turn himself over and grasped at the rough grass, but he was moving too fast, the grass was too wet, and his fingers were too cold. His knees bumped painfully over a hard edge that stuck out of the ground. John shouted another, 'FUCK', but this time it was proceeded by an 'OUCH!'. The bottom of his rain jacket caught on a sharp point on the rock that he'd just whacked his knees on. This slowed him a little, but then the jacket tore itself away and John picked up speed again. He was sliding over one of the polished stones of the rune and his moving weight had broken the tenuous grip of the moss growing on its smooth surface. Once detached, it slid with almost no resistance and John started to accelerate.

John's fingers ran through the grass above the stone trying to find something to hold on to. They hit the rough upper edge of the stone and he instinctively tensed them, holding on to the few millimetres of protruding rock. He tried to focus as much strength as he could into his hands and arms, wincing against the pain in his finger joints. A flash of panic shot through his mind as he realised that he wouldn't be able to hold on. There just wasn't enough purchase. Then, quite unexpectedly, he was able to get a better grip as the stone started to move down the slope with him and its upper edge became more exposed. It slid for a couple of metres or so before bringing itself and John to a gentle stop.

John lay face down on the wet slope, holding on to the stone. He was breathing hard. Looking up he saw the others making their way down towards him.

"Found another stone!" he shouted. He lifted himself into a sitting position alongside the slab of muscovite and dug his heels into the grass. Twenty metres below he could see the edge of the cliff. "Bloody hell," he said under his breath. A chill went through his body, then he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Mats.

"How are you? You scared the shit out of us."

"I might be in need of a new pair of undies myself," replied John. "Can we go down and find a nice warm pub now?"

"There's another one." John and Mats turned their heads to look at Anders who was kneeling next to the piece of ground recently made bare by John's use of the muscovite slab as a brake.

"Another what?" asked John, craning his neck to see what Anders was staring at.

Anders reached down to pick up his find.

"Don't touch it!" Eva was scooting down the slope towards them on her backside holding on to the rope. Anders backed off.

On reaching them, she dug into her bag and pulled out a digital camera and a small metal plate with rule marks and a colour chart printed on its upper surface. Placing the plate next to the object she started firing off pictures. She looked up at Anders once she was done. "Okay, loot away."

Anders leaned forward and picked up what appeared to be a bracelet made of a hoop of thin flat gold. Like a gold watch strap. One side was broader than the other, and on its surface was moulded an intricate, swirling pattern.

"Bingo," said John.

"So you're okay are you John?" asked Eva.

"I am now," he replied without looking away from the object in Anders's large palm. "So you found another one of those?"

"Yes, sitting under the rock up there," answered Mats. "There's also an inscription cut into the underside of the rock."

"What does it say?" asked John.

"No idea. It's written in runes," answered Mats.

"I know," said Eva looking pleased with herself. The three men looked at her expectantly. "Go to hell," she said.

John looked upset. "Steady on Eva. I thought we were in this together? It was us who found this thing in the first place."

"No, that's what the inscription says - 'go to hel' - there are a few more characters that come after it, but I didn't have time to work out what they said before you decided to take your swan dive down the mountain."

"'Go to Hell'? What do you think that means?" asked Mats.

"It's hel, with one l," said Eva. "And I've no idea what it could mean beyond a literal instruction telling someone to go to hel."

"Makes me feel better about nicking their jewellery," said John getting to his feet. "Maybe we should see what it says under this one." He looked down at the piece of stone that had just saved his life. "Give us a hand." Anders and Mats both grabbed the edge that John was struggling with and helped him lift it.

"Eva, could you do the honours?" said John.

Eva grabbed her camera and took a quick photo. "The same," she said. "'Go to hel'."

John smiled. "Cheeky bloody Vikings."

Chapter 6

Captain Black

"Oh, heaven!" John was slumped deep within a leather armchair in the bar of Jarlsten's Valley Hotel. He'd just taken a large gulp from a pint of dark, smooth English ale.

After taking a close look at nine of the ten stones, the team had made it off the mountain in one piece with nine gold bracelets and a lot to think about. They'd left the stone nearest to the cliff's edge untouched. After John's tumble, none of them had fancied going much further down the slope without being attached to a lot more climbing equipment. John wanted a parachute. They also figured that by leaving one stone untouched, they'd be able go back and measure where in space the formation was aimed towards.

Mats dropped into the seat next to John. Eva was already curled up on a worn leather Chesterfield opposite them, nursing a large glass of burgundy.

"A good day I think," said Mats.

"Yes it was, despite my various brushes with death," replied John. "I'm aching all over, but I'm sure a few more of these-" he nodded towards the pint glass that he was cradling against his stomach "-will fix that."

Eva took a sip from her glass. "It's an amazing find." She hadn't been happy about the way the stones had been moved without a proper survey of the site being done first. However, except for the first two stones that the guys had disturbed, she'd managed to photograph and record the exact positions of the other seven before they'd been touched. Also, after removing the bracelets, she felt confident that they'd replaced the muscovite slabs in exactly the same positions as they'd found them. They couldn't have done much more. And who's to say that even a comprehensive, professionally conducted dig wouldn't have caused just as much damage to the site. Even the best archeologists are far from perfect, and accidents do happen.

Eva knew that most of this was just post-rationalisation to make her feel better, but it worked. She really didn't need any conscience pangs disturbing the contented feeling she was enjoying right then. Her muscles ached, but it was a satisfying ache that not only served to confirm the day's efforts, but also made the sofa that she sat in more comfortable, the wine that she sipped more delicious and the fire that roared next to her in the hotel's massive fireplace more satisfying. Eva would sleep well that night.

Looking across at Mats and John flopping in their chairs opposite, Eva put her wine glass down on the low coffee table and pulled herself up into a sitting position. "I've never heard of anything like this before. There are so many unique features."

"Like what?" asked Mats.

"The polished stones. The three dimensional geometric precision. The repetition. And the fact that it's built on a mountain side."

John sat up straight in his chair. "What about the white horses, and that guy with the big knob that are cut out of the sides of chalk hills in England." He looked over his shoulder towards the bar. "Do you think they'll mind if I rest my leg on the table, my knee is killing me."

He gingerly lifted his leg and placed it on the corner of the coffee table with his calf in contact with its top surface and his foot over the edge, pointing towards the crackling fire. He'd already slipped his shoes off and the others watched his toes move up and down inside his sock.

"I hope you fumigated that before unleashing it on the world," said Mats, nodding towards the offending foot.

"Soaked for a good half hour and brand new socks." John grabbed the ankle of the leg he'd placed on the coffee table, pulled his foot up to his nose, took a sniff and announced, "Fresh as a daisy. You're both safe." He laid his leg back on the table and fell back into his chair.

"You're an animal John," laughed Mats.

"Oh, how stupid!" exclaimed Eva, staring towards John's foot.

John dropped his leg off the table and put his hands up.

"Sorry Eva." He sunk further into his seat and took cover behind his pint glass.

Eva looked up at John as if she'd just come out of a daze. "What? No. God, I've become completely used to that kind of behaviour by now." She gestured towards John's foot. "No, I just can't believe I forgot about the English hill carvings." She picked up her wine and took a sip. "Ever since we left the site I've been trying to work out what on Earth that thing up there could be. It didn't make any sense. What's been confusing me is its location. I couldn't think of any other ritual Viking structures here in Scandinavia that are built on mountain tops. But of course, there are plenty in England."

John looked confused.

"I've been running through the options in my head." Eva was now leaning forward. "First, burial site." She held up the thumb of her left hand. "That makes no sense. There's no soil. Where do you bury anyone, or anything? And I didn't see any piles of stones that might have covered a body. Did you?" John and Mats shook their heads.

"Second." She raised her index finger. "I thought some kind of mega-runesten. But again. Why? And why in such an inaccessible place. And the inscription makes no sense, 'Go to Hel'. No." Eva shook her head.

"Third." The middle finger went up. "A tribute to the gods. Could be, but this is like nothing I've ever seen or heard of before. But there is something similar. The Cerne Abbas giant. The guy with the big-" Eva looked at John "-what did you call it?"

"Knob," he said.

"Knob," repeated Eva. "I think our rune is a sign. A sign directed towards a giant. The same giant as the one with the big knob." Her voice raised to almost a shout at the end of the sentence and an old couple at the next table looked over disapprovingly.

John raised his glass in their direction. Eva's face reddened.

"What do you mean, 'giant'?" asked Mats puzzled.

"You've heard of the Norse gods?" asked Eva.

"Yes, of course," answered Mats.

"Well, there were also giants, or jotun, who opposed the gods. In simple terms-" Eva looked at John "-they were the baddies while the gods wore the white hats." Eva picked up her glass and emptied the last drops. "I need another one of those." Mats turned to catch the attention of the girl serving behind the bar. "Anyway-," Eva continued "-there was one giant who was both a giant and a god, sort of."

"Aha, Captain Black," said John.

Eva looked at John, confused. "What are you talking about?" Mats also looked towards John with a puzzled expression.

"Captain Black. Human, but also a Mysteron, sort of." Mats and Eva shook their heads to indicate that they had no idea what he was talking about. "Didn't you watch Captain Scarlet when you were kids?"

"Captain who?" asked Mats.

"Scarlet. They had a character called Captain Black. He was a baddy who looked like a goody, except he wore a black uniform, hence Captain Black. And he didn't shave as often as the good guys. Always had a five o'clock shadow." The explanation didn't help much.

"Well our Viking age Captain Black-," continued Eva "-was called Loki. He was very mischievous and a real pain for the gods." She looked at John. "What I think you guys have found is a sign directed towards Loki. Who, by the way, many people think is the guy with the big knob-," she whispered the last word "-on the side of that hill in England. The difference is that the sign in England is inviting Loki to the region, while it seems pretty clear that our sign is telling him to go away."

The waitress arrived and they ordered more drinks. "The Vikings believed Loki affected the human world in two ways. One good and one bad. The good effect was fertility. Hence the big knob on the carving in England. That sign is asking for Loki to come and produce good crops and more babies. The bad effect was earthquakes. The Vikings believed Loki caused them. I think our rune was built by a Viking society suffering from earthquakes and trying to fix the problem by getting Loki to go away."

"To hel?" asked Mats.

"Precisely. But not the same hell as you're thinking of. Hell is a christian invention. Our people are pre-christian. Pagans. The hel the stones refer to could be one of two things. It could either be the underworld. The place where the Viking dead go if they don't die a glorious death in battle. Or it could be the keeper of the underworld, who is also called Hel. And who also happens to be Loki's daughter."

"Creepy," said John.

"I wonder if the rune is part of some ritual to kill Loki- " Eva made inverted comma signs with her fingers when she said the word 'kill'       " -and send him to the underworld. Get rid of him forever." She gazed into the fire. "Thurisa is the rune that symbolises a gateway." She rested her chin on her hand and almost whispered. "Maybe." Eva picked up her empty glass and lay back in the sofa curling her legs up underneath her again, she took a sip from it and, realising what she'd just done, mentally came back into the room looking a little embarrassed.

"I think we're getting somewhere," said Mats. "Shall we eat dinner here, I'm starving?"

"Where's Anders?" asked Eva.

"Probably pissed at home," replied John. "Or family duties." As he said this his mobile phone rang. Pulling the phone from his trouser pocket, he answered. "Hello." A long pause, and then speaking slowly. "Okay, no problem. I'll give you a call in the morning once we've decided what to do." Another pause. "Yes, in the morning. I'll call you. Yes? Okay. See you tomorrow." John ended the call, looked at Mats. Together they both said, "Pissed."

"Let's eat here," said Mats. "I think it's pretty good, and it's not too far to stagger to bed."

"I second that," said John.

"I third it," said Eva.

*

The young waitress cleared the table. Looking at the clean plates and the empty bread basket she remarked. "You were hungry. Have you been out walking the mountains today?"

"Unfortunately yes," said John. "And I think they totally conquered us"

The waitress smiled and retreated to the kitchen.

"Speak for yourself," said Mats.

"Fair enough. But honestly, I really think I've done myself a mischief."

"So you won't be coming back up with us tomorrow to get the last bracelet?" asked Eva.

"Tomorrow?" said John, sounding surprised. "What's the rush?"

"Now that we've uncovered the stones, it probably won't be long before someone else finds them. I'd like to get a positional reading off the last stone before someone disturbs it."

"You'll have to count me out I'm afraid. I don't think this leg'll get me up that slope again. At least not for a few days." John rubbed his injured knee. "But I think I can still be of some use. I'll see if I can borrow a plane out at the airfield tomorrow and fly over the site. I can look out for reflections from your stone at different altitudes and then record my position in space using a GPS. Should give us a pretty accurate idea of where it's pointing."

"Sounds like you might need an assistant," said Mats.

"Forget it Mats," Eva said. "You're coming with me to get that last bracelet."

Mats wasn't entirely sure how serious Eva's authoritative tone was, but he mumbled an, "Okay," anyway

"I also need someone to help me put everything back the way we found it."

"Why?" asked John.

"I'd rather no one else knows about our find until we've worked out exactly what it is."

"Fine by me," said Mats.

"Me too," said John. "But won't you get in trouble with your bosses."

"Probably," said Eva. "But I also wouldn't mind getting a mention in one of those future history books."

John raised his glass to show his approval. The waitress returned to ask if they wanted anything else. "Just the bill please," asked John. He then turned to the others. "This can be my treat." Mats and Eva tried to protest. "No, I insist. It'll help assuage the guilt of not climbing that mountain with you tomorrow. Anyone fancy a nightcap in the bar?"

Eva shook her head as she stifled a yawn. "Sorry John, you need to count me out. I'm bushed, and I'd like to make an early start tomorrow."

John looked at Mats who shook his head, "Sorry, I'm done in."

"How boring. Well, I think I'll have a couple of stickies and read the paper in the bar before retiring. I think I saw a copy of the Times sitting on reception."

Once the bill was settled, the three of them moved towards the lobby. John raised his eyebrows. "Can't tempt either of you?"

Mats yawned. "No John. I'm dead on my feet here. I need to sleep."

Eva hesitated. "Okay, I'll join you for a quick cognac."

Mats was shaken. What should he do? He couldn't now change his mind and join them. That would look a little weak, but every molecule in his body was telling him not to leave Eva alone with John. In all of the years that Mats and known him, John had never once cheated on Maria his wife. Could he be tempted into his first infidelity tonight? He had the perfect opportunity. A hotel miles away from Stockholm, with Eva. Mats's Eva.

And why had Eva changed her mind once she'd heard that Mats wouldn't be joining John? Did she like John more than him? She'd certainly shown zero interest in Mats beyond their collaboration on the task of uncovering the origins of the stone formation that they'd visited earlier that day.

But what to do now? His mind was in turmoil. He felt like a lovesick teenager. Empty of any self-confidence and filled with jealousy. Mats was torn. By going to bed, Eva might see him as old and boring and if he changed his mind he might as well write 'jealous and sad' in black felt-tip pen across his forehead. Old or sad? Old or sad? Mats said goodnight and headed for the lift. Every step took a supreme effort.

After reaching his room, Mats lay on the bed. He was desperate to get back down to the bar and see what was going on. He tried to think of an excuse to go back downstairs. Forgotten key? Mobile phone? Too lame he decided. He got up and paced the room. Plucking up the remote control for the TV, he switched it on and flicked through the channels. Another suicide bomb in the middle east on CNN, Portuguese football on Eurosport, people standing uncomfortably and talking about social issues on the Swedish channels, then ten sample seconds of a large breasted woman with a mouth full of cock on the pay-tv porn channel. Mats stood up, switched off the TV, put his shoes on and stepped out of the room. He'd pretend he'd lost his mobile phone.

Downstairs the bar was empty. There was no sign of John or Eva. "Shit," Mats whispered under his breath and went back up to his room. He picked up the phone next to his bed and punched the first two digits of John's room number. Then he thought better of it and put the receiver back in its cradle.

Chapter 7

Rings for a jotun

"Get down!" Mats threw himself flat against the grass, dragging Eva down with him. The deafening clatter of an aircraft engine passed by about ten metres above them. They both raised their heads as the sound receded, looking down the mountain slope that held the muscovite slabs. The small yellow airplane continued its dive, its wheels only a few metres above the ground. On reaching the point where the grass covered incline became a vertical cliff, its nose dipped lower and the plane disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Not even the sound of its engine could be heard.

Mats and Eva got to their feet. Both stood on tip-toe, straining to see or hear any trace of the Piper Cub they knew was being flown by John.

"Can you see him?" asked Eva sounding concerned.

"No," said Mats, irritated. "He's probably stacked it into the rocks at the bottom. Stupid sod."

"Oh, don't say that." Eva bit her lip. Mats looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She looked worried.

"He'll reappear. He always does." As he finished the sentence, the little plane burst up from below the cliff edge. Mats could see John's head sticking out of the aircraft's open window. He was grinning from ear to ear. Mats raised his arm, giving John the finger.

"Charming," he heard Eva say over the din of the engine. Mats dropped his arm.

"He's flying like a maniac," Mats said, sounding angry. "He's going to get someone killed."

"Sounds like someone got out the wrong side of the bed this morning."

"Didn't get much sleep."

"Neither did we." Eva motioned towards the plane with her head. Mats's ears pricked up.

"So what did you two get up to last night?" Mats tried to make it sound like a lighthearted innuendo filled question.

"Wouldn't you like to know," teased Eva. "John showed me the hot spots of Jarlsten."

"Are there any?"

"No," said Eva smiling. "But we did go to a nice bar run by an old guy who's lived in this area his whole life. Apparently he's walked all over these mountains. He's been up here, but he didn't know anything about these." Eva pointed towards a slab of muscovite at their feet.

"What? You told him about this?" Mats sounded a little irritated again.

"Of course not Mats," said Eva. "John asked a few cryptic questions. He told the guy that I was an archaeologist and asked if he'd seen anything on his treks that might interest me. The man talked about a number of Saami relics. Apparently there are quite a few pits around here dug by ancient Saami to catch animals. He also talked about finding the scattered remains of what he thinks are old Saami dwellings fairly near here, but nothing about this place."

Eva looked up at the small aircraft that was circling back to make another low pass. She pulled a radio out of her rucksack and held it up to her mouth.

"Cool it Hotdog. Mats thinks you'll have someone's eye out."

From the radio Mats could hear John's voice mixed with the buzzing of the engine. "Roger that. Tell the old man to keep what's left of his hair on. We'll behave ourselves."

Mats self-consciously ran his hand through his close cropped, slightly greying hair and Eva grinned. She held the radio up to her mouth again. "So how does the site look?"

"Like a bunch of looters just plundered it," came the reply. "Though, if you slide my stone back into place and try to cover them all with moss, that should help. Don't know what you can do about the trails we've left in the grass. I guess they'll disappear in a week or so."

"Okay, we'll get to work. Any luck with getting a reflection off the tenth stone?"

"Yes, we've caught it a few times. In fact, five of the stones are flashing right along with it, so we haven't done too much damage. We'll get on and make some measurements."

"Over and out," Eva shouted into the radio.

"Over and out?" John was laughing as he said this.

Eva threw the radio back into her rucksack and turned to Mats. "Your friend can be really annoying sometimes." Mats liked the sound of this.

The two of them got to work on the displaced stone, positioning it back into the gap in the grass that it had originally occupied. They then replaced the moss that had once covered it as well as they could and brushed the surrounding grass over its edges. They knew it wouldn't fool anyone who might be actively looking for the site, but they figured no one was, so it would do.

They did the same with the other stones, and then Eva took some measurements of the tenth stone's orientation while Mats tried to cover their tracks by brushing up the grass they'd flattened during the past couple of days. Again, his efforts were pretty ineffective, but he felt better for trying. Throughout all of this, the small yellow Piper buzzed over their heads until John's voice crackled from inside Eva's rucksack.

"We're out of gas. See you guys back at the hotel." The plane whizzed low over their heads down the slope, banking right to fly out of the valley and back to Jarlsten. A few minutes later, Eva was packing her instruments into her bag and shouted to Mats.

"Let's get out of here, I'm getting cold."

Half an hour later they were back at the car at the base of the mountain. As Eva started the engine, a helicopter appeared from behind a ridge out to the east. Neither noticed its presence and Eva got the car moving along the dirt track that lead towards Jarlsten. They zig-zagged down the relatively shallow gradient on the north side of the mountain before turning northwest and cutting across the plateau leading to the steep descent into town. As the road flattened out, Mats caught sight of the helicopter that was, by now, almost directly above them. He leaned forward to watch it through the top of the windscreen. Realising that its track would take it directly over the rune, he kept his eye on it.

Eva was also watching the chopper. As it disappeared over the summit she thought she saw it slow down.

"Do you think they spotted it?" asked Eva.

"Don't know," answered Mats. "Stop the car a second." Eva pulled over to the side of the track and silenced the engine. Mats wound down his window. He could hear the noise from the helicopter. It was getting weaker, moving away. He looked at Eva. "Well if they did they didn't stop to take a closer look. I think our attempts at camouflage may have worked. Let's go."

*

Inside the noisy glass bubble of the helicopter's cockpit, the rotund, red faced man at the controls turned to his left.

"Do you think that was it?"

"Probably," came the reply in his headphones. "It looked like her in the car. We'll go back later and take a look once they've gone. Let's fly back to your place and have some coffee."

"I was hoping you'd say that," said the fat man as he opened up the throttle and flew northwest along the valley.

*

As Eva and Mats walked into the hotel they spotted John and Anders sitting at the bar, gazing up at a TV attached to the wall above their heads.

"Guys," said Mats.

"Just watching Newcastle getting hammered again," said John without taking his eyes off the screen. "Mission accomplished?"

"Yes, we have the tenth bracelet and I think we managed to get the site looking fairly inconspicuous," said Eva.

"I think I might have to disagree with you on that second point," said John, still staring at the football match going on above his head.

"Well if you think you can do a better job, go ahead," said Eva irritated. She caught the eye of the barman. "Can I get a coffee," and turning to Mats. "Do you want anything?"

"A beer please."

"Can you bring them over to the table?" Eva asked the barman. He nodded and gestured towards the easy chairs in front of the fireplace which was lit and roaring.

Eva walked over and dropped into one of the armchairs. Mats followed and sat next to her. John and Anders stayed at the bar. Their eyes glued to the TV.

Eva turned to Mats. "So what's next?"

"We find out what all this stuff means," Mats replied. "You've got access to your resources at the museum and I can do some digging in libraries and on the web." The drinks arrived and Eva paid the barman. Mats continued. "You already have a good hypothesis about what the  rune is, we need to see if we can confirm that. And once we've done that, then maybe we can try and find out a bit more about the people who built it."

Eva looked at Mats. "You're enjoying this aren't you?"

"More than that I ever realised I might." Mats sipped his beer. "Coming into direct contact with these things that were built by a civilisation that lived well over a thousand years ago is fascinating. And what's even more amazing is knowing that the last person to lay their hands on these things was a member of that civilisation." Mats pulled a packet of folded tissue paper from his jacket pocket. He opened it up to reveal the gold bracelet they had retrieved that day. He set the opened package down on the coffee table in front of him and stared at it. He seemed transfixed. "Just think, the fingerprints of a Viking could still be on this. The oil from his or her hands could be on it-," he looked at his hands "-could be on me." He looked at Eva, "Don't you find that incredible? That we've had physical contact with a person, or at least a part of that person, who lived a totally different existence to ours such a long time ago?"

Eva stared into Mats's eyes. They seemed to be on fire. Her chest welled up with an almost overwhelming affection for this man who had just described, so exquisitely, her own feelings about archaeology. Feelings that had originally spurred her to take up the career she loved so much. Feelings that, until this trip, she hadn't experienced for far too long. So long, in fact, that she'd almost stopped missing them. But now, like an ex-addict who takes a hit after ten years away from their favourite drug, she knew she wanted to experience those feelings again. And again, and again.

Mats returned his focus towards the bracelet, breaking the spell. "Do you think this inscription means anything?"

Eva took a sip from her coffee and settled herself. "I think I might've cracked that," she said. "All of the bracelets have exactly the same inscription on them. It's another rune. The same rune written over and over. I think it's part of the overall message that the people who built the rune were trying to send to Loki. The inscription on the stones, their layout in the form of the thurisa rune, and the bracelets. They're all part of the same message."

"So you still believe the rune is meant for Loki?"

"I'm fairly sure of it." Eva picked up the bracelet from the coffee table and pointed at the inscription with her little finger. "See that cobweb-like pattern surrounding the repeating rune." Mats leaned in to get a better look. "That's usually associated with Loki." Eva pulled a notebook from her rucksack. "I have another theory. The bracelets aren't bracelets. They're rings. Giant rings."

"What makes you think that?"

Eva placed her open note book on the coffee table between them.

"Look here. I've traced the size of each of the bracelets into this book, and there are matching pairs in five different sizes. I haven't checked for certain yet, but their relative sizes look like they match the relative sizes of the fingers on a man's hand."

"Rings for a jotun," said Mats. "But why?"

"An offering I suspect. And a taste of what he might get if he follows the instructions written on the back of the stones."

"So you think there's a reward waiting for Loki in hel?"

"Yes, I do. And I think it's in gold. Loki is a big fan of gold." She held up the bracelet/ring, studied it closely, then leaned back in her chair. "I think it'd be worth taking a look at Hell."

"Excuse me?"

"Hell. It's not far from here," said Eva.

"Too right hell isn't far from here. They just got hammered again. Four nil. I don't know why I support them. They never win a bloody thing." John flopped down onto the sofa opposite Mats and Eva. "It's like a living hell being a Newcastle supporter. Endlessly punishing yourself."

"Who beat them?" asked Eva.

"Buddy Chelsea," said Anders approaching the group with a tray of drinks. "You shouldn't feel so bad you wonker. You were playing the best team in the world. What do you expect?"

"And let me guess what team you support Anders," said Mats.

"Buddy Chelsea," said Anders and raised his pint glass. "So, are you planning to go to Norway?"

"Norway?" Mats looked at Anders.

"Yes, Hell is in Norway. Near Trondheim. Just over the border from here. You should go. It's a nice drive."

"You'll have to count me out I'm afraid," said John. "Some of us have jobs to go to. I need to fly back tomorrow morning."

"Can't you call in sick?" asked Eva. "We could use a pilot."

"'Fraid not. I got a phone call earlier. I have to attend a meeting tomorrow afternoon. Pitch briefing." John took a sip from his drink. "So that's the place you suspect our Vikings were thinking of when they wrote their message?" Eva nodded. "Makes sense I suppose. The world of a Viking hill tribe was probably quite small. The Trondheim fjord must have seemed like the end of the world. Though it's not really that far. Why would you need a plane?"

"The directions given on the slabs are pretty vague. I suspect that wherever our Vikings were directing Loki towards must be sign posted. And the sign must be quite large if it's to be noticed by a giant. Probably spread out over the landscape like the formation we've been working on these past two days."

"So another rune?" asked John.

"Probably," replied Eva. "And something like that will be tricky to spot from the ground."

"Google Earth!" announced Anders. The others looked at him, confusion written across their faces. "We can use Google Earth."

"You...use...Google Earth?" asked Mats.

"You don't need to sound so buddy surprised." Anders looked a little hurt. "We do get the internet up here in hill-billy land."

Mats tried to pull himself out of the hole he'd just dug himself. "No Anders, I didn't mean to be rude. I'm just surprised none of us three had thought of it before."

"That makes me feel much better," said Anders. His voice loaded with sarcasm. "Wonker."

"Look, Anders I..."

"No. I know my place. I'll go home and send up some smoke signals for buddy satellite images of Norway." Anders sounded genuinely angry. "It's not the buddy third world up here you know."

Everyone stayed quiet. The heavy silence was broken only by the gentle roar of the fire in the grate next to them and the crack of the logs as they burned. They all looked at either the floor or their hands. Then John lifted his eyes towards Anders, his head still bowed. "So we can drink the water then?"

Anders opened his mouth to respond with more indignation. He then spotted John smiling at him and broke into a wide grin himself. "Buddy wonker."

"Come on you old woman," said John. "Let's get another drink. Mine's a whisky. What're you having?"

"A large one."

"And for the lovely Eva?" John bowed towards her with one arm behind his back and the other in front of him as if holding a folded napkin over his arm, English butler style.

Eva lifted the full glass of wine that Anders had just bought her and declined his offer. John turned to Mats.

"Always good to have a spare tank I suppose. Another pint please."

"Pint it is," said John and moved towards the bar.

"Can you get Google Earth on your phone Mats?" asked Eva.

"Yes, but the screen's a bit small. I think we'd be better off with a full sized computer."

"They have a terminal over there in reception. We could take a look later," said Eva.

"If you can get on it. It's always occupied by some spotty youth sending messages to his mates," said Anders.

"I'm sure we can get internet access somewhere. Doesn't this place have wifi?" asked Mats.

"I'll ask," said Eva. She jumped out of her seat and marched towards the reception desk.

John appeared with the drinks. "Where's she off to?"

Eva reappeared waving a cable. "Fixed," she said and sat down. "No wifi, but they gave me this to plug my laptop into a broadband socket in my room."

"So what are we looking for this time?" asked John.

"I'm not sure," Eva said. "But I suspect it might be another rune. Possibly the one written on this." She pointed towards the gold ring lying on the coffee table, and then dipped her finger into her wine and drew a figure on the table's surface.

"I guess that's a Viking F," said Mats.

"Correct." said Eva. "It's called feh. It also means something else which I think you guys will enjoy hearing."

"What's that?" asked John.

"Money," said Eva gleefully, as if talking to a classroom full of five year olds. "It's the rune for wealth."

Chapter 8

You must stop this heresy

"More coffee Stefan?" Sven Ostermark stood at the kitchen counter holding a steaming pot.

His friend, Stefan Ekstrom, lifted his head from the map that he was studying and replied in his high pitched voice. "Oh, yes. And do we have any more of that cake left?"

Stefan was a generously proportioned figure in his late fifties. His chubby frame was accentuated by a set of rather short limbs and a spherical head topped with a ring of sandy, almost ginger hair combed over in a hopeless attempt to hide a large bald patch. His falsetto voice took on a singsong tone whenever he spoke, each sentence ending on a high note as if everything he said was a question. Overall, Stefan came across as a bumbling Dickensian character. A kindly, overweight, modern day Pickwick.

Sven Ostermark was almost a polar opposite. He was tall and thin, and stood slightly hunched over. His greasy brown hair was swept back from approximately the top of his head and cut just above the collar. His voice was much deeper than his wiry frame would suggest, though the oversized Adam's apple that protruded from his long neck did provide a clue.

He handed Stefan a mug of coffee and a piece of the currant cake that the two of them had been chiseling away at since they'd landed back at Stefan's cabin earlier that afternoon. Sven sat down on the opposite side of the solid looking kitchen table that the map was spread across. Like just about everything else in the room, the table had been hand built by Stefan out of local pinewood.

"Much appreciate you letting me stay here for a few days Stefan."

"Oh, don't mention it Sven. Mother and I enjoy the company."

Sven raised his eyes to the ceiling. "How is the old girl?"

"Not so good," answered Stefan. "She's got a lot worse these past few weeks. To be honest with you, I've been preparing myself for...well, you know. It's nice to have you come up and visit to keep my mind off things."

"Shouldn't she be in a hospital?"

"Maybe, but she wouldn't go." Stefan took a bite of his cake. "You know what they're like up here. It takes a lot more than a terminal illness to get them to call a doctor. The district nurse comes around every few days and makes sure she's as comfortable as possible. I'd like to get more regular help, but it's not cheap and the business doesn't do that well. How's life in the museum world?"

Sven's shoulders slumped. "Bad."

"I hate to say I told you so Sven. What's happened now?"

"Where to start?" Sven shook his head. "Well, you know about the dwarf's plan to get all of the country's museums singing from the same historical songsheet?" Both Sven and Stefan always referred to their sworn enemy, the head of the Ministry of Culture, derogatively as the dwarf, for obvious reasons.

"Don't I just. As you know, that's why I got out when I did. Being at the receiving end of anything with the word centralisation in it is rarely good. As soon as they put that bloody self-publicising dwarf in the Ministry of Culture I knew we were in trouble." Stefan's already ruddy complexion turned a deeper shade of pink. "The arrogance of the man! Imagining that he can dictate to museums what they should and shouldn't display. Well I hope old Svensson and all of the country's other museum directors have told him where he can stick his ideas! He has no authority over them."

"That's the problem. He now does," said Sven.

"How? The museum's are funded by the local councils or privately. Why would they listen to the dwarf?"

"Because he's come up with a scheme whereby they can get additional funding from the government if they apply to become members of a new museums collective that he invented six months ago. It's effectively a government run department of museums."

Stefan looked confused. "Why would he bother? What's in it for him?"

"'He who controls the past commands the future'," quoted Sven.

"Do you really think that's his motive? Seems a little advanced for the dwarf."

"No, you're right. I heard that the idea originally came from a bunch of brand consultants, whatever the hell they are, who were working for the tourism office. Which is run by..."

"...Mrs Dwarf!" Stefan completed Sven's sentence. "That's a bit more believable. And people are falling for this nonsense?"

"I'm afraid so. All of the museums are strapped for cash. There's been a rush to sign up. And unfortunately our trustees were some of the first to get suckered in."

"Which is why you've been lumbered with this Eva Ericsson woman you've been moaning about for the past few months."

Sven nodded. "You won't believe what that bloody woman wants to do now?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Sell half the collection!"

Stefan's body snapped to attention. "What on Earth for? The museum must have one of the best collections in Europe. It's taken years to build."

"And think of the millions of man hours devoted to restoring and maintaining the exhibits. You must have given several thousand yourself Stefan."

"This is outrageous. How does she justify this idiocy?"

"Rationalisation," said Sven with a heavy dose of sarcasm. "She thinks the museum is too cluttered."

"But that's a big part of its appeal, at least to everyone I know who visits regularly. It's like an Aladdin's cave of aerial delights. Everywhere you look you find something new and exciting."

"We're not the target audience though Stefan. She wants to appeal to kids. Bloody kids." Sven spat out the last word.

"So what's she planning to do with the money raised from selling the exhibits?"

Sven resumed his sarcastic tone. "Redecorate the place. 'Bring it up to date.' She'll have the place looking like something out of a fucking Ikea catalogue." He shook his head. "Oh, and she wants to install interactive computer screens so the little kiddies can have something to play with."

"You can't let her do this Sven. Next thing you know all of the exhibits will be gone and the museum will only exist as pictures on the internet. What's old Svensson got to say about this? Can't he put a stop to this nonsense?"

"He seems to have thrown in the towel. I don't think he has the strength to fight it. The rumour is that he's about to announce his retirement any day now."

"You're the number two down there Sven. Surely this means you'll become director, and then you can stop this...this heresy."

"I'm afraid that is up to our Miss Eva Ericsson. The trustees have agreed to give her rather more power over the future of the museum than we were led to believe. This consultant has become more of a dictator."

Stefan's face had become red with anger. He'd been connected with the museum for over thirty years. He was an aircraft engineer by trade and had coordinated the acquisition and restoration of many of the museum's exhibits. He regarded each one as a father would regard a child. They were very close to his heart and the idea that they may be sold was unthinkable to him.

"You must fight this Sven. I will help you all I can."

"That's part of the reason I'm here Stefan. It's why I'm so interested in whatever it is that Miss Ericsson has been poking around at up on that mountain. I need to discredit her with the trustees and with her bosses so they stop listening to her stupid ideas."

"How will this-" Stefan pointed at the spot on the map where the rune was located, "-do that?"

"She's been using museum resources to investigate that place. I'm pretty sure it's some kind of archaeological site, and I'm fairly certain she hasn't informed anyone about it. Her private research is costing the museum money. Money that she's been claiming is so scarce that we need to sell exhibits." Stefan nodded. "If it is an archaeological site, and if I can also prove that she's disturbed it without telling the museum or her bosses at the central museum club, then we don't just discredit her, we might even get rid of her and her crazy ideas altogether."

"Then we'll fly up there first thing tomorrow morning and take a look around." Stefan picked up the newspaper lying on the chair next to him and turned to the back page. "The weather forecast looks good."

There was a sound of something hard knocking on the ceiling above them. "Sounds like mother's awake. I'll just go up and see what she wants." Stefan squeezed out from behind the kitchen table and ambled out into the hallway.

Sven reached behind his chair and picked up a battered, brown leather briefcase. Unlocking it, he pulled out a blue A4 notebook. On its cover was written 'EE illegal activity dossier'. Sven opened the book and flicked through the first thirty pages or so. They were completely covered in hand written notes. The writing was small, neat and closely spaced, with each letter individually printed. The pages had become crinkled by the words, revealing the intensity with which they'd been written.

Sven turned to the page containing the previous day's notes. He smoothed the page with his long, bony fingers and then fished a blue ball-point pen from his shirt pocket. He filled in his location - 'Stefan's cabin' - and the date on the first clear line, he thought for a second and then began writing in earnest.

*

"There it is!"

Mats, Anders and Eva were crowded around the desk in Eva's hotel room. Eva sat on the one chair available, Mats knelt on the floor next to her and Anders stood behind them both looking down at Eva's laptop computer. John was lying on the bed behind them with his feet on the floor at its end. When he heard Mats's excited cry he raised himself into a sitting position and looked over Eva's shoulder at where Mats was pointing. "That's Trondheim airport. I'm pretty sure that wasn't built by Vikings." He flopped back onto the bed. "I think we might be getting a little carried away with ourselves."

Mats's cheeks reddened. There was an embarrassed silence in the room. Eva broke it.

"This is going to be tricky." She stared into the screen. "All of the hills in the area are well forested so, unlike this site-," Eva pointed at a drawing of the first rune in her notebook, "-this one is likely to be covered in a thousand years worth of vegetation." She paused. "If it's there at all."

"Or a million square feet of asphalt," piped up John.

"Possibly, but I suspect it'll be on or near the peak of one of these hills."

"Why?" asked Mats.

"Keeps it out of the way of unwanted visitors and in the eyeline of any passing jotun."

"Can you zoom in there?" Anders pointed at an area on the screen just south of the compact village of Hell.

"It won't help much. This is as detailed as the resolution of this picture will allow. We really need a better satellite image," said Eva.

"Just bump it up a notch," asked Anders. Eva clicked the mouse-pad. "See there. That light patch with some dark blobs in it." The others, including John, leaned forward to take a look. "There's a bunch of caves in that area. We should take a look in them."

"You've been there?" asked Mats.

"I've been up there a few times. I have a friend in Trondheim and we've been hunting up there. Those caves have some writing in them carved on to the walls. Buddy Viking graffiti."

Eva looked at him. "How much?"

"Buddy loads. I've been in there and seen it. Buddy Henrik ran in there a couple of years ago and I had to go in to get him out."

"Henrik?" asked Eva.

"My dog. He ran in looking for rabbits and the wonker wouldn't come out. I squeezed in holding my lighter and saw the writing. They're buddy small caves. The engravings must have been done by buddy midgets."

"Doesn't bode well for getting a message across to a giant," said John from the bed.

"True," said Mats. "But it shows that Vikings have been up there and used the site for something. Chances are that our rune is not too far away." He looked at Anders. "Can you come with us tomorrow to show us where they are?"

"The wife won't like it. I'm supposed to be doing the school run." He thought for a while. "But I'm sure I can sort something out." He picked his jacket up off the bed. "I'd better get back and earn a few brownie points. I'll call you later."

John got up. "Great seeing you again Anders."

"So you definitely can't come?" asked Anders.

"Sorry, I'd love to, but I've got to go back to Stockholm for this meeting. The client's flying in from London, so pulling a sicky is not such a good idea. But save a me a share of whatever treasure you manage to find."

Chapter 9

We're archaeologists not looters, remember.

"Looks old to me." Stefan Ekstrom was standing next to the rune's uppermost stone. He was fighting a losing battle with the stiffening breeze over control of his hair. Long ginger strands danced wildly around his pink scalp making him look as if his head was on fire. He ran his fingers constantly over the top of his head trying to dampen down the flames, but to no avail.

"It looks like they've definitely disturbed it." Sven was crouched down inspecting the damaged vegetation around the slab. "I'm going to take a look at the others." He got to his feet and started edging his way down the slope.

"I wouldn't go down there Sven," said Stefan.

"It's not that steep."

"Look over there," Stefan was pointing towards the line of flattened grass and scarred earth where John had lost his footing a couple of days earlier. Sven edged his way back up towards Stefan. "What do you think it is?"

"I don't know," said Sven looking down at the smooth stone. "Let's have a look underneath." The two men struggled to lift the slab of muscovite. Sven looked at the bare earth underneath. There was a small depression where the gold bracelet had lain. "Looks like there used to be something under here." Sven smiled. "So she's a looter too, it gets better."

"There's something carved into the underside of the stone. What is that?" Stefan was looking at the inscription.

"No idea. Runes?"

Stefan looked out over the valley. "We'd better get going Sven. This wind is starting to get a little strong."

The two men dropped the stone back into place, then trudged back up the slope towards the helicopter that was parked on a level spot near the top of the mountain. Once strapped in, Stefan turned to Sven. "Care to take the controls?"

"Don't mind if I do."

Sven started up the machine and carefully brought it into a low hover, balancing against the wind that was now coming in strong gusts. He turned and accelerated forwards over the deep valley that plunged away beneath them. As they settled into the cruise, Stefan turned to Sven.

"Looks like you've got something on her Sven, but I think you need to be very careful how you handle it."

"What do you mean?"

"You need to get hold of some solid evidence that she's actually done something wrong down there before you present your case." Stefan pointed back towards the mountain they'd just left.

"I thought we just did," said Sven looking perplexed.

"We don't have anything that proves conclusively that she disturbed the site. It could have been anyone."

Sven looked disappointed. "Who's side are you on?"

"Yours of course. Don't get me wrong Sven. I want this woman removed just as much as you do. I just want to make sure your plan is as effective as it can be." Stefan paused for a second and then added tentatively, "We also need to make sure it doesn't backfire."

Sven looked at Stefan. He looked a little cross. "Backfire?"

"Your idea about exposing her use of museum resources. You're going to need to make sure that she can't accuse you of similar activities. Let's face it Sven, you've used the museum's resources on more than one occasion for your own and, I'll admit it, my private purposes." Sven stared ahead, blank faced, through the helicopter's bubble shaped windshield. The last thing Stefan wanted was to dampen his friend's resolve. He continued in a gentler tone. "I just don't want to see you get hurt any more because of this awful woman Sven. You already know she's smart. Just make sure you're smarter."

Sven looked over his shoulder at the formation of stones receding in the distance behind them. He nodded. "You're right Stefan. I need to think this through a bit more."

*

"So this is what Hell looks like." Mats was sitting in the back seat of Anders's battered Volvo estate.

"We're not there yet. It's a bit further up this hill," replied Anders.

"I wasn't talking about the village, I was talking about the interior of this car." Mats picked up a hard, blackened banana skin from the floor between his feet. He held it between the tips of his thumb and index finger regarding it with disgust. "When was the last time you cleaned this thing Anders?"

"Why would I? With two kids and a dog it just gets messy again."

"Cholera?" said Mats, dropping the banana skin.

"Don't take any notice of him Anders." Eva looked across at him from her position in the front passenger seat. "He's a townie. He's not used to honest dirt."

"Oh, so what are you Miss City Museum Designer?" asked Mats.

"I grew up on a farm down south in Smaland. Pigs, cows, the lot."

"So how'd you end up working in museums?" Anders asked.

Eva turned to sit sideways in her seat so she could see both Mats and Anders. "My brother and I used to find stuff on the farm all the time. Old arrowheads, coins, pots. They fascinated me. I used to have my own little archaeological digs as a kid." For a moment Eva went a little misty eyed.

"Sounds idyllic. Do your parents still have the farm?," asked Mats. Eva stayed quiet. She looked down, a wave of sadness moving briefly across her face. Mats quickly understood that his comment must have touched on some sensitive moment in Eva's past.

Eva looked up again, wiped a finger across each eye and forced a smile, continuing to speak as if she hadn't heard Mats's question. "I'd try to imagine what the person who'd owned the things I found was like, how they lived, who they knew, what they did with their lives. I still do." She looked at Mats. "Like you were doing with the ring yesterday."

Mats wasn't listening, he was still considering what it was about his question that had upset Eva so much. "Huh?"

"How do you picture the people who built the rune?" Eva continued.

"It's difficult, I don't really know enough about them. I'm sure the image I conjure up is a bit too Hollywood. I just see Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis in leather tunics and fifties hairdos."

Anders laughed. "I love that film."

"You'll get to know them Mats. That's what makes this so interesting. Each discovery leads to another five, and quite quickly you end up knowing more about someone who lived over a thousand years ago than you do about your best friend. What we eventually find out might not add much to the world's knowledge of Vikings, but we'll learn an awful lot about our Vikings."

"You're right. It is quite exciting. A bit like being a private detective I suppose," said Mats.

"Or a buddy stalker," laughed Anders.

"It'd be nice to find out something new though. I mean something that changes the way the world views Viking culture," said Mats.

"I suspect we will," Eva said. "Our knowledge of the Vikings is far from complete. They didn't leave much behind for us to study them with."

"What do you mean?" asked Mats.

"The materials they used to make things rotted and rusted away too quickly. Not much has survived."

"Environmentally friendly lot," said Mats smiling.

"'Welcome to Hell!'" announced Anders. Both Mats and Eva looked ahead and saw the blue sign by the side of the road as they crossed a bridge into the village.

"I guess this is Styx," said Mats looking down at the river below the bridge.

"Styx was Greek," said Eva without looking back.

"It was a joke Eva," said Mats.

Eva looked around with an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry Mats. Switched into work mode there." Mats nodded and smiled. Eva smiled back. "So where are these caves Anders?"

"On the hill above the village. We'll park in the station car park."

Anders pulled the battered blue Volvo off the road, stopping in front of a yellow wooden building, and the three of them got out of the car. The sun was high in the sky and the temperature hovered around the early twenties. They changed into walking boots, swung their rucksacks on to their backs and set off along a path between two small, single story wooden houses. Their gardens were strewn with children's toys and both contained the small trampolines that had sprung up like weeds in almost every garden in Scandinavia. Mats looked at the circular blue structures and wondered what some future archaeologist would make of a civilization that seemed to be obsessed with bouncing up and down.

After crossing a small road, they came to a cliff that formed the base of the hill that they were aiming for. It rose almost vertically for around seventy metres and was topped by a dense pine forest. A path ran along the bottom of the cliff, rising gently before disappearing into a dense wood that tumbled down the hill where its gradient changed from steep cliff to a less severe slope, allowing the trees to get a foothold. They started to climb the path. Around half way between the road and the trees Mats stopped and pointed up at the rock face above them. "Look, there's some carvings up there."

Eva looked up. "You're right. Looks like a picture of a deer or something." She craned her neck to get a better view. "Looks older than Viking."

"Yes. They're supposed to be five thousand years old," said Anders.

"Not much use to us then," said Eva, and marched on.

Soon they were in the coolness of the forest and ascending a steep slope. They left the path and started making their way between tall pine trees and bushy stands of hazel. The forest floor had a thick covering of pine needles, giving a slight spring to each step they took.

Anders led the way, occasionally plucking up the odd mushroom here and there and popping it into his mouth. Now and again they would hear a panicked scraping and rustling within the vegetation as they startled some unseen animal. Eventually they came to a cliff covered in a thick blanket of green moss. As it rose up, it disappeared into the forest canopy above them.

Anders stopped. "The cave's along here somewhere." He dipped down, looked along the wall, then moved off to the right. Eva and Mats followed. They came to a large hazel tree, its many slender trunks sprouting upwards from a central point on the forest floor like a wooden fountain. Anders squeezed himself between its tangled mass and the rock wall. "It's in here."

Hidden by the tree's branches was a hole at the base of the rock. It was around one and a half metres high and a metre wide. Eva turned to Mats. "Do you have the torch?" He pulled it from his rucksack and handed it over. "Let's have a look." Eva peered into the black hole. "How far does it go in?"

"Quite a long way," answered Anders. "Probably about seven, eight metres or so."

"That far?" said Mats, sounding surprised.

Eva bowed her head and walked in. The floor of the cave had a deep covering of pine needles stretching about three metres in from the entrance. This was replaced by bare rock as the floor sloped upwards. At the same point the roof began to slope down and the walls narrowed creating a conical space within the cave.

The walls were covered with writing and pictures. Hundreds of years worth of graffiti. The floor of the cave was also strewn with a hundred years worth of litter, including biscuit wrappers, some empty beer cans, and a tattered and yellowed newspaper dating from 1978. Eva moved the torch's beam around the walls. After a little searching, she caught sight of what she was looking for. There was a rune, followed by another. Then the message ended. Other, later carvings had been made over it and only fragments remained. It was impossible to make out anything other than 'BJORN VAR HAR 14-7-08'. Unfortunately, Bjorn's wish to make his mark had obliterated the runic inscription.

Giving up on the runes, Eva moved deeper into the cave. She shone the torch into the darkness and noticed a black hole where she had expected the walls to narrow to a point. Kneeling down on the cold granite, she crawled towards it. The torchlight illuminated a narrow tube about thirty centimetres in diameter that penetrated further into the rock at the head of the cave. Something was stuffed inside. Eva looked closer. It looked like an old, brown, quilted nylon anorak. She reached in and pulled it out. Behind the anorak there was a small woolen hat. And behind that, nothing. Just the end of the stone tunnel fifty centimetres or so in. Eva emerged from the cave, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the daylight.

"Did you find anything?" asked Mats.

"No. Just these." She held up the anorak and hat. They clearly once belonged to a child. "Little Magnus's coat and hat." There was a name tag in the neck of the coat. "I can see a couple of runes scratched on the wall, but there's so much graffiti scratched over the top of it that it's impossible to tell what it says. This has been used as a hidey-hole for hundreds of years judging by the scribblings inside. I'd be amazed if we found anything of much use to us here."

"Let's have a look," said Mats and took the torch from Eva. He shuffled into the cave, almost bent double. "It's a tight squeeze."

Mats looked at the writing and pictures scribbled on the cave's walls. Some of it was clearly very old, but most wasn't. He then shone the torch into the narrow tunnel at the back of the cave." There used to be something blocking this tube," he shouted over his shoulder.

"Yes, an anorak," Eva shouted back.

"No. Something else. There's a depression. A ring that's been made in the rock all around the cave wall just where that narrow tube starts. It's quite shallow, but I'd say it held something in place here once upon a time. Something to seal this tube."

"Let's have a look," said Eva and ducked into the cave. She came up behind Mats and squeezed alongside him. Mats enjoyed the feel of her body pressed against his and he could smell her hair. It took a considerable amount of willpower to stop himself from turning his head and kissing her. "Where?" asked Eva once she was wedged in next to him.

Mats described a circle with the beam of the torch. "There."

"You're right you know," said Eva. "Though I guess it could just be a mark left over from whenever this cave was dug out."

"You think this is man-made?"

"Reckon so," said Eva as she wiggled herself backwards into the wider part of the cave. She looked about the space. "It's pretty regular. Geometrically I mean. And this is granite." She slapped the wall of the cave with the palm of her hand. "I can't imagine what else could've bored this out."

"But why?" asked Mats. He motioned towards the entrance. "Let's get out of here. It stinks."

"Shelter, storage, a place to hide valuables."

"It's not man-made Eva. The sea made this." Anders held back a cluster of hazel branches from the cave's entrance as the pair emerged squinting into the dappled sunlight.

"How do you know?" asked Eva.

"Millions of years ago the sea used to almost cover this hill and the waves, hammering against this cliff, made the caves. The others are up there." Anders pointed at the cliff wall that rose up above them. "See that line running up along the face. That crack was worked on by waves, and probably ice, until it opened up a little bit. That then created a weak point where the sea could really get to work. There's another cave higher up that's been formed in the same way as this one, but when the sea level was even higher."

"You're quite the geologist Anders," said Eva. "How do you know that these caves have been made that way."

"I read it in the tourist centre," said Anders.

Eva smiled and then looked up at the rock face that rose above them. "It is an interesting formation. Shall we take a look at the other caves?"

"How are your rock climbing skills?" asked Anders.

"Isn't there any other way up?" asked Eva.

"Not that I know of."

"I think it's doable," said Mats.

"You can count me out," said Eva. "I'm going to see if there's another way to get to the top. I'll see if I can fix a rope up there and then climb down."

"Okay, we'll see you at the top," said Mats, who was already feeling for handholds.

Eva disappeared into the woods. Anders followed Mats's route up the rock face. After climbing for around five metres they reached the next cave. Mats crawled in and turned on the torch. Again, the walls were covered with graffiti, though nothing that Mats could recognise as runes. The floor was littered with beer cans and food wrappers, and once again there was a depression carved around the circumference of the cave's interior about half a metre from its innermost point.

The two men continued to climb, checking a further four caves spaced irregularly along the crack in the granite. After the third, the climb became easier as the gradient of the wall became less severe and once they'd reached the uppermost cave the slope had flattened sufficiently to allow the pines to reappear and they were back inside a forest.

They sat down at the top of the cliff looking out towards Trondheim fjord. Directly below them, Mats could see the rooftops of the village. He found the train station and spotted Anders's blue Volvo estate baking in the warm sun. 'Should've parked in the shade,' he thought to himself as he felt his sweat dampened t-shirt cling to his back.

Lifting his gaze, Mats's eyes rested on the town of Stjordal sprawling on the far side of the valley before a low whine off to his left caught his attention. He watched a Braathens Boeing 737 slide almost silently down towards the airport located at the head of the fjord. As it settled on the runway, both men heard the roar as the pilot engaged reverse thrust.

"Peaceful here isn't it?" said Mats with a touch of irony. "Where's Eva got to?" As he said this he heard a squeal come from the bushes to his left. "Is that you Eva?" he shouted as he got to his feet.

"Quick! Come here I've found something."

Mats and Anders ran towards Eva's voice. They looked around but couldn't see her, "Where are you?" shouted Mats.

"Here!"

Mats looked down and saw a familiar pair of walking boots sticking out from below a large, overflowing bramble bush at the base of a tall pine tree. "What are you doing?"

"I've found a slab of muscovite!" Eva almost screamed.

Anders and Mats looked at each other wide-eyed.

"How big?" asked Mats.

"Big," came the reply from under the bush. Eva wiggled out and stood up brushing leaves and pine needles from her clothes.

Anders pointed at his own forehead. "You're bleeding."

"I'm not surprised. That bush is vicious. I'm ripped to bits," Eva said as she checked different parts of her body and clothing for damage. "But it's amazing. There's a massive slab of muscovite under there. It's wedged behind that tree, but I think we can move it."

"Excellent," said Mats. "But how on earth did you manage to find it?"

"I just figured out where the branches of a feh rune might be located and looked for caves that would make up the shape." Eva pointed diagonally down the slope towards the line of caves that Mats and Anders had just climbed up. "There's another three caves down there, all empty, and one further over that way with a tree growing out of it." She swung her arm around, pointing in the opposite direction. "Based on the layout of those caves, I worked out that there must be another one around here somewhere-" she smiled, "-and there is. It was a bit tricky to find."

"You're not kidding," said Mats, taking in the size of the thorns covering every branch and stem of the dense bramble.

"It's at the base of a steeper section of the rock face behind that bush and it's completely buried under pine needles and leaves where they've piled up in the angle between the steep and shallow bits." She looked up at the tree that towered above them. "I guess most of it came from that. Anyway I dug down and hey presto."

Anders looked down the hill. "Lucky buddy Vikings to find a rune shaped formation of caves."

"They didn't," said Eva. "Those caves over there have been dug out. They added the arms of the feh rune to the natural line of caves along the crack."

Anders looked at Eva with an expression of disbelief. "That is an insane amount of work."

"I agree, but take a look for yourself. They've been chiseled out."

"We've got to get a look underneath the slab," said Mats.

Anders was already squeezing himself under the bramble to take a look. "It's wedged into the rock face pretty tight. And this tree won't help things either. We're going to need a buddy big sledge hammer if we're going to break through this."

"No, we don't want to break it," said Eva quickly. She was pacing back and forth, clearly beside herself with excitement. Eva looked at Mats, her face and hands animated. "This is incredible. We've got our own Tutenkhamen's tomb here. The last people to see the inside of this cave were the Vikings who sealed it. Wow."

Mats was also very excited. He fantasised a little about what they might find behind the slab of muscovite. After all, this was the wealth rune, feh. Anders had crawled back out from under the bush.

"Then we're going to need crowbars, slings, a winch...maybe even a crane. That thing's buddy huge, and buddy heavy."

"Do you have anything in the car we could use?" asked Eva.

Anders shook his head. "Nothing that'll shift that."

"I guess we could buy some stuff down there." Mats pointed down the hill towards the village. "Let's go back down, pick up what we need, grab a bite to eat and come back this evening. It'll be light until eleven."

"Good plan," said Anders.

"But first I want to have a look," said Mats getting on his hands and knees.

*

On the eight hour train ride back to Linkoping Sven had plenty of time to think about what he should do with the information he'd gathered about Eva Ericsson's extra-curricular archaeological activities in Jarlsten. Stefan was right, despite all of his snooping he still didn't have any solid evidence to prove that she'd done anything wrong. And even if he did, an accusation of unauthorised use of museum resources would hardly have the required effect.

Everyone did it, including Sven, and probably the people he would be reporting her misbehaviour to. Such an accusation could easily backfire. The accuser could easily become the accused as the museum's management attempted to silence a whistle-blower who's allegations referred to an illegal activity that was so rife throughout the organisation. No, he needed something more powerful. A much more serious crime, like theft.

He remembered the depression that he'd seen in the soil when he and Stefan had lifted the slab of stone up on the mountain. This had obviously been made by a small object, something that had been removed from the site. Looted from the site. Stolen.

Before he could prove that Eva had stolen anything, he needed to confirm that there had indeed been something under the stone. He also needed to find out what it was, but how? By the time the train had pulled into the station at Linkoping, Sven had formed a plan of action. He realised that the best source of answers for the questions that he had about Eva's illegal activities would be Eva herself. Rather than work against her, Sven needed to join her. At least for now.

*

"Okay, start winding," said Anders.

The three of them had returned to the site with all of the equipment that they thought they'd need to move the stone. Some they'd found in the back of Anders's car, but most they'd needed to buy from a hardware store in Stjordal. After chopping back the bramble bush and clearing away all of the muck that covered the muscovite slab, they could see that its bottom half had been recessed into the rock face so that it stood more upright than the surrounding granite. The angle at which it lay, combined with the location of the large pine tree that had grown up directly in front of it, made the task of moving the stone especially difficult.

Chopping down the tree was not an option. The plan was to lever the top of the stone out of its hole, run a strap between its upper section and the tree, and then use a winch to pull the slab away from the hole, securing it against the tree. They figured it would open up enough of a gap between the top of the slab and the cliff for Eva to slip into the cave.

Anders organised the job. Using a lump hammer and a stone chisel, he'd knocked out a hole in the granite above the muscovite slab. This allowed him to hook a crowbar underneath and, with Mats's help, lever the stone out of its hole. It was hard work, and on more than one occasion Anders had been tempted to place the chisel in the centre of the polished rock and smash it in two. Eva had guessed his thoughts and kept a close eye on the work. Once the upper edge of the stone had been lifted a centimetre or two away from the wall, they'd wedged a piece of wood into the gap to hold it in position.

Next, Anders slipped a strap around both the slab and the tree and fed it through a winch. Once everything was ready, he told Mats to start winding. The top edge of the muscovite slab slowly lifted from its hole. Even using the winch, Mats found it to be hard work. "Jeez, this thing is heavy."

"Keep going," said Anders. "It'll be easier the more upright it gets."

After a few more minutes of winching, the stone was hard against the tree. It wasn't quite vertical due to the tree's trunk having grown towards the cliff face, however a gap of around half a metre had opened up between it's top edge and the wall.

"I reckon I can squeeze in there," said Eva. "Give me a leg up." Eva was eager to get a glimpse of what lay behind the slab. She could feel the damp cold air that spilled out of the gap and revelled in the idea that this was the first time that the interior of the cave had seen sunlight for over a thousand years. Eva thought about the events that had taken place since that time. Wars, inventions, discoveries. Even the disappearance of the very society that had built the chamber as their pagan beliefs were swept away by the advance of Christianity from the south.

Anders lifted Eva up so that she could wedge herself between the cliff above the cave and the tree with her back against the wall and her feet on the top edge of the muscovite slab. She puzzled over how she could lower herself into the gap without losing her grip and just dropping in.

"Grab the tree and lower yourself down," said Anders.

"There's not much to hold on to." Eva tried to find a pair of good handholds on the relatively smooth trunk.

"Wait a sec'," said Anders. He tied two hand sized loops into a length of rope and then tied the rope around the tree. "Try that."

Eva grabbed the loops and slipped one foot and then the other into the cave. Sliding the rest of her body down in fits and starts, she was soon standing on the cave's floor with just her head and shoulders sticking out. "Wish me luck," she said and disappeared. A couple of seconds later her hand popped up. "Forgot the torch."

Mats let go of the winch to bend over and grab a torch from his rucksack that lay at the base of the tree. The handle started to spin and the slab fell forward. Eva screamed and pulled her hand in just before the slab slammed shut into the cave's entrance.

Anders ran around to the winch and started winding quickly. Once the slab was tight against the tree again, he locked the winch with an over-exaggerated movement while looking at Mats.

"Sorry Eva," said Mats. "Are you okay."

Eva's voice was shaky. "Do that again and you're both dead."

Anders and Mats stayed quiet and listened to her shuffling around deep inside the cave. After a minute or two, they could hear Eva's voice again just behind the muscovite slab. "Is this thing safe?"

As an extra precaution, Anders had wedged a broken branch between the slab and the cliff face. "Yes, it's safe," he said, and crossed his fingers.

Eva scrambled quickly up and out into the golden light that now infused the forest as the evening sun filtered through the trees. She jumped down.

"There's an inscription on the back of the stone."

"What does it say?" Mats asked impatiently.

"Don't know yet. I need to write it down and make a translation." Eva knelt down to retrieve a note book and pen from her bag. "And there's a false wall at the back of the cave. It's a circle of granite that's been sculpted to look like it's the back wall of the cave. It's wedged into a ridge like the one you found in the first cave." Eva looked at Mats. "It's very well done. Unless you know it's there you'd never be able to tell." Eva turned to Anders. "Do we have anything that could pry it out?" Anders picked up the lump hammer and chisel. "No, I don't want to smash it in. We need to get it out in one piece. We're archaeologists not looters remember."

Anders looked up at the now pink sky. "We haven't got much time Eva. The sun goes down at eleven, and it's after ten already."

"That's no reason to smash the place up," Eva said.

Anders looked at the cave. "But if we leave the cave like this overnight there's a chance someone else will do the job for us. The pathway's not that far away, and people walking their dogs..."

Mats remembered Anders's story about his dog Henrik. "Why can't we work in the dark?"

"We can, but our torchlight will be visible for miles. We're on a slope facing the town. I suspect we'll attract a lot of attention."

"Good point," said Mats. "What should we do? If we're going to put everything back and cover up the slab before it gets too dark we really need to get started now."

"No. I need to travel back to Stockholm tomorrow." Eva turned to Anders. "Do your worst."

Anders jumped up and started wriggling into the cave. "Buddy hell, this is going to be tight." He took a deep breath to pull in his gut and pushed himself down. "I hope I can buddy get out again." After plenty of grunting and writhing around, he was down and standing upright. "Here, give me that knife and the torch." Eva handed him what he needed and he slid down into the cave. After a couple of minutes one of Anders's thick, callused hands appeared. "Can you give me the hammer." Mats placed it in his hand. Another two minutes and Anders's clenched fist appeared from the gap, palm upwards. He slowly opened his fingers to reveal a golden hoop. Eva picked it up and examined it.

Mats looked a little disappointed. "Another ring?"

Anders's hand disappeared for a second and then two hands came up holding an oval shaped piece of granite approximately thirty centimetres in diameter.

"You're a star Anders," said Eva smiling.

Mats took the piece of stone and then Anders squeezed his head and shoulders up through the gap. "You'd better believe it. Now help me out you wonkers."

Chapter 10

It's there.

Eva looked up from her laptop computer. Leaning back in the garden chair, she raised her arms and stretched her back. She could feel the prickle of sunburn across her shoulders and reached for the white shirt draped over the back of the seat next to her.

She loved this time of year. The start of the summer. It gave her a luxurious feeling knowing that she had a full three months to look forward to when she could be outside without needing to wrap up in multiple layers of clothing.

Looking out across the sea towards the network of islands filling the horizon, Eva breathed in the heavy perfume that seemed to pour from the purple lilac blossoms that surrounded her improvised outdoor office. A few small boats criss-crossed the water, each followed by a V-shaped wake that sparkled in the bright sun. The distant hum of their engines was barely audible, being drowned out by the much more pleasant sound of birds calling out their territories from perches high among the thickly leafed branches of the trees that dotted the garden.

Eva reached for the mug standing beside her computer. Its light weight betrayed its emptiness. She was out of tea. Getting up, she walked over to the large wooden house and through the french doors leading into the dining room. As she entered, the phone rang. She picked up a cordless handset from the windowsill and continued on her way towards the kitchen. It was Mats.

"Hello there. How're things?" Eva flicked on the kettle.

"Pretty good. You working from home again?"

"Yes, it's great. I've been out in the garden all morning. It's gorgeous out there. I'm even getting a suntan."

Mats imagined Eva with a covering of smooth, honey brown skin and wished he was there. "Hmmmm, sounds nice." Mats's voice sounded a little distant as he allowed his imagination to drift. Eva suddenly felt a little uncomfortable and pulled her open shirt closed. "So how come you're getting to spend so much time at home these days?" he asked. "I used to think you may as well sell your house and move your furniture into your various offices."

"Sven," replied Eva.

"Who?" asked Mats.

"Sven. You know Sven. Sven Ostermark. My assistant in Linkoping. I think you met him when you were down there."

"Who? The child molester?"

"Mats!" scolded Eva. "I know he's a bit weird, but that's mean."

"You didn't hear what he said to me when I touched one of his precious aeroplanes." Mats waited for Eva to ask him what Sven had said, she didn't. He continued. "So what happened? Didn't you once tell me that he was an obstructive arsehole?"

"Yes, he was, but recently he's turned into a real help. He now agrees with all of my ideas and just gets on and makes them happen."

"Staff reviews coming up?" asked Mats.

"Yes, but who cares. I'm making the most of it while I can."

"So do you have time to see me today?" asked Mats.

"I guess so. I was working on some ideas for June's museum board meeting, but it's nothing urgent, or even necessary. I guess I'm just doing stuff because I feel I ought to. What's on your mind?"

"I think I've worked out where the next rune is."

*

The inscription on the stone covering the Hell cave was rather more difficult to decipher than the first message. It was longer and used a sentence construction that seemed to make little sense. After two weeks of scratching their heads, Mats and John agreed to allow Eva to consult one of the experts in runic inscriptions at the National Museum to see what he could make of it. They figured that taken out of context, the message, whatever it was, shouldn't give much away. It might raise some difficult questions about where it came from, but they trusted Eva to be able to deflect those.

Getting outside help paid off. Within a couple of days they had a translation. It did raise some eyebrows, and more than a few questions about its origin, but through a mixture of stonewalling and playing ignorant Eva managed to evade them.

The translated message was another instruction to go somewhere, but this time the destination was not mentioned. Instead, only directions were given to an unnamed location that possibly contained another 'feh' shaped formation. This being the rune that was, once again, featured on the gold ring that they'd found at the back of the cave. It seemed that there was probably a trail of runes rather than just a single signpost leading to an offering or reward.

Unfortunately, the directions were rather difficult to make sense of. They seemed to issue instructions to strike out towards the midday sun until reaching southern Denmark, and then to follow the setting sun until reaching an island a day and a half's sailing away. What they were looking for would be situated on the island.

These instructions were very vague. Maybe not to a Viking sailor, but to a bunch of twenty-first century urbanites who had never sailed the North Sea these directions seemed to throw up either dozens of options or none at all.

Their first guess was that the island in question must be Great Britain as this would be the first piece of land any Viking seaman would arrive at if he were to sail due west from anywhere along the western coast of Denmark. But it seemed too far away. Even with the strongest possible winds, no Viking ship could make the journey in a day and a half.

John came up with an alternative theory that the island was one of the East Friesian Islands that lie off the northern coastlines of Holland and Germany. They were about the right distance away from Denmark and, John figured, they were approximately in the right direction. In the more northerly latitudes the sun sets south of west. But, as Mats pointed out, it doesn't set that far south of west.

In order to try to provide more evidence for his hypotheses, John had decided to do some research into what, if any, Viking relics had been found on the islands. He quickly found out that the Vikings had indeed been regular visitors, but it seemed an unlikely spot to leave a significant and expensive offering to one of their deities.

The islands were well populated throughout the Viking period by the Friesians who, even by Viking standards, were a pretty hard bunch. Anything of any value left on the islands by a Viking expedition would have very quickly been plundered, and the Vikings would have known this. It would have been foolish for them to go to the efforts John and his friends had witnessed both in Jarlsten and in Hell if they knew that as soon as they left the islands all of their work would be undone. No, the Freisian Islands seemed to be out of the picture. So where else could the directions be pointing to?

*

"It's there." Mats placed his index finger in the middle of the blue area depicting the North Sea in the large atlas lying open on Eva's garden table. It was early evening and Mats had taken the ferry out of the city to the spit of land where Eva's large wooden house sat at the top of a low cliff.

"Where?" asked Eva pulling the atlas towards her and spinning it ninety degrees so that she could get a better look.

"There," repeated Mats, leaning forward and pointing once again towards the pale blue area depicted mid-way between Denmark and Great Britain.

"But that's the middle of the North Sea," said Eva. "Do you think they sunk something under the surface? Threw something overboard in a pattern?" Eva looked up from the map. "But the inscription specifically mentioned an island."

"I think there was an island there a thousand years ago." Mats pointed at the map for a third time. "Look." He thumbed through the pages until he came to a spread depicting the contours of the ocean floors. "If you take the directions in the inscription exactly as they're written." He moved his finger over the map as he spoke. "Along the Norwegian coast until you reach Denmark's west coast. Sail for a day." Mats looked up at Eva, but left his finger in place on the map. "We know that a day's Viking sail equates to around one hundred and fifty miles, yeah?" Eva nodded. Mats's finger moved down the Danish coast as he spoke. "Then head west for a day and a half and you come to an island." His finger tracked into the North Sea and stopped over a shallow shelf marked Dogger Bank.

"Dogger Bank?" asked Eva.

"Yes. At the location that the inscription seems to guide us to, the bottom is only about ten metres deep. And the sea level has been rising ever since the last ice age. I think there was a small island just above the surface back then that sank below the waves quite soon after our people visited it."

"Really?" Eva didn't look convinced.

"Yes, really." Mats looked at Eva with furrowed eyebrows, feeling a little irritated at her apparent dismissal of his idea. "It's a fact that Dogger Bank was above water in the past. In fact, the British Isles were connected to the continent. I've read that fishing trawlers regularly find clay pots and other artifacts caught in their nets."

"And mammoth tusks too. We've got a few at the natural history museum that came from the Dogger area." Eva was using the dismissive voice that Mats had heard when he first encountered her at the museum in Linkoping and he didn't like it. Eva noticed his rapidly darkening mood and checked herself. In a more conciliatory tone she continued. "Mats, I know you've put a lot of time and effort into this, but everything that's been found on Dogger Bank has been much older than the period we're talking about."

"Really?" It was Mats's turn to sound unconvinced.

Eva leaned forward trying to appear as sympathetic as possible. She looked up at Mats with her best doe eyes. "Yes," she said softly, but emphatically.

"What about this then?" Mats pulled a small bundle of A4 papers out of his backpack and spread them out on the table. The papers were printouts of a website. Eva looked at them. The papers had two or three photographs on each sheet and the pictures were surrounded by text. The pictures all depicted objects that were clearly of Viking origin. Jewellery, earthenware, even a sizeable length of wood with a dragon's head carved into one end. At the top of each page was the site's header announcing that this was the website for Bridlington Scuba Adventures. The proprietor was clearly a keen amateur marine archaeologist and all of the pictures on his site showed things that he'd found while diving on Dogger Bank.

Eva's eyes widened and her jaw dropped lower as she scanned the pages. "This can't be true," she said and continued to read. "What this guy has found rewrites history, geology, everything." She looked at the pages again and then sat up straight. "It must be part of the cargo of a ship that sank in the area."

"That's what the guy that posted this thinks too. He reckons it all comes from a Viking wreck, but who takes their house with them on a cruise across the North Sea?"

"House?" asked Eva.

Mats pointed at the picture of the wooden dragon head that was labelled, 'Ship's Prow'. "That's not part of a ship is it?"

"You're right. That's from the gable of a house." Eva stared wide-eyed at the papers. "But how could it have survived over a thousand years in the North Sea."

"Read here." Mats pointed to one of the papers. "Look. He's analysed the pieces and found that they were impregnated with oil. Fish oil. He reckons the Vikings must have weatherproofed their ships."

"I've never heard of that before. If that was the case then we'd have found a lot more ships. The fact is, we've hardly found any."

"Exactly, but it would make a lot of sense to do it to a house built on an island in the middle of the North Sea."

Eva looked doubtful. "Must have smelled nice." She flicked through the papers. "I think we need to meet this guy to see if any of this stuff is real. What's his name?"

"Puckle," said Mats. "Bernard Puckle."

Chapter 11

Deep down his hatred was riven with jealousy.

Sven Ostermark was still at his desk. It was after eight o'clock in the evening and he was drafting replies to the various building firms who'd sent in bids for one of the many small projects Eva had planned for the museum.

This was unusual for Sven. It used to be rare that he would work late. Along with almost all of the other staff members he'd normally be out of the door and on his way home at the stroke of five o'clock, but this was the new Sven. The Sven that he'd devised during the long train journey from Jarlsten. The Sven that would gain Eva Ericsson's trust. He would become much more than her assistant, or even her colleague. Sven would become her right hand man, her confidant. He believed that she'd eventually entrust him with a nugget of information that he'd be able to bury her with.

But it was difficult. Every day, before arriving at the museum, he'd put on his new facade. And it was uncomfortable. Like wearing a new pair of shoes that are half a size too small. It was bearable for the first hour or two, but by the end of the day Sven would be tearing his hair out.

Over time it did get easier to keep up the pretence, not because he was getting used to it, or because it was starting to fit, but because it was bringing results. Already after a week, Eva had started to converse with Sven rather than simply ask him to do things. And during these conversations she would reveal a few personal details about herself. Nothing intimate or, more importantly for Sven, incriminating, but information about where she'd been brought up as a child, how she'd ended up working within the museum system and stories relating to a few of the previous jobs she'd done. None of this was very useful for Sven, though it did give him a better picture of the kind of person that he was dealing with.

Sven hated what he discovered. If he had disliked Eva before because of what she was doing to his museum, he had grown to despise her for the type of person that she was. Deep down his hatred was riven with jealousy, though Sven would never admit this, even to himself. All he knew was that he had a contempt for anyone who matched Eva's profile, but didn't really know why.

He'd heard all about her close and loving family, how she'd grown up on a farm where her father and a brother had always been close by, and how they'd supported and encouraged her in whatever she'd wanted to do. Eva had told Sven that she had a lot to thank her father for. That he'd been instrumental in making her who she was.

Sven believed something similar about himself, only in his version his father was responsible for all of the things he disliked about himself. He blamed his father for all of his failures, for all of the things he'd never achieved in life. And as a result, he hated his parents.

Sven had been brought up in a house situated not five kilometres from the museum by a mother who'd smothered the boy, and a father who was constantly wracked with guilt over how little time he spent with his son. Sven's father was a draughtsman at the local Saab aircraft factory, putting other men's ideas and designs down on paper. Never his own.

It was the fifties, and a boom time for aircraft designers. He spent long hours at his drawing board, seeing little of his wife and even less of his young son, who was usually tucked up in bed by the time he arrived home. They would normally only spend time together at weekends, and usually for only one or two days each month.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder and, despite his absence, Sven worshipped his father. At his tender age he didn't understand the difference between a draughtsman and a designer and believed that his father was responsible for all of the new aircraft that were regularly wheeled out of Saab's hangars. His father did nothing to dispel his son's beliefs. He spent so little time with him that he felt that he might lose the boy's affection if he shattered this particular illusion. And after all, he never actually lied to Sven, he just never told him the truth.

The other children at Sven's school enjoyed ridiculing him over the claims he made about his father's achievements. Every time a new jet fighter would roar overhead the playground, they'd point towards it and ask sarcastically if it was another of his dad's inventions. It got so bad that Sven would become filled with dread as soon as he heard the whine of a jet engine approaching the school. He'd want to run and hide, but he willed himself not to. Despite the taunts, he'd stand his ground and soak up the punishment. His father's honour was being questioned. It was Sven's duty to defend it. They were wrong. His father, the hero, was right. Then Sven found out the truth.

One Saturday, during a visit to an air display held each year at the airfield that housed the Saab factory, Sven asked his father to tell him exactly which aircraft he had designed. He was shocked by the answer and his love for his father turned to hate.

Disturbed by his son's reaction, Sven's father did everything he could to try and win back the boy's love. He went overboard; buying him things, giving him money, and letting him get away with the most appalling behaviour. Sven was given everything except the one thing that would have brought him back. His father's time. Soon the damage done could no longer be repaired, the mould had been set, and Sven had become Sven.

Sven Ostermark was a difficult person to like. He had an ability to make people around him feel uncomfortable. This was because he had absolutely no interest in them whatsoever. He didn't realise it, but his over-protective upbringing had made him incredibly self-obsessed. All of his conversation was about himself and things that he did. He never asked how another person was, or what they were doing with their life. He cared not a jot for anyone else, including, of course, his immediate family.

Surprisingly for anyone who'd met him, Sven had once been married. He'd even fathered a child, but that was from a time when meeting a woman and creating a family was just another one of his passing interests. You could have even called it a hobby.

He'd met Greta at college. She was the polar opposite to Sven, being interested in everyone else's lives to the almost total exclusion of her own. However, there was one thing that they did have in common. People felt as uncomfortable with her over-intrusive level of interest in their lives as they did with Sven's total indifference. Soon, the other students started to avoid Sven and Greta and, inevitably, as misfits tend to do, they found each other.

Greta quickly fell in love with Sven. If truth be told, she fell for just about any boy who showed even the slightest interest, and Sven's interest was slight enough to push her oversensitive buttons. He enjoyed the mothering attention he got from Greta - it had a cosy familiarity about it - and, almost as payment to keep it coming, he displayed his own anemic breed of emotion in return.

They married quickly at the urging of Sven for two reasons. First, he saw it as a way to lock in his new mother; and second, he'd become fascinated by the idea of having a child.

Soon after the birth of Sven junior, Sven senior grew bored of the whole affair. Other things had attracted his attention, so he discarded his marriage like a child discards a toy when he finds something new to play with. Working with his new friend, Stefan Ekstrom, restoring old aircraft at the Air Force Museum was one of those new distractions.

Sven's strong interest in aircraft had been a way to get back at his father. After what he called 'the betrayal', he decided he would outdo his father in his knowledge of all aspects of aviation. He buried himself in books and magazines, gaining an almost encyclopedic knowledge. He would tease his father, challenging him with questions about aircraft that Sven had previously believed his father had designed. Sneering when he either got the answer wrong, or couldn't answer the question at all.

Sven's interest in aircraft had continued into adulthood and he regularly visited the Air Force Museum to soak up the sights and smells of the real thing. He'd met Stefan during a visit to the museum to witness the delivery of a new exhibit, a Saab Viggen jet fighter prototype.

The jet was given pride of place next to the museum's entrance and Sven had been thrilled to be asked to lend a hand pushing it into position. Stefan was supervising the job and once the plane was where he wanted it, Sven started to ask him questions about the aircraft. Not because he was interested in the answers, he knew most of them already, but because he wanted to impress this apparently senior museum official with his knowledge.

Sven got the feedback he was looking for and immediately fell in love with Stefan. They got to talking about the other aircraft at the museum and Stefan was so impressed with Sven's incredible knowledge of all things aeronautical that he asked him if he might be interested in working at the museum. Sven almost bit Stefan's hand off. Yes, he would. Definitely.

That was almost thirty years ago. Stefan had since moved on, though he still did jobs for the museum on a freelance basis. Sven was still there. He'd made a comfortable niche for himself over the years. He liked working with the current director, Lars Svensson, but now she had arrived and Lars had decided to retire.

The museum's trustees had received a presentation from a firm of consultants who had used words like 'image' and 'branding'. Lars Svensson didn't like these words, but unfortunately the board of the newly established musuem's collective up in Stockholm did. They had to, they needed to justify the hefty bill they would soon be receiving from their hired hands.

The whizz kids had also helped the powers in Stockholm to identify people within their network of museums who could become, what they called, facilitators. These people would be sent out to the various museums dotted around Sweden with a brief to get each facility to conform to the desired image.

The next thing Sven knew, Eva had arrived from Stockholm and was telling them all how to bring his museum up to date. The museum was now such an integral part of who Sven was, that she may as well have told him he needed to bring the way he dressed up to date; or the way he walked. He didn't take it well.

But now Sven was a model employee, putting in extra hours to realise his new boss's vision. An added bonus resulting from his new found conscientious attitude was that Eva now spent less time at the museum. Usually only around three days or so each week. Though her presence was still felt in the form of a constant stream of telephone calls and e-mails each day.

Sven comforted himself with the belief that he wouldn't need to suffer her intrusions much longer. Svensson only had a few weeks left before he finally walked off into the sunset, and once Sven had managed to get rid of Eva, they'd need someone new to run the museum, his museum. Sven knew there was only one person qualified to do the job.

Chapter 12

Going anywhere nice?

"Scuba diving? In the North Sea? You really have lost it now Mats." John looked at his friend across the table of the Japanese restaurant where they'd agreed to meet for lunch. The place was usually full most lunchtimes, but today was relatively quiet with only half the tables occupied. It was another warm, sunny day and the office crowd had decided to pack themselves into restaurants with outdoor dining areas instead.

Mats had just finished explaining his theory about what the inscriptions on the Hell stone meant and had suggested they take a trip to England to go diving with Bernard Puckle.

"Have you ever scuba dived Mats?" asked John.

"I did a course a few years back," Mats replied.

"Really? Where?"

"Greece."

John rolled his eyes. "I did a lot of diving around the British coastline when I was at university, and believe me when I say that diving in the North Sea is so different from getting wet in Greece that it's like comparing a walk in that park out there-" John pointed towards Humlegarden across the street from the restaurant, "-with a trek across the north pole in the dark. It's cold, dangerous, tiring, and you usually can't see a bloody thing. That's why ever since leaving college, I've been strictly a tropical diver."

"But you've been diving in the Baltic haven't you?" asked Mats.

"A few times yes," John nodded. "As an experiment to see what it was like. So many people had told me how great the wrecks were. I even bought a dry suit, but I can't say that I've ever had a dive here that was worth the effort and expense involved. It's always freezing cold and dark. I find that it's a lot easier and cheaper to just climb into a fridge and close the door behind myself."

"So you're quite experienced?"

"Experienced enough to know that scuba diving in the middle of the North Sea will not be much fun. Back in my college days I would have jumped in no problem, but back then I also used to drink sixteen pints of beer during a Friday night out with the lads, and once decided to climb on to the roof of the pub afterwards. In other words, I was young, stupid and thought I was indestructible. I'm now a bit older, wiser, and breakable."

"So you don't want to go?" asked Mats. He looked a little dejected.

A wide grin spread across John's face. "Fuck yes! Of course I want to go, it'll be a giggle." John picked up his glass and clinked it against Mats's. "When do we go? I could probably do the second week in July. I think Maria's planning to take the kids up north that week to see the in-laws. I'm pretty sure I'm not expected to suffer that one. Do you think Eva will want to come along?"

"Possibly," said Mats, his mood brightening.

"The more the merrier!"

"What do you know about Bridlington? Ever been there?" asked Mats.

"No, never. Seaside towns on the North Sea coast never really appealed. Though I was taken to Whitley Bay a few times as a kid when we went to visit my grandparents."

"Whitley Bay?"

"It's a resort town just outside Newcastle. Bridlington is probably similar. Fish and chip shops, amusement arcades, and pensioners sunning themselves in deck-chairs while wearing ten layers of clothing to protect themselves from the icy blasts coming off the North Sea. All quite charming really." The waitress came over to see if they wanted anything else. "I think you'll like it. Totally different to anything you'll encounter over here. Or anywhere else on the planet for that matter." John looked up at her. "Do you have any Yorkshire bitter?"

*

"Sven, can I have a quick word?" Sven Ostermark was crouched, along with another member of the museum's staff, next to one of the rear wheels of a short, fat, silver coloured jet fighter. They were trying to find the source of a puddle of red hydraulic fluid that was spreading across the polished wood floor below it. He looked up when he heard Eva's voice.

"Yes, sure." He slid out from underneath the aircraft's wing. "What do you want?"

"Can we go to my office?" Eva turned and headed towards a set of double doors marked 'Staff Only'. Sven followed in her wake. On entering her small makeshift office, Eva slid behind the desk. She sat down and motioned for Sven to take one of the seats on the other side.

"Sven, as you know, Lars will be leaving us soon and I'm scheduled to begin work on a new project at the Nordic History Museum in Stockholm after the summer."

"Excuse me? You're leaving too?" sputtered Sven. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was incredible news. Sven fought to prevent a massive smile from spreading across his face. He looked down at his feet to try and hide his poorly concealed efforts.

"Yes, I am. And obviously this place will need a new director who can finish what we've started here." Sven looked up quickly, like a dog that had been offered a treat. His eyes full of expectation. "So I'm pleased to say that Henrik Jonsson from the Vasa museum has agreed to take the job."

At first Sven wasn't sure what he had heard and was briefly confused and disoriented. Then, a second later, as Eva's last sentence sunk in and registered, it felt as if his insides were imploding. He suddenly felt utterly drained of energy.

"Who?" he asked weakly.

"Henrik Jonsson," replied Eva. "He's done an amazing job at the Vasa. Attendance figures went through the roof after he started there. He's a great guy. I'm sure you'll have a great time working with him."

The energy started to return to Sven's body, but now it wasn't the exhilaration he'd momentarily felt at the prospect of Eva leaving the museum and he being put in charge. The energy that now welled up inside him was born of anger.

Sven was furious. Not only had he not been given the director's job. The bloody woman hadn't even considered him to be a candidate!

It was obvious to Sven that he wouldn't get anywhere trying to argue his case. The decision had been taken. This Henrik Jonsson, whoever he was, had already been offered, and had accepted the job. Instead, Sven just sat staring at his feet, trying to control his rage. He seethed as Eva explained how she'd like him to show this Henrik Jonsson around the museum when he came down to visit in a few weeks time.

"Why me?" snapped Sven. He continued to look down at the floor, resembling a petulant teenager.

"Excuse me?" asked Eva. As she witnessed Sven's childlike behaviour she breathed an internal sigh of relief that she hadn't gone through with her initial idea of making Sven the new director.

"I said, why me? Why can't you show him around?" Sven looked up and swung his arm around the room. "This is your project after all." And then fixed his gaze back on his shoes.

"I'm sorry Sven. I thought you'd like to do it. You know most about the museum and the work that we've been doing here over the past few months. Also, as you'll be the number two around here, I thought you'd want to get to know your new boss." Sven bristled as he heard the word 'boss'. "And besides, I'm away on holiday that week."

Sven looked up. "Really? Going anywhere nice?" His words were filled with poison.

"Bridlington," replied Eva.

Chapter 13

I'm afraid there's no healthy option...

"Do we have everything?" Mats looked around at the pile of bags that surrounded the three of them. He was standing, along with Eva and John, next to a baggage carousel within the bright, spacious arrivals hall of Stansted airport north of London.

"More than everything," said John and picked up a small green rucksack from the middle of the pile. "Is this anyone's?" Both Mats and Eva shook their heads and John tossed it back on to the carousel. The last thing they needed was any additional luggage.

"Did we really need to bring all of this?" asked Mats, surveying the mini-mountain of bags. "Don't you think we can rent gear when we get there?"

"Of course we can," replied John. "But I've only used this stuff a couple of times since buying it five years ago. Gotta get my money's worth." And with that he was off to find a trolley.

"He's one of a kind isn't he?" said Eva as they watched John make his way through the crowds.

"You can say that again."

Standing there with Eva, Mats felt an awkwardness settle around the two of them.

A couple of weeks previously, after a few too many beers, Mats had asked John what he and Eva had got up to on the night that he'd taken her out to visit the hot spots of Jarlsten. Sensing Mats's obvious jealousy, John had initially been evasive. Playing Mats like a fish on a line with plenty of 'wouldn't you like to know' type innuendo. Finally, he came clean, denying any hanky panky, and then spent the next half an hour trying to get Mats to admit his feelings for Eva. Mats initially tried to deny it, but eventually confessed.

"Why don't you just steam in there then?" John had asked. "She's top totty. Great looking, wedged up and unattached as far as I can see." Mats agreed, and the four pints of beer that he'd drunk had him saying that he'd make a move the next time he met her.

The following day, after the Dutch courage had metabolised out of his system, his doubts about the type of reception he'd receive if he tried to develop his relationship with Eva any further resurfaced.

At the end of the previous summer, Mats had been dumped by Pia, his girlfriend of eight years. One day she came home from work and informed Mats that she was bored with her life. She was bored of the apartment they lived in, bored of their friends, bored of going to the same restaurants, of repeating the same routines week in and week out. She needed a change.

Mats listened to her complaints with as sympathetic an ear as he could muster, but he didn't take them very seriously. He already had enough on his plate at work and with the kids. And anyway, Pia's boredom outbursts had become a regular occurrence over the past couple of years. They even followed a pattern strict enough for Mats to predict their arrival.

They started towards the end of both the summer and the winter, and disappeared once the weather had become either colder or warmer, allowing them to do the 'new' things that suited the new season. But last summer it was different. The complaints didn't stop once the temperature had risen and the barbecue had been dusted off. They continued and, before he knew it, she'd moved out, got herself a new apartment, and the kids were dividing their time between mummy's place and daddy's place.

After the split, Mats had decided that he'd take a break from relationships for a while. He dusted off his Playstation and dug out his old records that Pia had hated so much. The apartment reverberated with the sound of gunfire, racing car engines and The Clash for a few weeks. He then started feeling a little lonely and decided that maybe he should try and meet another woman. But how? Not only was he out of practice, the market had changed while he'd been away. He was almost forty. Where could he possibly go to meet single women without feeling like one of those sad cases he'd laughed at in his youth? Unable to come up with a solution, he'd retreated back into his responsibilities. Immersing himself in his job and becoming an uber-father to his two daughters.

John had noticed his friend's withdrawal from the world and had stepped in with the offer of the flying trip up to Jarlsten. The weekend had clearly done Mats a world of good and now John saw an opportunity to get Mats back to his old self by hooking him up with Eva. Since their conversation in the pub, he'd tried to encourage Mats to make a move, but to zero effect.

To John it seemed as if Mats had lost all of the confidence that he'd had with women before settling down with Pia. Back when he and Mats used to prowl Stockholm's clubs and bars together and both would invariably wake up on a Saturday or Sunday morning in their respective apartments trying to remember the name of the girl lying naked in bed next to them.

John saw the trip to Bridlington as a perfect opportunity for Mats to make his move and he'd decided to play matchmaker by trying to force Mats's hand. During the flight over, John had dropped a number of extremely unsubtle comments into his conversation that had alluded to Mats's feelings for Eva. Eva had brushed them off as just John being John. However, Mats had been terribly embarrassed and, on more than one occasion during the trip, had been close to smacking John in the mouth. Now Eva and Mats stood among their pile of excess baggage feeling thoroughly uncomfortable.

John made his way back with the trolley. He looked over at Mats and Eva to see how they were getting on, hoping that what he'd thought were his subtle hints might have started something. They both stood and stared blankly in his direction, he could feel the awkwardness between them. Clearly his efforts weren't having the desired effect. As he got closer he smiled at them both.

"Miss me?"

Mats breathed a sigh of relief as the atmosphere was broken by the collective task of loading the bags on to the trolley and then finding their rental car. After jamming a Volvo estate full of bags, John took the wheel and they headed north along the M11. Mats was struck by how green the countryside was compared to Sweden. It was softer, more rounded. The trees were fuller and the bushes more bushy. He'd been to England many times before, but only on business trips to London.

Soon they were closing in on their target. They'd booked into a hotel on the far side of Bridlington in a village called Sewerby. Eva had been in charge of finding accommodation and, after an internet search, had been attracted by the word 'mansion' in the Bridlington hotel listings, so she'd booked them into the Sewerby Mansion Hotel.

On the way, they took a drive around Bridlington itself in order to get a feel for the geography of the place. Despite there still being a week or two before the school summer holidays started, the town was busy with holidaymakers. It appeared to be filled with a mixture of fat families in football jerseys and swarms of pensioners who were either camped out on every available bench or rolled in formation along the footpaths aboard electrically powered wheelchairs.

The smell of fried food mixed with ozone flowed through the car's open windows as they drove along the sea-front.

"Heaven," said John breathing in the thick aroma. "We must get some fish and chips. I'm starving."

They parked the car and walked down to the harbour. There were several fish and chip shops opposite the harbour wall. Choosing one that had a large Union Jack painted above its window, they went in and ordered their packets of fried fish and chips. Eva looked rather nonplussed as she searched for the salad option on the menu written on the shop's back wall.

"I'm afraid there's no healthy option Eva," said John. "Just a tasty option."

"I think I'll pass."

"What? And miss out on building the perfect body." John motioned towards a particularly flabby family of football shirt wearers who were waddling past the shop's window. As he did so, Eva's mobile phone rang. Pulling it out of the pocket of her cargo pants, she looked at the screen. Her face brightened into a huge smile and she hit the receive button.

"Tommy, how are you?" she almost shouted in Swedish before walking out of the shop to continue the conversation in private.

John paid for the food and he and Mats followed Eva out of the shop clutching their piping hot paper parcels. John nudged Mats. "Looks like you've left it too late mate."

They walked over the road, sat on the low harbour wall and unwrapped their chips. Mats watched Eva, who was standing outside the chip shop talking animatedly into her phone. Just before she hung up, he was sure he saw her make a kissing motion with her lips into the phone's mouthpiece. His heart sank.

"It's not looking good mate," said John, digging into his chips.

Eva almost skipped towards the men and looked over the edge of the harbour wall. "Where's the water?"

The harbour was filled with lines of small sailing boats and a number of motor launches, all resting on the harbour's seaweed strewn, sandy bottom. "They must have quite a tide here."

"I suppose so," said John with a mouth full of fish.

"I wonder if the dive boat is here?" asked Eva, stealing a chip from Mats. "If it is, I guess we're going to need to work to a fairly tight schedule to make sure we hit the tides each day."

"It's a live-aboard," said John.

"A what?" asked Eva looking at John, incredulous.

"A live-aboard. We'll be out there for a week." John looked out at the North Sea beyond the harbour wall. "The bank is miles away from here. It'll take the best part of a day just to get to it."

"I didn't realise," said Eva. "So I'm not going to see much of my mansion hotel?"

"'Fraid not." John looked over at Eva who was digging into Mats's chips. "Sorry Eva, but I assumed you knew. You've seen the maps. There's a lot of blue between us and where we want to explore."

"Yes. I wasn't thinking."

"Should I buy you some chips Eva?" asked Mats. "Before you finish mine"

"Oh, sorry Mats. I didn't realise how hungry I was." She looked guilty. "Maybe we should go to the hotel, get cleaned up and then come back and find somewhere decent to eat."

"Good idea," said John. He stood up and started walking backwards towards a bin a few metres away while continuing to speak to Mats and Eva. "We really ought to get checked in..." After a couple of steps, he felt a push from behind. He'd walked into the path of three heavy set football shirts.

"Watch where you're going tosser!" Without breaking stride, one of the men pushed John violently to one side. John stumbled forward, tripped, spun and fell backwards, landing heavily in a sitting position on the pavement.

Mats and Eva leapt up to help him.

"Are you okay John?" asked Eva, concerned.

"Yes I'm okay," he said checking himself over. "What a bunch of fuckwits."

"You did walk right into them," said Mats.

"That's no excuse for that kind of behaviour." He stood up, brushing himself off and looked towards the three louts as they disappeared into the crowd of tourists milling around on the pavement by the harbour. "Utter morons."

"Come on let's get back to the car before we upset anybody else," said Eva.

The three of them walked back to the parked Volvo with John muttering about 'fuckwits' and 'bloody morons' the whole way.

*

Soon, Eva, Mats and John were standing in the impressive stone porch of the Sewerby Mansion Hotel and rang the doorbell to the locked front door.

"They can't be closed can they?" asked Eva, stepping back and looking towards one of the large bay windows at the front of the house. "It's only six o clock."

As she said this, they could hear the sound of hurried footsteps moving over the gravel path that curved around the house off to their left. Emerging from behind the corner of the building, there appeared a figure dressed from head to toe in what appeared to be GoreTex wet weather gear. Green rainproof over trousers, a green anorak and green wellington boots that had their tops sealed against the trousers with silver gaffer tape.

The creature also wore a pair of yellow rubber gloves which were similarly attached to the arms of the jacket. The whole ensemble was topped off with, what looked like, a stetson hat with a fine mesh net draped over it obscuring the person's face.

As the strange apparition got closer, it spoke with a soft, male, upper class English accent. "Frightfully sorry. Had to leave the place unattended for a second. Bit of a bee problem." He bent down and retrieved a key from behind a small bush growing in one of two large ornate stone flower pots standing on either side of the entrance. "I'll open up and check you in."

Mats could see that several bees appeared to be entangled between the folds of mesh hanging about the man's head. The front door swung open. "Please come in, come in. Do you have bags?" John told him that they were still in the car and they'd get them later. "I can help you with them. Just let me know."

The man led them along a wood paneled hallway hung with paintings of local landscapes. At its end stood a desk with a large open book, a phone and a cup filled with pens.

"We'll just sign you in here," said the man pulling his hat off. As the mesh rode up around his head, a few of the bees that were entangled in its folds managed to free themselves. Most flew off, which had Eva, Mats and John ducking out of their way. However, a couple landed on the man's neck.

"Ow, bugger! The little blighters have managed to get their revenge." A grey haired man in his sixties emerged from underneath the mesh, slapping the back of his neck. "Would you mind just writing your names and addresses in the book here. I think I'd better go and attend to these stings. They hurt like buggery." The three visitors nodded in unison.

Mats reached for a pen and turned the book around. The man rushed off down the hall and disappeared through a heavy wooden door that clicked closed behind him. After a few seconds he reappeared. His head suddenly popping out from behind another door just to the side of the desk.

"Piss or vinegar?"

Eva and Mats looked up startled.

"What?" asked Eva.

"I'd recommend baking powder," said John, who continued to write his name and address in the large guest book, unfazed.

"Thanks," said the man and disappeared back behind the door.

Mats looked at John, puzzled. "What was that all about? Some kind of strange English custom?"

John finished filling in his entry in the book. "No, he meant what should he put on the sting. You know, some react well to acid, or vinegar, and some to alkali." He stood up straight and handed the pen to Mats. "Piss."

The man reappeared holding an ice pack against the back of his neck.

"Thanks for that. It seems to have done the trick. Sorry if I seemed a bit rude there. Got in a bit of a panic."

"No problem," said John. "I guessed you weren't offering us a welcome drink."

"Oh forgive me. Where are my manners? Please. This way." The man ushered them down the hallway and through a door into a large drawing room. The room was classically decorated with deep sofas covered with large floral motifs. Long, richly patterned silk curtains were tied back with gold brocade from three large french door style windows. They opened out onto a huge, neatly clipped lawn that swooped down to a small lake.

Dotted around the room were several pieces of antique furniture made from highly polished rosewood. The man headed towards a large sideboard. On its upper surface stood a spectacular array of bottles containing, what appeared to be, every alcoholic spirit known to man. He opened one of the three glass doors along its front and pulled out four crystal tumblers.

The man looked at Eva. "What'll you have?"

"G&T."

"Chaps?"

"The same I think," said John.

"Me too," Mats said.

"And I think I deserve one too after doing battle with those blessed bees." After pouring the drinks and handing them around the man raised his glass. "Cheers! And welcome to Sewerby Mansion." He took a large gulp. "Now, maybe I'd better introduce myself. I'm Ben Lloyd, and I have the pleasure of running this establishment along with my wife, Mary. She's just popped down the road for a bit to see some friends and left me to sort out the pests, -" He rubbed his reddening neck, "- and the guests. So who are you?" Eva introduced the three of them. "Aha, the Swedes! Well, very happy to have you with us. How long are you staying?"

"A week," said John. "But you won't see much of us. We'll be disappearing for a few days on a dive boat."

"Divers eh? I always fancied trying that. Done a bit of snorkeling on holiday. Very good English you chaps have by the way."

"That's because..." John was about to explain that he was, in fact, English when a plump woman in her mid-fifties came into the room carrying several shopping bags stuffed with groceries. She was followed by a black and white springer spaniel that busied itself with welcoming the three new strangers by sniffing around their legs and offering its head for a pat.

"Ahhh! Mary! Let me introduce our new Swedish guests. Eva, Mats and Jan." John began to try to correct Ben, but stopped, not wanting to risk embarrassing him.

Mary offered her hand to Eva, speaking very slowly and clearly. "Pleeeased to meeeeet you."

"Oh, don't worry dear they speak perfect English. You'd never guess they were foreigners."

"Ben! 'Foreigners' indeed. That sounds so rude." Turning back towards Eva. "I must apologise for my husband. Since buying this place, he thinks he's the Duke of Edinburgh." Eva smiled, indicating that no offence had been taken. "So what brings you all the way to Sewerby? Don't think we've ever had anyone from Sweden before."

"They're divers dear," said Ben, as he slid towards the drinks cabinet with his now empty glass.

"Divers? Is there a competition on?" asked Mary.

"Not that sort of diving dear. Scuba diving. You know, Jacques Cousteau. Under the sea and all that caper."

"I see. You'll need to be careful in the waters around here," said Mary with concern in her voice. "There's quite a tide, and some strong currents. We lose several swimmers each year."

"Hopefully we'll be okay," said Eva. "We won't be diving on our own, we're booked with one of the local dive operations."

"Really? Which one?" asked Mary.

"Bridlington Scuba Adventures. It's run by a man called Bernard Puckle," said Eva.

"Ho ho! The Man from Atlantis!" shouted Ben as he put the finishing touches to another powerful drink.

Chapter 14

...a ridiculously naive idea.

Sven was working late again. Something that now happened so often that no one at the museum commented on it any more. These days, it was almost expected that Sven would be the last to leave.

The museum had been quiet all day with only a handful of visitors. This had been perfect for Sven who'd been busy getting the place ready for the impending visit of its new boss. Henrik Jonsson was due to arrive at around ten o'clock the next morning and Sven wanted everything to be perfect.

During the past three days he'd brought in additional cleaners and the museum was gleaming. All of the exhibits had been polished and the building itself was spotless. This was not in honour of the new director's visit, nor was it an attempt by Sven to ingratiate himself with his new boss. In fact, it was quite the opposite. All of his efforts over the past few days had been designed to undermine the position of the man who presumed to take over Sven's museum. To get rid of him.

Sven had got it into his head that if Henrik Jonsson turned up to find the museum in such fine condition, then he would see that it was already in excellent hands. Jonsson would then recognise that there was nothing he could do to improve things, he'd travel back to Stockholm to tell his bosses this and would never be seen again. Leaving Sven to be given his rightful place as the museum's new director. As a bonus, Eva would be fired for not recognising Sven's potential and everyone would live happily ever after.

It was clearly a ridiculously naive idea. Apart from its obvious flaws, it showed that Sven hadn't done his homework on Henrik Jonsson.

*

Henrik's skills were in marketing. Before joining the museums service, he'd worked for a number of years within the marketing department of a large Swedish furniture retailer. He'd been instrumental in their massive success around the world, and his skills as a marketer had brought him a considerable fortune. This had given him the freedom to do whatever he wanted professionally and, a few years previously, he'd decided to change careers.

As his previous employer's business had expanded around the world, Henrik had made an increasing number of overseas business trips. During these excursions, if time was available, Henrik liked to visit local historical sites. In addition to feeding his personal interest in history, it also gave him a great insight into a country's culture. A real asset when trying to work out how to market Swedish furniture to the local population.

The more places he visited, the more his interest in the past grew and it wasn't long before Henrik started to focus his attention on the history of his home country. He made regular visits to museums around Sweden. Later becoming a patron of a number of the larger institutions, before finally leaving his marketing job and taking up the vacant post of director of the Vasa Musuem three years previously.

He'd done a great job there, making it one of the most visited attractions in Sweden. Not a bad achievement considering the museum had only a single exhibit. A wooden ship that had toppled over and sunk in Stockholm's harbour almost immediately after being launched in 1628.

Before Henrik had taken the job, the vacancy had stood open for almost a year. No one within the management ranks at the museums authority was keen to take the job of running a museum that, within a country built on engineering and design, seemed to celebrate total incompetence within both of these disciplines. Apart from the fear of becoming associated with the less than illustrious history of its exhibit, managers knew that getting funding for the museum was an uphill struggle. The government was as keen as they were to distance themselves from the embarrassment that was the Vasa.

None of this bothered Henrik Jonsson, he was a marketer, he couldn't care less about the character of the product he was given to sell. In fact, the poorer the better, it gave him something to get his teeth into. Once he'd secured the museum's directorship, he threw all of his energies into transforming a story of embarrassing failure into one of triumphant achievement.

The challenge presented by the Air Force Museum in Linkoping was similar, which is why it appealed to Henrik. He needed to change their story from dull, gray and specialist; to exciting, colourful and of interest to everyone. He really didn't care how the museum looked on the day of his visit. Whether the exhibits shone or whether they were covered in cobwebs made no difference. He was going to change everything anyway. He liked Eva's ideas and would throw in a number of his own on top.

*

It was gone eight o'clock before Sven had finished all of his preparations. He picked up a padded envelope from his desk and slipped it into his leather briefcase, something metallic rattled inside. After locking up, he walked along the path leading from the museum's main entrance to the staff car park. Once again he ran through a mental checklist of all of the arrangements he'd made for the next morning's visit.

As he neared his car, he glanced at the bright red Hawker Hunter jet fighter that stood on the concrete apron behind the museum's main building. Sven noted how it seemed to glow in the evening sunlight and he did something he didn't do very often, he smiled. One way or another, Henrik Jonsson would not be taking Sven's job.

*

John swallowed the last mouthful from a pint of strong, dark Yorkshire beer. "That was great. How's yours Mats?"

"Like a meal." Mats stared at his glass, it was still two thirds full. "I don't know how you can drink this stuff so fast. I feel full already."

"I guess you need to be brought up on it. It's funny though, because I feel bloated after a pint of fizzy Swedish beer."

"I feel sick after any beer," said Eva and sipped her glass of red wine. "Mind you, this wine you bought me is having a similar effect. What is it?"

"No idea," said John. "But it's the only red they had. Pub Plonk I think they called it."

The three of them were sitting around a dark wooden table in a dimly lit pub in the centre of Bridlington. Unable to find much in the way of restaurants in the town centre, John had suggested eating in a 'real English boozer' while trying a few of the local beers. Not knowing any better, Eva and Mats had gone along with the idea and they'd wandered into the first free house that served food.

"I'll get another round in before the food arrives. I'm guessing you two want something else?" asked John.

"Fizzy beer please," said Mats. John tutted his disapproval.

"G&T," Eva said, pushing her unfinished glass of wine away from her.

John got up from his low stool and moved over to the bar, which was only a couple of metres behind where he sat, and ordered the drinks. After paying, he tentatively picked up all three glasses and turned back towards the table. On doing so, he bumped into a large man in his early twenties who was passing behind at just that moment. Some of the beer from the precariously balanced glasses in John's hands spilled on to the floor. The man stepped back to avoid the splash and shouted in a thick Yorkshire accent, "Watch it tosser!" He looked up at John. "Fook! You again!"

John could see it was the young man who'd knocked him over earlier that day. "Sorry mate. I think it missed you. No harm done."

The man squared up to John. "I'm not your fooking mate." And then more menacingly. "Someone needs to teach you to watch where you're fooking going."

Eva looked up at the man. "Look, it was an accident and he's apologised. Let it go."

The man looked around at Eva. "Shut up tart, or you'll be next." Mats bristled and moved between Eva and the man. The man then turned back towards John. As he did so, he reached out and tried to grab John's shirt. Immediately, John dropped the drinks he was holding. They smashed on the floor. Liquid and pieces of glass flying outwards in all directions.

Grabbing the man's hand with both of his, John bent it at the wrist so that the palm was pushed towards the inside of the man's thick forearm. Locking the hand in position by leaning his body weight against its back side, John released his grip with one hand and used this to push down on the elbow of the man's now twisted arm. The young man's face grimaced in pain. John continued pressing down on the elbow, forcing his attacker down onto the floor. Soon the man was lying face-down in a puddle of beer and gin, his arm in a painful lock, with John's knee pressed heavily against his neck. He was helpless.

Once he'd gained full control over the man, John said calmly, "Once again, I apologise for bumping into you. There's no harm done, so let's just agree that you'll accept my apology and we'll go our separate ways, okay?" John waited, the man said nothing, so John applied more pressure to the arm lock. "Okay?"

The man let out a shout. "Fuck!" His two friends, who John had seen him with earlier that day, looked over at the commotion and started moving through the crowd. As they closed in, Mats swung a well aimed kick at the crotch of the first of them to come in range. The man doubled over. Mats got to his feet, grabbed the back of the man's head and pushed down as he kicked the man's feet from under him. The man fell to the floor face first. Mats then turned to face the third man.

In the meantime, John noticed a fourth man emerge from the toilets on the far side of the pub and start moving purposefully in their direction. Realising that Mats would need help, he applied more pressure to the arm of the man pinned under his knee and spoke close to his ear.

"Look, in order to stop this situation you can either tell your friends to back off or I'm going to have to put you to sleep. It's your choice."

The man hesitated and his friends closed in. John clenched the fist of his free hand and drew it back ready to deliver a knock-out blow. "Okay, I can assure you this is going to hurt."

"Leave it lads. It's just a misunderstanding." The words seemed to burst from the man and the pub went quiet.

"What?" shouted the man who had just come out of the toilet. "Let's fookin' knack the bastards."

"No Kev. Leave it." The advancing men stopped. All eyes in the pub were on John and Mats.

The landlord came out from behind the bar. "We don't want no trouble in here. I want you all out." John lifted his knee from his attacker's neck and raised him up, keeping his arm locked. The landlord pointed towards the incapacitated man. "You too Gary. Out."

"But he attacked me."

"Bollocks Gary. I saw what happened. You're a fookin' troublemaker. Get out."

John released Gary's arm. "You heard the man Gary."

The landlord then addressed John. "You can get out too Bruce Lee. And you can take fookin' Kill Bill over there with yer."

"But..." John started.

"No fookin' buts. Out!"

John turned to join Mats and Eva as they gathered their stuff and prepared to leave. As he did so, Gary stepped towards him and tried to plant a head-butt. John noticed it, quickly spinning to one side. He slipped a hand behind Gary's head, helping it follow through and down so that it struck heavily against the edge of the bar. Gary dropped to the floor, unconscious.

"Ouch," said John wincing. "Bet that hurt." He looked at the landlord who was staring down at the body slumped on the floor. "I'll just get my coat."

As Eva, Mats and John left the pub, Gary's three friends gathered around to help him up.

Eva turned to John as they reached the pavement outside. "Will he be alright?"

"Yes, he's just stunned. Shouldn't be any lasting damage done to a head as thick as that."

The three of them moved quickly down the street. It was now dark, and after the events that had just unfolded, Eva felt quite unsafe in Bridlington. "I think we should get a cab and go back to the hotel."

"Come on Eva. There's no need to be afraid. You've got Bruce Lee and Kill Bill, whoever that is, to protect you. Besides, I'm still starving," said John.

"But I really don't think this place is safe. What if we get attacked by a gang with guns?"

"Eva, this is Bridlington, not South Central L.A. Look around you."

Eva looked up and down the street they were walking along, it was busy with people. On the far side, a pair of old ladies trundled along the pavement aboard their battery powered wheelchairs, chatting happily. Further ahead, a family consisting of a plump mother and father and three small children, one in a push-chair, one riding his father's shoulders and a third running around the others with his arms outstretched making aeroplane noises strolled along, pausing occasionally to take a look in the windows of the shops that lined the street. Eva felt safer and a little foolish. John pointed over his shoulder towards the pub they'd just left.

"You get idiots like that wherever you go in the world. We just got unlucky with our choice of where to eat." Eva nodded and they walked on.

"So where did you two learn those fancy moves?"

Mats turned to Eva. "Too many Jackie Chan movies."

Eva smiled. As they moved further down the street they started to hear the hum of friendly conversation and the clinking of glasses and cutlery. The air was filled with the aroma of frying garlic. Following their senses, they turned a corner and came upon a bistro, its warm light spilling onto the pavement outside its open doors. A few tables were scattered out front.

"I think we've found dinner," announced Mats.

Chapter 15

...there was an almighty bang...

Watching from his office window, Sven saw the taxi pull up outside the museum's main gate. He was pleased to note that the time was almost ten twenty-five a.m. Twenty-five minutes late. He pulled his blue notebook from his briefcase and made a note on the first available clean line. As he slipped it back into his bag, he glanced at its front cover and winced a little. The book now had 'HJ + EE illegal activity dossier' written on the cover. Sven had spent an entire evening agonising over whether he should begin a new book for Henrik Jonsson, or include his misdeeds in Eva's book. He'd settled on the latter course of action for the sake of both portability and economics. He didn't expect Jonsson to be around for long. But adding the man's initials to the book's title had meant that it was no longer centered, it had lost its symmetry, and that bothered Sven.

Putting on his jacket, Sven made his way outside. A tall, grey haired man was unfolding himself from the back of the black Volvo. Sven stepped forward with his hand outstretched. "Welcome to Linkoping Mr Jonsson."

Jonsson took his hand firmly with a brief shake. "Oh, please, call me Henrik. You must be Sven."

"That's right." Sven motioned towards the entrance. "Please Mr...., sorry, Henrik. This way." The men moved up the path towards the museum. "I thought I would start off by giving you a tour of the museum, explaining a bit about each of the exhibits. And then I've arranged for us to have lunch in the main conference room at twelve."

"Thanks Sven. I've seen the collection before, but it was a few years ago now. I believe you've had a few changes during the past year. It'll be interesting to see what Eva's done to the place." Sven felt a small flash of anger at Jonsson's apparent expectation that, in a few short months, Eva had improved on Sven's thirty years of work.

Henrik Jonsson stopped in front of the entrance and looked over towards the scarlet Hawker Hunter parked alongside the building. "What's that? Is it a new addition to the museum?"

"Yes," replied Sven. "It's just been delivered from Germany. It was privately owned, hence the colour scheme. The chap lost his shirt on an internet venture and couldn't afford to run it. We picked it up for next to nothing."

"It's magnificent," said Henrik.

"Yes, we've been looking for a nice two seater for a long time. Most of them are owned by private companies and flying groups these days. We plan to have this one re-painted in Air Force colours and display it inside."

"Oh no!" exclaimed Henrik. "We should keep it red. It's fantastic. What an eye catcher." He started moving towards the aircraft, which sparkled in the sunshine. He turned to Sven. "It's airworthy?"

"Yes, it is. Though we'd want to give it a thorough going over before it could become operational." The two men came up alongside the plane. "But we're not planning to fly it. It'll just be a static display."

"No Sven. This beauty will fly. Regularly," Henrik patted the side of the aircraft's fuselage.

"But we don't have the budget for that."

Henrik turned and looked up at the cockpit. "Don't worry about that Sven. That's what I'm here for."

Behind Henrik's back, Sven rolled his eyes and shook his head.

*

A white Toyota minibus crunched its way up the gravel driveway leading to the stone portico outside the Sewerby Mansion Hotel's front entrance. Bernard Puckle had arrived to pick up his new customers. Eva, Mats and John were finishing an early lunch in the hotel's oak panelled dining room as Puckle entered and introduced himself. All three were surprised by his appearance.

Over dinner the night before they'd talked about what he might look like and had decided on a cross between Robert Shaw's character, Quint, in Jaws and Captain Birdseye. Bernard Puckle resembled neither. He was much closer to Mr Tibbs in The Heat of the Night. He was a tall, well built, dead ringer for a thirty-something Sidney Poitier, but dressed in loose fitting surfer style clothing rather than a black suit.

He glanced at the oversized diver's watch strapped to his wrist. "Okay guys, do you have all your gear ready, because we really need to get going to catch the tide?"

John answered. "Yes, it's piled up in reception."

"That's all yours?" asked Puckle smiling. "We're going to need a bigger boat." John's face reddened.

The minibus rolled along North Marine Drive towards Bridlington harbour. The day was warm with hardly a cloud in the sky. Mats looked out towards the horizon over the long, sandy beach that ran alongside the road. He was pleased that it looked like they would have calm seas during their long trip out to the bank.

Soon they were at the harbour. Puckle drove the bus along the narrow road running along the top of its outer seawall, threading his way between piles of lobster pots and empty plastic crates that would soon be filled with their catch. He came to a stop alongside a large white boat that rocked gently on the high tide. Mats recognised it from the pictures on Puckle's website.

"There she is," said Puckle. "The Humming Bird."

The Humming Bird was an old tug boat that had been refitted, converting it into a well equipped live-aboard dive boat that could accommodate up to thirty people. It had everything you could need on a dive boat, including a pair of ramps on the stern for getting in and out of the water, two compressors for filling aqualung tanks, even a large seawater tank below decks for the transport of live specimens.

Puckle turned to his new passengers. "Let's get this stuff onboard and set sail while we still can."

The four of them piled out of the minibus and lined up forming a human chain, passing bags of gear between the bus and one of the Humming Bird's crew members standing on the boat's rear deck.

Once everything was on board, Eva, John and Mats were shown to their bunks. While packing their belongings into lockers down below, they could hear the rumble of the engines starting and the boat begin to move. They went back up on deck and watched Bridlington pass them by, its amusement arcades flashing a dazzling array of coloured lights as the boat headed for the harbour mouth.

A line of small children, ice cream cones held up to their mouths, waved at them from the promenade that ran alongside the harbour. Eva waved back, breathing in the fresh sea air. She looked down at Mats who was sitting on an equipment locker with his back against the rail. His face was pointed up towards the warm sun, eyes closed and a broad grin stretched across his face.

"I'm getting quite excited about all of this now," said Eva. "I was a bit apprehensive before, but I feel a lot more comfortable now that I'm on board. Bernard seems like a nice guy and this looks like a pretty professional operation."

Eva scanned the deck. Among the various crew members who were busying themselves with various nautical tasks, she spotted other people who stood out as the trip's other passengers. There was a couple in their mid-fifties leaning against the rail near the stern looking back towards the town. Occasionally one would say something and the other would nod, smiling. On the other side of the boat, three men in their mid-twenties stood chatting and laughing with each other. They seemed to be absorbed in diving talk. Their arm movements giving the subject of their conversations away.

Eva looked down at Mats again and nodded to herself. "I think this is going to be fun."

From behind she heard John's voice. "Don't count your chickens Eva."

Eva turned towards where John was leaning against a large white box in the middle of the deck that had scuba tanks strapped along its side. He was looking up towards the bridge that sat atop the Humming Bird's central cabin. A door at its rear hung open and through it Eva could see the bruised face of the young man John had knocked out the night before. He was glaring down at the three of them. Puckle stood next to him, facing forwards as he steered the boat out to sea.

"Oh shit," said Eva in a flat tone.

*

"Would you like to take a look inside the cockpit Henrik?" Sven Ostermark inwardly smiled. It was already clear that Henrik Jonsson had no intention of giving up his new position at the museum. He'd already told Sven about a long list of things he wanted to do to the place. Every one of them sickening to Sven. So Plan B it was. Which was proceeding well. He'd thought that he'd need to cajole Henrik Jonsson into inspecting the Hunter, but no, he could hardly keep him away from it.

Jonsson beamed at Sven. "Love to, how do I get up there?"

Sven dragged a small step ladder from underneath the aircraft and set it up alongside the fighter's nose. He then reached up and pulled out a handle that lay flush with the fuselage just below the canopy's frame. Twisting it, the glass bubble swung gently upwards on a pair of gas struts. Sven turned to Jonsson. "There you go."

Henrik climbed to the top of the ladder, which brought the edge of the cockpit to the level of his chest. He looked in, wide-eyed. "Amazing. So many dials and switches." He turned, looking down at Sven. "Can I sit in her?"

Sven stepped back a bit. "Go ahead."

"What's the best method for getting in without damaging anything?" asked Henrik, surveying the interior.

"Hang on to the seat's headrest for support and then just step in." Then an idea spread itself across Sven's face in the form of a smile. "Wait a minute. Let me give you a leg up."

"Thanks," said Henrik as he grasped the top of the ejection seat nearest to him. Sven looked around quickly to check that the coast was clear. He stepped forward and grabbed Henrik's ankles pulling them away from the top of the step ladder. He then let go and ran clear of the airframe.

Henrik tipped head first into the cockpit, his hand slipping off the black painted metal of the ejection seat's headrest. As he fell forward his hand automatically grasped for something to steady himself. It closed on one of the two yellow and black striped handles protruding from either side of the headrest.

Before any of his weight had been transferred to the handle, Henrik's forehead had struck the centre console between the Hunter's two seats. He was completely upended over the high side-wall of the jet fighter. Radio knobs dug into his face, and his feet dangled over the side of the cockpit, kicking thin air.

Sven continued to back away from the aircraft, trying to suppress a giggle at the comical sight before him. He could hear Henrik's voice shouting from the cockpit.

"What the hell are you doing Sven? Come and help me up."

Sven shouted back. "Sorry Henrik, I slipped on an oil patch down here. I think I've sprained my ankle. Just try to pull yourself upright with your right hand. I'll see if I can stand up and give you a hand."

As he finished his sentence, there was an almighty bang as the ejection seat fired. It catapulted itself out of the cockpit, shattering and then ripping off, the open canopy before continuing upwards for about two hundred metres. At the top of its trajectory, the seat seemed to hang in mid-air for a second before plummeting back to Earth. It slammed down onto the grass bordering the apron almost fifty metres away from where the Hunter stood.

As the smoke cleared from the scene, Sven could see that Henrik's legs continued to hang from the side of the aircraft, except they weren't kicking any more. Slowly they began to slide down the side of the fuselage, pulling the bottom half of Henrik's torso up and over the edge of the cockpit. They fell to the ground and collapsed in a limp heap. The aroma of cordite and char-grilled meat wafted over Sven. He took a deep breath, it smelled good.

Reaching up, he touched the side of his face, wincing at the stinging pain. He smiled. He'd judged the distance well, only suffering a slight burn from the ejection seat's rocket motor. Enough to remove suspicion, but not enough to cause any lasting damage.

Sven got to his feet and ran over to where the ejection seat lay on its side, smouldering. Nearing it, his hand fumbled around within his jacket's inside pocket, he then dropped to his knees next to the seat with his back towards the museum's entrance.

Two members of the museum's staff rushed outside, alarmed by the commotion they'd just heard. They ran towards Sven. He stood up and faced them, staggering forwards. He appeared distraught.

"It's not here!" Sven shouted, and then collapsed to the ground. He lay back against the sun warmed concrete of the apron and turned his face towards the approaching men. Looking over their heads at the section of the museum's roof directly above the still smoking plane, he could see a forearm dangling over its edge. Next to it, the top of Jonsson's head was visible. The hair burned from its bloodied scalp.

Chapter 16

...another voyage of discovery?

"What are we going to do?" whispered Eva...

www.themischievous.com

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16